GREEK POLICE INJURE 500 PROTESTORS AGAINST THE EURO BANK TAX

A video showing a Greek riot police man smashing a protestor  on the head with a truncheon is just one incident of police brutality caught on camera in Athens yesterday when police injured more than 500 protestors against punitive EU, IMF and ECB austerity measures for the profit of banks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2j67t7dHwc

Germany’s Der Spiegel estimated that if Germans had to implement the equivalent austerity measures of 450 billion euros, it would lead to a “total collapse of the economy” and Germany would become “ungovernable”.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/0,1518,771396,00.html

“Whoever drains an economy of so much money in such a short time kills everything,” Gustav Horn, head of the Institute for Macroeconomics and Conjuncture Research (IMK) told Der Spiegel.

Red Cross doctors said about 500 people were treated for injuries and breathing problems after riot police drenched crowds in tear gas, and chased, cornered and attacked peaceful protestors. 

Greeks view euro financial occupation as dangerous as that of German Nazis

ANGER OF ORDINARY GREEKS FACING A SPARTAN FUTURE

Protesters feel they are facing an enemy as dangerous as those their ancestors fought

Sunday June 26,2011

By Helena Smith in Athens, Express

THE economic meltdown threatening Greece has begun to assume tragic proportions amid worsening poverty and panic in the country on the frontline of Europe’s biggest crisis since the Second World War.

In classical times, attacked by the all-conquering Persian empire, the fractious Greek states, led by Sparta and Athens, forgot their differences to fend off the invader.

Read more at: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/255020/Anger-of-ordinary-Greeks-facing-a-Spartan-future

New EU tax grab outrages UK

EU snubs Cameron with a triple tax grab as his close aides ask if it’s time for Britain to quit Europe

By Tim Shipman, Daily Mail

Last updated at 8:43 AM on 30th June 2011

Under pressure: The Prime Minister is being asked to veto the latest ‘ludicrous’ plans to impose three new taxes on Britain

David Cameron is facing pressure to veto the latest ‘ludicrous’ cash demand from Brussels after it  announced plans to slap three new taxes on Britain.

The European Commission yesterday revealed budget demands which would cost UK taxpayers £10billion.

In what Treasury officials viewed as one of the most outrageous power grabs in recent memory, they demanded the right to raise a Europe-wide sales tax.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009682/EU-snubs-Cameron-triple-tax-grab-close-aides-ask-time-Britain-quit-Europe.html#ixzz1QlGxEiYx

Euro-Gauleiter Lagarde to become head of the IMF as US debt ceiling debate heats up

June 30, 2011, 5:00 am

Christine Lagarde and the Demand for Dollars By SIMON JOHNSON, New York Times

 Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is the co-author of “13 Bankers.”

After receiving support from the United States at the critical moment, Christine Lagarde was named Tuesday as the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund. In campaigning for the job, Ms. Lagarde, France’s finance minister, made various promises to emerging markets with regard to improving their relationships with the I.M.F. But such promises count for little.

Read more at: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/christine-lagarde-and-the-demand-for-dollars/

GREEK PARLIAMENT PASSES AUSTERITY MEASURES AS PROTESTS CONTINUE: Next clash with EU and IMF pre-programmed in September

The banks and the euro have escaped immediate economic disaster after the Greek parliament today voted by a narrow margin in favour of privatisations and austerity measures mandated by the EU, IMF and ECB.

However, a fresh clash with the Greek parliament and people is preprogrammed when the Troika undertake their next review of Greece’s finances in September.

George Papandreou’s socialist government  pushed through a €28bn package of drastic tax increases and budget cuts by 155 votes to 138 while protestors outside the parliament faced tear gas and even plastic bullets from riot police. Unions also staged a 48 hour strike.

Watch live stream of the protests at:

http://www.livestream.com/stopcarteltvgr?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=footerlinks

A vote is to be held tomorrow on enabling legislation to allow the sale to foreign corporations of Greek government assets by a special agency overseen by EU, IMF and ECB officials.

The passage of this legislation will clear the way for the next interest payment on the country’s astronomical national debt to be made to American, French and German banks  in July.

Greek souvereign debt is set to rise to 170% of the GDP next year after IMF, EU austerity measures mandated in 2010 crushed the economy, and the new cuts will only deepen Greece’s dire economic situation.

Greece already has with the lowest credit rating in the world and is considered by rating agencies, bond markets and economists to be insolvent and not illiquid. But a recommendation to create an insolvency mechanism for over indebted eurozone countries such as Greece was buried by the German government in autumn 2010.

According to an IMF report, Greece is set to spend 131 billion euros on interest payments and refinancing on its national debt between 2009 and 2014 as part of  the fiction that Greece is just illiquid.

GREEK PARLIAMENT MAY REJECT EU/IMF AUSTERITY MEASURES IN HISTORIC VOTE ON WEDNESDAY: FUTURE OF EURO HANGS BY A THREAD

*Greek Prime Minister’s  majority cut to one ahead of crucial IMF and EU austerity vote in parliament on Wednesday

*Rejection of austerity package will lead to a default by Greece and eurozone exit

*Greece is set to spend 131 billion euros on interest payments to banks between 2009 and 2014 according to IMF

*Germany’s Die Welt says Germans would rise up in rebellion if they had to accept equivalent austerity measures

*Protests and strikes intensify in Athens ahead of historical vote on Wednesday that could spell the end of the euro currency

Four Greek lawmakers from the ruling PASOK party have indicated they will vote against the new EU and IMF austerity package in parliament on Wednesday.  If the Greek parliament votes against the legislation, it would pave the way for Greece to default on its debt to foreign banks and exit the eurozone in an historic victory for democracy.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_4_26/06/2011_396030

Greece is set to pay a staggering €131bn in refinancing and interest payments to American, German and French banks between 2009 and 2014 , the IMF has estimated.

Prime Minister George Papandreou’s socialist PASOK party has a slim majority of only 155 deputies in the 300-member parliament. The defections of any more lawmakers may mean the government not be able to pass the new austerity measures and an implementation law on Wednesday and Thursday, which the EU, IMF and ECB are insisting on to enable the next interest payments to be made to banks on time.

The main opposition leader, Antonis Samaras, has said the austerity measures are a “medicine that is worse than the sickness they are meant to cure” and that he will not vote for them.

The draconian package of latest tax hikes and budget cuts include measures forcing people earning as little as 8000 euros a year to pay 10% in taxes to help the government meet the multi-billion euro interest payments to banks while universities close due to funding cuts.

71% of Germans say euro has no future; German government plans for Greek default

More than three-quarters of Germans believe the euro will not survive the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said on Sunday.

http://www.finanzwirtschafter.de/18764-allensbach-umfrage-deutsche-zweifeln-an-euro-und-rettungsschirm/

71% of Germans have “little” or “no trust at all” in the euro, according to an opinion poll. Just 19% said they had a high or very high level of trust in the euro, according to the FAZ.

Only 15% of the Germans thought the eurozone bankster bail outs — amounting to more than a thousand billions of euros, in the meantime — would stabilise the eurozone.

Faced with a rebellion by the people and parliament in Greece to further austerity measures and also with revolt across the board in Germany against contributing to the bankers’ astronomical interest payments for insolvent eurozone governments and banks, the German deputy finance minister Jörg Asmussen said on Monday that plans were being made for a default by Greece and its exit from the eurozone.

Greece is standing up to EU neocolonialism: Greeks will pay 131 billion euros to banks between 2009 and 2014, says IMF

The usurious conditions of the Greek bailout reveals Brussels’ colonial mindset – but Athens is showing citizens can resist

• Costas Douzinas and Petros Papaconstantinou
• guardian.co.uk,Monday 27 June 2011 07.00 BST

After months of attacks on the supposedly feckless Greeks, the western media, intellectuals such Amartya Sen and Jürgen Habermas and the United Nations have finally woken up to the fact that the catastrophic austerity imposed on Greece is unsustainable. It was about time. This is an unprecedented and morally odious type of collective punishment imposed on a majority of Greeks, who did not see a penny from the profligacy of their rulers and who live close to the poverty line.

…

1. The bailout of Greece is not a gift or grant but a loan bearing high interest. Crucially, bailout funds are not used to pay civil servants’ salaries and pensions, but to pay off debt held by German and French banks. According to IMF estimates, Greece will pay €131bn in refinancing and interest payments between 2009 and 2014, far more than the initial bailout loan of €110bn. In a magician-like sleight of hand, German and French workers are forced to bail out their national banks, not directly as in the 2008-9 banking bailouts but through the mediation of Greece, which inevitably becomes the target of populist outbursts. The Greek government, on the other hand, was ordered to provoke an economic and social meltdown unimaginable in western Europe in peacetime in order to receive the loans.

How Greece can redenominate and default

Greece is going to be kicked out of the eurozone whatever happens

By Andrew Lilico, The Telegraph, June 24th, 2011

David Cameron may have won his battle to keep Britain out of a second EU bail-out for Greece – but that doesn’t alter the long-term inevitability of Greece’s departure from the eurozone.

…The first myth is that Greece would gain nothing from leaving the euro because its debts are denominated in euros. But that claim misses the point. Leaving the euro would take the form of the government passing a law to redenominate all Greek debts (at least all government and banking sector debt, but quite possibly all private sector debts) into “New Drachmas” (or whatever the new currency would be called). Such a redenomination of debts is, of course, a default. Indeed, it is one of the classical forms of sovereign default.

Greek Prime Minister wins vote of confidence; opposition party vows to fight fiscal austerity amid growing divisions

The Greek Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou won a vote of confidence in parliament in the early hours of Wednesday, paving the way for legislation on new fiscal austerity measures to be voted on next Tuesday even as the opposition pledged to fight the package.

Greece needs to receive €12bn in loans from the EU and the IMF by mid-July to avert a default on its sovereign debt.

A new 120 billion euro bankster bailout for Greece will cost each household in the eurozone 1,450 euros by 2014, according to a report by Open Europe.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8589016/Second-Greek-bail-out-could-push-eurozone-bill-to-1450-per-household.html

Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of Pimco said that a Greek  default would be postponed by the bailout but was inevitable given Greece’s debt burden.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8591262/Pimco-warns-Greece-will-default.html

A policy recommendation to introduce an insolvency mechanism for indebted eurozone nations was buried by the German government last autumn, opening the door to limitless bailouts to meet the bank interest payments on government debt.

All 155 lawmakers belonging to Papandreou’s Pasok party backed the embattled prime minister after votes had to be given individually and publicly at midnight Tuesday, giving the government only a slight majority in the 300 member house.

But the opposition party New Democracy has already said it will not back any more fiscal austerity, increasing the chances of fresh elections.

New Democracy leader Antonis Samaris told the Financial Times today that the fiscal austerity measures would drain the economy of yet more liquidity and exacerbate the recession – and national debt.

“They are asking me to support the same kind of medicine for someone who is dying from that medicine. I will not do it,” he said.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/64c2f52e-9cd1-11e0-bf57-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1Q1fIrbFl

“Mr Samaras said his main objection to the government’s policies was that they were squeezing demand out of the economy by increasing the tax burden while Greece was still in deep recession. This was demoralising the public, already suffering from high unemployment and wage cuts, and was causing businesses to shut down, evade taxes or flee the country.”

“Liquidity is the top, top, top problem of the economy. Imagine what happens in the real economy when there is no private spending, no government spending and no foreign direct investment. Everything is closing down. There is a brain drain, educated people are leaving the country,” Samaras said.

Even if Papandreou manages to push through legislation for a €28bn austerity plan next Tuesday, it seems unlikely that the government can implement measures through given the growing opposition among the people.

Thousands of demonstrators who have been gathering outside parliament have said they will continue their protests.

Live stream of the protests on Syntagma square yesterday night showed thousands of people demonstrating peacefully in front of the parliament as well as a heated debate between politicians inside the building.

http://www.radio-utopie.de/2011/06/19/platia-syndagmatos-athen-sie-sehen-was-hier-passiert/#more-56749

Unions have also pledged to block the privatisations, adding to the political volatility.

The Greek government plans to form a privatisation agency to administer the privatisation of €50bn of state assets.

It is not clear if Pasok will pass the fiscal austerity measures on Tuesday even if Papandreou won the vote of confidence after reshuffling the cabinet to quell a rebellion.