Recession

Today, AIB had a very important earning call. In it they announed that there earning per share would be 1.20 as opposed to between 185-190 cents as they said in July. Additionally, they said they would incur bad debts of about 750 million and did not see any meaningful recovery in the mortgage market until 2011.

This above announcement highlights how unaware the establishment in Ireland were to economic downturn. They were living in an economic land where bust did does not occur and the old adage of "There is no such thing a free lunch" does not exist

The sudden nature of this downturn, with much of the media in Ireland declaring that the our fundamentals are still sound as late as June, suggests that the recession will be prolonged, sustained and severe.