TheStory.ie

The UK is making some big changes today, and we look forward to these changes being implemented here:

The UK Government will open its books for the whole world. All expenditure for all Government departments over £25,000 will be published at data.gov.uk. For some departments, we will publish all data over £500. We will be publishing all this as open data, and we will be publishing updated data every month.

There is a big financial incentive. We want people around the world to help us identify savings; we want individuals and organisations to use and abuse this data for commercial purposes; and we want companies to offer to undercut their competitors who are already providing services to the UK Government.

Most importantly we want British taxpayers to hold us account. We want them to ask why we are spending money on a particular service, or a particular company. We want them to understand what their taxes are being spent on.

But we need your help. We want you to bring this data alive – and we want you to explain what these figures actually mean. We want you to reuse and scrutinise this data in any way you can.

Britain is committed to being the world leader on transparent data, and with your help, this data will be a major step in achieving this aim.

This WSJ piece gives a decent outline of the position the Government finds itself in (though I think the poker analogy – now in use everywhere – is really soulless. I know, I know, it’s the WSJ.).

[…] This game is due to be played out over the rest of this week, with European Union and International Monetary Fund officials descending on Dublin to thrash out a deal. Ireland has signaled it is willing to consider a deal to recapitalize its banks, allowing them to borrow again in private markets.

That suits the Irish because it enables them to claim the government itself remains solvent and so shouldn’t be subject to any external fiscal oversight that might put its tax arrangements at risk. Legally and practically, this argument is nonsense, because any bailout needs to be channeled via the government, giving the lenders the right to impose any conditions they wish.

That may point to an extended standoff between Ireland and the rest of the EU. If so, this crisis simply would be following the path of every other period of stress over the past three years in Europe and elsewhere. But eventually, the market will succeed in pressuring policy makers into the response it is seeking.

I still can’t see business taxes remaining as they are now. It’s not politically possible for a German – or French – government to sell a bailout for Ireland to its public while Ireland poaches business from them due to its tax haven status.

Also, for the record; if we access the EFSF the euro will be gone within five years. It’s bloody awfully designed. More on this in a later post.

The Irish Election Literature Blog brings this one from its seemingly endless archive of old canvassing literature.

Well, lads?

Hasn’t happened too often in recent years but… an Irish Times editorial with some guts.

The true ignominy of our current situation is not that our sovereignty has been taken away from us, it is that we ourselves have squandered it. Let us not seek to assuage our sense of shame in the comforting illusion that powerful nations in Europe are conspiring to become our masters. We are, after all, no great prize for any would-be overlord now. No rational European would willingly take on the task of cleaning up the mess we have made. It is the incompetence of the governments we ourselves elected that has so deeply compromised our capacity to make our own decisions.

They did so, let us recall, from a period when Irish sovereignty had never been stronger. Our national debt was negligible. The mass emigration that had mocked our claims to be a people in control of our own destiny was reversed. A genuine act of national self-determination had occurred in 1998 when both parts of the island voted to accept the Belfast Agreement. The sense of failure and inferiority had been banished, we thought, for good.

To drag this State down from those heights and make it again subject to the decisions of others is an achievement that will not soon be forgiven. It must mark, surely, the ignominious end of a failed administration.

Well…

Six non-doubt eminent, highly-qualified individuals debate whether Ireland should accept a bailout in the Opinion Pages of the New York Times. Read’em here.

Pretty candid and unsentimental.

Picture of the flats in the New York Times, eh? G’wan the ‘Mun. Amazingly the Telegraph managed to find an even less currently relevant image. Multimedia features using cutaways taken from Darby O’Gill and the Little People next.

So where are we now?

Brian Lenihan has said the following according to the FT:

The minister claimed there were “no funding difficulties in the Irish banking system”, and pointed to stress testing that had already taken place, along with the removal of much of the toxic debt to the government’s National Asset Management Agency.

In recent months, the banks have become increasingly dependent on funding support from the European Central Bank, accounting for a quarter of all outstanding liquidity provided to the euro banking system by the ECB in October.

Mr Lenihan said: “The question of weaning the banks off European Central Bank support is only one of a number of issues that have to be tackled here.”

1) There are serious funding difficulties in the Irish banking system
2) The stress test was nonsense
3) The banks are still facing massive losses, including NAMA loans
4) There was essentially a run on Irish banks in October, so serious that Irish banks were forced to get emergency lending from our Central Bank to the tune of €20 billion. BoI saw €10bn in deposits leave the bank.
5) Irish banks have been on life support via the ECB since 2008
6) Brian Lenihan is lying through his teeth

In August 2009 I wrote a blog post that sparked a little debate about where Ireland was headed. Having read it again, it is interesting that absolutely nothing has changed in the intervening 15 months.

I am reproducing it again here in full:

Countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Ireland grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.

In Ireland, for instance, the private sector is now in serious trouble because, over the past seven years or so, it borrowed at least $130 billion from banks and investors on the assumption that the country’s property sector could support a permanent increase in consumption throughout the economy. As Ireland’s oligarchs spent this capital, acquiring other companies and embarking on ambitious investment plans that generated jobs, their importance to the political elite increased. Growing political support meant better access to lucrative contracts, tax breaks, and subsidies. And foreign investors could not have been more pleased; all other things being equal, they prefer to lend money to people who have the implicit backing of their national governments, even if that backing gives off the faint whiff of corruption.

But inevitably, oligarchs get carried away; they waste money and build massive business empires on a mountain of debt. Local banks, sometimes pressured by the government, become too willing to extend credit to the elite and to those who depend on them. Overborrowing always ends badly, whether for an individual, a company, or a country. Sooner or later, credit conditions become tighter and no one will lend you money on anything close to affordable terms.

The downward spiral that follows is remarkably steep. Enormous companies teeter on the brink of default, and the local banks that have lent to them collapse. Yesterday’s “public-private partnerships” are relabeled “crony capitalism.” With credit unavailable, economic paralysis ensues, and conditions just get worse and worse. The government is forced to draw down its foreign-currency reserves to pay for imports, service debt, and cover private losses. But these reserves will eventually run out. If the country cannot right itself before that happens, it will default on its sovereign debt and become an economic pariah. The government, in its race to stop the bleeding, will typically need to wipe out some of the national champions—now hemorrhaging cash—and usually restructure a banking system that’s gone badly out of balance. It will, in other words, need to squeeze at least some of its oligarchs.

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Dublin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.

Eventually, as the oligarchs in Cowen’s Ireland now realize, some within the elite have to lose out before recovery can begin. It’s a game of musical chairs: there just isn’t enough cash to take care of everyone, and the government cannot afford to take over private-sector debt completely.

First, an admission. The above is a quote from Simon Johnson’s excellent essay in the Atlantic in May of this year, The Quiet Coup. But I have modified it ever so slightly. I simply replaced the word ‘Russia’ with ‘Ireland’, and other slight edits to take into account energy versus property. You can see the original here.

Why the modification? Well it demonstrates at exactly the level Ireland is at.

We are a two-bit emerging market economy, dominated by political and business elites. I think it’s an open and shut case. Every word Johnson intended for Russia accurately applies to Ireland. We are almost the definition of a banana republic.

The only difference is in the last paragraph. “Some within the elite have to lose out before recovery can begin.” No. In Ireland, no oligarch property developer will lose out if the government can help it – thanks to the €90 billion NAMA, what will be the largest property ‘firm’ in the world.

The only people who will end up paying are you and me, our children, and our grandchildren. If people think our political leaders are acting out of the interest of the taxpayer they are dead wrong. Our political leaders are acting only in the interests of themselves and their paymaster developers.

Let us examine some of Johnson’s indicators that we are an emerging market, dominated by oligarchs. We could make a checklist:

* “Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders.”
Check.

* “As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.”
Check.

* “As Ireland’s oligarchs spent this capital, acquiring other companies and embarking on ambitious investment plans that generated jobs, their importance to the political elite increased.”
Check.

* “Growing political support meant better access to lucrative contracts, tax breaks, and subsidies.”
Check.

* “Oligarchs get carried away; they waste money and build massive business empires on a mountain of debt.” Check.

* “Local banks, sometimes pressured by the government, become too willing to extend credit to the elite and to those who depend on them.”
Check.

* “Overborrowing always ends badly, whether for an individual, a company, or a country. Sooner or later, credit conditions become tighter and no one will lend you money on anything close to affordable terms.”
Check.

* “Enormous companies teeter on the brink of default, and the local banks that have lent to them collapse.”
Check.

* “If the country cannot right itself before that happens, it will default on its sovereign debt and become an economic pariah.”
Check.

* “The government, in its race to stop the bleeding, will typically need to wipe out some of the national champions—now hemorrhaging cash—and usually restructure a banking system that’s gone badly out of balance. It will, in other words, need to squeeze at least some of its oligarchs.”
Check.

* “Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among governments.”
Check.

* “At the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Dublin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government“.
Check. NAMA.

* “Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.”
Check, minus the riots. Yet.

* “Some within the elite have to lose out before recovery can begin. It’s a game of musical chairs: there just isn’t enough cash to take care of everyone, and the government cannot afford to take over private-sector debt completely.”
Except in Ireland, where we are trying to assume €90bn in private sector debt. Liam Carroll as the elite one losing out? Check.

And so we return to the original question posed: What is wrong with Ireland? My answer is this: We believe we are something we are not.

We believe we have a more mature regulatory environment, a mature, transparent and accountable political system, we believe the media holds our government to account, and we believe that our elected leaders will act in the best interests of citizens. Even the media believes it holds the government to account.

These assumptions are all wrong.

When you examine, even to a minor degree, any aspect of Irish society, you will invariably find a distinct lack of all the above factors. For example captured regulators: The Financial Regulator, the Irish Stock Exchange, the ODCE, ComReg, the Financial Ombudsman.

Whenever and wherever corruption is discovered, nothing happens. Whenever and wherever whistles are blown, nothing happens. We live in a country where the very idea of accountability, or that our politicians are our servants, simply does not exist.

As a nation state, we are a failure. As a democracy, we have failed. As a country we are bankrupt, both morally and financially. We are the emerging market, banana republic of the European Union. Our political system is broken. It is beyond redemption.

Some will reply that I am a socialist, or other such attacks. I am actually right of centre economically, I just recognise what is standing in front of me for what it is. An almost incalculable political and financial mess – generations are being saddled with the debts of the oligarchs, and the taxpayer is being lied to by its own government.

The only hope is this: That the people, in whose hands all power rests, will realise the appalling vista of a broken Ireland – a country in need of radical political reform – and demand that it is changed.

If it is not, everything that has happened, will continue to happen, and we, the citizens, will continue to pay the price.

We have warned time and time again that Ireland was facing a massive fiscal crisis, both on here and on Twitter. We took a look back through the archives to see what we might have called right over the last number of months:

September 11, 2009: ‘A floor in the market’

We questioned just how much nonsense Finance Minister Brian Lenihan spoke in September 2009, where he argued that Ireland had neared the floor in the housing market. Of course, NAMA set its floor in November 2009, and prices have fallen ever since – leading to yet more losses for the taxpayer. We quoted him:

“If a flood of property is dumped on the market, it will be utterly unsustainable. That is one of the reasons we must establish NAMA and try to establish a floor in the market. We are very near it on the basis of the figures and data we have about the yield from property. The yield is at an all time high relative to the assets, which is a clear objective economic indicator that we are approaching the trough. We must banish our devils, the suggestion that we have further to go. That is part of the problem and the reason for the illiquidity in the housing market.”

And posted the video:

There is no doubt that everything said there was a fiction, and it was patently obvious at the time.

December 24, 2009: Morgan Kelly on how we got here

Morgan Kelly published a paper at Christmas 2009, in which he outlined the looming bank crisis and the coming massive mortgage crisis. It was universally ignored. We highlighted it at the time:

I can’t really add much to Mr Kelly’s excellent analysis. What it says to me is that the next 12 to 18 months are going to be among the most difficult, if not the most difficult, time this country has faced. I encourage everyone to read the entire document.

I will emphasise his conclusion:

Despite having pushed the Irish state close to, and quite possibly beyond, the limits ofits fiscal capacity with the NAMA scheme, the Irish banks remain as zombies whose only priority is to reduce their debt, and who face complete destruction from mortgage losses. The issue therefore is not whether the Irish bank bailout will restore the Irish banks sothat they can function as independent commercial entities: it cannot. Rather it is whether the Irish government’s commitments to bank bond holders when added to its existing spend-ing commitments, will overwhelm the fiscal capacity of the Irish state, forcing outside entities such as the IMF and EU to intervene and impose a resolution on the Irish banking system.

February 4, 2010: The Coming Crisis?

It might be news to some people, but the purchasing of Irish bonds by Irish banks was highlighted a long time ago. We highlighted along with many others that Irish banks were buying Irish sovereign bonds and using them as collateral at the ECB. We also emphasised that Ireland was in as worse, if not a worse state than Greece – just that the markets had yet to pay attention to Ireland:

If you thought all of the problems had been sorted, then think again. There are really big problems coming down the road, and very few people seem to be talking about them. So let’s look a little closer at the potential fiscal problems Ireland, and our banks, face.

Everyone is talking about Greece right now, but to me Ireland is no different. It is probably worse. So with these deadlines looming, what is happening? Over the past number of weeks you might have noticed various headlines to do with NAMA delays. Why is this important? Could it be that unless the banks can transfer these junk ‘assets’ from their books, they could face funding difficulties on non-ECB markets?

I could well be wrong, or even cynical, but my feeling is that banks are desperate to get this stuff off their books, in order to be better able to fund themselves after the ECB shuts the discount window. If they don’t get them off their books, and onto the backs of the taxpayer, the banks could simply end up going to the wall, or simply being nationalised.

If you’ve read Morgan Kelly’s excellent analysis of the Irish credit bubble you will be aware of the Irish banking system’s over reliance on international money markets for funding. When the financial crisis hit in September 2008, these money markets froze and Irish banks struggled to get day to day funding. This is what ultimately led to the bank guarantee, and to the opening of what’s called the ECB discount window.

Banks all over Europe were struggling with funding, so the ECB essentially enacted emergency measures to help fund the banks. Irish banks were one of the biggest beneficiaries of the discount (the interest rate charged by the ECB is sometimes called the discount or repo rate). Ireland’s banks have effectively been kept on life support by the ECB since 2008, as McWilliams also noted last year. Essentially Irish banks were buying NTMA-issued sovereign bonds with short-term lending, presenting that as collateral to the ECB and then borrowing cheaply from the ECB. Summed up here – 25% of our deficit in most of 2009 was indirectly funded by the ECB.

When you combine the shutting of the discount window, with the delays in NAMA transfers and ultimately our own State borrowing (indeed we have already borrowed €6.5bn so far this year – 33% of our bond issuance for this year was done in January) and with the likely writedowns of not 30% but 50% on the loanbooks, we are facing a serious crisis. And of course the other factor is the ECB raising interest rates at a time we need them to stay low.

My questions is this: how are we going to pay for all of this?

February 22, 2010: Delay and Pray

This actually sums up how the Irish banks, especially Anglo, have been dealing with our property developers. Rolling over interest, not writing down the loans, not crystalising the losses, doing repayment deals with developers – to drag it out – extending and pretending.

Here it is in a nutshell: NAMA is one massive “Delay and Pray”.

Given that our banks are insolvent, that they are facing massive liquidity issues with the imminent closure of the ECB discount window, they cannot keep the pretence of extending and pretending up forever – and NAMA is, or was supposed to be, the answer to their prayers. You could also argue that Bank of Ireland recently changing its fiscal year was part of this tactic.

The Government would take the crappy loans from the banks (rather a lot), and through some financial voodoo, the losses would still not be crystalised, and rather ingeniously – the debt would not appear as sovereign debt for Ireland, or as debt for the banks, but would instead be dumped into this NAMA bad bank.

And NAMA has one sole purpose – keep the pretence going that someday, somehow, the value of the underlying assets will return to peak prices. Delay and pray. Do not write down the loans. Do not accept the reality of the losses. Do not pass go.

Not only is it unlikely that this will happen, it is almost impossible. Morgan Kelly wrote in December that it could take 50 years for the underlying assets to return to 2006 prices. Last week, in the High Court, we saw development lands being written down by 60% to 98% (in terms of valuation, not borrowing). These figures are the reality of the lands that NAMA is taking charge of. And we are overpaying already. How long do you think it will take rezoned agricultural land bought for €13m at peak, revalued at €600,000 in 2010, to return to €13m? The answer is: it won’t. So much land was rezoned that there is no necessity for rezoning for a further 70 years in many counties. Add to that the 300,000 vacant properties. Add to that little demand. Add to that zombie banks unable or unwilling to lend.

This is the reality of NAMA. Delay and pray.

It logically follows that where the banks lent money with no obvious collateral to back the loan, and where the supposed value of derivative is now zero, the bank sustains a massive capital loss.

However the banks are simply delaying and praying until NAMA takes over the loans, and then NAMA continues the praying.

We are in for one hell of a fiscal mess.

If you hear spin that no one saw this coming, don’t listen. There were plenty of commentators and plenty of warning signs. Unfortunately many people chose not to listen.