要不是爱尔兰欧元区成员国的身份，以及欧洲央行(ECB)的资金援助，就连爱尔兰政府高官也承认，该国将变成下一个冰岛——冰岛危机已导致该国四家国际银行全部倒闭。 ************************************************************ Irish taxpayer peers into big ‘black hole' By John Murray Brown
Any air left in the Irish property bubble was unceremoniously ejected this week, as Brian Lenihan, Irish finance minister, revealed the “black hole” at the heart of Irish banking.
Careworn Irish taxpayers are asking how a small, flexible, and pro-business economy failed to anticipate the impending disaster.
Ireland – like Iceland and Latvia – is a small, open economy, with a large financial sector, heavily exposed to foreign borrowing, and a limited fiscal capacity to cope with unforeseen shocks.
Lax regulation, reckless lending practices, and ill- judged investments by property developers all contributed to the creation of the bubble. Low euro interest rates were also a factor. But even economists believed a soft landing was the most likely resolution.
When Sean Dunne, a property developer, paid €379m ($512m) for the seven-acre Jury's Hotel site in Dublin's leafy Ballsbridge, he said: “Of course it's nuts. It's nuts because the Irish people have driven Ballsbridge to that price.”
But with the capital shortfall among the five domestic lenders now estimated at €32bn – two-thirds of which will probably end up being provided by the government – the legacy of these profligate practices will not be easily shaken off by the taxpayer.
The National Asset Management Agency – the bad bank launched this week with the transfer of the first €16bn of the €81bn of impaired bank loans – is turning a private sector liability into a public liability, the size of which will depend on property markets 10 years from now.
Nama is the centrepiece of the government's bank rescue, which is broadly supported by international investors but remains deeply divisive at home.
Bo Lundgren, Swedish finance minister during the Nordic banking crisis in the early 1990s, remarked during a visit to Dublin last year that political consensus was almost a precondition for dealing with Sweden's banking crisis.
Ireland's stark political divisions were on display yesterday as Eamon Gilmore, Labour leader, goaded Brian Cowen, the Fianna Fáil prime minister, with accusations of “economic treason”.
Patrick Honohan, governor of the Central Bank, says: “As the dust settles it is clear that most of the damage in this crisis, reputational and financial, has been done by just one firm – Anglo Irish Bank.”
The specialist property lender, nationalised in January 2009, is now at the centre of a criminal investigation after a spate of governance scandals.
With the arrest and questioning of its former chairman and finance director last month, it has become the national whipping boy.
However, all of the banks lost the run of themselves.
Mike Soden, former chief executive of Bank of Ireland, remarked yesterday it took 221 years for his former bank to grow its balance sheet to €100bn, “and four more years to get to €200bn”.
The rapid expansion of private sector credit is only one symptom. But it was an early warning sign missed by the authorities.
Mr Honohan, when an academic economist, produced a study on credit growth and the mismatch of loans and deposits across 30 EU and non-EU economies for 2004-2006.
Ireland, Iceland and Latvia emerged with red lights flashing.
Even a year after the peak of property prices, Bank of Ireland, the most conservative institution, was still claiming that less than 1 per cent of its book was impaired.
Results yesterday for the nine months to December 2009 showed 10 per cent of total loans were impaired, and 27 per cent of the property loan book.
Last June, the International Monetary Fund estimated that total Irish bank losses through 2010 could reach €35bn or about 20 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.
The government has already provided €11bn – €3.5bn in preference shares – for Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland and €4bn for Anglo Irish Bank.
Given the regulator's new capital targets, analysts estimate the government could be on the hook for €24bn of the €32bn capital shortfall.
Put this against a tax base of €30bn and falling, and a fiscal deficit running at 11.7 per cent of GDP, and the scale of the government challenge is clear.
But for its membership of the euro and the funding lifeline of the European Central Bank, even ministers concede that Ireland would be Iceland, where the crisis saw all four of its international banks fall.
楊淑君含冤被判失格事件，各項事實證明根本是惡整楊淑君，但亞洲跆拳道聯盟（Asian Taekwondo Union）擺明了要蠻幹，昨天在官網上發佈英文新聞稿，標題：「中華台北使用驚人騙術」（Shocking Act of Deception by Chinese Taipei），指控楊淑君和台灣的教練團使詐，文末要對楊淑君及兩名教練禁賽，也要調查台灣的跆拳道協會。
白宫中国政策顾问贝德(Jeffrey A. Bader)表示，特别是在2008的经济危机之后，中国强势的态度以及快速的恢复力，使美国逐渐衰弱。而中国逐渐崛起的意识，在美国国内扩散。因此奥巴马政府有决心的要更新美国领导力，来对抗这个意识。就连美国保守派媒体《华盛顿时报》日前一专栏也称奥巴马政府内部对华分歧，前两年主导对华关系的所谓“磕头派”逐渐失势，对华“失望派”将左右未来两年中美关系。相较于2009年11月奥巴马在东京发表上台后首次的亚洲政策演讲，美国谋求中美合作，不谋求遏制中国的言论似乎已经不复存在，奥巴马当时指出“一个强大而繁荣的中国的崛起，将成为国际社会的力量源泉”。李侃如强调，美国的外交政策需要一位有权威性的领导人。
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