According to this article:
Lenihan said Ireland needed less than euro100 billion ($140 billion) to use as a credit line for its state-backed banks, which are losing deposits and struggling to borrow funds on open markets.
Ireland has been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by its fateful 2008 decision to insure its banks against all losses — a bill that is swelling beyond euro50 billion ($69 billion) and driving Ireland’s deficit into uncharted territory.
To put this in perspective, Ireland has approximately 4.5 million citizens. So Irish banks have already lost about $15,333 per person and Ireland will be receiving a credit line of up to $31,111 per person.
<Sarcasm> Good thing the EU and IMF do not actually have to produce and sell any goods to provide these funds. God bless the power of printing money out of thin air and dropping it from helicopters. If the EU, IMF, and Federal Reserve didn’t have these powers, we’d be seeing a financial crisis the likes of which we have not seen in generation. <End Sarcasm>
We always joke about our government fiddling while Rome burns. But in this case, the government is actually doing something. Too bad it is the wrong something. Instead of throwing water on the fire, they are putting piles of paper money onto the fire. And as we learned from the Weimar Republic, paper money burns just as well as firewood, but is much cheaper.
Michael E. Newton 