We Are All Greeks

[TBF]

PROLOGUE: We are all Greeks!

Translated Wednesday 28 April 2010, by Kristina Wischenkamper and reviewed by Henry Crapo

To all the people in all the European countries, it’s time to unite.

Every tragedy has its Prologue. There is a fear that the very grave situation facing Greece at the moment is but a worrying prologue to a far greater tragedy for all of the European Union. One that’s been in rehearsal since the day the self-proclaimed lone guardians of the European Ideal forced Greece to adopt the Euro whilst allowing the country to conceal the true extent of its public debt. And today the private ratings agencies, friends of the financial sharks, are issuing junk bonds pushing the interest rates ever higher on the loan that the country is now forced to take out. The yield on the bonds has soared well above 8%; Germany has them at 2.3%. So who exactly benefits from this alarmist situation? The banks and the private insurance companies of course. Every day they rake in colossal profits that they then make the Greek people pay for by lowering salaries, reducing useful public spending, raising various taxes, extending retirement age, privatizations. But not a mention of putting an end to the tax breaks and sweeteners handed out to big business and the richest classes; or taxing capital revenues or private pensions or even reducing arms expenditure...

(more: http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/spip.php?article1514)

OCTOBER 2010: French workers demonstrate on October 12, 2010 in Toulouse southern France to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to up the retirement age to 62. In the fourth major action against the government reforms in just over a month, transport workers, teachers and civil servants stopped work in a bid to halt the reforms, a cornerstone of Sarkozy's program:






The protests, which began last month, are largely over Mr. Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age. But the French left is hoping to use the protests as a launching pad for rolling back much of the increasingly unpopular president's agenda.

Rallies of nearly 2 million French and crippling walkouts yesterday by energy and transport workers amplified opposition sentiment in France – even as Prime Minister Francois Fillon vowed to move ahead with reforms that would raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 in order to combat budget deficits.

Sarkozy, in a cabinet meeting this morning, said: "It is our duty to carry out this reform and so we will achieve it completely.”

Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry meanwhile warned: “The confrontation between the country and the government could get worse.”...

(more: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/1013/As-French-strikes-continue-unions-take-aim-at-Sarkozy)


US PROTESTS IN RESPONSE TO GLOBAL FINANCIAL ISSUES: TBD ...

[aquart]

1. At the moment, we are all Chilean.

But I'm sure we'll have time to be Greek a little later.

[TBF]

3. Workers are important everywhere -

I'm guilty of watching the Chilean rescues just like everyone else ... but there is also some very interesting stuff going on in France this week. Solidarity.

[Greyhound]

2. When the people say No! their government better listen, or they will bear some nasty consequences.

These folks are not screwing around. :kick: & R

[daylan b]

4. What is your solution?

I mean other than holding up a sign.

France already has some of the highest personal (top 3) and corporate (top 6 or so) income tax rates in the world.

While they have one of the highest fertility rates in all of Europe, they aren't expanding at a rate that would bring about a ratio of workers to retirees that is sustainable.

[TBF]

6. Define "sustainable". nt

[daylan b]

10. Really?

You understand the entire idea behind worker to beneficiary ratios right? Strangely, a huge part of what's causing issues such as this is the improvement in health care. As lifespans increase, that increases the beneficiary side of the equation while the worker side isn't increasing at a rate fast enough to bring in enough revenue to support those beneficiaries.

Seriously, what is your solution to the problem?

[Hannah Bell]

7. workers to retirees ratio = bullshit.

[daylan b]

11. How so?

Who exactly do you think pays for the benefits?

[Hannah Bell]

15. increased productivity per worker "pays for the benefits".

[daylan b]

18. France is already top 5

in the world for worker productivity and they already tax that productivity at rates that are in the top five for individual income tax and top 6 for corporate income tax. How much more productive to you expect them to get?

Put simply, they're doing everything right, they're just dealing with the other side of the coin of advancements in health care.

[TBF]

22. The workers think otherwise -

another article from the worker's perspective -

"More than one million people took to the streets of France to protest government plans to increase the retirement age. Governments across Europe are embarking on pension reforms to pay for a growing number of retirees.

Waving banners and chanting slogans against the center-right French government, tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Paris. French unions estimate the number of protesters nationwide at about 3.5 million, authorities estimate about half that number. The protest, which also disrupted mass transit and flights, is the latest against the French government efforts to raise the legal retirement age from 60 to 62 years.

Polls show the majority of French are against the reforms. They include 53-year-old university protester Alain Neveu, who joined the Paris march with his wife Brigitte.

Neveu says the reforms are unfair. He believes the government can pay for retirees' pensions by better redistributing France's wealth."

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/French-Unions-on-Nationwide-Strike-Travel-Disrupted-104776029.html

[daylan b]

24. So you think the problem is...

...that a nation that is already in the top handful of countries for both personal and corporate tax rates is not taxing its people enough?

Fair enough.

[Hannah Bell]

29. so you believe europe is imposing austerity policies because there's "no money"? fair enough.

[daylan b]

35. My gosh,

Do you really think they're doing this because they have a surplus?

[Hannah Bell]

40. a surplus exists, & anyone who's looked at capacity utilization figures recently knows it.

[daylan b]

44. A surplus?

France has been running budgetary deficits for over a quarter century.

[Hannah Bell]

45. you seem to not be able to distinguish between production & government budgets.

or money & what it represents.

a clear case of thinking the map = the territory.

[daylan b]

48. Touche

I can see where you'd come to that conclusion from the context of my threads.

For the record, you have yet to address the fact that they are running a 7.7% deficit with high tax rates and high productivity.

[Hannah Bell]

59. i don't have to address those things because they're irrelevant to the issue of whether

france can afford to pension its workforce.

if you believe that france can't afford to pension its workforce, that means you either believe there's not enough production, homes, water, electricity, whatever to support french people in their old age.

- Does france not have enough workers? No, in fact 10% of its workforce is unemployed.

- Does france not have enough productive capacity? No, in fact a significant proportion of its productive capacity is underutilized, & still national production = $33K worth of goods & services for every man, woman & child living in the country.

- Does france not have enough physical resources? I'm sure it has to get some from other places, like most countries do. But its per capita gnp of $33K tells me there's enough money to buy resources outside its physical land mass, & its food self-sufficiency tells me that it can feed all its people from within its own territory.

- Does france have enough housing stock to house all its people? From living there, i can tell you that it does, as there are significant vacancies & housing stock going empty.


So we're left with the only other possibility:

france is productive enough to fund pensions for the elderly. Its leadership simply wishes those pensions to be reduced because capital wants a bigger chunk of national income.


Your "solution" - that people work two years longer -- is ridiculous in light of the fact that 10% of the workforce is already sitting idle.

[Hannah Bell]

28. you seem to have missed the point.

[daylan b]

36. Of what?

Do you care to stop speaking in slogans and soundbytes and actually come up with solutions?

[Hannah Bell]

39. please link me to the "slogan" & the "soundbite". you missed the point of my comment on produc-

tivity.

[daylan b]

46. No, I didn't.

Increased worker productivity would pay for more benefits.

The problem is France doesn't have much left to squeeze out of their workers. They're already getting more productivity from their citizens than all but us and one other nation.

[Hannah Bell]

47. still missing the point. & i note you provide no link to the "slogan" & "soundbite".

ergo, just bullshit.

[daylan b]

49. Every damn post.

You don't go into detail or address actual numbers you just cite vague ideas.

Your 'debate' is better suited to posters.

[Hannah Bell]

53. vaguer than your vague ideas that france "can't afford" pension costs because of the

government budget deficit?

lol.

you don't understand what i'm talking about is all.

because you can't see outside the right-wing frame you believe in.

[daylan b]

54. Yes, I'm the one who said they can't afford it.

France is making these changes because I told them to.

The 7.7% running deficit is imaginary.

[Hannah Bell]

60. deficit has nothing to do with whether pensions are affordable.

sorry you don't get it.

[daylan b]

55. BTW, what exactly is 'progressive' about squeezing more productivity out of your workers?

That was a right wing ploy used to pretend the jobless recovery after the Bush recession was a good thing when in reality it was just squeezing more from people.

[Hannah Bell]

61. lol. you really *don't* get it, do you?

the productivity has already been squeezed, & this environment where we're told france can't afford to feed & house its elderly, you want us to believe, is the result.

[daylan b]

66. Fine, you want to keep

acting like France has all this capacity and revenue generation just sitting around.

Cool, have fun.

Let the grown ups who realize that 7.7% deficit is not sustainable handle it.

[Hannah Bell]

68. oh, the "grown-ups!" lol. straight from fucked noise.

[leftstreet]

8. ...

[TBF]

12. Solidarity my friend. nt

[daylan b]

13. You're good at the internet.

But what about a real world solution?

[leftstreet]

14. I thought maybe French workers could start manufacturing them

Looks like there could be a global market

[daylan b]

16. Hardyharhar.

You are good at the internet.

[leftstreet]

19. I thought you were joking when you asked 'What is your solution?'

If you're serious, you need to reconsider your question.

If someone is poking my eye out with an ice pick and I ask them to stop, would you say 'Well what would you RATHER have your eye poked out with?'

Get it?

[daylan b]

20. No, I was serious.

I wasn't talking about poking eyes out.

If you don't have a clue about the actual economic situation the thread is about and would rather communicate in slogans, don't bother.

[leftstreet]

21. So YOUR solution is encouraging people to die off?

Twice you've referred to advancements in health care as a ....problem

:scared:

[daylan b]

23. Do you understand the idea of context?

In the context of beneficiary to worker ratio it is a problem that has to be addressed. There are numerous solutions but France is already highly productive and already taxes the population at a high rate.

Another method to address the problem is increasing the retirement age, which is what the thread is about.

How in the world did you come to the conclusion that my solution is for people to die off?

[leftstreet]

25. You threw advanced healthcare on the table

Twice

You could have gone with property and wealth accumulation, labor exploitation, automation, Britney Spears' influence on popular culture...anything

Just seemed a little creepy

[daylan b]

26. Context, look it up.

The fact that it seems to have shocked you is alarming. Have you done any study on the subject?

To be frank, if you don't realize the role that advancements in health care have on increasing the retirement age you need to read more. Like many things dealing with aging it IS creepy until you start studying the subject and realize the numbers game that is going on.

[Hannah Bell]

32. bullshit. life expectancy has increased about 5 years over the last 70 years.

productivity has more than tripled, & the share of national production going to capital has doubled.

[daylan b]

43. So where exactly do you think the money is going?

France is running a 7.7% of GDP deficit this year.

They are already paying a nearly 50% personal income tax.

Their corporate tax rate is 33%, 5% less than ours and still in the top 6 in the owrld.

They're already closing tax loopholes as a part of these reforms.

[Hannah Bell]

67. so what? the us has run a budget deficit almost every year since its foundation.

somehow we managed to avoid mass starvation or sending our elders off to the soylent green camps.

and every year we had a balanced budget or surplus, recession & depression followed.

a balanced budget economy = a no-growth economy.

which is fine by me if there were equitable distribution.

but it doesn't work for capital. capital demands an ever-increasing % of profit by its very nature. in a stagnant economy, that means taking it out of workers' hides.

[leftstreet]

34. Look, miss, dude, whatever...This is a site for Democrats

I'm not trying to upset you.

The majority here identify with the Working Classes

This thread is about working class conditions in France, and you start by asking how members of that class can sacrifice even more.

:shrug:

[daylan b]

37. Ad hominem attacks are always

best when you have no fucking clue what your solution to the problem would be.

[Hannah Bell]

41. you seem not to understand what an ad hominem attack is.

considering you're the only person who made one.

[daylan b]

50. Against who?

And you don't understand how that "this is a site for democrats" is a personal attack?

Actually, I'll answer that, yes, people who do not understand the idea of the worker to beneficiary ratio and how advances in health care impact it do need to study the subject. If you consider that a personal attack I have no idea what you think the person I was replying to was doing.

[leftstreet]

56. Oh

I apologize.

LOL for once I actually didn't mean to suggest someone was using RW talking points. LOL

I honestly meant that people who post here tend to identify with the working classes.

Sorry about that

[daylan b]

57. You can identify with the working class and realize benefits cost something.

That fact is lost on MANY people on this site.

If France were some backward conservative country with extremely low tax rates it would be one thing, but that's simply not the case.

[leftstreet]

62. Healthcare, housing, food, security aren't 'benefits' - they're rights

Human rights

:thumbsup:

[daylan b]

64. That cost something.

[Hannah Bell]

63. yes, they cost something. they cost about 50% of workers' disposable income.

but only 35% of corporations' disposable income.

[daylan b]

69. Increase that by 3% and you match ours which is the highest in the world

I'd say go for it.

Look, we're never going to agree, you know that I knew that as soon as I saw Marx.

[Hannah Bell]

71. um, you may not have noticed, but we don't have the highest personal or corporate taxes in the world

and 2) address the arguments without redbaiting, please.

the arguments stand or fall on the amount of evidence one can muster to support them, not the person's avatar.

[Hannah Bell]

70. no, i don't understand that.

if worker to beneficiary ratio is so important, how have we survived to this time? what is the magic line where it becomes insupportable?

because that ratio has been declining since 1900.

what do people need to live?

food, shelter, clothing, health care & some kind of social existence.

if it takes 20 workers to produce the value equivalent of all those things for one person, fine.

if it takes one person to produce the value equivalent, fine too.

The ratio of workers to dependents is beside the point. What matters is how much each worker, and the workforce as a whole, can produce (as well as the amount of available land & resources).

French per person GDP = $33K. Which suggests that France, as a whole, even with its high unemployment, capacity underuitilization, & long vacations, is capable of producing a very nice living for all its citizens. For a family of 4, that's $132K worth of value.

That's not the problem. The problem is how its divided & who has the power.

At any rate, the idea that french workers need to work two more years to produce enough to take care of their elderly is total ruling class bullshit.

[TBF]

74. "the numbers game that is going on" -

it is only a "game" to the owners who are trying to squeeze every last cent out of someone that they can. For the rest of us raising the retirement age is not a parlor game.

[Hannah Bell]

30. if the problem is that there "aren't enough workers to pay for retirees" then the solution =

retirees must die.

but anyone with half a brain knows that a shortage of workers isn't the problem.

[daylan b]

38. Retirees must die?

What the fuck?

How about just working two extra years instead.

[Hannah Bell]

42. why? you think two years of extra work is the difference between being able to fund pensions & not?

why is there 10% unemployment in france, then?

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=france+unemployment+rate&aq=f&aqi=g3g-o1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=305399adab0d4acf

[daylan b]

51. Increased worker productivity is one reason.

A little thing called a global recession (you might have heard of it) is another.

[Hannah Bell]

65. i see. 10% unemployment is caused by productivity increases, so we can't fund pensions

because we're producing too much.

and the daylan solution is -- people should work two years' longer!!!

that's real logic, buddy.

[Starry Messenger]

17. I admire old-fashioned craftsmanship.

I'd order one.

[Starry Messenger]

5. k & r

[leftstreet]

9. K&R

[xchrom]

27. Recommend

[Catherina]

31. Rec'd n/t

[Cal Carpenter]

33. Rec'd.

Solidarity.

We are all Greeks. We are all getting fucked by neoliberal geopolitics and economics.

No one wants to talk about that, especially in an election year, but it's true.

[TBF]

72. Amazing how these elections come and go -

and yet for workers everywhere it's the same crap over and over. Thanks for the comment my friend.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. Apparently, everyone in Greece cheats on their taxes.

Honestly, it sounds like they've all been listening to Glenn Beck.

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010

[TBF]

73. Vanity Fair is cool and all, but here's a better source for

what is going on in Greece - http://inter.kke.gr/

[Panaconda]

58. K&R

Solidarity.

[blindpig]

75. kick

Solidarity!