June 2011
85 posts
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The Country Will Grind to a Halt
Jérôme E. Roos On June 28, 2011:
In the midst all of this, hundreds of thousands of Greeks are expected to converge upon Syntagma Square, right in front of Parliament, for the largest mass demonstration so far — coinciding with the country’s first 48-hour strikesince the fall of the dictatorship and the establishment of democracy in 1974. Unions have threatened to storm Parliament and...
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Tension in the Air
Jérôme E. Roos On June 28, 2011:
There is an uneasy tension in the air in Athens. Just yesterday, Communist protesters stormed the Acropolis and unfurled a giant banner calling for a massive organized counterattack. Today, over 5,000 policemen have mobilized in central Athens to prepare for an epic stand-off with hundreds of thousands of striking workers and indignants.
What is going on in...
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Flames on the Ground
Jérôme E. Roos On June 22, 2011:
As I pointed out in an interview with Al Jazeera yesterday, the question that is rarely addressed by the Western media is what the Greek people are thinking. How much longer are they going to put up with these draconian austerity measures? How much longer can the political establishment continue to sideline their concerns and ignore these mass protests?
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Castles in the Air
Jérôme E. Roos On June 22, 2011:
Sooner or later, we are going to have to face the fact that we are living in an entirely fictitious financial universe founded on — well, nothing. The entire European financial system is full of hot air. Sooner or later, the hot air balloon that is our financial sector will have to deflate. The only question is whether it will do so before or after landing.
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On the eve of the Third Depression
Jérôme E. Roos On June 28, 2011:
No surprise then that the Guardian would write about a “multi-layered effort to stave off a Greek sovereign default that could plunge Europe into one of its worst ever crises.” Olli Rehn, the EU commissioner for monetary affairs, warned that ”we’re at a critical point in the most serious crisis since WWII.”
Indeed, I would go even further and say that we are...
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Dominoes Falling
Jérôme E. Roos On June 22, 2011:
For example, had today’s vote of confidence failed, the EU would not have released its fifth tranche of the bailout, which was a precondition for the IMF to reduce its share.
This, in turn, would have compromised negotiations on the second round of austerity measures and the second bailout. Greece would have been forced to default by July 15 or July 22, when...
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Greek hurdles linked in series
Jérôme E. Roos On June 22, 2011:
To get an idea of the hurdles that still lie ahead, we have compiled a simple overview that we will try to update as regularly as possible (I’m going into the wild for a few days so I might not be able to do the June 23-28 updates in time):
June 21 – Greece: vote of confidence in Papandreou government
June 23 — EU: decision on releasing...
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Austerity Revolution Looming
Jérôme E. Roos On May 17, 2011:
What were the finance ministers of Germany, France and Greece thinking when they met each other at a Luxembourg castle for ‘top-secret’ dinner talks on the resurging Greek debt crisis last weekend?
As their five-star banquet was being served, did they discuss the human tragedy that is currently unfolding in Greece? Did they consider the fact that youth...
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