12.02.2010

Austerity Comes to Ireland

The road to ruin that Ireland took is well laid out in an excellent article: ‘Disaster Capitalism’ Comes to Ireland by Robert E. Prasch. It's the same road Greece took and Iceland and Italy and...all of 'em, if they call themselves capitalists, they took the free lunch bait and are now in trouble. The Irish 'bailout' will be paid back at 5.8% interest, higher than a mortgage at the corner bank. Guess Ireland is a good bet to either go bankrupt or go rogue.

The bankers get bonuses, the rest of us get austerity programs. Austerity means less spending on education [the rich have private schools anyway], health care, social services, etc. everything the many need especially in tough times. What austerity doesn't mean is higher taxes on the rich, the banks or the corporations.

The corporate control of our world is so vast that people who call themselves anything politically—liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, independents or anarchist—should be banding together against the reckless industrial steamroller. Austerity is a tool. If wielded from afar it's a tool of oppression. If self imposed it's a tool of independence.

People are marching by the millions all across Europe to protest the austerity measures being imposed on them as a means of paying off the debts incurred by their governments when bailing out their banker buddies. Going rogue is a way out.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” – Mark Twain