Assuming they were all purchased at retail prices, that was about $8/trade (typical bond face values are about $1000). (In reality, it was probably on the order of pennies.) I.e., not very much.
In a nutshell, that's it. People have a sense of resignation on the whole thing. There is very little prospect of things improving any time soon. The choices would appear to be a) adjust to a lower standard of living, or b) get out.
There's a great book written by a civil servant in Ireland's foreign ministry in the 80s.
He said he had two maps on his wall, one of the eastern bloc enemy and a bigger one of his minister's constituency - a crisis (eg a pothole) in the constituency was the priority.
Ha! That doesn't surprise me at all. What's the book called?
There is an appetite to reform this stuff now, but it's hard to imagine the winners of the game when played by those rules deciding to change it dramatically.
Most of these are high street banks (equivalent to S+L) that were making housing loans. You want to tell pensioners that their life savings are gone and the government is not going to do anything?
It might work - but it also means people will stop putting their money into banks, which means no credit cards, no business loans, no mortgages, no saving, no insurance.
So everybody will only deal in cash which means no taxes.
Admittedly ireland is probably closer to a 12th century barter economy than the rest of europe - but I don't think it really wants to go there.
