Point being that it takes campaigns to make a movement - much as the current Middle-Eastern situation may evolve. I want for our side to build a recruitment system, which includes propaganda, of course.

We can discuss the philosophical points 'til the cows come home, but at some point we stick our analysis out there - which I do often enough here at home - and try to build a base.

As far as the haircut aspect, you are certainly correct in that the natives will be shaved, too. As Migeru implies, they can suffer either now with the punishments that will accrue to those who fight back; or they can suffer more over the long term as this bailout debacle robs them in smaller amounts, but constantly.

paul spencer

The Irish central bank and Ireland in general did not really regulate its own banks. Your theory that that was somehow the responsibility of other regulators to regulate Irish banks let's your neoliberal irish friends of thew hook.

I grant you that the Irish Central Bank failed to regulate its banks. Most likely regulatory capture. But there are two sides to every loan. When the Irish real estate bubble popped there were lots of foreign banks that were owed money. These banks also had an obligation to perform due diligence when making the loan. That they did is laughable. So they and their regulators also bear responsibility. But, especially in Germany, the attitude is that this is all the fault of a bunch of irresponsible banks in peripheral countries - the German version of evil foreigners.

I advocate a fair sharing of responsibility where each party takes a haircut. You advocate having only the evil foreigners take the haircut. Granted my position is unhelpful to German, British and other creditors and their agents in the guise of the ECB and BOE. Were all oxen to be gored perhaps there would be an incentive to construct a fairer and more balanced system that serves the purposes of more than just the elites in Germany.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

The Irish central bank and Ireland in general did not really regulate its own banks.

Nobody here is disputing that. Ireland was a massive case of control fraud. People should be going to prison for that. But the fact that several highly placed property developers, bankers and Fianna Fail machine politicians should be dining on prison fare for a few years does not mean that the general public has to be flagellated in order to honour obviously bogus debts.

You could make the argument that those who voted for Fianna Fail bear some measure of responsibility, since Ireland is, after all, a democracy. While I agree that on some moral level they do, as a practical matter the buck has to stop somewhere. You cannot flagellate the entire Irish economy in penance over their corrupt politicians, for the same reason that you couldn't hang every German who voted for the Nazi party, or worked in the German armaments industry during the war.

Personal responsibility is all well and good, but you have to draw a line somewhere, or your quest for personal responsibility will turn into collective punishment.

The exposure to genuine Irish banks, who ruined themselves in real estate, was always low and is after two years almost nonexistent.

Well, that would simplify matters greatly. Then the Irish government just needs to shaft some domestic Irish bondholders. Which is always less complicated than shafting foreign bondholders.

There's just the teensy-tiny problem that it isn't true.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

Merkel, already the largest contributor to the EU's rescue fund, must walk "a very thin line" as she tries to balance her pledge to do whatever is needed to save the euro with voter hostility to the bailouts, said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Groep NV in Brussels. She also risks harming her country's banks by her insistence that bondholders take losses on future bailouts. German lenders hold more than 112 billion euros of debt issued by the governments of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.