Demonstraties in Europa: Griekenland. #2

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 15:29 schreef thumbnail het volgende:

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Misschien niet, het is maar hoe je alles bekijkt.
Als je naar het voormalige Oostblok kijkt dan zag je allemaal dezelfde auto's en huizen en wij zijn opgevoed met het idee dat dat saai is.
Maar het kan ook dat wij net zo beinvloed worden door onze overheid of markt door steeds iets nieuws te willen terwijl dat nieuwe na een week alweer oud is.
Dus dan willen wij weer het nieuwste en zo gaan wij overwerken en leningen nemen om mee te kunnen doen met die race.
Ik heb wel eens het idee dat het een hoop rust brengt als die drang naar meer en nieuw er niet is.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 15:54 schreef thumbnail het volgende:

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Ik doe er zelf ook aan mee dus daar gaat het niet om.
Het gaat erom dat jij en ik een beeld hebben van welvaart en de vraag is of dat beeld wel klopt.
Het valt mij namelijk op dat heel veel producten het meer van de marketing moeten hebben dan van de kwaliteit van het product.

Ik zal een voorbeeld geven.
Je hebt een BMW motorfiets, de K1200S.
Iemand kocht in 2008 zo'n motor en dat koste hem 21000 euro.
Een paar maanden later kwam de K1300S uit die vrijwel hetzelfde was als de K1200S afgezien van een paar snufjes waar nooit vraag naar was en afgezien van een paar PK's minder.
De beste man ruilde ongezien zijn motor na een paar maanden alweer in want hij moest en zou die nieuwe K1300S als 1 van de eerste hebben.
Het koste hem 5000 euro en de grote vraag is waarom mensen dit doen.
Als er namelijk nog geen nieuw model was geweest dan was de vraag er ook niet geweest en als die K1200S nog 10 jaar verkocht zou worden dan was de man waarschijnlijk 10 zeer tevreden geweest met zijn motor.
Het gaat dus over vrijwel dezelfde motor.

Dit zie je bij vele producten.
Denk maar aan een nieuwe Iphone waar iedereen al voor in de rij staat zonder dat ze weten wat die nou meer of beter kan dan de vorige.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 15:08 schreef Zienswijze het volgende:

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Dan ga je terug naar de oertijd. Op een gegeven moment moeten individuen bezit zijn gaan vormen en dit hebben afgebakend.

In het huidige kapitalisme wordt bezig gewoonweg beschermd. Als jij een stuk grond koopt, dan ben jij dmv het eigendomsrecht beschermd. In het socialisme daarentegen zou de staat jouw stuk grond kunnen afpakken, omdat de staat denkt te bepalen wat het volk wil en moet krijgen.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:23 schreef dotCommunism het volgende:
Haha, ja, de laatsten jaren zijn er genoeg verhalen uit Amerika gekomen van banken die gewoon huizen van mensen in beslag namen vanwege wat de bank claimde wanbetaling van de hypotheek was, terwijl die mensen uberhaupt geen hypotheek hadden.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:14 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

Sterker nog: je K1200S is direct de helft minder waard! Je bezit is puur doordat een ander product op de markt is gekomen met de helft verminderd. Je hebt er hard voor gewerkt, je hebt je centen erin gestoken en opeens is de helft foetsie weg. Alsof je de motorfiets doormidden hebt gezaagd.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:23 schreef dotCommunism het volgende:
Haha, ja, de laatsten jaren zijn er genoeg verhalen uit Amerika gekomen van banken die gewoon huizen van mensen in beslag namen vanwege wat de bank claimde wanbetaling van de hypotheek was, terwijl die mensen uberhaupt geen hypotheek hadden.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:42 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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En verzekeraars die alle legale en illegale middelen inzetten om maar niets uit te hoeven keren.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:52 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

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Tip: lees iets over de veranderingen in de bankruptcy law van 2005. Pure diefstal

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:56 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Ach, details. Ik wacht rustig tot de revoluties uitbreiden. Het is al overgeslagen van MO naar Griekenland en Spanje, Engeland en Amerika zijn al onrustig. Het duurt niet lang meer.

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Some of Europe's largest industrial companies gained billions of Euros from the carbon emission rules they lobbied fiercely against, new analysis will reveal on Monday.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 17:03 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Europe's top industrial firms have a cache of 240m pollution permits

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Dus: Je je bedenkt een CO₂-quotum systeem om het milieu te redden en energie verbruik te beperken, blijkt de industrie daar gewoon grof aan te gaan verdienen.

Liegen, stelen.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:21 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

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Ik zou me maar eens verdiepen hoe het in de VS is gegaan. Kapitalisme (zonder dimensies van gelijkheid) is geen enkele waarborg op het beschermen van welk gedefinieerd eigendomsrecht dan ook.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:31 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:
Maar in de VS is indertijd ook gewoon land afgepakt van de Indianen natuurlijk. En van de Engelsen. Dat land kwam in gemeenschapsbezit maar werd weer voor een vriendenprijsje verpatst aan grootgrondbezitters.
Later (19e eeuw) werden de pioniers die naar het Westen trokken onteigend. Ook dat kwam in staatsbezit en ook dat werd voor bijna noppes aan corrupte rijke vriendjes van politici verkocht. Verder kwam toen al het fenomeen van 'eminent domain' in zwang waardoor land kon worden onteigend voor privaat gewin. Zogenaamd was Rockefeller e.a. een persoon voor het nationaal belang en die heeft op die manier heel veel land kunnen verwerven.
Tot slot stelt jouw stukje land geen reet voor zolang er geen waarde aan is gekoppeld. Zonder waarde is het zelfs niet jouw eigendom (denk daar maar over na, eigendom=waarde). En laat het nou net zo zijn dat de waarde van je land aardig verpest kan worden door allerlei uitspattingen van anderen (bijv. een fabriek voor je snufferd).

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Athens protests: Syntagma Square on frontline of European austerity protests

The area in the centre of the Greek capital is playing host to thousands of angry demonstrators

Athenians used to stop off at Syntagma Square for the shopping, the shiny rows of upmarket boutiques. Now they arrive in their tens of thousands to protest. Swarming out of the metro station, they emerge into a village of tents, pamphleteers and a booming public address system.

Since 25 May, when demonstrators first converged here, this has become an open-air concert – only one where bands have been supplanted by speakers and music swapped for an angry politics. On this square just below the Greek parliament and ringed by flashy hotels, thousands sit through speech after speech. Old-time socialists, American economists just passing through, members of the crowd: they each get three minutes with the mic, and most of them use the time alternatively to slag off the politicians and to egg on their fellow protesters.

"Being here makes me feel 18 again," begins one man, his polo shirt stretched tight over his paunch, before talking about his worries about his pension.

The closer you get to the Vouli, the parliament, the more raucous it becomes. Jammed up against the railings, a crowd is clapping and chanting: "Thieves! Thieves!"

There is another mic here, and it's grabbed by a man wearing a mask of deputy prime minister Theodoros Pangalos: "My friends, we all ate together." He is quoting the socialist politician, who claimed on TV last year that everyone bore the responsibility for the squandering of public money. Pangalos may have intended his remark as the Greek equivalent of George Osborne's remark that "We're all in it together", but here they're not having it."You lying bastard!" They roar back. "You're so fat you ate the entire supermarket."

This is an odd alloy of earnestness and pantomime, to be sure, but it's something else too: Syntagma Square has become the new frontline of the battle against European austerity. And as prime minister George Papandreou battles first to keep his own job, and then to win MPs' support for the most extreme package of spending cuts, tax rises and privatisations ever faced by any developed country, what happens between this square and the parliament matters for the rest of the eurozone.

The banner wavers here know this. In the age of TV satellite vans and YouTube, they paint signs and coin slogans with half an eye on the export market. Papandreou's face is plastered over placards that congratulate him in English for being "Goldman Sachs' employee of the year". Flags jibe at the rive gauche: "The French are sleeping – they're dreaming of '68."

Most of the time, the anger is expressed sardonically. A friend shows me an app on her phone that gives updates on the latest political and industrial actions – its name translates as iStrike. But it's not hard to see how this situation might boil over.

"Are you an indignado?" I ask Nikkos Kokkalis, using the term coined by young Spanish protesters to express outrage at Jos� Luis Rodr�guez Zapatero's austerity plans, now swiped by the Greeks. "I'm a super-indignado," he almost shouts. A 29-year-old graduate who lives with his parents, Nikkos has never done a proper job – just menial tasks for a website and an internship for a TV station. "There are 300 people over there," he waves at the MPs' offices. "Most of them make decisions without asking the people."

For their part, protesters with salaries and wrinkles are fuming at the spending cuts already inflicted on them. Chryssa Michalopolou is a teacher who calculates that her annual pay has already gone down by the equivalent of one and a half months, while her living costs have shot up, thanks to rising taxes and inflation. Does she buy the government's line that it needs to trim the public sector? "After 15 years' service, I'm only on �1,200 (�1,056) a month," she says. "I didn't see any boom; I simply paid my taxes and now I am being punished."

On display here is more than a personal grievance; it also reveals a glaring truth that politicians across Europe have so far ignored. In their efforts to hammer out a second loan agreement for Greece, eurozone ministers are focusing on the differences between bond swaps and bond rollovers, the tensions between Berlin and the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank or how far continental banks can withstand another massive shock.

Taken for granted in these negotiations is that the Greeks (and by implication, the Irish and the Portuguese) must accept more austerity. Yet in Athens, whether on the streets or even at a policy-making level, these technical details barely figure on the agenda. It's not just that the terms are different, the entire debate is too. Here, the argument concerns how much more austerity the Greek economy, its people and even the government can take – because all three are already at breaking point.

When Greece was all but locked out of the financial markets last May, Papandreou accepted a �110bn loan from Europe and the IMF. The idea was that the money would tide the country over for a year, in which time his government would at least start sorting out its public finances. For Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and the rest of Europe, the loan came with some pretty tight strings attached: they charged the Greeks interest well above the official eurozone rate, and set demanding budget targets for the Pasok socialist government.

Freefall

A year in, and the deal is not working. Greece has been in recession for two years and on official forecasts this will be its third. When I ask Athens University economist Yanis Varoufakis to describe the economy, he shoots back one sentence: "It's in freefall."

Sitting on the balcony of his flat behind the Acropolis, he throws out some statistics: 50,000 businesses went bankrupt last year, industrial production fell 20% and will drop another 12% this year. Unemployment has surged, so that one in six of the workforce doesn't have a job. These are the sort of figures associated with a depression, and the predictable result is that the public finances are getting worse. Greece's debt has ballooned to 153% of GDP; on Varoufakis's projections, even if ministers manage to make all their promised cuts, the government will owe three times the entire national income.

Behind these numbers lie the stories of a society in distress. One man talks about his daughter who works in the in-store restaurant of a large supermarket outside Athens; at closing time, she and her workmates have started giving out the unsold meals to the newly unemployed – the 21st-century equivalent of a soup kitchen. An employee of a local council notes that they pick up 17% less rubbish than a year ago, simply because people have cut back on food. The owner of an art gallery tells me her son has just started his first job; holding a master's in accountancy, he works six hours a day in a mobile-phone shop.

The lazy accusation to hurl at Greece is that it had a bloated public sector and so was bound to come a cropper. Not so, says Varoufakis: the country has a public sector in line with the rest of Europe (although, nearly everyone I speak to agrees, one that does not work as well), but takes in taxes some 35% below where they should be.

Wealthy Greeks have always treated the country's tax system like a church collection plate: what they give is strictly optional. This gap was covered up for as long as the Greek state could get cheap credit; then in 2008 it became glaringly obvious. The other problem covered up during the boom years was the rotting away of the industrial base. That too is now the subject of angry public discussion.

I take a tour of the shipbuilding yard in Perama, just outside Athens. Greece has the largest commercial fleet in the world, and yet Perama is utterly silent. There is a rusting hulk, abandoned a few years ago, when those who commissioned it could no longer afford to pay for it. A decade ago, this yard employed 7,000 workers – now it has around 500. There was a time when assembling small cargo vessels was seen as pedestrian work; last year, the yard was contracted to build two boats, and the jobs were fought over. A few minutes away lives Tassos Alexandris, who was laid off from Perama in 2008. The hall of his flat is decorated with needlepoint; inside are pictures of the Virgin Mary put up by his wife, Nikki. She is ill, and his 26-year-old daughter has worked for six months in her entire career. How do they make ends meet? Nikki snorts with laughter.

"The electricity connection is inside the flat; otherwise the board would have cut us off," begins Tassos. His mother-in-law lives upstairs and, while he is too ashamed to ask her for food, she allows him to raid her fridge at night. They had a small green Citroen, but couldn't afford to keep it. Now he runs a motorbike, although with no plates and no taxes. "I can't sleep at night for worry," he says. "It has affected every part of our lives: personal, sexual, the lot." How many families in this block do they think are in a similar situation? Nikki tots them up: "80%."

Tassos doesn't just support the protesters of Syntagma; he thinks they will go further. "Don't be surprised if Athens goes up in flames," the 50-year old says. "And don't be sad, either." His words initially sound melodramatic, but the anger keeps coming up. "Politicians now walk around with bodyguards," says Aris Chatzistefanou, the co-director of Debtocracy, a film about the Greek crisis that has become a sensation. He quotes a newspaper report of how restaurateurs are taking down those cheesy framed photos of dining politicians, of how one government spokesman went to dinner a few weeks ago only for the rest of the restaurant to start shouting "You are eating the blood of the people".

Political arithmetic

The anger against the austerity and the politicians imposing it is palpable; whether it will translate into political success is debatable. Papandreou may be one of the most hated men in Greece, but there is no mainstream politician who has an alternative to acting under creditor's orders. This isn't about an electorate taking on a government, either, but the impossible political arithmetic of disparate groups of Greeks on one side versus the IMF, the European Central Bank and 16 other eurozone members on the other.

Run that by the protesters of Athens, though, and even the older, more pragmatic ones have an answer. "We may lose," one grey-haired trade unionist said to me. "But what matters is how you lose."

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:11 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

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Ik wil niet het Soviet-systeem verdedigen maar de gemiddelde burger (net als de gemiddelde Westerse burger onder het Keynesiaanse systeem) was toen gelukkiger.
Als je daarmee liberalen, of nog erger: libertari�rs, mee confronteert zeggen ze doodleuk "ha, die zijn jarenlang gehersenspoeld!". Maar dat is gegeven het liberale wereldbeeld van een autonoom individu met een ijzeren, onafneembare en onveranderlijke innerlijke wil natuurlijk een slap weerwoord (ja, ik heb de eerste hoofdstukken van Rothbard goed gelezen).

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 23:00 schreef nikk het volgende:

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De inwoners van het straatarme Bhutan schijnen de meest gelukkige op de wereld te zijn. Ik zou er alleen niet mee willen ruilen. Ook niet met de inwoners van het toenmalige Sovjet systeem.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 21:50 schreef Zienswijze het volgende:

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- Land afpakken is imperialisme. Imperialisme heeft niets met kapitalisme te maken. Kapitalisme gaat uit van prive-bezit van grond, machines en goederen, beschermd door eigendomsrechten.
- Land dat in staatsbezit kwam, is een vorm van socialisme, niet van kapitalisme. De Sovjet-Unie deed dit trouwens ook.
- Aan elk product zit waarde gekoppeld. De waarde is namelijk datgene wat de markt ervoor over heeft om het te kopen/te ruilen.
- Uitspattingen van anderen in de vorm van vuile fabrieken is wederom een aantasting van je eigendomsrecht. Waar je in het kapitalisme dmv rechtspraak dus schadevergoeding of een andere vorm van compensatie kan verkrijgen.

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Over rente:

Je stelt dat de rijken alsmaar rijker worden omdat het concept rente bestaat. In jouw situatie zouden goederen na verloop van tijd aan waarde verliezen (afschrijvingen), terwijl in "dit systeem" geld juist na verloop van tijd aan waarde wint, door de rente.

Rente is niets anders dan een beloning voor het risico dat men neemt. Geld is slechts een ruilmiddel, als geld niet zou bestaan, zouden we bijvoorbeeld met goederen ruilen. Als jij 10 koeien van mij zou lenen, dan wil ik niet 10 koeien terug, maar 11 koeien. Die ene koe extra is namelijk mijn beloning voor het feit dat ik jouw goederen uitleen, met het risico dat ik neem dat je failliet kan gaan. Dus of je nou met koeien of met geld ruilt, rente bestaat.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 23:03 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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En ik zou niet willen ruilen met de gelukkig �ber-kapitalistische Amerikanen.

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Griekenland kondigt nog meer bezuinigingen aan

Griekenland verhoogt de belastingen op stookolie en verlaagt de belastingvrije drempel van twaalfduizend euro naar achtduizend euro.

Dat maakte de Griekse minister van Financi�n, Evangelos Venizelos, vandaag bekend. Deze maatregelen maken deel uit van bezuinigingsmaatregelen die de regering moet treffen om aanspraak te maken op een tweede financi�le noodpakket van de Europese Unie en het Internationaal Monetair Fonds. Vorig jaar kreeg Griekenland al 110 miljard euro aan steun in de vorm van leningen.

‘Griekse schuld is al kleiner geworden’

Venizelos sprak vandaag met schuldeisers over straffe bezuinigingsmaatregelen die volgende week moeten worden goedgekeurd door het Griekse parlement. Athene overlegt ook met Griekse banken om mee te helpen aan het oplossen van de schuldencrisis waar het land zich in bevindt.

Volgens Venizelos is het overheidstekort sinds zijn aantreden een kleine week geleden en na enige aanpassingen van bezuinigingen, van 5.5 miljard geslonken naar 3.8 miljard euro.

De nieuwe aangekondigde wijzigingen in de belastingen moeten de staatsschuld nog verder verlagen. Naast het verlagen van de belastingvrije drempel en het verhogen van de belasting op stokolie wil Venizelos nog drie andere maatregelen treffen:

- een eenmalige solidariteitsheffing op het inkomen van Griekse burgers. Afhankelijk van het inkomen ligt het percentage dat afgedragen wordt tussen de een en vijf procent;
- een jaarlijkse heffing van driehonderd euro voor zelfstandig ondernemers;
- vierhonderd miljoen euro bezuinigen op overheidsuitgaven.

Als Griekenland doet wat het moet doen, dan doen wij wat wij moeten doen

Venizelos wilde in eerste instantie al bestaande afspraken met de trojka van EU, IMF en de Europese Centrale Bank aanpassen, om zo een milder pakket aan bezuinigingen te kunnen presenteren aan het parlement. Hiermee wilde de minister ook het Griekse volk, dat gefrustreerd is over de harde bezuinigingsmaatregelen, tegemoet komen. Maar met een milder pakket zou Griekenland niet kunnen voldoen aan de voorwaarden die de trojka stelt aan de noodhulp.

En dat moet, benadrukte de voorzitter van de eurozone Jean-Claude Juncker vandaag bij de EU-top over de Griekse schuldencrisis in Brussel. Juncker: “Als Griekenland doet wat het moet doen, dan doen wij wat wij moeten doen. Dat is geen dreigement, maar een bevestiging dat we doorzetten met onze pogingen Griekenland te helpen”. De Duitse bondskanselier Angela Merkel riep tijdens de top de Griekse oppositie achter de bezuinigingsmaatregelen van Venizelos te staan: “in deze situatie is er behoefte aan eenheid”.

‘Eurozone vraagt kredietbeoordelaars om Griekenland niet failliet te verklaren’

Op de EU-top in Brussel wordt verder gesproken over de deelname van banken en pensioenfondsen aan de nieuwe noodlening aan Griekenland. Een anonieme Duitse regeringsmedewerker die met persbureau AP sprak, laat weten dat er al met banken wordt gesproken hierover. Ook zouden lidstaten al overleg voeren met kredietbeoordelaars en de Europese Centrale Bank om een negatieve kredietbeoordeling te voorkomen. Op het moment dat kredietbeoordelaars Griekenland deels failliet verklaren, kan dat leiden tot extra onrust op de financi�le markten. Daardoor zouden niet alleen Griekse, maar ook Europese banken in gevaar komen.

Ondanks deze reddingspogingen zijn veel financi�le experts van mening dat de Griekse schuldenlast op de lange termijn te groot is om te kunnen financieren en dat het land uiteindelijk failliet zal gaan.

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Athens protesters resolve to fight to the finish

Maria Kittou had rushed to Syntagma Square on hearing that the next wave of austerity measures would include biting tax increases that would hit the poor hard. "They are pushing us to the edge," snarled the pensioner. Pointing at the Greek parliament building and shouting herself hoarse, she added: "These people aren't worthy of the Greek flag. They have brought us nothing but shame. They have to go."

At 75, Kittou has endured the ravages of Greece's brutal German occupation, bloody civil war, authoritarian rightwing rule and military dictatorship. Thirty-seven years after the return of democracy, there is a growing sense that the country is at war again, only this time fighting a battle of epic economic proportions.

"It is the lack of any light at the end of the tunnel that makes it so hard," said Kittou, one of many who have turned Athens's main plaza into Europe's pre-eminent fiscal battleground. This week, as the country confronts what EU president Jos� Manuel Barroso, pictured below, has called its "moment of truth", the self-declared "people's assembly" promised the mother of all fights.

"This plan must not pass. On Wednesday, the day of the vote, we will encircle the vouli [300-seat House]. We will send the message that people will not accept it."

Until recently those huddled under plastic awnings in the square – often behind rickety tables with loudspeakers at the ready – were passed off as a spontaneous phenomenon of "outraged" Greeks acting beyond party or political creed. But as the debt crisis has gone from bad to worse, the protesters in Syntagma have begun to symbolise the disappointment and failures of a nation on the brink of collapse.

In the 18 months since the crisis erupted, Greeks have suffered a wave of belt-tightening that has seen wages cut, pensions slashed and benefits lost. The socialist government has desperately tried to rein in the country's colossal �355bn debt by taking an axe to its profligate public sector. Unions estimate 150,000 jobs could be lost.

The promise of renewed aid on Friday did little to assuage concerns that it is Greece's most vulnerable class who are footing the bill for the debt debacle. The latest reforms have reinforced the perception that it is low-wage earners, pensioners and out-of-work youths who will suffer.

"They are very harsh measures, but what is more they are very unfair," said Petros Triantopoulos, who teaches gymnastics at a state primary school in the capital.

"Civil servants are easy targets. Those who should be hit, the tax evaders, the rich who have whisked their money abroad, are still getting away with it," added the father of two, who is typical of the thousands of low-income, middle class Greeks who have participated in the colourful fury of Syntagma Square.

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Greek communists storm the Acropolis in bailout protest

'Power to the workers' banners erected as Greece debates bailout conditions

In a dramatic start to a week dominated by one of the most crucial parliamentary votes in modern Greek history, communist militants stormed the Acropolis on Monday morning unfurling huge "power to the workers" banners from the monument's ramparts.

As tourists ascended the hill to the fifth-century BC site, they were greeted by gigantic protest banners proclaiming: "The peoples have the power and never surrender. Organize – Counter attack."

"We call upon working people, youth, women to join our popular uprising," the All Workers Militant Front (PAME), an adjunct of the powerful Greek communist party, the KKE, declared in a statement.

"We will strengthen our struggle with people from all over the world against capitalist brutality in order for the brutal measures that bankrupt the people not to be applied."

Although described as a symbolic move, the stunt reinforced the level of popular hostility to economic policies now seen as crucial if Greece is to avoid a possibly disastrous default.

Upping the ante, unions have declared a 48-hour general strike starting on Tuesday – the first two-day walkout since the collapse of military rule and the return of democracy in 1974 – to coincide with parliament's debate on the measures. Mass rallies have been scheduled in 65 towns during the two days that Greek politicians will discuss the belt-tightening policies.

"It will be two days that have never seen before," said Stathis Anestis of the General Confederation of Greek Workers, the country's largest labour force.

The debate on the austerity programme, which includes �28bn (�25bn) of fresh spending cuts and higher taxes, begins on Monday with a vote expected on Wednesday. Talks will also take place in Rome on Monday evening between EU officials and European bankers over the vexed question of the role of private creditors in a second rescue package for Greece.

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Op woensdag 29 juni 2011 20:10 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Nou, het valt allemaal maar tegen nu.

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 16:46 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:
Je veroorzaakt de grootste economische crisis sinds 1929 en als beloning krijg je een heel land met zijn publieke voorzieningen om leeg te trekken en een heleboel goedkope loonslaven.

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 16:47 schreef dotCommunism het volgende:

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Weer een geslaagd plan van het IMF.

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 17:28 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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En de neo-imperalisten (nee, ik blijf de term liberaal correct gebruiken). Je moet het ze nageven, ze buiten de oneindige domheid van het volk goed uit.

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 17:31 schreef betyar het volgende:
Internet draait weer op volle toeren. Nieuwe modem van Ziggo gekregen en gaan met die banaan.

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 17:31 schreef GSbrder het volgende:

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Verkeerde topic `

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 17:31 schreef betyar het volgende:
-sorry-

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 17:39 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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Hoezo?

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 17:49 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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Maar dan buiten ze toch die oneindige domheid uit of niet?

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 17:55 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:
Merkwaardige definitie van uitbuiten heb jij, of je las in eerste instantie gewoon niet goed.

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 18:01 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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Het ging om het uitbuiten van oneindige domheid, zoals je ook iemands naiviteit, goedertierendheid of schoonheid zou kunnen uitbuiten. Je kunt eigenschappen uitbuiten, met name oneindige domheid leent zich daar goed voor, niettemin doen ze dat wel �rg goed.

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Op donderdag 30 juni 2011 18:17 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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Nee, wel met een cultuur van domheid in combinatie met democratie.

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Ik had het over uitbuiten van de eigenschap domheid, maar dat was je ontgaan. Dat leidt er dan weer toe dat mensen, of ze nou tot die oneindig dommen behoren of niet, worden uitgebuit.

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Jawel hoor, er zit namelijk ook een groot element in van creeeren van de situatie en het verstrekken van valse informatie. Dat is een kwestie van persoonlijke integriteit en dat kun je mensen wel aanrekenen. Ook kun je het een belangrijk deel van de kiezers aanrekenen, aangezien die oneindige domheid maar heel beperkt is te verklaren uit aangeboren beperkingen.

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Greek police face investigation after protest violence

Public prosecutor call for investigation comes after outcry over excessive use of force and teargas to control Athens protesters

A public prosecutor has ordered an investigation into alleged police brutality against Greeks protesting against austerity measures amid an outcry over the excessive use of force and teargas to control crowds in Athens this week.

As municipal employees worked furiously to clean up the capital in the wake of street battles that left its central square resembling a war zone, the socialist government faced growing criticism of the controversial methods employed by riot police to disperse demonstrators.

"What took place in the centre of Athens these past few days is a complete violation of democratic law," said Alexis Tsipras, leader of the leftist Syriza party, emerging from the supreme court where he filed a suit against the Greek police.

Fierce fighting erupted outside the Greek parliament on Wednesday as MPs inside voted on the hard-hitting policies demanded by the EU and IMF in exchange for the debt-choked country receiving further aid.

The release of video footage depicting police beating protesters, and in one instance seemingly colluding with rock-throwing extremists before firing off rounds of tear gas, has shocked Greeks.

An estimated 500 civilians were injured in the violence, with many suffering serious respiratory problems after police, firing volleys of teargas, released dangerously high levels of toxic chemicals into the air. The widespread use of the gas was crticised by Amnesty International.

Doctors who set up an emergency hospital said they were attacked by police as they tried to administer aid. In another incident, police were also seen appearing to throw broken bits of masonry at protesters when tear gas supplies dried up.

"I have a complete dossier with two discs of audio visual material and 38 different videos … which eloquently portray scenes of raw and unprovoked violence by police against peaceful, unarmed citizens," said Tsipras. "[The videos also contain] scenes that show evidence of the collaboration between police forces and the suspicious hood-wearing thugs." These "thugs" have often been blamed for provoking violence at demonstrations.

Put on the defensive the government apologised on Friday for the overzealous use of force.

But just days after Athens narrowly averted default – and by extension a Europe-wide crisis – by approving the �28bn package of spending cuts and tax increases, there is a growing sense that the feat was accomplished at the expense of ordinary Greeks.

The policies have been fiercely opposed by lower-income groups, especially civil servants already hit by a year of deep austerity.

Ahead of the vote, demonstrators, including thousands of pensioners and middle-aged men and women, had vowed to blockade the parliament in a bid to physically stop lawmakers casting ballots.

"The government was clearly determined to do anything to pass the measures and please those who govern us in Brussels," said Iason Nika, a student who has joined the Movement of Indignant Citizens encamped in Syntagma Square outside the 300-member parliament. "Police followed an organised plan to clear the square with teargas and sheer brutality. It was junta tactics all over again almost 40 years after the collapse of military dictatorship."

Court prosecutor Eleni Raikou ordered the investigation after a complaint by a union leader. Yesterday, the Greek premier George Papandreou called Europe's decision to give Athens a vital fifth tranche of aid – needed to avoid bankruptcy – a "vote of confidence" in Greece.

"We have taken difficult decisions in trying times," he said in an address to leftist leaders attending a Socialist International meeting in Athens. "These were patriotic decisions to save our country, socially necessary decisions and painful decisions … decisions to give us time, opportunity and the hope for deep and real change in Greece."

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Stakende Griekse taxichauffeurs botsen met politie

In Athene is het tot een confrontatie gekomen tussen stakende Griekse taxichauffeurs en de politie. De oproerpolitie gebruikte traangas om de chauffeurs te verdrijven.


Honderden taxichauffeurs protesteren tegen de geplande licentiehervormingen. De chauffeurs gooiden met stenen en waterflesjes naar de oproerpolitie, die het ministerie van Transport bewaakte gedurende de onderhandelingen van de regering over de kwestie.

De taxichauffeurs lieten vandaag weten de werkonderbreking, die vandaag de derde dag inging, door te zetten. De staking heeft tot nog toe tot grote verstoringen geleid op de vliegvelden en havens in de stad en dat terwijl het zomerseizoen zorgt voor een piek in het aantal toeristen.

De Griekse regering wil het eenvoudiger maken voor nieuwe chauffeurs om toe te treden tot de taxibranche. Een dure licentie acht zij niet langer nodig. De gesprekken over de liberalisering zijn vandaag vastgelopen.

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Greece debt crisis: The 'we won't pay' anti-austerity revolt

With Greece in financial meltdown and rocked by protests we look at the growing civil disobedience movement

Among the chic bars along Thessaloniki's historic waterfront, one restaurant stands out. "We want our money!" reads a banner dangling from the terrace of an American-themed diner and grill. Inside, 12 staff have changed the locks, are serving cans of supermarket beer to supporters and taking it in turns to sleep nights on the restaurant floor in protest at months of unpaid wages and the restaurant's sudden closure. This is the new symbol of Greece's spiralling debt crisis: a waiters' squat.

Margarita Koutalaki, 37, a softly spoken waitress, divorced with an 11-year-old daughter, worked here part-time for eight years, earning about �6.50 (�5.70) an hour. Now she is taking turns to sleep on an inflatable mattress in an upstairs room, guarding the squat, while her parents babysit her child.

"I'm owed about �3,000 in unpaid wages," she says, warning her plight is shared by legions of workers all over Greece who are waiting for months for outstanding pay from struggling business owners. "At first we were told we'd be paid the following month, then the pay stopped completely and we were told by phone that the restaurant was closing. We're still working, we're keeping the place going, providing food and drinks to our supporters. We've got more clients than before. This protest is all we can do. It comes naturally."

The waiters serve cheap drinks and cut-price dinners to a new clientele of leftists and protesters from the four-month-old "indignants" movement, who would previously never have set foot in this bastion of imperialism, the Greek franchise of US giant Applebee's. A banner in English tempts tourists with cheap souvlaki and meatballs "in support of the workers".

It is one month since Greece was paralysed by a general strike over harsh austerity measures, with mass street demonstrations and running battles between police and protesters in Syntagma Square, Athens.

Greeks are more distrustful than ever of their political class and its ability to lead them out of the crippling financial crisis. Polls show growing contempt for all parties and the discredited political system. Unemployment is at a record high of 16% – far higher for young people. Those lucky enough to still have a job have suffered dramatic salary cuts and tax increases.

Doctors and nurses recently staged walkouts over hospital cuts. Taxi drivers have hobbled Greece with strikes in the past two weeks, protesting at government plans to open up the industry. Their tactics included blocking ports and opening the Acropolis ticket office to let tourists in free.

Crucially, Greece's long-running "civil disobedience" movement, where ordinary citizens refuse to pay for anything from road tolls and bus tickets to extra doctors' charges, has not fizzled out in the summer holidays. The "We Won't Pay" offensive is championed as the purest form of "people's power". Organisers warn it could gain renewed force in September as the government launches a new round of financial restraint.

On the main Athens-Thessaloniki road, as drivers file back into Thessaloniki from a Sunday at the beach, a crowd of civilians in fluorescent orange safety bibs stand guard at the barriers to the main road toll into Greece's second city. Their jackets are emblazoned with "Total Disobedience". They push aside the red-and-white barriers and wave drivers through without paying the �2.80 toll. Banners read: "We won't pay", and "We won't give money to foreign bankers". Drivers gratefully drive through, some giving the thumbs up.

"We'll see a resurgence of civil disobedience in the autumn," says Nikos Noulas, a civil engineer from Thessaloniki, in a city centre cafe as he rolls out a series of posters championing the refusal to pay.

Living a 40-minute drive from the city centre, he commutes by motorbike for what scarce work remains, but avoids paying for bus tickets or tolls. He also stages supermarket ambushes, handing shoppers big protest stickers to place on any goods they consider ludicrously expensive. Milk is a favourite. Noulas and his group fill trolleys with goods and ask the manager for a 30% discount. When refused, they abandon the full trolleys at the till.

He acknowledges that a recent police clampdown has made things harder: "If a police officer is watching, there's little choice but to pay a road toll." But he says breaking the law by not paying small tolls or bus fares is far less serious than corrupt politicians and cartels which, he claims, ran Greece for decades with impunity. "This has taught us that the Greek people can resist. It has ignited public sentiment," he says.

The road-toll protest movement began more than two years ago outside Athens to counter what is seen as an extortionate and corrupt road toll system, with drivers expected to pay for stretches of road that have yet to be built. Some residents face paying more than �1,500 a year in tolls to get around their own neighbourhoods.

By the start of this year, the movement was flourishing and included refusals to pay for Athens metro tickets, with protesters covering ticket machines with plastic bags, as well as a long-running bus fare boycott in Thessaloniki after price rises by state-subsidised private firms. Others refuse to pay their TV licences.

Leftwing parties became involved, boosting the campaign's visibility. By March, more than half of the Greek population supported the "We Won't Pay" notion. The government heaped criticism on what it deemed an irresponsible "freeloader" mentality, warning that the non-payers would bring the country into disrepute and were starving the state of vital revenue from transport services. New laws were brought in on ticket evasion and police cracked down.

George Bakagiannis, an IT manager from the Athens area, has avoided paying road tolls for two years, simply stepping out of his car and pushing open the barrier at toll booths. His group stages toll-booth ambushes for two to three hours several times a week, waving drivers through without charge.

He has branched out into demonstrations against the �5 fee for doctors' consultations. He says: "We go to the hospital and close the cashier's room, telling people, 'Don't pay, we're here.' This isn't our crisis, it's the government's crisis. They steal our money; they're stealing our lives. Now they want us to believe even our savings aren't safe in the bank. This movement will grow in this autumn because things are so bad now that people genuinely don't have the money to pay."

The social commentator and writer, Nikos Dimou, says: "It's the beginning of a divorce between the Greeks and their politicians. That's what all these movements have in common: they are all about a loathing and abhorring of the political class."

In Thessaloniki, Greece's second city, feelings run high. The "indignants" had their tents forcibly cleared from Athens' Syntagma Square this weekend, but Thessaloniki's ancient waterfront fortification, the White Tower, is still surrounded by protest tents and draped in banners reading "For sale" and "Not for sale."

Northern Greece has been badly hit by the crisis. Businesses began closing long before the full force of the financial meltdown. So many people are too poor to regularly use their cars and so many businesses have ground to a halt that Thessaloniki's municipality has claimed a vast improvement in the air quality of the notoriously congested city. On 10 September, when the Greek prime minister George Papandreou appears at Thessaloniki's famous international fair to unveil his new economic measures, he will be met by demonstrations.

Thessaloniki protesters are using flash-mobbing, where crowds turn up unexpectedly to picket banks and public buildings. The latest target was the German consulate, where dozens of demonstrators chanted and spray-painted the pavement, demanding the European Union did more for Greece as plainclothes police looked on.

At the demo on 20 July, Barbara, 30, a Greek language teacher, who did not want to give her surname, said she was serving coffee in a bar for �30 per nine-hour shift on the black economy. She lives with her father, a pensioner, and mother, a shop owner who is deeply in debt.

"No one is hiring, I can't find teaching work or private lessons. There's no hope for a decent life. Half the people I know are unemployed; the other half are on the edge of it. Anyone who can afford to go abroad is leaving," she says.

At the White Tower, Antonis Gazakis, a language and history teacher, says he is struck by how novices are now joining the protests, from myriad political standpoints, left to right, many with no links to parties or any history of protest. All were throwing themselves into debating how to change what they see as a corrupt political and parliamentary system. "Political history is being made in Greece," he says. "That's why I'm staying around this summer. The last time people went out into a square demanding constitutional change like this was 1909. This is a golden opportunity, a paradigm shift. Greece has woken up."

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Greece in panic as it faces change of Homeric proportions

Fear is driving a silent bank run in Greece – but some see the government's austerity plans as a chance to transform

In one of the biggest banks in the centre of Athens a clerk is explaining how his savers have been thronging to pull out their cash.

Wary of giving his name, he glances around the marble-floored, wood-panelled foyer before pulling out a slim A4-sized folder. It is about the size of a small safety-deposit box – and those, ever since the financial crisis hit Greece 18 months ago, have become the most sought-after financial products in the country. Worried about whether the banks will stay in business, Greeks have been taking their life savings out of accounts and sticking them in metal slits in basement vaults.

The boxes are so popular that the bank has doubled the rent on them in the past year – and still every day between five and 10 customers request one. This bank ran out of spares months ago. The clerk leans over: "I've been working in a bank for 31 years, and I've never seen a panic like this."

Official figures back him up. In May alone, almost �5bn (�4.4bn) was pulled out of Greek deposits, as part of what analysts describe as a "silent bank run". This version is also disorderly and jittery, just not as obvious. Customers do not form long queues outside branches, they simply squirrel out as much as they can. Some of that money will have been used to pay debts or supplement incomes, of course, but bankers put the sheer volume of withdrawals down to a general fear about the outlook for Greece, one that runs all the way from the humble rainy-day saver to the really big money.

'Clueless' government

"Every time the markets move, I get phone calls," says an Athens-based fund manager. "They're from investors asking: 'How can I get my money out of the country?' "

One senior investment banker is more blunt: "People are scared that the government doesn't know what the fuck it's doing." He tells a story about an acquaintance who took out �30,000, wrapped it in a bag and stashed it in his garage. "The bag had previously had some food inside," he says. "So it attracted rats, who ate the notes."

Bags of money in garages, frightened savers fleeing banks and even the country: these aren't the sort of stories you associate with a comparatively-prosperous European country, but with a developing one facing a life-or-death economic crash. The fact that they are now emerging from Greece not only indicates the scale of financial distress, it suggests something else: Greece today looks like parts of Latin America in the worst moments of its financial crisis.

In an echo of the days of Jim Callaghan, the International Monetary Fund is back in Europe, doing what it is more accustomed to doing in Buenos Aires or Brasilia: making emergency loans and telling the government how to run its economy. What is more, the scale of the changes an overborrowed Athens is now making are so vast and so rapid that they will leave Greece looking like a different country.

The government itself describes its plan to slash public spending and jack up taxes as one of the most ambitious deficit-reduction programmes in the world. But what often goes missing from this discussion of a fiscal crash-landing is the impact on the lives of citizens who have precious little time to adjust. When salaries of civil servants are slashed by up to 30% within a few months, as happened last year, and over 20% of public-sector workers face unemployment within the next four years – plus whole swathes of national assets are to be privatised before Christmas, with more job losses doubtless to follow – then you are talking about a wholesale transformation of a workforce.

Greece is already one of the poorest and most unequal societies in Europe, reckons Christos Papatheodorou at the Democritus University of Thrace. Among the few countries that look worse are Romania, Bulgaria and Latvia. So what will Greek society look like after the government's austerity measures take effect? He pauses, then says: "It will probably look like a developing country."

That message has not been lost on workers either: one of the new nouns used by trade union members and others who oppose the cuts is kinezopeisi, or China-isation. The claim is that such large drops in wages will lead to a workforce paid barely more than their counterparts in Shenzhen.

The oddest thing of all is that some of the leading lights in the government appear to see nothing wrong in a wholesale transformation of Greek society, albeit not into one that resembles an enterprise zone in eastern China. Elena Panaritis is widely tipped as one of the up and comers in Greece's government, and it is not hard to see why: smart, formidably well-trained in economics after a career with the World Bank, funny and fluent in English, she is exactly the sort of person any prime minister would choose to give a keynote address to fretful institutional investors.

And for a Greek politician involved in pushing through some of the most abruptly painful economic measures in the country's history, she does not seem especially Greek. When I observe how many Apple computers are in her office, she replies: "That's because I'm not Greek, I'm American." Her speech is American-accented and peppered with "darn" and "have a nice day". When asked to describe how Greece needs to change its economy, her answer revolves around changing its institutions and its structures – in other words, making Greece less Greek. Castigating the bureaucracy, she says: "It's not a kibbutz, it's a big country!"

This is a line that you hear often enough from those who want Greece to change. By European standards, Greece has an average-sized public sector, but a very leaky tax collection system. What the public sector is, however, is under-resourced and inefficient. On my last day in the country, I wangle my way inside a public pensions office for those working in the tourism industry: there are just two Dell computers in one large room, and lever-arch files dating back 30 years. No one ever paid for the data to be computerised, I am told, and the result is that one day's work takes three.

Private sector woes

The other big problem is in the private sector, with few industries that are able to pay their way in the world. Jason Manolopolous, who is author of a new book called Greece's 'Odious' Debt, says that for years Greece was buying more from the rest of the world than it was selling. "We were buying BMWs from the Germans and selling them tomatoes."

For now, those days are well and truly over. In Athens' upmarket shopping district of Kolonaki, boutiques that used to have waiting lists for designer handbags have shut. One sign says the owners have relocated – to Rome. In one clothes shop, with racks of discounted Calvin Klein and DKNY, the manager, Sav, explains what's happened: "In this crisis, the middle classes have been hollowed out." That is just what happened in Buenos Aires during its crash last decade.

The result is that people who thought themselves used to one way of life, and in one social class, are getting used to a sharp downgrade.

In one factory, where a staff of 200 is now down to 30, the manager points to empty floors and idle machines. They're now all on unemployment benefit, he says. "Mind you, our pay has been cut too, so we're not that far off."

Outside the soup kitchen of the Aghia Triada church in Piraeus, near Athens, more of Greece's new poor are waiting for a handout. Anna and her two daughters have walked in the midday sun to get here and are now queueing up with the long-term homeless.

That is not Anna's situation though; she lost her job three years ago but has still hung on to her house. That said, she no longer has the income or the benefits to pay bills and the electricity was cut off last month.

Inside, Pater Daniel, the head priest, says that he's noticed a lot more "well-dressed, clean" people taking free meals from the church. He reels off stories of a 23-year-old man who left last week for Australia, and a 40-year-old woman who lost her job on Friday.

Because the Greek Orthodox church is partly on the state payroll, the clergyman's salary has fallen by almost 10% to �15,000 a year.

Is he saying that the Orthodox church is also subject to public spending cuts? Pater Daniel laughs, then holds up five fingers: there are five priests in Piraeus, and soon there will only be one. He's pondering taking a second job.

"There is too much pain, and people are looking for someone to listen and squeeze their hand." He sighs. "Everyday I leave this church with a headache."

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Opnieuw stakingen in Griekenland

Terwijl Griekenland er alles aan doet in aanmerking te komen voor nieuwe financi�le steun, hebben de Griekse vakbonden vandaag opnieuw algemene stakingen aangekondigd.

De twee grootste vakbonden, Adedy en GSEE, riepen op tot een algemene staking op 5 en 19 oktober uit protest tegen de voorgenomen bezuinigingen van de Griekse regering. 'We zullen vechten tot het einde om dit beleid omver te werpen', zei Ilias Iliopoulos van de vakbond Adedy vandaag.

Een trojka van inspecteurs van de Europese Unie, het IMF en de Europese Centrale Bank (ECB) zet de gesprekken met Griekenland volgende week voort. Die worden gevoerd in Washington, waar de Griekse minister van Financi�n Evangelos Venizelos aanwezig is bij de bijeenkomst van de Wereldbank en het Internationaal Monetair Fonds.

Tevens gaat een team inspecteurs naar Griekenland om de financi�le ontwikkelingen in het land verder te onderzoeken. De inspectie is belangrijk. De Griekse overheid moet stevig ingrijpen om een faillissement te voorkomen en in aanmerking te komen voor een volgende tranche van 8 miljard euro uit het steunpakket voor het noodlijdende land.

Griekenland kondigde woensdag een plan aan om afgesproken bezuinigingsmaatregelen verder naar voren te halen om voor het steunpakket in aanmerking te komen. Venizelos gaf geen details over de maatregelen, maar zei dat er weinig ruimte was om de inkomsten te verhogen, wat erop wijst dat hij niet zou aandringen op nieuwe belastingverhogingen.

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Premier 'breekt' staking; na 17 dagen wordt het Griekse vuilnis weer opgehaald

Met het paardenmiddel van een heus dwangbevel dwingt de Griekse premier Papandreou de stakende vuilnismannen weer aan de slag te gaan.

De Griekse vuilnismannen staken al zeventien dagen tegen de forse bezuinigingen van de Griekse regering.

Hierdoor zijn de straten van Athene veranderd in een heuse vuilstort met overal bergen afval. Er wordt massaal geklaagd over de stank die dit veroorzaakt.

Papandreou mag dan aan deze staking een einde hebben gemaakt. In andere sectoren wordt nog volop gestaakt. Zo staken spoorwegmedewerkers en advocaten.

De komende dagen debatteert het Griekse parlement over nieuwe hervormingen en bezuinigingen. Deze zijn een vereiste om aanspraak te blijven maken op geld van het Europese noodfonds. Voor deze dagen staat een algemene staking gepland. Verwacht wordt dat massaal gehoor wordt gegeven aan deze oproep.

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Griekse ministers beschuldigen elkaar van wanbeleid

De Griekse ministers van onderwijs, volksgezondheid en vervoer hebben gisteren aangedrongen op versnelde economische hervormingen. Ze beschuldigden ongenoemde medeministers van laksheid.

In hun verklaring namen Anna Diamantopoulou, Andreas Loverdos en Yiannis Ragoussis de 'gevestigde belangen' en de vakbonden in Griekenland op de korrel. Minister van financi�n Evangelos Venizelos verklaarde later de zienswijze van zijn collega's te onderschrijven.

Alle vier de ministers hebben eerder uitgesproken ooit mee te willen dingen naar het ambt van premier, dat nu wordt bekleed door George Papandreou.

Breuk
Met hun verklaring breken de ministers rigoureus met het aloude clientelisme dat de Griekse overheid lang verlamde en Griekenland op de drempel van een faillissement heeft gebracht.

Donderdag staat de regering-Papandreou voor de taak onder meer en nieuwe ontslagronde voor ambtenaren door het parlement te loodsen. De Griekse vakbonden hebben de afgelopen dagen uit protest tegen de maatregelen een reeks van stakingen aangekondigd.

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Athens braced for 'mother of all strikes'

Thousands of riot police are being rushed to Athens ahead of what one Greek daily has dubbed 'the mother of all strikes' – a 48-hour stoppage with a pledge by unions to flood the capital with protesters

Greek unions have promised to flood Athens with protesters in the biggest demonstrations the capital has so far seen, as politicians prepared for Thursday's vote on potentially make-or-break reforms demanded by the EU and IMF in return for further cash aid.

As one Greek daily warned of "the mother of all strikes" and the country appeared to edge closer to chaos with rubbish piling up in the street and ministers locked out of their offices, 5,000 riot police were rushed to the capital in preparation for the protests.

"All of Athens will be flooded with protestors. These will be the biggest protests that Greece has ever seen," said Ilias Illiopoulos, who heads the union of public sector employees, Adedy.

"The ability of the people to tolerate policies that have only yielded poverty and despair has come to an end."

Amid mounting anger over cuts that have pared back wages, pensions and workers' rights and sent taxes and inflation soaring, unions representing more than half Greece's 5 million workers said they would forge ahead with a 48-hour general strike beginning Wednesday.

The industrial action, which coincides with what the beleaguered prime minister George Papandreou has called "the most critical week" for the country, comes in the wake of often violent protest rallies and rolling campaigns of walkouts as workers from rubbish collectors to judges, seamen to school teachers, transport employees to journalists have stepped up their resistance to the ruling socialists' reforms.

In a campaign of surprise sit-ins civil servants have taken over government buildings and locked cabinet ministers out of their own offices.

Rotting

With protesting municipal employees blockading Athens' main landfill site for a second week and experts warning of a public health risk, the sight of mounds of rotting rubbish piling up around the capital has heightened the sense that the country is veering out of control.

Evangelos Venizelos, the embattled finance minister – who has been unable to enter his office for the past two weeks – spoke of the country being gripped by "complete lawlessness." Notices proclaiming "the massacre of our wages will be the nightmare of bankers" were taped across the facade of the economy ministry.

As EU officials struggle to come up with a new rescue plan for Greece, the picture of deepening chaos has added urgency to the demand, openly voiced by eurozone countries, that Athens should further relinquish its power to the bodies propping up its moribund economy.

Sceptical of its ability to implement reforms after months of failing to "walk its talk", several EU states say the country's stalled privatisation campaign should now be overseen by a European commission task force.

"This is a government that has lost credibility. No one believes it anymore," said the prominent political commentator Giorgos Kyrtsos. "It is obvious that the system cannot deliver and that the debt load is simply unviable."

The stinging austerity measures due to be voted on by the Greek parliament on Thursday will determine whether Athens gets a fresh installment of aid from the �110bn rescue loans provided by the EU and International Monetary Fund in May last year.

The cash injection is vital to pay public sector wages and pensions. Senior government officials say the government has until November 10 before it is forced to declare bankruptcy – a move that would wreak havoc on the EU.

Incensed

The new austerity measures, which follow relentless cutbacks over the past year, would further slash public sector jobs, wages and pensions, curtail collective bargaining agreements and impose a hugely unpopular levy on property owners.

The end of bargaining rights – viewed by both the EU and IMF as an essential step in making recession-hit Greece more competitive — has incensed unionists who fear it will lead to the abolition of the minimum wage.

At least two MPs in Papandreou's increasingly divided Pasok party have said they will not endorse the measures because they are overly "anti-labour".

With the ballot and two-day strike casting a shadow of uncertainty over the country, and the governing socialists trailing badly in polls, many believe that Greece is at a critical point.

Appealing for national unity, Papandreou held crisis talks with Antonis Samaras, leader of the main opposition New Democracy party, in a desperate bid to build a "common front" in time for Sunday's EU summit, at which Greece is expected to be the focus of talks.

Samaras' vehement opposition to the fiscal remedy demanded by the EU and IMF has caused deep consternation within both bodies.

"International lenders are greatly concerned that there are two Greeces," said one insider.

"At the IMF's annual meeting it was the first thing that Christine Lagarde [IMF managing director] brought up in discussion with Venizelos. Everyone views political consensus as vital for the enforcement of reforms."

The release of government figures showing a jump in unemployment rates from 16 to 16.5% heightened fears that the country is heading for a period of protracted political tumult.

"We are at the beginning of the crisis, not the end," said Kyrtsos. "Greece's economy has contracted for five consecutive years. Before us lies political, economic and social disarray. We are entering uncharted territory."

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Betogers verjagen Griekse 'verrader' president Papoulias

Betogers hebben vandaag in Athene bij een herdenking van de Tweede Wereldoorlog de Griekse president Karolos Papoulias (82) en andere hoogwaardigheidsbekleders verjaagd. De betogers uitten hun woede over de dramatische bezuinigingen bij de overheid en schreeuwden 'verrader' naar de president.

De demonstranten blokkeerden vandaag een grote, nationale parade in Thessalonkiki, die vervolgens geannuleerd moest worden. Griekenland herdenkt op 28 oktober traditioneel dat het in 1940 weigerde Italiaanse troepen toe laten zoals fascistisch Itali� eiste. De dictatoriaal regerende premier Ioannis Metaxas (1871-1941) weigerde aan Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) toe te geven en trok met zijn leger ten strijde. Daarbij joegen de Grieken de Italianen snel terug Albani� in.

Het was voor het eerst dat de parade werd verstoord. Papoulias, die zelf als jonge tiener tegen Duitse bezetters vocht, beklemtoonde dat het Griekse volk opnieuw een strijd levert. De door een enorme schuldenlast ontwrichte Griekse economie is door bezuinigingsmaatregelen verder verzwakt. De werkloosheid is met zeker 16 procent van de beroepsbevolking op recordhoogte.

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Greece in revolt over property tax

Civil disobedience among Greeks grows after tax was incorporated into electricity bills

Few measures have elicited more anger – or ingenious forms of revolt – than the property tax announced by Greek ministers to plug a budget black hole that might have gone unnoticed had Greece's plight not threatened the entire eurozone.

In the three months since the government conceived of boosting revenues by including the household duty in electricity bills, local mayors, leftist politicians, unions, lawyers, property owners and the public power corporation have all vowed to do whatever they can to stop the law.

Already suffering wage cuts, benefit losses and tax increases, many have said that even if they wanted to, they simply couldn't cough up.

Officials say those who refuse will have their electricity cut off.

Even by the standards of Greece, where an estimated 30% of the economy goes unrecorded, the backlash to the levy has taken officials by surprise. With the public power corporation flicking the switch on the health ministry last month – in protest at its failure to pay its bills – and militant unionists pledging to picket electricity boards across the land next week, civil disobedience is on the rise.

In the northern town of Veria, Robin Hood-style activists have gone a step further, reconnecting electricity supplies in homes owned by poor Greeks unable to keep up with bills, and leaving signature orange stickers on power boxes.

On Friday, Greece's highest court, the council of state, stepped into the fray. After being besieged by appeals from the Athens bar association and other bodies, it began considering whether the legislation should be revoked.

The cash-strapped government had hoped the levy would raise �2bn (�1.7bn) by the end of the year – a fraction of the estimated �60bn (�56bn) lost in tax evasion since the 1970s, but enough to cover missed fiscal targets in 2011.

Addressing parliament on Friday, the country's new prime minister, Lucas Papademos, insisted that the tax could not be dropped. Revenues have dropped as a result of the successive waves of belt-tightening demanded by the EU and IMF in return for rescue loans.

"The measure itself cannot be abolished, as it is necessary for our process of fiscal adjustment," said Papademos, whose interim administration is expected to be in power until early next year.

But in a nod to the outcry that the law has caused, the new prime minister conceded that in a country blighted by record levels of unemployment, repayment terms would have to be eased.

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Armoede in Griekenland tot recordhoogte gestegen

De armoede in Griekenland is tot recordhoogte gestegen. Het aantal werklozen, daklozen en berooiden zwelt aan door de recessie en de bezuinigingen van het kabinet. In het dagblad Ethnos waarschuwden hoge publieke en kerkelijke functionarissen zaterdag voor een 'humanitaire crisis'.

Burgemeester George Kaminis van Athene zei in het dagblad dat het aantal daklozen in de stad sterk is gestegen. 'Hulpverleners zien niet meer de doorsnee dakloze, maar iemand die zijn leven tot voor kort nog op orde had', aldus Kaminis.

Gaarkeukens
De rijen bij de gaarkeukens van de gemeente en kerkelijke organisaties groeien. Chrysostomos Symeonidis, hoofd van het armoedefonds van het aartsbisdom Athene, laat in de krant weten dagelijks meer dan 10.000 maaltijden te distribueren.

In een jaar tijd hebben 320.000 mensen hun baan verloren, zo blijkt uit offici�le cijfers. De Griekse vakbonden waarschuwen dat volgend jaar meer dan 20 procent van de beroepsbevolking zonder werk zit. Nu zijn er 878.000 werklozen. Onder hen zijn veel vrouwen en jongeren onder de 30 jaar. Het aantal werkenden is in een jaar tijd teruggelopen van 4,4 naar 4,1 miljoen.

Banen schrappen
De komende jaren raken veel ambtenaren hun baan kwijt. De Griekse regering, die de staatsfinanci�n op orde moet zien te brengen, heeft beloofd tienduizenden banen te schrappen.

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Greek woes drive up suicide rate to highest in Europe

Experts attribute rise to the country's economic crisis following release of statistics that show a 40% jump since last year

The suicide rate in Greece has reached a pan-European record high, with experts attributing the rise to the country's economic crisis.

Painful austerity measures and a seemingly endless economic drama is exacting a deadly toll on the nation. Statistics released by the Greek ministry of health show a 40% rise in those taking their own lives between January and May this year compared to the same period in 2010.

Before the financial crisis first began to bite three years ago, Greece had the lowest suicide rate in Europe at 2.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. It now has almost double that number, the highest on the continent, despite the stigma in a nation where the Orthodox church refuses funeral rights for those who take their lives. Attempted suicides have also increased.

"It's never just one thing, but almost always debts, joblessness, the fear of being fired are cited when people phone in to say they are contemplating ending their lives," said Eleni Beikari, a psychiatrist at the non-governmental organisation, Klimaka, which runs a 24-hour suicide hotline.

Klimaka received around 10 calls a day before the crisis; it now gets more than 100 in any 24-hour period.

"Most come from women aged between 30 and 50 and men between 40 and 45 despairing over economic problems," said Beikari. "In my experience it's the men, suffering from hurt dignity and lost pride, who are most serious."

As poverty has deepened, unemployment has hit an unprecedented 18% (with over 42% affecting the 25 to 40 age group) and crime has skyrocketed in a country heading for a fifth straight year of recession. Greece's social fabric is fraying in ways once unthinkable. With the homeless now exceeding 20,000 in central Athens alone, funding cuts disproportionately affecting welfare services and drug use on the rise, the economic crisis has morphed increasingly into one of mental health with depression, neuroses and cases of self-harm also surging, according to experts. Psychiatrists have reported a 30% increase in demand for their services over the past year with most patients citing anxiety and depression brought on by financial fears for the decision to seek help.

Child helplines have similarly been deluged by calls. "The crisis is clearly aggravating family relations," Katiana Spyrides, another psychotherapist, said. "In particular we've seen increases in the stress levels of children and adolescents who face new problems, such as seeing their parents imprisoned for economic crimes, or who because of the situation have had to compromise their emotional and other needs."

Psychiatrists say the alarming rise signals an urgent need for a national suicide prevention policy in a nation that until now had discounted the need for one.

"Preventative strategies have to be increased," said Beikari. "Teachers, prison guards, priests, police, professionals in a position to spot those who might be suicidal, need to be sensitised. This is an issue that can no longer be ignored."

Most suicides, attempted and real, have occurred in the greater Attica region surrounding Athens and on the island of Crete where a number of businessmen with no prior history of mental illness have taken their own lives over the last 18 months.

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Onrust in Griekenland – Athene staakt, staatssecretaris stapt op

In de Griekse hoofdstad Athene zijn betogers wederom slaags geraakt met de politie. Vandaag staakt het land 48 uur lang als protest tegen de aanhoudende onzekerheid over de bezuinigingsmaatregelen. Ook in de regering is het mis: er is weer een staatssecretaris opgestapt, meldt persbureau AP.

De Griekse politie spoot met traangas om de betogers, die met brandbommen en stenen gooiden, uit elkaar te drijven. Er zijn nog geen berichten van arrestaties of gewonden.

De staking is het gevolg van de onzekere positie waarin Griekenland verkeert, nadat de zeventien landen uit de eurozone gisteren besloten dat er nog teveel onzekerheden zijn om noodsteun te geven.

Volgens de politie zijn ruim 7.000 mensen bij elkaar gekomen voor een vreedzame mars, die vervolgens uit de hand liep. De Griekse politie meldt ook dat een ander protest, van ruim 10.000 leden van de communistische vakbond, is zonder incidenten verlopen.

Griekse staatssecretaris stapt op

De Griekse staatssecretaris van Landbouw, Asterios Roundoulis, is vandaag vanwege de nieuwe aangekondigde bezuinigingsmaatregelen en hervormingen opgestapt. Het is de tweede staatssecretaris die opstapt. Gisteren stapte de socialistische staatssecretaris Yiannis Koutsoukos ook al op, om dezelfde redenen.

Kleinste partij coalitie tegen nieuwe bezuinigingsmaatregelen

George Karatzaferis, de leider van de rechtse LAOS-partij die onderdeel uitmaakt van de coalitie in Griekenland, heeft vanmiddag bekend gemaakt dat hij tegen nieuwe bezuinigingsmaatregelen zal stemmen, meldt persbureau AP. Het voorstel, waarin de regering nieuwe bezuinigingen van 3,3 miljard extra aan bezuinigingen en hervormingen moet goedkeuren, wordt aanstaande zondag verwacht. Als de andere twee grote partijen, de socialisten en de conservatieven, wel voor het voorstel stemmen, zal het voorstel mogelijk alsnog worden aangenomen. Volgens Karatzaferis is het niet zijn bedoeling uit de regering te stappen.

Ondanks bezuinigingsakkoord toch nog twijfels

Gisteren bereikte Griekenland een bezuinigingsakkoord met de Europese Unie en het Internationaal Monetair Fonds in ruil voor nieuwe miljardensteun. Niet lang nadat dit bekend werd, liet de Duitse minister van Financi�n Wolfgang Sch�uble weten twijfels te hebben of deze deal wel ver genoeg gaat. Als drijvende kracht achter de eurozone heeft Duitsland veel macht in de besluitvorming rond de bestrijding van de schuldencrisis. Minister van Financi�n Jan Kees De Jager vindt ook dat er eerst gecontroleerd moet worden of Griekenland voldoet aan de voorwaarden voor het ontvangen van noodsteun, zo zei hij bij de top in Brussel. De voorzitter van de eurozone Jean-Claude Juncker zei hetzelfde voor aanvang van de top, er zouden nog “te veel onzekerheden” zijn om akkoord te gaan met het plan.

Drie dagen geleden ook al staking

Onder de Griekse bevolking heerst al maanden grote onvrede over de toekomst van het land. Afgelopen dinsdag kondigden de twee grootste vakbonden van Griekenland ook al een staking af, die duurde een hele dag. Op die dag raakten betogers ook al slaags met de politie bij het Griekse parlement in Athene. Dinsdag vond overleg plaats tussen de partijleiders van de Griekse oppositie en premier Papademos over een mogelijke overeenkomst om de aanhoudende crisis in het land te bedwingen.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:23 schreef dotCommunism het volgende:
Haha, ja, de laatsten jaren zijn er genoeg verhalen uit Amerika gekomen van banken die gewoon huizen van mensen in beslag namen vanwege wat de bank claimde wanbetaling van de hypotheek was, terwijl die mensen uberhaupt geen hypotheek hadden.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 16:52 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

[..]

Tip: lees iets over de veranderingen in de bankruptcy law van 2005. Pure diefstal

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Politie Athene zet traangas in tegen tienduizenden betogers

De politie in Athene is wederom met traangas in actie gekomen tegen burgers die protesteren tegen het bezuinigingsplan waar het parlement vanavond over stemt.

Vanmiddag is het parlement bijeengekomen en debatteert nog de rest van de dag over de impopulaire bezuinigingsmaatregelen die vrijdagavond door het kabinet zijn goedgekeurd. Als een meerderheid vandaag instemt gaat Athene ruim 3,3 miljard euro besparen op onder anderen lonen, pensioenen en banen in Griekenland.

Bezuinigingen voorwaarde voor miljardensteun EU

De EU wil dat Griekenland belooft om 325 miljoen euro extra te bezuinigen en het ambtenarenapparaat van het land grondig te hervormen. De maatregelen vormen een voorwaarde om een nieuwe miljardensteun van 130 miljard euro te ontvangen van de EU en het IMF, maar geen garantie. Binnen de EU vinden verschillende politici dat er wellicht meer besparingen nodig zijn in Griekenland.

Niet lang nadat vorige week bekend werd dat Griekenland een overeenkomst gesloten had met de Europese Unie en het IMF over een pakket bezuinigingen in ruil voor nieuwe miljardensteun, liet de Duitse minister van Financi�n Wolfgang Sch�uble weten twijfels te hebben of deze deal wel ver genoeg gaat.

De Griekse premies Lucas Papademos ziet het uitvoeren van het rigoureuze bezuinigingsplan als “hoogste prioriteit”, zo benadrukte hij vrijdag tijdens overleg met zijn kabinet.

George Karatzaferis, leider van de rechtse LAOS-partij maakte vrijdag wel bekend dat hij vandaag tegen nieuwe bezuinigingsmaatregelen zal stemmen. Als de andere twee grote partijen, de socialisten en de conservatieven, wel voor het voorstel stemmen, zal het mogelijk alsnog worden aangenomen. De verwachting is dat dit vanavond laat de uitkomst is van het debat. Volgens Karatzaferis is het niet zijn bedoeling uit de regering te stappen.

Recordaantal burgers hebben zich verzameld

In Griekenland protesteren burgers sinds enkele weken geregeld tegen de onzekerheid over de bezuinigingen. Tienduizenden mensen hebben zich vanmiddag voor het parlementsgebouw verzameld in Athene. De politie treedt hardhandig op om de menigte uiteen te drijven. Net als vorige week gebruiken agenten traangas om de felle betogers in toom te houden. Nog niet eerder kwamen zoveel burgers samen in Athene om te protesteren, zo meldt persbureau AP.

Vanaf vrijdag staakte het land 48 uur lang als protest tegen de aanhoudende onzekerheid over de bezuinigingsmaatregelen. Ook toen raakte betogers slaags met de politie

Noodhulp is essentieel voor politiek

Voor Griekenland is het essentieel dat het de noodhulp voor 20 maart ontvangt, om zo 14,5 miljard aan schulden te kunnen betalen op obligaties. Krijgt het de steun niet dat kan het uitlopen op een faillissement en mogelijk een vertrek uit de eurozone, een maatregel die pas sinds kort bespreekbaar is gemaakt binnen de monetaire unie.

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Op vrijdag 10 februari 2012 21:57 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Griekse politie wil EU/IMF officials arresteren

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Griekse parlementari�r sluisde miljoen weg

In Griekenland is grote commotie ontstaan door het gedrag van een parlementslid, dat vorig jaar een miljoen euro overboekte naar een bankrekening in Zwitserland. Media in het door een diepe economische crisis getroffen EU-land doen er alles aan om de identiteit van de politicus te achterhalen.

De Griekse regering heeft de bevolking veelvuldig opgeroepen om geld toch vooral in eigen land op de bank te laten staan. Desondanks hebben Grieken in de afgelopen 3 jaar ongeveer 65 miljard euro opgenomen van hun bankrekeningen, en het geld elders ondergebracht. Velen vrezen dat Griekenland zal stoppen met de euro en dat de drachme een comeback zal maken, met desastreuze financi�le gevolgen.

De rel ontstond deze week toen Panagiotis Nikoloudis, hoofd bestrijding witwasserij bij het Openbaar Ministerie, bekendmaakte dat een parlementari�r verantwoordelijk was voor de omstreden geldtransactie naar Zwitserland. Diverse politici hebben al gezegd dat de betreffende collega zijn functie moet neerleggen.

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Greek hospital now under workers' control

Health workers in Kilkis, Greece, have occupied their local hospital and have issued a statement saying it is now fully under workers control.

The general hospital of Kilkis in Greece is now under workers control. The workers at the hospital have declared that the long-lasting problems of the National Health System (ESY) cannot be resolved.

The workers have responded to the regime’s acceleration of unpopular austerity measures by occupying the hospital and outing it under direct and complete control by the workers. All decisions will be made by a ‘workers general assembly’.

The hospital has stated that. “The government is not acquitted of its financial responsibilities, and if their demands are not met, they will turn to the local and wider community for support in every possible way to save the hospital defend free public healthcare, to overthrow the government and every neo-liberal policy.”

From the 6th February, hospital workers will only deal with emergencies until their wages, and monies owed have been paid. They are also demanding a return to wage levels prior to the implementation of austerity measures.

The next general assembly will take place on the 13th, and a related press conference will be given on the 15th.

The following statement has been issued by the workers: