Eurozone unemployment hits new high
Eurozone unemployment data is in and makes predictably grim reading.
Joblessness in the currency bloc hit an all-time high of 12% in February, compared with an original estimate of 11.9% for January, which has since been revised up to 12%.
That is a big jump from this time last year, when the unemployment rate was 10.9%.
As usual, there were huge discrepancies between the member states, with the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria at 4.8% and Germany at 5.4%. The highest rate was in Greece, which recorded a rate of 26.4% (although figures are from December 2012), and Spain, where the rate is 26.3%.
Codes as follows... Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), the Czech Republic (CZ), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Ireland (IE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), France (FR), Italy (IT), Cyprus (CY), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Luxembourg (LU), Hungary (HU), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE) and the United Kingdom (UK).
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The International Monetary Fund has demanded that Cyprus cut state pension costs and reform its welfare system as the price of a €1bn (£854m) loan to help bail out the stricken island.
The IMF's managing director, Christine Lagarde, said the poorest Cypriots would be protected from the worst of the cuts, but Cyprus must press ahead with measures to bring its annual state budget into surplus by 2018.
The deal, agreed in principle by the Cypriot government, provoked an immediate reaction from trade unions, which called on bank workers to strike over potential pension cuts. Officials from the Cyprus Union of Bank Employees called on bank staff in Nicosia to walk off their jobs at lunchtime on Thursday, and gather in a protest march towards the parliament.
Underlining the sense of panic, the Cypriot central bank was reportedly preparing to extend capital controls to prevent a run on the banks despite previously lifting some more draconian elements earlier in the week.
The statement by Lagarde followed confirmation that the IMF will provide one-tenth of a €10bn bailout loan, leaving the European Union and the European Central Bank to pick up the remaining €9bn tab.
Given that the bailout deal overall was one that Wonga would indeed be proud of - one likely to send Cyprus into outright depression for at least 5 years, but at the same time destroying any basis for generating economic growth - Lagarde's talk of a budget surplus by 2018 is a bucket of salt to rub in the wound.
Since government revenues are going to take a massive hit over the next few years, any surplus would have to come from slashing the public sector in a brutal way. But since some 30 percent of the active population work in the public sector, the impact of such cuts on govt spending (more redundancy payments, more people on welfare benefits, less tax and social insurance income) can only feed a vicious downward spiral.
Tough love? Bullshit.
Given that the bailout deal overall was one that Wonga would indeed be proud of - one likely to send Cyprus into outright depression for at least 5 years, but at the same time destroying any basis for generating economic growth - Lagarde's talk of a budget surplus by 2018 is a bucket of salt to rub in the wound.
Since government revenues are going to take a massive hit over the next few years, any surplus would have to come from slashing the public sector in a brutal way. But since some 30 percent of the active population work in the public sector, the impact of such cuts on govt spending (more redundancy payments, more people on welfare benefits, less tax and social insurance income) can only feed a vicious downward spiral.
Tough love? Bullshit.
It's not very complicated. Iceland and Argentina have done it, as well as many other countries throughout history.
As long as "resisting the banksters" does not involve keeping 100, 60, or 5 per cent of your savings and expecting the rest of the world to maintain your material standard of living, of course. Otherwise you are not under some kind of attack by people you could resist, but are asking for other peoples' wealth.
International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said Cyprus must press ahead with measures to bring the island's budget into surplus by 2018
International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said Cyprus must press ahead with measures to destroy the the island's economy, to plunge its people into poverty, and to strip its workers of their hard won rights.
There you go Christine, that's what you really have in mind.
LISBON—Portugal's government survived a no-confidence vote in parliament, giving it breathing room before facing another serious hurdle—an anticipated high-court ruling that could derail the country's €78 billion ($100 billion) international bailout program.
But the two challenges to the government's economic austerity measures shook the Portuguese stock market, which closed down 3.5% Wednesday. Stocks in Portuguese banks, which are also being hit by fears that depositors in struggling euro-zone countries may have to pay for future bailouts, sank by between 4% and 9%.
The no-confidence motion was put forth by the main opposition Socialist party
Germany's five-year funding costs fell to their lowest level since August at a bond auction Wednesday as the aftershock of the Cypriot banking crisis and Italy's continuing struggle to form a new government pushed investors towards the euro zone's safe havens.
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