.
The Good Irish SoldierIreland perhaps more than any other example shows what the bankster game is really about.
They don't give a shit about good soldiers.
Here is a country that, unlike Greece or Portugal (frequent targets for outrageous blame), strictly followed all the rules proscribed by the neoliberals, ratings agencies and austerity hawks. Open markets, no capital controls, wage repression, social welfare cutbacks, balanced budgets five years in a row before the crisis, low taxes, the works. They had almost no public debt.
Irish public debt came almost entirely through the crisis, because Ireland obediently bailed out the banks. It's actually the Irish banks' debt, socialized.
And yet, as soon as the banksters decide there is a profit in it, the good Irish soldier is lined up against the wall and shot.
Krugman: "What we need now is another Jonathan Swift." (Referring to Swift's satiric "Modest Proposal" that the UK solve Ireland's economic problems by selling Irish babies as food.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/opinion/26krugman.html?ref=homepage&src=me&pagewanted=printNovember 25, 2010
Eating the Irish
By PAUL KRUGMAN
SNIP
The Irish story began with a genuine economic miracle. But eventually this gave way to a speculative frenzy driven by runaway banks and real estate developers, all in a cozy relationship with leading politicians. The frenzy was financed with huge borrowing on the part of Irish banks, largely from banks in other European nations. Then the bubble burst, and those banks faced huge losses. You might have expected those who lent money to the banks to share in the losses. After all, they were consenting adults, and if they failed to understand the risks they were taking that was nobody’s fault but their own. But, no, the Irish government stepped in to guarantee the banks’ debt, turning private losses into public obligations.
Before the bank bust, Ireland had little public debt. But with taxpayers suddenly on the hook for gigantic bank losses, even as revenues plunged, the nation’s creditworthiness was put in doubt. So Ireland tried to reassure the markets with a harsh program of spending cuts. Step back for a minute and think about that. These debts were incurred, not to pay for public programs, but by private wheeler-dealers seeking nothing but their own profit. Yet ordinary Irish citizens are now bearing the burden of those debts. Or to be more accurate, they’re bearing a burden much larger than the debt — because those spending cuts have caused a severe recession so that in addition to taking on the banks’ debts, the Irish are suffering from plunging incomes and high unemployment.
But there is no alternative, say the serious people: all of this is necessary to restore confidence. Strange to say, however, confidence is not improving. On the contrary: investors have noticed that all those austerity measures are depressing the Irish economy — and are fleeing Irish debt because of that economic weakness.
Now what? Last weekend Ireland and its neighbors put together what has been widely described as a “bailout.” But what really happened was that the Irish government promised to impose even more pain, in return for a credit line — a credit line that would presumably give Ireland more time to, um, restore confidence. Markets, understandably, were not impressed: interest rates on Irish bonds have risen even further.
Does it really have to be this way?
SNIP
There is only one sensible way for Ireland, that which Argentina showed was possible back in 2001-2002, when the people rose up and toppled five presidents within a couple of weeks until one of them was willing to tell the banksters to get lost, and defaulted.
People must come before the profits of the banksters who caused the crisis, and most of whom operate today only because they were saved at public expense.
Dean Baker: "Ireland Should Pull an Argentina" http://www.commondreams.org/print/62700 SNIP
Ireland is currently experiencing a 14.1% unemployment rate . As a result of bailout conditions that will require more cuts in government spending and tax increases, the unemployment rate is almost certain to go higher . The Irish people are likely to wonder what their economy would look like if they had not been rescued.
The pain being inflicted on Ireland by the ECB/IMF is completely unnecessary. If the ECB committed itself to make loans available to Ireland at low interest rates, a mechanism entirely within its power, then Ireland would have no serious budget problem. Its huge projected deficits stem primarily from the combination of high interest costs on its debt, and the result of operating at levels of economic output that are well below full employment – both outcomes that can be pinned largely on the ECB.
It is worth remembering that Ireland's government was a model of fiscal probity prior to the economic meltdown. It had run large budget surpluses for the 5 years prior to the onset of the crisis . Ireland's problem was certainly not out of control government spending; it was a reckless banking system that fueled an enormous housing bubble. The economic wizards at the ECB and the IMF either couldn't see the bubble or didn't think it was worth mentioning. The failure of the ECB or IMF to take steps to rein in the bubble before the crisis has not made these international financial institutions shy about using a heavy hand in imposing conditions now. The plan is to impose stiff austerity, requiring much of Ireland's workforce to suffer unemployment for years to come as a result of the failure of their bankers and the ECB.
SNIP
There is an obvious precedent. Back in the 2001, the IMF was pushing Argentina to pursue ever more stringent austerity measures. Like Ireland, Argentina had also been a poster child of the neoliberal crew before it ran into difficulties. But the IMF can turn quickly. Its austerity programme lowered GDP by almost 10% and pushed the unemployment rate well into the double digits. By the end of the 2001, it was politically impossible for the Argentine government to agree to more austerity. As a result, it broke the supposedly unbreakable link between its currency and the dollar and defaulted on its debt. The immediate effect was to make the economy worse, but by the second half of 2002, the economy was again growing. This was the start of five and a half years of solid growth, until the world economic crisis eventually took its toll in 2009. The IMF, meanwhile, did everything it could to sabotage Argentina, which became known as the "A word". It even used bogus projections that consistently under-predicted Argentina's growth in the hope of undermining confidence. Ireland should study the lessons of Argentina.
MORE AT LINK
.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
