Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Both India and China have scolded the American government for not keeping control of its finances.
Here’s what China’s official Xinhua news agency had to say
The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone.
We certainly live in interesting times.
I see the demonstrator who blocked former Government minister Mary Hanafin’s state car and shouted ‘Democracy now’ has been fined €150.
So, about eight months from ‘crime’ to justice. State law enforcement agencies like the police and courts working smoothly to ensure this ‘threat to the state’ was dealt with quickly and efficiently.
Meanwhile, those who actually destroyed the state are still walking around, enjoying the high life on bloated pensions and golden pay offs.
Apparently these vermin can’t be touched because of something to do with complexity and mounds of documents.
And what about former minister Hanafin, a member of the most corrupt political party in the country, the party principally responsible for allowing the vermin to destroy our country.
Well, she’s enjoying a lifetime guarantee of financial security partly paid for by the demonstrator who was hauled before the courts for demanding democracy.
There is a long running joke that tells us the only difference between Ireland and Iceland is one letter and six months.
Well, judging from two headlines in last Saturday’s Irish Times there is now a significant difference between the two countries.
Here are the headlines with some quotes from each article.
At the end of May, the banks’ total borrowings from the Central Bank in Ireland and the ECB stood at €156 billion, down from €160 billion in April.
The gradual loss of deposits at the Irish banks over the past year has led to a surge in borrowing from the ECB which reached a peak last November, when banks here were in receipt of €136.4 billion in funding.
The dramatic rise in Irish financial institutions’ dependence on ECB funding, at a time when other countries were reducing their reliance, is believed to have been one of the key triggers behind the IMF-EU bailout.
Iceland returned to international debt markets for the first time since its banking meltdown more than two years ago as investors offered to buy twice the amount the government offered in dollar-denominated bonds.
Iceland, which averted a sovereign default by refusing to bail out bondholders when its banks failed in October 2008, will enjoy economic growth of 2.2 per cent this year and 2.9 per cent in 2012 as its budget deficit narrows to 1.4 per cent of gross domestic product, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The island’s approach to resurrecting itself from financial ruin has won the praise of Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who says Iceland is now better off than euro member Ireland.
The following is an update on the matter of the Central Bank’s refusal to disclose even the most basic information regarding the latest scams in the Irish banking sector.
Those scams were:
Banks had charged thousands of homeowners the wrong interest rates on their mortgages.
Banks had misled customers with money in deposit accounts by promoting term and interest rates that were later changed once people signed up for the accounts.
Banks had short-changed thousands of customers on (other) interest rates.
The so called Financial Regulator (The Central Bank) is refusing to disclose even the most basic information regarding these scams.
This type of state secrecy can have potentially very serious consequences for citizens who may have dealings with these institutions.
As advised by an official in the Public Contacts Unit of the Central Bank I wrote to the bank requesting the following information.
Is it official policy not to name financial institutions that are guilty of such activities?
Is the policy in writing, and if so, where can it be located?
If the policy is not in writing where and by whom did it originate and how is it communicated to Central Bank staff?
The Central Bank replied:
Due to the confidentiality requirements imposed by domestic and EU legislation which provides for confidentiality of information relating to ongoing supervision and limits disclosure to circumstances specifically provided for in the Central Bank Act 1942(as amended) we are prohibited from releasing supervisory information regarding any institution.
I would draw you attention in particular to Section 33AKof the Central Bank Act 1942 (as amended).
Yours sincerely
My response;
Dear…
I will give you the benefit of doubt and assume you are an intelligent person, a benefit you clearly do not extend to me judging from the content of your email.
You will be aware that Irish banks and other financial institutions have been plundering customers and state accounts for many decades with complete impunity.
Despite this fact not a single financial institution or official has ever been charged with a crime since the establishment of our state in 1922.
This can only mean that Irish financial institutions are among the most honest in the history of the world or financial regulation in Ireland is not seen as an integral part of democratic accountability as it is in real democracies.
A person with even a smidgeon of intelligence can see that the latter is the case.
Your organisation is refusing to name the institutions, the number of customers or the level of funds involved in this latest fraud on Irish citizens.
No other country in the world, not even the most corrupt banana republic, would refuse such basic information to its citizens.
Let me be blunt, your organisation is, effectively, protecting the thieving vermin that infest the Irish financial sector at the expense of Irish citizens.
I look forward to the day, hopefully very soon, when the people who make and enforce such Soviet style secrecy laws are stripped of their power and influence.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the great majority of ordinary Irish citizens are of the same view.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Sheridan
Since the economy collapsed in 2008, politicians, the Financial Regulator and various other government authorities have been telling the Irish people that the days when financial institutions could rob customers without fear of prosecution were over.
From now on, they said, the law will be enforced. Stringent new laws would ensure that such criminal activities would never again occur, that Irish citizens could rest easy in their beds in the knowledge that the state and its enforcement agencies were protecting them.
Of course, all the talk was nothing more than the usual tissue of lies we have come to expect from those who claim to work in the best interest of the citizens of Ireland.
The following scams were reported in the media last week (Irish Independent).
Banks had charged thousands of homeowners the wrong interest rates on their mortgages.
Banks had misled customers with money in deposit accounts by promoting term and interest rates that were later changed once people signed up for the accounts.
Banks had short-changed thousands of customers on (other) interest rates.
It’s at this point Irish citizens would expect to see the many promises come to fruition, that they would expect to see justice done, to see transparency and accountability.
Here’s what they got:
The Central Bank, the so called Financial Regulator, refused to name the financial institutions involved, refused to specify the number of customers involved and refused to disclose the level of funds involved.
This absolute refusal to disclose even the most basic information is of great benefit to the thieving banks and is, potentially, very destructive for Irish citizens.
A spokesman for the Central Bank arrogantly dismissed all queries by declaring: It is not the practice of the Central Bank to name and shame.
I rang the Central Bank and spoke to an official in the hilariously named Public Contacts Unit. I wanted to know why such basic information was being kept secret from the public.
Because it would not be in the public interest and it is a corporate or private matter between the Central Bank and the companies that they regulate.
Ultimately, what happened was that these people were refunded so, this might sound a bit stupid, but the fact that these people were compensated and corrections were made to their accounts the wrongdoing as such has been rectified and catered for and the acts themselves have stopped.
After picking myself up off the floor and gaining control of my hysterical laughter I asked the obvious question: How could the keeping secret of the names of the thieving bankers be in the public interest?
He replied:
Well, I’d like to withdraw that, it may not be factually correct.
This official was unable/unwilling to provide me with any further answers and ‘helpfully’ gave me an email address (of his own unit as it turned out) where I could follow up on my queries.
To be continued…
Mr. Justice Peter Kelly was probably in his chambers going over the application from the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) for a six month extension to the investigation into Anglo Irish Bank when the truth suddenly dawned on him.
What the hell is going on, he probably thought, this is the 6th application for an extension to this investigation and feck all has happened.
And what about all those other cases that I and other judges have sent to the prosecution authorities with strong evidence of criminal wrongdoing, sometimes with outright admissions of guilt and nothing, absolutely nothing has happened?
Welcome, Justice Kelly, to Public Inquiry. Allow me to explain what’s going on.
In functional democracies serious allegations of white collar crime similar to those made against Anglo Irish Bank are dealt with immediately by the police and courts.
They are not side-lined off into decade’s long tribunals, handed over to virtually powerless agencies like the ODCE or those involved given the option of answering a few polite questions before a completely powerless government committee.
In dysfunctional democracies like Ireland allegations and suspicions of white collar crime are permanently parked, delayed until they become historical or, in many cases, simply ignored.
The most effective strategy, whether intentional or not, of protecting white collar criminals is delay and it is obvious that this is what is happening in the Anglo Irish Bank case. It is this strategy that has so upset Judge Kelly.
Another very effective strategy is constant but never acted upon assurances that action is being taken to make sure this kind of thing never happens again.
That’s why when I first read about the latest delay in the Anglo case I thought to myself – it won’t be long before some state agency issues a statement assuring everybody that action is being taken.
And sure enough, the very next day, the Financial Regulator issued a statement warning banks that Big Brother is watching, that from now on there was going to be very close supervision of banking activities.
I have been listening to such official drivel since the early 1980s.
How, you may well ask, was the FR able to react so quickly? Well, it’s simple.
The latest ‘get tough’ warning was actually issued last March and, probably, to reassure Judge Kelly and help ODCE get their extension, the same mush was regurgitated.
The bottom line is simple; white collar crime does not (officially) exist in corrupt states.
We’re eight weeks in government, we’ve fixed the banking system.
Minister for Education
The Week in Politics
The government reaction to the latest bank bail out tells us that the Fine Gael/Labour government is now firmly on the same road as the previous government, a road with many, many corners.
The Financial Measures Programme was already paying dividends across a range of areas said Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan.
In other words, don’t worry folks, we’ve turned a corner, all will be well.
Is that a brand new Fine Gael corner I wonder or perhaps it’s a corner left behind by Brian Lenihan.
Ah yes, Brian Lenihan, he must be feeling nostalgic for all those corners he so enjoyed turning before becoming completely moribund on the backbenches.
Marian Finucane (Saturday) began her interview with Pat Cox last Saturday in a very angry tone.
A lot of Irish people are feeling really, really angry with Europe at this stage, that Irish taxpayers have been forced by Europe not by the IMF to pay for loans that the Irish people didn’t take out, there seems a dreadful injustice at the heart of that.
Throughout the entire interview Finucane refused to accept that, as a nation, we were in any way to blame.
It’s the fault of the Europeans; they allowed the nasty European banks to take advantage of our gentle and innocent banks.
Cox tried his best to tell her the truth.
In fact, right throughout the interview he kept on saying – It’s our fault, we did it to ourselves but Finucane was having none of it.
We’re Irish she seemed to suggest, we can’t be expected to face reality, we don’t do reality.
Why, asked Cox, are other European countries both inside and outside the Euro much better off than Ireland, why did Ireland fail?
Yes, said Finucane we know all about bad regulation and the politics of it all but those nasty banks were taking a punt on our financial institutions and they’re getting away with it.
It’s our fault said Cox, we had no contingency plan, we made a mess of it.
But Finucane insisted the European banks were investing here because they figured that the Irish mug would have to pay for it through tax.
Cox was patient.
The unilateral decision made in 2008 to guarantee all the Irish banks was the single most reckless decision in the history of the Irish state.
The decision was made without telling our EU partners, it posed a serious danger to their interests. We put on the Green Jersey, the Germans didn’t make us do it, the French didn’t make us do it, we did it ourselves.
But Finucane was determined, at all costs, to avoid facing reality.
But we’ve made so many sacrifices, tax increases, pay cuts, there’s a lot of pain and the nasty investors who lent recklessly to our gentle innocent banks are getting away without any pain.
Cox is a saint.
We did it to ourselves he said. The EU and even the IMF stopped believing us; they don’t trust the Irish, that’s why they insisted on an external examiner to supervise the latest bank stress tests.
But, said the by now crazed Finucane, the people who put money into Anglo, for example, knew it was a basket case, it’s so unfair that we should have to take the pain.
I switched off, went for a walk.
Let’s be absolutely clear about this, the EU is abandoning Ireland.
We’re not going to be thrown out of the EU club altogether, that would damage the EU project, but we will be treated for what we are – an insignificant backwater state that’s incapable of managing its own affairs.
There are a number of reasons for this.
First, on a global and even on a European scale we do not and never have registered either economically or politically.
Even if Ireland was a real democracy with a thriving economy we still wouldn’t matter simply because we’re too small.
Secondly, the EU has finally realised that Ireland is a cancer which could infect the entire EU project and therefore must be put in strict quarantine for as long as necessary.
The massive suffering that this strategy will cause to ordinary Irish citizens is not a factor in EU thinking, why should it be? The EU has rightly concluded that we are solely responsible for the disaster that has befallen us.
It’s pathetically hilarious to hear politicians and journalists whinging on about how the EU is somehow to blame for our disaster because they failed to stop us in our stupidity.
It’s like a burglar pleading with a judge – Please your honour, I only committed the crime because the police didn’t stop me, it’s their fault.
Thirdly, the EU is itself struggling to recover from the global financial crisis and must act ruthlessly in order to win that battle.
Portugal and in particular Spain have now become the main focus of EU resources because if Spain goes the Euro and perhaps the entire EU project is in serious danger of collapse.
EU officials have finally realised that pumping over €160 billion into Irish banks was an extremely dangerous strategy and are now looking for their money back before pulling down the shutters on Ireland for decades.
To cut their losses the EU are forcing Irish banks to sell off all their assets and the Irish Government to sell off a huge chunk of state assets. This will reduce Ireland to what I call a visible banana republic.
We have, in reality been a corrupt state, a banana republic, since the criminal Haughey came to power in 1979 but we have always managed to hide that fact from the outside world principally because, as I mentioned already, we have no significance whatsoever on the global stage, we are not important.
We only register on a global scale when our entire economy collapses and that’s usually for about thirty seconds. On an EU scale we only register when our corruption/toxicity threatens the EU project.
Our corrupt political system is the sole reason for the destruction of our country. No banker, no developer, no regulator could have destroyed the economy without the active cooperation of our corrupt body politic.
The complete destruction of the economy will, ultimately, lead to the complete failure of the state which will, in turn, lead to civil unrest.
Civil unrest is inevitable because there is not the slightest sign of the political revolution that’s necessary to rescue the situation.
Enda Kenny’s claim that the recent general election was a democratic revolution is just silly talk.
Fianna Fail, the most corrupt political party in the state and the party most responsible for our destruction, only suffered significant electoral damage after it had led the country across the cliff of destruction.
In other words, it took the complete destruction of our country before the politically ignorant Irish finally woke up and realised that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to vote traitors into power for the price of filling in a pot hole.
The current Fine Gael/Labour government is operating very comfortably within the same corrupt political system that has destroyed the country. There will be no major reform, certainly no reform that would threaten the corrupt system.
The treatment of the traitor Lowry provides us with clear evidence that nothing has changed, that the political revolution that’s absolutely critical if our country is to be save is not even being contemplated.
Lowry, a corrupt, lying, tax cheating, thieving traitor is allowed to infect our national parliament with impunity. We’re told that nothing can be done beyond a mild, ineffective censure.
Wrong:
A government/body politic that was aware of the seriousness of the country’s position would move immediately to change the law to ensure that this scumbag was ejected from power.
If legislation wasn’t sufficient then an immediate referendum should be held to ensure this cancerous object was removed from the political sphere forever.
Such action would not just set a standard for other politicians but would also send a message to the people of North Tipperary and to the wider politically ignorant electorate that the election of political scumbags was no longer acceptable.
In 1922 Ireland became an independent nation full of confidence and hope for the future. On the 29th September 2008 the old corrupt republic that Ireland had evolved into came to a pathetic end.
Since 2008 we have been witnessing the slow, inevitable and unstoppable disintegration of that corrupt republic.
The continued existence of a corrupt political system acting, for the most part, in its own interests coupled with the ever increasing impoverishment and disillusionment of the people is creating an extremely dangerous divide in Irish society.
Neither the EU nor the wider world has any responsibility whatsoever in bridging that divide.
Only truly revolutionary and courageous leadership from within Ireland can lead the country out of its present crisis towards a new and genuine republic.