Does ANYONE think that this is a good idea?

So the legislation behind the NAMA report has been published and due to the fact that the Daíl is closed down for the summer hiatus we will have no meaningful debate of the document for over a month. Nice one lads.

However, at least the opposition parties will now have a few weeks to study the report for a change, rather than Fianna Fáil giving it to the press before the opposition see it as they have been wont to do for quite some time. Minister Willie of Dea, good democrat that he is, said on Pat Kenny a mere few minutes ago that it was a 'most unusual' move to publish a bill so long before it would be voted into legislation.

Lord forbid that anyone but Fianna Fáil should have any say in how our country is run, and sure haven't they been doing such a wonderful job anyway?

I'm not an economist (thank the lord) but I do have a passing interest in the running of the economy and the country in general, so in an effort to educate myself about what is going on with NAMA I tried a little reading of what the great and the good had to say.

The headlines in the morning papers this morning was more than a little perturbing as a starting point. Take the Irish Independent:

NAMA: The €90 billion gamble

When the largest selling national paper compares the Minister for Finances big idea for getting us all out of the economic mire to betting it all on black, or a three legged nag, I get a little worried. But I won't leap to any conclusions just yet.

If you're not a fan of the Indo and you prefer the 'paper of record' then the Irish Times was either being incredibly tongue in cheek or was doing a dismal job of trying to reassure the public when it ran with this headline:

NAMA not to pay 'bubble' prices says Lenihan

Well isn't that reassuring! Essentially Lenny is saying that the reason the idea is going to work is that they are not going to massively pay over the odds for the hordes of half-finished shoe-box apartments around the country. Phew, I was getting a little worried there for a second.

However then Ruairi Quinn, probably Ireland's most astute Minister for Finance in living memory, had this to say about NAMA:

“The Irish taxpayer is being exposed. On a good day we might get all our money back but we’re not going to see the kind of good days that were there in the past.”

Hmmm.... Now I'm beginig to doubt that Lenny has this little problem all sewn up. Could this be true?

Richard Bruton is also someone who knows his way around a balance sheet and genuinely seems to be a politician that cares and has a principle of two (this from a non-FG voter.) The Party's spokesperson on Finance has previously described NAMA as a "shotgun wedding" and said that "Panic today, and misplaced optimism that tomorrow will look after itself, should not guide this massive step."

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear...

Even the madmen in SIPTU have come out all guns blazing, accurately pointing out that the NAMA Bill “socialises recklessly accumulated bank debts” and is not transparent enough to reassure taxpayers.

Jack O'Connor went on to say “Regrettably the bill shows no evidence of new thinking, no willingness to learn from past mistakes and every intention of making ordinary people pay for the squandermania of the rich and powerful."

(BTW, 'Squandermania' is a fabulous word and SIPTU's Hed of Communictions Frank Conolly should patent it quickly as it perfectly sums up the last decade.)

The really disturbing thing is that on the polar opposite of the political ideology landscape, clean-shaven, free-market loving economist Constantin Gurdgiev agrees with the beardy guys in the unions. He points out that:

1. The word 'taxpayer' appears in the entire legislation only once. Despite the taxpayers being the sole payee for the scheme;


2. Words 'Taxpayers representation' do not appear in the document at all;


3. Words 'Taxpayers interest' do not appear in the document at all;


4. Words 'stop-loss' do not appear in the document at all;


5. Words 'transparency', 'public interest' (outside the scope of court decisions) and 'public information' do not appear at all
   

What is the world coming to when the right of centre economists and the trade union economists agree? Has the natural order of things been destroyed? Now I'm really worried! What next, the four horsemen of the Apocolypse? A plague of locusts?

But surely there must be someone out there other than Brian Lenihan, his boss that was Minister for Finance when the economy started to implode and their slighlty simple side-kick, mouthy Mary, that thinks NAMA is a good idea? In the interest of balanced reporting, someone must come out and support the idea...

Well, there is this one. Nama was described by one source as being “crucially important in restoring health and stability to our banking system and to the wider economy."

This was from the Irish Banking Federation.

Now I'm really worried.