Collapse of the Global Economy

Ireland: Government Unveils Major Budget Cuts

April 14, 2009

World Socialist Web Site - The Irish government outlined its emergency budget in response to the country’s deepening economic and financial crisis on April 7. It involves a major assault on the living standards of wide layers of working people, including the poorest.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan also signalled that more could follow, warning that he anticipated the Irish economy would contract by 8 percent in 2009—one of the sharpest predicted contractions in the euro-zone.

The budget, the fourth emergency financial package since July 2008, also created a state-run “bad bank” into which all the toxic assets of the financial system can be dumped and thereby offloaded into the public purse. The Fianna Fail/Green coalition government’s intention is to transfer the huge cost of the financial debacle onto the working class, all the while claiming the entire exercise is a “fair” response to a national crisis...

G20 Strikes Trillion-dollar Crisis Plan

April 2, 2009

Reuters - G20 leaders agreed to pump a trillion dollars into the troubled global economy through more funding for groups like the International Monetary Fund, part of a stimulus package that will total $5 trillion by 2010...