Posted on 12/15/2011 3:56:08 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Tempers are fraying in austerity-racked Portugal. A top socialist politician was taped at a party dinner calling for diplomatic warfare against the EU's northern powers and issuing threats of debt default.
"We have an atomic bomb that we can use in the face of the Germans and the French: this atomic bomb is simply that we won't pay," said Pedro Nuno Santos, vice-president of the Socialist Party in the parliament.
"Debt is our only weapon and we must use it to impose better conditions, because recession itself is what is stopping us complying with the (EU-IMF Troika) accord. We should make the legs of the German bankers tremble," he said.
The comments came as Portugal slides deeper into recession, with the economy expected to contract by 3pc next year. Protesters marched through Lisbon on Thursday denouncing plans by the new conservative government to raise the working week to 42 hours. Wages are being cut 16pc for higher paid, and 8pc for lower paid public workers.
The parliament passed a fresh austerity budget earlier this month under the terms of its €78bn loan package from the EU and the International Monetary Fund.
Mr Nuno Santos said Europe's southern states should join forces to resist the austerity dictates and contractionary policies being imposed by the core powers. "It is incomprehensible that the peripheral countries don't do what the French president and the German Chancellor do. They should unite," he said.
Left-leaning parties in Europe are becoming increasingly defiant, accusing the Right of exploiting its grip on the European machinery to force through polices that are in effect dismantling parts of the welfare state or undermine trade union power. Germany's Angela Merkel, France's Nicolas Sarkozy, and Holland's Mark Rutte are all conservatives, and will soon be joined by Spain's
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“..You better keep the beer coming bartender, or I won’t pay my tab!!!”
What an argument.
Now how can anyone that is described a "conservative" be a proponent of the social market economy? Must mean some new definition of "conservative".
Germany's Angela Merkel, France's Nicolas Sarkozy, and Holland's Mark Rutte are all conservatives
No, that’s not what they said, actually. And that’s not in defense of their policies; they’re being populist and trying to take advantage of the situation.
Merkel and Sarkozy maybe would have been conservative in the 1700s when Empire Kingdoms were the norm and the idea of democracy and free markets were liberal...
Thanks bruinbirdman. Portugual’s leftist parties are so angry, they are going to hold their breath until they turn blue.
Failure is an option, especially when its easy. But they are messed up either way. Austerity will crash the economy , but debt default will keep anyone from buying their debt, and they will have to balance their budgets anyway. I guess this way they can be smug about it.
The Welfare State System will defeat the monetary system. With wealth destroyed all will need the government to provide for them and in return the government will tell them what they can and cannot do.
Everything is relative in political/economic terminology.
In Europe, anything to the right of Marx is “conservative”.....relatively speaking.
What an argument.
Good one.
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