Bank Forum offers solution to Ireland’s financial crisis

national | miscellaneous | event notice Friday September 27, 2013 16:10 by getouttamyhead

Thought-provoking American lawyer Ellen Brown, author of 12 books, two of them bestsellers on finance, will headline a day-long forum on economic options for Ireland with a presentation at the Springfield Hotel in Leixlip, Co. Kildare on October 12.

The program for the day includes presentations from Jamie Dowling, originator of an internet-based concept called Eirebank, Anthony Migchels, the Dutch promoter of a new interest-free currency, James Devaney, of Leixlip, who will speak on current attempts by government to amalgamate Irish credit unions, and Claire Cullinane, the Cork organizer responsible for helping people facing eviction from their homes.

The Forum will be followed by two additional appearances in Ireland by Brown, author of Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. She will speak at the Imperial Hotel, Cork on Oct. 14 (see: here) and again at the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone on Oct. 15. (see: here)

Thought-provoking American lawyer Ellen Brown, author of 12 books, two of them bestsellers on finance, will headline a day-long forum on economic options for Ireland with a presentation at the Springfield Hotel in Leixlip, Co. Kildare on October 12.

The program for the day includes presentations from Jamie Dowling, originator of an internet-based concept called Eirebank, Anthony Migchels, the Dutch promoter of a new interest-free currency, James Devaney, of Leixlip, who will speak on current attempts by government to amalgamate Irish credit unions, and Claire Cullinane, the Cork organizer responsible for helping people facing eviction from their homes.

The Forum will be followed by two additional appearances in Ireland by Brown, author of "Web of Debt" and "The Public Bank Solution". She will speak at the Imperial Hotel, Cork on Oct. 14 and again at the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone on Oct. 15.

Brown’s tour is being sponsored by a Midlands-based group called the Spirit of Eireann headed by Séamas Ó Muilleaneóir, former commandant with the Irish military. Ó Muilleaneóir explained his reason for calling the Forum: ”In all matters, offering solutions is better than spouting complaints, valid as the complaints may be. Many people are becoming wise to, and educated about the world of mysterious banking: it has been made
into a mystery because of endless games at the expense of the interest-paying people who had grown to believe that banksters actually knew something special. I, too, am one
of those who travelled that long learning curve about banking. I must thank a close friend, Martin Costello along with Max Keiser for putting me through a university of education in
all that is banking.”

Brown’s visit is prompted by the present banking crisis in Ireland, where the government guaranteed loans of an estimated €70 billion to be paid by every citizen. She has become popular with the Patriot Movement in the United States - groups opposed to the current administration - and, in particular, the fiscal policies of Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. The Fed, based in the Eccles Building in Washington, D.C., is the private central banking system responsible for printing U.S. currency since 1913. Ironically the Federal Reserve System was created to avoid banking panics that have happened throughout modern economic history.

The global banking crisis was prompted by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., in what Dan O’Brien, economics editor at the Irish Times, calls “the defining event in our century so far has been the failure of the Western world’s financial system. Five years on, the financial consequences continue to play out: budgetary, economic, social and political. And they will continue to play out for may years, if not decades, to come.”

Fallout from the Lehman collapse led to what Wikipedia has labelled the 2008-13 Irish Financial Crisis in which the Irish stock market Index dropped 80 percent, an unemployment rate estimated to be between 15 and 24 percent, a return to emigration for the country’s young, mortgage arrears and evictions.

“In my book, Web of Debt, the theme of it is The Wizard of Oz and the whole idea that nothing is what we think,” explains Brown, a graduate of UCLA law school. “Actually The Wizard of Oz is a monetary allegory in the 1890s when they had a big populist movement for money reform which is what I think we need to do today. They almost won and now we’ve seen 100 years later that the bankers have messed everything up and it’s time for us to step in and take back our government by taking back the money power. We have lost the power to issue our own money and our own credit and that’s where we lost our government. In the case of the euro, all those countries, they’re all in debt, how is that possible? If they’re all in debt, it’s because they’re in debt to bankers which create their money and lend it to them.”

Eirebank’s Dowling echoes Brown’s concerns with a modern hi-tech on-line solution to the financial crisis. “Eirebank is not a bank,” claims Dowling, “It’s a fully-formed springboard model consisting of the essentials for building an entirely new system where the elements which bind us as a society are under direct control of society - not private institutions. The people themselves control the money needed for trading products and services with each other. They control the relating conditions also, and, therefore, the people are government as they should be. Representative politicians are obsolete. The role of the politician now becomes that of ambassador for the people... the people regain control over their social and economic destiny by simply walking away from the present system.”

Anthony Migchels is a renowned expert on interest free economics. He writes the antiusuryblog Realcurrencies where he exposes the nature of a money system based on the charging of interest. "The problem is not debt, it is interest," he says. Migchels claims interest costs everyone 45 percent of the sales price of every product purchased. He also exposes the unfairness of borrowing €200,000 to buy a home, but being charged €500,000 in total repayments. practical solution. As the developer of the Dutch Gelre mutual credit system, Migchels has introduced a practical solution. for a system of interest free credit for business and an alternative currency for consumers, which gives a discount to all users, plus introduces much needed spending power - all interest free. The Gelre system is unique in that it offers interest free credit, plus an online marketplace for traders to convert units to Euros, and vice versa.

Cathal Spellman of Fair Money Ireland has been working with Migchels to introduce an Irish version of the Gelre. He studied Economics in Trinity College Dublin, andthe crash of 2008 led him on a quest for a fair money system and efforts to launch an interest-free convertible regional currency for Ireland. "We have everything we need for a prosperous country, but as long as we allow money to be created as loans that demand payment of
non-existent interest, we will remain slaves to the interest chargers," he said.

James Devaney, chairman of the national Credit Union Support Group, said that Ellen Brown’s concept of a People’s Bank relates directly to the position of the credit unions in Ireland today. Instead of the credit unions being able to fulfill the function of a People’s Bank, the government is incrementally trying to control and loot and destroy them, claims Devaney. This cannot be allowed to happen. What Ellen Brown proposes by implementing a PB may be an essential requirement for Ireland considering that the banks are self-destructing and that the money of the people is not safe.We need to look at having a debt free banking system into what the people can deposit their money knowing that it is safe. For this reason people need to support the work of the forum come along and see how
banking should be done.

Members of the organizing committee include Ó Muilleaneóir, Westmeath, Noel Kinahan, Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath, John Wiegel, Leixlip, Co. Kildare, Teresa Hand-Campbell, Roscommon, Michael Hayes, Cork, and Colm Brazel, Dublin.

The Forum will open at 11 a.m. with presentations by Dowling, Migchels and Devaney. Ellen Brown will address the afternoon session from 2 to 4 p.m. The Springfield Hotel is located 10 miles west of Dublin just off the M4 motorway at Junction 5, which is signposted signposted for Leixlip.

Dublin Bus 66, 66A and 66B routes serve Leixlip. They all leave Dublin City Centre from Merrion Square. Leixlip is also serviced by both DART/Commuter and Iarnród Éireann / Irish Rail train services. Irish Rail runs an ARROW service between Connolly Station, Dublin and Maynooth, stopping en route at Leixlip, Confey and Louisa Bridge.

Admission is €10. Concessions for students, unemployed and pensioners.