We're being robbed by our supposed protectors

Posters -

THe taxpayers are paying for Bono’s loans to buy flash property in NEW YORK 5th AVE,.

Posters -

Deco @ 10 :

Perhaps we need the Iceland model of bank reform ?
Let the banks fail, and bailout the human beings….

G @ 10 :

let Anglo fail, nationalise the rest, no point pumping good money in to keep these criminal enterprises afloat so that can come back to bite the next generation of ‘believers’ in the ass!!!!!!!!!!!!

Deco @ 1o :

Let INBS fail.

Let Irish Life hold on to Permo — because the bosses of Irish Life want to release Permo before it becomes an Irish edition of Washington Mutual. Basically it is in the taxpayers interest that Irish Life never gets to throw Permo at the taxpayer.

There are only two of systemic importance. They are not nationalized officially. It is just that the taxpayers owns something like 80% of them. As CJH once said, “an Irish solution to an Irish problem”….

PauloMahony @ 11 :

That’s the nature of politics in Ireland today. The name of the current game.

David’s piece is a clear as pure ice. But how to move on and bring change seems completely obscure. Vested interests are highly skilled and strategic in their moves to ensure bondholders come first. Their success so far is fabulous, and almost complete. Not a single political leader in Fine Gael or Labour has shown any talent for harnessing public loss, anger and confusion.

Intellectually, it’s patently obvious who’s won the argument. David McWillams, Shane Ross and other thought leaders have wiped the floor with apologists for the status quo. Politically it’s patently obvious who’s still holding the levers of power and privilege.

Clever the way trade union leaders have been integrated into the state. Impressive the way they’ve been given positions of responsibility. That’s kept them from being irresponsible enough to bring the society to a stop. Remember Eastern Europe. There is a conspiracy to forget how the Iron Curtain fell.

Of course we need our Irish Iron Curtain to be torn down. But the current crop of so-called leaders of the alternative to the government are all bought off — they hope to inherit what FF enjoys.

Right now, I think we’re most likely to carry on, with bondholders etc in command. I see no prospect of a refusal to comply.

tony murphy @ 11 :

I have being reading a John Pilger book recently, Rulers of the New World, I’m only on page 64 — but if anyone has any doubt what rich people will do to stay rich, this book will tell you

G @ 11 :

Honest Work
I’m not afraid to bend my back
I’m not afraid of dirt
But how I fear the things I do
For lack of honest work.

paulmcd @ 11 :

Higher earners are more likely to have benefited from the boom years. Normally, they will be the people with the most to lose if the banking system were to collapse. However, the Government assures them that NAMA will be their salvation. They have even produced forecasts which predict a profit over the 10-year horizon which is proposed.

DMITRY ORLOV: “Financial collapse is already quite far along, and is guaranteed to run its course. Bailouts can make insolvent institutions look solvent for a time by providing liquidity, but one thing they cannot provide is solvency. For instance, no matter how much we bail out the auto companies, making any more cars will still be a bad idea. Similarly, no matter how much money we give to banks, their loan portfolios, loaded down with houses built in places that are inaccessible except by car, will still end up being worthless. By continuously nationalizing bad debt, the country will make itself into a bad credit risk, and foreign lenders will walk away.”

Silencetoobservor @ 12 :

Poor financial sector governance, which appears to be at the root of Ireland’s financial crisis, as well as in the U.S., appears to be the key factor for our current recession. Whether or not Ireland’s woes would have happened without the global credit crisis, appears to me to be hard to prove one way or the other. It still doesn’t detract from the salient points of David’s article- ie why is the general public taking on the responsibility of private interests, and risk takers who lead both Ireland and the U.S. into the mess? I ask this question honestly, as I don’t work in finance, but like many have taken a keen interest in economic events in Ireland and internationally in the last few years. Do you have an answer to this key question Ferdinand, because to date, I haven’t found one that seems to make any sense, even from a purely capitalist viewpoint?

paulmcd @ 12 :

The mismanagement of the Irish Economy and the scale of the losses and consequent recession are unprecedented in the Anglo-American world.

In December the US Treasury Department estimated that the taxpayer loss from TARP could be about 141bn dollars. I am assuming that this figure represents the accumulated losses by end of 09. All the major US banks have now repaid TARP. I realise there are ongoing relief programs. However the loss to date of 141 bn dollars would convert to roughtly 470 dollars, c. 320 euros, per US citizen.

In Ireland, Government interventions to date mean that the Irish taxpayer has handed over 10.5 billion euros to our 3 main financial institutions, over 2,500 euros for every Irish citizen and we are still in the early innings.

Deco @ 12

The best way I can look at this is to compare Ireland with another country that was similar in many respects in ten years ago, Denmark. Similar size, similar latitude, traditional dependence on agriculture and small industry, similar trading partners. Though the demographics are different as Denmark is an ‘older country’ and has more traditional wealth. And the Danes are not in Euro, though are aligned to the Euro.

The bankers and property speculator class in Denmark were not allowed control the public discussion on property. The politicians in Denmark did not lose the run of themselves in trying to leverage the entire society with private sector debt, and then throw money into ‘quangos’ so as to preven the public sector being in any way effective.

We have to accept responsibility for the mess. We failed to grapple with this issue at the intellectual level. There was no intellectual discussion about the debt accumulation. Instead the media defined it as “progress” and the government called it “success”. And Ahern said “long may it continue”. The Danish Financial Regulator was not laying golf with the Danish bankers. The Danish property developers were not loaning the use of their helicopters and their sports stadia corporate boxes to Danish loan executives. Did Denmark have a Seani Fitz or a David Drumm or a Michael Fingleton ? The evidence is that the Danes did not. With regard to finance the Danes were are very cautious and careful lot. There were less drunk Danes on stag weekends in Barcelona than drunk Irish youths. Or if there were drunki Danes they were a lot queiter, and barely drunk at all.

It ended when AIG and Lehmans went to the wall. Banks would not lend to each other. It became evident that the Irish banking system and the Irish property market were nothing more than an leveraged ponzi scheme.

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anyone on etherpad per chance??