Are Tea Partiers Happy Like Danes?

I would guess not, if this story is to be believed:

Denmark has the highest well-being of any country in the world, according to a recent Gallup Poll, with 72 percent of Danish people "thriving." (The worldwide median is just 21 percent.) In addition, during World War II, the country rescued almost all Jewish Danes from impending atrocities.

A kind of positive psychology underlies both accomplishments. People who trust their government and their neighbors, and who resist abuses in their society, are more likely to feel a sense of well-being in their own lives. Social psychology shows that countries with little trust are less likely to be happy. Networks of support between people and groups—what the political scientist Robert Putnam called social capital—promote people's well-being and their ability to react well to crises, from turmoil in North Africa to flooding in the U.S. and tsunamis in Japan.

Trust government? No.  Trust their neighbors? Maybe, as long as they aren't brown people.  Resist abuses in society?  Yes, if the abuses target Christians or the rich.  No, for everybody else.  I would guess they are not happy, then.  Of course, listening to them talk about the President of the United States should answer that question.  They've been pissed off since he was elected. 

I can't say too much, I get pretty angry when I listen to talk radio, or when NPR interviews some Republican douchebag who explains that tax cuts will cure cancer, help paraplegics walk and grow better corn, all while cutting the deficit and helping you lose weight.  I'm not sure how to explain all the anger from a country which has been on top of the world, but I guess it probably comes from us slowly losing our place of privilege.  The last 30 years have been rough on the working and middle classes.  I would assume that drives the anger.

I went to pay my electric bill a little while ago.  A guy went in right before me.  He was at least 55, and probably 60.  He asked the receptionist if they had a senior discount.  She said no.  He then asked if they had a veterans discount.  She said no.  Then he said, "This country needs to start honoring its veterans."  At first, that made me kind of angry.  I have felt the last few years that average people tend to go out of their way in honoring veterans, sometimes even ignoring the possibility that any servicemember ever would do anything wrong.  But I think part of that reason is that because of the all-volunteer force, most people don't have to serve, know few people who do, and won't, and it makes them feel guilty  Therefore, they go out of their way to pay lip service to veterans.  My immediate reaction was that this guy thought he deserved to have other people pay his bills because he served in the military, and while he may have a point, it rubbed me the wrong way. 

But it slowly dawned on me that it was far more likely that instead of being a new customer of the electric company who didn't know their rate structure, he was just in dire financial straits.   I had noticed on the way in that his 2001 Ford truck had a for sale sign in the window.  It was a pretty nice looking truck, but I thought the price seemed a little high for a 10 year-old truck.  If circumstances were tight enough that he was having a hard time paying his electric bill, and had to go in and ask about any senior or veterans discounts, I can imagine he would be pretty frustrated.  Nobody wants to be nearing what should be retirement age, and find himself not able to make ends meet.  After serving his country and working for 40 years, he wouldn't want to decide between having electric in a heat wave and taking his heart medication. 

I don't know what the story was for this guy, but I felt bad for him, while I was disappointed in myself for my quick judgement of him when I was in line.  Times are pretty hard for a lot of folks out there, and they don't really have too many people to turn to.  Maybe this guy was having a hard time making ends meet, maybe he's a skinflint or maybe he was paying his Medal of Honor winner father's electric bill, but I don't do anyone any good getting angry at him.  We're going to churn away in economic frustration for a while yet, and for many folks, things will get worse before they get better.  I should put more thought into how I can help people out, and less into judging them. 

How The Germans Got Through the Recession

David Leonhardt takes a look at the German example (h/t Ritholtz):

The brief story is that, despite its reputation for austerity, Germany has been far more willing than the United States to use the power of government to help its economy. Yet it has also been more ruthless about cutting wasteful parts of government.
The results are intriguing. After performing worse than the American economy for years, the German economy has grown faster since the middle of last decade. (It did better than our economy before the crisis and has endured the crisis about equally.) Just as important, most Germans have fared much better than most Americans, because the bounty of their growth has not been concentrated among a small slice of the affluent.
Inflation-adjusted average hourly pay has risen almost 30 percent since 1985 in Germany, the kind of gains American workers have not enjoyed since the ’50s and ’60s. In this country, hourly pay has risen a scant 6 percent since 1985.
Germany also managed to avoid a housing bubble, unlike the United States, Britain, Ireland, Spain and other countries. German children have stronger math and science skills than ours. Its medium-term budget deficit is smaller. Its unemployment rate is like a mirror image of ours: 6.1 percent, well below where it was when the financial crisis began in 2007. Our rate has risen to 9.1 percent.

Among the reasons Germany has weathered the financial crisis better than the U.S. he cites, reform of government unemployment programs, greater protection of labor unions, stronger financial regulations and a less dysfunctional government which is able to cut spending, tax enough and is willing to get involved with industry when necessary. 

Germans Re-enacting the U.S. Civil War

As Confederates?  The Atlantic explains:

There is no escape from this uncomfortable truth. And unlike their American counterparts, most Confederate reenactors in Germany cannot claim to be honoring their ancestors or their heritage. There were, in fact, some 200,000 Germans who fought in the war. But by donning Confederate gray, they are betraying their legacy, not preserving it. 

"Take the [Germans] out of the Union Army and we could whip the Yankees easily," Robert E. Lee allegedly remarked. The quote, likely apocryphal, captures an important fact. Immigrants born in Germanic lands were enormously overrepresented in the Union Army. By one estimate, 176,817 donned the army blue, half again as many as their share of the overall population would have predicted. Other reliable estimates range as high as 216,000. And adding in the descendants of earlier generations of German immigrants would more than triple that total. The Germans, one contemporary judged, understood "from the beginning, the aim and the end of the civil war, [and] they have embraced the cause of the Union and emancipation with an ardor and a passion."   

If the German reenactors actually "model their characters in the reenactments after...German immigrant soldiers," as they explained to the reporter that they do, then those who wear gray have their work cut out for them. Less than 10 percent of the Germans immigrants in the United States, scarcely 70,000, dwelt in the entire territory controlled by the Confederacy at the outbreak of the war. Many fled north, with perhaps 2,000 joining the Union Army. Hundreds of those who remained petitioned the consuls of German states for protection from the draft. There were certainly some ardent secessionists, and even a few slaveholders, and between 3,500 and 7,000 Germans may have served in the Confederate Army. But of that number, many were conscripted, a large number deserted, and some mutinied. "The German minority of the South," one scholar concluded, "was all but insignificant politically, economically, and militarily during the American Civil War."

According to the story, the popularity of Gone With the Wind may be one reason why many people want to be Confederate re-enactors, but I would fear the possibility of darker reasons.  I would think that most Germans would want to honor the Iron Brigade (Black Hat Brigade):

The Iron Brigade (including the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments) was in the thick of the battle on the first day. The 3rd, 5th, and 26th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 1st U.S. Sharpshooters, Company G (Berdan’s Sharpshooters), also fought but sustained many fewer casualties.
On the morning of July 1st, the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry was the first to engage with Confederate troops. It immediately lost nearly a third of its men, among them Colonel Lucius Fairchild, whose left arm had to be amputated. On the second and third days, the remaining Iron Brigade units were generally kept away from the front lines. Over the course of the battle they lost a total of 578 men.
The 26th Wisconsin Infantry, which was composed almost entirely of German immigrants, fought throughout the first day and lost more than 210 of its men. The 3rd and the 5th Wisconsin Infantry regiments arrived late in the battle and saw less action than the other Wisconsin regiments. Berdan’s Sharpshooters were instrumental in repulsing Confederate attacks, including Pickett’s Charge on the third day.

Many Americans pick the Iron Brigade as their favorite.

Two States or One

Dennis G at Balloon Juice sums up my expectations.  If Israel wants to exist as a Jewish state (without apartheid), there will have to be two states.  Otherwise, demographics will make the one state a majority-Palestinian state:

The Two-State Solution is a policy idea way past its expiration date. It is on life support. The Netanyahu government rejects a Two-State Solution unless pre-conditions that would make a future Palestinian State a group of unconnected and powerless bantustans are guaranteed. The result has been that—for the last decade—Palestinian negotiators have not had partners in Israel. They have given up. Any effort to negotiate with Netanyahu is hopeless because Bibi does not believe in a Two-State solution. So instead the Palestinians have decided to focus inward—and work on resolving internal conflicts between various factions. And of course this feeds the loop and gives Bibi and his allies yet another fresh excuse to delay and kill any possible Two-State Solution. The spiral continues to spin into the ground. And yet, the death of the Two-State Solution is what Congress celebrated when they honored Netenyahu. Go figure.
While I hope that President Obama can somehow save the concepts of two states living side by side from doom, I am pretty doubtful that it can be done. Time is running out out and when the point of no return is crossed, the State of Israel will be on a glide path to extinction—a glide path greased and prepared by Netanyahu and his wingnut minions. As Peter Beinart noted the other day Obama has thrown Netanyahu a lifeline and it has been rejected.
Now I get the sense that Bibi and his pals imagine that the next 60 years will be like the last 60 years. They imagine that running out the clock will resolve the issue. In a few more decades (or years) settlement expansion will make make the creation of a Palestinian State impossible and that the lack of freedom and rights will inspire more and more Palestinians to just leave. They imagine that the rest of the world will watch the process without comment and that America will always be there to protect them if anybody ever does object. It is all a fantasy.
The reality is that the default has been set to a One State Solution a long time ago. Without action there will be only one State occupying the land between the sea and the Jordan river. The old map above will be correct if you cross out “Palestine” and write in “Israel”. It will be one state, but it will also be a state where the majority of the population is Palestinian. This demographic time bomb spells doom for Israel.

Netanyahu is just what Israelis don't need.  But he's an asshole, so Republicans and their Rapture-believing base love him.  I wish the best to Israelis who understand math, because those who don't are screwing them.

Netanyahu Supports Two States?

Matthew Yglesias sums up Bibi's speech:

To thunderous applause from congress, the Israeli Prime Minister made the following points:

— One, a surprisingly lengthy argument was advanced about Israel’s status as the only democracy in the region.
— Two, a very strong argument was advanced that Palestinian failure to publicly repudiate “right of return” makes peace impossible.
— Three, argued that Israeli security requires Israeli military presence in the Jordan River Valley.
— Four, argued that Jerusalem should never be divided.
— Fifth, argued that there should be no Palestinian military.
— Sixth, argued that “the Jewish people are not an occupying power” in the West Bank.

This very cogent case for granting full civil equality to Arab residents of the territory under the control of the state of Israel was then undermined by a weird insistence that he’s actually aiming for the establishment of two separate states. One for Jews and one for Palestinians. Except the Palestinian state won’t include the demographically Palestinian portions of Jerusalem, and the only military in the Republic of Palestine will be an Israeli force. That would be a funny sort of state.

I agree.  How in the hell do you create a "state" that is occupied by an unfriendly neighbor and is never allowed to have a military? Sounds more like, "I want to make the peace process unworkable."  Well, thanks for coming over, just don't go looking for military aid from this government that needs to make sacrifices.

Chart for the Day

As Benjamin Netanyahu goes to Congress to lay out his "vision" for peace, we ought to keep this chart in mind.  Since we have a severe budget deficit, we need to look for cuts wherever we can.  I would think that aid to wealthy countries could be cut back, especially if we weren't getting any help in return for said aid.

Keep in mind, Israel has every right to exist, but so do the Palestinians.  Gradually taking land from the Palestinians won't make them go away.  A democratic country run by a minority population which won't grant voting rights to the majority isn't a democratic country, and if Israel continues to occupy the West Bank, the Jewish population will eventually be a minority.  Reasonable Israelis acknowledge that.  Benjamin Netanyahu should also, and soon.

The President Enjoys a Guinness

US president Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama toast with their glasses of Guinness in Ollie Hayes' pub in the president's ancestral home in Moneygall, Co Offaly. Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters

Obama makes an appearance in his Irish ancestral home:

Mr Obama and the first lady arrived this afternoon in Moneygall, Co Offaly, where up to 3,000 people lined the streets to welcome him home.
Mr Obama’s great-great-great-great-grandfather was a shoemaker in the rural village and his son, Falmouth Kearney, left for New York in 1850.
The couple’s short visit included a trip down Main Street to the Kearney ancestral home, where he will be greeted by John Donovan, the owner of the house, and his family.
They also visited Ollie Hayes’ pub to meet extended family members including representatives of the Healy, Donovan and Benn families.
The president and his wife visited Hayes’ pub and immediately settled in as though they were regulars, hugging distant relatives and toasting the guests.
In a quip to one of the women behind the bar, Mr Obama said: “You look beautiful. I suspect you don’t always dress up this much.”
Before lifting a pint of Guinness from the counter the president set the tone. “You tell me when it’s properly settled, I don’t want to mess this up,” he joked.
“I’ve been told that it makes a difference who the person behind the bar is. People are very particular who is pouring your Guinness. I am right about that? You people can vouch for this guy?” he asked the crowd in the bar.
As the president admired his pint and picked it up from the counter, he added: “So it’s quite an art. I want to get it perfect. Sláinte.”
The president relaxed straight into the pub atmosphere and took a gulp from the pint. “The first time I had a Guinness was when I was came into Shannon (Airport),” he said. “It was the middle of the night, and I tried one of these, and I realised it tastes so much better here than it was in the States. What I realised was, that you guys, that you are keeping all the best stuff. I’m very impressed.”

People may prefer to have a beer with George Bush, but they actually can have one with Barack Obama.

QE II Visits Guinness Brewery

Photo from Boots in the Oven. http://www.bootsintheoven.com/boots_in_the_oven/2006/08/dublin_day_one_.html

No, it doesn't have anything to do with the Federal Reserve:

Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip resisted the temptation to sup the perfect pint of Guinness on a visit to the Irish cultural icon's home brewery on Wednesday. The royal couple were given a tour of the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, one of Ireland's top tourist destinations, as part of the queen's historic first state visit to the Irish Republic.
All eyes were on whether they would get stuck into a jar of the black stuff -- an indelible part of Irish life.
Up in the seventh-floor Gravity Bar, designed to look like the head on a pint, they were shown round the commanding 360-degree views over Dublin.
Master brewer Fergal Murray then took the royal couple through the stages of pouring a perfect pint of the stout, one of the world-famous cultural symbols of Ireland.
Prince Philip, who is known to like a pint of bitter, seemed in his element and asked if it was made with water from Dublin's River Liffey.
"No! Pure and pristine from the hills!" Murray replied, dismissing the "urban myth". The Guinness website says water for the brewery comes from springs in Ireland's Wicklow Mountains.

If they didn't drink a pint, they shouldn't have gone to visit, geez.  I could damn well care less about the Queen herself, but I do like being able to get Ireland into some posts, and she's definitely been providing that opportunity.

Police Detonate Bomb in County Kildare

Irish Times:

An Army bomb disposal team made safe a viable improvised explosive device discovered in the hold of a bus in Co Kildare late last night.
The Defence Forces deployed the team in response to a request by the Garda at about 11.10pm, apparently after a tip-off.
The pipe bomb was found in the luggage compartment of a Dublin-bound bus outside the Glen Royal Hotel in Maynooth and made safe following a controlled explosion.
The device was viable but it was not primed.
The scene was declared safe at 1.55am and the remains of the device were handed over to gardaí for their investigations.
The bus carrying 30 passengers had been on its way to the capital from Ballina, Co Mayo.

Sounds like the next few days are going to be pretty crazy.  I think the Gardai will have their hands full:

A sporting venue that has deep symbolic importance for the people of Ireland will be visited by the Queen during her tour of the country.


Croke Park – an 82,000-seater stadium and the scene of a massacre of 14 civilians by British soldiers in 1920 – will be toured by the monarch later this week.


It is the home of Ireland’s Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) which has pledged to give the monarch a warm greeting when she arrives.


The GAA, an amateur organisation set up in 1884 to promote Irish culture, language and sports, has said ahead of the visit it wants to showcase the world renowned arena.........

The landmark stadium on Dublin’s northside is a world renowned symbol of the strength of an amateur organisation with a presence in every village and townland in Ireland.


Its famous terrace, Hill 16, is also rumoured to have been built with the rubble from the 1916 Easter Rising – an armed insurrection in Dublin against British rule.

More on the Croke Park Massacre below:

From Wikipedia, the activity in the afternoon of November 21, 1920, after an IRA operation in the morning which resulted in the deaths of 12 British informers and 2 British Auxiliaries:

The Dublin Gaelic football team was scheduled to play the Tipperary team later the same day in Croke Park, the Gaelic Athletic Association's major football ground. Despite the general unease in Dublin as news broke of the killings, a war-weary populace continued with life. Approximately 5,000 spectators went to Croke Park for the Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary, which began thirty minutes late, at 3:15 p.m.
Meanwhile, outside the Park, unseen by the crowd, British security forces were approaching and preparing to raid the match. A convoy of troops drove in from the northwest, along Clonliffe Road, while a convoy of police and Auxiliaries approached the Park from the south or Canal end. Their orders were to surround the grounds, guard the exits, and search every man in the Park. The authorities later stated that their intention was to announce by megaphone that all males leaving the stadium would be searched and that anyone leaving by other means would be shot. But for some reason, shots were fired as soon as the police convoy reached the stadium, at 3:25 p.m.
Some of the police later claimed that they were fired on first by IRA sentries, but this has never been proven.^[11] Correspondents for the Manchester Guardian and Britain's Daily News interviewed eyewitnesses, and concluded that the "IRA sentries" were actually ticket-sellers:

It is the custom at this football ground for tickets to be sold outside the gates by recognised ticket-sellers, who would probably present the appearance of pickets, and would naturally run inside at the approach of a dozen military lorries. No man exposes himself needlessly in Ireland when a military lorry passes by.^[12]

The police in the convoy's leading cars appear to have jumped out, pursued these men down the passage to the Canal End gate, forced their way through the turnstiles, and started firing rapidly with rifles and revolvers. Ireland's Freeman's Journal reported that,

The spectators were startled by a volley of shots fired from inside the turnstile entrances. Armed and uniformed men were seen entering the field, and immediately after the firing broke out scenes of the wildest confusion took place. The spectators made a rush for the far side of Croke Park and shots were fired over their heads and into the crowd.^[13]

The police kept shooting for about ninety seconds: their commander, Major Mills, later admitted that his men were "excited and out of hand."^[14] Some police fired into the fleeing crowd from the pitch, while others, outside the Park, opened fire from the Canal Bridge at spectators who climbed over the Canal End Wall trying to escape. At the other end of the Park, the soldiers on Clonliffe Road were startled first by the sound of the fusillade, then by the sight of panicked people fleeing the grounds. As the spectators streamed out, an armoured car on St James Avenue fired its machine guns over the heads of the crowd, trying to halt them.
By the time Major Mills got his men back under control, the police had fired 114 rounds of rifle ammunition, and an unknown amount of revolver ammunition as well, not counting 50 rounds fired from the machine guns in the armoured car outside the Park.^[15] Seven people had been shot to death, and five more had been fatally wounded; another two people had been trampled to death by the crowd. The dead included Jeannie Boyle, who had gone to the match with her fiancé and was due to be married five days later, and two boys aged 10 and 11. Two football players, Michael Hogan and Jim Egan, had been shot; Hogan was killed, but Egan survived, along with dozens of other wounded and injured. The police raiding party suffered no casualties.
Once the firing had been stopped, the security forces searched the remaining men in the crowd before letting them go. The military raiding party recovered one revolver: a local householder testified that a fleeing spectator had thrown it away in his garden. Once the grounds were cleared, the Park was searched for arms: according to Major Mills, none were found.^[16

After the shooting at Croke Park, 3 IRA prisoners in Dublin Castle were beaten and killed by their guards, allegedly while trying to escape.

There is never a shortage of places where historic Irish or British actions can provide a rallying point for those with long grievances.  The Queen's visit gives Republican dissidents a lot of targets to gain noteriety.  Hopefully, they fail miserably.

Irish Republican Dissidents Cause Alarm

Dissident paramilitaries called in a bomb threat for London:

Police received a bomb threat for central London from Irish republican paramilitaries, a day before a historic visit by the Queen to Ireland, Scotland Yard said.
''A bomb threat warning has been received relating to central London today. The threat is not specific in relation to location or time,'' a Scotland Yard spokesman said yesterday.
''We believe the threat is in connection with dissident republican terrorism.''

This is bad news for Northern Ireland.  It would be nice for the Real IRA and Continuity IRA to fade away.  Any appearance in the news is bad for the Republican cause.

Update:  Actually, maybe it isn't the RIRA or CIRA which is the problem this time:

Republican terrorists have pledged to disrupt the tour.
The first day of the visit coincides with the 37th anniversary of the bloodiest day of the Troubles, in which 34 people were killed in four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan.
Irish police will have to deal with attempts by the radical republican group Eirigi to occupy the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin, the memorial to Irish people killed in the struggle for independence, where the Queen is due to lay a wreath today. The group has threatened to set up a ''freedom camp'' in the memorial garden .
On Sunday, the Irish President, Mary McAleese, said the Queen's visit would be an ''extraordinary moment'' between the two countries.

Guess I should have read further.  I still contend that any news of this type is bad.

Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Two things.  First, The Fateful Choice, at the Middle East Research and Information Project:

There is nothing new about torture in warfare, even as waged by democracies. What is new (at least in the modern era) is the brazenness with which torture’s proponents have asserted its compatibility with democracy and the rule of law. The Bush administration’s tangle of poor legal argumentation in support of its torture policy need not be rehearsed; the Obama administration was right to rubbish the lot. It has been disgusting, therefore, to see Bush officials emerge from the woodwork to suggest that finding bin Laden came about through torture. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for instance, told FOX News that “anyone who suggests that the enhanced techniques, let’s be blunt, waterboarding, did not produce an enormous amount of valuable intelligence, just isn’t facing the truth.” His fellow Republican, Rep. Peter King of New York, went one step further: “Osama bin Laden would not have been captured and killed if it were not for the initial information we got from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after he was waterboarded.”
A former top military interrogator in Iraq, who goes by the pseudonym Matthew Alexander, has corrected the record by insisting that torturing detainees produces “limited information, false information or no information.” As Alexander and others note, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational planner of the September 11 attacks (who, incidentally, was captured at home in a commando raid, not on a battlefield, with a nudge from another $25 million bounty), blurted out nothing of value despite being waterboarded 183 times. He was confronted with the nom de guerre of a courier -- the one whose trail eventually led to bin Laden -- and claimed he had “retired” from al-Qaeda. The nom de guerre and all subsequent actionable leads were obtained from other sources through old-fashioned detective work. These facts have led Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to contradict Rumsfeld and King, saying: “So far, I know of no information that was obtained, that would have been useful, by ‘advanced interrogation.’” And when the CIA tortured Abu Faraj al-Libbi, another al-Qaeda courier who would have known others, he proffered a fake name that sent the manhunt on a wild goose chase. Torture is thus likely to have delayed the apprehension of al-Qaeda’s master terrorist.
The utility of torture is beside the point, in any case; torture is repellent and degrading of those who practice it as well as those subjected to it. It is also manifestly illegal, under both US and international law. As anyone who pays attention knows, the revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere swept away what remained of the post-September 11 wars’ moral credibility in the eyes of the world. Along with the Bush administration’s deceptions, arrogant doctrines of US dominance and disdainful asides to the effect that “we don’t do body counts,” torture poisoned all of the wars’ fruits, even turning bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the ugliest caricatures of Arab anti-imperialism, into heroes to some.

This torture was disgraceful and produced misleading and detrimental information, and yet Republicans still defend it and would do it again if they are ever put back into power.  This paper utterly destroys our choices in the war against terror.  It is a must-read.

Second, Edward Harrison has this chart in his article about how much banks in Germany are owed by the periphery states of the Eurozone:

That is stunning and I don't see how they will get that all back.  It is more a matter of how much they lose how quickly.

Irish Economy Struggling With Austerity

NYT:

Benefiting from years of low interest rates that followed the creation of the euro zone in 1999, Ireland enjoyed one of the biggest growth spurts of any country in Europe, and spent lavishly as its wealth increased. The economy expanded an average of 7 percent in the decade leading up to 2007 before plunging into a deep recession. Per person, inflation-adjusted economic activity has fallen approximately 18 percent from the peak, when the average gross domestic product per person was a shade over 43,000 euros ($62,000). Now it is less than 35,000 euros ($50, 767).
As the country tries to recover from the bust, many of its people are paying a tremendous cost for the folly of the country’s banks and to bring its government finances back in order.
As part of Ireland’s effort to pay down its immense debts and bail out the banks, the Condras’ salaries from their state jobs as hospital workers have been cut 20 percent in two years. Higher taxes and further spending cuts are on the horizon.

It looks like years and years of pain for the Irish as they bail out their corrupt banks.  They should have let them fail.  Bondholders should have taken haircuts and stockholders should have been wiped out.  Now the taxpayers are going to be slowly bled out.

Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: A peek into one of the deepest little cesspits in Europe, by David Malone:

Beyerishe LB was either the witless dupe who was left holding a huge shit schnitzel or just the last in a long line of greedy and corrupt bottom feeding institutions who wanted the chance to siphon some of that fetid  underground nourishment for themselves.  I personally feel the latter is the more likely explanation for the Europe wide enthusiasm for buying Austrian banks. Austria, with its anonymous accounts had made itself into a major portal for dirty money seeking onward transfer into European banks. And European banks were drawn to Austria like flies to a sewer.

The fact is Beyerische bought a bank for 1.6 billion euros into which it had to immediately pour another 2.1 billion euros just to keep it afloat.  Which although it sounds blunderingly stupid is, by Bavarian banking standards little worse than average. Compare Beyerische to the saga of inept incompetence which surrounded two other Bavarian banks Beyerische Hypotheken-und Wecshel Bank and Beyerische Vereins-bank, whose billions in losses forced the shot-gun wedding whose issue was HVB (see Dominoes Falling from the East) and you wonder how Germany has any banks at all?

Today there is still another 3.1 billion euros of bad debts to be paid at Beyerische. The open question vexing both sides of the German/Austrian border is who will pay? Since Beyerishe sold Alpe Adria back to Austria for a whopping 1 euro it might fall upon the Austrian people. But it might still land back on Beyerishe and therefore on the German taxpayers. Both sides would love to find a way of claiming they were just innocent victims of foreign fraud.

I guess you could call this the European bank mess-Austrian edition.  The article goes into great detail about various bank black holes in Austria which tie into Anglo-Irish Bank, among others.  What a mess, we definitely haven't seen the worst of this yet.

Charity Combined With Carbon Credits for Profit

This also via Ritholtz:

Swiss-based Vestergaard Frandsen--makers of mosquito nets and the LifeStraw--has figured out a solution to turning a profit while saving the world.
The company is launching a campaign today that could change the plight of water-borne illnesses in Kenya, while making the company a tidy sum of money. Over the next five weeks, 4,000 temporary employees will distribute the company's LifeStraw water filters to 900,000 households in Western Province--nearly 90% of the entire population--providing 4 million people with clean, safe drinking water. The filters will be provided to the end users for free, and company founder and CEO Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen has invested $30 million of his own money into the project. But he's not worried about losing out--because for each LifeStraw he donates, he's going to be making money.
The campaign is called Carbon for Water. Kenyans boil their water to eliminate waterborne diseases, using wood fires. Those fires generate a large amount of carbon, and eliminating the need to boil water means fewer emissions from Kenya. Because they're providing the means to reduce emissions, Vestergaard Frandsen earns carbon credits for each LifeStraw donated. He will then turn around and sell those credits to companies in countries that have carbon caps and exchanges. "We are using international agreements about climate change to finance the mitigation of CO2 in the least developed countries," he says.
Vestergaard Frandsen estimates that the campaign will offset about two million tons of carbon every year—that means the company will earn two million carbon credits. Carbon trades on the commodities market at between $6 to $12 a unit and, he says: "because the project is based in Kenya and has significant humanitarian and health co-benefits, these credits can be sold for a premium." Vestergaard Frandsen has made a 10-year commitment to Carbon for Water, which means that the project could potentially offset 20 million tons of carbon. Even at the lowest estimates, that means Vestergaard Frandsen will make his $30 million investment back many times over. Which is important, because Vestergaard Frandsen doesn't sell its units retail--at $25, the LifeStraw Family is prohibitively expensive for most end users to purchase. Instead, the company formerly relied on partner nonprofits to fundraise, purchase LifeStraws, and donate them in bulk. It was a succesful plan--in 2010, the company had a profitable bottom line with revenue of about $500 million--but now, he doesn't have to rely on the fickle kindness of philanthropists.
The model isn't the perfect solution the issues plaguing water in the developing world: while not having to collect firewood to boil water helps preserve safety and time of the women and children who typically bear the burden of these tasks, they still have to make trips to the water source. And carbon trade is inherently controversial, and as of now no plans have been announced for what happens to carbon offsets after the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012.

That is interesting.  It all seems like a bunch of hocus-pocus, but it solves a simple problem in a more primitive society.  The problem is that it also puts off dealing with a much more complex problem in a more complex society.  It also highlights the fact that the worst polluters, the U.S., China and India are doing nothing whatsoever to deal with CO2.

Should Irish Debt Be Restructured

Richard Portes says it is necessary:

Ireland is being made to pay for deciding to socialise its private debt at the end of September 2008. That was the original sin. Advised by Merrill Lynch and pressured by Eurozone authorities, Ireland gambled that its banks were fundamentally sound. A state guarantee would turn markets around, restore liquidity, and give them time to show they could deal with their problems. Not so. Merrill Lynch should at least return its fee. And now policymakers are talking about privatising state assets in order to pay for part of the costs of the socialisation. Whatever the other merits of privatisation, this does not make sense – the right solution is to (re)privatise the debt.
After many subsequent capital infusions of taxpayer funds, the latest stress tests and restructuring plans are supposed to draw a line under the shocking costs of the guarantee and to launch recovery. But the burden of the debt on the sovereign is now unsustainable. The projections in the original IMF programme, endorsed by the European Commission and the ECB, see the debt-to-GDP ratio peaking at 120% in 2013. The IMF itself clearly thinks that the downside risks to the programme are high, likely to materialise, and difficult to mitigate. The government has not convinced the markets – Irish sovereign spreads are today about the same as in November before the IMF programme, and the latest actions have led the ratings agencies to downgrade the sovereign (while upgrading the banks). Yes, a couple of investment banks are now saying Irish debt is a good buy – doubtless because they are now convinced the new government will not dare to restructure the debt. The programme requires some access to market funding from next year. That is not credible unless the debt is restructured.

Private debt should remain private.  There are risks to bond-holding.

Easter Rising, 1916

95 years ago, on April 24, 1916, Irish nationalists began a week long uprising, by seizing the General Post Office and other strongpoints in Dublin:

  The Easter Rising (Irish: Éirí Amach na Cásca) was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798.
Organised by the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Rising lasted from Easter Monday 24 April to 30 April 1916. Members of the Irish Volunteers, led by schoolteacher and barrister Patrick Pearse, joined by the smaller Irish Citizen Army of James Connolly, along with 200 members of Cumann na mBan, seized key locations in Dublin and proclaimed the Irish Republic independent of Britain. There were some actions in other parts of Ireland but, except for the attack on the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks at Ashbourne, County Meath, they were minor.
The Rising was suppressed after seven days of fighting, and its leaders were court-martialled and executed, but it succeeded in bringing physical force republicanism back to the forefront of Irish politics. In the 1918 General Election to the British Parliament, republicans (then represented by the Sinn Féin party) won 73 seats out of 105 on a policy of abstentionism and Irish independence. This came less than two years after the Rising. In January 1919, the elected members of Sinn Féin who were not still in prison at the time, including survivors of the Rising, convened the First Dáil and established the Irish Republic. The British government refused to accept the legitimacy of the newly declared nation, precipitating the Irish War of Independence.

William Butler Yeats reflected on the Rising with the poem Easter, 1916.



General Post Office, Dublin



Irish Prepare Welcome for Obama

Obama to visit his great, great, great grandfather's home (h/t Balloon Juice):

A small Irish village is pulling out all the stops and making sure it's spotless in anticipation of one of its most famous sons.

Moneygall in County Offaly is getting a facelift, as the rural village prepares to welcome the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama, next month.

The impending visit to Ireland by the U.S. President has transformed the appearance of Moneygall.

President Obama's great, great, great grandfather came from Moneygall and the president plans to swing by to his ancestral home during a two-day visit to Ireland.

And preparations for his arrival are giving the village a whole new look.

For instance, to ensure the presidential feet are made as comfortable as possible, the pavements are being dug up, re-laid and smoothed over as part of a huge refurb.

Pint for the President: Majella Hayes in her bar named Ollie Hayes

I bet folks in Western Ohio wouldn't be too excited by a visit, even though they renamed a street after the last president because he came to Tipp City to tell people things were going good in Iraq right after the surge started.  But, I'm used to people around here liking their politicians dumb.