Independent Media Centre Ireland     http://www.indymedia.ie

The Unfolding Crisis and Ireland's Economic Ruin

category national | anti-capitalism | feature author Friday November 26, 2010 16:38author by IMC Collective

The Financial Coup is almost complete

Around the world countries have been betrayed by their politicians who have worked hand in glove with their capitalist partners to systematically destory each economy and then to hand them over to a private financial elite composed of bankers, investors and speculators and other parasites.

From Iceland to Lativa to Greece to Ireland the Financial Coup has taken place. It has already long ago taken place in such countries as the USA where big capital and big finance captured their governments long ago where corporations like Goldman Sachs have their own people in government dictating the bailouts. But many other countries are on the list. The austerity which the capitalists smile down on, have already hit most of Europe especially in countries like Spain, Portugal, Hungary and the UK.

The current crisis is the cumlination of a fairly long process starting in the late 1970s when the leading capitalist powers decided to go on the offensive and launched the Neo Liberal era which saw an claw back against all the rights gained by workers in the previous 70 years. At that time they also lent huge quantities of money to corrupt governments in the developing world and this ushered in the era of mega slums and third world debt bringing in the era of financial imperalism allowing the resources of these countries to be hauled away for almost free. continues below

featured image
So below we shall document some of the reactions of the Irish people so far:

Reactions and Events (on Indy):
Social Welfare Defenders group calls for protest against cuts outside the social welfare offices in Hanover Street Cork.
New campaign launched to support Independent candidates. -planning to field candidates in the election.Public meeting Thurs and Fri night
Spontaneous IMF March Cork City was on Nov 22nd
People Before Profit call for General Strike
1% Network calls for National Strike and March next Saturday
Garda attacks TDs - the centre is not holding from the WSM website.
Ireland in crisis: What can be done?
National Strike on Dec 1st anyone?
Protest Against the Bank Bailout - General Election Mon 22nd Nov -see story for what happened
Σgra Shinn Fιin activist Injured by State car at IMF protest

Timeline:
Nov 1999: Glass-Steagall Act repealed in US. deregulates the banks leading to financial to wild west in global finance.
Oct 2008: Global finance goes belly up. Celtic Tiger officially dead.
Aug 2010: €27 billion Tranche 1 & 2 loans transferred to NAMA (i.e. to taxpayer). Almost 50% for loans on UK properties See report
Sept 2010: Legal door closes on shifting burden of bailout onto bond holders.
13th/14th Nov: Govt: "There is no bailout."
Thu 18th Nov: Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan announces for all intents and purposes the EU/IMF bailout.
Fri 19th Nov: IMF arrives in Dublin to help transfer more wealth to the rich.
Mon 22nd Nov:: Greens announce departure from government in Jan.
Wed 24th Nov:: Outline of cuts announced by govt. Pensions taxed. Tax increases + VAT. 1 euro taken from lowest paid workers. Nothing taken from the tax exiles. No tax or royalities on Corrib Gas.
Wed 24th Nov: 24 hr General strike in Portugual against austerity. Nothing similar planned by Irish unions.
Thur 25th Nov: Govt trying to close deal with IMF before they are booted out and before people can challenge the deal
Fri 26th Nov: Speculators driving up interest rates for Portugal and Spain in an effort to break the Euro.
Fri 12am 26th Nov: News reporting that IMF/EU will charge 6.7% interest. Prof Morgan Kelly (IT 8/11) says anything above 2% will sink us. Above 5% and our debt grows faster than we can repay!
Sat 27th Nov: Between 50,000 and 100,000 march against IMF cuts and FF govt in Dublin
Sun 28th Nov: Details of €85 billion deal done with private capital (aka IMF/EU) announced. Interest rate will be 5.8% and we get to handover €17.5 billion of our pension fund. And note that €85 billion includes €17.5 billion of our own money, making the so called bailout actually a high interest loan of €68 billion much of which will be handed over directly to european banks
Sun 28th Nov: Story circulating Anglo was using derivatives mentioned by Pat Rabbit on RTE This Week. Anglo report shows derivatives of €184 billion in total for 2010 up from €167 in 2009. This seems to show why ECB demanded the Pension Fund (€17 billion) as collateral. -i.e. Since 2008, Anglo probably made a bet with derivatives they would get their money back and lost the bet. Hole now is even bigger.
Tue 30th Nov: Opposition claim IMF deal should be subject to a dail vote according to constitution article 25-9-2. "Markets" unimpressed by deal. Italy now being brought into the discussion more frequently in MSM.
Tue 07th Dec: Austere Budget passed targetting the lower paid
Thu 09th Dec: 40 million euro bonuses to be paid to AIB execs. Ireland's rating lowered by Fitch in spite of IMF "deal" (Minister intercedes to prevent payment of these AIB bonuses after major public outrage)

Then when they had grabbed all the resources of those countries, they moved on to other location bringing the Asian currency crisis, Mexican crisis and helping greatly in the Russian crisis too.

In the past decade or so, the Class War has once again returned home to the 'Western Hemisphere' and the process of bringing the third world home was well under way. This is the situation where all the countries assets are owned by a few, the vast majority are very poor, violence is rife and at the top rules a ruthless rich elite. In parallel around the world, we saw increasing militarization of police forces and the simulteanous propaganda war to glorify this.

Argentina in 2001 was the first casualty in this phase, where overnight the banks froze all accounts and millions of people lost their life savings. Almost instantly over 50% of the people were thrown into poverty. In the Argentina case, it later turned out that those who got their money out in time, were the very top few hundred wealthy families, who then used their fortunes to speculate against their own currency from outside and billions were made from it. Could the same be true today? Are Ireland's very wealthy speculating against our country and driving up interest rates and helping impose the drastic cuts about to fall?

As we write, this past week we can see something very similar to above unfolding before our eyes. One thing is clear throughout the full spectrum of political opinion is that we have lost our sovereignity and from now on we will be controlled by the dictates of some unaccountable private group. We know that big cuts have already happened and bigger ones are on the way. We also notice that the rich remain largely unaffected. We know that the poor and less well off have been affected most through cuts to the very services that form the working fabric of our society and that the very small amounts that had been spent on numerous well deserved causes and groups, is almost gone.

Yes, the third world is truly on its way to Ireland. It was reported during the week that thousands of people have had their electricty (ESB) cut off because they couldn't pay. In both the US and UK, houses that were cut off, burnt to the ground because of the occuptants switched to just candles and subsequent accidental fires. How long before the same thing happens to people's water supply when they start collecting the water charges. How about bin charges? If people can't pay their mortgages they will probably not pay their bins. Will the streets begin to fill with trash?

Prof Morgan Kelly last week estimated that at least 100,000 people are in severe difficulty with their mortgages. Where is the bailout for these people most of whom were very successfully duped into paying for massively overpriced houses with the help of the relentless propaganda during the bubble from the media, the govt, the banks, developers and estate agents all singing to the same hymn sheet. We also know most of the debts racked up were for commercial property (data here) and NOT greedy house buyers as the media has so cleverly managed to keep as the party line for the past two years

Make no mistake, the next move will be to try and sell off what remains of our state assets as suggested by the foot soldiers of big capital. The health budget will be severly cut, but more private hospitals will be built, but if you don't have the money it will be a case of 'please drop dead' from the capitalists. They don't care. For them, education must and will be cut too. Educated people are a threat to reining in the super wealthy and they may even try to estasblish something as subversive as democracy.

The War of Terror is the propaganda instrument to deter the masses. This is a united effort by all capitalists across the world to stamp out equality, justice and democracy. They talk of justice yet a million+ have died in Iraq which most European govts including ours supports. Where is the justice in that? Civil liberties have been stripped everywhere. In our case, witness the completely over the top Garda violence at the Student march (here) or the violence yesterday at the Dail over a simple protest (here). Witness also the relentless violence against Shell to Sea campaign done out of the public eye over the last few years. Anyone who objects or protests is quite clearly a subversive and terrorist in today's post 9/11 world. Depending on the situation, its batons, tasers, tear gas, rendition and water boarding or predator drone hellfire missles for you. This is really just the Class War but the powers that be and not the gombeen ministers in our govt or the pending ones in Fine Gael, but the very powerful shadowdy people in the banking, financial and corporate world are the real power brokers, -these people dare not alert the masses to the fact that there is a class war hence the War of Terror, because their propaganda is so successful and they do not want the stark reality to sink in and instead have the masses cowering in fear at various bogey men. The extreme form of their public manipulation success is the moronic and clueless Tea Party in the US, which is behind the scenes backed and funded by big wealth.



featured image


These are the people you and your children will be paying the gambling debts of if we take on IMF loans guaranteed by the taxpayer to bail out the banks further.
Also IMF loans to bail out the banks come with "conditions" as mentioned above which will result in lucrative privatisation of our utilities.
So the idea is we pay their debts, give them our stuff, live in poverty without healthcare while we work for their companies for peanuts.
Note: both Goldman Sachs and Rothschild amongst others were advising government AND were bondholders in Anglo. ?!?!?!
Don't take this lying down. GENERAL ELECTION NOW! before it's too late and the deals are done.


http://www.indymedia.ie/article/98259

Indymedia Ireland is a media collective. We are independent volunteer citizen journalists producing and distributing the authentic voices of the people. Indymedia Ireland is an open news project where anyone can post their own news, comment, videos or photos about Ireland or related matters.