Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
GC has already told you, german speculation from within the ECB speculated publicly on the future viability of ireland, thus undermining market confidence in ireland at a critical point in euro-wobbliness. thereby forcing a crippling bail-out package on a nation that didn't need it in order to halt speculation on other weak eurozone nations.
You mean a few sentences by some Germans decide Irish policy?

Nah.


What happened, is that Ireland became the playground for international ultra-capitalism. Ultra-capitalism, that is 21st century capitalism where the market has been abolished in favour of the state as the subject and instrument of corporate power. Way back in mid-2008, before any German could point out Ireland on a map, Dublin decided to give a blanket guarantee. This Dublin did because of, firstly, the narrowness of the Irish elite - the captains of industry, of finance, are the same as the people in the government. Secondly, because ultra-capitalism had come to be identified with the Irish economic succes and this had led to the idea that what is good for corporations, is the common good of Ireland. And thirdly, rank stupidity, shortsightendness, and the idea that the Irish pyramid schemes would go on forever.


Bailout fever: Ireland guarantees all bank deposits, debts

September 30, 2008

After Congress voted down the administration's financial-system rescue plan Monday, European governments today were busy committing more public funds to save their own banks.

The biggest surprise: The Irish government guaranteed all deposits and debts of the country's major banks, one day after the Irish stock market plummeted 13%, nearly twice the decline of the Dow Jones industrials.

"We have to create confidence," Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said on RTE Radio, according to Bloomberg News. "We can't bail out a particular bank. That wouldn't be right. What we have decided to do is give a general guarantee that the banks can lend in security and safety."

Banks worldwide have cut off lending to one another as the credit crisis has deepened. Ireland’s guarantee may give its banks a better chance of getting funding in money markets.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/mone...-congress.html
This is where it all went wrong. Way back in 2008. Way back when Ireland was the first to give a blanket guarantee, long before any other country had even considered using public funds to guarantee private speculation.


The bail-out package isn't crippling. It is pocket change, fifty percent of Irish GDP. Crippling is the banking guarantee, which is 300% of GDP. The latter is of Irish own making. The former is meant to aid Ireland and to prevent Irish greed and policy failures from undermining well-governed countries. It is not Europe which stole the money from the Irish poor to hand it over to the ultra-wealthy. Europe will, however, give Ireland a very lenient rescue package. On one condition. This is, that Ireland stops being an extraordinarly poor partner and ends its 'beggar thy neigbour' tax haven policy. As long as Dublin refuses to levy a corporate tax, Europe's working classes should not have to compensate for this. Europe's poor are not going to stand for being mistreated in the same manner as Dublin mistreats its own poor.