Star Trek

Greece protest against austerity package turns violent

Jon Sopel: "In one corner of Syntagma Square we have seen more violence erupting"

Police have fired tear gas in running battles with stone-throwing youths in Athens, where a 48-hour general strike is being held against a parliamentary vote on tough austerity measures.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside parliament in the capital where public transport ground to a halt.

PM George Papandreou has said that only his 28bn-euro (£25bn) austerity plan would get Greece back on its feet.

If the package is not approved, Greece could run out of money within weeks.

Without a new plan in place, the EU and International Monetary Fund say they will withhold 12bn euros of loans which Greece needs to repay debts due in mid-July.

The newly named IMF chief, Christine Lagarde, has urged Greek politicians to unite to avoid a debt default.

"If I have a message this evening about Greece, it is a call to the Greek opposition... to join in national unity with the party which is currently in power," she told France's TF1 television station. "The country's destiny is at stake."

'Declared war'

As thousands of peaceful demonstrators observed a night-time protest outside the Greek parliament on Syntagma Square, sporadic clashes continued nearby between black-hooded, rock-hurling youths and police firing tear gas.

Earlier, more than 5,000 police officers were deployed in the city centre to monitor what started off as a peaceful rally, but rapidly deteriorated into running skirmishes on the fringes of the main demonstration.

Hundreds of protesters - their faces covered by scarves or gas-masks - started throwing stones, debris and bottles in the square at police who retaliated with tear gas and stun grenades.

...

Greece's general strike has halted most public services, banks are closed and hospitals are operating on skeleton staff.

Airports are shutting for hours at a time, with air traffic controllers walking out between 0800 and 1200 (0500-0900 GMT) and 1800 and 2200 (1500-1900 GMT).

A number of flights were cancelled at Athens international airport while trains, buses and ferries were also affected.

The capital's underground system was the only form of public transport working "to allow Athenians to join the planned protests in the capital", metro drivers said.

 Protesters blockaded the port of Piraeus, near Athens, which links most Greek islands with the mainland.

"The situation that the workers are undergoing is tragic and we are near poverty levels," said Spyros Linardopoulos, a protester with the PAME union at the blockade.

"The government has declared war and to this war we will answer back with war."

The unions are angry that the government's austerity programme will impose taxes on those earning the minimum wage, following months of other cuts which have seen unemployment rise to more than 16%.

Polls suggest that between 70% and 80% of Greek people oppose the austerity plan.

"We know very well that these measures will be our tombstone," said bank worker Kali Patouna.

"They will have extreme consequences for workers and for everyone on all social levels."

'Flawed' plans

The austerity package and implementation law must be passed in separate votes on Wednesday and Thursday.

If the measures are passed, the next instalment of Greece's 110bn-euro bail-out will be released by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

European officials will also start to finalise the details of a second bail-out - worth an estimated 120bn euros - designed to help Greece pay its debts until the end of 2014.

EU President Herman Van Rompuy said the impact of the Greek vote would be felt worldwide.

"The coming hours will be decisive, crucial for the Greek people, but also for the eurozone and the stability of the world economy," Mr Van Rompuy told the European parliament.

A Greek government defeat would send ripples of anxiety right across the eurozone, with Greece facing the prospect next month of becoming the first member state to default on its debts, says the BBC's Chris Morris in Athens.

Mr Papandreou has warned that failure to secure the new loans would mean that national coffers could be empty within days.

The recently-appointed Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos acknowledged that the cuts were "unfair", but said they were absolutely necessary.

He called on MPs to back the measures, saying both the government and the opposition were "running out of time".

But the main opposition leader, Antonis Samaras of the New Democracy party, said the thinking behind the austerity package was flawed and that tax rates should be lowered rather than raised in order to stimulate the economy.

The outcome of the debate is uncertain. Mr Papandreou faces opposition from within the governing Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), with two MPs saying they may oppose the bill.

The party has a slim majority, with 155 seats out of 300 in parliament.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13935400

  This is what I believe America will look like in 10 or 15 years if we continue to let our government take over every aspect of our lives. Americans in the streets protesting for more government programs in America a corporation goes bankrupt people loose a job some people loose money ect. But when government controls the work force and they go under the entire nation is at risk. 

Why would we even bother to loan them money, seems like they dont want it

While violence is no answer I cant blame the Greeks for coming out in protest.

Looks like the UK has finally, at long last, decided to start protesting too. We had a spate of students and lecturers coming out over the fees hike, but a lot of ordinary working folk either didnt care or said 'tough'. I said, months back "You'll feel differently when they freeze your wage, make you redundant, up the retirement age and come after your pension". It took the latter to gets people out in protest, just yesterday. But, typically, many unions are stalling strikes while others are going ahead so its a mixed message. Come autumn more will be out and it might not be too late to make a difference, but Im not holding my breath.

In Greece, I get the feeling that the causes are a kind of all of the above type answer. Countries that spend well beyond their means while at the same time failing to collect taxes from the extremely wealthy within their borders are going to be prone to this type of crisis. Further, we shouldn't lose sight of what precipitated the world wide economic meltdown, the dramatic burst of the way overextended housing bubble. A comparative handful of insiders benefited enormously at the beginning of that bubble, and now the rest of society has to suffer  by the fallout from the situation from which they benefited. No wonder there is a kind of unfocused resentment and anger in countries like Greece.

Sure, maybe they should have focused on a more responsible spending plan, but that mistake should be seen within an overall context.

Yup. Many comparitively wealthy countries have tripped themselves up with their own greed. Governments dont run and ruin countries, bankers do.

What? Governments have nothing to do with it and there just innocent bystanders!

YEs, here is a recent excerpt from an interview on Democracy Now! that speaks to that point:

MARK WEISBROT: Well the vote may pass, but it’s not going to be the end of this struggle at all because as you can say, the people in the streets are really the constraint. The creditors are trying to squeeze as much as they can out of Greece, and they’re making the economy worse. There’s hardly any disagreement among economists about that. That this package if it passes will make things worse. They’ve already laid-off 10% of the government work force and now this package will call for another 20% of the labor force, the federal labor force, to be laid off and another 12% of GDP over the next three years in budget cuts, which would be like $1.70 trillion in the U.S., budget cuts and tax increases. So this is going to worsen the recession unless some totally unforeseen events were to happen. There is going to be a default. That’s the opinion of the markets and most economists and the question is, what’s it going to be like? When are they going to stop punishing Greece and allow the economy to grow and employment to return? That’s the big questions.

AMY GOODMAN: What if the parliament just voted no today? Certainly the mainstream media in the United States, it is an absolute given they have to vote yes. CNN, through the morning the news anchors are saying, "They must do this."

MARK WEISBROT: Yes, I saw that show. It is amazing how they report as though there’s no choice. There is always a choice. There’s going to be a default right up the road, so they could default now and they could refuse to accept these conditions and they might be better off for that, especially, if the result of what’s going to play out is years of recession and high unemployment. You know, Argentina had this choice after 3.5 years in the late 90’s of following the IMF recipes and the economy worsening and at the end of 2001, they did default on their debt and they broke the link with the dollar, their currency with the dollar and they did quite well. The economy shrank sharply for just one quarter and then it grew 63% over the next six years and they pulled 11 or 12 million people out of poverty. So, that was a different scenario and that’s also an alternative for Greece.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk also about, and there is of course is a connection between the appointment of Christine Lagarde as the IMF chief replacing Dominique Strauss-Kahn who is facing sexual assault charges here in New York. She is the French finance minister. Talk about what she represents and what this means for Greece, Europe, and the rest of the world.

MARK WEISBROT: Well you can see she is already saying, you have to accept this. You don’t see anything coming from her that would provide any light at the end of the tunnel for Greece or Ireland or Portugal or Spain. All of these countries are being subject to these, what economists call "pro-cyclical" policies that make it difficult or impossible for their economies to recover and I think she’s going to continue that. In fairness to her, you could say, well, she doesn’t really run, she doesn’t make policy for the IMF because it is run by an executive board and a board of governors and that’s the G7 countries, the United States and Europe. And that’s something I think Americans should know too here because you know everybody is acting as though the U.S. is just a bystander here, but in fact our government is heavily involved because they’re the major voice within the IMF and the IMF, as you know, is right on the front lines here in Greece and these other countries.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the international banks like Goldman Sachs? How did Greece get in this situation?

MARK WEISBROT: Well they all contributed to it of course as they did in the whole crisis. All these countries got in to this situation because of the financial crisis and the recession of 2008, 2009. None of them would be in this situation if it weren’t for this and Greece’s crisis has been made worse by the policies that they’ve adopted and of course these policies are being adopted because this is what the creditors want. The banks and of course their allies in the European Central Bank and the IMF and the European Commission.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what the debt means in the United States and what the deficit is that we are dealing with here, can you fit this into this global picture and what you think needs to be done, Mark Weisbrot?

MARK WEISBROT: Well it’s kind of the opposite of what you see in a lot of these editorials that say the United States is like Greece, and we’re living beyond our means and we have to cut back, too. The real lesson from what you’re seeing in Europe and in Greece and Portugal, which just signed an agreement that commits them to two years of recession...is that if you do these policies...if you actually try to cut spending and raise taxes during a recession, you are going to get much higher unemployment and a much worse economy. That’s the real lesson that you can learn, that people should learn from what’s happening in Europe.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/29/greek_parliament_approves_40b_bailout_some

Greece's problems won't ever be seen in the US. Corruption is massive - you have to pay bribes all the time. For example: you're expected to pass €200 under the table if you want a passport. Because of the corruption and bribery official wages are much lower than they should be - IT workers earn 50% less than elsewhere - denying government crucial revenue from income taxes.

Greece's next problem is people getting out of paying their taxes through every trick in the book. In Greece you only pay tax on your home if it's finished, so they leave a small patch of the roof undone.

Third, Greece is stuck in an artificial currency that's worth about as much as monopoly money.

And finally, Greeks are just plain lazy.

 Yes to what that the bankers are alone in the responsibility of economic collapse. Please governments made the very decision that brought them here so when the financial system tells the government they have to play by their rules to protect themselves this wipes out the governments responsibility? I don’t think so there are many groups of people to blame here and blaming one group is not going to fix the problems. As my father always said keep your brain and your eyes open. In other words look at the entire situation to solve the problem not just one side.   

Most people support the government on pensions and it'll get into more trouble if it backs down. Why should I work to age 68 or 70 so my taxes can fund public sector workers retirement at age 60 on a pension several times higher than my own?

Public sector workers striking is waste of time anyway, if the private sector strikes, the employer worries about profits. When public workers strike, government has saved some money.

I don't think anybody here is just trying to single out any one group. I think comments above about corruption in Greece are well taken. Still, this "well there are a lot of people at fault" approach to things obscures who has the power, what decisions are being made by those with power, and the consequences of those decisions. Yes, there are a lot of things going on, but some are more important than others.

Why is it bankers seem to play by one set of rules - bailouts to keep them from going under, and everybody else has to play by another set of rules - painful austerity measures when things begin to sour. Could it have anything to do with who has power and who doesn't?

Americans have been taught for the last couple of gernations that the government is their god and provider and that Americans are helpless without the government handouts.

The USA was made great because people were self sufficient and after only a very short time, we became the world power even though other countries were centuries older.

Whatever happened to JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" ?  (Although I'd actually phrase it as "As not what your government can do for you... ask what you can do for your country."  If we can get back to the attitude of less government and more individual liberty, we'd be much better off.

As an example - take a look at different areas that were hit hard with some sort of natural disaster.  Those that relied on government took much longer than those that rebuilt the area themselves.

When the USA relearns personal RESPONSIBILITY, we'll be on our way to recovery.

And by the way - bribes already happen - they just do it under the guise of political contributions and bailouts.