Enda Kenny told us in December that the financial crisis is not our fault, but yesterday he told the rest of the world that we're all mad, so which is it?
Are we blameless or are we mad?
Maybe Enda is saying that it's both. Maybe he's saying that we did it, but you can't blame us because we're mad. Not guilty by reason of insanity.
Isn't it great really? Good man Enda, out there in Switzerland, struggling with the hard words on the menus, just like he did with cryptosporidium. Cryptospirosis, Enda? Ok. That'll do.
Looking at Enda, you always get the impression of a man trying to discreetly adjust his underpants and stay serious at the same time. Certainly, Chancellor Merkel. Give me one minute while I pull my Y-fronts into a more comfortable position.
I think Enda is a fairly decent individual and certainly not a crook, unlike some others we've had in high position, but he always looks tense and nervous, like he can't relax. He's the average guy invited to the fancy dinner, trying too hard to impress, and he sure as shit was trying to impress in Davos. Enda Kenny does not look like a confident man. He looks like a man wondering if he should tip the maître d'.
Everything from Enda's stiff body language to his stilted pronunciation suggests that this is a man not in command of his private feelings. His collar is too tight. He's working too hard on the image and he's failing, so the Davos meeting must have felt like welcome confirmation of the great job he's doing. In all likelihood, two or three urbane bankers attached themselves to Enda at lunch, strokmg his ego and encouraging him to take a certain line in his speech. This is normal, and it washes over the heads of confident leaders, but everything about Enda's demeanour suggests a complete absence of self-possession. This kind of love-bombing is designed to seduce a man like Enda and to create a strange form of Stockholm Syndrome.
If that's what happened, it worked. Everything about Enda's body language suggested a man at ease in his surroundings, a man with a sense that he was addressing his companions, confreres and equals, even though he was, in reality, talking to the very bankers who have crushed our economy.
Enda looked right at home as he told these bankers what a mad crowd we are, the Irish he represents as prime minister. Mad people, those crazy Paddies who voted for me.
It would surprise me very much if Enda didn't experience a physical rush of pleasure as he stroked the egos of the bankers at the World Economic Forum. He certainly looked like a man on the brink of overload as he explained to these international financiers that his people are not to be trusted, and the more he slumped in his seat, the more languid and urbane he tried to appear, the more obvious it was what a limited, provincial buffoon these bankers were dealing with.
Thanks, Enda, for blowing our cover. After your ego rush, they know it's business as usual. Why didn't you just play them the Deliverance soundtrack and leave it at that?
Idiot.
Of course, we're mad, crazy, nutters, crackpots, and the rest of the psychiatric dictionary. Borrowing money and throwing it into the Anglo sinkhole, the Paddy is a raving lunatic. Our behaviour is even more convincing as we haven't even started to try to get the truth out, hold the perpetrators responsible, etc. They are given bloody pensions instead.
Demonstrations? Ah, no. We're busy watching Sky or if we can't afford that, we're stuck with the Late Late innate drivel.
You're way too kind Bock. He is a lying bag of blueshirt shite, looking after the corporate interests with his eye on the prize of a sweet directorship from Goldman et al for loyal service.
the more obvious it was what a limited, provincial buffoon these bankers were dealing with.
That is precise.
And Noonan is just an ignorant bully.
Just out of curiosity and as an Irishman living abroad that missed out entirely on the Celtic Tiger, what part of what he said was incorrect? The Irish people that bought in excess during the "boom" years are up to their arse in debt because someone threw money at them and they took it! Should the people be forgiven because they were stupid? I don't know if Enda Kenny was referring to the ordinary man in the street or the lunatic tycoons that extended themselves beyond belief but on the whole he was right. The Irish people are paying off bondholders that they shouldn't be paying but even if we didn't pay the money to them what would the solution be debt forgiveness? Does that mean that the people that didn't go out and get credit to buy the big house and are now tipping away nicely should see the idiots get off scott free? I have been gone for over 20years but what was going on at home was as plain as the nose on your face if you weren't living in Ireland.
What?
Rob, like you I'm living overseas lo these many years, and like you I was astounded by what happened back home. But are you suggesting that the average homebuyer "partied" as Brian Lenihan put it? Surely not.
The average homebuyer anywhere buys at whatever the market price is, and hopes for the best. If banks lend irresponsibly, and governments set interest rates ridiculously low, that sets the market price insanely high. All the average person knows is that they want to own a home because that's what you want to do when you get married and have kids. It's a case of being herded into a bad decision. Not idiots, just well intentioned people doing what their parents and their parents' parents did before them. Unfortunately under uniquely bad financial conditions, but you'd need to be fairly financially savvy to be sure of that at the time.
What's the solution now that the damage is done? Foreclosure, restructuring or forgiveness of residential mortgages. I'd suggest the second (though I'd profit more under the first, but let's be realistic). But whatever the solution, paying off the unsecured debts of defunct private banks like Anglo doesn't solve anything. Unless you're French or German, of course.
Rob — Enda Kenny echoed Brian Lenihan's attempt to rewrite history. The banks failed because their commercial loan books collapsed, not because of mortgages to private homeowners. Every single property in Nama is a commercial development.
Arising from this collapse, and the insane bank guarantee, the domestic economy was strangled, which led to the second wave of trouble: mortgage arrears.
There certainly was greed, but that greed belonged to the property developers, the senior bankers and the estate agents, not the average Joe who had to sleep in his car outside the site office just to put a deposit on a house.
Kenny was telling his listeners what he thought they wanted to hear: a story where the bankers are the good guys.
I'm no financial wiz and I understand about the commercial side of the economy, but you have to agree that the Irish people in general did go nuts. Where I am now the amount of Irish people that were coming here to buy property was just insane and I am not talking about company directors, I'm talking about ordinary working people that spent fortunes.
Do you have figures for the number of Irish people who bought holiday homes, and also, most importantly, defaulted on payments? If not, the account is no more than anecdotal. The bulk of Irish people own their homes outright with no mortgage, and manyof those who are in debt are not living in a big house but in some overpriced apartment or heap of junk on a ghost estate.
The mechanism that drove people to pay over the odds for homes was not greed but fear, stoked up by the banks and the estate agents.
I had this exact conversation with someone yesterday, where they agreed with Enda. I started asking for figures – the amount of debt caused by private individuals who've defaulted on mortages comparable to commercial loan debt.
I was hushed.
I'm sick of people spouting out anecdotal commentary without having the figures.
'Boldpilot' posted the mortgage default figures here before and it wasn't very much, relative to the overall debt incurred by the likes of Anglo.
Should have saved the link..
Enda's a fuckin' moron. He doesn't even understand the problem himself.
If people buy this horseshit from him (usually the ones who were lucky enough to get on the property market before the boom and credit themselves with great savvy for it).. then they're morons too as far as I'm concerned.
Sorry Bock that's as nice as I can be about that.
That's fair enough then it's all the developers fault and the banks and Joe soap was lead along by the nose.
Did I say that?
maybe the madness was putting bertie into power in three elections, and turning a blind eye to the carry on all around us. this is what the people of Ireland are guilty of.
enough people wanting the crumbs from the top table, letting themselfs belive the bullshit.
Enda Kenny, as Taoiseach of this benighted country of ours, wears the trousers, unfortunately he wears them on his head. Top post, I especially liked the part demonstrating how esasily a decent but weak man can be influenced by very bad men indeed.
Never did trust that Inda Fuckhead. Probably means well but he's a bit too much of a 'bow and scrape' man. The rag and bone man of Europe.
I wouldn't mind showing him how fucking mad I am, the little bollix………………………….rant, rant,
Hi Bock, I agree with you completely, Enda's most recent speech has to be looked at in context and the context of Enda's speech is very interesting. The when and the where of Enda's speech is very important, the when was when Ireland had just paid out a huge amount of money to unsecured bondholders and the where was to a group of international bankers at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, home of secret banks.
Enda is a halfwit buffoon who is a second class, fourth class primary school teacher (stet). Through an extraordinary series of circumstances, we ended up with this clown as taoiseach, who most people seem to agree is a deacent man but who is also a gombeen who is way out of his depth.
I like your psychological assessment of Enda, but I would like to take it a stage further and try to see how Enda sees himself. I think that in Enda's mind he is teaching a group of bold ten year olds, who "went mad"and now have to pay for it. The Troika are the cigires, who Enda both dreads and at the same adores when they give him a good report and the bankers last week were European Secondary school teachers and Enda was (how thrilling) attending a European Teachers Conference.
Enda came to this conference with a number of personal disadvantages. Firstly, he was probably the thickest person there. Secondly he came with a massive inferiority complex.Thirdly he came with the Irish male Primary school teacher's natural inferiority complex (trust me they have one). Fourthly, and most importantly, he came with a desire to be accepted and loved.
It was in this context that Enda made his comments. I think he would have sold his mother down the Swannee in his desire to be loved and acepted. The bankers and the troika must be sick laughing at this gobshite. The Troika, through bullying and flattery have Enda dancing like a circus clown and the bankers are laughing as Enda assures them that they will never be held responsible for their actions, the Irish people will bail them out.
Enda came to this conference to explain the cause of Ireland's economic woes to a group of international bankers. Enda explained how people had behaved in a reckless and folhardy manner, basically gambling. Given where he was making the speech it seems safe to assume that Enda was talking about Irish people and not Lithuanians. The subtext of this speech, which was clearly understood by all of Enda's audience, is that greedy Irish people gambled recklessly and brought the country to the brink of ruin and are now having to pay the price for their recklessness. We can expect to hear a lot more of this claptrap in the near future as an excuse for more and more savage cuts. What Enda did not mention was that very large, very greedy, French and German Banks also gambled recklessly with the Irish economy and also brought this country to the brink of ruin and are possibly even more responsible for our economic state than even the greedy Irish people given that they were the ones giving out the money. However these banks are not being held in any way responsible for this and neither it seems are the "greedy" Irish people, it is the ordinary Irish person, who was not a developer and did not incur huge debts, apart maybe from having to buy a house at greatly inflated prices to make fortunes for developers and banks, both Irish and foreign. After proudly announcing last week that Ireland would not be looking for any kind of debt forgiveness, all I can say is that it is very nice for Enda to be able to afford such noble and lofty sentiments. Having insulated himself and his family and friends, and numerous advisors and helpers from any fears of economic discomfort, he felt a warm glow receiving the applause of the foreign bankers, most of whom probably could not believe their luck listening to this cartoon.
This graph here should put into context as to who borrowed and gambled recklessly.
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2012/01/23/debt-and-deleveraging/#comments
Can we quit all this "decent man" stuff please? This guy lied through his teeth to get elected, and brazened his way through the subsequent u-turns. Just because he is not an actual crook like Ahern or Haughey doesn't make him a decent man.
As for whose fault all this thing is, I'm with Spike more or less. You cannot flood people with cheap money without prices going haywire. Most people just wanted an ordinary roof over their heads and had to borrow crazy sums just to get one. Herded into a bad decision is right Spike.
If there is one thing we should collectively be blamed for (and it is impossible to blame anyone else), it is that we stupidly, repeatedly, voted into office a party that was in the construction sector's pocket, and inflated the bubble even more with their policies than was happening anyway due to the ECBs interest rates. And then guaranteed the banks when it all started to topple.
We should also be blamed for electing tweedledee afterwards, when anyone who knew what they were like knew their election promises were lies. And we should continue to be blamed for alternately electing tweedledum and tweedledee for the foreseeable future, which I have no doubt we will do.