ECB Irish Bond Sale Bail Out: Creating an Illusion of Solvency ?

[dalywise]

My mistake, I meant Euro membership means we can't call in the IMF. If we called in the IMF, we would have to leave the Euro??

IMF has alread bailed out Hungary. The German government would not tolerate the IMF running the economy of a Euro zone member state. It's a single currency area, and it would be politically unacceptable to have the IMF dictating monetary policy to a part of the Eurozone. Difficult to see how it could work in practice anyhow. So our asses are saved by membership of the Eurozone. Unless this corrupt pathetic governmemt of Fianna Failers is removed though and replaced by a group with some semblance of competence, the EU will run our fiscal policy quite soon and the questions they will be asking will be, why is your corporation tax so low, why no water charges, why no property taxes, how do you fund local government, who's in charge here, who created this mess, what the hell have you people been doing, what did you do with the €60 billion we've given you, why is your heath system collapsing, how come there is still no finished motorway in the country, how much do all these corruption enquiries cost, are you really serious about this thing you call an "education system" etc etc. And like the song "Teddy O'Neill" the record books will show that "All we could answer was Fianna Fail".

[cactusflower]

My mistake, I meant Euro membership means we can't call in the IMF. If we called in the IMF, we would have to leave the Euro??

Dalywise has got it right. Read anything by Joseph Stiglitz and you'll find out that the IMF doesn't give anyone money. It makes loans in exchange for which it requires asset stripping of national resources, privatisation and cutting of public services. It has an appalling record of failure and leaves most economies it touches in long term decline or stagnation.

[dalywise]

True Cactusflower, and when the EU are running the economy we can be sure at least that they won't asset strip the place, . Instead they'll have to pump in some cash to keep the place afloat while they curse their luck having been lumped with a piece of bog where the local gombeen government couldn't manage their own affairs.

[ibis]

True Cactusflower, and when the EU are running the economy we can be sure at least that they won't asset strip the place, . Instead they'll have to pump in some cash to keep the place afloat while they curse their luck having been lumped with a piece of bog where the local gombeen government couldn't manage their own affairs.

They might make us actually keep the bog in one piece, too...

[patslatt]

Dalywise has got it right. Read anything by Joseph Stiglitz and you'll find out that the IMF doesn't give anyone money. It makes loans in exchange for which it requires asset stripping of national resources, privatisation and cutting of public services. It has an appalling record of failure and leaves most economies it touches in long term decline or stagnation.

Privatisation and cutting of public services pay,if not the services, would be a good solution in Ireland as there is a lot of bloated pay and pensions to be cut.

[patslatt]

They might make us actually keep the bog in one piece, too...

The EU Commission and the ECB would be under political pressure from countries facing potential insolvency to go easy on imposing austerity on Ireland, countries such as the PIGS,Portugal,Italy,Spain and Greece. So the EUC and the ECB would want to distance themselves from the imposition of austerity. They would delegate austerity to the IMF's experienced austerity team,helping the IMF with financing targetted for Ireland.

[Cael]

Do you reckon we will be electing grown-ups to the Dáil any time soon, Cael?

You have a point there, a chara.

[Cael]

True Cactusflower, and when the EU are running the economy we can be sure at least that they won't asset strip the place, . Instead they'll have to pump in some cash to keep the place afloat while they curse their luck having been lumped with a piece of bog where the local gombeen government couldn't manage their own affairs.

Sounds very much like what happened to Scotland when they joined the Union with England. The Scottish ruling class had bankrupted themselves with some colonial misadventures, and were just happy to let someone else run their affairs, as they had lost all confidence in doing it themselves.