canisgallicus

21st July, 2011

Yes we need to heed the point that the minimum wage applies to the masses but somewhere I read that it is the 1% that are responsible for 25% taxes paid on average to government coffers.

The tribunals in their day have resulted in funds in excess of a 1 billion euros being collected from people willing to shaft their fellow taxpayers and more importantly citizens and no doubt more funds will come from similar sources in the years to come.

However what can we do to shake up our citizens to formulating a vision that will create policies that will favour a more equitable society. We have the “Bail-Out” even though we are unsure as yet as to whether it costs the Irish taxpayer 85 billion / 100 billion euros or even double that. As yet it may be that we the Irish will have to default and if this is the only way forward then we will be writing off debt and becoming a bad debt to the balance sheets of those senior debtors who took the risk in the first place and provided loans to our Treasury.

This is not the first time we have hit serious economic and political crisis since the foundation of the State and more importantly it will not be the last. The circle dictates the psychology and psychology tells us about the peaks and the troughs within the human being and human beings comprise our society.

Cash is King at present. However, the hoarding of cash due to fear is causing the economy to stagnate. This week the news informed us of the ‘plight’ of a man admitted to Accident and Emergency and when examined – his body was wrapped with wads of euro cash totaling over 60,000 euros…this is fear in the raw sense that creates a paranoia and fear to trust. There are people out there afraid to deposit money in banks. Why because for nearly three years now the news is bad and the time is coming when the 2008 granted guarantee may be canceled and the banks are free to party again and who knows we could face another financial crisis? We need the banks to start marketing again. We need them to retrieve the capital flows that left the country over the past 3 years.

What do you do with the Cash? You can stuff it in the mattress, you can buy Gold or Silver, you can take a chance and buy some shares or for that matter you can go a stage further and buy Bitcoin. But there will always be some people who just keep hard cash in a hidden place. The problem with this is that we deflate the economy, we add to the crises in small to medium businesses because nobody buys anything, we facilitate unemployment to those who are mainly represented by the unions which in turn creates unrest via strikes in our public services.

We need a little insight: we need to encourage people to start re-investing in our own banks not (foreign banks), we need to get people spending cash in the economy in small ways i.e. like having coffee with a friends in a local cafe, having a pint with a friend in your local pub, buying Irish products where at all possible. Brown coinage – why not collect it and then make the point of re-circulating same in the cash pool – you can pass it on to charities in your local supermarket, or change it in the bank. Take taxis rather than park in expensive car-parks in town. Then there is the old Punt. It is said that there is a couple of hundred million still to be presented to Central Bank!! Who has it?

Income tax is one source of revenue but another is where the wealth generates tax and we need to balance in our minds eye who generates most and work from there before we engage in militancy.  Holidays people still are travelling the world over but why not support Ireland Inc.  Northern Ireland has so much to offer visitors from the Republic and vice versa.  Break down barriers in communication and explore what the Island of Ireland has to offer.

Michelle Clarke

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No. 8

11th, May 2011

Article:  Published InfowarsEU Commissioner Olli Rehn….

‘The EPP group, he said, welcomed proposals tabled by a taskforce headed by European council president Herman Van Rompuy which call for a strict sanctions system for those member states that don’t respect the criteria set out in the stability pact’The article by Mr. Banks is most interesting but for a small open economy like Ireland, who are now no longer part of the 27 countries, we need to ‘stand tall’ and seek corporate governance standards that indicate to Europe we will appoint our own Taskforce and impose our own sanctions on those (when their case files can be processed through the DPP) who will stand accountable for the abuse of power within our economic markets (this is where our housing bubble diverted from the Global economic crisis).

The EEC, former President Hillery and the foresight to enter Europe Union. This generation of people, who were already involved in the League of Nations had a vision. The question: have we lost the vision or will we take responsibility as Irish citizens to address the corruption that has left us in jeopardy with the EU and challenged by the need to draw down funds from the Stability Pact ahead of the other errant economies, the ‘PIGS’?

Sean Barrett, Trinity College, spoke on Prime Time last night, about whether it is necessary for our economy to spend further on capital expenditure re. infrastructure and linkages to the airport. My impression of what he said is that this capital expenditure is not an urgent consideration and we have the option to hold off. Now here is a saving and a decision to be made.

Deflation, stagnation, economic growth strangled: We need to be alert here and there is a good example of what happened to Japan in the 1980’s in the New York Times. I will quote:

“Osaka, Japan, like many members of Japan’s middle class, Massato Y….was a small business owner, bought a $500,000 condominium, vacationed in Hawaii and drove a late model mercedes’ (i.e. 1980’s……) but his living standards slowly crumbled along with Japan’s overall economy. First he reduced his trips abroad to the point of elimination, then the cheaper modes domestic car was his only option. Last year he had to sell his condo for a third of the price he bought it for….”therefore he still owes a mortgage which he took out 17 years ago. So he is a man with realised negative equity.   The same applied to many people caught by the 1980’s/1990’s recession in the UK….some took the option of putting their keys through the letter box and just walking away.

The article goes on to say that Japan was one of the few nations to see such a reversal of economic fortune – it rode high on the great speculative stock and property bubbles in the 1980’s. It was the first Asian economy to challenge the dominance of the left.

What happened is what is happening in Ireland? It is fear in the rawest form. People who have money/wealth/income are afraid to spend in the economy. They are saving their money or else those with wealth are targeting safer markets overseas either in deposits, commodities or currency choices. The guarantees that apply presently to the banks have been extended but the question is how long will these guarantees apply.

The decisions and impetus rest with the citizens of Ireland, young people and old and inclusive. We need to spend small amounts e.g. take a taxi instead of a bus on the odd occasion, buy Irish, support our charity shops — all of these keep cash circulating in our community.

The NTMA banks on influx of  euros 3 bn. to post office savings schemes this year. This reduces the amount that Ireland needs to borrow on financial markets. We need to realise that when the Guarantees no longer exist, people will see an outflow of funds, mainly to do with fear, justifiable or not, as funds move to safer options which can be post office savings/prize bonds/national loan stock or abraod (this is what we do not want to facilitate)

We do not want to follow the route of Japan: (we need tourists from Japan realistically)

Final quote from article in New York Times:

‘But the bubbles popped in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and Japan fell into a slow and relentless decline that neither enormous budget deficits nor a flood of easy money has reversed. For nearly a generation now, the nation has been trapped in low growth and a corrosive spiral of prices, known as DEFLATION, in the process of shriverling from an economic Godzilla to littler more than an afterthought in the global economy’

Michelle

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‘But it is Germany’s views on the €750bn EU/IMF bailout fund, and whether or not member states’ voting rights could be suspended in the event of repeated breaches of the rules, which has brought the Lisbon Treaty back in to the frame, to the horror of some governments’. There is something a little unbalanced here and in particular relating to Ireland.

Ireland, in good faith joined the Eurozone. Ireland likewise yielded her prior standing with the second vote (gentle persuasion) of the Lisbon Treaty vote. Yet a near unprecedented economic crisis determines significant change with the main players the Germans and the French mooting change to the fabric of the Lisbon Treaty.

Ireland is vulnerable, it is more exposed than other countries (relating to an exceptional housing bubble and bubbles). Yet, it is a time of crisis and the people of our Nation State need to become aware of what is happening at the so-called political/academic level. Grassroots media is now core to peoples’ lives and this means people can engage at a deeper level with the so-called Knowledge economy promoted particularly by the EU.

Tomorrow is the EU summit: Prime Minister David Cameron will be confronted with a potential change to the EU Treaties. He most likely will be asked for an increased contribution to the EU’s 2011 budget. The ensuing issue will be whether a referendum will be called for in the UK. This in effect would mean a repatriation of powers back to Britain. What does this mean for Ireland; and what is the impact to the Island of Ireland?

Some key points from openeurope.org.uk think tank ….

The budget: assume that Cameron is forced to accept a 2.9% increase in the budget, the impact of this in an already austerity compacted Britain would mean that UK taxholders would be forced to pay roughly £430 million extra for the EU budget. For the Island of Ireland, we need to consider the impact of this North of the border.

Economic Governance: Ireland is massively exposed here. We have little contribution to this debate because we are offenders.  The UK government has said it will support proposals for stronger economic governance. They favour sanctions for countries which violate the EU’s budget’s rules. However the UK will not be subject to sanctions. The Eurozone may gain from fiscal discipline but to achieve Single Currency effectiveness the problem of huge differences in competitiveness within the Eurozone needs urgent attention.

Ireland joined the Eurozone with conditions. We relinquished powers re. interest rates. Interest rates are a significant tool when trying to curb an overheating property market. The decision that was previously with the Central Bank (and which the UK still hold onto i.e. Stg) is now with the EU. It is not unreasonable to say that Ireland may have been able to curb the economic destruction regarding property if ordinary market forces of supply and demand increased the rates of interest to levels that stopped the property market from over-heating. The quote is not about revolution but more about experience and learning….

Quotation
Faith
‘I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I’d do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith’
Fidel Castro (born 1926) Cuban Revolutionary who ousted President Batista in 1959

 Published INFOWARS IRELAND: 

‘IRELAND IS RUNNING OUT OF TIME’

Has Ireland been ‘desperately unlucky’ or maybe we have procrastinated to such a degree that that we are now in the category of ‘stolen’ time and we are paying a high price in interest rates…rates that are likely to rise again.

UCD professor Karl Whelan, a former Fed economist is reported to have said there is a “reasonably high probability” that Ireland will have to turn to the tutelage of the EU-IMF “even though this will be resisted until the bitter end as a horrible humiliation”. Add to this that Ireland has a bond crisis that is ‘snowballing out of control’ but there is a positive, we have a pension fund that if we really hit dire
circumstances we can activate as a partial safeguard. Sadly as so often happens in history, the punitive costs are paid by those who have built up pension funds
both at a personal level and institutional level.

It is said:- ‘What you focus on expands’ and in Ireland’s case, this appears to be so: moral bankruptcy, corruption, bribery, dishonesty are words that did not just appear with the collapse of Lehman brothers in 2008. The truth is in Ireland we have nurtured dishonesty and moral bankruptcy for decades. The Proclamation, Independence, the Republic,the Peace Process with the supposedly protective mantle of the Church has dealt a culture of denial.

The truth is, we have a faltering Separation of Powers and we need to address our Sovereignty status before we lose it to what is fast becoming a two-tiered Eurozone. The people of Ireland still retain control but we are on the margins. We can embrace this murky culture, challenge it and arraign those who are responsible for taking us to our knees.  We need to accept ‘frontloading’ and aim at providing financial recompense for a draconian cut of 7 bn. euros for year 1.

Yes Ireland is running out of time so we need serious creative thinking, (that of the calibre often used by a criminal),to start tackling those who have breached the moral code and created a sinking abyss from a country that had and still has vast massive potential.

Where do we start? An integral and essential part is the creativity of the mind as it applies to Justice and Ethics. In early 2009 a reporter (grassroots media source) commented on the retirement of Mr. Justice Johnson who spoke about the importance of ‘Honesty and the law’ and that the qualities of the Judiciary ought to be above reproach. Therein rested Doubt about some members of the Judiciary and legal profession.  To take a step back in time, a Judge in the 1940′s said the most important quality for a Judge was firstly to be a good lawyer and then to have a solid knowledge of the law. To me, this is valid constitutional sense but alas this appears to have become driftwood in the aftermath of the Celtic Tiger. Is there hope? The Commercial Court shows potential.

Does anyone speak of the Mahon Tribunal these days? When will we have a conclusion and when will we stop paying these massive salaries to legal beagles who know: what their best interest is? Yes ‘go slow’ get paid more.

We need to cut our cloth according to its measure but this doesn’t mean necessarily the middle class, the elderly, the youth and the near impoverished.  The decision needs to be made, and the sterling qualities of expertise and genius need to be tapped, with persuasion to forego income and wealth in line with a just and fair society.

Do people really take account of the number of solicitors being struck off the rolls? You occasionally hear the name but there is no significant emphasis on a professional ‘doing something that is illegal’. There is a kind of sympathy extended to them, it is part of that paternalism that is invoked by being a member of a profession.

Lynn owes 80 m and rising. People claim to have met him in Europe but when they query it with our Garda Fraud representatives, they are told it is difficult to charge him. What does this mean? We know law is not retrospective but surely there are enough precedents to extradite and charge for fraud, deception, etc. etc.

We also need to ask the question did Lynn (and others of the ilk) suffer a massive loss in his 80 m euros with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US or had he funds invested with Madoff? We all know that Madoff the Pyramid ‘conman’ is now in his seventies in jail for life….thanks to the Federal system of law in America. Apparently
it is rumoured he is sharing a bunk bed with a real gangster! We know the Lynn loss is estimated at 80 m. euros but if you invest the proceeds of crime wisely, as one would expect these corporate criminals do, then on a 10 year spectrum, there ought to be a satisfactory return.

The US have not been ‘sitting on their hands’ since the collapse ofLehmans. No they have been thinking and acting. People have been held accountable and fast tracked through the legal processes and placed in prison as criminals. There is none of this ‘white’ collar ‘blue collar’ categorisation in the US – Enron proved that.

Also countries like Switzerland, the Bahamas, yes the Tax Havens are under serious threat. 5,000 names of US Swiss Bank holders are to have their names relased to the US revenue and there is a potential for some 50,000 more greedy people to have their names released. Who knows what this will in effect do to capital markets – it will cause an injection to the EU, Britain, the US, to a lesser degree Japan, China, Asia. It is going to be a really interesting dynamic. The Swiss have recently pulled back slightly but they may agree to stop a % in tax on their overseas resident accounts i.e. something similar to the DIRT charge.

Nobody could predict the Lehman crisis but now that it has happened transparency and accountability is the battle cry so let the masses pay heed and vocalise the need to source taxes from those who have failed to pay in the last decade and who seek to remain tax exiles yet own major businesses in IRELAND. I admire Michael O’Leary of Ryannair on two scores. In the 1980s when the recession was really bad, he saw an opportunity and he gave emigrants very cheap travel to other countries for work and secondly, he can jest about his view of politicians because he paysconsiderable tax in Ireland and lives in the Country.

Published Infowars Ireland.

Almost 1,000 tenants illegally evicted.

No Responses to: “Garda Commissioner expects decision on Anglo probe by year end”

1. Michelle Clarke on Your comment is awaiting moderation. November 4th, 2010 11:37 AM
    

   ‘Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy said the investigation was progressing “without any distraction”. He said the garda job was to ensure a file went to the DPP as soon as possible. “I would expect a decision by the end of the year,” he said.

   Yet, tonight, quite unexpected, we hear Garda Comissioner Fachtna Murphy is to retire this year. Is this opportune or does it matter? Is the file in fact complete and now ready to go to the DPP “without any distraction”?

   To concerned people about the socio-economic future … where do we now stand in relation to Organisational Ethics? Media tells us that we are rife with and near destroyed by greed, fraud and corruption so the challenge is there to grasp the nettle, prosecute the figure heads and the passive facilitators and move on. To those interested in a democratic society, I would suggest embracing ‘knowledge’ based on the copious amount of facts that are presented in the media and to engage with the Power of the Book, the Bookshops, the Libraries.

   Hodges and Figgis and Waterstones have a haven of books recently published by Irish writers honed in on the blame of those responsible for this catastropic economic disaster with a gradual introduction of those who promote Hope. If you want to browse in Hodges and Figgis – look to the prominent position of collection of books titled ‘Obsession Recession’ or Vice Versa. You will notice books by Dearbhail McDonald, legal Editor, Independent – core legal incisiveness, Fintan O’Toole, David McWilliams, Michael Soden (interesting alternative view ex. Banker of the era concerned).

   I would ask the question if the media reports are accurate and Fachtna Murphy is to stand down as Commissioner in December, one would have to think there is a bigger picture here or let us put another way, something doesn’t level in the general consensus. What I mean is – the Fraud Squad are dealing with the Nation’s Biggest deception in its Sovereign history and I don’t think that they have the motivation, the political will behind them, but last but not least, they don’t have the expertise to deal with the vast complexities of a multi-billion euro fraud, brought about by bankers, developers, accountants, and friends of the FF mafia and the PD’s and now the Greens, the Frogs since 2007. Why is Murphy leaving now? Has the amount of fraud challenged his expertise in such matters – I again ask the question?

   Fintan O’Toole is giving a speech and others tonight at 7.30 at Liberty Hall. The topic is ‘A Way forward for a new Republic’….maybe we can say this is a dream but sometimes all we need to motivate and challenge us is a Dream.

   I will close by saying…. our future on this Island yesterday i.e. our students, our youth, were chased by bullies with weapons and on horseback – they were baton charged and sadly some young people received some bloody noses and were hit on the head. The era of Robo Cop is not gone yet sadly and I again question who gives the Orders for thugs in uniform to assault our young people and democratic protesters.

   Quotation to consider:
   Measured advice
   Kabir 1440-1518
   ‘Speech is priceless
   if you speak with knowledge
   Weigh it in the scales of the heart
   before it comes from the mouth’

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The above are a selection of articles written by me during the year 2010 and published mainly on a citizen journalism site and Infowars Ireland.

2017 BreastCheck located breast cancer so I decided to write a book.  Fortune Favours the Brave is the title by Michelle Marcella Clarke.  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1912639610/

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