Irish stitch up - they HAVE to walk away from the "bailout"

[catinthehat2]

So much in this article to recommend

Would love to hear comments....

That article (and others in the DT today about the Irsish debt crisis) have left me in no doubt that they should walk away.

To accept the bailout would be to place themselves in an indefinte fiscal straitjacket at the mercy of the major EU members - until they too get tired of bailing out state after state and the whole thing collapses.

I hope the Irish do have the guts to say 'No'. Although the pro-ever-closer-unionists take great trouble to try to blame the banks for this the fact remains that if Ireland had had the foresight to reject the Euro in the first place they would still have the financial soveriegnty to try to bail themsleces out of thsi mess - as the Uk is doing by QE.

It's sort of irrelevant. They won't be able to walk away. Their collapse will bring down the entire house of cards, thus there is too much in it for everyone else to let them default.

Of course it makes sense to walk away........but by doing that, they will bring down a whole lot more with them.

Dunno. The Icelanders did it, and have put politicains and bankers on trial.

If the choice is ruination with or without self determination, surel;y you would choose the latter.

Have the politicians been induced to let this happen to protect the Euro? As a non German the thought of the Bundesbank running my country horrifies me.

OK apologies as I keep recommending this blog on here, but it's very relevant. This post is particularly relevant - ignore the fact that it starts off talking about the students - its actually a very interesting discussion of the way the TINA principle has been forced on us. Just a short quote here:

"And that is why this crisis is no longer just about lack of confidence in the markets: it is now about the legitimacy of our governments. The entire political class has been captured by the same ideology. They all, to one extent or another, believe ?the market? is going to save us. No other solutions have even been allowed into the debate.

We shouldn?t waste our time arguing over which party is most to blame. All the parties and the economists and the City boys all agreed, and they still do. In their minds the banks had to be bailed out and their losses made ours. We were taken to war without discussion and on false pretences; the same has happened with this financial crisis. So enough of who is to blame: they all were and are."

Also, remember the late 1970s, when the IMF were called in to bail out Britain.

They had to be called in because the projected deficit (projected by the Treasury of course) was going to reach, IIRC, 10 bn. They were called in, agreed a loan, imposed austerity cuts as they do, which were all carried out.

When the actual figures came out, at the end of the year, the real deficit was only half the Treasury projections - there was no need for the IMF loan to be taken out.

In interviews now with Treasury officials from the time deeply involved in the process they basically say that there is a once in a generation opportunity for the Treasury to drastically pull back public spending, and they have to take it whenever they can get it.

So, I suppose what I am saying, in a roundabout way, is that it is really important to realise that these cuts will serve a lot of people's agenda (and this is not just a way of getting at the Conservative party, I am talking ruling class in general).

Talk of 'we're all in this together', 'it has to be done' to me is very much like the sadistic schoolteacher with the belt saying 'it hurts me as much as it hurts you' and 'it is for your own good'.