Poll. Will the IMF/EU be bailing us out next year?

i would have said by september next year after the government return from their 3 month holiday.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/11/01/389506/irelands-scary-scenario/?updatedcontent=1


The Financial Times thinks that IMF/EU be here sooner rather than later based on Colm McCarthy's comments, see article above

The only factor the Government can do anything about at this stage is the budget deficit. If they do too little to convince the markets, the game is up and the Irish Government will be unable to finance itself, which means an IMF/European bailout and economic policy dictated from outside the country.

Lame Lantern wrote: »

Internationally, Ireland's image isn't quite as bad as we think. The bond markets were a lot more sympathetic to us at our last auction than we would have been to ourselves. While the Irish people don't believe anything the government tells us, the international community continue to do so and broadsheet news reporting on Ireland has generally been quite empathetic and laudatory compared to their reporting on places like Iceland and Greece.

In short: The bond markets are not blaming the sitting government for everything bad that has ever happened ever the way the Irish people are, so the specificity-free panic in this country is not representative of how we're being viewed abroad.

You are obviously not reading the papers lately.

There has been a sharp turn in sentiment around August in the international media, you have the likes of NYT,Bloomberg and FT all finally realising that the sums are not adding up and are getting bigger as the truth of the situation is slowly coming out

None of these have actually bothered to do proper investigative journalism in Ireland and relied on our media for their view, somewhere it finally ticked that our media and our government are not to be trusted.

Once articles titled "can a bank bring down a country" started appearing its been a sharp slide since.

Lame Lantern wrote: »

I think there is a distinction in tone between, say, the NY Times article and our own domestic commentary. If I recall correctly that articles states something along the lines of "Ireland was among the first to tackle its problems but its cost of borrowing has continued to increase." Compare that to Vincent Browne's articles that would suggest the government has spent the last ten years preparing the economy for slow digestion by FF's fat fatties. You won't see much mention of the rescue fund and the IMF outside our own dialogue which is what will send our cost of barrowing through the roof.

Nobody's advocating Ireland as a place to invest your pension money, but the inevitability of IMF intervention does not stand up to objective analysis. Though I take your point, increasingly international reporting is relying on the domestic press which is a problem.

Re: Angela Merkel, her move toward paleo-nationalist politics is what's generating such incendiary statements. See her comments on immigration as well. If German policy actually follows up on her rhetoric then we're all in trouble.

Yes Ireland was held up as an example in non-Irish media
but as I said there has been a distinct (we turned a corner ? ) change around August, actually around the time of the S&P report I believe and news that Anglo would cost even more yet again.
I haven't seen a positive article about Ireland in a long time now, it really is worrying.


You also have to realise the non-Irish media look at Ireland with different eyes/perspective and dont have FF's boots to lick (or restrained by our prehistoric blasphemy/libel laws), the fact that they are not buying our bull**** might be reflected in the market sentiment. But then again correlation is not causation.

Lame Lantern wrote: »

Internationally, the view is of a country in very serious trouble that has taken very decisive action that may not be working as hoped.

Once again this was the case especially early this year (coincidentally? the bonds where at low point then)

The S&P report around August put the banking failure at a staggering 90 billion euro

Since then things have been on the slide and the rhetoric in the media has changed. We are no longer considered as a country which made a right decision but got it wrong. They realise that our cuts so far have been much noise but little substance (most of mccarthy's recommendations ignored). There is also a realisation that no one knows how deep the banking holes go, there is no end in sight for house drops and the deeper they get the more in trouble the banks get, the more money we are asked to handover.


Just take bloomberg as an example an look thru the articles on Ireland:

2 Nov 2010 - Ireland May Have One Month to Stave Off Bailout: Euro Credit
1 Nov 2010 - Ireland Leads Rise in Sovereign Credit Swaps on Burden Sharing
1 Nov 2010 - Irish Bonds Decline, Driving Yield Premium Over German Bunds to a Record

“The biggest worry about Ireland is the growth picture,” said Nick Stamenkovic, a fixed-income strategist at RIA Capital Markets Ltd. in Edinburgh. “Investors are fretting that the actual growth implication of these fiscal consolidation measures may make it more difficult for budget-deficit targets to be achieved.”

From the horses mouth, there is fear since there is so much uncertainty around Irelands growths prospect. Obviously the likes of ESRI who got all the headlines before have been proven to be wildly optimistic and off the mark with all their predictions.

There is no trust and no confidence, and this fear has spread beyond Ireland to people who buy our debt.

Once again whether the media is responsible is debatable, it seems to me most are trying to play catchup to fast moving events and are not the cause.

Unlike the Indo and IT who in the past have shown to spin and now lately troll with their articles, the international media doesnt care for our little gombeens and national obsession with property (something that our papers made alot of money from in boom...)


Even the optimistic articles dont do us good

The International Monetary Fund in Washington forecast the world economy will expand 4.2 percent next year, compared with 4.8 percent in 2009. Though slowing, that’s still better than the average of 3.69 percent from 2000 through 2008.

Government bonds have returned 5.6 percent this year, versus 0.9 percent in all of 2010. Of the major economies, the gains have been led by the 8.3 percent return for Treasuries, followed by U.K. gilts at 7.9 percent, German bunds at 7.7 percent and Japanese bonds at 2.9 percent.

Greece, Ireland and Portugal are the exceptions, with each losing at least 5 percent and showing there are limits to investors’ tolerance for budget deficits.

don't see it happening, whoever is in charge next year will make the necessary cuts to keep the wolves from the door

although there maybe some upsides to it, as the IMF would do alot of what FF are afraid or too cronie-ist to do, eg. tear up the croke park agreement, get rid of loads of the quangos, close all the tax-breaks and loopholes, etc.