[quote=UCGal][quote=CA renter][quote=briansd1]Seems like Ireland is experiencing a depression.
10% shrinkage is the definition of a depression.
By rough economic estimates, the $20 billion in spending cuts and tax increases promised over the next four years by Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s government will lead to a 10 percent cut in the disposable income of Ireland’s middle class, and greater hardships still for many of the country’s poor. They will be hit by welfare cuts, public-sector job losses and a sharp reduction in the minimum wage, as well as a wider economic turndown, on top of the 15 percent shrinkage in the economy since 2008, if the emergency measures fail to restore economic growth.
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Isn’t it ironic that all of these hardships are hitting the poor and working people? Why do we so rarely hear of the elite bankers/financiers taking a 75% whack to their income or net worth?
Oh, that’s right…they’re our masters, and we should never question their integrity or the value of their brilliance. They are always worth of their riches…certainly, they’ve “earned” it.[/quote]
In the case of Ireland – the bankers ARE getting hit. The government bailed them out and is insisting on bonus restrictions and taxing what bonuses they get. This will hit their pocket books.
It’s kind of ironic that Allied Irish Bank is paying out 14 Million pounds in bonuses after getting a 3.5 Billion in bail out. Hard to justify the bonuses. But at least they cut another 54 million in bonuses out.[/quote]
Thanks for the links, UCGal.
While that’s certainly a good first step (and I love the “90-99% tax on bonuses” idea), it would be even better to see major investigations launched to determine exactly who was responsible for the over-leveraging and risk-taking that forced the country into this position in the first place. Once those people are discovered, their *personal* assets should be seized and held or sold-off for the taxpayers’ benefit.
Remember how Hank Paulson kept telling us that it wasn’t a good idea to round up the criminals in 2008, because we were “in the middle of a crisis”? Well, that “crisis” has passed, according to what we’re told. Exactly how long do we have to wait for these greedy SOBs at the top to be held accountable for their actions?
BTW, we keep hearing about how “the bailouts worked because the TARP money has been paid back,” but what they fail to tell us publicly is that the TARP is just the icing on the cake — it’s meant to distract us from the real bailouts. The REAL bailouts came in the form of artificially suppressed interest rates (and a steep yield curve), and the propping up of asset prices with taxpayers’ money so that people could refinance from private mortgages and loans into publicly-backed loans. We have yet to see the losses on these new govt-backed loans.
IMHO, we are going to see trillions of dollars in losses within the next 5-10 years, and the taxpayers will be 100% responsible for these losses, as opposed to the losses being borne by the private industry that took all the risks in the first place.
