Crisis, what crisis? for billionaires

This OECD video is called Record inequality between rich and poor.

By Stefan Steinberg in Germany:

OECD reports growing inequality worldwide

17 May 2013

On Wednesday, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, representing 34 developed nations, issued its latest report. It confirms that social inequality in most industrialised nations has grown significantly since the world economic crisis broke out in 2007-8.

In its 2011 report Divided We Stand the OECD documented that the gap between rich and poor had widened continuously in the three decades preceding 2008. Its latest report confirms that this process accelerated between 2007 and 2010.

The conclusion to the eight-page OECD document reads: “Many countries entered the global economic crisis already facing the highest levels of income inequality since OECD records began.” Increased levels of unemployment and reduced incomes for normal households mean that in “the first three years of the crisis, inequality in income from work and capital increased as much as in the previous twelve.”

The OECD report reveals that, after tax, the wealthiest 10 percent had been able to increase their wealth from 9 times as much as the poorest 10 percent in 2007 to 9.5 times in 2010.

The report notes that from the 33 countries providing data, “the top 10 percent has done better than the poorest 10 percent in 21 countries.” The widest gaps between rich and poor were registered in Chile, Mexico, Turkey and the United States.

A section of the report titled “The pain was not shared evenly” explains that the most significant change in income status took place among the poorest 10 percent, which lost income between 2007 and 2010 at a rate of 2 percent per year.

Many of the countries recording the most dramatic increases in inequality are European nations which have been subjected to punitive austerity measures by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. The OECD report singles out Spain and Italy, where the income of “the poorest 10 percent was much lower in 2010 than in 2007.”

Five percent falls in income (per annum) amongst the poorest 10 percent were also recorded in Greece, Ireland, Estonia, and Iceland. The only non-European nation with a comparable level of income decline was Mexico.

The report also states that over the same period, poor families in the United States, Italy, France, Austria and Sweden all recorded income losses in excess of the OECD average.

Having dealt with the trend towards growing inequality on a nation-by-nation basis, the report goes on to reveal that the social groups hardest hit by growing poverty are children and young people. The report declares: “Households with children were hit hard during the crisis. Since 2007, child poverty increased in 16 OECD countries, with increases exceeding 2 points in Turkey, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Hungary.”

The picture is similar with regard to youth poverty, which “increased considerably” in no less than 19 OECD countries. Spain, Turkey, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands were among the countries with the highest increased rates of youth poverty.

In the report’s conclusion, the OECD warns that its latest statistics run to the end of 2010 and “only tell the beginning of the story.” Even more dramatic levels of social inequality, the report writes, were only prevented by the social state provisions available in many countries, particularly in Europe.

In fact, these social state provisions—such as unemployment pay, health insurance, and pensions—have been under continual attack since 2010, as European governments imposed wave after wave of social cuts and austerity measures demanded by the banks. The report intimates that in fact the social inequality gulf has widened even more dramatically in the past three years since 2010.

Commenting on the massive rise in social inequality in Britain, where the elite has achieved an above-average increase in its share of national wealth during the past five years, OECD senior analyst Michael Förster warned: “The concern is that inequality will rise much more once the full impact of public spending cuts is felt.”

The OECD report confirms that the international economic crisis of 2007-8 is being deliberately exploited to achieve a fundamental restructuring of class and economic relations across the globe.

A tiny elite within the wealthiest 10 percent has been able to hugely multiple their portfolios in the past five years. Fuelled by gigantic infusions of paper money from the world’s leading central banks, major stock markets, including Wall Street and leading European markets, are hitting new record highs. The financial elite which brought the world to the brink of disaster in 2008 has even more funds at its disposal to pursue various, essentially criminal forms of speculation.

At the same time, a systematic campaign is being waged by governments all over the globe to wipe out all the social gains achieved by the working class in decades of struggle. A huge pool of impoverished workers is being created at the base of society in developed industrial countries, to slash wages for the rest of the working class and compete with low-cost economies in Asia and Eastern Europe.

The implementation of mass structural impoverishment was confirmed by the most recent jobs report for the US. The report showed that most new vacancies are in low-paid service industries which provide either minimal or no social and health insurance.

…

The result is staggering wealth on one side and destitution for broad layers of the rest of society. This is the “new normal” of modern capitalism.

Israel’s Poverty Rate The Highest In Developed World: here.

Related articles

• OECD Issues Dire Warning About Rich-Poor Divide (blackchristiannews.com)
• Israel has highest poverty rate in OECD (timesofisrael.com)
• Latest OECD figures on rising inequality (nybox.net)
• Poor hit hardest by financial crisis and welfare cuts will make it worse (independent.co.uk)
• Crisis increases income inequality in the OECD, especially in Spain (eurointelligence.com)
• Rich-Poor Gap Widens In Rich Countries, Finds OECD (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Young and poor hit hardest as UK cuts widen inequality, says OECD (guardian.co.uk)
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Irish Labour Party crisis for joining austerity coalition government

This video is called Angry about EU austerity: Irish protesters in Dublin demand an end to EU austerity plans.

The Green Party in Ireland used to support grass-roots pro-environment campaigns. They said that they would never join the corrupt Right wing Fianna Fáil party in a coalition government.

However, the Green Party broke their promises to the Irish voters, and did join that coalition. Which proceeded with anti-environment policies, continuation of torture flights at Shannon airport, and economic disaster.

Irish voters “thanked” the Green Party for this by wiping out its representation in parliament.

Now, something similar seems to happen with the Irish Labour Party. That party was originally founded in the early twentieth century by the fighter for workers’ rights and national hero James Connolly.

After the electoral wipe out of the Fianna Fáil-Green coalition government came a new coalition, of the Right wing Fine Gael, with Labour as junior partner, like the Greens had been junior partner of Fianna Fáil.

It seems now that Labour leaders who have ceased to be Labour are destined for the same sad fate as Green politicians who ceased to be Green.

By Jordan Shilton:

Irish Labour Party in deep crisis

11 May 2013

Support for the Labour Party in Ireland has fallen to an historic low, as the party continues to play a leading role in the implementation of austerity measures in coalition with the right-wing Fine Gael.

The collapse in support has led to several high-profile resignations over recent months and growing concerns that Labour could be wiped out at the next elections in 2015.

The crisis escalated following a by-election held in Meath at the end of March, in which Labour finished fifth with just 5 percent of the vote. A series of newspaper polls have given the party similarly low numbers nationally.

Several parliamentarians expressed various tactical disagreements with the present leadership. On April 5, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Nessa Childers announced her resignation from the parliamentary party, citing Labour’s role in government as having led to the sharp decline in its support. “I was one of the ones that knew what would happen to the party. I felt they should’ve stayed in opposition and formed an alliance on the left,” she told the Irish Times.

Childers is the seventh member to have left the parliamentary Labour Party since the coalition took office in February 2011.

Phil Prendergast, a fellow MEP, warned that Labour was in danger of “writing its own obituary.”

Local councilor Sian O’Callaghan commented that the party had been given a “sharp wake-up call…. If the Labour Party does not pursue a broad progressive social democratic agenda in Government its days are without doubt numbered.”

On April 20, at a charity event in Dublin, Labour’s social affairs minister, Joan Burton, noted in a speech that she felt the population had reached the “limit” of tolerance of austerity measures. She added that such policies could only be continued for so long without generating opposition.

… Since entering government with Fine Gael in 2011, after it had performed well in parliamentary elections with the promise to scale back on the previous government’s austerity measures, Labour has taken the lead in wielding the axe to public spending. The austerity measures initiated by the Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition were vastly expanded under Labour and Fine Gael.

Labour ministers have led the implementation of some of the most brutal attacks on working people in a number of areas. As minister of public expenditure and reform, Labour’s Brendan Howlin has made harsh cuts to social services and workers’ wages. Together with Finance Minister Michael Noonan (Fine Gael), he has presented two budgets containing €7 billion of spending cuts, and he will be closely involved with Noonan, Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny, and Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore in planning next year’s budget due in October.

… Howlin has insisted that failure to agree on a renewal of the Croke Park deal will result in an across-the-board pay cut of 7 percent, on top of estimated pay reductions of 14 percent in the public sector since 2008.

Minister of Justice Alan Shatter recently introduced a reform bill on property ownership that removes a loophole in Irish law making repossessions of homes difficult.

This music video from Ireland is called Lough Sheelin Eviction, by the Wolfe Tones.

The song tells about one of many similar tragedies in nineteenth-century Ireland.

The Wikipedia article about the lake Lough Sheelin writes about it:

Lough Sheelin (from Irish: Loch Síodh Linn meaning “lake of the fairy pool”) is a limestone freshwater lough (lake) in Ireland located in County Westmeath, County Meath and County Cavan near the villages of Finnea (also spelled Finea) and Mountnugent and the town of Granard, (County Longford).

The lake is naturally populated by brown trouts whose native stocks had depleted in recent years, hence the Central Fisheries Board stocking with farm reared the lake for the pleasure of anglers.^[1] Trout stocks are estimated to be over 100,000.

It is also the setting of the song “Lough Sheelin Eviction”, made popular by The Wolfe Tones. The lyrics tell the sad, but unfortunately, too typical story of a family being evicted from their home by an unforgiving & merciless landlord. Absentee landlords were common in Ireland and for many landlords the main interest was income rather than the conditions of their tenants. Many landlords realized that they could get a higher income by turning their properties to pasture than to continue with the old practice of collecting rents from tenant farmers. Evictions were the most common way of getting rid of unwanted tenants. In the song the woman, Eileen, dies in the cold and the man is forced to flee his native land in order to find a new home.

It seems that the International Monetary Fund of Ms Christine Lagarde now wants to bring back the horrors of nineteenth century Ireland to the twenty-first century.

The Jordan Shilton article continues:

The new law, which will give the banks expanded powers to seize the homes of thousands of families who have fallen behind with mortgage payments, was described by Shatter as “unpalatable but necessary.”

None of those raising concerns about Labour’s declining support have in any way repudiated the party’s role in imposing these policies. They have only meekly expressed doubts about the feasibility of continuing with harsh austerity policies when confronted with mounting public opposition that the unions are increasingly unable to control.

In response to these concerns, Gilmore warned against any attempt to slacken the pace of austerity, noting the deep crisis still facing Ireland. “What kind of conditions do people think would be attached (to a second bailout)? What kind of money do people think would be available? Do people want this period of austerity to continue for another 10 years, another 20?” he commented to the Irish Times.

In reality, Gilmore knows full well that the deals struck by the current government will ensure the continuation of austerity for decades to come. Dublin’s latest agreement with its lenders in the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund for the repayment of funds for just one of its bailed-out banks will see repayments stretch over the next 40 years. The extension of the timetable for the rest of the €85 billion bailout for an extra seven years will secure the full repayment of these funds with interest to the financial elite.

…

The collapse in support for Labour that has taken place is by no means a uniquely Irish phenomenon. Across Europe, support for nominally “left” social democratic parties has dropped as they have all implemented the dictates of the ruling elite without exception. In Greece, where the most brutal cuts to date have been imposed, support for PASOK has dropped to just 6 percent. In Portugal, Spain and Britain, backing for social democratic parties is declining.

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• It’s Childers play (europeanvoice.com)
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• A free vote on abortion Bill would be healthy precedent for democracy (irishtimes.com)
• British bedroom tax makes people homeless (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Resignation of Childers creates additional worry for Labour (irishtimes.com)

IMF demands more poverty in Greece

This video says about itself:

Greece austerity

May 3, 2012

In tonight’s special report from Greece, Inigo Gilmore gained rare and intimate access to one family in Athens which is close to breaking point.

By Robert Stevens:

IMF demands further austerity in Greece

10 May 2013

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a “Concluding Statement” May 3 demanding there be no relaxation of the austerity programme it has imposed on an already severely impoverished Greek population.

The statement follows the IMF’s recent inspection mission to Greece, alongside the European Union (EU) and European Central Bank (ECB).

The reaction of the bourgeois media in Greece and internationally to the report was to stress its call for the coalition government to do more to prevent tax evasion. Typical was the BBC’s headline, “IMF hails economic ‘progress’ but warns on tax evasion.”

The reality is that the call by the IMF to collect more tax from the rich is almost a footnote in the report. After stating a truism that applies to every capitalist country without exception—that “Very little progress has been made in tackling Greece’s notorious tax evasion. The rich and self-employed are simply not paying their fair share”—the overarching tone of the report is its insistence that austerity must be imposed at all costs and even further cuts imposed.

The IMF’s report follows the agreement made between the “troika” and the coalition government of New Democracy, PASOK and the Democratic Left last month. In exchange for Greece receiving a further €2.8 billion loan to prevent it from defaulting on its overall debt of more than €300 billion, the troika and government agreed on 15,500 public sector job losses (towards a total of 150,000), further cuts in the minimum wage and the extension of the hated Property Tax.

The purpose of the IMF’s “Concluding Statement” was to rubber-stamp this devastating round of savagery against the Greek population and to put the government on notice that far more is required.

It states, “Greece is making progress in overcoming deep-seated problems in the midst of a very serious and socially painful recession,” adding, “Progress on fiscal adjustment has been exceptional by any international comparison, with the primary balance set to have cumulatively improved by 10 percent of GDP by end-2013, amid a contraction in GDP of more than 20 percent.”

The IMF lauds the attacks on the conditions of the working class that have enabled this “progress”. It notes, “Far-reaching labour market reforms have helped to realign nominal wages and productivity at the enterprise level. We estimate that the competitiveness gap as measured by Unit Labour Costs (ULC) has been reduced by close to two-thirds since 2010.”

The report notes that “the rebalancing of the economy has been associated with a surge in unemployment in the private sector, not least among the young,” adding that “the over-staffed public sector has been spared, because of a taboo against dismissals.”

This is said even after the IMF and the Greek government have overturned the constitutional rights of public sector workers to remain employed, which have been in place since 1911.

The report then warns, “With no more room for tax increases or major cuts in discretionary spending, the government has been forced to focus on socially difficult cuts to wages and social transfers.”

In the section under “Public administration reform,” the report states the government’s “plan is to primarily achieve medium-term targets for reduction in staffing levels through voluntary attrition” before warning, “However, it is not credible without some limited mandatory redundancies.” It instructs: “The taboo against mandatory dismissals must be overcome.”

While demanding even greater attacks on the working class, including further mass redundancies, the IMF expresses satisfaction with the ongoing bailout of the Greek banks. It states: “The programme’s bank recapitalisation framework is set to deliver a fully recapitalised system by mid-2013, and banks should be in a position to support a gradual recovery in credit as deposits and wholesale market access returns.”

The report criticises the government for not having carried out enough privatisations. Asserting that “A strong recovery will need to be built primarily on deepening structural reforms”, it states, “Moreover, too many assets remain in state hands.”

The government’s public commitment to improving the business environment and accelerating privatisation now needs to be matched with results, it states: “Achieving a critical mass of change will be possible only with a broad, forceful, and sustained political commitment.”

The IMF report concludes that there can be no turning back on the policies that have led to the mass impoverishment of millions of people:

“The lessons of the recent past are that only with full and timely policy implementation and commitment to the programme can the fundamentals for a recovery be put fully in place and the fear of adverse outcomes permanently put to rest.”

“Adopting the necessary policies for the next leg of the adjustment effort, which may well mark a turning point for Greece, must take priority,” it demands.

In the space of six years of continual recession and a four-year austerity onslaught, what can only be described as policy of sociocide has been carried out in Greece.

A report released last month by the United Nations expert on foreign debt and human rights, Cephas Lumina, attests to the scale of this social nightmare. Lumina spent four days in Greece from April 22 as part of a UN fact-finding team. Speaking to reporters in Athens on April 26, he said, “The available evidence indicates that these excessively rigid measures have resulted in a contraction of the economy and significant social costs for the population, including high unemployment, homelessness, poverty and inequality.”

“[Human] rights…are under threat or being undermined by harsh pro-cyclical policies—austerity labour reforms, liberalisation and privatisations—that the government has been constrained to implement since May 2010,” he added.

Today over 4.5 million Greeks are unemployed or “economically inactive”. Many of these are long-term (over one year) without work who have lost both unemployment benefit and health insurance. Lumina noted, “Due to the increase of long-term unemployment, only about 160,000 persons receive benefits.”

“Adjusted for inflation and using 2009 as the fixed poverty threshold, more than one out of three Greeks (38 percent) had already fallen below the poverty line in 2012,” he explained. “Instead of strengthening the social welfare net and making it comprehensive, priority appears to have been accorded to fiscal consolidation at the expense of the people.”

Lumina’s observations on the results of the “shock therapy” levelled against the Greek population at the behest of the global super-rich are backed up by recent comments by the economist Dionysis Balourdis. He told Agence France-Presse that the policies had produced “unheard-of fragmentation.”

Balourdis commented, “The middle class has shrunk and is getting close to the poverty line, while the poor are getting poorer, which makes the inequality worse.”

The vast majority of the population have no faith that the policies will lead to recovery. A survey in the To Vima weekly found that just 26.6 percent of Greeks expect to see a recovery in 2020 or earlier, 31.2 percent believe it will come after 2020, while 34 percent do not think it will happen at all.

The poll also found that 43.7 percent of Greeks are not hopeful and are not making plans for the future.

Greece: Members of the union of the secondary schools are meeting this afternoon in order to decide a general strike on the sector. They plan to move on strike action during the university entrance school final exams in June, after the negotiations broke down with the minister of education Constantinos Arvanitolpoulos few days ago. Teachers are seeking the revocation of a draft presidential decree that foresees a two-hour increase to their weekly working hours. They also oppose government plans to scale back auxiliary staff hirings next year: here.

Secondary school teachers’ federation Olme has decided to go ahead with a strike during the school-leaving exams later in the month, but the government is planning to issue a civil mobilisation order to force them back to work: here. See also here.

Related articles

• IMF Lagarde heckled in Amsterdam (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Greece not tough enough on rich tax evaders, IMF says (guardian.co.uk)
• UN Says Greek Austerity Hits Human Rights (greece.greekreporter.com)
• IMF praises Greek austerity (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• IMF Lauds Greece, But Cites Tax Cheats (greece.greekreporter.com)

Greek youth unemployment now over 60%

This video says about itself:

Feb 4, 2013

Almost 6 million citizens are jobless as unemployment in Spain rises 2.7%.

Thousands of students and teachers walked out on strike across Spain today over government austerity measures and education reforms: here.

The Greek New Democracy-led coalition government signed a civil mobilisation order Saturday in order to outlaw a teachers strike, scheduled to begin on May 17: here.

Some teachers wore uniforms of the military junta which had ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. “They are once again ordering us to wear uniforms,” one woman wrote on a placard. Another placard read: “Today me, tomorrow all of you”. The teachers were drawing parallels to the dictatorship of the colonels that suppressed all labour disputes by force of arms and mobilized young people en masse: here.

From Reuters news agency:

Greek Youth Unemployment Rises Above 60 Percent

05/09/2013 10:32 am EDT

ATHENS – Greek youth unemployment rose above 60 percent for the first time in February, reflecting the pain caused by the country’s crippling recession after years of austerity under its international bailout.

Greece‘s jobless rate has almost tripled since the country’s debt crisis emerged in 2009 and was more than twice the euro zone’s average unemployment reading of 12.1 percent in March.

While the overall unemployment rate rose to 27 percent, according to statistics service data released on Thursday, joblessness among those aged between 15 and 24 jumped to 64.2 percent in February from 59.3 percent in January. Youth unemployment was 54.1 percent in March 2012.

“It is by far the highest youth unemployment rate in the euro zone, highlighting the difficulties young people face in entering the labor market despite government incentives to create jobs,” said economist Nikos Magginas at National Bank.

Athens has lowered the minimum monthly wage for those under 25 years by 32 percent to about 500 euros to entice hiring.

So, obviously that neo-conservative economic nostrum does not work. Errr … maybe it does … the wrong way

Greece’s economy is in its sixth year of recession, battered by tax hikes and spending cuts demanded by its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders. The economy is expected to slump by 4.2 to 4.5 percent this year.

The high jobless rate is keeping Greeks pessimistic about their economic prospects.

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• Greek unemployment crosses 27 percent overall but a staggering 64 percent for youths ! Despite at least three bailouts and receiving various tranches of welfare , what good news are Greek citizens receiving ? (fredw-catharsisours.blogspot.com)
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• Greek Unemployment Hits New Record High, Youth Jobless Rises By 5% In One Month To 64.2% (zerohedge.com)
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IMF Lagarde heckled in Amsterdam

Not all people like Christine Lagarde, the boss of the International Monetary Fund after her predecessor resigned in a sex scandal.

French police are investigating her role in a corruption affair.

In Belgium, there was protest against awarding a honorary doctorate to Ms Lagarde.

And this morning, at the university of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, demonstrators heckled at a lecture by Lagarde. They were members of ReINFORM, an organisation of Greeks in the Netherlands.

ReINFORM opposes the harsh austerity measures by the IMF, causing misery in Greece and elsewhere.

According to Dutch NOS TV, “security” arrested about seven people for heckling Ms Lagarde’s speech.

According to NRC Handelsblad daily, the demonstrators were students from Greece and Spain.

See also here.

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Greek May Day against austerity

This video is about a May Day demonstration in Greece in 2012.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Unions call for mass May Day action

Monday 29 April 2013

by Our Foreign Desk

Greece’s two largest unions called today for mass participation in a 24-hour general strike and demonstration on May 1.

The GSEE and Adedy unions issued a joint statement today saying that the strike would focus on demands to end austerity.

The call came after Parliament approved an emergency Bill on Sunday to pave the way for thousands of public-sector layoffs and claim an €8.8 billion (£7.4bn) payoff from its cuts-crazed international lenders.

The Bill, which only scraped through parliament in a 168-123 vote, allows for the first mass Civil Service sackings in more than a century.

About 2,000 civil servants will be laid off by the end of May, with another 2,000 following them by the end of the year and a further 11,500 by the end of 2014, making a total of 15,500.

The legislation is the latest brutal blow in the draconian austerity programme forced on Greece by its international creditors.

The government agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund this month to implement the measures as a condition of receiving the latest tranche of emergency loans.

The permanence of Civil Service jobs had been enshrined in all Greek constitutions since 1911.

It was designed to ensure the neutrality of the service and provide a form of protection from wholesale sacking when the government changed hands.

To get around the constitutional protection, the Bill stipulated that the first layoffs would take place in state agencies that will be disbanded or merged.

Another provision aims to bypass the disciplinary councils, which have previously refused to lay off people subject to disciplinary action.

More than 2,000 such cases are pending.

Civil servants’ union Adedy bitterly opposed the Bill’s provisions and held a protest outside parliament.

Authorities took strict security measures, barricading a Parliament entrance on Sunday morning, diverting traffic and shutting down an underground station two hours before the announced start of the protest.

To shorten debate, the government bundled 110 pages of legislation into a single article.

Debate in committee lasted just a single day as did debate in the full parliament, despite opposition protests and claims of a “parliamentary coup.”

Photos from 1st of May 2013 demo in Athens: here.

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New film on immigrants and austerity in Greece

This video says about itself:

Apr 20, 2013

Into the Fire is being crowd-released today: All over the internet people are embedding Into the Fire on their website or blog. With everyone who participates the audience and distribution network will grow. Are you participating? http://intothefire.org

A hard hitting documentary which shows the plight of refugees and migrants in recession hit Athens, Into The Fire is a film with a difference.

Shot and edited with sensitivity and compassion, it doesn’t pull its punches and makes for harrowing viewing in parts. It is the product of crowd funding, dedication, self-sacrifice and a burning sense of justice.

On 21 April, Into the Fire is simultaneously released on websites, blogs and other platforms around the internet. The film will be available in various languages, including Albanian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish. There are a number of public screenings planned in several countries in Europe and Northern America. To participate in the release or organise a screening see http://intothefire.org/publish.

This strategy is being used to maximise the audience, in the hope that the audience will become active participants, commentators and amplifiers when it comes to opposing the conditions visited on the victims in the story.

The premiere of Into the Fire on 29th April, 6:30pm will be hosted by the School of Oriental and African Studies [in London, England]. The filmmakers will be joined for discussion by Habib Rahman of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.

In times of severe austerity things look bleak for Greek people, but they’re far worse for those who have recently arrived. Without housing, legal papers or support, migrants in Greece are faced with increasing and often violent racism at the hands of the growing Nazi party Golden Dawn and the police in Athens. Many are trapped by EU laws and legislation of other EU countries meaning they’d be returned to Greece if they managed to get to another member state, they are desperate to leave the country.

This film gives incredible insights to the reality faced by people who simply want to lead peaceful, normal lives.

Having been to Athens to shoot footage about austerity in April last year, Reel News video activists started talking and working with a young Somalian refugee, they made many contacts in the migrant world and those contacts gave them access to a huge number of untold and shocking stories.

Funded by small donations from friends and organisations, the film makers are once more turning to their supporters and allies in the UK to distribute the film online and through screenings to grassroots groups across the country. No one has been paid to work on this film.

Update: All 3 foremen involved in the Manolada shooting arrested: here.

Manolada attack victims had received threats: here.

Nowhere else in Europe are neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists profiting as greatly from the financial crisis as in Athens. As they terrorize the country with violence, the police stand back and prosecutors are powerless: here.

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Irish anti-austerity victory

This video says about itself:

Irish People protest (at last!)

Apr 16, 2012

On the 15th of April over 5,000 people demonstrated at the Labour Party Conference (junior partners in Government) in Galway, Ireland. There is growing discontent with increasing austerity, and the people are finally taking their anger to the streets. We have taken a lot, but enough is enough. Marie-Louise Kenny, freelance journalist, joined the protest in company with her friend Hilary Dully, who filmed the protest. Go on ye good things, bring forward the Celtic Spring!

From the daily News Line in Britain:

Thursday, 18 April 2013

Ireland heading for a general strike

THE Croke Park II proposals to cut the public sector pay bill, as part of an additional one billion euros of state cuts, have been rejected by Irish workers.

Two of the country’s biggest trade unions, SIPTU and the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, have just voted against the deal, joining Unite and four other trade unions, meaning that the deal is dead.

The proposals in the deal included pay cuts, increment freezes and longer working weeks for no extra pay.

The rejection is a huge blow against the Fine Gael-Labour coalition Government, which has been forcing the Irish working class to pay for the crash of the Irish banks, and for the 64 billion euro EU-Troika bail out. It is an even bigger blow against the right wing of the Irish TUC which was willing to take joint responsibility with the government for imposing the massive cuts!

Under this austerity regime, the working class and the poor have suffered while the bankers have prospered. Up to 100,000 youth have been forced to emigrate,

This music video from Ireland is called Lough Sheelin Eviction, by the Wolfe Tones.

The song is about one of many similar tragedies in nineteenth-century Ireland. The lyrics tell the sad, but unfortunately, too typical story of a family being evicted from their home by a merciless landlord. In the song the woman, Eileen, dies in the cold and the man is forced to flee his native land in order to find a new home.

and housing and water taxes are being imposed, seeing evictions taking place on a scale not seen since the famine, under British rule in the the mid 19th century.

The crisis was caused by property speculation by the Irish banks on a vast scale. When the crash came, the banks lost 100bn euros. The government immediately stepped in to guarantee their losses, and that the Irish workers and small farmers would make them good. They were to be slaves of the banks.

SIPTU President, and former President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), Jack O’Connor, who had said that the Croke Park II deal was the best that could be got, has suffered a major defeat as has the right wing of the Irish trade unions who were willing to assist the government bringing in the Croke Park II cuts.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny earlier told the Dáil that the options were now limited and the Government would have to carefully consider what to do next.

Labour Party Minister for Public Expenditure in the coalition Brendan Howlin has said that savings of 300m euros must be made.

He said he would be explaining the position to Troika officials by phone and that there would be consequences.

IMPACT and the PSEU voted in favour, but once SIPTU rejected the package by a margin of 53.7% to 46/3%, the deal was dead in the water.

On the No side, the margin of rejection soared to 95.5% in the Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation.

Yesterday, O’Connor said: ‘The result reflects the deep and well justified sense of grievance among working people throughout the country and public service workers in particular. They feel that they are shouldering the lion’s share of the post-crisis adjustment while the wealthy are not contributing anything remotely approaching their capacity to do so.’

‘We urge the Government not to proceed with legislation to cut the pay of public service workers as it would inevitably precipitate a major confrontation,’ he said.

However, this confrontation is well underway, with even the Garda rejecting the austerity measures, and prone to catching ‘Blue flu’ when necessary.

See also here.

US Conservative Scholar: No More Austerity: here.

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• Angry teachers target officials as cuts bite (morningstaronline.co.uk)
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Spanish bankers defraud customers

This video says about itself:

July 23, 2012

Spain is launching a fraud investigation into the collapse of one of its largest banks. A Spanish court will begin an investigation into the role of senior executives in the spectacular collapse of the Spanish bank Bankia In May, as the euro crisis was escalating, Spain nationalised Bankia. In many ways, the bank’s story mirrors the disastrous plight of the country’s whole financial sector. Al Jazeera’s Simon McGregor Wood reports.

By Alejandro López:

Hundreds of thousands of defrauded small savers face loss of life savings in Spain

12 April 2013

Approximately 710,000 Spanish bank customers and their families have been inappropriately sold preference shares in their banks, according to financial consumer association ADICAE (Association of Bank and Savings Bank Users). Most are ordinary savers who were persuaded to convert their life savings into this much riskier form of investment, which they were told was just as safe. This was a lie.

Preference shares are high-risk financial products, potentially generating high returns if the bank in question makes a healthy profit. These are usually sold to professional speculators who know the risk involved. Unlike normal depositors, the government does not insure holders of preference shares against losses.

The advantage to the banks is that it makes their capital balance look stronger, because customers have their savings locked up and at the same time they have no voting rights to which shareholders are usually entitled.

Between 1999 and 2004, some €18.3 billion (US$24 billion) worth of preferential shares were sold in Spain, to around 50,000 people, mainly pensioners. But with the onset of the global financial meltdown in 2008, banks embroiled in the toxic property loans market began selling a lot more of these shares as the property boom collapsed.

Around €31 billion worth of preferential shares were sold by Spain’s major banks and savings banks (cajas de ahorro). Banking staff were instructed to pressure customers, who for the most part had no idea what these financial products were, to buy these shares. In many cases, clients were deliberately conned.

According to a report by the Consumers and Users Organization (OCU), 80 percent of those affected are older than 65. The banks deliberately targeted this age group because they were considered to “trust” banks more. They were then “recommended” the product as a good new investment due to its “high profitability” without being told that returns were not guaranteed, or that the state Deposit Guarantee Fund would not cover losses.

There are thousands of stories of the callousness with which banks imposed themselves on these small investors, including one pensioner suffering Alzheimer’s disease and at least one illiterate person who signed by dipping a finger in ink.

Maria Carmen, who attended a meeting of victims of the preferential shares fraud, explained, “I speak on behalf of my mother who has 11,965 shares placed with her by force or at least through ignorance… She spoke to someone who she trusted and this person played on that, tricked her and sold her these preferred shares when my mother thought she was taking out a deposit.”

Another saver told Tengrinews, “My bank told me it was a safe investment with a very good return of 7 percent and that I could get my money back in 2014… I didn’t even know I had preferential shares. They called them financial assets”.

His daughter, who is unemployed, added: “My parents are not from an educated background… My mother wanted a low-risk investment. They told them, ‘You will get your money back in 2014’. But it was a verbal agreement.” When problems with their bank came to light they were never told. The family only found out when the bank would not let them access their savings.

Nemecio Martin, a 70-year-old pensioner, told AFP that he invested €42,000 in preference shares, which he had planned to use to pay for his stay in a retirement home. “If I can’t pay, where will I go?” he asked. “Will I wait under a bridge to die?”

Last year, the European Union propped up Spanish banks with €42 billion in rescue loans. One of the conditions imposed was that bank customers who bought preferred shares would have to take losses.

As a result, on March 22 the Popular Party government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy passed a decree imposing “haircuts” of up to 61 percent on preference shares and other debt in four nationalised banks: Bankia (36 percent) Banco Gallego (50 percent) and Catalunya Banc (61 percent). The haircut on NCG Banco is not yet unknown, but estimates are around 43 percent.

Other banks also have large quantities of preference shares. Banca Civica, bought by La Caixa last year, has €9 billion worth (compared to Bankia’s €3.9 billion). The situation is particularly bad for customers of Banco CAM, an Alicante-based savings bank, which was bailed out in 2011 and re-privatised for one euro to Spain’s Banco Sabadell. It was then suddenly discovered that 70,000 customers had been sold a package that included CAM preference shares. Banco Sabadell has now offered to exchange the CAM savings for ordinary shares in the bank, but at a conversion rate that means savers are looking at an immediate loss of almost 40 percent.

The decree also poured salt into the wounds of the defrauded small savers, by making the banks contribute just €2 billion of the €30 billion total to the Deposit Guarantee Fund. Banks must make 40 percent of their contribution to the fund no later than 20 days from the end of this year.

The second largest bank in Spain, BBVA, has already said it will not comply.

Pensioners and other victims of the preference shares fraud, angry at losing their life savings, have been protesting almost daily. In Galicia hundreds of protesters have been invading town hall meetings across the region in Vigo, Mos, Redondela, Nigrán, Oia, As Neves and O Porriño, blaming both the ruling Popular Party government and the opposition Socialist Workers Party’s inaction. Three weeks ago police in the Galician town of Ponteareas had to help the Popular Party mayor and councillors escape from the town hall via a back window after demonstrators blocked access to the building.

The brutal way in which the Spanish government is treating small savers again demonstrates that the ruling elite is determined to make working people and the middle classes pay for a crisis that is not of their making.

In Spain and other countries, including most recently Cyprus, the bank bailouts have been tied to structural reforms that include a hike in the retirement age, the slashing of public sector jobs and services and extensive privatisations.

In Cyprus, due to angry protests in the streets, parliament voted down a proposal to levy a charge against those bank depositors with less than €100,000. Instead the required money to bail out the banks and finance institutions is to be seized through a gamut of mass austerity measures, imposed by the troika with no democratic mandate.

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Irish anti-G8 demonstrations

This video from the USA says about itself:

Camp David 2012 G8 Protesters. Ethiopian Americans from around the United States protesting today (Saturday May 19, 2012) in Thurmont, Maryland for human rights. Thurmont is located in Frederick County, Maryland and is the closest community to Camp David where the 2012 G8 Summit is being held. Critics say Meles Zenawi‘s government represses civil rights and news media. The United States is a major contributor of aid to Ethiopia.

From BreakingNews.ie in Ireland:

Protestors plan ‘alternative’ G8 in Ireland

05/04/2013 – 14:51:05

An “alternative” G8 summit is to be organised by protesters in Ireland against global austerity measures.

Trade unionists, anti-war activists, charities, anti-fracking organisations, environmentalists and pro-Palestinian lobbyists will be involved in demonstrations to be held near this summer’s conference in the North as well as in Belfast, Dublin and London, one of the organisers said.

Police in the North are mounting a massive security operation in anticipation of trouble including creating extra cells capable of holding 350 people and imposing a ring of steel around the luxury Lough Erne golf resort in Co Fermanagh where June’s meeting of world leaders is being held.

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among those expected to attend a gathering of leaders representing some of the world’s leading economies hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

People Before Profit campaigner Eamonn McCann said: “Here we have these eight people who are all in one way or another representing big power politics, they are all in one way or another involved in imposing austerity.

“They represent the 1% against the 99%.”

The PSNI is expanding custody provision at stations across the North for the summit.

Courts and prisons staff will also step up workloads in the anticipation of extra arrests. An unused 108-capacity unit at Maghaberry high security prison in Co Antrim and a former army site in Co Tyrone could house those charged.

Mr McCann accused the media of focusing on a violent minority and said past G8 demonstrators had been angered by the sight of US security forces on the streets.

“I would hope that the protests would be peaceful but you cannot rule out provocation in some form,” he said.

“The main focus of the violence in 2005 (Gleneagles) was the tactics by foreign security services. In Scotland groups of people were being confronted by American security agents who had taken over control.”

He said it was remarkable that the PSNI had been granted late-night sittings of courts to charge suspected offenders and demanded magistrates be made available on a Sunday without any opposition from local politicians.

“Where is the democratic accountability of law and order in all this?” he asked.

“Whether or not you agree that these things should be happening, they should not be happening without public debate.”

He said that besides the alternative summit several musical events were being organised to coincide with the G8 meeting.

He said plans for Co Fermanagh had not been coordinated yet but were in the process of formation by trade union organisations.

Expected participants in protests include the War on Want and Trocaire aid charities, groups concerned about fracking for gas (Fermanagh is a potential site for the mining), organisations supporting Palestinian causes and Friends of the Earth.

Issues to be highlighted include environmental protection, carbon emissions, public spending cuts and nuclear disarmament in the UK, France and Russia.

Mr McCann claimed G8 leaders did not have electoral endorsement for some of their policies.

“There is no mandate there for nuclear weapons, no mandate for the austerity measures across Europe, every public opinion poll shows that the vast majority of people are against them,” he said.

“Greece objected to them (austerity measures), Italy objected to them, the democratically elected government there was cast aside and a technocrat was installed.”

He said elected governments’ programmes were just set aside when the IMF and major financial institutions became involved in bailouts.

He added: “I believe we need Europe-wide coordinated resistance to what is happening. There is a spirit of revolt in France, a spirit of revolt in Greece and a spirit of revolt in Italy and there is a spirit of revolt on this island against what is happening. It needs to find a focus, we must all rise up together.”

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