Wednesday 9 May 2012

Down with Austerity!

Okay, I could easily write about other stuff here in this Blog, really I could and I have something altogether different in mind for next week but it seemed when I woke up this morning to make more sense to continue with  what we were talking about last week.
Well, Austerity it would appear isn't terribly popular with the voters when one looks at the results of elections either here in the UK, France or Greece although apathy was the biggest winner of all underlining that disconnect between politicians and people.
In the UK some but not all Council elections place and the governing parties (Tory and Liberal Democrat) lost over 800 seats with most areas offered Elected Mayors rejecting the offer outright in referendums with the opposition Labour Party being the big winner.
Depressingly so much of the talk was less about local politics but more on National issues which local councils have little or no say over, so much so that in some respects it was more like an opinion poll on that rather than the proper business of what and how the Council should be doing for its citizens.
To that extent, we can say most appear to disagree with at least how the "Austerity" is being implemented with a strong feeling some are more in this together compared to others (The rich, bankers, corporate chair people etc.).
People see pay cuts, job loses, increasing prices, reduced public services and others doing well thank you from it and say NO!
The anti European Union party UKIP doubled its vote underlining this countries schism with Europe I wrote about over a year ago and probably not helped being asked to pay for another currency blocs mistakes when your own are experiencing sharp cuts in the standard of living.
People here expect it it's a matter of time before the Euro implodes.
The French had a Presidential election resulting in Mr Hollande the socialist winning on a rewrite the Euro stability agreement ticket which didn't go unnoticed by the Gerrman Chancellor Mrs Merkel who has issued a warning shot already of this although he's a clear mandate to seek it.
The Greeks bless 'em had a General Election that saw the Socialists and Conservatives lose to more left wing and even Fascist parties but with a twist. They as of now can't appear to form a coalition and any coalition is very likely to reject the terms of the next financial bailout because that was the overriding message of the voters.
The result genuinely shocked the financial institutions who didn't realize how unpopular the measures agreed between Greece and the reminder of the Euro zone really were on the ground.
It would be inconceivable any new Greek government would cave into to demands  to honour it so it looks likely Greece will default and at some point have to exit the Euro adopting a new currency which may not be a bad thing for Greece but as the Euro was at least as much about politics - one bloc united by a common currency and economies - it's the one thing others especially Germany not would wish for because it would leave the door open for Spain, Italy and even Ireland to follow suit.
The patient indeed doesn't like and refuses to take the medicine prescribed.

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