Fight Back Against IMF - Mad As Hell

If we accept that this deal was never meant to provide justice to the people of Ireland, then we have to judge its success or failure on other grounds, the ones it was designed to fulfill. From that perspective the willingness of the rulers of the French, Germans, British and others to drive countries like Ireland and Greece and Portugal, each of us less than 2% of the Eurozone economy, into ruination is understandable, albeit unforgiveable. Just as there is no honour amongst theives, so there is no solidarity amongst capitalists.

Smash this failed deal now

At Sunday night's press conference announcing the terms of the ECB/IMF "rescue" deal, Brian Cowan repeatedly told reporters that the deal was "the right thing to do" and showed Ireland as "being responsible". So much criticism has been heaped upon this deal by commentators in newspapers and on TV, it almost seems redundant to repeat that this is a rubbish deal. But still, for the record, let's start by saying this is not a deal, it is a robbery.

Foreign banks, private investors, decided to take the risk of investing money into private banks here in Ireland in order to profit from the property boom from 2000 until 2006. That money was lost when the bubble burst. Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware. Those investors got their risk assessment wrong and they should lose their money. But from the very outset this government and the European authorities have decided that those losses by private companies should be socialised and that the Irish population, as a whole, should be made to pay the losses for other people's gambling. This is not "the right thing to do". Not now, not ever. And any wretched Fianna Fail candidate that might dare to knock on your door in the coming election, needs to be robustly confronted with that fact until they either admit it or flee.

But if we accept that this deal was never meant to provide justice to the people of Ireland, then we have to judge its success or failure on other grounds, the ones it was designed to fulfill.

Reading in between the lines, these appear to be three-fold:

1. Saving the Irish economy from collapse
2. Stop Eurozone bond yield contagion spreading to Portugal and Spain
3. Protect foreign banks investments

In practice the current government have substituted saving the Irish banking system for saving the Irish economy. This on the publically-stated grounds that the economy cannot function without a banking system. While that may be true, within capitalism, that does not necessarily mean the existing Irish banks need to be saved. The globalised world of the 21st century is full of banks happy to move into any gaps that appear in any national market. if Anglo and some of the others had been allowed to go to the wall, so long as ordinary depositors accounts had been guaranteed, that would not have left us without a banking system. In fact it is the attempt to prop up these failed banks that is destroying the economy, not the other way around. Of course the less publically-stated grounds for bailing out local banks was that a good chunk of the local magnates who fund Fianna Fail would have lost out badly.

Track - Welfare

Video - Barra

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Mad as Hell
• IMF Ireland
• recession ireland
• banking ireland
• corruption
• exploitation
• budget ireland

[daviddalbylive]

IMF are the LOAN SHARK of last resort, they come in once a country is bankrupt and take everything they got. They had plenty of practise with Africa and South America. Confessions of an economic hitman says it all.

[Denver1928]

that wasn't Brian Cowens voice. It was obviously an American accent failing to impersonate him.

[whitemellon]

Very well done. My thoughts are with the Irish People. Fuck the IMF. I can not find one example of where they have actually helped a country.

[gavanf]

Deadly

[sirhcelah]

nice one

[fedaynasr27]

brilliant!