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Thousands of Greek protesters descended on central Athens Wednesday morning as lawmakers prepared for a vote that could be critical to the future of Europe's currency, the euro.

The mood was calm but apprehensive early Wednesday, hours before a planned demonstration.

Riot police clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators Tuesday, firing tear gas to disperse protesters during riots that left 21 police officers and one demonstrator injured.

The two-day general strike is set to continue on Wednesday, with members of three major unions planning to march on Parliament after the vote.

Unions oppose the austerity package, but its backers say it is essential to the stability of the Greek economy, the euro, and the global financial system.


Greece has debt payments coming due in mid-July and has asked for an international bailout to be able to pay them.

Lenders including the International Monetary Fund and the European Union have demanded that Greece implement the five-year austerity package in order to get $17 billion in emergency funds.

The newly appointed head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, appealed to the Greek opposition to overcome their political differences and join a national consensus on the reforms.

The 48-hour general strike kicked off early Tuesday, hobbling most of Greece's transportation systems but freeing workers to participate in demonstrations.

Transportation disruptions took place on land, on sea and in the air.

Air traffic controllers periodically stopped work and flight traffic, according to their union. Stoppages also disrupted sea travel in the maritime nation, which encompasses many islands.

European and international lenders agreed last year to give Greece a $156 billion bailout package as its deficit soared. A last installment of $17 billion remains to be paid.

The Greek government hopes for a second bailout package to stay afloat, but that, too, depends on its passing the austerity measures before Parliament Wednesday.

Greece needs the bailout funds to avert a default on debt repayments that are due as soon as mid-July.

A default would send shock waves through the European banking sector and potentially dent global economic confidence.

Greece faces "a critical juncture," said Olli Rehn, a European Union commissioner and the bloc's lead negotiator on the bailout. He urged Parliament to pass the austerity measures.

"Both the future of the country and financial stability in Europe are at stake," Rehn said in Brussels. "I trust that the Greek political leaders are fully aware of the responsibility that lies on their shoulders to avoid default."

He warned that there was "no Plan B" to avert default, and said economic reforms -- although challenging -- were a better alternative for the Greek people.

Protesters lament that the cuts are being carried out on the backs of those who can afford it least.

even now, these people seem to think things can continue as they always have.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:

even now, these people seem to think things can continue as they always have.

Dude, this is nothing about wanting to continue as you were, these are protests against the government pretty much raping and bankrupting the country to get money from the EU to pay back the phenomenal debts that the previous (by European standards, before you say it) conservative government went and racked up on the international bond markets.  

Greece is, and has been for years, an economic basket case where maybe 1 in 3 ppl dodge paying their taxes and corruption and civil service bloat is rife (nearly 1/3 of the workforce works for the government). During the boom years in the early 2000s the Greek govt borrowed like there was no tomorrow to effectively buy off the voting public with "jobs for life" in the public service and social welfare benefit increases. They were able to get away with this because they lied through their teeth to the EU about the state of the economy, and even enlisted companies like Goldman Sachs to help cook the books. They only got found out when the government lost an election and so had to put out the real figures before the new guys took over.  

The "austerity package" (which just got passed by the way)  will mean tax increases on everyone, more wage cuts on the public service and the privatization of 50 billion euros, or about $72 billion, in state assets.  In the last austerity measure, public sector pay was cut by nearly 10%, the pensions were cut, the pension age was increased, VAT was increased, and there were other cuts in public services across the board (hospitals, fire service, schools etc). And this is in a country where the unemployment rate is over 16% overall and 40% in the under-25s, and which was already heavily in recession with 20% of the people living below the poverty line. The greeks have no chance of growing out of recession, as they don't really make anything the world wants to buy (olive oil maybe?) and are reliant on tourism for most of the economy, not really a growth area these days.

Saw this in another article today:

"Pharmaceutical companies are starting to refuse to deliver to Greek hospitals, as they are up to two years behind on their payments. It turns out that Greece owes some €6 billion to private businesses like hospitals and simply cannot pay."

So, you could say this is the greeks reaping what they sewed during the boom times when the government was throwing money and jobs at them, but this means real pain and hardship for a lot of people, who believe that the government got them into this mess and are now selling them down the river to appease the very foreign banks that lent them the money in the first place. The main sticking point is that the austerity measures are hitting the lower paid hardest - one of the new tax increases is on people earning less that €8,000 a year.  So, comments like this is a bunch of lazy socialists trying to hang on to their cushy benefits are a bit off the mark.

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yes miles, because massive entitlement programs and racking up huge debt is very conservative. whether we're talking about "conservative" european socialism, or liberal european socialism, big government, socialist policies are being pursued nonetheless. and the only extent that it is the peoples' fault, is that they (along with the rest of "the west" bought into the system of lies surrounding socialism. they were lied to, because what they were promised is unsustainable. the left likes to talk about sustainability, but what about sustainability in government? if governments continue to borrow and spend more than they are taking in, this is unsustainable. at some point, the system of deficit spending will implode, and who gets hurt the most? the little guys do. and greece has finally hit that point. but that's not to say this is only restricted to greece. look at spain, portugal, and ireland. and the rest of the west is following along right behind them. the experiment has failed. governments have to get out of the central planning game, and shrink drastically.

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My question is...how are you guys gonna feel about having your own taxes raised to bail out Greece when it goes belly up?

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:
My question is...how are you guys gonna feel about having your own taxes raised to bail out Greece when it goes belly up?

Oh, we're not worrying about that, if Greece goes belly-up then Ireland will be right behind it, so everyone else will be paying more tax to pay for us too.... :-(

The thing here is that all of this is being done to appease that master and overlord of us all, the "international bond markets". There's a lot of talk of ireland, greece etc effectively giving up large parts of our national sovereignty to the IMF in return for loans, but the reason we're all looking for this money isn't just to keep our country going, it's mostly because we're scared of not repaying our debts to "the bondholders". Apparently, if we don't then someone in Moodys or S&P will decide that investing in Ireland government bonds isn't a good idea, interest on our bond rate will go up, investors will stop buying them and we'll run out of money because we won't be able to raise funds on the international markets. All the talk is about "not burning the bondholders" Well, guess what, if we repay our debts to "the bondholders" (who are pretty much all foreign banks), then we'll run out of money anyway, and faster! The whole idea that "if you invest in shares then you can lose your investment if the shares go down" doesn't seem to apply any more.

Look at Iceland, they were in worse state than we were back in 2008, their banks were effectively insolvent and they owed shitloads of money to foreign banks/bondholders when the banks collapsed. Instead of bringing in "austerity measures" they told the foreign banks "tough ****, you're not getting your money back, we're protecting our own people first" - so they effectively did what has everyone shitting themselves about greece, they defaulted on their debt. Is their economy a smoking ruin? No, they had 3% growth last year. This wasn't a government decision, they wanted to become the foreign bank's **** to keep them happy, but in Iceland, they have this nice political system where something like that has to go to a referendum, and the icelandic people voted by over 80% to tell the foreign banks to go hang themselves.

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well miles, what you're talking about is the government's ability to borrow more money. the problem is, "government" and "the economy" have almost become synonymous; meaning that the governments of the west have imbedded and intertwined themselves with economic activity (the engine of wealth in this world) to the point that the ability for government to borrow money - to finance itself - is now viewed as integral to the creation of wealth in the private sector. THIS is the problem with "state-capitalism" a.k.a. big government socialism.

it's a REAL problem when every government of the west has borrowed more, and owes more, than could ever be paid back, simply in order to finance their bloated selves and their parasitic attachment to the economy. it is the governments that are ruining economies just to keep their unnatural size and influence in tact, rather than scaling back. i don't know about greece or ireland, but in america the US government borrows 40 cent of every dollar it spends. right now, we have a choice very similar to what you're talking about. we can either choose to increase our borrowing limit, and continue on with business as usual, or we can choose not to, and be forced to shrink the government's cost by approx. 40%.

what you're talking about is a full-scale default, which would in essence mean that the irish government has to do the same thing. shrink it's budget by the amount that it would have otherwise borrowed. the problem is, what if greece did the same as iceland? no big deal. but then what if a precedent is set and greece is followed by ireland, portugal, spain, france, the uk, the us, etc, etc? i think this is what we would call the collapse of the global financial system. which MAY not be a bad thing. it all depends on what comes after.