A new stage in the attacks on the European working class

[Steven Gaal]

_{^{(AUSTERITY Hows that working UK ??,Gaal)}}

_{^{http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/22/police-home-secretary-approve-use-water-cannon-austerity-protest}}

_{^{========================================}}

_{^{The Guardian,}}

_{^{Wednesday 22 January 2014 14.14 EST}}

_{^{Police to ask home secretary to approve use of water cannon across country}}

_{^{Police chiefs say water cannon are needed because 'austerity measures are likely to lead to continued protest'}}

Edited January 22, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

New Model Of Governance in Bailout Europe: Silence, Lies, and Evasion

Source: Testosterone Pit

By Don Quijones, a freelance writer and translator based in Barcelona, Spain. His blog, Raging Bull-xxxx, is a modest attempt to challenge some of the wishful thinking and scrub away the lathers of soft soap peddled by our political and business leaders and their loyal mainstream media.

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

Recent events in Spain have left me in even more a fog of confusion than usual. Here’s why: a little over a month ago, just before Christmas, it was announced to the loudest possible fanfare that Spain had finally fulfilled all its bailout obligations.

Its work done, the Troika was withdrawing its troops. After 18 long, arduous months of economic belt-tightening, Spain had finally regained its independence, its government and people liberated from the shackles of neo-colonial economic rule.

Personally speaking, I had my reservations. But even I, a seasoned skeptic, never imagined that the Troika’s shock troops would be back quite so soon. On Thursday morning, while scrolling the home page of El Diario, the following headline caught my eye:

“IMF Technocrats Do Not Deign To Explain Their Reforms in Spain“

The technocrats in question were two chief economists from the IMF’s European Department, Martin Schindler and Jasmin Rahmen, and two assistants from the same department, Helge Berger and Antonio Spilimbergo.

They were in Madrid for the express purpose of present their latest study, “Employment and Growth: Supporting European Recovery” — a title that proves, if nothing else, that the “Fund of Funds” hasn’t lost its sense of humour. The study contained the standard, all-familiar IMF recommendations: greater labour mobility (i.e. make it easier for companies to fire and hire workers, the former of which is definitely no longer a problem in Spain), lower salaries (always nice coming from unelected officials earning fat, tax-free, all expenses-included salaries) and, of course, less union involvement in collective bargaining agreements.

Things got interesting, however, at the end of the presentation when the small gathering of journalists began launching questions at the four IMF employees, to which Antonio Spilimbergo had one solitary response:

"We will not be taking any questions on the specifics of the Spanish situation."

And there you have it: the perfect summation of how our new technocratic system of governance functions in Europe today. A small clique of four empty suits rides into town, announces “recommendations” for economic reforms — reforms that will continue to suck the life-blood out of the Spanish economy – refuses to answer even the most innocent question on said reforms, and then rides back to wherever it came from.

In this new model of governance, difficult questions must never be asked. If they are asked, they must never be answered — for the simple reason that the IMF, the ECB, and the European Commission do not have plausible answers to such questions. In this video Klaus Masuch, a European Central Bank official, mumbles, stumbles, and squirms his way through a steady onslaught of probing questions from a seasoned Irish journalist. At the end of his merciless interrogation, the Irish journalist says:

This isn’t good enough.

You people are intervening in this society causing huge damage while requiring us to make payments not for the benefit of anyone in Ireland but for the benefit of European financial institutions. Now could you explain why the Irish people are inflicted with its burden?

A damn good question, and one that merits an answer, but instead was met with a wall of silence, followed by all manner of evasive tactics.

Biting Austerity

Like Spain, Ireland was recently proclaimed cured. It had exited from the bailout program and, as The Guardian put it, recently made a “storming return” to the international bond market. Yet while the country may be returning to a semblance (for that is all it is) of normality in macro financial terms, the cold, hard frost of austerity continues to bite on the ground.

In October last year, Irish premier Enda Kenny announced another round of austerity cuts in the government’s (read: Troika’s) budget for 2014. Among many other things, health costs will soar, medical cards will be withdrawn from 35,000 people over 70, welfare rates will be cut for job seekers, and maternity benefits will be reduced.

The results are plainly visible for all to see. In Ireland, as in Spain, the poverty rate keeps rising, opportunity becomes a thing of the past for more and more young workers, the brain drain continues its onward march, the suicide rate is going up and public services are gradually deteriorating to the point where they no longer serve the public — cue: privatisation.

Ditto for Portugal, ditto for Italy, and the less said about the tragic fate of Greece, the better. Soon, even Europe’s core countries will be invited to join the eternal race to the bottom.

To paraphrase the Roman historian Tacitus, “They make an economic desert and call it progress.”

The markets raucously cheer and applaud from the sidelines, rewarding the respective national governments’ noble efforts to impoverish their own citizens with slightly higher bond prices, healthier-looking risk premiums and more debt — always more debt! In October, the continent’s Banking Union will be consummated, granting exclusive supervision of the continent’s banking system to unelected, unaccountable apparatchiks of the European Central Bank. And with it, another hefty chunk of our national sovereignty will disappear.

Yet if someone dares to ask any of the Troika’s three horsemen of Europe’s economic apocalypse just why such drastic steps and their brutal social, economic and political fallout are necessary — something that most representatives of the fourth estate seem strangely loath to do — you are greeted with silence, more lies, and evasion. By Don Quijones, Raging Bull-xxxx.

================o0o0o0o0o=================

Governments are seeking to reduce cash transactions. The reasons are obvious: as most countries struggle to rein in public spending, governments are frantically surveying their surroundings for anything of value to steal or pawn. Read.... We Are Sleepwalking Towards A Cashless Society

Edited February 3, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

_{4 February 2014 | Owen Tudor}

_{http://opinion.publicfinanceinternational.org/2014/02/eu-austerity-a-spectacular-failure/}

_{^{EU austerity: a spectacular failure}}

_{Austerity measures have caused huge damage across Europe and have failed to reduce public debt and government deficits. What is needed is not more austerity, but recovery plans for the countries the Troika has devastated}

_{The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has given evidence in the European Parliament about the effect of the Troika (the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank) on the people and the economies of Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.}

_{The ETUC’s 15-page report, with hugely revealing graphs, demonstrates that the Troika’s austerity measures have caused huge damage to the societies of those countries – including support for democracy itself – and have failed even in their own terms to reduce public debt and government deficits.}

_{Demanding an end to EU austerity measures, the ETUC report details a trail of wreckage across the ‘programme countries’ in higher unemployment, lower wages and shredded social security safety nets. In particular, collective bargaining arrangements and other democratic wage setting mechanisms like minimum wages and automatic cost of living adjustments have been ripped apart.}

_{Even measures to deal with the crisis drawn up jointly by employers and unions were thrown away by the Troika, whose actions have undermined the very foundations of democracy across southern Europe. It’s no wonder that parties like Golden Dawn have risen in Greece.}

_{The ETUC report shows that, while Ireland has suffered least from the Troika’s medicine, even there it has had the effect of slowing the recovery and holding wages down. In Greece, the minimum wage has been cut by a fifth, and the youth rate by a third, on top of the dismantling of collective bargaining for those further up the wage ladder.}

_{Defenders of the Troika and austerity claim that removing trade union involvement in setting wages is necessary to help the ‘outsiders’ in the Southern European economy, in particular the young unemployed. And there, at least, there are macabre signs of growth: growth in unemployment numbers, that is, up between 2007 and 2012 from 10% to 28% in Cyprus, 23% to 55% in Greece, 9% to 30% in Ireland, and 17% to 38% in Portugal – another example of the Troika’s policies not even working in their own terms.}

_{What Europe needs is not more austerity, but, as the ETUC report argues, recovery plans for the countries the Troika has devastated (an apology wouldn’t go amiss either) and a New Path for Europe, with jobs-led sustainable growth and a pay rise for Europe’s workers. The ETUC will be demonstrating in Brussels on Friday 4 April for that New Path, ahead of the European Parliament elections: book your Eurostar tickets now!}

_{Owen Tudor is head of the European Union and International Relations Department of the UK’s Trades Union Congress. This post first appeared on the TUC’s Touchstone Blog}

Edited February 7, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Presidential Palace In Bosnia Set On Fire As Riots Break Out Protesting 40% Unemployment

February 8, 2014

Source: Zero Hedge

(SEE VIDEO AT BLACKLISTED-NEWS SITE)

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Presidential_Palace_In_Bosnia_Set_On_Fire_As_Riots_Break_Out_Protesting_40%25_Unemployment/32729/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Another day, another European nation is hit by violent riots as protests over the economy and corruption spilled over violently into the street, this time Bosnia where more than 150 people were wounded on Friday in the worst civil unrest in the country since the 1992-95 war. The reason: anger over the dire state of domestic politics, the economic collapse and especially the country's 40% unemployment rate. The Telegraph reports that angry protesters set fire to part of the presidential palace in Sarajevo, as well as government buildings in the capital Sarajevo, Tuzla and Zenica. At least 80 people were injured in Sarajevo and 10 in Zenica, authorities said. There were no immediate casualty figures from Tuzla, where the worst of the fighting was.

Bosnia is a relatively new entrant to the current iteration of mass protests, however judging by the severity of public anger, the country is doing its best to catch up with the rest of Europe. More:

Demonstrators also clashed with riot police for a third consecutive day in the protests, which have remained largely contained to the Croat-Muslim Bosniak half of Bosnia.

Anti-government protests began on Wednesday in the northern city of Tuzla, before spreading as thousands took to the streets of a dozen cities to express their discontent over the almost 40 per cent unemployment rate.

Local media said police used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters in Sarajevo, where demonstrators stormed two government buildings including a presidential office, setting them ablaze and smashing furniture. The palace fires were promptly put out but almost all the windows were broken.

By 7pm local time, protesters had dispersed in the three main flashpoint towns, but police remained out in force. All shops were closed and streets were littered with glass and debris. On Saturday morning, the streets of Sarajevo were calm after firemen spent the night dousing the flames which almost gutted one regional government building, consuming cars and newsstands nearby.

However the city was bracing itself for further protests.

In Tuzla, the crowd stormed the local government building, throwing furniture, files and papers out of the windows and then setting the building on fire.

The protests in Tuzla may be calming following the resignation of Sead ?ausevi?, the Prime Minister of Tuzla Canton - one of 10 cantons in the Croat-Muslim Bosniak half of Bosnia - but other cities are only just getting beginning. In an unprecedented move, hundreds gathered in the capital of the Bosnian Serb part of the country, Banja Luka, to express support for protesters in the country's other mini-state, which is shared by Bosniaks and Croats.

"We gathered to support the protests in Tuzla where people are fighting for their rights," said Aleksandar Zolja, an activist from Banja Luka. The protests began on Wednesday with a clash between police and unpaid workers of four former state-owned companies, which left some 130 hurt, mostly from tear gas.

Said otherwise, wealth transfer, crony capitalism, corruption and an economic collapse have managed to unite the same people that just two decades ago were killing each other during the Yugoslavian civil war over such typical Eastern European lines of tension as religion and ethnicity. Congratulations.

Four companies employed most of the population of Tuzla. When they were privatised, contracts obliged the new owners to invest in them and make them profitable but they sold the assets, stopped paying workers and filed for bankruptcy.

Ironically, the very same is happening in the US and the rest of the world, as the productive assets are being confiscated, the middle class is being exterminated, and an increasingly smaller number of entities control the bulk of the wealth.

Summarizing the Bosnian situation in a nutshell:

Beside the high unemployment rate, the privatisation that followed the end of communism and the 1992-95 war produced a handful of tycoons, almost wiped out the middle class and sent the working class into poverty. Corruption is widespread and high taxes to fund a bloated public sector eat away at paychecks.

Or yet another teaser of what is coming to every other insolvent, crony capitalist, corrupt country in the world.

Edited February 9, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

_{^{(AUSTERITY Hows that working UK ??,Gaal)}}

Record youth homelessness in UK

By Joe Mount

wsws
12 February 2014

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

Homelessness is rising amongst British youth, with many staying with friends and family, in squats or sleeping rough.

Last year, 4,529 young people contacted the Citizens’ Advice Bureau (CAB) about homelessness, a 57 percent increase since 2008. The number of calls from youth threatened with homelessness rose 39 percent during the same period.

“Obviously this is just a sample of the number of young people out there struggling,” said Rachael Holmes from the CAB.

“We find many young people are sofa surfing. When they run out of sofas, they are turning to using tents in people’s back gardens or in parks,” said Sian Drewery from charity Nightstop.

Being homeless at a young age is a traumatic experience that disrupts the transition to a stable adult life. One 18-year-old, who chose to conceal her identity, related her experience to the BBC’s Newsbeat. After fleeing a violent home at age 12, she moved in with her boyfriend and, “working for about 48 hours a week, I wasn’t even earning £400” a month.

She lost her job and sought help from the local council. “I turned up with the majority of my bags and told them ‘I have nowhere to live and no friends or family to stay with. I’ve just lost my job and I really need help.’ They didn’t ask me any questions and didn’t take me seriously because of my age. I left really angry.”

Now homeless, she would “stay at a friend’s one night, sometimes I’d stay a week.”

She said, “It felt horrible. It feels trampy. You haven’t got your own home, you go to work in the day and think, ‘What am I going to do tonight? What am I going to eat tonight?’ I was getting really ill and really thin and not sleeping.”

She eventually found work and housing with the assistance of Britain’s limited social security system. There is minimal provision for homeless youth, who bear the brunt of the dismantling of the welfare state. Local authorities prevent homelessness for only one in five of the young people who seek help.

More than two thirds of local authorities lack sufficient youth-specific accommodation. Sixty percent of homelessness agencies face capacity shortfalls that prevent support provision, according to a survey of 160 front-line agencies conducted by Homeless Watch.

Forty-three percent use bed and breakfast (B& accommodation, according to charity Homeless Link. B&Bs are unsuitable for youth because they may be housed among offenders and addicts.

“The rise is a very clear indicator of the impact the recession has had on this age group,” said Holmes.

Unemployment and welfare cuts are increasing domestic strain, leading to family breakdown, the primary cause of youth homelessness. It contributes to almost half of cases, according to Homeless Watch.

As increasing numbers of families struggle to make ends meet, many can’t afford to keep all their children. Often, it is the eldest child who is squeezed out.

Many households are on the edge of a financial precipice. As rents continue to rise, last year over 60 percent of families with children struggled to pay their housing bills; 3.9 million households are just one wage packet away from destitution and threatened with losing their homes, according to research by the charity Shelter.

This is pushing record numbers onto the streets. Homelessness for all age groups stands at a five-year high, according to government statistics. The number of people sleeping rough has risen by 31 percent since 2011. More than 50,000 families are homeless and 4,500 live in B&Bs, many beyond the six-week legal limit.

These conditions also force record numbers of young adults to live with their parents; 3.3 million young workers can’t afford to live independently or are unwilling to bear the substantial drop in living standards this would entail. The proportion of such youth is now one in four, the highest level since 1996, according to official figures.

The number of workers aged between 20 and 34 staying at home shot up with the onset of the world economic crisis in 2008. The 20-to-24 age bracket was hardest hit.

Tom, aged 29, said “I recently lost my job at the Environment Agency working with communities to prepare themselves for flooding incidents.”

“I had to move back to my parents’ as a result of not being able to find another job in Yorkshire soon enough and not being able to pay the rent. JSA [Job Seekers Allowance] is not anywhere near adequate to cover the costs that I had,” he told the Guardian .

“Ending up back at home wasn’t really part of the plan,” said Neil, aged 25.

“I graduated with a first in Social Policy and Sociology from the University of Sheffield, followed by a Master’s. After completing an unpaid three-month graduate placement, I got some paid part-time work and then full-time work at a housing association in Birmingham (all on temporary contracts).”

“The inability to save anything due to commuting, car, rent and general living costs meant that after six months, both me and my girlfriend moved into my Dad’s house.”

Young workers are increasingly unable to find secure jobs that pay a living wage.

Youth unemployment is 20 percent, and long-term youth unemployment is the worst for two decades. The unemployment rate amongst youth living with parents is twice that of people the same age living independently. Sixty percent of homeless youth are NEET (not in education, employment or training.)

Rising rents and astronomical house prices are a huge barrier to securing accommodation, and conditions are being aggravated by the policies of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.

A swathe of reactionary social legislation has been introduced since the announcement of the deepest social security cuts in British history last April. This includes the so-called Bedroom Tax, a financial penalty for the 660,000 housing benefits claimants with unoccupied rooms in local authority and housing association accommodation. Since it was introduced six months ago, more than 200,000 people have requested emergency financial assistance from local councils. Many have faced eviction or been forced to find private-sector housing.

Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne have both made clear that the government intends to withdraw Housing Benefit for those under 25 years of age.

The author also recommends:

People living in caves as UK homelessness reaches five-year high
[11 July 2013]

(AUSTERITY Hows that working UK ??,Gaal)

Edited February 12, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Greek Farmers Block Athens with Tractors

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/02/16/greek-farmers-block-athens-with-tractors/

Greek farmers decided to continue their struggle in order to push the government to satisfy their demands which they claim are vital for their survival. They have announced a panhellenic rally on Wednesday, February 19 in the center of Athens, Greece. Farmers called all Greek citizens to participate, expressing their opposition to the government’s policy, which afflicts all workers and vulnerable social groups.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

British Gas blows £25,000 on a boozy party at a luxury hotel... then makes 158 staff redundant

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2569993/British-Gas-blows-25-000-party-luxury-hotel-makes-158-staff-redundant.html

(SEE POST # 32 this THREAD)

Edited March 1, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

_{^{(AUSTERITY Hows that working UK ??,Gaal)}}

2 Mar 2014

A severely ill man, who was deemed "fit to work" by the UK gov, has starved to death after his benefits were cut

The family of a man who starved to death four months after his benefits were cut off has called on the government to reform the way it treats people with mental health problems when it assesses their eligibility for benefits.

Mark Wood, 44, who had a number of complex mental health conditions, died at his home last August, months after an Atos fitness-for-work assessment found him fit for work. This assessment triggered a decision by the jobcentre to stop his sickness benefits, leaving him just £40 a week to live on. His housing benefits were stopped at around the same time.

The Oxfordshire coroner, Darren Salter, said that although it was impossible to identify the cause of death, it was probably "caused or contributed to by Wood being markedly underweight and malnourished". He weighed 5st 8lbs (35kg) when he died; his doctor said his body mass index was not compatible with life.

Wood, of Bampton, Oxfordshire, was not told his housing benefit and employment and support allowance (ESA) had been stopped, and struggled to survive on the £40-a-week disability allowance that remained. He was reluctant to ask relatives for help and they were unaware his benefits payments had been removed until shortly before he died.

Concerned about his patient's condition, Wood's doctor, Nicholas Ward, wrote a letter for Wood to pass to the jobcentre in support of his benefits application, stating that he was "extremely unwell and absolutely unfit for any work whatsoever".

The letter, presented to the inquest, stated that his anxiety disorder and obsessional traits had been made "significantly worse" because of the pressure put on him by benefit changes. It continued: "Please do not stop or reduce his benefits as this will have ongoing, significant impact on his mental health. He simply is not well enough to cope with this extra stress. His mental and medical condition is extremely serious."

It was not clear whether the letter reached the jobcentre.

Dr Ward told the inquest the Atos decision was an "accelerating factor" in Wood's decline and eventual death, according to his family. Wood told housing association staff he was very distressed housing benefit had been cut off, and by letters about rising rent arrears and warnings from the electricity company his supply would be cut off. Many letters were unopened, so he was unaware he needed to visit the jobcentre to reapply for support, his sister, Cathie Wood, said.

He was a "sweet and gentle" person, she said. "He didn't deserve to die. He wasn't harming anyone."

Her brother had struggled with undiagnosed mental health issues all his life, which made it impossible for him to work. He was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder in his late 20s, and had an eating disorder and cognitive behavioural problems when he died. He was sacked from his first job because his employer said he was "unable to follow instructions".

"We worked for years to create a place for him to live safely. But that stopped when his benefits were stopped. He tried so hard to survive," Ms Wood said.

She is to write to David Cameron, who was her brother's MP, and to the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, to ask them to acknowledge that the system is not working for vulnerable people with mental health issues.

"I would like Iain Duncan Smith to stop talking about this as a moral crusade, and admit that this whole process of reassessing people for their benefits is a cost-cutting measure. I want and Cameron to acknowledge the personal costs of this flawed system. This is not just someone being inconvenienced – this is a death," Cathie Wood said.

She is angry Atos did not seek medical evidence from her brother's GP, and made the assessment that he was capable of preparing to return to work after a half-hour interview at his home. The Atos report concluded his mental state was "normal".

Cathie Wood wants the government to put new safeguards in place for vulnerable people when removing their benefits. She believes her brother was unable and possibly unwilling to convey the seriousness of his condition to the Atos assessors and should have had an advocate to support him.

"He was quite a proud person. He would have wanted to be seen as normal. He was desperate to get by as normal," she said. He was reluctant to call for help from his family. "He didn't want to impose on our mother. He wanted to survive without her help."

Wood's vicar told the inquest that he was a man of "dignity and integrity".

Between April and August 2013, Wood's BMI dropped from 14.1 to around 11.5. The inquest heard that a BMI of between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered healthy for a man. The inquest noted that he had developed an eating disorder.

"I am not saying that the government shouldn't reassess people's eligibility for benefits, but someone other than my brother should have been told that he had lost his benefits. This is an inappropriate process for people who are mentally ill. The Atos test is crude; they are not capable of making a judgment on complex mental illness in half an hour," said Wood.

Tom Pollard, policy and campaigns manager at Mind, said: "We were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Mark Wood. Unfortunately this tragic case is not an isolated incident. We hear too often how changes to benefits are negatively impacting vulnerable individuals, who struggle to navigate a complex, and increasingly punitive, system.

"We know the assessment process for those applying for employment and support allowance is very stressful, and too crude to accurately assess the impact a mental health problem has on someone's ability to work. This leads to people not getting the right support and being put under excessive pressure which can make their health worse and push them further from the workplace.

"We urgently need to see a complete overhaul of the system, to ensure nobody else falls through the cracks."

An Atos spokeswoman said: "Our thoughts are with the family of Mr Wood at this difficult time."

A DWP spokesman said: "A decision on whether someone is well enough to work is taken following a thorough assessment and after consideration of all the supporting medical evidence from the claimant's GP or medical specialist."

"Our sympathy goes out to the family of Mr Wood."

On Thursday, a government minister apologised after it emerged that the Department for Work and Pensions had written to a woman asking her to begin "intensive work-focused activity" although at the time she was in a coma.

Source:http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/man-starved-to-death-after-benefits-cut?CMP=fb_gu

http://www.newsforage.com/2014/03/a-severely-ill-man-who-was-deemed-fit.html

Edited March 2, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Revealed: The figures that show just how badly rising energy bills have ravaged household budgets over the last decade

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2571969/ONS-data-shows-true-impact-rising-bills-household-budgets.html

(SEE POSTS # 32 & # 52 this THREAD)

Edited March 5, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

^{Poor 'live like animals' says Boris's privately educated sister after going on 'poverty safari'}

^{http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/poor-live-like-animals-says-boriss-privately-educated-sister-after-going-on-poverty-safari-9170440.html}

Edited March 7, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

British People Are Trying To Sell Their Organs On Facebook

http://www.businessinsider.com/british-people-are-trying-to-sell-their-organs-on-facebook-2014-3#ixzz2va7J54cO

see post # 50

(AUSTERITY Hows that working UK ??,Gaal)

Edited March 11, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

What the Western-backed regime is planning for Ukrainian workers

15 March 2014 from wsws

Behind incessant rhetorical invocations of a “democratic revolution,” Ukraine’s newly-installed government of former bankers, fascists and oligarchs is preparing draconian austerity measures.

The plans being drawn up are openly described as the “Greek model,” i.e., the programme of savage cuts imposed on Greece by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU) that has caused Greece’s economy to collapse by nearly 25 percent in five years and produced a massive growth in unemployment and poverty.

In the case of Ukraine, however, this social devastation is to be unleashed against a country that has already been subjected to the scorched earth economics of capitalist restoration. Even before the latest events, Ukraine was the 80th poorest country in the world based on gross domestic product per capita, behind Iraq, Tonga and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

More than one quarter of its population—11 million people—live below the official poverty line, which is set at a meagre 1,176 UAH ($127) per month. The situation is far worse than official figures indicate, however. With an average monthly wage of only 1,218 UAH ($131), or 79 US cents per hour, millions more survive barely above subsistence level.

The official unemployment rate of 7.5 percent masks large numbers of unregistered and underemployed workers. It is, moreover, held down by high emigration, with tens of thousands fleeing the country in search of jobs. The equivalent of 15 percent of Ukraine’s population has left the country, giving it one of the largest diasporas in the world. Between 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved, and 2010, Ukraine’s population shrank from 51.7 million to 45.9 million.

Besides migration, the population decline is a consequence of Ukraine’s contracting birth rate, which is among the lowest in the world. Tragically, the country also has the highest maternal mortality rate in Europe, part of a health crisis that has seen incidences of HIV/AIDS grow to epidemic proportions, with 57 new cases a day identified in 2012.

Poverty has played a major role in the spread of HIV/AIDS—especially in parts of the formerly heavily industrialised regions of the east and south, where conditions are already depression-like.

In poverty’s wake has come an explosion of all manner of social diseases—from drug abuse and alcoholism to prostitution, with every sixth prostitute reckoned to be a minor. This is an underestimation, as Ukraine is a major hub of human trafficking, for the purposes of both sexual exploitation and forced labour.

These conditions are a direct consequence of the counterrevolutionary role of the Stalinist bureaucracy and its betrayal of the October 1917 Revolution, which reached its climax in the destruction of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism.

As a result, Ukraine has been reduced to a pawn in US and European imperialist designs on Russia. In addition to the dangers of civil war and a global military conflagration, Western-backed efforts to pull Ukraine away from Russia have caused ever greater social misery for the masses, first in the aftermath of the so-called “Orange Revolution” of 2004, and then in the wake of the 2008 global capitalist breakdown.

Between 2008 and 2009, for example, Ukraine’s GDP fell by 15.1 percent while unemployment tripled to 9.4 percent. The former Stalinist bureaucrats and mafia-oligarchs who enriched themselves by stealing former state property have continued all the while to plunder state assets and pile up even greater personal fortunes.

Much worse is to come. Ukraine’s total debt is now estimated to be around $80 billion. With its currency having depreciated by 20 percent on the dollar since the start of the year, depleting currency reserves and increasing capital flight, Ukraine’s debt will rapidly grow even larger.

The IMF and EU are said to be working on a “rescue” package of just $15 billion. Not only is most of this earmarked to cover repayments to the Western banks, it is also tied in to massive cuts in spending for pensions and fuel subsidies. Since 1998, Ukraine has been involved in various IMF “structural reform” programmes, all of which have had to be abandoned within one year because their consequences were considered too socially explosive.

It was what former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov described as the “extremely harsh conditions” of a renewed IMF loan brought forward on November 20 last year that led to the government’s decision to put off signing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. That decision, in turn, became the pretext for the US- and EU-sponsored protests and resulting putsch.

The Western powers now intend to seize the moment they did so much to engineer. Writing in the Financial Times in February, Anders Aslund, a former adviser to the Ukrainian government, welcomed the Western-backed coup as an opportunity to impose austerity. The crisis in Ukraine meant that a “radical reform programme should be easier to undertake… than in many countries that have faced similar crises in the past,” he wrote.

The New York Times, the mouthpiece of American imperialism, cracked the whip in an editorial published Friday under the headline “Fixing Ukraine’s Economy: The country’s leaders need to reform wrongheaded energy and exchange-rate policies.” The editorial denounced “wasteful energy subsidies” and demanded that the Western-installed puppet government get to work “raising retail gas prices for most consumers.”

An IMF mission has already been at work over the last fortnight, meeting with the minister of energy and coal and representatives of the National Bank of Ukraine and the gas distributor Naftogaz. It reports that its work is “progressing well” and that the new authorities are committed to “economic reform.”

These “reforms” include further currency devaluation, major cuts in public spending and pensions and, in particular, an end to state energy subsidises, which are a life-and-death matter in a country where temperatures can fall as low as minus 20 degrees.

The Financial Times reports, “Sixty state agencies in various EU countries have already concluded so-called twinning agreements that aim to refashion their Ukrainian counterparts in their image.”

A 10 percent collapse in GDP is publicly spoken of by economists. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, handpicked by Washington to replace the ousted elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, has stated baldly that he will be “the most unpopular prime minister in the history of my country.”

Sergei Taruta, the oligarch recently appointed governor of the Donbass region, gave an indication of the timeframe for implementing these measures. Describing himself as an “anti-crisis manager,” he said he would take the post only “for six months or a year,” adding, “In that time I want strong people to come into government and then I will leave them to it.”

His comments shed light on why the US and the EU powers are so willing to sign off on a government staffed by fascists and extreme-right paramilitaries. On Thursday, the Ukrainian parliament voted to establish a 60,000-strong National Guard recruited from “activists” in the anti-Russian protests and from military academies.

The force will be overseen by the new security chief, Andriy Parubiy of the fascistic Svoboda party. Parubiy was a founder in the early 1990s of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine. His deputy, Dmytro Yarosh, is the leader of the paramilitary Right Sector. It is the Ukrainian equivalent of Hitler’s storm troopers.

In addition to aiding the West in its provocations against Moscow, the main responsibility of these elements will be to carry through a social onslaught against the Ukrainian working class at the behest of international capital.

Julie Hyland

Edited March 15, 2014 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Can’t Afford to Die: Brits struggle with ‘funeral poverty’

March 16th, 2014

http://investmentwatchblog.com/cant-afford-to-die-brits-struggle-with-funeral-poverty/

[Steven Gaal]

UK Teachers Prepare For Battle With Government

http://rinf.com/alt-news/latest-news/uk-teachers-prepare-battle-government/

Sadie Robinson

RINF Alternative News

Teachers are set to walk out on Wednesday 26 March across the country in a national strike.

[Steven Gaal]

UK Budget Damages The Poor, Protects The Rich

Simon Basketter

http://rinf.com/alt-news/latest-news/uk-budget-damages-poor-protects-rich/

RINF Alternative News

Tory chancellor George Osborne declared today, Wednesday, “The message from this budget is this: You’ve earned it, you’ve saved it. This government is on your side”.

That’s true if you are well off.

But if you don’t earn enough to save up to £15,000 a year, if you can’t afford a private pension, if you struggle to find work or to afford childcare so you can work, then Osborne finds you irrelevant.