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"Voters in Greece put down austerity program" by Liz Alderman and Jim Yardley, New York Times January 26, 2015
ATHENS — Greece rejected the punishing economics of austerity Sunday and sent a warning to the rest of Europe as the left-wing Syriza party won a decisive victory in national elections, making its tough-talking leader, Alexis Tsipras, likely to become the next prime minister.
With 96 percent of the vote counted, Syriza had 36 percent — and 149 of Parliament’s 300 seats — versus 27.8 percent for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ conservatives.
Samaras conceded defeat, saying he had received a country ‘‘on the brink of disaster’’ when he took over in 2012 and was close to ushering it out of the crisis. ‘‘I was asked to hold live coals in my hands and I did,’’ he said.
Yeah, you are a real hero.
The only uncertainty was whether Syriza would muster a parliamentary majority on its own or have to form a coalition.
Appearing before a throng of supporters outside Athens University late Sunday night, Tsipras, 40, declared that the era of austerity was over and promised to revive the Greek economy. He also said his government would not allow Greece’s creditors to strangle the country.
“Greece will now move ahead with hope, and reach out to Europe, and Europe is going to change,” he said. “The verdict is clear: We will bring an end to the vicious circle of austerity.”
The results threatened to bring new turmoil to global financial markets and put Greece’s continued membership in the eurozone in question.
Syriza’s victory is a dramatic milestone for Europe at a time when continuing economic weakness has stirred an angry, populist backlash from France to Spain to Italy, as more voters grow fed up with policies that demand sacrifice to address the discipline of financial markets without delivering more jobs and prosperity.
Syriza is poised to become the first antiausterity party to take power in a eurozone country and would shatter the two-party political establishment that has dominated Greece for four decades.
Syriza needs 151 seats to have an outright majority in Parliament. If he falls short, Tsipras might align with the fringe party, Independent Greeks, a center-right, antiausterity movement that might push for a harder line in any debt negotiations.
Early returns also showed that the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party was in third place with roughly 6 percent of the total vote.
The name-calling by the bankes pre$$ has already begun.
Tsipras has worked to soften his image as an anti-Europe radical. On the campaign trail, he has promised to clean up Greece’s corrupt political system, reform the country’s public administration, and reduce the tax burden on the middle class while cracking down on tax evasion by the country’s oligarchical business class.
But his biggest promise — and the one that has stirred deep anxiety in Brussels and Berlin, as well as on financial markets — has been his pledge to force Greece’s creditors, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, to renegotiate the terms of the country’s $270 billion financial bailout.
To obtain the European Union bailout, Greece had to impose repeated tax increases, as well as deep and bitterly opposed cuts to public spending, salaries, and pensions. Greece has endured a historic collapse since the 2009 economic crisis, as economic output has shrunk by 25 percent and unemployment hovers near 26 percent.
In setting up a showdown in coming weeks with Germany and the country’s other creditors, Tsipras has argued that easing the bailout terms would allow more government spending, stimulating more economic growth and employment as well as helping the Greeks who need it the most.
“Tsipras won because those who imposed austerity never thought about the effects of such drastic policies that impoverished millions of people,” said Paul De Grauwe, a professor at the London School of Economics. “In a world where people are so hit, they just don’t remain passive. Their reaction is to turn to the politicians who will change the process.”
The election results will be the main topic at Monday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers. Belgium’s minister, Johan Van Overtveldt, said there is room for some flexibility, but not much.
‘‘We can talk modalities, we can talk debt restructuring, but the cornerstone that Greece must respect the rules of monetary union — that must stay as it is,’’ Van Overtveldt told VRT network.
Then it is time to get out.
Tsipras will face immediate challenges. Greece is still waiting for an $8 billion bailout payment that Athens needs to keep the government running and to pay debt obligations.
They won't see it now, and I would declare the odious debt null and void.
He also demanded that creditors write down at least half of Greece’s $355 billion public debt in order to give the country more breathing room for a spending stimulus. Tsipras also pledged to immediately restore electricity to families who have lost services for unpaid bills and to significantly raise the minimum wage.
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Related: Euro slips as Syriza set for Greek vote win
Also see: Another Di$mal Day in the Bo$ton Globe Bu$ine$$ Section
Swiss move just not that $eriou$, huh?
NDUs:
Maybe not so good after all.
"After victory, Greek leftist politician forms coalition government" by Liz Alderman, New York Times January 27, 2015
ATHENS — Alexis Tsipras, the leftist political maverick who swept to power in Greece in a popular rebellion, was sworn in as the country’s new prime minister Monday. Tsipras immediately formed a new coalition government to charge into the task of reversing wrenching austerity policies and negotiating with European leaders to reduce Greece’s debt burden.
He strode calmly into Maximos Mansion, the seat of the prime minister’s office, and took a civil oath rather than a religious one to assume the leadership of the nation.
In his first act as prime minister, he laid roses at a monument to 200 Greeks executed by Nazis in May 1944 in the Athens neighborhood of Kaisariani. The act was a symbolic gesture that some interpreted as a prod to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who has been insisting that Greece make austere sacrifices to pay its debts.
Yup, everywhere western leader must bow down before their Zionist masters.
Tsipras agreed to form a coalition government with a right-wing fringe party, Independent Greeks, which won 4.7 percent of the vote and was created in 2012 at the height of an economic crisis.
The group has often taken a hard line against austerity and might push for tough terms in any debt talks with Greece’s creditors, whom party leaders have referred to as “foreign conquerors.” Like Tsipras’ Syriza Party, it has lobbied for Greece to press for war reparations from Germany.
The group also shares Syriza’s goal of cracking down on corruption by public officials and has campaigned for the lifting of politicians’ immunity from prosecution.
“The Independent Greeks give our vote of confidence to the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras,” Panos Kammenos, the leader of the coalition partner, told reporters after about an hour of talks with Tsipras.
I'm tired of the Zionist applied labels, and we know why.
However, one point of potential conflict between the partners is immigration: Syriza wants more rights for migrants and asylum seekers, while the Independent Greeks party wants to take a stronger stance against neighboring Turkey to stop a flood of would-be migrants from entering Greece.
Whatever wedge they can find, the f***ers of the we$ternm media.
More confrontational efforts to curb immigration amid an economic downturn have strengthened Greece’s neo-fascist Golden Dawn party, which placed third in Sunday’s vote.
If the agenda-pu$hing Jewish pre$$ slams them then there is probably something good about them.
Tsipras now has 15 days to hold a confidence vote in his government, and was expected to announce his cabinet Monday or Tuesday.
European finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday were expected to put the developments in Greece high on their agenda. Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, told a German radio station Monday morning that he had congratulated Tsipras immediately after the election but had told him that Greece should not expect significant financial concessions from creditors.
Then GET OUT of the EU as fast as you can!
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain was more blunt. “The Greek election will increase economic uncertainty across Europe,” he tweeted.
Yeah, you Greeks should have stuck with the banker's parties.
Syriza has become the first antiausterity party to take power in a eurozone country and to shatter the two-party establishment that has dominated Greek politics for four decades.
Tsipras’s victory represented a rejection of the harsh economics of austerity. It also sent a warning to the rest of Europe, where continuing economic weakness has stirred a populist backlash, with more voters growing fed up with policies that have required sacrifices to meet the demands of creditors but that have failed to deliver more jobs and prosperity.
And the stinking $cum elite can't understand it!
See: A Billionaire Lectures Serfs in Davos – Claims “America’s Lifestyle Expectations are Far Too High”
Time to start eating the $cum.
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"Greece says its open to negotiations on debt, euro" by Raf Casert and Pan Pylas, Associated Press January 27, 2015
BRUSSELS — Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s new prime minister, is a firebrand who wants fellow eurozone nations to forgive some of his country’s bailout loans, something many European leaders vehemently rule out. But concerns about a disastrous confrontation — in which, say, Greece stops repaying its loans or the eurozone stops funding Athens — eased Monday after both sides said they were open to negotiations.
The election of Tsipras and his left-wing Syriza party was accompanied by much hand-wringing in European capitals. Besides calling for the cancellation of some of Greece’s rescue loans, Tsipras has pledged to undo some of the spending cuts and tax hikes eurozone countries required in exchange for the loans.
Politicians and investors worried that a tough stance on either side could lead the country to stop using the euro, which many say would devastate Greece’s economy and destabilize the currency union.
That is all the fucking political cla$$ is worried about. Not you.
Discussions on Greece’s debt have yet to start — and could yet turn sour — but the rhetoric on Monday was about compromise, not ultimatums. Financial markets retained their poise.
‘‘It won’t give quite the fireworks that some people were expecting,’’ said Professor Hendrik Vos of the University of Ghent. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Union’s executive commission, agreed: ‘‘I am not excessively nervous about this.’’
That may be an attempt to calm things before Greece’s new government enters negotiations with its eurozone counterparts. But at the very least, Tsipras’ election is likely to give new momentum to policy makers who want the region to focus less on debt reduction, as Germany has insisted on for years, and more on spending to get growth going.
The recognition that more needs to be done to encourage growth was highlighted by the European Central Bank’s announcement last week that it would start buying 1.1 trillion euros in bonds to stimulate the economy. The European Commission earlier launched a 315 billion euro investment plan.
Greece has since 2010 needed 240 billion euros ($270 billion) in loans from other countries and the International Monetary Fund to avoid bankruptcy. The loans came with strict conditions that Greece cut its debts sharply. It cut spending and raised taxes — with the side-effect of hurting growth. Greece suffered an economic depression and a surge in unemployment to above 25 percent.
Riding popular discontent, Tsipras rode to power on a promise to undo some of the painful policies. Despite the tough rhetoric, both Syriza officials and eurozone leaders say they are willing to be flexible.
‘‘France will be at Greece’s side,’’ said that nation’s president, Francois Hollande.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutchman who chairs eurozone finance ministers’ meetings, said that even though ‘‘there is very little support for debt write-offs,’’ there is room to consider ways to make Greece’s debt more sustainable.
This filler is going nowhere then.
His views were echoed by the leaders of Belgium and Finland, a country that has long been among the most unmovable on austerity issues.
Germany, however, was noncommittal beyond stressing that Greece needs to honor its commitments.
Even if they were foist upon them by $elf-$erving deals by lying and thieving bankers.
Yanis Varoufakis, a Syriza member who may become the next finance minister, sought to downplay concerns the new government would be aggressive in negotiations. He said the government would seek to convince its euro partners that reducing Greece’s debt burden by linking repayments to growth, say, would be positive for all sides.
These guys are also frauds.
Currently, Greece has to repay its loans whatever the state of its economy. At over 170 percent of GDP, Greece’s debt is way beyond levels most economists consider manageable.
He also dismissed suggestions that Syriza would threaten to pull Greece out of the euro, so-called Grexit.
‘‘We, who happen to be in the eurozone, must be very careful not to toy with loose and fast talk about Grexit or fragmentation,’’ he told BBC radio. ‘‘Grexit is not on the cards; we are not going to Brussels and to Frankfurt and to Berlin in confrontational style.’’
In other words, the Greeks got a load of campaign BS.
The main stock market in Athens recovered much of its sharp losses Monday to close down 3.2 percent. European stocks largely closed higher, and the euro clambered up from 11-year lows.
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