Brian Cowen’s Ard Fheis Speech: Behind it all, What was New?
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Earlier I asked which Cowen might show up, the party’s man or the leader of the nation and whichever one did what could he possibly say to the country? I should have listened to Fergal.
We got our answer this evening, video of which will hopefully be up soon. I want to see Noel Dempsey from before hand absolving the same Fianna Fail who governed for 12 years of responsibility for the crisis and blaming the nasty opposition for being, well, nasty.
The speech was ok and immediate post-spin on RTE news had those four words “state-of-the-nation”. That makes it his fourth attempt at a state of the nation speech – more of the same.
Only that it sounded like having to deal with problems wrought in the past 12 years. Problems Fianna Fail created, problems Ahern let fester, problems that were flagged, problems that weren’t dealt with. It was delivered in a manner that sounded slightly uncomfortable with the words he was speaking, up until the last five minutes of the speech.
Much of it was boilerplate stuff with two major policy announcements. Many will remark on the final section of the speech where he shed the quasi detachement with which he delivered a homily like speech and resorted to anecdote.
The concept of “new thinking” defined as “change through cooperation and collaboration”, will no doubt be talking point of the day alongside the announcment of an improvement to banking regulations, a new central banking commission to be setup – with oversight powers of regulator and central bank to be merged – and the €100m fund for export business.
Yet it was at heart a plea for everyone to get behind Fianna Fail. The nation is in danger, and when it is in danger the values of Fianna Fail and Ireland (are they really that different?) of neighbourliness, support, friendship and puling together, are needed to get us through. Reiterating core tropes of the past few weeks, service cuts and tax rises, alongside a belated effort to get a regulator in place (one which resorts to commission? The biggest board sinecure of all?).
At the same time as we need this spirit of national unity, of consensus of opposition and government working toward a formula, Noel Dempsey [scroll down] is ploughing through them for a shortcut in his warmup act. It was incendiary stuff, railing against the smears of the opposition and declaring that Fianna Fail is not deeply attached to bankers and developers / builders.
Absolution was only for those who confessed, I thought.
Earlier today I wondered what could save Fianna Fail and Cowen, I am minded to agree with Simon over on the live blog:
Nope. Sorry. This isn’t up to scratch. Almost nothing imaginable could have saved FF here. And they couldn’t imagine it.
Cowen could say little to save the nation, little to turn a tide in confidence and little to divorce the image in people’s minds of Fianna Fail at the heart of the ’system’ for the past decade. In the end that little came to pass. Though the did send a nice email after.
The attitude of Cowen and Dempsey was laughable.
Brian was Bob the builder in denial.
It was “Can we fix it?, Yes we can” without admitting that it was Fianna Fails fault in the first place.
I love the part where he asks “How did we get here?” and never answers the question. Clearly the answer to Suzy’s question was Once in a Lifetime by talking heads.
He can try as hard as he likes, but he cannot keep the gathering storm clouds at bay. The following extracts demonstrate the mess that we are all in;
Firtly, the odds of a global depression are shortening by the day;
“Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, now places the odds of “a mild depression” at 25 percent, up from 15 percent three months ago. In that view, the unemployment rate would reach 10.5 percent by the end of 2011 — up from 7.6 percent at the end of January — average home prices would fall 20 percent on top of the 27 percent they have plunged already, and losses in the financial system would more than triple, to $3.7 trillion.
Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics, sees a 20 percent chance of “a depressionlike possibility,” up from 15 percent a week ago.
“In the housing market, the financial system and the stock market, we’re already there,” Mr. Sinai said. “It is a depression.”
Second, it is looking less likely that the US bailout of Citibank is going to work;
“But Citigroup’s core problem — tens of billions of dollars of toxic assets — remains. So the government may need to convert more preferred stock, or inject more money directly.
Gary L. Crittenden, Citigroup’s chief financial officer, said in an interview that with Friday’s deal and other moves, the company has enough high-quality capital.
“We designed this with the view this would be the right amount of capital to get us through,” he said. But he did not rule out having to raise more capital, especially if Citigroup were to fail a so-called stress test that regulators are giving big banks to assess their losses.
Similar uncertainties loom over the rest of the banking industry. Investors are struggling to sort out which banks will be able to generate enough capital on their own to avoid second or third bailouts.”
And thirdly the true cost of the bank bailouts across the world is largely unknown;
” Remember CDOs? Of course, you do…although no one is trading these monsters anymore they continue to wreak havoc to the global economy.
We still teach about them on the CQF. Why? Maybe they’ll come back one day, maybe with a different acronym, or if they don’t then they are at least a fantastic teaching aid for showing how not to model and how not to risk manage.
Hang on a second. Have they really disappeared? I’m not so sure they have. What’s that recent deal that the UK Treasury has just done with RBS? It looks scarily familiar…something to do with $325 billion of toxic assets (no doubt including a few CDOs and CDO^2s) and divvying up different levels of risk?
The balance sheet of RBS is £2.3 trillion. In return for £6.5 billion in some dodgy non-voting shares the UK Treasury is going to be insuring some of that £2.3 trillion. The first £19.5 billion is RBS’s responsibility, after that the taxpayer takes care of 90% of the rest of the $325 billion.
Sound familiar? Yes, the UK Treasury has just got itself the mezzanine tranche of a CDO!
Observations:
1. This “Mother Of All CDOs” that the Treasury owns is mezzanine tranche, the hardest tranche to value and risk manage.
2. Assuming there are CDO^2s in the portfolio this is now officially a CDO^3.
3. Worst of all, the premium paid to the UK Taxpayer is £6.5 billion in RBS shares. Of course, if things go wrong, as they probably will, then that premium will plummet as the RBS share price plummets. Note to Lord Myners, Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown: When you buy insurance on company X, buy it from company Y, not company X itself.
4. A fall of a mere 8.2% in the value of the toxic assets will wipe out the £6.5 billion. And that’s best-case scenario in which the RBS share price doesn’t fall!
5. Finally, the shares are non voting so as to give the impression, albeit rather feebly, that RBS has not been nationalized. Look, the Taxpayer owns 90% of RBS, and can vote on 75% of the shares. Why keep up the charade? Nationalize all dangerous banks, across the globe, immediately. Guarantee the deposits of the man in the street. And clean up the mess in an atmosphere of relative stability.
The UK Treasury is being advised by a bunch of dodgy Sirs and Lords, none of whom have a clue about what is going on or what to do, none of whom have any qualifications in risk control. But I’m sure all of them are jolly good chaps to have a glass of port with in the clubs of St James’s.”
The inevitable consequence as this all plays out over the coming months, will be a radical swing to the left, with the Shinners joining Labour in Government. It will mark a significant epoch in irish history – the death of the Civil War parties.
As Cian says “friendship and PULING together” That is Fianna Fail alright! They have gone overboard with the WHINING lately.