Ireland Forced Into New £21bn Bailout By Debt Crisis - GuardianUK

[WillyT]

Ireland forced into new £21bn bailout by debt crisis
Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said country had been left with an 'appalling legacy' as a result of the banking crisis
Larry Elliott and Jill Treanor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 31 March 2011 21.17 BST

<snip>

Europe's debt crisis deepened on Thursday night as Ireland was forced into another €24bn (£21bn) rescue of its banking system and jittery financial markets pushed Portugal closer to a bailout.

In a furious attack on the previous government, the Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said the country had been left with "an appalling legacy: a legacy of debt, of unemployment, of emigration, of falling living standards and of low morale" as a result of the banking crisis.

After stress tests to assess the vulnerability of the banks to a drastic worsening of the economy, Noonan announced that the government would take a majority stake in all the major lenders. These are to be radically reduced in size and focused on just two players.

Ireland's banks have been crippled by the bursting of a house price and commercial property bubble, created when they took advantage of the country's membership of the single currency to lend recklessly on low interest rates. The collapse caused an economic crisis that has seen output shrink for three years in a row.

"We are now in the third year of the banking crisis. The previous government failed to act. They ducked and dived and procrastinated as they lurched from one crisis to the next. They went through periods of denial and periods of self justification. They paved the road to disaster with good intentions," Noonan said. "They never fixed the broken banks, however."

<snip>

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/31/ireland-new-bailout-euro-crisis

:kick:

[xchrom]

1. whether it's here -- or there -- this austerity for the masses and none for them that broke it

is infuriating.:mad:

[Starry Messenger]

3. +1000

[WillyT]

4. + 1,000,000,000... What You Said !!!

:ad:

:kick:

[msongs]

2. meanwhile the filthy rich bankers who caused the problem get off free just like in the USA nt

[CountAllVotes]

5. both sad and disgusting at the same time

and a :kick: for Ireland!

:dem:

[loudsue]

6. But wait!! The propaganda on 60 Minutes last Sunday was that Ireland's economy

was BOOMING because corporations paid such a low tax rate that all the corporations were relocating there! Does that mean that maybe having global corporations settling in like non-taxpaying roaches DOESN'T help your economy? The president of Cisco sure said it would. He said all those corporations really WANTED to come back to America, but that our corporate tax rate was the highest in the world, so that was why everyone was moving offshore.

Surely the corporate masters wouldn't lie to us on 60 Minutes, would they?

60 Minutes used to be a wonderful program. Now they are just another tool of propaganda.