Cutting Ireland’s Rating

by Reggie Middleton
So, S&P finally gets around to Cutting Ireland’s Rating on the Cost of Bank Support, as reported by CNBC:
Ireland’s financial headache worsened on Wednesday after Standard & Poor’s cut its credit rating in a move criticized by the country’s debt management agency.
The premium investors demand to hold Ireland’s 10-year bonds over German bunds has been steadily widening in the past few weeks and remained elevated at 327 basis points on Wednesday.
The spread finished at 330 bps on Tuesday, its highest level since the Greek financial crisis broke in May.
Brenda Kelly, an analyst at CMC Markets, said she expected Irish borrowing costs to climb on the back of S&P’s move.
“I think we are going to have to an awful lot more in interest payments,” she said.
Although Ireland has raised virtually all of the 20 billion euros of long-term debt targeted for 2010, S&P’s move may make it more difficult for the country’s banks to extend the maturity of their funding later this year and eventually wean themselves off a state guarantee on their debt.
S&P cut Ireland’s long-term rating by one notch to ‘AA-’, the fourth highest investment grade, and assigned the country a negative outlook late on Tuesday saying the cost to the government of supporting the financial sector had increased significantly.
Rating agencies have been steadily hacking away at Ireland’s credit rating and S&P’s is now on a par with Fitch and one notch below Moody’s, which cut its rating to Aa2 last month.
S&P said it expects Ireland will need to spend 90 billion euros to support its banking system, up from its prior estimate of 80 billion euros including capital used to improve the solvency of financial institutions and losses taken from loans the government acquired from banks.
Ireland’s budget deficit ballooned to 14 percent of gross domestic product, the highest in Europe, last year due to the cost of propping up nationalized lender Anglo Irish ANGIB.UL and it could climb higher if Dublin injects an additional 10.05 billion euros into the bank…
I’m not going to say I told you so, but I did throw some pretty strong hints…
On April 29th, I was quite blatant in stating “Beware of the Potential Irish Ponzi Scheme!”, urging my susbscribers to review the Irish Bank Strategy Note and the Ireland public finances projections that I made available earlier that month. You see, unlike many of the pundits in Europe who state that Ireland has moved beyond the worst of its problems and is an example of how austerity should work, I believe that Ireland is in very, very big trouble and I outlined the reasoning behind such in my very first posts on the Pan-European Sovereign Debt Crisis.

At the very beginning of the year, I visually illustrated how bad off Ireland was, with considerably more that 6% of its GDP being mired in bank NPAs (non-performing assets). This number is quite conservative, for my research team only canvassed the larger banks in Ireland – you can rest assured that the smaller ones contain a similar (if not greater) proportion of NPAs to total assets. Add to this the fact that these banks are probably overstating assets and understating liabilities and you can probably throw another 150 basis points on top of the figures above and still be a tad bit conservative.
As a matter of fact, I went further into the topic in mid-April with Many Institutions Believe Ireland To Be A Model of Austerity Implementation But the Facts Beg to Differ! where I showed that Ireland is heavily leveraged into the problems of the PIIGS group faced. A picture (and/or graph is worth a thousand words! From the afore-linked post…
So if Ireland is really that bad off, what’s up with that tall stalk next to it in the bank NPA chart at the beginning of the post? Oh, those are the guys (and gals) who lent Ireland all of that money, and Ireland’s issues are probably a significant portion of those NPAs you see towering over that of Ireland. I am not picking on Ireland and the UK, for much of Europe suffers from similar anathema,.
It is not as if no one could see the Euro-bank issues coming. In January of 2009, I explained to readers that the real estate bust in Spain could not be avoided by the banks and there will be a time when the piper comes a callin’ This, of course, will be subsidized by the Spanish state,. This didn’t just start with Greece,
So what does it all mean?
Well, from my point of view, things rarely happen in a vacuum. Many European nations are over leveraged, overbanked, highly indebted, social powder kegs literally and economically sitting right next to each other. Lord forbid someone inadvertently lights a match! Whether that match is of financial or economic origin a very unpleasant domino effect will ensure.

Reggie’s analyzes is spot on and a must read for all serious citizens who want to get the real facts on our countries financial situation and not the spin coming from an increasingly out of touch government

Should the transfer of Anglo’s remaining NAMA tranches be put on hold ?

from source http://namawinelake.wordpress.com/author/namawinelake/

Should the transfer of Anglo’s remaining NAMA tranches be put on hold pending clarification of Anglo’s total costs?
namawinelake | August 27, 2010 at 10:15 am
Anglo has transferred a cumulative total of €16bn of its NAMA-bound loans in tranches 1 and 2, leaving an estimated €20bn in its remaining tranches if the estimates in NAMA’s revised Business Plan and accompanying tranche 2 detail are correct (what introduces some doubt is the claim two weeks ago by the Anglo CEO Mike Aynsley that €2-4bn of NAMA-bound loans in the UK and US may be “reclassified” in agreement with NAMA).
If tranches 1 and 2 are anything to go by, NAMA will in future pay Anglo a Long Term Economic Value (LEV) premium of 10-12% of the current market value of the loans. So if €20bn is still valid as the face value of the remaining Anglo loans and they have a current market value of 45% of their face value, then NAMA will be paying €0.9-1.1bn above the current market value of the loans. That is a substantial sum of money to be gifting a bank whose future is being debated as we speak at the EU with a European preliminary view on the future of Anglo due in weeks.
The perpetual murmurs of disquiet about Anglo have grown substantially in volume this week. Standard and Poor’s downgrade of Ireland’s credit rating was predicated in part on their assessment of the increased cost of bailing out Anglo at €35bn. Last week in Beijing the Governor of the Central Bank broke the news that “Anglo may impose a NET [my emphasis] cost to the Government of about €22-€25 billion”. A net cost of course could be a gross cost of €35bn with €10bn recouped over time (eg through sale of a government stake in Anglo’s Newbank, redemption of NAMA bonds at face value rather than the accounting value which might assume a large discount). Trinity College economics professor Constantin Gurdgiev repeated his view that Anglo could incur losses of “€33bn in mid-range case, rising to €38.6bn in the worst case scenario”. It is not clear if these losses equate to a net cost to the State as there may already be provisions for these losses and Anglo has a (small) capital base. Today in the Irish Times, former Ulster Bank chief economist Pat McArdle suggests that, in an attempt to improve Ireland’s credit rating “we could try to give greater certainty regarding the Anglo bailout cost, possibly by postponing all other transfers to Nama until Anglo is taken care of.” Other calls this week came from the domestic politics (FG’s Finance spokesman, Michael Noonan calling for a debate at balance sheet level to assess the different options for Anglo) and the Financial Times editorial which today says “it is time to staunch the bleeding. As Irish state guarantees near their expiry date, some banks will not be able to refinance their balances. The government should prepare insolvent banks for forced debt-for-equity swaps, which would instantly recapitalise the banks in question and cap the government’s exposure”. This blog has expressed concerns about the non-NAMA losses at Anglo and whether these are being realistically assessed at present.
Last weekend NAMA paid Anglo a LEV premium of €270m on its latest tranche of loans, a considerable gifted sum in normal times but small in comparison with the expected €1bn of LEV premiums on the remainder of Anglo’s NAMA loan book. Has the tipping point now come whereby Anglo’s future is consensually decided (consensus impedes speed of action but the sums involved have grown to state of war proportions for the Irish state)? And until Anglo’s costs are clarified, should NAMA put the transfer of future loans on hold as these future transfers will involve the State paying substantial sums in excess of the true value of the loans.

Comment:

We did not have to wait for the past 18 months to expire to suddenly find out that NAMA was going to end up paying way over the odds for the various toxic assets from the Banks, never mind the Crap it was getting from ANGLO IRISH BANK
The simple fact is that from the start we the ordinary Joe soaps could smell that a sweetheart deal has been done by the Fianna Fail Government with the establishment of what is now openly been acknowledged as the largest bail out in Irish corporate history and all for the benefit for the golden circle, the chosen few, the cronies and leaches and hangers-on of the Fianna Fail party

This is now seen as a fraudulent transfer of wealth from the citizens of Ireland to a group of irresponsible gamblers, with the help of economic traitors within the government and a totally incompetent regulatory authority that at this stage one must ask if it was designed to be so, in order to facilitate this fraud in the first place !

It is the duty of every citizen to make sure that the next tranche 3 of toxic loans from Anglo-Irish Bank should not take place and indeed an independent international enquire should be set up to investigate exactly who were the beneficiaries of the billions that have already gone into this toxic Toilet, who was responsible for the approval ludicrous high valuations put on these worthless toxic assets and whether there was a conflict of interest at any level
The Fraudulent actions of Government ministers to be exposed and all individuals brought before the courts and jailed on convictions, no golden handshakes or beefed up pensions to be paid out to any individuals found to have felicitated in the cover-up of fraudulent actions or helped to hide relevant information that would have expose this monstrous fraud on the Irish taxpayers
This continued drip ,drip feed of lies must be stopped and the truth must be put before the people
In the form of a general election or a referendum on the issue
I call on all the opposition parties to declare that they will not honour any of the fraudulent guarantees given to the international bondholders by way of an extended government guarantee given in the first place without the consent of the Irish people
I dispute the authority of any government to place me and the hundreds of thousands of its citizens into a kind of financial enslavement to corrupt financial institutions that then are enabled to legally rob me of my family home, my savings, and my prosperity as a consequence of their corrupt practices.
As a result of the establishment of NAMA the countries financial institutions have effectively sucked dry the financial resources of the country for the next generation.
Thus robbing me and the majority of the countries citizens the necessary means to independently provide for their family’s and so forcing families to become dependent on the state for handouts
These actions are a clear breach of the rights guaranteed to every citizen of Ireland by the Irish constitution (see PDF Here Constitution of Ireland) and so renders the establishment of NAMA illegal without first haven put it to a referendum to the citizens of Ireland
Please stand up for our constitutional rights , get active and  put an end to this  madness

Cowen and his Lies exposed again!

They say that a picture paints a thousand words so I gusset this picture will help shut off the lies that the government and their spin doctors are churning out to the Irish public
Turning corners what corners?

New reserve currency

This is big trouble for the USA
WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators on Friday shut down a Nevada bank, raising to 83 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.
The 83 closures so far this year is more than double the pace set in all of 2009, which was itself a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 40 banks. The pace has accelerated as banks’ losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Nevada Security Bank, based in Reno, with $480.3 million in assets and $479.8 million in deposits. Umpqua Bank, based in Roseburg, Ore., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the failed bank.
New reserve currency
We in Ireland are still bailing out bankrupt banks at the cost billions we don’t have causing economic depression for this and the next generation!
With 52 thousand students coming out of our universities and no jobs to go to
alone along with 100,000 people all ready left the country ,and another 53 thousand students leaving secondary education this year
How many of them are going into apprenticeships, jobs or is it emigration for the majority for them
The Unelected Cowen and his band of economic terrorists are helping the top bankers of the state live it up while the rest of us struggle to pay our monthly bills
I say let the bankrupt banks pay their own bills and allow them to fail, just like the Americans are doing in the land of Free markets
Allowing the crooks in the Dail to plunder our natural resources and the wealth of future generations is a crime I personally do not want to be responsible for, when our children ask what you did to prevent it I can show I was active in my opposition and I made a stand
What can you say you did??
It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to oppose this band of thieves we must stand up and take action
Do not just stand by and allow our country to be destroyed by the current government who have sold out to the faceless bondholders in Germany , France and England
Stand up and Fight back now!
Put yourself up for election do not give you vote to any of the current TD’s
We need new blood in the Dail and not Family dynasties
We want a general election now and we need a new community party made up of new local people from ordinary backgrounds that will work for an average wage and not clock up huge self given perks, ending up as millionaires while the rest of us struggle to pay for these perks & pensions
We need real servants of the people and not leach’s sucking the rest of us dry like some of the current shower of TD’s are doing
The next general election must end Gombeenisem for good.
Promise yourself this and we just might save Ireland!

The Markets do not believe you Mr.Cowen

 

Bank of Ireland [IRE  3.61    -0.14  (-3.73%)   ]
: Stay away from IRE, Cramer said. He
likened it to
National Bank of Greece [NBG  2.23    -0.03  (-1.33%)   ]
and
Allied Irish Bank [AIB  2.17    -0.06  (-2.69%)   ]
and said all of them “bad banks” that need
to reconstitute their balance sheets, “which means potential dilution for shareholders.”

 

Latest news is that Cramer is not a fan of any of the Irish Banks.

Bank of Ireland (IRE) and the Allied Irish Banks (AIB)

According to Cramer the Irish banks are like the National Bank of Greece so much for turning corners

Allowing Gangsters run Banks is one thing but allowing Gangsters to run a country is just unforgivable

Cowen and Lenihan must go!

Preliminary Report Into Ireland’s Banking Crisis 31 May 2010

After reading the Preliminary Report into Ireland’s Banking Crisis one can only come to the conclusion that Cowen and Lenihan are Guilty of “Gross Incompetence and Dereliction of Duty”
And should resign immediately and be brought before the courts
on charges of economic treason !

Preliminary Report Into Ireland’s Banking Crisis 31 May 2010

Closure of libraries in two schools in Co. Wicklow

 

Labour TD Liz McManus,

has warned of the serious affects that the closure of libraries in two schools in Co. Wicklow may have.

The two schools that are under threat of having their libraries closed down by the Government are St. Kilian’s Community College in Bray and the Abbey Community College in Wicklow Town.

“I am deeply shocked at the news that the libraries in these two schools

will have to close because of the moratorium on recruiting librarians”,

said Deputy Liz McManus. “The Demonstration Library Projects were set up

in 22 schools around the country to ensure that young people are able to

read and to encourage a love of reading. They provide students with a

welcoming and safe environment where they can read, do homework, or prepare

for exams.

“An estimated €9m was spent on building and stocking these libraries and I

understand that €1m would keep the service going. This is a modest amount

of money for a significant return. These libraries operate in schools that

are located in disadvantaged areas and are specifically aimed at students

who are the most likely to leave school without formal education.

“The school library service has been tried and trust and has delivered for

many young people. Now it is being destroyed by this Fianna Fail

Government who are hell bent in creating economic havoc. They expect us to

shore up the banks while at the same time they are undermining the

potential of our young students attending 2nd-level schools.

“I am calling on Dick Roche as the only Government Minister in Co. Wicklow

to condemn this measure. It is quite clear that where there is strong

opposition in Fianna Fail that they are able to alter Government policy.

While Fianna Fail Deputies are arguing about stag hunting, there isn’t a

whimper about the loss of library services. It is time to stand up and be

counted. Pulling the plug at this stage is tantamount to educational

vandalism”, concluded Deputy McManus.

… ends …

Liz McManus 087-2357369