Riots expose roots of anger on EU's edges

Source: Reuters

RIGA (Reuters) - Standing in the X-ray room of the gleaming private clinic he opened last year, Leons Platacis is an incongruous champion for youths who rioted in Latvia last week, part of a wave of European protests.

The Latvian businessman, who set up the clinic with his doctor wife, said it is managing to grow despite increasingly cautious banks, whose refusal to lend created a cash squeeze that has forced him to lay off five of his 20 staff.

But he is frustrated. Not only with the bankers -- now mainly the offshoots of large Scandinavian parents -- but also the government of the Baltic state, forced last year to accept a 7.5 billion euro ($9.94 billion) IMF and EU rescue package.

Platacis and others like him in European Union countries from Greece to Bulgaria show how the economic crisis has dashed hopes for prosperity among the middle-classes and young people, compounding resentment of governments already exposed by perceived nepotism, arrogance and corruption.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE50I09R20090119

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE50I09R20090119

corruptiion in the business community which is interlaced with corruption in our governments -- is perhaps the greatest threat we face.

and may do more damage to our civilization than any bomb.

........a computer typing. More coffee, more coffee........