Posted on 04/07/2013 12:51:59 PM PDT by Steelfish
Eurozone Faces New Challenge As Portugal Blocks Cuts The eurozone crisis threatens to flare up again this week after Portugal's constitutional court blocked the country's planned austerity programme.
By Philip Aldrick 07 Apr 2013 The single currency bloc has already been destabilised by Cyprus and now faces fresh uncertainty if Lisbon cannot find new savings to meet the conditions of its 78bn (£66bn) bail-out.
Pedro Passos Coelho, Portugals prime minister, said last night that the rejection posed serious obstacles and risks to Portugals progress in meeting its bail-out commitments, but that it would do everything to avoid a second rescue.
The government is committed to all the objectives of the programme, he said.
Luis Marques Guedes, secretary of state for cabinet matters, said at the weekend: "The constitutional court's decision places serious difficulties on the country to comply with the goals and budget targets it has to meet. The government doesn't agree with the interpretation of the constitution."
The court ruled that planned cuts in salaries to state workers and payments to pensioners were in breach of the constitution. The measures were expected to save as much as 1.3bn annually, a large slice of the 5bn of fiscal consolidation planned for this year. Mr Passos Coelho said that he had asked ministries to slash spending in order to avoid further tax rises.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Time to rob the Portugese of their bank accounts.....
I would say this...if Portugal repeats the Cyprus scenario...then just about everyone in Europe will lift their funds out of banks. It may take four week....maybe even twelve weeks...but they will all lack trust in banks. None of this type of business is positive for the stability of Europe. If banks lose fifty percent of their cash, it’s down hill from that point on.
Well ... in a sane world, if you refuse to cut back on spending, I'm pretty sure your economic partners will decide that they cannot be bothered to rescue you a second time.
All leaders know what to do. None know how to get reelected, if they do it. Instead of doing the right thing, they attempt to hold onto power by kicking hard choices down the road. Many will hang from lamp posts when this blows up into a full sized crisis.
Avoid cities.
It’s true in Europe. It’s true in the USA.
The EU is an organization absolutely bound and determined to achieve utter bankruptcy for itself and all its members.
Patriots choose to do something.
People who want stars on their shoulders, or who want to be re-elected, they just want to be somebody. They don't care if anything gets solved.
Which is why I believe we are coming to the end of that period of history where electoral politics mattered. The problems today cannot be solved by the people who are given the power to solve them. Their personality and their abilities are the opposite of what is needed.
We're either headed toward the rejection of powerful governments (after an ugly collapse which will be blamed on powerful government and stupid, selfish politicians) or we are headed toward tyranny in which one leader "solves" all the problems and doesn't care at all what you think of him.
You know it does irritate me to see supposed conservatives viewing what happened in Cyprus as depositors being “robbed”.
Deposit insurance is Socialism, full stop.
Deposit insurance in Cyprus was Socialism backed only by a very weak state. There was never any promise from the German people that if the criminal fronts, err, banks in Cyprus became insolvent that they would pay off the depositors.
Oh, and a word on those depositors. Jumbo depositors in Cyprus were largely Russian embezzlers and criminals who COULDN’T take their money out, because no respectable country on earth would accept it.
The EU is herein standing up to bloated state pensions and corrupt bureaucracies in Portugal. I wish we had a mechanism to do that in this country.
Uh huh. Except all the “ connected” Commissrs and their friends got a heads up and started withdrawing their funds in the weeks before the robbery, including te Russians. That left the average Cypriot holding holding the short end of the stick. Did those retirees invest the banks funds in trash? I’m amazed when I see a “ conservative” who thinks illegally stealing to pay off the banksters for their bad investments is a good thing.
Bond Holders took it in the shorts via a new form of Bankruptcy and the Pension and Bennies rolled on....
Smells like Cyprus Part Du coming to Portugal to me...
Yep, here comes Portugal down the Cyprus highway to “...that sucking sound...” in the banks. Others in the EU are already pulling their funds out of the banks, they’re just not talking about it publicly. The big boys are putting money in safety deposit boxes there and HERE. I know this for a fact.
Just how “safe” are safety deposit boxes, there or here? Safe enough - for now - I imagine. However, the banks control the door locks to their buildings as well as the locks to the safety deposit boxes area. And the box locks, too, I reckon.
And the governments control the banks, ultimately.
Ahhhh, I understand the problem. You don’t know what a bank is.
You don’t understand what theft is.
Word to any dummies who have NOT figured it out yet, get any funds you may have, the hell out of there. Is there a Seville in Portugal, cause the barbers coming!
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