Yarr that be mine 
I read somewhere before that North Kerry had rezoned enough land for seven times the population of the entire county.
A lot of councillors (including labour and FG ones) were using rezoning and planning permission to curry votes and get funding for their pet projects.
Modern day politicians are the ultimate scam artists. The sooner we are done with democracy(note, it’s nothing more than mob rule) the better.
A few other points I took from the rest of the recording as to the issues with the banks
Morgan reckon there’s a large amount of fraud out there, with four or five loans on the same property (e.g. like Lynn was up to)
“What worries me increasingly are mortgages”, in particular IO mortgages to professionals at the peak of the bubble. About 10,000 mortgages for
properties of 1 to 2 million. About 11 billion in loans. Morgan reckons that money won’t be coming back and the bank will be lucky to get half of it back if they foreclose.
Prices have fallen by 50%, but that is an artificial level, not a real market price. Almost no transactions taking place at that price. Banks are giving out a handful of mortgages to higher earners to put an artificial floor on prices. But unsold properties are continuing to accumulate. The Euro crises could result in banks issueing no new loans - i.e. cash market only for property
Organised opposition to repayment could be a problem for banks. Some Michael Davitt figure may emerge to lead an organised campaign against mortgage payments. Could also involve paramilitaries.
The banks aren’t well capitalised as no one is interested in buying them. The banks as will end up as loss-making gold-plated semi-states. And this opens up whole new areas of political patronage. Political apointees on boards get to decide who gets loans, who gets mortgage relief/write-off etc. CJH couldn’t have even dreamed of this
He also talks of falling education standards. He reckons that in a maths lecture for second year economists, about 20% of students couldn’t answer the question: If x over 5 equals 2, what’s x?
… the alternative being…?
Just listened to the whole thing from start to finish, including the mandatory poorly-phrased question from someone expecting to have a personal gripe solved (always happens when you hand a mic around in Ireland). Well worth taking the time to listen, and send the link on to your friends too.
If you’re a regular Pinster (or even a recent one who has taken the time to have a dig through past threads), there’s not too much in there which we haven’t heard or discussed before. While it’s always refreshing to hear someone stand up and give a coherent and realistic assessment of the dreadful situation Ireland is in & how we got here, it’s depressing that someone is lauded as a hero just for calling a spade a spade. Goes to show just how shite the happy-talk drivel we are constantly fed by most of the “journalists”, bought-economists and opinion columnists in our media is. I suppose it’s what a fair proportion of the population want to hear though, I know I have plenty of friends and acquaintances who are still confident that we’ll all be partying like it’s 2006 again soon enough.
Couple of (loosely accurate) soundbites from Kelly that I thought were notable:
- Talking about the fact that our economic sovereignty pretty much ended when the IMF rode into town and have to approve everything.
- He thinks that the Eurozone problems might be solvable (and mentioned a loan of €100Bn over 50 years @ 1% to Ireland as the kind of solution we’d get), but that we still have a whole raft of problems to solve still. I hope that point gets some decent media coverage, as plenty of Irish people seem to think that all our problems will be solved when the EU gets their act together.
- He thinks that the present government will probably become as unpopular as the last one in time, leaving the possibility that FF, FG & Lab will all be gone as major political forces at the next GE. I don’t think many Pinsters would be shedding tears at that thought…
- Don’t think that needs much explaining.
There was also an anecdote in there about an estate agent who was selling off a Quinn Group property having a bomb planted in their office. I think he was making the point that much of what passes for enterprise in Ireland is still closely tied to tribalism and patronage.
So all-in-all we’re pretty five star fucked. But you knew that anyway, right?
Well I would shrink the government. We have far too many politicians and councillors, so cutting back there would be a start.
Who do you think will replace them?
I just watched SERPICO for the first time this evening. Boy do I know how he feels. So the question is do you want to be SERPICO? Well do ya punk?
What do you propose in its place?
You could argue that over time the population will learn from its mistakes…heres hoping!
Once you provide for the base life systems it does not really matter what system you have on top of that. As it will have little control over the minds of those it might choose to serve. It is the manifest broad spectrum inequity across a whole sphere that creates constant dynamic tension which seemingly justifies a resort to type of organisation beyond engaging the base life system appropriately. If you provision to engage only some of the base life support systems you create an immediate living deficit elsewhere that eventually demands action and often that action comes in the form of remedial methods never addressing the base problems which will balance themselves eventually. Some counter and say it is in fact a perfect system of control. Other add that Democracy has turned out to be the cheapest form of control.
Ignore the coherence of the life system in and around you then prepare to pay the price elsewhere.
u are going to have SF and the ULA on the left with a michael mcdowell led? far right party ( yep u guessed it 
) on the right.
no harm to see the end of FF & FG . Labour showed themselves to be utterly spineless speaking out both sides of their mouth.
No wonder they can’t comprehend 80% house price drops 
the stopped clocks are those calling Prof Kelly & cohorts “stopped clocks” , though they may never be correct
that great capitalist denis o brien was on about the stopped clocks as well a while back when he was having a bash in dublin with none other than sean fitzpatrick
amazing how shit sticks together
First off, I wish Kelly would lay off the politics. He has a totally tin-ear for it and ends up saying some semi-loony stuff on occasion. It was the threat of far right groups last time, and it’s the Provo’s this. Meh.
Second, how can he talk for an hour and not mention the deficit?
Third, interesting that he thinks the Euro thing will get fixed, and his Occam’s razor type reasoning is persuasive: it would just be too massive a mess to unravel. Sounds about right to me.
Fourth, he didn’t put a number on the falls yet to come in the property morkesh, but his tone and language make it inconceivable he thinks less than another 25%, and very likely more.
Fifth, Morgan Kelly and Paul Sommerville’s voices sound incredibly alike, from the accents to the breathless delivery and right down to a similar little lisp. Oddness.
State bank control gives politicians say over home debt;Two-thirds of banking staff must go, says academic - Thomas Molloy → independent.ie/business/iris … 42225.html
For those wondering about political predictions, there is a reflexive action to making them - saying them out loud makes them less likely to happen. Hence, I believe, the bank loan patronage - if you are the bete noir of the establishment, you say it and people will be looking out for it to prove you wrong.
well in the 80s it was all “pull” on who got appointed to what board public sector job. That never changed but didnt really matter much during the boom. Now that private sector is being destroyed to save a few bankers people will really begin to notice the nepotism endemic in Irish politics.
On the Sam Smyth show there was a cryptic story between Sam and Laura Noonan about a former Indo editor named “Tom” who refused to publish a Morgan Kelly story a few years ago. Does anyone know more about this?
P.
Morgan Kelly already talked about this in his Vanity Fair interview. The Sunday Business Post also refused to publish it.
I hadn’t seen that Vanity Fair article before. Excellent if depressing stuff.