Greeks Strike Against Austerity as World Observes Labor Day
Murad Sezer/Reuters
Riot police officers walked through tear gas on Wednesday in Istanbul, where people gathered for a rally despite an official ban. More Photos » [ some of inserted ]
By NIKI KITSANTONIS and ALAN COWELL Published: May 1, 2013
ATHENS — As workers around the world observed the international Labor Day holiday with demonstrations and rallies, thousands of Greeks walked off their jobs on Wednesday in the second general strike against government austerity measures this year, shutting down tax offices, leaving state hospitals to operate with emergency employees and disrupting public transportation.
Multimedia: [ one of ]
Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Migrant workers from Nepal took part in a rally on Wednesday in Hong Kong.
But, initial reports said, most protests went off quietly, including those in Athens.
On the streets of Paris, the far-right National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, held its annual May 1 march through the city center, seeking to draw support from disaffected voters at a time when French growth has faltered, unemployment is at record levels and the Socialist government is caught between demands from the right for greater cuts in public spending and complaints from the left that it is not socialist enough.
Ms. Le Pen’s supporters waved French red, white and blue flags outside the Palais Garnier opera house in central Paris. She said the country was “sinking in an absurd policy of endless austerity.”
Inveighing against the influence of big business, the European Union in general and Germany in particular, she ascribed French woes to “always saying yes to Brussels; to Berlin, of course; and in all circumstances to the magnates of high finance.” The crowd seemed smaller than it was a year ago, when the country was seized with election fever. Since then, however, many Europeans have sensed a deepening malaise with no prospect of a rapid return to a sense of well-being.
“And here I think of the difficulties that, in various countries, today afflict the world of work and businesses,” he told tens of thousands of people gathered for his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
“I think of how many, and not just young people, are unemployed, many times due to a purely economic conception of society, which seeks selfish profit, beyond the parameters of social justice,” the pope said. “I wish to extend an invitation to solidarity to everyone, and I would like to encourage those in public office to make every effort to give new impetus to employment.”
With public anger giving way to resignation after a seemingly inexorable cycle of belt tightening in exchange for foreign rescue loans, the unions called for mass participation in the strike to protest “a catastrophic austerity drive” that has driven unemployment above 27 percent — the highest rate in the European Union — and to slightly less than 60 percent among those younger than 25.
The unions’ appeal failed to draw a large crowd, however, with about 10,000 Greeks taking to the streets of the capital, according to police estimates, for a demonstration that was both peaceful and one of the smallest in recent months. “There were no problems,” a police spokesman said as roads reopened to traffic and municipal garbage trucks swept discarded protest leaflets and coffee cups.
Although the strike brought much of Greek daily life to a halt on Wednesday, public transit services were running on a limited basis to allow Greeks to join rallies. In Athens, as in other major cities, police units were out in force to guard against violence that has marred demonstrations near the Parliament building in the past.
Ferries remained in ports and trains in depots, but flights operated normally because air traffic controllers did not join the strike.
The strike came just a few days after officials in the euro zone approved the release of 2.8 billion euros, or $3.7 billion, in rescue financing for Greece after Parliament ratified a new raft of economic reforms, including a politically contentious decision to lay off 15,000 civil servants by the end of next year.
The financing had been due in March but was delayed after talks between the government and officials of Greece’s troika of foreign lenders — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — broke down over the troika’s demands for the civil service cuts.
The country’s governing coalition, which has come under strain as it pushes its painful austerity agenda, must now enforce agreed-upon measures, laying off 2,000 civil servants by the end of June and pushing forward a stalled project to privatize state assets. It faces strong opposition by its main political rival, the leftist party Syriza, which wants Greece to renege on its loan agreement with the troika and is neck and neck in opinion polls with the conservative New Democracy, the head of the shaky three-party coalition.
The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have extended to Greece two foreign bailouts worth $317 billion over the past three years, meting out the aid in installments in exchange for austerity measures and overhauls.
Niki Kitsantonis reported from Athens, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Rome.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 1, 2013
An earlier version of this article overstated the effect of the worker strike in Greece. Schools were already closed for the Greek Orthodox Easter break; they did not close because of the strike.
A version of this article appeared in print on May 2, 2013, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Greeks Strike Against Austerity as World Observes Labor Day.
Global Super-Rich Stashing Up To $32 Trillion Offshore, Masking True Scale Of Inequality: Study
President of the football club AS Monaco, Dmitry Rybolovlev of Russia, attends the French League two soccer match Monaco vs Bastia, Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 in Monaco stadium. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
By Jillian Berman Posted: 04/29/2013 2:17 pm EDT
The global super-rich are stashing trillions of dollars offshore with the help of some of the world's biggest banks, putting billions of dollars out of the taxman’s reach and masking wealth inequality's true heights.
“There’s a lot more missing wealth in the world than we had known about from previous estimates,” Henry told The Huffington Post. “The real scandal is not all these individual scandals but the fact that world’s policy makers who know about this stuff, have basically done nothing.”
The study's findings also reveal that the true levels of global income inequality remain unknown, as current estimates do not incorporate the offshore stashes and hence underestimate its true levels. the study found.
The G20 only recently made a push [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/20/george-osborne-g20-fight-tax-evasion ] for its member countries to automatically exchange financial information about possible tax evaders. Under such an agreement, the U.S. would alert Mexican officials if it suspected a wealthy Mexican resident of stashing cash in an American bank account.
According to Henry, it’s not increasing tax rates that are driving the wealthy to move their cash offshore; it’s simply the growth in the offshore money industry.
“This offshore wealth industry has been exploding even in a period in which we have been cutting taxes,” he said. “It’s been growing at something like 15 to 16 percent a year in nominal terms.”
Many of the nations around the world being subjected to austerity in the face of major debt problems could use some of the tax revenue from all that money stashed offshore to address their woes. Overall, the world’s tax authorities are losing $200 to $300 billion in taxes because of offshore wealth issues, the study found.
Safeguard Properties Internal Documents Reveal Rampant Complaints Of Thefts, Break-Ins Kara Lingenfelter claims that a contractor working for Safeguard Properties broke into her North Haven, Conn., home in March and removed pellet guns, jewelry and her son's coin bank. Someone even took his Boy Scout badges and medals, she said. 04/29/2013 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/safeguard-properties-complaints_n_3165191.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
The Fed's policy of keeping interest rates near zero is another form of trickle-down economics.
For evidence, look no further than Apple's decision to borrow a whopping $17 billion and turn it over to its investors in the form of dividends and stock buy-backs.
Apple is already sitting on $145 billion. But with interest rates so low, it's cheaper to borrow. This also lets Apple avoid U.S. taxes on its cash horde socked away overseas where taxes are lower.
Other big companies are doing much the same on a smaller scale.
Who gains from all this? The richest 10 percent of Americans who own 90 percent of all shares of stock.
But little or nothing is trickling down. The average American can't borrow at nearly the low rates Apple or any other big company can. Most Americans no longer have a credit rating that allows them to borrow much of anything.
It would be one thing if Apple and other giant companies were borrowing in order to expand operations and create new jobs. But that's not what's going on. Apple, remember, is still sitting on $145 billion.
The reason big companies aren't creating more jobs is consumers aren't buying enough to justify the expansion. And government is cutting back on spending.
Big corporations are borrowing simply in order to push stock prices up and reward their investors.
It's a sump pump with the Fed on one end buying up bonds to keep interest rates low, and shareholders on the other end raking in the returns.
Get it? Easy money from the Fed can't get the economy out of first gear when the rest of government is in reverse.
Trickle-down economics is the first cousin of austerity economics. Austerity is nuts when so many millions are out of work. And as we've learned before, trickle-down is a fraud. Nothing ever trickles down.
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