Irish Govt raises four-year austerity target to €15bn

[Louis VI the Fat]

I believe the Irish are made to suffer because of greedy Irishmen! You can't keep passing it of to a segment of the population you don't like. Europe has tried to pass off their own greed to "Jewish" bankers for hundreds of years.

This isn't much different in America. The American people are suffering from greedy bankers, politicians, executives, service sector employees...who thought the gravy train of low interest rates would last forever. While some of them are fools the rest knew what "adjustable rate" meant when they secured the loan.

It certainly isn't the ordinary Irishman who's making a killer profit here. The Irishman is...the Irishman of Europe, a beast of burden, there to be exploited by London or Washington in the 19th, and the city and Wall Street in the 21st century.

If it were up to me we would indeed kill the moneylenders and the usurers. Or, failing that, do something much more old-fashioned and too savage for today's world: make them suffer actual financial loss.
We're suddenly stuck in some bizarre world of 'private profit, socialised risk'. Forty years of turning Ireland from a poverty stricken backwater to an economic tiger, and it's all been for nought. The Irishman is reduced to destitution again, leaving the island again, while billionaires feast on its carcass and demand we bring them more blood.

As in the 18th century, it is only partly satire to suggest the Irish start offering their children next.

[gaelic cowboy]

It certainly isn't the ordinary Irishman who's making a killer profit here. The Irishman is...the Irishman of Europe, a beast of burden, there to be exploited by London or Washington in the 19th, and the city and Wall Street in the 21st century.

If it were up to me we would indeed kill the moneylenders and the usurers. Or, failing that, do something much more old-fashioned and too savage for today's world: make them suffer actual financial loss.
We're suddenly stuck in some bizarre world of 'private profit, socialised risk'. Forty years of turning Ireland from a poverty stricken backwater to an economic tiger, and it's all been for nought. The Irishman is reduced to destitution again, leaving the island again, while billionaires feast on its carcass and demand we bring them more blood.

As in the 18th century, it is only partly satire to suggest the Irish start offering their children next.

There is one interesting thing to note which links the 1840s and today we have again a political class that is ready to ignore the real solution to this/these problems.

In the 1840s any mention of interference of the market in order to actually feed people was taken as encouraging fecklessness on the part of the people. What a laugh those people were so poor they ate at least 20-25 pounds of potatoes a day they had no money for markets. The government of the day was convinced laissez-faire was the solution to a food crisis it was madness.

Today what we have is a political class who think rewarding bondholders in order not to cause a ripple in the markets can stop an attack on Spain. It will fail and fail utterly, markets may be cruel but they are correct the Euro must revalue the debt so some people will lose on there investment in banks.

The longer we ignore the reality the more we encourage the ceaseless attacks.

In Ireland the ERM disaster caused a devaluation of our currency we needed to track Britain instead we were tracking Germany that was wrong. The political class tried to ignore the reality of the situation for ages mainly from sheer embarrassment at not being seen as a serious country or some other such rubbish.
The people rejected the governments siren song and went in droves to the North to shop in the cheaper stores compared to here, eventually they saw sense and devalued and laid the foundations for the future prosperity.(before the bust)

[gaelic cowboy]

EU/IMF interest rate likely to be 6.7%

if that is the rate of interest on the EU portion of the bailout then were as well of just say it and letting the markets and bondholders have there way with Ireland.

[Louis VI the Fat]

EU/IMF interest rate likely to be 6.7%

if that is the rate of interest on the EU portion of the bailout then were as well of just say it and letting the markets and bondholders have there way with Ireland.

My answer is the one the Irish tax haven barons have given to Europe all these years: We are just following market demand to create a competitive business environment.




Back to planting potatoes for the foreign big boys, paddy. Off you go.



Edit: And to think you 'handed over' your world cup ticket to us too!

[Louis VI the Fat]

The Irish insolence of wanting to share the table with the grown ups has a price. Like children, the Irish need punishment to remind them of the order of things. Your priest will explain it to you, the beauty and clarity of servitude. Explain there's a reward in the next life if you endure your slavery in this one with docility. Explain to you why it is right your children sweat, yet live in want, while those of others feast on the products of your hands and the fruits of your land.


Look at it from the bright side: the restoration of Irish destitution will no doubt result in a renaissance of the best of Ireland: melancholy songs, theatre, literature lamenting the plight of the Irish.


It is all for the best.

[Banquo's Ghost]

The Irish insolence of wanting to share the table with the grown ups has a price. Like children, the Irish need punishment to remind them of the order of things. Your priest will explain it to you, the beauty and clarity of servitude. Explain there's a reward in the next life if you endure your slavery in this one with docility. Explain to you why it is right your children sweat, yet live in want, while those of others feast on the products of your hands and the fruits of your land.

I'm aware that your posts on this subject are deliberately provocative, but the tone is increasingly unpleasant, Louis. It's all redolent of the same sort of schadenfreude that seems to be resurfacing in the British media.

Nonetheless, you are not alone. If there's one thing we do well, it's Catholic guilt.

Even if all the economic indicators didn't point to this sad state of affairs, our recent sporting record might have suggested it. But it was the weather that really sealed the deal for us. When's the last time we got thunder and lightning mixed with sub-zero temperatures and hail? Presumably a plague of locusts will be next. We got too cocky and God is putting us back in our box.

You see, for years, Irish people were happy to be the clowns of the world. We were like the freckly ginger kid in the corner of the class who was great fun but who never really got to hang with the blonde, sleek, superficial, popular kids. And then, like in Mean Girls, we were led to believe we could make the jump into the popular crowd. We weren't just good at "the craic" (getting drunk), suddenly we were into finance and property. So we dyed our hair blonde, we dyed ourselves orange and we joined in.

That article finishes with the one thing that is on everyone's lips here. Default. To stretch the author's metaphor, a "Carrie" moment beckons. If larger nations wish to crush us and humiliate us, fine. I see the ghostly, sneering figure of vengeance over Lisbon high on your tower. But have a care that your castle of pride is not founded on a mine with Irish explosives primed therein.

It's about time the greedy bondholders of the very financial markets that caused the crash, and now that hunt the weak for profit (weakened by giving their very children for the markets to eat, as you so colourfully suggested) find that we bite back. Time, I think, to shock the system back.

Default and be damned. What then your precious euro? What then the snide triumphalism of the markets and the powerful economies?

[Louis VI the Fat]

I'm aware that your posts on this subject are deliberately provocative, but the tone is increasingly unpleasant, Louis. It's all redolent of the same sort of schadenfreude that seems to be resurfacing in the British media.

Hmm...maybe I should've borne the critical situation in mind more. Now is not a tme for provocations or biting satire. At any rate, it's all meant not for the common Irishman, but for those who would mistreat the Irish, who'd have it reduced to destitution again, who give preference to a spreadsheet or profit or political gain over the Irish pensioner.

I thought it would be clear that my allegiance is with the working Irish, and my anger directed at corrupt politicians, financial markets, the ECB, and everybody else who puts his own interest above the well-being of an entire country. If it were up to me, the Irish would rise up and blow up the entire system, including the whole of Brussels and the Euro.

[Furunculus]

Default and be damned. What then your precious euro? What then the snide triumphalism of the markets and the powerful economies?

this is sadly a very important moment.

it should have come in 2009 when the Karlsruhe in Germany ruled that further transfers of power cannot continue without a democratic mandate, until then the Bundestag was the supreme authority.

it could have come in 2010 when the Conservatives announced there intention to issue a referendum lock on major transfers, parliamentary debate on minor transfers, and a declaration of parliamentary sovereignty.

it will probably come in 2011 when the rest of europe stands on the brink of a spanish collapse, and then looks back to the examples of how greece, ireland and portugal were made satrapies of brussels, and realise that it could be their country next.

[gaelic cowboy]

Default and be damned. What then your precious euro? What then the snide triumphalism of the markets and the powerful economies?

On Sep 15 2008 Lehmans collapsed giving us a new saying "Credit Crunch" the worlds banking went into contraction as everyone hoarded there own capital and called in payment this basically finished Anglo Irish Bank and fatally weakened Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland.

(this hoarding was fatal to them as they were basically bust due to our bubble)

Interestingly it is now more and more obvious that the infamous "Bank Guarantee" which forced my country into the IMF/EU bailout was itself a product of an ECB fear of a Lehmans style shock to European banking, Trichet impressed upon Lenihan that NO bank must fail as the system could not take the hit in Europe because so many other European banks were owed money by Irish banks.

Our completely clueless FF politicians were caught completely off guard as the heads of our three main banks arrived to government buildings like mafia dons in the chauffeur limos with a nuclear weapon "we will finish your economy tomorrow if were not saved tonight" the rest as they say is history.

Irish politicians probably never thought the ECB would stop funding the banks because they doing what they were asked, but once the EFSF was setup the ECB was likely interested in using it to get off the hook of our sick banks thereby forcing the risk on someone else.

I say default and be dammed what the hell are we doing this stupid bailout for when it is not going to work, market types have not reduced the rate on Irish bonds they are apparently already writing in a 20-30% cut as of now for When we default.

FF/ECB followed a policy which could only work short term cos the banks basically lied about there solvency, they pretended it was a mere liquidity crisis and not a solvency one. They whole thing was a bluff and it almost worked but for Angela Merkel and her haircut to bondholders comments(the ECB was very annoyed about it cos they probably knew the likely reaction it would cause for our banks.)

The Irish banks bond rate soared even though the governments did not need any money however faced with having our banks shut down the talks began on the bailout due to ECB refusal to underwrite anymore loans to them.

The decision to bailout Ireland is again another sign of foolish policy to "Leave no Bondholder Behind" and mark my words it will end in more tears. We have not fed the lion even half enough not by a long shot. Quite why were all being forced to bail banks out or to cut money in order to pay back for bailing them out when there already pricing in the default amazes me.