IMF Article IV Report on Ireland

BertieBasher · **Posted:** Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:21 pm

the edge wrote:

kerrynorth wrote:

The Social partners are just going to love this.........NOT!

random punter wrote:

Can't wait to hear David Begg try explain this one.

bodyofevidence wrote:

Yeah this is shocking :mrgreen:

Why do you guys find this amusing?

You are all, as far as I can tell, Irish yourselves and most of you claim to live here.
If I discuss the recession with friends or colleagues we do not start smirking or laughing as though it was an amusing joke.

Can anyone explain this to me? I am not trying to start a row, I genuinely cannot get my head around this kind of reaction.

Many feel like they were excluded from the boom (ha) due to their prudence. Seeing the whole thing collapse is a nice hard slap in the face for the foolish people who caused this. By caused I mean bought into the silly idea that the madness was normal and helped push it out of control. The fact that the people who hold these views are also hurt means little as they are used to being put out.
(These are not my views.)

BertieBasher · **Posted:** Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:42 pm

Open Window wrote:

the edge wrote:

Page 29

Quote:

Steps should be taken to sustain the execution of the planned fiscal
consolidation. The following principles could be used as a guide:
• More targeting of the vulnerable

Wow. They don't even disguise their agenda.

Also mentioned on page 28 :evil:

This is not their agenda. They couldn't give a toss about the internal structure of economies they "rescue".
Before these people throw you the life bouy they make certain demands and if you're not ready to accept these demands then they wait and look on while you drown. Every so often they'll ask if you are ready to accept. All the time knowing you will, cause they have the only life bouy.

Their demands will change but you know these demands won't be in your interest it will be in the interest of their benefactors. Usually though, they like to see state companies put to the market so rich Americans can pick over their bones. Think Haliburton in Iraq and you'll get the idea.

If FF are waiting for these people to do their dirty work then Cowen and his muppets need to be skinned and hung to the lamp posts. Once again it is truely disheartining to see the government opposition sitting there oblivious to all of this. They truely are a bunch of slack jawed simpletons.

fedorov · **Joined:** Sep 23, 2008 **Posts:** 399

Let's see if this happens here:

Quote:

Step One is Privatization – which Stiglitz said could more accurately be called, ‘Briberization.’ Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he said national leaders – using the World Bank’s demands to silence local critics – happily flogged their electricity and water companies. “You could see their eyes widen” at the prospect of 10% commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.

After briberization, Step Two of the IMF/World Bank one-size-fits-all rescue-your-economy plan is ‘Capital Market Liberalization.

At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: Market-Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and cooking gas. This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls, “The IMF riot.”

The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, “down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up,” as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots, but there are other examples – the Bolivian riots over water prices last year and this February, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in cooking gas prices imposed by the World Bank. You’d almost get the impression that the riot is written into the pla

http://atoast2toast.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/the-imf-are-coming/

CaveCanem · **Joined:** Feb 14, 2008 **Posts:** 1924

yoganmahew wrote:

I still think the IMF is underestimating the losses (but 36 bn is probably their median (trending to positive) guess). I still by my 50 bn estimate. (To put that in context, it is ten times the 'value' of the Irish banks - and no, nationalising them won't make a damn bit of difference. The money still needs to be paid. What the IMF are saying on nationalisation is that they really don't see an option but that the banks will end up severely undercapitalised/insolvent and so will crash into national ownership (a la Angelo)).

The recent 10year bond yield was 5.9%. If NAMA bonds have to pay the same, the interest costs will be high. If the government make up a "long-term economic value" that will be attainable x yrs from now, we'd still need to adjust this "long-term economic value" for interest costs and NAMA running costs just to break even. The holding cost of this debt is very significant. The idea of taking good loans to pay the coupon is tripe.

Calina · **Joined:** Nov 28, 2006 **Posts:** 4376

BertieBasher wrote:

If FF are waiting for these people to do their dirty work then Cowen and his muppets need to be skinned and hung to the lamp posts. Once again it is truely disheartining to see the government opposition sitting there oblivious to all of this. They truely are a bunch of slack jawed simpletons.

The opposition are a bunch of ineffective hopeless losers. If they were not, they would have walked the last general election.

Secondly, FF can't wait for the IMF to do the dirty work for them. The government of the day have to actively invite the IMF to come and do it for them. The IMF doesn't swoop in and rescue - as far as I am aware, they have to wait to be invited, or, at best, permitted in.

In simple terms: the IMF do not come in without the government's permission. If that government is FF driven, go hang them then. If it's FG, go hang them too. If it's the Labour Party, go hang them. A cursory look at recent history tosses up Turkey as an IMF success and that is pretty much it. The IMF's record on medicine is that its cure causes worse illnesses than the problems that got it called in in the first place. If you think this or any country NEEDs the IMF in the form that it exists right now, you are hopelessly naive. They need it like a hole in the head. The IMF's sole asset has been that it has money. It just has been fucking awful at using it in troubled economies because it's ideologically driven rather than practicality driven.

markf909 · **Joined:** Dec 3, 2007 **Posts:** 1270

fedorov wrote:

Let's see if this happens here:

Quote:

Step One is Privatization – which Stiglitz said could more accurately be called, ‘Briberization.’ Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he said national leaders – using the World Bank’s demands to silence local critics – happily flogged their electricity and water companies. “You could see their eyes widen” at the prospect of 10% commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.

After briberization, Step Two of the IMF/World Bank one-size-fits-all rescue-your-economy plan is ‘Capital Market Liberalization.

At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: Market-Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and cooking gas. This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls, “The IMF riot.”

The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, “down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up,” as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots, but there are other examples – the Bolivian riots over water prices last year and this February, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in cooking gas prices imposed by the World Bank. You’d almost get the impression that the riot is written into the pla

http://atoast2toast.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/the-imf-are-coming/

Reads like a very quick summary of that Naomi Klein book.

We do have a lot of semi states to sell off, now do we have any oligarchs (in the making?) who are well connected?

fedorov · **Joined:** Sep 23, 2008 **Posts:** 399

I just heard something about water charges on the radio and found this on a google news search:

Quote:

Government advisors today urged Taoiseach Brian Cowen to bring in a raft of new taxes including a property tax, university fees and water bills.

The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) said the stark measures were needed to halt Ireland sliding into a prolonged economic depression with high unemployment and emigration.

They also warned against stemming the drop in house prices, which they insist remain too high.

The State’s toxic assets agency NAMA must put seized developments up for sale as soon possible to allow property prices to fall further, they said.

At least the government are now listening to the voices of grown ups. We may also get some profitable new water companies.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/more-taxes-needed-advisors-tell-cowen-416312.html

Calina · **Joined:** Nov 28, 2006 **Posts:** 4376

fedorov wrote:

At least the government are now listening to the voices of grown ups. We may also get some profitable new water companies.

Really? I have severe doubts about that. Privatised water supply companies have been trashed in a lot of other countries including France and the UK.

fedorov · **Joined:** Sep 23, 2008 **Posts:** 399

What I meant was about taking advice on the house prices and the economy in general. Ireland is such a basket case I am embarassed. I read the entire IMF document and they maintain the boom was until around 2000 but Ireland has lost its massive share of foreign direct investment due to wage demands. Competitiveness is a big problem and cuts are necessary.

I dont think we are in Southern American territory just yet but could the IMF really do a worse job than the most useless government ever? - are any Irish leaders hands tied with the unions and the civil service or what is the problem here?

The water charges are of course are another thing we dont need here. Please tell us more about the experience in the UK if you know. I remember Greg Palast wrote about it in "the best democracy money can buy". It was his stuff I quoted earlier in this thread.

MortgageBroker · **Posted:** Thu Jun 25, 2009 11:10 pm

did a condensed version of the imf report, 5 pages instead of 50
http://www.mortgagebrokers.ie/blog/index.php/2009/06/25/imf-report-on-ireland-condensed/

RonanL also did a good post/synopsis
http://www.ronanlyons.com/2009/06/25/the-imf-report-and-irelands-competitiveness/

Duisigh · **Joined:** May 28, 2008 **Posts:** 2675

The above "target the vulnerable" is taken completely out of context. Here's the text :

(from someone who actually read the damn thing )

"Social welfare expenditures must better target the vulnerable. The authorities
recognize that it will be necessary to articulate a strategy that moves away from universalism
in social welfare to one that relies more on targeting and incentives"

What Goes Up... · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 12:18 am

IMF IS GONNA ROCK YA!

Rick Flair · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:20 am

Looks like this is descending into heroes and villains unfortunately with public sector workers and social welfare recepients being the villains. If anyone thinks that our social welfare system is overly generous they are out of their minds. Sarah Carey in the Irish Times had to roll back on a statement made in her column some weeks back stating that we had the most among the most generous social welfare provisions in the EU. It aint true and never has been. As for public sector pay.

johnboy · **Joined:** Nov 9, 2006 **Posts:** 1427

Rick Flair wrote:

Looks like this is descending into heroes and villains unfortunately with public sector workers and social welfare recepients being the villains. If anyone thinks that our social welfare system is overly generous they are out of their minds. Sarah Carey in the Irish Times had to roll back on a statement made in her column some weeks back stating that we had the most among the most generous social welfare provisions in the EU. It aint true and never has been. As for public sector pay.

The issue is not the absolute amount of money spent on public sector wages. The issue is how much the average public sector worker is paid compared to their private sector equivalents.

Also, that chart is based on 2005 figures. Now that our economy has already shrunk by somewhere between 5% and 10% (and will probably be at least 15% smaller after all this is finished) what does that chart now look like?

Rick Flair · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 7:40 am

Duisigh wrote:

The above "target the vulnerable" is taken completely out of context. Here's the text :

(from someone who actually read the damn thing )

"Social welfare expenditures must better target the vulnerable. The authorities
recognize that it will be necessary to articulate a strategy that moves away from universalism
in social welfare to one that relies more on targeting and incentives"

My reading of this is that “target the vulnerable” means reduce dramatically the number of people who could be considered vulnerable and focus social protection initiatives on them exclusively.

IMF Article IV Report on Ireland

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