Greece comes 2standstill, Citizens focus anger EU [Archive]

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real6

25-02-2010, 04:11 PM

Greece comes to standstill as citizens focus anger on EU

http://euobserver.com/9/29555

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Greece came to a standstill on Wednesday as millions of workers, both public and private, stayed away from work in protest at the government's austerity programme and anger at the European Union's role in enforcing the cuts.

A one-day general strike grounded all flights and buses, trains and ferries were halted. Schools, government ministries, local authorities were also closed, with hospitals only manned by emergency staff.

The strike drew high a participation rate although the demonstrations was more modest in size (Photo: solidnet_photos)

An estimated 2 million people downed tools, although according to both organisers and commentators, the crowds taking part in the main demonstrations in Athens only amounted to around 60,000 people, slightly higher than the usual turnout for major protests.

In an echo of the youth riots that shook the Greek capital in December, 2008, crowds of young protesters from left-wing and anarchist groups clashed with riot police firing tear gas, although violence was sporadic and on the margins of the main demonstrations.

The general strike follows a wave of sectoral actions, with further industrial action expected in the coming weeks. Greek trade unions are currently discussing their next steps and another day of action is expected in March although there are no plans for any future general strikes.

While demonstrators said they felt betrayed by the centre-left Pasok government, who had campaigned in the recent election to protect jobs and public services, the party retains high support in the polls, with chants focussing on the outgoing centre-right New Democracy, bankers and the European Union.

One worker said: "The EU wants to squeeze Greece like a lemon. It wants to get all the money from us."

Zoe Lenora, the head of international relations at the GSEE, the country's private sector union, told EUobserver: "People are really distressed and disappointed with politicians, and there is a strong feeling that the EU should be there for all its citizens, show them support, not the bankers and the wealthy."

The strike comes a day after a series of demonstrations across Spain against the Socialist government's own programme of cuts aimed at reducing the budget deficit and ahead of a general strike in Portugal on 4 March targeting similar reductions in public spending by another centre-left administration.

John Monks, head of the European Trades Union Congress and in Greece for the strike, told EUobserver: "Right across Europe, countries are in trouble. This is true of northern Europe as well as southern Europe. The EU could have a more sympathetic approach than what has been developed."

"No doubt there will be more strikes in other parts of Europe. People know that the debt increased in order to bail out the banks, but who are they making pay the price? The rich and bankers who are responsible or working people?"

He said that there is also disappointment in centre-left administrations. "Some were hoping that social democrats would do a bit better, but it is worrying for the union side that we see them doing the same as right-wing governments."

Mr Monks said that trade unions across the bloc will be co-ordinating actions. "It's not only Greece that's hurting."

subl1minal

25-02-2010, 04:17 PM

If only the world did that.

real6

25-02-2010, 04:20 PM

If only the world did that.

The way shit is hitting the fan here in the states it could possibly happen but then again the masses dont really care. Just the small pockets of people here and there. But i believe the banks will crash soon and everyone/Govts/bankers/etc will steal all our money we have in our banks and people will be fed up and revolt!!!

griffinman

25-02-2010, 04:28 PM

The Greek citizens have been shafted like the rest of us.

the apprentice

25-02-2010, 05:13 PM

djhooker

25-02-2010, 05:19 PM

The Greek citizens have been shafted like the rest of us.

the difference being that the greeks don't take no bullshit and know how to mobilize, whereas the british are mostly soft-headed tits more concerned with cheryl coles marriage.

real6

25-02-2010, 05:34 PM

The shills will soon be headed for Denver and going underground, if you monitor the Denver scanner you might just hear the commotion building.

Here is the Denver thread:

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1218&highlight=weird+denver+airport

Enjoy...

iaintoff

25-02-2010, 06:00 PM

iaintoff

25-02-2010, 06:05 PM

this guys got a pretty sound presentation, illustrating why dever is so important:

http://the-rabbits-hole.com/?p=22

keithnone

25-02-2010, 06:13 PM

Sorry to sound Pessimistic! anyone remember the UK in the 1980s?

Interesting read;

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article17404.html

real6

25-02-2010, 06:20 PM

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aREjisAGYQ.A&pos=1

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its biggest drop in three weeks, as Moody’s Investors Service said it may downgrade Greek debt and reports on jobs and manufacturing orders trailed forecasts.

General Electric Co., Caterpillar Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc. led declines in industrial companies, while Alcoa Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp. retreated with commodity prices. Coca-Cola Co., the world’s largest soda maker, lost 3.4 percent after agreeing to buy Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc.’s North American bottling division. GameStop Corp. fell 8 percent after its chief financial officer resigned.

The S&P 500 declined 1.6 percent to 1,088.13 at 11:22 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 167.02 points, or 1.6 percent, to 10,207.14.

“The economy is going into a little bit of a fits-and- starts period,” said Michael Mullaney, who manages $9 billion at Fiduciary Trust Co. in Boston. “We don’t see any job creation coming along. That’s by far our biggest concern.”

The S&P 500 rallied as much as 70 percent from a 12-year low in March as the U.S. economy recovered from its biggest contraction since the 1930s. Gross domestic product expanded at the fastest rate in five years during the fourth quarter. The equity rally stalled a month ago and the S&P 500 lost as much as 8.1 percent amid concern that the labor market isn’t recovering fast enough and that European budget deficits will slow growth.

Low Rates

U.S. stocks rose yesterday, sending the S&P 500 to its biggest gain in more than a week, after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the economy still requires low interest rates to spur demand.

Equities extended declines after the U.S. government released reports on first-time jobless claims and durable goods orders. New claims for unemployment insurance benefits unexpectedly increased for a second straight week to the highest level in three months, Labor Department data showed.

Orders for U.S. durable goods excluding transportation fell 0.6 percent in January, the biggest drop since August, the Commerce Department said. The average forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for an increase of 1 percent. Bookings for all goods meant to last several years rose 3 percent, more than anticipated and reflecting a jump in commercial aircraft.

Greece’s sovereign debt rating may be cut within months unless the country meets the objectives of its fiscal deficit reduction plan, Moody’s said today. If Moody’s cuts its credit rating to the same level as the other major ratings companies, Greek government bonds would no longer be eligible as collateral at the European Central Bank, making it more difficult for the nation to borrow. S&P said yesterday it may lower Greece’s credit rating by the end of March.

Jet Engines

GE, the world’s biggest maker of jet engines and locomotives, fell 1.8 percent to $15.74. Caterpillar, the world’s biggest maker of bulldozers and excavators, declined 2.9 percent to $55.31. UPS, the world’s largest package-delivery company, retreated 2 percent to $57.60.

Coca-Cola fell 3.4 percent to $53.28, the most in the Dow average. Coca-Cola Enterprises investors will get $10 and one share in a new bottling company for each share they hold. Coca- Cola will also assume $8.88 billion of the bottler’s debt. Coca- Cola Enterprises shares surged 32 percent to $25.23, the most in the S&P 500.

GameStop lost 8 percent to $17.35 for the biggest decline in the S&P 500. The video-game retailer said Chief Financial Officer Catherine R. Smith resigned to join Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

‘Tug of War’

“The market’s going to continue to be in a tug-of-war between the economic data and corporate fundamentals,” said David Katz, chief investment officer at Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. in New York, which manages $1.2 billion. “It’s our sense that the economy’s recovering, but it’s going to be an erratic recovery.”

The combined per-share earnings for the S&P 500 are $17.50 based on fourth-quarter reports by 453 companies, according to Bloomberg data, compared with a per-share loss of 9 cents in the year-earlier period, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Per-share profit declined from the year-earlier figure in each of the past nine quarters, a record slump. Per-share earnings topped analysts’ average estimates at three-quarters of the 445 companies in the S&P 500 that have posted quarterly results since Jan. 11, according to Bloomberg data.

Express Scripts Inc., the pharmacy benefits manager, climbed 8.4 percent to $95.11 after the company raised its 2010 earnings forecast.

Dr Pepper Snapple

Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. advanced 8.2 percent to $31.01. The third-largest U.S. soda maker said its board authorized expanding its buyback program by $800 million while reporting fourth-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates.

First Solar Inc. dropped 3.3 percent to $101.69. Chairman Michael J. Ahearnsold more than 40 percent of his stake in the world’s largest maker of thin-film solar cells after the company reported profit margins fell in the fourth quarter.

Palm Inc. slid 17 percent to $6.70. The maker of the Pre mobile phone said it expects adjusted revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 will be $300 million to $320 million, missing the average analyst estimate for sales of $409 million.

ufochick

25-02-2010, 06:47 PM

The way shit is hitting the fan here in the states it could possibly happen but then again the masses dont really care. Just the small pockets of people here and there. But i believe the banks will crash soon and everyone/Govts/bankers/etc will steal all our money we have in our banks and people will be fed up and revolt!!!

I'm in Oklahoma, I see no sign of anything hitting anything.. Are you referring to news reports? or are you seeing something we are not seeing here? Housing is still stable here, economy doing the same, people who are quitting one job are able to find another. The only thing I have seen change in the last year is that banks aren't loaning much money (yes that indicates trouble) and payload requirements on loans have been changed.
Not saying things are wonderful at all. Just interested if something is happening where you are that I don't know about. No point in watching the news... it's all bullshit.. so what's up?

griffinman

25-02-2010, 06:50 PM

the difference being that the greeks don't take no bullshit and know how to mobilize,

They ain't won yet.

rydeon

25-02-2010, 07:08 PM

Sorry to sound Pessimistic! anyone remember the UK in the 1980s?

Interesting read;

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article17404.html

I think the coming storm will make the 80s seem like a picnic

bluntweapon

25-02-2010, 07:18 PM

the difference being that the greeks don't take no bullshit and know how to mobilize, whereas the british are mostly soft-headed tits more concerned with cheryl coles marriage.

The Brits that are blind will get what they deserve

oioioi

25-02-2010, 07:25 PM

We also have an eye witness account from a guy from greece who is so distressed at the moment, its well worht a read

Greek is NWO Testing Ground:

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103624

I have been saying similar. It's no coincidence that after the Bilderberg meeting in Athens the Greek state do seem to be being used as a means of testing certain new measures.

Also notice the date of the 1st day of restricted cash use being implemented 1/1/11

consciousness

25-02-2010, 07:28 PM

brandon_keys_the_pleiadian

25-02-2010, 07:34 PM

David Icke's Official Forums - ANDROMEDIAN TRANSGALACTIC EMPIRE AGAINST DRACONIAN REBELS (http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105520) <-link--{ http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105520

real6

01-03-2010, 02:49 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29574

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn is to travel to Greece on Monday (1 March), fueling expectations that further Greek austerity measures in exchange for eurozone financial support could be announced as soon as this week.

EU finance ministers are set to take a decision on the need for further Greek action on 16 March, although officials caution the date is too distant.

Fears over Greece's debt problem have caused the euro to weaken in recent months (Photo: European Commission)

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A recent EU mission to Athens concluded the administration's current programme of spending cuts and revenue raising measures were not enough to reassure financial markets.

Mr Rehn is set to meet a line-up of senior Greek officials during his visit, including finance minister George Papaconstantinou, economy minister Louka Katseli and labour minister Andreas Loverdos.

"If more measures are to be taken, they will be announced soon," Mr Katseli told state television over the weekend.

Greek news reports suggested a two-percent hike in sales tax, additional benefit cuts for civil servants and possible limits on Christmas and Easter allowances, known in Greece as the "13th wage", roughly amounting to €4 billion, were in the offing.

The head of the eurozone finance ministers, Luxembourgish Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, continued the tough rhetoric on Sunday, saying: "Greece must step up its efforts to limit its public deficit."

Greece won EU backing for its austerity package last month, but since then, officials and analysts have questioned whether the measures will successful knock four percent off the country's current budget deficit of 12.7 percent by the end of 2010, as agreed.

Bail-out preparations

Anticipation of additional Greek austerity measures has also added to speculation that EU governments could shortly announce details of a financial aid package for Greece.

Greek media reports on Saturday suggested Berlin was planning to support future Greek bond issues through its state lender, KfW, with further assistance from France's Caisse des Depots. Cited bail-out figures have ranged from €20-30 billion.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde confirmed that discussions over rescue options were taking place and could involve "either private partners, or public partners - or both".

"I have no doubt that Greece will succeed in refinancing itself through ways that we are exploring at the moment," she told national radio on Sunday.

The timing of any agreement is still under intense negotiation however, with a meeting in Berlin this Friday between Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and German Chancellor Angela Merkel being one possible date.

real6

02-03-2010, 02:52 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29586

Following a whistlestop visit to Athens on Monday (1 March), EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn urged the Greek government to implement further austerity measures in order to tackle its ongoing debt problem.

"It is of paramount importance for the Greek people to get their public finances back on a sustainable path," said Mr Rehn after meeting a string of ministers from the country's centre-left Pasok government.

Mr Rehn said Greece was at a "critical" moment (Photo: ec.europa.eu)

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With a total debt pile estimated at €300 billion, and a budget deficit that reached 12.7 percent of GDP in 2009, Athens has already unveiled a package of spending cuts and tax rises this year, sparking a rolling series of protests and a one-day general strike.

But an EU monitoring team to Greece last week concluded the list of current measures would only reduce the country's deficit by two percent of GDP, partly because the country is suffering its first recession in 16 years, and not the four percent promised to Brussels.

In urging the government to implement "additional measures", Mr Rehn said the present juncture was a a "critical moment" for the future of Greece.

"No member of the eurozone area can live permanently beyond its means ... Either you keep your debt under control or your debt starts controlling you," he said.

Spending cuts, tax rises

In response, Athens looks set to announce additional measures this week, with analysts predicting a further petrol tax rise, a possible VAT increase, and further cuts to the public sector.

After winning a landslide election last October, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's party remains high in opinion polls despite the austerity measures.

"Today, we ask Greek men and women to enlist in our common cause to save our country and the overwhelming majority of our citizens are willing to do it despite the price and despite the burden ... Everybody says yes," Mr Papandreou said on national television on Monday night, in apparent preparation for fresh measures.

In January the Greek government announced public-sector spending cuts and tax hikes as part of a three-year EU stability and growth programme, followed by additional measures including a wage and hiring freeze and levy on fuel the following month.

A budget revision by the newly elected government last October revealed the true state of Greece's public finances, causing widespread unease in financial markets and a subsequent flight from government bonds.

With €20 billion of debt set to mature this April and May, the Greek government is frantically looking for additional funding, and may launch a fresh bond issuance this week.

During his press conference in Athens, Mr Rehn refused to be drawn on reports that Berlin and other EU capitals are preparing to provide Athens with financial aid, saying the "ways and means" to ensure the financial stability of the euro area was safeguarded.

eustacekidd

02-03-2010, 09:29 PM

Greece is heading for revolution, it's only a matter of time.

real6

03-03-2010, 02:47 PM

Greece Just Passed Another $6.6 Billion Cut, Now Let’s See How Its People React

http://www.businessinsider.com/greece-just-passed-another-66-billion-cut-now-lets-see-how-its-people-react-2010-3

Greece
is almost over the bailout finish line!

The country just announced $6.6 billion in new budget cuts (nearly 2% of the nation's GDP), in hopess of gaining more support from fellow members of the European union.

Now the question: Can its people take the lumps without violently taking to the streets again?

If so, a bailout should be on its way. We shall see.

the apprentice

03-03-2010, 03:13 PM

Greece is heading for revolution, it's only a matter of time.

Once as one goes down the rest will follow, the next 3 months will show what's comming for us, I reconn the mini budget after the ellection will start the ball rolling towards hyper inflation,the end of this summer/autumn.

real6

03-03-2010, 09:45 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29601

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has said Greece's budget deficit plans are now on track, following the Greek government's announcement on Wednesday (3 March) of fresh austerity measures worth €4.8 billion.

"This announcement confirms the Greek government's commitment to take all necessary measures to deliver the [stability] programme's objectives," said commission president Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels.

Athens said the measures amounted to €4.8 billion (Photo: BOSSoNe0013)

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"Greece's ambitious programme to correct its fiscal imbalances is now on track," he added.

Athens presented its budgetary plan - known as a 'stability programme' - to the commission in January, in which it pledged to reduce its budget deficit by four percent of GDP in 2010.

After a three-hour cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning, Greek government spokesman Giorgos Petalotis said the agreed new measures amounted to €4.8 billion, split between €2.4 billion in new revenues and €2.4 billion in spending cuts.

They include a dramatic 30 percent cut in the holiday bonuses of Greek civil servants.

The plans also include a 12 percent cut on other civil servant bonuses, a freeze on all pensions, a 2 percent rise in the VAT rate to 21 percent and a 20 percent increase in the tax on alcohol and tobacco, as well as an 8 cent-a-litre increase in the price of petrol.

There are also plans for a tax rise on luxury goods such as expensive cars.

A change of government in Athens last October, and subsequent upward revisal of the country's budget deficit figure for 2009 to 12.7 percent of GDP, shocked EU member states and financial markets, prompting a flight from the country's bond market and a weakening of the euro currency.

Since then the centre-left Pasok administration has struggled to convince markets it is capable of tackling the country's spiraling debt problem, with a EU monitoring mission to Greece last week warning austerity measures announced thus far would only reduce the budget deficit by two percent this year.

Bailout details in return?

In return for the fresh austerity measures, Greece is hoping for greater details of a bailout plan to be made public, a step which Athens argues will bring down its borrowing costs. Euro area states have so far resisted however.

"The time of Europe has come. We've done whatever we need to, Europe must do the same," Prime Minister George Papandreou reportedly told ministers during the cabinet meeting.

Greek hopes have recently centered on a meeting between Mr Papandreou and German chancellor Angela Merkel this Friday, but a German official said on Wednesday that Berlin would not offer financial aid to Greece at the meeting.

"The talks between the chancellor and the prime minister are not, in terms of content, for making any aid commitments," a German government spokesman said at a regular news conference.

iaintoff

03-03-2010, 10:09 PM

Once as one goes down the rest will follow, the next 3 months will show what's comming for us, I reconn the mini budget after the ellection will start the ball rolling towards hyper inflation,the end of this summer/autumn.

I dont think were gonna get an election. Its gonna be hung, something major is brewing, this country will never be the same again and they will probs be teaching kids about what happenes during the summer of 2010 for a 100 years (the indoctrinated version).:mad:

pi3141

03-03-2010, 10:54 PM

If only the world did that.

Agreed. I think it will. Sooner or later. When UK hits the next dip I hope we see action on this scale here. Thats all it needs. Not violent revolution but a movement of global no co-operation.

pi3141

03-03-2010, 11:00 PM

Sorry to sound Pessimistic! anyone remember the UK in the 1980s?

Interesting read;

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article17404.html

Good read. Thanks for the link.

real6

04-03-2010, 03:45 PM

Germany Snubs Greek Aid Plea as Protest Snarls Athens Traffic

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=arLVpE91TYVk&pos=1

March 4 (Bloomberg) -- Greece’s pledge to deepen planned budget-deficit cuts failed to yield an offer of assistance from Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, as protesters in Athens seized the finance ministry building and blocked roads in the city center.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a meeting tomorrow with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou won’t be “about aid commitments.” Her finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said the third round of deficit-reduction measures this year were probably enough to convince investors to buy Greek debt.

While Papandreou is risking a backlash at home to meet European Union demands for more deficit cuts before allies even consider providing aid, Merkel is facing domestic opposition to tapping taxpayers to extend a financial lifeline to Greece.

“There would be no understanding in Germany for bailing out Greece,” Henrik Enderlein, a political economist at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, said by phone. “It’s a bit of catch-22 situation: if you give in to Greece and you put 5 billion or perhaps even 10 billion into some kind of rescue package or into some guarantees, then the German government would look irresponsible. However, if it doesn’t, then European Union leaders might put a lot of pressure on Merkel and say, look, we have to bail out Greece.”

In Athens, about 200 members of the PAME union, aligned with the Communist Party, were reported at the finance ministry and protesters also took over the nearby General Accounting Office, according to a police spokeswoman. Another group blocked a central road, snarling traffic.

Deficit Cuts

The demonstrations followed the Cabinet’s backing yesterday of 4.8 billion euros ($6.6 billion) of cuts, Papandreou’s statement that said Greece was prepared to turn to the International Monetary Fund as a last resort.

“We have fulfilled to the utmost all that we must from our side; now it’s Europe’s turn,” Papandreou told his ministers yesterday, according to an e-mailed transcript. “It is a historic moment for the European Union.”

Greek bonds rose to their highest in three weeks after the Cabinet endorsed a package of revenue-raising and budget-cutting steps, including higher fuel, tobacco and sales taxes and a cut of 30 percent in three bonus payments to civil servants on top of a wage and benefits freeze.

The measures are “convincing,” the European Central Bank said in a statement. The ECB appreciates the Greek government’s recognition of the need to “rapidly adopt and implement decisive structural reforms.”

Euro Weakens

The euro dropped to $1.3662 as of 8:22 a.m. in Berlin from $1.3697 in New York yesterday, when it climbed to $1.3736, the strongest since Feb. 17. The premium investors demand to buy Greek government debt over comparable German bonds, the European benchmark, slid 2 basis points to 2.84 percentage points, extending yesterday 19 basis point drop.

The Greek announcement “is as much about giving other EU governments more political capital in the event that they do eventually need to provide liquidity to Greece,” said Gary Jenkins, head of credit research at Evolution Securities Ltd. in London. “They can make the claim to their own taxpayers that Greece has taken further measures as suggested by the EU.”

For now, none of the potential lenders has stepped up since a statement at a Feb. 11 EU summit promised “determined and coordinated action” to support Greece.

‘No Need’

“There’s no need for such a thing at this point in time,” French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said late yesterday on Sky television. “If it was required, the partners in the club would be available to restore stability.”

After meeting Merkel in Berlin, the Greek leader is due in Paris two days later for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

While Greece is pressing EU leaders to help cover the bloc’s largest budget deficit, Merkel’s comments were the clearest signal yet that Germany isn’t convinced.

“I expressly want to say that Friday isn’t about aid commitments, but about good relations between Germany and Greece,” Merkel said yesterday in an interview with N-TV, according to a transcript provided by her office. Greece’s steps are “an important signal” toward restoring confidence in the euro.

Greece faces more than 20 billion euros in debt redemptions in April and May. The EU is devising a plan to grant Greece about 25 billion euros in emergency aid should the need arise, German lawmakers have said, enough to cover the maturing debt. One option could involve using state-owned lenders such as Germany’s KfW Group to buy its bonds.

Papandreou Package

Greece has pledged to trim a deficit of 12.7 percent of gross domestic product to 8.7 percent this year. Concern that Greece won’t be able to tame the shortfall saw the euro lose almost 5 percent against the dollar this year.

Greece has blamed market speculators for fueling the decline in its securities. European officials have warned hedge funds that they shouldn’t try to profit from the woes of the region’s nations. U.S. authorities have told some hedge funds not to destroy trading records on euro bets, according to a person with knowledge of the requests.

Banks and regulators across Europe were summoned by the European Commission to discuss regulation of the market for sovereign credit-default swaps in the wake of the Greek debt crisis.

pacin

04-03-2010, 04:11 PM

Oh, we will react. It will be an interesting day tomorrow.

pacin

04-03-2010, 04:11 PM

Greece is heading for revolution, it's only a matter of time.

indeed.

armoured_amazon

04-03-2010, 04:16 PM

the difference being that the greeks don't take no bullshit and know how to mobilize, whereas the british are mostly soft-headed tits more concerned with cheryl coles marriage.

+1

pacin

06-03-2010, 05:27 PM

I'm not happy with the outcome of yesterday's strike and protest. Nothing serious happened. I must stop dreaming. Publicly.:o

lobuk

06-03-2010, 05:38 PM

the difference being that the greeks don't take no bullshit and know how to mobilize, whereas the british are mostly soft-headed tits more concerned with cheryl coles marriage.

Spot on. ;)

pacin

06-03-2010, 05:48 PM

ALEX JONES ON GREECE (Greek subs) - YouTube

well what he says is true.

oioioi

06-03-2010, 07:28 PM

http://libcom.org/news/mass-strikes-greece-response-new-measures-04032010

Mass strikes in Greece in response to new measures
Submitted by taxikipali on Mar 4 2010 20:54

Mass strikes with only hours prior warning are unfolding in Greece after the government announced new crippling measures for workers

The government's announcements of the new austerity measures dictated by the EU have rendered the greek PM's talk of a "state of war" concrete. The new measures include a 30% cut in public workers' 13th and 14th salary, as well as 12% cut in all salary subsidies, which in reality amounts to a sum of more than 1/12 of the total annual salary. In addition the government has announced new taxes for alcohol and cigarettes, as well as a universal VAT of 21% that is considered crippling by shop-owners and small free-lance enterpeneurs. Not one measure is however targeted towards the construction-banking-press-shipping trusts that plague the country.

The reaction to the measures has been immediate and acute:

Just hours after the announcement of the new measures, layed-off workers of Olympic Airways attacked riot police lines guarding the State General Accountancy and have occupied the building, in what they call a open-ended occupation. The action has led to the closing of Athens' main commercial street, Panepistimiou, for long hours.

On Thursday morning, workers under the Communist Party union umbrella PAME occupied the Ministry of Finance on Syntagma square (which remains under occupation) as well as the county headquarters of the city of Trikala. Later, PAME also occupied 4 TV station in the city in Patras, and the state TV station of Salonica, forcing the news broadcasters to play a DVD against government measures.

On Thursday afternoon, two protest marches took to the streets of Athens. The first, called by PAME, and the second by OLME, the teachers union and supported by ADEDY. The latter gathered around 10,000 people despite less than 24h notice, and during its course limited clashes developed with the riot police which was pilled with rocks outside the EU Commission building. Also two protest marches took to the streets of Salonica at the same time.A protest march was also realised in the city of Lamia.

Finally, the party offices of PASOK in the town of Arta were smashed by what it is beliaved to be people enraged by the measures

For Friday:

ADEDY and GSEE (public and private sector union umbrellas) have declared a 4h stoppage of work across the country for tomorrow and a central demo outside the Parliament at noon. The two giant unions are hinting at a general strike for the 11th of March.

PAME has declared a 24h strike in all sectors for Friday.

All buses, trolleys, the metro, intercity trains, and trams as well as most flights of Aegean and Olympic Airways apart from a few security flights been be halted, as workers in means of mass transport have called a 24h strike. The strike will immobilise the country.

All schools will remain closed, as teachers have called a 24h strike.

All public TV and radio, as well as the Athens News Agency, all municipal radio stations and the Ministry of Press have declared a 24h strike and a demo in front of the Journalist Union building in Athens.

All hospitals across the country will be serving only immergency cases, as doctors have declared a 24h strike.

No garbage will be collected on Friday, as refuse collectors have declared a 24h strike, while they have also announced another strike and a protest march for March the 10th.

Pensioners will be performing a protest march in Salonica on Friday morning.

Students are holding assemblies in their schools to decide their participation in the struggle, with many schools already having decided to move to occupation and participate in the marches.

It is indicative of the climate of public rage that even cops have announced a demo outside the Athens Police Hq for the 11th of March.

Tax officers have also announced a 2day strike starting on Monday, while school traffic wardens in Northern Greece have announced a 3-day long strike starting on Monday.

The people's reaction to the austerity measures are expected to further explode as the EU Commission is pressuring for the implementation of similar measures for the private sector. It is believed that such a move could bring the country on the brink of social insurrection.

oioioi

06-03-2010, 07:28 PM

http://libcom.org/news/long-battles-erupt-athens-protest-march-05032010

Long battles erupt in Athens protest march
Submitted by taxikipali on Mar 5 2010 20:49

Manolis Glezos, heroic anti-Nazi resistance figure attacked by riot cops today

Long battles erupted today at the Athens protest march against the measures. The GSEE union boss was heavily beaten by protesters while battles with the cops developed for 3 hours all across the centre of the city after riot police attacked anti-Nazi resistance symbol Manolis Glezos

The demo called by ADEDY, the public sector umbrella union, and GSEE, the private sector umbrella union, started gathering at 12:30 in Syntagma square, after another 10,000 strong demo by Communist Party umbrella union, PAME had ended its own demo and marched to Omonoia square. Soon around 10,000 people gathered in Syntagma, a large number considering there is only a 4 hour stoppage and not a strike today.

All was quiet until the GSEE union boss Mr Panagopoulos took the microphone to address the protest. Before managing to utter more than five words, the hated union boss was attacked by all kinds of protestors who first heckled him and threw bottles of water and yogurt on his face and then attacked him physically like a giant swarm. With bruises, cuts and his clothes torn, the PASOK lackey struggled his way towards police lines, as the people attacked again and again. Finally he managed to hide behind the Presidential Guard and up the steps of the Parliament where the hated austerity measures were being voted. The crowd below encouraged him to go where he belongs, to the lair of thieves, murderers and liars.

What the bourgeois media call the "lynching" of the union supreme boss became a prime subject of infight within the parliament with the government accusing the Radical Left Coalition that the attackers originated from its block (GSEE itself blaming KOE, a Maoist group of the Coalition), a half-truth at best. The Communist Party has refused to condemn the attack, only noting it disagrees with it. This is the first time such a high ranking union boss is attacked at a rally that its union has called, and the act is widely believed to mark a new era in union history in greece. The initial phase of the attack against the union boss can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJW33W9t0bw&feature=player_embedded

Soon after the beating of Panagopoulos, small skirmishes started between protesters and riot police forces in the form of body-to-body battles in front of the Parliament. During one of these incidents, riot cops attacked Manolis Glezos, the heroic anti-nazi resistance fighter who had lowered the nazi flag from the Acropolis during the german occupation. The elderly man was trying to help a man from being arrested at them time and had to be removed from the battle scene in an ambulance as tear gas fired directly on his face caused him serious pneumonic problems and he remains in serious condition in hospital (for a video of the attack see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FX3S3I7Nos&feature=player_embedded).

The attack on Glezos gave the signal for a general attack of thousands of people against the cops, many of who were wounded during the battles which included rocks, sticks but no molotov cocktails. During the clashes 5 people were arrested, 2 of who are accused under the anti-hood law, while the rest with small non-criminal breaches of the law. During the clashes many riot shields and helmets were taken from the cops and burned along with other flaming barricades on the streets. 7 cops are reported by the police as heavily wounded, some with knee-cap and other bone breaks.

Due to extended use of tear gas at around 14:00 the atmosphere in Syntagma square was so unbearable that among chanting "the cops are not the children of the workers, they are the dogs of the bosses", the demo turned into a protest march with the direction of the Ministry of Labour, half a km south of Omonoia square. At reaching Propylea more clashes with the police took place, while a sole high-ranking cop was isolated and beaten by the crowd. Further down on the way to Omonoia, protesters attacked a riot police squad that was guarding the National Legal Council. The riot police squad was cornered and attacked by means of sticks rocks and flares, before being forced to retreat inside the building after one of its members was captured by protesters and repeatedly trampled by the angered crowd.

The march then continued to Omonoia and from there down Peireaos street where banks, economic targets and expensive cars came under attack, before the march reached the Ministry and the protesters tried to break its central doors. More clashes with the police ensued and the march turned back to front and decided to march once again to the Parliament. On the way, cops came once again under attack by protesters with many riot policemen wounded and retaliating by means of tear gas. After reaching the Parliament, the march refused to desolve and took once again to the street in a bravado of resolve, until it reached Propylea where it came to an end. After the end of the march 6 more people were detained while taking refuge to the Social Security Headquarters, but have been released without any charges against them.

In Salonica, upon reaching the gates of the Ministry of Thrace and Macedonia protesters pulled down the heavy iron fences of the Ministry and moved into its front yard where they were confronted by riot police who made use of tear gas amongst flaming barricades.

Finally, the workers of the National Printing Units have occupied the premises and refuse to print the legislation imposing the austerity measures. Unless the legislation is printed there, it is not legally valid. Meanwhile the occupation of the State General Accountancy by layed-off Olympic Airways workers continues. The workers have also permanently closed off Panepistimiou street (the equivalent of Oxford street in London), at the heigh of the building, with all traffic diverted by side-roads.

A general strike by ADEDY and GSEE has been called for March 11.

the apprentice

06-03-2010, 10:20 PM

The Greek citizens have been shafted like the rest of us.

You will find as the smaller less afluent countries like Greece, Spain and Iceland start to fail, the larger ones won't be very far behind, a friend has just returned from Dubai because work has dried up and he has not got a new contract and several other friends have just been told that their civil serveants jobs are now on the line, our local town council has been told to shed at least 285 grand from this years budget and that's a huge amount for such a small town like ours, its all comming slowly but surely to a place near you if not already.

Having talked now with several up to date-ish neighbours the world is slowly starting to wake up, on our small square of houses, several have dumped on car already and are cutting back on all nighters at weekends, its getting a lot quieter in general.

One house is sharing with three people and the privately rented houses are now standing empty for over 4 months, our council has only just repaired the guttering after the snow brought them down just before the turn of the year.

One neighbour has just given up on repairing their car because they couldn't afford the garage bills, as a trained mech I helped them find the problem but the electonic parts are just way too expensive and not worth if for the old car, give me the old ones any day, I can fix those no problem.

Chairty shops are now starting to close or be robbed and over 20 well established businesses on the park have now gone last month alone with a few more down sizing and going to work from home, another freind has no work in his car garage and is on a short week already.

Two small banks have close within three miles of each other and another is about to, Sorry to bring all this reality to the front but this is what we must get to the masses who are still asleep.

The whole think sucks :( I think we have six months at best before things really start getting serious, get ready to fly.

rodin

06-03-2010, 11:07 PM

Goldman Sachs and the usual suspects have worked a sting operation using PPP - Mandelson deeply involved in implementing the same here

http://iamthewitness.com/audio/Muhammad.Rafeeq/TFC.SMITH.RAFEEQ.03-03-2010.mp3

ownoiz

07-03-2010, 06:57 AM

Goldman Sachs and the usual suspects have worked a sting operation using PPP

Watch Christine Lagarde, French economics and finance minister, getting interviewed about GFC, greece etc...look at her jacket jewelry and matching earrings ;)

And note George Negus mention the word 'PIGS'. (Acronym for Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, the mediterranean index acronym.)

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/watch/id/600336/n/Interview-with-Christine-Lagarde
.

ownoiz

07-03-2010, 10:01 PM

The woman regarded as one of the most powerful in the world, fronts Australian national television program wearing Star of Davids all over herself (even though shes supposedly french) and talking about financial collapse in Greece.

http://media.sbs.com.au/dateline/images/site_2_rand_2097331570_lagarde_280210_s.jpg

Video:

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/watch/id/600336/n/Interview-with-Christine-Lagarde

But hey thats France for ya...

Nicolas Sarkozy is the son of Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah (b. Paris, 12 October 1925), who is of French Catholic and Ottoman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Greece)-Sephardic Jewish descent. - Wikipedia.

Bump. :D
.

uksecretcourts

07-03-2010, 11:41 PM

You will find as the smaller less afluent countries like Greece, Spain and Iceland start to fail, the larger ones won't be very far behind, a friend has just returned from Dubai because work has dried up and he has not got a new contract and several other friends have just been told that their civil serveants jobs are now on the line, our local town council has been told to shed at least 285 grand from this years budget and that's a huge amount for such a small town like ours, its all comming slowly but surely to a place near you if not already.

Having talked now with several up to date-ish neighbours the world is slowly starting to wake up, on our small square of houses, several have dumped on car already and are cutting back on all nighters at weekends, its getting a lot quieter in general.

One house is sharing with three people and the privately rented houses are now standing empty for over 4 months, our council has only just repaired the guttering after the snow brought them down just before the turn of the year.

One neighbour has just given up on repairing their car because they couldn't afford the garage bills, as a trained mech I helped them find the problem but the electonic parts are just way too expensive and not worth if for the old car, give me the old ones any day, I can fix those no problem.

Chairty shops are now starting to close or be robbed and over 20 well established businesses on the park have now gone last month alone with a few more down sizing and going to work from home, another freind has no work in his car garage and is on a short week already.

Two small banks have close within three miles of each other and another is about to, Sorry to bring all this reality to the front but this is what we must get to the masses who are still asleep.

The whole think sucks :( I think we have six months at best before things really start getting serious, get ready to fly.

The world is at a crossroads and we have to make a choice.
1. Fund the banks - and spend generations getting out of debt
2. Tax the banks and do a massive money raid of our own on bankers.

Obviously Soros is banking on the collapse of the Euro in the next 12 months.
They will aggrevate the sovereign debt crisis.

So what could be done is
1. Massive 1% on all banking swaps/credit swaps
2. Set up a non central bank. Print our own money without interest.
3. Offer zero percent interest on production units (jobs) and agricultural land (stop the vultures getting our land as assets).

So it's coming down to "them or us".

bluehorseman

07-03-2010, 11:45 PM

The whole think sucks :( I think we have six months at best before things really start getting serious, get ready to fly.

If your going to fly - fly over here we need your type:D

jiffy

07-03-2010, 11:59 PM

the difference being that the greeks don't take no bullshit and know how to mobilize, whereas the british are mostly soft-headed tits more concerned with cheryl coles marriage.

No the difference is, most of the working Greek's have socialist tendency's and are united by strong unions, which galvanises and mobilizes the masses.

Unlike the ill informed Neo-literalistic children of Thatcher:mad:

rodin

08-03-2010, 12:07 AM

oioioi

08-03-2010, 12:33 AM

No the difference is, most of the working Greek's have socialist tendency's and are united by strong unions, which galvanises and mobilizes the masses.

Unlike the ill informed Neo-literalistic children of Thatcher:mad:

I'm spotting a trend towards undermining the unions a la Thatcher. Hopefully they are just rooting out the 'bad eggs' but we shall see.

killuminatiday

08-03-2010, 12:36 AM

rydeon

08-03-2010, 12:50 AM

real6

08-03-2010, 02:38 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29619

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Clashes broke out in Athens on Friday (5 March) as the Greek parliament debated and approved the fresh austerity measures announced by the government on Wednesday.

Workers around the country downed tools in protest against the €4.8 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes, while over 7,000 gathered in a tense protest outside the country's legislature, news media report.

A second 24-hour general strike has been called for 11 March (Photo: endiaferon)

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Police responded to skimishes with tear gas, and Greece's two main unions announced plans to hold a fresh 24-hour general strike on 11 March.

The country's prime minister, George Papandreou, meanwhile embarked on a European tour as he attempts to drum up support for a Greek bail-out package.

EU leaders pledged their support for Greece at an informal summit in Brussels last month, but have subsequently been reluctant to release further details, a step Athens argues would bring down its borrowing costs.

After a meeting with Mr Papandreou on Friday, Luxembourgish Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker - who chairs the monthly meetings of euro area finance ministers - said a Greek rescue plan was no longer necessary in his opinion.

"The commitments taken by the Greek government are clearly paving the way towards an exit" from its debt and deficit crisis, said Mr Juncker. Athens successfully raised €5 billion with a 10-year bond issuance on Thursday, but was forced to offer investors a punishingly high yield.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also continued to play hardball with the Greek administration on Friday, hours before she was scheduled to meet with Mr Papandreou in Berlin.

At a television conference in Munich, Ms Merkel said Greece's successful bond issuance "gives us optimism" that things will go well in the months ahead, clearly indicating she did not plan to pledge financial aid at the meeting.

German economy minister Rainer Bruederle was less diplomatic earlier in the day when he said the government "does not intend to give a cent" to Greece.

Many EU leaders are reluctant to set a new precedent of bailing out struggling governments, while domestic opposition to a Greek support package is high in Germany, the country likely to be the main contributor.

"Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks! And sell the Acropolis too!" - ran the headline of Germany's mass selling Bild newspaper on Thursday, citing a senior member of Ms Merkel's Christian Democrat party as putting the idea forward.

The cat-and-mouse game currently being played out in the Europe has seen Athens declare its willingness to turn to the International Monetary Fund if EU solidarity is not forthcoming, a potential embarrassment for an EU establishment that is keen to solve its own difficulties with internal solutions.

Credit Default Swaps

In related news on Friday, the European Commission held "technical talks" with banks, investors and regulators as it takes a closer look into the potential threats posed by derivative products such as credit default swaps.

Athens has accused speculators of using the swaps to make large bets against the Greek economy, driving up its borrowing costs and weakening the euro. The country's centre-left Pasok administration delayed last week's bond issuance until this Thursday amid CDS turmoil

CDSs function like an insurance contract for debt investors. If a borrower, such as the Greek government, defaults on its debt obligations, the seller of the default swap pays compensation to the purchaser.

Swap holders are not obliged to hold the underlying asset that is being "insured" however, a situation which regulators say promotes destabilising betting. The commission is set to come forward with a directive on derivatives later this year.

the apprentice

08-03-2010, 04:00 PM

I'm in Oklahoma, I see no sign of anything hitting anything.. Are you referring to news reports? or are you seeing something we are not seeing here? Housing is still stable here, economy doing the same, people who are quitting one job are able to find another. The only thing I have seen change in the last year is that banks aren't loaning much money (yes that indicates trouble) and payload requirements on loans have been changed.
Not saying things are wonderful at all. Just interested if something is happening where you are that I don't know about. No point in watching the news... it's all bullshit.. so what's up?

Your area in the South Central Reigion in the land of the "Red People" is failry sparsely populated for its size, 20th largest I think, could be effected "Sooner" or later and is a much better aera to be situated in times of crisis, where smaller like minded people will already have some land and animals the sills and the wherewithall to survive a crashed economy, the same cannot be said for the Windy City, where you would really notice what's going on.

the apprentice

08-03-2010, 04:01 PM

Here is the Denver thread:

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1218&highlight=weird+denver+airport

Enjoy...

Thanx for the heads up mate ;)

the apprentice

08-03-2010, 04:11 PM

If your going to fly - fly over here we need your type:D

I know someone who has a small plot near Whangarei, our traditional skills are not exactly in demand but we have other skills that are, which we could also share with the locals, sadly at 50 we are just too old to emigrate, all we can really do is dream about it, you have a really great place there to live which should be fairly safe because you haven't much in the way of fossile fuel which can be stolen, cheers.

the apprentice

08-03-2010, 04:20 PM

The world is at a crossroads and we have to make a choice.
1. Fund the banks - and spend generations getting out of debt
2. Tax the banks and do a massive money raid of our own on bankers.

Obviously Soros is banking on the collapse of the Euro in the next 12 months.
They will aggrevate the sovereign debt crisis.

So what could be done is
1. Massive 1% on all banking swaps/credit swaps
2. Set up a non central bank. Print our own money without interest.
3. Offer zero percent interest on production units (jobs) and agricultural land (stop the vultures getting our land as assets).

So it's coming down to "them or us".

A few ideas there but if you look at it like this, the land really belongs to nobody and cannot be taken anywhere like material things, its there to stay until the planet goes pop.

Most of the former ideas are money related subjects, a faction we need to take ourselves away from as much as we can and we can do this if we all started to do more for our whole, skills is where we will survive much longer if anything ever went wrong, here is a guy with a prognosis from the ancients, this is my field of echonomics which we use.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6957290808593952344#

Solid advise but entirly against the money grain, and what will have to return if we are to survive long term, working short term as we are will eventually destroy us all, and possible the natural ways as we know them, its all down to missmanagement of the echo system that has kept us alive since the very first farmer came along.

jiffy

08-03-2010, 07:39 PM

I got to say Im amazed and impressed by how the greeks mobilize and come together in such a way. I cant imagine us stupid americans ever pulling something like this off even if only on a smaller scale.

I guess the greeks really wont take no shit and put actions behind those words. Here in america we talk a good "take no shit" game but we would have to be pushed into an extremely steep shit hole before we fight back(and by we I mean the actual americans on the street and not the pawns we send to office and war).

rock out with your cock out greeks, a few dumb americans got mad love for ya, respect

The problem is the US as in the UK, citizens have been programmed to see Unions as some sort of Militant evil.
If they bothered to educate themselves they would realize that

It was Unions that fault for 38 hour week,
It was Unions that fault for 5 day week
It was Unions that fault for a fair wage
It was unions that fault for worker safety
It was Unions that fault for equality

Without leadership (Unions) then you are right the UK and USA won't ever mobilize. Even if they do, it will lack direction and drive without leadership!

The demise of union power is why the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Shame the people are to ignorant to see it:mad:

bluehorseman

08-03-2010, 08:09 PM

bluehorseman

08-03-2010, 08:11 PM

I know someone who has a small plot near Whangarei, our traditional skills are not exactly in demand but we have other skills that are, which we could also share with the locals, sadly at 50 we are just too old to emigrate, all we can really do is dream about it, you have a really great place there to live which should be fairly safe because you haven't much in the way of fossile fuel which can be stolen, cheers.

You never know what mite happen - I hope you keep NZ in mind.

jiffy

09-03-2010, 03:36 PM

Yes you are right there was a concerted effort to de-unionise the work place over here whereby it was once compulsory to belong to a union it has changed to individual employment contracts. I can't remember under what guise this was brought in but it has really stuffed up the power of the employees to say "no" and protest. I'd forgotten about this until your post Jiffy so thank you this is very important - the union movement traditionally was a good instrument for change - pity it got infiltrated by commies over here - but if we could bring that structure back maybe we would have a chance...

Interesting point about infiltration, I can't comment on NZ but certainly Pilger has spoken about the infiltration of Unions in OZ by what was then Business International who a certain Mr Obama worked for, for a good many years. They are by no means "commie" more like capitalistic Nazis, who have direct links to the CIA.

bluehorseman

10-03-2010, 06:04 AM

Interesting point about infiltration, I can't comment on NZ but certainly Pilger has spoken about the infiltration of Unions in OZ by what was then Business International who a certain Mr Obama worked for, for a good many years. They are by no means "commie" more like capitalistic Nazis, who have direct links to the CIA.

What happens there spills over into here - no doubt they infiltrated them, end of eighties early nineties just before they brought them down.

real6

13-03-2010, 10:28 PM

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100313/tpl-uk-greece-20b2d2f.html

The euro zone has agreed a multi-billion euro bailout for heavily indebted Greece as part of a package to support the euro, the Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday. Skip related content

RELATED PHOTOS / VIDEOS
Greece PM Papandreou pauses during remarks at the U.S. Capitol in Washington
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The 16 euro zone members have agreed on "coordinated bilateral contributions" in the form of loans or loan guarantees to Greece if Athens is unable to refinance its debts and asks the European Union for help, the Guardian quoted a senior European Commission official as saying.

The agreement was reached despite strong resistance by Germany, and Berlin has played the pivotal role in organising the deal, the paper quoted other sources as saying.

Euro zone finance ministers will finalise the package on Monday, the paper said.

The aid to be made available by the bailout could reach 25 billion euros, the paper quoted its sources as saying. Greece's borrowing needs for the whole of 2010 total 53.2 billion euros.

Greece, labouring under a crippling debt burden, announced a 4.8 billion euro package of austerity measures last week designed to reduce its budget deficit to 8.7 percent of GDP this year from 12.7 percent in 2009.

It has been paying a high premium over benchmark European bonds to raise funds, the yield spread of 10-year Greek government paper over bunds topping 400 basis points in January.

The bailout "will be a coordinated approach of bilateral contributions ... a bilateral contribution can be a loan or a loan guarantee. The guarantees will facilitate the kind of funds potentially needed in this context," the paper quoted the senior Commission official as saying.

The agreement has been tailored to avoid breaking the ban, in the rules governing the operation of the euro currency, on a bailout for a country on the brink of bankruptcy, and to avoid a challenge by Germany's supreme court, the official said.

The Commission is also rushing through tougher rules for the euro zone to set up rigorous "budgetary surveillance" of the 16 member states, the Guardian said. Greece has in the past provided the European Union with misleading economic statistics.

"The Greek case is a turning point for the euro zone," the Guardian also quoted EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn as saying in an interview with it and other European papers.

"If Greece fails and we fail, this will do serious and maybe permanent damage to the credibility of the European Union. The euro is not only a monetary arrangement but a core political project of the European Union ... in that sense we are at a crossroads."

Rehn said he would propose next month a regime of "rigorous surveillance of national budgets" including giving Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, big new auditing powers over the accounts of euro zone member states.

pacin

13-03-2010, 10:52 PM

According to the opposition (New Democracy) here's what the Greek government of Papandreou did in order to make Greece's financial problems appear worse than they truly are (translated by Google so... odd grammar etc)

He (Samaras) acknowledged that the governance of New Democracy made errors, but added that "there came the ND deficit to 12.7%" and that "data from the Accounting Office show that 2 / 3 of revenue shortfalls for 2009 were only in in the last quarter.
---
Even accused the PASOK government that ...

it dismantled the state apparatus to the negligence of the Secretaries-General to appoint, paralyzed the enforcement procedures, spoiled the atmosphere in the market talking about impending bankruptcy and inflated its porportions (deficit) by means of creative accounting methods.

---

So what we have here is a fake crisis, so that Greece becomes a protectorate of the NWO..... and a perfect example for the rest of the countries of the eurozone?! thoughts anyone?

uksecretcourts

13-03-2010, 11:01 PM

Sorry to sound Pessimistic! anyone remember the UK in the 1980s?

UK debt to GDP is the same as Greece's - at 13%.

we're in the same cesspit they are.

Only the govt are better at lying.

The job cuts for the UK are looming - and held at bay only for the election (in say May).

We're running out of time.

Our bubble is about to burst...

Wait till May...

real6

16-03-2010, 02:01 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29679

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday (15-16 March) are set to discuss a range of different mechanisms to transfer financial aid to Greece, despite continued resistance in a number of EU capitals.

Reports suggest two principle options are being studied: One would see the provision of direct member-state loans to Greece, with the second the enabling of the European Commission to borrow money on international capital markets and then extend loans to Athens.

Media reports have put the potential Greek bail-out at between €20 and 25 billion (Photo: pimousse3000)

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The EU already has a balance-of-payments facility, under which the commission can raise and lend money to non-eurozone states, with Romania, Latvia, and Hungary all recipients from the facility last year. EU rules prevent the 16 euro area members from receiving funds from the facility however.

Although no figures for a potential Greek bail-out are likely to come forward at this week's finance meetings, agreement on a potential support mechanism would mark a further milestone in EU economic integration.

EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn has signaled that any financial support will be strictly tied to the enforcement of fiscal and structural reforms in the Greece's ailing economy.

The borrowing needs of the country's centre-left administration are estimated at roughly €54 billion for 2010, of which €20 billion will be required for the months of April and May. The government successfully raised €5 billion earlier this month, but only after offering investors attractive rates that Athens is keen not to repeat.

Despite the upcoming discussions, a number of key European states are still reluctant to announce any bail-out plans, hoping instead that sufficient belt-tightening from Athens will be enough to allay market scepticism and bring down the country's borrowing costs.

"There will be no reason to make decisions about financial aid," German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Bild Zeitung newspaper on Sunday.

French finance minister Christine Lagarde has also indicated she is against an announcement this week. "I'm certainly not expecting any decision being made, or any button being pressed, or any button being selected to be pressed, because it's totally premature," she told reporters in New York.

The European Commission will present a report on Greece to the EU finance ministers who are expected to endorse the country's recently announced additional austerity measures of €4.8 billion. The emphasis is now likely to switch to implementation.

The Greek parliament is set to vote on new tax legislation by the end of March, as the government seeks to boost its revenues, and legislation to increase the statutory retirement age is set to come the following month.

However, a growing number of strikes and a new forecast suggesting the country's recession this year could be worse than previously anticipated are complicating the government's position, warn analysts.

real6

17-03-2010, 01:21 PM

Martin Feldstein: The Greek Austerity Measures Will Fail, And The Country Will Quit The Euro

http://www.businessinsider.com/martin-feldstein-the-greek-austerity-measures-will-fail-and-the-country-will-quit-the-euro-2010-3

Yesterday S&P came out and said it would not be downgrading Greece, providing the biggest piece of evidence yet in support of our thesis that the crisis is over (for now).

But of course this is just a short-and-medium call, and doesn't reflect anything about the long-term reality, as structural problems remain unfixed and untenable.

Among Greece's doubters is Harvard's Martin Feldstein, who predicts that ultimately the worst fears of the beginning will be realized, and that Greece will have to quit the euro.

He told Bloomberg that the austerity measures will ultimately fail, saying: “The idea that Greece can go from a 12 percent deficit now to a 3 percent deficit two years from now seems fantasy... The alternatives are to default in some way or to leave, or both.”

One possibility, he said, is for Greece to pull off a "polite default" that might involve some kind of short-term-for-long-term debt swap.

real6

17-03-2010, 01:25 PM

Greek support likely to be bilateral loans, says Juncker

http://euobserver.com/9/29690

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Euro area finance ministers offered up just a smidgen more information on the shape of a potential Greek bail-out after their meeting on Monday (15 March), while being at pains to stress that any such mechanism will most likely be unnecessary.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the monthly meetings of eurozone finance ministers, suggested that any financial aid to Greece could take the form of bilateral loans from a number of eurozone countries.

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"What will happen if necessary, and we're still convinced it won't be necessary, is that we'll reach an agreement in the eurozone to offer bilateral support in a co-ordinated form," he told journalists late on Monday evening, adding that the Greek authorities have not yet asked for financial support.

The statement indicates that member states have ruled out the possibility of providing loan guarantees, a previously discussed option. Mr Juncker said European leaders meeting in Brussels later this month would finalise the plans.

"There are still some technical points. We agreed that the final decision will be taken by the European Council [of EU leaders]," he said.

The group's wariness in providing greater details or definitively signing off on a bail-out mechanism is symptomatic of domestic constraints and concerns over sending the wrong message to financial markets, say observers.

Polls suggest that a majority of German voters oppose giving any financial aid to Greece, while Berlin is reportedly worried that a final agreement on a support mechanism would suggest to markets that a bail-out is imminent.

France too has stressed that recent austerity measures taken by Athens will be enough to bring down Greece's deficit, eventually calming investors' fears and reducing the country's borrowing costs.

"There is no such thing as a bail-out plan that would have been approved, agreed or otherwise, because there is no need for such a thing," French finance minister Christine Lagarde said in the run-up to Monday's meeting.

The full complement of EU finance ministers are expected on Tuesday to back plans announced by Athens this month to slash spending and increase taxes in a bid to save a further €4.8 billion, in addition to previous measures announced in February.

Greece's financing crisis may come to a head next month however, with a sizable portion of the country's debt obligations due to mature. Athens ran a budget deficit of 12.7 percent of GDP last year, over three times the allowed EU limit, and holds a debt pile in excess of 100 percent of GDP.

A €5 billion bond issuance was successful this month, but the Greek administration is keen not to offer the expensive 6.25 percent interest rate again in the future.

real6

18-03-2010, 07:31 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29715

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Germany has performed a dramatic u-turn and now says it would support International Monetary Fund aid for Greece, were it requested

"We see no need for immediate action now. Greece has not asked for aid," a German source working closely on the subject told EUobserver on Thursday (18 March). "In case the situation of Greece does get worse, Germany would be open for an IMF solution," the person added.

The International Monetary Fund, Washington (Photo: Kyrion)

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The statement marks a reversal of Berlin's previous position that the euro area should provide Greece with financial assistance, if needed, as indicated by a statement of EU leaders at in informal summit in Brussels last month.

The news comes only hours after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou ramped up pressure on the German administration to agree to a European rescue package, telling journalists in Brussels he hoped a decision would be taken at next week's meeting of EU leaders.

"It's an opportunity to make a decision next week at the summit," Mr Papandreou said. "This is an opportunity we should not miss."

The European Commission and euro area states have been deep in negotiations in recent weeks in a bid to prepare a mechanism to transfer aid to Athens, should the government prove unable to refinance the roughly €20 billion in bonds that are set to mature in the coming weeks.

Eurozone finance ministers agreed on much of the detail at a meeting earlier this week, but subsequent German statements have indicated the government's deep reluctance to push ahead with a final political decision.

Reports suggest a ferocious internal debate has been raging within Angela Merkel's government over the legality of providing bilateral aid to another euro area state, with the decision apparently made this week that such a move would violate the German constitution.

The turnaround in favour of IMF support is likely to have a great impact on the EU's eventual decision on whether or not to provide financial aid to Greece. As the largest eurozone economy, Germany would most likely have been the largest contributor to any Greek bail-out.

"I would be very surprised if other European states moved ahead without Germany," Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, told this website.

The first suggestion Germany was changing its position came on Wednesday from Michael Meister, deputy leader of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party.

"We have to think about who has the instruments to push for Greece to restore its capital market access [if that were ultimately needed]," he reportedly told parliament. "Nobody apart from the IMF has these instruments."

Finland has also indicated it would support an IMF solution, with Italy and the Netherlands also thought to be in favour. Together, EU member states are one of the main contributors to the IMF.

real6

19-03-2010, 04:25 PM

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=121196&sectionid=3510213

Strikes over government-proposed taxes to help rein in Greece's burgeoning public debt have taken on new dimensions as more workers join the walkouts.

Taxi drivers and gas station workers are the latest groups to join strikes in Athens after doctors' strike yesterday in protest against the government's payments and benefits cuts and new taxes.

The drivers are protesting against new tax proposals, due to become law imminently, which will require them to issue receipts and pay tax on their income, while gas station workers say higher taxes are driving their customers into neighboring Bulgaria for cheaper gas, local media reported.

A strike by doctors is also reportedly spreading to other parts of the country, with “many” hospitals in the capital operating with emergencies staffs only.

Power cuts have also been reported as employees of the country's power sector went on strike over salary cuts and freezes on employment, the United Press International (UPI) reported.

Radio technicians are also reportedly planning a day-long walkout today.

The Greek government says the so-called austerity measures to curb the financial crisis are being enforced in an attempt to reduce the budget deficit from 12.7 to 8.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

real6

20-03-2010, 07:56 PM

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62J0RK20100320

(Reuters) - Greece has taken the necessary steps to tackle its fiscal crisis and will not default on its debt obligations, the country's prime minister said on Saturday in a speech to his socialist party's national council.

Greece is pressing for a concrete standby package from its European Union partners to help bring its borrowing costs down. The overborrowed country currently pays almost twice as much as Germany to refinance its debt.

European Union leaders are set to discuss a support mechanism for Greece when they meet in Brussels on March 25-26. Greece has said it may have to turn to the IMF if a European solution is not found to help it manage its debt mountain.

"Let everyone be certain, Greece will not default, we will not let it default. Greece has a strong government and courageous people. We are returning to the road of economic stability," Papandreou said.

Papandreou has called for action to curb speculation that he claims has driven yield spreads on Greek government bonds over core European benchmarks at record highs, adding to fiscal strains.

"We are building alliances in and outside the EU. We are convincing our partners for changes to set limits to speculators. We are not asking anyone to pay our debts. We will do this by ourselves," he said.

"We want to be able to implement all that we have announced and enacted calmly."

Greece, with a debt-to-GDP ratio seen hitting 120 percent this year, faces a hump in debt refinancing in April and May as about 20 billion euros of previous issues and coupons come due.

real6

29-03-2010, 02:54 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29788

The EU rescue deal for Greece agreed at the bloc's summit last week has received a mixed response from markets.

Initially, German bunds fell and Greek bonds rose, narrowing the spread between them in a sign that confidence in Athens was returning.

Bunds saw their biggest weekly decline early Saturday since 5 March after EU leaders reached a Franco-German brokered deal that would see a mixed mechanism of International Monetary Fund and EU-member-state bilateral loans at market interest rates - but only as a last resort.

Markets reacted circumspectly to the Greek bail-out scheme (Photo: artemuestra)

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Market commentators suggested that confidence was returning, but in early Singapore trading on Monday (29 March), gold fell 0.2 percent as uncertainty returned over speculation that Greece is not out of the woods.

Athens must head to market to borrow some €15.5 billion by the end of May, possibly triggering a fresh crisis over the country's debt.

Greece aims to borrow around €5 billion this week alone.

Separately, in a sign that some saw the "last-resort" conditionality hidden within the EU deal as evidence that nothing had changed, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's announced it would not alter its rating of Greek government debt.

In Germany meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel has been hailed by newspapers and commentators as the "iron chancellor" for her hard bargaining at the EU level in forcing through acceptance of IMF bail-out monies rather than a Europe-only strategy.

Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag described the chancellor as "the Eurofighter". Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou for his part saluted the EU deal as an historic advance for European integration.

"I think that the decision taken, under the pretext of Greece, is a step in the direction of a new model of economic governance in the eurozone ... a historic evolution," he said on Sunday, according to AFP.

real6

09-04-2010, 02:58 PM

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Fresh doubts over Greece's ability to meet upcoming debt obligations resulted in record high borrowing costs for the country on Thursday (8 April), ravaging stocks and leading analysts to suggest now was the time to call in EU/IMF support.

"It is now up to the Greek government to go publicly to the EU and IMF and ask for the cash and the support; the matter cannot be long delayed," said Chris Pryce, a senior analyst with Fitch ratings agency, reports Reuters.

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"Despite everything the EU and the eurozone have done there is still a lack of clarity [and] confusion about what they intend to do, when they intend do it and how much would be involved."

Greek bond prices dropped for a seventh day in a row, driving up the yield on the 10-year security to 7.5 percent, a euro area record of 4.5 percent above the benchmark German Bund.

In a referendum last month, Icelanders rejected the terms of a UK/Dutch offer to payback money lost by savers in the collapsed Icesave account, saying the 5.5 percent rate being demanded was exorbitant.

Estimates put the borrowing needs of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's government at roughly €11.6 billion from now to the end of May, with Athens set to auction a batch of 12-month Treasury bills next Tuesday in a crucial test of its capacity to raise funds.

The centre-left Pasok administration has so far held off from taking the bail-out plunge however, despite the growing clamour of calls this week for Greece to tap the EU/IMF support mechanism agreed by EU leaders in Brussels before Easter.

"We do not need to activate or modify any mechanism," Greek government spokesman George Petalotis told a news briefing on Thursday.

Speculation that Athens was having second thoughts about IMF involvement prompted fresh market concerns at the start of the week, adding to doubts over how the support mechanism would actually be triggered and what interest rates lenders would offer.

The recent eurozone leaders' agreement, based almost entirely on an earlier Franco-German text and largely dominated by German demands, stipulates that any EU/IMF support should only come as a last resort, adding that interest rates will be "non-concessional, i.e. not contain any subsidy element."

"Any disbursement on the bilateral loans would be decided by the euro area member states by unanimity subject to strong conditionality and based on an assessment by the European Commission and the European Central Bank," continues the statement.

Speaking after the monthly meeting of the ECB's governing board on Thursday, the bank's president Jean-Claude Trichet sought to allay market jitters, referring to the EU/IMF mechanism as a "very serious commitment" which "nobody should take lightly."

Mr Trichet suggested to journalists that the interest rate charged on loans to Athens could be similar to the rates at which other eurozone governments borrow themselves.

The comments could prove controversial with the government of Angela Merkel however, with Berlin desperate not to be seen as propping up an errant euro area member, a move that analysts say could prompt a German constitutional challenge.

real6

22-04-2010, 02:42 PM

Greece Welcomes Its New IMF Overlords With Day Of Rioting And National Strikes

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/greece-welcomes-its-new-imf-overlords-day-rioting-and-national-strikes

What do you do when you are the prime minister of a bankrupt country and your only recourse is to get the Washington D.C.-based IMF to come in and tell you you have to cut wages by about 120% and fire 75% of the country (especially after the same Germans you recently demanded WWII reparations from, mysteriously have decided in the eleventh hour to have their last laugh at your expense). Why, you send in the national guard, armed with fake six-pack ridged bulletproof vests and gas masks, to repeat the miracle of Thermopylae against the marauding population which has suddenly realized that the past 10 years of chimeric happiness were a one-time miracle thanks to Mr Goldman and fat, and somewhat stupid, uncle Almunia. The next thing you do, once you realize you are about to have a [revolution|uprising|civil war] is to declare a moratorium on your €300 billion of debt, make your people happy and stick it precisely to the same bankers that you complain about every single day for "speculating" against you. Tomorrow Greece will face the trifecta of a much delayed hangover as 1) its bonds hit 9% as the hedge funds who have been buying up in expectations of a snapback capitulate, 2) EuroStat declares its deficit was officially 14%, and 3) a Greek civil servant strike in their fourth national walkout this year.

Bloomberg reports.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=auoUeDqdr0rY&pos=7

The strike will shutter hospital and schools and also affect ministries and government offices, according to an e- mailed statement from Athens-based ADEDY, the umbrella group for more than 500,000 state workers. It will hold a rally in central Athens at 11 a.m. local time.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is under fire from voters who say his austerity measures have gone too far and from investors who argue that further action is needed to cut the EU’s largest budget deficit. As Greece meets EU and International Monetary Fund officials to agree on the conditions tied to any loan, the extra yield investors demand to hold Greek debt over German bonds has surged to a record 522 basis points.

“Papandreou is caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Jacques Cailloux, chief European Economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. “The market has zero confidence in what the Greeks are saying, and any further austerity measures pushed for by the IMF could be the ones that break the camel’s back if they are deemed unfair by the population. He doesn’t have any option though.”

Today’s strike isn’t expected to affect public transport or air traffic, after air-traffic controllers postponed a planned walkout to clear a backlog of flights caused by the spread of volcanic ash from Iceland across Europe.

PAME Hellas, a union affiliated with the Greek Communist Party, called its own labor action. Members of the group blockaded entry to the port of Piraeus yesterday, preventing ferries from sailing. Others picketed luxury hotels in the city center, including at least one where IMF negotiators are staying.

“We must dare, otherwise we will be led like lambs to the slaughter,” said Aleka Papariga, head of the Communist Party of Greece, the third-largest parliamentary party. “The working people aren’t about to be used to allow passage of policies that will bring the worst barbarity we’ve seen in the past 35 years.”

That's funny, cause America recently allowed passage of policies that would make Greek debt-to-GDP ratios seems like a midget in Liliput compared to the monster our own Treasury is about to spawn. Yet, as always, it isn't until it is far too late to fix something proactively that the people of any country, be it Greece or the US, wake up from their deep slumber. Greece has now officially woken up (we will show you footage of tomorrow's hopefully non-violent riots to confirm). We wonder how long before America does the same.

the apprentice

22-04-2010, 02:53 PM

Some great info there R 6 cheers

Its not looking very good for the UK either, that great big boycott I mentioned a while back will eventually come to pass here too, best get ready for it now.

thrillkillwilly

22-04-2010, 02:56 PM

real6

22-04-2010, 02:59 PM

Some great info there R 6 cheers

Its not looking very good for the UK either, that great big boycott I mentioned a while back will eventually come to pass here too, best get ready for it now.

Anytime App :)

Funny how all of a sudden many countries of the world are all of a sudden going bankrupt. I just find it very very odd. Japan is going to be next i think.
WAR IS COMING!!!

And i fear this will be the destruction of half the planet or all of EU/Middle East. And Israel being the biggest terrorist state. Everyone in the world now has to watch them.

atoms for peace

22-04-2010, 06:53 PM

Sorry to sound Pessimistic! anyone remember the UK in the 1980s?

Interesting read;

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article17404.html

:) Great article cheers , all the important info. Everyone on hear should read this, because despite this being the icke website people seem to be unfamiliar with it.

iaintoff

22-04-2010, 07:04 PM

Anytime App :)

Funny how all of a sudden many countries of the world are all of a sudden going bankrupt. I just find it very very odd. Japan is going to be next i think.
WAR IS COMING!!!

And i fear this will be the destruction of half the planet or all of EU/Middle East. And Israel being the biggest terrorist state. Everyone in the world now has to watch them.

i'm not so sure about a great war real, i mean i expect a war alright but maybe not a great one. It's pretty obvious that everything is running like clock work, all these countries going bankrupt will just usher in the EU as a fully fledged country with localised councils etc...

if we have a great war wouldn't that undue all this meticilous work. Afterall most of the planet will go.

p.s: welcome to the forum atom, enjoy!!!

the white knight

22-04-2010, 07:19 PM

I have just seen on telly the Greek deficit is worst than they expected it is now a whooping 13.6% also there is still doubts over this figure and it may well go higher. The credit rating agency Moodys has cut its rating on Greek debt and have warned there could be more downgradings to follow.

atoms for peace

22-04-2010, 09:59 PM

i'm not so sure about a great war real, i mean i expect a war alright but maybe not a great one. It's pretty obvious that everything is running like clock work, all these countries going bankrupt will just usher in the EU as a fully fledged country with localised councils etc...

if we have a great war wouldn't that undue all this meticilous work. Afterall most of the planet will go.

p.s: welcome to the forum atom, enjoy!!!

Cheers for the welcome iantoff.
Would like to say hello to all on this site and say what a great source of info its been for me couple of years now and icke started me on my journey so thought i'd join up, seems like one of the best places to talk with openminded people about this crazy world we live in. In my job i meet hundreds of people every week and have very intelligent friends, but the number of people who are awake and have actually broke out of the conditioning if you like are thin on the ground. so place like this are a god send. cheers folks:):):):)

real6

23-04-2010, 02:56 PM

Greece Asks for EU/IMF Aid to Be Activated

http://www.cnbc.com/id/36731623

Greece asked for the joint European Union/International Monetary Fund aid package Friday, seeking to calm market fears that it will default on its debt.

The Parthenon in Greece
Scott E. Barbour | Getty Images

"It is imperative that we ask for the activation of the mechanism," Papandreou said while visiting the remote Aegean island of Kastellorizo, according to Reuters.

The cost of Greek credit default swaps fell below 600 basis points after reports that Greece was likely to ask for aid. European stocks also rose.

The Balkan country is holding talks with officials from the EU and the IMF about the terms of the bailout, which could be as high as 45 billion euros ($60 billion).

The first tranche of the funds is expected to arrive before the maturity, on May 19, of a 8 billion euros 10-year bond which spooked the markets because investors were worried Greece would not be able to pay.

"We expect to have funds from the mechanism before May 19," Papaconstantinou said, quoted by Reuters.

On Thursday, Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, revised Greece's budget deficit sharply higher, sending shockwaves through the markets, while Moody's downgraded the country's credit rating, although still kept it at investment grade.

RELATED LINKS

Current DateTime: 02:19:48 23 Apr 2010
LinksList Documentid: 36731629

* Let Greece Go Bust: Jim Rogers
* IMF Will Hurt Us: Greeks
* Greece Rating Cut, Deficit Worse Than Feared
* Governments Will Bankrupt Us: Faber
* Greek Debt Hit as Aid Talks Get Underway

An opinion poll published Friday showed that 51 percent of Greeks see the IMF's involvement as doing harm and only 27 percent said it would bring benefits.

The euro, which rose against the dollar and the yen earlier in the day after reports of the announcement came out earlier in the day, was little changed by the news.

This does not mean the single European currency's slide is over, and it can go as low as $1.20 over time, Dennis Gartman, author of the Gartman Letter, told CNBC.

"I think it's only a matter of time until it does go to that level," Gartman said.

"We do have to remember it traded to 88 (cents) six years ago. The manufactures in Europe would be quite gleeful about that fact," he said.

real6

29-04-2010, 03:09 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29961

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The parliamentary leader of Germany's Green party, Juergen Trittin, has indicated that the EU and the IMF are currently eyeballing a figure in the range of €100-120 billion in aid for Greece, as part of a three-year lending package.

Mr Trittin made the remarks following a meeting on Wednesday (28 April) between German parliamentary groups and IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet.

The EU and IMF have so far committed to contributing €40-45 billion to Greece this year (Photo: 1suisse)

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"The package will run over three years," media quoted Mr Trittin as saying. "Greece should be removed de facto from financial markets for three years."

The meeting was hastily arranged earlier this week as key players such as Mr Strauss-Kahn attempt to convince the country's lawmakers to approve a Greek loan bill, which German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble hopes to discuss with the German cabinet next Monday.

With Greece due to pay back roughly €8.5 billion to bondholders on 19 May, EU, IMF and Greek officials are currently racing to put a detailed loan package in place, with talks ongoing in Athens.

A day after fresh credit rating downgrades for Greece and Portugal unleashed a new wave of market turbulence, EU officials insisted the current programme to bail-out Athens was on track, dismissing suggestions that the country's debt may need to be restructured.

The talks in Athens outlining the lending terms will be will be finalised "in the coming days", said European Commission economy spokesman Amadeu Altafaj on Wednesday. "There is no doubt that Greece's needs will be met in time."

Mr Altafaj also said the commission remained confident in Portugal's budget consolidation programme, adding that Lisbon was ready to "envisage additional measures of fiscal consolidation" for as soon as this year, if needed.

Portuguese stocks continued to fall on Wednesday, a day after a downgrade by credit rating agency Standard & Poor's increased fears of contagion spreading from Greece's debt crisis.

The commission called on all players involved, including rating agencies, to act responsibly, but refrained from issuing a direct rebuke to the agency. "We would expect that when Credit Rating Agencies assess the Greek risk, they take due account of the fundamentals of the Greek economy," said financial services spokeswoman Chantal Hughes.

The EU agreed a new regulation on credit rating agencies last year, set to come into force on 7 December 2010, with a future European financial markets agency expected to have an important role in monitoring the powerful bodies.

German timetable

With roughly €8.4 billion in bilateral aid for Greece expected to come from Germany this year, Europe's largest economy is seen as crucial to successfully agreeing a Greek bail-out package in time.

On Wednesday European Council President Herman Van Rompuy indicated he plans to hold a meeting of euro area leaders around the 10 May, in order to finally sign off on a Greek support package.

Member states are currently preparing the ground for a release of funds to Greece ahead of the euro area meeting, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel holding an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Despite opposition demands, Ms Merkel insisted that the country's banks should not contribute to loans to Greece, winning the support of ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet.

Assuming Greek lending-term talks in Athens can be wrapped up this weekend, German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble hopes to discuss the Greek loan bill with cabinet next Monday, before then passing it to parliament for discussion. The house's upper chamber could potentially debate the bill when it meets on 7 May.

Failure to meet this tight deadline could result in German parliamentary approval being shunted into the second half of the month, past the crucial 19 May Greek debt deadline.

Berlin is also facing a challenge over the legality of any loan to Greece, another potential speed bump preventing a rapid transfer of funds. "As soon as the law on help for Greece is through parliament, we will launch a legal complaint" said economics professor Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, referring also to three other lawyers.

Questions over Berlin's willingness to rapidly approve funds for Greece have also been raised, with Ms Merkel facing a crucial regional election on 9 May, and polls indicating any Greek bail-out would be unpopular with voters.

real6

30-04-2010, 03:05 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29971

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The prospect of euro area states making a financial loss on loans to Greece should not be ruled out say economists, despite statements to the contrary by European politicians.

Governments throughout the eurozone are currently preparing the legislative ground in order to channel funds to debt-ridden Greece, with reports the three-year lending package could reach as much as €120 billion.

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Part of the money will come from the IMF, an historic first in the history of the single currency, with details of the package expected to be wrapped up this weekend following talks in Athens.

On Thursday (29 April), German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said the loans, to be charged at an interest rate of roughly five percent, would not hit the country's taxpayers in the long-run. "We hope that it doesn't cost anything at all, as this is not about tax money, it is about offering Greece a credit that makes it solvent again," he said.

A number of influential analysts think otherwise however, with talk on the possibility of Greece restructuring its debt at some point in the future gathering momentum.

A debt restructuring is likely to play an important role in helping Greece return to a sustainable growth path in the medium term says Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist with the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think-tank.

As a result, "it is a very, very real possibility" that creditors such as euro area governments would not receive the entirety of their loans back, he told EUobserver.

"The idea that Greece would be able to pay all of its debt is a heroic one," he says, adding that member states are aware of this but will push ahead in order to shore up the stability of a weakened eurozone.

Economists Jean Pisani-Ferry and Andre Sapir, both from the Brussels-based Bruegel think-tank, agree a debt restructuring is looking increasingly likely, arguing that Europe should prepare a framework for orderly negotiations rather than allowing a potentially chaotic squabble to break out.

"There are serious reasons to doubt that the country will be able to repay its debt entirely," they write in the Financial Times on Thursday. "Given the likelihood of debt restructuring down the road, it [the EU] should waste no time in designing a European debt resolution mechanism to help members with unsustainable debt to resolve it with creditors."

Germany

Diplomats in Brussels remained tight-lipped on the subject however, citing market sensitivities, but German media went to town on Thursday morning over the size of the funds likely to be transferred to Athens.

Tabloid newspaper Bild ran with the headline: "The Greeks want even more of our billions!" accompanying the title with the number "25,000,000,000 euro!" - the proportion of the bail-out they predict Germany will end up paying.

The weekly Die Zeit headlined its main Greek crisis story with: "Are the Greeks Potty?"

Speaking to journalists in Brussels, European economy commissioner Olli Rehn was at pains to stress that aid to Greece would impact positively on all euro area states and citizens.

"I want to underline that this exercise is done not only because of Greece, but for every Euro area member state and their citizens to safeguard financial stability in Europe and globally," he said.

European politicians have faced a growing chorus of criticism over their handling of Greece's debt crisis, with opposition politicians and analysts accusing the bloc of being slow to react.

Euro area leaders are likely to finally sign off on aid to Athens at a specially convened summit around the 10 May, one day after crucial regional elections in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel has appeared reluctant at times to throw her full support behind a Greek bail-out, with polls suggesting a bilateral transfer is unpopular with voters.

"It is unthinkable that we have to wait another two weeks before the mechanism to help Greece is set in motion," Liberal leader in the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt said on Thursday. "The debt crisis is spreading and must be stopped now."

Portugal

Fears have increased this week that Portugal may be the next in line to suffer from market doubts, with the country receiving a fresh credit rating downgrade on Tuesday.

"I expect markets to focus on Portugal in the coming weeks," says Fabian Zuleeg. "The EU must send out a strong signal as part of the Greek package," he adds, indicating that this means letting markets know that Portugal could also potentially receive EU aid.

To date the commission has stressed that the severity of Greece's situation requires its own ad hoc mechanism, while a more permanent crisis mechanism would be set up to help other states which needed support in the future. Such a structure could take months or even years to set up, however.

real6

03-05-2010, 02:49 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29988

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Eurozone states and the IMF have agreed a three-year lending package for Greece worth €110 billion. The decision taken by euro area finance ministers in Brussels on Sunday evening (2 May) follows months of market turmoil, during which Greece's borrowing costs have risen to record highs, sparking fears of a sovereign debt default and breakup of the single currency area.

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"It is an important day for the future of Greece and an important day for the financial stability and economic governance of Europe," EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn said after the finance meeting.

Eurozone governments will provide €80 billion under the three-year deal (2010-12), with the first disbursement to be ready before a crucial debt deadline on 19 May when Athens is due to pay back roughly €8.5 billion to bond holders. Mr Rehn said installments will be subject to a system of "quarterly reviews".

The agreement comes after ten days of talks between EU, IMF and Greek officials regarding the lending terms were wrapped up in Athens on Saturday, with the centre-left Greek government subsequently announcing a fresh round of tax increases and spending cuts as part of its bid to bring the budget deficit to below three percent by 2014. The deficit currently stands at 13.6 percent.

Addressing a special meeting of his cabinet on Sunday morning to discuss the new budget-reduction measures, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said: "Avoiding bankruptcy is a red line for our nation." "I know that with the decisions today our citizens must suffer greater sacrifices. The alternative, however, would be catastrophe and greater suffering for us all."

The measures include the scrapping of bonus payments for public sector workers, an end to increases in public sector salaries and pensions for at least three years, raising VAT from 21 percent to 23 percent, and increasing taxes on fuel, alcohol and tobacco by 10 percent.

The Greek parliament will debate the tough new measures this week, amid fresh government forecasts predicting a four percent contraction in the Hellenic Republic's economy this year, with growth unlikely to return before the second half of 2011.

Eurozone governments are now rushing to pass national legislation to allow them to transfer funds to Greece, with Berlin hoping to secure parliamentary approval by Friday (7 May), the same day that European Council President Herman Van Rompuy will chair a summit of euro area leaders.

Luxembourg's prime minister, Jean-Claude Trichet, told journalists the purpose of the leaders' meeting was to "evaluate the situation in light of parliamentary procedures ...and assess the impact of the Greek crisis on euro area governance."

Greek resistance

With talk of a potential debt restructuring doing the rounds, Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou dismissed the idea that eurozone states may not receive the full value of their loans back, and insisted the austerity measures had been designed to minimise the hurt caused to the country's lower earners.

"We have done what we can to maintain social justice under this programme," he said.

Tens of thousands of Greek citizens took the streets over the weekend to protest against the latest round of austerity measures, with riot police using tear gas to disperse protestors. A third national strike in as many months is planned for Wednesday.

Despite TV images showing the civil unrest in Athens, Mr Papaconstantinou insisted a majority of citizens were behind the government efforts to bring its finances back into line, with investors now watching to see whether the budget savings measures can be implemented fully.

"If you look at the opinion polls, you will get a very profound sense of a need for change," he said.

Lending

The euro area finance ministers also discussed the possibility of banks making a voluntary contribution to the euro area bilateral loans for Greece, with the idea being widely discussed in Germany.

"All ministers agreed that they should talk to representatives of their banking sectors in the various countries and see what voluntary conclusions the banks are prepared to draw from the Greek programme and the eurogoup decision," Mr Juncker told journalists after the meeting.

At the recipient end of the €110 billion lending programme, €10 billion has been set aside for a financial stability fund in case Greece's banking sector runs into difficulties.

As the Greek deal entered the final stages in recent days, analysts have increasingly turned their attention to other economies seen as vulnerable, with particular concern that contagion could spread to Portugal, Spain or Ireland.

European politicians have insisted however that other euro area states will not need to ask for a similar bail-out. "One cannot compare Greece to other countries because of the very precarious debt dynamics that Greece would face without these necessary measures and because of ...profound statistical irregularities," said Mr Rehn.

andyh

03-05-2010, 03:01 PM

Greece is only the tip of the iceberg. Wait until Portugal and/or Italy reach the same low-level.

http://s01.flagcounter.com/count/fcE0P/bg=FFFFFF/txt=FFFFFF/border=FFFFFF/columns=1/maxflags=1/viewers=3/labels=0/ (http://s01.flagcounter.com/more/fcE0P)

I think actually the tipping point will be Ireland.
The reasoning for me is that it's an English speaking country and the news effect will be more profound on the public at large.

That said tptb could simply be squeezing things out for a Greece a little while longer so that it fails again but at a time when at least 1 other country in the EU also defaults.

real6

04-05-2010, 02:46 PM

Guess Who’s Paying For The Greece Bailout? That’s Right — YOU

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-guess-whos-paying-for-that-greece-bailout-thats-right-you-2010-5

The bailout outrages never stop.

Of the 110-billion Euro Greece bailout, 30-billion (approx $40 billion) will be paid for by the IMF.

The US supplies almost 20% of the IMF's funding
(per quotas). So that means US taxpayers are providing ~$8 billion of the $145 billion going to kick the Greek can down the road.

That's the first outrage. (Why is this our problem?)

The second outrage is that, as in some of the US bailouts, our bailout money is JUNIOR to Greece's existing debt. That means that, over the next couple of years, the idiot banks that loaned bankrupt Greece money will get their money back. And then, when Greece runs out of cash again, we'll be left holding the bag (along with Germany and the rest of the folks who bailed Greece out).

In any normal financing, the lender of last resort would be SENIOR to all existing debt. It would get its money back first, before the other idiots got a penny.

In the Greece bailout, however, the new money we're putting in will be going right out the door to pay off existing lenders who would have lost their shirts. And if the Greece austerity measures don't work and there's nothing left for us? Tough.

(Why don't the existing creditors have to lose a penny? Same reason the AIG creditors didn't lose a penny. Because it would apparently be too traumatic to ask them to do that. The idea that the existing creditors might have to lose money was apparently so unthinkable that it was never even on the table).

It's nice of us to bail out Greece, isn't it? Can't we at least get the Parthenon as collateral or something?

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-guess-whos-paying-for-that-greece-bailout-thats-right-you-2010-5#ixzz0my67PVT7

real6

04-05-2010, 02:47 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/29998

Slovakia reluctant to take part in Greek bail-out

Slovakia became the 16th eurozone member in January 2009 (Photo: formulaphoto)

RENATA GOLDIROVA

Today @ 09:31 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - As the Greek government awaits the first tranche of a €110 billion rescue loan, its Socialist counterpart in Slovakia has said it will not immediately contribute its share, citing doubts over Athen's ability to push ahead with necessary reforms.

"I don't trust the Greeks," Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico told journalists on Monday (May 3), a day after the eurozone finance ministers' meeting had welcomed harsh austerity measures linked to the bail-out.

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* Comment article

"The approval by the [Greek] government is not enough. We want to see laws approved by the parliament leading to cuts in salaries, pensions and social benefits. Until then the Slovak cabinet will not authorise its loan."

Slovakia, the latest eurozone member state, is expected to contribute as its share of the bail-out some €816 million over the next three years - a figure amounting to the annual budget of the country's interior ministry, according to media reports.

Some analysts say however that Mr Fico' toughened stance can be seen as part of a heated election campaign.

In February, he argued: "If Europe could pour huge amounts of money into the banks, why not to help the countries in real trouble."

The parliamentary elections in Slovakia are less than six weeks away and most political parties argue against coming to the rescue of debt-stricken Greece.

"At this stage, the parliamentary debate could be counterproductive," finance minister Jan Pociatek said.

The unpopular decision is therefore likely to fall on the shoulders of the next Slovak government and parliament, although Mr Fico - the probable winner - did not exclude his consent to the loan if the conditions are met.

"Nobody cares about Greece. Everyone is currently protecting their own national interests … their own skin, the stability of the euro," he said, referring to Slovak citizens' savings.

The eurozone has agreed language saying: "Parliamentary approval, needed in some member states prior to the release of the first tranche, is expected to follow swiftly."

But it seems the process could be lengthy in some countries.

Slovenia, another recent eurozone member state, will probably need to review its 2010 budget as its share of the loan pool for Greece will jump to €384 million up from an initial estimate of €144 million.

"Slovenia may review government spending because the amount we may have to pay to Greece is so much higher," the government's chief economic forecaster, Bostjan Vasle, said, according to Bloomberg, with Slovenian lawmakers likely vote on the matter in June.

The most crucial vote comes on Friday (May 7), however, when Germany - the biggest contributor to the package - is set to complete its approval of some €22.4 billion.

The European Commission has meanwhile hinted that Greece could gain back its lost credibility sooner than expected and could be able to return to financial markets for funding as early as the second half of 2011.

"They will get back to the market in the course of 2011 at the latest," a commission official said, according to Reuters. "It is not assumed that Greece will have no market access throughout the programme, although it will not need access in the first one-and-a-half to two years."

Should Greece continue to draw on the lifeline throughout the entire three-year period, it will start repayments from mid-2013 through to mid-2016.

jiffy

04-05-2010, 08:40 PM

That's the first outrage. (Why is this our problem?)

Rather clueless chap!!!Does he really believe that any country in Europe "want" to bail Greece out??

They have no choice, if they allow Greece to default this would cause "HUGH" ripples in the markets.

The cost of government borrowing to ALL EU countries would rise and for countries who debt levels are deemed to be high risk (the UK included) the interest would be well above 20%.

This would make the "credit crunch" look like a picnic ;)

oioioi

05-05-2010, 02:01 AM

The Parliamentary Group of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) raised the issue of Article 28 paragraph 2 of the Greek Constitution that describes that >> "is required a qualified majority of three fifths (ie at least 180 MPs) to ratify for the transfer of sovereign powers and property of the Greek state to third parties" . As per Article 28 , the Greek Constitution requires increased parliamentary majority of three / fifths (ie 180 positive votes) to vote the bill to ratify the new austerity measures. In case this procedure is not followed, and if this case in later stage goes to the Constitutional Court , the money given to Greece as bailout are not secured .. as the agreement maybe declared not valid by the court. and the money never payed back..

http://garizo.blogspot.com/2010/05/28-180.html

ozpixie

05-05-2010, 04:32 AM

ozpixie

05-05-2010, 04:45 AM

These bankers just cannot admit that their way isn't working, not even for them.

lizard_monkey

05-05-2010, 05:04 AM

Greece comes to standstill as citizens focus anger on EU

http://euobserver.com/9/29555

Greece came to a standstill on Wednesday as millions of workers, both public and private, stayed away from work .

The Supremes - Stop! In the name of love (MCK35 Remix) - YouTube

The Spirit of Brussels is taking on the Spirit of Greece, damm them suit wearing people must be mad, saying that we already know that, but fucking hell Brussels you think you can bend Greece over a barrel and shaft it...... this is going to get messy :eek: [snip snip]

The Greek Fates - YouTube

If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. ~Aristotle Onassis

jiffy

05-05-2010, 09:55 AM

These bankers just cannot admit that their way isn't working, not even for them.

Hmm depends on who you describe as the "bankers".... I would say that countries borrowing money from "bankers" to bail out "bankers" then borrowing money from "bankers" to bail out countries is win win in there eyes!!

What doesn't seem to of registered with 99% of the western populous is there is at the moment the largest shift of wealth in the history of this planet.

The willfully ignorant are pacifically excepting that it is all there fault for borrowing to much.
The MSM is then lining up to tell the ignorant that they will be entering at least a Ten year period of austerity like we have not know since the 30s

All the while the "markets" charge higher and higher interest rates to both countries and individuals because of the "alleged" risk.

Awakening my arse...people are privy to more information than ever before, BUT what hasn't been factored in, is cognitive thought processes.

Average "Joe" actively chooses not to be informed. It to depressing, what can I do, it's always been like that...ect

pacin

05-05-2010, 11:54 AM

jimmythebee

05-05-2010, 01:12 PM

These bankers just cannot admit that their way isn't working, not even for them.

the bankers get paid no matter what,anyone of them know fiat money is an accident waiting to happen---they don't care

andyh

05-05-2010, 01:17 PM

the bankers get paid no matter what,anyone of them know fiat money is an accident waiting to happen---they don't care

Exactly yep. It's not about money so much as it's about control and statistical predictability of the population at large.

plainsight

05-05-2010, 01:31 PM

most of us here don't want the money, we want to return to drachmas. it's the politicians who keep begging for money, protecting the euro as much as they can for the sake of the few rich families and their banks.

we want to leave the eurozone asap. and it's the european leaders who don't want this to happen. because it will affect everyone in Europe.

but don't worry sooner or later our politicians won't be able to beg.

there's no solution.

It's all about saving the banks who lent the money to Greece. If you accept the money, where will the money to pay THIS debt come from? It's a neverending story, someone has the press the reset button.

But what will emerge after this? Each country on it's own, unable to compete with China? Each country self-sufficient?

dragond

05-05-2010, 01:43 PM

the difference being that the greeks don't take no bullshit and know how to mobilize, whereas the british are mostly soft-headed tits more concerned with cheryl coles marriage.

spot on!

D

andyh

05-05-2010, 01:48 PM

It's all about saving the banks who lent the money to Greece. If you accept the money, where will the money to pay THIS debt come from? It's a neverending story, someone has the press the reset button.

But what will emerge after this? Each country on it's own, unable to compete with China? Each country self-sufficient?

They'll just have 1 world country after a nasty war starts in the middle east and the world will have 1 currency with 1 central bank and everyone will eventually have a chip with all currency going digital. They will then have complete control over the monetary system and the ability to screw us all for ever and ever par excellence.

real6

05-05-2010, 05:14 PM

http://euobserver.com/9/30018

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Three people died in a fire-bomb attack on a bank in Athens on Wednesday (5 April). Protesters against an EU-IMF loan package also attempted to storm parliament, with one analyst saying the developments are "very bad news" for market confidence.

The three employees of the Marfin Popular Bank suffocated at its building in Stadiou Street in Athens, according to a statement issued by the city's fire brigade and comments from police. The ambulance service has yet to confirm the deaths.

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The incident occurred as youths hurled molotov cocktails at shops and other businesses in the city centre. Even as the protesters battled police, marchers tried to storm the parliament where MPs are due to hold an emergency debate on the EU-IMF package. Riot police fired teargas and stun grenades at demonstrators.

Between eight and nine demonstrators were beaten by police near the parliament and taken to hospital, according to the Athens municipal workers' union. Two are reportedly in serious condition.

The unrest is part of a 48-hour general strike mounted to try and stop an EU and IMF-drafted packet of financial austerity measures designed to make Greece solvent over the next three years. According to organisers, some 350,000 people took to the streets across the country. Police put the figure at 100,000.

Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council, expressed sympathy for the three casualties. "When it comes to Greece our first thoughts today are with the human victims in Athens," he told reporters after an EU-Canada summit in Brussels. He also indicated the austerity package should go ahead. "This effort is considerable, but it it is not without precedent and will restore competitivity and growth," the EU leader said.

Costas Isychos, the vice-president of the Athens municipal workers' union blamed the bank deaths on "anarchists."

"These protesters were very angry. It was very stormy, but these were pensioners, women, young people," he told EUobserver. "But today's demonstration was actually mostly peaceful, and possibly the biggest in the history of modern Greece. We thoroughly condemn whoever was responsible for the firebomb attack."

Everyone nearby was completely shocked by the violence. There are anarchist groups who adapt violence as the only means to protest, but there are provocations between the police and these groups," he added.

The country has screeched to a halt over the past 24 hours, with flights grounded, ferries blocked and public transport at a standstill.

On Tuesday night, municipal employee unions also occupied the town halls of Agios Dimitrios and Vyrona, two of the capital's suburbs. The night before, teachers crashed the ERT public television midway through a live broadcast of the evening news and forced the station to broadcast their demands. Some 50 teachers fought with the police before leaving.

The work stoppage ends at midnight on Wednesday, but further trade union marches are planned for Thursday and another 48-hour-strike is likely next week. Some trade union confederations, particularly in the public sector are contemplating an indefinite general strike, while pensioners are considering daily street demonstrations.

"The EU and IMF are turning the clock back a century in terms of the social conquests we have won," said Mr Isychos. "Greece is a neo-liberal experiment. It must stop in Greece. If it does not, it will roll across all of Europe as the people pay for the profits of the banks and big business."

Market worries

Carsten Brzenski, a senior economist with ING bank in Brussels, said that the social explosion is the reaction to the EU-IMF deal which markets fear the most.

"This is definitely not a show of support for the government," he told this website. "The markets will view this as a sign that the government will not be able to push through its programme."

"It only contributes to worries that have been there since Sunday. The programme is very ambitions but it absolutely depends on whether the Greek people will accept it," he continued.

"If the situation continues as it has done in the last few days, markets will certainly begin to have doubts. This is not a good scenario for Greece at all. The plan stands or falls on two things: government stamina and public support. This is very, very bad news."

shakes spears

05-05-2010, 05:26 PM

what will they do when everyone just stops working ?

xeno

05-05-2010, 05:51 PM

Epeisodia kentro Athina 5/5 - YouTube

real6

10-05-2010, 02:51 PM

Is The Greek Debt Crisis Being Purposely Hyped And Manipulated?

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Everywhere you turn in the financial media right now you see some "expert" declaring that the Greek debt crisis has become a "contagion" which is going to spread all over the globe and which could potentially bring down the entire world economy. Now certainly Greece has badly mismanaged their finances for decades, and without a doubt they have gotten themselves into a huge mess. But could Greece bring down the entire world economy? Hardly. The truth is that you could remove Greece from the world economy tomorrow and most people would hardly notice. The economy of Greece is only about 2% the size of the United States economy, and it takes in less than 0.1% of U.S. exports. But we are being led to believe that Greece has suddenly become the epicenter of a financial crisis which is going to bring down everything. Could it be that this Greek debt crisis is purposely being hyped and manipulated? Could it be that this Greek debt crisis is yet another example of the "problem, reaction, solution" paradigm that the global elite have employed so many times before?

Right now almost all of the governments in the western world operate debt-based economies that rely on ever-inflating amounts of paper money in order to survive. The elite international bankers of the world have made a killing by creating money out of nothing and loaning it to the nations of the world. The interest on those loans is the primary method by which the wealth of the world is slowly transferred into the hands of the ultra-wealthy. When the interest on the loans starts to become too much for a particular nation, they borrow even more money so that they can stay afloat. It is a debt trap that is designed to continue indefinitely. Even the most powerful nations in the world are caught in this debt trap. In fact, most people are absolutely amazed when they learn that it is mathematically impossible to pay off the national debt of the United States. But the United States is far from alone in that respect. Almost all of the other major nations in the world are in the exact same boat.

So what normally happens when a nation like Greece gets into big trouble is that they just go out and borrow even more money from the international bankers.

But this time the big financial powers are insisting on big budget cuts and other "austerity measures".

So what is the deal with that?

Well, there are a couple of possibilities.

The first alternative is that the IMF and the European Central Bank actually believe that the financial situation in Greece has gotten so desperate that they could actually be forced to default on their debt and so something dramatic needs to be done. You see, the truth is that the international bankers want the game to continue no matter what. They are a parasite, and they can't keep draining a host if the host dies. So it does them no good for the economy of Greece to completely die. So maybe they are just trying to revive the host economy (Greece) so that they can continue slowly draining the wealth of that nation.

And perhaps that is all that is happening here. After Greece agreed to the required "austerity measures", the EU and the IMF extended to Greece the bailout loans that they needed, and on Sunday European Union finance ministers agreed to create a 750 billion euro safety net for troubled eurozone countries. The EU's monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, says that this safety net "proves that we shall defend the euro whatever it takes."

There are even rumors that the ECB is prepared to engage in a new round of quantitative easing. That would entail very large loans to distressed governments in the eurozone in the form of buying up their bonds.

Of course all of this "help" is just more debt that continues to put Greece into an even bigger hole, but at least Greece will not be faced with immediate default.

The second alternative is that what is going on is the financial powers of the world are deliberately hyping and manipulating the Greek debt crisis because they actually want to crash the world economy.

At this point, the debt crisis in Greece has been hyped for weeks on end, and the kind of alarm being raised about the situation is Greece just seems massively out of proportion.

After reading some of the recent news reports coming out of Europe, you would think that the world is on the verge of a financial doomsday just because of what is happening in Greece. The following excerpt from the Guardian is representative of what we have been seeing in recent days....

"The growing crisis in the eurozone threatened to undermine the global economic recovery as markets plunged across the world on fears that European leaders may not be able to contain the debt contagion spreading from Greece."

In fact, just about wherever you turn some financial expert is coming forward with predictions that the "contagion" of the Greek debt crisis is going to spread and cause economic chaos all over the world....

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Frankel:

"What we have seen is that contagion has gone global"

Japan's deputy finance minister, Rintaro Tamaki:

"All the financial markets are now in turmoil"

Finance Minister Anders Borg of Sweden:

"We now see herd behavior in the markets that are really pack behavior, wolfpack behavior."

The truth is that this Greek debt crisis could end up being the first domino in a sovereign debt crisis that will sweep the globe - if that is what the international bankers want.

If the international bankers decide to cut off the ever-expanding flow of debt to the nations around the world it would create a disastrous financial crisis. Without the loans that they desperately need, country after country would plunge into an economic nightmare that most people do not even think is possible.

So would the international bankers ever do that?

They have done it before.

Just study the causes of the Great Depression.

Now there are indications that it may be getting ready to happen again.

Suddenly everyone is starting to talk about the "austerity measures" that will not only have to be implemented in Greece but all over the world.

For example, check out this recent quote from an article in the Guardian....

"Riots and strikes in Greece could be repeated in other countries which have yet to adopt their own austerity packages."

Other countries which have yet to adopt their own austerity packages?

And it just isn't Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal they are talking about.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King recently warned that public anger over the "austerity measures" that soon must be implemented in the U.K. will be so intense that whatever party wins this election will be out of power for a generation.

Austerity measures in the U.K.?

Not only that, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is publicly saying that United States citizens will soon have to make difficult choices between higher taxes and reduced social spending.

Why all of a sudden do nations all over the world have to implement austerity measures? Why all of a sudden are we all being told that we are going to have to tighten our belts?

Well, unless all of this was planned of course.

And that is exactly what some out there are claiming is happening. There is a belief by many that the financial powers of the world are going to create a world economic crisis (the problem) so that when everyone cries out for help (the reaction) they will be there with the solution they wish to propose (perhaps a world currency or increased global governance).

In fact, Pastor Lindsey Williams even claims that an individual who is from these elite circles has told him exactly what is coming. If you have never heard of Lindsey Williams you should really check out the video posted below. He was the one (based on inside information from his source) who correctly predicted a couple years ago that oil would go down to 50 dollars a barrel when at the time it was pushing up into record territory. When oil did in fact plunge down to 50 dollars a barrel people were not laughing at him anymore. Now, the same source has told him that a massive economic downturn is planned over the next couple of years....

So is Lindsey Williams right?

As with so many things, time will tell.

But when top banking officials all over the world start talking about "austerity measures" and the need to tighten our belts, it is best to start paying attention.

We are moving into a time of extreme economic uncertainty. To the folks that play around with hundreds of billions of dollars, you are nothing more than a pawn on a chessboard. If you believe that "things are always going to be good" and that the people with real power in this world honestly care about you then you are going to end up in a whole lot of trouble.

Now is the time to prepare while there is still time. Someday when the U.S. economy does completely collapse and you have done nothing to prepare it will be far too late.

real6

10-05-2010, 02:52 PM

The latest Greek tragedy And Sovereign Defaults Pose A Great Threat

The latest Greek tragedy continues to leave carnage in its wake, crime compounds the debt problems, Problems everyone knew about nobody did anything about, the Sovereign debt bubble is now upon us, and could bring the world financial system down, a situation like the French Revolution in Greece, food stamps at a record high, unemployment and problems of poverty in the US,

It was 7 years ago we said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bankrupt. Most everyone within the beltway knew it, but no one would say anything about it. This as it now turns out they were the poster companies, which led to sovereign debt problems, but also showed that they were involved in massive fraud over several years and many in Washington knew it. Earnings were fabricated in order to create conditions, so that the officers could collect millions of dollars in bonuses. Part of this scam was engineered by Goldman Sachs, which pushed more than $100 million in earnings into future years. Earnings were structured so that they justified larger payouts for executives.

These two GSE’s were later joined with Ginnie Mae and FHA, not for fraud as far as we know, but in making and insuring loans, that were not worth the paper they were written on. They were the entities, and they still are, that were at the heart of the mortgage crisis. They were responsible for the distortions in the housing market as essentially the lenders of last resort. Remember, everyone had to have a house whether they qualified for it or not. We should also add that the Fed created and controlled the housing boom, aided and abetted by these GSE’s and, of course, the lenders and raters. That said, it could have never happened and is continuing to happen with key assistance from these four lenders of last resort. Over a six-year period they arranged for mortgage credit to double; mis-pricing of finance never entered their minds. What in part the GSE’s were responsible for was the over liquidation of the mortgage market, that in turn led to distortion that came to be known as collateralized debt obligations, asset backed securities, ABS, and MBS, mortgage backed securities. They were sold by the likes of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and others, who arranged with the raters S&P, Moody’s and Fitch to have bonds rated AAA that in fact were junk, BBB. In a low interest rate environment, choosing yield, professional investors gobbled them up supposedly after doing their due diligence, which obviously never occurred. All those lawyers and no legal opinions. It seemed impossible and it was. They bought trillions of dollars worth. We said, at the time, this is impossible. Could it be the Fed said, we want you to buy this paper and if there is a problem, we have you covered? This naturally led to more home buying and more CDOs, ABS and MBS, which let the GSE’s off the hook in part at least. We would guess the Fed was behind this in order to transfer some of the risk from the GSE’s to institutional investors. The result of all this was a giant bubble, which is being and has been re-inflated over the past couple of years. The reasons in government are obvious. Just do not let it collapse on my watch. This is why the crisis isn’t over and why it won’t be over for at least two more years. Then for how many years will it bump along the bottom?

Outrageous monetary policy by the FOMC and Alan Greenspan led to ever more profits in the banking system and on Wall Street. In the end the lifeline was the GSE’s and still is. Banking and Wall Street, as we all well know, expedited the distribution of these toxic assets. The problems created by this cabal in their quest for extraordinary profits are still with us.

As we look to the future we see more bubbles from that era still to be dealt with and that is sovereign debt. For 19 nations that problem is acute. They are on the edge of insolvency. Iceland has led the pack and today the visible are Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy, all in different stages of collapse. More will soon follow reaching a crescendo next year. The contagion will be complete as bad debt stretches around the world affecting debt and credit everywhere. No one will escape it – it will be just a matter of degrees. We are embarking into a crisis of confidence in governments. Even though Americans do not understand what is wrong with monetary and fiscal policies, they believe their own government is untrustworthy. Some 82% and 79% in two polls just said so. The public obviously sees something is wrong that it quite doesn’t understand. The professionals who should understand are looking the other way hoping it will just go away.

Compounding these debt problems we have banking and Wall Street running Washington in an ongoing criminal enterprise, which is being splashed all over the media. Something that few have talked about is the failure of Goldman Sachs and the event that could cause the collapse of the derivative markets. The system is fragile, especially since it has been kept alive for seven years by massive amounts of money and credit being injected into the system by the Fed. This is nothing new – it has been going on for a long time. It is just now being exposed. How can you hope the system will function when you have unregulated derivatives, hedge funds that are unregulated, black box front running and naked shorting? That is massive rules violations and the SEC and CFTC do absolutely nothing about it of real import. As time passes the Fed will have to again increase liquidity, not just to banks that keep it on deposit at the Fed, in a sweetheart deal, but to small businesses and individuals. If that doesn’t happen the system will be sucked under by the undertow of deflation.

Wall Street doesn’t care about the state of the systems – they want to make money anyway they can – legal or illegal, as the public has found out much to their chagrin. Do not forget more money is made by professionals on the short side than on the long side.

What is going on concerning sovereign debt is eventually going to bring the world financial system down. It did not just happen that way; it was planned that way.

“The annual operating shortfall is running between $4 and $5 trillion; not $500 billion as we saw before the crisis or the $1.4 trillion that they announced for fiscal 2009. Now to put that into perspective, if the government wanted to balance its deficit on a GAAP basis for a year, and it seized all personal income and corporate profits, taxing everything 100%, it would still be in deficit.” John Williams

The latest Greek tragedy continues to leave carnage in its wake. Some 30% of the intended Greek bailout financing will come from the IMF, of which US taxpayers will pay for 40%. This has been done to subsidize European countries and banks, which are holding Greek bonds. A deal obviously worked out in some back room by fellow Illuminists. Needless to say, American’s should be outraged. The Greek populace in general probably has little intention of paying back these loans, who can blame them. The politicians and the bankers lied to them, telling them things were just fine and they were not just fine. No one told them successive governments and Goldman Sachs were cooking the books.

We do see one thing in the future and that is that the Illuminists are losing their grip on total control. The information being disbursed over the Internet and talk radio is exposing more and more of what they are up too. At least at this time things are going very badly for the elitists, especially in Greece.

These are the type of things that led up to the French Revolution in 1789, during which some 300,000 elitists lost their heads. We have mentioned these similarities a number of times, particularly on the radio. Then as now the same type of elitists ran things. Then it was a corrupt aristocracy – today it is those who believe they are the masters of the universe, and plan to give us world government. We are quite sure that the end result this time worldwide will be far more extensive. Today you can run but you cannot hide.

People today for the most part do not know that there is a ruling elite and when you do expose this reality 95% reject the concept and slip into denial. We have been exposing these people for more than 50 years, so we know the difficulty of making people understand the facts of who really is in charge. These predators have been with us for over one thousand years trying to bring us their version of what is good for us. In this depraved process they have financed and equipt almost every war and conflict during that long period. Today it is control and the elimination of useless eaters. We can guarantee you one thing and that is if Americans are not successful using the ballot box and other legal avenues to retrieve their country and their freedom, what will take place will make the French Revolution look like a warm up that will last for years, as everyone of these monsters are brought to justice.

Leadership not under elitist control for the most part does not know what is really going on. Most are shallow and do not understand real history. They only know the same dogma that has bee presented to them by the opposition.

Yes, we have a Tea Party, an outward manifestation of rejection of our current system. The movement is noble and well intentioned, but they still do not understand, or are willing to accept, like most newsletter writers, that there is a cabal behind the scenes pulling all the strings. Many in government, banking and on Wall Street know what is going on, but they are terrified to speak out. They do not want to be thought ill of or perhaps lose their jobs. Those in power realize this, but they also know desperation brings revolution, something we may be seeing in the streets of Athens as we write. If you push the public far enough you will get a reaction, which you not going to like. Keep that in mind elitists, because if you do not attempt to reverse what you have created, it will destroy you.

On a more mundane note, but certainly part of the mosaic we face, it has become quite evident that money needed to finance huge public debt is becoming increasingly difficult to find, an event we predicted some time ago. The BIS, Bank for International Settlements, the banker’s bank, that really is top control on world monetary matters and the IMF have also been telling us that for some time. As an example, the US will pay $20 billion to bail Greece out, if that ever really happens. That is their contribution via the IMF. The big question is where will the money come from to bail out the other 18 countries on the edge of the financial abyss, which includes the US and the UK. Greece is an early warning that the entire global financial system is going to collapse. The elitists got it all wrong again. The collapse was to be coordinated and well tuned to be harmonized and executed simultaneously at some later date. The citizens of Greece have turned this upside down, just as French citizens did at the Bastille. The Greeks are saying we have had enough and won’t take it anymore. All sovereign debt is essentially unpayable. Debt has swallowed up the world. Even if the system continues to function the only way debt can be paid on a short or intermediate term basis is to arbitrarily create more money and credit out of thin air, the result of which will be hyperinflation, a lower stock market, higher interest rates and lower bond prices and higher gold and silver prices. These coming events are an absolute lock. All bets are off if we plunge directly into a deflationary depression, although the above results will be the same. It is just the path to failure will have changed. Many more problems are on the way the US and UK are leading the pack. Governments worldwide will have to raise $4.5 trillion in 2010 of which the US will raise just about $2.2 trillion or 45% during a period when these requirements exceed available funds. In England over the last few months the Bank of England has bought 70% of Treasuries and in the US the Fed continues to buy 80% by having others front the orders for them.

Worse yet the UK could end up with a “Hung Parliament.” When that happened in the mid-1970s the IMF had to be called in. England could very well become the next Greece. The hung parliament will bring lower sterling, unless the liberals and the conservatives can form a coalition, which is certainly possible. Even with a coalition that could govern the disastrous debt problems are not going to go away anytime soon and the UK will follow in the footsteps of Greece. This is going to be a long hot summer for England. Sterling will trend lower and budget problems will worsen.

US financing needs dwarfs all others. There is a good chance the demand could cause an explosion in the debt market, especially in the US Treasury market. This would cripple the financial system and cause many bankruptcies. As well, it is not impossible for the Fed to collapse under worthless assets. A 2/3’s devaluation, which we expect, could easily accomplish that. No matter which way you cut in, we are in for big trouble.

April average hourly earnings were unchanged and weekly hours worked were 34.1 hours.

March consumer credit rose $1.95 billion versus a fall of $6.21 billion in February.

The cost of protecting US corporate debt with credit default swaps rose 137 bps from 128 on Thursday. The bank index closed at 212 and 25 banks closed at 223. Portugal and Spanish banks hit new highs, as did England.

Almost 40 million Americans are on food stamps, or one in three citizens.

The FDIC Friday Night Financial Follies was with us again.

US regulators closed four banks holding less than $740 million in total assets as this year’s failures climbed to 68.

Lenders in Arizona, California, Minnesota and Florida were closed by regulators and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver, according to statements on the agency’s website. The failures cost the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund $213.7 million, a fraction of last week’s $7.3 billion total cost. City National Corp., the Los Angeles-based lender with $20.1 billion in assets, purchased one of the banks.

“City National has been serving San Diego for more than 30 years,” Chief Executive Officer Russell Goldsmith said in a statement. “This acquisition underscores our expanding commitment to the community.”

US banks are collapsing amid losses on residential and commercial real estate loans, and the FDIC’s list of “problem” lenders is the longest since 1992, at 702. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has said she expects failures to slow but still exceed last year’s total of 140.

City National paid a premium of 1.62 percent to acquire the $291.2 million in deposits at 1st Pacific Bank of California, based in San Diego. City National is looking to expand in Southern California and picked up Imperial Capital Bank in December.

Banks paid premiums to acquire the deposits at Mesa-based Towne Bank of Arizona and Access Bank of Champlin, Minnesota, the FDIC said.

Bank of Bonifay

For the one deal in which the FDIC wasn’t paid a premium, the agency kept the majority of the assets at Florida-based Bank of Bonifay for later sale. The agency held onto $164.8 million of the $242.9 million in total assets. First Federal Bank of Florida, in Lake City, acquired the deposits and some assets.

Earlier this week, the FDIC sold a 40 percent stake in a company holding assets of Atlanta’s failed Silverton Bank to Square Mile Capital LLC. The private-equity firm bought mainly performing hospitality loans and loan participations with an unpaid principal balance of about $421 million, the FDIC said.

With major cost-cutting efforts now in the past, the productivity of U.S. nonfarm businesses slowed in the first quarter from 6.3% to a still-healthy 3.6% annual rate, the Labor Department estimated Thursday.

The ISM index for non-manufacturing in April failed to overtake last month’s figure matching it at 55.4, yet falling below analysts’ prediction of 56.0. The non-manufacturing index follows a strong manufacturing index result for April, pointing to robust growth prospects in the second quarter.

The ADP US employment change rose by 32K in April, a jump beyond March’s figure of 19K. Moreover, the positive employment change slightly beat out analysts’ prediction of 30K. The upbeat indicator accompanies positive manufacturing and consumer spending figures released earlier in the week, giving further credence to strong growth prospects for the second quarter.

According to data just released by the Mortgage Bankers Association, US mortgage applications increased 4.0% for the week ending April 30, as compared to the fall of -2.9% the recorded the prior week.

Los Angeles is facing a terminal fiscal crisis: Between now and 2014 the city will likely declare bankruptcy. Yet Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council have been either unable or unwilling to face this fact.

According to the city's own forecasts, in the next four years annual pension and post-retirement health-care costs will increase by about $2.5 billion if no action is taken by the city government. Even if Mr. Villaraigosa were to enact drastic pension reform today—which he shows no signs of doing—the city would only save a few hundred million per year.

Job cuts announced by U.S. employers plunged in April to the lowest level since July 2006, a sign the labor market is on the mend as the world’s largest economy recovers. Planned firings dropped 71 percent to 38,326 from 132,590 in April 2009, according to figures released today by Chicago- based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. The reading was the second-lowest since June 2000.

Businesses are winding down firings as they boost production to meet increased demand in the U.S. and overseas. A sustained recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s will depend on job creation, and a report in two days may show employers added to payrolls for the third time in four months.

“Most employers are increasingly confident about conditions going forward,” John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of the placement company, said in a statement. “Hiring is likely to increase in the coming months, but many employers are stubbornly slow to hire in the onset of an expansion.”

Hiring plans increased in April by 15,654 positions, led by financial firms and transportation companies, the report showed.

One should not delete unread emails in times of monetary chaos. A joint announcement from the IMF and the Swiss National Bank announcing a "High-Level Conference on International Monetary System" from April 27 has gone unnoticed except for a brief entry in the Wall Street Journal and the Sydney Morning Herald.
It appears to be a major summit about the future of the current fiat money system of unbacked currencies.

The US government IS the US housing market.

The US Government underwrote 96.5% of the mortgages in the 1st quarter 2010, up from 90% 2009. How many homes do you think would have sold without the US government intervening in the mortgage markets through Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie and the FHA?

Do you think mortgages rates would be 5.12% without the US government writing 96.5% of the mortgages? Would mortgages be this low without the Fed holding interest rates at near 0% at you the savers expense, and the Fed buying $1.2 trillion in securitized mortgages so, among other things, Fannie and Freddie can keep buying up pumped out mortgages?

Americans seeking reward money are turning in neighbors, clients and employers they suspect of cheating on taxes to the IRS at a rate of nearly eight per day, the director of the agency’s whistleblower program said.

Steve Whitlock, the director, told an audience of about 200 lawyers, investigators and government officials at a Miami Beach conference on offshore banking that his office receives 40 to 50 tips per month alleging tax liability in excess of $2 million. Americans submit another 200 per month alleging smaller violations, he said.

Whitlock said submissions have surged since the enactment in 2006 of a law that requires the IRS to pay awards of between 15% and 30% in cases where more than $2 million is collected. Prior to the law, both the decision on whether to make an award and the amount of payment were discretionary.

Higher-than-expected sales tax revenues in California through the first quarter of the year has been one standout piece of evidence that the economy there is back in a surprising way. Sure the state has its budget problems, but the fact that the economy seemed to be turning upward offered a hopeful sign that a solution could be found. Well, hold the champagne.

According to the LA Times (via Gregor Macdonald), April sales tax receipts have plunged, unexpectedly, can celling out gains from the beginning of the year. State income fell a whopping 30% short of projections, or about $3 billion.

The bottom line is that politicians were kind of hoping they would have it easy and that a rebound would take care of itself.

But as Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, put it: "One pillar of the budget solution just got destroyed, and there's nothing that can happen between now and June that can get back the $3 billion."

Even a cynic can find Washington's hypocrisy shocking at times. The Wall Street Journal reports today a House bill that would force lawmakers to make greater disclosures on financial transactions and disallow them from trading on nonpublic information is going nowhere fast.

That's right. Members of Congress are currently allowed to profit on insider trading!

The bill, which has been languishing in the House for four years, would require elected officials "to make their financial transactions public within 90 days of a purchase or sale" and "prohibit lawmakers from trading in financial markets based on nonpublic information they learn on the job," the WSJ reports.

It seems they're above the transparency they've been calling for on Wall Street.

This comes a day after the same newspaper reported several lawmakers profited by betting against the housing and stock market in 2008. And some did it using derivatives they've recently been railing against.

As our colleague Henry Blodget wrote Tuesday, "If you're going to complain about how awful short-selling is and how evil and venal people are for doing it, you should probably abstain from the practice yourself."

http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/The_latest_Greek_tragedy_And_Sovereign_Defaults_Po se_A_Great_Threat

griffinman

10-05-2010, 03:07 PM

the bankers get paid no matter what,anyone of them know fiat money is an accident waiting to happen---they don't care

exactly.
Stand back you plastic wastelanders, let the professions through..

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