The Republic of Ireland is currently negotiating a financial "bailout" with the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
The loan package includes a total of £85,000 Million Euros.
The interest rate to be paid on this loan has not been disclosed.
At that rate the annual interest alone would come to 5,695 Million Euros a year.
The Republic of Ireland has only 1,859,500 workers in employment to pay that bill.
Each worker will have to pay 3,063 Euros a year just to pay the interest on the loan.
In addition they will have to pay back the loan it's self and repay any other debts the nation owes.
The magnitude of that debt will result in the Irish people being effectively reduced to serfdom for the forseeable future.
What "pleases" me is that the issue of Irish sovereignty is very much to the fore.
ReplyDeleteThe Irish fought off English dominion for the best part of 900 years or so.
And then only a few decades after gaining independence in a blink of eye jump into a supranational project that subsumes that hard won sovereignty.
Ireland with a small population, few resources, and at a geographical disadvantage was never destined naturally to be an economic power house. Any economic boom then was ill founded if not artificial......
Ireland's economy is closely linked to the UK's which is not only out of sync with Europe's other main economies it also sits outside the Euro. How then can Ireland share the same currency with one of the world's biggest economies (Germany) ?
And do you remember when Ireland tried to set in its own interest rate?
Are the EU and the Euro to big to fail?
Well I grew up in the 70s and 80s. If you had told me that the Soviet Union would be no more by 1991 I wouldn't have believe you. And the Soviet Union for all its structural problems had a better foundation than the EU.
Hello steve,
ReplyDeleteit is bizarre that Ireland could simultaneously pursue a policy of independence from the United Kingdom and integration into the European Union.
Your comparison with the Soviet Union is interesting.
The European Union is often called the E.U.S.S.R..
The 40 year expectation of nuclear war evaporated in a matter of days.
Will the 50 year plan for a united Europe disappear so quickly?
Do you still recall discussions of what to do if the 4 minute warning sounded?
You may have got a little longer than that.
GrandLogistics
The Soviet Union disappeared after 70 years.
ReplyDeleteCommentators talk of sleep walking into a EU super state. The EUs greatest strength and greatest weakness is that for the majority of "Europeans" it exists in a political realm beyond the ken. Brussels really is a Mount Olympus.
Today the Euro has shown no sign strengthening. Initially the markets were calm but have become unsettled. Portugal is already telling the world it is stable; a diversion. And we await the German constitutional courts ruling on more bailout loans; loans a surprisingly indebted Germany can ill afford.
Yes we did talk out about the 4 minute warning. I have a passing interest in bunkers; yes I know that is sad. Where we live their would have been no chance of escape. From our house I can see ROF (as was) Radway Green and then behind that Crewe Junction. The conurbation to my immediate east was destined for two 1 megaton weapons. Factor in one or two other sites of "special interest" the Soviets and we would have been well fried......
I'd not actualy done the numbers, scary stuff.
ReplyDeleteI've got my pasta bake sauces stockpiled.