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People and Politics by Patrick Roberts

Death of the Euro is inevitable in continuing European financial crisis

Posted on Friday, August 05, 2011 at 11:46 PM

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16 Comments

One can bemoan immigration policies without being racist. I think that the watering down and/or destruction of culture - be Irish culture or any other culture - is of infinitely greater concern than economic prosperity. The "european project" treatens to reduce from inherently cultural beings to little more than Producers and Consumers, nondescript cogs in the Global Economic Machine. With all that this island has been through over past century, I want an Ireland for the Irish, rather than mini-America. But then, that's just where my priorities lie, and in this generation of crass commercialism, I'm certain that this puts me distinctly in the minority.

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WoundedKnee | Aug 11, 2011, 10:28 AM EDT

Macenri, you're the jerk who started the invective, with your disgusting slur of "racist". You obviously get away with this bullying in Ireland, but it won't work with me. And then you slink away when confronted with facts. Cowardly skunk, get some backbone and learn not to lie.

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maceinri | Aug 09, 2011, 10:02 PM EDT

I'd be happy to comment but not to a verbally abusive bigot. Get a life, and have manners.

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WoundedKnee | Aug 08, 2011, 12:34 PM EDT

Macenri's high schoolyard tactics are puerile. We all are aware of EU freedom of movement, you idiot--trying to sound condescending just makes you seem a bigger fraud. And it looks like you want us to believe that the tens of thousands of Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, Chinese etc. currently settling Ireland are EU citizens. What a dope. Don't bother trying to lie, macenri, you're dealing with someone who sees thru your racist smoke and mirrors. Your beloved Fianna Fail are consigned to the garbage pile of history, which is where your right wing ideas belong too. As to the "non-existent surveys", here's a few quotes, not for you, macenri, because you're an incorrigible racist and liar, but for any uninformed person who may be fooled by your flimflam: "Almost two-thirds of adults in the State believe immigration policy should be made more restrictive given the worsening economic outlook, according to an opinion poll to be published today. Irish Times 09 Sep 2008: ----THE VAST majority (72 per cent) of people want to see a reduction in the number of non-Irish immigrants living here, according to an Irish Times Behaviour Attitudes opinion. Overall, a total of 43 per cent say they would like to see some, but not all, immigrants leave the state, while 29 per cent would like to see most immigrants leave. In contrast, just over a quarter would like to see the number of immigrants remain as it is. In reversal of trends from polls in recent years, younger people’s attitudes towards immigration have hardened the most." Irish Times 11 Nov 2009. You're probably not used to arguing with people who are equipped with the facts, macenri, I'm sure you're not liking it one bit. Much easier to talk at one of those Fianna Fail cabals where the Irish bosses and employers hang out.

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maceinri | Aug 08, 2011, 08:37 AM EDT

It's a pity you are incapable of sustaining an argument, WoundedKnee, without descending to vituperative and childish personal abuse. I have never advocated the 'supplanting of Irish people in their own country by foreign settlers'. You obviously don't know anything about the EU, but we have something called freedom of movement - people can come and go between different member states in the same way that Americans can move from state to state. As it happens, from an Irish point of view, it has been beneficial for Irish people as much as anyone else. In my country we use words carefully. I think you are a racist, which is not a word I used lightly or frequently, because of the things that you say - it's not just a 'dumb slur'. And I don't call people 'liars' unless I have proof; that's schoolyard stuff. You are obviously an angry person: maybe some counselling or anger management would help. Incidentally, your trick of quoting non-existent surveys to support your own extreme views is one of the oldest in the book, and Ireland is a country of net out-migration, not a place with one of the highest rates of immigration in the world - like everything else you say, you don't let facts spoil the argument. Best one of all? I don't think anyone who knows me would recognise the 'right-wing immigration stooge' - thanks for giving me a laugh, but take your bad karma somewhere else.

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WoundedKnee | Aug 08, 2011, 08:18 AM EDT

This guy macenri is quite the hypocrite, ain't he? A few posts back he was calling for "respectful disagreement". But that didn't last long--he soon reached for the old dumb slur of "wacist". I guess that kind of blarney works for him in Ireland, but it won't work here, where we have a strong tradition of First Amendment rights. The only racist here is macenri. And he's a liar, too, because he tries to get Americans to believe that Irish people aren't concerned about the unrestricted immigration that their political and economic bosses have foisted on them for over a decade now. He doesn't want Americans to know that all public opinion surveys show that a large majority of Irish people oppose the unlimited rates of immigration their country has suffered. And other surveys show that Irish parents are worried about the negative effect on their children of overcrowded classes where half the children don't even speak English. Macenri wants to jeopardize the education of the children of Irish workers in their own country. Why? Ireland has one of the highest rates of immigration in the world, but right-wing Immigration stooges like macenri don't want the Irish to get to debate it. Macenri is objectively a racist, since he advocates the supplanting of Irish people in their own country by foreign settlers. He tries to shut down debate, but it won't work here, so macenri needs to stop wasting our time with his racist hokum.

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OleSarge | Aug 08, 2011, 06:32 AM EDT

The Euro was a filed idea at birth. Let it die quickly and the European nations start recovering from the failed European Union nightmare.

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maceinri | Aug 07, 2011, 05:31 PM EDT

this isn't about immigration and it's a pity that some people with one-track minds force every discussion around to the same topic. Migrants have given the USA its energy and vitality. In Europe we are getting older: Ireland's advantage is that it is still young, in part because of migrant children who will stay and become part of our society. The stuff about too many foreigners in classes is simply nonsense, the kind of drivel that only someone who lives outside Ireland and does not know it very well could write. There's another word for it as well: racism. We don't need that kind of nonsense on a website like this, which promotes open and interesting debates.

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WoundedKnee | Aug 07, 2011, 03:24 PM EDT

"privatising the profits and socialising the debts". Funny, that's exactly what the Irish business class did with the importation of huge numbers of foreign migrants into the country. They made profits off cheap labor, and then threw the migrant workers onto welfare so that Irish taxpayers would have to upkeep them. And you don't see the Irish boss class paying for education, health care etc. for all those huge numbers of migrant and immigrants. Nope--it's the Irish worker who pays, both thru taxation and thru the fact that s/he suffers in countless ways such as having to send their children to overcrowded classes that are full of non-English speaking children. The Irish capitalists privatized the profits and socialized the costs of Mass Immigration. I see from the papers that they're complaining again in Ireland about too many students in their classes. What the hell did they expect if they imported huge numbers of foreign children and foreign adults of procreating age?

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maceinri | Aug 07, 2011, 08:27 AM EDT

I think Kinvara7 is right about this. The German banks will ultimately have to take a haircut, not the end of the world if it is managed properly rather than via a catastrophic default. German public opinion mightn't like it, but again, they have more to lose from any alternative. Anyway isn't capital about risk, and not (as has happened this time) about privatising the profits and socialising the debts, as the Irish Government stupidly did in 2008 by taking on the debts of the criminal Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. The only long-term solution is the replacement of national bonds by eurobonds, with appropriate regulatory controls to prevent the credit explosion of the period after the introduction of the euro in 2002. Germany isn't being asked to do some kind of favour for profligate peripheral EU countries who can't be trusted in the sweetshop: its own self-interest points in the same direction.

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kinvara7 | Aug 07, 2011, 06:24 AM EDT

Patrick Roberts: You talk about Germany 'refusing to foot the bill for all the madness that occurred in such countries over the past decade'. Excuse me Patrick but Germany was up to its chin in that madness. In the 22 months prior to the crash it lent almost 100 billion to small Irish banks in a country of 4.5 million (less than half of whom are workers and taxpayers). That was just the 22 months prior to the crash. The Germans knew that the money was going into the property market (they had made big profits from it previously) they were speculating in it. Our country's National Debt is due to bailing out European (mainly German) banks.

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maceinri | Aug 07, 2011, 03:04 AM EDT

I think postings to fora such as this should be informative and should allow for respectful disagreement. It's a complete mystery to me why some people feel the need to indulge in personally abusive postings to complete strangers.

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WoundedKnee | Aug 07, 2011, 02:49 AM EDT

"it has also been good for tourism and good for morale". Compete nonsense, maceinri. Are you seriously telling us that people decide to vacation in a country based on the currency that is used there? And how about this "morale" that you speak about in Ireland? Are you crazy? maybe you live there, but it looks like you never read an Irish newspaper, or talk to an Irish person. The country is in despair--you must be be the only Irish person who still has good "morale". And all because of the euro and 50 cents you have in your pocket!

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sirpeter | Aug 06, 2011, 05:40 PM EDT

@maceinri.Good post.That's a good accurate assessment me thnks.

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maceinri | Aug 06, 2011, 01:17 PM EDT

I think reports of the imminent death of the euro are greatly exaggerated. It's true that there is resistance in Germany to providing further support, but the reality is that the Germans have as much to lose as anyone, for two reasons. One, the biggest exposure to peripheral EU state debts is on the part of German banks, who are just as culpable as those to whom they lent and who should bear part of the cost. Two, if the euro goes an independent German currency would soar in value and wipe out an export-dependent trading economy. The euro is not the disaster that europhobics like the Brits claim. In the case of Ireland it has been good for trade and has lessened our dependency on the British market; it has also been good for tourism and good for morale. In an idea world a single currency does need a degree of underlying fiscal coherence across the 17 member states of the eurozone but that is not what caused the present problem. It was brought about by an appalling lack of regulation of credit and the stupid and some cases criminal actions of politicians, developers, banks and sections of the wealthy middle classes across the zone. There are many lessons to be learned but I would not write off the euro yet. As an Irish person living in Ireland I accept that it imposes a serious constraint on our policy options right now, but the alternative would be worse. In the end of the day it's a political question. If the EU cannot show decisive leadership, based on consensus, then the game is up. I think we'd better hope for all our sakes, in the US as well as in the EU and the rest of the world, that they step up, quickly, and take the decisions which are needed. On balance I think they probably will.

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