David McWilliams is a tosser, here's why...

thebigbiffo

please tell me someone remembers that McWilliams was the first person in this country to suggest NAMA (he just called it a bad bank) was the way to go to help our financial system. he called for it very early on in the banking/property crisis in an article in the indo. i showed it to everyone in the office and thought it was a great idea. he went through in detail using the norweigian model as a base for the argument.

the f'ucking second it was taken up an an official/policy level he started writing against it and still is, even though it was his idea in the first place! and he never once refers back to this and gives any explanation why he changed his mind - he just convieniently ignores it! so it's proven...he's a tosser!

seriously, i'd like to know if anyone remembers reading that

Sanjuro

Barely remember reading the above post let alone some obscure article from years ago.

owenc

what are you trying to say about mcwilliams people!! :eek:

Hank_Jones

Personally, I think he is a tosser because he agreed to host a comedy panel show,
knowing absolutely nothing about comedy and being about as funny as cancer.

But that's just me.

orourkeda

thebigbiffo wrote: »

please tell me someone remembers that McWilliams was the first person in this country to suggest NAMA (he just called it a bad bank) was the way to go to help our financial system. he called for it very early on in the banking/property crisis in an article in the indo. i showed it to everyone in the office and thought it was a great idea. he went through in detail using the norweigian model as a base for the argument.

the f'ucking second it was taken up an an official/policy level he started writing against it and still is, even though it was his idea in the first place! and he never once refers back to this and gives any explanation why he changed his mind - he just convieniently ignores it! so it's proven...he's a tosser!

seriously, i'd like to know if anyone remembers reading that

Did he call for NAMA exactly the way it is or were there any differences between what he suggested and what we have?

Miguel_Sanchez

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Personally, I think he is a tosser because he agreed to host a comedy panel show,
knowing absolutely nothing about comedy and being about as funny as cancer.

But that's just me.

You could say that about a lot of Irish 'comedians' too though, couldn't you?

thebigbiffo

Sanjuro wrote: »

Barely remember reading the above post let alone some obscure article from years ago.

ya might want to put the joint down and try again

Hasmunch

Hank_Jones wrote: »

being about as funny as cancer.

Harsh..... on cancer that is!

Sanjuro

thebigbiffo wrote: »

ya might want to put the joint down and try again

Maybe you should try picking up a joint. May just calm you the fuck down and not get your knickers in a twist over an article some guy wrote years ago.

thebigbiffo

orourkeda wrote: »

Did he call for NAMA exactly the way it is or were there any differences between what he suggested and what we have?

no difference. he suggested exactly what NAMA is ie. a new institution where underperforming 'bad' loans are tranfered into from other banks, the loans and their 'assets' - or whatever's left of them - are then sat on until such a time as they can be sold off at a profit or a modest loss. he even suggested 10 years should be about right - exactly what NAMA are thinking. this way - he said - the banks could get back to their core business, crediting the real economy.

whatawaster

thebigbiffo wrote: »

please tell me someone remembers that McWilliams was the first person in this country to suggest NAMA (he just called it a bad bank) was the way to go to help our financial system. he called for it very early on in the banking/property crisis in an article in the indo. i showed it to everyone in the office and thought it was a great idea. he went through in detail using the norweigian model as a base for the argument.

the f'ucking second it was taken up an an official/policy level he started writing against it and still is, even though it was his idea in the first place! and he never once refers back to this and gives any explanation why he changed his mind - he just convieniently ignores it! so it's proven...he's a tosser!

seriously, i'd like to know if anyone remembers reading that

I'm open to correction on this, but didn't just he advocate a blanket guarantee for the banks? Indeed our Minister for Finance called around to his house for a cup of tea one evening, confided in McWilliams that he felt he was getting poor advice/lies from his colleagues and the civil service, and asked for his views.

I don't think - and again i'm open to correction - he advocated keeping an institution like Anglo open, and indeed funded by the taxpayer at a crippling cost to the economy, once the facts about that institution came out.
It wasn't fully in the public domain just how toxic the banks were back then.

He was definitely calling for bank guarantees, he still admits as much. I'd love for you to find the articles where he advocated anything like the mess that is NAMA

whatawaster

thebigbiffo wrote: »

no difference. he suggested exactly what NAMA is ie. a new institution where underperforming 'bad' loans are tranfered into from other banks, the loans and their 'assets' - or whatever's left of them - are then sat on until such a time as they can be sold off at a profit or a modest loss. he even suggested 10 years should be about right - exactly what NAMA are thinking. this way - he said - the banks could get back to their core business, crediting the real economy.

what a tosser

could you please provide quotes/links to the articles you're referring to?

What you've said certainly contradicts what's in his books.

thebigbiffo

Sanjuro wrote: »

Maybe you should try picking up a joint. May just calm you the fuck down and not get your knickers in a twist over an article some guy wrote years ago.

if you've no interest in mcwilliams being a hippocite...find another thread. cos it's fairly obvious what this was gonna be about

Indubitable

Sanjuro wrote: »

Maybe you should try picking up a joint. May just calm you the fuck down and not get your knickers in a twist over an article some guy wrote years ago.

Perhaps you should be the one to relax

thebigbiffo

whatawaster wrote: »

I'm open to correction on this, but didn't just he advocate a blanket guarantee for the banks? Indeed our Minister for Finance called around to his house for a cup of tea one evening, confided in McWilliams that he felt he was getting poor advice/lies from his colleagues and the civil service, and asked for his views.

I don't think - and again i'm open to correction - he advocated keeping an institution like Anglo open, and indeed funded by the taxpayer at a crippling cost to the economy, once the facts about that institution came out.
It wasn't fully in the public domain just how toxic the banks were back then.

He was definitely calling for bank guarantees, he still admits as much. I'd love for you to find the articles where he advocated anything like the mess that is NAMA

i've searched the net to try find the article but i can't. trust me, it was there and i was kind of hoping someone else could back me up that he wrote that article - the details on what was in there are correct as above.

i think he did advocate the gaurantee alright and i'm sure he never advised pumping money into anglo.

brianthebard

thebigbiffo wrote: »

no difference. he suggested exactly what NAMA is ie. a new institution where underperforming 'bad' loans are tranfered into from other banks, the loans and their 'assets' - or whatever's left of them - are then sat on until such a time as they can be sold off at a profit or a modest loss. he even suggested 10 years should be about right - exactly what NAMA are thinking. this way - he said - the banks could get back to their core business, crediting the real economy.

what a tosser

Dude a good bank/bad bank scenario is not the same as NAMA.

Joey the lips

thebigbiffo wrote: »

please tell me someone remembers that McWilliams was the first person in this country to suggest NAMA (he just called it a bad bank) was the way to go to help our financial system. he called for it very early on in the banking/property crisis in an article in the indo. i showed it to everyone in the office and thought it was a great idea. he went through in detail using the norweigian model as a base for the argument.

the f'ucking second it was taken up an an official/policy level he started writing against it and still is, even though it was his idea in the first place! and he never once refers back to this and gives any explanation why he changed his mind - he just convieniently ignores it! so it's proven...he's a tosser!

seriously, i'd like to know if anyone remembers reading that

What paper biffo... personally I think he is brilliant.

parker kent

thebigbiffo wrote: »

no difference. he suggested exactly what NAMA is ie. a new institution where underperforming 'bad' loans are tranfered into from other banks, the loans and their 'assets' - or whatever's left of them - are then sat on until such a time as they can be sold off at a profit or a modest loss. he even suggested 10 years should be about right - exactly what NAMA are thinking. this way - he said - the banks could get back to their core business, crediting the real economy.

what a tosser

There a few pretty major differences between his idea and what we have. He was in favour of letting some of the banks go under for starters. That is when his articles on NAMA changed. He has pretty much from the start disagreed with the specifics of how NAMA was set up.

thebigbiffo

brianthebard wrote: »

Dude a good bank/bad bank scenario is not the same as NAMA.

nah man sorry but NAMA is basically a bad bank

heres the first link from google...happens to be relatively recent and finfacts is a reputable site


http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1019357.shtml

thebigbiffo

parker kent wrote: »

There a few pretty major differences between his idea and what we have. He was in favour of letting some of the banks go under for starters. That is when his articles on NAMA changed. He has pretty much from the start disagreed with the specifics of how NAMA was set up.

ok then....can you explain what his idea for a bad bank was? tbh what he advocated in the article i'm refering to was pretty much what turned out to be NAMA in my eyes

bogman44

thebigbiffo wrote: »

i've searched the net to try find the article but i can't. trust me, it was there and i was kind of hoping someone else could back me up that he wrote that article - the details on what was in there are correct as above.

i think he did advocate the gaurantee alright and i'm sure he never advised pumping money into anglo.

Why should we trust you. If he wrote the article it should be out there. Do you think the indo removed it?

Here's one where he said bad bank plan is risky.

As far as i can see he's the only one calling it for what it is ie a royal shafting of the irish public/tax payer

thebigbiffo

bogman44 wrote: »

Why should we trust you. If he wrote the article it should be out there. Do you think the indo removed it?

Here's one where he said bad bank plan is risky.

As far as i can see he's the only one calling it for what it is ie a royal shafting of the irish public/tax payer

nope, ya dont have to trust me at all but i was putting this out there and was hoping someone would remember reading the same indo article as i did, thus corroborating my story! he wrote it, no doubt in my mind, so he's a tosser he never addressed it again once it was taken on board by the gov

i'll search again for it, but when i did before i just couldn't find it...spooky eh :cool:

whatawaster

Here, from February 2009, is David McWilliams plan:

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2009/02/22/my-plan-to-save-the-country

1. Create a ‘financial skip’ and throw all the bad debts of all the banks into it. This bank will be given the mandate to work out the bad debts over ten years. It should be staffed by the best liquidators and recovery experts in the country. These are people who know how to get value out of an asset. They know, not how to lend, but how to sell. Today, everyone is talking about debts, but there are real assets in this financial skip and, over time, these assets -if managed properly – will become valuable. In effect, the new bank will be the Irish property market. It will control the price and control development.

2.The skip has to buy the assets from the banks. It must do this at a deep, deep discount. In reality, this figure could be as low as 20 per cent of the original price. Let us assume the bad bank needs a huge whack of cash; where are we going to get the stuff? Where could we get €40 billion?

3. Here’s where we play the EMU card. We go to the European Central Bank (ECB) and say: ‘‘You lend us the cash. We, after all, gave up our interest rate and exchange rate policy to join the euro, now you have to help us out. You have to prove that the EU is a community of nations, in reality. Show us some practical solidarity.

Otherwise we default and undermine the euro.”

In addition, the ECB is already committed to the Irish financial system. It is drip-feeding money into our contaminated banks every day, keeping them alive. We should suggest they lend us the money at 4 per cent for ten years. This is money that the ECB is spending on the financing of our banks anyway as the lender of last resort, so it should not matter to it. In fact, lending to the solution should be much smarter than lending to the problem.

The ECB would be crazy not to go for this. We then have money for ten years at 4 per cent with which to work out bad loans.

4.The old banks are now clean. They are free of contamination and they can go about raising money from the market, such as our own pension funds, through the normal channels, like rights issues. This means that they can start lending again to good businesses.

The old banks pay the new bad bank a fee for managing their old debts and dealing with their old clients. If the new bank charges 7 per cent for the service, the old banks need to provision for this charge over the next ten years. This means that their profits will be affected, and they must adjust their costs at the beginning of every year to account for the charge. But 7 per cent of €40 billion is manageable. It could operate like a bank tax.

The state then makes money on this plan -a s it would be getting the difference between what the bad bank charges and what the old, forgiven banks pay. So it gets tax revenue of 3 per cent of €40 billion every year -or €1.2 billion. You can build a lot of schools with that sort of bread.

5. Obviously all senior management of the banks must be fired right now to facilitate this financial renaissance.

How much of this has been implemented by NAMA?

parker kent

thebigbiffo wrote: »

ok then....can you explain what his idea for a bad bank was? tbh what he advocated in the article i'm refering to was pretty much what turned out to be NAMA in my eyes

First off, despite what you say above, it is not that difficult to find his articles. Just go to his website where he has all of his articles and browse or search. I have copied a few examples of what he intended in his plan below. Better for me to let his own words do the talking for him.

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2009/02/22/my-plan-to-save-the-country

In November, this column suggested that a solution was to isolate a ‘bad’ bank which, in turn, would create clean, ‘good’ banks. This is still the way to go. If the government is thinking in this direction, it is about bloody time. Why did they waste so much time, pay so many second-rate advisers and, by prevaricating, directly cause the loss of jobs?

Here is one article he wrote last year about why NAMA was not to his liking. http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2009/04/01/bad-bank-plan-is-risky-business-for-taxpayer

Finally, here are his articles from November 2008 which started it all.

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/category/articles/page/6

Edit: A few other posters have put longer quotes from some of these articles above

brianthebard

thebigbiffo wrote: »

nah man sorry but NAMA is basically a bad bank

heres the first link from google...happens to be relatively recent and finfacts is a reputable site


http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1019357.shtml

Nah dude sorry but Nama is not the same as a bad bank. There may be similarities but that doesn't make them the same. Look this is a piece that was written last year and lays out the various options that were on the table before the government ignored all the smart options and went with NAMA;
http://www.progressive-economy.ie/2009/09/if-you-want-to-play-solve-irish-banking.html

Barlett

He did propose a Bad Bank scenario for sure, I remember reading that article...I'm 90 % sure it was a week or two after the first bailout of the banks in 2008.

Cool Mo D

brianthebard wrote: »

Nah dude sorry but Nama is not the same as a bad bank. There may be similarities but that doesn't make them the same. Look this is a piece that was written last year and lays out the various options that were on the table before the government ignored all the smart options and went with NAMA;
http://www.progressive-economy.ie/2009/09/if-you-want-to-play-solve-irish-banking.html

That article quite clearly says that Nama IS a bad bank.

It recommends going with a good bank, however.

gleep

Any sign of the OP?:D

fontanalis

Cool Mo D wrote: »

That article quite clearly says that Nama IS a bad bank.

It recommends going with a good bank, however.

A good bad bank?

brianthebard

Cool Mo D wrote: »

That article quite clearly says that Nama IS a bad bank.

No it doesn't. In any case I already acknowledged that NAMA and a bad bank are similar, but the purpose, politics and overall outcome are different, making them...different, surprisingly enough. They aren't the same.

kraggy

I think he's a tosser because, if you actually listen to what he says, he has damn-all suggestions about how we could get ourselves out of this mess.

He usually starts his answers with something like..."here's what's going on at the moment..." i.e. he states the obvious in terms of what's going on but has no comment to make with regard to solutions to the problems at hand.

starbelgrade

thebigbiffo wrote: »

if you've no interest in mcwilliams being a hippocite...find another thread. cos it's fairly obvious what this was gonna be about

What the f*ck is a hippocite?

kraggy

starbelgrade wrote: »

What the f*ck is a hippocite?

It's a hippopotamus plebicite.

UltimateMale

thebigbiffo wrote: »

please tell me someone remembers that McWilliams was the first person in this country to suggest NAMA (he just called it a bad bank) was the way to go to help our financial system. he called for it very early on in the banking/property crisis in an article in the indo. i showed it to everyone in the office and thought it was a great idea. he went through in detail using the norweigian model as a base for the argument.

the f'ucking second it was taken up an an official/policy level he started writing against it and still is, even though it was his idea in the first place! and he never once refers back to this and gives any explanation why he changed his mind - he just convieniently ignores it! so it's proven...he's a tosser!

seriously, i'd like to know if anyone remembers reading that

He has stated several times since that he called for the Govt to support the banks at the time so that we didn't have a run on the banks and go the way like Iceland did. However when the banking crisis stablised several months later, he than started to call on the Govt to wind down Anglo etc as it's a basket case and throwing tens of billions more into it is a waste.

McWilliam's was spot on regarding the neccessity of proping up the banks in the immediate at the time.

dotsman

whatawaster wrote: »

Here, from February 2009, is David McWilliams plan:

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2009/02/22/my-plan-to-save-the-country

1. Create a ‘financial skip’ and throw all the bad debts of all the banks into it. This bank will be given the mandate to work out the bad debts over ten years. It should be staffed by the best liquidators and recovery experts in the country. These are people who know how to get value out of an asset. They know, not how to lend, but how to sell. Today, everyone is talking about debts, but there are real assets in this financial skip and, over time, these assets -if managed properly – will become valuable. In effect, the new bank will be the Irish property market. It will control the price and control development.

2.The skip has to buy the assets from the banks. It must do this at a deep, deep discount. In reality, this figure could be as low as 20 per cent of the original price. Let us assume the bad bank needs a huge whack of cash; where are we going to get the stuff? Where could we get €40 billion?

3. Here’s where we play the EMU card. We go to the European Central Bank (ECB) and say: ‘‘You lend us the cash. We, after all, gave up our interest rate and exchange rate policy to join the euro, now you have to help us out. You have to prove that the EU is a community of nations, in reality. Show us some practical solidarity.

Otherwise we default and undermine the euro.”

In addition, the ECB is already committed to the Irish financial system. It is drip-feeding money into our contaminated banks every day, keeping them alive. We should suggest they lend us the money at 4 per cent for ten years. This is money that the ECB is spending on the financing of our banks anyway as the lender of last resort, so it should not matter to it. In fact, lending to the solution should be much smarter than lending to the problem.

The ECB would be crazy not to go for this. We then have money for ten years at 4 per cent with which to work out bad loans.

4.The old banks are now clean. They are free of contamination and they can go about raising money from the market, such as our own pension funds, through the normal channels, like rights issues. This means that they can start lending again to good businesses.

The old banks pay the new bad bank a fee for managing their old debts and dealing with their old clients. If the new bank charges 7 per cent for the service, the old banks need to provision for this charge over the next ten years. This means that their profits will be affected, and they must adjust their costs at the beginning of every year to account for the charge. But 7 per cent of €40 billion is manageable. It could operate like a bank tax.

The state then makes money on this plan -a s it would be getting the difference between what the bad bank charges and what the old, forgiven banks pay. So it gets tax revenue of 3 per cent of €40 billion every year -or €1.2 billion. You can build a lot of schools with that sort of bread.

5. Obviously all senior management of the banks must be fired right now to facilitate this financial renaissance.

How much of this has been implemented by NAMA?

1 - Fully
2 - Fully (although I disagree with it. As popular a large discount is with the public, it becomes self-defeating if it doesn't allow the banks back on their feet)
3 - To some degree. We are borrowing from the bond markets at the moment. The ECB is ready to buy government bonds if required.
4 - As per his plan. Although they are cleaning themselves of the large loans, they still have issues with the smaller personal/business loans/mortgages
5 - To some degree. Although the main faces have been removed, some of the background senior people remain

Din Taylor

Actually think he is quite good tbh. Agree with all the posters saying hat NAMA isn't a bad bank or based on the Scandinavian model. These only provide a guarantee for the deposit holders. On the other hand, NAMA provides a guarantee to bondholders and shareholders. This is plainly ridiculous as the required return for bondholders and shareholders contains a default risk remium.

skelliser

So just to clarify:

The op hasn't a clue about what he's talking about.

dasdog

Subordinated debt is a risky asset, which was bought by rich mates of the banks. These are rich men’s IOUs. Bank of Ireland alone issued €15bn of these IOUs. They should not be underwritten by taxpayers. This is a classic example of poor people subsidising millionaires. It is wrong.

Key word in bold. These are the people, the gambling investors, who we in the form of NAMA are bailing out. I don't think McWilliams ever stated that people who invested in these risky bonds should have the stake they gambled and lost on, returned in full. This unfortunately is what every tax paying gobshyte in Ireland is going to be doing under NAMA. He was way off the mark in his suggestion we should leave the eurozone however.

anniehoo

starbelgrade wrote: »

What the f*ck is a hippocite?

Sometimes you're worth a "thanks" and sometimes you're not.

Bob Z

thebigbiffo wrote: »

i've searched the net to try find the article but i can't. trust me, it was there and i was kind of hoping someone else could back me up that he wrote that article - the details on what was in there are correct as above.

i think he did advocate the gaurantee alright and i'm sure he never advised pumping money into anglo.

yes I read about that article. But didn't lenihan blame mcwilliams for making it up or breaking a confindence or something? Maybe that's why you couldn't find the article.

Bob Z

starbelgrade wrote: »

What the f*ck is a hippocite?

someone who takes the hipporitic oath

thebigbiffo

whatawaster wrote: »

Here, from February 2009, is David McWilliams plan:

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2009/02/22/my-plan-to-save-the-country



How much of this has been implemented by NAMA?

first off, that's the article. thanks! i'd like to say i'm not lazy, i did have a fairly good look around for it (ok ok, not good enough) but either way - my point stays the same.

this bad bank senario had been taken on in a form not too dissimilar to what he advocated in the first place. i know there are some differences. but taking into account the quoted article, then this...

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2010/06/02/nama-just-a-bailout-for-the-professional-classes

...is it not the case he's just changing his story to suit the public mood, thereby being popularist?

this guy has the luxury of being fluid in his suggestions because he's not actually running the country and seems to change his mind and opinions as often as he likes.

just consider the this basic argument: first article 'i want a bad bank of some form to manage this massive, underperforming debts'... second article 'this bad bank (that i suggested in a form in the first place) is simply bailing out the rich'. now who did he think would benefit when he suggested it in the first place? I dont have a half billion in land in dublin i can't develop, he knew the story then and he knows it now. he acts like he some kind of prophet of ecomonics, but if was running the place he'd be so indecisive we already be gone under.

i for one hope lenihan never decides to call round for a cup of tea on a stormy, windswept night to this lads gaff again

Banned Account

As far as I can see, part of the reason we are here in the first place is that we had far too many bad banks and not enough good ones.

The reason he is a tosser is due to his affected accent and floppy gingerness. Mostly.

thebigbiffo

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

As far as I can see, part of the reason we are here in the first place is that we had far too many bad banks and not enough good ones.

The reason he is a tosser is due to his affected accent and floppy gingerness. Mostly.

i sat beside him on a flight from amsterdam once...he has no control over his kids either, which adds to his tosser level. but then again i was stoned...and i dont take kindly to screaming kids bouncing around me while i'm trying to eat my ryanair pizza

whatawaster

thebigbiffo wrote: »

i for one hope lenihan never decides to call round for a cup of tea on a stormy, windswept night to this lads gaff again

I hope we soon have a Minister for Finance who doesn't have to

Fuhrer

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

You could say that about a lot of Irish 'comedians' too though, couldn't you?

At least when they tell a bad joke, its through an air of utterly dispondant desperation to be liked.


Rather then spewing out some some utterly pathetic smug tripe then sitting there thinking "Yeah, im a triple threat, Economist, Writer and Wit" with a look that says I just pissed myself and it feels ****ing great.

Fuhrer

starbelgrade wrote: »

What the f*ck is a hippocite?

Its when you're referencing a fact or piece of information by using a horse.

thebigbiffo

whatawaster wrote: »

I hope we soon have a Minister for Finance who doesn't have to

i think it's fair enough that he was out seeking advice from people

just not mcwilliams

thebigbiffo

skelliser wrote: »

So just to clarify:

The op hasn't a clue about what he's talking about.

seeing as you were so quick to post that, maybe when you've read the thread through again you could explain?

parker kent

thebigbiffo wrote: »

first off, that's the article. thanks! i'd like to say i'm not lazy, i did have a fairly good look around for it (ok ok, not good enough) but either way - my point stays the same.

In fairness, if you put "David McWilliams" into google, the first result is his site with all of his articles.

faceman

Cant stand McWilliams, never have. A populist. No solutions, just problems, and any solutions he does suggest are never balanced.

I could get into a bigger rant about him but i wont, again.