As the FT reports this morning:
[In Ireland] evictions are expected to rise after the EU, ECB and IMF insisted banks repossess more houses.
One in five mortgages in Ireland have serious mortgage arrears.
Now in normal times, with buoyant house prices and liquid mortgage markets the solution is to evict, sell the house on, recover as much debt as possible and start again.
These are not normal times. Ireland is hanging on by its fingertips. That's why 20% of people are in mortgage arrears. And yet the powers that be that have imposed their economic will on Ireland have decreed a 'normal time' solution - of eviction.
Where does it think these people will go?
Who does it think will buy these houses?
How do they think that leaving houses empty will assist bank recovery?
Ireland has suffered economic decisions imposed from outside that have led to mass emigration before now. It looks like it may suffer it again. There may not be famine this time, but the impact on the people of Ireland, on the collective narrative of a nation, on its neighbours, and on politics for a century or more may be as great.
For heaven's sake, surely these bankers have more sense than impose such a crisis on Ireland now?
If ever there was a time for creative solutions, such as equity sharing, this is it. Is that too much to hope for? Surely not.
And if you're in the UK this does affect you: we are always the first port of call for the Irish. Note my name.
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This is convincing me more and more that Steve Keen and Michael Hudson are right about a debt jubilee, or debt write offs.
The government should as they say, create money which is to be used for debt payments only. The only loss to the bank would be the interest, as the principle money is destroyed when debts are repaid to banks. As the banks created too much money in the property boom anyway, it seems the only fair way to go. This would keep people in their homes, defalte house prices without negative equity, and stimulate the economy by transfering any money which people are earning into the market place.
It is such a good idea – I do not know why the left are not catching on.
Here’s a message to the Irish people. Watch this and think carefully about what you should do next!
Here’s the first instalment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEzXln5kbuw&feature=youtu.be
Very many of the people will have already paid substantial sums in interest to the lender. Quite what proportion have already been paying down capital is not certain but it could be high. So what was the original purchase price plus normal charges? It could be that there are some who have already paid in more than this figure. There will be others who have paid in a goodly proportion. Having seen what has gone on in the USA in the foreclosures and evictions there have been large numbers of people ruined for life because the eventual sale by the lender was at rock bottom prices leaving the former owner still with large debts despite having already paid in significant monies. The scale of that disaster was huge. The Irish Government really should get a grip on this to achieve a sensible balance which does justice to those affected. As for who is Irish and who is not I suspect that the numbers in the UK with a touch of the Irish somewhere in the DNA is in tens of millions.
How do we get from here:
[In Ireland] evictions are expected to rise after the EU, ECB and IMF insisted banks repossess more houses.
To here:
For heaven’s sake, surely these bankers have more sense than impose such a crisis on Ireland now?
EU = governmental body; ECB = governmental body; IMF = governmental body…..
Now, who is insisting and who is imposing?
Little attempts at sleight-of-hand word games do your cause no good.
These organisations are staffed by bankers
Non-TJN/nef source/link for that dubious claim?
What claim?
It was in the Guardian