'Occupy Dame Street' protesters are speaking truth - Irish Central Bank caused economic collapse - VIDEO
By: Niall O'Dowd | Published Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 7:14 PM | Updated Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 7:14 PM
Speaker takes the stage on Dame Street
Now that the occupied Wall Street protest has spread to Ireland there is no doubt that further demonstrations will take place in Dublin given the size of the crowd who attended the first weekend.
There is no question that Ireland has suffered more than its share of economic misery in the past two years and the large number of demonstrators who showed up on the weekend clearly reflect that.
The choice of the Central Bank building in Dame Street is particularly important it was Central Bank mismanagement that triggered the original crisis.
They appear to have had no clue that the economy was dramatically overheating and that the construction industry in particular was entering a massive bubble phase.
The fact that Anglo-Irish Bank was allowed to lend so recklessly and that other banks soon tried to emulate them in a cascading house of cards is at the core of the Irish financial scandal. -------------------- READ MORE: Occupy Wall Street protests have now spread to Ireland - VIDEOS & PHOTOS
PHOTOS - Occupy Dame Street slideshow -------------------- The Central Bank proves itself utterly inadequate in its most important role overseeing and managing the economy , the bank regulator who was given the direct oversight was a complete joke and seemed to have no idea what was really going on in the Irish banking system.
Now the 'Occupy Dame Street' people are on their doorstep, laying the blame precisely where it should have been placed, but never was.
The Irish crisis is unbelievable in terms of the impact it has had on the country there.
Last year 40,000 people emigrated to the 4 corners of the world and a recent poll in The Irish Times indicated that 66 per cent of Irish people did not expect the emigrants to return in any major numbers.
One can only imagine the sadness in the many homes as families bid farewell to cherished sons and daughters as they experience how deep that wound of forced emigration is.
What is hardest to understand is how unnecessary it really is.
Economies like Canada and Australia did not founder because they had strict regulation of banks and competent oversight of the institutions.
Ireland had none of the above.
The protesters at Dame Street are sending a powerful message that is also timely.
A further €3.7 billion will be cut from the Irish economy and taxpayers pockets in the next few months. The hard pressed taxpayer is being squeezed like a dry lemon.
By pointing the finger of blame at those who allowed the financial Armageddon to occur, the Occupy Dame street people are doing the entire nation a service.
some bankers should have been called to account,all founded on consumate greed.investment banking or banks that use shareholders money to bet on futures should be completely seperate fom ordinary investment,they should not be to big to fail,if they do fail,tough.for the havoc and misery they have caused there should be a full judicial inquiry,jail sentences if not something more drastic should be handed out,the whole rotten class structure should be torn down,good luck to the demonstrators.its rotten to the core..how to stop,very difficult.more fiscal transparency,tighter checks and control..dream on..
Ratslayer | Oct 11, 2011, 05:50 PM EDT
Wall Street's monsters create an entire industry of predators who make money by destroying American enterprise and counterfeiting money, they bring the country from the world's most prosperous to a ruined empire tottering on self-destruction, and they did it all with one excuse. Their excuse was it was capitalism, it was competition, it was free and unfettered, that the market was cruel and destructive but fair. Then the market turned on the predators themselves. And suddenly, when it was their jobs to be lost, their industry to be sacrificed to competition and creative destruction, they ran to the government and got bailed. The Nietzschian monsters who had sneered at any acts of compassion as "Socialism" during their years of glory and excess suddenly were the world's biggest Socialists. They received more given entry help, more trillions of cash for trash for the Fed, than any industry in Russia at the height of Soviet Conmunism. This is your Wall Street. Destructiveness, hypocrisy, and corruption.
And these fools dare to take a moral stance now. They went from ruthless Ayn Rand predators to Too Big to Fail Socialists and now they are moral do- gooders, the best industry in America, apparently a division of the Girl Scouts.
No shame, no humility, no sense of decency.
Keynyata | Oct 11, 2011, 02:09 PM EDT
We are(Ireland)a nation of cowards,Eddy
FastEddy | Oct 11, 2011, 12:55 PM EDT
" ... Irish Central Bank caused economic collapse ..." - This is good! This will work: Irish government bank in for the whole load of push me, pull you government/financial complex. A big fat tax cut is in order. Any protest?
Keynyata | Oct 11, 2011, 12:44 PM EDT
National 'anthem'....sorry.
Keynyata | Oct 11, 2011, 12:43 PM EDT
Having regard to the US cities' protests against poverty and dictatorship - perhaps the new national
for America could be the Leonard Cohen Classic:"Democracy Is Coming To The USA".Not before time.
McNamara31 | Oct 11, 2011, 10:46 AM EDT
The Occupy movement is not a Republican thing, a Democrat thing, a liberal thing, or conservative thing; it's an American thing, an Irish thing, a now a worldwide thing. People are standing together and saying we will no longer stand quiet while the Wall St "Types" spend billions to buy influence worldwide and deregulate at the cost and demise of the middle class.In the years before the financial collapse of 2008 the Wall St lobby spent 5 billion dollars to deregulate the financial sector and take back all the necessary regulations that had been put in place after the last crash in 1929. The regulations (Glass-Steagall) which separated banking and investing were there for a reason along with the regulations that controlled the amount of debt any one bank could take on preventing what soon became too big to fail. Goldman Sachs (along with many others) lobbied Washington to change these restrictions so they could increase their debt ratios from what had been the existing 12 to 1 up to 40 to 1; then when all came crashing down the Goldman Sachs even profited on the fall...and the middle class was left with massive debt and stolen futures, and Goldman with all the profits.
7 Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.merefalow | Oct 12, 2011, 03:44 PM EDT
some bankers should have been called to account,all founded on consumate greed.investment banking or banks that use shareholders money to bet on futures should be completely seperate fom ordinary investment,they should not be to big to fail,if they do fail,tough.for the havoc and misery they have caused there should be a full judicial inquiry,jail sentences if not something more drastic should be handed out,the whole rotten class structure should be torn down,good luck to the demonstrators.its rotten to the core..how to stop,very difficult.more fiscal transparency,tighter checks and control..dream on..
Ratslayer | Oct 11, 2011, 05:50 PM EDT
Wall Street's monsters create an entire industry of predators who make money by destroying American enterprise and counterfeiting money, they bring the country from the world's most prosperous to a ruined empire tottering on self-destruction, and they did it all with one excuse. Their excuse was it was capitalism, it was competition, it was free and unfettered, that the market was cruel and destructive but fair. Then the market turned on the predators themselves. And suddenly, when it was their jobs to be lost, their industry to be sacrificed to competition and creative destruction, they ran to the government and got bailed. The Nietzschian monsters who had sneered at any acts of compassion as "Socialism" during their years of glory and excess suddenly were the world's biggest Socialists. They received more given entry help, more trillions of cash for trash for the Fed, than any industry in Russia at the height of Soviet Conmunism. This is your Wall Street. Destructiveness, hypocrisy, and corruption. And these fools dare to take a moral stance now. They went from ruthless Ayn Rand predators to Too Big to Fail Socialists and now they are moral do- gooders, the best industry in America, apparently a division of the Girl Scouts. No shame, no humility, no sense of decency.
Keynyata | Oct 11, 2011, 02:09 PM EDT
We are(Ireland)a nation of cowards,Eddy
FastEddy | Oct 11, 2011, 12:55 PM EDT
" ... Irish Central Bank caused economic collapse ..." - This is good! This will work: Irish government bank in for the whole load of push me, pull you government/financial complex. A big fat tax cut is in order. Any protest?
Keynyata | Oct 11, 2011, 12:44 PM EDT
National 'anthem'....sorry.
Keynyata | Oct 11, 2011, 12:43 PM EDT
Having regard to the US cities' protests against poverty and dictatorship - perhaps the new national for America could be the Leonard Cohen Classic:"Democracy Is Coming To The USA".Not before time.
McNamara31 | Oct 11, 2011, 10:46 AM EDT
The Occupy movement is not a Republican thing, a Democrat thing, a liberal thing, or conservative thing; it's an American thing, an Irish thing, a now a worldwide thing. People are standing together and saying we will no longer stand quiet while the Wall St "Types" spend billions to buy influence worldwide and deregulate at the cost and demise of the middle class.In the years before the financial collapse of 2008 the Wall St lobby spent 5 billion dollars to deregulate the financial sector and take back all the necessary regulations that had been put in place after the last crash in 1929. The regulations (Glass-Steagall) which separated banking and investing were there for a reason along with the regulations that controlled the amount of debt any one bank could take on preventing what soon became too big to fail. Goldman Sachs (along with many others) lobbied Washington to change these restrictions so they could increase their debt ratios from what had been the existing 12 to 1 up to 40 to 1; then when all came crashing down the Goldman Sachs even profited on the fall...and the middle class was left with massive debt and stolen futures, and Goldman with all the profits.