No Unless Zero

DeVore

Just sent this out on Twitter but its easier to expand on things here.


One of my main gripes with the whole financial mess is that Europe has had us over a barrel and they havent been gentle. We are paying a ridiculously large interest rate for money we have borrowed in order to hand it straight back to EU banks.

Those banks gambled and should be taking their medicine. They arent.

Instead they are making a *profit* from loaning us money to bail them out. We are doing Europe a huge favour by propping up the Eurozone and if we were to even hint at playing hardball now, knees would shake in Europe.

My proposal is that we send a clear message to our government that they can carry to Europe that unless that interest rate (and thats a BIG BIG part of our problem, that interest rate), unless it is set to 0.01%, we will vote no (if we are even given a chance).

This achieves several things:

1. It provides our gombeen idiots with at least ONE card to play. Edna (yes, Edna, the ball-less wonder) can fawn at Merkel that its out of his hands and that they better do something to placate those uppity irish cos, you know what they're like when it comes to voting no sometimes. (and they wont have time to run this referendum twice )

2. If they dont, we use this vote to do what no one else seems to want to do and that is scupper the whole ridiculous ponzi scheme.

3. Being in Europe (a properly run Europe mind) is good for Ireland. At heart I am in favour of Europe as a concept. However if it on the terms we are currently facing I would vote No and Ireland should go its own way, maybe in conjunction with Norway, UK, Iceland and anyone else who is hacked off with Brussels. This sets a decent proposition whereby Ireland is no long the whipping boy of Europe but playing (more than) its part while not being taken advantage of.

Its also achievable, realistic and reasonable.


Comments?

DeV.

Permabear

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murphaph

DeVore wrote: »

We are paying a ridiculously large interest rate for money we have borrowed in order to hand it straight back to EU banks.

Whilst it's true that a huge amount of money was used to recapitalise certain banks and a lot of this money will find its way back to European banks, it's not really our biggest problem.

Our biggest problem is that we spend 18 odd billion a year more on current expenditure than we take in in tax revenue and this is the money we are paying all that interest on. We could tell them all to take a hike IF we are prepared to balance our budget overnight. Balancing the budget overnight means real austerity, not a few quid here and there, 40% cuts territory required to balance our budget.

That is the big question though and my own opinion is that put to referendum there are enough people out there with something to lose with an overnight "correction" (PS workers and those receiving benefits) to result in a "no" vote should it come to referendum.

The Outside Agency

Permabear wrote:

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Maybe that needs to happen for a change in attitudes.

DeVore

Permabear wrote: »

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You really never have played poker have you


DeV.

Cardinal Richelieu

Bit of a cheap shot to call Enda "Edna" IMHO, no place for that in your argument.

OS119

nivekd wrote: »

Maybe that needs to happen for a change in attitudes.

while that may be an admirable sentiment, having all govt benefits, salaries and contracts cut by 40% overnight is likely to see significant social unrest - people would litterally run out of food and petrol by about the 12th of the month. i don't know about you, but when my choices are limited to not being able to feed my kids, and Tesco getting its windows put in, i'm afraid that Tesco's is in for it every time.

i'm no scrounger, i work reasonably hard for what i earn, i'm very much on the 'law and order' wing of society and i believe passionately in personal responsibility and not being shielded by the state from the consequences of your actions - but when it comes to genuinely having nothing in the house for my children to eat, and no method of legally securing that food, i'd take whatever action was neccessary to feed them, and to hell with the needs and rights of others.

OS119

DeVore wrote: »

You really never have played poker have you


DeV.

you've obviously never lost at poker either - gambling is fine, it may even be 'informed' gambling, but it may not pay off - and if you don't have the cash to handle losing the bet you shouldn't play.

do you have a plan 'b' for what happens if your scheme doesn't work, or are we talking about FF type gambling with no thought whatsoever for the consequences of your luck running out?

DeVore

We DO have a problem that even if we exclude bank debt, we have not balanced our budget, but one problem at a time. We have to deal with that problem one way or another and this isnt the thread for it.

Negotiation isnt a cliff, you dont just say "yes or no", its a game and currently we have NO CARDS to play hence why our "leader" is simply polishing his gold star from Merkel.

Whatever way you look at it the interest rate on our bailout of Europe is immoral and indefensible. Why should they get 6% interest?? Because they are taking risk..... well apparently they arent. Apparently if banks get into trouble the populace is underwriting them (unbeknownst to us!) so there IS NO RISK.... so why an interest rate?


No to any referendum unless the rate is 0 and if we have to leave Europe ok, its bad but its not as bad as stay and being slaves for 2 decades or more likely, defaulting anyway.


Can we stay on topic here, the idea of a campaign for near 0% interest on our bailout of EU banks?

Does anyone suggest we SHOULD be paying this interest rate? Anyone in favour of it? (Even Permabear surely wouldnt object to a campaign to lower it? )

DeV.

Permabear

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carveone

The problem with this poker game is the hidden player. In my opinion, that player is the US. Scofflaw has said it time and time again that not just EU banks loaned us money, in fact its impossible to prove how much is loan and how much is IFSC throughput.

Besides, Ireland's bailout interest rate was reduced from around 6% to between 3.5% and 4% (link). Seems reasonable considering how much Italy is playing for its loans currently.

Inflation! That's what I'm looking forward to.

Sparks

If the Fed could loan $7.77 trillion to banks at 0.01% interest under TARP (well, okay, outside of TARP, but for the same reason as TARP), why is that option off the table in the EU? Surely we can even avoid the $13 billion in profit the banks made exploiting that bailout now that we've seen how they did it in the US...

Lockstep

The problem was not European banks lending money to Irish banks. It's the staggeringly incompetent way that Irish banks dealt with the money, fueling an unsustainable property boom and loaning out money to people who should never have been granted a mortgage.

Whatever problems the EU has, we are the main cause of our current situation.

carveone

Sparks wrote: »

If the Fed could loan $7.77 trillion to banks at 0.01% interest under TARP (well, okay, outside of TARP, but for the same reason as TARP), why is that option off the table in the EU? Surely we can even avoid the $13 billion in profit the banks made exploiting that bailout now that we've seen how they did it in the US...

$7 trillion. In proportion to Ireland's population that's $112 billion (€85bn). It that worse than us? Hmmmm.

But yeah, everyone's gone on a printing money extravaganza. Even the UK who seems to have gone off on a sulk today. IMHO, that's where the EU must head too...

Sparks

Lockstep wrote: »

The problem was ... loaning out money to people who should never have been granted a mortgage.

Yeah, sorry, I call bull**** on that meme. Subprime lending was stupid and greedy and would have collapsed eventually anyway; and we definitely had a property boom here which exacerbated the issue; but the problem we're currently in globally was caused by trading in derivatives on those subprime mortgages, not the subprimes themselves and the problem we're in locally was down to speculative land purchasing, which is definitely not the same as subprime mortgages.

You can't say that a problem caused by allegedly more financially savvy people betting on the outcome of a subprime mortgage or a property boom is the fault of those at the bottom of the pile. Not with a straight face, anyways.

Sparks

carveone wrote: »

$7 trillion. In proportion to Ireland's population that's $112 billion (€85bn). It that worse than us? Hmmmm.

Well, it kindof is because nobody outside the fed knew about it and the banks were fighting the release of the information in the courts right up until the last possible moment.

Permabear

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Lockstep

Sparks wrote: »

Yeah, sorry, I call bull**** on that meme. Subprime lending was stupid and greedy and would have collapsed eventually anyway; and we definitely had a property boom here which exacerbated the issue; but the problem we're currently in globally was caused by trading in derivatives on those subprime mortgages, not the subprimes themselves and the problem we're in locally was down to speculative land purchasing, which is definitely not the same as subprime mortgages.

You can't say that a problem caused by allegedly more financially savvy people betting on the outcome of a subprime mortgage or a property boom is the fault of those at the bottom of the pile. Not with a straight face, anyways.

Well, yes. The problem is that we had an economic boom fuelled around property prices that banks were heavily involved in, combined with government refusal to intervene (such as bringing in property taxes or capping land prices as per the Kenny Report)
That is the basis for our economic collapse and exacerbated by government socialising private debts leading us to have to spend incredible amounts just servicing the national debt.
The derivative trading happened around the world but most other countries are not as badly hit as we are.
We're badly hit because of the stupidty and greed of our own banks, governments and ultimately, our own citizens who voted in the same government that was stoking the boom.

But we don't like hearing this. It's far easier to tell ourselves that it's not our fault but the fault of some dastardly Brussels bureacrats because shifting the blame sits easier with us.

Lockstep

Permabear wrote: »

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Fully agree. If we'd let the banks go under (perhaps with the government guaranteeing small to medium bank accounts) the fine but it was worse.
A remember an Adam Smith Institute spoksperson saying the bailout was an utter travesty with even nationalising being preferable, but we got the worst of both worlds by guaranteeing THEN nationalising the debt.

carveone

Lockstep wrote: »

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I think the argument against nationalisation was, at least in Britain, that the government would be bad at banking. Ha! Worse than the people who broke banking?

Permabear wrote:

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Unless you're a german armchair economist. I read some of that book on the Weimar (When money dies). It's pretty unpleasant - like how do people in the city pay for food when there's no system of exchange that anyone will accept. You don't, you just die. However, ending the crisis was surprisingly quick once the government took its head out of the sand. It's interesting stuff.

Now have to read about the Swiss confederacy too - Corinthian spoke of parallels to the current EU situation...

FreudianSlippers

Lockstep wrote: »

The problem was not European banks lending money to Irish banks. It's the staggeringly incompetent way that Irish banks dealt with the money, fueling an unsustainable property boom and loaning out money to people who should never have been granted a mortgage.

Whatever problems the EU has, we are the main cause of our current situation.

That's the current Irish mentality though. With this it's blame everyone but yourself just as it was tax everyone but yourself last week.

We need to realise europe isn't our problem. They're our solution.

carveone

Sparks wrote: »

Well, it kindof is because nobody outside the fed knew about it and the banks were fighting the release of the information in the courts right up until the last possible moment.

Bloomberg reported the 7.77 tn figure. The bernank struck back yesterday countering Bloomberg’s report. And now this article from Economonitor is saying if you add the bits and pieces together the cumulative total is 29 tn.

Either way, they get to keep an AA+ rating and an almost zero treasury yield. Guess the biggest ape gets to keep the bananas..

hatrickpatrick

Lockstep wrote: »

The problem was not European banks lending money to Irish banks. It's the staggeringly incompetent way that Irish banks dealt with the money, fueling an unsustainable property boom and loaning out money to people who should never have been granted a mortgage.

Whatever problems the EU has, we are the main cause of our current situation.

You're not getting the main issue here.
When you lend money, you take a risk. No one is denying that the Irish banks blew it, but those who lent money to said Irish banks willingly and knowingly took a risk by lending their money.

It was THEIR risk. Not mine. Not yours. You and I should not be paying them a cent - it's their problem. It's a problem between lender and borrower - the Irish people are neither of these. Banks are private institutions, and there is no excuse for robbing the public purse to pay for f*ck ups in the private sector.

I find it interesting that those on the right who normally argue against the government intervening in the private sector are so adamantly in favour of the idea that when a bank goes under, it's the ordinary man on the street's problems. It's not. They are private institutions, they can rot in hell for all I care - I didn't lend them anything and I didn't borrow anything from them, there is no moral obligation or justification for me to give away my money to cover their losses. Not my losses, THEIR losses.

tl;dr - taxing ordinary people to pay for mistakes by bank managers is morally unjustifiable. They are private organizations, their mistakes are none of our business.

Hermy

DeVore wrote: »

...My proposal is that we send a clear message to our government that they can carry to Europe that unless that interest rate (and thats a BIG BIG part of our problem, that interest rate), unless it is set to 0.01%, we will vote no (if we are even given a chance)...

What are we doing in return for this interest rate of 0.01%?
Anything Europe asks of us or is there something specific on the table yet?

hatrickpatrick

Hermy wrote: »

What are we doing in return for this interest rate of 0.01%?
Anything Europe asks of us or is there something specific on the table yet?

We're propping up their failed, rotten banking system, which if the Irish banks had been let go would almost certainly have crumbled to pieces.

PeadarCo

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

You're not getting the main issue here.
When you lend money, you take a risk. No one is denying that the Irish banks blew it, but those who lent money to said Irish banks willingly and knowingly took a risk by lending their money.

It was THEIR risk. Not mine. Not yours. You and I should not be paying them a cent - it's their problem. It's a problem between lender and borrower - the Irish people are neither of these. Banks are private institutions, and there is no excuse for robbing the public purse to pay for f*ck ups in the private sector.

I find it interesting that those on the right who normally argue against the government intervening in the private sector are so adamantly in favour of the idea that when a bank goes under, it's the ordinary man on the street's problems. It's not. They are private institutions, they can rot in hell for all I care - I didn't lend them anything and I didn't borrow anything from them, there is no moral obligation or justification for me to give away my money to cover their losses. Not my losses, THEIR losses.

tl;dr - taxing ordinary people to pay for mistakes by bank managers is morally unjustifiable. They are private organizations, their mistakes are none of our business.

The banks are private institutions but if they go under they would bring alot of people with them hence the reason they were bailed out. Its our business partly due the fact the bailout of our banks was badly managed and that many of the same people who lend to our banks also lend to the state. Currently theres a deficit of 17billion. Only for Europe this would be the budget cut at minimum. Its then that anyone who relies on the government in anyshape or form will really feel the pain. Its easy to complain what your solution? Theres no easy options just bad and very bad.

irishh_bob

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

if the prospect of a euro exit is so dire for ireland , whats to stop germany insisting on complete control of our affairs ? , surely they can call our bluff , safe in the knowledge that us choosing to go it alone means penury on a massive scale

Mr.Micro

irishh_bob wrote: »

if the prospect of a euro exit is so dire for ireland , whats to stop germany insisting on complete control of our affairs ? , surely they can call our bluff , safe in the knowledge that us choosing to go it alone means penury on a massive scale

I agree, I will also be surprised if we hang on to the 12.5% Corporation tax rate. To be blunt, beggars cannot be choosers.

Tipp Man

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

- I didn't lend them anything and I didn't borrow anything from them

Not disagreeing with what you are saying in general in this post

However are you honestly saying that you have literally no savings or no borrowings in any financial institution??

are you Bertie circa 1990's??

ilovesleep

Tipp Man wrote: »

Not disagreeing with what you are saying in general in this post

However are you honestly saying that you have literally no savings or no borrowings in any financial institution??

are you Bertie circa 1990's??

Do you find that hard to believe? I've no savings or borrowings and I'm sure there's many more like me.

Hermy

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

We're propping up their failed, rotten banking system, which if the Irish banks had been let go would almost certainly have crumbled to pieces.

I know what we're currently doing but what I mean is, what might we be asked to do in return for a rate of 0.01%?

BTW I'll be voting no either way.

SeanW

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Who says they would have to? The European Economic Area (EEA), which Norway, Iceland, Switzerland etc are all part of, offer many of the benefits of being "Europeans" with few of the drawbacks of being locked into Brussels rule.

SeanW

Hermy wrote: »

I know what we're currently doing but what I mean is, what might we be asked to do in return for a rate of 0.01%?

BTW I'll be voting no either way.

We've already had to endure the utter hypocrasy of being told by Sarkozy earlier this year that "solidarity is not a one way street" in terms of our requests for cheaper bailout terms, for which he wanted higher Irish Corp taxes. They would probably start there.

Tipp Man

ilovesleep wrote: »

Do you find that hard to believe? I've no savings or borrowings and I'm sure there's many more like me.

Yes i do actually

meglome

Hermy wrote: »

I know what we're currently doing but what I mean is, what might we be asked to do in return for a rate of 0.01%?

BTW I'll be voting no either way.

Couldn't we just all read the proposal and decide? Boggles my mind.

SeanW wrote: »

Who says they would have to? The European Economic Area (EEA), which Norway, Iceland, Switzerland etc are all part of, offer many of the benefits of being "Europeans" with few of the drawbacks of being locked into Brussels rule.

Norway gets to introduce all the EU rules without having any say in making them. Excellent.

How exactly are we ruled from Brussels?

SeanW wrote: »

We've already had to endure the utter hypocrasy of being told by Sarkozy earlier this year that "solidarity is not a one way street" in terms of our requests for cheaper bailout terms, for which he wanted higher Irish Corp taxes. They would probably start there.

Elmar Brok, a close associate of Merkel, was on primetime the other night and he says our corp tax rate is not on the table. It's not even going to be discussed. http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=1125929

nesf

ilovesleep wrote: »

Do you find that hard to believe? I've no savings or borrowings and I'm sure there's many more like me.

You've a current account and the money that goes into it (assuming you're not on Welfare) comes from another current account. If the banks go down the money that pays your wages disappears along with it and might take a while to reappear making paying you quite difficult.

All this assumes you're working of course.

FreudianSlippers

SeanW wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Who says they would have to? The European Economic Area (EEA), which Norway, Iceland, Switzerland etc are all part of, offer many of the benefits of being "Europeans" with few of the drawbacks of being locked into Brussels rule.[/Quote]
One cannot leave the eurozone without leaving the EU and, presumably, the EEA

FreudianSlippers

Someone on the radio yesterday (Drivetime) suggested a temporary rise in corporation tax and I actually think that may work. That is we say there is a 2% increase until 2014 and hopefully that pleased the French while assuring the corps that the rate will go back down. There is no point leaving; by the time they have done it, the rate will be back down.

I believe off the top of my head even a 2% raise would be lower than most other EU members. Will confirm when I'm at a computer unless anyone wants to oblige

Lockstep

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

You're not getting the main issue here.
When you lend money, you take a risk. No one is denying that the Irish banks blew it, but those who lent money to said Irish banks willingly and knowingly took a risk by lending their money.

It was THEIR risk. Not mine. Not yours. You and I should not be paying them a cent - it's their problem. It's a problem between lender and borrower - the Irish people are neither of these. Banks are private institutions, and there is no excuse for robbing the public purse to pay for f*ck ups in the private sector.

I find it interesting that those on the right who normally argue against the government intervening in the private sector are so adamantly in favour of the idea that when a bank goes under, it's the ordinary man on the street's problems. It's not. They are private institutions, they can rot in hell for all I care - I didn't lend them anything and I didn't borrow anything from them, there is no moral obligation or justification for me to give away my money to cover their losses. Not my losses, THEIR losses.

tl;dr - taxing ordinary people to pay for mistakes by bank managers is morally unjustifiable. They are private organizations, their mistakes are none of our business.

Like I said, guaranteeing then nationalising the bank debt was ridiculous but this doesn't mean that those who lent to the banks are the chief culprits for our economy now.
They gambled and lost but it was Irish banks who engaged in subprime lending. If I lend money to someone and they use the money to make stupid investments causing them to lose their house, they are responsible for losing their house, not me.

However, the Irish ARE responsible. We lapped up the property boom and reelected FF to carry on more of the same. We have a collective responsability for what happened as well.

OS119

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

One cannot leave the eurozone without leaving the EU and, presumably, the EEA

that may be true in theory, but the events of the last few years have shown that the EU, its institutions and the member states have developed a 'pragmatic' approach to the observance of rules that could be said to be unhelpful in particular situations.

like the rules about the ECB buying countries debts, the rules about countries only borrowing X% of their GDP, or the rules about the role of the EC versus that of national governments.

a basket case like Greece might find itself being treated with the letter of the law, but some countries are more equal than others - does anbody believe if, for instance, Germany were to decide that it it wanted to leave the Euro, the other member states wouldn't find some 'pragmatic' way of ensuring that Germany could remain a member of the EU?

DeVore

So, getting back on topic. The *interest rate* on the money we have been forced to borrow as a populace to pay back the people we are borrowing it from (more or less)..... you happy to pay that Permabear? You just seem to be happy to go along with anything, I havent heard one suggestion from you other than to just do exactly what we are told to do regardless of how bad it is for our country.

DeV.

DeVore

http://budget.irishexaminer.com/analysis/kenny-bids-to-avoid-euro-referendum-176784.html

This is interesting.... if you read between the lines you can see Enda saying the same thing as i am (he just doesnt have the nads for hard negotiations).

Also the language should be watched closer, the line he uses is "Mr Kenny insisted that keeping corporation tax low was a “red line” issue, but failed to make much headway in attempts to get better terms for the €63 billion Ireland borrowed to bail out the banks. "

Be warned of this language. It seems to be bullish and drawing a line in the sand but its a common trick and FG/Lab pulled it before the election with the "Not another cent" line which was quietly caveated by "until after we ask nicely" ... to which they simply said No.

In this case the point, Mr Kenny is not a "low" Corp Tax Rate, its an *unchanged* one. Thats a shift in language which tells me we will lose our tax rate to some degree.

And as for the poker comments above... I've won poker games having been dealt only one card! I've seen people win a hand with no cards! (and he's a boardsie no less )

The fact is that right now we arent negotiating at all, we're accepting crumbs from a table we could over turn if we liked. So, a few more crumbs please.....

DeV.

Sacksian

DeVore wrote: »

So, getting back on topic. The *interest rate* on the money we have been forced to borrow as a populace to pay back the people we are borrowing it from (more or less)..... you happy to pay that Permabear? You just seem to be happy to go along with anything, I havent heard one suggestion from you other than to just do exactly what we are told to do regardless of how bad it is for our country.

DeV.

The interest rate isn't 6%. What's an acceptable interest rate to you, if that's the sticking point?

The poker analogy doesn't work. You're essentially talking about a game of "chicken". As far as I can make out, your only negotiating card is the threat of default.

carveone

meglome wrote: »

Couldn't we just all read the proposal and decide? Boggles my mind.

I guess this a definitive draft text at this point: linked to from the guardian:

http://consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/126658.pdf

Elmar Brok, a close associate of Merkel, was on primetime the other night and he says our corp tax rate is not on the table. It's not even going to be discussed. http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=1125929

I watched a snippet of that last night on RTE News channel. Shane Ross seemed to be totally obsessed with the idea and kept going on and on about France. He was achieving nothing except annoying the viewers. Well me anyway. He was in essence calling everyone a liar...

carveone

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I believe off the top of my head even a 2% raise would be lower than most other EU members. Will confirm when I'm at a computer unless anyone wants to oblige

For members of the Eurozone (not EU at large), only Cyprus has a lower rate at 10%. Portugal has (according to wikipedia) a rate varying from 12.5% to 27.5%. If Ireland had a rate of 14.5%, it would still be lower than anyone else. Slovakia is the next one up at 19%.

Outside the Eurozone but inside the EU, both Bulgaria, Hungary have corporate tax rates of 10%.

carveone

yesboyicecream wrote: »

The interest rate isn't 6%. What's an acceptable interest rate to you, if that's the sticking point?

No it isn't. I think it's 4%. Britain cut its loan rate by 2% to make its effective loan rate 0.3% (ie: it was charging a 2.3% spread above what the cost was to Britain). Bit generous of them!

My opinion is that a rate of interest equivalent to the rate of inflation is an effective 0% rate.

I think it's pretty good really!

DeVore

Our default would bring down europe now. For once they cant threaten us, we can threaten them. We should be taking the nicey nicey approach. "oh, we'd love to help you Merkel, like we have been bending over backwards to do.... but look at our populace, they have to be appeased or we wont be able to get a referendum through! You have to give me something to appease them."

Further more, i'm genuinely at the end of my tether with Europe and if I get a chance I'm going to (for the first time in my life as a pro-european) vote No. If they want my Yes vote, its pretty clear what my price is. NoUnlessZero.


Whats your price or are you happy with things as they are?

DeV.

Hermy

DeVore wrote: »

"...You have to give me something to appease them."

I don't like the sound of this. I can imagine us being thrown a few symbolic crumbs and nothing more. I don't believe Enda has the bottle to demand anything of Merkel.

DeVore

F*ck it, crumbs are better than nothing though!! I'll take crumbs right now. Wiping out a morally indefensible *interest rate* on our bailout loan is a crumb in the greater scheme of things.


Can anyone explain why we are paying an interest rate at all since interest rates are to cover risk, which it has transpired simply doesnt exist in the banking system (and apparently never has, since the populace were underwriting the loans all the time).

DeV.

ArmaniJeanss

DeVore wrote: »

Can anyone explain why we are paying an interest rate at all since interest rates are to cover risk?

They are to cover inflation as well.

And (less importantly in this case) also cover the cost to me of not being able to use that money in the meantime. i.e, I give you a €1K and I've temporarily lost the ability to grow that €1K so I want more back from you.

Specifically for our bailout, an interest rate provides us with an incentive to get our house in order such that we can eventually go to the market selling 10 year bonds at 2.5%. If we have unlimited supply from the Troika at 0.01% then there is no incentive for us to get back to normal funding.

Pete_Cavan

DeVore wrote: »

Our default would bring down europe now. For once they cant threaten us, we can threaten them. We should be taking the nicey nicey approach. "oh, we'd love to help you Merkel, like we have been bending over backwards to do.... but look at our populace, they have to be appeased or we wont be able to get a referendum through! You have to give me something to appease them."

Further more, i'm genuinely at the end of my tether with Europe and if I get a chance I'm going to (for the first time in my life as a pro-european) vote No. If they want my Yes vote, its pretty clear what my price is. NoUnlessZero.


Whats your price or are you happy with things as they are?

DeV.

Out of the €85bn we received in the bailout, €50bn is to cover our annual budget shortfall until 2014. This allows us to continue paying social welfare (child benefit, pensions, etc.) paying public/civil servants (teachers, Gardai, etc.), providing health services and education, building/maintaining infrastructure (schools, roads, etc.). This has nothing to do with banks. We need the bailout more than Europe needs to give it to us. We have nothing to threaten them with unless we are going to take the suicide bomber approach and destroy our own economy to put a small dent in the EU economy (we are tiny, we are 4.5m people out of 500m). You are seriously over-estimating out negotiation position.