A single bank, Anglo Irish, which, two years before, the Irish government had claimed was merely suffering from a “liquidity problem,” faced losses of up to 34 billion euros. To get some sense of how “34 billion euros” sounds to Irish ears, an American thinking in dollars needs to multiply it by roughly one hundred: $3.4 trillion. And that was for a single bank.
That is from the new Michael Lewis piece on Ireland, hat tip to Daniel Lippman.
The next government of the Republic of Ireland should sue Merril Lynch over the quality of their advice.
Scaling comparisons are funny things that sometimes don't really work.
Yes, definite math error. The current exchange rate is $1.38 for 1 Euro. So 3.4 billion Euros would be $46.9 billion.
Bertie Ahern: “Lehman’s was a world investment bank. They had testicles everywhere.â€
Well at least "mercher" can read declarative sentences for comprehension. Mike Woods and 'misplaced trust,' not so much.
Sort of like letting Washington State bail out WAMU, or having the Federal Government bail it out, but sticking the tab to only Washing State taxpayers (at least, sticking them with it theoretically).
I think, in the end, the bailout will be spread amongst all the Europeans, whether they like it or not.
John H, I never was very good at buying into subjective valuations, especially those that are labeled as "Ireland FACT of the day." Please excuse me for not reading it as "Ireland fact of the day and my own personal opinion of its relative magnitude." I am an idiot.
Fair play to "Ian McRory" (surely "Paddy O'Whackery" would have been better) for driving Lewis around while feeding him several varieties of bollocks. The fairy rings and dark hints of connections to the Provos were nice touches, I thought.
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