ECB Bailout of Ireland in full swing

It’s a sign of the times that every public debt offering in Europe has become a “risk event”, with the Irish government among the most vulnerable to what would be a catastrophic collapse in demand. And no longer empowered to produce its own counterfeit money, it is ultimately reliant on the ECB to remain solvent.

The Sunday Independent reports that the ECB has finally started to play ball, providing the funds to ensure that no Irish government bond is left unbought:

Irish banks are using billions of euro from the European Central Bank (ECB) to buy up Irish government debt, the Sunday Independent can reveal.

It has emerged that the banks were “active” in a recent Irish government bond sale of about €1bn, and it was confirmed yesterday the repossession of Irish bonds at the ECB has occurred.

Irish banks are using ECB funds to “create the illusion” of demand on the international markets.

Incidentally, how reassuring that the same governments who collude in this type of activity are fighting the good fight against market abuse by private participants, defined previously here:

Market abuse may arise in circumstances where investors have been unreasonably disadvantaged, directly or indirectly, by others who:

* have used information which is not publicly available (insider dealing);
* have distorted the price-setting mechanism of financial instruments;
* have disseminated false or misleading information.

Of course, the governments themselves would never do anything like that.