A speech with a different purpose

K-9

Chicke wrote: »

That is true k9 ,we do have a huge defecit and shame on us.The lads are working hard to get it under control.it is also highly unlikely that
we would have had to receive a bailout were it for our budget defect alone .it is the costs of the bank bailout on top of that that made things unsustainable.
So here we are in a bailout as architected by Europe (truchet insisted we save de banks) in an extremely vulnerable position perhaps facing the possibility of facing a treaty we don't want or face consequences we don't want
Kenny was a cowed kitten.I hope he goes there on Friday and looks after Irish interests.

That's the perception alright but when you look at Portugal and Greece who didn't have bank bailouts, current budgets deficits (without bailouts) were similar.

I suppose the point is now that the banking bailouts seem to have stopped, they are an expensive one off expenditure, the current budget is an expensive recurring one, every year.

SeanW

meglome wrote: »

Your figures assume the banks won't be worth anything. I imagine they are not worth much right now but in the future they will be worth a large something.

At very least a large plurality of that figure relates to Anglo Irish Bank, now the IBRC. It was never central to the Irish banking system (unlike BOI, AIB etc) and it will never be anything but a basket case until it is wound down.

Fact 1: It's a well known fact that the IMF wanted Ireland to impose losses on bank bondholders. But the European part of the troika did not. And so, like good little Europeans, we threw ourselves under the bus.
Fact 2: At one point in time, Anglo bonds were traded on the open market at a fraction of their face value. The State could have bought these bonds at that time and subsequently saved a small fortune by recycling the eventual full-face repayments. But again, Europe, specifically the European Central Bank, thought this would smell like default, so instead the bonds were bought by scumbag billionaires like Roman Abrahmovic and hyper-wealthy hedge funds, who bought these bonds at knock-down rates and then got face value from them. Hundreds of millions in pure speculative profit in a very short time, paid for by you and me to the ultra-rich. All demanded by our so-called "European Partners."
Fact 3: We had artificially low interest rates contributing to the bubble because the European Central Bank made a low interest rate policy for France and Germany and didn't care if it had a negative impact on us.

I'm sorry but I just don't see any logic in giving Brussels any more power or soveirngty. Any fool can see that the E.U is not our friend.

With a track record like that we should be telling them to go to Hell.

Dannyboy83

anymore wrote: »

let us bear in mind that in reality small countires will always be subject to the forces generated by powerful countries. In this country we have been deluding ourselves that there is some ' parent like' being who exists to protect small countries such as ireland. There isnt - we will always be dependent to some extent on the good will of other more powerful countires.

Agree to an extent, the EU does help to equalise things between the big countries & the small ones tho.
(We also had the choice of being part of the UK, nuclear weapons, permanent council seat etc.)

But in Ireland's case, I do not see the real threats as being external.
Kind of like the alcoholic who can survive any scrap, but will drink himself to death given the chance, I believe our greatest problems are internal.

I would say we need to fix the internal problems before the external ones really matter, and I don't think we can fix the internal problems without external assistance - e.g. some type of higher power presiding over our political class, preventing the Lynch/Ahern kamikaze strategies we all too frequently see in Irish politics.

It couldn't really be the IMF, because an Irish administration would probably be able to remove themselves from IMF control or override the IMF.

This is what I hope will be achieved in the EU Fiscal Union being talked about.
If we could wrestle control away from our political class, that would be a major step forward for the Irish people.

We need an EU barman to stand over an Irish administration and tell them - "You have 1 litre of vodka lads, how you choose to drink it is up to you, but you have 1 litre and no more than that - you won't be drinking yourselves to death on my watch"

K-9

SeanW wrote: »

At very least a large plurality of that figure relates to Anglo Irish Bank, now the IBRC. It was never central to the Irish banking system (unlike BOI, AIB etc) and it will never be anything but a basket case until it is wound down.

Fact 1: It's a well known fact that the IMF wanted Ireland to impose losses on bank bondholders. But the European part of the troika did not. And so, like good little Europeans, we threw ourselves under the bus.
Fact 2: At one point in time, Anglo bonds were traded on the open market at a fraction of their face value. The State could have bought these bonds at that time and subsequently saved a small fortune by recycling the eventual full-face repayments. But again, Europe, specifically the European Central Bank, thought this would smell like default, so instead the bonds were bought by scumbag billionaires like Roman Abrahmovic and hyper-wealthy hedge funds, who bought these bonds at knock-down rates and then got face value from them. Hundreds of millions in pure speculative profit in a very short time, paid for by you and me to the ultra-rich. All demanded by our so-called "European Partners."

That's true. Would have helped if we hadn't used this untouchable sovereignty to guarantee Anglo, against Dept. of Finance advice and without EU knowledge. We got ourselves in the mess in the first place but fair point above.

Fact 3: We had artificially low interest rates contributing to the bubble because the European Central Bank made a low interest rate policy for France and Germany and didn't care if it had a negative impact on us.

True but we used our untouchable sovereignty to target housing and pump money and resources into construction, rather than target sustainable areas. Plus we never regulated properly.

I'm sorry but I just don't see any logic in giving Brussels any more power or soveirngty. Any fool can see that the E.U is not our friend.[/quote]

With a track record like that we should be telling them to go to Hell.

They also had a track record of warning us about our budgets, particularly McCreevy, but they'd no teeth to do anything.

meglome

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Very well said. It's the thing I find amusing about our uber nationalists, they refuse to accept any loss of sovereignty imagined or real but they have no issue with the complete lack of respect we've shown that sovereignty.

irishh_bob wrote: »

lightspeed wrote: »

our political class dont have the stomach to walk away , thier are too many people either paid by the state or who recieve benefits from the state who have it too good , thier are too many people who are already in enough pain with mortgage repayments at under 3% interest

ireland will vote YES , material comforts trump nationalism nowadays in the west everytime , we,ve become soft

While you're right that too many people in this country have it good, not that they'd often admit it, much easier to complain. You're framing this as comfort vs nationalism which I disagree with. I have no issue with protecting this country from itself even if that means some actual loss of sovereignty.

SeanW wrote: »

At very least a large plurality of that figure relates to Anglo Irish Bank, now the IBRC. It was never central to the Irish banking system (unlike BOI, AIB etc) and it will never be anything but a basket case until it is wound down.

Okay. I never suggested we wouldn't be losing money or that Anglo should have been saved.

SeanW wrote: »

Fact 1: It's a well known fact that the IMF wanted Ireland to impose losses on bank bondholders. But the European part of the troika did not. And so, like good little Europeans, we threw ourselves under the bus.

Our banks borrowed money and the government of the day guaranteed those banks. Unless you have a time machine there's nothing we can do about that. It appears it was the Americans who pushed for not burning the bondholders as it now appears they were the ones owed a lot of money.

SeanW wrote: »

Fact 2: At one point in time, Anglo bonds were traded on the open market at a fraction of their face value. The State could have bought these bonds at that time and subsequently saved a small fortune by recycling the eventual full-face repayments. But again, Europe, specifically the European Central Bank, thought this would smell like default, so instead the bonds were bought by scumbag billionaires like Roman Abrahmovic and hyper-wealthy hedge funds, who bought these bonds at knock-down rates and then got face value from them. Hundreds of millions in pure speculative profit in a very short time, paid for by you and me to the ultra-rich. All demanded by our so-called "European Partners."

And what stopped our government buying these? and how is their sale any fault of the EU?

SeanW wrote: »

Fact 3: We had artificially low interest rates contributing to the bubble because the European Central Bank made a low interest rate policy for France and Germany and didn't care if it had a negative impact on us.

If interest rates were the only way our central bank could have controlled our bubble then this would be relevant. They could have done lots of things, instead they fuelled the bubble.

SeanW wrote: »

I'm sorry but I just don't see any logic in giving Brussels any more power or soveirngty. Any fool can see that the E.U is not our friend.

Did you read Permabears post at the top? Any fool can see this country cannot be trusted to not start handing out freebies the second circumstances allow. We made a mess, we did this with our much vaunted 'sovereignty' and weirdly according to many of the same people this 'sovereignty' had already been taken by the EU.

Chicke

Whatever anyone thinks are the mistakes,thickness,stupidity of this,the last ,the one before and before that,government administration and powers to be in this state and whoever things that because we are so inept that we should hand any decision making power or sovereignty we have to anyone else or the man in the street,no one has the right to do this as we are talking about the present and the future.if we give away our right to set budgets in a treaty not just for us ,we are doing it for future generations .no one has the right to dictate the way our future generations live.better to hand down poverty that we can recover from than a loss of their own self determination

Dannyboy83

Chicke wrote: »

If we give away our right to set budgets in a treaty not just for us ,we are doing it for future generations.
No one has the right to dictate the way our future generations live.
Better to hand down poverty that we can recover from than a loss of their own self determination

This is the view that Irish people have traditionally taken and, as Brian Cowen would say, "We are where we are".

I wouldn't consider the outcome binary, and, I have almost the exact opposite point of view: We have a duty to hand down a stable state & stable society to the future generations. Handing down poverty is handing down a loss of self determination.

Besides, we wouldn't lose the power to set budgets.
The state would still be responsible for sliding the various dials on Education/Health etc. as they always had.

The idea would be to have fairly controlled limits on taxation and spending, and heavy fines for non-compliance.

Scofflaw

Chike wrote:

if we give away our right to set budgets in a treaty not just for us ,we are doing it for future generations .no one has the right to dictate the way our future generations live.

Every constitutional change does that. Are you suggesting we no longer change the Constitution for fear of dictating to future generations?

cordially,
Scofflaw

SeanW

meglome wrote: »

Did you read Permabears post at the top? Any fool can see this country cannot be trusted to not start handing out freebies the second circumstances allow. We made a mess, we did this with our much vaunted 'sovereignty' and weirdly according to many of the same people this 'sovereignty' had already been taken by the EU.

So you would rather IRREVOCABLY give more power to given to a foreign government that has already shown itself to be hostile to our interests. Their disgraceful behaviour over the issue of bank bondholder compensation is only the start of it - other things like the Common Corporate Tax Base are still on the agenda - the French and Germans have made it very clear that they want a common CT rate very badly and they're NOT going to take no for answer!

All I can say is, be careful what you wish for!

nesf

Scofflaw wrote: »

Every constitutional change does that. Are you suggesting we no longer change the Constitution for fear of dictating to future generations?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Wouldn't we be dictating to them if we didn't change it too?

Chicke

We should not and can not change any law or constitution that restricts or inhibits future democracy or free will.
We need more democracy not less democracy.
We cannot punish future generations with our displaced anger towards current politicians and business.
We cannot rely on others to act in the best interests of the Irish people,we can hold our own politicians accountable by not reelecting them.
And the available evidence of the behaviour of Germans and French to date has been arrogant,narrow minded,shirt sighted and scapegoating.
This should be self evident

Scofflaw

nesf wrote: »

Wouldn't we be dictating to them if we didn't change it too?

Darn it, I guess we would.

Chicke wrote:

We should not and can not change any law or constitution that restricts or inhibits future democracy or free will.
We need more democracy not less democracy.
We cannot punish future generations with our displaced anger towards current politicians and business.
We cannot rely on others to act in the best interests of the Irish people,we can hold our own politicians accountable by not reelecting them.
And the available evidence of the behaviour of Germans and French to date has been arrogant,narrow minded,shirt sighted and scapegoating.
This should be self evident

If what's on the table - as currently seems to be the plan - is some kind of set of binding rules for budgets similar to the Stability & Growth Pact, with oversight by the ECJ and automatic sanctions, I'm OK with that. If a majority of voters are OK with it, then it is by definition democratically acceptable.

We already have strictures in place that bind our government in various ways - that's what the Constitution mostly consists of. Introducing a rule that says they have to stick within certain budget limits isn't anything new in that sense, and I'm not sure what's undemocratic about doing so. At the moment, the government is free to spend anything it can borrow - and the moment there's a market hiccup, or any doubt over our willingness to pay it back, we lose pretty much all our fiscal sovereignty straight away, and have to spend the next however long trying to regain the confidence of the markets and possibly under some kind of arrangement like the current troika one.

Why would removing the temptation to do that be undemocratic? IS there something particularly democratically necessary about the ability to spend the state into debt?

cordially,
Scofflaw

SeanW

nesf wrote: »

Wouldn't we be dictating to them if we didn't change it too?

No, the future generations could always change this if they wanted to. But if we did let them control our budgets, corporate tax rates and whatever else they want, the decision would be effectively irrevocable.

Governmentse in general like to take power and write new laws and regulations. Power, once given is almost never returned!

Scofflaw

SeanW wrote: »

No, the future generations could always change this if they wanted to. But if we did let them control our budgets, corporate tax rates and whatever else they want, the decision would be effectively irrevocable.

Approval of any proposed measure has to be either by an Act of the Oireachtas or a constitutional amendment. Both of those are reversible.

SeanW wrote: »

Governmentse in general like to take power and write new laws and regulations. Power, once given is almost never returned!

Yet somehow everyone believes that the governments of the Member States are in a huge rush to hand over their powers. What exactly is supposed to be in it for, say, Austria?

cordially,
Scofflaw

meglome

SeanW wrote: »

So you would rather IRREVOCABLY give more power to given to a foreign government that has already shown itself to be hostile to our interests. Their disgraceful behaviour over the issue of bank bondholder compensation is only the start of it - other things like the Common Corporate Tax Base are still on the agenda - the French and Germans have made it very clear that they want a common CT rate very badly and they're NOT going to take no for answer!

All I can say is, be careful what you wish for!

I'm not sure whether to laugh or not. If we did vote to give the EU (which we are part of) the rights to check our budgets we could equally vote in the future to stop it. Our CT rate is not going to be changed, as that would make it harder to pay back our debts.