Guido has another friend who publically called for the UK to follow Ireland…..stand forward Gideon.

http://redrag1.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-is-connection-between-repeat.html

Perhaps this is why, in the old-fashioned world of offline media, ‘Gossip Columnist’ and ‘Economics Editor’ have traditionally been two different jobs done by two different people.

‘ Thanks to Gordon’s prolificacy Irish commercial banks are safer than even the Bank of England. ‘

An astonishing clueless comment by Paul Staines. The BoE are a central bank and the Irish commercial banks are well commercial banks. The BoE ‘ safety ‘ rating if you want to think about it like that is in effect the same as the sovereign rating. Moreover, the most clueless aspect is it was the unilateral Irish guarantee of the full liabilities of the Irish banking sector that accelerated the banking crisis in 2008. The guarantee was ludicrous because there was no way that they could meet the liabilities which were many multiples of Irish GDP. It is this guarantee that is coming back to haunt the Irish because the banks senior bondholders have equal seniority with depositors for payment. Following Paul Staines advice has left the Irish with a deficit this year of an astonishing 32%.

I think anyone who claims a bank is safe nowadays is pointing a machine gun at their right boot, loosening the safety catch and pulling gently on the trigger…

C’mon. Compare the list of all those local councils which invested public money in a failing Icelandic bank because it was offering such amazingly attractive interest rates on deposits:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7660741.stm

@3, “Clueless” is spot on where Staines is concerned.

This is the bloke who sprayed 500 notes up the wall betting that David Laws would keep his job. Good find by Adam Bienkov.

And as for Dan, Dan the Oratory Man …

At last!

Volume 263775142 of “Why Guido and Dale MUST BE IGNORED”.

I thought you’d given up!

Weell… Ireland has just announced that it would rather demolish its public finances than allow a bank to go the wall. It has guaranteed deposits, and taken banks into public ownership. The only way you’ll lose your money in an Irish bank is if the entire country goes to the wall, and that’s still pretty unlikely.

@8,

Especially since Ireland is in the Euro, so has some protection from the same mechanism which got it into this mess (see Greece for example of this).

Incidentally, this post probably goes to prove you shouldn’t take investment advice from a blogger. But then again, if you were, it’s your own outlook…

@ 8. Tim J

It is the guarantee for bondholders not depositors that is killing them. Their banks are all cross collaterised so if one went down they would have taken the rest with them and the pension funds and insurance companies. They should have imposed a haircut on bondholders from the start. Even now they would rather trash their own people to make good obligations to international bondholders. The private sector are no longer funding the Irish banking system. The state and the banking system only remain solvent of a sort because the ECB are financing them. Kinda ironic because I’m sure Paul Staines would hate the very existence of the institution that is keeping them alive.

Guido getting something wrong is news? Since when?