The Anglo Irish Bank Tapes

[Murazor]

A dressed link.

TAPE RECORDINGS from inside doomed Anglo Irish Bank reveal for the first time how the bank's top executives lied to the Government about the true extent of losses at the institution.

The astonishing tapes show senior manager John Bowe, who had been involved in negotiations with the Central Bank, laughing and joking as he tells another senior manager, Peter Fitzgerald, how Anglo was luring the State into giving it billions of euro.

Mr Fitzgerald had not been involved in the negotiations with the Central Bank and has confirmed he was unaware of any strategy or intention to mislead the authorities. Mr Bowe, in a statement last night, categorically denied that he had misled the Central Bank.

The audio recordings are from the bank's own internal telephone system and date from the heart of the financial crisis that brought the State to its knees in September 2008.

Anglo itself was within days of complete meltdown – and in the years ahead would eat up €30bn of taxpayer money. Mr Bowe speaks about how the State had been asked for €7bn to bail out Anglo – but Anglo's negotiators knew all along this was not enough to save the bank.

The plan was that once the State began the flow of money, it would be unable to stop.

Mr Bowe is asked by Mr Fitzgerald how they had come up with the figure of €7bn. He laughs as he is taped saying: "Just, as Drummer (then-CEO David Drumm) would say, 'picked it out of my arse'."

He also says: "If they (Central Bank) saw the enormity of it up front, they might decide they have a choice. You know what I mean?

"They might say the cost to the taxpayer is too high . . . if it doesn't look too big at the outset . . . if it looks big, big enough to be important, but not too big that it kind of spoils everything, then, then I think you have a chance. So I think it can creep up."

Mr Fitzgerald, the Director of Retail Banking, is heard saying: "Yeah. They've got skin in the game and that is the key."

Mr Bowe's comments in the audio recording reveal that Anglo's strategy was to lure the State in, leaving taxpayers with no choice but to continue to provide loans to "support their money".

The recording also shows Mr Bowe and Mr Fitzgerald laughing as they say how there is no realistic chance of ever repaying the loans.

For the first time, taxpayers get an exclusive insight into the banking shenanigans that cost Ireland our sovereignty.

That such conversations took place should surprise no one (it certainly doesn't surprise me), but it is somewhat rare to have the opportunity to see the dirty laundry aired like this (as a matter of fact, the very last I remember that was like this would be the Enron tapes).

Thought some here might want to know.

[Thanas]

I think this confirms what pretty much everyone suspected. Thanks for that.

[FTeik]

Now is this stupidity or arrogance?

You don't talk about such things on the phone. Or per e-mail. Period. Or course, if those banksters would have been more circumspect, there would have been no need to bail the out.

[Lord Pounder]

Now is this stupidity or arrogance?

You don't talk about such things on the phone. Or per e-mail. Period. Or course, if those banksters would have been more circumspect, there would have been no need to bail the out.

Arrogance pure and simple. Anglo destroyed the Irish economy, we will be on our knees for decades. Amazingly not one banker or politician involved in this farce have faced criminal charges.

[Edi]

What with the recent revelations in Rolling Stone about the credit rating agencies (S&P and the others), it is clear that the entire financial system is rotten to the core. It probably won't ever actually be cleaned up without a literally Stalinist purge of the banking sector.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm not even sure a purge will work if the mechanisms stay the same. It is now a known fact that banks were looking for risk-favoring psychopaths to occupy administrative positions, since these people can efficiently run anything (or run into the ground when necessary without a shred of remorse, empathy or second thought). We are dealing with a system that is built by a human, yet alien intelligence.

Though of course, in the short run purging the financial system of all these guys would have a positive effect; the newcomers for a while will be impressed by the fate of the preceding title-holders... I'd only hope it would last longer.

[LadyTevar]

Now is this stupidity or arrogance?

You don't talk about such things on the phone. Or per e-mail. Period. Or course, if those banksters would have been more circumspect, there would have been no need to bail the out.

Arrogance pure and simple. Anglo destroyed the Irish economy, we will be on our knees for decades. Amazingly not one banker or politician involved in this farce have faced criminal charges.

Welcome to America, they didn't charge our bastards either.

[Starglider]

Welcome to America, they didn't charge our bastards either.

Why should either political party bother to take any action? It's not as if you're going to vote for a third party.

[Starglider]

It is now a known fact that banks were looking for risk-favoring psychopaths to occupy administrative positions

While that is a factor, self-delusion (groupthink, mindless optimism in the early days, denial when confronted with warning signs, shame and blame-shifting when it goes wrong) is the primary cause. These effects are just as common at central banks as private ones.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

This isn't just an issue of justice; failure to prosecute these crimes directly affects the speed of the recovery and has a negative affect on future GDP growth. When you leave fraudsters in charge, their primary goal is going to be covering their tracks and obfuscating evidence, not restoring a healthy state of lending and detoxifying their companies' balance sheets. It also reinforces the existing belief that banksters are above the law and can flagrantly commit crimes without consequence. The aftermath of the S&L crisis in the US saw thousands of executives serve jail time, and the country didn't see flagrant and widespread fraud again until the early 2000's. There needs to be independent investigators to pursue financial crimes that cannot be called off or defunded by political appointees.

[aerius]

This isn't just an issue of justice; failure to prosecute these crimes directly affects the speed of the recovery and has a negative affect on future GDP growth. When you leave fraudsters in charge, their primary goal is going to be covering their tracks and obfuscating evidence, not restoring a healthy state of lending and detoxifying their companies' balance sheets.

It goes further than that. Let's say I'm an entrepreneur with a wad of cash and I want to start a business. Would I want to do so in the US where the fraudsters run the system and can stack the game against me whenever they damn well please or do I go to a country where the rule of law still applies and my business has a level playing field? And do I want to deal with Obamacare compliance and have IRS crawling up my ass every day or do I go to a country where I don't have to deal with that BS?

A lot of people in that position are thinking long & hard and having 2nd thoughts. Many of them are either taking their money elsewhere to start up their businesses or going "fuck it" and just sitting on their wads of cash since the risks aren't worth it.