An Eerie Day in Dublin

A tale about an English Queen, American presidents, and us, the debt & mortgage laden Irish people:

Yesterday was a truly momentous occasion in our history as an independent Irish Republic - Queen Elisabeth II of the UK came to visit. She is the first British monarch to do so since we gained our independence in 1916. Today, Dublin was a place of eerie silence - for the sake of the safety of Her Majesty, we, the people of Dublin, were kept off the streets. MSNBC reports:

"Security has meant that the queen's motorcade has driven through empty streets – no throngs of waving spectators have been allowed. Only at Trinity College was there a chance for ordinary people to meet her: 250 students, faculty and staff chosen by lottery. According to participants, they made small talk, chatting about hometowns, majors and the like."

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/18/6667399-queens-visit-closes-bloody-chapter-in-ireland

You see, once again, our very own authorities have decided to dispense with consideration for us, 'the people on the street', in order to accommodate the wishes of 'higher' and 'mightier' forces. This is a bit like forcing the IMF/ECB punitive bail-out down our throats to keep our new foreign masters happy, while we have hospitals and schools shut down. Brian Lenihan's (the Minister of Finance who sold our futures to the ECB/IMF) recent platitudes that he did so under duress, would be laughable, had he not made us and our great-great grandchildren pay for it in generations to come.

Queen Elisabeth did not land at our capitals' newly opened airport, one wonders why. I have it on good authority that her landing at the remote Baldonell airport was guarded by dozens of Irish army snipers, ready to pull the trigger should the Queen come into danger. So, you see, we have authorities and forces in this country who can make decisions and exercise authority - when it suits them.

When it suites them we have a fully functioning State which can protect those it regards as important enough to protect. Sadly neither you nor I nor any of the actual citizens of this country seem to be on the list of those worth protecting. 

King Sean of Anglo Irish Bank still waltzes through the golf courses of Ireland while the tax-payers throughout the Euro zone settle Ireland's bank bail-out bills. For those who wonder why, I would like to remind you of 'The Fitzpatrick Tapes' that we learned of last summer. The tapes that convinced us of Fitzpatrick's very comfortable relationship with our then Prime-Minister, Brian Cowen of Fianna Fail. This would be the same Fianna Fail whose ex-TD (member of Irish parliament) was the chairman of UniCredit Ireland at the time of my resignation. This was a 'comfortable' time for all concerned, not only was our chairman, Prof. B. Hillary, an ex-TD (see Village magazine article) for Fianna Fail. The Minister of Finance of the day, was Mr. Brian Cowen, who would later preside over the destruction of Ireland, not by a foreign invader, but by our own, freely elected, Irish government.

http://www.villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2010/12/still-waiting-for-the-truth-from-the-regulator/

The Obamas, on the other hand, can expect to see more of us, Dubliners, on the streets when they land in Dublin next week. The Clintons often reflected on the warm welcomes we had given them. However, president Obama was the one who rushed 2,000 pages of bank bail-out legislation not long after he arrived in the White House. He is the fulfilment of every republican's wildest dreams. Bail-out the corrupt banks and throw people out of their homes for failing to deliver their side of the bargain, in the 'win-win' trap created by savvie bankers. 

"Goldman Sachs Misled Congress After Duping Clients, Levin Says" - stated Bloomberg/Newsweek last month.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-14/goldman-sachs-misled-congress-duped-clients-levin-says.html

Germany's best-performing bank, Deutsche Bank is mentioned in the congressional report as well, and not in the 'Good Guys' category.

I wonder will President Obama discuss with our Prime-Minister Kenny the unpleasant truth of companies operating 'on their watch' while contributing to the wealth of murderers like Muamar Ghaddaffi of Libya. Libya owns 7.5% of UniCredit. UniCredit owns Pioneer Investments - one of the oldest and biggest fund management companies in the USA. Perhaps it was not just Oil prices that President Obama was worried about when he took so long to support the people on Libya's streets who were fighting for democracy. Perhaps they need to teach the White House a lesson or two about democracy...

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110222-712907.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/02/unicredit-libya-idUSLDE7212FK20110302

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/27/unicredit-libya-idUSLDE71Q0K120110227

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/unicredit-pioneer-idUSN2127705420110421

The good news? History does repeat itself, but we, humans, seem to be learning, albeit 

 s l o w l y .  Ghaddaffi's assets were eventually frozen under a UN resolution much faster than it took for the US authorities to stop Prescot Bush (the presidents' forefather) from financing the Nazi war machine well after the attack on Pearl Harbour:

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power - The Guardian, September 2004. 

"While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war...

There was nothing illegal in doing business with the Thyssens throughout the 1930s and many of America's best-known business names invested heavily in the German economic recovery. However, everything changed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Even then it could be argued that BBH was within its rights continuing business relations with the Thyssens until the end of 1941 as the US was still technically neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The trouble started on July 30 1942 when the New York Herald-Tribune ran an article entitled "Hitler's Angel Has $3m in US Bank". UBC's huge gold purchases had raised suspicions that the bank was in fact a "secret nest egg" hidden in New York for Thyssen and other Nazi bigwigs. The Alien Property Commission (APC) launched an investigation.

There is no dispute over the fact that the US government seized a string of assets controlled by BBH - including UBC and SAC - in the autumn of 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act. What is in dispute is if Harriman, Walker and Bush did more than own these companies on paper."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

President Obama, your consideration for your people is touching, you are right up there with our own politicians. This recent quote from the Chicago Tribune says it all: 

"As President Barack Obama flies Monday to Chicago for a midday speech on health-care reform, the round trip on Air Force One will run about $236,000, according to government estimates of the operating costs for one of the top symbols, and perks, of the presidency. But that does not include such expenses as Secret Service protection, motorcades and helicopter transports.

...

The cost of Air Force One recently made national news after a backup aircraft that sometimes carries the president made a controversial, low-altitude flight over New York City as part of a government photo opportunity, panicking workers and prompting complaints from local officials. That flight cost more than $300,000, according to Air Force estimates.

Obama's air travel made news again when he and First Lady Michelle Obama traded the big bird for a much smaller Air Force jet made by Gulfstream for a recent Saturday evening "date night" in New York City. It was a lower class of service, apparently allowed because of the brevity of the trip."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-air-force-one-15-jun15,0,2483578.story

I would like to close this late-night rant with a beautiful poem sent to me by a reader in Florida. It is a paraphrasing of Pslam 23, updated for 1934/5:

Mr. Roosevelt is my shepeherd
I am in want
He maketh me to lie down on park benches
He leadeth me beside the still factories
He disturbuth my soul
He leadeth me in the paths of destruction for his party's sake
I anticipate no recovery
For he is with me
His policies and diplomacies - they frighten me
He prepareth a reduction in my salary and
In the presence of my enemies
He appointeth me small income with taxes
And my expense runneth over
Surely unemplyment and poverty shall follow me
All the days of my lifeAnd I shall dwell in a mortgaged house forever. 

http://wewillynotconform.blogspot.com/

Good night/morning,

whistleblower.irl@gmail.com

A peek into one of the deepest little cesspits in Europe - Golem XIV's blog today

A squib from Bloomberg, quoting the German Newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung,

"Munich prosecutors plan to file embezzlement charges against all members of Bayerische Landesbank’s former board...."

Having the words "all former members" and "embezzlement charges" in the same sentence just makes my day. Ever since the worlds' banks told us they were suddenly short of liquidity, the authorities who were supposed to oversee them, have been even shorter on balls than the banks were on cash. In fact regulators in several countries appeared to have had theirs removed almost as a requirement for getting the job.

So the Bloomberg headline is a thing to behold. The only other thing the article says is that Beyerishe LB lost 3.7 billion euros as a result of acquiring, in 2007, the Austrian bank, Hypo Alpe Adria. Which economy of reporting covers over a manhole which leads down into what is one of the deepest little cesspits in Europe. I say 'one of' because only a congenital regulator would imagine that Beyerishe is the only entrance into the sewer of European banking that ran a river of financial and political corruption, money laundering and dangerously shady arms deals from Croatia and Serbia to Austria, Bavaria, Italy and on to Ireland. 
.......
And lest it seem that the taste for Austrian banks was limited to some axis of corrupt Mitteleuropa imbeciles let's not forget Anglo Irish also had its own Austrian subsidiary. A subsidiary which, thanks to Kathleen Barrington's work, we know had in it 600 million in cash deposits which Anglo sold for just 141 million to Valartis bank which needed a loan of 24 million euros in order to make the purchase. A loan Valartis got from...Anglo.  Hmmm!

My question is if any other authorities or regulators will feel emboldened and feel they too can belatedly start questioning the bankers they are supposed to regulate. I know questions have been asked in the Austrian parliament. Will they be taken further than mere questions?  Will someone in Austria have the moral rectitude to lift the lid on their sewer and see where it leads? Will the German's pressure them to do so or force them to do the opposite if it looks like some of the dirt has ended up in German banks being bailed out by German tax payers?

And what about the Irish?  So far the Irish regulator has been a stand out disgrace.  When Senator Norris tried manfully to read the list of Anglo's bond holders which I wrote about, in to the public and parliamentary record he was shut up.

"The names are Aberdeen Asset Management (London) Limited, AGICAM, Aktia Asset Management, Aletti Gestielle SGR, AllianceBernstein (UK) Limited, Allianz Global Investors France, AmpegaGerling Investment, Anima SGR..."

was as far as he got before he was interrupted and told what he had to say was not relevant. He continued anyway adding, "One Swiss bondholder owns 40% of the bonds and will get millions of euro from us.." at which point the debate was terminated.

There is a trail of disturbing facts, like crumbs of dry excrement, running from bank to bank, country to country.  All it would take is courage and honesty to follow the trail.

So many of the details of the dishonesty and bottom feeding are already known but scattered in different countries, that it cries out for a prosecutor with Europe wide powers and authority to be charged with joining the dots.  Will it happen? Of course not. We will have do it ourselves - with the courageous help of the few honest men and women such as WhistleblowerIRL who have spoken up and who may just give others the courage to do the same.

http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2011/05/peek-into-one-of-deepest-little.html

A reader's comment that made my day!

Thank you 'Fungus' for taking the time to write your comment yesterday morning. Judging by the number of emails I received subsequently, you touched and alarmed many many people...

On 24 April 2011 04:32, Fungus FitzJuggler III left a new comment on your post "Brian Lenihan, Irish Ex-Minister of Finance confes...": 

Ireland sometimes seems like a perfect vacuum! No matter how much you and I and others shout, nothing ever happens in return, not even an echo.

There is no accountability. Criminals are elected to the Dail simply because they are "indispensable". Their voters are loyal to him because they share in an unequal allocation of patronage even though equality is supposedly guaranteed by law.

Ireland knows what it has done and is content to appear discontented! There are no riots as in Greece. There is an old tradition in both countries of emigration, a shameful indictment of the lack of opportunity for those outside the nomenklatura.

You are to be commended for trying to remind them of their collective dishonesty.

Those who take a long view, consider that the lesson is actually lost on them. You and I and the Rothschilds should set them up, if we are around in forty years or so? They will fall for it again...... The idea of checks and balances escapes them! 

Brian Lenihan, Irish Ex-Minister of Finance confesses in today's Irish Times. Allow me to confuse you with some facts, Mr. Lenihan.

[Ex Finance Minister] Lenihan Says ECB Forced Ireland to Seek Bailout - Bloomberg

By Joe Brennan - Apr 23, 2011 10:46 AM GMT+0200

"Ireland was forced by the European Central Bank into seeking an international bailout in November, the Irish Times cited Brian Lenihan, then finance minister, as saying in an interview.

Lenihan said that it was “damaging” and a “betrayal” how some ECB governing council members briefed some media about Ireland, the paper said in a report published today.

Ajai Chopra, deputy director for Europe at the International Monetary Fund, said external authorities were “trying to avoid a situation where you had a fully fledged bank run” as the IMF and European Union shaped the aid package, the Irish Times cites Chopra as saying in an interview."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-23/lenihan-says-ecb-forced-ireland-to-seek-bailout-times-reports.html

Well, well, Mr. Lenihan, how times have changed. It would seem that you are suffering from the same condition of 'Convenient Amnesia' that your successor in office - Minister Noon, is suffering from. Allow me to remind you what Deputy Brady said on your behalf to Senator Norris in the Seanad just over a year ago:

"The Financial Regulator imposes quantitative and qualitative standards for liquidity for all credit institutions that it supervises, be they credit institutions operating in the domestic market or those operating in international markets...The Financial Regulator also has a role in monitoring the functioning of liquidity within branches of credit institutions operating in Ireland where these are supervised by their home country regulator. The Financial Regulator maintains close communication with the regulators of other member states for this purpose.

....The importance of good liquidity management to the soundness of individual institutions and the financial system as a whole has been made abundantly clear from events throughout the recent financial crisis. The crisis clearly highlighted that, without good liquidity management principles and practices, financial institutions would quickly find themselves under stress and unable to meet their obligations. Internationally, the ample supply of liquidity in the years preceding the onset of the financial crisis in 2007 left many credit institutions unprepared for the shocks that occurred and many credit institutions struggled to maintain adequate liquidity throughout the financial crisis. For this reason, the European Central Bank and other central banks have been providing extraordinary liquidity support for financial institutions throughout the eurozone during the current financial crisis. These measures were introduced at the discretion of the ECB to deal with the liquidity crisis affecting the European-wide banking system. Irish credit institutions and many European credit institutions have obtained liquidity support [47]provided by the bank. However, dependence on ECB lending has been significantly reduced, indicating that conditions in international financial markets have improved substantially and Irish credit institutions have benefited from improved funding conditions which has been reflected in reduced recourse by Irish banks to Eurosystem funding. The ECB has indicated publicly that it is engaging in the progressive, timely and gradual phasing out of the non-conventional measures which were introduced in response to the financial crisis but that, notwithstanding this, liquidity support will remain for months to come. As such, there are no negative implications in the medium term from the announced “phasing out” measures. "

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/seanad/2010/02/23/00012.asp

So, Mr. Lenihan, apart for the fact that the "phasing out" of liquidity assistance was reversed, full-speed, into trying to plug the hemorrhaging condition of the Irish banks by the ECB/IMF only NINE months after you made this statement that "Irish credit institutions have benefited from improved funding conditions", how come you're 'not friends any-more' with your ECB mates? Why have you waited this long to make this confession? Could you not make it while still in office? Who was stopping you? Brian Cowen? Ollie Rehn?

Is there anything else you would like to come clean about?

whistleblower.irl@googlemail.com

To my readers in Finland

Lukijoilleni Suomessa:


Olen iloinen voidessani todeta, että viime viikollaminulla on ollut monia lukijoita maasi. Tarkat prosenttiluvut ovat 36% lukijoista Saksan blogi onSuomessa, ja 27% Irlannin blogi. Jos haluat saada lisätietoja, lähetä sähköpostia minulle: Whistleblower.IRL@googlemail.com


Toivotan teille kaikille oikein hyvää pääsiäistä,
WhistleblowerIRL

The Nyberg Report. Minister Noonan, allow me to confuse you with the facts.

RTÉ - Noonan demands shake-up of bank boards

Updated: 18:56, Tuesday, 19 April 2011

The Government is to hold a referendum later this year to enable Oireachtas committees to compel witnesses to attend hearings. The development follows the publication of the Nyberg Report into the Irish banking crisis.

At a press conference this afternoon, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the previous Government had failed to deal with the Abbeylara court decision which had limited the powers of investigation of committees...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0419/banks2-business.html

REALLY?!? Minister Noonan, the Mr. Nyberg was was appointed on Sept 22nd. 2010,  seven months after Senator David Norris raised the issue of the liquidity catastrophe at UniCredit Ireland which was ignored by the Financial Regulator. 


Sepetmber 2010 was FOUR months after I met with a senior Fine Gael deputy at a law firm in Ballsbridge. This is the meeting you allegedly know nothing about, why else would you have issued such a sweeping denial of the fact that Fine Gael had had any dealings with me? 


Sepetmber 2010 was also two years after the entire Irish banking sector ran dry of liquidity which was why the 'blanket gurantee' was put in place. Now you want to "compel witnesses to attend hearings"?  I volutarily provided Fine Gael with an account of the liquidity breaches at UniCredit Ireland, and this was evidenced by a very senior banker. What more could you have wanted?  


Please Minister Noonan, spare us the drama. We will be paying for the Fianna Fail saga for generations to come. We expected more of our new government.




PS


If it is the 'honest truth' that you are after, how do you explain the fact that Kathleen Barrington of the Sunday Business Post can not get a straight answer from anyone in official Dublin  in regard of Anglo's austrian deposists? Let us not forget that Anglo is now headed by a FG man.


http://kathleenbarrington.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-fitzpatrick-sent-600m-deposit-book.html

http://kathleenbarrington.blogspot.com/2011/01/600m-anglo-deposits-that-got-away.html


All we want to know is: 


Are we bailing out via NAMA and/or other schemes people who are allegedly bankcrupt, but actually have millions stashed away in a bank which is now Swiss-owned?  We do not want names, just a simple Yes/No answer will suffice. Surely now that we, the people of Ireland, own Anglo-Irish Bank, we are entiteled to know what it got up to in the 'good old days'.

Can we have the truth, PLEASE?

Dear Minister Noonan,

Now that we have officially been told by Moody's that our banks are junk, is there any chance that you might break with the tradition of your predecessors in office and start telling us THE TRUTH?

Frankly, we, the Irish people who are struggling to make ends meet, would like to know once and for all what the REAL situation is. We are sick and tired of relying on foreign entities like Moody's, S&P, ECB & IMF in order to discover what goes on in our own back yard. 

Further to my posting below from last Thursday, I would like to share some more correspondence with Fine Gael. This might serve to refresh your memory and that of your senior colleagues. It is rather surprising that you had chosen to completely deny that I had had any dealings with Fine Gael.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: 

Date: 11 June 2010 09:11

Subject: Re: Update

To: 
 
Hi N.,


Thank you for the update.

I look forward to hearing from you if/when there are any further developments....


Regards,
 

On 10 June 2010 16:48, N wrote:

Hi ...,

Deputy X [of Fine Gael, WB] has been in touch with the Financial Regulator, and set out the concerns raised at the meeting on the matters which do not appear to have been addressed. I understand that these concerns are being followed up by the Regulator who has promised Deputy X a reply in due course.

I gather that the Regulator may be contacting you directly in order to garner more information. Perhaps you could let me know if you have received any more information since then.

Regards, N. 

Whistleblower.IRL@gmail.com