1000s march in Luxembourg against austerity plans

Source: Associated Press

LUXEMBOURG (AP) - About seven thousand people from across Europe marched through Luxembourg on Tuesday to protest budget cuts and reduced social protections they say are making workers pay for the sins of the rich. The protest comes a day after European finance ministers met in the region's richest state to hold marathon talks on debt-stricken Greece.

The EU's economic policies have caused much anger among workers in Europe. Apart from the widely criticized bailout programs for Greece, Portugal and Ireland - which focus on public sector and spending cuts while sparing banks and other private investors - the bloc's overall strategy has been perceived as hurtful to union rights, by promoting laws that make hiring and firing easier as well as cuts to pension systems.

snip

The march was organized by the European Trade Union Confederation, specifically to demonstrate opposition to an economic plan that will be considered by a summit of European Union heads of government in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.

The unions say the plan would push down the pay of government workers, depress the minimum wage in some cases, make early retirement less possible and pensions less generous, sharply limit government spending, and be generally hostile to collective bargaining.



Read more: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16023/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=FPZqELdH

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If profoundly pro-EU, banker-laden, tiny (500,000 people), rich Luxembourg with a average per captia income of $83,000+ (almost double the US), can be angry enough to march en masse (4.5 MILLION would have to march in th USA to equal this in terms of population percentage), I ask you, "Whither America?"

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

Pretty much the lowest of any developed country. What this shows is that Luxembourg's economy is built on international banks, that both borrow and lend huge amounts.

You kind of missed that in your math.

I think the people have officially caught on.

Austerity in Luxembourg?
By the Gods that's Rich,
just too funny to keep a
straight face.

Fly the Luxembourgers to
Detroit, or Cleveland. Those
Western Europeans have zero
understanding of "Austerity".
The poor deprived little
Darlings, boo hoo hoo.