The Irish Times reported (26th May) that the Financial Regulator has said that there were no "silver bullets" to assist people with distressed mortgages due to "moral hazard".
Where is this moral hazard for all the politicians, administrators, bankers, developers and related professionals who created the financial crisis but continue to hold positions of power, draw huge pensions, operate insolvent businesses and get massive bale-outs courtesy of taxpayers?
To my mind, the Financial Regulator has crossed a line by destinguishing between "moral hazard" for developers/bankers (not needed) and for "the little people" (needed to teach people lessons) and thereby seems to have aligned himself with the former happy campers in the Galway tent.
Whilst I am sickened by what has been allowed to happen over the last number of years (after all this is the second time that an Irish Govt has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the last 30/40 years.)
I fail to be convinced why I should bail out less prudent neighbours than I.
If I save for the rainy day why shouldn't others do the same??
For example-Mandatory pensions should be brought in as soon as possible so that people can provide for themselves in their old age!!
I agree with much of what you say but, thanks to the bank baleout, we are already baling out banks and developers to the tune of about €40 billion thats €10k per person in the country. I have absolutely no time for that. However, I'd be a bit more sympathetic to a bale out of ordinary people provided that the rich and very rich who benefited most during the boom paid the most - see other entries by me about this.
Yes I take the point about €10k person but whether we like it or not and I don't we have to fix the financial system.
Like they did in Iceland I think people should be named and shamed from the top down (after all they have had their investigations already and we are still scoping out the details nearly two years later.
Again while I appreciate yours and others logic (that NAMA 2 would fix the economy) I still fail to be convinced why I should bail out less prudent neighbours than I.
Where do we stop? with a NAMA 3 to take care of their credit card bills??
Whatever about NAMA 1 it must be open so that we are fully aware of the buyers of assets from NAMA and at what price!!
The thoughts of the same small number of people swanning around with their assets purchased back from NAMA at knockdown prices make my stomach turn and the recent comments by the chairman of NAMA offer little comfort.
Bear in mind that taxpayers already contribute about €20 billion a year in social welfare. However, I agree with many of your sentiments. As regards NAMA1, you may be interested in this new entry at http://www.planware.org/briansblog/2010/06/open-letter-to-namas-board.html
I found the comments of the Chairman of NAMA very upsetting (but not surprising).
I think that it will be necessary to keep the whole area of developers relationships with NAMA very much under the microscope.
A quick solution to the problem of secrecy would be to change company law to ensure that ALL companies file their accounts in the Companies Office.
I was surprised that the social partners did not press for this as part of the many deals they did with government since 1987.
Many companies have effectively put in place structures to avoid having to file their accounts as required by the 4th and 7th EU Company Law Directives.