While the culprits of the global credit meltdown of 2008 have been bailed out with the public's future tax money, the sovereign debt crisis across the globe is blamed on innocent wage earners for receiving supposedly unsustainably high wages and excessive social benefits that allegedly threaten the competitiveness of economies in a globalized trade regime designed to push wages down everywhere.
Sovereign debt crisis not caused by the welfare state The rush by the rich and powerful to punish the trouble-causing working poor goes against strong evidence that the current sovereign debt crisis is not caused by high social welfare expenditure; rather, it is caused by a sudden drop in government revenue due to economic recession, which in turn is caused by a credit market failure under fraudulent accounting that is allowed in structured finance and for which the financial elite are directly and exclusively responsible. ...
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Spain on May 26 announced cuts of 80 billion euros from its fiscal budget, shedding 13,000 public service jobs, reducing salaries of state employees by 5% and freezing pensions. The allowance of 2,500 euros for parents of a new birth to reverse declining population trends will be suspended.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LF10Dj02.html
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The Spain example is almost identical to what California has done. Most of the cuts here are in education and health services. Fed Social Security checks were frozen---no cost of living increase. SS is tied to the cost of living index. Congress stopped the next extension of unemployment checks.
The problem with these economic events is they go by almost unseen and silent. Down at the everday street level, people ignore this stuff until it hits them.
``It presumably would make for some interesting fireworks. As I recall, he was kicked off this list some years ago.'' Jim Farmelant
You think it's the same guy? Sure seems to be. But I forgot what got him the boot. Are you sure he didn't just un-sub?
CG