Sunday 18 November 2012

THE DIRTY DOZEN w/e Nov 25th 2012

Next bond due, €2.6m senior unsecured from Anglo on Thursday, mere pocket change for any of their many highly-paid executives, though I have no doubt someplace like St Joseph's Foundation in Charleville would just love to have those few million, would do wonders with it.

Next day, Friday Nov 23rd, next bond, this one a bit more substantial. A cool €1bn, though again it will be paid by a financial institution we now own, EBS. Not that we ever wanted to own those banks and building societies, nor were we ever asked, not even consulted but so what - it's not as though we're living in a democracy.

Drop down through the list of this dozen (baker's dozen again this week, 13 bonds), check the two at the bottom, the truly terrible twins, $1.75bn each!

Have a look at the tables of totals; €3.7bn the next dozen, €20bn in total for this year, €17bn next year, than ask yourself how much we're borrowing to close the budget deficit in both of those years - it's less than what our banks are paying out in bonds.

Total the budget 'adjustments' for the four years 2012/13/14/15, it comes to €12.4bn; total the Promissory Note payments for those same four years and VOILA! - it too comes to €12.4bn. Then ask yourself, for whose benefit are we suffering those four years of austerity?

Check out what the oh-so-generous Troika is lending us under the Memo of Enslavement from Nov 2010, €67.5bn between the three of them, then look at what we've already been forced to plough into our banks, €69.6bn (including the rarely-mentioned NAMA €5.5bn contribution) and again, ask yourself - a bailout by who for who? A bailout for Ireland? God that ECB, such a sense of humour!

We've just completed our 90th week of protest in Ballyhea and Charleville against this ongoing lunacy, marching every week, sun or rain.  We'll be in Ballyhea again next Sunday, week 91; we'll also be in Dublin on Saturday for a 'gathering' of our own, those of us who are still on the island, meeting at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm (we've been there so often in the last 90 weeks we feel we now have squatters' rights to the place). Sure we might see a few of ye there.




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