The ECB (Trichet) Letter to Brian Lenihan

Following the release of the ECB "Trichet" Letter to Brian Lenihan and his insistence that "Ireland" take a Bailout or the ECB would cut all funding, a lot of nonsense has appeared in the Irish Media, but nobody (so far) has addressed the core of the issue - "Ireland" did not require a bailout, a bailout would only be required "if" Ireland decided to honour the Bonds issued by Private Banks and bought by International Financiers who are supposedly experts in their field - this was the ultimate in "stitch ups".

• It was "Private" Banks and their borrowing from other Private Banks & Bondholders (primarily financial institutions), supervised by the ECB that required the bail-out – not ‘Ireland’.

• When the infamous ‘Guarantee’ was made, these banks had knowingly, understated the extent of their losses in communications with public officials.

• Originally, Ireland should have refused to Guarantee more debt than it was informed of or aware of.

• If the ECB wanted or needed the losses of various Private Banks and Bond Holders to be bailed out or assisted, then the ECB should have stumped up the money itself via some quickly thought up ECB liquidity guarantee scheme (subject to controls) - effectively discounted loans to the Banks and Financial Institutions, which we pretty much have now.

• Bearing in mind the effect of the mountain of fraudulent ‘AAA’ rated mortgage backed securities sold into the EU’s banks from the US, there was more than enough justification for the ECB to look to sand-bagging European Financial Institutions prior to the impending tsunami.

• Did we get any redress from Wall St. banks in filling Europe’s banks with these worthless ‘assets’ ? Did any spineless, bought, EU politician even suggest it? Bully boy tactics were used on Ireland by its so called partners. 

Of course, for Irish politicians, bearing no personal or financial repercussions themselves, dumping this ‘odious’ debt; which was 42% of the cost of the entire Euro zone banking losses; was the easy way out for them. Just tell the disgusting lie to the Irish people that it was because ‘we all partied’… and thus had some moral obligation, the ‘fools’ will believe it.

Doubtless they thought the people still cowed & unquestioning under the yoke of the Catholic church would meekly accept this lie and to be fair - most of the unquestioning Irish population did just as expected

However let me remind the supporters of our Governments mantra and actions - NAMA; where the vast bulk of the bad loans were transferred; didn’t take any individual loan of less than €20 million in nominal value. Now, how many of us "partied" with loans of more than €20 million ? - not many.

No, "we" didn’t party. In fact household (mortgage) debt is only "now" being resolved – yet again in  favour of the Banks and not the Citizens; who were duped into buying overpriced houses (in most cases because they needed a home) and it was either accept the loans banks were begging them to take (and assuring their prudent "affordability", yadda yadda, yadda), or pay inflated rents as tenants for inferior rental houses (absence of rental/tenant laws serves political cronies)

The vast majority of people losing their homes now, through mortgage foreclosure, are doing so under yet another disgusting episode in Irish History, and the silence on the part of the mainstream media is deafening, too busy sucking up to their friends in the political classes trying to talk up the country’s non-recovery. (And totally ignoring also that the rest of the Eurozone itself is collapsing back into recession or stagnating..)

If we had not had the totally unnecessary and gratuitous policy of Euro zone wide Austerity when our economies could have been stimulated back to growth, then a great many of those now losing their homes would have had the jobs and wage income to enable them to maintain their mortgages. That is a fact. At no point since this crisis began have Irish Government politicians, or public servants, or others of our ‘Political Classes’, or many in the media actually represented the interests of the majority of citizens. At every turn, they have represented the (opposite) interests of the Capital owning few… which includes many Political Leaders, their Cronies and Close Supporters.
 
That is "not" meaningful ‘democracy’.

And now behind closed doors and in secret "talks", these same political classes have been drumming up an Orwellian termed "Trade Agreement" between the EU and US – the ‘TTIP’.

The TTIP has little to do with ‘trade’, and everything to with handing even more power to the Banks, Financial Institutions and Global Corporations over our elected governments. Including the ‘ISDS’ (Investor State Dispute Settlement) terms, whereby banks and corporations may sue governments for loss of future profits and other compensation for any ‘legislation’ which interferes with their "business", including any annoying social or environmental protections and these cases will not be decided via the normal Judicial Process but in special ‘Tribunals’… doubtless so they can be filled with Corporate (revolving door) placemen and retired politicians (experts) as ‘adjudicators’.

None of the major political parties in Ireland or the EU represent the citizens’ interests. They need to be thrown out of office and the system reformed from the inside.