The bottomless pit that is the national debt

Repudiate the Debt Campaign
Press statement
22 August 2012
 
The bottomless pit that is the national debt
 
The recently published report of the Central Bank of Ireland entitled
“Irish SME credit supply and demand: Comparisons across the surveys and
countries” exposes as never before what the bank bail-out is costing the
Irish economy, in particular small businesses.
 The whole of Irish society outside of the foreign monopolies is being
squeezed to death at the behest of the external EU-ECB-IMF troika. They
have given priority to the payment of what they term the “sovereign
Irish debt”—money owed to European banks, finance houses, and rich
individuals. 
 The internal troika of Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil have
willingly gone along with this strategy. Despite the Government’s
majority stake in many of these banks and having representatives on
their boards, they are unwilling to break ranks with the external
troika, despite the massive cost to working people and the choking of
small businesses.
 More public money is squandered, being pumped into failing banking
structures, adding more and more to the massive corporate socialised
debt. It is a revolving door, with money coming in and then straight
back out of the country, while the bill for the people in the form of
growing debt becomes bigger and bigger and the services to the people
become fewer and fewer. This can only be seen as a massive transfer of
wealth from working people and their families to finance capital.
Tragically, it is transferring our wealth to the same institutions whose
speculation sparked the crisis.
 ISME is not representing the best interests of small businesses. It is
facilitating European big business and finance capital by supporting the
policies of the Government and the European Union. What businesses that
rely on the Irish market need is an end to “austerity” so as to boost
consumption and credit, to be directed towards Irish business. This is
not the troika’s strategy.
 Only a radical departures from the present strategy can break our
people free of the growing shackles of debt bondage. The Irish political
establishment are clearly part of the problem and not part of the
solution.