Irish Finance Minister Noonan Dumps Stocks to Buy Gold Read

February 13, 2016

Original article March, 2015

The Minister for Finance in Ireland, Michael Noonan, sold his shares in funds that track European and US stocks and diversified his portfolio including allocating some of his personal wealth into a gold exchange traded fund (ETF) in 2014.

Noonan sold out of his positions in the Lyxor Eurostoxx 50 ETF and SPDR DJIA ETF in 2014 and opted to invest in the SPDR gold shares ETF and Portuguese government bonds. He maintained his holdings in SPDR KBW Banks ETF, Ishares FTSE 100 ETF, Market Vectors Agri Business ETF, ETFS Agricultural Commodities ETF.
The information was published last week in the Register of Members Interests, in which members of Oireachtas – the Irish Parliament – must declare financial interests valued at over €13,000.

The changes to the Minister’s portfolio were highlighted by Ireland’s Sunday Independent yesterday, who described Noonan as “bearish” and interpreted the move as a “hedge against euro deflation”.

The piece acknowledged that gold is a safe haven – the “traditional hedge against tough times” and that “gold is an asset that has outperformed in times of both inflation and deflation.”

Noonan is believed to be quite a shrewd investor. The Sunday Independent reported that

“Noonan’s personal investments give an insight into his thinking and his views on the risk and opportunities facing the global and European economies and markets. He has a track record stretching back decades of canny private investments.”

The news is of interest given Noonan’s status within the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers, the Council of the European Union and the Ecofin. The Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin), is composed of the Economics and Finance Ministers of the Member States, generally meets once a month under the chair of the rotating EU Presidency.

Noonan is an EU economic insider and would have access to good information with regards to financial and economic developments in Europe.

Noonan represents Ireland at these meetings and chaired the Council during the first half of 2013. He is committed to the European political project. The political opposition and an angry public have accused him of putting the interests of EU banks and political elites over those of Irish society.

Given Noonan is close to EU elites, it is interesting that he chose to sell his European stocks and his allocation to Eurostoxx. Was the decision made prior to the ECB mooting the possibility of QE? If so it would suggest that Noonan may have been concerned about deflation. And yet the ECB never considered factoring the potential for deflation into its stress tests for banks.

Or was the decision made with knowledge of the ECB’s intention? If this were so it would indicate a lack of faith by a European finance minister in the ability of the ECB to achieve its stated objectives, given that QE should raise European stock markets.

Unfortunately, the Register of Members Interests does not detail the timeline of investments or their relative value so it is difficult to speculate whether the minister dumped his stock market investments prior to buying the gold ETF.

Noonan also bought Portugal 4.35% October 2017 government bonds. This either suggests that he has more confidence in the economic outlook for Portugal than for Ireland or more likely it is a form of diversification.

He continues to hold SPDR KBW US Banks ETF – which tracks US banks, iShares FTSE 100 ETF, Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF and ETFS Agricultural Commodities ETF.

Whatever the motivation of a European finance minister to buy into a gold ETF – which, incidentally, is not the same as owning physical gold as it carries significant counterparty risk – it represents a significant shift in attitude toward gold.

It also demonstrates that the recovery narrative is not one that the Minister appears to have much faith in. Noonan is prudently hedging his bets in this regard.

Max Keiser talks about Finance minister Michael Noonan and his ridiculous and illegal stance regarding Irish Tax Payer owned banks.

Noble Joe signs off with an alternative banking report

January 31, 2016

There were two banking reports floating around Leinster House last week. One was written by the Irish establishment, the other by an incorrigible rebel.

Article by Shane Ross, Irish Independent, Jan 31,2016

BT: See Full Report, link below. One of the most important report analysis of Ireland's economic crash.

WARHORSE: TD Joe Higgins explaining his decision not to sign off on the Banking Inquiry report. Photo: Sam Boal /Rollingnews.ie

The first, an expensive production with a glossy cover, was dull as ditch water inside. The second was precariously pinned together on the outside, but a controversial read written by one of only two dissenting voices on the inquiry team, Deputy Joe Higgins. Dump the official version.

Last Thursday, Higgins made his final speech in Dail Eireann. Typically, he did not flag it as such. He modestly took the opportunity to explain why he had jumped ship from the emptiest vessel ever launched in Leinster House.

Just before Joe spoke, another eloquent parliamentarian had said goodbye with an almighty swipe at some of his opponents.

Pat Rabbitte , former leader of the Labour Party - so derided by Higgins - allowed himself the luxury of a few rhetorical flourishes as he left the Chamber for the final time. He was clapped by his own party colleagues. Joe simply got on with the business, finished his 10-minute speech, picked up his papers and left.

The speech was vintage Higgins. When I entered the chamber, he was making the mother of all attacks on Independent News & Media. He was in full flight, fingering the media for fuelling the property boom. His Banking Inquiry report had related how this newspaper group had sponsored the Irish Property Awards every year until 2008. Worse still, the 2004 awards ceremony had been portrayed in its pages as "a glittering showcase of the cream of Ireland's property and development industries ... attended by a record 1,000 property professionals with several hundred disappointed".

In his Dail speech, he happily regaled us with the tale of how "in 2007 the 'Irish property deal of the year' award had gone to the Irish Glass Bottle site, which ended up costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of euro while five of the seven award-winning developers were among the top 10 debtors to Anglo."

Higgins socked it to us, insisting that the Property Awards reflected "INM's generally obsequious coverage of developers, who were celebrated as gods with the Midas touch …"

Higgins displays political courage that other politicians would shun as suicidal.

When I phoned Higgins on Thursday night to congratulate him on his speech, he suggested that I would not want to print such criticism in this newspaper. Nor to mention that the Irish Times was actually "a player" in the property market by virtue of buying a website - myhome.ie - for €40m in 2006. Both newspaper groups, he maintained, had a strong vested interest in seeing the property market rocket.

Not for the first time in two decades of Higgins in the Dail, the old Trotskyite warhorse was right. And not for the first time in his life, Higgins was on his own. No other politician in Dail Eireann has the bottle to confront the media full frontal and excoriate them for a role in the biggest disaster ever to hit this state. Such a manoeuvre will not feature in Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe's putative 'Guide to the path to the top in politics.'

It is well known that it was Higgins who insisted that the inquiry should summon the media as witnesses to account for their behaviour during the property boom. His colleagues on the inquiry were supposed to have felt doubts about questioning such powerful players. Higgins had a field day, courting political suicide as he interrogated newspaper editors and business commentators.

So it was no surprise that Higgins issued his own Banking Inquiry report. His reason for doing so was not grandstanding, nor the usual political hunger for attention. It was pure conviction. Higgins felt the foundations of the official report were flawed. He was on the money.

His explanation is consistent with his creed. He insists that the inquiry never asked the fundamental question: "why was a small cabal of bankers, bondholders and developers allowed to wield massive economic power in pursuit of private, corporate profit and in the process inflict incalculable economic and social destruction on society?" You do not need to be a Trot to agree with that, but you need bottle to ask it.

Higgins's report highlights how ordinary citizens were galled at how utterly immune the bankers and others were to any legal sanction because the whole system "had been legally rigged in their interests".

Nor does it take a hard Leftie to share this view, but nothing so citizen-friendly would ever have appeared in the tepid official version.

Joe Higgins will not be easily replaced. No other TD has evoked such respect as a conviction politician. Higgins's rhetoric may be out of tune with the modern world but his long record of uncompromising integrity is unparalleled.

Higgins lives the ideology. He gives half his Dail salary to the Socialist Party and other causes. He spent a month in prison for his beliefs after the anti-bin-tax campaign in 2003.

He does not easily mingle with other TDs, preferring the company of those who share his mission.

He is a workaholic, dedicated to the socialist cause. While he is totally unclubbable, he is meticulously polite and has displayed a sense of humour that has regularly left the Dail in stitches.

He has a great line in ridicule and irony. He deeply detests the soft Left, as he sees them as traitors to the socialist cause. His eyes often twinkle mischievously as he gauges reactions to his more provocative statements, yet he is respected by nearly every TD.

Last week a member of the Banking Inquiry told me that they had all built up a genuine liking for the socialist TD, despite their differences. "Joe is a very, very serious politician," he muttered - enviously.

Higgins has no respect for high office or its holders. When Mary McAleese rang to tell him that she was going to seek a second term, he responded to her Excellency that her office was "superfluous" and should be abolished. The President is reported to have been stunned by his reaction.

He is famous for his Dail jousts, causing convulsions when he told Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that his Dail answers were "like playing handball with a haystack". His famous speech about "Ansbacher Man", the tax evaders who walked away scot-free, was a classic.

So we are probably bidding goodbye to the finest parliamentarian of the last decade. Politics does not make people of Higgins's mettle any more.

Joe's dedication to his principles has even marked his departure. Higgins did not need to step down, as he would undoubtedly have been re-elected in his Dublin West stronghold.

But he genuinely wanted to make way for another generation of socialism. Fellow socialist Ruth Coppinger shares his home patch due to her by-election victory. Consequently, there is only room for one of them in a battle that includes Leo Varadkar and Joan Burton. So Higgins has selflessly stood aside to be her director of elections.

He insists that he will still be active but acknowledges the stress of the political life. And in a rare concession to his opponents, he admits that "politics is a dog's life, even for right-wing TDs."

His exit is a truly noble gesture. Joe Higgins, author of the alternative Banking Inquiry report, is living proof that nobility is not confined to aristocrats.

Joe Higgins' Alternative Banking Report. Click on illustration below for full report.

Independence of Irish Data Protection Commissioner questioned

January 30, 2016

Digital Rights Ireland confirms legal papers to be served on Government in coming days

Original article Elaine Edwards Irish Times Jan 26,2016 via fliuch.org

Digital Rights Ireland is to ask the High Court to refer questions about the independence of the Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Photograph: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times

The High Court is to be asked to make a referral to the EU’s highest court for a ruling on whether Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner is truly independent under EU law.

Legal papers will be served on the State and the Attorney General in the coming days claiming the State has acted in breach of EU law by failing to ensure the regulator exercises its role independently.

The action is being taken by the privacy advocacy group Digital Rights Ireland (DRI), which took a successful case to the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2014 overturning the entire regime under which the telephone and internet data of over 500 million European citizens were retained for up to two years.

The papers note that the office of the commissioner, Helen Dixon, is integrated with the Department of Justice and that the commissioner and all her office’s employees are civil servants.

They also allege the commissioner has failed to act independently in policing databases of citizens created in recent years by both Irish Water and the Department of Education.

Repeated criticism

The commissioner’s office is considered one of the most important regulatory roles in Europe because of the high number of multinational, data-rich firms based in Ireland, including Facebook, Apple and LinkedIn.

It has come under repeated criticism from some EU sources for being “soft” on regulation, partly because of the number of jobs such firms support here. That allegation has been denied by the current commissioner and by her immediate predecessor Billy Hawkes.

DRI confirmed on Thursday morning it had instructed its lawyers to serve legal papers on the Irish Government.

“Ireland’s position as the EU’s centre for technology multinational companies makes it critical for the protection of all EU citizens’ rights that the state has a world class data protection regulatory regime,” it said on its website.

It noted a series of cases decided by the CJEU had stressed the critical importance of a truly independent data protection authority.

“Most recently, in the Schrems case on Safe Harbour [the agreement under which the data of EU citizens could be transferred legally to the US], the lack of such an independent watchdog was cited as one of the most significant differences between the EU and US privacy systems.”

The organisation said its case was that Ireland had failed to properly implement EU data protection law, or to follow the requirements of the Charter of Fundamental Rights by failing to ensure the Irish commissioner was genuinely independent from the Government.

Key role

“Ireland’s DPC has a key role in Europe’s data protection landscape. From our 2014 case overturning data retention to the Schrems case, to the Microsoft v USA warrant case Ireland is the critical jurisdiction for the protection for the rights of citizens across the EU,” a spokesman said.

“Ireland’s data protection authority doesn’t meet the criteria set down by the EU case law for true independence. As the Irish Government has refused to acknowledge this to date, we are turning to the courts to uphold the fundamental rights of Irish and EU citizens alike.”

Thursday, January 28th, marks the 10th annual International Data Protection Day.

A spokeswoman for the commissioner said she could not comment on the case as neither the office nor the commissioner were a party to the proceedings.

Speaking to mark the event, Helen Dixon said a key priority for her office this year was the continued expansion of resources, including the further recruitment of legal and technical specialists.

DRI - “As the Irish government has refused to acknowledge this to date, we are turning to the courts to uphold Irish and EU citizen’s Fundamental Rights.”

She said the office was already seeing “huge benefits” from the recent additional staffing, particularly in delivering “faster resolutions for complainants”.

Ms Dixon said there was “a clear need for better compliance” with data protection law by the Irish public sector.

“In particular, the legislative process must be improved to ensure greater deliberation and scrutiny of issues that interfere with the fundamental right to data protection.”