Welcome, 77 artists, 40 different points of Attica welcomes you by singing Erotokritos an epic romance written at 1713 by Vitsentzos Kornaros
Thursday, November 28, 2013
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OECD Says Greece Needs Debt Cut
ATHENS — A top international economic body warned that Greece’s crippling recession is likely to continue into next year, and urged bailout creditors to intervene as soon as possible to make the country’s debt sustainable. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said the Greek economy, which is shrinking for a sixth consecutive year, would […]
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Greek MPs OK Drug Cost Cuts
It's Personal: Thankful for Greece, and family ties that endure
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Happiness study finds that UK is passing point of peak life satisfaction
Economists say that per capita incomes above UK's adjusted level of $37,000 make people less contented
The latest addition to the burgeoning field of "happiness economics" has a sobering message for Britain: this is as good as it gets.
For years, economists have debated if there is a cut-off point beyond which growth adds nothing to wellbeing. Now – in a study published on Thursday, the day that official figures show the fastest growth for three years – two economists have gone a step further and estimated that "sweet spot" with some precision. And the UK has reached it.
According to Eugenio Proto of Warwick University and Aldo Rustichini of University of Minnesota, life satisfaction peaks when incomes per head – adjusted so that money buys the same basket of goods and services worldwide – reach $36,000 (£22,000) a year. Per capita incomes in the UK on this basis are $37,000. Beyond this point, they say, we get richer but less contented.
Proto said: "Our new analysis has one very surprising finding which has not been reported before – that life satisfaction appears to dip beyond a certain level of wealth. In our study we see evidence that this is down to changes in the aspiration levels of people living in the richest countries.
"As countries get richer, higher levels of GDP lead to higher aspiration. There is a sense of keeping up with the Joneses as people see wealth and opportunity all around them and aspire to having more. But this aspiration gap – the difference between actual income and the income we would like – eats away at life satisfaction levels.
"In other words, what we aspire to becomes a moving target and one which moves away faster in the richest countries, causing the dip in happiness we see in our analysis."
Using a mixture of survey evidence and GDP data, the study found a strong link between rising incomes and happiness for poor countries.
Nations with a GDP per head below $6,700 were 12% less likely to report the highest level of life satisfaction than countries with a figure of about $18,000.
But at about $20,000 GDP per capita, the link becomes less obvious, with people only 2% less likely to attain the highest levels of life satisfaction than in countries with the highest average incomes ($54,000). After $36,000, happiness falls slightly.
The study used a combination of survey evidence, adjusted to reflect cultural differences, and GDP data to judge if higher incomes make people happier.
Some economists are sceptical about this approach, saying life satisfaction does rise as incomes go up.
Philip Booth, editorial director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: "There are well-known problems in using happiness data in studies such as these, though the most comprehensive evidence suggests wellbeing does continue to rise with income.
"However, there are simple solutions if people feel happier on lower incomes – they can work less or they can migrate from countries such as the US to countries such as Greece or South Korea. Neither of these things seem to be happening."
Happiness indicesHealth & wellbeingEconomic growth (GDP)EconomicsLarry Elliotttheguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsNeetu Chandra plays Indian goddess in Greek film
Economic policy group: Global slowdown hurting Greek debt effort, recession to ...
Greece Opens Heroin-Injection Rooms to Combat HIV
Germany's grey manifesto is more old than bold
The coalition deal the CDU/CSU and the SPD have spent so long thrashing out reflects the priorities of an ageing nation
One of the small ways in which Berlin life differs from London life is that people rarely rush up or down escalators. Even in the heart of the city, there's no two-way traffic on the way down to the underground. You just stand there and wait. If you miss the next U-Bahn, so be it: another will be along in a minute.
Much the same logic applies to politics. Whereas the current British government was formed during a frantic five-day wargaming session, hurried along by a civil service worried that the markets would make the government "pay a price" for indecision, 66 days have passed since the German general election and Wednesday's presentation of a coalition agreement.
And that may not even the end of it: only if a coalition deal passes an SPD membership ballot will Angela Merkel be sworn in for her third term as German chancellor on 17 December. If the Social Democrat party faithful say no, everything goes back to the top of the escalator, so to speak.
Asked by a Danish journalist at her press conference on Wednesday if she didn't find the speed of the process incredibly frustrating, Merkel shook her head: "I just sit calmly and get on with my work."
The advantage of the slow-stream approach to coalition-forming is that it should produce stabler coalitions and more thought-through policies; the risk is that it can entirely sap the process of its spirit of adventure, and make bold decisions unlikely.
The coalition agreement the CDU/CSU and the SPD presented today bears out the latter rather than the former. The SPD leader, Sigmar Gabriel, can present his party members with at least three key policies that have survived from his election manifesto: the introduction of a minimum wage, rent controls in major cities including Hamburg, Munich and Berlin, and dual citizenship, all of which had previously been noisily dismissed by conservative politicians and business leaders.
There are caveats: the minimum wage won't come into full effect until 2017, and dual citizenship will only apply to those born in Germany, not the first generation of Turkish "guest workers" who gave birth to them. But these policies have been discussed at such length that it is hard not to see them being realised in the coming term. It should be enough to guarantee a yes in the SPD membership ballot.
What is noticeable is that while the left mostly got its way on social issues, the conservatives barely had to compromise on any of the more fundamental questions around healthcare, tax rises or Europe.
Greece is mentioned in the coalition agreement but there are no concrete measures on debt restructuring or what to do about Greek unemployment. If this is supposed to be the "Marshall Plan for Europe" that the SPD announced in its election manifesto, it may struggle to live up to such bold a name.
Germany under a grand-coalition government may become more socially liberal but it will remain conservative in its attitude to debt and spending.
The title of the coalition treaty is Shaping Germany's Future, but the priorities it sets are very much those of an ageing nation. On pensions, the two parties didn't so much compromise as push through changes that will please the elder members of their respective constituencies.
While crisis-hit countries like Greece are raising the pension age, Germany will move to lower it: in the future, those of who have worked for a full 45 years can earn a full pension from 63, four years earlier than the statutory threshold of 67. Gabriel claims it is a gesture of "fairness" towards parents who have worked harder than their children ever will.
The CDU, on the other hand, has got its way with a "mothers' pension", which aims to do more to compensate mothers who had children before 1992: more "fairness" for senior citizens.
Experts calculate the cost of the "pension with 63" at €5bn (£4.2bn) a year and the "mothers' pension" at €6.5bn, dwarfing the €6bn the coalition pledges to invest in education and research for younger people.
At 45, Germany's median age is almost three and a half years higher than the median age of the rest of Europe. Rarely have the consequences of this been more evident in the coalition agreement: it reads like the manifesto of a country that feels it has worked hard to accrue its current wealth, and doesn't fancy too much heavy lifting in the future.
GermanyAngela MerkelGreeceEuropePhilip Oltermanntheguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds'Resign!' – Bulgaria's protesters need a better slogan than that
Bulgaria's protests are diminishing, but the country remains in crisis. Can the student demonstrators lead the way in providing a new political language?
Bulgaria is undergoing a deep political crisis. A mass social mobilisation against austerity, poverty and electricity price rises took place in February, toppling the centre-right government. After elections in May, the independent Plamen Oresharski became prime minister, backed by a broad coalition of social democrats (BSP) liberals (DPS) and the far right (ATAKA). Oresharski, a technocrat, was best known as one of the architects of the currency board imposed on Bulgaria in 1997 as part of an IMF programme to save the country from currency collapse and hyperinflation. Bulgaria went from the frying pan into the fire, forced into a regime of unrelenting austerity, long before Greece and the rest of western Europe.
In the 2000s Oresharski shifted politically towards the social democrats. As finance minister, he developed a hardcore neoliberal pedigree, becoming infamous, although praised by the World Bank, for introducing a 10% flat tax and for taking a tough line against striking teachers in 2007.
This round of popular unrest, going on for over 160 days now, erupted over the controversial appointment of Delyan Peevski, a media mogul, as a head of national security. Originally, demonstrations were immense, with participants from all sides of the political spectrum demanding the resignation of the government. Gradually, the protests became smaller after being hijacked by groups who saw them as a way of reviving 1990s anti-communism. Protesters started to call for "European values", "morality in politics" and a "genuine break" with the communist past. The BSP managed to organise a counter-protest movement, staging at least two huge rallies and the situation became deadlocked – government and opposition sharing identical socio-economic visions but throwing empty accusations at each other.
The protests entered a new phase when students occupied Sofia University's main building last month. The rightwing opposition, composed of ex-ruling party GERB and the Reform Bloc, saw the occupation as an extension of their campaign. The occupation certainly inspired the street protests anew. When people saw its potential, however, there was a lot of pressure from party activists and from within the occupation to abandon its intellectual aims and to focus on bringing about the government's resignation and new elections. The original radical content of the occupation was ignored by the media while the old "communists v anti-communists" paradigm took over.
Yet the occupation itself is curiously devoid of strong anti-communism. When they join the protests, students refuse to chant "red scum". Another key difference is that not a single EU flag was raised inside the occupation, unlike in the street protests.
The students' "moral revolution" sits uncomfortably with the attempt by political elites to find new legitimacy through reviving old political divisions. The students have explicitly distanced themselves from all the political parties that have dominated Bulgaria post-1989, directing their anger instead at the endless "transition" to democracy, with its misery and corruption.
Most importantly, the occupation has gone beyond demanding just a government resignation that would result in a different set of politicians but the status quo remaining the same. The students organised workshops where they discussed their desired common future, reminding us of what a university is supposed to be. While the street demonstrations were trapped in focusing on the spectral figure of "communism", never allowing space for reflection and critical debate, by contrast, the original style of the student occupation is inspired by the Occupy movement.
The price of success in reviving the protests, however, was the irreparable loss of the intellectual content of the occupation's initial phase. Somehow, the occupation must manage to revive its own aims and direction. It should do so not only for its own sake, but for the sake of the wider protest movement and Bulgaria as a whole.
The protest movement's main slogan – "Ostavka!" ("Resign!") – lacks the ability to mobilise people, hence the dwindling popularity of the protests. The students can give the protests a choice beyond two dead-end options represented by the ruling socialist-turned-neoliberal party and its challengers from GERB and the ruling bloc. And the students have shown an ability to empathise with the problems faced by ordinary Bulgarians (poverty, disappearing public services, etc) in a radically new and interesting way that takes them away from the post-1989 debate.
To find a solution to our predicament we need a new political language – one that the old political parties are in no position to provide. Still, we should not forget the dangers of the present situation. The lack of any sensible option on the left opens up the risk of radical uncertainty. We should recall the words of Gramsci, that the time when the old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth, is the time of monsters.
BulgariaEuropeProtestJana TsonevaGeorgi Medarovtheguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsAusterity is wreaking havoc, but the left can unite to build a better Europe
Zealots for neoliberalism have created a humanitarian tragedy across the continent. It is our destiny to fight back
More than 1,000 young people a day are joining the ranks of Europe's unemployed. In the past four years the army of jobless people across the continent has grown by more than 10 million.
In Greece, despite the government's claim that austerity has been a success, the 2014 budget imposes new public spending cuts and more job losses. The economic and humanitarian catastrophe is unprecedented in peacetime: 27% unemployment, 60% youth unemployment, a 25% shrinking of GDP, 40% reduction in family income. And, even after relentless pain, the debt-to-GDP ratio is almost 180%. It was only 120% in 2010 when the first austerity measures were imposed.
But, the human tragedy is not limited to Greece. Wages across Europe have been slashed and the welfare state scaled back at a rate unprecedented in the postwar era. Millions are struggling to pay their mortgages, electricity bills or medical and student debts. Europe's humanitarian crisis is unlike anything experienced in 60 years, with 120 million people enduring conditions of extreme difficulty, according to the Red Cross. This is not a natural phenomenon, but is, to use Nelson Mandela's words, "manmade" poverty.
Zealots for neoliberalism have turned ordinary people's lives upside down. Their structural adjustment policies serve a model of economic governance that transfers risk on to the shoulders of ordinary workers and the young. But the response of EU and national leaders is hopeless. The main EU policy initiative on youth unemployment ("youth guarantee") amounts, for example, to just €6bn or 0.6% of the EU budget for 2014-2020. Austerity, work precarity and the dynamics of the markets undermine the ability of low- and middle-wage earners to make a decent living. Household debt is extremely high in the Netherlands and Malta (almost 220% of GDP), while in Portugal, Spain and Italy many businesses are trapped in a spiral of debt.
Those European leaders who claim that the current medicine is a "success" are hypocrites. For millions of people, the European dream has turned into a nightmare. Eurobarometer surveys show the growing crisis of confidence in the EU and the catastrophic rise in the popularity of far-right parties. What should give us hope is the emergence of new solidarity groups and community-based movements. They can and will lead to greater democratic participation and control.
The European elections next May also provide an opportunity to start a real dialogue with the people – especially those who feel that no one cares for them – about a new basis for meaningful democracy and human dignity. It is time for Europe to stop the shocking breach of human rights by reshaping the state, restoring growth and creating high-quality, stable jobs with the protections that have historically contributed to the European social model.
Europe needs an anti-austerity and anti-recession front, a solidarity movement for its working people, north and south. This could deliver a pact for democracy, development and social justice. We must rebuild solidarity among the young, the workers, the pensioners and the unemployed to break down the new dividing line between Europe's rich and poor, the "mur d'argent" to use a historical phrase that has become topical.
I will be standing for the presidency of the European commission on behalf of the European Left party, and that decision is motivated by our desire to reunite Europe and rebuild it on a democratic and progressive basis. There is an alternative to the present crisis and it is our duty and destiny to fight for it.
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Greece Asked To Spare Drug Users
Derek Gatopoulos - ATHENS (AP) — Drug experts and policy makers from around Europe gathered in Athens to urge governments to exclude drug-abuse treatment from austerity budget cuts, citing an alarming rise in HIV infections among drug users in Greece. The number of reported new infections among drug users in Greece shot up from 22 […]
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Cyprus Disputes OECD On Tax Record
Already struggling with a growing economic crisis and the near-failure of its state banks, Cyprus’ government said a poor rating it received from Europe’s leading financial monitoring agency on tax transparency was undeserved. The Paris-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said that Cyprus, which has long had the dubious reputation of being a […]
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Greek Fashion Designer 4-Time Tax Cheat
ATHENS – Noted Greek fashion designer Lakis Gavalas, who is taking part in a popular TV dance competition for charity, was back in court on Nov. 27 to face charges of being a serial tax cheat. It was the fourth that Gavalas has been hauled into court for failure to pay taxes, this time on […]
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Vaxevanis Cleared Again Over Lagarde List
For a second time, Greek investigative journalist and Hot Doc magazine publisher Costas Vaxevanis has been acquitted of charges of breaching privacy laws for publishing a list containing the names of 2,059 Greeks with 1.5 billion euros ($2.03 billion) in secret Swiss bank accounts. There is no double jeopardy law in Greece and after he […]
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No More Salary Cuts for Greek MPs
ATHENS – Greek Parliament Speaker Evangelos Meimarakis has rejected calls from a handful of lawmakers for the salaries of all of them to be cut again during the country’s lingering economic crisis. Although their pay had been cut previously, some MP’s said it wasn’t right that they continue to be paid many times more than […]
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In Memory Speros G. Coutsoubinas
November 27, 2013 would have been our uncle Spero’s 89th Birthday. Instead, it will forever share that honor with the day we laid him to eternal rest. A Greek through and through, his preference was to celebrate his Nameday, Saint Spyridon on December 12th, which of course, he always did. We however, born and raised […]
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Dr. James T.E. Chengelis
Dr. James T.E. Chengelis passed away peacefully with his brother at his side on Wednesday, October 2nd in Youngstown at the age of 58. He was born in Youngstown, on April 24th, 1955 and he dedicated his life to the care of others through teaching and medicine. Dr. Chengelis attended the Boardman Schools, from Stadium […]
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Turkish Cypriots Want Two-State Solution
Talks to re-start the long-stalled idea of reunifying Cyprus, which has been split since an unlawful 1974 invasion by Turkey, hit a major obstacle as soon as they started when the Turkish side insisted on keeping its sovereignty, reports said. Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, in office only since March, sat down on Nov. 25 for […]
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