Tax Havens and Denial !
September 28, 2012
According to Marie Woolf and Jack Grimston reporting for the Sunday Times p19 23/09/12 “The UK business secretary has signaled a new assault on tax havens and non-domiciled millionaires in a move that will put further distance between the coalition partners and appeal directly to Liberal Democrat activists”
No such concern in Ireland for the DennisOBrien/Bono act of salting away assets in such manner to escape the Irish tax net. The rich list pay little or no tax in Ireland and it would appear this pattern is replicated across the world in the new economic model based on alarming gambling through financialisation, derivative speculation and murky schenanigans.
Meanwhile Ireland had an embarrassing reality/check moment during the week. It came in the wake of the possible leveraging of the ESM €500m to €2 trillion some commentators believe will be used to cover the purchase of risky Spanish bonds.
Spain casts a big shadow. France wants all 6000 euro banks to be properly inspected and regulated. Germany wants only the major European banks brought to boot. One can only surmise Germany doesn’t want the transparency for its banks the rest of Europe requires. Perhaps they are embarrassed by the huge inflows of funding arising from bailouts coming into the coffers of their banks.
Want a laugh?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19728851
Shane Harrison BBC NI correspondent reported:
“The Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has downplayed the significance of a statement by the finance ministers of Germany, the Netherlands and Finland that could threaten an EU deal on the Republic’s bank debt.”
This was an embarrassing reality check running counter to the propaganda a deal for Ireland was in the bag and not a usual pig in a poke.
Basically the finance ministers inspired by the diplomatic heave of Michael Noonan across Europe in support of Ireland’s cause for a deal on its debt, have come out and said, No Way!
In its bubble of negotiation with the EU commission, the commission hasn’t even agreement from the above ministers to any deal with Ireland. One can only conclude that Ireland’s deal on its debt flagged as a big relief from its odious Promissory note obligation over coming decades at approx €3 bn/annually us serfs pay to German banks bleeding our already dying economy, is set to continue.
ESM will not be used to pay off legacy banking debt acquired by Irish politicians.
But Irish politicians have a method to deal with bad news of this kind, deny and ignore. According to them a deal is still on track with the commission. I’d rather believe the finance ministers of Germany, Finland and Netherlands intention to scupper any such deal, than the commissions intention or power to pull such a deal off that would favour us.
Its long past the time to state the terms that Irish taxpayers will not be coddled by european leaders to pay the odious debt of IBRC to the delinquent ECB that allowed delinquent banks like Anglo to trade in such malfeasance fashion.
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson of Iceland
stood up against such forces.
Ireland’s glove puppets like the orchestra on the Titanic plead mercy to continue its system of tax exiles, little tax for the rich, purposeless negotiation, haphazard reform, banking cover-up.
With our next budget we will see lightning bolts of reality throw light on the above issues. Meanwhile the finest young people from our universities emigrate along with the rest of the unemployed.
End
POP( The Pillaging Of The People )
September 18, 2012
As we speak, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke is embarked on a policy of print baby print, billions of dollars are being created out of air and injected into the US financial system to keep the financial engine of the economy stoked and burning.
Central banks across the US are queuing up arms proffered out to receive the cash and no doubt the bonuses attached to the cash. Financial markets are being lured into the run incentive of more profit and bonuses, but its a double-edged sword.
The bankers and the markets know the money is not reaching the people. While unemployment rates in the financial services world rates are being maintained and many large banks are profiting on risky investments, in the real world things are becoming a tad more difficult.
There are no flashpoints revealing how people’s lives are being screwed with, but they are bound to come sooner or later. As the amount of money increases in the world, the value of goods and services is consequently increasing in cost. People need higher wages to chase the bottom line and pay for more expensive goods and services. The cost of commodities is on the rise, food is becoming more expensive, oil and oil based energy products are becoming more expensive.
Because a loaf of bread cost €1 last year with x money in circulation, now the same loaf costs €2 with 2x print, baby print in circulation. This is called INFLATION.
In some circumstances inflation can be good. One circumstance relates to borrowing and lending. Consider the €1 you borrowed last year in real terms to buy that loaf of bread this year is only nominally worth 50 cent. OK a little more to pay the interest the bank charged you.
Firstly, there are vast swathes of people who cannot afford to borrow. The banks refuse to lend them money, so there is no benefit to them. But they will be pillaged by the rising cost of a loaf of bread.
Plus the stimulation of the current global financial services industry only stimulates a redundant economic model that leads to stagnation and eventually an imploding financial black hole when confidence in the ability to service debt disappears. The financial service industry of smoke and mirrors cannot by itself stimulate the real jobs in goods and services that progress requires. It has become a vampire sucking blood from debt redundant economies it strangles with its indebted coils.
One of those indebted economies is Ireland. http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/now-merkel-dampens-irish-hopes-of-bailout-cut-3233259.html As predicted in earlier blogs, Ireland would gain little or nothing in negotiations to reduce its debt burden with the ECB.
Humiliated in earlier negotiations over the Promissory notes and Ireland’s unconscionable bailout, useless and weak negotiators out of their depth would return empty-handed from their begging bowl alms exercise with the ECB. The Germans will not agree that their banks take up the tab for the Irish.
Ireland’s best boy in the class attempts to appease its minder and lenders at ECB level has run up against Weimar, Germanic opposition and because our negotiators are glove puppets of the troika, those same negotiators on our behalf, Noonan, Honahan, Kenny, now yield results on par with the three stooges on a window washing job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-0IEJZ-H6A
“Yah nitwit, you’re ‘sposed to be washin’ windows, not taking dives off the scaffolding…GET UP SLEEPING VENUS! YAH’VE BEEN ON YOUR BACK SINCE WE GOT THE JOB!”
Indeed north-west in the evening skies Venus can be seen, it has more effect on dealing with our debt than the current crop of Irish leaders.
But there is a tragic irony behind the comic analogies above. The truth is the Irish economy is being pillaged from both within and without. Incompetent political leadership, a failed Dept of Finance, a financial services industry that has spawned the monster of NAMA and looks for further incentives at every turn is only one side of the coin.
The other side is the ECB and the tyrannous troika hell-bent on bringing Ireland to its knees. Financial services are protected from taxation, money is attracted into financial speculation on the markets and promised a safer haven than return on investment in industry, manufacturing and the development of the real economy.
Germany and the ECB, like a larger version of the world’s worst bank, Anglo (IBRC) find itself surrounded by bankrupt and broken economies PIIGS such as Ireland, soon to be joined by France as it tries to implement cuts of €30 bn in the coming years, targeting the destruction of its own middle class, the more ECB imposes austerity, the more ECB and Germany build black holes sucking Germany and its euro to perdition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic
It’s hard not to consider with the current policy of ‘print baby print’ embarked on at ECB level, to provide unlimited funding for banks through the support of government bonds across the beleaguered economies of the PIIGS (excluding Ireland of course as it has its bailout and Germany wants its money back), that mindless hyperinflation is now on the cards for Europe.
“Many of the dramatic and unusual economic behaviors now associated with hyperinflation were first documented systematically in Germany: order-of-magnitude increases in prices and interest rates, redenomination of the currency, consumer flight from cash to hard assets, and the rapid expansion of industries that produced those assets. German monetary economics was then highly influenced by Chartalism and the German Historical School, and this conditioned the way the hyperinflation was then usually analyzed.[1]
John Maynard Keynes described the situation in The Economic Consequences of the Peace: “The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the resources they required, have printed notes for the balance.”
It was during this period of hyperinflation that French and British economic experts began to claim that Germany destroyed its economy with the purpose of avoiding reparations, but both governments had conflicting views on how to handle the situation. The French declared that Germany should keep paying reparations, while Britain sought to grant a moratorium that would allow for its financial reconstruction.“
Bernanke’s and Merkel’s road to inflation can lead to Weimar hyperinflation and is the road to perdition.
The Pillaging Of The People, the destruction of the middle class in Europe through taxation and the erosion of the value of assets, is on target to pay for the debt of banks, poor political leadership. Public services, education and health are now the target of stooges, Fine Gael and Labour Thatcherite policies, who would have believed it, puppets of the financial service industry?
The ECB are worried about those Promissory notes. They do not like the prospect of an Irish government deciding we are not going to pay them. They do not like the prospect of dealing with Irish negotiations looking for debt reduction through writing down the PN’s.
Expect to see the Irish negotiation stooges return home with a new Promissory Note Bond renamed Irish Recov40Yr Bond, with a tiny amount written off the annual repayments of €3.1bn for the IBRC unconscionable extortion of Irish people, but the overall amount to be repaid back increasing and Thatcherite Labour and Fine Gael aiming for people with disabilities to pay for it all.
No wonder the young are emigrating.
End
Bishop Kirby and Prof Honahan.
September 9, 2012
Interviewed on RTE News At One, Sunday 09/09/12, Professor Honahan was less than enthusiastic regarding the need for an Oireachtas led inquiry investigating further into the banks. Indeed he seemed he wanted to park any further investigation into the ‘modality’ of historians stating he was satisfied with his own enquiry (which told us nothing we didn’t know and wanted to know. But, you know, diplomatically, he said he wasn’t for or against the idea. He’s in favour of centralised banking supervision to avoid local infection of banking supervision. Presumably there would be no interference from the Bundestag, cough, cough, in the administration of such a role. Of course Honahan is in favour of the Draghi announced ECB bond buying programme 2 and generally throughout last week was spreading confidence ECB had lanced the Spanish boil that threatened to burst and end the euro.
But who could be confident when the ECB is the only ‘friend’ of Spain and other peripheral economies in the euro, willing to lend money into those economies, the finance to be spent on paying back previous loans in combination with austerity moves. Added debt and further austerity is a no win situation and ECB is in desperation putting its finger in the dyke. Pressure is mounting. But some time is bought.
Bishop Kirby of Clonfert was in the news last week (3). I heard him on News At One RTE last Monday and couldn’t believe what I heard. It wasn’t so much “I saw it as a friendship that crossed a boundary line.” This was his excuse for sending/hiding two paedophile priests in different parishes, it was the dates involved in 1990 and 1994. At the time I was already parent of two children. Kirby drew attention to the fact this was so long ago and that ‘no guidelines existed for dealing with the situation at the time and he was unaware of the recidivous nature of paedophilia.
There must be some amnesia on his part. Firstly, he was following guidelines followed across the world in hiding such priests. Kirby should feel lucky he is not in jail for some years guilty of the crime of conspiracy to conceal a crime. In the US I believe there is also the legal term for the crime, ‘accessory after the fact’. It packs a heavy sentence. If a few clerics including bishops and cardinals were not sent to jail earlier in the 1950’s we would not have had the level of abuse covered up by clergy worldwide in one of the crimes of the century.
But I’m straying from my point. Every parent in the 1990’s knew paedophilia was a crime and the crimes committed by the priests in question broke the law. Kirby is guilty of a crime and should face the consequences. Instead, there is one law for the rich and powerful in Irish society and another law for the rest of us.
In the IT article below “Prof Honohan was responding to an article by UCD economics professor Morgan Kelly in The Irish Times which accused him of making the “costliest mistake ever made by an Irish person” . Honahan is still in position as many of those are who got us to where we are. In leading the Irish negotiation team to get us our bailout from the Troika, he got what must rank as one of the most unconscionable and disgraceful terms of bailout ever negotiated by a country with the IMF.
He committed an own goal. We were in a position to leverage a good deal by using our role as domino effect if we refused bailout, to get a good deal. But the guy was subservient and enraptured under the influence of Jean-Claude Trichet head of the ECB at the time, Honahan craved approval and wished to cave in search of such approval to any terms, and did so. Unconscionable terms of 5.8% without debt write-down and penal demands that all senior bondholders be protected were taken as part of Trichet’s scalping of Honahan. Trichet was scalping and shearing an Irish sheep wanting to please its master and remain in the euro fold at any cost to Irish taxpayers.
Now time is running out for a deal on Irish debt. Supposedly by the end of October there will be a new deal. It’s not helped by having Honahan involved in those negotiations. Truly our greatest deficit at the moment is a problem of leadership. We are led by leaders clearly out of their debt as well as out of their depth.
The jails await Irish white-collar crime which led to our current debacle. But we’ve yet to have a banking inquiry to tell us who pulled the money where, politicians, developers, public officials like Honahan are beneath the radar. This is no bother to Honahan whose constantly aiming to please his masters at the ECB and giving the message of confidence he’s enjoined to give. According to him, the ECB has through its new bond buying programme, a new QE that will further inflate and erode the value of the earnings/savings of eu taxpayers, fixed itself.
Nope, it hasn’t. Currently Ireland is up the Swanee:
http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock
Irelands public debt is $227 bn
Public debt as a percentage of GDP 112%
Per person $54000
Our family here if I calculate 6 * $54000 are calculated by the above figures to owe $324000 imposed on us by confidence tricksters embedded in Irish public life protected and at the highest levels of the ECB. Meanwhile
our schools and hospitals and public services deteriorate while taxpayers are asked to pay the above bill to european banks in debt reparations. No thanks!
Nigeria and Ghana, public debt as % of GDP 14%, were once considered poor by European standards. Nigeria has a debt profile of $265/person or 18.1% of GDP. Perhaps if someone other than the ECB will buy our bonds we could approach them for some help?
In the upside down world of economic stagnation brought about by financialization, casino Central Banks, debt leverage assisted by squandering of public finances and no questions asked derivatives and bond trading, perhaps the poorest in this upside down world is the one who has no debt at all, the richest are those most in debt. Yeah, I get it finally, that’s why Honahan is so confident re the euro and the state of Irish finances.
Who is taking bets Bishop Kirby’s abnegation of responsibility, that there were no guidelines, regarding ‘our guarantee’, will not be the most popular defence by those guilty of the white-collar crimes perpetrated against Irish taxpayers ? Ah well, the sky is free and there’s a waning moon over Dublin with Venus looking down on it at present.
End
1.http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0508/breaking31.html
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/business/global/10iht-dixon10.html
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