Greece Hit by Another Mass Cuts Protest Strike

Source: Independent UK

Greece hit by another mass cuts protest strike
Press Association
Thursday, 11 March 2010

Greece ground to a virtual halt today as workers held yet another general strike in protest at painful spending cuts.

Public transport was halted, flights grounded and state hospitals left with emergency staff only in the latest show of discontent since the government's harsh new austerity plan was introduced last week in an effort to trim its ballooning deficit.

Under intense pressure from the European Union to quickly show fiscal improvement, the government announced an additional £4.4 billion in savings through public sector salary cuts, hiring and pension freezes and consumer tax hikes.

The cutbacks, added to a previous £10 billion austerity plan, seek to reduce the country's budget deficit from 12.7% of annual output to 8.7% this year. The long-term target is to bring overspending below the EU ceiling of 3% of GDP in 2012.

The plan sparked a wave of strikes and protests from labour unions whose reaction to the initial cuts announced earlier this year had been muted.

Today's strike, which shut all public services and schools, left ferries tied up at port and suspended all news broadcasts for the day, was the second major walkout in a week.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-hit-by-another-mass-cuts-protest-strike-1919830.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/world/europe/12greece.html?hp

ATHENS — Most international travel was halted, and public services thrown into disarray on Thursday as thousands of Greek workers protesting austerity measures staged a general strike.

All scheduled flights into and out of the country were canceled, international trains were not operating, bus and subway service was suspended, and ferries remained in their ports. Tax offices and courts shut down, and hospitals were operating with emergency staff. The streets, eerily empty early in the morning ahead of three scheduled protest rallies, were littered with mounds of trash as a strike at the city’s main landfill entered its sixth day. Hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police Thursday afternoon in central Athens and at least nine were detained, The Associated Press reported.

Bet it will result in even larger cuts down the road.

The Greek citizenry is clearly informing Goldman Sachs that they will not allow their old age pensions to be looted to pay derivative contract fees.

Besides establishing a whole new currency (The Greeko?), not sure what the end-game strategy is.

look like school yard bullies.

The Warning PBS FRONTLINE Michael Kirk unearths the hidden history of the nation's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and why it's gonna happen again, and again and again and ....

Any of these boys look familiar to ya ?


Obama's favorite economic advisers.

K&R