Riots in Athens as Thousands Protest Against Cutbacks!
Bitter: riot police restrain a protester amid violence outside Greece's parliament.
- The world is heading towards turbulent times. We can expect many more of such protests spreading across the EU and America this year. The banksters have raped the countries and are running away with the loot. The bought up politicians are enabling the banksters in all of these criminality. I am very happy the Icelandic people have stood up to the banksters and said no to any bailouts of their collapsed banks. Why should the populace be made to pay for the casino finances of the banksters? London Evening Standard reports:
Masked youths stoned police outside Greece‘s parliament today in protest at cutbacks proposed to try to end the country’s debt crisis. Riot police responded with tear gas and baton charges as more than 7,000 demonstrators gathered in the centre of Athens. They arrested six demonstrators, while onlookers said two officers were badly beaten.
Protesters attacked the leader of Greece’s biggest trade union and chased guards away from the country’s tomb of the unknown soldier. Youths also fought with police inside the Council of State and tried to break into the labour ministry. Inside parliament, politicians were debating the €4.8 billion (£4.33 billion) austerity bill, which is expected to pass despite strong opposition. It will raise consumer taxes and slash public sector workers’ pay by up to 8%.
The GSEE and the ADEDY unions held strikes against the measures, while hospitals, schools and public transport were closed. GSEE head Yiannis Panagopoulos fought with rioters before being led away bloodied and with torn clothes.
Prime minister George Papandreou was in Luxembourg today holding talks with Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the eurozone finance ministers group. He was also to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin as he seeks EU leaders’ support. Mrs Merkel said she expected “interesting” talks with Mr Papandreou, saying Greece’s successful bond issue this week “gives us optimism”.
Greece’s centre-Left government says it is seeking €16 billion (£14.45 billion) in savings this yea, to reduce a bloated budget deficit of €30 billion (£27.1 billion) that is over four times the EU limit as a percentage of annual output.
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Bill Fleckenstein: Greece And UK Are Suffering A Dire Funding Problem That Is Headed For US Shores!
Bill Fleckenstein. Click on picture for MP3 interview!
- This is an interview of Bill Fleckenstein on KingWorldNews.com on the 4 March 2010. It highlights the sovereign debt crisis that is building around the world.
Bill Fleckenstein is often quoted in both national and international media. He has appeared at one time or another in virtually all financial media including Bloomberg, CNBC, The New York Times, MSN, Marketwatch, Barron’s and more. In this interview Bill discusses the enormous problems this nation faces and the continued fallout we are experiencing, a coming funding crisis, Greenspan, Greece, the stock market, where we are in the gold market and the mining shares, inflation and the growing struggles of US citizens, continued money printing and much more. Bill is a highly sought after speaker a successful author and has been in the financial sector for over 25 years.
Biography
William A. Fleckenstein is president of Fleckenstein Capital, a money management firm based in Seattle. He writes a daily Market Rap column for his Web site, Fleckensteincapital.com, as well as the popular column Contrarian Chronicles for MSN Money.
- Fleckenstein writes in MSN Money:
Important pieces to that macro jigsaw puzzle are Greece and the United Kingdom, as the U.S. is headed for a variation of the funding crisis, though how severe ours will be remains to be seen. Without a money-printing press — because it uses the euro, not a currency of its own — Greece is forced to consider austerity measures to deal with its debt woes. The U.K., on the other hand, is not as bad off as Greece, and it does have a press.
For America: A Greco-Anglo scenario?
A crisis of confidence has invaded Greek and U.K. shores, and we can all learn a bit about what our future might look like as we watch developments there. (The U.K. may be the most useful example for us, since we also have a printing press.)
We will soon find out whether Bank of England Gov. Mervyn King will extend quantitative easing and, if he does, how the bond market will respond to a renewed effort to pump money directly into that economy. (The pound is already under a good deal of downward pressure.)
I would say that the U.K.’s funding crisis — to use my ballgame analogy — is probably in the third inning or so, even if we are still taking batting practice over here. (Read “Economy sinks as we save bankers” and “The next crisis has already begun” to brush up on that analogy.)
Back to Greece for a second: The sort of straitjacket that it’s being placed in by its inability to print money is what’s forcing the country to consider making tough decisions.
Only in a funding crisis where you have no other options are the Western world’s “soft” social democracies willing to — or rather, are forced to — make hard decisions. So, the upside of the crisis is potentially coming out the other side in a more sane, sustainable fashion. That’s what we all have to hope for.
Inflation ahoy?
But before facing our own debt and currency crisis, the U.S. is liable to experience a period of stagflation and inflation. Regular readers know my view about the strong connectivity between money printing and inflation. (Read “Why all roads lead to inflation” for more on this.)
What’s difficult is trying to describe in advance the exact path whose destination is inflation. That’s because government money printing infects certain markets or niches sooner, with some affected more than others. But one thing is knowable: Money printing always ends up raising prices.
Thus far here in America, we’ve witnessed a lot of taxes and user fees raised by the government, and businesses that have seen competitors fall away have increased prices. That’s a variation of inflation, which will be exacerbated by more money printing.
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Fitch Warns Britain and Questions Greek Rescue as Sovereign Risks Grow!
- We are probably seeing the build up of rhetoric to attack the UK pound. This is not to say that the British economy is fundamentally sound. Britain is bankrupt. The country no longer can rely on its North Sea oil. It is now an importer of oil instead of an exporter for many years. The PTB are simply putting in place the mechanism for a global monetary crisis. The intent is to destroy all major fiat currencies to drive the world to their One World Currency.
- They will basically start with the EU then UK, Japan and finally US. This coming crisis will drive G20 nations to a One World Central Bank and Currency. The IMF will be re-modelled to serve the role as a global central bank. Once the G20 fall into this new fiat currency hegemony and financial system, the rest of the world will be hard pressed not to use this new One World Currency. My belief is that for this new currency to succeed the PTB will have to back it with hard assets: oil, gold …. commodities. Once, the nations are fully in their grip, they will gradually remove this asset backing. The Telegraph UK reports:
Fitch Ratings has delivered a serious blow to the credibility of the Government’s budget plans, warning that Britain risks a loss of investor confidence and erosion of its AAA rating unless it maps out clear austerity measures.
Brian Coulton, the agency’s head of sovereign ratings, said the UK has seen “the most rapid rise in the ratio of public debt to GDP of any AAA-rated country” and is courting fate with its leisurely plan to halve the deficit by the middle of the decade.
“It is frankly too slow, a pedestrian pace. Why the UK thinks it has more time than other countries , we’re not sure. This needs to be reoriented,” he told the Fitch forum on sovereign hotspots.
A string of European states are stepping up the pace of retrenchment, aiming to cut deficits to 3pc of GDP within three years. The risk is that Britain will soon stick out like a sore thumb, left behind with a shockingly large deficit long after such loose fiscal policy can be justified as a crisis measure. The UK deficit this year is 12.6pc of GDP, the highest among G10 states.
The Government is clearly counting on a “Korean” recovery, modelled on Korea’s fast return to trend growth following the Asian crisis in 1998. It relies on rising output and tax revenues to plug much of the deficit. “This is an optimistic assumption,” said Fitch.
There is a “distinct possibility” that Britain will face something closer to Japan’s ‘Lost Decade’ when a bursting debt bubble left the country on a permanently lower growth path. “The UK faces the same massive deleveraging by the private sector,” said Mr Coulton.
Separately, Fitch said it is too early to judge whether Greece can deliver on EU austerity demands once the social and political pain begins in earnest. “The first year is fiscally the easiest. Next year they have to cut another 3pc of GDP, and the following year a further 3pc,” said Chris Pryce, the agency’s Greece expert.
“The great question mark is whether the Papandreou government is going to conform. There is already dissent in the cabinet,” he said. “Greece has an appalling record. Underneath this fiscal crisis is a failing political system. Politicians regard the public sector as a something to exploit for their own enrichment, but also for votes,” he said.
Fitch is not counting on an EU bail-out for Greece in assessing credit risk. While the EU game of ‘constructive ambiguity’ has succeeded in calming the markets, the agency noted that not a single “hard cent” has been put on the table so far. The outcome hangs on legal realities in Germany, not rhetoric from Brussels. “Even if German politicians wanted to bail out Greece, they know it would probably be overturned by Germany’s constitutional court,” said Mr Pryce.
- See also:
Bob Chapman: The Albatross of Sovereign Debt!
Marc Faber: Forget US Stocks, Buy Gold Every Month ‘Forever’!
Bob Chapman: The World is Heading Towards Many Years of Economic Darkness!
Bill Gross: Markets Will Soon Discover How Sovereign Nations Can Go Bust Just Like Companies!
Greece Now, U.K. Next as Scots Ready for Pound Plunge !
Ron Paul: The US Government’s Debt Can Never Be Repaid!
Bob Chapman: Illuminati Banksters’ Final Moves To Bankrupt The World And Push For World Government!
Dennis Gartman: The Euro Is ‘Doomed’ !
Concerns Grow Over China’s Sale of US Bonds!
Doomsday Is Here For The State Of Illinois!
Ron Paul: Chaos in The Streets and Poverty Coming To the USA!
Charlie Munger: Basically, It’s Over! A Parable About How One Nation Came To Financial Ruin!
On the Brink of a Bond Market Apocalypse!
Ron Paul: We Are On The Brink Of A Financial Cataclysmic Event ! We Will Have A Currency Crisis!
GEAB N°42 : Towards a Global Systemic Crisis of the World Economy!
Britain At Risk Of Worse Deficit Crisis Than Greece!
Charles Ortel: Risks of U.S. Default Are Very Real !
Bill Gross: Avoid UK Debts … It is “Resting On A Bed Of Nitroglycerine”!
Europe’s Exposure To ‘PIGS’ Problem!
Niall Ferguson: A Greek Crisis Is Coming To America!
Think the PIGS Are in Trouble? These 7 U.S. States Could Be Heading for Something Worse!
Spanish Intelligence Probing Debt “Attacks”!
Fears Rise of Euro Government Default !
Greece ‘Dress Rehearsal’ For U.S.!
20 Reasons Global Debt Time Bomb Explodes Soon!
John Mauldin: Greeks Bearing Gifts!
Niall Ferguson: Others Will Follow Greek Debt Tragedy!
Funds Flee Greece as Germany Warns of “Fatal” Eurozone Crisis!
S&P Threatens Japan Downgrade!
Bill Gross: Avoid UK Debts … It is “Resting On A Bed Of Nitroglycerine”!
The Global Debt Bomb!
Godfrey Bloom: End of National Sovereignty & The Beginning of Global Servitude !
Greece Debt Default Could Take Eurozone Down With It !
More and More American States on Budget Brink!
Is The Euro Headed For A Breakup? ECB Prepares Legal Ground For Euro Rupture As Greek Crisis Escalates!
GEAB N°41: The Decade 2010 – 2020, Towards A Knockout Victory By Gold Over The Dollar!
GEAB N°40: Growing Sovereign Debt Default Risk Will Drive Central Banks Toward Gold!
Global Systemic Crisis: In pursuit of the Impossible Economic Recovery !
GEAB: China’s Great Escape from the Dollar Trap !
Eurozone Faces Meltdown Under Sovereign Debt Crisis 2010 !
Marc Faber: We Are Doomed!
Dollar Crisis Looms if US Doesn’t Curb Debt !
Marc Faber: The Next Thing You Need To Worry About Is The PIIGS! Eurozone Sovereign Debt Default Crisis!
A Global Fiasco Is Brewing In Japan!
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About
Societal and economics observer and commentator with an endtimes, future history perspective. Follow me at Twitter: socioecohistory
