Now, the Gross External Debt itself is up for the year as a whole: from €1.579 trillion (yes, trillion) in Q1 2008 to €1.661 trillion in Q4 2008. But look closer to the details (see chart below for illustration):- Gen Government Debt is obviously up - we are borrowing sh***t loads of money. But, GG short-term liabilities are also taking off, which confirms my argument: we are increasingly borrowing short, frontloading future deficits. This is before we factor in the Q1 2009 seriously aggressive short-term debt raising.
- Monetary authorities debt is going ballistic - all of this is in short term liabilities.
- Monetary financial institutions (financial sector etc) is declining overall, but slowly, and the short-term debt is rising - gain, trouble ahead refinancing this 'oxygen'.
- Other sectors - the real economy - debt is up and short-term liabilities are also up.
So, despite CSO's brave claims - the title of today's note is Ireland’s External Debt decreases to €1.66 trillion at end December - in reality, the debt mountain is still growing (in yearly comparisons) and the nasty short-term debt overloads are getting heavier.Now, think, what will happen if the Government was successful in restarting banks lending?
Per one of the readers comments, here is the table with actual nominal increases in various debt headlines.
