Greek Riots Escalate, Branch Of Finance Ministry Set On Fire
by ilene - May 5th, 2010 6:58 pm
Greek Riots Escalate, Branch Of Finance Ministry Set On Fire
Courtesy of Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
Things are heating up again in Greece. Literally. After a firebomb at a Marfin branch earlier today was the cause of three tragic deaths, the latest building to succumb to rioting pyrotechnics is a branch of the Greek ministry of finance, reports Market News. We eagerly await for the Greek FinMin to announce that the docs burned down were the only copies of all sovereign lending agreements with foreign entities… all $300 billion of them. Perhaps now that Greece has lost all control is why the Greek president Karolos Papoulias just said that "The country is at the edge of the abyss." Luckily for the country, its riot police is not striking just yet. Which is more than one can say about Greek journalists: "Even Greek journalists were on strike, but they later went back to work in order to cover the riots." And that about explains all you need to know about Greece.
From Market News:
ATHENS (MNI) – A building belonging to Greece’s Finance Ministry was set afire Wednesday by rioters protesting the stringent four-year austerity plan the Greek government has agreed to accept in exchange for up to E110 billion in aid from fellow Eurozone countries and theInternational Monetary Fund.
The Finance Ministry issued a statement Wednesday night saying that no crucial documents had been lost, though the damage to the building was extensive.
The fire came on a day when a general strike against the government’s new fiscal plan erupted into violence, leaving three dead and tens of others wounded. In Athens, protesters gathered around the Parliament while some groups threw fire bombs at buildings, cars and banks. The police answered with tear gas and arrests.
The package of spending cuts and tax hikes is intended to reduce the public budget deficit by 5.5 percentage points of GDP this year alone, from 13.6% to 8.1%. It is envisioned that by 2014, the deficit will be brought under the EU’s limit of 3%. But in that same year, outstanding public debt is projected to be an astronomical 144% of GDP, up from 113% in 2009 — leading many to predict that a Greek bond default is inevitable.
All we know is that Lazard, which no way, no how is advising on…
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California impasse ends as Schwarzenegger reaches agreement
by ilene - July 21st, 2009 12:44 pm
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California impasse ends as Schwarzenegger reaches agreement
Courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns
This came in overnight via the FT. Most of the shortfall in revenue is made up through spending cuts. Below are the relevant paragraphs:
The agreement involves cutting nearly $6bn from schools and community colleges and close to $3bn from the state’s university system, although Mr Schwarzenegger said education cuts would be fully “refunded”.
An additional $1.3bn will be cut from Medi-Cal, the health programme for low earners and the poor.
CalWorks, the state’s welfare-to-work programme – and the target of much criticism from Mr Schwarzenegger – will have its funding cut by $528m, while Healthy Families, a programme that provides health insurance for 930,000 low-income children, will be cut by $124m.
The state’s in-home support services programme for the frail and disabled will also have its funding slashed. Mr Schwarzenegger has maintained that the system is a hot-bed of fraud abuses and won approval to begin fingerprinting care-givers and recipients of aid.
Another contentious part of the agreement will clear the way for oil drilling to resume off the coast of Santa Barbara. The prospect of drilling in the area has attracted a lot of criticism and is likely to be fiercely contested by local residents and environmental campaigners.
I should also mention some thoughts from Tim Fernholz via Brad DeLong on why the Federal Government has not given states more money. He claims it was moderate Senators in Congress who explicitly took out state aid from the February stimulus package. He writes:
Robert Samuelson, typically known for butchering economics in his column, takes a break today in order to butcher political science. He says the stimulus isn’t working because it is composed of the wrong programs, and he blames President Obama specifically for not including things like fiscal aid to states…. But if Samuelson were to remember what actually happened last February, or even do some superficial research, he’d realize that it was the moderate members of the Senate, led by Sens. Ben Nelson and Susan Collins, who stripped out much of the state funding…. [T]hese senators never did get around to telling anyone the economic logic of their proposal…. So Samuelson will never criticize moderate
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.