Do you imagine Gus that he or his ilk will put him in jail? They got the guns but we got the numbers. Voting is one thing and a hard won right it is, what to vote on is the next thing.

Very simple:

1. Most in FG lab don’t understand economics so don’t really see the real problem with what happened
2. The ones that do think Cowen made a pragmatic decision they would have had to make too, so they don’t see it as a wrong (they’re kinda right, the time to slam the breaks was 2002, but the electorate would never have allowed that happen anyway so it was coming no matter who was in office)
3. They think that if they set a precedent of a special surtax on political pensions others will do it to them in future when they make similar decisions
4. Despite their surface differences they are all the same establishment clique (esp FF / FG)

Merrill Lynch and Brian Cowen in the one sentence ….I found the last line very informative as well

Mr Bowe replied “Yeah”, but added that the politicians in charge had to take responsibility for the crash because “you pay the piper, you call the tune”.

In fresh revelations from the Anglo Tapes, Matt Pass, a senior executive in Merrill Lynch, which advised the State on the bank guarantee, admitted he felt “quite guilty” about the banking industry’s conduct.

He said that what had been “handed” to politicians meant that Mr Cowen and then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown “are going to lose their jobs”.

However, Mr Bowe did not absolve politicians, telling the UK banker that “if he [Gordon Brown] did not have banks handing out credit during the New Labour years, people would not have spent money, the economy would not have been as prosperous”.

The Merrill Lynch executive also suggested to Mr Bowe, in a conversation in October 2008, that political leaders could have told the banks in the years before the crash that they “shouldn’t have been doing the kind of lending they were doing”.

But he added that if they had done that, “there would have been an almighty stink”.

In another conversation in late September 2008, Anglo’s chief financial officer, Matt Moran, told Mr Bowe how Ireland’s wealthy were moving their money to Germany.

He told Mr Bowe he had heard from a senior stockbroker that “significant money (had) come out of AIB and Bank (of Ireland) . . . and going into German bunds”. This, he said, was being done “in the high private client side”.

He said he had been told about “super-high net worth money held in some cash-type accounts and orders by custodians to move it into [German] bunds”.

In the course of only two days, the bankers speculated that Ireland’s wealthy could have put as much as €500m into Germany.

Mr Bowe also told Mr Moran how Anglo worked with Irish Life & Permanent to prop up its balance sheet.

“Permo [Irish Life & Permanent] were on to us, they were short a billion, em, and kind of caught short – it sounds like all the corporate stuff [deposits] has left Permo, so the Central Bank is obviously aware of that, but they got 300 [million] on Friday and they got another, I think it was 850 [million], today from us and we just have to see what happens, but they’re paying it back tomorrow, that’s the basis on which we did it,” Mr Bowe told Mr Moran.

“So it feels a bit better, Matt – I suppose that’s the best way of putting it – and in terms of our days, days to disaster, you can kind of stretch that, stretch that out, y’know?”

Mr Moran laughed before replying: “Yeah.”

Mr Moran hit the head-lines last week when it emerged he had been granted immunity from prosecution by the Director of Public Prosecutions for all matters relating to Anglo Irish Bank. He has previously featured several times in the Anglo Tapes, as well as in Anglo emails in which he refers to contacts during the crisis with then Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who he calls “Enda K”, and then Fianna Fail TD, Beverly Flynn.

In another recording, in April 2008, while talking to Anglo CEO David Drumm, Mr Bowe described Sean Quinn as “like a cancer, this is like a cancer growing on the bank”.

He said at this stage the bank was “in a spiral, and I want the spiral to go away”.

In another conversation around that time – a month after the bank guarantee – Mr Bowe is again talking to Mr Drumm, who is complaining that Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has made a statement about the importance of systemic banks. Mr Drumm claims that in doing so “he just made a balls of it. He killed us”.

Mr Bowe told Mr Drumm that Anglo (and Irish Nationwide) were not considered systemic banks – and therefore worth saving – because “we don’t give, pay people’s wages and have ATMs and do stuff like that”. Mr Drumm replies: “Oh, yeah, the cash out of the wall.”

Mr Drumm then suggested that the Government was “trying to kill us”. “I think they have been trying to force us into a tougher spot”… so that they could… “act under the Central Bank Act, y’know, to protect the stability of the system”.

Source irish Independent – I would supply the link but My computer has problems linking from the Indo for some reason …

Apologies – Quotation marks to be entered at “Mr Bowe” …….and end at “system”"

Who are the Irish people mentioned that moved their money to Germany – Blueshirts ?
Why don’t they be asking that now , and indeed were those individuals working in the bank or working of inside information ?

They are sh!t scared that a govt made up of Independents and another party – (SF perhaps) will uncover all their corruption.

“Permo ” is planning on evicting people and it doing the Band B loans and it ran by the British now –
Jeremy Masding is former advisor to the British cabinet
Gerry “Republican” Adams is very quite on the issue – and ye know I am right Sinn Fein …

Mary Lou is as well …is her husband working in Eriva – if he is there’s some wedge going into that house !

Quite on evictions too and they supposed to be Republicans ….
Enda wil be left in power until the inevitable heave in Sinn Fein before the election !

In the true spirit of Public Service employment practices which all politicians benefit from, Incompetence is not a sackable offence.

Did they not stop off anywhere for a few pints a porter??

That’s their greatest fear, anybody with an ounce of respect for this country would vote sf/ Ind , and sit back and watch the tihs hit the fan with the amount of exclosures they will release

Keith they wouldn’t expose anything.
That’s not how it’s done in this country.
The government of the day covers up for all government departments.

But Fianna Fail may be elected the government next years?! Lol

‘On the nightmare of the guarantee there was an announcement and we all went home to bed’

Many curious issues relating to the blanket guarantee.
For example the narrative mirrors (in detail) the accounts of the Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers stories. The “ambush narrative” (unsuspecting politicians waylaid late on a Friday evening by delinquent bankers and pressured to arrive at a solution before markets open) smells more of an unoriginal cover story than a factual account events. The idea that Linehan and Cowen had no idea that this was coming and this was never discussed at cabinet. There had never been any consideration of contingency. This smacks more of fabrication than an admission of gross ineptitude. Anglo’s insolvency had been the subject of public discussion prior to its collapse.

The roles of David Begg, Jack O’Connor and senior management from Arthur Cox?

“Then at 4.50pm David Begg, the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions who sat on the board of the Central Bank during the boom turned up for some reason or other. He was accompanied by Paul Sweeney, the trade union economist.

A few minutes later, another three ICTU officials showed up, though it is not clear who they were planning to visit. At 5pm, Jack O’Connor, the president of ICTU, showed up – another bearded trade unionist with zero banking expertise is there to see the minister.

The fact that neither Mr Lenihan nor his civil servants thought it wise to clear his schedule so he could focus on the banks again underlines how out of their depth they all were. Just after Mr O’Connor bustled in, Padraig O Riordain, the managing director of Arthur Cox, showed up in the department – finally, someone who knows about banking had signed in.

Mr O Riordain was a key legal adviser to the State on the night of the bank guarantee, and his arrival marked the real start of Mr Lenihan’s day, having been allowed to waste hours beforehand in irrelevant meetings.

The sign-in book does not show the arrival of bankers from AIB and Bank of Ireland later that night. They did not deign to sign in.

Brendan McDonagh and Oliver Whelan of the NTMA did, however, sign in at 9.50pm, as did Eugene McCague, the chairman of Arthur Cox.”

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/the-gloomsday-book-who-was-there-on-the-night-of-the-guarantee-29418255.html

So when is Brian Cowen going to spill the beans on everything, let’s face it, he is probably the only man alive that actually knows everything that happened

I’d integrate Ahern first. That rat smelt something was going on and jumped ship

Quite right Ryan

they did it still made no difference, we all know sf have no power making decisions so not sure what your point is.

So you are saying SF voted against the bank Guarantee on the 28th of September 2008?

You may want to get your facts in order!

The people said “Burn the Bondholders ” and Enda gave them a fire Extinguisher ..
So the people thought – It will take a bomb , who knows how to get a bomb for those thieves ?”
That to put it very simply explains the rise of Sinn Fein and the Independents – The traditional parties have gone all continental for the benefit of money instead of organising its generation !

We had no warning about blanket bank guarantee: Ex-BoI governor
It was like going to bed on Christmas eve hoping Santa brings a bike, waking up the next morning to find a Harley in the sitting room and a million in the back all courtesy of the next door neighbours who’s pockets were rifled while they slept. Merry Christmas you filthy animal.

WJ do check records from 2008, Labour were the only party to reject it

Ronan – remember the reports that Eamon Gilmore was officially supporting a No Vote in a European election and then lo and behold was there proof that he was secretly advocating the opposite ..
so Ronan we have to apply the “snake” principle to all Labour campaigns …

Were Jamming, well, are you going to expand on the point that SF didn’t vote for the guarantee in sept 2008?

We’d love to hear.

Were Jamming.

https://twitter.com/danny_mcturner/status/598992953680474113

Care to comment?

He relocated for personal tax reasons a long time ago. He doesn’t want any Irish citizen to benefit in any way from the taxes payable on the personal fortune he makes doing business in Ireland. He won’t be any loss.

Conn thats a good idea, in fact all politicians should face charges of perjury punishable by jail sentence if caught lying to the electorate while in office….think of the silence in the dail, but then again edna would answer even less questions if that were the case than he does now.

Cheers lads. I think, with all that, and a re-instatement of Article 48, the country might have a chance of becoming a good place to live again. Imagine that! Edna will hopefully be nothing more than a particularly bad memory soon enough anyway

There should be a law whereby they must answer questions put to them in the Dail. What we have is a soft dictatorship that loathes those who voted them in. Kenny with his little wink to the Ceann Comhsirle, telling an elected TD to “Toddle off”, his contempt towards Catherine Murphys line of questioning regarding SiteServ, his thumbs up to the Gardai as they violently man handled IW protestors in Santry. The man is the height of arrogance and his disdain for the Irish people he refers to as ‘Paddy’ is immeasurable. Kenny will only respect to if you are one of the 10% of the wealthiest in the state, the common plebs are to be used and abused for their benefit. God help us if they get voted back in.