Comments on: Pension Crisis – Schrodinger’s pension

By: wirplit

wirplit — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 20:23:20 +0000

Pat
You are right about the need to expose who are the bondholders and bring it to a wide audience. But it is top of the past posts on Gokem. I have tried Redditting it more than once. Do the Irish generally know it? The information especially that it was not pension funds as had been alleged but secretive banks who form the bulk of the bondholders is vital but I am afraid that the list in itself will mean little to most people. But in the longer run this kind of intelligence is going to matter. Little by little as people get educated the anger will grow. I am still a bit surprised how little rage Ireland has shown up to now. But this may be a slow burn….

By: princesschipchops

princesschipchops — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 21:09:30 +0000

Hey Tam – good point about them being fired immediately if they did say something. But I still think he has a very right wing neo-liberal agenda and he seems to be pushing it onto politicians too (and yes I know of course they will ask his opinion but that is not the impression I got when listening to Clegg etc – more of an impression of King telling them what they must do… or else).

By: Tam

Tam — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 10:32:59 +0000

On the subject of shrodinger's moggy, have a look at this nice little image

Also Princesschipchops (nice to see you here btw!) I think you're being unfair about King. He gave plenty of warnings this was coming over the years, (albeit in the slightly coded, deliberately understated way that central bankers have to use) that the NICE decade wasn't going last forever. The trouble was that no one wanted to hear it back when times were good. And no mainstream economist associated with a government is ever going to say outright there's a bust around the corner in the middle of a boom. They'd be fired immediately if they did for one thing!

By: JamieGriffiths

JamieGriffiths — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 01:00:03 +0000

You nail it the last paragraph, Pat. I don't think there's any editor in the mainstream press that wants to wade out into the deep water. They all know there are sharks out there.

I've been reading some interesting theories today about how Wikileaks could be part of a CIA PsyOps programme.

Probably all complete nonsense.

Probably.

By: Pat

Pat — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 18:41:59 +0000

You are right RichGB. I had read it but somehow under-appreciating Golam’s contribution on this. My apologies to Golem, Guido and their contributors.

But how do we get the mainstream media to do dig and publish their own lists of bailout bondholders? How do we get them to do what Golem and Guido Fawkes did? The highly paid mainstream boys should be all over this and compiling their own list of bank bondholders and publishing it every day until everybody in the world knows who Ireland and Europe is bailing out. This is an international issue of the highest importance.

I guess the point I was trying to make, with all due respect to Golem and Guido Fawkes and the contributors to this blog, is that together we have to achieve the kind of high profile for this list that Wikileaks has achieved for the diplomatic cable traffic. We need to give these secretive bondholders the same kind of conniptions Wikileaks is giving to the secretive international diplomatic corps.

If all this indicates a crisis of democracy it is because we no longer have a free press. It has been co-opted by business interests as thoroughly as in totalitarian regimes. We need to build an alternative “press” on the Internet as hopefully we are doing right here and on other similar blogs.

By: princesschipchops

princesschipchops — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:36:53 +0000

Good points Golem about saving the pension funds to a certain level per individual under a sort of guarantee scheme. Right now the argument of those defending this, frankly insane, turn of events is that bondholders are just you and me and anyone with a pension. Yet it was always known that 'the value of your investment can go down as well as up.' It seems crazy that the belief now is investments can never go bad as they will always be protected by the taxpayer.

As for it being a crisis of democracy - very true. I was really concnerned about the revelations about King yesterday. He seems to be dictating UK political and economic policy to some extent. Seems strange that after meetings with him both Clegg and Cameron hardened their stance significantly. And this guy didn't even see any of this coming and I would argue is putting forward all the wrong solutions.

By: RichGB

RichGB — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:08:47 +0000

Hi Pat

Golem has already exposed this - see here.

By: Pat

Pat — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 07:01:32 +0000

I wish somebody would wikileak the names of the so-called bondholders the Irish are bailing out.

By: Golem XIV - Thoughts

Golem XIV - Thoughts — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 22:54:50 +0000

Scotlyn,

Why ever should we mind? It's good to be told about.

By: Scotlyn

Scotlyn — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:26:29 +0000

liberaleye said:
"What the Irish people should demand right now is a referendum on whether they should accept for themselves and their children responsibility for honouring the banks' debts or whether the banks should bear their own losses."

That's funny. I launched a petition on this matter less than an hour ago - asking the President of Ireland to exercise her constitutional powers to unyoke the welfare of the people from the commercial interests of private banks. I hope you don't mind me mentioning it here.