turning private debt to public losses

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/opinion/26krugman.html?src=me&ref=general

Eating the Irish
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 25, 2010

What we need now is another Jonathan Swift.

...

Then the bubble burst, and those banks faced huge losses. You might have expected those who lent money to the banks to share in the losses. After all, they were consenting adults, and if they failed to understand the risks they were taking that was nobody’s fault but their own. But, no, the Irish government stepped in to guarantee the banks’ debt, turning private losses into public obligations.

Before the bank bust, Ireland had little public debt. But with taxpayers suddenly on the hook for gigantic bank losses, even as revenues plunged, the nation’s creditworthiness was put in doubt. So Ireland tried to reassure the markets with a harsh program of spending cuts.

Step back for a minute and think about that. These debts were incurred, not to pay for public programs, but by private wheeler-dealers seeking nothing but their own profit. Yet ordinary Irish citizens are now bearing the burden of those debts.

...

Originally posted by zeeblebot
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/opinion/26krugman.html?src=me&ref=general

Eating the Irish
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 25, 2010

What we need now is another Jonathan Swift.

...

Then the bubble burst, and those banks faced huge losses. You might have expected those who lent money to the banks to share in the losses. After all, they we ...[text shortened]... their own profit. Yet ordinary Irish citizens are now bearing the burden of those debts.

...

This sounds much like the "too bid to fail" mantra we heard during the last few months of the Bush administration. Sorry this mentality has seeped into Europe as well.😞

Originally posted by bill718
This sounds much like the "too bid to fail" mantra we heard during the last few months of the Bush administration. Sorry this mentality has seeped into Europe as well.😞

It's really a socialist montra. In fact, everyone is too big to fail these days. Unemployment benefits sipmly can't be extended far enough. Health care benefits simply can't be extended far enough. Social security benefits simply can't be extended far enough. You simply can't have too many bail outs and stimulus packages and on and on and on.

The financial world is way too complicated to understand for most of us. They knock on our door not for us being a nice guy, but for our money, preferably all of it. They lure with interest rates and stories us being rich one day. And we fall for these smooth talks. We all want to have a pleasant life one day. Is that our responsabillity? Should we've known better? Maybe. But these thiefs, cause that's what they are, are not just mean looking people. They wear ties, work for respectable banks and institutions. Are covered by our even so respectable governments, the people we've chosen. The ones we usually rely on. They have a license to steal.
Once they've got our money, we're screwed. We pay the bill at any time. Not the people who juggle with your greenies. They get away with a what, 50/100 million a year? Their companies, well sort of theirs, go down. taking thousands of people with them and leaving a nation with billions and billions to pay. And we are all brainwashed by accepting it as doing business, other views as being socialist (yuck!). Doing business is taking a risk. That risk should be personal and not being a companies only. Maybe business would be more fair, small scaled and more responsible.