The Concept of Odious Debt

[onq]

The previous FF-Green government took on an enormous banking debt without consulting the people.

In so doing they behaved like a dictatorship.

The people showed their lack of support in the last election.

This is how superpowers deal with debts incurred by dictator-like regimes which does not benefit the people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKpxPo-lInk

Now Ireland has a lot of gray areas to deal with, such as the issue of negative equity and the fact that many of the debtors were householders who had over-borrowed.

But the central issue, a blind eye turned to borrowings which benefit only a few, seems to be relevant to the Irish situation and I commend it to this forum for comment and review.

ONQ.

 

[Paddyman]

Good post. We are left with a debt that we did not incur - that is clearly not a sovereign debt. Around the country people are starting to protest and call for a referendum ....like the Dump the Debt Group in Charleville, and the marvellous group in Ballylea, Co. Cork who hold a weekly protest in their village.

And on a recent visit to Kilkenny City I found members of the Repudiate the Debt Group busy leafleting at The Tholsel (Town hall). They gave me a link with more information: [broken link removed]

Perhaps its time for all of us to stand up and protest and not leave it all to the citizens of Greece and Portugal.

 

[onq]

Thanks for the links Paddyman.
HoweverI don't think we are like the Greeks or Portuguese at all.
We are now less hot-headed and less willing to discomfort our neighbours.
We will be less hot headed, but our anger when it comes will be more focussed.

We will require meaningful changes in our banking system that will be more effective than wandering around with placards.
Irish people are very well-educated and have begun to assess and understand the implications of the fractional reserve banking system.

Banks have addressed massive debt like this before and its up to us to ensure that we get fairly treated out of this for trying to do the right thing.
But while competitiveness should be pursue through pruning away expenses that are unnecessary, you cannot continually cut trim your way out of a recession.

We are still nowhere near having a lean and efficient civil service - it is still bloated and top heavy.
But we need to see come capital investment programmes to help stimulate jobs and we need to see these soon.
I would sooner see some international borrowings targeted into this kind of endeavour than merely filling up empty zombie bank reserves.

Thanks for the reply.

ONQ.