Geography Archives: Greece

  • Greek Protesters Are Better Economists Than the European Authorities

    Imagine that in the worst year of our recent recession, the United States government decided to reduce its federal budget deficit by more than $800 billion dollars — cutting spending and raising taxes to meet this goal.  Imagine that, as a result of these measures, the economy worsened and unemployment soared to more than 16 […]

  • Greece

    Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  The cartoon above was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 17 June 2011.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  Cf. “Varoufakis Says Greece’s Papandreou ‘On His Last Legs’” (Bloomberg, 16 […]

  • European Integration at the Crossroads: Deepening or Disintegration?

      Are the member states of the Eurozone responsible for the Euro crisis the ones having problems servicing their debt?  The majority of people in Europe believe that this is the case.  Therefore, indebted countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland must subject themselves to a brutal austerity program of savage cuts in welfare spending, diminishing […]

  • Anonymous Leaders of the Movement of the “Indignant” in Greece

    On Friday, the blogs which are guiding the movement of “indignant” citizens published a statement of the “indignant” citizens in Syntagma Square that called on the left forces to leave the squares.  Thus, the “anonymous” leaders of the “movement of the squares,” the “non-partisan,” “spontaneous,” “non-politicized” citizens, appear to be politicized, declaring themselves “anti-left.” Perhaps […]

  • Greece: PAME Occupies Finance Ministry, Calls for General Strike

    Since early this morning, PAME members have symbolically occupied the Ministry of Economy and Finance, calling upon workers to rise up and stop the government’s barbaric anti-labor measures.  All out for the demonstration today, Omonoia Square, 7 PM.  General Strike! The All Workers Militant Front, PAME, is a coordination center of Greek trade unions, founded […]

  • When Push Comes to Shove? Exposing the Empty Threat to Kick Greece Out of the Eurozone

    A sword of Damocles, we are told, is hanging over Greece.  Even the Greek EU commissioner says that Greeks must accept that their country will be run, nay micromanaged, by a committee of foreign creditors, or else Greece will be kicked out of the eurozone. This threat is found upon a flagrant lie.  Greece cannot […]

  • The Crisis Enters Year Five

    The current global capitalist crisis began with the severe contraction in the housing markets in mid-2007.  Welcome to Year Five.  A usual inventory of where things stand begins with the good news: the major banks, the stock market, and corporate profits have largely or completely “recovered” from the lows they reached early in 2009.  The […]

  • Rebellion of the Indignant: Notes from Barcelona’s Tahrir Square

    There is no doubt about it.  The wind that has electrified the Arab world in recent months, the spirit of the repeated protests in Greece, the student struggles in Britain and Italy, the mobilizations against Sarkozy in France . . . has come to Spain. These are not days of “business as usual.”  The comfortable […]

  • Regaining Vision

      Address to the Conference “Debt and Austerity: From Southern Countries to Europe,” Athens, Greece, 6-8 May 2011 Honorable guests, Dear participants, Comrade activists, Fellow fighters, The Greek initiative for the establishment of a Committee for the Accounting Audit of Its Public Debt welcomes you to this very important three-day event for the exchange of […]

  • On the Political Economics of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Political Death

    What follows below is about the economic and political significance of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK hereafter), the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.  It will say nothing about the merits (or lack thereof) of the charges against DSK.  All cases of alleged sexual assault brought against high-profile men place two equally important […]

  • Cairo and Athens: A Long Hot Summer

    Convinced that Hosni Mubarak would inevitably resort to overt military force against protesters, my wife and I landed in Athens on February 4.  Days of protesting, nights spent guarding the streets, and concerns for the sanity of our geographically distant family had taken its toll.  Ironically, after less than 24 hours in Athens, I said […]

  • On the True Agenda behind Der Spiegel’s Story That Greece Is Thinking of Exiting the Euro

    The Spiegel story that “Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone” is not exactly false — just economical with the truth. Yes, a few weeks or months ago, the Greek government commissioned (as it ought to) several secret studies of the repercussions of various scenarios involving different forms of debt restructure, including one desperate […]

  • The Euro Crisis as a Twin Recycling Problem: A New Rationale for the “Modest Proposal”

    1. Introduction: The Twin Recycling Problems in Brief

    Europe’s crisis is caused by its institutional failure to confront two recycling problems: a debt recycling problem and a surplus recycling problem.

  • From Places Like Mine and Yours

    On the progressive potential of small, quasi-autonomous states (like Scotland, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, etc.). . . . The strong Scottish accent was conspiring with the noisy pub background to make it difficult for me to understand the words spoken in my ear by an imposing trade union figure.  Thankfully, I managed to decipher his words, […]

  • Standard and Poor’son Riskiness of US Debt

    On April 18, Standard and Poor’s (S&P), one of three “rating companies” that control that industry, revised its outlook on the safety of long-term US debt from “stable” to “negative.”  There are only two reasonable reactions to this announcement, although the usual business and political leaders are promoting their usual spins. We may dispense quickly […]

  • It’s the (German) Banks, Stupid!

    Or what’s behind Germany’s hesitant statements on Greek debt restructuring, Ireland’s move against subordinated bondholders, and the ECB’s stance on interest rates. . . . Europe is at it again, trying to pretend that it has stemmed the tide of insolvency through its program of lending huge amounts of money (at high interest rates) to […]

  • Stay Human: Freedom Flotilla Renames Voyage in Honor of Vittorio Arrigoni

      The murder of human rights activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, is a tragedy for his family, for those of us who knew him, and for the Palestinians who loved and admired him.  The Steering Committee of Freedom Flotilla 2 condemns this senseless murder and the people who are behind it.  They took the life of one […]

  • The Scorecard on Development, 1960-2010: Closing the Gap?

    Executive Summary: This paper is the third installment in a series (the first and second editions were in 2001 and 2005) that traces a long-term growth failure in most of the world’s countries.  For the vast majority of the world’s low- and middle-income countries, there was a sharp slowdown in economic growth for the two […]

  • Wisconsin, Ohio, Portugal: Shifting Political Winds

    When the current economic crisis hit, the Obama campaign blew away Bush and McCain by promising hope, change, and a solution that would overcome this crisis and prevent future crises.  Likewise some governments in Europe came to power based on public fear reacting to the global meltdown.  Ongoing crisis, mass economic pain, and deepening public […]

  • Joint Statement of 58 Communist and Workers’ Parties against Imperialist Aggression in Libya

    The imperialist killers headed by the USA, France, Britain and NATO as a whole and with the approval of the UN started a new imperialist war.  This time in Libya. Their allegedly humanitarian pretexts are completely misleading!  They throw dust into peoples’ eyes!  Their real goals are the hydrocarbons in Libya. We, the Communist and […]