You Did Buy That Cow....

Given the response first of the Greek and now the Irish populace to the European Union (EU)Bailout it is obvious that national group has a monopoly on hypocrisy or selective memory despite the Republican/Tea Party attempt to make that claim.

Anyone who thought that the European Union was intended to be anything less than an economic and therefore political federation shouldn't have joined in the first place, neither the EU nor the Euro.

The British have tried to be part of Europe yet doing the best to remaining outside it. They chose not to join the Euro out of a mixture of outright nationalism and a nationalist tinged economic view consistent with their Anglo-Saxon island mentality. Essentially they took the free-trade aspects of the EU on board, but didn't want to relinquish control over a myriad of British concerns including the value of Sterling and the level of interest rates.

So now the British are harping on about how Ireland's problems are due to the Euro, and aren't they lucky not to be a part of it.

Oh really.

British banks are the second largest lenders to Ireland after the Germans. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)is almost 90% Irish. Lloyds is over 60% Irish. Need I remind you that Her Majesty's Treasury owns 84% of RBS amd over 40% of Lloyds. Even Barclays, despite not having State ownership has 16% of its net assets in Ireland.

And as for the proposition that it is all because of the Euro. Funny that. The USA, Iceland and the UK aren't part of the Euro, and their banks all required massive support. No, I think the spin in Britain is to appeal to EU/Euro skeptics and hope to slither by the fact that the UK is massively involved in the Irish situation.

But back to the Irish. For almost a decade they were the Celtic Tiger. Somehow they were allowed to have seriously low corporate tax rates to attract inward investment-from their fellow EU members-and at the same time profited from the low interest rate environment provided by the Euro.

They didn't rant and rave against their government and against foreign 'imperialism' when it was all go. They benefited from the boom in real estate, in employment and in the general new found wealth of the nation.

Now that it's all gone wrong-it's someone else's fault, starting with their own government which 'sold them to foreigners', and then of course the foreigners themselves.

No, it wasn't the others. We all bought that cow. Everyone piled into the global credit bubble. Low interest rates, regardless of from whom, the provision of cheap credit, all combined to create the frothed milk latte society.

And now everyone is whinging because surprise, surprise, the milk wasn't free.