Bill Gates Added To List Of Bondholders Bailed Out In Ireland
Taxpayers vs. Bondholders
What happened in Ireland was nothing less than the blasphemous rape of a nation in order to reward billionaire bondholders who invested recklessly, conducted little oversight, and then went crying to Geithner and Trichet when it didn't work out. In other words, it was their own damn fault, and they should have lost their collective asses when the banks failed.
This is the heart of the bailout battle in Ireland and everywhere else: taxpayers vs. bank bondholders. The difference in Ireland is the debate is front page news. While Irish citizens are the ones who must repay the loans, they aren't the only ones who got screwed. Call it global taxpayer theft with heavy concentration in Europe and the U.S., as bailout funds were only made available on Geithner's explicit condition that bondholders not be touched.
Remember that U.S. taxpayers fund approximately 20% of the IMF's budget. So when you read below about Bill Gates and his $34 million in Irish bank bonds that were bailed out at 100 cents on the dollar by the IMF and EU, take comfort in the knowledge that some of your taxpayer dollars helped to rescue poor Mr. Gates from certain financial doom.
REPEAT AFTER ME
We must never ask bank bondholders to pay for investment mistakes.
Much better to foist losses on taxpayers and protect those who committed fraud.
How dare we expect billionaires to bear the burden of actual capitalism.
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How Billionaire Bill Gates Got Bailed Out By Irish Taxpayers
It has just been revealed that the world's second-richest man, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, was a major Irish bank bondholder ahead of the financial collapse that saw the Irish taxpayer put on the hook for the $113 billion bank bailout.
The identities of wealthy bondholders in the Irish banks, bailed out in most cases by Irish citizens, have never been revealed fully. Billionaire Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich emerged as a bondholder in Irish Nationwide after his investment vehicle Millhouse was involved in a lawsuit. Abramovich and his partners lost the case, but many other bondholders were repaid in full despite backing irresponsible banks. French and German banks were the largest holders of Irish bank bonds.
Pressure from the ECB and Tim Geithner on Ireland not to burn senior bondholders saw those French and German banks repaid in full when the Irish banks hit the skids.
Most recent regulatory filings show that the Gates Foundation still owns nearly 99 million shares in Bank of Ireland, which would be worth about $30M at current prices.
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Gates Was Major Bondholder In Bailed-Out Irish Banks
Microsoft founder Bill Gates was a major bondholder, with $34.6 million in bonds at the end of 2006, in Irish banks which were bailed out by taxpayers. Gates, the world's second-richest man, was a bondholder in Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Nationwide Building, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank, according to new filings which detail investments by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This total included 7 million bonds in Anglo Irish valued at nearly $11m. The trust also listed a holding of 1 million Irish Nationwide bonds worth €2.02m. It also owned Bank of Ireland and Bank of Ireland (UK) bonds worth more than €7.7m as well as more than €5.54m in AIB bonds.
Now Watch This
Bill Gates says he is a friend of Ireland.
Start watching at 1:10 to hear Gates applaud the hard work and sacrifice of the Irish people in making "the necessary cuts" to save their nation. It's absolutely smack-worthy. At the time, no one was aware that Gates had been one of the bailed-out bondholders. So to watch him in this clip does inspire a certain new and unique level of loathing.
Jan. 23, 2013.
Read more:
Rothschild Bank AND Goldman Sachs Are Both On The LIST Of Bondholders Getting U.S. Taxpayer Billions In Ireland
Entertaining Clip
Ireland Forced to Take EU Bailout
See the rest of the photos here