[Simon]

The UK labour party have plans for a Green investment bank.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/14/20100322/tp ... c5b50.html

Would it be worth steering Anglo Irish in this direction?
Long term investments with help from the National pension fund or use of the shares the Government has in AIB/BOI may be a goer.

I would replace the entire board of Anglo Irish with people from Triodos though, they recently moved to Ireland and are a secure ethical bank from the Netherlands.

With the losses to be posted by Anglo Irish in the coming days expected to be in the region of 15Bn Euro, and the fact that a lot of their employees - who we will not be allowed to know - are set to get large pay increases in lieu of bonuses, we need to act.

We the people own the bank, and we expect our Government to do something about a bank our money bailed out.

The bank is not functioning, it is simply a drain on resources, so either kill it off or make it work

[MadasHell]

Can anyone explain why Anglo Irish is sooo important that it must be kept on expensive life support?
Is there genuine economic and financial reasons or is it because if the full story was told, about the carry on there that it would move even the docile Irish nation to revolt?
Genuinely what would happen if Anglo Irish was to fold or what does winding down a bank entail?

[RBurke]

Genuinely what would happen if Anglo Irish was to fold or what does winding down a bank entail?

If Anglo was to be wound down, the fear is that the lack of support this indicated on the part of the government would become contagious and adversely affect other banks,which are likewise struggling. I'd say this is nonsense to be honest, the markets would be happier to see a clearly wiped out business go under than to be maintained indefinetely on life support.

Since it has been nationalised already, I can't imagine there would be any major issues with winding it down however. There are serious questions outstanding about the day to day operation of the bank as well as certain specific transfers and stock purchases which are being investigated by the DPP and the guards at the moment, so we'll withhold judgement until the facts surface.

[ShakerMaker]

If Anglo was to be wound down, the fear is that the lack of support this indicated on the part of the government would become contagious and adversely affect other banks,which are likewise struggling. I'd say this is nonsense to be honest, the markets would be happier to see a clearly wiped out business go under than to be maintained indefinetely on life support.

Since it has been nationalised already, I can't imagine there would be any major issues with winding it down however. There are serious questions outstanding about the day to day operation of the bank as well as certain specific transfers and stock purchases which are being investigated by the DPP and the guards at the moment, so we'll withhold judgement until the facts surface.

But what do you think of his original idea Ronan?

Turning Anglo into a state owned 'Green Investment Bank'?

I think the Comhair report last September/October recommended this idea.

We the public are putting billiions into it. I think if we turn it into a Green Bank we may actually get something out of it all

What do you think guys?

[Simon]

This ties in with another idea.
We are told that we need to get money into the banks so that they can get credit into business.
The NAMA plan is already running into major difficulties.
Already, Anglo is a Zombie bank, AIB is nationalised (and as the owners why can we not determine wages of directors?), EBS and others are defacto nationalised and the state has almost a 50% shareholding in BoI.

We have a mortguage crisis and negative equity issues.

If a family home is in difficulty or hardship due to the mortguage crisis, why can we not transfer some of that mortguage to the Green investment bank.
There would be several criteria for doing so - e.g. only the family home, only when repayments took up a certain percentage of payments, consideration given to dependents etc.
A bond would be signed, ensuring the home is not sold for a period of at least 5 years to avoid bubble speculation.

At this point the amount of the bond would be transferred to the bank holding the mortguage, they get their bail out money and the private home is secured against forclosure.

A fixed rate mortguage or rent to buy payment program would then be established with the green investment bank.
Having that bond would oblige the bond holder to do energy saving work on the home, e.g. replacement of oil boilers with wood pellet burners, improved insulation etc.
All such programs should be tied in with manufacturing and prodction within the state, like wood pellet production, wool/straw based insulation compounds etc.

This provides work,improves on energy efficiency and energy independence.

The Green bank would obviously loan to these companies as well as provide finance packages for home improvement, giving it an income on interest repayments etc.

Basicaly what we should be looking at is developing a bailout/stimulus package that works from the bottom up as opposed to ensuring that the bankers that created the crisis have their parachutes and pensions

[Simon]

Can anyone explain why Anglo Irish is sooo important that it must be kept on expensive life support?
Is there genuine economic and financial reasons or is it because if the full story was told, about the carry on there that it would move even the docile Irish nation to revolt?
Genuinely what would happen if Anglo Irish was to fold or what does winding down a bank entail?

I dont think anyone knows, but the current situation means we have a zombie bank, that canot provide capital and is costing the tax payer a fortune.
Essentially we have a completely capitalist free market company being kept as a vampire on the economy by a Government that claims to be pragmaticaly socialist, while hospitals are being downgraded.
It really makes little sense.
The only banks that really matter IMO are the highstreet banks where you and I do our banking.

[RBurke]

Turning Anglo into a state owned 'Green Investment Bank'?

I think we can create that without needing to prop up Anglo's debts in the process!

[mikestock]

It's good that companies are also providing them with the opportunity to invest in green products by offering discounts which will encourage non-conservationists to adopt green-ism.