The only thing more unwise to speculate about than finance is politics. So I thought I’d do both.
You know those times when you see things which just don’t look right and seem to all be at right angles to the official or assumed story? Well I’m having one of those times.
The Danes started it. Feb. 7th. Bloomberg reported that what has for so long been declared unthinkable was done – senior bond holders were made to suffer a loss when Danish bank, Amegerbanken collapsed under bad debts. A 41% loss in fact! Till now Senior bond holders have been sacrosanct. Irish leaders told their people Senior Bond holders COULD NOT be allowed to take a loss or Ireland would shrivel and die.
In fact both Senior bond holders and depositors who had above the protected limit have lost money. Now of course Denmark is a sovereign nation. But I don’t think this would have been done without some serious discussion with the ECB. Small though the losses are – just a couple of billion – compared to what we have become used to, this is still a landmark. It is a precedent. The new laws for making senior bond holders share the pain has now been tested and the bond market didn’t start screaming “I’m melting!” Even though the collapsed has caused losses to ripple out to other danish financial institutions. Nykredit, Denmark’s largest mortgage lender lost about 290 million Kroner or 38 million euros. This was allowed to happen.
If the authorities wanted to test a new and ‘dangerous’ idea where would you want to do it? Denmark maybe? Nordic, dependable, small and containable if it went wrong.
This came as all sorts of debt and bond gyrations generally, are beginning.
Portugal’s borrowing costs continue up and up to hit new all time highs. What Portugal is paying to borrow now is well above hoped for growth levels which means every euro borrowed will produce much, much less than one euro of new income. Portugal is sinking into debt not getting out of it.
Ireland has ‘discovered’ another 12 billion euros of bad and defaulting loans that the tax payer will have to ‘buy’ from at Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland that it’s eagle eyed regulators and bank geniuses hadn’t noticed in the last three years. If ever a nation’s ‘regulators’ proved that wankers really do go blind, it ‘s Ireland’s.
Meanwhile, today in America, strange things have been happening with its debt auctions. Yesterday foreign central banks bought virtually none of the 3 year Treasuries. Which is unusual. Normally Foreign Central banks buy the whole range of long and short dated debt. Then today at the 10 year auction those same banks bought 71% of the whole thing, which is massive. This weirdness caused Zerohedge to ask,
“We wish someone smarter than us could explain to us how there is such a huge aversion to the short end by Indirects [Foreign Central banks], and such a sudden love affair to the 10 Year…”
Now I am NOT smarter than the people at Zerohedge. But it does seem to me that the US Treasury has seen the slow rise of rates and is also becoming spooked at the simply vast amount of its debt that is now in short dated debt which has to be constantly rolled back into the market and resold. Both problems mean the US would dearly like to sell some longer dated debt. It would help keep rates on the all important 10 year down and ease the growing tension about not just its over all level of debt but the increasing instability of the debt pile. Which now looks more and more like an upside down pyramid. Far too much unstable, short term debt sitting on top of far too little stable long term debt .
There is simply too much debt floating to the surface in America. There is a wave of it at State and now at Municipal and city level as well. I also note the “sudden” departure from Wells Fargo of its Cheif Financial Officer. For purely personal reasons of course. On the other hand it has been standard practice thoughout this entire crisis to ‘retire’ or move abroad key people who might be otherwise called upon to answer questions from about to happen nastiness. Look at how many Risk Managers were moved and changed right around 07. I could name a few from European banks. Not that Wells Fargo is sitting on many tens of billions of toxic HELOC loans of course.
But back to the US Treasury’s larger debt problems. The answer to the Treasury’s problem with selling its longer term debt, may be what I have written about for a year or more now – that America gets other Nation’s central banks to buy up the debt it cannot sell. In return the US is no doubt paying for the favour with its own purchases of our debt and/or keeping generous dollar swap lines open to funnel dollars to needy European banks. Don’t forget the UK has now purchased something like a quarter of a trillion in US debt while telling the people here taht there is no money to spare for helping them, educating them or looking after them when they are sick and or old..
And of course back in Continental Europe we should just add the minor detail that both Greece and Ireland are insolvent and so are their banks.
All of which says to me, everyone is preparing for an ‘event’. Not perhaps an uncontrolled one. Though with food prices rising, wages falling and inflation on the move, people powered regime change could upset all the best laid plans of dictators and their western supporters, making something uncontrolled quite possible.
I think the event could be that Europe is preparing to let some banks restructure. I would guess in Portugal and Greece and possibly even in the Cajas in Spain though that really would be dangerous to the financial class. The Cajas and the regional governments, developers and land owners who are very often all the same people, are still lying about and hiding huge additional losses. And Spain is having increasing trouble selling its debt again.
I think the ‘hesitation’ over how or if, to beef up the EFSF (the bail out fund) and over the proposed idea of pan European bonds and the wrangling between Germany and France is also none of it what it seems. I wonder if the wrangling is over the terms of how France and Germany will cooperate in a mini coup. A sudden agreement to let some banks in peripheral nations restructure and force losses onto some of the senior bond holders and depositors in those nations, as has just been tested in Denmark. Such a plan will have to happen at some time. And that time will more than likely come if Germany does force a balanced budget rule on to countries that simply cannot do it in their present state such as Greece. And when it does, the self styled ‘core’ nations will need to be carefully agreed about how to stand together and protect their interests above anyone elses.
Are the financial class preparing for a peristaltic push on some of the backed up debt? If so, some nation or nations are going to have a very nasty mess dumped on them.
I have no evidence at all for this. I am speculating.
But I do note that Germany is pushing with renewed purpose for the European commission to allow German banks to ignore critical parts of the Basel III agreement. They want to allow German banks to count as ‘core’ capital certain kinds of ‘assets’ Basel III does not allow. Certain German banks need to count these assets as ‘core’ because if they don’t they will be insolvent. Simple as that really. Need to get those German banks thoroughly protected and ‘solvent’ before anything ‘happens’.
And lastly I look at the UK and the corporate tax decision by Tory Boy One and Two to reduce corporate taxes and allow foreign earnings to count against tax here. And what I see is the City of London clearly getting its tax rules in order to allow it to take from Ireland its position as the place all US and global corporations have their global HQ’s. Ireland has been the low tax and profit haven where global profits can be booked and taxes avoided. One look at the details of the UK plan tells me this is exactly what it is about. The city will have told the Twaddle twins that if all the corporates re-locate to our new low/no tax regime we will somehow get more tax over-all not less.
What they may not have mentioned as clearly is that we will also become as Ireland was. A brothel for horny corporates and bankers to screw around and pass on their communicable diseases. While our regualtors will have to amuse themselves, till they go blind.
France and Germany have each other for protection they think. The UK is going to try Ireland’s trick. Worked so well for them.
All in all I wonder if all the gyrations aren’t a repositioning ready for the next big event which we have not been told about – for our own good of course.
Paragraph 3: Dutch??
Para 3: Danish Golem, Danish. Also like the name, very similar to a state coming soon to us all. This bank passed the stress test in Europe at the end of last year, I guess the banks in Europe are not as healthy as originally thought. Also for the first time senior bond holders are going to take a haircut as will large depositors. Also credit default swaps are triggered by the default. This is not good for Europe.
Jim M. and brucibaby,
Ahem,, thank you both. I'd forgotten that it had passed the Stress Test. Good point.
very good.
4th para from end. second line missing an 'o' after 'taxes'. Subcouncious of you I believe. (I like your current word but think you should change it to 'count'.)
I do believe there's usually a big picture and that very often those in (they hope) power prefer it not to be widely seen, but I don't understand the details of these things and I wonder, regarding your last point, how you regard the posters' 'knowledgeable' objections to the more dramatic interpretation of the corporation taxes on Richard Murphy's Tax Research blog
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/02/08/monbiot-on-the-great-uk-corporate-tax-heist/#comments
What a way to start the day. Feel overcome with nausea reading this.
The eternal scam. It redefines evil.
But a haircut in Greece, Ireland, etc ,immediately hits German, French, UK banks etc? Which all here know very well, of course!
I'd like to recommend another Richard Murphy post, which quotes much of an FT editorial on tuesday — LINK
————————————-
Quote —
"To be fair, national watchdogs are talking about greater co-operation. But talk is a blunt weapon against an industry that has a strong incentive for seeking the lowest regulatory denominator: money.
Banks do not engage in regulatory arbitrage because they are evil but because it makes sense. In an ultra-competitive sector, shaving millions off the cost base courtesy of a relaxed regulator can make a big difference.
To combat that, the authorities should be just as ruthless, sharing information and singling out those centres that make a living out of “light touches”. Global financial regulation may be a utopian goal but deterring offenders by naming and shaming them would be a start.
Low-ball regulators should become as notorious as offshore tax havens, lending a stigma to companies that operate there.
Inaction or empty talk will only play into the hands of banks that have perfected the ancient Roman tactic of “divide and conquer”." Endquote
——————————————
Nice words, but how to get from here to there, there in this case being evolutionary reform? The more awake and serious insiders can see the system is unstable , corrupt, crazily complex, and FGS, doomed (!), but can't see a way out of it. The distribution of power is so unbalanced.
This strongly reminds me of the non-Nazi Germans from 1933 on…
and also of Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies often referenced by GreatGrandDad at Guardian CiF…
PS I enjoy our host's mild dyslexia!
I've just skimmed this article by Tainter, but you may find it interesting —
"Bureaucratic regulation itself generates further complexity and costs. As regulations are issued and taxes established, those who are regulated or taxed seek loopholes and lawmakers strive to close these. A competitive spiral of loophole discovery and closure unfolds, with complexity continuously increasing (Olson 1982). In these days when the cost of government lacks political support, such a strategy is unsustainable. It is often suggested that environmentally benign behavior should be elicited through taxation incentives rather than through regulations. While this approach has some advantages, it does not address the problem of complexity, and may not reduce overall regulatory costs as much as is thought. Those costs may only be shifted to the taxation authorities, and to the society as a whole.
It is not that research, education, regulation, and new technologies cannot potentially alleviate our problems. With enough investment perhaps they can. The difficulty is that these investments will be costly, and may require an increasing share of each nation's gross domestic product. With diminishing returns to problem solving, addressing environmental issues in our conventional way means that more resources will have to be allocated to science, engineering, and government. In the absence of high economic growth this would require at least a temporary decline in the standard of living, as people would have comparatively less to spend on food, housing, clothing, medical care, transportation, and entertainment"
ARTICLE
Great post Golem, though speculative you make the scenario sound plausible: makes me think of pillows stuffed with cash being passed around as the next impact zone comes into view.
Can you provide a source for your claim that the UK has bought 0.75 trillion in US debt – and how much other sovereign debt, eg. Irish?
Beneke99,
Steady there its 0.25 trillion. Which is quite bad enough.
Rebecca,
I am not enough of an expert on what is going on in Ireland. What does seem likely, however, is taht the situation in Ireland is being complicated by the Irish governing class themselves who are MORE insistant even than Europe that Anglo and maybe the others as well NOT be allowed to go down.
Whay is this? No one knows of course, but hrere are some suggestions. First it will come clear that some of Ireland elite HAVE without a shadow of doubt been lining their pockets and avoiding their own taxes. This is only just below the surface of the story of the Anglo Irish subsidiary and the hunderds of million that was sent there.
The banks also contain information of at least one very prominent Irish family having extremely shady dealings with Russian money which would cast them in a very dubious light.
The Irish banks, without wishing to drop myself in a world of legal pain, were for rather a long time, the PERFECT money laundering opportunity. It was set up to be perfect. Now I am NOT saying they did launder only that they had a wonderful set up for it. On top of which we do know that Russian and Eastern Money in general did come in baot loads to Ireland. Where it was packaged upn into SIV's which are still there.
Suspect money flowed, now looks likely, from Italy as well via at least one compliant Italian bank.
And finally, from research I did years ago, there is the matter of who was banker to IRA, UDA, UVF and who housed the accouonts for the British dirty war? I have some knowledge of laundering which ran through the UK but led to Ireland. Some of it led to the north some to the south. NO ONE wants that evidence to see the light of day, which it might if the auditors went in to restructure.
So, I think there are reasons why Ireland is being shafted so thoroughly, mainly by its own political elite, but with the support of intersted foreign oragnizations most of which would like very much to have their names and business stay in the financial shadows.
Great post again Golem,
I like the speculative touch! Interesting times indeed, I find myself in a race trying to prepare myself and make provisions for the bang.
Rebecca,
no worries, Sinn Fein won't be elected just yet. The people of Ireland are giving the benefit of the doubt to Labour (I hope) and Fine Gael. For us it'll rather be a slow death, until someone ignites us, say perhaps a mob of revolting Brits. I cannot believe the amount of people (friends of mine) who still insist that Ireland needs a banking sector of its own, despite the bankers call for another 15bn (at least!) that appear to be necessary to separate bad from good debt.
Benek99,
here are the relevant statistics from the US Treasury for 2007 [1], 2008 [2] and the 2010 [3] . Not sure what amount of debt has been acquired on top of that, but note that UK exposure to US bonds has more than tripled within a year. Also available as a nice picture at [4].
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20080709115832/http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt
[2] http://photos.state.gov/libraries/hongkong/171363/others/uscn_others_2009022701.pdf
[3] http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Composition_of_U.S._Long-Term_Treasury_Debt_2005-2010.PNG
I would rather have a hole in my head than vote Sinn Fein (you may laugh). But then again … as Rebecca says we have our tipping point. At some point it becomes a question of right and wrong over smart and dumb. So, you get out-smarted, you make yourself feel better by saying the cards were marked (they probably were), you shouldn't have been so naive or whathever. So, after some analysis you replace ouwitted with wronged and so you say f**k em, who gives a sh*t, all bets are off (pardon my french). Sinn Fein will get a massive vote, quite simply to give the finger to Europe.
Ken,
I think you are going to be proved correct. It's a whole new world.
I've no clue if the idea that there is some kind of coherent thought going on behind the scenes (even if it's by the scamsters) is good or not. But if that though involves strategic defaults that thinking needs to be pretty forensic cause from what I've read the interconnectedness involved here really does fit the definition of a house of cards.
myopia,
I agree entirely. I think they know it too but are also realizing they cannot hold up the house of cards forever. Something will give. So better to try to have a controlled as opposed to an uncontrolled explosion.
Will it work? I persnally think it will not. But that's just me.
That made me laugh and scream.
I remember watching the Artful Tax Doger Osbourne talking to his banking chums for the first time saying Britain can make money selling financial services to other countries. I see what he meant now with his little rat catcher grin.
The Glegaron is coming to my likkle town next month and where gonna make a big sound. I'm tempted to go to the local charity shop for some shoes.
On a lighter note i recieved a letter from my MP about the forests, he voted against it. This is Wales though so I don't know what effect this has as we are not selling ours."The proposal is governmental vandalism and I have written to the secretary of state for the enviroment to urge her to reverse her decision".
Let you know what she says when he gets back to me.
Have you heard of Lammas Project? I'm so tempted, I love higgled e piggled e buildings. I love the Venus project but just stopping it all and being on the truly ethical side of life sounds so appealing, who knows, you may even be jealous of my veg garden one day.
Ken. I'm not on top of the situation in Ireland, but you have nicely articulated the mentality of a shafted populous. Seems like anything is possible.
"Ireland has 'discovered' another 12 billion euros of bad and defaulting loans"
Anglo Irish Bank have just posted record losses to the tune of €17.6bn. Meanwhile Anglo Chairman Alan Dukes said, a further €50bn are required to fully capitalise the Irish banks.
http://www.businessandleadership.com/economy/item/28289-anglos-dukes-warns-euro-zo
How about this for "the next big event":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/10/imf-boss-calls-for-world-currency
"IMF boss calls for global currency
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, thinks a new world currency would calm economic instability and curb the dollar's power."
Curb the dollar's power?
Is this the endgame for the USA?
I was an outsider looking in, during the 13 yrs I spent living in Ireland. I left 2 yrs ago & am now living in the North. I keep up to date on the news from the Republic, mainly because I have a daughter & 2 grandchildren living there.
Whilst living there I was surprised by the casual acceptance of corruption, both local & national, acts mainly committed by members of Fianna Fail, the obsession with land/property ( I often attended house parties arranged by members of the company I worked for, it was all they ever talked about ) Another thing that quite shocked me was how some Irish employers treated their workers like serfs.
On the other hand I met a lot of really wonderful people, my wife died of cancer during this time, & although the health service is not the best, the care she got from Irish health workers couldn't have been better. It is also a beautiful country.
I think politically Ireland is a very conservative country with 2 political parties to match, FF & FG & I think the frustration for a lot of people is that they think they are just going to get more of the same.
I hope that they can rebuild, & that when more corruption is uncovered, people won't be so tolerant of it, I also hope that this disaster has stopped some greedy fella from building a visitor centre on the Blasket islands.
All of which says to me, everyone is preparing for an 'event'.
David, I am going to be optimistic and hope that that event is now.
Crime and collective punishment
David, your article touches on a critical point. If there has been some very bad lending practices going on, who should bare the brunt of this? The borrower alone, the lender alone, or a shared responsibility?
This is THE public debate that should be taking place, but is dodged or quashed at every opportunity.
I saw a good lecture at the LSE by George Magnus on Wednesday. He had briefly mentioned about debt re-negotiation and destruction at the start of his talk, but then never really discussed it further. I raised this with him during the Q&A, that bank bailouts and austerity measures are not permitting debt destruction, in fact quite the opposite, protecting the lending class at the expense of the public at large.
Mr Magnus guardedly admitted that there was some justifcation for “an Austrian prescription”, and that (with hindsight!) debt re-negotiation may have been a better solution than bailouts.
But we need foresight, not apologetic hindsight. As I’ve asked before, are we really "all in this together"?
http://forensicstatistician.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/are-we-all-in-this-together/
Austerity assures that the lender bears no responsibilty whatsoever for their faulty judgement in lending out in the first place. It is not debt destruction but instead debt maintenance by any means necessary. I didn't get myself stupidly in to debt, so why should I, or students, or public sector workers pay the price of private debts gone bad? It is taxation without representation.
This situation is compounded by the evidence that the banks have potentially been mis-representing the cost of borrowing, and then when it goes wrong to shift the burden on to the tax payer.
It is nothing less than Collective Punishment deliberately engineered in, or as Michael Hudson calls it: “a post-modern neoserfdom that threatens to return Europe to its pre-modern state.”
http://michael-hudson.com/2011/01/the-spectre-haunting-europe/
Thanks for the links, Goalscorer.
B.
Hozni Gone.
100th monkey?
"So better to try to have a controlled as opposed to an uncontrolled explosion."
Sounds more like a game of Jenga than a controlled explosion.
What frightens me is that the ones playing the game are the same arrogant egomaniacs that allowed the situation to develop in the first place. Who knows what sequence of events will be set in motion when they make the big wrong move that brings it all crashing down? The chances are that it won't be one which only hurts them and their kind but that inflicts permanent damage on all of humanity.
Let's get this clear – the rulers of the World in their financial pyramids, global conglomerate castles and political joker hegemonies are, in fact, psychopaths.
Psychopaths in the true sense they have no moral or social responsibilities for their actions, other than the satisfaction of profit. And whether that profit is real or surreal is completely irrelevant provided its believed by other psychopaths.
While they're failings have been exposed by the present crises, there is in fact one example, from many, that underlines their moral deficit.
Certainly in the last 50 years, probably longer, the world has been capable of feeding every human on the planet; so why do we continue to have people starving?
Is it because they deserve to starve. Or that we don't care if they starve? I would hazard a guess that neither of these assertions would be true.
No the answer lies in the fact that people starve because they're too poor to buy the food needed for their existence.
This one fact alone places these Rulers and their institutions in the pit of ignominy deeper than that of the Holocaust. In truth its eugenics for the purpose of profit.
@ Crinkly …
As you mentioned the unnecessarily prohibitive price of basic foodstuffs, I offer a link that suggests, to me at least, that the failure to adequately provide said basics could play a major role in civil unrest across the globe, in countries great and small.
I sincerely hope that any future unrest can be as relatively bloodless as the events in Egypt, but I wouldn't care to bet the farm on it!
http://www.businessinsider.com/governments-food-price-inflation-2011-1#1-bangladesh-25#ixzz1Di504ylv
If ever a nation's 'regulators' proved that wankers really do go blind, it's Ireland's.
Still got it, Golem!
Your blog is becoming an essential read for those who like to consider the overall situation in Ireland and in Europe as regards the movement of money in and around the international/European banking system.
As I have recently been through the accounts for Anglo Irish Bank Austria AG to September 2008 and Anglo Isle of Man what sticks out for me is the Austrian trick (and soon to be UK trick) of registering foreign profits as a tax benefit at home.
In this way Anglo subsidiaries, one of which (Austria AG) was sold with unseemly haste while holding 600million in much needed cash in its accounts in September 2008, have managed to take advantage of the Irish bank guarantee and of course the National Asset Management Agency there is stuffed full of Anglo 'debt'.
Some of that 'debt' is a mere accounting trick but its very real in that it has landed on the Irish taxpayer to pay.
I think we have at least one and probably two major central European banks being used to funnel Russian mob money through the Austrian pipeline in Vienna from Croatia and Albania in particular to Vienna and on into the IFSC in Dublin.
London banking now wants some of the 'valootye' so is changing its banking regulation and tax legislation to allow the banks in London to mark up similar tax benefits for money washed through Austria.
The pipeline into Dublin and conversion of mob money into derivatives and all sorts of financial instruments is about to come to London.
Overall though I know we have a major bank which is rotten with eastern mob money and connections I still think it is the dynamics of large money via low regulatory markets seeking out quite naturally the optimum or symmetrical bet.
In Ireland the banks became the new catholic church of the 21st Century. Not to be questioned. Dogmatic in pursuit of the imposition of a new Canon Law, that of cash and lots of it. The gold grotesque cathedrals of the IFSC became systemic and authoritative.
Intrinsic to the 'new' Ireland Irish political leaders were as quickly suborned to this new fundamentalism dressed in corporate chinos as the old leaders were simply unable to challenge or believe the rumours of perverted clerics and their vested interest protectors.
Welcome to New Ireland. Same as old Ireland. Go in peace in the sight of unquestioned Mammon.
In nominee company, et fili, et spiritus sancti
Omen.
Powerful post,Con
Rebecca I think you are right on the money there if you'll forgive the pun. There's a great book waiting to be written on the psychology of modern Ireland set against a backdrop of colonialism both physical and psychological.
It would be quite a dangerous book as it would be attacked from many sides so it would have to be careful but it is waiting to be written.
I think a valid school of thought might be that the current crisis in Ireland was a perfect storm which built up for decades and certainly can be traced in origin as far back as 1937 in available documentation- and the psychology of modern Ireland would have to go back to events of around 1500 years ago.
Those who do not know the past face an uncertain future (Castaneda) and of course the remarkable Mr Churchill on the neighbouring island adapted that in his own stentorian way to 'those who do not know the past are condemned to an uncertain future'.
There was a phrase I either heard or invented but probably heard to describe the Irish habit when adrift from proper cultural moorings of imitating other cultures and I think of livinge examples of the Essex Irish as 'Protestants on a horse'.
Thats not a sectarian statement but refers to the mawkish habit of an ancient culture in searching around for an anchor and attaching itself to the apparent visible 'successes' it sees elsewhere.
Its a stepping into the road from an old and deep rooted insecurity which goes back to colonialism as you say and it speaks of nothing more than a crisis of self-confidence as a culture.
@Golem
"The banks also contain information of at least one very prominent Irish family having extremely shady dealings with Russian money which would cast them in a very dubious light."
I Assume you are refering to the same "Family" who
Via CFD's, gambled on Anglo Irish Bank share's?
Southofdub,
could well be.
Treasure Islands
Monbiot's new column – it's a goodie.
http://www.russianlawonline.com/content/konstantine-kouzine-baker-mckenzie
Looks like the Quinns did some business in Russia.
Just sayin…
I enjoyed this —
"In 2006, Mishkin co-authored a report called "Financial Stability in Iceland".[3] The report maintained that Iceland's economic fundamentals were strong. The report was commissioned by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce in response to critical coverage of the Icelandic economy and certain Icelandic companies in the international business media.[2] Mishkin was paid $124,000 to co-author the report.[4]
Iceland subsequently experienced a spectacular collapse within a year of Mishkin's good report. According to the documentary "Inside Job," on Mishkin's CV the title of the report was changed to "Financial Instability in Iceland."
Mishkin was confirmed as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve on September 5, 2006 to fill an unexpired term ending January 31, 2014.[2] On May 28, 2008, he submitted his resignation from the Board of Governors, effective August 31, 2008, in order to resume teaching at Columbia Business School.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Mishkin
Rebecca and Con
Wasnt it James Joyce who said Ireland was the Sow that ate its Farrow…?
Are the farrow …(and there is a very high proportion of young and educated Irish now) ready to bite back? How attached are the young to the old mythologies?
and please dont be worrying about discussing Ireland at length.. it seems to me at least that what happens in Ireland is key to what they will assume they can get away with elsewhere…