Wednesday 16 September 2009

A lucid account of NAMA

Slí Eile: Details of the NAMA arrangement are still sketchy. In a post on irisheconomy Karl Whelan has provided a very clear and concise overview of some basic facts in six sentences here. Worth reading.

2 comments:

Slí Eile said...

What's good for AIB is good for Ireland? I see AIB share prices were up by 26% at 6pm US ET time in the New York stock exchange
http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/aib.html
Wonder what will happen in Dublin tomorrow?

Proposition Joe said...

Lucidity is the one thing that's been missing from the political input to this debate.

Lenihan's performance on Morning Ireland this morning was so full of basic errors that one must conclude he was striving to spread misinformation.

His more bizarre utteranes included claims that:

- the banks' share prices are now at an all-time low (eh, hello, Minister, AIB shares have appreciated by 1000% since the real all-time low last March, just before you revealed your grand NAMA plan)

- the banks' share prices are now at 10% of face value (eh, since when does the peak value of a stock during a bubble equate to its "face value")

Then we have the continuing fiction that the ECB is stumping up the cash at a low, low not-to-be-missed interest rate. Shure we're only issuing a few auld IOUs but the ECB is putting up the real money. So don't forget to vote yes to Lisbon.

Or best of all, Noel Whelan (the crypto-FF pundit) claiming on Drivetime yesterday that we're not actually ponying up anything, rather its more a case of "going guarantor" for the banks' debt, much as one would do for an errant son who returned from his gap year abroad with his credit card seriously in the red.

The problem is that mainstream journalists are just not equiped, either by training or temperament, to knock down these obvious falsehoods when they arise. And so the pro-NAMA chorus are succeeding in spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt in the populace and this FUD will act as the smokescreen to allow a massive scam to sneak past.