THE BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST
YOUR €25,000 GIFT
So, you go into your local bank one Monday morning, finish discussions with the manager on your mounting financial problems, are just about to leave when he announces – ‘Oh yes, I’ve transferred €25,000 of debt from another man’s account over to you, €25,000 of that debt for your partner also, and as a bonus, a further €25,000 for each of your children; you have two kids, so that will be €100,000 in all – I’ll give you five years. And by the way, because it now puts you in the high-risk category, you'll have to be charged additional interest on all of that debt. Hope you don’t mind.’
Mad scenario, right? If you're Irish, that - in essence - is exactly what was done to you by your own government on November 29th last year; you woke up to a debt you didn’t have when you went to bed on the night of the 28th. €100bn is a conservative estimate of the bank/bondholder bailout; about 4m people in this proud Republic (I'm still proud anyway), that’s about €25,000 each.
You're okay with that? You're willing to assume a debt that was never yours, assume that debt also for each of your children? You're willing to see that money paid to billionaire bondholders whose bonds would all otherwise have been treated as such failed bonds have always been treated in the cut-throat world of the money-markets? You're happy to have the new dictators of Europe, the ECB, decree that you - regardless of how carefully you conducted your affairs through the last decade - should now have to pay €25,000, at the ECB’s penal interest rate, to these bondholders?
If you're not, if you've had enough of being told how this is YOUR fault, if you've had enough of being cut, cut, then cut again, if you believe in people-power - the ultimate form of democracy - then march with us.
In Ballyhea this Sunday, April 24th 2011 at 10am, and every Sunday thereafter until we get that deal reversed, we walk. Join us, join us, join us.
