“Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.”
Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States
The past recklessness of financial speculation is imposing an intolerable burden on people’s future. Debt justice requires a European Debt Conference to restructure and write-down sovereign debt throughout the Eurozone; the introduction of a Financial Transaction Tax in order to repay states for the private bank debt they assimilated; the effective repudiation of Anglo-Irish debt through retention of the Anglo-Irish bonds in public, an end to bank-driven mortgage debt resolution through a state led and democratically accountable programme of restructuring and writing down of mortgage debt with a halt to evictions on the basis of inability-to-pay; and restructuring of money-lending debt which traps people in 100 percent interest loans.
Four further steps to address the debt crisis, in Ireland, Europe and Globally:
- Build alliances with progressive citizen-led movements in Europe to develop and promote alternative proposals for realistic and responsible debt reduction strategies for people across Europe.
- Establish a Debt Audit to determine the level of debt attributed to the private financial sector as a first step in recouping that money from those who caused this crisis, and fully participate in the UN Committee on Sovereign Debt Restructuring
- Establish a moral case for debt repudiation and compensation by means of a popular debt audit that will also be a tool for public, grass roots, education
- To acknowledge that we already have a nationalised banking system and to halt privatisation of these banks and build a public banking system. This system will be rooted in responsibility to communities in addressing mortgage arrears and provide an accountable and transparent method/source of social credit for social needs, rather than for private profit