Date Set For Queen’s Visit (BBC)

There is one argument in the current bank bail-out debate that is getting tiresome. It goes like this:

‘If we do something the ECB doesn’t like they will cut off loans to our banks and the ATMs will dry up by the morning. Therefore, we have no alternative but to do what we are doing.’

This broken-ATM argument comes from the ‘frighten the children’ stable. It is used to counter any alternative to the current Fianna Fail/Fine Gael/Labour strategy. We can’t do a or x or z because the ECB will cut us adrift. This argument limits options and debate, requiring nothing more than assertion. Ultimately, it justifies political inertia.

At its core, this broken-ATM argument requires us to assume that the ECB is irrational. We are told the ECB won’t tolerate anything that would result in cutting even one strand of bondholder hair for fear of the contagion it would cause throughout European finance. Then, in the next breath we are told that if we do alternative x, then the ECB will cut off our bank funding.

Imagine what would happen if they did this? Of course, our banks would meltdown but there would be more losers than just us. The first loser would be the ECB itself. It would have to write off billions it loaned to the banks (yes, those assets are backed up by ‘assets’ – what chance those assets would compensate for the losses). So the ECB loans billions to our banks and then pulls out the rug ensuring that it can never be repaid. Sound rational?

Frightening The Children With Broken ATM Argument (Michael Taft, Notes From The Front)

Highlights include

Susie says she would go but she’s pledged to do the stove blacking that weekend.

‘They’ being a bunch of sexist morons who deserve to have all their conversations taped.

Yes, Nat, YOU.

Anyhoo. Chewbacca was busy.

The Dubliner cover (with today’s Evening Herald) is taster of The Invasion – a Star Wars exhibition, on its way to Ireland..

Click on ‘Original movie cast’:  You will weep tears with a high midichlorian content as you discover Kenny Baker’s R2D2 unit doubled as a sunbed.

Lucinda taking a roasting on behalf of the government about renegotiating the EU/IMF deal and/or burning the bondholders

Panellists: Lucinda Creighton (FG), Stephen Donnelly (Independent), Timmy Dooley FF, Clare Daly (Socialist Party) and Mary Regan of the Irish Examiner.

Lucinda Creighton: “Can I ask a question? Is it expected that the government is going to do this magically overnight? I mean, you know, we have a huge task ahead of us to rebuild relations right around the European Union where Ireland’s reputation is effectively in tatters, em, and, you know, to think that a new government is going to go in and change entirely the terms of an agreement that was signed up to by the Irish state…”

Clare Daly: “That’s what you told people you would do.”

Creighton: “No. Overnight? No we didn’t, Clare. We didn’t. Em, em, that we were going, that I mean… It’s just not credible that a new government would come in overnight change entirely an agreement that was signed up…”

[Several voices arguing]

Vincent Browne: “But this is what you promised? You promised this.”

Creighton: “No, no, Vincent. We didn’t promise that we would renegotiate overnight. Now there are a number of issues here. One is the burden-sharing and my aspiration, and of course I would love to see a situation where it would be feasible to em, to, to share the burden with some of the bondholders. And it may be possible down the road.”

Browne: “You said you would insist on it. And you said in respect of the junior bondholders you would do it unilaterally.”

Watch full episode here.

Creighton: “Can I, can I, can I finish my point? We never, ever said we would do it unilaterally and, and in relation, and there are other elements to this.”

Browne (to camera): “OK could I just arrange to get the chapter in the Fine Gael manifesto to do with banking policy?” (To Creighton): “This is just untrue. You specifically said that you unilaterally would force discounts on the junior bondholders. That was explicitly said in the banking section of the manifesto.”

Creighton: “And the other element which is very much a live part of our work with our partners around the table at EU level is the issue of the interest rate and that is already, em, there, as part of the text of the European council conclusions, em two weeks ago. It’s something that we have to work out the detail of.”

Browne: “Did anyone in Fine Gael read the Fine Gael manifesto on banking? Did they?”

Creighton: “I read it.”

Browne: “Are you sure?”

Creighton: “Yes.”

Browne: “You didn’t notice the commitment unilaterally to cut the…”

Creighton (laughing): “Are you not even interested in the interest rate, Vincent?”

Browne: “I’m just interested… Did you bother reading the thing, did you?”

Creighton: “I did actually, yeah.”

Browne: “Did you read the bit that said Fine Gael in government will seek a mandate on the renegotiation of the EU/IMF bailout? Did you read that bit?”

Creighton: “Em, yes. And we have a mandate, which we’re working on.”

Browne: “You didn’t have a mandate, in government. ‘Fine Gael in government will seek a mandate to renegotiate the IMF/EU deal.’ Did you read that bit?”

Creighton: “Well I would like to find out perhaps the draftsman of that because clearly that was…”

Browne: “That didn’t mean anything?”

Creighton: “Well clearly…”

Browne: “Clearly you were shafted like the rest of us.”

Creighton: “Clearly an aspiring government seeks a mandate, not a sitting one.”