tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45572355202468533902024-02-20T05:09:22.452+00:00Blog An PhobailNews From The People's Movement Éire - People.iePeople's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-33354665517506664282015-08-11T14:26:00.001+01:002015-08-11T14:26:44.101+01:00Peoples News 130<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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PEOPLES NEWS 130 - CONTENTS</blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-130.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-130.pdf</a></blockquote>
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Lies and damned lies</blockquote>
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Failed TPP talks vindicate concerns on medicines and investor rights</blockquote>
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People’s Movement on Facebook</blockquote>
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Building the EU Core</blockquote>
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Christine Lagarde, Greece and the American military-industrial complex</blockquote>
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Meanwhile in Greece</blockquote>
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More of the same</blockquote>
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Page 9</blockquote>
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The power of lobbyists in Brussels</blockquote>
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Ireland’s standard of living below EU average</blockquote>
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German organisations unite to oppose TTIP and CETA</blockquote>
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ECB “disappointed”with lack of convergence - a failure of the euro project</blockquote>
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“Whatever it takes”fails to deliver</blockquote>
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TTIP would reward American companies without any recriprocal benefit</blockquote>
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for Europeans</blockquote>
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“Neutral”Ireland’s arms industry is making billions</blockquote>
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Greasing the wheels of German trade with Greece</blockquote>
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Iceland and Ireland: who’s recovering better?</blockquote>
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“Helping”David Cameron</blockquote>
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Goldman Sachs hires Fogh Rasmussen as adviser</blockquote>
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Ryanair and Dublin’s role undermining labour</blockquote>
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People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-62941115017773085962015-08-11T14:23:00.000+01:002015-08-11T14:23:09.638+01:00Lies and Damned Lies!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: rgb(0.000000%, 40.000000%, 0.000000%); font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><i>Rory Hearne, Lecturer in Political and Economic
Geography, National University of Ireland,
Maynooth.
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The government is misleading the Irish people
and the EU about the reality of austerity and
the debt crisis in Ireland so as to avoid
admitting that they took the wrong approach
with austerity, and their failure to get a
meaningful debt deal. The truth is that
austerity is based on flawed economics and it
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">hasn’t </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">worked in either Ireland, Greece or for
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">the EU, and Ireland’s debt is unsustainable.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Austerity has devastated Irish society. For
most people recovery is just a word being
spoken by politicians and the media. The
Central Bank and ESRI have highlighted that the
much-lauded growth figures do not reflect the
true health of the Irish domestic economy,
because they are artificially inflated by
multinational and financial activities that do
not take place here.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Austerity has resulted in 1.4 million people,
almost 31 per cent of the population, suffering
from deprivation</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">which is up from 14 per cent
in 2008; 37 per cent of children suffer
deprivation (up from 18 per cent in 2008). The
legacy crises are multiple, including mortgage
arrears, rent, homelessness, child care,
hospitals, and community services.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Unemployment figures are largely reduced,
because of emigration and the use of unpaid-
jobs schemes. Domestic demand remains
static, and working-class communities, small
towns and rural areas are devastated.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Austerity has not worked for the low-
income and working people of Ireland. At the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">European level the euro area is mired in
stagnant growth of 0.8 per cent, mass
unemployment of 11 per cent, and a ratio of
debt to GDP that that has risen from 72 per
cent in 2009 to 92 per cent today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The calculation of the economists Reinhart
and Rogoff that austerity was required to
reduce government debt levels below 90 per
cent in order to return to growth was also
found to be incorrect. The IMF has also
admitted that it underestimated the negative
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">impact of austerity’s higher taxes and spending
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">cuts on economic growth and unemployment.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The government continues to peddle the
myth that our national debt is manageable and
sustainable. It is assuring the international
markets that the Irish people will continue to
pay all the debt accumulated from the crisis
and bailing out the banks, irrespective of its
impact. But why are we immiserating and
impoverishing our population, and depressing
our economy, in order to pay back this
illegitimate debt?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In 2009 Ireland's "general government” debt was €104 billion. This year it
stands at a staggering €210 billion. In 2009 the
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Irish debt-to-GDP ratio, the figure used to </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">assess the sustainability of national
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">governments’ debt leve</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">ls, was 62 per cent. This
year it has risen to 108 per cent. In 2009 we
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">paid €2.5 billion in interest on the national
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">debt. This year we are paying three times that
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">figure: €7.3 billion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">How is an economy that has undergone
such a deep recession to be expected to pay
double in debt payments what it was paying
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">during an economic boom? That €7.3 billion
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">debt interest is 20 per cent of all taxes taken in
by the government. It is equivalent to the
entire education budget. But these repayments
and the debt are going to get even worse in the
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">coming years. The national debt will be €214
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">billion in 2018.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">So what the government really means when
it continues to argue to Europe and the
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">markets that our national debt of €215 billion is
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">manageable is that the Irish people accept that
a fifth of all taxes collected will go to debt
interest repayments. The interest on this debt
will be paid each year through the massive
diversion of resources away from the education
system, social housing, employment creation
supports, disability services, etc. Rural services
will remain shut, and mental health services
will remain underfunded. The waiting lists of
the sick to get hospital treatment will lengthen,
and more children will go hungry. The domestic
economy will underperform as personal taxes
are diverted to debt repayments.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Ireland’s debt</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">-to-GDP figure is also
misleading in a way that hides the true size of
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">the debt relative to the economy. Ireland’s GDP
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">figure is inflated by multinational economic
activity, some of which is not real activity taking
place here in Ireland. The GDP growth figures
(which are used to claim that Ireland is in
recovery) are also artificially inflated in this
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">way. This means that Ireland’s debt</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">-to-GDP
ratio should be even higher and we have even
less economic capacity than our GDP figures
suggest to pay back this debt.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">This is worsened by the fact that
corporations pay low levels of tax in Ireland, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">which leaves a disproportionately higher
burden of the debt with the general
population. This is a major downside to the way
in which multinational activity and taxation is
organised in Ireland that is often overlooked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">What this shows is that Ireland’s debt crisis
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is being ignored and played down to the
detriment of the economy and public services.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Yet the Irish government is now a leading
opponent of a Greek debt deal, despite the fact
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">that we could save up to €3 billion a year on
our debt interest as part of Greece’s European
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">debt conference proposals. But the Irish
government and European elite are more
concerned that a deal for Greece will boost
anti-austerity politics in Ireland, Spain and
Portugal. So their strategy is to try to isolate
Greece now and beat it into submission before
it is joined by like-minded governments. If
Greece gets a deal, it will show in very stark
terms to the Irish people that the last two
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">governments’ strategy of savage austerity and
passively accepting Europe’s debt was wrong
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and unnecessary.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The other real reason that the elite don’t
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">want to ease austerity is that they have used
the debt crisis to impose policies on the bail-
out countries that the financial elite, the
wealthy and big business have been trying to
get in during the last thirty years of neo-
liberalism. That is, to reduce the surplus value
(wealth or profit) that is produced in society
that goes to working people and the poor and
increase that going to the rich and capital.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">So taxes on corporations and the wealthy
are reduced, and new flat stealth taxes are
introduced, low and middle-</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">income workers’
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">wages are reduced, working conditions are
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">made “flexible” (i.e. precarious, such as zero</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">-
hour contracts), funding for core public services
such as health, welfare and housing is reduced,
state assets are privatised to provide more
opportunities for wealthy business owners, and
the cost of repaying the massive credit
expansion of the boom years is loaded onto
households.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="page" title="Page 3">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Austerity involved a massive transfer of
wealth from the lower and middle classes to
global capital. This has given rise to a rapid rise
in inequality within Europe and the US, pointed
to by the economist Thomas Picketty. But it is
not an accident: it is the purpose for which the
European elite are pursuing austerity
capitalism.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">What the European elite have not realised,
however, is that something has changed for
ordinary Europeans. The emergence in Greece,
Spain and now Ireland of new movements and
political parties opposed to this elite has given
them hope and confidence to stand up to the
juggernaut of austerity. Europe has blocked a
deal to alleviate the debt burden and austerity
on Greece, but Syriza has indicated it will start
to roll back on aspects of austerity.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">What is clear is that Merkel’s mantra “There
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is no alternative to austerity and debt slavery
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and impoverishment for the PIIGS” is being
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">fundamentally challenged. </span><br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-81415975891699045712015-03-02T08:45:00.001+00:002015-03-02T08:45:12.600+00:00People's News 120: 1/March 2015<div><font><span lang="EN-IE" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font>Below is link to latest issue of People’s News. </font></span></font></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><a href="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-120.pdf" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-120.pdf</font></a></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span lang="EN"></span> </span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It is sent fortnightly and contains information and comment on EU developments from an Irish and democratic perspective. </span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font></font></span><div><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Check People’s Movement website at</span></p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><u></u></span><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><u></u><a href="http://www.people.ie/"><u><span lang="EN-IE">www.people.ie</span></u></a></span></p><span lang="EN-IE" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><p>for further news and views from the People’s Movement </p></span><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Contents</span></p></div><div><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 1</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The mirage of “Social Europe” laid bare again</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 1</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Ukraine, the EU and Russia</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 3</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">12 million Germans are classes as “poor” claims a German welfare association</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 4</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Greece baiting seems to have become the favourite sport of the political and media elite</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 6</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Master of the universe. Michael O’Leary has never hidden his plans for world domination</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 6</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">TTIP points to the demise of the public health service</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 8</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Government prepared for the collapse of euro zone</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 8</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A lacklustre defence of public services </strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 9</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Legal challenge to plain cigarette packaging</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 10</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Another EU con job</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 12</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Greece should leave the Euro” - former French President</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 12</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Ireland continues to suffer from CFP</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 13</strong></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">TTIP and for-profit colleges</strong></p></div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-52058557893982226192015-02-16T12:20:00.001+00:002015-02-16T12:20:20.146+00:00People's News 119: 15 February 2015<p class="s4" style="text-align: start; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-weight: bold; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Download the PDF file: </span><a href="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-119.pdf" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-119.pdf</a></p><p class="s4" style="text-align: start; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-weight: bold; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></p><p class="s4" style="text-align: start; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-weight: bold; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Table of Contents - Peoples News 119.</span></p><p class="s4" style="text-align: start; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-weight: bold; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></p><p class="s6" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">P1. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">Greeks seek to control their fate. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">While the </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">new</span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;"> Greek Government has yet to talk of leaving the European Union or the eurozone an erstwhile high priest of free markets and former head of the US central bank, Alan Greenspan, has predicted that Greece will have to leave the eurozone.</span></span></p><p class="s8" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">P3. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">The Dáil votes against an EU debt conference! </span><span class="s7">Last week, a Technical Group Motion calling for a European debt conference was defeated by 72 votes to 42 in the Dáil. </span></span></p><p class="s11" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 15px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s9" style="font-weight: bold;">P4. </span><span class="s9" style="font-weight: bold;">EU trade secrets proposal - a threat to freedom of speech!</span><span class="s10"> </span><span class="s7">The European Parliament has commenced consideration of a European Commission proposal on the protection of company secrets.</span></span></p><p class="s11" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 15px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s9" style="font-weight: bold;">P5. </span><span class="s9" style="font-weight: bold;">Not so loony! </span><span class="s7">That infamous “loony of the left” Tony Benn was forecasting developments such as TTIP as far back as the early 70s.</span></span></p><p class="s12" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">P5. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">Are public services on the block at TISA talks? </span><span class="s7">Another leaked paper made public last week on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) negotiations shows that there is – at the very least - ambiguity surrounding the assurances given by the EU about the protection of public services in trade agreements.</span></span></p><p class="s12" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p class="s6" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s13" style="font-weight: bold;">P6. </span><span class="s13" style="font-weight: bold;">French Senators reject ISDS. </span><span class="s10">French Senators have unanimously adopted a draft resolution on the dispute resolution mechanism (ISDS) between the state and foreign investors foreseen by </span><span class="s10">TTIP</span><span class="s10"> and</span><span class="s10"> CETA</span><span class="s10">.</span></span></p><p class="s2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">P7</span><span class="s7">. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">Scrap TTIP and CETA Protest.</span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span class="s7">A big ‘Thank you’ to all who helped make our ‘Scrap TTIP and CETA’ Protest at the EU Parliament offices in Dublin a success.</span></span></p><p class="s15" style="margin: 0px 11px 0px 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s14" style="font-weight: bold;">P7. </span><span class="s14" style="font-weight: bold;">Debate: TTIP, What is it and should we be worried?</span></span></p><p class="s15" style="margin: 0px 11px 0px 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p class="s17" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s14" style="font-weight: bold;">P7. </span><span class="s14" style="font-weight: bold;">What’s the difference between Iceland and Ireland – its more than one letter anyway! </span><span class="s16">Iceland’s Supreme Court has upheld convictions of market manipulation for four former executives of the failed Kaupthing bank.</span></span></p><p class="s19" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-right: -23px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">P7. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">Why not have a look at the Peoples Movement Facebook page and become a friend? </span><a><span class="s18" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.facebook.com/peoplesmovementireland</span></a></span></p><p class="s2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">P7. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">Phew, that was easy! </span><span class="s7">Professor John Fitzgerald got far too easy a ride when he appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis. </span></span></p><p class="s6" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">P8. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">Another important TTIP document has been leaked and it just gets worse!</span><span class="s20" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span class="s7">This time, it’s a chapter concerning dispute settlement: ISDS. </span></span></p><p class="s21" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">P10. </span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">Germany moves towards fracking. </span><span class="s7">After a long debate over the use of fracking technology in Germany, the federal government issued a draft law allowing the controversial gas extraction method under certain conditions and in isolated cases.</span></span></p><p class="s23" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s22">P11. </span><span class="s22">Juncker’s ideas for Eurozone in</span><span class="s22">tegration.</span><span class="s22"> </span><span class="s22">At last week’s European Council summit, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker presented an ‘analytical note’ with ideas on how to strengthen integration in the Eurozone.</span></span></p><p class="s26" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s24" style="font-weight: bold;">P11. </span><span class="s24" style="font-weight: bold;">EU – wide tax shelved - for now! </span><span class="s25">Plans to increase the EU's so-called "own-resources"</span><span class="s25"> have been postponed.</span></span></p><p class="s26" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s27" style="font-weight: bold;">P12. </span><span class="s27" style="font-weight: bold;">The Oireachtas is failing to control Ministers on EU issues – a complete lack of accountability!</span><span class="s28"></span></span></p><p class="s11" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 15px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s14" style="font-weight: bold;">P13. </span><span class="s14" style="font-weight: bold;">Neo-liberal Structural Reform Myths. </span><span class="s14" style="font-weight: bold;">The intellectual case against austerity is easy to make because so much empirical data is stacked up against it.</span></span></p><p class="s29" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p class="s26" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p class="s17" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p class="s30" style="margin: 0px 11px 0px 28px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p class="s2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-73021755597113131252015-02-03T00:03:00.001+00:002015-02-03T10:43:58.201+00:00People's News 118<p><font style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Download PDF file - </font><a href="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-118.pdf" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-118.pdf</a></p><p><font style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Contents</font></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 1</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">EU may take another blow to its legitimacy</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 1</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">TEEU warns against corporations being given the power to dictate to Governments</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 3</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Meeting in Galway on TTIP and CETA</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 3 </span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Scrap TTIP and CETA demonstration - 4th February</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 3</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Is QE another blow for euro?</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 4 </span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Scary stuff</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 4</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Surely not</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 5</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Greece will not be taken for granted</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 5</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Germany's past must be confronted</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 7</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Greek election strengthens Canadian opposition to CETA </span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 8</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A roadmap to corporate plunder</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 8</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Lobbying organisations' culture of secrecy</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 11</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">British politician highlights EU/Partition contradiction</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 12</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Light" and "darkness according to Brussels</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 13</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">ECB intensifies power grab</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Page 14</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">New Greek PM at national shrine to resistance</span></p>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-39158740626520382862015-02-01T01:38:00.001+00:002015-02-01T01:38:13.636+00:00People's News 117<div><a title="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-117.pdf" href="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-117.pdf"><strong><font color="#000000" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-117.pdf</font></strong></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: start; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><b><font style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Contents PN 117</font></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P1. Austrian Chancellor issues threat!</b><b><font> </font></b><span style="background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;"><font>Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann has warned that Austria could file a lawsuit before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over EU’s intention to sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)</font></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P1. </b><b>Brussels seeks to extend "economic governance" reach. </b>During the last years of economic crisis, Brussels has moved to expand its power at the expense of the sovereignty of the member states.<b></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P2. </b><b>No decision on ISDS until the end of TTIP talks.</b><b> </b><span lang="EN">The EU won’t decide whether to include the investor- state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) clause in TTIP until the “final phase of the negotiations” with the US.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span lang="EN"></span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b><span lang="EN">P3.</span></b><span lang="EN"> “</span><b>All market and no social” – ETUC!</b> Commenting on the European Commission’s statement on its work programme, Bernadette Ségol, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) said: “<i>There is not a single proposal to improve worker, consumer or environmental protection.”</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i></i> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P3. </b><b><span lang="EN">Asia pushes ahead while Brussels dawdles. </span></b>The European Commission has been desperately trying to put flesh on the bones of EU President Juncker’s flagship €315 billion investment plan to kick start EU economies.<i></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i></i> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 14.75pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P4. </b><b><span lang="EN">Results of Commissions TTIP on- line consultation published. </span></b><span lang="EN">Over 97 percent of submissions in an on-line consultation on TTIP conducted by the EU Commission, were opposed to the inclusion ISDS.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P5. </b><b><span lang="EN">ECJ - Draft agreement on the accession of the EU to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is not compatible with EU law.</span></b></span></p><div style="border-bottom-color: rgb(227, 227, 227); border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; padding: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 7.5pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: medium none; padding: 0cm; margin: 8.85pt 0cm;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P6. </b><b><span lang="EN">Falling euro - a cause for concern? </span></b><span lang="EN">European manufacturers are happy with the falling value of the single currency, which allows them to export their goods more easily. But the mood is tempered by the threat of deflation</span></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 14.75pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P7. </b><b><span lang="EN">Farmers protest against TTIP. </span></b><span lang="EN">In the run- up to Christmas, farmers and trade unionists were protesting in Brussels against TTIP.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 14.75pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P7. </b><b><span lang="EN">OMT OK! – ECJ Advocate General! </span></b><span lang="EN">The </span><strong>ECJ’s top legal advisor, the</strong><strong> </strong><span lang="EN">Advocate General of the ECJ (EU Court of Justice) has found that the ECB’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme is compatible in principle with EU law if certain conditions are met.</span><b><span lang="EN"></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P8. </b><b><span lang="EN">Now online - EU negotiating texts in TTIP. </span></b><span lang="EN">A final agreement would have 24 chapters, grouped together in 3 parts.</span></span></p><div style="border-bottom-color: rgb(227, 227, 227); border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; padding: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 7.5pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: medium none; padding: 0cm; margin: 8.85pt 0cm;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P8. </b><b><span lang="EN">Canadian tar sands oil won’t be labelled ‘dirty’ – the hidden hand of CETA! </span></b><span lang="EN">Just before Christmas, the EU Parliament passed by just 12 votes controversial fuel quality rules that do not penalise imports of polluting tar sands oil from Canada.</span></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P9. </b><b><span lang="EN">Another step to a banking union! </span></b><span lang="EN">The Single European Mechanism (SRM)</span><span lang="EN"><font> </font></span><span lang="EN">will be launched over the next three months, with the aim of rescuing or winding up stricken banks with minimal recourse to taxpayers’ money.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 14.75pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P10. </b><b><span lang="EN">Lithuania joins eurozone. </span></b>Lithuania has become the 19th member of the eurozone.<b><span lang="EN"></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 14.75pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P11. </b><b><span lang="EN">Opposition to the euro increases in Southern Europe - anti-euro parties hold around half of the vote in Italy.</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P11. </b><b>The situation in Greece. </b>With Greek elections on 25 January which see the possibility of Syriza party form the next Greek government, the debt debate rather than Greek exit from the eurozone has returned to the centre of European politics.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 14.75pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>P13. </b><b><span lang="EN">The results of the Commission’s on-line consultation on ISDS – </span></b><span lang="EN">Infographics</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 14.75pt;"><span lang="EN" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><strong>Why not like the Peoples Movement on Facebook?<a title="https://www.facebook.com/peoplesmovementireland" href="https://www.facebook.com/peoplesmovementireland">https://www.facebook.com/peoplesmovementireland</a></strong></span></p><div><font size="4" face="Cambria"><span lang="EN"><br></span></font></div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-81227413848759067412014-09-22T14:04:00.001+01:002014-09-22T14:04:56.694+01:00The real Phil Hogan
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Criticism of the Government’s nomination of
Phil Hogan as Ireland’s member of th</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">e EU
Commission has tended to focus on his
lobbying in 2012 to prevent a Traveller family
being given access to social housing. On those
grounds Nessa Childers, an independent
member of the EU Parliament, reasonably
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">described the nomination as a “step back</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">wards
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">for equality.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The other main strand of criticism concerns
his agreement on bloated consultancy
payments for the establishment of Irish Water,
an issue that Sinn Féin in particular is
emphasising. Again, the criticism is legitimate
and important, as is the fact that he spent the
summer appointing former Fine Gael and
Labour Party councillors to state boards, and
that he quashed inquiries into planning
irregularities, including in his own fiefdom of
Co. Carlow, when he took office as minister for
the environment.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">An article in </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'">Irish Left Review </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">by Andy
Storey points out that the problem with Hogan
goes well beyond anti-Traveller racism, the
wasting of public money, the dishing out of
sinecures to political cronies, and taking a </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">relaxed approach to dodgy planning. Most
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">politicians engage in all the above. Hogan’s real
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">importance lies in his being a prime example of
the noxious nexus between political and
corporate power in Ireland.</span></p></div><div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The Moriarty Tribunal in 2011 concluded
that the former minister Michae</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">l Lowry had “an
insidious and pervasive influence” over the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">awarding of a mobile phone licence to Denis
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">O’Brien’s Esat Digifone consortium; in fact the
tribunal described Lowry’s conduct as
“profoundly corrupt to a degree that was
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">nothing short of breath-t</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">aking.” In July 2010
Lowry was an honoured guest at Phil Hogan’s
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">fiftieth birthday party, and only days after the
publication of the Moriarty report Hogan had
an official meeting with Lowry</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">allegedly to
discuss unrelated matters.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">But then, this should not be so surprising.
Hogan has form here. As Jody Corcoran has
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">reported, “Hogan was personally engaged in
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the extraction of at least two significant sums
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">of money from O’Brien, or his companies or
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">associates, for Fine Gael at or around the time
of the granti</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">ng of the licence.” Coincidentally,
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Siteserv</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—a company owned by O’Brien that
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">had substantial debts owed to Anglo-Irish Bank,
now owned by the state (i.e. you and me) and
now written off</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">has won some of the
contracts for installing water meters</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">water
charge</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">s, of course, being another of Hogan’s
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">legacies.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">O’Brien, who Hogan “ran into” at the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Mount Juliet Golf and Country Club in March, is
not the only controversial businessman Hogan
has been associated with. In the 2000s Michael
Fingleton, then managing director of Irish
Nationwide Building Society, personally
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">approved a loan of €450,000 to Hogan to allow </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">him buy a house in Dublin 4, with Hogan having
to repay only the interest on the loan for a
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">decade. Fingleton then lent him €430,000 to
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">buy a Portuguese holiday home, on the same
generous repayment terms. A report in the </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic';">Irish
Independent </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">on the matter charmingly
described the second loan as having been
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">processed with “what appears to have been ...
minimal paperwork.” How probable was it that
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">we would ever have had a serious banking
inquiry when a senior Government minister
had personally profited from the shady
practices that created the property and banking
crisis in the first place?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">In February 2009 Hogan declined to follow
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">his party leader’s example and tak</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">e a 5 per cent
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">cut in his salary of €110,000, stating that “my
personal circumstances don’t allow that at the
moment.” (God knows how dire his personal
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">circumstances would have been if he had been
obliged to meet normal repayments on his
property loans.)
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">In April 2012 a Kilkenny woman texted
Hogan to complain of the hardship the
household charge was causing her, to which
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Hogan responded: “Would you ever relax and
feed the children.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The man is demonstrably a hypocrite and a
boor (appropriate enough qualifications for an
EU Commissioner these days). Even more
importantly, he is the embodiment of the
crony-capitalist links between business and
politics in Ireland, links that are forged and
greased through political donations, personal
favours and friendships, opaque meetings, and
secret business dealings.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">In that sense Hogan is the perfect
representative of the Irish elite and an
eminently apt person to fulfil that
representative role in Brussels. </span></p><p>http://www.people.ie</p>
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</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-48904066502753727832014-04-28T01:52:00.001+01:002015-02-01T01:39:41.005+00:00Euro-zone peripheral countries lick their wounds
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The peripheral countries of the euro zone will
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">have to pay more than €130 billion this year
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">just to meet the interest payments on
mounting debts, a burden almost three times
as high as the rest of the euro area.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The figures</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">calculated by the </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'">Financial
Times </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">from data published by the International
Monetary Fund</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">underline the deep wounds
left by the euro-zone crisis, in spite of the high
demand for peripheral euro-zone debt in
recent months.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Although falling bond yields have eased
borrowing costs markedly during the past two
years, weak economic recoveries and still-
extensive budget deficits mean that the
interest bill is still climbing. But, even if their
debt ratios stabilise, and even start to tick
down, they will remain extremely high for a
long time, which means </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">they’re very vulnerable
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">to any further shocks.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The figures show that the debt-servicing
burden of the euro-zone periphery accounts for
almost a tenth of the revenue received by
governments. In the other thirteen euro-zone
countries the same burden averages only 31⁄2
per cent, with the difference in the debt-
servicing burden between the indebted
periphery and the rest of the zone forecast to
rise over the next five years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">In the 2013 budget the Government
estimated that expenditure on interest reached
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">€6.3 billion in 2012 and is expected to rise to
just over €10 billion by 2015. These numbers
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">are put into perspective when we consider that
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">the total tax take in 2012 was €36</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">.6 billion,
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">with income tax accounting for €15.2 billion.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">In other words, interest on the national
debt in 2015 is expected to be equivalent to
two-thirds of the total income tax take in 2012.
This is an unacceptable and unsustainable
burden, to which there can only be one answer.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Incidentally, the Irish health budget for 2013
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">is €13.6 billion.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'"> </span></p>
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</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-2229785004518011472014-04-28T01:49:00.001+01:002015-02-01T01:39:26.280+00:00Abandoning the euro
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<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%)"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZaX_67ukojWNHjQPSt3hdgmT4zkNUaSlbDJOJnVxpa4-9YLum9-qjAju87WXzYto4O8Y1BDEW1jpa4-9ygvG1X96JWnskX2XhzvlWRvoa1CBwS5uh3-8teYXHiQn4n1jLufe4lDObNDOQ/s640/blogger-image--1049426830.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZaX_67ukojWNHjQPSt3hdgmT4zkNUaSlbDJOJnVxpa4-9YLum9-qjAju87WXzYto4O8Y1BDEW1jpa4-9ygvG1X96JWnskX2XhzvlWRvoa1CBwS5uh3-8teYXHiQn4n1jLufe4lDObNDOQ/s640/blogger-image--1049426830.jpg"></a></div>The recent call by Ming Flanagan TD, who is an
independent candidate in the forthcoming EU
Parliament elections, prompted us to look for a </span>succinct commentary on the mechanics of abandoning the euro.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Two years ago, a team headed by Roger Bootle won the prestigious Wolfson Prize for Economics with a paper that outlines the smoothest process by which a member-state could give up the euro. We publish a summary below.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="layoutArea" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">The most realistic scenario for the break-up of the euro is that one or more of the weaker </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">peripheral countries will leave the euro zone, introduce a new currency, which then falls sharply, and default on a large part of their government debt. Other forms of break-up are possible, but the analysis of these will involve the same issues, although, in the case of strong countries leaving, often with the signs reversed. Accordingly, our analysis centres on the departure of a single weak member, and we then note any instance where the issues and conclusions need to be modified for other forms of break-up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;">It will not be possible to be open about preparations to leave for more than a very short period without precipitating a damaging outflow of money, which could cause a banking collapse. Accordingly, preparations must be made in secret by a small group of officials and then acted on more or less straight away.</span></p></div></div><img src="file:///page3image17764" alt="page3image17764" width="102.000008" height="54.750000" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"></span><div class="layoutArea" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">recommend that the country should immediately announce a regime of inflation- targeting, monitored by a body of independent experts, adopt a set of tough fiscal rules and outlaw the indexing of wages but announce the issue of index-linked government bonds. The government should also continue with structural reforms designed to increase the flexibility of product and labour markets.</span></p></div></div></div></span></div><div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%)"><div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">To facilitate the convenient use of euro notes
and coins, to help to maintain price
transparency, and to boost confidence in the
new system, we recommend that the new
currency be introduced at parity with the euro.
Accordingly, where a price used to be 1.35
euros it would now be (for example) 1.35
drachmas. The drachma would be free to fall
on the foreign-exchange markets, and indeed it
is vital that it should do so.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">We reckon that when any or all of the weaker
members of the euro zone left, their currencies
would depreciate by something like 30 to 50
per cent. This would add another 10 per cent to
consumer prices, or even more, which, spread
over two years, would cause the annual rate of
inflation to rise by roughly half this figure. But
international experience suggests that such a
spike can be short-lived, and inflation can then
return to something like its previous level.
</span></p><p>
</p><div class="page" title="Page 3">
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Given the short time from announcement to </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">implementation, it will not be possible to have
new notes and coins available immediately.
This is unfortunate, but it is not as serious as is
often imagined. The authorities should allow
euro notes and coins to continue to be used for
small transactions; but immediately after the
decision to abandon the euro has been
announced they should commission new notes
and coins to be produced as soon as possible.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">To facilitate the convenient use of euro notes
and coins, to help to maintain price
transparency, and to boost confidence in the
new system, we recommend that the new
currency be introduced at parity with the euro.
Accordingly, where a price used to be 1.35
euros it would now be (for example) 1.35
drachmas. The drachma would be free to fall
on the foreign-exchange markets, and indeed it
is vital that it should do so.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">We reckon that when any or all of the weaker
members of the euro zone left, their currencies
would depreciate by something like 30 to 50
per cent. This would add another 10 per cent to
consumer prices, or even more, which, spread
over two years, would cause the annual rate of
inflation to rise by roughly half this figure. But
international experience suggests that such a
spike can be short-lived, and inflation can then
return to something like its previous level. </span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Just before the changeover, some form of
capital controls will be essential, including at
least the closure of the banks. But after the
changeover, capital controls should be avoided
and, if used, should be withdrawn as soon as
possible.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The government should redenominate its
debt in the new national currency, and make
clear its intention to renegotiate the terms of
this debt. This is likely to involve a substantial
default</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">perhaps enough to reduce the ratio of
debt to GDP to 60 per cent. But the
government should also make clear its
intention to resume servicing its remaining
debt as soon as practically possible.</span></p></div></div><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column">
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The central bank of the country should stand
ready to inject liquidity into its own banking
system, if necessary by quantitative easing. The
monetary authorities should also announce
their willingness to recapitalise the banks if
necessary.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The authorities should provide as much
clarity as possible on the legal issues, including
the status o</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">f the country’s membership of the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">European Union and the effect on international
contracts at present denominated in euros.
Approval by the EU would also be needed for
any capital controls, but this would have to be
sought retrospectively. All this would require
close co-operation with other EU member-
states and institutions, including countries in
the northern core.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Domestic economic policy may also have to
adapt. Indeed policy-makers in the northern
core should have more freedom once they are
no longer constrained by the need to set an
example for weaker countries that have left. As
the value of the euro would rise, the northern
core would at first suffer from a loss of
domestic demand, though it would enjoy a
lower rate of inflation. This combination would
give it the incentive to undertake measures to
boost domestic demand, especially through
monetary policy and structural reforms.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial'">■ </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">A rebalancing of the economy away from
reliance on net exports would be in the
interests of the whole of the present
membership of the euro zone, as well as
countries outside it.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Of course, giving up the euro without breaking
from the dominance of neo-liberalism would </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">result in further
significant hardship for
ordinary people, as the
price of imported
goods, especially food, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">would increase. Austerity would not just go
away either; so repudiating the debt would be
necessary in order to force the highest possible
write-down. This would allow social measures
and strategic economic investment to be given
priority, rather than paying the bondholders,
and for the people of this country to be put
first. </span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-79494923792928887612014-04-28T01:38:00.001+01:002014-04-29T16:40:04.978+01:00European Movement officially promotes EU in schools
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The “Blue Star” programme is part of the
Government’s “Communicating Europe”
initiative, whose aim is “to foster better
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">understanding and knowledge among primary
school children of the European Union and how
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the EU affects our lives.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The invitation to tender for the post of
national co-ordinator was published on the
Public Procurement web site in October 2011.
The European Movement (Ireland) was
awarded the contract, and the scheme was
subsequently renewed for a further two years.
The to</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">tal cost was €140,000, paid by the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Department of the Taoiseach.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The scheme has grown significantly over the
period of the contract, from 30 schools in
twelve counties in the pilot year to 106 schools
in twenty-four counties registered for this
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">year’s prog</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">ramme.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Reports on the first two years are available
on the web site of the Department of the
Taoiseach.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU_gAMVLBHm-I15jJPypcMxkgpiy4ftkv1JpqAnbc7-S34zr2IPk1dA1Xyj-ivwM7I9rAuAtQf4-TpD8jGYi_WtoOZt0_HOafNoaKa-rqXMIXcM9JChsqd0lJDy4YbNOXqaoGrO9d9foob/s640/blogger-image-1767478669.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU_gAMVLBHm-I15jJPypcMxkgpiy4ftkv1JpqAnbc7-S34zr2IPk1dA1Xyj-ivwM7I9rAuAtQf4-TpD8jGYi_WtoOZt0_HOafNoaKa-rqXMIXcM9JChsqd0lJDy4YbNOXqaoGrO9d9foob/s640/blogger-image-1767478669.jpg"></a></div> <p></p>
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</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-86798833478962655612014-04-28T01:36:00.001+01:002014-04-28T11:29:27.985+01:00Could TTIP contain an internet censorship plan?
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">An internet censorship plan is at present being
finalised, with Barack Obama holding secret
meetings with political figures and lobbyists in
Asia to lock the Trans-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Pacific Partnership’s
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">internet censorship plan in place.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Leaked documents reveal that this secret
plan would censor the use of the internet and
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">strip away people’s rights.1 If completed, the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">plan would force internet service providers to
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">act as “internet police,” monitoring our use of
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the internet, censoring content, and removing
whole web sites.2 It would give media
conglomerates centralised control over what
we can watch and share on line, and give
governments the ability to neutralise the
internet for political rivals.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being called
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">a legal “blueprint” for the rest of the world.3
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Once </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the TPP’s internet censorship plans are
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">complete, they will be used to globalise
censorship</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">which brings us back to the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP) between the European Union and the
United States, which is also being negotiated in
secret and whose known components bear a
striking similarity to the TPP. It would be a good
bet that a similar provision is included in the
TTIP, providing another reason why we should </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">be determined in our opposition to it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cchQ1Z2iZnQE01vyniqUpFE3hnxuIUiSPP7OZUiXdJArkQJM8fZLHI2eR5hOHbY2s92pBNw0AKh4-qZggd_TlP5kWsMoq6fWcSiTnWXYI3b7W7rHT_6iPRDfjQOASsT1ZmgvHuwN0s1s/s640/blogger-image--592302480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cchQ1Z2iZnQE01vyniqUpFE3hnxuIUiSPP7OZUiXdJArkQJM8fZLHI2eR5hOHbY2s92pBNw0AKh4-qZggd_TlP5kWsMoq6fWcSiTnWXYI3b7W7rHT_6iPRDfjQOASsT1ZmgvHuwN0s1s/s640/blogger-image--592302480.jpg"></a></div><br><p></p></div><div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">1. Wikileaks: “Secret trans</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">-Pacific partnership
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">agreement.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">2. Electronic Frontier Foundation: “TPP creates
legal incentives for ISPs to police the internet.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">3. Inter Press Service News Agency: “US
‘bullying’ TPP negotiators amid failure to
agree.” </span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-91421064760695404412014-04-28T01:34:00.001+01:002014-04-28T01:34:00.409+01:00"Ireland is not Greece"<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjffGzOrXc52HfNvAZPyUKUMPR6FaMwghDggabLP4Kzo3RLhLhKXXF0FjN1jK_UKnQl2hbW6ZEdX77kMZiFLWIpbzcnLdv7yf__k4vHkNqo2CcGSNpHMH7AbbVSyGkEhI6BeHLESGqrRvQT/s640/blogger-image--1370887443.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjffGzOrXc52HfNvAZPyUKUMPR6FaMwghDggabLP4Kzo3RLhLhKXXF0FjN1jK_UKnQl2hbW6ZEdX77kMZiFLWIpbzcnLdv7yf__k4vHkNqo2CcGSNpHMH7AbbVSyGkEhI6BeHLESGqrRvQT/s640/blogger-image--1370887443.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Speaking in Luxembourg on 4 October 2011,
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Michael Noonan insisted that “Ireland is not
Greece.” Now, in April 2014, the graph below
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">by David McWilliams proves that Noonan was
correct</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">to the detriment of us all.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The fact that the Greeks can raise money
shows that the markets have absolutely no
memory. Two years after the biggest sovereign
default in history they are back at it</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">though it
should be noted that their balance sheet is
immeasurably better after the default than
before.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Greece’s debt is still almost 180 per cent of
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">GDP. But the bulk of the debt is owed to other
</span></p>
</div>
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">euro-zone governments, as a result of its two
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“bail</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">outs.” Not only do these loans pay a low
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">interest rate of a little over 2 per cent, but
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Greece doesn’t need to begin repaying them
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">until 2022, and then it has another twenty
years to complete the job.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Greece shows just how quickly things can
turn about. Note also that its ten-year bond
yield, which hit 30 per cent after the debt
default two years ago, is now 6.2 per cent.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Two of the country’s big fo</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">ur banks</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Piraeus and Alpha</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—have raised €3 billion of
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">equity between them in recent weeks, and
Eurobank, another big lender, is planning to </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">follow with a €3 billion issue later this month.</span></p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="page" title="Page 2"><div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%)"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">So it was just more bragging from Noonan
when we should have been planning to
emulate the Greeks, if not surpass them, by
repudiating the debt. Instead we have water
charges, another austerity budget </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">... </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">and so on.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Doesn’t it make your blood boil? </span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div></div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-3205413751861538842013-12-31T22:13:00.001+00:002013-12-31T22:16:58.546+00:00Red C poll: Irish public unaware of how EU makes decisions, unwilling to bail out Euro further<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Link to poll report - </span><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; text-align: -webkit-auto; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2013/12/red-c-poll.pptx">http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2013/12/red-c-poll.pptx</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Red C poll finds lack of public awareness of changes in EU decision making process and strong public resistance to pay more for survival of Euro currency</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">At the launch of a Red C opinion poll in Dublin today the Peoples Movement warned that Irish people were unwilling to make further sacrifices to ensure the future of the Euro currency and that they were unaware of forthcoming fundamental changes to the voting system in the EU Council of Ministers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Red C poll was commissioned by the EU Democrats; a Brussels based pan-EU political organization, for the People’s Movement in Ireland. The President of the EU Democrats, former MEP Patricia McKenna , said that the findings of the poll show a lack of public awareness of forthcoming fundamental changes to decision making at EU level and also shows a strong resistance to any further suggested costs to taxpayers to help bail out the Euro currency. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">McKenna said it was notable that despite two referendum campaigns 69% of Irish people were still unaware of the most significant political change introduced by the Lisbon Treaty - which is that voting in the all powerful EU Council of Ministers will move to a population based system giving a huge increase in voting power to the big States at the expense of small States like Ireland. In 2014 Ireland will see its vote more than halved to less than 1% while Germany will see its vote doubled to 16%.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She said, these findings come as no surprise to members of the Peoples Movement because we have argued consistently that there was a deliberate policy by the Government and the political establishment to keep Irish people in the dark about this fundamental change to the EU law-making process. From November, under the new population-based system, the six largest EU States will increase their share of Council votes from 49% to over 70% while the combined voting share of the 22 smallest States will fall from 51% to less than 30%.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">People’s Movement patron and artist Robert Ballagh said, the findings that 72% Irish people would be resistant to any cuts in pay, social welfare or pensions to ensure the survival of the Euro currency should provide a strong health warning to any further plans by Government for continued austerity measures. It is significant to note that despite Irish people’s current attachment to the Euro a large majority will resist any further pain to ensure its survival. Clearly Irish people’s generosity will only stretch so far. The Irish taxpayer has already paid a high price for the Euro’s survival. It is now a well known fact that in order to protect the Euro project the EU and ECB put pressure on the Irish Government to provided the infamous 2008 blanket guarantee for all loans by Irish banks thus ensuring that these debts were transferred onto the backs of the Irish taxpayer.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">People’s Movement member, Kevin McCorry pointed out that while Irish public opinion appears polarised in terms how concerned they believe the ECB is with Irish interests, the findings overall show a slight majority, 52% of people have little or no confidence in the ECB’s ability to take account of Irish interests. He said this is a significant finding, in that the main EU institution controlling the economies of all Eurozone countries including Ireland attracts little public confidence from Irish people. Furthermore, it highlights yet again the serious democratic deficit at the heart of the EU structure because even if 100% of people distrusted the ECB it would be irrelevant as there is no mechanism to hold this vital decision-making institution to account.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For further information phone:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Patricia McKenna <a href="tel:087-2427049" x-apple-data-detectors-result="1" x-apple-data-detectors-type="telephone" x-apple-data-detectors="true">087-2427049</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Kevin McCorry <a href="tel:086-3150301" x-apple-data-detectors-result="2" x-apple-data-detectors-type="telephone" x-apple-data-detectors="true">086-3150301</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Robert Ballagh <a href="tel:016719075" x-apple-data-detectors-result="3" x-apple-data-detectors-type="telephone" x-apple-data-detectors="true">016719075</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Findings of Red C poll see at </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: -webkit-auto;">http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2013/12/red-c-poll.pptx</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">RED C interviewed a random sample of 1,003 adults aged 18+ by telephone between the 16<sup>th</sup>-18<sup>th</sup> December 2013. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A random digit dial (RDD) method, using both mobile and landline numbers, was used to ensure a random selection process of households to be included – this also ensures that ex-directory and mobile only households are covered. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Interviews were conducted across the country and the results weighted to the profile of all adults, by gender, age social class and region. The margin of error on this sample size is +/- 3.2%</span></div>
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People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-53428267313776534212013-12-23T19:11:00.001+00:002013-12-23T19:11:20.456+00:00People’s News 96<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">P 1 .<b>“…. the welfare of the people as a whole?”</b> “Ireland holds the undesirable position of being the only country currently undergoing a banking crisis that features among the top-ten of costliest banking crises along all three dimensions [..fiscal cost, increase in debt and output loss..].</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">P 2 . <b>Brussels Summit takes another step towards forming a Euro Arm</b>y – Lisbon in action! British and French warplanes and other military assets will be handed over to the European Union under sweeping plans to create what many believe will become a “Euro Army”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">P 3. <b>Merkel supports EU treaty change</b> Angela Merkel in a speech to the Bundestag ahead of the EU summit appeared to be calling for EU treaty change.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">P 3 . <b>EADS Chief calls for EU Drone budget</b> Tom Enders, chief executive of EADS, Europe’s biggest defence and aerospace company said that the EU needed to commit money and agree a timeline for developing and building a military drone.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">P 4 . <b>Troika consultancies: another fiddle?</b> Alvarez and Marsal, BlackRock, Oliver Wyman, Pimco: ever heard of them? Bet not!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">P 5 . <b>Partnership for Profits.</b> As European and Canadian trade officials continue negotiating an investment protection chapter in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), civil society groups are demanding that this chapter be removed entirely as an affront to democracy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.people.ie/english5.html" target="_blank">http://www.people.ie/english5.html</a></span></div>
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People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-10543176697511615312013-12-23T18:11:00.001+00:002013-12-23T18:11:49.007+00:00We’ll continue to be “good Europeans”!
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Recently Senator Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fáil)
called for greater scrutiny of EU directives and
regulations. He said that last year there were
53 acts of the Oireachtas and 590 statutory
instruments, while there were 52 EU directives
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">and 1,270 regulations proposed. “In reality, we
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">only </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">debated the 53 acts of the Oireachtas.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Introducing a private member’s bill, the EU
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Scrutiny and Transparency in Government Bill
(2013), MacSharry said the democratic deficit
often suggested in respect of Europe was a
reality.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">But the Tánaiste, Éamon Gilmore, let the cat
out of the bag, saying there was little point in
lengthy debate about the substance of EU
legislative measures at the time of their being
transposed into Irish law, often by statutory
instrument. Vigorously tugging his forelock, he
explained that at that stage the policy issues
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">were settled, and Ireland’s obligation was to
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">apply the law agreed at the EU level.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Of course what both MacSharry and Gilmore
omitted to mention is that a more potent
method of scrutiny involves reviewing the
legislation before agreement in Brussels, as is </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; ">done, for example, in Denmark. We might then
mandate our representatives. But then we
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; ">wouldn’t do that, would we?</span></p>
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</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-32813438552617463862013-12-21T16:36:00.001+00:002013-12-23T02:43:34.883+00:00EU competitiveness pact: time for action!<div>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Our politicians regularly tell us that we must
work harder and longer, and for less pay, in
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">order to be more “competitive.” We must
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">reduce or give up our hard-earned social
protections, pensions and unemployment
benefits in order to be more competitive. We
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">must be more “flexible,” which means </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">we must
sacrifice job security for ever more precarious
and demanding work practices</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">in order to be
more competitive.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Governments must observe “fiscal discipline,”
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">rather than stimulating economies out of
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">recession, because such discipline makes us
more competitive. Peripheral EU countries
must surrender their sovereignty to the Troika
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">in order to “regain competitiveness.” We must
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">sign free-trade deals, such as the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership with the
United States, because that will make us more
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">competitive. We must not “over</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">regulate” the
financial sector, or impose “excessive”
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">environmental restrictions on businesses,
because to do so would be to make us less
competitive.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The competitiveness dogma will not solve the
present euro-zone crisis, as it is downward
pressure on wages (and therefore consumer
demand) and on government spending that has
locked European economies into spirals of
decline.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">More fundamentally, this discourse is really
about boosting corporate profits at the
expense of the welfare of the population and
of the environment. We have the option of
distributing work and income more fairly, so
that everyone has access to a decent wage and
fulfilling work, as well as high-quality public
services; but to do so requires that we
redistribute income away from financial capital
and corporate profits more generally and
towards the mass of the population, towards
public services and towards environmental
protection.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The true agenda behind this talk of
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“competitiveness” will be eviden</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">t at the
European Council meeting on 19 December,
which will debate a proposed new
competitiveness pact. To help draft this pact
the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; "> </span><img src="file:///page6image15380" alt="page6image15380" width="199.450012" height="124.899994"></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">invited the president of France, François
Hollande, and the president of the EU
Commission, José Manuel Barroso, to a
meeting in Berlin in March with fifteen
members of the European Round Table of
Industrialists, all of them chief executive
officers of large corporations, two of whom
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">were asked to chair a “working group on
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">competitiveness.</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The report of that group called for, among
other things, reduced taxes, a rolling back of
(limited) bank regulation, further erosion of
labour protection, the streamlined facilitation
of mergers and acquisitions, and privatisation.
As </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'">Corporate Europe Observatory, </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">put it, “the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">demands of the ERT appear to amount to
nothing less than putting the European Union
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">entirely at the service of corporations.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The TTIP, if adopted, would constitute another
contractual arrangement between member-
states and the Commission</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—a form of “troika
for all”—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">that would see the further weakening
of national labour laws, downward pressure on
wages, and more ERT-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">style “business</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">friendly”
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">regulation (or the lack of it).
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">This last element will increase the likelihood of
another economic crisis erupting in the future.
To avert such a crisis we need </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'">more, </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">not less,
regulation, especially of the financial sector.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The TTIP also features yet more intrusive
mandatory rules on the economic policies of
member-states, building on the Austerity
Treaty and related measures that serve to
reduce democratic control over vital areas of
economic governance.
</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The pact must be rejected, for three main
reasons. Firstly, it would deepen the European
economic crisis by further depressing domestic
demand and government spending at a time
when stimulus measures are desperately
needed for recovery. Secondly, it would take
still more economic policy tools out of the
hands of national governments and transfer
them to unelected technocrats. And thirdly, in
line w</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">ith the aggressive “competitiveness”
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">agenda long pursued, it would further degrade
the quality of life of workers by forcing them to
work longer hours for less pay in conditions of
ever greater insecurity while simultaneously
cutting the public services on which they
depend. This is being done in the name of
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“competitiveness,” but in reality it is for
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">boosting corporate profits at the expense of
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">ordinary people’s rights to a decent life.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; "> </span><img src="file:///page7image16128" alt="page7image16128" width="179.999985" height="123.000000"></p>
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</div></div><div><br></div><div>More at <span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf</span></div><div><span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">First published on Indymedia.ie </span><span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">http://www.indymedia.ie/article/104377</span></div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-20170362971556208932013-12-20T19:58:00.001+00:002013-12-20T19:58:38.756+00:00Brussels nervous on public reaction to EU-US trade talks
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The EU Commission has discussed with
member-states how best to communicate to
the public the pending EU-US trade deal called
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership.” The meeting was attended by
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">national officials in charge of dealing with
</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">media relations. A paper accompanying the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">meeting, called “Communicating on TTIP,”
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">obtained by the Danish magazine </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'">Notat
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">outlines the EU’s media strategy during the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">talks.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Formal talks on the agreement began in July,
but the scope of the talks and what it could
mean for consumers has been the subject of
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">controversy. “The aim is to define, at this early
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">stage in the negotiations, the terms of the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">debate,” the paper states, “by communicating
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">positively about what the TTIP is about rather
than being drawn reactively into defensive
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">communication about what TTIP is not.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">However, the first notes of concern were
sounded before the last round of talks held in
Brussels earlier this month. A series of
consumer groups and NGOs expressed fears
that an agreement could water down EU
standards on environmental protection and
food safety, including genetically modified
products. The charge was swiftly rejected by
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the EU’s chief negotiator, Ignacio Garcia
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Bercero.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Although the negotiations are held behind
closed doors, the Commission says that 350
representatives of NGOs, business and
consumer groups met the chief EU and US
negotiators for an update on the talks earlier
this month. </span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div></div>
</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-89311661548104192332013-12-19T03:10:00.001+00:002013-12-19T03:10:19.934+00:00France goes to war in Africa “to save lives”
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The president of France, François Hollande, has
just announced another military intervention in
Africa, while the plan to send an EU battle
group is still under consideration.
</span></p><p>
</p><div class="page" title="Page 5">
<div class="section">
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</div><p></p>
</div>
<div class="column">
<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“This operation will be swift: it does not have
the vocation to last long,” Hollande said on the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">plan to send troops to the Central African
Republic. With six hundred French soldiers
already in the country, he pledged to double
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">their number “within days, if not hours.”
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">France is a former colonial power in the
resource-rich country, and French companies
own uranium mines there.
</span></p><div id="article-title" style="border-bottom-width: medium; border-bottom-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; "><br></div><div class="designation" style="clear: both; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(208, 199, 175); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(208, 199, 175); margin: 10px 0px; padding: 1px 0px; "><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">The Myth of Military Aid: The Case of French Military Cooperation in Africa, </span><font color="#000000" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); text-decoration: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/results?section1=author&search1=Philippe%20Vasset" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); text-decoration: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">Philippe Vasset</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sais_review" style="text-decoration: none; ">SAIS Review</a> <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sais_review/toc/sais17.2.html" style="text-decoration: none; ">Volume 17, Number 2, Summer-Fall 1997</a> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">pp. 165-180 | </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sais_review/summary/v017/17.2vasset.html</span></p></div>
<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'"><br></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Meanwhile a proposal to despatch an EU battle
group to the Central African Republic is subject
to approval by other EU states. Britain is in
charge of the standby unit of 1,500 soldiers but
is reportedly not keen on backing the venture.
</span></p>
<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">According to a paper drafted by EU security
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">experts, “an EU military force could make a
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">meaningful contribution to the restoration of a
secure environment for the civilian population,
thereby facilitating humanitarian and
development assistance operations from the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">EU due to its central role as donor.” </span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; "><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Peoples News No. 95.<o:p></o:p></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; "><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; "><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Link: <a href="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf</a></b></p><p></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-5943590560189632872013-12-19T02:48:00.001+00:002013-12-19T02:48:05.109+00:00A Banking Union - out of the frying pan; into the fire<p class="article-subtitle" style="font-weight: bold; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 2px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The bulk of the Irish elite are sleep walking the country into an Eurozone banking union</span></p><blockquote class="article-intro"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>“Ireland holds the undesirable position of being the only country currently undergoing a banking crisis that features among the top-ten of costliest banking crises along all three dimensions [..fiscal cost, increase in debt and output loss..], making it the costliest banking crisis in advanced economies since at least the Great Depression. And the crisis in Ireland is still ongoing”</i><br>(Laeven and Valencia, 2012: 19-20)<br><br><i>“That in what pertains to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole”</i><br>Bunreacht na hÉireann, Article 45, Directive Principles of Social Policy</span></blockquote><p class="article"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The bulk of the Irish elite are sleep walking the country into an Eurozone banking union. A European Council meeting on 19th and 20th December is expected to take significant steps towards the creation of this union which has been correctly described as the most significant step in EU integration since the introduction of the Euro.<br><br>Such a union would mean that control of banks and banking would be shifted to the supranational level so that big banks in the big EU countries could more easily gobble up the small banks in the smaller, while simultaneously taking another step on the road to fiscal and political union. Having given up the power to issue money by joining the Eurozone, advocates of banking union would pass control of credit in Ireland to banks outside the country.<br><br>An Eurozone banking union would progressively deprive national states of the ability to make banking and credit creation serve national developmental goals. It would make it impossible to insist that Irish banks should subscribe to its State debt.<br><br>Irish people do not need to be educated about the fact that we live under a system in which the interests of peoples and states are subordinated to those of bankers by the bulk of national politicians. This is now manifest in an immense burden of debt which now rests on governments, private citizens and business firms in countries such as Ireland. This situation has not altered by the country’s exit from the Troika programme.<br><br>Low-income workers, for instance, are heavily concerned about pensions, savings, and insurance. The burden of debt - both mortgage and personal - has become a permanent fixture of modern life. Meanwhile, inequality has been exacerbated by bankers and financiers earning astronomical incomes while the costs of crisis continues as a burden on society. <br><br>The crisis has been a systemic upheaval rather than just the result of poor regulation, or of speculative excesses of finance. It was a crisis of financialised capitalism. Thus it will not be solved by the creation of a Banking Union. The traditional role of the capitalist financial system is to support development by mobilising loanable capital, which is then advanced to industrial enterprises. Contemporary finance mobilises idle money across society to earn a large part of its profits by concentrating on financial transactions or lending to individual workers. Under financialisation the circulation of money penetrates into every niche, even the most minor, of social and personal life. Banks have transformed themselves. They have rebalanced their lending toward individuals; they have also turned to fees and commissions from operating in open financial markets, rather than earning interest from outright lending. Thus, banks have added investment banking to their usual commercial banking activities. <br><br>Meanwhile, public provision in pensions, housing, education, health, and so on, has retreated, forcing people to seek private provision from banks and other financial institutions. Attitudes to debt and private financial gain have also changed, encouraging workers to borrow as well as get caught in housing bubbles. <br>Also large corporations in Ireland and more generally have been financing investment largely out of retained profits, while also being able to obtain external finance in open markets. They have become less dependent on banks; indeed, they possess independent capacity to engage in financial operations for their own profit. Small and medium sized businesses have not had this facility.<br><br>Rethinking the financial system is an urgent systemic and political task for what is left of Irish Democracy. Given the financialisation of our economies reorganising finance could have major ramifications for both economy and society. There could be immediate benefits for workers and others in terms of employment, housing, education, health and consumption. More broadly, finance could be restructured in ways that facilitate greater popular control, thus helping the struggle to transform the economy in a progressive direction.<br><br>It is glaringly obvious that democracy is absent from the financial sphere, with financial institutions being based on unbridled greed. The results for society have been catastrophic. A Banking Union would perpetuate this state of affairs rather than laying the basis for a progressive and humane alternative. As such it should be vigorously opposed.<br><br><em>Kevin McCorry</em></span></p><p class="article"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Check out more news and analysis in the latest Peoples' News:</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><a href="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf" title="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf</a></p><p class="article"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><i>First published on Indymedia.ie </i></span><span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">http://www.indymedia.ie/article/104369</span></p><p class="article"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-d4zVkJ-Ztkd0-2O_Eubs99BIEmjjUCrnpTHWh2sqVBiXfOrO9hJ7HtNjcXdd_CytqOTmXncb72jwe_LYpsxlvFBbXY5nJgvcFKVxnWWajS34t8ymOZzdRm3OGJaH89AL_jE8auUz27lW/s640/blogger-image-2050974379.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-d4zVkJ-Ztkd0-2O_Eubs99BIEmjjUCrnpTHWh2sqVBiXfOrO9hJ7HtNjcXdd_CytqOTmXncb72jwe_LYpsxlvFBbXY5nJgvcFKVxnWWajS34t8ymOZzdRm3OGJaH89AL_jE8auUz27lW/s640/blogger-image-2050974379.jpg"></a></i></div><p></p><p class="article"><span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">Graphic from http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/may2010/irish_pyramid_of_crony_capitalism.png</span></p><div><br></div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-74782798850691980942013-12-19T02:43:00.001+00:002013-12-19T02:43:23.376+00:00A Banking Union - out of the frying pan; into the fire<p class="article-subtitle" style="font-weight: bold; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 2px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The bulk of the Irish elite are sleep walking the country into an Eurozone banking union</span></p><blockquote class="article-intro"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>“Ireland holds the undesirable position of being the only country currently undergoing a banking crisis that features among the top-ten of costliest banking crises along all three dimensions [..fiscal cost, increase in debt and output loss..], making it the costliest banking crisis in advanced economies since at least the Great Depression. And the crisis in Ireland is still ongoing”</i><br>(Laeven and Valencia, 2012: 19-20)<br><br><i>“That in what pertains to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole”</i><br>Bunreacht na hÉireann, Article 45, Directive Principles of Social Policy</span></blockquote><p class="article"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The bulk of the Irish elite are sleep walking the country into an Eurozone banking union. A European Council meeting on 19th and 20th December is expected to take significant steps towards the creation of this union which has been correctly described as the most significant step in EU integration since the introduction of the Euro.<br><br>Such a union would mean that control of banks and banking would be shifted to the supranational level so that big banks in the big EU countries could more easily gobble up the small banks in the smaller, while simultaneously taking another step on the road to fiscal and political union. Having given up the power to issue money by joining the Eurozone, advocates of banking union would pass control of credit in Ireland to banks outside the country.<br><br>An Eurozone banking union would progressively deprive national states of the ability to make banking and credit creation serve national developmental goals. It would make it impossible to insist that Irish banks should subscribe to its State debt.<br><br>Irish people do not need to be educated about the fact that we live under a system in which the interests of peoples and states are subordinated to those of bankers by the bulk of national politicians. This is now manifest in an immense burden of debt which now rests on governments, private citizens and business firms in countries such as Ireland. This situation has not altered by the country’s exit from the Troika programme.<br><br>Low-income workers, for instance, are heavily concerned about pensions, savings, and insurance. The burden of debt - both mortgage and personal - has become a permanent fixture of modern life. Meanwhile, inequality has been exacerbated by bankers and financiers earning astronomical incomes while the costs of crisis continues as a burden on society. <br><br>The crisis has been a systemic upheaval rather than just the result of poor regulation, or of speculative excesses of finance. It was a crisis of financialised capitalism. Thus it will not be solved by the creation of a Banking Union. The traditional role of the capitalist financial system is to support development by mobilising loanable capital, which is then advanced to industrial enterprises. Contemporary finance mobilises idle money across society to earn a large part of its profits by concentrating on financial transactions or lending to individual workers. Under financialisation the circulation of money penetrates into every niche, even the most minor, of social and personal life. Banks have transformed themselves. They have rebalanced their lending toward individuals; they have also turned to fees and commissions from operating in open financial markets, rather than earning interest from outright lending. Thus, banks have added investment banking to their usual commercial banking activities. <br><br>Meanwhile, public provision in pensions, housing, education, health, and so on, has retreated, forcing people to seek private provision from banks and other financial institutions. Attitudes to debt and private financial gain have also changed, encouraging workers to borrow as well as get caught in housing bubbles. <br>Also large corporations in Ireland and more generally have been financing investment largely out of retained profits, while also being able to obtain external finance in open markets. They have become less dependent on banks; indeed, they possess independent capacity to engage in financial operations for their own profit. Small and medium sized businesses have not had this facility.<br><br>Rethinking the financial system is an urgent systemic and political task for what is left of Irish Democracy. Given the financialisation of our economies reorganising finance could have major ramifications for both economy and society. There could be immediate benefits for workers and others in terms of employment, housing, education, health and consumption. More broadly, finance could be restructured in ways that facilitate greater popular control, thus helping the struggle to transform the economy in a progressive direction.<br><br>It is glaringly obvious that democracy is absent from the financial sphere, with financial institutions being based on unbridled greed. The results for society have been catastrophic. A Banking Union would perpetuate this state of affairs rather than laying the basis for a progressive and humane alternative. As such it should be vigorously opposed.<br><br><em>Kevin McCorry</em></span></p><p class="article"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Check out more news and analysis in the latest Peoples' News:</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><a href="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf" title="http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">http://www.people.ie/news/PN-95.pdf</a></p><p class="article"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><i>First published on Indymedia.ie </i></span><span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">http://www.indymedia.ie/article/104369</span></p><p class="article"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-d4zVkJ-Ztkd0-2O_Eubs99BIEmjjUCrnpTHWh2sqVBiXfOrO9hJ7HtNjcXdd_CytqOTmXncb72jwe_LYpsxlvFBbXY5nJgvcFKVxnWWajS34t8ymOZzdRm3OGJaH89AL_jE8auUz27lW/s640/blogger-image-2050974379.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-d4zVkJ-Ztkd0-2O_Eubs99BIEmjjUCrnpTHWh2sqVBiXfOrO9hJ7HtNjcXdd_CytqOTmXncb72jwe_LYpsxlvFBbXY5nJgvcFKVxnWWajS34t8ymOZzdRm3OGJaH89AL_jE8auUz27lW/s640/blogger-image-2050974379.jpg"></a></i></div><p></p><p class="article"><span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">Graphic from http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/may2010/irish_pyramid_of_crony_capitalism.png</span></p><div><br></div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-15926312394437371802013-12-16T20:39:00.001+00:002013-12-16T20:39:58.127+00:00Austerity stripping away Europe’s human rights: Council of Europe
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“Austerity” measures imposed by international
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">creditors on member-states are eroding the
social and economic rights of people, says the
Council of Europe.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Cuts in public expenditure and selective tax
increases aimed at curbing public deficits have
not achieved their stated aims. Instead the
rights to decent work and adequate standards
of living have rolled back, contributing to
deepening poverty in Europe.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; ">The report notes that civil and political rights
have also been eroded as some governments
exclude people from having any say in austerity
proposals, provoking large-scale
demonstrations.</span></p>
<div class="page" title="Page 5">
<div class="section">
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The latest twist is a revised draft law on public
order in Spain that cracks down on civil
disobedience. The law, if adopted, would mean
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">that people could be fined up to €30,000 for
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">insulting a government official, burning a flag,
or protesting outside the parliament without a
permit. Covering faces or wearing hoods at
demonstrations would also be an offence.
Judges would be able to impose fines of up to
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">€600,000 for picketing at nuclear plants or
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">airports or if demonstrators interfere with
elections.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The EU Commission says it is unable to
comment on the draft law because it is a
national issue.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The Council of Europe in a report in October
also condemned the Spanish police for their
disproportionate use of force against anti-
austerity protests. Undercover police at
demonstrations are not held accountable for
their actions, it says.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The report says that most national deficits did
not result in unsustainable public expenditure
from before the crisis but from the public
rescue of financial markets. The rescue cost an
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">estimated €41⁄2 trillion between 2008 and 2011.
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The economic downturn and historical
unemployment rates means that the worst-
affected member-states lost out on vital tax
revenue. Those worst affected include children
and young people, the disabled, the elderly
with low pensions, and many women. </span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-20702064438318326372013-12-16T04:09:00.001+00:002013-12-16T04:09:45.638+00:00“MALE” and “FEMALE” drones—what next?
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The German government is promoting the
production of combat drones by European
arms industries. Seven EU countries, including
Germany, have decided to accelerate the
development and production of these highly
controversial weapons by companies in EU
member-states.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Production is scheduled to begin by 2020. The
recent decision to waive the purchase of
American and Israeli drones shows that
Germany aims at the EU consolidating its own
independent arms industry</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the prerequisite
also for an independent global military policy.
Germany is also increasing its arms exports to
countries outside the EU and NATO, as
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">documented by the government’s recent Arms
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Exports Report. This is designed to
counterbalance cuts in the European and North
American military budgets and to consolidate
its arms industry.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">At the recent meeting of the European Defence
Agency in Brussels seven EU member-countries
agreed to accelerate the production of combat
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">drones. The objective is to produce “medium</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">-
altitude long-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">endurance” (MALE) drones for
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">various purposes, including warding off
migrants in the Mediterranean Sea as well as
for military strikes. This project is to be
discussed further at the next EU defence
summit on 19 December.
</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Germany is one of the seven countries in this
group, which the French minister of defence,
Jean-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Yves Le Drian, calls a “club of drone</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">-using
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">countries.” The grou</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">p also includes not only
the Netherlands and Poland but also crisis-
ridden Spain, Italy, and Greece, whose
populations are suffering draconian austerity
measures.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The decision to embark on the independent
European production of drones shows that
more than Germany is planning the use of
combat drones. Major-General Jörg Vollmer,
commander of German troops in northern
Afghanistan, recently pressed for the use of
combat drones by the German army. An
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“unarmed drone” can be used for surveillance
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">but not for inte</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">rvention; an “armed drone,”
however, can be used for “immediate
reaction.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Beyond this decision, the competition for
contracts between various European
consortiums also reveals the power rivalries
within the EU. The French Dassault Group is
testing a steal</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">th combat drone, “Neuron,” in
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">whose development Spanish, Italian, Greek,
Swedish and Swiss companies are also
involved.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Dassault and British Aerospace are also
working jointly on the development of a stealth
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">drone, “Telemos,” to be ready for use by 2018,
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">a project that Germany is observing with
apprehension. In November 2010 France and
Britain launched a far-reaching military and
armaments co-operation, which would enable
them to conduct military operations without
German approval, thereby overcoming German
dominance within the EU, at least in the
military field. German government advisers are
already speaking of a new </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'">“Entente Cordiale.”
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">In the field of drone production Germany is
countering the British-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">French “Telemos”
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">project with, at the core, a German-French
project. Last summer EADS, builders of the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Airbus, presented the “future European
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">medium-altitude long-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">endurance” (FEMALE)
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">drone programme, with EADS, Dassault and the
</span></p>
</div>
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Italian firm Finmeccanica participating. The
government-sponsored BICAS project, based in
the premises of EADS at Ottobrunn, near
Munich, is said to play a significant role in the
development of the EADS combat drone.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">An report issued in October by the EU high
representative for foreign and defence policy,
Catherine Ashton, reiterated the appeal to
member-states to develop drones with co-
operative projects. And EU leaders will call for
more co-ordination on drones when they meet
in Brussels this month, according to a draft of
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the summit’s conclusions seen by the business
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">site Bloomberg. The meeting, on 19 and 20
December, will endorse the call by Ashton for
the building of a community of states that use
remotely piloted aircraft, as established last
month by France, Germany, Spain, Italy,
Greece, the Netherlands, and Poland. The EU
will e</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">ncourage “close synergies” between
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">states and the EU Commission on regulating
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">these aircraft, along with “appropriate funding
from 2014,” the draft says. </span></p>
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</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-35844863104275626242013-12-14T22:00:00.001+00:002013-12-14T22:00:31.248+00:00What a load of baloney! The claim of a successful Irish programme is
complete rubbish.
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">After the burst of the property market bubble,
following the post-2008 credit crunch, the EU
Central Bank demanded that the government
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">shift the losses of five Irish banks, worth €60
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">billion, onto the shoulders of the taxpayers</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">citizens who had neither a legal nor a moral
duty to bear the burden of that load.
</span></p><p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Why? To shield the German banking system
from the repercussions of taking large losses
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">and to prevent “contagion,” which had the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">potential to derail the political project dearest
to the hearts of all Europhiles: the euro.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">We took our wrath out on that government
and elected another one that nonetheless saw
as its priority the full implementation of the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">savage “austerity” policy that came attached to
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the huge loans the government accepted in
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">order to repay the banks’ losses. The result was
a catastrophic downward spiral for Ireland’s
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">economy and the well-being of its people.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Now the media are full of the “good news” that
this “fiscal consolidation” scheme has
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">succeeded: that Ireland has returned to the
markets; that we now have the first tangible
proof that the bail-out worked; that Ireland is
about to regain its sovereignty, and Irish
people can once more look the Germans, the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; ">French and the Dutch proudly in the eye,
restored to the land of the free and the
creditworthy.</span></p></div><div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">So the EU elite have decided to declare victory,
with Ireland as exhibit A, to declare that the
combination of bail-out loans and severe
austerity works. And if that requires being
economical with the truth, so be it.
</span></p><p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">For those who don’t wish to be economical
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">with the truth, and those who are bearing the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">burden, let’s look at some numbers:
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">• </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Number of people employed: Down by 13 per
cent since January 2008.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">• </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Number of people unemployed: Up from
107,000 in January 2008 to 296,300 today.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">• </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Annualised domestic growth rate: </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">–</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">1.2 per
cent.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">• </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Net emigration: The number of people
leaving the country is higher than the number
coming in by 35,000. Gross emigration was
more than 80,000 last year alone. In six years
it went from the highest net immigration level
in Europe to the highest emigration,
overtaking the Baltic states and Kosovo.
Meanwhile a group of students and other
young people in Dublin has launched a
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">campaign called “We’re not leaving” after the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Government sent out letters encouraging
young people to seek jobs abroad.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">• </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Government deficit as a proportion of GDP:
7.3 per cent.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">• </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Public debt: 121 per cent of GDP in 2013, up
from 91 per cent in 2010 and 105 per cent in
2011.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); ">• </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; ">Household debt: 200 per cent of GDP. There
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; ">are people living on €50 per week or less after
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; ">paying their bills. We have had eight austerity
budgets since 2008; in the community sector
there have been cuts of 35 to 40 per cent.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">• </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Value of assets underpinning household debt:
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">–</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">56 per cent since the crisis began.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">•</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Mortgages in arrears for more than six
months: 17 per cent of all mortgages.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">How can anyone claim that this constitutes a
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“success story” and a cause for celebrating the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">end of the debt-deflationary spiral?
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">There are two arguments on which EU
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">triumphalism is built: firstly, Ireland’s
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">spectacular export performance (annual
exports exceeding GDP), and secondly, the
collapse of its ten-year government bond yields
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">to levels that make it possible for the country’s
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">return to the money markets, rather than a
return to the ESM for more bail-out loans.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">When we turn to exports we find that Ireland is
the largest floating tax haven on the planet.
Companies like Google and Apple famously
launder their income through the International
Financial Services Centre in Dublin in a manner
that massively reduces their tax payments
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">while at the same time bolstering Ireland’s GDP
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">to ridiculously fictitious levels. (Anyone who
disputes this must offer an alternative
explanation of the fact that each of I</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">reland’s
Google employees produces €4.8 million
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">annually!)
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">All this means that the wonderful export
statistics translate neither into corporate taxes
nor into a significant number of jobs from
which the government could claim income tax
and indirect taxes so as to service its debts.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Turning to the government bond yields, an
interesting question arises: Why are they so
low when the data above reveals that Ireland,
in view of the sluggish domestic economy,
remains quite incapable of refinancing its
gargantuan public debt? Why are bond dealers
no longer dumping Irish government bonds?
</span></p>
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<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">The answer is simple: because they have
concluded that the ECB and Germany will never
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">let Ireland default, given the EU’s desperate
need to proclaim the country as “proof” that
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">their policies are working. Bond dealers, put
simply, trust that the European Central Bank,
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">either by means of Mario Draghi’s “outright
monetary transactions” (a scheme under which
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the ECB makes purchases in secondary,
sovereign bond markets, under certain
conditions, of bonds issued by euro-zone
states) or otherwise, will find ways of allowing
Ireland to redeem its bonds, even if the Irish
people and their government remain firmly
lodged in debt prison.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Ten-year government bond yields were at
approximately 5 per cent in Ireland until early
2010, before the 2010 bail-out. They then
spiked about the beginning of 2011, because of
the bail-out and the uncertainty surrounding
that action. But they quickly came down as
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">investors realised that the country wasn’t goi</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">ng
to go bust, thanks to its access to the said bail-
out funds.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">By 2012 the interest rates were close to 6 per
cent. And with the announcement of the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“outright monetary transactions” that year
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">they crawled down to below 4 per cent at the
beginning of 2013.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Now investors are convinced that (</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'">a</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">) the Troika
and ECB would back the country so long as it
adheres to the rules and (</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri,Italic'">b</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">) Ireland would
indeed adhere to those rules. If we assume
that these two hypotheses are true</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">which
they probably are</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">investors are looking at a 4
per cent yield for almost no risk in an
environment where yield generally is
completely dead.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">This has nothing to do with “recovery,” as the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">government is falsely proclaiming</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">quite the
opposite, in fact. The recent growth figures, for
what they are worth, are totally skewed by
foreign profits being laundered through the
country. (Have a look at the </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">“</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'; color: rgb(100.000000%, 0.000000%, 0.000000%)">Fixing the
Economists</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">” </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">blog: </span><span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueUI'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">http://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/ )</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; ">The claim of a successful Irish programme is
complete rubbish. The government has got its
interest rate down through a mix of Troika-ECB
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; ">backing and confidence in the government’s
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; ">ability to follow the rules; but all the underlying
economic problems are still there, and will not
go away. The Irish debt-to-GDP ratio will
continue to rise in the foreseeable future.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Since the 1980s Ireland has tried to run its
economic policy essentially by appealing to the
rest of the world</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">—that is, by “sucking up.”
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">Whatever everyone else is saying, the Irish
government will do with gusto. Mix this with a
little bit of clever behind-the-scenes diplomacy
and you have Irish economic policy.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">After the crisis the Fine Gael and Labour Party
government essentially followed the formula
that is supposed to have worked so well in the
1990s and 2000s. So when the Troika said, Get
your bond yields down through compliance </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">...
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">the government did exactly that.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">There is a widespread belief that this will
automatically lead to economic growth. This
belief is entirely irrational, but that matters
little. The politicians have convinced us that, as
long as they achieve this target, all else will be
well.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">There is a profound sense of injustice but also a
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">feeling that we can’t do anything abo</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">ut it: that
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">we’re a small country on the periphery of the
</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">EU, powerless against the EU Commission, the
ECB, and the IMF. And as long as we avoid the
fundamental questions of membership of the
euro and our continuing relationship with the
EU, it will remain so.
</span></p>
</div>
<div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Calibri'">A national debate on these issues would be a
first but necessary step to empowering the
Irish people once again. </span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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</div>People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-52012020077904998942013-09-18T09:01:00.000+01:002013-09-18T09:01:00.384+01:00And NATO chips in!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh
Rasmussen, has called on EU countries to step
up co-operation on defence, arguing in favour
of moves towards a borderless EU defence
market and intensified integration on military
matters. He joined EU defence ministers,
including Alan Shatter, for an informal meeting
in Lithuania two weeks ago, where defence co-
operation featured high on the agenda.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">“I intend to bring the issue of co</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">-operation
between NATO and the European Union on
defence matters and the need for Europe to
intensify its efforts in capability development
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and invest more in security,” Rasmussen said at
the alliance’s monthly press briefing in
Brussels. “It is important for Europe and it is
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">important for the transatlantic alliance,
because a strong Europe is also a strong
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Alliance.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt;">In Lithuania the EU ministers discussed a policy
paper tabled by the European Commission in
July that called for a relaunching of industrial
co-operation on defence, including co-
operation on drones, where Europe lags behind
the United States and Israel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">EU heads of state and heads of government
will revisit the matter at their December
summit in Brussels. But the Commission
believes that deep cuts in national defence
budgets following the financial and economic
crisis make a case for pooling resources. From
2001 to 2010 EU defence spending declined
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">from €251 billion to €194 billion, while defence
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">budgets increased significantly in emerging
markets, according to the Commission.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">“In times of scarce </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">resources, co-operation is
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">the key,” said the president of the Commission,
José Manuel Barroso, “and we need to match
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">ambitions and resources to avoid duplication of
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">programmes.”
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Rasmussen echoed this sentiment, saying at his
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">monthly address that, “for all of us, the key is
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">co-operation: to work together to make us all
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">strong, not to duplicate each other’s efforts
and thereby make us weak.”
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Rasmussen sketched a vision in which the EU
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">had “effective and modern defe</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">nce industries,
where competition drives innovation, where
national borders are no barrier to international
co-operation, and where effective equipment is
developed in a cost-</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">effective way.” And he
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">went further, saying that closer co-operation
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">on defence “is a vital part of Europe’s ability to
ensure its future security.”
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">On 19 November EU defence ministers will
meet, and on 19 and 20 December the EU
summit will discuss, and possibly endorse, the
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Commission’s communication. </span><br />
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People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4557235520246853390.post-14440043245170468442013-09-17T08:59:00.000+01:002013-09-17T08:59:00.875+01:00Fine Gael and EPP beat the drums<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Europe should create a civilian and military
crisis operations HQ under EU command,
according to a report by centre-right members
of the EU Parliament.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The proposal, contained in a policy paper by
deputies of the European Peopl</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">e’s Party, of
which Fine Gael is a member, says that “heads
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">of state and government have to start building
stand-</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">by forces under Union command.” It calls
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">for EU leaders to commit themselves to
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">defining the union’s security interests, giving
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">priority to its strategic objectives and linking
these with operational deployments. This
should include a definition of European
defence interests and its geographical priority
zones.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Launching the paper, Michael Gahler, Arnaud
Danjean and Krzysztof Lisek stated that
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">“deepening the EU’s security and defence co</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">-
operation will help slash procurement costs
and allow the EU to react faster to
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">international crises.”
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Leaders will debate the idea of EU-level
military integration at a summit in December.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Enda Kenny is a vice-
president of the European
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">People’s Party, and Fine Gael
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">has been selected to host
the congress to launch the
election campaign of the
EPP. The congress will take
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">place in Dublin on 6 and 7 March 2014 at the
Dublin Convention Centre. Two thousand
delegates are expected from member-parties
throughout the EU.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The EPP is the largest political grouping at the
EU level, with thirteen heads of government,
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">thirteen members of the EU Commission, the
largest group in the EU Parliament, and
seventy-three member-parties in forty
countries.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Meanwhile a report by the European
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Commission in July warned that the bloc’s
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">military strength was diluted by overlapping
capacities and defence procurement at the
national level. In a nod to this, the EPP
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">described it as an “unacceptabl</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">e situation to
have 10 different versions of one European
attack helicopter or to have six different
versions of one European military transport
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">aircraft.”
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The Commission’s “ideas paper,” also designed
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">to feed into the summit talks, called on
member-states to review national defence
capabilities and to identify the hardware
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">needed for the protection of EU countries’
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">interests.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Between them, EU governments spent €194
billion on defence in 2011 (down from €251
billion in 2001). Defence R&D spending was €9
</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">billion. </span><br />
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People's Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11047151534126201311noreply@blogger.com0