Here Is One Country In The West That Is Saying No To The Madness

http://kingworldnews.com/here-is-one-country-in-the-west-that-is-saying-no-to-the-madness/

Dan White: The economic return of Iceland has proved that the joke was on us

Not only did I forecast the collapse of the Icelandic bubble due to its obscene 100 x leverage ratios in their banking system, I also forecasted Iceland's subsequent recovery due to their default from debt obligations to British and Dutch banks.  While painful and inflationary for several years, default is necessary to cleanse out the excesses--and to re-emerge from the other side.  Iceland traded in decades of financial chaos and economic stagnation, and instead took their bitter medicine to recover within five years.  By stiffing their creditors, they cleared the toxic debt from their previously impaired balance sheets.

This Irish author correctly chronicles why Iceland and Ireland have had two very different outcomes.  Despite Ireland's bail out, they are even more indebted to banks, and have only extended and exacerbated their pain.  The neo-Keynesian solution of piling new debt on top of old debt will end in tears for the developed world--for decades.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/dan-white-the-economic-return-of-iceland-has-proved-that-the-joke-was-on-us-3327164.html

Presenting The Fund-tastic Four: Ireland, Greece, Spain And... The U.S.

The race to debase:  the currency war is on like donkey kong.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-10/presenting-fund-tastic-four-ireland-greece-spain-and-us

Ireland Seizes $7 Billion From Its Pension Fund To Boost Employment

Coming to a country near you. 

http://www.businessinsider.com/ireland-seizes-7-billion-from-its-pension-fund-to-boost-employment-2011-6

Ireland's future depends on breaking free from bailout

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0507/1224296372123.html

Ireland’s Last Stand began less shambolically than you might expect. The IMF, which believes that lenders should pay for their stupidity before it has to reach into its pocket, presented the Irish with a plan to haircut €30 billion of unguaranteed bonds by two-thirds on average. Lenihan was overjoyed, according to a source who was there, telling the IMF team: “You are Ireland’s salvation.”

The deal was torpedoed from an unexpected direction. At a conference call with the G7 finance ministers, the haircut was vetoed by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner who, as his payment of $13 billion from government-owned AIG to Goldman Sachs showed, believes that bankers take priority over taxpayers. The only one to speak up for the Irish was UK chancellor George Osborne, but Geithner, as always, got his way. An instructive, if painful, lesson in the extent of US soft power, and in who our friends really are.

If one connects the dots, alleged rapist IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn made some major enemies due to his anti-USDollar and anti-US monetary policy stance.

Central Bank steps up its cash support to Irish banks financed by institution printing own money

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/central-bank-steps-up-its-cash-support-to-irish-banks-financed-by-institution-printing-own-money-2497212.html

The Irish Independent learnt last night that the Central Bank of Ireland is financing €51bn of an emergency loan programme by printing its own money.

Without the European Central Bank's approval, that sounds suspiciously like Ireland is resorting to counterfeiting its own currency.   Sure, it's only a "small" amount:  roughly 50 billion Euros.

By contrast, the Fed has created trillions of USDollars out of thin air in just the last 2 years.  With municipalities and states teetering in insolvency, one has to wonder when the madness will ever stop.

Peter Schiff: Ireland should default

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgOovAcsLA8&feature=player_embedded

Ireland bailout: fears mount that eurozone fund is too small

It's hypocritical for European finance ministers to  bash the Fed for applying quantitative easing several weeks ago, and then turn around and announce bailouts of Ireland, with Portugal and Spain waiting in the wings.  Printing money is printing money, and central banks from both sides of the Atlantic will do whatever it takes to save their respective economies from collapsing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/25/eu-ireland-bailout-fund-increase

Irish Rescue Accord Turns Investors' Focus to Spain, Portugal

Sovereign debt crises started in Iceland, Latvia, Hungary, Dubai, and reached the shores of Greece.  Ireland is the latest victim, with Portugal and Spain in the crosshairs of bond vigilantes.  For the forward-thinking, Italy and France will be next to catch the contagion.  Germany must be bewildered at the spreading collapse around them.  German taxpayers will force the break up of the Euro, in my opinion, because they are absorbing the brunt of the bailouts.  With IMF participating in bailouts, so are American taxpayers.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-23/irish-rescue-plan-turns-investors-focus-to-southern-europe-euro-credit.html

Even as EU leaders said Ireland’s bailout will stem contagion in the euro region, investors are turning their attention to Portugal, which hasn’t cut government spending and has barely grown for a decade. A rescue of Portugal may increase pressure on its high budget-deficit neighbor Spain, whose gross domestic product is almost twice the size of Portugal, Greece and Ireland combined.


After Portugal “the next question would be Spain and then Italy and then France and then the EU,” said Antonio Garcia Pascual, chief southern European economist at Barclays Capital in London. “Spain is a bit too big to be bailed out, the size of a rescue required would use up all the funds available and then you have Italy with contagion as well,” prompting “a situation where the euro itself is put into question,” he said.

Sinn Fein poster

Ireland requests billions in euro loans from EU

For centuries, Ireland fought for its sovereign independence, and within a few years of European Union membership, they have given it all back.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/11/21/ireland.budget/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

Ireland Finance minister ridiculed by bond investors

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/8038000/Irelands-finance-minister-Brian-Lenihan-ridiculed-by-City-investors.html

Mr Lenihan had been speaking for less than two minutes on Friday before a mistake by Citigroup meant that the bank's clients were all able to be heard on the line.

Between 200 and 500 investors are understood to have been on the call, and as they realised their lines were not muted many began to heckle Mr Lenihan.

Some traders began making what one banker on the call described as "chimp sounds", while another cried out "dive, dive". A third man said "short Ireland" before adding "why not short Citi too?"

The bungled call comes at a tense time for relations between the Irish government and investors, some of whom have been dismayed at what they see as the country's attempts to dodge its commitment to guarantee the debt of the country's banking system.

On Friday it emerged that a small group of hedge fund debt investors were threatening to take Ireland to court if it pushed ahead with moves to impose so-called "haircuts" – or writedowns – on the value of their holdings in Anglo debt.

The group, which is thought to number no more than six funds, say they could force a default of Anglo, which would have catastrophic consequences for Ireland's already hugely stretched public finances.

Ireland bailout rumors spook markets

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8010097/Ireland-IMF-bail-out-rumours-spook-markets.html

Bail out of other PIIG countries imminent

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-26/rogoff-says-greece-may-not-be-europe-s-last-bailout-update1-.html