"New Greek government plans to recast bailout" by Niki Kitsantonis | New York Times, June 24, 2012
ATHENS — Greece’s new coalition government highlighted Saturday the main points it plans to renegotiate with lenders, aiming to revoke certain taxes, suspend planned layoffs in the public sector, and extend by two years the deadline for imposing additional austerity measures....
The initiative is aimed at easing public opposition to two years of austerity, which led to big vote tallies in last Sunday’s elections for parties opposed to the $170 billion bailout and obliged the more established parties to forge a tenuous coalition.
But some of the goals set out in the document are unlikely to please Greece’s creditors, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, whose officials have repeatedly said in recent weeks that there was only marginal room for maneuvering, with an extension of the deadline for meeting fiscal deficit targets the only likely concession....
The blueprint also aims to revoke changes to collective-bargaining agreements in the private sector and to ease the burden on taxpayers by ensuring that they pay no more than 25 percent of their income in overdue obligations.
Party leaders also want to cancel planned layoffs in the public sector — the three lenders had called for 150,000 jobs to go by 2015 — and to reduce the value-added tax on food to 13 percent from 23 percent.
Higher taxes, lower wages, and soaring unemployment, which has hit 22 percent, have crippled Greek households and raised public support for antibailout parties like the leftist Syriza, which came in second in last week’s elections on a pledge to tear up the loan deal, and which dismissed the coalition’s efforts to win over the public as a ‘‘publicity stunt.’’
Almost makes you wonder how they lost -- almost.
Related: Greece's Rigged Election
Show me one that isn't anywhere in the world and you may have something there.
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The development came amid health emergencies within the fragile government. Vassilis Rapanos, 65, the finance minister-designate and chairman of Greece’s largest lender, National Bank, remained hospitalized Saturday after being admitted Friday with stomach pains and nausea....
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, 61, underwent surgery Saturday for a detached retina...
Greece has been dependent on billions of dollars of loans since May 2010, after it was locked out of the international borrowing market by high interest rates on grounds of profligate spending and poor fiscal management.
In return for the rescue, the previous government imposed harsh austerity measures, including slashing spending on programs ranging from health care to education, cutting salaries and pensions, and repeatedly raising taxes.
Greece still struggled to meet its fiscal targets, and the measures have plunged the country into a deep recession, now in its fifth year, and have sent unemployment soaring above 22 percent.
Samaras has pledged to renegotiate some of the bailout terms this week, when he is due to go to Brussels for a European Union summit.
The leaders of the eurozone’s four largest economies pledged Friday to defend the common currency with all means necessary, trying to reassure markets before the Brussels summit.
But there is disagreement about what those means should be, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany coming under increasing pressure from the other three leaders — and from the International Monetary Fund — to do more to support the eurozone and its banks.
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Related: Germany to Reoccupy Greece
"Ailing Greek leaders miss EU summit" June 25, 2012
ATHENS — Less than a week after Greece ushered in a new government, uncertainty has returned in a rather unexpected form.
The nation’s newly installed prime minister, Antonis Samaras, and his nominee for the crucial post of finance minister, Vassilis Rapanos, have been hospitalized since Friday after being stricken with ailments....
Hmm.
In the interim, $1.26 billion in financing that the European Union withheld from Greece until a government was installed is scheduled to be released by the end of the month. But Athens will only get to keep about $125 million of the money; the rest will go toward paying Greece’s contribution to the European Stability Mechanism.
The bankers win again, huh? Even the "bailout" to help you gets funneled back to them.
On Saturday, Samaras’ coalition government said it would seek to revoke certain taxes, ease the repayment terms for taxpayers owing money to the state, suspend planned layoffs in the public sector, and extend by two years the deadline for imposing additional austerity measures....
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"Greek prime minister appoints new finance minister" by Niki Kitsantonis | New York Times, June 27, 2012
ATHENS — Yannis Stournaras, an economist and former government adviser who served as development minister in the previous caretaker administration....
Hmmm.
Stournaras, 55, is the founder of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research. He has advised previous Socialist governments. Formerly an adviser to the Finance Ministry and the country’s central bank, Stournaras is an economics professor at Athens University.
Speaking at a book presentation earlier in the day, Stournaras said he was optimistic about his new job.
‘‘I think there are possibilities for Greece to emerge from the crisis,’’ he said. ‘‘Greece has enormous potential, but we must pass through a wall of established ways of thinking if Greece is to change.’’
See: Globe Gives Greece the Answer
It's changing back to the drachma!
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"Greek lawmakers shun extreme right party" by Elena Becatoros | Associated Press, June 30, 2012
ATHENS — Greek lawmakers banded together Friday to keep an extreme right-wing party out of the position of deputy Parliament speaker, leaving one of the seven posts vacant rather than filling it with a member of a group many consider to be neo-Nazi.
That really deserves a re-look, but....
Also see: Germany to Reoccupy Greece
I'd say wearing a banker's suit this time; however, that is unfair to the Nazis.
Golden Dawn won 18 of Parliament’s 300 seats in the June 17 elections, taking nearly 7 percent of the vote and horrifying Greece’s mainstream political establishment as the country reels from an economic crisis.
Once you understand the powers and perspective behind the prism of the paper the "journalistic style) -- a.k.a. mind-manipulating propaganda -- becomes clear.
As an opposition party in the seven-party Parliament, Golden Dawn was entitled to field a candidate for the post of one of the deputy speakers.
That's western "democracy" for you.
In Friday’s vote, Parliament elected six deputy speakers but left the last one empty, as Golden Dawn candidate Polyvios Zisimopoulos failed to receive the minimum 75 votes required for the post. He received 41 votes in the secret ballot — meaning the party won the support of an extra 23 deputies from outside its ranks.
Golden Dawn described Friday’s result as a “constitutional violation” and said it would take its complaint to a European court.
“This is their notion of democracy and how much they respect the will of half a million Greek voters,” the party said in a statement. “In practice, all the parties of the establishment united, from the liberal center-right to the far left.”
Leaving far-far-left and far-right on the fringes.
I'll bet Golden Dawn opposes the banker bailout.
Golden Dawn has been accused of violent attacks against immigrants and had campaigned on a platform of expelling all immigrants and planting land mines along Greece’s borders.
Just acting like Israel, be it Palestinians or South Sudanese!
One of its new deputies recently made headlines by striking a female Communist Party candidate three times and throwing a glass of water over a left-wing party member during a live television talk show.
The country’s new lawmakers were sworn in Thursday, as a protracted political crisis that led to two general elections and a series of power-sharing negotiations drew to an end.
New Democracy, a conservative party led by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, has formed a coalition government with longtime socialist rivals PASOK and the smaller Democratic Left party, which came in just behind Golden Dawn with 6.26 percent of the vote and 17 seats.
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Related: Greeks Can't Form Government
That drachma looking pretty good at the end.
"Two suspected members of a Greek domestic terrorist group have gone missing in the middle of their trial, officials said Thursday, prompting a judicial investigation and the suspension of an Athens police official."
So in which Gladio safe house are they hiding?
