WHAT HAPPENS TO THE REMAINING IBRC BONDS?

Listening to the recording of Dr Terry McDonough of NUIG, speaking in Galway on Feb 12th, it's obvious that the proclaimed €20bn bond 'savings' over the next ten years is a fallacy - we don't now have to issue those bonds only because we've already issued them!

Equally obvious, the equally proclaimed near-€1bn annual interest 'savings' is also false; in the first instance the actual interest we're paying to the ECB remains the same, at just under 1%; since we were paying the bulk of the interest in the original Promissory Notes to ourselves, albeit in a roundabout fashion, and since we are now also paying the interest on the new bonds to ourselves (for the moment anyway, as long as the Irish Central Bank holds those bonds), everything else is just an accounting exercise, a book savings. 

In fact, however, and this was brought up by Terry McDonough during his discourse, this deal is going to cost us over the next couple of years. In 2013 there are the outstanding bonds to be paid to the IBRC bondholders, in 2014 there will be the wind-up costs, the legal fees and redundancies etc.

Below I have produced a table of the remaining IBRC bonds. My question, one I'd like to see some TD take up by way of Parliamentary Question to Michael Noonan (and no, I don't know the answer) - how many of those bonds will be paid, how much on each bond, and when? Scroll down to the bottom, see the total - over €4bn still outstanding.

THE DIRTY DOZEN w/e Feb 17th 2013

As Michael Noonan crowed over the debt with which he had saddled future generations of his own people, he tossed out a couple of his little anecdotes. 

The first concerned his own personal home mortgage, how little the cost seemed in the final month of the 25-yr loan; the second was a suggestion for Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty, how quickly he felt Pearse would snap up an offer to accept a loan of €1000 today from Michael but repay only the same €1000 in 40 years.

Two answers to those little anecdotes Michael.

In the first instance, at least at the end of the 25 years you have a house, and had it for the full duration of the mortgage; thanks to you and your betrayal last week of the Irish people, we're now committed to paying a mortgage on a house we never owned, and will never own.

In the second instance, at least Pearse would have got that €1000, which he was then free to invest for his own benefit; again thanks to you and your betrayal last week of the Irish people, we have now been saddled with an additional sovereign debt of €31bn (I include the 2011 payment) on a loan we never took out, not a cent of which was ever for our benefit.

Additionally Michael, and a critical detail you neglected to mention in that little anecdote, there is the little matter of the interest on that notional €1000 loan to Pearse. Then again you're not fond of detail, are you Michael, going by your advice in the Dáil 'debate' that we should just ignore the details of the unfortunately not-so-notional deal you had just concluded.

I have two little analogies of my own for you Michael.

1) We were stitched up for a crime we didn't commit, found guilty, sentenced to 20 years hard labour. The very expensive lawyers we've hired from the firm of Kenny, Noonan, Gilmore & Rabbitte didn't bother to appeal the verdict but instead got us a reduction on the hard labour for the first few years, but this relief is coupled with an extension of the sentence to 40 years, with the bonus that our kids and grandkids (depending on our age) will now have to share the cells with us. You, and your media cheerleaders, expect us to be happy with that?

2) We're a family of four, our local bank manager calls us, informs us that someone with whom we do business has reneged on a loan of €60,800 (our 'per capita' bank bailout cost is €15,200). He has opened a loan account in our name, set the terms, conditions and payment schedule, the money to be deducted automatically from our account every month. We hire those same expensive lawyers from that same firm, they don't bother to appeal the odious debt but sign us up to an interest-only 40-yr mortgage, the final sum to be paid by our kids and grandkids. Again, you and your media cheerleaders expect us to be happy with that?

How anyone can see this as a good deal for the Irish people is beyond me. Permanently saddled with a €69.7bn bank bailout debt is accepted as being 'the best we can do'; not sharing the bank debt burden with those who caused this crisis but accepting that we can burden-share that same debt with our kids and grandkids; a negotiating tactic of conceding the main issue even without argument (not looking for debt writedown); that anyone can accept any of this is beyond me.

This is debt slavery for generations of Irish people, payment for 40 years on loans we never took out. Again and again I repeat, this was private bank debt, financial for-profit agreements between consenting adults in private financial institutions. For the years when those bond agreements were generating profits, those lender financial institutions were more than happy to take those profits; they should also have takes their losses. Forcing those losses on the Irish people is wrong, period, and any subsequent debt associated with that act is odious.

In Ballyhea and Charleville the fight against that crime continues but we're no longer alone, with groups now starting in various centres across the country. On March 3rd we will be entering our third year of weekly protest. If you even the merest sense of what's right and wrong, you will resist this latest betrayal of your own interests, you will join us.

The bank bonds? No, they haven't gone away.

THE DIRTY DOZEN w/e Feb 10th 2013

Much has been made of Michael Taft's illuminating recent article in thejournal.ie on Ireland's 'contribution' to Europe's bank bailout, general outrage at the fact that according to Eurostat, the EU's own statmasters, little old Ireland, with just 0.9% of the entire EU population, has so far contributed 42% of the total cost of the European banking crisis. That's an average per capita payment of of €8981 which is over 18 times what Germany - who come second on that inglorious list - has paid per capita.

How much greater would be the outrage, however, if Eurostat had published the true numbers? As Micheal points out in that same article, the EU statmasters do NOT include the €21bn taken from our National Pension Reserve Fund and given to the banks. Add that to the Eurostat figures, redraw those bar graphs, what then? Where would we be, how much more outraged?

According to my calculations, and based on a blog by the excellenent Namawinelake, when everything is included the actual total bank bailout cost so far is €69.7bn which, based on the 2011 census, means a per capita figure of over €15,200.

It's obscene, that's what it is. How can any government stand over this imposition of debt on its own people, private debt that was never ours? And it's still going on.

In the last few days I've again read reports that the bank bonds are a dead issue, that they are now all paid. Usually in this blog I give only the next dozen bonds but this week, at the bottom of this page, I also include the entire list to the end of 2015. Scroll down through them, total them, then tell me the bank bonds are history, all done with.

Oh, they're mostly 'guaranteed'? Two things to remember: 1) Guaranteed or not this is all money leaving the Irish banking system over the next three years, the lifeblood being drained from an already weakened economy; 2) How many of those guaranteed bonds are the result of unguaranteed bonds being rolled over, merely taking advantage of the new system?

THE DIRTY DOZEN w/e Feb 3rd 2013

Our government's starting position in their negotiations with Europe on both the €31bn Promissory Notes and the €41bn legacy bank debt (the money 'owed' to the two ECB emergency funds) is that they are not looking for a cent of debt writedown, just an extension of terms and conditions.

In other words this government isn't looking for even a single euro of burden-sharing with the banks or their bondholders, who continue to be paid in full (see the table below, €1.8bn bond coming up on Monday next for AIB, our money), but instead their stated policy is to look for burden-sharing with future generations.

And even at that they are given the cold shoulder, the word being that the ECB can't possibly be seen to breaking its own rules and bailing out sovereign governments. A bit rich, considering a) how many of its own rules it has bent/broken so far in the course of a crisis they are themselves perpetuating through their narrow, selfish policies, but b) and even more rich, considering that they strong-armed our previous equally weak government into issuing those Promissory Notes in the first place, to bail out the rotten, failed, zombie Anglo Irish Bank, and to a lesser extent the equally zombie Irish Nationwide and EBS.

It's late, I've had a long day, an even longer week (see here). If you're not fighting this enslavement of the Irish people, you're facilitating it.

THE DIRTY DOZEN w/e Jan 20th 2013

Today is the day my friends, Monday January 14th, two individual bonds maturing at Irish Life & Permanent, each for $1.75bn; that's a total of $3.5bn from one bank in one day, not a whole lot less than the entire 'adjustment' for Budget 2013, from a bank we own. Michael Noonan has stated in the Dáil (last July) that it's just one $1.75bn bond but my information says otherwise and unless there is written proof otherwise - Parliamentary Question, anyone?

Some will say we have a legal obligation to pay those bonds, that they are now government guaranteed. What's legal isn't always legitimate, is it? Slavery was legal, as was apartheid; the Penal Laws were legal and through the ownership clause, whereby Catholics were prevented from owning any kind of property - including especially the land on which they worked - above a certain minimum value, it led almost directly to the Great Hunger of the 1840s. In more recent times we had the denial of the vote to women, legal, the denial of civil rights to certain groups because of their race/religion - legal. But legitimate?

For as long as mankind has been making law (and it's nearly always been men), we've been making bad law. Good people have a duty to reject that bad law, to fight that bad law.

This bank debt is odious, this bank debt is illegitimate. Through various means - distortion of facts, extortion through bullying - the people of this country have already been robbed of over €70bn (when interest lost and paid is included). We have been saddled with a debt that isn't ours, was never ours, and either morally or justly, will never be ours.

At 1pm today, Monday, some of us will be in Cork, outside the bank offices in Patrick Street, to protest these payments.

Sunday January 27th is week 100 of the BallyheaSaysNo protest, when we will be marching in both Ballyhea and Charleville in protest yet again at the imposition of this odious debt. Join us.

THE DIRTY DOZEN w/e Jan 13th 2013

Nearly missed a week - apologies, snowed under on the home front for a while but back live today.

No change from last week but the big two draw ever closer. A few of us will be in Patrick Street in Cork at 1pm this coming Monday, Jan 14th, to mark the payment of two massive bonds, each for $1.75bn - I don't think this would be a particularly good week to head into Irish Life & Permanent for the loan of a few bob...

On the protest front, we're heading for a milestone none of us ever wanted, none of us ever foresaw either when we started our weekly protest march in Ballyhea back on March 6th, 2011. Week 100 is on Jan 27th and we're hopeful it will be our biggest turnout yet. We're also hosting an open meeting on Jan 26th at the Charleville Park Hotel, starting at 8pm, for which we already have a number of eminent speakers lined up. We're also fairly certain that on the night we'll have a real surprise speaker - watch this space...

THE DIRTY DOZEN w/e Jan 6th 2013

The first post on this blog of 2013 and a truly wretched opening. Twin bonds from Irish Life & Permanent, one of the several banks/building societies bailed out in our names but never with our specific consent. Each bond is for $1.75bn, a total of $3.5bn, which translates at today's rates as €2.65bn.

They are both 'guaranteed' - so what? This is still €2.65bn being bled in just one day, next Monday week, from an Irish economy already on its knees. Look through the entire dozen, they add up to nearly €5bn; this new year, 2013, the total in bonds being paid out by the Irish banks is over €17bn, and this is not taking into account the coupons being paid every year on those bonds. Bear in mind also, paying those bonds is the absolute priority of the banks; every cent of every bond, big or small, guaranteed or unguaranteed. They daren't renege because if they do, well, the whole magnificent edifice will come crashing down, won't it, bringing this whole magnificent economy with it, then the euro, then the eurozone, then the entire EU project itself, then - oh dear God, no money in the ATM, no money to pay the Guards/Nurses/Teachers, though we'd have just enough left to pay the pensions/perks/salaries of our brilliant politicians, top civil servants, top bankers, all top people if course.

Back to the twin bombs - sorry, twin bonds. Look at the date of issue, Jan 14th 2010, three years ago; ask yourself - why exactly were those bonds issued? For what purpose? My own conclusion - to pay other existing unguaranteed bonds. What else is IL&P doing with that money, lending it out to small and medium enterprises? No, I don't think so either. €69.7bn to save our banks - save them for what?

We'll keep asking the questions, keep posting the details, and keep marching in protest. Week 97 this Sunday, in Ballyhea at 11.30am, but we're building towards week 100, Jan 27th - please, if you feel as we do about this debt enslavement of the people, join us. Meanwhile Happy New Year, again and again.