Greece is starting to crack...
as Gerald Celente foretold.
Police clash with protesters as Greeks fight cuts
By Renee Maltezou and Ingrid Melander Renee Maltezou And Ingrid Melander 3/11/10 11:30ET– 30 mins ago
ATHENS (Reuters) – Police clashed with stone-throwing youths in Athens on Thursday as tens of thousands protested draconian cutbacks aimed at pulling Greece out of a debt crisis shaking the euro zone.
About 50 black-hooded youths hurled sticks and pieces of marble broken from the steps of the Bank of Greece at police, who responded with several rounds of tear gas.
The youths threw petrol bombs, smashed shop windows and set garbage containers on fire, but the level of violence was much lower than during 2008 riots that paralyzed the city for weeks after the police killing of a teenager.
Waving leftist and anarchist flags, the hooded youths chanted "Let parliament burn."
Two police officers were wounded during the clashes and 16 protesters detained, a government official said.
In otherwise largely peaceful protests, about 23,000 people marched through Athens to protest cuts in civil servants' income, tax hikes, a pension freeze and plans to raise the retirement age. Public and private sector workers staged a nationwide strike.
Most Greeks believe that, despite the protests, the cash-strapped socialist government will press ahead with a plan agreed last week after months of wrangling with the EU and intense pressure from financial markets.
But the 4.8 billion euro ($6.5 billion) package of cutbacks is largely viewed as hitting the wrong people in a country with widespread corruption and tax evasion.
"The measures are unfair ... we cannot make it, we have children, families. We need to find the money to support them," said 60-year old health sector worker Odysseas Panagopoulos. "Banks and rich people should pay for this crisis."
The strike, organized by unions representing half of the country's 5 million strong workforce, grounded flights, docked ships, shut schools and hospitals and halted public transport in the second nationwide walkout in a fortnight.
Many archaeological sites and museums were closed to visitors and the publication of GDP and unemployment data was postponed.
There was no news on television and radio as journalists went on strike, and bank employees, firemen, tax collectors and even some police officers were also among those marching.
"WHERE IS THE MONEY?"
Athens' streets echoed with loud-speakers blaring slogans calling for the rich to pay for a severe debt crisis. "No sacrifice for the rich!" protesters chanted, beating drums and holding banners reading: "Where did the money go?"
More:
Atlas Shrugged, redux
Loot the productive people and give their wealth to the professional thieving class called "government," and to their thieving bankster patrons. I've heard the story before, and know how it's going to end. The productive will retire or move somewhere that they can live and work without being eaten alive by tax-feeders. The tax feeders will soon have no one left to eat but each other.
How ironic and appropriate that it should happen in Greece, the "Cradle of Democracy," democracy being "the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." (H.L. Mencken)
Recommended reading: The Most Dangerous Superstition, http://www.larkenrose.com/store/34-books/2019-the-most-dange...
dabooda: Nice anology to Atlas Shrugged
I wish they (and we) had a Galt's Gulch to disappear to.
First Iceland, now Greece, who's next?
Whoever has the next weakest currency. And yes, it will eventually arrive here in the US. What is amazing to me is the sheer volume of rubbish being dispensed by the MSM as explanations for these crises. They broadcast ad nauseum the civil unrest and quote morons on the street that have no clue what is happening. The MSM loves to broadcast people screaming "tax the rich" because it is pure Marxism, which is exactly the purpose of the MSM. The truth is that the Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds are waging economic war on sovereign nations, but you will not hear the the truth on CNBC or Bloomberg. The reason for these economic wars? Everybody knows that the "dark side" wants a one-world currency. If you don't know already, the "dark side" likes to rig the games they play in a variety of ways, one of which is to essentially eliminate their competition. When sovereign nations are driven into default, their currencies are essentially destroyed. Once all of the sovereign currencies are destroyed, there should be no currency left to compete with the dark side's one-world currency. But wait, there's still one currency that can compete with the dark side's plan for a one-world fiat currency of their own design, and they have nothing but hate for that currency and the people who believe in it. Is it any wonder that there is such an enormous effort to manipulate and suppress the price of gold, and to denigrate it in the public's mind as barbaric and insignificant? Gold is the only currency that can challenge the dark side's one-world currency plan and that is why we should all own some.
England next...
These bankers are going to tee off James Bond and then see what happens.
Is what's happening in Greece
Is what's happening in Greece our future? If so, is this why so many elected officials are retiring? Don't they want to be around when the SHTZF? They are like rats abandoning a sinking ship. After they drilled the holes in that ship.
You hit the very reason why I posted this.
Our future is found in Greece's present.
I am going there on vacation
later this spring...Hope no strikes just that week.
I like the food, was there some years ago...
I wonder how this Greek debacle will play out...not the last country to go belly up either. Would be nice if the EU fails and it´s currency.
It will probably look like peanuts compared to the USA in a few years.
/Mike
Front Fell Off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcU4t6zRAKg
m72mc: Be very careful there. Avoid the big cities.
There are others countries on the "bubble" also: "PIIGS"
Greece is a beautiful place. Their story is sad.
EU prepares in case Greek woes spread to Spain
Timothy Heritage - Analysis
BRUSSELS
Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:55am EST
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - If Greece's debt crisis is giving the European Union a headache, it is minor compared to the pain it will suffer if a large member state such as Spain sinks into similar trouble.
Spain has an unemployment rate of almost 20 percent, large deficits, a heavily indebted private sector, and weak prospects for growth -- which could make its debt a target for speculators if Athens' problems prove contagious in the euro zone.
A Greek debt default would increase pressure on the euro but the damage would likely be limited since Athens accounts for less than 3 percent of the 16-country currency area's GDP.
A Spanish debt crisis would be much harder for the EU to handle because its economy is the euro zone's fourth-largest, accounting for nearly 12 percent of euro-wide GDP.
"Greece is a small country and at the end of the day its problems can be solved," said Cinzia Alcidi of the Center for European Policy Studies think tank in Brussels.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62A2TD20100311