Debt forgiveness is inevitable, accept it

WITH his €6bn mortgage debt forgiveness price tag, Morgan Kelly has once again lobbed a hand grenade onto the refuseniks’ patch.

Refuseniks are those who, for the past three years, in denying the scale of the consumer debt crisis, have refused to accept the inevitability of debt forgiveness.

The refuseniks’ “deny, pray and wait” strategy was solely designed to temporarily protect banks’ balance sheets from home mortgage losses. As consumer mortgage indebtedness worsened, their classic kick-the-can forbearance response has been about as useful as a foot pump on the Titanic. A blind man with an abacus could reach the same conclusion as Kelly, whose debt forgiveness estimate is probably optimistic.