Ireland

Hells yeah, Money McBags is back from his Thanksgiving break where he basted some turkeys, watched consumers run up more debt during Black Friday sales that they won't be able to pay off until the dollar hyperinflates to whatever is just below infinity (perhaps Bernankity), and furiously read...

The alternative title for today entry is: Ireland, please drive a stake through the heart of the vampire banks which have the world by the throat. The entire controlled demolition of the Eurozone's finances can be summed up in one phrase: privatize leverage and profits, socialize losses and risk. The basic deal is this: protect the bank's managers, shareholders and bondholders from any losses, while heaping the socialized losses and risks on the taxpayers and citizens. While there are murmurings of "forcing bondholders to share the pain," any future haircut will undoubtedly be just for show, while the Irish pension funds are gutted to bail out the banks.

If the recent Hungarian "appropriation" of pension funds, and today's laughable Irish bailout courtesy of domestic pension funds sourcing 20% of the "new" money was not enough to convince the world just how bankrupt the entire European experiment has become, enter France. Financial News explains how France has "seized" €36 billion worth of pension assets: "Asset managers will have the chance to get billions of euros in mandates in the next few months for the €36bn Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR), the French reserve pension fund, after the French parliament last week passed a law to use its assets to pay off the debts of France’s welfare system. The assets have been transferred into the state’s social debt sinking fund Cades. The FRR will continue to control the assets, but as a third-party manager on behalf of Cades." FN condemns the action as follows: "The move reflects a willingness by governments to use long-term assets to fill short-term deficits, including Ireland’s announcement last week that it would use the country’s €24bn National Pensions  Reserve Fund “to support the exchequer’s funding programme” and Hungary’s bid to claw $15bn of private pension funds back to the state system." In other words, with the ECB still unwilling to go into full fiat printing overdrive mode, insolvent governments, France most certainly included, are resorting to whatever piggybanks they can find. Hopefully this is not a harbinger of what Tim Geithner plans to do with the trillions in various 401(k) funds on this side of the Atlantic.

The State’s contribution to the €85 billion facility will be €17½ billion, which will come from the National Pension Reserve Fund (NPRF) and other domestic cash resources. This means that the extent of the external assistance will be reduced to €67½ billion.
...The facility will include up to €35 billion to support the banking system; €10 billion for the immediate recapitalisation and the remaining €25 billion will be provided on a contingency basis. Up to €50 billion to cover the financing of the State. The funds in the facility will be drawn down as necessary, although the amount will depend on the capital requirements of the financial system and NTMA bond issuances during the programme period. If drawn down in total today, the combined annual average interest rate would be of the order of 5.8% per annum. The rate will vary according to the timing of the drawdown and market conditions.

The dominoes are starting to fall ...

As soon as the ink dries on the IMF loans, the second occupation of Ireland will begin, only this time there won't be armored cars and Paramilitaries in fatigues, but nerdy-looking bureaucrats trained in the art of spreading misery.

The BoomBustBlog contagion model easily predicted the actions of the UK and Sweden in aiding Ireland 9 months ago. To date, the model has been quite accurate and has some dire predictions for the near future. Here's how we predicted the chain of events of Ireland, the UK and Sweden to date, and sneak peek of what we see is in store for the near future.

A few weeks ago, Hitler realized he was in deep doodoo when the fraudclosure scandal was refusing to go away. Well it still hasn't, although for the time being it has been brushed under the carpet, courtesy of Europe which once again dominates the airwaves with its sad existence. Today, a far more industrious Hitler presents his plan to save Ireland. Oddly enough, it just may work.

Rosie enters the "future of the euro" speculation race, and sees a "devastating deflationary shock" when Europe finally accepts the inevitable: "U.S. companies would likely confront a huge appreciation in the dollar, which would cut into their foreign-derived earnings base. Commodity prices would undoubtedly correct and safe-haven flows would certainly redress the loonie’s overvaluation gap. Treasuries would rally big-time." Stocks, of course, would plummet, and "Gold would remain bid — yesterday’s rally in the face of the USD rally is a case in point." On the other hand, the fact that we are starting to see traces of Krugman in Rosie's thinking is very. very worrisome.

Take one look at Bank of Ireland stock this morning. Then read the following October 4 report on BOI from Goldman Sachs, and please join us in extended our congratulations to Goldman analyst Pawel Dziedzic who has joined the prestigious ranks of Cramer and Dick Bove of telling those who care to buy a bank days or weeks ahead of its bankruptcy.

A bunch of completely irrelevant numbers released by Ireland. At best these will achieve nothing but will kick the can down a few more months. At worst violent rioting will be a daily occurrence in Dublin within a week.

From RTE "The EU and the IMF will offer the Government an €85bn facility, which can be used to recapitalise the banks and fund the public finances. The EU and the IMF will offer the Government an €85bn facility, which can be used to recapitalise the banks and fund the public finances. The package would see the level of capital in the Irish banks being increased from eight to 12% in a move to bolster confidence of depositors in the financial system." This could well be too little, too late. The bank run has already started. And just to confirm that the schism between the ECB and Germany is now likely insourmountable, Nowotny said that he is 'irritated' with Merkel's remarks on the serious situation for EUR. Why, of course Ewald- nobody wants to hear the sad truth that you will be unemployed within a year.

One of today's sad conclusions about today's Irish bailout is that despite numerous lies to the contrary, the country's corporate tax rate, that staple which has allowed so many corporations to skirt the record US corporate tax rate, is about to be hiked. The bailout ink on Irish pre-foreclosure mortgage note was not even dry (and you bet Bank of America is not going to lose this one) and already the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn showed the now insolvent island who's boss: "When asked in an interview with RTÉ News if the corporate tax rate was now off the table for good, Mr Rehn said that by Ireland's ceasing to be a low tax country this did not imply specific measures, but 'it is likely unfortunately to imply tax increases." Ironically, the biggest losers in this transition to a higher tax rate would be various multi national corporations, as was observed yesterday, while the biggest gainers would be other European states, which would be on a more competitive footing with Ireland when it comes to attracting foreign direct investment and new business domiciles. And since banks such as Bank of America and Citigroup would be among some of the legal tax evasion losers, it was only a matter of time before Citi provided the following reasoning for why Ireland would either not allow a corporate tax hike (we are confident this is inevitable), or why any benefits from such an action would be de minimis (this appears far more reasonable).

In this interview with the RT, Jim Rogers says what everyone except a few bankers and corrupt politicians know to be the case: namely, that Ireland should go bankrupt. Instead, the government is forcing the country into a tough spot, where social tensions are flaring, and could erupt into an all out social conflict, confirming that the interests of its people is the last thing the Irish government cares about, and is only concerned about preserving what is now virtually proven to be a failed model (even JPM said so), and prevent losses at all major German and English banks. Quote Rogers: "It would teach everybody a good lesson, and in the end Europe would be stronger for it, and the EUR would be stronger... You can not spend staggering amounts of money that you don't have of other people's money that you don't have because somebody has to pay the piper. This is ludicrous. This will cripple the Irish economy for years to come. In the future Ireland will be crippled because everything they earn will go to pay off old debt. There is no reason why taxpayers around Europe or in Ireland should pay for other people's mistakes. The bondholders and the stockholders of banks should lose money"... So simple, yet so irrelevant when dealing with a dying economic model.

Headlines flashing that according to RTE, Sinn Fein protesters are now trying to enter Irish government buildings. As always, someone please keep an eye out on Waddell and Reed. It's one of those days. And with stub quotes now eliminated, limit buy orders at $0.00 will be honored.