It adds up to 300% of GDP

Fuck.

Rancid shark steak - here we come.

I don't see the bank nationalisations as a problem - as long as they're paying their way, they're not a key debt.

More worrying is the long-term PFI fix, which was was always designed to take government borrowing off the official balance sheet, but will have the unfortunate effect of back loading repayments so that various councils and social services become less and less able to afford them.

If the short term debt figures are accurate - and bear in mind the Spectator is a Tory rag - that's quadruple plus ungood.

MarketTrustee:

I would suggest that Ireland's miracle industrial growth over the past decade is vulnerable to the similar credit dependencies more so than ForEx ties to the UK.

Although the Sterling area is our biggest single market, the Eurozone, taken as a whole, is much bigger.  I suspect most Irish corporate borrowing is in Euros - interest rates have been low, and why take on exchange risk?

The problem for the Brits is that with so much of their borrowing denominated in $ and €, they have to pay back so much more as Sterling depreciates.

Longer term this can be offset by the improved competitiveness of Sterling based companies, but short term it must make their borrowings look pretty scary.

For many companies, there may be no long term.


notes from no w here

Ireland's miracle industrial growth

I would suggest that Ireland's miracle industrial growth over the past decade is vulnerable to the similar credit dependencies more so than ForEx ties to the UK.

This article re Ireland is first rate: McWilliams is excellent.

Brace yourself now for the Deckland Depression

In fact Ireland is the most exposed EU country of all, and what is coming there will test the Euro to destruction, I think.

Unlike the UK, where housing values are underpinned by a shortage of building land, Ireland has a huge oversupply of newly developed property, developments in progress, and overpriced "banked" land zoned for building.

Irish land prices have collapsed - and the decline has been accelerating, I was told. Virtually all Irish banks - but the "Builders Bank" Allied Irish in particular - are sitting on time bombs.

Several people I talked to in Dublin when I gave

this lecture

think that there will be carnage when auditors get to grips in earnest with this year's set of bank accounts.

McWilliams sets out brilliantly how viciously he sees a depression kicking into the Irish private sector in the DeckLand suburbs...

Brace yourself now for the Deckland Depression - David McWilliams - Independent.ie

Commuter towns such as Naas, Arklow and Navan are likely to be hit hardest and the people who will lose their jobs and, eventually, their homes are the very ones who bought into the boom most. They are the young working families, largely employed in white-collar jobs, who believed the hype and bought the new houses, complete with decking and barbeques, close to the top of the market. They are the Decklanders and Ireland is about to endure the great "Deckland Depression".

A few years ago, it was all so different. Deckland, that vast expanse of new suburbs, which emerged in the past 10 years, was the most optimistic place in the country. It was young, energetic and despite the snobbishness of many commentators who believed that these new towns were soulless, Deckland was as vibrant and community-focused as any new suburb has ever been. If you dispute this contention, look at the growth of community organisations like the GAA or new school rolls in the commuter counties. Deckland was Ireland's "Babybelt"; and for many thousands of people, Deckland represented a New Ireland, where people could settle, own their own houses and begin the great Irish process of trading up. Deckland embodied the essence of the New Irish Dream, where the population was on an upwardly mobile conveyor belt, propelled by the twin forces of easy credit and rising house prices. Everyone could be a winner.

Now all that is shattered and the dream is over. Unemployment is rising fastest in these areas, house prices are falling quickest and a recent survey indicated that the most insecure part of the workforce are young, heavily committed white collar workers.

P.S. To answer CoffeeHousers' query, this is "external debt" by the IMF definition, which is gross. (And does not include contingent liability, just debt). One must take into account that Britain is likely to have proportionately greater net assets whose value would be amplified by sterling's plunge. But how much greater? I'll keep hunting. Every crisis is different, and each has its own metrics. It was our concentration on the metrics of the last crisis (inflation) that blinded so many to the causes of this crisis (debt).