After all the cuts and hard work, why just waste the money?

Am I the only one who finds it sad that the country goes through so much pain and fighting to save €3bill, and then they go and hand another €2bill to Anglo?

Whats the point?

Its an investment, systemic importance!


Also, that's 3 bill annually, so just another year of pain and we'll be back to square one.

The point is that if they don't do it, the cost of closing down Anglo will be even more, or so the Govt believes

Maybe if the government didn't nationalise Anglo, or provide the bank guarantee in the first place, then it wouldn't be costing us anything.

The government are to blame for this Anglo debt because they nationalised Ango. We are paying for it. Follow where our €2billion ends up...

umop3p!sdn said:

Maybe if the government didn't nationalise Anglo, or provide the bank guarantee in the first place, then it wouldn't be costing us anything.

The government are to blame for this Anglo debt because they nationalised Ango. We are paying for it. Follow where our €2billion ends up...

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And maybe we would be paying more........

Or the other thing is that there's billions to be found no bother when Anglo needs it, but then if you need home help for incapacitated persons etc etc etc there isnt a penny to be found.

Isnt the McWilliams argument - guarantee the deposits, let the bondholders whistle for it. He's right in terms of - when did a banks problems have to be the nation's problem? - Anglo isnt crucial to the Irish banking environment so I dont buy this systemic argument. Or the "contagion" argument - why not guarantee AIB & BOI and let reckless Anglo go down the swanney. I'd have been far less grudging in bailing out Quinn than the black hole of a zombie bank that will add nothing to the country in the future.

So my own cynical view is that FF felt obliged to bail out Anglo having been "in bed" with them and the big developers all along. Its also why I'd favour the opposition to come in at this stage - no onus on them to persist with past decisions and past relationships that are hurting the country. and if I hear one more FFailer mentioning Lehman bros !!!!:mad::mad:

And maybe we would be paying more.

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Would we?

If government let all the Irish banks collapse back in 2008, then there would certainly have been huge losses. We would, however, now be recovering. We might even have new, decent banks that actually lend to SMEs.

Instead now we've got this terrible situation of death by a thousand cuts coupled with zombie, bust banks that have an insatiable appetite for our money. We still don't know how much Anglo is going to cost us. Letting everything collapse probably would have worked out much cheaper.

The bank guarantee was a terrible decision.

The key word is probably. None of us know what the consequences would have been if the bank guarantee hadn't been put in place and Anglo had been allowed fail.

Not saying everything the Government did has been right but no-one can say with any certainty that they didn't choose the less evil option (because they was no easy option).

umop3p!sdn said:

Would we?

If government let all the Irish banks collapse back in 2008, then there would certainly have been huge losses. We would, however, now be recovering. We might even have new, decent banks that actually lend to SMEs.

Instead now we've got this terrible situation of death by a thousand cuts coupled with zombie, bust banks that have an insatiable appetite for our money. We still don't know how much Anglo is going to cost us. Letting everything collapse probably would have worked out much cheaper.

The bank guarantee was a terrible decision.

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ifs, buts and maybe's. What has happened has happened. Who can truely say what would have happened if the banks had been allowed to go bust.?

Indeed , what's happened has happened.

What is galling however is that the hierarchial management system in our Banks remains essentially unchanged with the exception of a few high profile resignations on extremely lucrative packages.

Can we depend on these people who essentially destroyed our Banking infrastructure to get us out of the mire ?

The whole bonus structure also needs to be dismantled as this system induced people to take risks which ultimately proved disastrous across the entire Banking operation from retail to private banking to corporate dealing

The thing is, now that we have started this bail-out with Anglo there's no way back. If the gov wound up Anglo at this stage we would be down the 10bn we've already "invested". Political suicide to wind it down now.

I don't think there's too many now, with the benefit of hindsight who wouldn't say we should have let Anglo go. I wouldn't be surprised that once the guarantee runs ends, there is a move along these lines.

However, hindsight is always 20/20 and it would have been great to have had a couple of days to mull over the problem, but Lenihan had a couple of hours one night. Bail us or we're gone by this time tomorrow. Even Lehman Brothers had the benefit of a days and a weeks to try and get a deal or takeover, Anglo had hours.

Of course it's the banks fault, same with AIB, they kept the seriousness of their situation hidden, they lied and then phone up the minister and give him 24 hours notice of going bust.

It turns out the wrong call was being made in the long run (IMHO), but we don't know what the immediate consequences would have been at the time for Ireland. It may have set us back even further than we have dropped to. I don't know, nobody does.

Firefly said:

The thing is, now that we have started this bail-out with Anglo there's no way back. If the gov wound up Anglo at this stage we would be down the 10bn we've already "invested". Political suicide to wind it down now.

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I dont agree. Sometimes you have to cut your loses instead of throwing good money after bad.

csirl said:

I dont agree. Sometimes you have to cut your loses instead of throwing good money after bad.

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I totally agree - perhaps I wasn't clear. If it is the cheaper option to wind up Anglo then we should do so and treat the costs up until now as sunk costs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs ). I'm just saying I don't think FF will do that as it would be political suicide for Cowen & Co.

I'm just saying I don't think FF will do that as it would be political suicide for Cowen & Co.

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Surely FF know that they've no chance of winning the next election. So why can't they do the decent thing? In my opinion, their only chance of salvaging anything in the next election is to tackle the Anglo problem head on and close the place down leaving the bond holders swinging.

Surely FF know that they've no chance of winning the next election. So why can't they do the decent thing?

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FF are not running the country for the benefit of citizens of Ireland. Their main concerns are for themselves and their cronies. They will do whatever suits themselves first. This rarely will tally with doing the 'decent thing'.