A new stage in the attacks on the European working class

[Steven Gaal]

Seems like a strawman since the author was unable to cite a single politician or pundit who blamed "lazy workers" for the crisis.

// end Colby

=============

Europe's labour laws and welfare systems make workers lazy, says Chinese finance chief

• Jin Liqun said Europeans should stop 'languishing on the beach' and work harder
  
• http://www.dailymail...l#axzz2JvnpDCns
  

#################################

Young Tory MPs blame 'lazy' baby boomers for Britain's economic decline

A group of rising young Conservative MPs claims that 'idle' British workers are damaging the economy by failing to compete with 'grafting' Asian countries.

http://www.telegraph...ic-decline.html

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The myth of the “lazy Greek workers”

feb/1/13 online issue 136 VIEWPOINT

Since the crisis in Greece has hit the headlines there have appeared in the bourgeois media many stories about how Greece has too many civil servants, how the working week is very short, how people retire early on fat pensions, and so on, as if this were the cause of the crisis. Facts and figures, however, can be very stubborn things and they tell a completely different story.

During the last few days we have witnessed an unprecedented smear campaign against the Greek working class by the European bourgeois media, in particular by the tabloid press, which is specifically aimed at working class people. This campaign is aimed at deceiving the European workers and its objective is clearly to prevent them from assuming internationalist action of class solidarity towards the working class of Greece, which is being brutally attacked by both Greek and foreign capitalists.

The first myth being promoted in this campaign goes more or less like this: "these lazy Greek people, who constantly go on strike without any reason, then come running to the Europeans to finance their own laziness".

The rank-and-file of the European Left and of the workers' movement internationally must be told the truth, but unfortunately this will not be forthcoming from the main media outlets. Let us look at some facts. According to Eurostat, Greek workers work on average longer hours than the rest of Europeans. They work a 42-hour week, while the average working week in the 27 member states of the EU is 40.3 hours and within in the "Eurozone" it is 40 hours. So that is myth number one dispelled.

Again, according to Eurostat, Greece also has the most underpaid private sector employees compared to the rest of the "Eurozone". In Greece, the average gross monthly wage, including social security and taxes, is 803 euros [about £700 or US$1063], while the lowest gross salary in, for example, Ireland is 1300 euros, in France 1250 euros and in the Netherlands 1400 euros. So myth number two doesn't stand up to any serious analysis of the real figures.

Another idea being bandied about is that if it were not for the EU and the IMF stepping in and imposing strict measures, the Greeks would have happily continued to live on ever-increasing wages. However, according to the Labour Institution of the GSEE [the Greek general confederation of private sector unions], the austerity programmes already imposed by recent governments in Greece even before the current crisis had erupted had already cut the real average wage in the private sector to 1984 levels.

What about the age of retirement and pension levels? If we were to believe the bourgeois media Greeks live in a kind of workers' paradise, where they can all retire early and nice big pensions. Again, facts and figures are stubborn things and they give a completely different picture. The average age of retirement in Greece is 61.4 years, a little higher than the European average of

61.1 years.

And what about these fat Greek pensions? According to the GSEE Labour Institution, the average pension in Greece is 750 euros per months [£650 pounds or US$990], while in Spain this figure reaches

950 euros, in Ireland 1700 euros, in Belgium 2800 euros and in the Netherlands 3200 euros. Moreover, this figure was calculated before the implementation of the new government measures, which increase the age of retirement from 65 to 67 years while at the same time cutting pensions by 30 to 50%.

Furthermore, according to the annual report of the joint GSEE-ADEDY trade union confederations on the economy and employment levels in 2009, of the current four and a half million labour force, more than a million work without any social security or other forms of legal protection. According to the report of the Commission for Social Security, established by the Greek Ministry of Labour, this figure reaches 30% of the overall workforce, while in the rest of the EU the percentage of workers in these conditions are only between 5 and 10% of the total.

And whose fault is that? Contributions are supposed to be calculated by the bosses, who pay a part themselves and the remainder is paid by the workers out of their wages. But that would mean declaring the workers legally and paying taxes on the profits made. The bosses prefer to hire a sizeable number of workers illegally, in the "black economy", and thus save on both taxes due to the state and contributions. If the bosses had paid all taxes due in recent years, and if they had paid what they are supposed to pay into social security funds, the situation would not be anywhere as bad as it is today. It is the Greek capitalists and the foreign investors who have profited from this situation. But who are they blaming? The Greek workers and poor, of course!

On top of all this, in Greece there is also the phenomenon of around 300,000 "false self-employed workers". These are workers who have in reality been forced to set themselves up as self-employed. In reality they work for a boss who can freely assign the manner, the time, the place of work, and the working conditions and thus this form of working is essentially employment by a boss, but with the added advantage that he can sack them whenever he wants, as formally he is the workers' "client". Bosses prefer this method of employment because these workers are not treated legally as employees; they don't have the same legal rights as the rest of the working class, such as monthly salaries, paid holidays, etc. Employers can fire them freely, even without any compensation. We must also add to the list the 200,000 "part-time" employees, most of whom work full-time but are being paid half-time.

In the smear campaign, there have been many reports concerning the supposedly "excessive" number of civil servants in Greece. According to reports of the ILO (International Labour Organization), civil servants in Greece represent 22.3% of the total workforce, while in France the percentage is 30%, in Sweden 34%, in the Netherlands 27%, in the UK 20% and finally, in Germany 14%. So we can see that Greece is actually below the average. The most important fact, however, that has to be borne in mind is that 300,000 of the public sector employees are working under temporary contracts, which means they have far lower wages and much fewer rights.

Instead of civil servants' wages going up in recent years, we have seen the opposite phenomenon. As a result of the constant cuts carried out since 1990, according to an ADEDY report [the civil servants trade union confederation], the total real income of civil servants has fallen by 30%. During recent years, governments have preferred to grant "allowances" to civil servants instead of real wage increases. These allowances have neither been included in the annual pay rises nor are they taken into account when calculating pension levels upon retirement.

The bourgeois propaganda also continues to attacking the so-called "13th and 14th month's salary", in an attempt to create the impression that Greek workers enjoy higher wages than their European counterparts. In reality, these extra "salaries" are bonuses for Christmas (the 13th salary), Easter and allowances (14th salary), which were given separately as a method of fragmenting total annual income, in order to facilitate commercial and tourist growth during "peak periods" (i.e. holiday periods), in a country whose economy is based mainly on commerce and tourism. With the new recent measures taken by the government, civil servants and pensioners lose both of these salaries. What must also be noted is that all the wage levels, all the facts and figures about the Greek workers' wages listed above include these extra "salaries".

The myth of the "opulent" Greek workers is ultimately destroyed if we look at the massive increase in the cost of living in Greece. While the wages and salaries are among the lowest in the Eurozone, the prices of basic goods keep soaring. Let us take a look at a few examples. In Greece a packet of cereals costs on average 2.86 euros, while the same packet costs 1.89 euros in the UK (51% cheaper than in Greece) and in France 2.25 euros (27% cheaper). Greeks buy a toothbrush for 3.74 euros while in the UK the same toothbrush is sold for 2.46 euros (52% cheaper). A pack of soft drinks that costs 3.1 euros in Greece, costs 2.76 in Belgium, 2.3 in France and 2.68 in UK. The most prominent examples are a cup of coffee or tea: in Greece the average price is between 3 and 3.5 euros, more than twice the average in most European countries.

Of course, during the same period, there are some Greeks that could be accused of living in opulence, indeed at record levels, compared to both Europe and globally. But these are not to be found among the Greek working class. During the first half of the past decade Greek capitalists were constantly in the three top places in the league table of profitability globally, while Greek bankers even now are enjoying the highest rates of interest in Europe. This is not by chance. Their profits have been based on the fact that they had at their disposal a workforce that has been on some of the lowest wages in Europe. Added to that they had a sizeable section of this workforce employed in the "black economy", where they were able to save huge sums on taxes and social security contributions.

The smear campaign of the capitalist press throughout Europe is thus based on nothing but lies. The truth must be explained within the labour movement in every European country and beyond. Real wages are far lower, the working week is longer than average, the age of retirement is higher than average, but one thing has indeed been higher: the profits made by the Greek and foreign capitalists in Greece.

This does not mean that workers in the rest of Europe are living that much better. What is being done to the Greek working class, tomorrow will be done to the Portuguese and the day after to the Italian, the Belgian, the British workers and so on. Already in Ireland we have seen what the capitalist are capable of. Greece provides merely a foretaste of what is coming very soon in the rest of Europe.

What the bourgeois media is trying to do is to play off one working class against another. They are putting the blame for the present crisis of the euro on the Greek workers, using them as a scapegoat. This is all in preparation for the attacks they are preparing across the whole of Europe. Tomorrow, no doubt, we will hear about the lazy Portuguese, the lazy Italians. In Britain no doubt, the campaign about social security "scroungers", i.e. unemployed workers, will be stepped up, and finally the day will come when the German capitalists will discover that German workers too are "scroungers", that they have lived it up for too long and some "sacrifices" need to be made.

The European working class must not allow this campaign to go unanswered. It is the duty of the labour movement organisation in all European countries to counter this campaign and tell the truth and put the blame for this crisis where it lies, at the door of the European and world capitalist class.

The workers of Europe must act in solidarity with the Greek working class, which is being cruelly attacked by the EU and struggle together against this attempt to first divide the workers and then to pass the burden of the crisis to the European workers as a whole. This will involve a European-wide struggle. In all countries similar conditions are being created. In all countries the attack is the same. What is required is international solidarity across borders, a struggle for a socialist Europe that will finally make those who are responsible for the crisis pay, by expropriating those who are truly lazy, those who produce nothing, those who live off the sweat of the working class, the industrialists, the bankers, the financial speculators, the ship-owners and the owners of the huge commercial chains.

Source: Marxist.com

Edited February 5, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

_{PRESS TV}

_{French jobless man dies of self-immolation in Nantes}

_{State employment agency in Paris, France. (file photo)}

_{Wed Feb 13, 2013 4:42PM GMT}

_{A jobless French man has died after setting himself on fire in front of the state employment agency in the western city of Nantes, police officials said.}

_{The man, who suffered from financial problems, died on Wednesday after being told he was ineligible for unemployment benefits.}

_{Reports say that the man had informed the journalists of his decision, warning he would set himself on fire this week.}

_{In August, another jobless man, aged 51, also died of self-immolation in the French capital of Paris.}

_{The number of jobless people in France has risen for the past 20 months, with economic analysts believing the rate would soon reach the record high set in 1997 of 3.2 million.}

_{In December 2012, Government official unemployment figures showed that 3.13 million people were registered in the country’s jobless program in November, a rise of 29,300 compared to October.}

_{The French unemployment rate has increased since President Francois Hollande took office in May 2012, despite his promises to create 100,000 new jobs per year.}

_{Europe plunged into a financial crisis in early 2008. The worsening debt crisis has forced EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures and tough economic reforms, which have triggered incidents of social unrest and massive protests in many European countries.}

[Len Colby]

Seems like a strawman since the author was unable to cite a single politician or pundit who blamed "lazy workers" for the crisis.

// end Colby

=============

Europe's labour laws and welfare systems make workers lazy, says Chinese finance chief

• Jin Liqun said Europeans should stop 'languishing on the beach' and work harder
  
• http://www.dailymail...l#axzz2JvnpDCns
  

#################################

Young Tory MPs blame 'lazy' baby boomers for Britain's economic decline

A group of rising young Conservative MPs claims that 'idle' British workers are damaging the economy by failing to compete with 'grafting' Asian countries.

Your source wrote:

In Britain, the coalition government constantly slags off those welfare slobs in the working class suburbs, sleeping off their hard night’s slog with Sky Sports and online casino. It is their shameless demand for “something for nothing,” pandered to by the previous Labour government, we are told, that has created the huge deficits that the country is struggling to get rid of.

In the eurozone, many believe that its fiscal crisis can be ultimately traced back to those lazy Mediterranean types in Greece and Spain, who had lived off hard-working Germans and Dutch, spending their time sipping espresso and playing card games. Unless those people start working hard, it is said, the eurozone’s problems cannot be fixed.

And my comments were made in that context. Obviously the "Chinese finance chief" is neither a member of "the [British] coalition government" nor "in the eurozone". That leaves the five young Turks all 1st term MPs who are not government ministers.

[Steven Gaal]

Lazy Britain uncovered: How FOUR MILLION adults have never worked in their lives

• Ten British cities with worst lifelong joblessness mostly in the north
  
• London is worst affected location and young people are worst-hit group
  

By Emily Davies

PUBLISHED: 07:10 EST, 10 February 2013 | UPDATED: 02:54 EST, 11 February 2013

DAILY MAIL

Nearly four million British adults have never had any form of paid work in their lives - more people than the population of Wales.

Figures show the scale of the problem facing British welfare system, which has been criticised for allowing jobless people to be better off than those in work.

More than a quarter of those who have never earned a living are aged between 25 to 64, and 205,000 over 65s had never worked before becoming pensioners.

Edited February 14, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

So Steve do you think the author you cited was thinking about this Feb. 10 article in his Feb. 4 editorial? Perhaps he's psychic! Still no such comments from members of the British gov't of even MPs who've served more than one term. This article undermines your author in another way, it provides evidence that at least some Brits who should be part of the workforce choose to 'live off the dole'.

[Steven Gaal]

Still no such comments from members of the British gov't of even MPs who've served more than one term.// END Colby

=======================================o0o=======================================

Bad politics to say," Hay most of you voters .....lazy bums." (( Kinda reminds me of political genius Romney,"TAKERS"))

========================GOV OFFICIAL Britain’s Chancellor George Osborne

UK Autumn budget: Austerity without end for workers

By Julie Hyland

8 December 2012

Britain’s Chancellor George Osborne announced that the government was extending its austerity measures to 2018 in his budget statement Wednesday, unveiling a further assault on welfare, pensions and teachers.

Thus far the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has set a total austerity package of £155 billion—of which 60 percent has yet to feed through. Public spending has been slashed, public sector wages frozen, pensions raided, with welfare suffering the burden of the cuts.

According to the Guardian, the coalition measures were already the “longest and sharpest austerity programme imposed on any big rich country since 1945.” Osborne added a further £5 billion of cuts and extended their duration into the next parliament.

The claim has been that this pain is necessary to “rebalance” the economy. But just days before Osborne’s budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility overturned its prediction of 0.8 percent growth for this year, with a contraction of 0.1 percent. It slashed its forecast for 2 percent GDP growth next year to 1.2 percent. Commentators are speaking about a “triple-dip recession” in the UK.

Still the chancellor claimed that “Britain is on the right track,” while warning there is “much more to do”. The problem was that Britain had built up a “decade of debt” under the Labour government he said, and was up against the eurozone crisis and fears of a “fiscal cliff” in the US. “Turning back” from austerity now “would be a disaster.”

His statements echoed Prime Minister David Cameron in a speech to the Confederation of British Industry where he said the UK was in the “economic equivalent of war” and that “in this global race you are either quick or you’re dead”.

Wednesday’s budget underscored that this is an economic war against the working class, the objective of which is to drive down wages and living standards to the global benchmark set in China and India.

Osborne claimed that his budget would ensure that “those with the most contribute the most—and they will”. In reality, at the centre of his budget was an escalation in the assault on welfare. He announced cuts in social benefits totaling £14.2 billion, in addition to the £18 billion already implemented.

Tens of thousands are being forced off welfare benefits, or made to take part in bogus “workfare” programmes, while housing and invalidity benefits are being slashed. Some £4 billion a year is to be saved by ending the link between benefits and inflation, and limiting any rise to just one percent a year. Under conditions in which the Retail Price Index inflation rate stands at 3.2 percent, and Job Seekers Allowance currently stands at just 12 percent of average pay, this will be devastating.

Osborne said that this was to be implemented in the interests of “fairness”, claiming he stood for those who “work hard and get on” while their neighbor lies around “asleep, living a life on benefits.”

Slandering the unemployed as lazy scroungers takes place under conditions in which hundreds of thousands of jobs are being destroyed. Some one million youth are without work, and have little prospect of employment. Moreover, the vast majority of those in receipt of benefits are in work but on wages so low they do not cover basic necessities.

The unemployed are not the only target. Analysis shows that everyone earning less than £150,000 per annum—the top one percent of the population—will be poorer next year as a consequence of the measures set out. The threshold at which people enter the 40 pence tax rate is to rise by just one percent, lower than the rate of inflation. This is expected to draw in a further 400,000 people. The amount at which people can pay into pensions tax-free is also to be cut from £50,000 to £40,000 from 2014.

The claim that this constitutes a “raid on the rich” is another lie. Most of those affected are middle class and by no means wealthy. As for the truly rich, Osborne defended the government’s decision to cut the top rate of tax from 50 pence to 45 pence for those above £150,000 per annum. Corporation tax is also to be slashed by 1 pence to 21 percent in 2014—worth more than £1 billion.

Osborne claimed that “Punitive tax rates do nothing to raise money and simply discourage enterprise and investment into Britain.” He boasted that the UK was closing the gap with rivals such as Ireland and Luxembourg, stating this “is the lowest rate of any major western economy. It is an advert for our country that says: come here; invest here; create jobs here; Britain is open for business.”

The announcement came as major global companies such as Amazon, Google and Starbucks were named as among many using tax avoidance measures to pay minimal or zero taxes in the UK. A report by the Commons public accounts committee showed that Amazon UK, for example, reported a turnover of £207 million for 2011, but its tax bill was just £1.8 million. Starbucks recorded sales of £3 billion in the UK over a 13 year period and paid just £8.6 million in total, while Google made £2.5 billion in the UK last year and paid just £3.4 million.

According to estimates, the share of national income spent by the state is predicted to be 39.5 percent in 2017-18, down from 48 percent in 2009-10. Osborne announced additional cuts in departmental budgets of 1 percent this year, and 2 percent the next, while local government budgets are to be cut by a further 2 percent in 2014.

His claim that the National Health Service and education will be exempt from cuts is worthless. Earlier this week, the UK Statistics Authority confirmed that government’s claim to have increased NHS spending in England are false, and that “expenditure on the NHS in real-terms was lower in 2011-12 than it was in 2009-10.”

As for education, Osborne declared that the government was ripping up national pay bargaining for teachers. Headteachers are already able to set wage rates in Academies and so-called Free Schools, which have some form of private sponsorship. This is to be extended across the state sector. The government is intent on using teachers as the testing ground for a broader offensive to drive down wages and conditions.

Again, Osborne’s claim that only teachers will be affected by the move, and the civil service and the National Health Service will be protected, is a lie. Employers in the National Health Service are establishing pay cartels, such as in the South West NHS, with the aim of breaking up nationally agreed pay and conditions or ripping up national conditions on a hospital-by-hospital basis. This assault has been spurred on by the trade unions which capitulated fully to the assault on public sector pensions after a few token protests. In the case of the South West NHS, Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital NHS Foundation Trust withdrew from the pay cartel after unions on the NHS Staff Council agreed to the cuts in wages and conditions sought by the consortium and undertook to impose these conditions nationally.

Despite these measures, Fitch, the ratings agency, warned that the UK’s triple-A rating was on notice. The Financial Times reported that Osborne’s decision not to significantly raise taxes or cut public spending had prompted concern that “the government’s commitment to sort out the public finances was slipping.”

[Steven Gaal]

Books, toys, movies and video games for sale at this bartering market in Barcelona, Spain.

(Photo: Xavier Sule)

In hard-hit Spain, bartering becomes means of getting by

Story Highlights

• Some Spaniards are bartering their way through the recession
  
• 'Sharing economy' has grown since economic crisis hit
  
• Spain's unemployment rate is 26%; 55% among young workers
  

BARCELONA — With two small children and no income for the past two years, Antonio Delgado, 44, says things were so bad he had considered taking his life.

Then a few months ago, Delgado found out about a group that rents small parcels of farmland cheap near his town of La Rinconada in southern Spain. Now he' s bringing home boxes of tomatoes, onions, peppers, lettuce, zucchinis and pumpkins. But he is not selling them.

Delgado and others are bartering, or trading, their way through a recession that has lasted years and left more than a quarter of the workforce unemployed. Tens of thousands of households have no wage earners, but they have skills and time on their hands to do work that can be traded for things they need but have no money to buy.

"I had no clue about agriculture," Delgado said. "But this has changed my life."

Banker Julio Gisbert, author of the book and blog Living Without a Job, says Spaniards are doing what makes sense in these tough times.

"It is possible to live without a job, and that doesn't mean living without working," Gisbert says.

Trading produce for other services and merchandise is one of the many unconventional ways the Spanish are making ends meet in what has been described as the new "sharing economy" that has developed here since the economic crisis hit more than four years ago.

According to the Spanish government, more than half a million families have no income. The unemployment rate has climbed to 26%, but among young workers it is as astonishing 55%.

The deepest economic crisis in Spain's modern history is rooted in a housing boom financed by cheap loans to builders and home buyers who went bust. Homes were not worth what was borrowed to buy or build them.

Spain borrowed to lend the banks money to survive, but that put the national government in a budget deficit. Regional governments that spent budget surpluses in boom years were forced to end public spending and cut benefits and jobs, hobbling economic growth. The economy, which grew 3.7% a year on average from 1999 to 2007, has since contracted at an annual rate of 1% since.

With few jobs and no disposable income, bartering and other ways of exchanging goods and services are increasingly seen as good alternatives.

Some Spaniards are using so-called time banks to "deposit" time, knowledge and skills and trade them for things they need. All services have the same value, whether it is one hour of teaching a foreign language or one hour of cleaning house.

Teresa Sanchez, 55, is part of the Time Bank in Valladolid in western Spain. She has deposited offers of Japanese language classes, massage and company for the elderly. In return, she has received English lessons, appliance repairs and haircuts for her son.

"I first joined because I like the idea of people helping each other as it used to be long ago, but it is true that it is nice economic help," said Sanchez. "The world would work better without money."

The number of time banks in Spain has doubled to 318 in the past three years, according to the Association of Time Banks. SocialCar.com allows people to rent their private cars to other individuals while JoinUp Taxi makes it easy for people to share taxis to the same destination. Nolotiro.org ("I Won't Throw It Out") allows people to give away things they don't need anymore, such as clothing or tools.

Mi Huerto Compartido (My Shared Garden) allows land owners to "lend" ground in exchange for part of the harvest. And Truequebook.es users barter school books and other goods for children.

Delgado got his plot of farmland from My Harvest Ecological Gardens, which rents 540-square-foot parcels of land for $40 a month. He works the land 20 hours a week and exchanges produce with other small farmers so he can get the wide variety of food his family needs.

Besides the cybermarket places, nearly 100 bartering markets have appeared in Catalonia alone, according to Intercanvis.net, a site that tracks the bartering economy in this northeastern region of Spain.

"The main reason why people start using these sites is economic, whether it is to save money, make money or get goods or services without money," said Albert Canigueral, editor of ConsumoColaborativo.com, Spain's biggest site on the sharing economy. "However, once people have tried them out a couple of times, their mentality changes and they start looking at alternatives to traditional shopping as their only option."

Unlike other European countries, where thrift shops thrive, or in the United States, where garage sales are common, Spaniards have always been reluctant to buy used goods. In fact, just a few years ago, it would have been unimaginable to hear Spaniards boast over their newest second-hand acquisition.

"In Spain, those who buy things that have been used carry the stigma of not being able to buy brand new stuff," explained Joana Conill, a researcher of alternative economic cultures at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

The crisis and social media are changing people's habits and perceptions so "the attachment of people to objects is diminishing," said Jordi Griera, president of the Institute for Management and Human Values in Barcelona. He and others says that the economic crisis has also brought Spanish society closer together in a positive way.

"The sharing economy is the gate to a cultural change in which people rediscover the power of getting connected with other fellow citizens not only to consume, but also to produce for each other, educate each other, finance each other," said Canigueral.

BarcelonActua is a case in point. More than 7,000 people participate in this local "favor bank" where people help others without necessarily expecting anything in return. There is no control over who gets or gives what — everything is based on good faith.

Anna Daura, 49, of Barcelona, posted on the organization's website requesting someone to help her clean out an apartment she owned that had been nearly destroyed by the previous tenant. She had lost her job a few weeks before and had little money to pay for the job. Minutes after posting her ad numerous people responded that they would help "for no money."

A few days later, a dozen people went to her apartment with "incredible energy" and left it spotless, she said.

"Nothing like this had ever happened to me," Daura said. Grateful for the help, she is now counseling other members of the network on how to start a business, her particular expertise.

Laia Serrano, the economist who founded BarcelonActua a year ago, says that it will be people power that fixes Spain, not the government.

"I am convinced that the solution to this crisis will be from the bottom up," she said. "It is necessary, though, that people realize it."

Rocio Avila, 41, did. She lost her job two years ago and only has the $800 a month her ex-husband gives her to support their two children. When her boiler broke a few days ago, she posted that she needed help to repair it.

"Someone who didn't even know me offered to give me the $260 I needed for a new one," said Avila, in tears. "Of course this helped me financially but also emotionally — meeting these people is also a gift."

Edited February 21, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

February 26, 2013

Counterpunch

Staring into the Abyss

The Greek Economy is Kaput

by

MIKE WHITNEY

“The Greek economy is finished. The Greek economy is in a great, great depression… There is no power, no force within the Greek economy, within Greek society that can avert it….Imagine if we were in Ohio in 1931 and we were to ask: What can Ohio politicians do to get Ohio out of the Great Depression? The answer is nothing.”

- Yanis Varoufakis, Greek economist

After 5 years of negative growth, record-high unemployment and savage cuts to essential safety-net programs, Greek society is beginning to buckle. Diabetics cannot afford their insulin, suicides and anti-depressant usage is off-the-chart, tuberculosis and HIV rates are soaring, and desperate pensioners in Athens have been reduced to dumpster diving outside grocery stores for a few scraps of food to feed themselves and their families. The shocking devolution of a modern nation into a failed state did not happen overnight or without the help of EU bureaucrats and financial potentates who dictate economic policy from Brussels, Frankfort and Berlin. These so-called “managers” have steered the 17-member eurozone into the biggest slump since the Great Depression, imposing belt tightening measures that have choked off growth, sent unemployment skyrocketing, and incited protest and street violence across the continent. Greece has been particularly hard hit. Poverty and destitution are now widespread. The country is a basketcase. Here’s more from an article in the Guardian:

“Greece is currently in the centre of a humanitarian crisis…. A large proportion of Greek households currently live in conditions of “material deprivation”. A little more than 11% actually live in “extreme material deprivation”, which means without enough heating, electricity, and use of either a car or a telephone…There has been explosive growth in soup kitchens and general food distribution. … the Church of Greece distributes approximately 250,000 daily rations… By recent government order, municipal rations will be expanded further because of rising incidence of children fainting at school due to low calorie intake.

The evidence of poverty, inequality, and inability to access primary services confirms the increasingly desperate statements by people at the frontline.” (“Greece is facing a humanitarian crisis”, Guardian)

The Guardian concedes that there are political reasons why the crisis has not been adequately covered in the media. “By acknowledging the severity of the situation, the Greek government and the EU would also have admitted that the current state of affairs has been brought about by the so-called economic “rescue” of Greece. So the authorities have chosen to keep quiet.” (Guardian)

Greece has not been rescued nor was that ever the plan. From the beginning, austerity was meant to punish and humiliate, to shrink the state and expropriate anything of value. Still the charade goes on, and the EU stewards continue to claim that their discredited theory is achieving its objectives. Case in point, here’s vice president of the European Commission, Olli Rehn, cheerleading austerity as the antidote to Europe’s debt woes.

“The decisive policy action undertaken recently is paving the way for a return to recovery. We must stay the course of reform and avoid any loss of momentum, which could undermine the turnaround in confidence that is under way, delaying the needed upswing in growth and job creation.”

There is no recovery. The EZ is in the throes of a Depression. Economic fundamentals have been jettisoned to advance the interests of the wealthy overlords who benefit from from the imiseration of working people. Austerity is a sham that has laid much of the south to waste. An increasing number of families are now abandoning their children because they’re no longer able to provide for them. According to Press TV:

“There has been an increase in the number of newborn babies dumped outside clinics and offloaded on charities ….”Families are breaking up, instances are mounting of mothers and fathers no longer being able to bring up their own kids,” General Secretary of the civil servants’ union ADEDY, Ilias Ilioupolis said.” (“Greek crisis ups abandoned kids”, Press TV)

The political implications of austerity are equally worrisome. Growing opposition to Brussels diktats has led to a resurgence of right wing extremism notably the uber-nationalist Golden Dawn whose Nazi-like standard and anti-immigrant rhetoric is now finding broader appeal among Greece’s unemployed and disaffected youth. Xenophobia and anti-semitism are on the rise. Policymakers in Brussels could reverse this dangerous trend, but have chosen to intensify Greece’s humiliation by increasing their demands and withholding desperately needed fiscal assistance. As a result, reactionary elements are gaining strength while democratic institutions are progressively weakening. Meanwhile, the EZ economy continues to deteriorate.

In Greece, for example, 3rd quarter output shrank by 7.2 percent, deeper than the 2nd quarter’s 6.3 percent decline. That means the economy is getting worse. It also means that Greece will not meet its deficit targets and will be forced to implement more austerity measures. As the government slashes public investment, demand will weaken, state revenues will fall, and the severity of the slump will intensify. The same pattern has been repeated for 20 quarters without change. Greece is being carved up and sold to deep-pocket corporations and wealthy businessmen. It’s being kept on life-support so that EU banks and bondholders avoid the losses for which they alone are responsible. The EU’s criminal elite have reduced the country to rubble.

THE MEMORANDUM: A death warrant for Greece

In February 2012, Greek parliamentarians signed the nation’s death warrant by ratifying the heinous “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU), a document that effectively repeals Greek sovereignty and hands the nation over to foreign banks and corporations. The 43-page edict imposes strict rules on everything from reduced spending on life-saving drugs to “lifting constraints for retailers to sell restricted product categories such as baby food.”

The MOU calls for a 10 percent cuts to government workers wages, cuts to “social security funds and hospitals”, and more privatizing of publicly-owned assets, all of which has further shrunk GDP. Ratherpath for Greece to exit its present slump, the Memorandum curtails public spending while creating new opportunities for exploitation and plunder. Here’s an excerpt from the MOU:

“The Government stands ready to offer for sale its remaining stakes in state-owned enterprises, if necessary in order to reach the privatisation objectives. Public control will be limited only to cases of critical network infrastructure.”

Public assets are being sold for pennies on the dollar to foreign corporations and entrepreneurs. Then there’s this:

“The Government will neither propose nor implement measures which may infringe the rules on the free movement of capital.”

In Greece, the interests of the people have been subordinated to the interests of profitmaking industries and their shareholders. Capital rules. The MOU turns the basic principal of representative government on its head. The memo also features predictable attack on organised labor. Here’s a clip:

“The Government will take measures to foster a rapid adjustment of labour costs to fight unemployment and restore cost-competitiveness, ensure the effectiveness of recent labour market reforms, align labour conditions in former state-owned enterprises to those in the rest of the private sector and make working hours arrangements more flexible. This strategy should aim at reducing nominal unit labour costs in the business economy by 15 percent in 2012-14. At the same time, the Government will promote smooth wage bargaining at the various levels and fight undeclared work.”

The Greek government must revoke collective bargaining rights and reject minimum wage laws that undermine “cost-competitiveness”, an Orwellian term which means “slave wages”. The authors of this rancid warrant try to conceal their animus for working people behind the public relations invention, “debt crisis”, but their real intention is clear. Here’s more from the MOU:

“The Government establishes a task force (to) review the ….judicial case management, including the possibility of removing dormant cases from court registers.” …Following on the submission of the work plan for the reduction of the backlog of tax cases in all administrative tribunals and administrative courts of appeal in January 2012, which provides for intermediate targets for reducing the backlog by at least 50 per cent by end-June 2012, by at least 80 per cent by end-December 2012 and for the full clearance of the backlog by end-July 2013, the Government presents by end-May 2012.”

The MOU provides a get-out-of-jail-for-free card for tax cheats. How does that help to balance the budget? It doesn’t, but it does help to illustrate that the “debt crisis” is a fraud designed to crack open Greece like a pinata and steal whatever big finance and their corporate colleagues can lay their hands on.

The financial oligarchy is now using its political agents in Athens to intensify police state repression and quash any outbreak of organized resistance. According to the World Socialist Web Site:

“The Greek government has now resorted to martial law on four separate occasions to force striking workers back to work since the European Union began dictating austerity measures for Greece. …Any form of effective collective resistance against the relentless austerity measures that have already cost tens of thousands of jobs and slashed wages and pensions has been effectively declared illegal…

The attack on the right to strike in Greece is being carried out in collaboration with and support from other European governments and EU institutions. The so-called “troika”—the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Commission and European Central Bank (ECB)—monitors every measure taken by the Greek government and has deployed observers to watch over specific Greek ministries. (“Greek government imposes martial law on ferry strikers”, World Socialist Web Site)

Austerity is being used to mask the looting of Greece by foreign capital. The troika-led attack on the battered nation has pushed youth unemployment above 60 percent, reduced millions of working people to a state of “extreme material deprivation”, and left the public health care system in a shambles.

Edited February 26, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Eurozone unemployment hits record-high 11.9%

_{hang the bankers}

_{02 Mar 2013}

_{by Clark Kent}

_{Unemployed workers wait outside a government job centre in Madrid.}

_{Unemployment has hit unprecedented levels across Europe, with youth joblessness particularly high, according to a new EU report. Spain was hardest-hit: Overall unemployment was measured at over 20 percent, and youth joblessness was over 55 percent.}

_{The number of those out of work in the eurozone spiked to 11.9 percent in January, up from 11.8 percent the previous month – a marked rise from the previous year. In January 2012, it stood at 10.8 percent; nearly 19 million people are now out of work across the eurozone.}

_{The EU27 unemployment rate also collectively rose, standing at 10.8 percent, a rise from 10.7 percent in the previous month. Some 26.2 million are now jobless across Europe, according to figures released in a new Eurostat report made public on Friday.}

_{The highest unemployment rate – 26.2 percent – was in Spain, which has recently seen mass anti-austerity protests, some of which have turned violent. The report did not provide updated figures for Greece, but as of November, 27 percent of Greek workers are jobless.}

_{Large decreases in joblessness were seen in Estonia (11.1 percent to 9.9 percent between December 2011 and December 2012), Latvia, Romania and the UK, while the overall lowest unemployment rates were Austria at 4.9 percent, Germany and Luxembourg at 5.3 percent each, and the Netherlands at 6 percent. Denmark’s jobless rate remained unchanged.}

_{People reach out for a bag of oranges during a free distribution of fruit and vegetables by Greek farmers in Athens.}

_{Wide-scale youth unemployment}

_{Levels of youth unemployment Europe-wide are also at record levels: The youth jobless rate in hard-hit Spain was the highest-ever at 55.5 percent.}

_{Overall, youth unemployment stood at 23.6 percent in the EU27 – meaning 5.732 million young workers are unemployed – compared to 24.2 percent in January 2012. In the euro area, youth joblessness rose from 21.9 percent to 22.4 percent, (3.642 million). Economic woes in Greece, Spain and Italy contributed heavily to these figures.}

_{Regional labor ministers warned earlier this week that action needs to be taken, as joblessness among the under-25s could potentially threaten the European Union as an institution.}

_{“Europe needs the courage to respond to the major financial and economic crisis that it is experiencing with social and employment policies that make a real change to people’s working and living conditions,”the paper said, which was circulated in Brussels earlier this week, according to Reuters.}

_{The rate of price increases across the eurozone dropped to 1.8 percent in February, placing it below the European Central Bank’s target inflation rate for the first time in more than two years. Inflation stood at 2.0 percent, according to Eurostat, and hasn’t been below this level since last November.}

_{Low inflation is usually considered a positive sign, meaning price pressures are contained. However, it can also be reflective of the state of consumer demand, which frequently falls during periods of high unemployment. Europeans are spending less and saving more, as they are likely concerned for their job security.}

_{Protesters rest in their sleeping bags at the Puerta del Sol square in Madrid on May 22, 2011 during a protest against Spain’s economic crisis and its sky-high jobless rate.}

_{Source:http://rt.com/news/unemployment-rise-europe-eu-680/}

Edited March 2, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

_{ICELAND WENT AFTER THE BANKERSNOT LABOR TO SOLVE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS (guess what ?? It improved economy)}

_{+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++}

Iceland Saves Economy, Jails Bankers | Tired of Wars & Being Lied To

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6Rmg9Uzf4&feature=player_embedded

Edited March 12, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Eurozone Crisis:Workers and Unions demonstration against Austerity at Brussels / EU News

15 March, 2013 | 12:22

Workers and trade union representatives from all over Europe hold a demonstration against austerity near the European Commission and Council headquarters in Brussels March 14, 2013. Some 10,000 people took part in the demonstration on Thursday, the first day of a summit of EU leaders where soaring unemployment and biting austerity will top the agenda.

#####################################################

European leaders meeting in Brussels were met with protests against austerity as they try to work out a way to tackle the debt crisis crippling the Eurozone. Some of the protestors were arrested by police.

Thousands of protestors in Brussels were also demanding that EU leaders bring austerity measures to a close and focus on boosting growth and reducing unemployment.

The protests were led by the European Trade Union Association, and the direct action groups For A European Spring and Bloccupy.

Around 1,500 protesters rallied at the Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, according to police on the scene. Although more were seen gathering close to the European Council Summit at the Place Shuman. There have reportedly been 25 arrests by police.

The police banned protesters from marching past the banks and the seats of government in Brussels, to the dismay of many of the protesters.

“We want to be marching past the seats of government, past the people who actually have a say in what is going on, I think it’s an outrage,” Pascoe Sabido told New Europe Online.

100 of the protesters occupied the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs in Brussels (DG ECFIN), and the headquarters of European Commissioner Oli Rehn, to make a stand against his role in austerity.

The DG ECFIN provides most of the staff whose job it is to go to indebted European countries to impose austerity measures regardless of public opinion.

Unemployment in the Eurozone is now just under 12%, while youth unemployment is at 24.2%.

Even some EU leaders acknowledged that the current situation cannot continue indefinitely and that action is needed.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to the social emergency in some of our countries”, said EU president Herman Van Rompuy during the summit.

The Irish Prime Minster went further, saying, “No leader can be happy with the situation where 26 million people are out of work in the European Union. That is why we are here,” said Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny.

But the EU’s Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn insisted that austerity works and said that fiscal consolidation was working in Ireland.

His views were echoed by the Finish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen.

“Structural reforms don’t bear fruit overnight, but they are the best sustainable economic stimulus. Accumulating excessive debt is not,” he said.

Lode Vanoost, the former deputy speaker of the Belgian Parliament, explained that the gulf between the citizens of the EU and their governments is widening and that what is happening now “is a clash between what the public wants and what the governments and the EU are doing,” he told

“There is no real willingness to hear what these people have to say. I mean it’s always about austerity, it’s always about privatization and cutting down public services. But the voices that say that exactly the opposite should be done to revive the economy are not being heard,” the international consultant observed.

He also warned that the continuing austerity drive may fuel extremism.

“People who are desperate – especially young people will look for answers on the extremes. If you want to really prevent this from happening – there is only one way out: you have to invest in jobs, especially for the young,” he said.

The general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, Bernadette Segol, said that efforts to get the EU out of recession are being borne by working people.

“The policies that have been put in place have failed; we are in a double dip recession. We see that the efforts have been put on the shoulders of the workers,” she said.

[Steven Gaal]

The Cyprus Bank Battle: The Long-planned Deposit Confiscation Scheme

A Safe and a Shotgun or Public Sector Banks?

By Ellen Brown

Global Research, March 22, 2013

===================================================

“If these worries become really serious, . . . mall savers will take their money out of banks and resort to household safes and a shotgun.” — Martin Hutchinson on the attempted EU raid on private deposits in Cyprus banks

The deposit confiscation scheme has long been in the making. US depositors could be next …

On Tuesday, March 19, the national legislature of Cyprus overwhelmingly rejected a proposed levy on bank deposits as a condition for a European bailout. Reuters called it “a stunning setback for the 17-nation currency bloc,” but it was a stunning victory for democracy. As Reuters quoted one 65-year-old pensioner, “The voice of the people was heard.”

The EU had warned that it would withhold €10 billion in bailout loans, and the European Central Bank (ECB) had threatened to end emergency lending assistance for distressed Cypriot banks, unless depositors – including small savers – shared the cost of the rescue. In the deal rejected by the legislature, a one-time levy on depositors would be required in return for a bailout of the banking system. Deposits below €100,000 would be subject to a 6.75% levy or “haircut”, while those over €100,000 would have been subject to a 9.99% “fine.”

The move was bold, but the battle isn’t over yet. The EU has now given Cyprus until Monday to raise the billions of euros it needs to clinch an international bailout or face the threatened collapse of its financial system and likely exit from the euro currency zone.

The Long-planned Confiscation Scheme

The deal pushed by the “troika” – the EU, ECB and IMF – has been characterized as a one-off event devised as an emergency measure in this one extreme case. But the confiscation plan has long been in the making, and it isn’t limited to Cyprus.

In a September 2011 article in the Bulletin of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand titled “A Primer on Open Bank Resolution,” Kevin Hoskin and Ian Woolford discussed a very similar haircut plan that had been in the works, they said, since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The article referenced recommendations made in 2010 and 2011 by the Basel Committee of the Bank for International Settlements, the “central bankers’ central bank” in Switzerland.

The purpose of the plan, called the Open Bank Resolution (OBR) , is to deal with bank failures when they have become so expensive that governments are no longer willing to bail out the lenders. The authors wrote that the primary objectives of OBR are to:

• ensure that, as far as possible, any losses are ultimately borne by the bank’s shareholders and creditors . . . .
  

The spectrum of “creditors” is defined to include depositors:

At one end of the spectrum, there are large international financial institutions that invest in debt issued by the bank (commonly referred to as wholesale funding). At the other end of the spectrum, are customers with cheque and savings accounts and term deposits.

Most people would be surprised to learn that they are legally considered “creditors” of their banks rather than customers who have trusted the bank with their money for safekeeping, but that seems to be the case. According to Wikipedia:

In most legal systems, . . . the funds deposited are no longer the property of the customer. The funds become the property of the bank, and the customer in turn receives an asset called a deposit account (a checking or savings account). That deposit account is a

liability

of the bank on the bank’s books and on its balance sheet. Because the bank is authorized by law to make loans up to a multiple of its reserves, the bank’s reserves on hand to satisfy payment of deposit liabilities amounts to only a fraction of the total which the bank is obligated to pay in satisfaction of its demand deposits.

The bank gets the money. The depositor becomes only a creditor with an IOU. The bank is not required to keep the deposits available for withdrawal but can lend them out, keeping only a “fraction” on reserve, following accepted fractional reserve banking principles. When too many creditors come for their money at once, the result can be a run on the banks and bank failure.

The New Zealand OBR said the creditors had all enjoyed a return on their investments and had freely accepted the risk, but most people would be surprised to learn that too. What return do you get from a bank on a deposit account these days? And isn’t your deposit protected against risk by FDIC deposit insurance?

Not anymore, apparently. As Martin Hutchinson observed in Money Morning, “if governments can just seize deposits by means of a ‘tax’ then deposit insurance is worth absolutely zippo.”

The Real Profiteers Get Off Scot-Free

Felix Salmon wrote in Reuters of the Cyprus confiscation:

Meanwhile, people who deserve to lose money here, won’t. If you lent money to Cyprus’s banks by buying their debt rather than by depositing money, you will suffer no losses at all. And if you lent money to the insolvent Cypriot government, then you too will be paid off at 100 cents on the euro. . . .

The big winner here is the ECB, which has extended a lot of credit to dubiously-solvent Cypriot banks and which is taking no losses at all.

It is the ECB that can most afford to take the hit, because it has the power to print euros. It could simply create the money to bail out the Cyprus banks and take no loss at all. But imposing austerity on the people is apparently part of the plan. Salmon writes:

From a drily technocratic perspective, this move can be seen as simply being part of a standard Euro-austerity program: the EU wants tax hikes and spending cuts, and this is a kind of tax . . . .

The big losers are working-class Cypriots, whose elected government has proved powerless . . . . The Eurozone has always had a democratic deficit: monetary union was imposed by the elite on unthankful and unwilling citizens. Now the citizens are revolting: just look at Beppe Grillo.

But that was before the Cyprus government stood up for the depositors and refused to go along with the plan, in what will be a stunning victory for democracy if they can hold their ground.

It CAN Happen Here

Cyprus is a small island, of little apparent significance. But one day, the bold move of its legislators may be compared to the Battle of Marathon, the pivotal moment in European history when their Greek forebears fended off the Persians, allowing classical Greek civilization to flourish. The current battle on this tiny island has taken on global significance. If the technocrat bankers can push through their confiscation scheme there, precedent will be established for doing it elsewhere when bank bailouts become prohibitive for governments.

That situation could be looming even now in the United States. As Gretchen Morgenson warned in a recent article on the 307-page Senate report detailing last year’s $6.2 billion trading fiasco at JPMorganChase: “Be afraid.” The report resoundingly disproves the premise that the Dodd-Frank legislation has made our system safe from the reckless banking activities that brought the economy to its knees in 2008. Writes Morgenson:

JPMorgan . . . Is the largest derivatives dealer in the world. Trillions of dollars in such instruments sit on its and other big banks’ balance sheets. The ease with which the bank hid losses and fiddled with valuations should be a major concern to investors.

Pam Martens observed in a March 18th article that JPMorgan was gambling in the stock market with depositor funds. She writes, “trading stocks with customers’ savings deposits – that truly has the ring of the excesses of 1929 . . . .”

The large institutional banks not only could fail; they are likely to fail. When the derivative scheme collapses and the US government refuses a bailout, JPMorgan could be giving its depositors’ accounts sizeable “haircuts” along guidelines established by the BIS and Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

Time for Some Public Sector Banks?

The bold moves of the Cypriots and such firebrand political activists as Italy’s Grillo are not the only bulwarks against bankster confiscation. While the credit crisis is strangling the Western banking system, the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – have sailed through largely unscathed. According to a May 2010 article in The Economist, what has allowed them to escape are their strong and stable publicly-owned banks.

Professor Kurt von Mettenheim of the Sao Paulo Business School of Brazil writes, “The credit policies of BRIC government banks help explain why these countries experienced shorter and milder economic downturns during 2007-2008.” Government banks countered the effects of the financial crisis by providing counter-cyclical credit and greater client confidence.

Russia is an Eastern European country that weathered the credit crisis although being very close to the Eurozone. According to a March 2010 article in Forbes:

As in other countries, the [2008] crisis prompted the state to take on a greater role in the banking system. State-owned systemic banks . . . have been used to carry out anticrisis measures, such as driving growth in lending (however limited) and supporting private institutions.

In the 1998 Asian crisis, many Russians who had put all their savings in private banks lost everything; and the credit crisis of 2008 has reinforced their distrust of private banks. Russian businesses as well as individuals have turned to their government-owned banks as the more trustworthy alternative. As a result, state-owned banks are expected to continue dominating the Russian banking industry for the foreseeable future.

The entire Eurozone conundrum is unnecessary. It is the result of too little money in a system in which the money supply is fixed, and the Eurozone governments and their central banks cannot issue their own currencies. There are insufficient euros to pay principal plus interest in a pyramid scheme in which only the principal is injected by the banks that create money as “bank credit” on their books. A central bank with the power to issue money could remedy that systemic flaw, by injecting the liquidity needed to jumpstart the economy and turn back the tide of austerity choking the people.

The push to confiscate the savings of hard-working Cypriot citizens is a shot across the bow for every working person in the world, a wake-up call to the perils of a system in which tiny cadres of elites call the shots and the rest of us pay the price. When we finally pull back the veils of power to expose the men pulling the levers in an age-old game they devised, we will see that prosperity is indeed possible for all.

For more on the public bank solution and for details of the June 2013 Public Banking Institute conference in San Rafael, California, see here.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and the author of eleven books, includingWeb of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free. Her websites are webofdebt.com and ellenbrown.com.

[Steven Gaal]

A new stage in the attacks on the European working class and 'down under'

http://www.wsws.org/...3/pers-m23.html

Edited March 23, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Benefit cuts: Monday will be the day that defines this government

Those on low incomes, after all the vicious talk dismissing them as cheats and idlers, will be hit by an avalanche of cuts

Polly Toynbee

The Guardian, Thursday 28 March 2013 16.51 EDT

=====================================================

'The Guardian has revealed how jobcentre staff are under orders to find any sanction to knock people off benefits.' Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Not many know what is about to happen on Monday: neither those about to be knocked down nor those sailing too high above them to notice. But historians will see it as the day that defines the Cameron government. An avalanche of benefit cuts will hit the same households over and over, with no official assessment of how far this £18bn reduction will send those who are already poor into beggary.

In his 2009 Hugo Young lecture, David Cameron spoke with apparent passion of the damage done by inequality: "We all know, in our hearts, that as long as there is deep poverty living systematically side by side with great riches, we all remain the poorer for it." The wise saw the wolf beneath the sheepskin: sure enough, once in power, the language he and his ministers used to blame the poor for their plight was cruder and fiercer than in Thatcher's day. You need to go back to Edwardian times to find ministers and commentators so viciously dismissing all on low incomes as cheats, idlers and drunks.

On BBC news, Iain Duncan Smith, confronted with irrefutable cases of hardship, said: "It's about trying to get as many people as possible out of the welfare trap and into lives they can control themselves." As the economist JK Galbraith observed: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

So far, public opinion seems alarmingly content with these cuts – but before we despair of human kindness, many can plead ignorance. The government relies on destitution staying silent and unseen, isolated in families with no collective voice. Dear Guardian reader, you know what's happening because we report on the social security calamity almost daily, as you would expect.

Readers of the Mirror have been briefed this week, and the Independent covered the bedroom tax on its front page. But look back through this week's Times, Telegraph, Mail and Sun to see how their readers are told nothing. They know a lot about immigrants. Sun readers were told the welfare bill is soaring out of control. They read a freak story of a woman refusing to take well-paid jobs to keep her children's free university places.

Times readers learned at length of Tanni Grey-Thompson's ordeal of hauling herself up 12 floors when her lift broke down, but only a very short story on her admirable campaign against cuts leaving disabled people £4,600 poorer. Telegraph readers were told "benefit claimants should be forced to seek extra work", with a battery of stories against unfair budget treatment of stay-at-home mums suffering a "traditional families penalty". The Bishop of Exeter pleaded their cause for tax relief, although surely he should be raising hell about the cuts?

People may read these papers to be protected from inconvenient facts about growing inequality and the catastrophic falling behind of the poor. The Brookings Institution reports that ever-worsening inequality will be "permanent" from now on. Most people would be alarmed at a never-ending widening of the gulf, if they knew. Most people want to believe the equal opportunities myth, but are easily comforted when told the poor are bad and the well-off deserving, so social justice prevails in this best of all possible worlds.

Here's an interesting brief story in the Telegraph: a report that young children moving home three or more times suffer serious behaviour problems. Unfortunately, the Telegraph made no mention of the many families about to be uprooted and sent far from relatives, jobs and schools, into temporary accommodation and B&Bs, then moved on each time their rents rise. With virtually no takers for Cameron's parenting class vouchers, it's the government that needs lessons in child development.

No amount of IDS newspeak can turn the bedroom tax into a "spare bedroom subsidy". Frank Field calls for social landlords to knock down walls or brick up rooms so people can keep their homes: it's all a fraud, since IDS knows that 660,000 tenants with a spare room can never be found smaller properties, they will pay the extra or fall into debt and arrears until they are evicted. From Monday, most of the poorest get a new bill of an average £138 for council tax. Landlords expect mayhem when tenants are paid rent directly every month: pilots show many fall into debt.

Now add in these: disability living allowance starts converting into personal independence payment with a target to remove 500,000 people in new Atos medical tests. The Guardian has revealed how jobcentre staff are under orders to find any sanction to knock people off benefits. New obstacles are strewn in their path: people must apply for their benefits online from computers they don't possess; many of these claimants are semi-literate. When in dire straits, there will be no more crisis loans, only a card for buying food, with not a penny for bus fares. Trussell Trust food banks expect a great surge of the hungry, so they ask everyone to donate the price of an Easter egg.

Here is the final wicked twist: legal aid has been removed for advice on benefits, housing, divorce, debt, education and employment. On Monday the budget of Citizens Advice for such cases falls from £22m to £3m. The few emergency cases still covered – families facing instant eviction – can only use a phone service, not face-to-face legal help. Law centres will close. There will be no help on school exclusions, landlord or employer harassment, or failure to pay wages.

Every new benefit system starts out with a high error rate: everyone knows the complex universal credit will leave millions with incorrect or no payments – and now, nowhere to go for help. Courts and tribunals expect chaos as people try to make their own cases without any help. Try to imagine the plight of people in debt because of the non-arrival of payments, with no credit on their phones to call and inquire, no crisis loan to buy phone credit, no internet access – and now no advice service either.

I refuse to believe most people would not be shocked if they knew, if they saw and if they understood. Even some of the 30% who always vote Tory might be appalled if they weren't so well deceived by their ministers, MPs and newspapers, who lie knowingly and deliberately. People should know that historians will record the earthquake of social destruction that happened in their name, while they read of nothing but "scroungers" and the "soaring benefit bill".

==============================<p>

Related

• 
  27 Mar 2013
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• 
  21 Mar 2013
  The bedroom tax is an intrusion into the most private family space
  
• 
  21 Mar 2013
  New childcare policy excludes nearly 1m of UK's poorest families
  
• 
  19 Mar 2013
  Childcare deal: who are the winners and losers?
  

[Steven Gaal]

• Eurozone unemployment hits all-time high: 19 million out of work
  Posted on April 2, 2013 by Sunfire
  RT News
  Eurozone unemployment levels have hit 12 percent – the highest in the history of eurozone record-keeping, since the currency was launched in 1999.
  The average unemployment rate across the eurozone’s 17 constituent European Union countries rose from January’s initial 11.9 percent high to 12 percent in February, meaning a further 33,000 people were put out of work. Overall, 19.071 million are jobless across Europe.
  Some countries, including Spain and Greece suffered unemployment rates as high as 26 percent over the month of February.
  Spain and Greece have both been shaken by violent protests, with Greece experiencing a massive increase in suicides and attempted suicides in 2010 and 2011.
  Conversely, the lowest unemployment rates are still to be found in Luxembourg (5.5 percent), Germany (5.4 percent), Austria (4.8 percent) and the Netherlands (6.2 percent).
  Youth unemployment (under-25s) has also soared, leaving 5.694 million out of work in the EU 27 (3.581 million of whom were in the euro area).
  In Greece, the figure of unemployed under-25s borders on 60 percent, while in Spain, 55.7 percent of the nation’s youth are still out of work.
  In January, unemployment in the eurozone had reached a previous record high of 11.8 percent, according to the original Eurostat report, meaning it is continuing to rise, fueling concerns over the region’s economic crisis.
  Some economic experts had forecast the rise in unemployment, especially after the earlier January figure was later revised upwards, to verge on 12 percent.
  As the statistics relate to February, they do not yet take the impact of Cyprus’ bailout into account.
  A separate survey, also released on Tuesday, indicated that the eurozone recession continued in the first quarter.
  
  Workers and trade union representatives from all over Europe hold a demonstration against austerity near the European Commission and Council headquarters in Brussels March 14, 2013.(Reuters / Yves Herman)
  Within the last two weeks, Markit’s chief economist Chris Williamson aired serious concerns to AFP.
  “Instead of the eurozone economy stabilizing in the second quarter, as many – including the ECB – have been hoping to see, the downturn could therefore intensify in coming months,” he said, expressing unease over the prospect.
  The eurozone PMI shrank in March. Although not as bad as estimated a couple of weeks ago, the PMI stood at 46.8 points in the most recent survey. A figure below 50 is indicative of economic contraction. The overwhelming worry is that manufacturing activity has weakened across the region.
  While there has been steady trade and good gains with non-EU countries, the drag on manufacturing order from within the eurozone is still significant.
  Spanish manufacturing hit an especially steep slump in February, which follows news that the government plans to revise its economic forecasts for 2013, from an initially anticipated 0.5 per cent decline to a 1 per cent decline.
  They Cyprus crisis in the last week of March seems to have had little overall impact so far. However, its effects could potentially strike later on in the year.
  “While in some respects it is reassuring to see the events in Cyprus did not cause an immediate impact on business activity, the concern is that the latest chapter in the region’s crisis will have hit demand further in April,” Chris Williamson told Reuters on Tuesday.
  http://rt.com/business/eurozone-unemployment-hits-record-12-percent-212/