The AH Budget discussion thread.

Rebeller

javaboy wrote: »

In fairness there's very little the government can do to stop them passing it on

Of course something can be done to prevent the banks effectively arse raping the taxpayer twice.

The Credit Institutions Financial Support Act
could easily provide that any institution that avails of the insurance scheme (that is what the €500 billion guarantee effectively is) be obliged to pay for the guarantee only from profits.

It would take unprecedented government meddling to stop them getting that money from customers somehow.

And what would you call potentially selling the future prosperity of generations of Irish citizens down the Swanny? What is a €500 billion gamble if not "unprecedented government meddling".

Other EU states have taken the decision to nationalise their troubled banks. This means that when/if those affected institutions return to profitability the taxpayer will reap a healthy share of the proceeds.

This country is seriously lacking in righteous anger.

Anger is a powerful force for change. Instead of directing it at those who have truly screwed us over we get threads with titles such as Foreign Nationals flying in for the day to sign on the dole

I truly despair at the total apathy and unquestioning acceptance of the way things are.

Worst.Generation.Ever!

Sean Quagmire

brianlenihantd@gmail.com

has anybody emailed him??

Eoin

I thought they had made it absolutely clear that the banks were not allowed to pass it any charges on.

And what would you call potentially selling the future prosperity of generations of Irish citizens down the Swanny?

And what would have letting major banks fold have done?

I still get the feeling that it would have been the panic merchants withdrawing their cash that would have caused massive problems because of low confidence in the banks. Now the confidence is back because of the guarantee, it's not as much of a danger.

javaboy

Rebeller wrote: »

Of course something can be done to prevent the banks effectively arse raping the taxpayer twice.

The Credit Institutions Financial Support Act
could easily provide that any institution that avails of the insurance scheme (that is what the €500 billion guarantee effectively is) be obliged to pay for the guarantee only from profits.

Where do they get those profits from? Would it be the customers by any chance?

It's naïve to think the banks won't be able to pass this on to customers regardless of any provision the government introduce.

Govt: "Hey why are you raising your transaction fees? We told you not to pass that guarantee charge to customers."
Bank: "Oh we're not. We're just raising the fees because we want to make more money and the cost of running a bank has gone up. You know wages and electricity and all that."
Govt: "So it's nothing to do with the billion you gave us in exchange for the guarantee?"
Bank: "Of course not. Perish the thought. It's just a happy coincidence. hehe sucker!"


It's the same idea as stopping builders hiking their prices when the FTB get a tax break or stamp duty gets lowered. You can't stop it.

ART6

eoin_s wrote: »

Even if that's the case, the Greens may not - and if I am not mistaken, they were needed for this government in the first place.

Yes, and the Greens were voted for by a tiny minority of the electorate, yet they end up in government simply to keep FF in power -- a situation that would not have occurred had FF been forced to rely on their own proportion of the vote alone. IMHO these cynical deals with insignificant minority parties are the scandal of Irish politics. We get Harney and Gormley in senior ministerial posts when hardly anyone voted for them.

javaboy

ART6 wrote: »

Yes, and the Greens were voted for by a tiny minority of the electorate, yet they end up in government simply to keep FF in power -- a situation that would not have occurred had FF been forced to rely on their own proportion of the vote alone. IMHO these cynical deals with insignificant minority parties are the scandal of Irish politics. We get Harney and Gormley in senior ministerial posts when hardly anyone voted for them.

But nobody could form a government without the little parties. Maybe you want a two party system in place?

Eoin

I don't think coalitions are a bad thing in their own right, it's just a shame that the Greens are idiots.

lucylu

Email Addresses for the Ministers for all your Complaints..

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/index.asp?locID=237&docID=248

ART6

javaboy wrote: »

But nobody could form a government without the little parties. Maybe you want a two party system in place?

The point I was trying to make (badly I admit) was not that small parties with only a tiny electorate should not be permitted to form alliances with larger parties. There is no way of preventing that, and neither should there be. What I was referring to was the blatant cynicism of giving them ministerial posts at senior level when only one man and a dog voted for them in the first place. By that procedure we have Gormley as Environment Minister and Harney as Health Minister, both levels of influence way beyond their franchise from the electorate. In the case of the Greens FF bought the support of an insignificant party, that had been openly hostile to them before, and gave them an influence they should not have just to remain in government. To me that's a smack in the face for the people.

javaboy

ART6 wrote: »

The point I was trying to make (badly I admit) was not that small parties with only a tiny electorate should not be permitted to form alliances with larger parties. There is no way of preventing that, and neither should there be. What I was referring to was the blatant cynicism of giving them ministerial posts at senior level when only one man and a dog voted for them in the first place. By that procedure we have Gormley as Environment Minister and Harney as Health Minister, both levels of influence way beyond their franchise from the electorate. In the case of the Greens FF bought the support of an insignificant party, that had been openly hostile to them before, and gave them an influence they should not have just to remain in government. To me that's a smack in the face for the people.

Kinda contradicted yourself there a bit.

I know the point you're making but there's very little we can do about it. As for the Greens, I'd say quite a large number of people voted for them. Maybe not as first preference but I'd say they were 3rd or 4th on a lot of people's ballot papers. They've screwed themselves now though.

Eoin

javaboy wrote: »

Kinda contradicted yourself there a bit.

I don't think so?

The point I was trying to make (badly I admit) was not that small parties with only a tiny electorate should not be permitted to form alliances with larger parties.

javaboy

eoin_s wrote: »

I don't think so?

Well shut my mouth.

Eoin

It took me a few minutes to see if all the "nots" cancelled each other out, or what!

Eoin

Rebeller wrote: »

Other EU states have taken the decision to nationalise their troubled banks. This means that when/if those affected institutions return to profitability the taxpayer will reap a healthy share of the proceeds.

That's a big "if" - the nationalisation of banks is largely a case-by-case basis for banks who are about to go under. There's a good chance that the Irish guarantee will in fact stop people panicking with their savings, and therefore pre-empt massive problems in its own right.

ART6

javaboy wrote: »

Kinda contradicted yourself there a bit.

I know the point you're making but there's very little we can do about it. As for the Greens, I'd say quite a large number of people voted for them. Maybe not as first preference but I'd say they were 3rd or 4th on a lot of people's ballot papers. They've screwed themselves now though.

Going by some of the posts here, if we could do anything about it FF wouldn't be in power tomorrow:)

eoin_s wrote: »

It took me a few minutes to see if all the "nots" cancelled each other out, or what!

Yup. I made a complete a**e of my posts to the extent that I began to wonder myself what point I was making. However, I have a good bottle of Irish in the cabinet, and I will attempt to dominate that while continuing to put the world to rights.:D

SimpleSam06

javaboy wrote: »

In fairness there's very little the government can do to stop them passing it on.

Theres plenty the government could do to stop them passing it on. Thats why there is a financial regulator. Banks occupy a priveleged position in the economy, and thus are or should be regulated. Of course the regulator in Ireland is mostly run by the central bank, so talk about your foxes guarding the henhouse. If the regulator had been doing their jobs in the first place, we wouldn't be in this economic crisis. And now the banks are going to make taxpayers pay their share of the bailout anyway?

Bah.

Burn it all down.

javaboy

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Theres plenty the government could do to stop them passing it on.

Specifically what would you propose that the banks couldn't circumvent?

Eoin

javaboy wrote: »

Specifically what would you propose that the banks couldn't circumvent?

Having a government appointed director on the board would be a good start.

javaboy

eoin_s wrote: »

Having a government appointed director on the board would be a good start.

A director who would deliberately try not to earn as much money for the shareholders as possible?

I think there are rules against that kind of thing.

Eoin

javaboy wrote: »

A director who would deliberately try not to earn as much money for the shareholders as possible?

I think there are rules against that kind of thing.

I thought that this was one of the conditions of the deal. Also, I doubt it is against the rules, as you will often find union reps on the board of directors to represent the staff, rather than the shareholders.

javaboy

eoin_s wrote: »

I thought that this was one of the conditions of the deal. Also, I doubt it is against the rules, as you will often find union reps on the board of directors to represent the staff, rather than the shareholders.

Ok so let's say they get someone on the board. What do they do to stop the banks getting the money back from customers?

Eoin

I would imagine that wholesale charge increases have to be agreed at the very top, once the legal department check it out and I think these inspectors/directors are going to keep a very close eye on what the banks do after they had the audacity to give the public the loans that many of us were crying out for.

xOxSinéadxOx

lucylu wrote: »

Email Addresses for the Ministers for all your Complaints..

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/index.asp?locID=237&docID=248

I think every boardsie should send him an email, that'd be good!

javaboy

eoin_s wrote: »

I would imagine that wholesale charge increases have to be agreed at the very top, once the legal department check it out and I think these inspectors/directors are going to keep a very close eye on what the banks do after they had the audacity to give the public the loans that many of us were crying out for.

But they don't need to impose wholesale charge increases. They can very easily introduce slow subtle changes. A bit here and a bit there. Bar taking full control of the bank, any measures the govt. takes to stop banks passing on the bill to customers will only delay the inevitable.

Steve

What worries me most this is they say they will "appoint directors with the public's interest as their agenda"....

Who?

Government ministers? - wohoo! yet another salary!

"""""Independant""""" directors? (appointed by the government:eek::eek:)??

This reeks of more inbred buddyism and we'll be left to foot the bill as always...:mad:

ronbyrne2005

Feck Y'all
I have LOADZA money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:pac::pac::pac:

Eoin

So, what is the alternative? Nationalise banks after they go the wall, and the tax payer can stump up then? Or just left them go under and tough titties.

Or just create some confidence and pre-empt the situation and stop the panic merchants in hiding their cash in their mattresses.

All these pundits are talking about the cost if we have to pay the full cost of the guarantee. If it goes that far, then we are absolutely screwed either way.

You would swear the banks have been sodomising everyone left, right and centre. It was our greed that kept us using the credit cards, and it was us that was crying about the conservative salary to loan ratios that they were offering. The banks reacted to the demand, plain and simple. They were idiots with their property investment, but so were a lot of us.

SimpleSam06

javaboy wrote: »

A director who would deliberately try not to earn as much money for the shareholders as possible?

I think there are rules against that kind of thing.

Not in the case of banks. If you want your free market philosophies, buy shares in a publicly floated shoe company or something.

SimpleSam06

eoin_s wrote: »

All these pundits are talking about the cost if we have to pay the full cost of the guarantee. If it goes that far, then we are absolutely screwed either way.

We're considerably less screwed if we don't guarantee them.

eoin_s wrote: »

You would swear the banks have been sodomising everyone left, right and centre. It was our greed that kept us using the credit cards, and it was us that was crying about the conservative salary to loan ratios that they were offering.

Ye gods man, wrong in every possible way. You want to know what brought us to this point?
Securitisation of loans: Banks would give out a loan of €1 (now an asset in banking parlance), package it up in a complex financial instrument and sell it on to another bank for 90 cent.

It would then be sold on for 80 cent, and 75 cent and 70 cent, and so on, until the original €1 now represents something like €200. Of course the €1 is the only money that's actually real, which leads us to 2 conclusions: if that €1 is a dud loan, all the rest of it is dud as well.

And the second conclusion is that when someone asks where the magic money all is, and there is something like three times the GDP of the world floating around out there, the banks pointed the the taxpayer and said "he has it! because if he doesn't we'll destroy the economy". Its the biggest holdup in history, and it looks like they will get away with it.

How is this possible? Well the trend began in America with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act, which was put in place after the great depression to prevent another great depression. Didn't take long for us to end up here.

Naked Shorting: The normal process of shorting is healthy enough for the markets, where you get a loan of stocks from someone and sell them short. Naked shorting is when you don't even bother to borrow the stocks, but just say you'll get them at some stage, and sell them anyway.

The problem was that nobody knew which stocks were real and which stocks were maybes. If you couldn't get your hands on the stocks it was called a failure to deliver, the value of which was in the tens of billions daily. The overall effect however was to reduce the value of stocks by printing more of them which didn't exist. This is what lead to the headline crashes of several major banks you saw lately.

This demented practise has now been halted for all but the most trusted financial groups.

Edge of affordability: The most mundane one, the simple fact was that there was no way to justify giving out larger loans for property since there was no way people could ever repay them.

The banking system is utterly to blame for this disaster, make no mistake.

jay-me

Heard on the grapevine that if we can get this rant to one million posts we will be able to end this recession and live comfortably for the rest of our days... Oh and the current government will be overtaken by a super duper new government that will look after us for a fraction of the wage that cowen gets. So keep up the good work guys were changing history right here:eek: