Extreme Toxic Banking Solutions, part 1

We've been here before in history when people have borrowed to much and can't pay it back. Two solutions.

1307, King Philip IV of France owed The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon aka the Knights Templar are large sum of cash and tortured them into false confessions and had them burned at the stake! A very popular solution to banking even back then.

In 1492 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain had maxed out their Credit Cards riding the Moors of Spain, so expelled their bankers from the country.

Extreme, heavy handed, draconian, but perhaps  something better than what is being suggested at present. And a question to ask? If setting up a toxic bank (asset agency etc) is such a smart idea, why hasn't anyone done it yet?

L plates and high insurance for the Irish economy

Everyone is getting a pay cut these days, public or private. The government is paying consultancy companies 8% less as of today's edict. Taxes go up in a month or two after April's Budget. Thankfully interest rates are going down and if you are lucky Higher Tax+Lower Wages = Lower interest rates, and you can still tread water. But the tub is draining. The Government keeps talking of a plan and action to be delivered in the future, but in the present the economy is slowly going into paralysis watching Government knee-jerk reactions. No one knows their future costs, or their future incomes, personal or as a business, thus no one can plan or react in both the public and private sector. We just wait on the shore as the tide rushes out.

The global economy will turn, and Trichet hints we may be near the bottom. On the way up two things will happen. Oil will rise and interest rates will go up. Will our incomes be rising when the Global markets recover? Yeah right, we hope, but expect not. When the twin torpedoes of high oil and high interest rates hit the already floundering SS Erin, we all go down the sink hole, because the earlier sum comes a big fat negative.

And that is why our cost of sovereign debt is about to go up, because the Minister of Finance is learning to drive in our car.

I don't think you're ready yet for the toxic bank.