Forgotten Posts from the Past : Spare a thought for the victims of NORAID

While the US media pumps sympathy for Ted Kennedy, let me add to the pertinent points raised by Blair Mulholland and Not PC about this prick, and add NORAID. You see the Kennedy gang used to raise money directly to fund the IRA - yes the people of Manchester, and the hundreds of victims of that criminal sectarian gang can thank the holy family of Kennedy - the untouchables.
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I fail to see why anyone can worship this family, and it's not because they are left wing, it's not because they are power hungry, but because they are slime. They aligned themselves with thugs, and became the untouchable family of legend. JFK's one big victory was the Cuban missile crisis, in which he performed admirably. However Ted Kennedy has long been a sleazy creep. I wont spare a moment of my emotions granting sympathy to this wealthy former terrorist supporting legend in his own mind.

Ireland shows some maturity

The Queen's visit to the Republic of Ireland is about time.  Yes, Ireland's history is peppered by bloody events instigated by British governments of the day, but much has moved on and it is appropriate to grow up and welcome the head of state of the UK - notwithstanding the silliness of having a hereditary monarch in that role.   The potato famine, instigated by Catholic-phobes from the UK, was a gross atrocity.   Certainly the state sanctioned religious discrimination against Catholics in Ireland was a disgrace (and in Northern Ireland state sanctioned discrimination didn't start to be addressed properly unti the 1960s).  

However, independent Ireland's history is not without disgrace.  It disgustingly decided on neutrality in World War 2, whilst the UK fought Nazism.   Ireland was saved from fascism by Allied men and women who fought it, many of whom died.   Whilst it provided unofficial help to the Allies (and to be fair was hardly economically or technically capable of fighting a war), it was a "free-rider".   For decades it funded and armed the IRA in its insurgency in Ulster and ably helped fight the British military presence in Ulster.   That's without noting its repulsive complicity with covering up the rape and brutal treatment of children under the care of Catholic sadists and pederasts. 

Of course much has changed in recent years.  "Peace" in Northern Ireland at least has acknowledged an end to the formal claim from Dublin of sovereignty over Ulster, and it remains true that the majority of residents of Northern Ireland are unlikely to want to be part of the virtually bankrupt Irish Republic.

With membership of the European Union, and end of the Troubles, the openness of the close relationship between people in both countries is palpable.  British citizens do not even need a passport to enter the Irish Republic and vice versa.  There is no border control between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.   Dublin by far the most popular air route from London's Stansted airport, second most popular from Gatwick and third from Heathrow.   The largest foreign born resident community in the UK are those born in Ireland.  The UK is Ireland's biggest trading partner.  The economies are closely intertwined.

Given that it only took the UK and (West) Germany a matter of less than a decade to advance relations from arch enemies to being Allies, especially given the level of destruction and death each had inflicted on the other (because of Germany), it is about time Ireland grew up.  Most people in Ireland have, as they have family, friends and business ties across the Irish Sea and across the nearly invisible border in the north of Ireland.  

Ireland's troubles can be blamed on its government

The "Celtic Tiger" has gone astray and is now seriously considering a bailout from the EU or more widely.   Such a bailout will be embarrassing for a country and economy that was booming and considered a successful role model for economic growth.   However, whilst it looks like  "just another government bailing out banks" let's understand why this has happened, and why the Irish government is bothering to save the banks.

First is that the Irish banks were flooded with cheap credit because of the Euro.  Unlike other fiat currencies, the supply of Euro is set not by a national central bank, but the European Central Bank, which is largely driven by the three major Euro economies - Germany, France and Italy.  Monetary policy in the age of fiat currencies is driven by management of inflation, so it has been economic growth and inflation in Germany primarily, but also the other large economies that has driven interest rates with the Euro.  For Ireland, which has had economic success partly on the back of economic reform and low rates of company tax, this has meant inflation of assets and consumer prices. 

In an age of national fiat currencies, governments tighten monetary policy to reduce the supply of credit and control inflation (although the only inflation measured is consumer prices, which neglects inflationary speculation of property).   Ireland had no such instruments, so "enjoyed" a boom fueled by cheap credit.  That cheap credit fueled a bubble of investment, largely related to property.  Many companies relocated because of the lower corporation tax, and Ireland's infrastructure improved significantly (telecommunications, electricity, water, roads and airports all upgraded significantly, as well as public transport in Dublin).  Ireland's government borrowed to fund this and expenditure on health, education and welfare.

The bubble can be blamed on three key sets of players.  Firstly, the European Central Bank for continuing to maintain low interest rates for the Euro, expanding credit and helping to fuel loose credit for Irish banks.   Secondly, Irish banks for taking these cues to lend and fuel the property boom.   Lending was imprudent, not by all banks, but by enough to create a bubble of bad debt not only for property, but businesses based on the wider economic bubble.   Thirdly, the borrowers.  Those people and businesses who chose to ride the wave of the property bubble.  They sought quick capital gains, they borrowed on the basis of the same chimera.

Yet when things started to look shaky elsewhere, the Irish Government made the most foolish move of all, it decided to prevent a run on Irish banks by providing a government guarantee for all deposits, debts and investments.   The purpose being to shore up the banking system by attracting investment and deposits from elsewhere, the result being to make Irish banks far less interested in being prudent and shifted the liability from bank shareholders and debtors to Irish taxpayers.

Now that bubble has burst, and the Irish government is to get a €100 billion bailout from the EU.  A bailout that is worth a staggering €16400 per person.

Meanwhile, the Irish government is to engage in further austerity, cutting spending significantly.   The Austrian government has already complained about the low corporation tax wanting Ireland to be forced to increase taxes (which make it more competitive against the many higher tax Eurozone economies).   The Irish government has been resisting this quite rightly.

It has been suggested the Irish government should abandon this guarantee of the banks and abandon the Euro.  Allister Heath says it shows the treaty on the Euro is worthless.   Of course the dimwitted Labour Party in the UK says it is the fault of the Irish government's austerity measures from last year, which is a bit like blaming a heart attack on the stress of going to the doctor.    It is claiming the UK could face the same crisis, demonstrating how astonishingly out of its depth it really is.

Sadly the medicine Ireland needs is to abandon the Euro, maintain its low tax policies and swallow the price collapse in property, and the end of several of its banks.  The government probably has to guarantee bank deposits up to a certain level, but withdraw its guarantee for future deposits or liabilities for banks it does not own, and privatise the ones it does.   It needs a new relationship with the EU which is not one of dependency, but one which only embrace the open flow of goods, services , investment and people. 

However, it has wider repercussions whatever happens.  Some in the Eurozone say the real need is to strengthen EU control of national fiscal and taxation policies, that in fact the crisis in Eurozone countries can only be managed by a more centralised EU - which would be an economic disaster and politically unpalatable.    The alternative of the end of the Euro has already been described by EU Council President as risking the end of the EU.

Frankly, bring it on.  The EU has been the transformation of a sound project to remove barriers between European countries into a statist socialist monolithic unaccountable super-state which seeks to regulate (and tax if it could) European citizens into a pablum of mediocre non-competitiveness with each other.   The more it is in crisis, the better it will be in the long run for European citizens, or rather the ones that don't work for the EU and aren't the recipients of its ill gotten largesse.

The Irish will resist pressure for Brussels to control its government spending and taxation policy, the stronger Eurozone countries will get fed up bailing out those others who have been profligate with government spending.   Something has to give.

Ireland's forthcoming default

Two article today present antidotes to the typical leftwing "f'ing bankers" reaction to the foolish decision by the Irish state to bail out its most profligate bank.

City AM's Allister Heath blames the Euro for feeding Irish banks with low interest fiat money, when interest rates should have been far higher. The Euro, reflecting the dominance of German economic conditions, wouldn't reflect the boom of Ireland.

The Adam Smith Institute takes things further, blaming the ridiculous 100% government guarantee of deposits at Irish banks for encouraging profligacy and costing taxpayers an absolute fortune (and removing any interest in people considering how viable their banks really are). It calls on the Irish government to end this guarantee, slash state spending and withdraw from the Euro.

The fear being that the Irish state may default itself, which of course would render all its borrowing as junk, but would mean the state would need to cut back to what it can afford.

Meanwhile, if you wanted to retire in Ireland and buy a house, now is the time.

Bloody Sunday reprise

30 January 1972 in (London)derry is a day that sadly will always be in infamy. A day that Catholics in Ulster will see, with much justification, as the day the British Army turned on those it was meant to protect, but also a day that many Protestants will see as a provocation by terrorists.

The report of the Saville Inquiry will be released today, and so i wont predict what it will say. However, I do have three points to make in advance.

1. For those who seek justice, seek convictions and imprisonment of British army officers who killed, it is worth bearing in mind how many IRA terrorists who also have killed before and since that day, who have been pardoned and released. Was that right? No. Does it mean the British soldiers who gunned down civilians deserve to not face justice? No. However what should happen?

2. Reflect on how utterly disgusting and repulsive it is that the Blair Administration seems to have given a blank cheque on time and money for this Inquiry. £191 million is so far beyond what even compensation for the victims and their families would be, that it shows once more what happens when governments treat those they are meant to serve with contempt. It should not take twelve years and £15 million a year to gather evidence, and come to conclusions. I don’t expect much self reflection from those who have profited indirectly from Bloody Sunday.

3. More important than all of this, consider how tribalism, this time flavoured with religious sectarianism, can completely disregard the rights of the individual. How mind numbingly stupid it is to label anyone Catholic or Protestant, when it is simply about "us and them", with the same mentality that has seen the blood of millions spilt. The same mentality as in Rwanda, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Nazi Germany, former Yugoslavia and the list goes on, and on. The surrender of the individual to the group, the demonising of the "other" (outsiders), and glorification of the "group". It is only tragically funny when you consider how unlikely in most cases to find such people in Northern Ireland capable of holding cogent arguments about theology. The Northern Ireland peace process has NOT been about rigorously pushing individual rights,and reason to reject the knuckle-dragging mentality of religious sectarianism. Instead it has been about ending the fighting, keeping quiet and moving on, whilst British taxpayers have poured a fortune to prop up an economy on life support.

The malignant, evil philosophy that blends religious hatred (fired up by churches on both sides, seen most recently in the insane rants by Reverend Ian Paisley shouting "antichrist" at the previous Pope), tribalism and scape-goating has left Northern Ireland still full of many who think the poverty, desolation and decay of the region is due to what the "other side" did. Meanwhile, with a British government facing fiscal ruin, perhaps the chance exists for the 70% of the Northern Ireland economy "produced" from the state sector, to be paired back, and for the people of Ulster to start focusing on themselves, generating wealth and prosperity and treating each other as individuals, rather than members of communities that exist in their heads.

Catholic Church split on homosexuality?

From the Daily Telegraph:

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan says "Transsexuals and homosexuals will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven and it is not me who says this, but Saint Paul".

Fairly clear. Though one wonders why he doesn't mention the elephant in the Catholic room, maybe it goes without saying, although funny how others have had to say it.

However, he's being too tough apparently because:

Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman quoted from the official Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, which says homosexual acts are a “disorder” but acknowledges that many people have “innate homosexual tendencies” and should be treated with respect and not be subject to discrimination. The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful but homosexuality in itself is not.

Respect being fair enough. Of course given the number of clergymen who no doubt have "innate homosexual tendencies", it is hardly surprising.

The elephant in the room is this.

As Austen Ivereigh in the Guardian said "The real scandal is that the church ignored its own law, derived from explicit and unambiguous biblical teaching, a law valid for the church in all political and legal contexts around the world. The principle in canon law is clear and unambiguous: whatever the inadequacies of the civil law, minors must always be protected by the church's law, and their abusers brought swiftly to justice."

Fortunately the Irish Government is refusing to tolerate any cover up and is accepting the state's substantial share of responsibility:

Whatever the failings of the past, the Government is determined that there will be no hiding place for those who break the law - whatever their status. The people who committed these abominable crimes should pay for them. A number have already been brought to justice, proceedings are pending against some others and a number of investigations are ongoing. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Dermot Ahern TD made available a copy of the report to the Garda Commissioner and the Director of Public Prosecutions as soon as he received it in July. The Commissioner has assured the Minister that pursuing the perpetrators, whenever the abuse occurred, is an absolute priority for the Force.

Ireland for too long operated almost as semi clerocracy, with the church unaccountable to the state, and working in partnership, sometimes for good and clearly sometimes for evil. It is a clear reminder that only with clear separation of church and state, can institutions of religion start to effectively be held responsible when they conspire to commit crime or to conceal those within it who do.

Ireland votes yes and no

According to The Times, it looks like Ireland's second referendum on the same subject in two years is a "yes" to ratify the Lisbon Treaty of the European Union. Now given it was "no" last year, isn't it now one all?

Not to the European Union though. What was once a welcome lowering of borders and barriers between countries has become an arrogant statist project to impose a vision of regulation and uniformity across Europe. It is dominated by the economically and environmentally destructive Common Agricultural Policy, a massive transfer from British, Dutch and German taxpayers to French farmers (whilst farmers in eastern Europe get a third of the equivalent subsidy).

So when a country votes no, it is dismissed and it is time to have another vote. It is a disgraceful piece of hypocrisy that a customs union that purports to be in favour of democracy, ignores it when it doesn't go the "right" way.

As far as Ireland then? Well with an economy that was particularly badly hurt by bubbles in banking and property, many Irish were convinced that they needed to EU to be saved (given Ireland uses the Euro).

Of course, there needs to be another referendum next year doesn't there?

Ireland facing massive spending cuts

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph writes a depressing forewarning to those in countries engaging in massive debt funded state “stimulus” activities. He does so by pointing at Ireland, where the news is truly bleak. Given Ireland has a similar population to New Zealand, it is worth those who preach “borrow spend and hope” to give pause for thought.

Ireland, you see, has gone down the stimulus line. It bailed out its banks, guaranteeing all deposits. The result is a debt trap imposed upon the state. The interest is now crippling the Irish government. The Irish government is currently borrowing 300 million euro a week to cover this, at penalty interest rates for fear it will default. You see Ireland has external debt of 811% of GDP, albeit this includes substantial private debt held by financial institutions, but it also includes government guarantees of bank debt and the nationalisation of banks.

A report commissioned by the government aims to abolish the budget deficit by 2011, and recommends drastic cuts:
- 17,300 public sector jobs to go;
- 6,900 teacher jobs to go, with commensurate closure of many schools;
- Public sector pay cuts
- Welfare benefit cuts of 5%
- Child benefits to be strictly targeted
- Hospital A&E fees to be increased.

Without such drastic measures, Ireland risks defaulting on its debt, making future borrowing near impossible, forcing Ireland to cut even more drastically. The article expresses fear that other Western countries, such as the UK and the US, face similar risks. UK national debt is now over 90% of GDP, France is approaching that level, Italy is at 120%.

You see, Japan has been engaging in fiscal stimulus for well over a decade now, to no avail. Public debt is estimated to be 240% of GDP by 2015. Hasn’t quite worked has it?

The truth is that Gordon Brown, Barack Obama and Kevin Rudd have all embarked on a gamble with your childrens' taxes - fiscal stimulus is being undertaken because the short term political gain is to soften the recession - and because none of them have a political instinct for less government - and none of them are willing to take a gamble on "do nothing you can't fix it".

After all, do you think people in the British Labour Party, US Democratic Party and Australian Labor Party sit around thinking how they ought to get out of the way of people?

Oh and if you want to read the report on cutting Ireland's public spending go here, and here. You'll see it isn't half as dramatic as many are making out.

Irish scandal rocking government

The report from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in Ireland is sending significant shockwaves through government and communities in Ireland. Quite rightly so.

One of the scandals behind this Commission is how the Congregation of Christian Brothers successfully sued the Commission to prevent its members being named in the report. What is that if it isn't institutional shame and coverup of crime? That ISN'T just individuals, it is a subset of the Church protecting its own. Indeed it appears the Christian Brothers have more allegations against them than any other group running institutions.

It appears there has been revelations of many more people coming forward since this report was published, with their own stories. It has opened a wound that not only implicates the Church, but also the State and indeed a past culture in Irish society that promoted a culture of silence and not questioning the authority of the Church IMBLATA (Irish Man Boy Love and Torture Association).

It would be nice if the Congregation of Christian Brothers would be excommunicated, and have their assets confiscated to help pay compensation to the victims. I look forward to the outraged Catholics demanding this - a cozy little club of child torturers and rapists.

In fact, why don't you email the Congregation of Christian Brothers in Ireland, the email addresses are here, and ask them to publish the names of those who abused children, to expel them from their organisation, to help the victims of abuse to prosecute them.

The point is simple, either the Church purges itself, or it will have slipped another mile down the moral authority scale.

Oh and don't even start to say "what about abortion". To even start to think that legal abortion (outside Ireland) excuses the torture of children on such a grand and systemic scale shows complete moral bankruptcy. It's never a defence to say "but you're not catching everyone who is evil".