Quote of the day: Seeing the future in urban form

From a stunning and very perceptive 1999 report by Robert Fishman for Fannie Mae Housing Facts & Findings on the trends shaping of American cities, past and future.

The number one trend he saw for the first half of the 21st Century is proving right on the money:

The past 30 years have seen increasing concentrations of income and wealth at the top of the income scale, relative stagnation in the middle, and worsening poverty at the bottom. Our respondents expect this trend to continue in the next 50 years, with possible dire consequences for American cities and regions. For growing disparities in income and wealth lead inevitably to an increasingly divided metropolis. If, as our respondents believe, these growing disparities of wealth will become the most important single influence on the American metropolis in the next 50 years, some of the negative consequences are detailed in the rest of the top 10 list: a perpetual “underclass” in central cities and inner-ring suburbs and the deterioration of the “first-ring” post-1945 suburb, as the struggling portions of the middle and working classes find themselves trapped in deteriorating older suburbs. On the wealthier side of the great metropolitan divide, we are likely to see the winners in our “winner-take-all society” isolate themselves in gated communities or other exclusive preserves at the edge of the region.

Other likely trends include a home-building industry increasingly focused on high-end “trophy houses” or “tract mansions;” a similar concentration in retailing on upscale malls; office parks located near the enclaves where the top executives live-locations that often leave the bulk of the employees with long, difficult commutes; and increasing disparities between the quality of the school systems and other services in elite suburbs versus less-favored suburbs and inner cities. We are also likely to see new building focused not just on the outer edge of a region but in certain “quadrants” favored by the affluent: for example, in Washington, DC, the Northwest; in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Southwest; in Atlanta and Chicago, the North. For the affluent who choose to live in gentrified neighborhoods in central cities, the rule of isolation will also obtain, as the wealthy use the techniques of privatization, ranging from private schools to special tax-and-service districts, to insulate themselves from the urban crisis around them.

Headline of the day: Owning their homework

From the Washington Post, the ultimate proof that American education is doomed:

Prince George’s considers copyright policy that takes ownership of students’ work

Headline of the day: Bureaucrats run amok

From ABC News:

Kindergartner Suspended Over Bubble Gun Threat

Quote of the day: Til [student] debt do us part

The one apocalypse that’s coming off on schedule, destroying the hopes of a generation.

From Chris Maisano, writing in Jacobin Magazine:

In June 2010, total outstanding student loan debt became larger than total outstanding credit card debt for the first time in the country’s history, and in the spring of 2012 this figure surpassed the astonishing figure of $1 trillion. This explosion in student loan indebtedness has been the logical result of the dramatic inflation in the cost of higher education (particularly public higher education) in recent decades. Economists estimate that the cost of tuition and fees has more than doubled since 2000, easily surpassing the rate of inflation in energy, housing, and even health care costs.

The driving force behind this explosion in higher education costs is the long-term disinvestment in public colleges and universities at the state level. While public higher education institutions have absorbed the majority of new undergraduate enrollments since 1990, the proportion of state spending on higher education has dramatically declined. According to a recent study by Demos, between 1990 and 2010, real funding per public full-time enrolled student declined by over 26%. This shortfall has not been filled by other sources of public funding, but rather by a marked increase of students’ out-of-pocket costs. Over the same period, tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities rose by 112.5% while the price of public two-year colleges increased by 71%. Because household incomes have stagnated over the previous two decades, students and their families have been compelled to turn to student loans to cover these costs. According to the Department of Education, 45% of 1992-1993 graduates borrowed money from federal or private sources; today, at least two-thirds of graduates enter the workforce with educational debt.

Even though college-educated workers tend, on average, to earn higher incomes than their less-educated counterparts, young college-educated workers have not escaped the pressures of wage stagnation. In the last decade, the average annual earnings of workers ages 25 to 34 with Bachelors degrees fell by 15%. New graduates, meanwhile, saw their as the average debt load increase by 24%. What makes this dramatic expansion of student loan indebtedness particularly troubling is the fact that unlike most other forms of personal debt, student loans cannot be discharged through the standard bankruptcy process. In the event of default on a private or federal student loan, borrowers face a range of invasive measures: wage garnishment, the interception of tax refunds or lottery winnings, and the withholding of future Social Security payments.

GreeceWatch: Entering the wilderness of mirrors

In the most bizarre day since the start of the Greek crisis, a welter of conflicting news reports left Greeks and observers like esnl reeling.

The bombshell beginning the day was an announcement from a German newspaper that the Greek coalition had won its desideratum, a two-year extension of the time needed to implement those draconian cuts demanded by the IMF/EU/ECB Troika.

Accompanying that declaration was another: The cuts were a done deal.

Accounts filled the paper and virtual pages of the world’s press and media sites and were bandied about on the airwaves.

Yet by the time the day was over, both accounts had been denied by all three members of the Troika, even though they’d also been confirmed by the Greek finance minister following the Troika’s denials.

More specifics of the cuts emerged, as did more signs of division within the coalition government headed by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

The German money minister really sent Greek heads spinning, first by by declaring he’d be ready to fund a third Greek bailout, then by demanding that Greeks cede control over the nation’s borrowing and surrender all tax cash collected bailout funds into a eurobankster-controlled escrow account. And on the subject of banks, Greek bank employees are on strike today.

In other news, Golden Dawn has added a new category to its target list, non-citizens attending Greek universities, while Golden Dawn itself is being targeted, with three of its most thuggish parliamentary delegates stripped of immunity for prosecution for their violent actions.

Oh, and some crooks tried to steal a bridge before the Troika could.

But we’ll begin with a two-part video on Greece from The Real News Network, first on the impacts of the austerity measures already imposed:

And following up with a report on the increasing radicalization of Greek politics:

For more reports from The Real News Network, see here.

German paper reports: Greece wins a delay

Spiegel reports on the source of the report on the extension:

Süddeutsche Zeitung is reporting that Greece’s international creditors have agreed to grant the heavily indebted country two more years to reduce its budget deficit below the 3 percent maximum allowed by European Union rules. While not citing sources beyond a draft version of a “Memorandum of Understanding,” the paper also reports that Athens will additionally be given a breather on deadlines for labor market reform, energy policy reform and privatization efforts.

It is unclear whether the draft deal seen by the Süddeutsche is the same paper that news agency Reuters claims also to have seen. The news agency is also reporting on Wednesday that Greece and its lenders are moving towards a deal that would give Greece two additional years, until 2016, to reach its target of achieving a “primary budget surplus” of 4.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). A “primary budget” does not include interest payments on debt.

Berlin officials have been quick to deny the Süddeutsche report, saying that no agreement has been finalized. Steffen Kampeter, a state secretary in Germany’s Finance Ministry, insisted that no decision will be made until a report from the troika — made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — is completed. “Anything prior to that is reading tea leaves,” he told German radio on Wednesday morning.

Read the rest.

Confirming the original German report was the Greek Finance Minister.

Andy Dabilis of Greek reporter has the details:

Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras told journalists a deal had been agreed with PASOK Socialist chief Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left head Fotis Kouvelis and with international lenders, with the package set to go before the government-controlled Parliament by the end of the week, the newspaper Kathimerini said.

>snip<

Stournaras told Parliament that Greece had won more time to meet its fiscal targets and to reduce its deficit from 9.3 to 3 percent. He didn’t say how long the reprieve would be but media reports indicated it was the two years, until 2016, that Samaras had hoped for, although it’s unsure how Greece would be funded after 2014. Stournaras said without the extension the spending cut and tax hike plan would have reached nearly $24 billion.

Read the rest.

Troikarchs deny extension claims

The first two denials came from the boss eurobankster, followed by the European Union’s top money man.

From ANSAmed:

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on Wednesday said that progress is being made over how to assist crisis-stricken Greece.

Answering a reporter’s question after he appeared before the German Parliament, in the wake of a Greek minister saying an extension had been granted by the troika of the EU, ECB and IMF, Draghi said: ‘’Progress has been made but there are things which need to be defined. I can’t comment on rumors”.

A spokesman for European Economic and Monetary Commissioner Olli Rehn echoed Draghi, saying: “ Substantive progress has been made in the talks with the Greek government but there remain pending issues before an accord at a technical level can be concluded”.

Draghi and Rehn were responding to a report from Greece’s Skai TV that Athens had obtained a two-year extension from the troika on the deadlines to hit the targets set in conditions for international aid it needs to avoid a default.

Read the rest.

The IMF then joined in the denials.

From Agence France-Presse:

The International Monetary Fund announced Wednesday that there had been progress in talks with Greek authorities but no agreement on Greece’s economic performance under an IMF-EU rescue program.

“There has been progress in recent days, but some outstanding issues remain to be agreed upon to reach full staff-level agreement. Furthermore, financing issues will be discussed between the official lenders and Greece,” an IMF spokesperson said.

The brief IMF statement confirmed the European Union’s insistence earlier in the day that there was no deal, after Greece’s finance minister announced he had agreed on a new austerity package with the IMF, the EU and the European Union and won more time to fix the debt-crippled nation’s finances.

Read the rest.

Germany says no money till report card’s done

The folks with their hands on the purse strings appear to have been the folks who scotched the deal.

While nobody’s saying it officially, that’s the conclusion we draw from this paragraph from a report by Lefteris Papadimas and George Georgiopoulos of Reuters:

European paymaster Germany said the EU would only decide on the matter after receiving a report on Greece’s progress from the ‘troika’ of lenders – the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund – while ECB President Mario Draghi said no final decision had been made.

Read the rest.

But even if Greece flunks, can the Troika afford not to dish out the latest €31.5 billion bailout tranche?

From Helena Smith of The Guardian:

“Even if the troika give us a negative report what are they going to do? Are they really going to not give us the installment ( to keep Greece’s debt-choked econony afloat) two weeks before the US elections with everything that entails – default, bankruptcy, global market turmoil,” asked one senior Greek official.

“These labour reforms will turn our country into Bangladesh. They have no fiscal benefit and will actually derail the adjustment program. The political system will collapse if we impose them. The Troika is demanding that we commit suicide which is why we believe this is a matter that should be solved on a political level by the PM and not here in Athens with the troika.”

More details emerge on Troika-demanded cuts

They’re draconian, as expected.

The Guardian lists some of the austerian measures included in the package:

• Maintaining the emergency solidarity levy until 2018 – this is an increase in personal taxation of up to 5% that was introduced last year.
• Lowering the number of income tax bands to three or four, from eight at present.
• Big cuts to the public payroll: with 20,000 civil servants leaving in 2013, and a further 5,000 in 2014
• Increasing the retirement age by 2 years, from 65 to 67
• Increase in interest on deposits from 10% to 15% in 2014.
• Eliminating various tax exemptions
• Increasing taxes on farmers.
• Retroactive reductions from 1 August 2012 to “special payrolls”, on a sliding scale from 2% to 35%.
• A huge cut in the the number of associate professors from 15,226 to 2,000.
• Increasing urban traffic ticket prices by 25%, from March 2013.
• Remove special seasonal unemployment benefit payments.

Keep Talking Greece hones in on two measures certain to increase public outrage at both the Troikarchs and the coalition government:

And when you think ‘you’ve seen everything’, Greece’s lenders are always good for one or two additional surprises. Electricity bills will go up by 40% and public transport fares will increase by 25%. Yes. In times of harsh austerity, where many households struggle to make ends meet and the new austerity package will force millions deeper in despair.

Electricity

Electricity bill hikes will affect private households and small enterprises making use of ‘low voltage electricity’. The hikes of total 40% will be implemented in two or three steps and are expected to go in effect in Janurary 2013.

Public Transport Fares

Hikes will be at least by 25%. Cheap tickets for buses, tram and trolley will go up to 1.50 euro (from 1.20 today) and for Metro or combined for all public transport means will go up to 1.75 euro (from 1.40 today).

The public transport hikes will have to be implemented by March 2013.

Coalition divisions center on labor “reforms”

Once upon a time, the word “reform” was assumed to mean changes in government policy that enhanced its ability to serve its citizens.

No more.

In these days, when Orwellian language dominates public discourse, “reform” means changes in government structure designed to increase its ability to serve

GreeceWatch: The debt madness nears climax?

In its original Greek, klimax meant a ladder, and, by extension, the culmination of a process achieved through a series of steps leading to a defined end.

So it’s an appropriate term to use to describe the process now underway as, step by step, Greece is prepared for what amounts to the final act of, well, a Greek tragedy, is which a people and the wealth they’ve accumulated through a ancient and conflict-ridden history and are sacrificed to appease the paramount god of the age, the financial agora.

With Prime Minister Antonis Samaras busily paying obeisance to the market’s minions this week, the citizens of Greece await word from the North on the next round of miseries awaiting them.

At issue is whether or not the country will receive the next round of Troika bailout cash needed to keep the country in business while it dissects itself, piece by piece, and sells off its body parts to raise the cash to pay off interest on the earlier bailouts and all those bonds, themselves dissected into sundry black instruments of speculation.

There’s a lot to tell today, starting with the latest maneuvers by prime ministers and presidents to iron out the latest austerity package and all those cuts needed to get that next fix of cash. The eurozone’s top financial minister says no money til October, and only then if Greece pays proper obeisance, and there’s worrying evidence that even more cuts are called for, while the top two europols are polishing up their messaging, with some theatrics thrown in for free.

No sooner do we hear softer sounds from the German press that another paper reveals that the world’s giant banks are strategizing for the Grexit.

More pay cuts for civil servants are unveiled, city governments close their doors in protest, while tax collectors angrily denounce layoffs in their own ranks as more evidence of tax evasion surfaces and the government announces a new war on tax cheats. And despite all that, the Democratic Left pledges allegiance.

For out final offerings we have a call to listen to history, a Greek editor’s reminder that the Torika is making real profits from Greece’s misery, and word that Greek junk bonds are all the rage at investment houses.

No bailout money until October at the earliest

The next round of cash is contingent on Greece’s capitulation to the latest demands for budget, jobs, pay, and pension cuts, as well as the sell-off of parts, gas lines, the post office, and so very much more.

Samaras is spending the week ducking in and out of meetings with the powerful pols of the North, trying to sell them on his coalition’s latest round of deadly cuts, whilst simultaneously making a plea to spread the misery out over four years instead of two.

Eurozone finance chief and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker Wednesday told Samaras there’ll be no word on the next round of the bailout until October at the earliest.

He also took pains to warn the Greek public that the country’s now getting its final chance for Troika aide.

From the BBC:

After a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Mr Juncker praised the nation’s “tremendous efforts” so far to cut its deficit.

But he said “priority number one” was further consolidation of the public finances of Greece.

He added that Athens must put in place economic and structural reforms.

These include changes to the labour market, and the relaunching of privatisation programmes which have been promised but not enacted.

Read the rest.

As for Samaras’s plea to give the country two more years to implement the austerity measures, Juncker said “I have to underline this will depend on the findings of the troika mission and we have to discuss the length of the period and other dimensions.”

More from Agence France-Presse:

Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, said he was “totally opposed” to Greece being forced out of the 17-nation bloc, a move he said would create a “major risk” for the entire euro area.

>snip<

“As far as the immediate future is concerned, the ball is in the Greek court. In fact this is the last chance and Greek citizens need to know this,” Juncker said after a two-hour meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

Juncker added that in his opinion, the Greek government’s “priority number one is the consolidation of public finances, (along with) a robust and credible strategy for closing the mid term gap” in its debt-laden accounts.

He called this a “precondition” for the release of further installments from a 130-billion-euro ($161-billion) rescue package that Greece has been drawing from this year to ward off bankruptcy.

Read the rest.

But it gets even worse. . .

Greece may have to make even greater cuts

This is getting ridiculous. Each time the Greek government makes the cuts demanded by the the Troikarchs of the IMF/eurobank/European Commision, they get hit with demands to make even greater cuts.

Andy Dabilis of Greek Reporter writes of that latest ill omen:

[T]he Financial Times reported that Samaras’ uneasy coalition government, consisting of his New Democracy Conservatives, the PASOK Socialists and Democratic Left, may need to make $16.9 billion in cuts, some $2.76 million more than anticipated, although there are fears it could reach $18.7 billion, the amount the government has identified. Much of that would come from yet more pay cuts, tax hikes and a fourth round of slashed pensions that would push many elderly below the poverty line, with some auxiliary pensions to be eliminated while tax evaders owing the country $70 billion continue to escape.

A senior official told the Financial Times that if the cuts are carried out that Greek primary budget expenditures would be the lowest in the Eurozone as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, a humiliating comedown. Greece is trying to cut its budget deficit to 3 percent of GDP in two years, from 9.3 percent now. Samaras wants a two-year extension because he said the austerity measures have worsened a five-year recession that has seen unemployment hit 23.1 percent – 54.9 percent for those under 25 – and is set to shrink the economy by 7 percent. Greece has lost 25 percent of its GDP in five years.

“The economy will not be able to bear the burden of such huge spending cuts in 2013 and 2014. If there is no extension, economic activity will be depressed and it will be very difficult for any government to survive,” said another government official. The government is also considering laying off 40,000 state workers at reduced pay and firing them within a year.

Read the rest.

This is simply madness, an infliction of even more draconian measures that will ensure that the country is unable to raise the revenues demanded, which in turn will lead to one of two eventualities, either a quick Grexit or the final and complete looting of the nation’s resources and the subjugation of its populace into latter-day serfs.

Merkel and Hollande plot their Grand-Guignol

From Wikipedia

Grand-Guignol was a Parisian theater with a bill of fare that gave its name to a genre, the presentation of graphic, amoral horror productions as exemplified in the poster to the right, .

The woman, bound and blinded, threatened by a shadowy man with knife raised to strike provides the perfect metaphor for the people of Greece today, enchained my misery and privation and deprived of a vision of hope.

Two key players in scripting the drama are German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande, and they’ll soon be meeting to draft the latest act.

From Agence France-Presse:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande will try to present a united front when they meet Thursday ahead of a fateful few weeks for Greece’s eurozone future.

As leaders of the bloc’s top two economies, the pair carry the weight of expectations that they will drive decisive action to remedy the near three-year crisis, despite their differences.

The timing of the evening summit in the German capital is no coincidence — Merkel will host the Greek prime minister in Berlin less than 24 hours later before he meets Hollande in Paris Saturday.

>snip<

Germany, Europe’s effective paymaster, has insisted Athens must stick to the timeline and reforms agreed in return for its second rescue package, while France is seen as more flexible.

Read the rest.

But is there a rift between the writers?

Hollande is one of that strange, flabby, and subservient species that passes for a socialist in today’s European politics, while Merkel’s a stolid conservative in the traditional German mold, devoted to banks, business, and bürgerlich values.

So their dance is delicate, and fraught with nuance. Holland must appear to at least mouth the values that once went with the S-world, while invariably capitulating to the demands of the market.

Now there seems to be a tiff, worthy of note, but, we presume, ultimately meaningless.

From Deutsche Presse Agentur:

Signs of tensions between France and Germany emerged Wednesday as cash-strapped Greece stepped up a diplomatic offensive to convince Europe that it needs more time to introduce a tough round of economic reforms.

>snip<

Merkel‘s spokesman said Berlin and Paris had agreed that the German and French leaders would just make short statements to reporters before a dinner meeting to discuss Greece crisis and the eurozone debt crisis.

But it emerged Wednesday that Hollande now plans to break ranks with the Chancellor and to hold his own press briefing of the French media in the French Embassy in Berlin after his talks with Merkel.

>snip<

Merkel‘s spokesman Steffen Seibert denied that Germany was upset at this departure from the usual practice in Berlin.

“If a foreign guest wants to also go to his country‘s embassy, that‘s up to him and certainly not open to criticism from us,” he said.

Read the rest.

Ah, there’s another European term for it, appropriately French: Théâtre de l’Absurde.

And while we’re on the subject of Théâtre de l’Absurde

Consider the following from Melissa Eddy and Jack Ewing of the New York Times:

Bild, Germany’s most-read newspaper, has accused Greece of “making our euro kaput” and only a few days ago referred to the country as “a bottomless pit.”

On Wednesday, though, the paper featured a friendly chat with the man in charge of that bottomless pit: Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, who pleaded during an interview for more time to repair his country’s shattered economy. The Bild reporter even inquired how Mr. Samaras was feeling after an eye operation.

Coming from a newspaper known for a keen understanding of what its 2.8 million readers want to hear, the shift in tone could be significant. It coincides with signals from members of Chancellor

EuroWatch: Bad numbers in jobs, suicides, more

We begin with a recession prediction, then on to some upbeat trade numbers, the banking coup that’s on for next month, Finland’s about-face on a eurozone exit, and the Portuguese are selling off their gold jewelry and heirlooms.

From Spain we have bad numbers for the leading parties, record bad bank loan numbers, signs the Spailout call is coming, and a grocery-expropriating mayor on the march.

From Italy, bad news for immigrant workers, the pending closure of Europe’s largest steel plant, and a tax dodge lament.

From Britain we’ve got a surge in suicides and an overeager former Murdoch minion turned into eager privatizer of schoolyards, while Denmark gives us downsized journalists and a novel solution to the growing numbers of evicted tenants.

Wse close with an ominous court ruling from Germany.

Economists predict year-plus recession

Considering that Britain’s already in one — and Greece and Spain already have depression-level unemployment numbers, consider this an easy call.

From EurActiv:

The eurozone will slip into recession and won’t grow until 2013, according a poll of economists who also don’t expect any new aggressive policy response from the European Central Bank.

The latest monthly survey results of the Reuters poll, released yesterday (16 August), follow news that the eurozone just barely skirted recession in the first half of the year, with only Germany growing in the three months to June and France, the second largest eurozone economy, flatlining.

Taken together with a worsening outlook for the eurozone’s most vulnerable economies in a Reuters poll published last week, there appears little expectation for an end to the euro crisis or any prospects for a meaningful economic rebound.

Adding to the deeper concerns, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said in the Daily Telegraph published today (17 August) that European leaders must prepare for the looming breakup of the eurozone.

Read the rest.

But the eurozone had a record trade surplus

So that should mean everything’s hunky-dory, right?

Well. . .

From Agence France-Presse:

New EU data out on Friday showed the eurozone logging a record trade surplus and bumper cash earnings in what some analysts said was evidence that austerity and structural economic reforms pay off.

However, the devil in the detail for others was a huge depreciation year-on-year in the real-terms value of the single currency and darker signals from more recent Chinese trade data — with a prolonged recession still tipped into next year.

The Eurostat agency said the 17-nation eurozone’s surplus in the trade of goods surged to 14.9 billion euros in June ($18.4 billion), the highest since the European Union began collating numbers in 1999.

The preliminary headline figure was up from just 200 million euros for the same month in 2011. Seasonally-adjusted exports rose by 2.4 percent compared to May, while imports remained stable.

At the same time, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt announced that the eurozone’s current account surplus grew to 12.7 billion euros in June from 10.3 billion in May.

Read the rest.

Banking coup set for next month?

The Merkel agenda, backed by the Bundesbank, is to force common currency countries to yield sovereignty over the national purse strings to the eurocrats.

Now comes word that a major plank in the platform, centralizing control of all the eurozones banks in the money wizards of the eurobank in Frankfurt, will be rammed through next month.

From Capital.gr:

The European Commission will propose next month giving the European Central Bank supervision over all of the euro zone’s major banks, Handelsblatt daily reported on Friday, citing Commission sources.

That would include Germany’s Sparkassen savings banks and Genossenschaftsbanken cooperative banks, which Germany had hoped would be exempt when it signalled it wanted supervision only over the biggest 25 banks, the paper reported.

The Commission’s proposal, due on September 11, envisages national authorities supervising day-to-day business and the ECB only intervening where it sees “dangerous risks”, Reuters said citing Handelsblatt.

Outside the euro zone, national banking supervisors would stay in charge of their banks, the paper reported.

Read the rest.

Finland does a skinback on the Finxit

No sooner do folks in Helsinki suggest their country may dump the euro than words comes that it ain’t so.

We suspect phone lines to the south were burning up before this latest turn of events.

From Angela Monaghan of the London Telegraph:

Finland is totally committed to the euro, its European affairs minister said following comments from its foreign minister that the country was preparing for a break up of the single currency.

“Foreign minister Tuomioja’s statement in no way reflects the Finnish government position,” said Alexander Stubb, highlighting deep divisions within the coalition government. “Finland stands 100pc behind the euro,” the European affairs minister added.

He was speaking after foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja told The Daily Telegraph “we have to face openly the possibility of a euro-break up.”

Mr Tuomioja, a member of the coalition’s Social Democratic Party, said that Finnish officials had an “operational plan for any eventuality.”

Mr Stubb, a member of the centre-right Kokoomus Party, said his colleague had probably spoken in a personal capacity. “The government’s position is very clear: we stand pro-European and we stand to work, to improve the situation in the eurozone,” he said.

Read the rest.

Immiserated Portuguese cash in their gold

Yesterday’s heirlooms and cherished gifts are headed to the smelter as people resort to desperate measures in the face of need.

From Bloomberg’s Henrique Almeida:

In Portugal, the historical home of some of Europe’s biggest gold reserves, the number of jewelry stores, which include cash-for-gold shops, increased 29 percent in 2011 from a year earlier, a study commissioned by parliament found. In the first quarter, an average of two new stores opened every day, the report said. Now some of them are closing.

“Business has gone from great to terrible in a matter of months,” Luis Almeida, whose family has owned a gold store near Lisbon’s Rossio Square for more than 40 years, said in an interview. “The sad truth is that most of my clients have already sold all of their gold rings.”

>snip<

Portugal’s gold exports increased by more than five times to 519.4 million euros last year from 102.1 million euros in 2009, according to

GreeceWatch: Contraction, Germans, sell-offs

We’re late in posting today, having edited more than a hundred wedding photos taken Sunday. . .

But there’s lots to report, starting with the latest numbers, with economic contraction growing tighter still. We’ve got more signs of a coalition in jeopardy, more nasty jabs from up North, bond sales, a wave of selloffs and privatizations — including the ports and the postal service — and the fate of one man who stood up to austerity.

But the most amazing tale is of a the Troika-installed privatization czar, whoi was given her job as Greek overlord despite the fact she’d been booted from her previous job after revelations of corruption.

And then there’s the latest racist violence, including the murder of a young immigrant and the torching of a mosque, plus the likely culprits getting a taste of their own medicine.

There’s a cold winter ahead for Greek schoolchildren, fears of a Syrian refugee horde, and story about one business blessed by the crisis.

Greek economic contraction continues

And the latest numbers are — what else? — notably dour.

From Athens News:

The country’s economy contracted 6.2 percent in the second quarter as belt-tightening to slash deficits continued to take a toll, hampering efforts to meet targets set by the troika for continued bailout funding.

Currently in its fifth consecutive year, the economic downturn has driven unemployment to record highs, with nearly one in four unemployed and more pain expected ahead.

“It’s not a major surprise, we knew the economy was continuing to struggle but hopefully it’s some sign that the rate of decline is starting to bottom out,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at London-based research firm Markit.

“Hopefully the first half of the year was as bad as it gets and we’ll see some improvement now,” he said.

The second quarter preliminary GDP estimate was based on seasonally unadjusted data and follows a 6.5 percent GDP decline in the previous quarter.

Read the rest.

Rally looks like that austerity is working like the Troika promised, no?

Coalition on the brink of breakup?

More signs are emerging that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ three-party coalition is growing brittle, with the left-most party showing signs of nervousness at being linked to an austerity regime designed to meet the needs of investment banks and not their constituents.

From Ekathemerini:

Samaras is due to meet Eurogroup chief and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker in Athens on August 22 before talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on August 24 and French President Francois Hollande the following day. He is also pursuing meetings this month with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

Samaras could be in a position to present to Juncker, Merkel and Hollande the details of the 11.5 billion euros in savings Greece plans to make over the next couple of years. Samaras, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left chief Fotis Kouvelis are likely to be supplied with the final list of spending cuts around August 20. The measures will need the coalition leaders’ approval.

This appeared far from a foregone conclusion yesterday as two Democratic Left MPs, Odysseas Voudouris and Yiannis Micheloyiannis, both expressed doubts about the cuts their party leader is set to approve.

“The government is slipping and not keeping to its promises,” said Voudouris. “We were committed to finding the 11.5 billion from tax evasion and waste but I don’t see the Finance Ministry looking in these areas.”

“If farmers’ pensions are cut, if pensions under 1,400 euros are cut, if civil servants’ bonuses are reduced and if benefits for the long-term unemployed are cut, Democratic Left should leave the coalition,” said Micheloyiannis.

Voudouris and Micheloyiannis left PASOK to join Kouvelis’s party earlier this year.

Read the rest.

The inherent contradictions of the financial order on which globalization depends are becoming clear.

Money’s value depends on public confidence, and when those with the most money act like confidence men, the public will lose confidence, especially when the folks on whom they’re supposed to bestow their confidence at getting rich while everyone else is growing poor.

Another nasty sound bite from a German

They must use an alarm clock to keep these going, or maybe one of those fancy mechanical clocks they put in town squares centuries back.

You’ve got your mechanical Merkel, her finance ministers, the Bundesbankers, and her cast of CSU party luminaries.

Here’s the latest, from a foxy guy [his last name shared with a certain short-legged, bushy tailed canine], via A. Papapostolou of Greek Reporter:

Germany will block any new aid to Greece if Athens does not fully comply with the terms of previous rescue packages, even if other countries support unlocking funds, a senior lawmaker said today.

The deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative parliamentary bloc, Michael Fuchs, told business daily Handelsblatt that Berlin was ready to use its veto if it is unhappy with findings from the Greece creditors’ “troika”.

“You can quote me: even if the glass is half-full, that is not enough for a new aid package,” he said in an interview to appear in the paper’s Monday issue. “Germany cannot and will not agree to that.”

More from The Economic Times of India:

“Even if the glass is half full, that won’t be sufficient for a new aid package. Germany cannot and will not agree to that,” Michael Fuchs told German newspaper Handelsblatt.

“We long ago reached the point where the Greeks must show they are capable of delivering a shift. A policy of the last, last, last chance won’t work anymore and must come to an end.”

Read the rest.

But that was just the first cry of the clock

Greek Reporter’s A. Papapostolou brings us word of a second grumbling German:

German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler expressed disappointment with the efforts of debt-wracked Greece to implement necessary reforms, in an interview with the weekly magazine Focus.

“I’ve lost my illusions,” said Roesler, who is also vice chancellor and leads the pro-business Free Democrats in Germany’s ruling coalition.

“I proposed with German businesses a whole series of support measures for the Greek government. The Greeks have hardly responded to our offers,” he told Focus according to an advance copy of an article to appear in its Monday edition.

Read the rest.

That Greek big bang is the sound an auctioneer’s gavel

Unlike American banks, which have been sitting on a lot of foreclosed property, the usual suspects are demanding that Greek foreclosures go under the gavel. And that means more misery.

Here’s the story from Keep Talking Greece, with their headline:

Troika Pushes Greek Banks to Bring Under the Auction Hammer 100,000 Properties

Does the big bang rolls with forceful violence towards Greece’s property owners? Are those who bought homes on loans and found themselves unable to meet their obligations at risk to be kicked out of the four walls and the ceiling,  they used to call ‘their own’? The Troika apparently puts pressure on the banks to start foreclosures by

GreeceWatch: Discipline, suicides, layoffs, selloffs

The bad news and knuckling under continues.

We begin with the latest grim economic numbers and yet another austerity suicide, then shift into the political realm, where a German demand is rewarded with a pledge of Greek fealty.

We’ve got the resignation of the deputy labor minister, unwilling to inflict austerity of his fellow Greeks, another round of pay cuts, the selloff of more state infrastructure, criminal charges against railway officials stemming in part from strange payments to a German industrial giant, a German invasion abandoned, and a bit of new that should warm the cockles of a University of California regent’s heart.

Latest economic numbers spell disaster

The bottom line: Austerity’s proving a grim debacle, and the economic outlook is growing even more bleak.

From Capital.gr:

Greece’s economy will shrink a deeper-than-expected 6.9 percent this year due to falling demand from consumers grappling with wage and spending cuts, influential think tank IOBE said in its quarterly review on Monday.

The Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research, which was headed by Yannis Stournaras before he became finance minister last week, forecast unemployment rising to a new record of 23.6 percent this year, Reuters reported.

The forecasts were more pessimistic than its predictions in April, when it expected the economy to contract 5 percent this year and a jobless rate of 20 percent.

Another austerity suicide, one of many

Lots of folks are writing about Greece these days, and much of the talk about the financial crisis is rather abstract, a tangled skein of economic theory, political ideology, and colorful or dramatic imagery.

But for us, the true symbol of austerity is the human corpse, the life extinguished after prolonged confrontation of a future without hope.

And for all the talk of eventual rewards from adherence to a Germanic discipline, the future for growing numbers of Greeks looks ever-bleaker.

From Keep Talking Greece:

The relatives of the 42-year-old man were shocked to find him on Monday morning hanging in his home in Amaliada town of Peloponnese. The man was jobless since quite some time and was father of two children.

This tragedy is one of the many that hit families in times of economic crisis and recession. According to statistics more than 2,000 people have committed suicide in the two years Greece sought international financial aid.

At the same time the workers union of public ambulance service EKAV ring the alarm bell recording a sharp increase in suicides in Athens and the broader Attica prefecture.

According to Yiannis Xousos, president of EKAV workers’ union, 350 ambulance calls in relation with suicides were recorded alone in the month of June 2012. Fifty of these cases ended in death.

Xousos expressed strong concern as six calls in relations with suicide were made in the first eight days of July. Five of these cases ended deadly.

Read the rest.

Another German pushes discipline, austerity

Greeks are somewhat peeved that Spain’s been granted a grace period before implementing all the austerian demands linked to that nation’s bailout.

But if they were expecting any concessions, fuggedaboudit!

From Ekathemerini:

No concessions to Greece’s reform plans can be made, Germany’s Economy Minister Philip Roesler has said, warning that patience with the debt-wracked country is wearing thin.

“Actions speak louder than words; this is our position,” Roesler, who is also Vice Chancellor, said in an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper.

The parties involved in Greece’s coalition government campaigned on a pledge to renegotiate the country’s bailout deal with the EU and the IMF.

Read the rest.

The new finance minister gets the message, obeys

When the common currency zone’s finance ministers met in Brussels to discuss the latest economic eruptions on their turf, the new Greek finance minister was there — absent hat in hand.

He’ll toe the line, he told his fellow ministers, and expect no concessions in return.

From Athens News:

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras reassured Eurogroup finance ministers of the government’s intention to put the fiscal adjustment programme back on track, Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker said shortly after the council’s meeting late on Monday.

Juncker said that the council looked at the first findings of the troika inspection and that finance ministers will reexamine the matter after the troika team submits its final evaluation report on Greece’s progress.

Stournaras made no mention of extending the time set for the government to meet the targets set under the second bailout programme, Jucker said.

“I imagine there are such requests on the Greek side”, he said, before stressing that this will be discussed by September at the latest.

Read the rest.

More from Keep Talking Greece:

For Greece the Eurogroup meeting ended on Monday with the wish to catch up at a later point. “See you in September”, the Eurogroup ministers told their Greek counterpart Yiannis Stournaras. Spain was high on the agenda on Monday, and the Troika had not concluded yet its inspections on the Greek progress or failure to meet its bailout-programme obligations and targets.

“EZ finance ministers will discuss at length the Greek programme in September,” Eurogroup head Jean Claude Juncker told reporters at a press conference.

Juncker revealed further that Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras “did not make any requests.” – even though Nea Dimocratia  heralded in its elections campaign that the re-negotiation of the bailout programme would be a priority. Even though there was talk in Greece that Athens would request a two year extension period in order to reach its deficit targets of 3%.

Read the rest.

Ekathemerini adds:

Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras said the government needs to come up with 3.5 billion euros in revenues “now” in order to get its reform program back on track and before it can make any demands from the country’s lenders to ease the terms of its bailout deal.

Speaking in Brussels following a meeting of eurozone finance chiefs in which it was decided that the discussion on Greece’s fiscal adjustment program be postponed until September, Stournaras said “because the program is significantly delayed in many of its aspects, for the time being there is nothing [they] can say.”

“We must bring the program back on track before we can make any demands,” Stournaras said, adding that while he did not discuss Greece being granted an extension to the program from the Eurogroup, he did “introduce the idea that once we receive a positive evaluation from the troika, we will suggest it.”

Stournaras was referring to the government’s plan to ask for a two-year extension for meeting the fiscal targets outlined in its 130-billion-euro loan agreement with the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, collectively known as the troika.

“The problem with an extension,» Stournaras said, «is that it will require further funding. They understand our position, but no one would commit that they will accept it.”

Read the rest.

And then there’s this, from Greek Reporter’s Andy Dabilis:

While Greece has been denied any retooling of its loan conditions, Eurozone leaders said Spain would be given an extra year to reduce its deficit and that its banks would be directly recapitalized with bailout funds instead of having those monies added to the country’s debt, conditions that Samaras considered asking for but backed away. That drew mockery from Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras, who said that Samaras was conceding to the Troika and should have asked for the same terms. Samaras is overseeing an uneasy alliance of his New Democracy Conservatives, who barely beat SYRIZA in the June 17 elections, but without enough of the vote to form a government, requiring him to bring in the PASOK Socialists and tiny Democratic Left as partners.

Read the rest.

A deputy minister disagrees, resigns

When it comes to the day-to-day work of running ministries, it’s the deputies who usually have the closest contacts with the subjects of ministerial actions, and the coalitions caving to the Troika proved too much for one New Democracy deputy, who tendered his resignation rather than carry out the austerian mandate.

From the Associated Press:

A deputy labor minister has resigned from Greece’s new coalition government, saying it should have pressed harder to renegotiate the terms of the country’s bailout agreements.

Nikos Nikolopoulos announced his resignation Monday, hours after the new conservative-led government won a confidence vote in parliament.

Nikolopoulos, in a letter, argued that the government should have taken a tougher line with international debt inspectors in Athens last week to “correct serious distortions in the labor, pension and benefit systems.”

Read the rest.

More from Reuters:

The resignation is a new setback for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, whose government had already stumbled to a rocky start when his initial pick for finance minister resigned over health problems.

“The sole reason for my resignation is my personal conviction that the issue of renegotiating with the troika, as well as the correction of significant distortions in labour, pension, social security and welfare issues, should have been emphatically put on the table from the start,”

Nobel science laureates lobby for Greece

We give one ✰ out of ✰✰✰✰. We’d add a half-✰ but our typeset lacks them.

These are science laureates, advocating for support of their own disciplines, which are seen as critical to a Greek economic recovery.

They’re arguing for their guild, as well they should.

But the reason we’ve don’t five it those ✰✰✰✰ is because of their intentionally narrow focus.

From Harald Zur Hausen in Science, 25 May 2012, behind a paywall, something we find outrageous and utterly antithetical to the spirit in which the authors write. We found a jpeg of it at this Greek blog:

The Greek society and its institutions are going through very difficult times, emanating from several years of severe economic crisis. The gross national product of Greece decreased by almost 7% last year alone, and the unemployment rate exceeded 20%. Meanwhile, fiscal cutbacks threaten the survival of Greece’s best centers of creative potential. A recent commentary in Physics Today points out that funds are potentially available and can be used to remedy some of the above problems. Such funds, named structural funds, derive from “value-added” (sales) taxes throughout the European Union (EU) and are to be used to support the development of the poorer member-areas of the Union. Greece is entitled, annually, to a fraction of these European structural funds. For several years, Greece has used a sizable fraction of these funds to cover its research and technology budget. The disbursement of these funds requires actions from both sides, the EU and Greece. In the past 2 years, for various reasons, these actions did not come to fruition, resulting in the current crisis of Greek initiatives in education, research, and technology. This is halting the prospects of weathering the current crisis.

Now is the time for European leaders to secure the survival and future development of Greece’s most competitive scientific and technological institutions by reinitiating these measures.

To succeed, the following items need to be implemented. (i) For short-term benefits, release a substantial part of the EU structural funds that are available to Greece, to be used by innovative Greek programs in science and technology. (ii) For long-term benefits, also use these funds to initiate a broad program promoting the close cooperation of major European research and technology centers with Greek clusters of excellence. (iii) Ensure the continued support of Greek participation in major European institutions, such as the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. (iv) Initiate a program to establish new joint EU-Greek institutions of excellence, focusing on scientific areas where Greece already has a strong presence in the European landscape and which could be crucial to Greece’s further technological development.

With these points in mind, 22 internationally renowned leaders in various fields of science and technology have drafted and signed a petition and sent it to Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament; Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council; and José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the EU Commission. The signatories of this petition sincerely hope that scientists and science policy leaders will take these issues seriously and will take whatever steps are in their power to address them. The petition follows:

Greece is in the midst of a prolonged and deep economic recession that has already changed dramatically the lives of its citizens and threatens the very existence of its structures necessary for future recovery. To regain its forward momentum, keep alive its competitive

Canada’s Maple Spring, an attack on austerity

Writer Andrew Gavin Marshall provides some context for the massive mobilization of students on Quebec in an interview with RT.

Despite a draconian new law imposing heavy fines on student protesters and their organizations, the movement remains very much alive.

While sparked by a dramatic increases in university tuition, the protests have broadened and are now focusing on issues ranging from attacks on social spending, massive defense outlays, and government corruption by organized crime.

UPDATE: For Marshall’s extended analysis of the causes of the student action, see here.

CaliforniaWrap: Austerity ravages the Golden State

Is California the next Greece?

It’s a legitimate question given the attacks on the California commons that began with Proposition 13 and continue with the ongoing ravaging of the institutions built up over the generations.

Starved of cash by a powerful set of interests organized by the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Taxpayers Association, and other industry-backed lobbies, the state is looking very Grecian these days.

Jerry Brown, the Swidden governor

Back in the days we were studying anthropology in the Groves of Academe, slash and burn was the name given to the practice of primitive forest agriculture where farmers burned the existing vegetation, then planted their crops in the ash-enriched soil. Once the soil is depleted, the farmers move on to slash and burn again.

Today the practice is called Swidden,

But unlike the practitioners of old, California’s slash-and-burn governor will have no new forests to burn once this one’s consumed.

From Guy Adams of The Independent:

Taking a deep breath, California’s most powerful man strode to a lectern and unveiled the fiscal policy that he hopes will keep America’s most populous state from falling into bankruptcy.

“You name it,” he declared, “and we’ve got to cut it!”

It wasn’t the most nuanced announcement. But this is no time for subtlety. After years watching his state fall deeper and deeper into the red, Governor Jerry Brown used a gloomy Monday night press conference to unveil what aides described as the ultimate in austerity budgets.

Welfare payments, healthcare for the poor, and benefits for elderly and disabled Californians will be immediately slashed by around $8.3bn (£5.2bn), which equates to roughly 17 per cent of Mr Brown’s entire discretionary budget. And state offices, which employ roughly 200,000 people, will switch to a four-day, 38-hour work week.

The radical proposals came days after it emerged that the Golden State, which is currently suffering 11 per cent unemployment, has a projected annual deficit of $16bn, far higher than the $9bn predicted in January. Its total debt is now around $40bn, giving it the lowest credit rating of any US state in recent history and prompting fears of a Greek-style default crisis.

Read the rest.

As with most government cuts under the austerian regime, the poor and the young will be those most hurt.

More details from Steven Harmon, Josh Richman, Sharon Noguchi, and Karen de Sá of the Oakland Tribune:

In his revised budget, Brown also proposed cuts to hospitals and nursing homes to reduce Medi-Cal costs; barring colleges and universities that can’t meet minimum performance standards from taking part in the Cal Grant program; reducing state workers’ pay by 5 percent through contract renegotiations; and using assets that used to belong to local redevelopment agencies.

K-12 schools and community colleges would be hit hardest if the tax proposal fails at the ballot, a $5.5 billion plunge that would drop their funding to $48.2 billion. In the current fiscal year, schools, which get about 40 percent of the state’s general-fund revenues, received $47 billion.

Read the rest.

And the downgrade warning follows

Note the perversity of the modern financial game: If you don’t impose austerity, you get downgraded. In other words, you’re only rewarded for inflicting misery. And unlike S&M games, there’s no “safe” word to temper the violence of the market.

One bond rating agency was quick to respond to Brown’s apocryphal pronouncement, reports Chris Megerian of the Los Angeles Times:

The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned on Tuesday that it could downgrade California’s financial outlook if lawmakers don’t pass a credible budget plan this year.

A final budget is due June 15, and lawmakers’ task has become increasingly difficult as the state’s deficit has swelled to nearly $16 billion.

“We could change the outlook to negative or lower the rating if we believe the state’s credit quality weakens through the budget process,” said a report from Standard & Poor’s.

The ratings agency had upgraded California’s financial outlook from “stable” to “positive” in February. That means California’s credit rating of A-, the lowest of any state, is poised for improvement.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal is a solid starting point, said Standard & Poor’s, but there are many political and policy hurdles left to go.

Read the rest.

Hitting hard at California’s college students

Naheed Rajwani of UCLA’s Daily Bruin reports on the impacts of Brown’s proposal of concern to students in the state’s higher education system:

Under the revised budget proposal, both the University of California and the California State University systems would each need to absorb $250 million, which is $50 million more than what was proposed earlier this year.

These cuts will not materialize if Brown’s proposed tax measure passes in November. The measure would raise the sales tax by a quarter percent and increase income taxes on the wealthy, raising an estimated $8.5 billion in extra revenue for the state.

In his proposal, Brown also revised the amount of money that can be allocated to the UC Retirement Plan, from $90 million to $52 million. That number will not be affected by the passage of the tax measure.

The California Legislature will now review the proposal and is expected to pass a final budget in mid-June.

Read the rest.

Canadian students would be up in arms

That’s because yet another tuition hike is certain, following on a wave of increases that have sent the costs of attending UC campuses soaring to levels that ensure many enrollees will be forced to take out those odious student loans to cover the costs.

As the San Francisco Chronicle’s Nanette Asimov reported a week ago:

The University of California will need to charge students at least 6 percent more for tuition next fall – an extra $732 – to stave off more layoffs and program closures, say UC leaders who will ask the regents next week to consider raising the price in July.

“At minimum we’ll need 6 percent,” said UC’s budget czar, Patrick Lenz, noting that an increase of that size would take care of most of the $139 million shortfall expected for next year.

The problem, Lenz said, is that all of those numbers could get worse.

Read the rest.

When the Regents met in Sacramento to discuss the tuition hike yesterday the discussion was derailed, at least for a time, when students rose to protest.

Here’s a clip of their action va the UCLA Daily Bruin:

Pat Flynn of San Diego’s U-T [formerly the Union-Tribune] reports on the outcome of the delayed discussion:

The UC regents will consider boosting tuition again, by 6 percent, at a meeting in July. If approved, it would raise the cost to $12,923 a year, nearly double what it was five years ago. That does not include the

The tragedy of Native American life, and a call

An important documentary from RT highlights the tragic conditions of Native American life, and the United Nations has called for a restoration of some of lands seized from this country’s original inhabitants.

The documentary focuses on the life of the Lakota, a people who defeated the U.S. Army twice in 1876, most famously the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and the wrongly named Battle of Wounded Knee [it was a massacre] marked the end of the so-called Indian Wars.

The documentary begins and ends with Russell Means, Oglala Lakota activist, actor, and author, who, we learn at the end, is dying of cancer.

From RT: ‘We Live to Survive’: One Week with Lakota

Part I [28.03]

Part 2 [24.11]

RT’s program notes:

“We live to survive.” That is what many of them say. In the 19th century, the Lakota people were among the most successful fighters for freedom in the USA. But their land was eventually stolen, their language for years was forbidden to be taught in schools, and their freedom existed only on paper. This story was filmed during the first week of August in 2011 on the territory of Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. This is official land of the Oglala Lakota Nation nowadays.

Every year in August, Lakota people come to Pine Ridge from all over the world to celebrate their culture and traditions at the annual powwow. On the contrary of joy and happiness even during holiday there is a place for grief and misery. Many people have alcohol problems, there are no jobs or good housing. Lakota people are still fighting for their rights. But that gets harder to do every year.

Give land back, says UN investigator

The U.S. government, driven by a doctrine of Manifest Destiny, repeatedly broke treaties promising Native Americans perpetual rights to their ancestral land.

But with the westward push fueled by the first great corporations, the railroads, European immigrants flooded toward the sunset, backed by the nation’s military might, and tribal peoples were pushed ever-backward, finally isolated on reservations sited on what their captors deemed the least valuable land.

Now a United Nations investigator is saying that this nation owes restitution for the misery inflicted on Native Americans, and it should take the form of a return of land.

From Chris McGreal of The Guardian:

A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination.

James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes.

Anaya said that in nearly two weeks of visiting Indian reservations, indigenous communities in Alaska and Hawaii, and Native Americans now living in cities, he encountered people who suffered a history of dispossession of their lands and resources, the breakdown of their societies and “numerous instances of outright brutality, all grounded on racial discrimination”.

“It’s a racial discrimination that they feel is both systemic and also specific instances of ongoing discrimination that is felt at the individual level,” he said.
Anaya said racism extended from the broad relationship between federal or state governments and tribes down to local issues such as education.

Read the rest.

EuroWatch: The crisis rapidly accelerates

It’s simply amazing watching as the great debt monster swallows up a continent.

The cause of the crisis is really quite simple: The exponential curve of ever-increasing interest on debt, and the submission of governments to banksters who demand they get paid, regardless of the inevitably ensuing violence.

Throughout history, governments have called debt jubilees whenever the burden of accelerating interest threatened social stability, but no more.

The 0.0001 percent are grabbing whilst the grabbing’s good, no doubt fully conscious that time is short.

The only question remaining is how long the peoples of the stricken nations will allow the game to continue.

Okay, on with the show. It’s a long post today, but then there’s so very much happening, ranging from new border controls in Spain and the impending collapse of yet another government to a massive selloff of Italy’s cultural heritage.

A Tory states the obvious

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne declares even more IMF money won’t end the crisis.

Duh.

We doubt, however, that he’s willing to consider the only possible solution.

From Larry Elliott of The Guardian:

George Osborne warned Europe that the boost to the financial firepower of the International Monetary Fund would not be enough to guarantee an end to the debt crisis that has bedevilled the eurozone.

As it became clear that it would be 2013 before Britain handed over its controversial £10bn share of the global fighting fund, the chancellor backed plans for closer integration of the eurozone through common euro bonds.

“Boosting IMF resources will not be enough on its own to secure the recovery,” Osborne told the fund’s key policymaking committee. “We also need a strong and co-ordinated global policy response if we are to exit the crisis.”

The IMF was bracing itself for the judgment of the financial markets on the agreement to increase the size of its firewall by at least $430bn (£267bn). Doubts remained about whether the leading developing countries – Brazil in particular – would deliver on their pledge to increase the resources available to tackle a fresh outbreak of global turbulence.

The so-called Bric countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – have privately agreed that they will only make a decision on how much to contribute when the G20 group of advanced and emerging economies meets in Mexico in June. Sources said the Brics wanted to see hard evidence that they would have a bigger say in the running of the IMF before making firm commitments.

Read the rest.

Euro economic tanking continues

Here’s another of those “it’s worse than we expected” stories.

Worse than they expected? Really?

Certainly not worse than we’ve been expecting, as regular readers know.

From EUbusiness:

The eurozone’s business slump deepened at a far faster pace than expected in April, suggesting the economy will stay in recession at least until the second half of the year.

Chinese factories enjoyed their best performance this year, the latest purchasing managers indexes (PMIs) also showed on Monday, but economists focused on the eurozone’s grim outlook which was worse than any projection in a Reuters poll.

The Markit PMI fell to 47.9 from 49.2 in March, a five-month low and confounding the forecast for a rise to 49.3.

Optimism from this weekend’s deal to boost the International Monetary Fund’s crisis-fighting firepower quickly evaporated and worried investors sold the euro and bought safe-haven German and US government bonds.

“Today’s dismal PMI figures clearly indicate that the eurozone economy remains in dire straits,” said Martin Van Vliet, senior economist at ING.

Read the rest.

Another statement of the obvious

Peter Coy is Bloomberg Businessweek’s economics editor, and he rightly observes that it’s investors in financial instruments, not in plants and infrastructure, who are calling the shots these days:

The Keynesian solution for Europe’s crisis is government spending to rev up economic growth. Restoring growth will generate more tax revenue, the thinking goes, so the fiscal pump-priming will eventually pay for itself. But debt makes the Keynesian fix harder to implement. Heavily indebted countries can’t spend more for fear of losing the confidence of investors.

Debt, in short, takes away countries’ fiscal wiggle room.

That’s why the European Union’s report today on rising government debt in the single-currency euro zone is troublesome. The organization announced that the government debt-to-GDP ratio increased from 85.3 percent at the end of 2010 to 87.2 percent at the end of 2011. According to Bloomberg News, the 2011 ratio was the highest since the euro was introduced in 1999.

What’s doubly scary is that it’s not just the well-known problem children of Europe like Greece that are seeing government debt rise as a share of gross domestic product. Even the Netherlands, one of the four remaining AAA-rated countries in the euro zone, had an increase in its debt-to-GDP ratio from 62.9 percent to 65.2 percent, according to the European Union.

Read the rest.

What’s missing here is simple: Questioning the whole notion that money can only be created as debt.

And in a second story, Coy writes that Germany seems to think that its own economy can go it alone, a rather ominous and frankly idiotic notion.

The forces of finance have given us a globalized economy, and the idea that, over the long run. Germany can immunize itself from the crisis is on its face an absurdity.

Economic crisis unfold in patterns, that the ripples caused by a stone into a irregularly shaped pond, and sooner or later, the reach everywhere:

Today, Germany’s Ifo Institute reported that its business climate index rose to a nine-month high, beating expectations, as it has done each month since September. That could be a sign Germany is about to pull out of a brief and shallow slump, says Christian Schulz, an economist in London for Germany’s oldest bank, Berenberg Bank. Germany’s output fell at an annual rate of 0.2 percent in the last quarter of 2011.

Strangely enough, the European financial crisis has created favorable conditions for growth in Germany. The euro currency is lower than it would be otherwise, helping trade. Capital flight into Germany is keeping interest rates extremely low. And so far, debtor nations like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal are still making payments, notes Paul De Grauwe, a professor at the London School of Economics and associate senior fellow at the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies.

In some respects, “it’s the best thing that could happen to Germany, this crisis,” De Grauwe says. “So why worry?”

If Germany stops worrying about the fate of Europe—and there’s no evidence yet that it has—then the rest of the continent will be in a world of trouble.

Read the rest.

Spain institutes border controls

And unlike the ones sought by Germany and France, these aren’t designed to keep out Muslims and Roma.

The Spanish controls are designed to defeat democratic protest.

From EUbusiness:

Spain will re-establish checkpoints on the border with France this month in an effort to prevent violent demonstrations during a major

Researchers: Wal-Mart stores linked to hate groups

No, it’s not that corporate execs or folks who work there create hate groups. It’s the very presence of the stores and the alienation they produce that seems to be the culprit.

Here’s the story from Pennsylvania State University’s Matt Swayne via EurekaAlert!:

The presence of big-box retailers, such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Target, may alter a community’s social and economic fabric enough to promote the creation of hate groups, according to economists.

The number of Wal-Mart stores in a county is significantly correlated with the number of hate groups in the area, said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural economics and regional economics, Penn State, and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development.

“Wal-Mart has clearly done good things in these communities, especially in terms of lowering prices,” said Goetz. “But there may be indirect costs that are not as obvious as other effects.”

The number of Wal-Mart stores was second only to the designation of a county as a Metropolitan Statistical Area in statistical significance for predicting the number of hate groups in a county, according to the study.

The researchers, who reported their findings in the online version of Social Science Quarterly, said that the number of Wal-Mart stores in a county was more significant statistically than factors commonly regarded as important to hate group participation, such as the unemployment rate, high crime rates and low education.

The researchers suggested several theories for the correlation between the number of large retail stores and hate groups in an area.

Goetz, who worked with Anil Rupasingha, adjunct professor of agricultural economics and agricultural business, New Mexico State University, and Scott Loveridge, professor and director of the Northcentral Regional Center for Rural Development, Michigan State University, said that local merchants may find it difficult to compete against large retailers and be forced out of business.

Local business owners are typically members of community and civic groups, such as the Kiwanis and Rotary clubs. Losing members of these groups, which help establish programs that promote civic engagement and foster community values, may cause a drop in community cohesion, according to Goetz.

“While we like to think of American society as being largely classless, merchants and bankers are part of what we could call a leadership class in a community,” Goetz said.

The large, anonymous nature of big-box retailers may also play a role in fraying social bonds, which are strongest when individuals feel that their actions are being more closely watched. For example, people may be less likely to shoplift at a local hardware store if they know the owner personally, Goetz said.

Religious priming — using certain words or phrases to promote a range of attitudes and behaviors — may also play a role, according to the researchers. In one study of religious priming, after participants reviewed a list of Christian words, such as Bible, gospel and Messiah, they also tended to support racist attitudes against blacks.

The researchers said that because Wal-Mart promotes typical Protestant values, such as savings and thrift, the cues may lead customers to adopt other beliefs, including intolerant attitudes, according to the researchers.

The researchers used data collected by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that monitors the activities of hate groups, on hate groups in each U.S. county in 2007. They used the number and location of Wal-Mart stores from 1998. Goetz said the lag time between the data sets provided time for the possible influence of a store to affect a community.

Goetz said that the researchers chose Wal-Mart for the study because of the availability of data on the stores. He added that the presence of Wal-Mart in an area generally indicates the establishment of other types of big-box retailers, such as Home Depot and Target.

“We’re not trying to pick on Wal-Mart,” said Goetz. “In this study, Wal-Mart is really serving as a proxy for any type of large retailer.”

The store chain could use this study to find ways to play a role in supporting local groups that can foster stronger social and economic ties in a community.

“We doubt strongly that Wal-Mart intends to create such effects or that it specifically seeks to locate in places where hate groups form,” the researchers said.

The journal article is here, hidden behind the usual paywall.

What we find particularly interesting is that the article has vanished from Penn State’s news website. The link that once led to the story now produces only this blank page. Might it be that the school got some calls from powerful people?

H/T to Luce Kanon.

Quote of the day: The scale of the Greek disaster

From an incisive essay by Panagiotis Sotiris, professor of modern social theory, social and political philosophy at the Department of Sociology of the University of the Aegean in Mytilene, posted in Greek Left Review:

The sharp reduction in pensions, decided in the end of February 2012 will not only contribute to the decline of total income and total demand, it will also endanger social cohesion. In a country where the family traditionally covers for an incomplete welfare state and inter-generational solidarity is crucial, this loss of income for pensioners will also affect working families. The Greek family is reaching its limit as an informal barrier against poverty and social exclusion and one can estimate that we are going to see more cases of people being unable deal with their basic needs. Moreover, the unemployment benefit, which has been one of the lowest in the EU and with a shorter duration, was reduced by 22% (the reason offered was that it was indexed to the minimum wage) and is now only 361 euros per month, despite the fact that the cost of living has continued to rise. That is why scenes unseen before in Greece, such as soup kitchens or cases of homelessness, are becoming more common.

This sense of an imminent social crisis is also the result of the sharp reduction in public spending and investment. The signs of a deterioration of public infrastructure are already evident. More than 1000 schools were closed and the number of available hospital beds was reduced by 11,000. In September 2011 the school year started without most textbooks for primary and secondary schools. In the name of the reduction of health costs the government is imposing new regulations concerning both the number and the type of medication prescribed per physician that will surely lead to a deterioration of health coverage. Drastic budget cuts in the Ministry of Culture, including the funds for security systems for museums, endanger the Greek cultural heritage, exemplified in recent events such as the burglary in the National Gallery and the armed robbery in the museum of Olympia. Universities are being run at reduced budgets leading to sharp reductions in adjunct faculty, extremely long delays in the appointment of lecturers and professors and everyday problems such as lack of central heating. State agencies such as the ones responsible for public housing and social tourism have been closed, leading to the suspension of the respective programs. And things will only get worse if the government goes ahead with the planned reduction in state employees and further closures of state agencies. Everyday life is already worse. Delays in metropolitan bus services and long queues at public services are becoming the norm because of the forced retirement of public sector employees.

In the next months social conditions and everyday life in Greece will certainly get worse. It is like watching, in real time, the slow and agonizing death of a country. One can see it in the faces of citizens trying to get to the end of month and the growing feeling of insecurity. It is obvious that the EU-IMF-ECB troika and the political elites are betting on individualized despair and sense of defeat leading to passivity and acceptance of the measures as inevitable, but this bet is far from sure. We have already witnessed in the past two years more cases of mass protest than any other European country. One can expect more social explosions in the next months. Hopefully, it will not be the stress limits of society but the ability of the political system to deal with social unrest that will be tested. And then no one will be able to deny that there were many warning signs…

Read the rest.

Academia: Bringing class into the classroom

One of the magic nostrums being peddled these days in the world of academia is the notion of differential tuition.

What the means is simple: Charge students more for classes that offer the promise of higher incomes.

But what it implies is something far more radical: A formal structuring of class differences within the public university system.

The University of California Board of Regents, an upper class bastion itself, has repeatedly floated the idea as one means of coping with ongoing budget reductions, only to be met with fierce resistance from students and faculty.

The UC Academic Senate staunchly opposes the notion. Nonetheless, senate Vice Chair Robert Powell told Chronicle of Higher Education writer Eric Kelderman “I believe, and I think most of my colleagues believe, this is the natural outcome of the budget cuts.”

Differential shifting

Powell is certainly correct to note that differential tuition is rapidly gaining acceptance in American academia, as a new survey from the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute makes clear.

Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed reports:

Up until 1980, differential tuition rates within an institution were largely unheard-of, although some colleges did charge laboratory fees associated with certain courses. As state appropriations failed to keep up with growing enrollments and higher education expenses, many public institutions started to charge more for certain programs, arguing either that they cost more to offer, that student demand was greater or that students in these fields were on a track to better-paying jobs than were those studying other fields. But the policies have sometimes been controversial, as some educators have argued that students should be encouraged to pick fields based on their academic interests, not the price tag.

Other findings of the new survey include the following:

• At doctoral and master’s institutions, differential tuition is generally based on a student’s field of study, but at bachelor’s institutions, differential tuition is equally likely to be based on how far along students are in their programs (with juniors and seniors charged more than others, for example).
• The most common majors facing extra charges are business, engineering and nursing.
• Since public colleges and universities started to adopt variable tuition policies, the number doing so has gone up steadily, with no years from 1980 on showing a decline in the number of institutions with variable tuition.

Read the rest.

Just how rapid is the pace of acceptance of differential tuition? Here’s a chart from the report, which is posted online here [PDF].

As the report notes, the practice is being adopted with little foresight into its consequences:

The process by which differential tuition policies have arisen and been have spread across American public higher education institutions has not been examined. Neither has there been any research on the possible consequences of differential tuition policies. For example, does differential tuition by major influence students’ choice of majors? Do higher tuition levels for upper-level students affect students’ persistence and graduation rates? If such effects exist, are they larger for students from lower-income families and how do such effects interact with state and institutional financial aid policies?

It’s really about class in the classroom

Class has always been part of the American system of higher education.

The nation’s elite private colleges have always been havens for the elite. Harvard Yale, and the other Ivy League colleges have been the training ground of the upper class ever since their formation, and while the schools were morally pressured by the civil rights movement into cracking their doors open a bit, legacy admissions — places given to children of prior graduates — still fill many if not most of the classroom seats.

And for more than a century, African Americans, Jews, and other minorities were excluded even from most public universities — especially in the South — or subjected to rigorous quota systems, whether explicit or implicit.

In California, the UC system was founded with goal of providing a free education to all academically qualified students, and while the ideal was never fully realized, back when we arrived in California in 1968, students paid a mere $50 per semester in fees.

The goal of free education has long since been tossed overboard, done in first by Gov. Ronald Reagan, and then by passage of Proposition 13, which radically reduced property tax revenues.

The current banking crisis sharply exacerbated the problem, as regents adopted a succession of stiff tuition hikes, with fees reaching $13,200 for the current school year and further hikes all but inevitable.

The system does wave fees for students whose parents earn less than $80,000 a year in combined income, but there will be fewer places for them at the states most elite universities. Because out of state students pay $36,078, the university has boosted their enrollment by effectively establishing quotas for them, as Alison Damast reported back in September for Bloomberg Businessweek:

Last December, the University of California’s Commission on the Future recommended increasing the percentage of non-California residents to help cope with budget cuts. Many California schools have listened. This fall, nonresidents make up 12.3 percent of the system’s freshman class, up from 8 percent last year. The most dramatic shifts have taken place at some of the UC system’s more popular campuses, such as UC-Berkeley, where out-of-state residents and international students make up 30 percent of this year’s freshman class, up from 23 percent last year.

Read the rest.

The net impact is the transformation of the nation’s finest public university system into a training ground for foreign elites, further enhanced by the establishment of extra-national campuses in China, Russia, and the Mideast.

Why not just call it the Greekification of America?

What the creation of differential charges for classes based on prospective income does is to reintroduce class stratification into academia.

Those who compete for slots in courses aimed at degrees promising greater incomes will either hail from already wealthy parents, or they’ll be forced to bury themselves into even greater student loan debt on the increasingly dubious prospect of being able to repay it in an economy that will invariably shrink as the debt crisis deepens and the era of cheap oil ends.

And with the total student loan debt burden now at more than a trillion dollars, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that in incurring more debt, the students themselves will be unwitting agents in the final collapse.

Econowrap: Greece, strikes, killer IP, and more

Much to report today, starting with the latest form Greece and ending with more bad news for Californians.

Greece, where austerity can kill you

We being with an alarming story from Greece, where a new killer bug is striking in hospitals at the very moment massive cuts to the nation’s health program are devastating health care services.

From Naomi Kresge and Jason Gale of Bloomberg:

Greek doctors are fighting a new invisible foe every day at their hospitals: a pneumonia-causing superbug that most existing antibiotics can’t kill.

The culprit is spreading through health centers already weighed down by a shortage of nurses. The hospital-acquired germ killed as many as half of people with blood cancers infected at Laiko General Hospital, a 500-bed facility in central Athens.

The drug-resistant K. pneumoniae bacteria have a genetic mutation that allows them to evade such powerful drugs as AstraZeneca Plc (AZN)’s Merrem and Johnson & Johnson’s Doribax. A 2010 survey found 49 percent of K. pneumoniae samples in Greece aren’t killed by the antibiotics of last resort, known as carbapenems, according to the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network. Many doctors have even tried colistin, a 50-year-old drug so potent that it can damage kidneys.

“We’re not used to seeing people die of an untreatable infection,” said John Rex, vice president for clinical infection at London-based AstraZeneca, which is developing a new generation of antibiotics. “That’s like something in a novel of 200 years ago.”

The superbug is one among many challenges facing the home of the Hippocratic oath, to “do no harm.” The government, confronting a 14.5 billion-euro ($19.3 billion) bond payment on March 20, is trying to arrange financing to avert a collapse of the economy. Partly as a result, the health system is in crisis, with some life-saving drugs in short supply and hospitals struggling to pay their bills.

Read the rest.

Meanwhile, politicians rush to hammer out the deal

With thousands of Greek taking to the streets to protest the bankster-mandated austerity regime that deals a brutal blow to a nation already reeling with the impacts of economic collapse, politicians hasve been meeting today to settle on a package of “reforms” that will satisfy Merkozy, the European Union, the IMF, and the speculators who made bad bets on Greek bonds.

From euronews:

The Greek parliament is debating the latest slice of EU-imposed austerity ahead of tomorrow’s vote which, if approved, will open the taps on a 130 billion euro bailout, Greece’s second since 2010.

But there is more pain on the way, as after the vote a further 325 million euros are expected to be slashed from spending, on top of the pension and wages cuts that are proving so unpopular.

Prime Minister Papademos has already lost some members of his coalition government, with two Socialists resigning, and the four far-right LAOS party ministers also slamming the door. But if party discipline holds he can still expect a comfortable majority come Sunday.

However trades unions are stepping up their pressure with a 48-hour general strike paralysing public transport, and the biggest police union says it will issue arrest warrants for Greece’s biggest international lenders for “subverting democracy”.

The bill before parliament will cut the minimum wage by 22 percent, slash pensions by 300 million euros, cut health and defence spending, and privatise more state-owned companies.

Read the rest.

More from The Guardian’s Damien Pearse :

The Greek government has told rebellious MPs to back a deeply unpopular euro rescue package or send the nation down “an unknown, dangerous path” to default and international economic isolation.

The deputy finance minister, Filippos Sachinidis, said the consequences of failing to accept the bailout terms were “incalculable” for the country.

“Let’s just ask ourselves what it would mean for the country to lose its banking system, to be cut off from imports of raw materials, pharmaceuticals, fuel, basic foodstuffs and technology,” he said.

The warning came as a 48-hour protest strike went into its second day.

Read the rest.

A statement from an occupation

As the 48-hour general strike continues, From the Greek Streets provides a bulletin issued by mental health workers now staging an occupation of the Health Ministry.

We offer it in full as an example of the demands raised by people directly impacted by the so-called austerity regime:

WE CONTINUE THE OCCUPATION AT THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH – WE NEED EVERYONE’S SUPPORT

We continue the occupation at the ministry of health

We need everyone’s support

The workers and those sacked from Mental Health and Special Support participated in the 48-hour General Strike and decided to continue the occupation of the Ministry of Health until Sunday 12/2 at noon, which is when we will hold another assembly to decide on the continuation of our mobilisations.

We demand:

• Immediate funding of the structures for the coverage of current needs (wages, insurance funds, running costs etc)
• The cancelling out of the decision to reduce the budget by 55% (40 instead of 85 million) for 2012, which practically means the collapse of the services and the Psychiatric Restructuring
• Obstacle-free, regular funding of Psychiatric Health and Special Support from the state budget
• No to lay-offs, mergers, the flexibilisation/ intensification of labour and the reduction in wages which by default lead to a shrinking of the services and the devaluation of their quality
• Holistic design for a Mental Health that will be public and free, to cover the ever-increasing needs of the society for support and help. Only with the participation of the workers and the recipients through our won structures shall proposals emerge for a true solving of the pending issues.
• Setting out of a common legal framework for Special Support
• No to the alteration of pensions and benefits of patients for the coverage of permanent running costs of the structures
• Re-employment of all who have been sacked, because none of us is consumable
• We call all unions and workers attacked by the memorandum’s politics of impoverishment and trashing of the social net to support practically our occupation and to take similar incentives in their own workplaces

This is the largest mobilisation ever in our workplace and an unprecedented opportunity to co-ordinate our actions, with this occupation being a starting and reference point!

All together we can make it; the occupation needs everyone’s support!

We will meet on Sunday 12/02 at noon at the Assembly to decide the continuation of our mobilisations, and at 6pm at Syntagma.

Occupiers take over a landmark cinema

Also via From the Greek Streets, a video of the occupation staged today of the historic Olympion Theater in the center of Thessaloniki.

Form the blog:

Thessaloniki, Feb 11 2012. After the end of today’s demonstration, people from the autonomous, grassroots unions occupied Olympion, the historic cinema in the centre of the city (Aristotelous Ave) in order to use it as a co-ordination centre for the struggle in the days ahead.

Firemen battle police in Brussels

Footage from RT:

Here’s something you don’t see everyday, a battle between police and firefighters, involving hoses and tear gas.

The confrontation took place outside the cabinet building in the Belgian capital, where ministers were debating a place to raise the retirement age for firefighters.

Port workers strike on the Suez canal

While Egypt is reeling under the impact of a general strike called to protest the military regime’s refusal to hand over power to the elected government, workers in a critical Suez canal port have called a strike of their own, this one a more traditional walkout by organized labor.

From Bassem Abo Alabass of Al Ahram:

Egypt’s Ain Sokhna port workers announced a general strike after the port’s operator, Dubai-based DP World, failed to meet demands, despite employees staging a 1200 strong sit-in since Thursday.

According to Hamada Kamal, the head of the Sokhna port’s workers syndicate, workers’ demands include hardship allowances of at least 30 per cent of their full wages, wage restructuring and a stake in the company’s profits for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

The workers announced a sit-in on 9 February as they believe the Manpower and Immigration Minister Fathy Fekry breached his promise: “he was supposed to reply the demands by this mentioned date,” Kamal commented.

“We are not taking part in [11 Saturday national] civil disobedience, so our general strike will be on Sunday,” Kamal told Ahram Online.

He added that if the strike is not effective, the port’s employees will ban the foreign operator and nationalise the port’s operations.

In September, DP World shut down its Ain Sokhna port in Egypt following previous labour strikes which cost the company about LE30 million ($5.02 million) in lost revenue.

Sokhna, near the southern end of the Suez Canal, is Cairo’s main port for cargo from the Far East.

Read the rest.

When corporate greed kills

Corporateers have embarked on a brutal campaign to surround the world with an intellectual property [IP] regime which adopts a universal set of laws and treaties designed to ensure maximum profits.

What’s seldom said is that the corporate push has real life and death consequences.

From Paul Vallely of The Independent:

The cheap supply of antiretroviral drugs to people with Aids across the world could be choked by an “intellectual property” deal, which the European Union will today demand at a high-level international summit, Aids campaigners say.

More than 80 per cent of those on HIV treatment in developing countries are on generic medicines made in India. But those drugs are under threat from an agreement being negotiated at the 12th EU-India summit in New Delhi between the President of the European

HigherEdWatch: Bad news for U.S. college students

Being the old fogey we are, esnl can remember the days when college educations came relatively cheap. When we moved to California in 1968, University of California students paid $50 in fees, and the goal was zero.

Now fees at the UC system are over a third of the average national income, and there’s nowhere to go but up.

So students seek out federal and private loans, driving themselves deep into debt before they pick up their sheepskins, with a growing number of students forced to turn to corporate colleges, where costs can run high.

And once they start looking for work, they find an economy where jobs are scarce, even for those with the degrees they were promised would get them the best salaries.

And now for the news. . .

Student loan debt reaches a record

From Walter Hamilton of the Los Angeles Times:

The average student-loan debt of last year’s college graduates tops $25,000 — the first time it’s ever exceeded that ignominious mark.

Seniors who graduated in 2010 had an average student-loan burden of $25,250, up 5.2% from the $24,000 owed by the class of 2009, according to a report by the Project on Student Debt at the Institute for College Access & Success in Oakland.

Some experts had expected a bigger increase in debt given the gloomy economy, but increased financial aid at some schools partially offset the hit for low-income students and those at pricier colleges.

Still, the increased debt load is another negative for college graduates who already were facing a punishing job market. The unemployment rate for college graduates ages 20 to 24 rose to 9.1% last year, up from 8.7% in 2009 and the highest annual rate on record, according to the nonprofit research organization.

The report is based on data reported voluntarily by more than 1,000 public and private nonprofit four-year colleges. It did not include so-called for-profit colleges.

In California, the average debt load last year was $18,113, with 48% of graduating seniors owing money, according to the study.

Read the rest.

High costs drive students into community colleges

As state-funded universities raise their tuitions, increasing numbers of students eager to save a buck find themselves enrolling in two-year colleges, reports Daniel de Vise of the Washington Post:

A recent national survey by Sallie Mae, the student loan giant, has found that 22 percent of students from households earning $100,000 or more attended community colleges in the 2010-11 academic year, up from 12 percent in the previous year. It was the highest rate reported in four years of surveys.

In the lengthening economic downturn, even relatively prosperous families have grown reluctant to borrow for college. Schools are finding that fewer students are willing to pay the full published price of attendance, which tops $55,000 at several private universities. More students are living at home.

>snip<

For the price-conscious, community college epitomizes value. Public two-year colleges generally charge less than $5,000 a year — one-tenth the sticker price of elite private institutions. They offer most of the same general-education courses as four-year colleges, often with smaller classes taught by professors rather than graduate-student teaching assistants.

Read the rest.

And colleges neglect needs of low-income student

A really disturbing report from Stephen Burd of Higher Ed Watch reveals that public colleges have shifted their financial aid dollars away from students who really need the help to attracting a different class of students:

According a recent U.S. Department of Education report, higher education has reached a troubling milestone: the country’s public and private four-year colleges are now spending a greater share of their institutional aid dollars on trying to attract the students they desire than on meeting the financial need of the low- and moderate-income students they enroll.

The report from the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics provides the clearest picture to date of how colleges, under the sway of enrollment management consultants, have fundamentally changed the way they spend their institutional aid dollars, to the detriment of low-income students.

Fifteen years ago, colleges primarily devoted their aid funds to making college more-accessible and affordable for those with financial need. For example, according to the report, here is how colleges divided up their institutional aid among first-time, full-time

California’s tragic defunding of its public schools

From Chuck Marr of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, two charts showing just how the badly tarnished Golden State’s K-12 public schools have been hit by budget cuts in Sacramento: