Greece: 10,000 workers to be fired; riot at immigrant concentration camp

Two different news from Greece, not as unrelated as they may seem: they are both serious symptoms of a failed capitalist state.

Samaras will fire 10,000 state workers

The 9,820 public servants mentioned by Eleftherotypia include teachers, cleaners, police agents (surely not the Nazis!), social assistants, airport workers, health personnel and archaeologists. Eleftheros Tipos makes the figure reach 10,092.

The pact with Satan, I mean: the Troika (EC, ECB, IMF), signed by Samaras implies 25,000 public workers to be fired only this year, 60,000 for 2015. The total of redundancies will then amount to 150,000 workers.

Naturally workers did not remain quiet: several thousands gathered before the Ministry of Finance and marched to Parliament.

They denounced that these measures imply closure of hospitals and other services because they cannot be attended with so few workers as they will remain. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es] (incl. video).

Riot in Amygdaleza concentration camp

Upon knowing that the detention term for illegal immigrants has been extended to 18 months, the prisoners at Amygdaleza (Athens) rioted at lunch time. 

According to police reports they attacked the guards with rocks and set fire to mattresses. The uprising was only suffocated after midnight. 10 police agents were injured but police has not reported the number of injured immigrants. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Spain: IMF wants to slash salaries another 10%

Cristina Lagarta, oops, I mean Christine Lagarde, IMF top boss and former right hand of fascist French President Sarkozy, wants Spain to slash salaries another 10% (a 7% was already cut last year to all public officers, excepted MPs).

Not just that Lagarde also wants a reduction of 1.7% in social security fees, along a substantial increase in the time needed to be entitled to a pension (from 25 to 35 years) and an undetermined further increase in the VAT tax (already dramatically increased). 

She also wants impossibles such as to to reach "a credible social pact".

On the other hand her forecasts are gloomy, even in the event of acceptance of her stupid demands: private consume would fall initially on these changes (of course) and unemployment would remain extreme even in 2017 (26% forecast).

In spite of rising the VAT and demolishing the social fabric, Lagarde imagines that prices would drop. 

Source: Gara[es].

Lagarde is a retard, reality instead

This woman is plain stupid (or rather a criminal and compulsive liar): salaries simply cannot fall under the living costs and she is not proposing any such measures other than hallucinating with a hypothetical price drop based on nothing. 

Real effective measures would be to force the housing market to adjust prices downwards dramatically and brutally increase the availability of cheap public housing (and/or allowing squatting of speculators' idle property). The extremely high (and anti-market) costs of housing are surely the main barrier to salary drop. You just can't work for less that it costs you to live. 

Another key barrier are the totally unjustified high prices of electricity bills, which have grown more than 50% in the last few years and more than 100% in the last decade. Spain now has the most expensive electricity bills in all the Eurozone, excepted Cyprus and Ireland.

If Spanish salaries have to fall, living costs have to fall first and foremost. And that means hurting the banks and the energy monopolies.

Neither Lagarde nor Barroso nor Rajoy will do that. But is the only logical thing to do other than outright communism.

IMF admits 'austerity' wrong for Greece

In yet another case of, quite hypocritical, "too little, too late", the International Monetary Fund has admitted (so far only internally but to be published this week) that the organization underestimated the damage that austerity would cause to the Greek economy and society. 

They also admit that the Greek debt bubble was only possible because the IMF bent its own rules in order to pretend and extend.

The acknowledgement seems to forecast a haircut of the Greek debt. 

Source: The Guardian.