“Everyone is really a hostage to the bond markets!’ This dramatic statement was made yesterday on Morning Ireland by Tony Connolly, the Europe Correspondent of Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE.
‘At last,’ I thought, ‘a correspondent in the establishment media is speaking truth to power. Now let’s have the questions begged by this forthright statement.’ And the questions.
‘Isn’t mass hostage taking a grievous crime against humanity? Isn’t it official policy that you don’t pay the ransom demanded? That if you do pay, it encourages the criminals to go again, thus endangering ever greater numbers of innocent people who will become the victims of this criminality?’
Sadly, these questions didn’t follow, either on RTE or in any other section of the establishment media. Instead the questions were, ‘What can be done now to satisfy the hostage takers? How many billions must taxpayers deliver in crates to secure their release from the grip of their captors?’ For yes, they, the taxpayers, are the hostages?
The European Union’s political establishment endlessly boasts about ‘European values.’ – democracy, humanitarianism and care for the poor and vulnerable. What is the reality?
All weekend the bastions of European ‘democracy’ have been in full flight before the hostage takers. The EU Commission, the European Central Bank and elected governments of the Member States have been in panic mode to ‘calm the markets’, to ‘ satisfy the markets’, to ‘reassure the markets’, in other words, to abjectly surrender to the demands of the hostage takers.
Six months ago the hostages were the Greek people. Their government, in collusion with the EU establishment, paid the ransom demanded. No wonder the hostage takers moved confidently to their next victims – the Irish people. And all weekend the institutions of the European Union have been threatening and bullying the Irish government to give in to meet their demands, so they are guaranteed the booty they crave.
The argument for further capitulation is ‘to prevent the contagion spreading’ to Spain and Portugal. In other words sacrifice the Irish people in the hope that the Spanish and the Portuguese people might be spared. What blindness.
The blood appetites of these ravenous vampire squids – as Rolling Stone magazine dubbed one of the biggest players, Goldman Sachs – grow with drinking. Once they are guaranteed control of the lifeblood of the Irish workers and poor, their tentacles will move inexorably to wrap themselves around the workers and poor of the Iberian Peninsula.
Just how bloodthirsty the market speculators are was bluntly illustrated by Holger Schmieding, Chief Economist of the Berenberg Bank in Germany when he denounced in the newspaper Frankfurter Allegemeine the extent of the ransom being demanded by them for loans to Ireland. He said there was no justification for an interest rate of 9% on Irish sovereign bonds. ‘Ireland has better chances than Greece of pulling out of the swamp, a good 4% would be more like it.’
What this means is that the vampires in the markets – international banks, hedge funds and other assorted speculators – are able to suck billions of Euro from the Irish people in interest simply because they are allowed to do so. For interest on the Irish loans read super profits for the marketeers.
Commentators trace the current blackmailing activities of the market operators to comments by German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she tentatively suggested that the speculators should take some of the hit for the crisis as opposed to taxpayers taking it all.
The response of the speculators demonstrate who is really in power in Europe. They ruthlessly ratcheted up the pressure on the current weakest link, Ireland. The plan is to create total panic, hint that Spain and Portugal are next and secure a guarantee from the EU that their gambling bets will be guaranteed not to lose, and their profits assured.
The German Chancellor shook her fist in the direction of the market bullies but now they are squaring up to her, Frau Merkel is running away. And joining her in the race are the EU Commission, the ECB and the entire EU political establishment.
These advocates of European values are prepared to feed the workers and poor of Europe to the ravenous bloodsuckers in the markets who are faceless, unelected and unaccountable. First the Greeks and for the last two years the living standards and public services of the workers and poor of Ireland have been sacrificed to a chorus of approval from the European establishment. Yet the Irish government dares talk about the need to protect ‘our sovereignty’.
Working people are the greatest power in Europe. Once they realise that, they can brush away the financial parasites who prey on them and reorganise society in an entirely new way. It’s high time that campaign began.
