I must say I simply luuuved this! Here you have the Irish Labor Party Rep excoriating the minister for destroying the Irish economy by not regulating banks and causing a bubble leading to their current crises. Its a must see! Never could you rip a fed a new arsehole on national tv in the States Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/ite...tes_minister_for_destroying_economy_20101119/
Ireland was ripe for this. It created a false down of economic growth by borrowing huge sums of money from other EU nations. The amount of subsidies it has been living off in recent years is staggering. What's funnier, though, is that this was held up as a model for development by other economists, much in the same way Iceland was praised for its creative marketing schemes.
I agree. What were they calling it again? The 'Celtic Tiger'? Meanwhile I find it ironic or rather pretentious that there are so many voices coming out and bemoaning the loss of 'Irish Sovereignty' in this event when in actuality it had been lost when they reversed their 'no' vote on the Lisbon Treaty. Cowen has “squandered” independence for a “German bailout with a few shillings of sympathy from the British chancellor,” the Irish Times newspaper said yesterday. The government should be “ashamed that Fianna Fail should be the ones to surrender sovereignty,” said Michael Noonan, finance spokesman for Fine Gael, the largest opposition party. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...-as-cowen-scorned-before-german-bailout-.html Watch this video where Sinn Fein, among others, are calling for new elections and declaring that the government doesn't have the 'mandate' by the Irish people to make the arrangements they are now making with foreign governments. Is it that they simply didn't understand what they were doing when they voted 'yes'? :shrug: : http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/video/2010/nov/22/ireland-bailout-protesters-dublin-video The deficit in Ireland I believe is something like 32% so I think they will fare much better than Greece in the long run. At first I thought that this would destabilize the Euro but it opened quite well. I wonder if this will change however if Portugal has to be bailed out. Do you know by chance what the deficit might be for Portugal?
Oh, that was sweet Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! "That's the problem, you're not ashamed. You ought to be ashamed." Loved it!
The Irish government deserves blame. When the Irish banks got themselves into trouble the Irish government issued blanket bank guarantees. They guaranteed every Euro and every bond invested in the Irish banking system...something not even done in the US. That caused currency to flow from other Euro countries to Irish banks which in turn caused Great Britian and Germany to issue similar guarantees. The problem with Ireland is that is is a small in comparision to its banks. It is like an ant guaranteeing to support an elephant. Now the Irish government has its weenie stuck in a vice.
I personally think any person that works for a failed bank needs to quote Jefferson(Thomas) at the opening of any goddam thing they EVER say after wards... All from Thomas Jefferson: IT GOES ON AN ON HOW HE CALLED IT, there is much much more quotes of absolute truth from him regarding this that can be surmised with this one:
The EU is facing a problem similar to that faced by the US in its early years...a weak central government. We solved that problem with the ratification of the Constitution. To break it down in the simplest of terms, there are too many cooks in the European kitchen.
Who would want to take over (by devaluation), Catholic (Irish/Spanish/Italian) properties, in one fell swoop? Answer: 1) Sure and begorn, the potato crop is failing and I have no time for your pleasantries. 2) Everybody but the Israelis...no, the Israelis kinda like that action too. 3) It's all Greek to me. Or something that used to resemble Greece. Maybe Sparta. Sparta!!! 4) Chinese banks, Saudi Oil cartel, Sein Fein... 5) None
The problem is deeper than that and goes back to the entire way Ireland's "growth" was capitalized by EU and IMF subsidies. The growth was never real. The country simply leveraged itself into it. The EU also contains countries that are essentially Third World nations, such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece. Trying to devise an economic system that works alongside titans like Britain and Germany that does not include redistributions of wealth that started all this in the first place will prove problematic.
Ireland's had lean times before. Ireland is in a far better state than they were 20 years ago in infrastructure, business and education. They will recover. And meantime they will revert to the old standby, emigration.
Yes but the topic was Ireland not the rest of the EU. The EU itself suffers from a host of problems...not the least of which is a weak central government; a fragmented financial system and an overvalued currency caused in part by poor fiscal policies.
My entire ancestry is Irish/Scottish. Haa haaaaa haaaarhg Oh, my sides! Why build a million more houses when everyone is leaving for America? Pure unadulterated optimism..So much for the luck of the Irish..Now they have had to take thier pants down for the EU. Sinn Fein, where is our united Ireland now? Forget the bloody British...
It's impossible to separate the decisions of the Irish government from the EU and its problems, which is precisely my point. Ireland's failure is the failure of the EU's development chimera. And this is the third country -- Greece and Portugal being the others -- that this has happened or is happening. Another, Spain, also seems ripe for fall.
In Ireland, there are now about one and a half million houses, of which about a third were built in the last ten years due to the housing bubble. In total, it's not a great number of houses for the amount of land, but it was bought with imaginary money. Too fast. As in every bubble, the investors denied it was a bubble, and thought that house prices would go up forever. Ireland has now got its balls firmly trapped in the EU vice. On the other hand, they still have the houses, the new roads, a good business base, and an educated population which is prepared to move wherever the best opportunities are. Come the upturn, when it comes, I think they will do OK. On the whole, they are far better off than they would be if this whole mess hadn't happened. Of course, the voters are upset, because some of them thought the good times were going to go on forever. And some of them never had any of the good times that were going. As for a fortress Ireland position. As they say in Ireland "We're too cute for that!" To be honest, I don't know what Gerry Adams hopes to achieve in the South with Sinn Fein. Perhaps someone here could enlighten me.
The next to fall will be Portugal. Spain unlike Ireland, Portugal and Greece has a growing GDP...which is huge. I look at the Irish GDP and cringe. It is an ugly picture. I did have money invested in Irish based companies, but their tax policy just pushed Irish investment over the edge in terms of risk/reward. The Irish government made some very stupid decisions and now they are paying the price. I like Ireland. Who would not? But the Irish tale is a sad one. And I don't see things getting better for them any time soon. They really need to get their economy growing. A growing economy solves a lot of ills.
Who is all the money owed to anyway? Is it mainly China? I believe a huge amount is owed by America to China. Whoever they are, a worldwide depression is of no use to anyone. Eventually a lot of this debt will need to be written off, just as was done with South America and Africa. In the course of doing so, China could gain great advantages. The blame for bad debts can be placed as much at the door of the people giving the loan as the person who takes the money. This whole problem is a thing on paper, and could be solved at the sweep of a few pens.
Regarding Sinn Fein, they have had a huge victory in West Donegal. (A part of Southern Ireland which contains the most Northerly point of Ireland.) http://www.irishcentral.com/story/r...in-donegal-by-election-results-110903499.html Perhaps they will take power in Southern Ireland after all. I don't know much about their politics, except that they had associations years ago with International Marxism, and were the official wing of the IRA. Anyone got any opinions on them?
