NAMA is currently under the control of the Treasury Department. It is a revamped, modified version of an old Swedish bank debt management plan. The Irish NAMA plan simply aims to nationalise the banks debts (lands, properties etc.) without nationalising the banks themselves.

The Irish Government will, for its part, buy the lands and properties at artificially high prices (70% of the property’s peak value in 2006). It is believed that if anything less than 70% is paid for these loans then the banks will be insolvent and will collapse. This is not a great prospect given that these banks have billions in people’s savings on deposit, (however this money only exists on paper), it is feared these deposits would be lost to the depositors if there was a run on the banks and they subsequently forced closed. The cornerstone of any banking system is the belief that money in the bank is safe; take this security away and the banks, along with most of the financial system falls on its ass. This is why they (the government, the banks and all the other geniuses) say that we have to save them…

The money to pay for these properties will come from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and because of Irelands reduced credit rating, the rate of interest on the debt will be much higher. This is where the private debt of developers and thus the private debt of the banks will become the sovereign debt of the Irish Republic. This is where we all come in, as it is us, the little people, who will have to take the cuts and added taxes to cover the cost of servicing the debt.

Meanwhile the government will hold these properties (many of which are in foreign countries) over a period of time so as to wait for the upturn in property prices when ever it comes, that is IF it comes… If it doesn’t come in time we could be in serious trouble. If the government gets desperate and tries to sell off the assets too soon there is a good chance that we Irish could loose a lot of money, possibly up to tens of billions. In essence it’s a gamble, but it’s always easy to gamble with someone else’s money…

Many people don’t necessarily disagree with the idea NAMA, but don’t agree with the way it is going to be managed… The lack of transparency (where is OUR money going), the gag orders on the civil servants who run it, the over-payment for properties, the poor record of our current government will mean that mis-management is inevitable and what return if any will the tax payer see?

Then there is the fact that the banks aren’t being cleaned out properly. NAMA shouldn’t just be about removing the toxic (now radioactive) debts from the banks, if we are going to bring back public confidence in the banks we should not just remove the bad debts from our banks but fire the bad bankers as well!! Their incompetence and greed landed us all in this mess, we can get foreign bankers in to do the same job, twice as good for half the price that it takes to water those turnips. The smart-ass bankers told the bank executives, “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys“, well we paid millions and still got monkeys…

It would also be ideal if a legally binding code of ethics could be set-up for the banks to prevent the same mistakes from occurring again. This would encourage foreign investment in Ireland because it would have a well run and sustainable banking system with responsible people in charge! It is important to note that AIB had been bailed out twenty years ago. If we’re going to do the job we should get it right the first time, I don’t think our credit rating with the IMF is good enough to go back and do it again later on…

The overall goal should be to make our banks self sufficient and capable of functioning again with a strategic aim of making good profits over a long period of time with a strong deposit base. For too long the emphasis has been on short term gain which resulted in long term loss. Bad bankers got rewarded with huge bonuses for handing out loans without thinking. This was a world-wide problem!!

And finally there are those people on both the far left and far right of the political spectrum who strongly disagree with NAMA. This is because it is coming from a cash and carry styled government with strong links to the construction industry, (Galway race tent and Tom Parlon who is currently head of the Irish construction industry federation is an ex-Progressive Democrats TD). Bertie Ahern (whilst in up to his neck in his own bull-shit at the Morriarty tribuneral) told the few economists that sounded the alarm bells in 2007 to go hang themselves. So trust and legitimacy are an issue from the start.

Then there is the potential smoke screen to cover the arses of the developers and bankers who got us into this mess. It could well be the case that in a decade or two we may have another Tribuneral to sort out fact from fiction. But sadly, like those that came before, it will cost the tax payer millions, the legal teams will make millions, evidence such as the bank records of developers will simply get lost or misplaced, the witnesses will experience memory loss, give contradicting testimonies and in the end no one will be held to account.

Those on the left believe that NAMA is just a sham, an illusion which will only take private debt and convert it into sovereign debt. “Why should we all have to pay for the mistakes of a few” is their main question. Private profit and public liability on this scale is just plain wrong to them. They want to see temporary nationalisation of the banks to ensure that we get a return on our money. It is important to note that this was a part of the original Swedish plan, on which NAMA is loosely based. Nationalisation of these banks would ensure that the banks allow credit (the Irish peoples bail out money) to flow. It would also allow for the Irish people to get a better return for their money at the end of the process.

Those on the right believe that NAMA is a mistake, plain and simple. They feel that these banks should be left at the mercy of the very market that they themselves have touted for so long. They are annoyed greatly at the intentional over payment for the properties and the fact that we are borrowing the money for it from the International Monetary Fund at high interest. Before the recession we had a debt of E25 billion, today it stands at about E68 billion, what will it be after NAMA kicks in??

Those in favour of NAMA have pointed towards Sweden as the success story of such a plan, but, as mentioned above, they don’t realise that the Swedes actually had temporary nationalisation of their banks built into their plan… Something the current government are ideologically opposed to. As well as the fact that the Swedes were only doing this with about 20% of their banking system, we’re doing it with 90% of ours…

In my own opinion we are making a very big mistake by pinning our hopes on something that might simply flop. We are just reacting to the here and now… We aren’t looking that far down the road. The debt that is about to be dumped on us is massive and exceptionally heavy. We have very high taxes as it is and we have seen savage cuts to services (of which there are many more to follow). We also have the problem of how we were going to pay for the state pensions of our ageing population (a problem we have forgotten about since the start of the economic crisis).

I believe that once the world economic tide rises, Irelands boat won’t float, it will just sink i.e. because of unrealistically high wages (fuelled by high prices and high taxes), the fact that we can’t compete with eastern Europe or the far East and the fact that we will still have zombie banks will seal our fate. We are also bringing back student fees, so the “knowledge economy” is already a write-off because we won’t have the numbers of graduates required to fill the jobs. All of this will, if anything, scare away foreign investment. This will form a vicious cycle as a poor economy and reduced population with little or no spending power and very few services will keep property prices down for years… possibly decades.

Then there is the question of who will be paying the taxes for NAMA, or at least who will be LEFT to pay the taxes for NAMA. If the global recession ends and our one continues, then we will witness the mass emigration of skilled university and college graduates as well as our trades men to countries like the USA, Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand who will desperately need them and will be more than willing to take them in.

These people are essentially the cream of the crop and once they leave they won’t be in any real hurry to come back, IF they do decide to come back. These people are the core of our country, a unique resource that shouldn’t be squandered… we will never again have an abundance of such people thanks to the education cuts, 3rd level fees and cancellation of grants.

So those who are left here won’t be enough to pay off the taxes and the country will default on its sovereign debt. At this point the IMF will be calling the shots, not an Irish government. The sheer anger that is out there is growing and being told to tighten our belts in the form of the Bord Snip Nua cuts by over paid (cute hoor) politicians, moronic bankers and genius economists isn’t helping matters. It harks back to when Charlie Haughy came on RTE and told the people to tighten their belts, mean while he was on the take and doing quite well himself…

p.s. if you’re taking Fianna Fails word for it you might be making a mistake… Their “word”, like our economy has gone down in value in recent times. This one is a classic – “We are the best party to manage the economy”, that gem was from the Fianna Fail 2007 election campaign.

A new saying will emerge abroad, “there are three ways to do any thing, the right way, the wrong way and the Irish way!! (The Irish way being the wrong way – but slower)”. I think this will go great with the one about the Irish not being able to manage their own affairs…

It was a long post so thanks for reading,

Colm J. Carrigg.

Here in Ireland, in recent times when something has gone wrong in our banking system or economy we are told that “it is due to international factors” or we get told “the international banking crisis is the cause of our financial problems” but if this is the case why is it that the Irish economy has taken such a severe nose dive when compared to other countries… Well Ireland did have many of the same problems that other countries had. Some of these problems were; a serious lack of oversight by financial regulatory agencies, banks had gotten entangled in a web of bank-to-bank loans, many people were in serious personal debt and were not ready to pay-off their debts when the recession came and also, many other countries also had large numbers of people loosing their jobs.

However, Ireland is a special case because of how our government (and opposition) had failed us, how our economy was geared, how our banks were miss-managed and how our media had misled us. This is where the concept of the Irish stew comes in, all the special ingredients mixed in together to give a unique taste… When Fianna Fail came into power they inherited a strong and growing EXPORT BASED economy, which they then mishandled leading to the industrial – manufacturing base becoming non-competitive (2000: Ireland is the 5th most competitive economy in the world, 2008: Ireland is the 22nd most competitive economy in the world), which led to the slow and inevitable loss of manufacturing jobs much of this happened under Mary Harney’s stewardship of the Department of Enterprise and Trade. The then Taioseach Bertie Ahern (1997-2008) and the then minister for finance Charlie McCreevey (Budget 1999) began to erode Irelands tax base by giving tax breaks to the wealthy. These included developers (people who didn’t really need tax breaks), this error led to the enlargement of a property bubble on which our tax system was based and upon which our economy hung (by a thread). This facilitated the over-growth of the construction industry which was just too large for a country of our size to support.

By the late 1990’s Ireland saw an explosion in property prices, this led to speculation on land prices which drove up the cost of what once was affordable land. What had started in Dublin had become the “done thing” right across the country. The “commuter belt” had become as common a phrase as “Celtic tiger”. Builders began to borrow larger and larger sums of money from the likes of Anglo Irish Bank (the builders bank), so they could build these houses. They then would sell them off with up to 33%+ profit margins! But the developers weren’t actually saving this money; instead they reinvested it back into the market by building more houses etc. This activity was soon to become the “done thing”, the fact was that the developers, bankers and politicians believed that there was a never ending market for these houses as the once sleepy communities of the new commuter belt had now become bustling towns (dormitory towns for those who had to bare the daily slog into Dublin to work).

Meanwhile the price of buying or building a house had shot up… It was becoming impossible to get a decent place to live in the commuter belt, never mind Dublin!! Enter AIB and Bank of Ireland, what were once 70% mortgages (where you provide the other 30% of the money) had now become 100% mortgages (the gun to the head) which had in essence been taken out on properties which in reality were only worth two thirds of what they cost to buy. It is important to note that when you take out a mortgage on a house; you don’t actually own it – the bank does and they will continue to until the last penny is paid for it. This is where the seeds of “negative equity” were sown; this is where – due to market conditions – your house is worth considerably less than what you paid for it. You still have to pay every penny of the mortgage plus interest back to the bank.

The end result was that the construction bubble burst and developers couldn’t afford to pay their debts to the poorly regulated and negligently managed banks… The whole system collapsed like a house of cards with a single gust of wind. I refer to this as “the Irish stew” because it was not due to international factors but to the bad management of our banks, poor decisions taken by our government here at home and the misadventure of the builders. Developers such as Liam Carroll and crooked bankers like Sean Fitzgerald are being coddled while the anxious wait for the NAMA (this one is saved for part 3) legislation to pass in the Dail. But essentially we as a country are now paying for in the form of cuts to services and bail out packages for these banks (with out any strings attached – God forbid!!). This is basically private profit and public liability, i.e. “In the good times, WE get the profit and in the bad times YOU get screwed! ;-D”.

“But sure hold on… why did the financial regulator not step in and put a stop to the bad practices!?” Well the financial regulator didn’t seem to see the problem with it, it was taken as common practice, the done thing… so they, like many more, who should have been sounding the alarm and hitting the breaks, just didn’t. The regulator, the government and the banks all pleaded ignorance when asked why they hadn’t warned people of the dangers. They then tried to shift the blame onto the “little people”, Brian Lenihan said, “We as a people decided collectively to have this boom”. A suitable response the “little people” might give would be, “and you as a government decided collectively to run that boom into the ground”…

So, many Irish, blind folded, began to slide into personal credit debt, had large mortgages, negative equity on their homes, this was all capped off by a global financial crisis, a perfect storm… To compound all of this, there are now heavy taxes, brutal cuts to services, major scale unemployment (440,000+), wage reductions and the threat of redundancy hanging over them. Meanwhile the geniuses who made the mess are walking away with golden handshakes, bulky pensions and a pat on the back for good measure.

By September of 2009 an agency known as NAMA operating under the control of the Treasury department will be installed to take bad debts from the banks at very generous prices and all at the expense of the Irish tax payer.

The third part of this blog will be coming soon…

Thanks for reading,
Colm J. Carrigg.

Countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Ireland grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.

Read on below:

http://www.gavinsblog.com/2009/08/06/what-is-wrong-with-ireland/

posted by Shapey Fiend

It all started with the rise to power of Prime Minister Margret Thatcher in Britain in 1979 and President Ronald Reagan in the U.S. in 1981. Both leaders and their administrations were what are known today as Neo-Liberals. Neo-liberalism is essentially applying the “free market” ideology to all aspects of life within a country, it’s like an evolved, modern version of Darwinism i.e. survival of the fittest. Today it’s more like survival of the richest.

Both administrations set about tearing down all forms of regulation and over-site in their respective countries so as to “free-up the markets”, “not to limit the imagination of investors, bankers and entrepreneurs with pointless red tape”. This ideology continued well beyond the G.H.Bush and Clinton eras. Like a disease that lies dormant for many years it came to fruition at the worst possible time during the G.W.Bush presidency. This was because there was a moron in office whose cabinet was composed of a shower of greedy bastards.

It didn’t occur to the Neo-liberals that all this “red tape” was brought in by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in the early 1930’s after the Wall Street crash of 1929… This was because the government realised it had lost all control over the economy because of greedy bankers and stock brokers. So they decided to bring in new regulations that would give the American economy structure on which it could be rebuilt upon. The FDR presidency had also set up “the new deal” which was a series of reforms and inward investment by the American government so as to provide Americans with jobs so as to stimulate the American economy an example of one of the public works projects was the construction of the Hoover dam. By the mid 1930’s the American economy was well on its way to recovery.

Once Bush the 2nd got into power in January of 2001 in the U.S. the symptoms of a recession began to set in… to treat these symptoms the Bush administration decided to simply print more money, (not realising that this would reduce the value of the dollar) and remove the final fig leaves of red tape from the economy… While it appeared to work it only delayed the inevitable. This was the tipping point! One of the pieces of red tape to be removed was the rule that stated that there had to be a 30% capital base held within each bank so as to cover them in the event of a recession in which people would end up defaulting on their loans… It was decided by the geniuses that this money would be put to better use if it was out on loan. Eh, no there, because lending money to people who are loosing their jobs and even those who do have wage slavery jobs is a stupid, mean and unethical thing to do… But given the kind of people we’re talking about it’s to be expected.

The managers of the banks were happy to play along with the whole sub-prime mortgage thing, they didn’t understand it themselves; but as long as the bank was lending money it was fine! However some banks went too far and for every $1 they had on deposit, they had $33 out on credit in the form of loans… This happened because the bank managers gave bonuses to those mortgage bankers who handed out the most loans. Even Irish and other nation’s banks invested in this scheme. This is where the final nail in both the American and International banking systems coffins was hammered in. The less well-off people in America were offered sub-prime mortgages by the banks which they could never realistically pay off, recession or no recession. This all happened because, under the Bush administration the Securities & Exchange commission (U.S. version of the Irish Financial regulator) had its powers relaxed so that when the extent of the banking crisis became clear to them it was already too late…

It wasn’t bad enough that what appeared to be the largest economy in the world had stalled, thus leading to an international economic slow-down, but the bad sub-prime loans were now toxic and thus banks weren’t able to recoup their losses. The human side of this is where there are entire neighbourhoods of abandoned homes, the occupants long since evicted by the local sheriff. The boarded-up houses are now used by crack-heads and their dealers…Without liquidity in the banking sector, and thus no available credit for small businesses the gangrenous rot began to spread to all sectors of the American economy. People couldn’t buy consumer goods because they were in fear of loosing their jobs, they couldn’t buy a car because there were no car loans available, they couldn’t go to college because there were no student loans available, etc, etc…. Companies went bankrupt and filed for government protection from their creditors, manufacturing plants closed due to the lack of purchases a prime example of this was GM-Chrysler who were independent American carmakers but are now going concerns for the U.S. government. One U.S. economist referred to all of these problems collectively as “The Big Shit Pile”.

What happens next is the frightening part!! Because of the stupidity and greed of our own banks, lack of over-sight and responsibility by the financial regulator, bad government policy with in-action and a speculation fuelled construction bubble; Ireland was about to get hit – HARD! The year was 2008. A Dublin comedian named Jarleth O’Reagan once said, “When this is all over, people are going to question the wisdom of storing so much shit next to such a large fan”, I think this quote best sums it all up.

The second part of this blog will be coming soon…

Thanks for reading,
Colm J. Carrigg.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’S ARE DOING?!!!!!!!!!!!

LET ME GUESS A BUNCH OF OUT-OF-WORK PLUMBERS AND SPARKYS LUKIN FOR SUMWHERE TO GIV OUT.

U MAKE ME SICK. FIANNA FAIL HAV BUILT THIS COUNTRY. EVERYTHING U C IS COZ OF A FIANNA FAIL GOVERNMENT. THATS A FACT.

UR ALL EITHER FINE GAEL/ LBAOUR SCUM WHO DESERVE TO BE SHOT…. JUST LIKE MICHAEL ‘THE CUNT’ COLLINS WAS. GR8 DAY IN IRISH HISTORY

SHUT THIS BAND DOWN U UNEMPLOYED GEEBAGS. UR A DISGRACE TO THIS COUNTRY!!!!”

One week ago. 3 times in a row!!

He then posted this comment;

“ 32-48 = Fianna Fail government
51-54 = Fianna Fail government
57-73 = Fianna Fail government
77-81 = Fianna Fail government
87-94 = Fianna Fail government
97-Present = Fianna Fail government

SINCE 1937 FIANNA FAIL HAVE ONLY NOT BEEN IN POWER A TOTAL OF 16 YEARS!!!!

SO YES, THEY DID BUILD THIS COUNTRY!!! ”

Six days ago.

He then posted this comment;

“sorry… SINCE 1932 FIANNA FAIL HAVE ONLY NOT BEEN IN POWER A TOTAL OF 16 YEARS!!!! even more impressive

Irelands greatest heros:

Eamon de Valera
Sean Lemass
Jack Lynch
Charles Haughey
Albert Reynolds
Bertie Ahern
Brian Cowen “

Six days ago.

I was a little annoyed with this bullshit and decided to give him an economics, history and ethics class all at once, I wrote the following and posted it as a topic at the top of the page. What I had wrote can be seen below;

Title: You are a small figure hiding behind that of a giant, take off your mask!

Hey, I just want to say thanks to the person who set up this page, you are good person for doing this and despite what a small, pathetic, misguided and vocal minority think you have the RIGHT to do so!! Freedom of Speech, read the constitution!!

I also ask you to ignore the person hiding behind Eamon de Valera’s picture, but some people just can’t be reached… they can’t see sense, they can’t be reasoned with and they can’t accept when they are wrong.

I would like to answer this critic, however he is right about a few things, Fianna Fail were only out of power for 16 years, but how many of these, Fianna Fail led governments were coalitions and/or were dependant on independent TDs for support. But if they were so great when they were in power then why was there no economic boom in this country until the Fine Gael – Labour government (94-97) of the mid 1990′s? The notion that Fianna Fail created it is just propaganda, its just an illusion. If you know your history you’ll know that Fine Gael and Labour only ever get into power when Fianna Fail has severely damaged the country, FG – Lab make the tough decisions and get punnished for it by the electorate thus allowing Fianna to jump back onto the stage and take all the credit for saving the day, when in actual fact they did nothing! The only difference now is that they have been left to wallow in the shit that they’ve made for themselves and sadly they are dragging the rest of us down with them.

When Fianna Fail came into power they inherited a strong and growing EXPORT BASED economy. Bertie and Charlie McCreevey (the then minister for finance) began to erode Irelands tax base by giving tax breaks to the wealthy and developers (people who didn’t need them), this error in conjunction with mishandling of the industrial – manufacturing base led to the slow and inevitable loss of manufacturing jobs, enlargement of a property bubble on which our tax system was based and upon which our economy hung, as well as the over growth of the construction industry which was just too large for a country of our size to support.

The end result was that the construction bubble burst and developers couldn’t afford to pay the poorly regulated banks… Which we as a country are now paying for in the form of cuts to services and bail out packages for these banks (with out any strings attached – God forbid). Ireland could well be handing 214% of its GDP (Grosse Domestic Product – the profit a country makes per year) over to the banks… The money we have given them so far there is still no recovery?? The E.U. average was 7.5% of GDP. But where will we get the cash? We will borrow it at a high interest rate from the I.M.F. (International Monetary Fund) So our grand children will be shovelin’ shit to pay off this debt and 2 out of every 10 euro paid in tax in this country will be spent on servicing this debt (servicing the bebt means paying off the interest on the debt but not the debt itself). We are now an international laughing stock.

Over the last 12 years Fianna Fail have plundered the public purse (now more than ever) to look after their own friends and interests. Our economy is in melt-down, our health system is destroyed, the country’s infrastructure is still under developed (especially out side of Dublin) and our public service was allowed to become bloated and over-paid to the extent that we have to borrow E400 million a week just to keep them all going, that is allot of money… Basically all Fianna Fail claim to have achieved over the last 12 years in power is now being UNDONE.

It’s all one BIG SHIT-HEAP and everyone but the wealthy elite who created the mess has to suffer for it. They’re good to promise allot in Fianna Fail but they can’t deliver and when they do, what you’ve read above is the end result. Having our country mismanaged and bankrupted is no joke! SOMEBODY MUST BE HELD TO ACCOUNT!

On a separate note, Only Eamon de Valera, Sean Lemass and to a lesser extent Jack Lynch have earned the right to be elevated to the rank of HEROS OF IRELAND. Eamon de Valera (was a 1916 leader & kept us from getting destroyed in WW2), Sean Lemass (tried to build up Ireland as an Industrial nation in the 1960′s but only with limited success) and Jack Lynch (tried to provide strong leadership for the country in the turbulant and industrial strife ridden1970′s and tried to seek a peaceful solution to the North’s problems). With the exception of Albert Reynolds, the rest were all frauds, tax cheats, consummate liars (someone who can’t tell the truth) and/or corrupt bastards.

Michael Collins was also a hero, he fought in the 1916 rising, helped to rebuild the IRA as an effective fighting force, he developed many of the military tactics we collectively know as “guerrilla warfare” today. He also developed an Intelligence service that not only matched but out-classed that of the British. Under the then leader of the Irish provisional government (Eamon de Valera). He was sent to negotiate the first ever treaty between the Irish people and the British government and he did. Sadly these achievements were soon forgotten when he became a hate figure for staunch republicans at the out-break of the civil war. Then he was tricked into trying to negotiate a truce with the then republican movement so that he could be assonated… He knew he could be killed but he tried to go the extra mile for peace. He gave his life to save this country from the tyrannical rule of the British, HE WAS THE KIND OF PATRIOT WHO CARED MORE ABOUT THIS COUNTRY THAN HIMSELF! HOW DARE YOU ATTACK HIM FOR IT!!! By the way Eamon de Valera once said; “I believe that in the fulness of time the greatness of Michael Collins will be recorded, and it will be at my expence”, At least he had the honor, the humility and the decency to show Michael Collins the respect he was entitled to.

Speaking of which, did you know that although Eamon de Valera was originally from Co.Limerick he  considered him self a Clare man? I know this because he ran as a TD for East Clare before becomming President and there is a statue of him in front of the court house in Ennis. I am also a Clare man and you have NO RITE to abuse the good name and face of Eamon de Valera by talking such shit! All you are is a bad minded, mean spirited little shagger. YOU are what is wrong with this country a Fianna Fail LOYALIST who has to be told what to think and who pays more attention to the sport than the news! You are nothing but shit from the ground. That 16 year stint out of power is about to get a whole lot longer and your party will shrink, nobody will ever even think of going into coalition with them ever again. They have been shown up for what they really are!

p.s. I’m not a plumber or an electrician, I have a bachelors degree in Bio-Analysis and Bio-Technology (that’s in science by the way, you ignorant bollox) and thanks to fools just like you I can’t get work anywhere in this country, you moron.

Thanks again to the person who set-up this page! And sorry this post had to be so long but such idiocy deserves a proper rebuke! Keep up the good work and remember you’re not alone in this fight, so keep on fighting and remember it’s a war well worth winning, all our futures depend on it…

posted by Colm Carrigg

•USA: Vietnam. Massive amount of money put into fighting the war.
They went in to prop-up the unpopular capitalist government, the war lasted for 10 years… US casualties = 58,159 Military personnel. Vietnamese casualties = 3,176,000 (1,176,000 Military and  approximatly 2,000,000 civilians).

The war was lost because the US misunderstood the complexity of the situation they were walking into, they failed to take the advice of the French “don’t go there”, they didn’t understand the determination of the people they were dealing with, they lost the war at home when they drafted the impoverished rather than the rich, they lost the support of their people, they went into debt trying to finance the industrial – military complex, it also led to a wasted generation as those who came out the other end were scared for life.

•Russia: Afghanistan. A massive amount of money was put into fighting the war.
They went in to prop-up the unpopular communist government, the war lasted for almost 10 years… Soviet casualties = 15,031 Military personnel (Modest soviet numbers). Afghan casualties= over 1 million Afghans were killed. 5 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, 1/3 of the prewar population of the country.

The war was lost because the Soviets too misunderstood the complexity of the situation they were walking into, they didn’t understand the nature and history of the country, they didn’t understand the mentality of the people they were dealing with, they lost the war at home when they lost the support of their people, they went into debt trying to finance the war, within 3 years the Soviet Union went bankrupt and ceased to exist, its war also led to a wasted generation as those who came home were themselves casualties.

•Ireland: Banks. Again a massive amount of money was put into preventing the bank(s) from going bust.
They went in to prop-up the unpopular bankers and developers. The bail-out has lasted for less than 1 year… there is no end in sight. Bankers imprisoned or punished = 0. Irish casualties = 3.8 million civilians (excluding the very rich). 840,000 Young Irish people may have to emigrate to America, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc. 1/5 of the pre-economic collapse population of the country.

The bail-out has failed because the Irish government misunderstood the complexity of the situation they were walking into. They failed to take the advice of the Swedish “You must nationalise the bad banks in order for the plan to work”, they didn’t understand the nature and history of the banks, they didn’t understand the ineptitude, stupidity and greed of the people they were dealing with, they lost the case for bailing out the banks when they lost the support of the people who were loosing their jobs in record numbers, whilst the excessively wealthy simply walked away and left the less well-off to pay for the mess, the government went into debt trying to finance various bail-out packages, within another year the Republic of Ireland could go bankrupt and cease to exist as a sovereign nation, its misadventure with the banks will lead to a lost generation as those who are the best and brightest in the country will simply leave and never return.

Thanks for reading,

Colm J. Carrigg

Whenever I talk to someone especially people my own age about politics the most common response I get is “Sure if the opposition was in they probably wouldn’t do anything different”, this is the attitude that frightens me the most.. People giving up all hope and just accepting things as they are. We in Ireland just seem to accept a lower standard of our public officials, and it is because of this that our Politicians have walked off scot free, (like many bankers, but that’s a whole other storey).

Free from accountability, responsibility, morals and lacking any sense of shame or conscience, our elected representatives have practiced open-faced corruption. Examples of this are the approval of excessive pay rises for themselves (most well paid Leader in Europe = Brian Cowen (Bertie boy was fond of money, be it punts, euros, dollars or pounds fucking sterling and got these pay rises which Brian has since inherited) and just so ya know he also earns more then Barak Obama (U.S. President) and Dimitri Medvedev (Russian President), not banning corporate donations (Fianna Fail only on this one, Greens have banned them), the PISSING AWAY of tax-payers money on electronic voting machines (so we Irish could show the Europeans how cool we were) and then paying their “Friends” to store these machines while it was decided what to do with them… In the end the decision was made to destroy the voting machines… When i say “open-faced corruption” i mean all the corrupt practices that occur in full view of the public, most of us don’t take notice because these things happen gradually.

Note: The tax payers money is important and should be spent on improving the Country itself and thus the lives of all those who live within it. It should not be used to line the pockets of individuals or to further their “pet projects” and vested interests which will serve no actual purpose… Wasting it is the most un-patriotic thing you can do, because the country and most of those who live in it suffer, Hospitals don’t get built (Cystic fibrosis suffers don’t get their own specialised hospital), Children are crammed into over crowded prefabs (Ennis National School), Proper roads don’t get built (2009… there is no western motorway in Ireland), Army Bases are closed(The Base in Monaghan and others is to close), Frontline services are cut back(Ennis 24 hour A&E), and much needed Doctors, Nurses, Gards, teachers etc. don’t get hired.

We’re on the eve of an election in which Fianna Fail and their Green party buddies are about to get hit hard. I can’t wait for a General election to be called so that they can feel the full force of the peoples anger over a whole range of issues. From a local perspective here in Co.Clare the hot topics are; The ending of 24 hour A&E service at Ennis General Hospital (Clare County Hospital), The Airport in Shannon, Infrastructure and the fact that the Town of ENNIS doesn’t have access to a clean supply of water…

The Hospital: Mary Harney (Self Proclaimed ULTRA CAPITALIST and So-Called Minister for Health (although she doesn’t look it)) and Brendan Drum (Over-Paid Moron, alleged “brains of the operation” and Head of the HSE) decided between them to save the government money by cutting off the 24 hour Accident & Emergency services at Ennis General Hospital thus telling the people of west Clare that their lives are worth less than those of everyone else!! I couldn’t believe it but they have actually managed to trim down a health system that had already been cut to shit in the 1980′s. WOW!! Thanks to Mary and Brendan (Dumb and Dumber) the Irish Health service has become a lean, mean, MRSA ridden, broken-down machine!! Where there are so many overpaid managers they can’t afford to pay actual healthcare professionals (Doctors, Nurses, physio therapists, mental health specialists and Hospital cleaners). The 24 hour A&E was officially replaced with night-time ambulance traffic a few weeks ago.

Shannon Airport: When Aer Lingus (a partially state owned company) pulled the Shannon – Heathrow route (despite the fact that it was highly profitable) and moved to Belfast instead (to get British government aid) the two FF TDs in county Clare (Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee) appeared to adopt a self-serving attitude and thought only of their careers and not of the people loosing their jobs in the airport or those in the tourist industry… After a few months of having half empty planes in Belfast Aer Lingus, tail between legs came crawling back to Shannon. (Apparently half the population up there seemed to have a problem flying with Aer Lingus… I can’t imagine why!!)

Infrastructure: Well we have a new bi-pass for Ennis! Too bad the bottle neck just got moved up the road to Crusheen. I think it was a tad over budget too…But they are re-opening the train line to Galway, which is great now that the economy is in shit and it doesn’t really matter anymore. God knows it took ‘em long enough to decide on reopening it.

Drinking water: In Ennis there is a perpetual boil notice… It gets lifted every now and then but then gets reinstated. Where I live the water is sometimes either brown with dirt or white with chlorine or it might just have a weird smell or taste on occasion.

The government was worried that the people would base their votes in these local and European elections on “National issues” the simple fact is that its the bad decisions and inactions of the TD’s that has lead us to this… In 2007 the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern told George Lee (a prominent economist working for RTE at the time) that he should go hang himself after he had warned that the property bubble would burst and our economy would hit the ground hard… George Lee is now running as a Fine Gael candidate in the Dublin Bi -Elections.

In 2007 Bertie and his Fianna Fail party also told the Irish people that they were the most trustworthy party when it came to managing the economy… and look where we are today. I n 1997 Fianna Fail came to power and took control of a strong EXPORT driven economy from the out going Fine Gael – Labour government. It was this that the Celtic Tiger economy was built on. However, slowly, almost inevitably Fianna Fail began to give more tax breaks and incentives to developers (Charlie McCreevey 1999) this foolishness would sow the seeds of a property bubble which would one day burst. Today our manufacturing capability has been compromised by the current governments backward policies, our exports are down, factories are closing, more people on the dole, less disposible income… this leads to layoffs in the services sector… the cycle goes on and on and on, meanwhile the Irish economy flounders. They cared less about attracting and retaining industry for Ireland then the did about their friends in the construction industry.

Cowen and Lenihan have done such a wonderful job of keeping money in the country! When the British lowered their VAT rates from 17% to 15% the two good old boys raised ours from 21% to 21.5% thus paving the toad to Newry, Co.Down with Euros and leaving the Irish Republic with barely a cent… I’m sorry this blog was so long but I feel that if we let these crimes, (yes I said crimes) to go unpunished we will suffer more in the long run… And don’t believe any of their promises, just ask the old age pensioners who had their medical cards withdrawn, the students who can’t afford to go to college next year, the person on an organ transplant waiting list because they don’t have private health insurance…. I could go on all night. I’m not gonna tell you who to vote for… the choice is yours, but if I could ask one thing of you it would be this… For the love of God don’t vote for Fianna Fail, And for the skeptics out there, why not try and be disappointed by someone new!

Thanks for reading,

Colm J. Carrigg