Fiscal Treaty Referendum.....How will you vote?

To anyone contemplating a Yes vote:

In January alone, Fine Gael handed over €1.25bn of YOUR money to private bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank. This is equal to the amount of new taxes in 2012 that were set out in Budget 2012. So on one day, we paid over all our new taxes to unsecured, unguaranteed bondholders – “speculative investors” as Michael Noonan called them last June. A recent recommendation by economists recommended the gov't of FG-LAB immediately axe the bondholder payments. FG refused, arguing that it's supposedly in our interest to keep paying an unsustainable burden which we don't owe. Last year, Noonan burned €5bn and this didn't upset the ECB or the financial markets. Noonan is too busy capitulating to the illusion that we can continue when clearly we’re heading down the path of Greekification. Ireland Teeters on the Verge of Bankruptcy because we are paying 35% of GDP to a defunct bank. Since the promissory note hasn't been paid yet, the opportunity exists to ring fence it by a simple means of refusing to use it on Anglo Irish Bank thus giving it back to the ECB. Ireland is on the brink of bankruptcy despite the fact that the Euro-Zone recession has yet to hit the country with full force.

humanji wrote: »

Please describe, in detail, how a no vote is to our advantage, explaining the pro's and cons of such a decision.

This is a very cynical ploy by the Irish ruling elites and multi-millionaire posessors of the bankers Ponzi bonds. The choice before the Irish people is stay in the Eurozone and face 6 more years of savage austerity or pull out and use a new IEP which offers hope and prosperity. A government that was remotely interested in the nation's future would stay in, repudiate the bank bailout, lend Euros at base rate, defend its stance and balance the budget by collecting sufficient income tax. This could provide the platform for going forward. However given that the powers that be are holding a gun to the head of the population a choice will have to be made and obviously the FG-LAB-FF movement cannot vote positively for bankers' austerity. It will be necessary for the united left alliance to campaign for a no vote whilst making it clear that they are not opposed to the EU in principle but would stay in the former and renegotiate the founding treaties in accordance with democratic principles to allow Ireland burn Anglo Irish Bank's foreign bondholders. The latest fiscal treaties allows foreign politicians to squander up to 700 Billion of my taxes and as much as they can get away with across Europe.

I DO NOT care what the ECB says. They collect money to promote this treaty and I do not mind. I have never taken this blackmail because I do NOT fall for blackmail by eurocrats. There is no way 45 million Irish-Americans will stand by and watch their motherland burn. And if that wasn't enough, Ireland would also be able to avail of bi-lateral loans from Canada, Australia, NZ etc. We would still be eligible for IMF money in a worst case scenario. Do you really think they will cut Ireland off from ESM and risk the stability of the euro?


The interesting facts about this austerity treaty are:

1.If the goal is to preserve the crony capitalism of FF's legacy, then Mr Kenny did the right thing: offload toxic Anglo's bonds to the Irish taxpayers. Noonan seems to be in that camp. If the goal would have been to face the reality that huge societal and structural impediments cannot sustain that current level of debt, then the alternative approach would be to let it fail while making sure the role of the banks as financial intermediaries is being supported - a la TARP with forced re-capitalization, partial government control, and eventual re-payment of the government money.

2. There is nothing exaggerated about Anglo bondholders - all of them are speculators with worthless paper, weak institutions, a dysfunctional administration, mafia-controlled business world, etc. The private wealth of these investors is in stark contrast to the Irish taxpayers.

3. The economics are daunting, but easy to explain: on the current trajectory, none of the restructures will manage to get debt to a manageable level. You can either change the trajectory, which means more austerity, for which Ireland has already fully stomached. Or you expect the shrinking number of relatively healthy figures to transfer large parts of their life savings to the toxic dump in Anglo Irish Bank.

The guarantees that Ireland had given for the Banks (€200 billion if you add the bad loans) match the order of magnitude of 37% of GDP. If anyone believes this will not affect Irish investment, competitiveness, and standard of living for the Irish people, you are dreaming.