IMF: Ireland could have saved billions by burning Anglo bondholders

donegal__road

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/imf-ireland-could-have-saved-billions-by-burning-anglo-bondholders-617688.html#.UrRU-PEMbvx.facebook


Maybe the reason the bondholders weren't burned was because a good percentage of them were Irish... who knows?

All water under the bridge for us now, time to tighten the belts.

WilyCoyote

Of course. As has been proved in Iceland.

Me?

Water under the bridge? :rolleyes:

DoesNotCompute

Aren't a certain amount of bondholders pension funds? Imagine the outrage if the bondholders were burnt. I can imagine the headline in the Sindo about poor auld pensioners getting shafted.

NuckingFacker

Stating the bleedin obvious tbh. It was a dumb decision to pay them. Their Bonds were in a private bank that was utterly, hopelessly bust and had a rubbish loan book. It was capitalism 101 to burn them to fcuk, but did our glorious leaders? Nope. A ride for the public, and Nama is about a whisker behind.

Sandwlch

donegal__road wrote: »

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/imf-ireland-could-have-saved-billions-by-burning-anglo-bondholders-617688.html#.UrRU-PEMbvx.facebook


Maybe the reason the bondholders weren't burned was because a good percentage of them were Irish... who knows?

All water under the bridge for us now, time to tighten the belts.

"Breaking News" ??????

Didnt realise breaking news had a shelf life measured in years.

donegal__road

Me? wrote: »

Water under the bridge? :rolleyes:

well, what I meant by that was according to the article...

He said that the practice of "burning" senior bank bondholders is “now becoming more accepted”.
However, he said that this is no longer an option for Ireland, which had “paid off these creditors at great cost”.

If its no longer an option then I assume Ireland has to honour what the government has signed up for?

Karl Stein

NuckingFacker wrote: »

Stating the bleedin obvious tbh. It was a dumb decision to pay them. Their Bonds were in a private bank that was utterly, hopelessly bust and had a rubbish loan book. It was capitalism 101 to burn them to fcuk, but did our glorious leaders? Nope. A ride for the public, and Nama is about a whisker behind.

And the thing is the spineless pricks didn't even use the threat of burning the bondholders as a powerful bargaining chip.

donegal__road

Carlos Roca wrote: »

And the thing is the spineless pricks didn't even use the threat of burning the bondholders as a powerful bargaining chip.

not when your on €150k+ per annum, plus perks, plus an option of a job in Europe down the line.

shedweller

Weren't we told that burning the bondholders would have been disastrous etc.?
Now we're being told that maybe we we were right to want to burn the ****ers.
Maybe we should be listened to more and not treated like children.
What does our great leaders have to say about this?
Someone needs to give them a great big "I told you so".

Red Pepper

Me? wrote: »

Water under the bridge? :rolleyes:

Yeah, it was an absolute scandal and continues to be so. And like eejits we added all the banking debt to our national debt. Not many other governments would have been so spineless.

Red Pepper

donegal__road wrote: »

If its no longer an option then I assume Ireland has to honour what the government has signed up for?

We will be paying it for DECADES as part of our national debt. So we do have options - demand in retrospect to reduce our national debt by proportion to the banking debt - we saved the EU, they need to make it right.

Kristopherus

DoesNotCompute wrote: »

Aren't a certain amount of bondholders pension funds? Imagine the outrage if the bondholders were burnt. I can imagine the headline in the Sindo about poor auld pensioners getting shafted.

The pension funds were junior bondholders & they were burned. IIRC a Welsh based pension fund was among those burned and are/have threatening court action over that.
After all that I heard Bollox Baroso this morning and the only conclusion I can come to is that he is now dancing to Berlin's tune:mad: A total departure from July 2012.:mad:

cantdecide

...and some of the the EU economic experiment guinea pigs actually survived, I hear. GREAT!

glass_onion

Maybe they weren't burned was because one of the alleged bondholders was an very wealthy and powerful businessman-

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/bill-gates-was-bondholder-in-bailedout-irish-zombie-banks-29226533.html

dirtyden

donegal__road wrote: »

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/imf-ireland-could-have-saved-billions-by-burning-anglo-bondholders-617688.html#.UrRU-PEMbvx.facebook


Maybe the reason the bondholders weren't burned was because a good percentage of them were Irish... who knows?

All water under the bridge for us now, time to tighten the belts.

Wow these guys are geniuses. So the IMF are saying if we did not pay pack all the money, we would have saved the money we did not pay back. Financial wizardry from them.

This guy Chopra seems full of soundbites now that he has left. When he was in charge he did not seem to suggest any of this. It seems to me like he may be washing his hands. They followed the policies that the markets would have liked, not what Ireland wanted, the same as what they have done everywhere else. Any benefit to Ireland was incidental.

shedweller

See, my take on all this is that 'they' are not stupid. Could they have known all along that they would get more money the way they did?

D1stant

Me? wrote: »

Water under the bridge? :rolleyes:

Bodies under the bridge more like

Evelyn Cusack

Fact is it is done.

And Yes we'll be paying for it for years but there's a big difference between not paying bondholders and not paying back money we borrowed from creditors so it's just not going to happen.

Red Pepper

Evelyn Cusack wrote: »

Fact is it is done.

And Yes we'll be paying for it for years but there's a big difference between not paying bondholders and not paying back money we borrowed from creditors so it's just not going to happen.

What is done? What difference? We essentially transferred PRIVATE banking debt to our NATIONAL debt. We did not have to do this, we weren't forced to do this, we/they chose to do this. NATIONAL debt is money borrowed by the people for the people. This PRIVATE money did not benefit us, it benefitted investors/bondholders. They made a bet and lost and we paid out on the bet anyway!!

We the people do NOT owe this money. Hence we need NOT pay this money. WHERE THERE IS A WILL, THERE IS A WAY...WHERE IS THE FCUKING WILL GONE???!!! Don't be hoodwinked, please.

NuckingFacker

Evelyn Cusack wrote: »

Fact is it is done.

And Yes we'll be paying for it for years but there's a big difference between not paying bondholders and not paying back money we borrowed from creditors so it's just not going to happen.

I've posted this before, but "they" were much smarter than allowing for a later unravvelling or second thoughts. No bailout money was used to pay into the Banks or to repay Bondholders. The ECB, IMF funds were used to replace Irish funds which in turn were used to repay Bond-holders. This eliminated any future possibility of recourse to seek redress for being coerced into repaying unsecured Bondholders. In other words, they borrowed the Irish government money, but insisted none was used to repay bondholders - that was done using Irish Govt funds. So, headed off at the pass comes to mind. The IMF and ECB might be dumb, but they're not stupid. The bailout money became soverieign debt, buried within the overall national debt and to fail to repay it would be a straight soverign default, which is pretty damn well un-do-able and would be a short term disaster. Cute, eh?

shedweller

Evelyn Cusack wrote: »

Fact is it is done.

And Yes we'll be paying for it for years but there's a big difference between not paying bondholders and not paying back money we borrowed from creditors so it's just not going to happen.

Ah yes but the next time we come to a crossroads where theres a lot at stake i for one will do the exact ****ing opposite of what our esteemed leaders want us to do. Simply because they cannot be trusted to have our best interests at heart. It has been proven time and time again and now this latest bombshell puts the final nail in for me at least. No irish government can be trusted.

dirtyden

The ECB/IMF dealings with Ireland always reminds me of that clip during the London riots where 2 thugs are stealing from some kid whilst pretending to help him, except the IMF/ECB were more obvious about it.

My name is URL

They're a bit late coming out and saying it now. It's like a burglar robbing your house and then sending his mate over with tips on how you could have limited what was taken.

Why didn't they speak up when the ECB and our own lot were filling people full of crap about how burning more bondholders wasn't an option?

suicide_circus

Can we rectify this by burning them now? I mean literally burning them, in a big fire.

Red Pepper

suicide_circus wrote: »

Can we rectify this by burning them now? I mean literally burning them, in a big fire.

We only have one solution - we can write it off by putting the debt back on the ECB. I think we have to do this or our national debt and interest will become unsustainable keeping our economy crippled for many years.

keeponhurling

We had the option of burning bondholders, as luckily we had a general election about that time.

We, as a country, decided to pay the bondholders every last cent as we selected Enda Kenny as leader.

Some advocated burning bondholders but were portrayed as loony

dirtyden

keeponhurling wrote: »

We had the option of burning bondholders, as luckily we had a general election about that time.

We, as a country, decided to pay the bondholders every last cent as we selected Enda Kenny as leader.

Some advocated burning bondholders but were portrayed as loony

I believe the government elected had intimated they would burn bond holders. They just lacked anything resembling aspine when it came down to it.

KyussBishop

There's pretty much no undoing it now, it is part of our public debt - and we are most definitely not going to be offered any significant writedown on our public debt.

What matters now, is forcing our government to engage in actual recovery policies (and punishing severely, those involved in causing the crisis), instead of engaging in continued austerity (and lack of accountability) - the gap between how well we could be doing, and how well we are doing, is so enormous that it's criminal.

There are known alternatives to current policies, which allow a much faster recovery and much faster/sustainable paydown of debt, and which we don't even need to consult Europe about - until opposition politicians and the public at large get wise to that (which I'm not optimistic about at all...), this crisis and effects of it, are going to last decades still.

The Diabolical Monocle

Now would be a good time to go haughey on them.

w.w.c.d

NuckingFacker

dirtyden wrote: »

I believe the government elected had intimated they would burn bond holders. They just lacked anything resembling aspine when it came down to it.

Yeah, "Not another penny!" and "Labours way not Frankfurts Way" spring to mind. Labours way was obviously based heavily on FFs way, they just left that bit out. So no lie there. And we don't use pennys, so that was pretty close to the truth as well. No-one mentioned cents or billions.. Again, cute.

Sh1tbag OToole

Feck it.

I was almost starting to believe the bull****ters who have been saying for the past 5 years that we should pay back the bondholders to save our "reputation"

NuckingFacker

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

Feck it.

I was almost starting to believe the bull****ters who have been saying for the past 5 years that we should pay back the bondholders to save our "reputation"

Reputations are like pride. They don't tend to pay the bills. When the going gets tough, you need a cnut, not someone worried about peoples "perceptions". Sadly, the class of cnut we get tends to be batting for the wrong team.

Red Pepper

NuckingFacker wrote: »

Reputations are like pride. They don't tend to pay the bills. When the going gets tough, you need a cnut, not someone worried about peoples "perceptions".

Well said Sir, yes we needed a brave/ruthless leader in the last election. Enda was not that man. We needed someone who could come in for 4 or 5 years and be prepared to shake things about here and abroad even if it did cost him/her the leadership or even seat. A Churchill type figure.

Oops!

Somebody like that would'nt get very far in Irish politics, they would'nt be allowed to by those around them.....

DebDynamite

So why didn't we burn the bondholders? In what way (if any) did we benefit by not burning them?

Despite call the calls for burning them, I always thought that was just a populist opinion and there must've been a real, pragmatic reason for not doing it.

Can anyone please enlighten me?

donegal__road

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

Feck it.

I was almost starting to believe the bull****ters who have been saying for the past 5 years that we should pay back the bondholders to save our "reputation"

they were saying it because they were being paid to say it.

donegal__road

NuckingFacker wrote: »

Yeah, "Not another penny!" and "Labours way not Frankfurts Way" spring to mind. Labours way was obviously based heavily on FFs way, they just left that bit out. So no lie there. And we don't use pennys, so that was pretty close to the truth as well. No-one mentioned cents or billions.. Again, cute.

maybe thats why one of Labour's party members has recently decided to jump ship to FF.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

My biggest concern now is what safeguards have we put in place to stop all this happening again in 20 + years time. Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

I can actually see Mehole Martin being Taoiseach/Tanaiste before he steps off the gravy train in how ever many years time, the thought of him and small Willie back in power honestly makes me despair.

Jake Rugby Walrus666

DebDynamite wrote: »

So why didn't we burn the bondholders? In what way (if any) did we benefit by not burning them?

Despite call the calls for burning them, I always thought that was just a populist opinion and there must've been a real, pragmatic reason for not doing it.

Can anyone please enlighten me?

The "irish" banks had a lot of financing from interests based in our european partner countries. The catastrophic loss would of spread to those banks and their problems would correspondingly spread onwards leading to an eu wide crisis. Our eu friends asked the irish if could maybe the irish public cover the loss and then the eu would be saved. And so it was. And the world was saved and they all lived happy

My name is URL

The fact that the list of bondholders included government and financial advisers can't have helped!

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2010/10/who-are-the-bond-holders-we-are-bailing-out/

No conflicts of interest there at all like

hansfrei

DebDynamite wrote: »

So why didn't we burn the bondholders? In what way (if any) did we benefit by not burning them?

Despite call the calls for burning them, I always thought that was just a populist opinion and there must've been a real, pragmatic reason for not doing it.

Can anyone please enlighten me?

Ansbacher became Anglo, Anglo became IBRC.

TL;DR The lads had de dirt on everyobody.

tommylimerick

imgine the virtual reality bertie ahern had to wake up to
that tent in galway must have been blown away

newbie2013

Listen folks, we are irish, we get shafted left right and centre. Did we expect anything else ffs. Get over it and move on untill the next time that is

hansfrei

newbie2013 wrote: »

Listen folks, we are irish, we get shafted left right and centre. Did we expect anything else ffs. Get over it and move on untill the next time that is

Ill get over it after that fat POS serves prison time.

newbie2013

hansfrei wrote: »

Ill get over it after that fat POS serves prison time.

Dont be silly

Evelyn Cusack

Get a rope

jamaamaj

Evelyn Cusack wrote: »

Get a rope

........For all the cnuts that fcuked up our country.

drdeadlift

Isnt it odd at the amount of protest

hansfrei

drdeadlift wrote: »

Isnt it odd at the amount of protest

Tis odd.

Irish Independent and RTE did a fine job of propaganda

ShagNastii

Would people say that these bonds are the safest ticket in town for billionaire gamblers. For arguments sake if this were to happen again would we have the balls to burn the bond holders or would we just bend over and take it?

It was constantly touted that burning bond holders would have been a huge mistake. In hindsight has this been proven to be 100% BS and spin?