Showing posts with label Austerity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Austerity. Show all posts
Greece Endures Another Day of Protests
by Cuba’s Prensa Latina
Athens, May 30 (Prensa Latina) Greece witnessed on Monday another day of protests against further cuts that the Government intends to implement in exchange for the rescue package of the European Union and the IMF.
Convened by the unions, hundreds of workers from the OTE telecommunications company took to the streets on Monday to reject the privatization plans that the adjustment contemplates.
Also, the bank workers went on strike for 24 hours as a demonstration against the relief package, which is currently being analyzed by parliament.
The new austerity measures proposed by the Executive last April seek to raise about 23 billion euros by 2015 with the privatization of state enterprises and the sale of public assets.
The rescue package of the EU and the IMF amounts to 110 billion euros and was granted in May 2010 in exchange for the imposition of severe and unpopular internal adjustments.
Over 100,000 people, mostly youths, protested in the capital and other cities over the weekend to condemn the new government plans to reduce the fiscal deficit.
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Convened by the unions, hundreds of workers from the OTE telecommunications company took to the streets on Monday to reject the privatization plans that the adjustment contemplates.
Also, the bank workers went on strike for 24 hours as a demonstration against the relief package, which is currently being analyzed by parliament.
The new austerity measures proposed by the Executive last April seek to raise about 23 billion euros by 2015 with the privatization of state enterprises and the sale of public assets.
The rescue package of the EU and the IMF amounts to 110 billion euros and was granted in May 2010 in exchange for the imposition of severe and unpopular internal adjustments.
Over 100,000 people, mostly youths, protested in the capital and other cities over the weekend to condemn the new government plans to reduce the fiscal deficit.
Read More...
Stuart Varney on the welfare state in US vs UK
| Tuesday, April 19, 2011 |
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European nations begin seizing private pensions
People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organized by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings; two others refer to national funds.
The most striking example is Hungary, where last month the government made the citizens an offer they could not refuse. They could either remit their individual retirement savings to the state, or lose the right to the basic state pension (but still have an obligation to pay contributions for it). In this extortionate way, the government wants to gain control over $14bn of individual retirement savings.
The Bulgarian government has come up with a similar idea. $300m of private early retirement savings was supposed to be transferred to the state pension scheme. The government gave way after trade unions protested and finally only about 20% of the original plans were implemented.
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Man jumps off balcony in Romanian Parliament
by Michael Sheridan
A man protesting government cuts dived off a balcony in the Romanian parliament on Thursday as the nation’s prime minister and other politicians looked on in horror.
Prime Minister Emil Boc had just begun addressing legislators in Bucharest when the man, identified as a state-TV engineer Adrian Sobaru, stood on the railing some 22 feet above the main floor.
“Boc, you’ve taken away the rights of our children,” he was heard yelling as he fell, according to London’s Telegraph.
Sky News reports the 40-year-old wore a T-shirt that stated, in Romanian, “You’ve pierced us. You’ve killed our children’s future. Freedom.”
The man, who according to reports has a son who is autistic, was distraught over losing health benefits due to government cuts.
Sobaru suffered several injuries, including fractured bones in his face, but is expected to survive. He was conscious when medical personnel removed him from the parliament, during which time he chanted, “Freedom.”
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A man protesting government cuts dived off a balcony in the Romanian parliament on Thursday as the nation’s prime minister and other politicians looked on in horror.
Prime Minister Emil Boc had just begun addressing legislators in Bucharest when the man, identified as a state-TV engineer Adrian Sobaru, stood on the railing some 22 feet above the main floor.
“Boc, you’ve taken away the rights of our children,” he was heard yelling as he fell, according to London’s Telegraph.
Sky News reports the 40-year-old wore a T-shirt that stated, in Romanian, “You’ve pierced us. You’ve killed our children’s future. Freedom.”
The man, who according to reports has a son who is autistic, was distraught over losing health benefits due to government cuts.
Sobaru suffered several injuries, including fractured bones in his face, but is expected to survive. He was conscious when medical personnel removed him from the parliament, during which time he chanted, “Freedom.”
Read More...
To heck with austerity, say the French
The money isn't there, but no matter:
They don't want to retire two (count 'em, two!) years later.
Americans arriving in Paris these days will notice that France's planes, trains and automobiles are all being slowed or stopped by nationwide protests over President Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal to raise the retirement age by ... all of two years. Protesters are blockading refineries; truckers clog the roads, and yesterday air-traffic controllers walked off the job. Hundreds of schools around the country are closed, leaving students free to declare their solidarity with pensioners.
Sarkozy's reform is intended to shore up France's public pension system, which faces a $45 billion shortfall. But this modest reform, which has passed the lower house and is scheduled for a vote in the Senate this week, is merely a downpayment on France's unfunded liabilities.
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Anti-Austerity Protests Sweep Across Europe
by Jonathon M. Seidl
Anti-austerity protests erupted across Europe on Wednesday — Greek doctors and railway employees walked off the job, Spanish workers shut down trains and buses, and one man even rammed a cement truck into the Irish parliament to protest the country’s enormous bank bailouts.
All the actions sought to protest the budget-slashing, tax-hiking, pension-cutting austerity plans of European governments seeking to control their debt.
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