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Irish want to default on bank loans new opinion poll shows

Posted on Sunday, November 28, 2010 at 12:18 AM

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A strong majority of Irish people want the government to default on the billions owed to bondholders of Irish banks according to a new Sunday Independent poll.

The poll shows that 57 per cent approve of such a move while 43 per cent oppose.

It is hardly surprising given the fact that new information shows that most of the bondholders are major European banks and brokerage houses (see list in accompanying article on this site) who made massive money when Anglo- Irish especially was borrowing billions from them, but refuse to accept the losses now that the deals have gone bad.

Instead they want the Irish taxpayer to pay.

The newspaper quotes an Irish government source saying that when the idea of default was put to European bankers, preparing the IMF rescue loan they "went ballistic,'

That is almost certainly because they know if Ireland defaults on its loans other countries will find themselves in a deep hole with their own banks, on the hook for the Irish money.

"The Europeans went completely mad," a senior government source told the newspaper when the idea was floated.

I think there will be a few twists in this story yet. A new Irish government may face incredible pressure to ease the crippling tax burden on their people and force the bondholders to pay up.

They may also decide that leaving the euro, the source of all the cheap credit that banjaxed the country may be the way to go




38 Comments

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Default on the loans. If every country owes billions and trillions who do they all owe it too. The EU is the rich boys club. Its the oldest con in the world. Give people loans they cannot re pay and you have them for life. It's like the Pusher and the junkie. Get the hell out of the EU its knackered. When Ireland joined there were 67 thousand unemployed by 1985 there were 350 thousand. Now we have 400 thousand. The politicians of Ireland are in on the con. Why should the Irish people pay for a business going bad [The banks?] Its crazy. They borrowed the money in the first place and the politicians knew. The place is rotten to the core. The country will never get off its knees. When I left in 85 and I thought it was run by idiots. I tried to go back and live there from 92 to 96 and it was still run by idiots. There is no hope for the place. They should re name it "The Republic of Covers ups" from the Clergy,Cops and politicians the place is a disaster. Every tourist I have spoken to here in Oz who made the trip to Ireland said they loved the place but it was way too expensive they also felt they were ripped off price wise when they went there and would not go back. We blamed the Brits for years for all our woes but we have done all this to ourselves. As a nation we could not run a corner shop. Close the place down and start again. Robbie
Default now, and get it over with. Little Iceland did,their bond holders took a haircut, Iceland now are almost solvent,Their prime ministered said "We Bankrupd Ourselves Into Solvency" Ireland should do the same...
Having always been against the Irish government taking on the rescue of the banks and making that rescue an Irish sovereign debt, and with all that has come to light since, I recommend that we DEFAULT NOW instead of paying out billions, 'taking the pain', etc. instead of doing it, as we will have to anyway, in a year or two. Our government has been flattered and buttered up to believe they are part of the 'big boys' and that the future of Europe and the Euro depended on us, and the foolish government bought it, much against the wishes of the Irish people. I say default now, and rely on the Irish pulling together to get OURSELVES out of this hole, not German, French and British banks and bondholders. If you or I as a plain citizen gambled in the market, we would have to take the loss and no one to come to our rescue. Why not the bondholders?
The ancient Irish believed in reincarnation, for good reason. Wouldn't you say that Cowan (aka Bran Clown) is a reincarnation of that McMorrow who invited Strongbow into Ireland? We all know about the foreign ownership of Ireland that resulted from that invite. How long will the new foreign ownership of Ireland last as a result of Cowan's invite to the bankers of Europe?
You should really know why the world wide economic system is melting down and why Ireland and other countries are in such desperate straits. You won't read it on any of ic's editorials but the seed of it began in 1977 and blossomed under community organizers like young barack obama: The seeds of today’s financial meltdown lie in the Community Reinvestment Act – a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades. CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in “subprime” loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers. Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA – and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN. In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America’s financial institutions .
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 1999— In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people...This liberal wet dream is what caused the world wide banking meltdownbecause US sold these worthless mortgages to other banks around the world.
Hey Georgie Boy…try taking a sedative and sitting down for a few minutes…if you read my last post a little more carefully, you will see that these are not my thoughts at all…I just thought others on the site my be interested in how the situation is viewed by, in this case an Irishman living in Germany…I made no comment on them. Your parting remarks are not worthy of comment…
The silly aspect of Oloonsigh's post, well, one of them, is that he fails to distinguish between the two elements of the Irish financial crisis. The massive loan at highest rates forced on ireland and accepted by its quisling government is actually to cover debts that have not been incurred by any but a handful of Irish people. A tiny minority of banker-criminals are responsible for bring Ireland down. These are the progenitors of the huge losses that the Irish government is borrowing to cover. OLonsigh, this may be a bit complicated for you, but it's as if you default on your mortgaqge and demand that I pay it for you. The bankers defaulted on their debts, and passed the tab, via the imbeciles of the Irish government, on to the backs of Irish people who had nothing to do with incurring the debts. That's why and how Ireland is being screwed. The other part of the Irish debt problem is severe, but perfectly manageable. That is that the Irish tax take has fallen, while government spending keeps increasing. There is nothing particularly strange about this--it has happened in many countries (US included), and a few years of austerity in normal cases are enough to deal with it. Irish people I know have no problem tightening their belts in order to again run the country as a going concern, but neither they nor I see any reason why they should entomb their country in an economic Ice Age in order to pay money they don't owe. It's called Blame the Victim, OLOonsigh, you sound like the kind of person who blames a woman for getting raped. Do you say Ireland "was asking for it" also? Disgusting.
THE PERSPECTIVE FROM GERMANY - The following is an edited version of a letter in today’s Irish Times - Why should European taxpayers be expected to subsidise a standard of living higher than their own? There is a surprising willingness to help here in Germany but little sympathy for an Irish backlash against allegedly harsh bailout conditions. Average gross income here is currently €32,000 per annum, which translates into considerably less take-home pay than is common in the Republic. The social levy amounts to 36 per cent of gross salary, of which employers pay half. University teachers here can only dream of what their Irish counterparts of equivalent qualification take home and the same goes for ordinary teachers. A hospital Oberarzt effectively works around 50 hours a week and takes home less than half as much as an Irish hospital consultant, his equivalent in qualifications and experience. The highest contributory state pension is similar to that in Ireland but that is not a fiscal issue here anyway, as the system only pays out what it takes in. Like everyone else, pensioners pay for their medical insurance, around 7 per cent of their pensions; there are no medical cards, free travel, free TV licences and the like. . You won’t see many of the larger German cars on German roads: most of them are exported to places like China, the US, or Celtic Tiger Ireland. And I don’t know anyone here who ever went on a Christmas shopping trip to New York – but I do know several in my home country. In short, the Irish are heading back towards European normality in the next five years, not austerity. It is an issue for the Irish in Ireland to solve, and not for the rest of Europe. – Yours, etc,
Default now ,we cant pay for the bailout we have our own personnal debts to pay ,the country is going to explode from the personnel pressure people are feeling.as every day passes people find they cant make the repayments n their homes ,call a state of emergency ,forget about the election their is more urgent matters at hand ,f..k the bond holders.
TOWNGATE CORRECTION The post beginning: " the smiling socially pleasant ..." on Nov 28 2010 10.33. was not posted by Towngate.
Hi George…gratifying to see that your good manners haven’t deserted you! My ‘dopey’ post was trying to make an arguable point; that the actions of your heroes did not in fact bring anything that was not already on offer, i.e. home rule, and was taken against a democratically elected government, albeit with limited suffrage, so quite different to the 18TH century situation. In fact the seeds of the current political ‘divide’ were sown in the internecine feud following the treaty, which also strengthened the hand of the Northern Unionists, who could say ‘How can you hand over loyal subjects like us to the likes of them?’ My family had members on both sides in the Civil War, and tragedies too. All in all, a pyrrhic victory, as is yours!!
OLoinsigh: Are you some kind of a nut? Or merely a troll? What a stupid post by you. Next you'll be condemning George Washington for having the nerve to lead an army that took the field against King George's forces. Now, having disposed of that simpering idiot Longsigh, I will repeat: I revere the memory of those Irishmen who took a stand at Kilmichael and affirmed by their actions that foreign invaders would no longer with impunity enter Irish homes and burn Irish villages. But thanks OLonsgish, your dopey post gives me an excuse to quote another stanza of the immortal ballad: "While we honour in song and in story the names of Pearse and McBride,/Those martyrs illumined in glory, and others who long since have died./ Forget not the boys of Kilmichael that gallant band faithful and true/ Who fought 'neath the green flag of Erin and conquered the red white and blue." ---- How Ireland needs the spirit of Kilmichael at this time! "
If Ireland doesn't default, it won't end. It didn't in the U.S., the friggin bailouts continued and continued. Until the elite of the world regain control of the commoners, there'll be no end to this and we'll all be living in grass huts begging for handouts.
I would guess that if the vote to abrogate the Irish Constitution in favor of the EU's had been otherwise, the negotiations would have gone differently. Let's have a third vote now.




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