Free Republic

Seventeen people have been arrested following clashes with police during an unplanned anti-austerity protest close to Downing Street, the Met police said. Officers in riot gear clashed with a "minority" of protesters who threw objects during the rally - which came days after the Tory election victory. Four police officers and a police staff member were injured, the Met added. A police investigation is also under way after graffiti referring to "Tory scum" was daubed on a war memorial. The graffiti was sprayed on the Women's War Memorial, in London's Whitehall, which is yards from where a concert to commemorate...

BRASILIA— Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff raced on Wednesday to defuse a rebellion by legislators upset about her budget austerity plans and her handling of a corruption scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras. Rousseff met with legislative leaders from her coalition after they unexpectedly threw out a presidential decree that would have raised payroll taxes and helped close a gaping hole in Brazil's budget. “This is very serious for Rousseff,” said political analyst Gabriel Petrus of Brasilia-based consultancy Barral M Jorge Associates. “It looks as if there is no political stability on top of the economic crisis.” The economic impact of...

Skynews is reporting on demonstrations in Madrid, Spain saying they are in response to austerity measures. The State Department has a travel warning to American's suggesting the demonstrations are regarding economic issues. BUT, a search shows that the demonstrations are in response to a 'security law' that limits demonstrations in Spain and an 'Anti-Islam' demonstration law. So I ask, which is it or is it both?

A top German body has called for a clear mechanism to force Greece out of the euro if the left-wing Syriza government repudiates the terms of the country’s €245bn rescue. “Financial support must be cut off if Greece does not comply with its reform commitments,” said the Institute of German Economic Research (IW). "If Greece is going to take a tough line, then Europe will take a tough line as well." IW is the second German institute in two days to issue a blunt warning to the new Greek premier, Alexis Tsipras, who has vowed to halt debt payments and...

The real Greek tragedy is not that Alexis Tsipras from the radical left-wing Syriza party won that country's recent election, becoming prime minister in the cradle of democracy. Voters can reverse that mistake when they realize that his policies are doing more harm than good. The real tragedy is that Greek voters, like other Europeans who are embracing far-right or far-left parties, cast their ballots in response to draconian austerity measures, imposed by the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), that they equate with free-market capitalism and globalization. The consequences of this ideological travesty will last much longer...

ast year boasted the strongest job numbers since 1999, and as a result, many commentators have concluded that left-wing critics of austerity were wrong all along. The basic case — advanced by Jeff Sachs, Scott Sumner, and others — is that the surge in growth and jobs proves that austerity is not the poison its detractors claimed it would be. These commentators make some good points. But they are wrong about austerity. A close examination of the counterfactuals shows that austerity almost certainly held back the recovery — and without it, we might have had 2014's strong numbers in 2011....

credit the world’s various political leftists for being brilliant at one thing. They have managed to assemble a coalition of interest groups whose vested interests should probably cause them to chase each other around in the street armed with shotguns. Nowhere is that awesome class divide among the left on greater display than in Europe where the Parlor Pinks infest Davos and the Street Marxians have taken electoral power in Greece. If you were to ask both Jeffrey Greene and newly-minted Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras whether they felt society should be unfettered by larger government or directed for its...

The new Greece of Alexis Tsipras will run out of money by early March. It will then face a series of escalating crunch points that will end in default and a return to the drachma unless it can reach a deal with EU creditors. Greece must repay €3.4bn to the International Monetary Fund in February and March. Tax revenues have collapsed as Greeks preempt what they hope will be a repeal of austerity taxes. “There is only €1.9bn left in the cash kitty, and the government has spending costs of $2.5bn coming up. Somebody needs to lend the country money...

Britain deserves a pay rise, David Cameron said last night. The Prime Minister said it was time for workers squeezed by years of austerity to get their reward. It came as official statistics showed falling oil prices and the economic recovery have pushed firms’ profitability to a 16-year high.Tory strategists hope an economic feel-good factor, buoyed by jobs growth and low inflation, will translate into stronger wage rises by May’s general election. Asked whether he would encourage firms to pass on windfall profits from falling oil prices to employees, Mr. Cameron, in Washington for talks with Barack Obama, said: “Obviously...

The European Union’s executive Commission said Monday that membership in the euro bloc is “irrevocable” but left it open to what extent Greece could renegotiate the terms after elections on Jan. 25. Greece’s left-wing Syriza party leads the polls ahead of the elections and is in favor of changing the conditions of the country’s international bailout deal. That would likely anger the rest of the eurozone, which has given Athens the bulk of the rescue loans. […] EU spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Monday that if the Greek elections call for a need to reconsider the conditions of Athens’ membership within...

Governments and investors across Europe braced for renewed economic upheaval on Monday after the Parliament in Greece failed to avert an early general election, reviving the toxic debate over austerity as the way to cure the continent’s economic woes. The election, expected on Jan. 25, is likely to be won by Syriza, a leftist party that opposes the deep budget cuts Greece has implemented in recent years. The austerity measures were imposed as a condition of the huge financial bailouts Greece has received.

Russian mid-sized lender Trust Bank is to receive up to 30 billion rubles ($530 million) from the central bank to stop it going bankrupt in the first bailout of its kind during the current rouble crisis. The central bank also said its Deposit Insurance Agency, responsible for managing crisis-hit lenders, would take over interim supervision of Trust Bank as of Monday. The measures "will make it possible for Trust to continue smooth payments operations. All the bank's clients, including depositors, can use its services as usual", the central bank said in a statement. Trust, which hired actor Bruce Willis as...

nother war looms in Europe: waged not with guns and tanks, but with financial markets and EU diktats. Austerity-ravaged Greece may well be on the verge of a general election that could bring to power a government unequivocally opposed to austerity. Momentous stuff: that has not happened in the six years of cuts and falling living standards that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers. But if the radical leftist party Syriza does indeed triumph in a possible snap poll in the new year, there will undoubtedly be a concerted attempt to choke the experiment at birth. That matters not just...

Violence broke out on the streets of Brussels today as more than 100,000 people marched against EU-enforced austerity. Water cannons and tear gas were used in the centre of the Belgian capital as riot police tried to bring the situation under control. Fighting broke out soon after the end of a largely peaceful march organised by trade unions and left wing politicians. For two hours, the demonstrators had peacefully marched down the main thoroughfares of central Brussels to protest government policies that will raise the pension age, contain wages and cut into public services. But violence broke out at the...

Despite all talks of austerity, £1,521.2 billion was the UK’s public debt at the end of the financial year 2013/14, as much as – be prepared for this, but probably you already are - 87.8% of GDP. The Office for National Statistics, the source of these data, in a recent release also informs that this debt represented an increase of £100.6 billion compared to the end of 2012/13. Still according to the ONS, government borrowing, excluding the effects of bank bail-outs, was £11.8 billion in September 2014, £1.6 billion higher than September 2013. Without all their many zeros, these...

The debate over Germany’s insistence on eurozone austerity has flared anew as an ailing France continues to demand economic stimulus. The European Central Bank may now be siding with Paris, leaving Merkel looking increasingly alone. […] Berlin is particularly alarmed by the stance taken by ECB head Mario Draghi. At the annual conference of top central bankers from around the world at Jackson Hole, Wyoming in August, Draghi surprised those present by saying “there is leeway to achieve a more growth-friendly composition of fiscal policies.” It was a comment that came close to the kind of debt-fueled growth stimulus measures...

When Bill de Blasio released his budget for New York last Thursday, he made clear his approach for the next few years: more government, more spending and more borrowing against tomorrow to pay for today. Meanwhile in Australia, the new Tony Abbott government has taken the opposite approach. Treasurer Joe Hockey’s budget is based on the idea that governments, like families, need to live within their means. As he put it Wednesday: “The days of borrow and spend must come to an end.” In practical terms, that means layoffs for 16,500 government workers. It means cuts in entitlements, cuts in...

The European Left's candidate for the European Commission presidency, Alexis Tsipras, Friday called for the immediate release of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams who is been held for questioning in connection with the 1972 murder of Jean McConville. Tsipras called the arrest a "politically inflammatory act against democracy".

Say, did you know that we are living in the age of austerity budgets in Washington? This year’s budget will spend more than last year’s $3.44 trillion, but not as much as Barack Obama requested for FY2014, which was an apparently austere $3.778 trillion. Nevertheless, the Washington Post reports that a newly-emboldened President will demand an end to an “era of austerity” that we haven’t seen in decades with his new FY2015 budget proposal: President Obama’s forthcoming budget request will seek tens of billions of dollars in fresh spending for domestic priorities while abandoning a compromise proposal to tame the...

President Obama’s forthcoming budget request will seek tens of billions of dollars in fresh spending for domestic priorities while abandoning a compromise proposal to tame the national debt in part by trimming Social Security benefits. With the 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to the era of austerity that has dogged much of his presidency and to his efforts to find common ground with Republicans. Instead, the president will focus on pumping new cash into job training, early-childhood education and other programs aimed at bolstering the middle class, providing Democrats with a policy blueprint heading into the...