How the world sees Greece
 Deutsche Welle | Bad tidings reignite Greek fears 25.09.2012 Deutsche Welle In Brussels, everybody is waiting for the new report by the troika of international lenders, consisting of the EU Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But for the time being the troika has taken a week's ... |
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 Daily Beast | Greece's Nightmare Options Daily Beast While Greeks take to the streets, their coalition cabinet will be holed up working the numbers to try to shave off a whopping €11.5 billion from the 2013-14 budget. Government leaders have been entertaining European Union inspectors all week, trying to ... Greece May Ask Eurozone Central Banks to Rollover Debt IMF's Call for More Cuts Irks Greece ECB-held bonds could help bridge Greek fiscal gap: Finance ministry |
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Dutch FinMin says premature to give Greece more bailout time Reuters AMSTERDAM, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The Dutch Finance Minister said France's call to give Greece two more years to cut spending was "very premature", and would make it easy for Greece to delay austerity measures and reforms. "I think France's call is very ... |
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Spain's government is right to fear the public reaction to this new round of suffering mandated by the financial markets
The attempt by the Spanish "Occupy" movement, the indignados, to surround the Congress in Madrid has been compared by the secretary general of the ruling rightwing People's party (PP) to an attempted coup.
Spanish democracy may indeed be in peril, but the danger is not in the streets. According to the Financial Times, the EU has been in secret talks with the economy minister Luis de Guindos to implement further austerity measures in advance of Spain requesting a full bailout. On Thursday the government will announce structural reforms and additional spending reductions, on top of the already huge cutbacks in health and education.
Pre-empting the bailout conditions means the government is able to retain the illusion of sovereignty.
In reality, Spain is on the brink of insolvency and under huge pressure to accept a rescue package. In return, Europe's fourth largest economy will have to surrender sovereign and financial control to the IMF, the European commission, and the European Central Bank.
If talk of a financial coup d'etat sounds far-fetched, consider this statement from a recent Goldman Sachs report: "The more the Spanish administration indulges domestic political interests … the more explicit conditionality is likely to be demanded." That's banker-speak for, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."
Meanwhile, in his heroic denials that a bailout is even necessary, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy increasingly resembles Saddam Hussein's information minister continuing to insist the Americans were fleeing and committing suicide by the hundreds at the city's gates, even as Baghdad was falling. Rajoy's strategy of denial has form. In June he insisted Spanish banks would not need to be bailed out, two weeks before they were. This paternalistic, old-fashioned attempt to mould public opinion in the face of reality seems to indicate that, as many local commentators have observed, the Spanish administration is operating "as if it didn't know the internet existed".
Maintaining the illusion of sovereignty is important, because Rajoy does not want to go down in history as the author of Spain's humiliation. There is an infamous picture of Indonesia's President Suharto signing away economic control in 1998, as the head of the IMF looms over him, arms folded, smiling. Rajoy is desperate to avoid such a scene, all too aware that the governments of Greece, Portugal and Ireland fell after being forced to ask for bailouts that imposed further austerity on their populations.
The PP also wants to avoid asking for a rescue package before crucial elections in Galicia and the Basque country on 21 October. But if Rajoy further delays in asking for a rescue, he could suffer the same fate as Berlusconi, removed from power last year and replaced by a an ex-Goldman Sachs technocrat after a run-in with the European Central Bank.
The main problem for Rajoy is that what Goldman Sachs calls "indulging domestic political interests" the rest of us call "democracy".
The government is right to fear the Spanish public's reaction to this new round of suffering mandated by the financial markets. Already many protest signs say: "We can't take any more." With a 26% unemployment rate, 22% of Spanish households now live below the poverty line and a further 30% cannot "reach the end of the month" as they say here.
Hundreds of thousands of trade unions took to the streets of Madrid again last week. Loss of sovereignty is fuelling desire for Catalan independence with huge protests. Spanish citizen movements, like those in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and France have demanded a debt audit, to see who really owes what to whom. Opposition politician Cayo Lara is asking for any bailout conditions to be debated in parliament, while a group called Judges for Democracy are looking at whether the virtual deconstruction of the social state could be unconstitutional. And the Spanish indignados are rattling the gates of Congress today against the betrayal of political parties and the undermining of popular democracy by the troika and the markets.
They are up against some of the most powerful forces on the planet. But they may take comfort from their counterparts in Portugal. Recently the Portuguese government announced it would raise social security payments from 11% to 18% in a country which cannot absorb more salary cuts. In response an unprecedented 600,000 people swarmed the gates of parliament and 40 city centres across the country, shouting "thieves!" and "cowards!" and demanding the government's resignation. In response the Portuguese government has done a U-turn.
Goldman Sachs and their ilk will find Spaniards at least as fiery in defence of their sovereignty.
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 Economic Times | Greece heads for strike standstill, IMF warns on finances Economic Times International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde warned on Monday that delays in implementing Greece's bailout programme, including privatisations, had increased the country's financing shortfall. "As a result of the major delay in privatisation (. Delays have left Greece with finance gap: Lagarde Eurozone crisis live: Merkel and Draghi meet; Lagarde warns about Greek debts World facing years of pain warns Lagarde amid fear Greece owes TWICE as ... |
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Irish Taxpayers Support Army Bras to Avoid Greece-Style Protests Businessweek Paying for military bras, shoes for civil servants and bonuses for handling animal carcasses is the price of industrial peace in Ireland. After reviewing more than 1,100 special allowances for state workers, the government last week abolished one: a ... |
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Greek tragedy in the making Bennington Banner It raises a serious question: When the current Greek government crisis arrives on our shores -- and it is inevitable -- will Vermont feel it first and hardest? Here are three small, but telling, examples as to why I believe Vermont has become so ... |
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 The Guardian | Greece Resists Calls for More Cuts Reason (blog) As Greece enters a pivotal week in its economic crisis, tensions between the Greek government and the country's international lenders have reached a boiling point. The government is resisting a push by the International Monetary Fund to impose ... Delays have left Greece with finance gap: Lagarde Delays leave Greece with finance gap IMF hints at more time for Greece to implement hardline austerity |
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 DailyFinance | Greece Denies $26 Billion Budget Shortfall DailyFinance The Greek Ministry of Finance has denied reports that the country must close a 20 billion euro ($26 billion) budget shortfall in order to meet requirements from international lenders. German magazine Der Spiegel reported the shortfall - almost double ... |
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Greece was hit by a news blackout yesterday as the country's journalists became the latest group of workers to go on strike in protest against new austerity measures.
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 Arutz Sheva | Rising Greek Neo-Nazi Party Opens NY Office New York Observer Golden Dawn New York (Screengrab). Golden Dawn is a Greek neo-Nazi party that has gained an alarming amount of power as Greece reacted to harsh government austerity measures. In an effort to reach out to Greek expatriates, Golden Dawn has opened ... Greek neo-Nazi party sets up New York office Greek neo-nazi party sets up NY office Greek Bailout on Hold Again, Is Obama Partly to Blame? IMF Economic Hit Man ... |
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