There is a steaming pile of debt management plans that are marked as performing debt.

I come across these abominations regularly – not unusual to have an ordinary Joe with £100k in credit card debt, paying it off at £500 per month. That could be spread over 20 creditors, and often the debt manager takes the biggest slice of the monthly instalments!

Then consider the conversion of mortgages to IO or arrears capitalisation – the UK banks are a mirage.

Some cleansing will be required! Implications for Ireland are slightly positive? They only lied about their regulation of the banks, not debt levels. But NAMA constitutes an attempt to keep asset levels high in a depression market, so that is another way to lie about net worth, isn't it!

I always enjoy reading the quality writing here.