Rioting in Greece over debt -- could it happen here?

In Athens, government workers are rioting in the streets, protesting cuts in their salaries, benefits and pensions. Three bankers burned to death after protesters set their building on fire while they were at work. Police are using tear gas. Officials in France and Germany, which is underwriting much of Greece's debt of $141 billion, are watching with alarm.

With U.S. debt also mounting -- much of it owed to the Chinese -- pundits are beginning to wonder if those street protests in Greece are a window on America's future. These are not riots from the Right -- the "tea party" is angry about deficit spending, but hardly the kind of movement that would target businesses or government cutbacks. These are attacks on capitalism from the Left.

Conservative Michelle Malkin noted that already the SEIU marched in the streets of San Francisco last fall over budget cuts and layoffs. In Santa Cruz, at a May Day march for workers and immigrants' rights, protesters used makeshift torches to break windows and write what the police dubbed "anarchist graffiti" on buildings, including an Urban Outfitters. Even in Asheville, N.C., a bastion of conservatism, more than 20 black-clad, self-described anarchists, went on a rampage, smashing windows and vandalizing cars with hammers.

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Still, concern about runaway federal spending is not the exclusive purview of conservatives. As Ticket reported earlier this year, 9 of 10 Americans approved of President Obama's State of the Union call for a freeze on federal spending. , And on Monday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) sounded the alarm. "Never in my decades in Congress have I seen a public so outraged by deficits and debt," he said. "It is enough to look across the Atlantic at Greece’s extreme economic crisis and understand it can happen here. If we don’t change course, it will happen here.”

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Demonstrators protesting against government austerity measures at rally in Athens Wednesday. Credit: Associated Press

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Comments

[Steve Rodriguez]

If Obama who looks down at the free market economy is in office it can!!!

[Chris Bieber]

ah..of course it will....agent provacatuers egging on moms and kids..hurling/breaking things....egging on the equally conditioned cops....throwing matches on a fire...

that...plus the RESULT of the PLANNED financial collapse of America....mobs riots FedCops and soldiers...rationing...curfews...suspended elections..

probably going to happen....

then the Halliburton FEMA camps will get "temporary" residents......

[Mekonen Haddis]

Neo-Liberalism, and the Greek tragedy.

May 6, 2010 by politicalsnapshots.wordpress.com

Neo-liberalism, and the Greek tragedy.

The country that gave the world the three most important tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides is facing a major economic tragedy. While economists the world over have differing views on the root cause of Greece’s economic problem, as a non economist, I have been immensely concerned with anarcho-capitalism, (an economic system that destroys government regulation of the economy, and creates economic anarchy within the global economic system).

The conscious deregulation of the economy that started during the Reagan administration in the U.S. reached its climax during President George W. Bush’s tenure and has brought the global economic chaos the world is in at the moment. Their bankrupt economic theory of the market policing itself, has proven to be as hollow as their dreams of making trillions of dollars without manufacturing anything. (Capitalism without ethics, June, 2009 PSS.WP).

Sadly, Greek is another glaring example of the failure of neo-liberalism. Developing countries beware neo-liberalism is here to destroy you, not to save you. And those politicians that still praise the virtues of neo-liberalism, as Ashley St.Claire would say, they are either dim-witted or have a personal agenda that would personally benefit them at the expense of the interest of their countries.

Neo-liberalism is what Susan Strange calls “Casino Capitalism”. She is one of the first to have for seen the dangers of anarcho-capitalism. She has linked “casino-capitalism”, in to a number of trends among which are: government’s deregulation of the economy, (based on the fallacy that, the market and the banks would regulate themselves), and commercial banks turning in to investment banks. Susan Strange’s work is an essential contribution in de bunking the dominant doctrine of neo-liberalism.

Recently, the EU and the IMF have agreed to extend $147 billion dollars rescue under a three year agreement. This “rescue” plan actually is intended to rescue French and German banks that are holding a large share of Greece’s bonds. Moreover, the “rescue” is meant to temporarily stop a widening debt crisis in Europe which might include Portugal, Spain and Italy. In all this, the Greeks will be burdened with more debt, and are required to take harsh budget cuts.

In order to comply with the EU and IMF’s “rescue” plan, the Greek government will cut public-sector workers’ pay by 20%, raise the retirement age, increase sales tax to 23%, increase the price of tobacco products, alcohol and gas by 10%, increase taxes on property and businesses, etc. etc. Even if all this drastic measures are instituted according to plan, the actions taken actually would increase Greece’s debt and shrink its economy by 4%. How about a big applause to neo-liberalism?

Focusing only on dollars and cents, what usually is left out is any discussion of the impact of neo-liberalism’s creation of political instabilities around the globe. The main crime of neo-liberalism is its unparalleled focus on greed some would say debauchery and social injustice.

I only hope, the violence in Greece would quickly recede before it destroys a country that is the root of European civilization.

Professor Mekonen Haddis.

[satelite]

People are rioting, all Greek people who face starvation, the corrupted politicians now attack and try to extinguish the elderly. Someone STOP THEM!!!!

[George]

the question is, when will it happen here? Obama is racking up debt at a fearsome unprecedented rate. California and Illinois are exactly like Greece. All three have a huge percentage of their workforces working for the government, all three are spending at an unsustainable rate, and the greedy unionistas refuse all compromises that would bring their huge salaries into line with what the private sector earns.

The Greeks, Californians, Illinoisans, and Americans simply cannot afford big government socialism. Nobody can. Out-of-control government spending has created this crisis in Greece, and the lazy greedy rioting parasites want no solutions that infringe on their "right" to receive unlimited money for no work. The austerity measures are the bare minimum that must be done to get Greece on the path to recovery. There simply cannot be such a large percentage of the population who do nothing productive and just suck at the government nipple.

It is only a matter of time before the same situation repeats itself in California, Illinois, and (unless Obama is stopped) in America. Greece has proven yet again that socialism will always fail because sooner or later the socialists run out of other people's money.