Apparently, former Taoiseach Brian Cowen was none too happy with the two nude paintings of his corpulent frame hung by a “guerilla artist” in the National Gallery in 2009. Our nakedness can be a great leveler, and how quickly the veneer of unchallengeable respectability fades away when an image is planted of you naked sitting on a toilet gripping loo-roll.
We are presently seeing a slow striptease by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan of the impenetrable and seemingly interminable promissory note negotiations. We still don’t know who is negotiating on behalf of Ireland, though apparently it’s employees of the Department of Finance, the Central Bank and the NTMA.
But the shield of “technical and complicated reengineering” of the debts shouldered by us all in respect of the promissory notes given to three institutions, including Anglo, is slowly being lowered as we get a sinking feeling that negotiations, that have been ongoing since September 2011 at least, are going no-where.
The view on here towards the negotiations has always been skeptical because it was never established who would be the counterparty to whatever benefit was coming our way. Nobody has told the Germans or the Finns that they might be expected to part with money to dig us out of a hole. And should the ECB ease the terms of the promissory notes in any meaningful way, then Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Slovenia, Cyprus and others will be pointing to An Taoiseach’s game-changer last June when the EU summit communiqué said “similar cases will be treated equally”.
So what are we negotiating with? Two years ago, our hard negotiating chips were unilaterally reneging on the terms of the promissory notes or stopping the payments to bondholders in our bust banks. Since then, we have paid billions to the bondholders and there is presently very little left to be paid at what were Anglo and INBS. There are still billions due at the other banks, PTSB, AIB and Bank of Ireland, but these banks have been embraced as “pillar” banks and any default would have more serious consequences. We don’t want to deploy the hard negotiating chip of threatening to renege on the promissory notes because we fear the ECB might withdraw €70bn of funding to Ireland banks, and thereby collapse the economy.
So, all we have are the soft negotiation chips and they are as follows:
Europe needs a success story. Or what? And when? Europe, or rather the PIIGS periphery will definitely produce a success story. In time. Even Greece will work its way through its problems, its debt and deficit. It may default (again), have a civil war (again) but in the long run, it will reach some sort of sustainable economic equilibrium, even if it means the immiseration of its people. Italy is arguably a success story already because the price demanded by borrowers for its bonds is now around 4% long term, partly as a result of the ECB promising to “do whatever it takes” to support the euro. So, little old Ireland, with 2% of the EuroZone’s population and total economy, looks a little tragic on the periphery claiming Europe needs us to be successful.
We saved Europe, so where is the quid pro quo. Did we really save the EuroZone, because we didn’t allow any of our banks go bust which might have had a negative contagion effect throughout Europe? Or did we, contrary to the wishes of most of our partners in Europe, provide a comprehensive guarantee to our banks, and did some of us not even crow about the guarantee, trying to tempt depositors in other partner states to transfer their cash to us? And even if we did save Europe, what class of eejits were we not to get commitments up front? And having repaid most of the bondholders in banks, even unsecured ones in the zombiest of banks, now, NOW we want our reward. This scale of naivete is breath-taking.
The Coalition will collapse if we don’t get a deal. And the implication is that the subsequent political turmoil will jettison us back to massive deficits, will lead to a breach of the bailout terms and may even lead to a messy default. Think about that for a moment. In fact here’s some photographic diversion to help you.
If Europe couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the political turmoil in Greece, the riots, the knife-edge votes in parliament, the austerity, the suicide in front of the parliament building, murdered policemen, strikes and four prime ministers in as many years, then on what planet does this Government think our partners will be concerned about transition from one centrist government to another. In any event, despite the broken election promises and the savage budgets, Fine Gael is still tops in the polls with 26-28%. FG. FF and Labour command over 60% in the opinion polls and even if Sinn Fein or the non-so-united Left or Independents came into power, would our partners be all that concerned? After all, they stood by as a rabidly neo-Nazi party took a grip on Greek politics.
NAMA Wine Lake 
Reblogged this on Tomás Ó Flatharta and commented:
Plenty of interesting ideas here for fighting left – the current Kenny-Gilmore Government might not be as stable as it appears, despite its bloated parliamentary majority.
It will matter if and when Direct Democracy Ireland rises out of the quagmire that is Irish Politics as the only viable alternative to the Status Quo.
German and Irish media reporting on P Note ‘negotiations’ to date differ : some Irish media leads one to believe that progress can potentially be made:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0204/366067-ecb-promissory-note/
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2013/0204/breaking15.html
Merkel political allies may be gradually becoming less hostile to the idea; the ECB decides. In the daily Business Post, Cliff Taylor picks apart ‘that’ Draghi letter:
http://www.businesspost.ie/#!story/Home/News/COMMENT%3A+Draghi's+letter+unspun/id/19410615-5218-510f-c202-1cc968122448
But ECB attitude is negative in Handelsblatt: http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/konjunktur/nachrichten/appell-an-die-ezb-irland-braucht-dringend-mehr-zeit-fuer-kredit-tilgung-/7694052.html
[ECB ‘sources’: We don’t want to make a precedent; Comments after the article are derisory re any potential request on the matter]
great article in yesterdays SBP by Conall MacCoille. A significant point missed is why have the ‘Pee’ Notes in the 1st place, let rudimentary capitalist rules apply on the way south as they applied on the way up.
@NWL
The only real ‘negotiating’ tool we have left (if such a thing ever really existed) is to threaten to leave the Eurozone. This was the only card we could have played 4+ years ago and it still remains the only one we can really play today. All other arguments come to nought. A complete waste of time and energy.
We threaten to leave the Eurozone and by implication the EU (although I’m not entirely sure on this one) and importantly put a date on it then Draghi et al would soon listen. Until that time and date comes this is all meaningless drivel. We simply can’t pay these debts – end of.
I fully appreciate that this is not the most sophisticated argument but it’s the only one that will likely deliver. Draghi gave an interview shortly after the 29th June summit to Reuters where he clearly stated, in fact he was crystal clear when he noted that writing down or writing off sovereign debt will be viewed as a form of monetary financing and monetary financing is not something the ECB does or is ever likely to do under its current treaties.
In the absence of a legal out clause the ECB is constrained no matter who or what we believe or read. Ireland Inc. is not so constrained we do have an out clause – arrange to leave the Euro and let it be known. When that flag goes up the legal constraints within Europe will probably be eased or broken or both. Simples.
That is about the size of it. Default, Depart, Devalue. Then we may have a fighting chance. But being hamstrung in our finances and Europe expecting us to shoulder the burden second only to Germany is not sustainable. Control a nation by the sword or by debt. And when they have you in debt, sometimes a bit of swordwork is the only answer. At the risk of beating the nationalist drum this is pathetic Easter Centenary we are approaching.
Absolutely right ! The reality was that Cowan and Lenihan failed to stare the ECB in the eyes 4 years or more ago and say ” We leave the Eurozone” unless YOU (EU/ECB) do something to clean up the mess that the ECB was partly , or largly responsible for ie not managing the Banks in Ireland with regard to reckless borrowing from German and French Banks on an overnite basis to lend for 40 years on 100% property deals .
This is the last and only card to play – indeed it was probably always this way from 2008 onwards.Whilst the EU/ECB may not want a “success story” from PIIGS they sure as hell do not want a “disaster” and that is what we must become ! However I doubt if Kenny , Noonan , Gilmore et al want to “ruin” thier own future positions in the EU/ECB that they covet when they jump ship prior to the election of 2016 ( assuming we do not have one beforehand which , for my money , we will !
Some success story? If you don’t allow us to spin this out for another 30 years we won’t be able to pass on the debts to our grand children and you won’t be able to tout us any longer as the best boys and girls in the “Austerity” class or if you don’t give us a deal we will fail and you will have to give us another bailout from ESM (which they will be getting regardless). All Noonan’s talk about requiring a second bailout being “ludicrous” and now this nonsense.
In view of David Hall’s case last week, challenging the legality of how these PN’s came into being, and the fact that the case will likely be brought again by a TD’s deemed to have the appropriate locus standi, nothing should be paid out on PN’s. They could be deemed to be unconstitutional and all payments made could be ordered to be returned. Though according to Karl Whelan the money will have been burnt by now. Oh! what a tangled web we weave. However it could be an illegal tangled web.
By the way, why had Mr. Hall not got got the right to bring the case are the judges telling us now that whether or not the constitution is broken is a matter for the 166 TD’s in Dail Eireann and iis something the ordinary person need no longer concern himself with?
@Robert, David Hall’s appeal to the Supreme Court is listed for mention Thursday 7th February, 2013. The betting is that it will get an expedited appeal. Many people disagree with Judge Kearns’s judgment that a citizen does NOT have the right to challenge a spending decision by the duly elected Dail. Let’s see what the Supreme Court says.
The known illegality of the banks as tax avoidance facilitators (Switzerland) drug-money launderers )Everywhere) and LIBOR rate fixers (Barclays et al) shows that there is a reasonable basis for assuming that the current financial crisis was planned. Means, motive, opportunity and “who benefits” all point to the Banks.
All that has followed on may merely be pandering to financial institutions in a form of blackmail, where they threaten that the system will collapse if they are not looked after.
I suspect there are a few skeletons in closets of key players that are threatened with exposure if they do not play ball.
So much for the illusion of Freedom in a world ruled by war-mongers in the net of the City of London, Wall St and Washington.
A deal that replaces notes with bonds simply pushes the senseless burning of Irish taxpayers onto another generation. Instead, a full write off must be sought and secured on the grounds that the cost of the bailout of Anglo should not be foisted on blameless Irish taxpayers,
Such a write off is entirely within the gift of EU central bankers and, while it might result in a temporary loss of face, no loss of cash would be incurred. In fact, the full €30 billion will be effectively written off irrespective as to whether notes are paid or not.
Burning €30 bn of taxpayers money for no payback whatsoever makes no sense and is extortion given that the State is bankrupt. The Government should stop spinning and whining about unfairness. Instead, it should start playing hardball and show far more backbone even at this late stage.
What exactly would the ECB do if the PNs are not paid? Pull the rug from under the Irish economy and by extension the euro, or just make the “best boy in the class” sit on the bold step for a while.
@Brian, so you would be advocating the “we saved Europe so where is the quid pro quo” argument?
The ECB will say that (a) any writeoff means that dreadful expression “monetary financing” or printing new euros for the benefit of EuroZone governments, and the ECB doesn’t do that under its founding articles and (b) if Ireland gets “monetary financing”, they’ll all be looking for it.
@NWL. Yes “we saved Europe” could be a small part of the argument but more to the point I cannot see how Ireland will ever get out of its current economic mess without a dramatic reduction in soverign debt AND a reduction in the Exchequer deficit. In simple terms, a write off of the PNs would address the former and CPA Mk2 would help address the latter.
If I recall correctly, the Governor of CBI said in an interview some months ago that a majority of the board of ECB would need to agree to a write down of the PNs for Ireland. If this is the case, then we are down to quasi-political decision. As regards other people looking for similar treatment, the PNs are a legacy issue and were created in another era and therefore the issue of replication does not arise.
What you are suggesting is totally unrealistic. In my opinion, the ECB would sooner see Ireland leave the Eurozone than print €30+ billion and hand it over to the Irish government.
It has already printed the €30 billion. The intention would be to unprint it, so to speak.
@Brian, you raise a fair fourth soft argument about debt sustainability and deficit. But last year, in 2012, according to Minister Noonan our Masstricht and Troika deficit:GDP was less than 8%. The Autumn 2012 EC forecast for Spain was for an 8% deficit. On the deficit front, we’re better than Spain!
As regards debt:GDP we are on a par with Portugal and Italy at 120% and of course far better than Greece with 186%. That’s the gross debt which excludes certain assets and cash balances, and we are better than Portugal and Italy on a net debt:GDP basis.
Of course, in Ireland because of the distorting effect of large multinationals, exceptionally in the main EZ countries, GNP is a better measure of our output and economy than GDP and we are close to 150% on that.
But if the EZ allows Greece to flounder with 186% and is easy about Portugal and Italy at 120%, do we really think we can convince them that our debt is unsustainable. And anyway debt sustainability is a grey area. If we agree to be indebted for generations and to sacrifice decent living standards, we can probably shoulder a 150% debt:GDP.
@NWL “If we agree to be indebted for generations and to sacrifice decent living standards, we can probably shoulder a 150% debt:GDP.”
Begs the question as to why we should should this entire load when about one-third was linked to paying mainly German, French, US and UK bondholders etc.via the PNs. I accept we should take responsibility for the other two-thirds or so.
“should shoulder“
@ namawinelake
Whose money is it then? I have always wondered about NAMA being put through the Dail as a non Money Bill when it was dealing with 72bn of loans?
I heard Ross McGuire say on radio to Pat Kenny the morning live from the Four Courts, that if you took this to its logical conclusion they, the Dail could stand down the Constitutiona and Judicary if they wanted to? I did not hear that point expanded further but I would have liked to.
The best threat I see is for Ireland to go all out no holds barred Cayman. Find 70 billionaires who will pay us a one off 1 billion each for total no holds barred HSBC money laundering Barclays LIBOR Anglo reckless style banking. That’s the card we play. We pay the debt off, job done. I want 1%.
In reply to Yields or Bust comment below,
“We threaten to leave the Eurozone and by implication the EU (although I’m not entirely sure on this one) and importantly put a date on it then Draghi et al would soon listen. Until that time and date comes this is all meaningless drivel. We simply can’t pay these debts – end of.”
I believe you have spoken for the whole country with this paragraph.
The talking must stop right now. It’s time for this spineless, treacherous,
acquiescent excuse of a Government to start asserting themselves in Europe with the same vigour that they are hounding the Irish people into paying the illegal property tax.
Brilliant article Namawinelake, take a bow.
So, “We saved Europe”? And the euro-wide train wreck, including DEPFA/Hypo Real Estate, Ulster and BOSI billions had nothing to do with our insane financial regulatory regime and our insane property bubble which we pumped to the max to make ourselves billionaires? Sorry mate, that’s not how its seen outside fairyland. They are re-winding the monetary tape and the billions are going back where they came from while the Irish taxpayer learns what a hard currency regime is really all about. We are in a worse position than seeking simple debt forgiveness: we need someone insane/stupid enough to embrace our colossal liabilities. Fat chance.
@PTMIW
I’d much prefer that you desist from using the Royal ‘we’ in your argument – I know nobody in my family at least, who ever stepped inside the halls of Anglo,Depfa,Hypo or BOSI for that matter. You see that’s the problem we’ve (ooops ! now you have me at it) engineered a ‘solution’ here for the benefit of the few to screw the many for generations. Eh.. no thanks, count me out, I’d much prefer a departing ticket away from the Euro, and after that I’d take my chances.
@ Yields or Bust,
Now that is hilarious…………..
In your post at 6:21 you used “We” many times…
1st para = “We” is used 3 times.
2nd Para = “We” is used 2 times.
3rd Para = You did very well here, the Royal “We” is not used at all.
4th Para = “We” is used twice.
@ PTMIW,
In future please substitute “We” for one of the following…
Inhabitants of the 26 counties,
Inhabitants of the free state,
People of S. Ireland.
Us,
Those unfortunate people who live between the UK and Canada
Perhaps use coordinates for Ireland’s global position, latitude + longitude etc instead of “We”
But what ever you do, no matter how bad the food situation, the austerity, unemployment, the financial war or the weather…. do not under any circumstances mention the “We”..
Got it……………..???
The losses cannot be sustained without a write-off of the country’s debt. Period. And unfortunately we are not going to get it. That means we either take it by saying “No” or we enter a multi generational period of unimaginable hardship and penury. The other alternative is to take your family and leave. That’s it, because there are still further undeclared losses in the wings. Nama will lose at least €10 billion and the “pillar” banks another €10 billion as they shrink their balance sheets and make provision for the mortgage losses. IBRC is hoarding approximately €5 billion in losses on loans that were not transferred.
Unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse, not better. As a nation, we are insolvent
With a lazy comment, no back up, can I forecast that the ECB will be requiring private Government bond holders to take write downs in a similar fashion to what the Greeks accepted? before any promisort notes are forgiven?
We, and I say we in the pjorative sense!, as a country fail to objectively assess our own position vs our European colleagues. We have a standard of living above the EU average in salaries/income, the examples of wage inflation oer the tiger period are quickly dismissed because of Irish cost of living, this is a childish argument as the belief that European leaders see Irsih austerity as anymore than the winging of spoilt, unproductive, unempatheitc, tax thieves! Greece was alot less well off than us before many of their austerity measures were implemented. Do we really think we are due some sort of ‘rebate’ when we remain so well paid with a gold plated social welfare net and utopian public pensions ? I think we are collectively in for a rather large shock and I really unsympathetic, we dug our own hole and now its everybody elses fault
What about a sovereign debt default within the euro? Obviously that would require a balanced budget , but lets pretend. Almost certainly the PNs will be repaid but what’s to stop a future government effective declaring bankruptcy and reneging on a portion of the government debt ?
@NWL
I totally agree that the threat of “you will destabilize our government” is stupid.
Nice move Gilmore.
The Idea that the ECB would care is ridiculous.
The best argument is still that the debts should not have been imposed on the Irish citizens in the first place, and that a large part of the reason for this was down to ECB pressure.
I think Brian Lucey and Peter Matthews have a point when they say, ‘if we refuse to burn the 3 billion each year what actual punishment could they impose on us?’
If the answer is they could stop lending and remove liquidity then I don’t think its realistic. They would be damaging their beloved banks and they wont do that.
I know the guarantee showed that major risks can backfire but that doesn’t mean you should never take them.
A lot of very respected non Irish commentators have made the point that the debt is odious and unfair. If we don’t get a deal on the debt we should just take one.
Remember all we are asking is that the money that was printed to save the European banks be allowed to stay in circulation. This is something the US and UK have been doing consistently for the last 5 years without batting an eyelid. Why should a country become bankrupt because one of its major partners has an irrational fear of inflation from 90 years ago and has decided to impose 44% of a banking crisis on 1% of the population?
Right is on our side here. We are not being forceful enough about that.
@Eamonn
‘Right is on our side’ – indeed, we thought we were cute in raising the bank guarantee only for that to spectacularly backfire. The ECB is not looking for a deal, we are, the troika is ‘listening’ to our case, but to their ears our self pandering and political expedience must be repugnant. Our shame knows no boundaries, if we are to repudiate the laws of international commerce and default on payments then why not take a step sideways into private property and retrospectively, by emergency legislation, back tax all those that sold property and achieved prices above the current moving hosue price/commercial property average. Tax them on a sliding scale based on the premium they received above todays prices, use this money to pay back the national debt and move on.
NWL gores the sacred cows of sophistry. My two sense is that Ireland should repudiate its debt and sue for a currency union with the United Kingdom.
@ Rich
The majority of property speculation profits were reinvested into grander schemes. Eventually it all went boom. Some people made money and got out, but this was a small minority.
Other than the ill fated bank guarantee can you think of any other way that it would have been possible to “save our banks at all costs” as we tried to do in 2008?
I still cant think of anything.
Not coming up with that idea would have led to us disobeying the direct request of the president of the ECB.
In hindsight a lack of imagination probably would have served us well but it also may have had disastrous consequences for Europe.
I take your point that its hard to demand forgiveness when many are still being paid so well in our public sector but I don’t think we are asking for any favors. i think we are asking for fair-play.
Its about time we started demanding it before its too late.
The Irish have a great record in demanding fair-play and human rights for others. We should for once demand it for ourselves.
The “universal” guarantee was the solo run of a few “cute hoor” bar-stool media-centric economic advisors and gullible politicians who thought that it was a great idea. It was not done to save the european banks. It was a stroke to take the deposits from the UK and european banks and transfer them to the insolvent Irish ones. The rest of our european “partners” were horrified at the move, when we told them after the event. Re-writing history and saying we took one for the team just makes us look bigger eejits than we already are. As far as the rest of Europe is concerned it’s a case of “Fool me once…”
We need to cop ourselves on. No-one is going to take possession of this debt for us. We need to act in the same way we did earlier – unilaterally, just as the Icelanders did. Only this time it would be effective and for the right reasons.
In this article of today; it seems that the ECB may look at re-structuring but are not considering haircuts.
http://www.boerse-express.com/pagesfoonds/24222
Karl Whelan says he reserves judgement until he sees it but that it doesn’t look like much of a deal for ireland.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-06/ecb-said-to-be-ready-to-hear-new-honohan-pitch-on-anglo-irish.html
@Dorothy, thanks, the seating arrangements for the usual ECB informal dinner this evening, will be interesting!
I see Philip Lane is claiming to Bloomberg “There are many ways to come up with something” but with the two pre-conditions of no monetary financing and “similar cases will be treated equally”, it’s not clear what those “many ways” might be.
The ECB press conference should be interesting tomorrow. Let’s hope at least one Irish media company opens the wallet to fund a presence at it.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/europas-schuldenkrise/irlands-notenbankchef-honohan-wir-brauchen-mehr-zeit-11986051.html
@nwl; yes…tables…Honohan ‘tabled’ the issue in FAZ in Dezember [above]where he said that the issue was complex but achievable. He has a backbone.
IF THERE was ever a movie made of the Irish banking crisis, Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan quips that Woody Allen would be the best person to play him…. [IT Fri 04 Apr 2011: ‘In the spotlight while bearing the stress of Ireland’s banks on his shoulders’]
In transit tomorrow so will be interesting to see the spin/reporting as it appears in the Irish and German press. Two parallel universes when it comes to reporting on this one!
We need to dig our heels in on this one, this is an Odious Debt, defined in UN Law as not requiring payment, we did not run up the debt, the people do not want it and any TD who supports payment will be destroyed in the next Election. Even at this late date I would call in the Government to put this matter to a referendum, the people will not screw themselves!
@Awaken the Minister requested a permission slip to extend the ELG until end of ’13,was granted a six month extension-link above-that pretty much ties you to paying on time in full the PN’s.
The CB ‘holding’ the bond is somehow NOT monetary financing-need look at DJ’s linked piece and the Bloomberg one in more detail.
PN’s are like pi**ing in bed,feels good at first but then leaves a mess,you have an incontinent govt. that is pi**ing all over its citizens by extending the ELG.
Pacta sunt servanda -and all that.
“The extension announced today applies to all eligible liabilities covered under the existing ELG scheme, including both short term and long term bank liabilities.”
Click to access infonotedec2012.pdf
Stop extending ELG,close that toxic dump IRBC yesterday-its a ongoing contingent liability.
@Dorothy,just finished watching the new revised ‘Prime Time’,Sinn was great.
Read the latest ‘news’ from Bloomberg,bit of a head scratcher,VB has great piece in todays IT,comments are worth reading.But i disagree with him on one key aspect,the current minister extended the act-did not have too-as Nancy Regan used say…JUST SAY NO !
http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=7472
@jg….Some German commentary at the moment goes something like this; [sic]”if Ireland took the loan out in the knowledge that the interest would be unsustainable; it amounts to pre-planned fraud”. Well, the conditions under whichIreland ‘taking the loan out’ at that time remains unclear as @nwl has written about.
[Caveat Emptior with Hans werner Sinn. He seemed not for debt-forgiveness previously; but in 2011 he responded by mail to a query in German where he
contemplates that a debt-forgiveness scenario might have to be considered]
Merkel allies are coming around to the idea; and Steinbruck [opposition] is being very vocal in German financial media about extending times. Steinbruck is currently gigging in Dublin with that shower in power, who in their wisdom have leased 74 new Audi A6’s to ferry EU visitors through the city for the duration of the Irish EU presdency…..
@DJ your input from the German perspective is greatly appreciated-just hit translate for anyone not fluent-Sinn’s view may not be appreciated by everyone but-i did not think he had changed his position on debt forgiveness,just greenlighted burning bondholders,not in favor of German taxpayers bailing out Anglo-cant disagree with that.
Regarding taking out loans for insolvent banks-thats an excellent question….why did the Irish govt. fund a bust/broke/insolvent bank…oh yeah they had guaranteed it !
They boxed themselves into a corner and are now looking for a scapegoat.
But if i am not mistaken,Anglo’s collateral was such garbage than no one would accept it,hence the PN’s.
Yeah i think there was a fraud element or at the very least gross negligence by a number of Irish parties.
Not a big ‘Audi” fan as someone said ..oh i almost bought a nice car but got an Audi instead-they had some ‘acceleration’ issues over here-non existent market share.
@DJ
Sinn seemed on Irish TV last night to favour some type of debt writedowns for bonds but it was not clear whether he would support non-payment of the PNs.
I wonder whether he would support the petition, led by Fintan O’Toole, about the PNs at http://www.ourcountry.ie/ or would that be a writedown too far?
Gosh @BF I don’t know; there are plenty of informed opinions on HWS articles on irisheconomy.ie
HWS last November to Spiegel; English version:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/economist-sinn-warns-against-current-euro-crisis-course-a-868005.html
@DJ informed opinions on ie-any links or say examples of one :)