Saturday, Apr 03, 2010

Halligan's hairshirt rant #693

Telegraph: Twelve months ago, credit downgrades and a deeply alarming fiscal deficit prompted bond investors to include Ireland in a group of fiscal stinkers known as the PIGS – standing for Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. A year on, the Republic isn't quite

"British economists of international repute have been writing letters to newspapers arguing that we can avoid addressing the UK's shocking fiscal problems because to do so would be "to accept as binding the view of the same financial markets whose mistakes precipitated this crisis in the first place. This is irresponsible nonsense. Financial markets didn't cause this crisis. What caused it was fraud, dire political leadership and a lack of genuine regulation."
Slack jawed at this nonsense in a national newspaper. "Financial markets didn't cause this crisis"????

Posted by tpbeta @ 09:43 PM (1071 views) Add Comment

12 Comments

1. devo said...

every Irish family has been saddled with a debt of €50,000 to pay for the recklessness and sometimes outright criminality of our banking and regulatory systems.

patient guys, the irish

Saturday, April 3, 2010 10:24PM Report Comment
 

2. devo said...

"This is irresponsible nonsense. Financial markets didn't cause this crisis. What caused it was fraud, dire political leadership and a lack of genuine regulation."

but as the late, great Jimmy Cricket once said, 'come here... there's more'...

"By guaranteeing bank bail-outs, weak governments stopped financial markets from working."

Now, which weak governments might they be?

er, that would be all of them

now why might that be?

PLEASE try to work it out for yourself

Saturday, April 3, 2010 10:46PM Report Comment
 

3. doomwatch said...

Hey it's Saturday night. You should be drinking all that wall mart beer
and watching the latest dumb ass teeth n smiles phone in

Saturday, April 3, 2010 11:04PM Report Comment
 

4. devo said...

i am

multitasking is de rigeur in the 21st century

Saturday, April 3, 2010 11:12PM Report Comment
 

5. alan_540 said...

Umm, public sector net debt amounts to £56,000 per adult in the UK.

Saturday, April 3, 2010 11:22PM Report Comment
 

6. devo said...

5. alan_540 said... Umm, public sector net debt amounts to £56,000 per adult in the UK

i'll take your word for it

and that is going to be paid back how?

Saturday, April 3, 2010 11:26PM Report Comment
 

7. alan_540 said...

Slowly.

Saturday, April 3, 2010 11:58PM Report Comment
 

8. devo said...

7. alan_540 said...Slowly.

no chance !

how about...

quickly = hyperinflation

not at all = default

Sunday, April 4, 2010 12:06AM Report Comment
 

9. alan_540 said...

The US can carry it's deficit as long as the dollar remains the world's reserve currency which depends on the US maintaining global superiority and honouring it's Chinese held bonds to some degree. The UK will not be allowed to inflate our way out of debt and default will not be an option either when there is still plenty for the government to flog off at cut down prices to its debt holders.

Sunday, April 4, 2010 12:26AM Report Comment
 

10. devo said...

what can't be paid back, won't be paid back

this goes for the UK AND the US

amazing as it may seem, the chinese haven't realised this yet

Sunday, April 4, 2010 10:01AM Report Comment
 

11. icarus said...

Financial institutions were the ones which lobbied for deregulation and government bailouts, so it's disingenuous to argue that it wasn't financial markets but their impairment that caused the crisis. So the Irish have been rewarded for their belt-tightening by lower borrowing costs? But there's no sign at all that they're likely to be rewarded any time soon by higher employment or GDP.

Sunday, April 4, 2010 11:37AM Report Comment
 

12. devo said...

this comment (by Paul Holmes) deserves a wider audience...

Sorry Liam, but you appear to be way out of touch with the reality on the ground/at the coal face in Ireland and what is unravelling for real people as opposed to your high level 'economic speak'..

Teachers, policeman, firefighters and the rest of the bloated civil service have taken up to a 20% cut in salary and benefits in order to stay employed. Office blocks and housing developments lie empty in a style that Spanish developers would be horrified at. The debt/deficit cannot be absorbed and brushed under the carpet over the short term, the long term stagflation the Irish economy (and its people) face is terrifying, 20 years plus of zero growth may help heal society's recent hubris, but the damage to their secular economy is an open sore decades away from being cortorised.

Ireland is not an example to hold up of effecient economic crisis management, it was and remains a basket case..

Sunday, April 4, 2010 09:27PM Report Comment
 

Add comment

Username   Admin Password (optional)
Email Address
Comments
  • If you do not have an admin password leave the password field blank.
  • If you would like to request a password allowing you to add comments and blog news articles without needing each one approved manually, send an e-mail to the webmaster.
  • Your email address is required so we can verify that the comment is genuine. It will not be posted anywhere on the site, will be stored confidentially by us and never given out to any third party.
  • Please note that any viewpoints published here as comments are user's views and not the views of HousePriceCrash.co.uk.
  • Please adhere to the Guidelines

Main Blog | Archive | Add Article | Blog Policies