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"Conned" German article on Irish state of affairs

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 1,986 ✭✭✭PeadarCo


    I wasn't talking about fisheries at all, more the fact that our country got financially burned in order to save Europe's banking system, everyone knows if we'd let Anglo go the the wall the contagion would have caused utter havoc in the rest of the European banking system but at the same time everyone says we've taken a lot more than we've given? That 60bn we put into Anglo is something I regard as a free bailout for the entire European stock market and I've never seen a single convincing argument to suggest that it wasn't. Who were those bondholders again...?

    It is amazing after all these years that people have learnt nothing about the financial crisis. We bailed out the banks to save ourselves. Had they gone bust any company relied on them for working capital would also have gone. Any money in the banks would have vanished overnight a bankrupt bank can't honour its commitments. Did it benefit Europe yes buts like a putting out a fire in your house and then asking your neighbour to pay for it because if the fire got out of control it would have burnt down their house as well.

    And that's to ignore that other European governments including the Germans had to bail out some of their own banks. Should we pay for their bailouts because we potenially benefited? Not to mention we would have a deficit regardless due to the collapse in our tax take due to property bubble popping. If the private sector went on top of this austerity would have been far worse and no body would have been prepared to lend us money to relatively speaking soften the blow.

    But to be fair its nothing different from our legendary oil reserves or fisheries. Put in one or two facts and make extrapolations based on this while ignoring other facts that don't fit and potential consequences of any actions that might be taken. This brings a nice conclusion where the world is perfect and simple. This means not having to deal with the complexities of reality and the difficult decisions politicians have to make.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,872 ✭✭✭View


    I wasn't talking about fisheries at all, more the fact that our country got financially burned in order to save Europe's banking system, everyone knows if we'd let Anglo go the the wall the contagion would have caused utter havoc in the rest of the European banking system

    There is no evidence that a bank the size of Anglo was in any way systematically important to the European banking system. Or that it would have caused contagion or utter havoc in the wider European system if it had been let fail.

    It probably would have in Ireland but since then a lot of people have argued since then that Anglo wasn't systematically important to the Irish banking.

    Hence, there are two claims being made by various commentators to the public, namely;

    1) Anglo wasn't important to us and should have been let fail (by us),

    AND, at the same time:

    2) Anglo was SO important to the European banking system it had to be saved and we "saved Europe"

    Those directly contradict each other since they would require Anglo to have operated on a massive EU wide scale with only minimal focus on Ireland to square them. That clearly wasn't the case since Anglo, like our other banks, was almost exclusively focused on property, most of it Irish related.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    who_me wrote: »
    Great, if/when that's practical. I don't know how economically viable they are yet. Now, if money from a short 'oil boom' could be enough to kick start a substantial renewable energy infrastructure, that would be something.

    I think we're there, economically. Alternative energy provided about 13% of global energy production in 2010, with the nuclear sector providing another 3%.

    In 2012, the fossil fuel sector received $409bn in subsidies globally, while the renewables sector received $60bn.

    Those are almost exactly equivalent levels of subsidy per percent of global energy provided - very slightly higher for the fossil fuel industry, in fact.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,300 ✭✭✭✭Seaneh


    K-9 wrote: »




    If you had Venezuala's oil reserves it might just work.

    Then again if you actually struck proper oil and gas reserves, we could be Norway, not Venezuala.

    The Gas is there, and we can be relatively sure where it is.

    What Ireland needed (when we could have afforded it) was the development of a state owned (or semi state) exploration company to go and drill the fields and then another semi state to land and process it, much like Norway.

    We could still do these things, but there is no way the government will invest the money now.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    Potatoeman wrote: »
    My point was to leave it there until we are in a better situation rather than giving it away.

    And mine is we won't ever get to a better situation without either taking a large risk or offering very attractive terms to those who will take the risk on our behalf.

    After all, half the kingdom and your daughter's hand in marriage looks like excessively attractive terms until you consider the risks a dragon-slayer takes, and whether one would want to take them oneself.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    Seaneh wrote: »
    The Gas is there, and we can be relatively sure where it is.

    Er, no, we can't. That's why oil companies do exploration.
    Seaneh wrote: »
    What Ireland needed (when we could have afforded it) was the development of a state owned (or semi state) exploration company to go and drill the fields and then another semi state to land and process it, much like Norway.

    We could still do these things, but there is no way the government will invest the money now.

    Sure, we could spend almost as much as we have on the banks, and with even less to show for it.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,488 ✭✭✭TheChizler


    Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

    Think about it from the government's perspective, putting hundreds of millions on a project when you would have a better chance of success putting it all on one number at the roulette table.

    They're elected to run the country responsibly (many would argue that's a lost cause but that's neither here nor there). Taking that kind of risk would be unacceptable when you have that huge a responsibility to your citizens.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    I wasn't talking about fisheries at all, more the fact that our country got financially burned in order to save Europe's banking system, everyone knows if we'd let Anglo go the the wall the contagion would have caused utter havoc in the rest of the European banking system but at the same time everyone says we've taken a lot more than we've given? That 60bn we put into Anglo is something I regard as a free bailout for the entire European stock market and I've never seen a single convincing argument to suggest that it wasn't. Who were those bondholders again...?

    The idea that Anglo was systemic in Europe will have to wait on someone showing that it was systemic even in Ireland. Nobody has even shown that letting Anglo go to the wall would have disrupted our domestic banking system, which is why there's such a big question-mark over its inclusion in the guarantee.

    Nor did the guarantee or the bailouts prevent contagion in Europe - the other countries had to institute their own bank guarantees and bailouts to stabilise their banking systems.

    This belief that we were Europe's little Dutch boy is another self-aggrandising myth. But, I suppose that on a thread in which we're back to trillions in oil and gas which can be scooped up with a spoon along with a garnish of diamond-encrusted fish, why not?

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭eVeNtInE


    This post has been deleted.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Good letter in the Irish Times today in response to this
    Sir, – I refer to the article by Christian Zaschke, first published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and reprinted in The Irish Times (Weekend Review, July 6th). As far as the section on oil and gas is concerned, it would be tedious to dissect the article line by line. Just two points, then.

    Firstly, simplistic comparisons of headline tax rates lead to wrong conclusions. For example, a well (the only one this year) is currently being drilled off the Irish west coast, reportedly at a cost of some €200 million. If the well is dry, every cent is lost. In the same circumstances in Norway, the Norwegian government would refund around €156 million to the partners. This fact is rarely mentioned by those applauding the Norwegian tax system.

    Neither do they refer to the fact that Norway allows a write-off of 130 per cent of the capital cost of a development project as against just 100 per cent in Ireland, or that up to this year Norwegian companies were allowed to write off losses incurred anywhere in the world against revenue in Norway, which is not allowed in the Irish system, or that your chances of making a commercial find in Norway are at least five times better than in Ireland.

    Secondly, if the Irish system is such a giveaway, why isn’t there a queue for licences? Drilling in Irish waters has been running at one or two wells a year for the last decade, as opposed to perhaps 80 or 90 a year in the North Sea. A recent licensing round in the UK resulted in the award of 167 licences. Our most recent round produced just 13 licensing options. The Irish round before that attracted only two applications, both for the same acreage, so just one licence was awarded. It seems that the oil industry just doesn’t recognise a bargain when it sees one!

    We welcome debate, but let it be dispassionate and informed, rather than emotional and ill-informed. – Yours, etc,

    FERGUS CAHILL,

    Irish Offshore Operators’

    Association,

    Fitzwilliam Business Centre,

    Upper Pembroke Street,

    Dublin 2 .


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,769 ✭✭✭nuac


    Yes - a lot of dry wells at huge cost.

    It would have been crazy for the state to get involved in trying to find oil.

    Glad to see that Shell are still persevering to bring in the gas to North Mayo despite all the protests


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,370 ✭✭✭micosoft


    nuac wrote: »
    Yes - a lot of dry wells at huge cost.

    It would have been crazy for the state to get involved in trying to find oil.

    Glad to see that Shell are still persevering to bring in the gas to North Mayo despite all the protests

    Agreed. Further to that one of the odd things is that people have a problem with "Big Oil" companies (as opposed to what? Mom & Pop), when the reality is that if you are in a such a hugely risky business you need massive scale and reserves as well as (something the state could not do) spread your risk across many explorations across many continents. This is why the Oil companies are so huge - it's the economics of the business that drive it, not "Greed".


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,294 ✭✭✭✭Ash.J.Williams


    if a country was to explore, it surely would need more than one well and a few drilling locations to be viable and even at that huge cost, there is still no definite return. Now that i think about it's like doing the lotto but costing millions/billions for the tickets...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 21,727 ✭✭✭✭Godge


    We were certainly 'conned' into bailing out Anglo as the recent tapes further prove.


    I don't think we've been 'conned' regarding our oil. We, as a country, produce almost no oil today.

    The success rate of exploratory drilling in Norway is about one in five. In Ireland so far, it is about one in 25.

    Drilling for oil is expensive, the state doesn't have the cash to fund this so we need private companies to do it for us, incentivising these companies through tax incentives to come here and search for oil and gas is the right thing to do.

    I can remember Fat Rabitte saying awhile ago that there's nothing stopping them from increasing the taxes placed on oil revenue when/if they're here in good numbers and are profitable.

    However inept or incompetent you or I may consider this government to be, we can be sure that if they think they can get more revenue in from the raising of a tax, they will do it.

    Apart from the reference to Rabbitte, this is a good post. There is no evidence that we have lost revenue because of our attitude to taxing royalties or profits from oil.

    In fact, the evidence from the antics of the Shell-to-Sea campaigners that quite rightly (as determined by the Irish courts) resulted in jail terms for some of them and more recently as shown by the Dalkey protesters, Ireland is a very difficult country to do business in if you are an oil exploration company. When you add that to the fact that the oil is difficult to extract, is it no wonder that there is such little oil being extracted?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,124 ✭✭✭joe swanson


    Whilst I am not admittedly up to date on the rights and wrongs of current govt policy on oil exploratoon etc, the antics of profdssional protestors do nothing to help garner sympathy for their cause. People see their underhand tactics, their ridiculous claims of "peacefull" protest, their bullying of locals supportive of the project, their horrendous treatment of workers and gardai, inc assaults etc. Ordinary decent people do not want to associate with this behaviour and then the actual issues get lost.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,294 ✭✭✭✭Ash.J.Williams


    yeah we hate the government and the pigs and we are "off grid" except on dole day,....then we're back "on grid" ...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,769 ✭✭✭nuac


    Whilst I am not admittedly up to date on the rights and wrongs of current govt policy on oil exploratoon etc, the antics of profdssional protestors do nothing to help garner sympathy for their cause. People see their underhand tactics, their ridiculous claims of "peacefull" protest, their bullying of locals supportive of the project, their horrendous treatment of workers and gardai, inc assaults etc. Ordinary decent people do not want to associate with this behaviour and then the actual issues get lost.

    Good post.

    Met some of the Rossport objectors. Well educated UK undergraduate types. Some have objected on other projects. New form of tourism here.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,370 ✭✭✭micosoft


    nuac wrote: »
    Good post.

    Met some of the Rossport objectors. Well educated UK undergraduate types. Some have objected on other projects. New form of tourism here.

    Perhaps we should raise a Tax on them. Give O'Leary the job of adding it onto their fare.... plus a exit fee......


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