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First Peaceful European Revolt, As Irish Tsunami Ends 60 Years Of Fianna Fail Rule Following Banker Bailout Fury
Angela Merkel is carefully observing what can only be classified as a peaceful revolution in Ireland, where a stunning amount, over 70% by some estimates, of voters turned out to punish the ruling Fianna Fail party for its betrayal of the Irish people and for the latest (and what some say last) broad banker bailout. The Telegraph reports that "Exit polls and early tallies from Ireland's general election heralded political annihilation for Fianna Fail (FF), the party which has ruled Ireland for more than 60 years of the Irish Republic's eight decades of independence." Bloomberg adds: "Counting will continue today to fill the 166-seat parliament, with an exit poll giving Fine Gael and the Labour Party a combined 57 percent of the vote. Support for Fianna Fail, which has ruled for the last 14 years, dropped to 15 percent from 42 percent in the 2007 election, the poll showed." In other words, the Irish people have voted for a direct confrontation with the EU, and indirectly, for austerity: "Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, likely to become prime minister, wants to re-negotiate the interest rate on the emergency loans and speed up planned spending cuts to narrow the budget gap. Labour is pushing for more tax increases." And the reason Merkel is not going to sleep much tonight is that Germany is next. The country, where the CDU saw a comparable annihilation in a recent Hamburg vote, faces several regional elections as early as a few weeks from now, and the political scene is expected to change drastically, as a warning to anyone who feels like putting the banking kleptocracy (again) over the interests of the taxpaying majority. But what is most troublesome for all those who think that the EURUSD at 1.38 is remotely credible, is that the European Nash Equilibrium is now completely destroyed, and the game theory defections are about to start in earnest: "Declan Ganley, the Irish businessman who led the 2008 No vote to the Lisbon Treaty, said Ireland must "have the balls" to threaten debt default and withdrawal from the single currency. "We have a hostage, it is called the euro," he said. "The euro is insolvent. The only question is whether Ireland should be sacrificed to keep the Ponzi scheme going. We have to have a Plan B to the misnamed bailout, which is to go back to the Irish Punt." Funny nobody even pretends that modern economics is even a remotely viable concept. Also, the Fed's plan of keeping the USD artificially low against most currencies is about to crash and burn mercilessly.
From the Telegraph:
According to exit polling carried out by the Irish RTE broadcaster, Fine Gael (FG), Ireland's main centre-right opposition, had won 36.1 per cent of the vote. Labour, traditional FG's traditional coalition partner, took 20.5 per cent, its best result ever. Fianna Fail took just 15.1 per cent share of the vote, representing a loss of 58 seats.
Sinn Fein, usually outsiders in southern Irish politics, recorded its own best result with 10.1 per cent, up almost five per cent on the last 2007 election. The vote share for Greens, FF's junior coalition partner, plummeted to 2.7 per cent, possibly robbing the party of MPs.
"The political landscape of Ireland is completely and utterly redrawn," said Roger Jupp, the chairman of the Millward Brown Lansdowne pollsters which conducted the exit polls for RTE.
Enda Kenny, Fine Gael's leader, will later on Sunday, start to form a new government, almost certainly with Labour, after full election results under Ireland's complicated PR system come through.
Both Mr Kenny and Eamonn Gilmore, Labour's leader, have promised Irish voters that they will renegotiate the EU-IMF austerity programme to reduce the burden for taxpayers and to force financial investors to shoulder some of the bank debts currently paid out of the public purse.
Quid pro quo, Clarice:
At a summit of centre-right EU leaders in Helsinki next Friday, Mr Kenny will use his position as Ireland's new Prime Minister to beg the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, for concessions ahead of an emergency March 11 Brussels summit to restructure the euro zone.
But neither the two European leaders nor the European Central Bank or EU will permit any substantial changes, despite the huge popular Irish revolt against the bailout.
Chancellor Merkel will tell Mr Kenny that if he wants to reduce the high, punitive 5.8 per cent interest rate charged on EU loans then Ireland will have to give up its low corporate tax rates - a measure regarded as vital to Ireland's recovery and one of the few economic policies it has not yet handed over to Brussels or Frankfurt.
And, of course, Mutually Assured Destruction:
The new Irish premier will also be warned that there is no question of forcing privately-owned financial institutions to assume Ireland's £85 billion bank debts because the resulting market panic would spread to Germany and France, tearing the euro single currency apart.
As Irish voters headed for the polling booths on Friday, the European Commission bluntly declared that the terms of the EU-IMF bailout "must be applied" whatever the will of Ireland's people or regardless of any change of government.
"It's an agreement between the EU and the Republic of Ireland, it's not an agreement between an institution and a particular government," said a Brussels spokesman.
A European diplomat, from a large eurozone country, told The Sunday Telegraph that "the more the Irish make a big deal about renegotiation in public, the more attitudes will harden".
"It is not even take it or leave it. It's done. Ireland's only role in this now is to implement the programme agreed with the EU, IMF and European Central Bank. Irish voters are not a party in this process, whatever they have been told," said the diplomat.
So is everything about to disintegrate, or will the status quo continue after all is said and done?
Dessie Shiels, an independent candidate in Donegal, said: "People have not been given the basic right of deciding whether or not they should have their taxes increased in order to repay bondholders who have lent to the banks."
David McWilliams, an economist and former official at the Ireland's Central Bank, has led calls for a popular vote under Article 27 of the Irish constitution, which requires on a matter of "such national importance that the will of the people ought to be ascertained".
"We have to re-negotiate everything," he said. "Obviously, the first way to do this is to make them aware that if they force us to pay everything, we will default and they will get nothing. So they had better get a little bit of something, than all of nothing. To make this financial pill easier to swallow, we must take the initiative politically. We can do this via a referendum.
However, just like in MENA, the Irish people, who have already sacrificed a part of their pension to keep the kleptocratic oligarchy fully funded and with another year of record bonuses, is increasingly ready and willing to throw the dice:
"If the Irish people hold a referendum on the bank debts now, we can go to the EU with a mandate from the people which says No. This will allow our politicians to play hard-ball, because to do otherwise would be an anti-democratic endgame."
Declan Ganley, the Irish businessman who led the 2008 No vote to the Lisbon Treaty, said Ireland must "have the balls" to threaten debt default and withdrawal from the single currency.
"We have a hostage, it is called the euro," he said. "The euro is insolvent. The only question is whether Ireland should be sacrificed to keep the Ponzi scheme going. We have to have a Plan B to the misnamed bailout, which is to go back to the Irish Punt."
And should that happen, the beinning of the end of the global Ponzi will be a fact. After so much posturing, will Ireland finally have the guts to what is right, or will nothing more than empty Dublin rhetoric rule the day even as the African revolutions spread to all middle east countries, and then to France...
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Thats why the irish need someone smarter than you wellington, hero of slaughter and slave trading. New world currency ? run by the same lot?
"Thats why the irish need someone smarter than you wellington, hero of slaughter and slave trading. New world currency anyone?"
Who?
Napoleon?
Lovey chap.
Shame about his defeat.
By the by.
Who are "the irish" that "need"?
We don't have a famine. We have a false money system.
Is that what you wish for? We can accommodate you by RFID chip injection. Miss a payment, they will swipe your account + interest.
Listen to a shill who gets paid to market your new freedom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBCCsjhVaTc
Identity theft will reach new highs. New fake jobs will be created.
Right but if you dont understand gang mentality, you cant understand many people.
Wellington opposed others than his own crownies performing slaughters and slave trading. He did not oppose slaughter and slave trading per se.
Big, big difference.
I'm afraid they may get the same "hope and change" that we in the US naively voted in. I suspect the true power in this Kabuki rehearsal is held by those in command of the international banks and those cloaked shareholders of substance. Some are quite able to disregard such petty notions as national sovereignty and democracy.
"The euro is insolvent. The only question is whether Ireland should be sacrificed to keep the Ponzi scheme going."
+100
The Euro is going to fail but it will not be the dollar that benefits. It will be gold.
+ $1410 as usual Mr Lennon.
Until banks and bank bond holers take a "haircut" the losses will continue to be passed on to the Middle Class. Bondholders were the ones who took the risks and took all the profits. It's about time they took some of the losses.
has No One said it yet? Someone must; very well, I will –
Fiana . . . FAIL !
(I apologize for the grade school quality mockery of the [much bullied] Irish language, but I have been holding that in for Weeks . . . )
will this make the bull rally spx to 1400??
Interest is what one receives when one lends money. The higher the risk- the higher the interest. The risk is always to the lender. If the loan is lost it is the funder's fault. A wrong assessment made by the lender.
+100. Now let's hope the Irish have the courage to realize that they are in the driver's seat in this situation. If they hang tough, we might even find a few dozen courageous politicians in the US.
Saudi King makes a website and collects one million signatures
http://dawnwires.com/politics/saudi-king-abdullah-cannot-sit-still-he-ha...
Dear Political Class,
"STOP WASTING OUR FUCKING MONEY AND GIVING IT TO BANKERS AND FOR JERKING OFF IN THE PEOPLE'S HOUSE!"
Neither side gets it.
One side thinks they need to blow a wad of taxpayer money on illegals and slackers, the other side thinks that the middle class needs "austerity" when they already bent them over to give the banksters record bonuses and pay for their gambling.
Fucking tools.
Quit wasting our money on public jizz and banker whipped cream.
Quit bailing out the demons of crony capitalism and rewarding the opportunistic slackers who cling like leeches to the calves of the responsible working class.
Quit playing patty-cake with elites who trample the rule of law.
Figure it out before we have to do it for you and tear the whole damn system down in order to make it right.
The credit cards are maxed out. The houses are mortagaged to the hilt. People aren't buying things anymore. How do you expect them to collect? Put the whole damn country in debt. They just remove it a couple of steps so that your endebtedness is no longer your choice. It isn't rocket science...... and the political class is one. There are no "sides"
Kilkenny? You bastard!
In this case, Angie is dead right.
The Irish must raise their corporate taxes - they are ridiculously low!
How can it be that we Germans pay some of the highest tax rates overall, while other countries like Ireland taxdump us out of competition?
And then, when it all blows up, we are supposed to bail them out. No way.
Germany must stop paying for the banks and eurocrats and lower taxes at home.
Most money is used to cover losses of various banks.
That is a can of worms. Some in Europe (from all countries in Europe) benefit from Irish super low taxes.
Can of worms...
Germany isn't bailing out Ireland; it's bailing out the banks that Ireland owes money to - many of which are German.
The only thing missing in the ZH article is to mention that the writter of The Telegraph article is almost certainly mr. ambrose, who writtes same stuff day after day. Strangely he never mentions Brittish own financial troubles or the fact that the Pound is just as worthless as Euro. I get the feeling he has a loosing euro/gbp short position somewhere at 0.7000
"... Ireland's only role in this now is to implement the programme agreed with the EU, IMF and European Central Bank. Irish voters are not a party in this process, whatever they have been told," said the diplomat...."
Praise be to that Diplomat. I wonder which side he is really on?
A very provoctive statement, and most undiplomatic. (or maybe be is just fed up being a diplomat)
The one thing I don't agree with is the US dollar getting a rebound from the destruction of the Euro . Risk off has been in effect for 2 weeks or more and the dollar has failed to move up against the Euro. There needs to be an earth shattering event to get capital flows back towards the dollar and I am unsure that the end of the Euro is earth shattering enough .
A stunning result . Fianna Fail has been decimated and you really have to look back at their past electoral performance to truly comprehend the magnitude of this result . This is a party that has in effect ruled the country since independence , which typically garners upward of 40 % of the vote and upward of 70 seats of a 166 total .
Now their vote share has been slashed to roughly 20 % and as I type this they look like they'll struggle to capture even 20 seats in the Dail .
Couldn't be happier with the result . An excellent voter turnout ( 70.1% ) and all signs point towards a Fine Gael-Labour coalition .
Here's hoping now the Irish have the mandate, they do something with it. Now is the time.
Meallan muilte Dé go mall ach meallan siad go mion.
When the ruling party has "fail" in the name what results did they expect?
I doubt, and much of the Irish commentariat doubt, that Enda Kenny and Fine Gael have the balls. Even the Irish Labor Party, like most of European labor, is just a creature of the Democratic Socialist corporatist oligarchy, a vague shadow of former labor. So watch the can get kicked down the road which of the default mode of the world nomenklatura, where no wants to be the first to yell that the emperor has no clothes. If anyone has the balls it's probably the German people who are beginning to understand they are being set up for the mother of all bailouts, far larger and longer than the present ongoing 5.5% surtax they have been paying for the bailout of failed socialist East Germany. If they balk then they will blamed for ensuing collapse of 75-100 years of Keynesian Social Democracy.
How's the world weather? There are high pressure areas moving out of North Africa speading to the middle east. Likewise, another high pressure area in Ireland will likely spread to europe. The imbalances in the atmosphere must reach equilibrium. It is the only scientific aspect of economicas. Discrepancies in highly dense riches must pop and release the wealth that has been hoarded through deceptive artificial weather control. This is how tsunamis, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, tidal waves and split atoms find equilibrium. The world has no choice. Its a hurricane now or a split atom later.
Ireland forever. Punt, and end the game.
Good for the Irish. Would have been better with Sinn Fein.
They voted for Hope and Change, let's see if Fine Gael is Obama the presdient or Obama the candidate.
First thing they should do is let the holders of the fraudulently created bonds (in Ireland's name) burn. Unfortunately the people didn't vote for that option immediately.
With Sinn Fein, there would have been no doubt which the Irish were getting. Now, we should all still have doubt. But, it could still work out favorably if the nationwide vote happens. Which would in a roundabout way do the same thing.
We can only hope.
(notice again how the monetarists poo pooed the will of the people)...City of London must be shitting bricks.
Renegotiate?
My god. This Enda Kelly would have to be most soft headed weakest minded fool in the world to not be able to "renegotiate" it away.
You've got ALL the cards, Enda!
Whether you stay with the Euro or leave and reinstitute the issuance of the Punt, you're going to have a few very hard years coming up. So what is their big threat, their potential negative reinforcement against you?
If you default and drop the Euro and reissue the Punt, they won't buy any bonds from you. Okay, that gives you three or four hard years working with a balanced budget before you find that working without any of that debt makes it easier to get your head back above water. If you stay with them, you get, *barely* less pain for many more years. Look around and ask any countries who've been under IMF austerity plans how well those plans worked out for them. Because that's essentially what you'd be living under.
So, their threat of a negative repercussion is fairly hollow for three or four years and then non-existent after that.
Do they offer you much positive? No, not really. Their plan is to run your country for you and give you painful medicine ad infinitum.
But what about their position?
It's precarious even if you say capitulate as everyone knows Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain have problems which, even if you give in, might blow the whole thing up. How would that feel, Enda, to have surrendered and then found that you did it for nothing, that the whole thing blew up anyway?
And what about your theat, your power over them. It's massive Enda! Massive! Their banks would suffer huge and deserved losses if you default. There's no two ways about that. And you know that even in the EU core there's great discontent about bailing out the peripheral nations. What's more, Enda boy, if you throw off your chains, they know that they'll never be able to put chains on the portuguese and the spanish and the greeks and italians. There will be not only Iceland's example but yours as well. There whole dream falls to ashes.
So, they have the power to make the next three or four years tougher for you but they're going to be very tough anyway. After that, you'll be better with the Punt than with the Euro even imagining that it somehow existed four years from now. But you have the power to start a chain reaction of explosions that blows up their banks and their currency.
Who has the leverage Enda? You do. You should default anyway. But if you can't "negotiate" this into nothing more than a tiny fraction of what they think you owe, then you are the dumbest, weakest man alive.
Yep it's torture ore torcher. Iceland chose correctly.Ireland, do the same.
Nobody here on ZH concerned that both Ireland and Germany are shifting left politically? Both parties are advocating a greater and more involved Federal Gov't, more distribution, etc. They are moving from corporatism/fascism to socialism - what exactly are they winning?
I don't think Germany is going national/socialist. I'm not sure about Iceland, but hey, there aren't many of them. I doubt there will be problems.
I always thought the US dollar was artificially high, especially since they started the massive printing presses going?
I am an American. I see the globe around me on fire, but so far, not us. There is a blatantly obvious reason for that. We consume 25% of the worlds resources, yet we are only 330,000,000 out of 6,900,000,000 on the globe. We are less than 5% of the population. For the moment, the rest of the world is squabbling with their local politicians. As much as we are experiencing the downturn, we are still sucking up resources from others like crazy. We are still on top. This is unsustainable.
They will turn their eyes to us and blame us. We can blame the corporations and banks (they are filthy wealthy) but we let it happen because we are comfortable as a result of their shenanigans.
We are born into it and take it for granted that this is just how it is. The rest of the world does not need to keep buying into that, they do not need to let us keep consuming 1/4th of all the resources while they starve.
Hell is coming all right. We are not entitled. When they get their revolutions, and then things still do not work out and they are still starving, they will look around and figure it out.
People struggling in banana republics are not the fault of America. We may be responsible for a lot, but that is unreal. If the resources are priced such that we consume too much then the price must rise, but how much more blame should we take upon ourselves. Plenty of people in Europe, Australia, Japan, etc are doing quite fine with a great standard of living. America is not the enemy of the world.
Then maybe its wildly militaristic and globally interventionistic government should stop acting as if it were.
And I say that as an (ashamed) American.
WTF are you smoking?
"Irish voters are not a party in this process, whatever they have been told,"
Really, somehow I doubt that the Irish citizens are going to see it that way.
The Irish people are none too bright - they decided to consume like Americans yet not only did they not have the global reserve currency, they did not even have sovergin money.
The PDs(progressive democrats) were the token neo-liberal party in Ireland up to recently - the bastard child of a populist Fianna Fail.
They had a phrase of Boston or Berlin - now I fear it will be more like Bogota.
We have control of nothing now - the most extreme (banked) serfdom in the western world - little control of fishing rights , no control of fossil fuel resourses , we can't even cut our own turf now - we accepted all this for a fist full of euros.
When we will give our last to pay this overvalued debt currency they will inflate and we will be left with nothing but our shame.
This new bunch will simply not get it at best and at worst will be following orders - the middle class supports them as they fear for their substantial deposits - when its over we will have nothing
Your post, in its frank and depressing reality, makes me shudder.
Humanity, collectively, is either insane or completely retarded, as even my dumb dog manages to learn from his mistakes --- but we just keep making the same monumental ones over and over and over again.
Joining the EU reminds me of an ancient Persian proverb; "don't have any troubles, then; well buy a goat". If you didn't have enough government, you could join the EU and get a whole nother layer of government; plenty of troubles. Keep your pecker up, mate; shout out for some Scots from across the water; they haven't had a good scrap for ages. Stuff it to the Pommeys.
So Fine Gael are going to take on the ECB and IMF and put the people of Ireland first and renegotiate the bailout terms and conditions?.Yeah right.
Hmmmm....like I'll believe it when I see it,why would they be different to any other politician that has sold out its country and its people to the bankers?
Expect a lot of hot air,predictions and then watered down promises and compromises and Irerland will roll over just like every other country.
the bottom line is their Irish Economy is flatline..the best thing they can do is dump the Euro. Some pain with some Hope is better than None at all. I was always curious how the Term celtic tiger from the Economist came about? they played it up to their pride and they brought it along with the chains to tame the tiger.
Stand tall Ireland! Slam the fucking door in Europes face and "let them eat shit cake"! This Bullshit thievery has to stop and it might as well start with the Irish People lighting the European flame. Portugal, Spain, Greece, Italy, and France will follow. Maybe somewhere down the line, the United Sheeple of America will finally dig their heads out of their asses and join the Worldwide Revolution to finally kill off these Parasitic pieces of shit. Lock & Load Irishmen, you've been here before!
That Declan Ganley sounds like a proper Gaelic boy; his head's screwed on alright. Maybe more folks will hear what he has to say.