Thousands of angry Greeks march against austerity

[jimmy olsen]

Irresponsible morons, they keep this shit up and after the state collapses into insolvency they'll have a real junta or dictatorship of some flavor or another on their hands.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36682928/ns/world_news-europe/

Thousands of angry Greeks march against austerity

By Lefteris Papadimas and Ingrid Melander

updated 8:14 a.m. ET May 1, 2010
ATHENS - Angry protesters set fire to garbage cans and two TV outside broadcast vans in Athens as thousands of Greeks marched through the capital on May Day to protest against austerity measures they say only hurt the poor.

At one rally, police fired two or three rounds of tear gas against 20 protesters trying to reach parliament. The protesters retreated and the march, which was otherwise largely peaceful, continued, a Reuters witness said.

Shops were closed, ships stayed docked and the streets of the capital were unusually empty except for protesters marching toward parliament, meters away from the Finance Ministry where EU and IMF officials have been meeting for days to agree a new set of austerity measures.

"No to the IMF's junta!" protesters chanted, referring to the military dictatorship which ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

"Hands off our rights! IMF and EU Commission out!," the protesters shouted as they marched to parliament.

A common call among many of those interviewed in the unusually empty streets of Athens was for punishment of those responsible for Greece's biggest crisis in decades, in a country where corruption scandals and tax evasion are widespread.

"We should throw all the crooks into the sea, all the people and politicians who are responsible for this crisis," said 58-year old insurance worker Sotiris Oikonomou.

With initial police estimates at around 17,000 protesters, participation in the march seemed to be around the same level as previous anti-austerity protests. Some were resigned to the fact that the government would move ahead with reforms anyhow.

"I don't expect anything to change with this march. We just fight for our dignity," Oikonomou said.

Greece, whose 240 billion euro economy plunged into recession last year, is preparing more than 20 billion euros ($26.64 billion) in budget cuts over the next two years to secure access to an EU/IMF aid package of up to 120 billion.

"SOCIAL BATTLE?"

The aid package is aimed at pulling Greece out of a severe debt crisis, which has hit the euro and shaken markets worldwide, and avoid contagion to other euro zone countries.

Euro zone finance ministers are due to discuss the deal on Sunday. French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said she expected agreement could be reached by the end of Sunday.

Analysts say social protests may increase after the summer once the impact of the austerity measures kicks in, and investors are worried this may hamper reforms.

Rating agencies have warned they could cut the country's rating further if the government lost public support.

The government has already agreed three sets of austerity measures including tax hikes and pension freeze over the last six months, and many fear the EU/IMF plan will hurt their livelihood further, in a country where one in five lives below the poverty threshold, according to EU data.

"We will not permit the destruction of our rights, we will block their plans," said public sector umbrella union ADEDY. "It's time for our biggest social battle."

Union officials said Greece is asked to slash its deficit by 10 percent of GDP in 2010-2011 by raising VAT tax, scrapping public sector bonuses amounting to two extra months pay, and freezing civil servants' wages in exchange of getting the aid.

A poll by ALCO pollster for the newspaper Proto Thema showed that 51.3 percent of Greeks would take to the streets if these new measures were agreed.

Polls show that although most Greeks disagree with the austerity plans, Prime Minister George Papandreou is still the country's most popular politician and his party leads in polls.

Copyright 2010 Reuters.

[The Brain]

Sell all Greeks into slavery.

[HVC]

Cut them off. not sure why they were allowed in to begin with

[Palisadoes]

Cut them off. not sure why they were allowed in to begin with

Because they lied about how much debt they had.



Anyway, the Greeks blame this all on their political class, but the fact of the day is that it's a lot more of them - corruption is seemingly part of their culture. It's not just corruption though, but just general stupidity: people working for the forestry agency getting paid to maintain cut-down forests; lake maintainance workers getting paid to maintain dried-up lakes; many civil servants getting paid for 14 months of work a year, and so on...

The situation is then made worse by those who refuse to pay their taxes, and then also these idiots protesting, which adds another cost to the public finances. It's just surprising that they have lasted this long.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Cut them off. not sure why they were allowed in to begin with

The situation is then made worse by those who refuse to pay their taxes, and then also these idiots protesting, which adds another cost to the public finances. It's just surprising that they have lasted this long.

It's because Europe in general has a hard-on for Greece. See: Byzantinophilia, accepting Greek asshattery over Macedonia, Cyprus, letting Greece and Greek Cyprus into the EU - the latter supposedly after the former threatened to stop the admission of Romania, et al if Greek Cyprus wasn't let in.

[Faeelin]

Irresponsible morons, they keep this shit up and after the state collapses into insolvency they'll have a real junta or dictatorship of some flavor or another on their hands.

I don't remember you calling the teabaggers out like this. But both seem to have the same motivation, no?

[Admiral Yi]

I don't remember you calling the teabaggers out like this. But both seem to have the same motivation, no?

Holding on to overpaid public sector jobs.

[Faeelin]

I don't remember you calling the teabaggers out like this. But both seem to have the same motivation, no?

Holding on to overpaid public sector jobs.

There is no evidence that the Greeks protesting are all, or even most, angry civil servants.

[alfred russel]

Irresponsible morons, they keep this shit up and after the state collapses into insolvency they'll have a real junta or dictatorship of some flavor or another on their hands.

I don't remember you calling the teabaggers out like this. But both seem to have the same motivation, no?

The greeks don't like black people either?

[sbr]

Irresponsible morons, they keep this shit up and after the state collapses into insolvency they'll have a real junta or dictatorship of some flavor or another on their hands.

I don't remember you calling the teabaggers out like this. But both seem to have the same motivation, no?

The greeks don't like black people either?

I thought no one in Europe did.

[Admiral Yi]

There is no evidence that the Greeks protesting are all, or even most, angry civil servants.

I think the last thread on Greek protests spoke of public employees.

And I suppose a broad cross section of Greek society could take take to the streets to protest an increase in the VAT, but it also makes sense that public sector employees are the ones protesting elimination of two month annual bonuses and a freeze on their pay.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2010/03/empathy_short_supply

The late Andreas Papandreou's strategy in the 1980s was to give the disenfranchised, who formed the bulk of PASOK's voters, a shot at living like the middle class. If this meant throwing European assistance and subsidies around like political favors and giving pensions to people who had never contributed to social security (such as farmers), then so be it. At last, all those who had been shut out by the right-wing establishment which triumphed in the Civil War in 1946-49 – and which was thoroughly discredited by the dictatorship of 1967-74 – would get to share in the wealth of the nation. The fact that this new middle class was founded on wealth that the country was not producing meant that the economy broke free from all logic and went into its own orbit. PASOK established the National Health System and poured money into education but it also undermined the gains by destroying any semblance of hierarchy, accountability and recognition of merit in the public sector. This meant that no one really knew how much money was being spent nor whether those who deserved it most were getting it. Costs rose while productivity plummeted. A wasteful public sector, in turn, condemned the private sector to inefficiency and lack of competitiveness. New Democracy, especially in the 2004-09 period, made the situation worse by doing almost nothing to cut costs and increase revenues, allowing the economy to career out of control

The vast majority of Greek civil servants and others working in public enterprises are guaranteed lifetime employment. This practice arose from the country's recent past, when any new government coming to power would fire the employees hired by its predecessor and replace them with its own supporters. Unfortunately, immunity from dismissal has been abused and simply offers hundreds of thousands of employees shelter from changing economic conditions. The fact that these employees cannot be fired, except for extremely serious reasons, has contributed to the decline of productivity in the public sector.

Moreover, public servants are guaranteed promotions based on the years they are at work and can only move faster up the ladder if they have good connections with politicians and trade unionists. The latter resist any new hiring from the market, arguing that there are plenty of public servants who can do the job instead.

Newspapers here in Belgium talk all the time about the government needing to "buy social peace" by paying off some interest group or other. In Belgium, the alternative to "paix sociale" is a strike. In Greece, plenty of grown-ups remember when the alternative to social peace was their neighbour, or their loved-one, vanishing in the night into a jail cell or worse. The current clientelist truce between right and left is the price (albeit a horrible, wasteful price) established for the current version of social peace enjoyed in Greece.

from the economist a couple of months back iirc. Doesn't alleviate what needs to happen but it sheds some light as to why Greece is such a dunghole.

[Jaron]

Greeks have funny last names. Papadoc!

[Jaron]

And no, Greeks do not hate black people:

[grumbler]

I don't remember you calling the teabaggers out like this. But both seem to have the same motivation, no?