Trends in suicide rates were examined by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, state and region of residence, and mechanism of suicide. The results of this analysis indicated that the annual, age-adjusted suicide rate among persons aged 35–64 years increased 28.4%, from 13.7 per 100,000 population in 1999 to 17.6 in 2010. Among racial/ethnic populations, the greatest increases were observed among American Indian/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) (65.2%, from 11.2 to 18.5) and whites (40.4%, from 15.9 to 22.3). By mechanism, the greatest increase was observed for use of suffocation (81.3%, from 2.3 to 4.1), followed by poisoning (24.4%, from 3.0 to 3.8) and firearms (14.4%, from 7.2 to 8.3). The findings underscore the need for suicide preventive measures directed toward middle-aged populations.
Suicide rates were highest in the West [15.8/100,000], followed by the South, [14.8], Midwest [12.7], and Northeast[10.5], with the report noting that “Significant increases were observed across all regions in the United States.”
Washington Post scribe Tara Bahrampour notes that
As youths, boomers had higher suicide rates than earlier generations; the confluence of that with the fact that they are now beginning to grow old, when the risk traditionally goes up, has experts worried. The findings suggest that more suicide research and prevention should “address the needs of middle-aged persons,” a CDC statement said.
>snip<
Exacerbating boomers’ anxiety is a sense that the world is more treacherous than when they were young, he said. Then, the communist threat and the atom bomb loomed large, but they were distant and abstract; attacks like the ones on the World Trade Center and the Boston Marathon have changed this paradigm.
“These events used to happen 6,000 miles away; now they happen here,” Arbore said.
We suspect Bahrampour wasn’t around for the 1950’s and 1960’s, when the threat of nuclear war was anything but “distant and abstract.” Grade school kids had frequent “duck and cover” drills where they hid under their classroom desks, a move designed to shield young bodies from lethal shards of glass as the blast wave shattered their widows. There were ubiquitous fallout shelter signs, and at least once a month warning sirens sounded in every city and town, test of the nuclear attack warning system. And for single young men out of school, there was always the threat of the draft, forced conscription for bodies to throw against folks objecting to our presence in assorted Asian lands.
And now those same folk are watching neocon vultures and a turncoat President pondering the gutting of the social programs and protections they assumed would be theirs.
Suicides also spike among soldiers
By which we mean the young women currently in uniform, as Al Jazeera reports:
The program notes:
US army struggles against high suicide rate
Suicides among US army personnel are on the rise. In the first four months of this year, more than 160 soldiers have taken their own lives. The Pentagon has released a report detailing the depth of the problem. Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett reports.
India has recorded its worst GDP growth in a decade amid continuing concerns over corruption, high inflation, poor infrastructure development and weak government
From The Real News Network, host Paul Jay moderates a debate of Barack Obama’s planned Social Security cuts featuring Joseph Minarik, Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Committee for Economic Development (CED) in Washington, and chief economist of the Office of Management and Budget for the eight years of the Clinton Administration. He’s pitted against one of esnl’s favorite economists, Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and currently a Visiting Professor of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University in New York.
We are reminded of an 8 November 1954 letter from then-President Dwight David Eisenhower to his older brother Edgar:
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
A 1979 documentary directed by Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer features a remarkable series of interviews with veterans of the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World — a remarkable and brutally suppressed effort to create a new form of union.
What’s especially delightful is the youthful, enduring spirit that shines through the aging faces and resonates through their voices as they recall their participation in a movement that had given them a vision of a brighter, more harmonious future:.
And note also that the movement was destroyed in an early 20th Century version of the war on terror in which the activists were portrayed as slaves of an alien ideology deserving of the application of extrajudicial military force and none of the constitutional rights that would apply did crisis not prevail.
From economist Michael Hudson, writing at his blog:
Today’s economic warfare is not the kind waged a century ago between labor and its industrial employers. Finance has moved to capture the economy at large, industry and mining, public infrastructure (via privatization) and now even the educational system. (At over $1 trillion, U.S. student loan debt came to exceed credit-card debt in 2012.) The weapon in this financial warfare is no larger military force. The tactic is to load economies (governments, companies and families) with debt, siphon off their income as debt service and then foreclose when debtors lack the means to pay. Indebting government gives creditors a lever to pry away land, public infrastructure and other property in the public domain. Indebting companies enables creditors to seize employee pension savings. And Indebting labor means that it no longer is necessary to hire strikebreakers to attack union organizers and strikers.
Workers have become so deeply indebted on their home mortgages, credit cards and other bank debt that they fear to strike or even to complain about working conditions. Losing work means missing payments on their monthly bills, enabling banks to jack up interest rates to levels that used to be deemed usurious. So debt peonage and unemployment loom on top of the wage slavery that was the main focus of class warfare a century ago. And to cap matters, credit-card bank lobbyists have rewritten the bankruptcy laws to curtail debtor rights, and the referees appointed to adjudicate disputes brought by debtors and consumers are subject to veto from the banks and businesses that are mainly responsible for inflicting injury.
The aim of financial warfare is not merely to acquire land, natural resources and key infrastructure rents as in military warfare; it is to centralize creditor control over society. In contrast to the promise of democratic reform nurturing a middle class a century ago, we are witnessing a regression to a world of special privilege in which one must inherit wealth in order to avoid debt and job dependency.
From Salvatore Babones, originally published in Australian Options Magazine and reprinted in Truthout:
Over the past forty years, America has become much more politically correct with regard to gender and sexualiy. Men do not openly display calendars featuring topless models on their office walls, and public gay bashing is now considered inappropriate, even in Republican circles. But gender and sexuality are issues that transcend social class. Even rich, powerful men have gay children – or may be gay themselves. Even rich, powerful men have wives.
On every other issue, America – or at least American politics – has swung violently to the right. The more social class is involved, the further to the right America has swung. Poverty was once a social disease to be cured; it is now an individual crime to be punished. Put it down to individualism, conservatism, neoliberalism, or whatever -ism you want, America is now the world’s greatest reactionary force.
Unfortunately, all the evidence is that the rest of the world is following America down the road to perdition. Nowhere are national health insurance schemes, access to free education, and old age pensions being expanded. Nowhere is the world moving forward. Everywhere the social gains of the twentieth century are either being eroded, or destroyed.
The tussels in Brussels should be in the news, but they’re aren’t many, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s More Europe agenda is being fast-tracked in the two-day summit of European Union leaders that ends today.
The banking czar, empowered to take over banking supervisory power from members states, is moving forward, with that stability mechanism to bail out member states ready to roll next year or early in 2014. But the legality of the banking regime is an open question. And then there’s some details being fought out by Merkel and French President François Hollande. Oh, and eurocrats may be facing a pension cut.
The Spailout’s still in limbo, with pressure on Spain mounting — though the Gdermans insist they’re not applying any. Bank of Spain loan defaults are rising, and Sheldon Adelson’s government-funded EuroVegas casino complex may break ground soon. Mexico, a former colony, is promising to help the country, and a general strimke is in the works.
Italian women and elders are falling deeper into poverty and the continent’s oldest bank nears default, while both Italian and Portuguese bonds are selling for lower interest as the promise of bailouts nears.
Germany cuts its growth rate, and a new report reveals the depth of poverty in the continent’s industrial giant.
Banking Czar approved by Europols
European leaders gathered in Brussels gave their collective approval to a key plank in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s More Europe agenda, the creation of a banking czar with powers to supercede the ability of nations to regulate their own banks.
But much remains to be done, setting the stage for a tangle between the Iron Chancellor and the French president.
From Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl and Helen Maguire of Deutsche Presse-Agentur:
European Union leaders struck a deal Thursday on the creation of a joint banking supervisor for the eurozone, but it was not clear whether France or Germany had won in a standoff over competing demands.
The measure is a prerequisite for the eurozone’s bailout mechanism to directly assist troubled banks and is seen as key to restoring trust in the common currency area amid its debt crisis.
The leaders decided that a “legislative framework” for the banking supervisor would be agreed by the end of the year, with a gradual implementation to follow in 2013, European Commission officials said.
This replaced the wording of a draft summit declaration, which had called for legislative proposals to be completed by December 31. It was not immediately clear whether the deal would still allow the banking supervisor to take up its work on January 1.
Germany and a handful of other countries had argued that the timetable was not realistic and would create false expectations.
Following almost seven hours of talks, European Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly said there had been an “agreement on a political framework for the end of 2012 and a gradual implementation in 2013.”
However, expectations the new body would begin its work from the start of the new year slipped amid discord between Europe’s two powerhouses.
Diplomats said a final summit statement due after a second day of talks on Friday would commit the 27 EU states to “agreeing” on a supervisor for eurozone banks by the end of the year.
But one European official said that even in the “fastest scenario”, it would be “summer 2013″ before the supervisor saw the light of day.
And a French government source said that the European Central Bank would only be tasked with supervising all of the 6,000 eurozone banks “from the beginning of 2014.”
More from Julien Toyer and Andreas Rinke of Reuters:
The French source said the agreement meant the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) could start injecting capital into troubled banks as early as the first quarter of 2013, but a German source said it was “very unlikely” to happen so soon.
The German government source said the ECB would be responsible for supervising systemically important banks and could oversee others if necessary, emphasizing that direct recapitalization of banks by the ESM could only happen once cross-border banking supervision was firmly in place.
The point when the ECB will effectively become the bloc’s banking supervisor is important because it would open the way for the euro zone’s bailout fund to inject capital directly into troubled banks, without adding to their host governments’ debts.
EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said this was vital “to break the vicious circle between sovereigns and banks”.
Olli Rehn’s comments are a classic, given that the action doesn’t break the “vicious circle between sovereigns and banks” but rather kicks it upstairs to a new sovereign even more remote from the communities banks are, in theory, supposed to serve.
In other words, it’s one step closer to a global banking regime, and given the ability to banks to influence governments, one could argue that the action merely ensures that future crises will begin on a much broader scale, rather than beginning in one locale and spreading to others.
Merkel demands more eurosovereign powers
First, a video report from euronews:
In addition to stripping nations of banking powers, the Iron Chancellor is also demanding the surrender of national control over budgets.
The More Europe agenda so beloved of the leader of the nation that’s benefitted most from the creation of the European Union and the euro effectively renders smaller nations subservient to Germany, a remarkable accomplishment given the continent’s history over the last two centuries.
From the Irish Times:
German chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded stronger central powers for the European Commission to veto national budgets that breach EU rules, risking a clash with France at a summit of the EU leaders today.
Addressing parliament in Berlin hours before the 22nd summit since the start of the euro zone’s debt crisis, Dr Merkel also sought to slow the race to create a single European banking supervisor, saying quality was more important than speed.
French president François Hollande took a very different tack in an interview with six European newspapers, warning that budget discipline alone would not solve the euro zone’s problems without doing more to revive growth. He called for greater haste in implementing a banking union.
Dr Merkel skirted the issue of a possible credit line for Spain, which euro zone officials expect Madrid to request within weeks, but reiterated her desire to keep Greece in the currency area despite its chronic debt problems.
The chancellor then went on to make the case for creating structures that would lead to greater integration of the eurozone’s economies.
European Union leaders meeting at a two-day summit will have plenty to debate when meetings start Thursday. Ways to prevent a further crisis and deal with the effects of the current one will be particularly important. (17.10.2012)
In this, she threw her support behind an idea voiced by Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble earlier in the week that would see a European commissioner given the power to intervene in the budgetary affairs of member states. At the same time the chancellor acknowledged that the idea wasn’t popular in some EU member states.
“This doesn’t change our support for it,” Merkel said.
Germany has called on countries using the euro to take decisive steps to bring about closer fiscal integration.
Berlin wants the EU’s 27 countries to consider pooling more economic sovereignty at a summit in Brussels which begins on Thursday.
French President Francois Hollande says an end to the eurozone crisis is “very close” and wants a deal agreed on the first stage of a banking union.
But Germany argues that the proposed deadline is unrealistic.
The proposal for a single banking regulator was agreed at the EU’s June summit.
But Berlin says there will be no final decision in Brussels because of concerns about plans for the regulator to supervise an estimated 6,000 banks across the eurozone.
The Iron Chancellor’s banking czar demand illegal?
But is Merkel’s agenda legal?
A leaked document suggests it’s not, at least under the Europ;ean Union’s foundational document.
From the Financial Times via The Greek Crisis:
A plan to create a single eurozone banking supervisor is illegal, according to a secret legal opinion for EU finance ministers that deals a further blow to a reform deemed vital to solving the bloc’s debt crisis.
A paper from the EU Council’s top legal adviser, obtained by the Financial Times, argues the plan goes “beyond the powers” permitted under law to change governance rules at the European Central Bank.
The legal service concludes that without altering EU treaties it would be impossible to give a bank supervision board within the ECB any formal decision-making powers as suggested in the blueprint drawn up by the European Commission.
Those non-eurozone countries that want to opt into the bank supervision regime would also be legally unable to vote on any ECB decisions – a key demand of countries such as Sweden and Poland.
We find his remarks rather astonishing, given that he’s been a prime mover in forcing austerity down the throats of the economically stricken countries, measures that send unemployment soaring and growth plummeting.
And then there’s the whole question of how growth is defined.
From Deutsche Presse-Agentur:
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Thursday he was disappointed at a lack of progress by EU member states on taking steps to stimulate employment and growth.
“We have been making more efforts in terms of fiscal consolidation than on the measures for growth that were already agreed (by member states),” Barroso said in Brussels ahead of the European Union summit.
“We need to balance the important efforts made in terms of sound Continue reading →
We first posted this back on 2 January, but it bears repeating. . .
The rising star of the Republican right hasn’t merely touched the third rail of American politics — he’s grabbed it tight with both hands.
From Charles Babington of the Associated Press:
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called Friday for immediate cuts to Social Security benefits, risking the wrath of older voters and countless others who balk at changes to the entitlement program.
“We can’t wait 10 years,”even though “everybody wants to,” Santorum told a crowd while campaigning in New Hampshire and looking to set himself apart from his Republican rivals four days before the New Hampshire primary.
Most of his opponents have advocated phasing in a reduction and say immediate cuts would be too big a shock to current and soon-to-be retirees.
>snip<
Clearly aware of the risks, Santorum argued that everyone must sacrifice now because the nation’s “house is on fire” with soaring federal debt. He argued that he is being courageous and honest by telling Americans they can’t afford to wait to rein in Social Security’s growing costs. And he said he anticipated possible attack ads on his position.
The Nazis had a phrase they used to derogate “unproductive” people who took public money: Useless eaters.
And while Santorum has avoided the term, it’s implicit in his agenda.
The media doesn’t help, including the AP, by dubbing the programs with a term with strongly pejorative implications: Entitlement programs. Note that in everyday speech, calling someone “entitled” carries a strongly negative implication.
It’s worth repeating an excerpt from an 8 November 1954 letter from then-President Dwight David Eisenhower to his older brother Edgar:
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
That Santorum can effectively call for the cutting Social Security — a move that would imperil the lives of millions of American citizens — is evidence of just how far the Republican party has veered rightward since Ike’s day.
And note that the party is already effectively demolishing labor laws, and has declared against extension of unemployment benefits amidst the longest economic crash since the 1930s.
The inmates really are running the asylum, and Santorum is certainly an affluent inmate, as Bloomberg reported Thursday:
Since his 2006 re-election defeat, the former Pennsylvania lawmaker has gone from being one of the poorer members of the U.S. Senate to earning $1.3 million between January 2010 and August 2011. In 2007, he spent $2 million to buy a 5,000-square foot home in Great Falls, Virginia, according to property records.
Santorum’s financial rise was powered by consulting contracts with fuel producer Consol Energy Inc. (CNX), faith advocacy group Clapham Group and American Continental Group, a Washington consultancy, as well as media engagements.
We open with a brief, poignant video of the impact of austerity, the move right into Angela Merkel’s Athenian visit, with the city transformed into a military stronghold. Then there’s the new Troika dedline for implementation of cuts package, 9 days away. The eurobank’s stepping up the heat, as are the nations of the Northpile on, and the Dutch government holds corporate Grexit classes.
We have a video general strike report, Arab money shopping for Greek bargains, a new regime for extraditing privatizations, a mysteriously dead corruption suspect, protests, and some profiting plutocrats.
MUTE – The visualization of an economic rape
A short documentary from Yiannis Biliris:
He writes:
Without too many words. Or even better, no words at all. Mute is answering in the following questions: Which is the picture of the Greek crisis? What’s its colour? An economic rape that then turns to a social one.
At least 7.000 Greek police will flood the streets of Athens Tuesday, with snipers perched in key positions, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel pays a visit to the country she has done so much to devastate.
First, a video report from Agence France-Presse:
From Andy Dabilis of Greek Reporter:
Worried that planned protests during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Athens on Oct. 9 could escalate into violence, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had directed that all rallies and gatherings be banned while she’s in the city to meet him, and the government will put snipers on rooftops and have Army commandos on standby in helicopters.
The security will even higher than for then-U.S. President Bill Clinton’s visit in 1999 and the ban on gatherings hasn’t happened since the days of the military junta that was overthrown in 1974. Samaras earlier had vowed to stop violence at protests after unpaid ship workers earlier this month stormed the Defense Ministry and clashed with police.
Government officials said most of the area in downtown Athens would be sealed off although it was reported that there would be some access for protesters and it was unclear how the government would react if demonstrators try to break the barricades that will be in place for 13 hours to protect Merkel and keep her from seeing any protests.
Demonstrators marched through Athens the day before Merkel’s visit and labor unions called for a work stoppage and mass protests while was to be meeting with Samaras and other government officials as the Prime Minister tries to get a $17.45 billion spending cut and tax hike plan approved by international lenders to release more loans needed to keep the economy afloat.
“She does not come to support Greece, which her policies have brought to the brink. She comes to save the corrupt, disgraced and servile political system,” said Alexis Tsipras, who leads the opposition Syriza alliance. “We will give her the welcome she deserves.”
>snip<
[G]iven the attention German newspapers were devoting to Merkel’s security arrangements for the visit — a trip to what is, after all, a European partner — it is clear that the visit is anything but normal. Some 7,000 police drafted from all over Greece will be deployed in Athens where they will turn the government district into a No-Go area for protesters during her six hours of talks with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, President Karolos Papoulias and industry representatives.
Snipers will man the roofs of surrounding buildings and police helicopters will accompany her convoy on the long trip from Athens airport to the city center, media reports said. One could be forgiven for thinking she was visiting Kabul rather than a long-standing European ally.
In a commentary, Bild said that rather than hurling abuse at Merkel in the streets of Athens, Greeks should be waving German flags in gratitude for the financial assistance German taxpayers have given Greece. The Greeks, Bild remarked, should not expect Merkel to offer any new concessions during the trip. “All the German chancellor can bring the Greeks is the bitter truth: that Athens only deserves new funding if it at last does its homework.”
The head of Germany’s opposition Left Party, Bernd Riexinger, said he would travel to Athens to join the demonstration against Merkel and to hold a speech. “Merkel’s visit to Athens will heighten internal conflicts in Greece,” Riexinger told Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper. “I will express our solidarity with the Greek workers and pensioners who are taking to the streets to protest against income cutbacks that are threatening their livelihoods.”
Police expect her visit to ignite large-scale public anger and possibly violence.
Merkel has repeatedly defended unpopular spending cuts and tax hikes introduced by her Greek colleagues in an effort to lower the country’s huge public debt.
Greece’s main trade unions and left-wing groups were to hold a rally in front of the Finance Ministry, in central Syntagma Square, later on Monday to express their opposition to the government’s latest austerity package.
Unions have also called a three-hour work stoppage to coincide with Merkel’s planned meetings with President Karolos Papoulias, Prime Minister Minister Antonis Samaras and representatives of German and Greek industry.
The right-wing Independent Greeks party has also called for a human chain to be formed around the German embassy in Athens to protest Merkel’s policies.
In what has been described as the biggest security operation in the Greek capital since the visit of then US president Bill Clinton, in 1999, police decided to ring-fence a large area around the city and ban public gatherings and marches behind parliament on Tuesday.
From Greek financial economist and banker Christos Kissas, writing in New Europe:
Now, concretely, what is this visit going to signal? Mainly, a public support to Greek prime minister Andonis Samaras’ government. Strange as, when in opposition, Mr. Samaras fiercely fought the so-called ‘Memorandums’ imposed by the troika partners (the EU, ECB, and the IMF), and the austerity measures contained in them. However, once in office, Mr. Samaras made a complete U-turn, and now fully supports the EU-imposed policies, leaving a vague promise of ‘re-negotiating’ the Memorandums for the future. If this attitude deserves encouragement, then one understands why Mrs. Merkel is coming to support him. However, most of the opposition, and with it a broad part of the Greeks, are preparing for street protests against Mrs. Merkel coming, while most of them view Mr. Samaras’ positive stance as a sign of subordination to the strong EU countries.
In other words, the whole situation is fishy. Mr Samaras simply used an anti-austerity rhetoric, just to seize power in the same way as his socialist counterpart in France, Mr. Hollande did, and has now switched sides to please the strong EU partners. As for Mrs. Merkel, who played hard with the Greeks, she equally switched sides as soon as she understood that it wouldn’t be possible to oust them from the Euro, and is now supporting Mr. Samaras as a ‘lesser evil’… Although this cannot yet be expressed in a politically appropriate way, both leaders’ hypocrisy is too well understood by the people of their respective countries.
The message: If you want more money, implement those cuts by the deadline.
It’s a clear message, and can only add to the pressure on the coalition’s junior partners, Pasok and Democratic Left, already facing the threat of internal schisms from the intense outrage of growing numbers of their members.
From Agence France Presse:
Greece’s international creditors on Monday gave Athens an October 18 deadline, date of the next European Union summit, to “implement” reforms in exchange for fresh financial assistance.
“We stressed that before the next disbursement Greece clearly and credibly should demonstrate its commitment to fully implement the programme — and 89 prior actions from March should be implemented by the 18th of October at the latest,” Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said at the close of talks with finance ministers from the 17-nation single currency area.
The scores of “prior actions” involve major privatisations and a whole swathe of reforms to labour markets or bureaucratic red-tape.
Juncker said that after being debriefed by the Troika of international lenders — the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank — “we were pleased to hear substantial progress has been made on Greece, specially in the last days.”
But before the next disbursement of 31.5 billion euros ($40.6 billion) from a 130-billion second package of loans for Greece, talks between Greece and the troika must be finalised, he stressed.
The Troikarchs at the European Central Bank are making it clear again that Greece won’t be given the cuts implementation extension sought by the coalition.
The delivery of the stern message on the eve of the Iron Chancellor’s visit can only add to the anger and ensure a robust welcome for Merkel.
From Szu Ping Chan of the London Telegraph:
Greece cannot have more time to repay its debt to the European Central Bank because it would be illegal and “illogical”, board member Joerg Asmussen has said, as he shut the door on pleas for Continue reading →
We open with a report on Europe’s ailing nuclear plants, then shift to China’s growing reluctance to buy European bonds — while others are so eager to buy that they’re willing to lose money on their investment. And the folks drawing up the new banking regulations propose to sunder banks from brokerages.
On to Spain, with the latest Spailout news [lots of playing coy], and more about that other bailout needed to pump up the country’s busted banks. Political tensions are growing, and the push for Catalonian secession grows, while the government plays political games with social security — the kind of games Transparency International says need to end. There’s also a hint of a coming crackdown on protest, and a stunning turnout for some new job openings.
From Ireland come stories about declining consumer confidence and the politics of cutting child benefits, while from France comes a story about growing divisions in the president’s party, Germany gives us declining car sales, and Cyprus offers a story of bailoutus interruptus.
Europe’s aging nuke plants plagued by faults
We’ll start out with a cheery story.
If the Troika’s really serious about economic stimulus and job creation, maybe they can cough up some cash to fix the numerous faults in the continent’s aging nuclear power stations.
And there are problems, lots of problems, with plants located near some of Europe’s most populous cities.
From the BBC:
Hundreds of problems have been found at European nuclear plants that would cost 25bn euros (£20bn) to fix, says a leaked draft report.
The report, commissioned after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, aimed to see how Europe’s nuclear power stations would cope during extreme emergencies.
The final report is to be published on Thursday. The draft says nearly all the EU’s 143 nuclear plants need improving.
Anti-nuclear groups say the report’s warnings do not go far enough.
For its part, the regulatory body for European nuclear safety has urged the Commission not to use language that could undermine public confidence, says the BBC’s Chris Morris in Brussels.
Seems that they’re reticent to buy bonds when there’s that potential of haircuts to come and that specter of a eurozone breakup lurks in the wings.
From Lidia Kelly of Reuters:
Chinese investors will not buy into bonds issued by debt-ridden euro zone countries until their fundamental problems are solved, a senior official with China’s $480 billion sovereign wealth fund said on Tuesday.
Jin Liqun, chairman of the supervisory board of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), said it is unlikely that the debt problems bedevilling euro zone countries will be solved until Europe is in super-critical situation.
“There will be no solution, until there is no way out,” Jin told Reuters in an interview.
Jin said China backs the European Central Bank’s plans for unlimited bond purchases to aid debt-strapped euro zone states, but stated that in itself this would not be enough and the time it bought should be devoted to crucial reforms.
“The ECB is going in the right direction, with the support, most importantly of the Germans, which is crucial,” Jin, a former finance vice-minister, said on the sidelines of the VTB Capital investment conference in Moscow.
“But whether this is a momentary solution or a permanent solution – it does not depend on the ECB policy in and of itself.”
Urgent reforms in the “peripheral” countries of the euro zone, which are shouldering the heaviest debt burden, must take place.
“We have monetary policy hijacked by fiscal policy, which in turn is hijacked by the social programmes – unless you solve the fundamental problems, this kind of ECB policy will not work forever.”
If there’s a rationale place to invest funds during an economic crisis, it’s infrastructure.
Recall all those projects built during the New Deal in a effort to create new jobs and stimulate the economy.
But European governments aren’t so eager to put up the cash.
From Honor Mahony of EUobserver:
The European Commission has started banging the drum for new €50bn pot of money that it says will reinvigorate Europe’s economy amid fears that penny-counting member states will give it the chop.
With just weeks to go until EU leaders are supposed to decide on the bloc’s budget for 2014-2020, commission president Jose Manuel Barroso urged member states to be open to the ‘Connecting Europe Facility’ (CEF), an investment pot for joining up transport, digital and energy networks.
“There is a difficulty in Europe about new ideas,” Barroso said Tuesday (2 October) and urged business – which is largely in favour of the idea – to “make your voices heard.”
Member states are due to decide on the EU budget at a special summit in November. The EU commission last year proposed increasing spending by 5 percent to €971.52 billion over the seven-year period. But the negotiations have thrown up two main camps – richer states who want to chop the proposed budget and poorer countries who want to maintain regional aid. Diplomats suggest a compromise may be found by reducing the CEF.
The countries in favour of Cohesion Policy (regional funding) and agricultural policy are “very well organised” said Barroso admitting that “there is not yet a team CEF.”
With the certainty that more bailouts are on the way, investors are flocking to buy bonds of the European Financial Stability Facility, the bailout machine set up two years ago.
The EFSF is on the way out if the new European Stability Mechanism can finally get all the necessary votes and the €500 billion in funds currently envisioned to fund the new machinery.
But investors are so eager to buy EFSF bonds that they’ll literally pay to buy them, with the current slate of offerings actually bought up at negative interest rates.
From Agence France-Presse:
Investors accepted negative returns to lend to the EU’s bailout fund on Tuesday, according to the German central bank, which organised the auction of three-month debt.
The EFSF fund sold 1.99 billion euros ($2.57 billion) of three-month paper at an average rate of -0.04 percent, the Bundesbank said, roughly the same yield as at a similar auction last month.
A negative yield means that overall and over the life of the loan, investors agree theoretically to pay the EFSF to lend it money.
But despite the poor returns, investors were keen to snap up the debt. The Bundesbank received bids worth 5.63 billion euros, giving a healthy cover ratio — a closely watched measure of demand — of 2.8.
European Union banking regs could split banking functions
Deregulation of U.S. banks under Bill Clinton reversed rules separating banking from brokering. The real estate bubble, fueled by a myriad of mysterious “swaps” and “obligations,” and resulted in the crash that government chose to resolve by picking the pockets of the same poor citizens who were suckered into the bubble.
The eurocrats currently drawing up the proposed regulatory authority that would strip states of their banking oversight and hand it over to the European Central Banksters and their pals in Brussels are looking to do what the U.S. undid. [That, of course, will be a major sticking point with the banksters of The City in London.]
From Agence France-Presse:
Banks would have to separate consumer deposit-taking from high-risk trading for the financial sector under EU reforms proposed by the governor of the Bank of Finland and unveiled on Tuesday.
The report on reforming the structure of the banking sector across the European Union single market was presented to EU Financial Services Commissioner Michel Barnier, and could be taken up in legislative proposals pending a public consultation including savers.
The idea is to “get rid of a system where profits are private and costs are public,” Bank of Finland governor and ex-European Commissioner Erkki Liikanen told reporters after the presentation of his panel’s conclusions.
This way, “all taxpayers will be better off” and with “more clarity and less complexity,” legislative changes will also lead to greater competition, which also serves the consumers, Liikanen said.
“I will now consider the next steps, in which the Commission will look at the impact of these recommendations both on growth and on the safety and integrity of financial services.” Barnier reiterated.
The report also illustrates other suggestions to better preserve healthiness of European banking sector, such as urging banks to draw up and maintain effective recovery and resolution plans, using designated bail-in instruments, applying more robust risk weights in the determination of minimum capital standards, and enhancing existing corporate governance reforms.
The advisory group was designated by Barnier in November 2011 with Liikanen as chairman, while members were appointed in February 2012. Its mandate was to determine whether structural reforms of EU banks would strengthen financial stability and improve efficiency and consumer protection, as well as making proposals on reforms.
They’re really pushing on the eurocrats, who are desperate for the country to ask for a bailout.
Two separate bailouts are in the offing, one for the banks and the other for the Spanish government.
While Spain’s indicated it will take the bank bailout, the prime minister is playing coy with the sovereign bailout, the Spailout, in hopes that the growing anxiety in Brussels and Frankfurt will get them a better deal.
First, a video report from euronews:
And the story, first from Reuters:
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Tuesday a request for European aid was not imminent following a report the country could apply for help as soon as this weekend.
Rajoy made the comments after meeting in Madrid with the 17 leaders of Spain’s regions.
European officials told Reuters late on Monday that Spain was ready Continue reading →
We open with some global news, a general slowdown in the G20 economies, a push for More Europe, Germany’s growing debt, a German populace increasingly worried about their pensions, and a pro-euro victory at the Dutch polls.
Britain’s unhappy with those proposed banking regulations, Ireland’s prime minister doesn’t like some of his own government’s proposed cuts, an Irish hotel is profiting mightily off austerity, and the country is targeting engagement rings.
The German finance minister pans the Spailout while the eurobank warns Spain of the dangers of growing debt, Bankia gets its bailout cash and the government targets shady stock sales, while the IMF warns Portugal not to cut too much, inflation hits Italy and the country goes after art galleries of money laundering and such.
A moment of context: G20 growth slows
The slowdown isn’t just European, and back in the U.S., the Fed is resulting to its usual gimmick, another round of quantitative easing, even though a corporate survey shows companies won’t spend any more even with a new flood of cheap cash.
But the slowdown is global, as the latest numbers from G20 nations reveal.
From the London Telegraph:
Economic growth in the top G20 countries slowed to 0.6pc in the second quarter of 2012 from 0.7pc in the first quarter, with slow and weak growth set to continue, the OECD said on Thursday.
In Britain output contracted for the third quarter running, to minus 0.5 percent from minus 0.3 percent, and in Italy for the fourth quarter, which showed minus 0.8-percent growth in the last two quarters.
The Chinese economy picked up but output in the eurozone, Japan and South Korea slowed sharply. Britain and Italy also showed shrinking output data.
The financial crisis is being used to push for revision of the European Union, with powers flowing out of member states and into the offices of the good gray eurocrats of Brussels and the banksters of Frankfurt.
Now the EU’s president is setting out to sell the sceme.
From Agence France-Presse:
EU President Herman Van Rompuy said Thursday he wanted to begin consultations next week on reforms to the bloc, including a centralised budget and shared debt, two hugely controversial issues.
Van Rompuy, in an ‘Issues Paper on Completing the Economic and Monetary Union,’ said the aim was to have the power to deal with problems in member states and “to prevent contagion, possibly through a central budget for the euro area.
“This in turn, could involve limited common debt issuance,” he said, raising a proposal opposed notably by Germany, Europe’s paymaster, which rejects any idea that weaker eurozone states should be able to borrow on the back of stronger ones.
Van Rompuy said the paper built on a breakthrough June 28-29 EU summit which agreed a series of moves on tighter EU economic and political integration to better tackle the eurozone debt crisis.
Germany’s sovereign debt remained above two trillion euros ($2.58 trillion) in 2011, despite additional revenues on the back of robust economic growth. And the national debt clock is bound to keep ticking away.
At the end of 2011, Germany had accumulated exactly 2,025,400,000,000 euros in sovereign debt, which was 0.7 percent more than in the previous year, according to data published by the German Federal Statistics Office, Destatis, Thursday.
In broken down figures, this amounted to 24,771 euros of debt for every German, Destatis said.
The debt of the national government was by far the highest, standing at 1.28 trillion euros, even though Berlin was able to reduce its debt by 0.6 percent last year.
However, the country’s regional governments, as well as local municipalities were adding 2.5 percent and 4.9 percent respectively to the national debt mountain in 2011, Destatis said.
The scenario is familiar to any reader in the U.S.: An aging Baby Boom generation meets underfunded pensions.
But the scare is new for Germans, and the prospects are growing dimmer.
From Spiegel:
Ever since German Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Ursula von der Leyen recently published alarming figures on the future level of German pensions, there has been widespread concern over the looming danger of old-age poverty.
Von der Leyen, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), released data showing that, in two decades, the statutory pension will only be enough to guarantee a life on the edge of poverty, even for average earners. To make matters worse, what Germans have managed to save during the course of their working lives is in danger of evaporating in the chaos of the global financial and debt crises. Investment magazines and bank brochures warn of a “pension trap” and, in the insurance industry, there is talk of a “rude awakening.”
Germans are afraid that their dream of a golden retirement could turn into a nightmare. For decades, one of the certainties of life in Germany was that the next generation of retirees would be better off and live a more secure existence than the preceding one. It was viewed as a sign of economic success when Germany’s senior citizens thronged the luxury decks of international cruise ships and were wooed by the advertising industry as an affluent consumer group. No other segment of the population currently has a lower risk of falling into poverty than pensioners.
But now even well-paid skilled workers and employees are afraid that this could change in the future. They see that the nation’s falling birth rate has resulted in a dwindling number of employees who pay into state retirement funds. And they have noticed that inflation and low interest rates are eating away at their assets. Indeed, Thomas Meyer, the former chief economist at Deutsche Bank, recently wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that the effects of the crisis threaten to reduce the purchasing power of private pension plans by one-half.
The genuinely leftist Socialist Party, while briefly capturing first place in pre-election polling, came in third, and the hard right Freedom Party came in fourth.
But there’s still the need to form a coalition, and it’s likely the final government will be a center/right mix headed by the current prime minister.
From Deutsche Welle:
Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberal party appears to have won the most seats in general elections in the Netherlands. The margin over the Labor party was just two seats, and both groups are well short of a majority.
Labor party leader Diederik Samsom phoned Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the early hours of Thursday morning to concede defeat. With 96 percent of votes counted, Rutte’s Liberal party looked set to win 41 of 150 available seats in the lower house – just ahead of Labor on 39 seats.
Both of the two largest parties are therefore well short of a majority in the house, meaning Rutte will have to secure a coalition in order to govern.
>snip<
The left-wing Socialists came in third place with 15 seats, the same result they secured in 2010.
The big loser was far right Freedom Party headed by Geert Wilders, whose views on Muslims earned him the support of American Ziocons. Wilders’s party dropped a dozen seats down to 13, and placed it fourth behind the Socialists.
Britain en route to an EU collision?
That’s because Britain has great misgivings about Angela Merkel’s More Europe agenda, particularly the new banking regulations.
From Bruno Waterfield of the London Telegraph:
Britain has pushed for Brussels’ new banking regulator to supervise all 6,000 eurozone banks – including Germany’s Landesbanks – in a move that puts London on a collision course with Berlin.
In a secret British negotiating document, seen by The Daily Telegraph and distributed in Brussels, the Treasury has argued that leaving smaller German banks outside the proposed bank union would “pose Continue reading →
There’s more tightening of the screws, including cuts of benefits to the young and elderly in Ireland, a power shutoff at a Greek hospice, German legislative approval of Spailout funds [unimpressive to investors], major Spanish budget cuts and ensuing protests, the empty state of the Spanish government till, an Italian vote for the fiscal pact, Sicilian finances in question, a rare IMF questioning of extreme austerianism, a British bank selloff, slashed sick leave in Ireland, an Irish housing demolition derby, a defeauly warning from a Greek coalition partner, a demand for Greek wage cuts, a German job offering, a Greek housing market collapse, and new French taxes.
Tighten down the eurohatches, says IMF
Yep, it’s the Merkel line again, although the International Monetary Fund is starting to express doubts about the extent of the austerity they’ve been imposing, as you’ll learn in other items in today’s EuroWatch.
From Capital.gr:
Europe’s leaders need to move toward a more complete monetary union if “substantial” spillover effects for the global economy are to be avoided, the International Monetary Fund said.
The immediate priority is making progress toward a banking union for the euro area, the IMF said in a staff report on euro- area economic policies today. While acknowledging that leaders have taken important steps already, the report argued that an even stronger and more collective effort is required to staunch financial contagion from the crisis, Bloomberg reported.
“A strong commitment toward a robust and complete monetary union would help restore faith in the viability” of the economic and monetary union, the IMF said. “This should encompass a credible path to a banking union and greater fiscal integration, with better governance and more risk sharing.”
And once again it’s the finance minister who’s taking the lead in calling for more power to tighten the screws on eurozone countries that fail to heed the harsh austerian line as preached by Berlin.
Germany will demand tough powers be given to the European Central Bank if it is authorized to provide direct financial support to distressed banks in the eurozone, the finance minister said Thursday.
“Only when a regulator with disciplinary powers exists can the question of help for distressed banks be discussed,” Wolfgang Schaeuble told parliament, denying any deal had been done yet to aid banks directly.
Rainer Bruederle, the parliamentary leader of the Free Democrats, part of the ruling coalition, said, “I am stating on behalf of my party that direct bank help is not an option without there being a European bank regulator with tough disciplinary powers.”
Bundestag votes for the Spailout
But just how much longer Germany will come up with additional cash remains an open question.
From Deutsche Welle:
The German parliament has approved the latest round of eurozone aid, helping to pave the way for a Spanish bank bailout. But many legislators have expressed reservations about just how much more money Berlin can give.
The lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, has overwhelmingly approved Spain’s 100 billion euro ($123 billion) bank bailout, despite growing unease within both the conservative governing coalition and center-left opposition about eurozone aid money.
The 620-member Bundestag passed the legislation 473 to 97, in the body’s 10th vote on European crisis measures since Greece applied for a bailout in 2010. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition managed to muster 301 “yes” votes from their own ranks.
>snip<
Spain is expected to receive the first 30-million-euro tranche of aid by the end of July.
More from Spiegel, including an interesting admonition at the end:
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble defended the aid package during parliamentary debate prior to the vote saying that difficulties in Spain’s financial sector could become “a problem for the financial stability of the euro zone.” He emphasized that Spain alone is responsible for the repayment of the loan package.
Opposition leaders voiced vehement criticism of the government on Thursday, with Social Democratic floor leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier accusing Merkel of not having a clear plan and of not doing enough to explain to German voters what the ongoing euro crisis holds in store. “We have to say that this will be a difficult path, that it will take a long time and that it will include significant burdens for our own country,” he said. “You should have been explaining it every day since May 2010,” he said, addressing the chancellor, “but you don’t because you fear the collapse of your coalition.”
Thursday’s vote took place during parliament’s traditional summer recess, but members of parliament were called back to Berlin in a rare move. On June 29, Bundestag President Norbert Lammert of Merkel’s conservatives admonished parliamentarians heading out on their holidays: “Don’t swim too far out and make sure your carry-on baggage is within close reach.”
The word from Berlin didn’t appear to inspire the slightest confidence in the investing class, who sent the price of Spanish bonds soaring again.
From Stephen Castle of the New York Times:
In a stark reminder that Spain’s financial crisis is far from resolved, the government in Madrid had to pay more to raise medium-term financing Thursday, while the yield on its longer-term debt crept back above the 7 percent level that, many analysts fear, could eventually lead to a full-scale bailout.
The latest worrying development comes despite Germany’s approval on Thursday of an agreement to provide its share of a €100 billion, or $122.6 billion, Spanish bank rescue.
>snip<
On Thursday, Spain’s Treasury sold €2.96 billion in bonds maturing in 2014, 2017 and 2019. The interest rate on the five-year debt rose sharply, to 6.459 percent from 6.072 percent at the previous auction on June 21. There were no comparable rates for the other maturities.
In the open market, meanwhile, the yield on 10-year Spanish government bonds rose as high as 7.03 percent before settling back to 6.926 percent. Many analysts say they believe that such rates would eventually make Spain’s financing costs unsustainable.
“Demand for Spanish paper is collapsing, even for shorter-dated debt, which is very worrying and raises the specter of Spain losing market access,” said Nicolas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy, a consulting firm in London specializing in sovereign credit risk. The high yields, he said, “reflect the deep skepticism about the Spanish economy’s ability to get out of the rut in which it finds itself.”
Spain’s parliament passed Thursday a government plan to slash 65 billion euros in public spending over the next two years.
The votes were 180 in favor, 131 contrary and one abstention. Out of the 309 deputies present, the only representative to join the ranks of the ruling Partito Popolare was the single deputy of the Navarra UPN. All deputies belonging to other political parties voted against the measure, except for members of the leftest Sinistra Unita, who walked out of the hall at the moment of the vote.
Three votes were made by remote via computer.
The reaction was immediate from Spain’s public sector workers, as the London Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported:
Public employees staged protests across Spain today and demanded Mr Rajoy’s resignation as the Cortes voted on the €65bn austerity package imposed by EU as a condition for the bank rescue.
Socialist leader Alfredo Rubalcaba said the cuts would push the country over the brink. “Over the next year we are going to see the destruction of 600,000 jobs, taking us deeper into depression,” he said. Unemployment is already 24.4pc, topping 32pc in Extremadura.
“There is no money left to pay for services,” said treasury minister Cristobal Montoro, calling for years of hard sacrifice. “We have to raise VAT to stay in Europe. There is no other option. All alternatives are worse. This has gone beyond ideologies.”
More from The Guardian’s Giles Tremlett and Ian Traynor:
More than 100,000 people were estimated to have joined in demonstrations called by trades unions, with about 50,000 gathering in Madrid. Police fired rubber bullets to disperse the protesters in Madrid.
Angry civil servants had blocked traffic in several main Madrid avenues earlier in the day, with protesters puncturing the tyres of dozens of riot police vans, amid growing upset at austerity, recession and 24% unemployment.
It’s a reasonable proposal, given the extent of the cuts demanded to win more Spailout funds.
From ANSAmed:
Just hours from protests organized in 80 Spanish cities against a 65 billion euro public spending cut plan, leaders of Spain’s two largest unions demanded that the government submit the plan to a general referendum Thursday.
The leaders of Spain’s main unions – Union General de Trabajadores Continue reading →
Lots of meetings going on, but we focus on two — one done and one coming. Then there’s the Spailout, with the formal plea now scheduled for Monday, and more new from Greece, including more on the memorandum, health afflictions of the new cabinet [and its peculiar configuration], power shutoffs, jobless lawyers, and more.
We’ve got Qataris buying up France, a death knell for the Tobin Tax, the EU’s reluctance to introduce democratic reforms, and an eagerness to shill for Uncle Sam’s spies.
But we’ll open with the meetings.
Hollande prepares to huddle with Lagarde
François Hollande’s sitting on the political equivalent of a full house, with the National Assembly and Senate now controlled by his own Socialist [sic] party.
But the ersatz socialist is paying court to the embodiment of finance capital, the International Monetary Fund, the architects of austerity.
French President Francois Hollande is set to meet European Central Bank President Mario Draghi Monday in Paris, days before the EU summit to be held on June 28 and 29, amidst the ongoing euro-zone crisis.
Earlier this week, Mr. Hollande said at a press conference in Los Cabos, Mexico, that talks would be held with the ECB, “in complete respect of its independence”, and underlined that the ECB could continue to play a part in the resolution of the euro-zone crisis.
The meeting between the French head of state and the ECB president will intervene days after leaders of the euro zone’s four biggest economies renewed calls for firmer political collaboration, as they met for a presummit meeting in Rome on Friday.
Merkel’s adamant: No cash without discipline
She’s even earned an Italian nickname, Mrs. No.
And only virtue will bring rewards.
From Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has shot down calls for full mobilisation of the eurozone’s bail-out funds to halt the raging bond crisis in Spain and Italy, ignoring unprecedented pleas for action from the International Monetary Fund.
“Each country wants to help but if I am going to call on taxpayers in Germany, I must have guarantees that all is under control. Responsibility and control go hand in hand,” she said after a crucial summit of the eurozone’s Big Four powers in Rome.
Mrs Merkel – or La Signora No in Italy – doused hopes of a break-through on proposals by the “Latin Bloc” leaders of Italy, France, and Spain to deploy the funds (EFSF and ESM) to cap the bond yields of “virtuous” countries vulnerable to contagion, or to recapitalize banks directly to take the strain off sovereign states.
“If I give money straight to Spanish banks, I can’t control what they do. That is how the treaties are written,” she said, before racing off to Danzig to tonight for Euro 2012 quarter final between Greece and German.
While Merkel’s saying Nein! Nein! Nein! To pouring more cash onto the Southern fire, she’s still issuing her usual clarion call for less national sovereignty and all power to Brussels.
And she’s getting a bit perturbed with that French fellow.
From Deutsche Welle:
Speaking after the 100-minute talks in the Villa Madama overlooking the Italian capital, German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed the growth packet, calling it “the right signal.”
“The lesson of this crisis is more Europe, not less Europe,” Merkel said.
“We need to work closer together politically, especially in the eurozone. Whoever has a common currency must also have coherent policies. That is also a lesson from the last two years,” Merkel went on.
>snip<
Merkel has insisted that members of the 17-nation currency union must transfer control over national budget and economic policies to Brussels before Germany would consider common debt issuance.
In an apparent challenge to the chancellor, however, [French President François] Hollande said: “I consider eurobonds to be an option … but not in 10 years. There can be no transfer of sovereignty if there is not an improvement in solidarity.”
The Spanish Finance Minister Luis de Guindos confirmed on Friday that Spain will formally request aid for its banks on Monday. Speaking at a meeting of finance ministers in Luxembourg, de Guindos said that the conditions attached to the request, which will take place in a letter just two paragraphs long, would be ready by July 9. Late Thursday, an independent audit of Spain’s banking sector concluded that, under a worse-case scenario, Spain could need as much as $80 billion to recapitalize its banks.
Do Greeks believe in omens these days?
Because if they do, things aren’t looking too good for the coalition.
No sooner does New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras achieve the prime ministerial post than he winds up in the hospital.
And then he’s followed by his all-important finance minister, even before the poor schlub could take the oath of office.
Maybe it’s time for trip to the Oracle of Delphi? Once he’s discharged, that is.
From Keep Talking Greece:
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras successfully underwent an eye operation on Saturday morning in Athens. Ophthalmology surgeons at public hospital Attikon repaired the retinal detachment problem in an operation that lasted about two hours.
A statement by the surgeons said that Samaras’s eye problem was serious and that he has to be under medical surveillance and a regular measurement of his right eye blood pressure for some time.
Samaras is expected ot stay in the hospital at least until Sunday.
