Greek leader Warns “We’re Going to Run Out of Money Next Month”

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Yesterday, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned that his country’s coffers would run dry by November unless international lenders disbursed a vital 31.5 billion euro (1.28 trillion Roubles. 41 billion USD. 25.5 billion UK Pounds) loan instalment soon. Samaras invoked a comparison with the Weimar Republic in Germany before the Second World War, warning of “chaos” in Greece if his coalition government failed and democracy collapsed. Mr Samaras told reporters, “The government’s giving a fight on all sides for the credibility and salvation of this country so the people’s sacrifices don’t go to waste”.

Athens and its debt inspectors are still trying to hash out new spending cuts to help speed up the release of the next round of bailout funds. Amid this uncertainty, Mr Samaras highlighted the consequences of a Greek exit from the euro, warning it would be “a total disaster” and could prove “very destabilising” for Europe, saying that once one member country left, the international markets would probably target the next “weakest link”. Samaras pointed up that this would prove “painful for everybody and could prove fatal for many”. Athens is grappling with the worst financial crisis of its modern history with one in four people out of a job and the country’s recession predicted to continue for a sixth year. In Athens, international lenders continue to delay the release of the loans. Gerry Rice, a spokesman from the IMF, said the lending organisation would not hand out its portion of cash unless it gauged the viability of Greece’s debt as being sustainable or other lenders filled a financing gap in the bailout.

In an interview published yesterday with the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Mr Samaras warned that the cohesion of Greek society was being “endangered by rising unemployment, as was Germany towards the end of the Weimar Republic”. Such grim conditions are fertile ground for the rise of extremism. Support for the extreme-right Golden Dawn party has soared, and the Prime Minister warned in the interview that Greek democracy is “facing perhaps its greatest challenge”. Society, he went on, was threatened by extreme left-wing populists and “the rise of a right-wing extremist, one might say fascist, neo-Nazi party. People know that this government means Greece’s last chance. We’ll make it. If we fail, chaos awaits us”. He also outlined solutions, including the recapitalisation of Greece’s banks directly from a European fund to avoid further debt piling onto the country, noting, “The European Central Bank, which owns Greek government debt, could declare itself happy with lower interest… or agree to a rollover when these bonds are due”. So far, EU officials have adamantly rejected this.

A German government spokesman announced yesterday that Chancellor Angela Merkel would go to Athens on Monday to show support for reform efforts. However, many Greeks blame Germany’s insistence on austerity for their hardship, and the left-wing SYRIZA party urged unions to protest against the German leader. Union leaders said, “Workers, pensioners and unemployed people can take no more of the EU’s punitive policies”. Nevertheless, a German statement stressed that it wants Greece to stay in the euro bloc, albeit while pushing ahead with painful reforms. Since Greece received its first bailout in May 2010, it’s repeatedly slashed incomes, increased taxes, and raised retirement ages.

6 October 2012

Nathalie Savaricas

Independent (London UK)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/were-going-to-run-out-of-money-next-month-warns-greek-leader-8200184.html

Editor’s Note:

“Reform” means pain (and downright penury) for working people and retirees so that the McMansion filth can party on without a care. That’s the policy of the US Republican Party, too… it intends to slam its boot-heel hard into the faces of the most vulnerable Americans so that the Affluent Effluent can profit whilst kids starve. That’s objectively evil… a vote for the Republican Party (or any of its foreign analogues) is a vote for undisguised greed, malevolence, and wickedness. The Republicans worship Almighty Mammon… and God did say, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. If you shill for the GOP, you’re my enemy… full stop… I’ll do whatever I can to defeat your criminal ideology and stop its malicious grasping any way that I can. Yes… our immortal souls DO depend on it…

BMD 

Greek Tax Officers Go Out On Strike

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Greek tax officers closed their offices and joined the continuing strikes in protest against wage reductions and forthcoming public sector layoffs, as well as against unfair taxes and exactions that they feel the government is about to declare. In the next few days, the Cabinet should decide on almost 12 billion Euros (485 billion Roubles. 15.5 billion USD. 9.6 million UK Pounds) in austerity measures in exchange for another EU/IMF loan of 31 billion Euros (1.25 trillion Roubles. 40 billion USD. 25 billion UK Pounds).

Observers expect the forthcoming round of belt-tightening to result in further cuts to wages and pensions. Athens Metro workers and tram drivers went on strike yesterday. Also striking are judges, hotel personnel, doctors, and chemists. A general 24-hour strike is due in Greece on the 26th of this month. The Greek government agreed with Troika experts on the increase of the pension age from 65 to 67 in a move that will enable Greece to save more than one billion Euros (40 billion Roubles. 1.3 billion USD. 800 million UK Pounds) annually. The Troika wants the coalition cabinet of Antonis Samaras to agree to austerity measures to the tune of 12 billion Euros for 2013 and 2014. However, the parliamentary coalition partners of his New Democracy Party, the PASOK Socialist Party and the moderate Democratic Left Party, oppose those measures. Both PASOK and Democratic Left are against major cuts in social spending.

Workers on the metro, trams, and urban trains as well as doctors, hotel staff, and some university professors in Athens have gone on a 24-hour strike over the government’s intention to cut salaries. More protests are due on 26 September, when the country’s leading trade unions shall launch a general strike. A 24-hour labour action by transport workers is due to begin shortly, and a series of warning strikes by state employees, are expected to paralyze Athens in the next few days.

The unions argue that the amount of money allocated by public transport companies on wages declined by half during the crisis. The strikers are also unhappy with an expected increase in the cost of public transport and demand that the government provide free transport passes to the unemployed, students, and pensioners.

Greek judges joined a strike action by state sector employees who’ve protested wage cuts. As the state reduced judges’ salaries by as much as 38 per cent over the past few weeks, judges’ associations warn that further pay cuts are putting their constitutional position as guarantors of the court system under threat. Whilst on strike, judges are hearing only cases nearing the statute of limitations.

The Greek government tabled a bill to halve the monthly salary of the President to 11,500 Euros (462,000 Roubles. 14,900 USD. 9,200 UK Pounds) and reduce his monthly hospitality expenses by one-third to 6,240 Euros (250,000 Roubles. 8,000 USD. 5,000 UK Pounds). The presidential pension is in for similar cuts. The measures should save the Greek treasury 350,000 Euros (14.1 million Roubles. 450,000 USD. 280,000 UK Pounds) each year.

21 September 2012

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_21/Greek-tax-officers-go-out-on-strike/

Editor’s Note:

The New Democracy slimers (who are equivalent to the US Republican Party), want to spare the Affluent Effluent by kicking the iaias and papous in the face. That’s why the Church of Greece is against the cuts in social spending. It’s not just the cuts… it’s the fact that the idle rich shall continue to party whilst poor people beg on the streets. That’s what Willy and Lyin’ Ryan want in the USA. That’s why we must vote on 6 November to re-elect the President. He’s no prize, to be sure, but he won’t club poor people in the face to benefit the rich like himself. After all, he paid a lower proportion of his income in tax than many making only 1 percent of his income. That’s called evil… that’s called Mammon-worship.

Orthodox people should be aware that the konvertsy (like all unhinged cultists) favour Willy’s nasty kleptocratic dreams. Not only should we vote against Willy, we should clean out his supporters in the Church… they support objective evil, full stop. Trust me, being for the illegalisation of abortion is a piffle when put in the balance with insane warmongering, rampant greed, pandering to sectarian crazies, and stacking the deck further in favour of the fatcats. On the one hand, we have a small amount of evil admixed with much good… on the other we have monstrous evil wearing a fig-leaf of “morality”. Our Lord Christ promised us that the wheat and tares would be intermixed until the Last Day. So be it… that means that we must choose the least evil path (not the “best”, for that’s not available). That means that all decent Christians must reject the money-grubbing consumerist greed of the Republican Party. It means that one shouldn’t listen to the likes of Fathausen, Freddie M-G, Mattingly, Reardon, Dreher, et al… they’re all shills for the Radical Godless Right (especially in their pandering to sectarian cultists (for that is what Mormonism and Pentecostalism are)).

There’s NO perfection out there…

BMD

10 September 2012. A Photo Spread. Rightwing Scummers in Greece in the Deep Kimchi… Coppers, Firemen, and Soldiers Join the Ranks of the Protesters

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The firemen are on the picket line…

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so are the coppers… the soldiers are there, too, but they weren’t in this set of images.

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Now, the rightwing scumbags in Greece have gone too far. They want to cut the salaries of firemen, cops, and soldiers so that their Affluent Effluent paymasters can party on without a care. That’s going to topple this rightwing excuse for a government. As always, the Affluent Effluent are the dumbest set of rocks in the box. What was said of the Bourbon Restoration is true of them to a tee, “They’ve learnt nothing and remembered everything”. Look at the good in this… it’ll hasten the fall of the One Percent and their political whores. SYRIZA is in the wings…

However, things are unravelling, and that’s not something to be desired. Sometimes, we must live through such, but such things aren’t to be desired. God preserve Greece and the Greeks…

BMD

Thousands of Greeks Protest Against New Round of Austerity Cuts

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On Saturday, thousands of Greeks marched at an annual fair in Thessaloniki to protest against a new round of wage and pension cuts demanded by international lenders in exchange for aid to stave off bankruptcy. The demonstration by about 15,000 trade unionists and leftists was the first major protest against a nearly 12 billion Euro (490 billion Roubles. 15.4 billion USD. 9.6 billion UK Pounds) austerity package being readied by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to appease EU and IMF inspectors who arrived in Athens on Friday to review Greece‘s reform (sic) progress. A few protesters burned EU flags while others threw watermelons and peaches in support of struggling farmers, but the largely-peaceful protests otherwise passed off without incident as 3,500 policemen looked on. Greece is struggling through its worst post-war economic crisis that has left nearly one in four jobless, pushed up poverty levels, and shuttered thousands of businesses.

9 September 2012

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_09/Thousands-of-Greeks-protest-against-new-round-of-austerity-cuts/

Editor’s Note:

Let’s not be coy… the rightwing government in Greece is readying moves to hammer the Greek working people so that the Affluent Effluent can party on unhindered and without pain. That’s exactly what Wafflin’ Willy wants to do in the USA… after all, he socks millions in overseas tax havens, increasing the tax burden on the rest of us. He doesn’t give a damn for the common weal… no Republican does. That’s what godless greed and selfishness does to people.

Orthodox people should be aware that the konvertsy are only formally Christians, as their main belief lies in godless Far Right nostrums; they believe in a nasty and cruel Social Darwinian world. You see, they’re just like all rightwingers… greedy, nasty, and self-centred. It’s why we must oppose them; we must see to it that they leave us… our souls depend on it.

BMD 

Give Greece a Break

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There’s hope that the EU will give Greece a break. Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker said that the EU would probably give Athens more time to cut its budget deficit, following the request of Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. It’ll make a final decision after the publication of the report of the European Troika of creditors (The IMF, The European Central Bank, and the Eurogroup) on the Greek situation. However, Berlin doesn’t feel like making concessions to Athens.

After his meeting with Samaras, Juncker said that Greeks should understand that this is their last chance. Earlier, the Greek Prime Minister said that Greece desperately needed more time to reduce its budget deficit. Athens isn’t asking for additional money for battling the crisis, and it promises to continue to make payments on all the liabilities. Now, Athens faces the difficult task of lowering its budget deficit from the current 9 percent to almost 2.5 percent of the GDP by 2014, and the only thing that Greece is asking for is to extend this term until 2016. Samaras insists that it’s impossible to meet this goal in only two years. He says that, in the current situation, national economic growth is more important and trying to cut the deficit as soon as possible will only destroy any possibility of ensuring economic growth.

It looks like Samaras managed to convince Jean-Claude Juncker. Economist Vladimir Rozhankovsky said, “Nevertheless, this isn’t enough, because he still has to convince German Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande at their meeting on Friday. I don’t think that they’ll grant a deferment to Greece, even with such a cooperative Prime Minister. There’ll be strong friction with Germany, as Germany believes that a nation shouldn’t be forced into a corner. A nation should be able to breathe and to develop, even if it’s slow development. However, making concessions to someone, and letting things slide, means giving a bad example to all the rest. In this case, the Spaniards will likely ask for concessions too”.

So far, Berlin only announced small concessions and did it unofficially with a reference to a source in the government. On the official level, there’s a clash of two positions. The Social Democrats are confident that it is necessary to keep Greece in the Eurozone. Merkel’s partners in the coalition insist that all agreements must stay unchanged. Economist Sergei Khestanov said, “If Merkel makes concessions on Friday, her voters and party fellows won’t forgive her for this. The well-off countries of the EU are facing elections. Granting loans to Greece will stir discontent among the population of these countries. The elections in France showed that Merkel in Germany could expect something similar. There’s a threat of popular discontent, and it’s quite likely that Germany will stop providing aid to Greece. After that, a default in Greece won’t be long in coming”.

Khestanov believed that Greece’s withdrawal from the Eurozone should’ve happened earlier. Now, European politicians are paying the price for doing what they were told by the banks, who are the holders of the Greek debt, saying, “The sooner Greece goes bankrupt, the sooner the restoration of the economy will start. That’s why providing aid to Greece was wrong. The fact that Greece’ economy continues to fall is the most telling argument in favour of the statement that bankruptcy is the lesser of two evils for Greece”. The new deadline of Greece’s withdrawal from the Eurozone is the end of September. In September, the troika of creditors shall decide whether to grant another tranche to Greece.

23 August 2012

Polina Chernitsa

Aleksandra Dibizheva

Voice of Russia World Service

New Greek Government Sworn In

THIS is what the Greek people think of “austerity”… the present coalition isn’t long for this world, but it’ll last long enough to deny the Republicans victory in November (the GOP needs European instability to drive an American downturn, but that’s not going to happen now).

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On Thursday night, the newly-elected Greek government took the oath of office in Athens. The ministers swore in the name of the Holy Trinity on the Gospel to abide by the constitution and laws, and to serve the interests of the Greek people. The tardiness of the new Minister of Justice, Anthony Rupakotisa, who arrived at the presidential palace half an hour late, delayed the ceremony. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras took office.  Three members of the government… Finance Minister Vassilis Rapanos and his two deputies, Christos Staikuras and Georgios Mavraganis… shall take the oath later, as their counterparts from the previous interim cabinet represented Greece at a meeting of the Eurogroup and, accordingly, can’t resign yet.

The new cabinet is from the centre-right New Democracy (ND) (129 deputies in the 300-seat parliament) supported by the centre-left PASOK (33 deputies) and the Democratic Left Forces (DIMAR) (17 deputies). Despite the fact that ND has a plurality in Parliament, if PASOK and DIMAR deputies refused to support the government, it’d significantly weaken the position of the cabinet, especially if there were unpopular “reforms”. Earlier, media reports indicated that the new Cabinet of Greece declared that it plans to hold new talks with its EU/IMF creditors. The Samaras government considers its main objectives the fight against the crisis and keeping Greece in the Eurozone. The coalition cabinet’s planning to sit for its full constitutional term of four years. Previously, Greek coalition governments only sat for a transitional period, in order to steer the country through new parliamentary elections.

The Government contains 17 Ministers, 7 First Deputy Ministers, and 14 Deputy Ministers. Thirteen of its members were in previous ND governments. The new coalition carried out some changes in the names of ministries and government structure. The Ministry of the Merchant Fleet, the Ministry of Tourism, and the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace reappeared as government structures. They merged the Ministries of Education and Culture and of Transportation and Development, and the Ministry of Citizen Protection returned to its traditional title of the Ministry of Public Order.

The full composition of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Greek government as follows:

• Prime Minister: Antonis Samaras
• Minister of State: Dimitris Stamatis,
• Government Spokesman: Simos Kedikoglu
• Minister of Administrative Reform and E-Government: Antonis Manitakis
• Minister of Internal Affairs: Evripidis Stylianidis
• Minister of Finance: Vasilis Rapanos
• Foreign Minister: Dimitris Avramopoulos
• Defence Minister: Panos Panayotopulos
• Minister of Development, Transport, And Communication Networks: Kostis Hadzidakis
• Minister of Merchant Fleet and the Aegean Sea: Costas Musurulis
• Minister of Environment, Energy, and Climate Change: Evangelos Liveratos
• Minister of Education, Culture, and Sports: Konstantinos Arvanitopulos
• Minister of Labour and Social Insurance: Yiannis Vrutsis
• Minister of Health: Andreas Likurendzos
• Agriculture Minister: Athanasios Tsavtaris
• Minister of Public Order: Nikos Dendias
• Minister of Justice, Transparency, and Human Rights: Anthony Rupakotis
• Minister of Tourism: Olga Kefaloyanni
• Minister of Macedonia and Thrace: Theodoros Karaoglu

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Prime Minister Antonis Samaras reported that the newly-elected Greek government would start by reducing the salary of Cabinet Ministers. At the first meeting of his government after being sworn in Thursday evening, he said, “We’ll reduce the salary of Cabinet members by 30 percent. We also agreed to limit the use of official cars to the minimum necessary to carry out our duties”. He also called on ministers to speak to the press less and coordinate such appearances with his office, saying, “Don’t go on TV every day; there’s no reason to do that”. He also announced that henceforth all government meetings would be behind closed doors, even though Samaras’ predecessor Georgios Papandreou opened up meetings to the press.

The centre-right New Democracy (ND), the centre-left PASOK, and the moderate leftist DIMAR support the Samaras government. On Thursday, according to Samaras, a new era began in Greek politics, since the government is the first coalition formed with the goal of ruling the country, not merely holding power until a new election. He said, “We agreed on a broad common strategy on what’s needed to run the country. Our goal is to lead the country out of crisis and to justify the sacrifices made by the Greek people”.

 21 June 2012

Aleksei Bogdanov

RIA-Novosti

http://ria.ru/world/20120621/678714117.html

http://ria.ru/world/20120621/678754449.html

Editor’s Note:

There’s an interesting wrinkle in all of this, ND and PASOK alone should have the deputies to form a government… 162 out of 300. However, it’s clear that not all of the deputies are enthused over the new arrangement… ergo, DIMAR, with 17 seats, firms the majority up to 179. Nevertheless, this smells “provisional”… and it may not last a year. Yet, it’ll last long enough to prolong the present stasis until after the US election in November. That’s what Wafflin’ Willy didn’t need… he needed a full-blown Eurozone crisis to sour the US economy. That’s not going to happen… ergo, the chances of Willy gaining the White House are slim to none. He’ll rack up a majority amongst rural white men over 45, and no one else.

That’s the way of it in our inter-related world.

APPENDIX

Greek Political Alignment prior to the May election, after the May Election, and at Present:

	2009 Vote	Seats	05.12 Vote	Seats	06.12 Vote	Seats	Percent change 2009 to 2012
ND	33.5	91	18.9	108	29.7	129	88.7
PASOK	44.0	160	13.2	41	12.3	33	28.0
DIMAR	—	—	6.1	19	6.3	17	—
SYRIZA	4.6	13	16.8	52	26.9	71	584.8

This is INTERESTING, and none of the major media outlets is covering this one adequately. Firstly, look at the 2009 vote… ND and PASOK took a combined 77.5 percent of the vote. In June 2012, they took 42 percent of the vote… less than a majority, and only 54.2 percent of their 2009 combined vote. ND had 88.7 percent of its ’09 vote, whilst PASOK had only 28 percent of its ’09 tally. In 2009, SYRIZA had only 6 percent of the ND/PASOK total; whilst in June 2012, it tallied 64 percent of their combined effort. When one considers that DIMAR is a schism from SYRIZA, one sees that the capitalist parties not only took a drubbing, it conceivably set up a realignment. Let’s look at it another way… in 2009, SRIZA garnered a vote that was 10.5 percent the PASOK total; in June 2012, SYRIZA won votes equal to 218.7 percent that of PASOK. That is, in 2009, SYRIZA won 10.5 percent of PASOK’s total. In June 2012, PASOK only racked up a vote 45.7 percent that of SYRIZA (even with the DIMAR defection).

It’s obvious… the Greeks are tired of the same ol’, same ol’… and they’re voting for SYRIZA in record numbers. PASOK and ND are deadly rivals… the only thing bringing them together is fear of SYRIZA. Fotis Kouvelis of DIMAR is an opportunist… he served as a minister in a ND/Left coalition cabinet in 1989. Indeed, the present arrangement bids fair to be a repeat of 1989… that cabinet only lasted four months. This time around, the stakes are higher, so, it’ll probably last until the turn of the year. However, that’ll be enough time for President Obama to win re-election. You see, the Eurozone is going to sail through some choppy seas, but the present Greek coalition means that won’t happen for the present, and, sadly for Wafflin’ Willy, he needs Eurozone disruption to win election. That’s not going to happen.

Remember, we live in an interconnected world.

BMD