Letter in today’s Irish Independent.
Our bank bailout bill just doesn’t add up.
The final cost of the US bank bailout is €65bn. The ESRI just announced our bank bailout will be €73bn.
America has a population of 350 million people. We have a population of four million people.
America allowed Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt, even though it was systemically important as the subsequent stock market crash proved.
We rescued Anglo Irish Bank, even though it was not systemically important. We now know it was purely a gambling medium for the country’s greediest people.
Per head of population, Americans now owe €185 and 71 cent each for the greed of its banking fraternity. By contrast, we now owe €18,250 per head of population.
In spite of these staggering numbers, the Government, which promoted this level of greed and which is now passing the colossal bill to the taxpayer, the public sector, the unemployed and poor, refuses to accept any responsibility or admit how badly it got it wrong.
They are still in power, still deciding the fate of a country they have broken.
To borrow a recent notable quote from a highly offended individual of delicate sensibilities: “I find this, more than anything, to be beyond the Pale.”
Jarlath Challoner
Portlaoise, co Laois
In the interests of accuracy, I would like to know the source of Mr. Challoner’s figure of €65bn for the US bank bailout. I could be wrong but I thought the figure was in the region of $20 trillion.
Actually I think the population of the U.S.A is about 309 million people not sure if that includes the undocumented.
However I think he (Mr Challoner) hits it bang on the head, how after 15 years of fianna fail misrule all their is to show for it is a colossal bill.