EU Bail Out Riots - Coming soon to a country like yours?

Irish voters can once again decide to reject EU dependence

Ireland starts to vote - Default elephant looms!

The following is from a report in the Irish Times from this afternoon, how voters perceive the issue of default will be crucial in the weeks ahead for the entire Euro Group of former nations:

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland  today, Mr Ó Caoláin said the IMF-ECB bailout is the “elephant in the room” and has to be faced up to directly.

“We cannot wait for the EU to deal with it over the next couple of years and perhaps in 2013 to face up to it finally," he said.

“The question isn’t about Sinn Féin’s alternative…the real question has to be put to not only Fianna Fáil and the Greens but Fine Gael and Labour - how do you expect our people to pay for this? How do you expect them to shoulder the burden that’s been placed on them?”

Mr Ó Caoláin also denied his party would use the country’s corporation tax rate as a bargaining chip with Europe adding that the 12.5 per cent rate is “crucial” as part of the overall package of what Ireland has to offer.

Emergency ECB Borrowing and Germany's Euro Imperialism (continued).

I blogged yesterday on Ireland's coming default and Germany's Euro Imperialism, here and here. Both topics require further explanation and elaboration.

Something very fishy is going on between Ireland, presently without a government during its election campaign, and the ECB. An article in the Irish Times this morning, linked here, titled "Irish banks spark surge in emergency ECB borrowing" includes this startling information:

The lenders have used about €15 billion in bonds – State-backed IOUs – issued by the National Asset Management Agency as collateral, or security, to borrow the money.

The Nama bonds, however, are being auctioned with the deposits so they could no longer be used to support week-long loans, given that their sale is expected shortly.

This forced Anglo and Irish Nationwide to swap their existing week-long loans with the ECB for overnight borrowings to pave the way for a quick sale to take place.

The Irish Central Bank referred queries to the ECB, which said it did not comment on the borrowings of individual banks. Anglo, Irish Nationwide and the National Treasury Management Agency, which manages the Government’s banking interests, had no comment either.

The study by Richard Conquest on German Economic Policy and the Euro 1999 - 2010, linked from this blog yesterday and again from here, had the following comments on ECB chief, Jean-Claude Trichet's role in the aggressive destruction of the economies of the EU's non-German economies, which I have branded on this blog German Euro Imperialism, which is almost exactly along the lines of the eventual complete economic domination of Europe prdicted in my novel Millennium Blitzkrieg, published in 2000, which predicted that by 2014, with Europe subdued, German ambitions would turn to the USA. The studies more pertinent quotes are below:

From Page 12

The realities of the situation cannot be freely admitted by the political elite because to attribute any of the blame for Europe’s malaise to the Euro would at once confirm the worst suspicions of the financial markets and precipitate a market-driven crisis that would quickly pass beyond the control of any government. Or, indeed pseudo government such as the Brussels establishment. As time goes on this situation will only become more acute and crises more violent and economically destructive. So,for the time being at least, denial by the elite is the most expedient stance – stating and insisting upon that which they know to be untrue.
Most worrying of all, perhaps, is the fact that the President of the European Central Bank, Jean Claude Trichet, speaks in very much the same terms as the political class. He does not pursue an impartial, objective assessment of economic conditions which would allow the formulation of an appropriate monetary policy response. This is after all the proper function of a central bank governor. But no,

From Page 13

rather, he serves an overtly political purpose. It is not for him to say, for example, which countries should remain in the Eurozone and which should leave. He flatly denies the possibility of the latter option, a manifestly absurd and very political position. History dictates that the politicisation of money always ends in disaster and Trichet is working actively to remind us of the validity of this observation

From Page 15

How could it ever have been seriously argued that the fast-growing Spain, with its enormous trade and current account deficits, apparent well before the coming of the Euro, should share a common interest and exchange rate policy with a slow-growing and export dependent Germany, luxuriating in huge trade and current account surpluses? It was always a recipe for disaster but the political class, including Trichet, are in their comfortable state of denial and of course, in receipt of lavish rewards for their incompetence.1

Footnote 1 on Page 15

Can it be any surprise to learn that Trichet is the latest recipient of the ‘Vision for Europe’ award? Previous laureates have included Jacques Santer, Jean-Claude Juncker, Jean-Luc Dehaene and Helmut Kohl, a depressing and dreary collection of functionaries in the ‘leadership’ of Europe. This award is granted ‘in recognition of outstanding achievements in taking Europe into the future’; self-evidently an exercise in fatuity.The first recipient of this self-congratulatory award was Jacques Santer, former EU President, forced from his extravagant sinecure by Paul Van Buitenen’s devastating accusations of corruption and fraud.

From Page 35

This grim situation has prompted intermittent debate in Italy’s political and economic circles about the desirability or not of that country remaining within the Eurozone – whatever fatuous noises Trichet might make on this issue. The problem then is that this debate is now a matter of concern to German economists and politicians.


From Page 55


Unfortunately there can be no such happy ending to the nightmare of the Euro. Although its disintegration would be economically beneficial in the long term, its demise will be extremely destructive in the near to medium term. The example of the UK simply illustrates that there is life after Euro-folly. However, in the same way that we could not expect that the government would deliver Britain from the absurdities of the ERM, so Europe cannot expect that the likes of Herman Van Rompuy, Manuel Barosso, Jean Claude Trichet and the other grandees and potentates of Europe will deliver the Eurozone from the destructive absurdities of the Euro.

Irish Default

There is an interesting column in the Irish Times this morning, which contains some eye-opening remarks as to how their election is being viewed by members of the French and German press, but even more interestingly concludes with these remarks about what is effectively the printing of rogue euros:

The elephant in the room is default. It was reported on Wednesday that since the last week of January, Irish banks have issued €18.35 billion worth of government-guaranteed debt.

This suggests that the banks may effectively be issuing sovereign paper with the approval of the Government, the Central Bank and the ECB. In other words, the banks have effectively increased Ireland’s public debt by about 11.5 per cent of GDP in the last few weeks.

Since they are unlikely to be able to repay this debt any time soon, a future government will have to. To appreciate just how extraordinary this is, €18.35 billion of government-guaranteed debt is more than half the entire tax revenue for 2010 at €31 billion.

The full article by Elaine Byrne, is well worth reading, it is linked from here and it is temptingly titled "Ireland the laboratory for addressing Europe's ills" but leaves the impression with the reader, which is exactly the opposite of that optimistic heading, namely that the EU, viewed in the light of Ireland's experiences, is now so thoroughly corrupted that it is beyond saving!

Those who cannot spare the time to follow the link should note this other brief extract from the article regarding the Irish corporate tax rate:

The rate is increasingly looked upon as a political prize in return for the ECB bailout and a precondition for any revision of interest rates. If Ireland does not accede to German demands for a reformed monetary union or endorse Merkel’s austerity plans, why should the Italians, Spanish or anyone else? The future of Ireland is now linked to the future of the euro zone.

Likely next Irish PM summoned to Berlin.

This report of a shocking interference in the politics of a supposedly friendly neighbouring state, unheard of in modern times in Europe, was announced in the middle of a quiet Sunday afternoon in Ireland, as may be read from here.

Concurrently it emerged that the opinion poll leading Fine Gael party,  is now unlikely to form a coalition with Labour, but instead draw Independent TD's into Government, it thus appears there will be a few potentially very wealthy independents with well provided constituencies after 25th Feb, unless that is, the Fine Gael gets the comeuppance from the electors, it appears to deserve, after its leader's schmoozing with the German Chancellor. Perhaps it will then have to recover, by revealing the pressure being applied by the EU and Germany, and then itself repudiate the EU Bail Out package entirely, such would be in the best interest of all democrats across the EU!

A good report on the Irish election appeared in yesterday's Montreal Gazette, linked here.

Irish bail out from the EU crumbling before our eyes!

The Wall Street Journal has the latest on the growing fiasco over Ireland's debts, read here.

The EU media seems silent on the matter, but Euro Group Finance Ministers meet next week and they are hardly likely to be able to maintain the pretence that an incoming Irish Government will stand by the original suicidal terms.

View the startling graphic from the link, actually supplied by the EU Commission, and showing the agreed bail out amount of €67.5 billion is merely half what is needed.

Ireland withholds €10 billion payment from pensions fund

Shortly after the IMF issued a report concluding that Ireland was meeting the terms of the EU/IMF bail out agreement, read here, the country failed to meet a deadline requiring the payment of ten billion euros, apparently from its pensions fund, to re-capitalise its banks, read the full article in the Irish Times, from here.

(Further reading on Ireland's election as seen from the federalist from CER is linked here and here)

ECB's Trichet "No Comment" on Irish Renegotiation

A reporter from the Irish Times, asked as a follow-up question, what the ECB position would be if the Irish people elected a government this month, with a mandate to re-negotiate the bail out as imposed by the EU/IMF, Jean Claude Trichet replied at 1502 CET today - "No Comment"

The essence of the EU crisis is that sovereign nations elect governments which have the right to consider themselves free of contraints imposed by their predecessors, particularly if any re-negotiations of past commitments have been clearly placed before the electors and they have freely voted on such policies.

As I understand it the only party in Ireland not seeking to re-negotiate the imposed bail out deal after the election are presently Fianna Fail, therefore those countries advancing funds to Ireland are deliberately duping their own taxpayers, among those betraying the trust of those putting them in power must also be Jean Claude Trichet and his colleagues within the ECB! 

ECB to attempt to veto National Sovereignty

Bini Smaghi of the ECB has asserted that a new Irish Government will not be permitted to renegotiate the terms of the EU/IMF Bail Out.

Here is the crunch point for the evil EU! If the Irish people elect a government in February that is committed to renegotiate that deal, who is Bini Smaghi to determine otherwise? Indeed who is Bini Smaghi at all? The first time I have seen his name was on the CNBC ticker reporting his statement a few minutes ago.

George Soros has it right, as I linked to his broadcast from the BBC on this blog yesterday. Ireland will renege on the deal next month as the alternative is national suicide extended over several years.

The question now is for the leaders of all those countries pledged to advance funds to Ireland, are they not betraying their own citizens, when throwing away their taxpayers' money, knowing that default is inevitable immediately after the Irish General Election?