Workers Solidarity Movement

The NAMA bailout of the property speculators bank, Ango Irish Bank, is now costing the rest of us 25 billion euro.  Twenty five billion euro is a figure that is almost meaning less to almost all of us.  A worker earning the minimum wage would have to work for 1.4 million years to earn 25 billion (before tax).  The economist Ronan Lyons listed 100 things that 25 billion could have been spent on in, some flippant but others which give a real sense of just what the real cost of the 25 billion that the richest 1% have robbed off the rest of the population through NAMA is.

25 billion would for instance fund the building of 75 children's hospitals, or pay for cervical cancer vaccines for every girl going into first year for the next 8,333 years.  Or pay for an extra 5,000 hospital consultants for the next 60 years.  We have a health service where significant numbers of patients are dying due to delays in treatment and where many other have to suffer years or months of unnecessary ill health. When the richest 1% decided to put the costs of their lost mega bets on our heads this is the terrible price they were forcing us to pay.  25 billion could also give everyone a medical card for the next couple of decades.

In Ireland 1% of the population own 34% of the wealth.  This is in line with international figures as reported by the Observer that the richest 1% own 40% of global wealth.  All over the globe the vast majority of the population are being forced to pay for the crisis in capitalism, a system that serves the needs of that 1% at the expense of almost everyone else.  The only mystery here is why so many of us tolerate this for so long.

The 100 alternative list

WORDS: Andrew