Posts Tagged ‘European Union’

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Athens, Economy of Greece, European Union, Greece, Greek, Hellenic Statistical Authority, International Monetary Fund, Politics of Greece, United States

This Is What An Economic Depression Looks Like In The 21st Century

In Activism, Big Business, Economics, Human Rights, Police State, Society, World News on February 11, 2012 at 10:22 pm

Do you want to see what a 21st century economic depression looks like? Just look at Greece. Once upon a time, the Greek economy was thriving, the Greek government was borrowing money like there was no tomorrow and Greek citizens were thoroughly enjoying the bubble of false prosperity that all that debt created.

Those that warned that Greece was headed for a financial collapse were laughed at and were called “doom and gloomers”. Well, nobody is laughing now. You see, the truth is that debt is a very cruel master. Greeks were able to live way beyond their means for many, many years but eventually a day of reckoning arrived.

At this point, the Greek economy has been in a recession for five years in a row, and the economic crisis in that country is rapidly getting even worse. It was just recently announced that the overall rate of unemployment in Greece has soared above 20 percent and the youth unemployment rate has risen to an astounding 48 percent. One out of every five retail stores has been shut down and parents are literally abandoning children in the streets. The frightening thing is that this is just the beginning. Things are going to get a lot worse in Greece. And in case you haven’t been paying attention, these kinds of conditions are coming to the United States as well. We are heading down the exact same road as Greece went down, and the economic pain that this country is eventually going to suffer is going to be beyond anything that most Americans would dare to imagine.

All debt spirals eventually come to an end. For years, Greece borrowed huge amounts of very cheap money, but there came a point when the debt became absolutely strangling and the rest of the world refused to lend the Greek government money at such cheap rates anymore.

Greece would have defaulted long before now if the EU and the IMF had not stepped in to bail them out. But along with those bailouts came strings. The EU and the IMF insisted that the Greek government cut spending and raise taxes.

Well, those spending cuts and tax increases caused the economy to slow down. Tax revenues decreased and deficit reduction targets were missed. So the EU and the IMF insisted on even more spending cuts and tax increases.

Even after all of the spending cuts and all of the tax increases that we have seen, the debt to GDP ratio in Greece is still higher than it was before the crisis began. Today, the Greek national debt is sitting at 142 percent of GDP.

Now the EU and the IMF are demanding even more austerity measures before they will release any more bailout money.

Needless to say, the Greek people are pretty much exasperated by all of this. They created this mess by going into so much debt, but they certainly don’t like the solutions that are being imposed upon them.

Protesters in Greece are absolutely outraged that the EU and the IMF are now demanding a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage.

Most families in Greece are just barely surviving at this point. Unfortunately, Greece is probably looking at depression conditions for many years to come.

Over the past three years, the size of the Greek economy has shrunk by 16 percent.

In 2012, it is being projected that the Greek economy will shrink by another 5 percent.

Sadly, that projection is probably way too optimistic.

Over the past couple of months, it has been like someone has pulled the rug out from under the Greek economy. Just check out the following numbers from an article in the Telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard…

Another normal day at the Hellenic Statistical Authority.

We learn that:

Greece’s manufacturing output contracted by 15.5pc in December from a year earlier.

Industrial output fell 11.3pc, compared to minus 7.8pc in November.

Unemployment jumped to 20.9pc in November, up from 18.2pc a month earlier.

I have little further to add. This is what a death spiral looks like.

Can you imagine unemployment going up by 2.7 percent in one month?

This is what a 21st century economic depression looks like.

And needless to say, civil unrest is rampant in Greece.

The following is how a USA Today article described some of the protests that we saw in Greece this week….

Scores of youths, in hoods and gas masks, used sledge hammers to smash up marble paving stones in Athens’ main Syntagma Square before hurling the rubble at riot police.

The country’s two biggest labor unions stopped railway, ferry and public transport schedules, and hospitals worked on skeleton staff while most public services were disrupted. Unions were planning protests in Athens and other cities around midday.

Greek citizens are exasperated by the endless rounds of austerity that are being imposed upon them. They wonder how far all of this is going to go.

How much higher can taxes go in Greece? Greece already has tax rates that are among the highest in Europe….

Greece has the third highest rate of VAT in Europe, second highest gas/petrol tax, third highest tax on social insurance contributions, fifth highest VAT on alcohol, highest property tax and one of the worst corporate tax rates, without the quality of living or competitiveness to match.

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Africa, Benghazi, British Armed Forces, Colonel Gaddafi, Conservative Party, European Union, Government of the United Kingdom, Libya, Military, Muammar al-Gaddafi, United Nations resolution, United Nations Security Council

UK Sends In Troops As Ground Invasion Of Libya Accelerates

In Activism, Human Rights, Libya, Military, Society, World Government, World News on April 20, 2011 at 8:10 pm

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Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com
April 19, 2011

Unleashing yet another deft salvo of Orwellian doublespeak, the British government announced today that it would be sending in military forces to “help” Libyan rebels while still insisting that it is not sending in military forces, as the EU gears up to dispatch a further 1,000 troops, also under the dubious pretense of preventing humanitarian suffering.

LIBYA – UK MILITARY EXPERTS DEPLOYED TO HELP FIGHT GADDAFI – THE INVASION BEGINS

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Now that the globalists’ Al-Qaeda backed rebel forces are getting soundly trounced by Gaddafi’s army, western powers have embarked on a propaganda crusade to create a pretext for a ground invasion, despite the fact that it directly violates their own UN resolution. By sending in scout parties of troops, the globalists are desperately trying to goad Gaddafi into attacking so-called “peacekeepers” so that a case for wider intervention can be concocted.

Following the EU’s announcement that it is seeking UN authorization to dispatch 1,000 troopsinto the country whose job it will be to “secure sea and land corridors inside the country,” the British government announced today that special military officers will be sent into Benghazi to “help the fight against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.”

“The extra personnel will add to a UK diplomatic team that is already liasing with rebel leaders in the eastern city,” reports Sky News.

Conservative MP John Baron said that the latest decision “tantamounts to regime change,” and slammed Foreign Secretary William Hague for not holding a second debate in Parliament.

Of course, the fact that British Special Forces, along with American and French troops, were already on the ground in February in Libya training rebel forces before the “no fly zone” was even voted on last month has been completely overlooked.

Despite dubious claims that the role of British military assets will be to teach rebels “how not to get killed,”as we have documented, the entire “humanitarian” ruse that has been used to sell the aggressive act of war is a complete fabrication. The EU has made it clear that if their forces are impeded in any way from taking over entire regions of the country, they will attack Gaddafi’s troops.

Figures provided by Human Rights Watch prove that Gaddafi has not embarked on a deliberate policy to massacre innocent people. After two months of warfare, just 257 people in Misurata, a city with a population of 400,000, have been killed. Of the 949 wounded, just 22 are women, less than 3 per cent.

As University of Texas Professor Alan J. Kuperman writes in the Boston Globe, “If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.”

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In addition, a mission by the British Civilians For Peace in Libya organization found “no evidence” that Colonel Gaddafi’s forces had attacked, bombed or killed any civilians in western Libya, after the group spent a week touring Tripoli and other areas in the country.

“In their interim findings, the campaign group claimed they had been able to “corroborate civilian casualties and fatalities due to Nato bombing” but “could find no evidence that three areas of Tripoli cited in UN resolution 1973 had been subjected to government forces bombardment,” reports Sky News.

Globalist forces are now fully committed to a ground invasion and destabilization campaign in Africa’s richest oil country, and they will not stop at manufacturing any pretext to oversee regime change in Libya. A staged attack on western interests either domestically or abroad will be blamed on Gaddafi, or a new humanitarian hoax in a similar vein to Kuwaiti incubator babies or Serbian death camps will be invented as a means of securing a second UN resolution to completely ransack the country and overthrow Gaddafi.

Pretext For War On Libya Proven Fraudulent By Casualty Figures (valorfreedom.wordpress.com)
Gaddafi regime holds out prospect for free Libyan elections – live coverage (guardian.co.uk)
British troops go to Libya amid ‘Vietnam’ warnings (telegraph.co.uk)
France confirms Libya deployment (bbc.co.uk)
Cameron will not rule out role for British ground forces in Libya – Telegraph.co.uk (news.google.com)
France confirms Libya deployment – BBC News (news.google.com)
Exclusive: From Helmand to Libya: British commander joins rebel fight against Gaddafi (independent.co.uk)
EU instructors will teach Libyan rebels (rt.com)
French sending advisers to Libya (independent.co.uk)
UK plans military team for Libya – ABC Online (news.google.com)
Is the Libya mission creeping? Is that wrong? – Christian Science Monitor (news.google.com)
UK military deployed to Libya as EU mulls sending 1000 humanitarian troops – Christian Science Monitor (news.google.com)
Libyan relief effort feared guise for ground invasion (rt.com)
Libya warns against UK military advisers – Aljazeera.net (news.google.com)
UK to send military advisers to Libya (bbc.co.uk)
U.K. to send military officers to Benghazi to aid Libyan rebels (theglobeandmail.com)
You: France to send military liaison officers to Libya, says UN should consider ground troops (washingtonpost.com)

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Embassy of the United States to the Holy See, European Union, Genetically modified food, Grocery Manufacturers Association, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Renato Martino, Transgenic maize, United States

U.S. targeted EU on GM foods: WikiLeaks

In Human Rights, Society, Wikileaks on March 9, 2011 at 1:11 am

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Senior U.S. officials in Paris advised the George Bush administration to launch a military-style trade war against the European Union for resisting genetically modified foods, according to newly released WikiLeaks cables.
The then U.S. ambassador to France, Craig Stapleton, asked the government to penalize the EU and particularly countries that banned the use of genetically modified (GM) crops.
The move came in response to a 2007 French ban on a GM corn variety made by U.S.-based company Monsanto.
“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits,” wrote Stapleton in a December 2007 cable.
“The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices,” said Stapleton, who was then President Bush’s friend and business partner.
GM foods are grown from crops that contain altered DNA so that they are resistant to disease, and grow faster and bigger, for instance.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association estimates about 80 per cent of packaged foods sold in the U.S. and Canada contain GM food. Some animal studies have shown serious health risks, including infertility, accelerated aging, organ damage and birth defects, linked to such foods.
U.S. diplomats pushed GM crops: cablesOther newly released cables show U.S. diplomats around the world pushed GM crops as part of U.S. global food policy.
For example, the U.S. applied pressure to the Pope’s advisers to champion such crops to counter the opposition by many Catholic bishops in developing countries who were vehemently opposed to it.
“Opportunities exist to press the issue with the Vatican, and in turn to influence a wide segment of the population in Europe and the developing world,” said the cable.
However, the U.S. suffered a setback when one of the U.S.’s closest allies on GM, Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the powerful Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Pope’s representative at the United Nations, withdrew his support for the crop, according to another cable.
“A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath — to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach,” said the cable.
Other cables show U.S. diplomats working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto joined forces with Spain to persuade the EU not to strengthen biotechnology laws.