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Advance guard of angry women lead Italians into European protests over austerity cuts
Telegraph ^ | 05/29/10 | Nick Squires

Posted on 05/30/2010 4:55:13 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster

Advance guard of angry women lead Italians into European protests over austerity cuts

Italy is the latest eurozone nation to be threatened by finacial woe - after Silvio Berlusconi assured his compatriots for months that they had weathered the crisis

By Nick Squires in Rome

Published: 7:49PM BST 29 May 2010

Advance guard of angry women lead Italians into European protests over austerity cuts Proposed measures aim to shave 24 billion euros off government spending in the next two years Photo: NICK CORNISH

They were the advance guard of an army of Italians whose anger is rising as their country joins the rest of the continent struggling with the worst economic crisis of recent times.

Waving banners, blowing whistles and chanting "Shame!", hundreds of public service workers rallied outside Italy's parliament in Rome to protest against the austerity package announced by the centre-Right government of Silvio Berlusconi.

The measures aim to shave 24 billion euros off government spending in the next two years.

They include a crackdown on tax evasion and welfare fraud, a three year salary freeze for Italy's 3.4 million civil servants and substantial cuts to regional government which will almost certainly result in less money for hospitals and schools.

In pushing through the package with an emergency parliamentary decree, Italy joined Portugal and Spain in trying to fend off contagion from the crisis which has brought deadly riots to Greece and shaken confidence in the euro. The cuts are greater in scale than the £6 billion of immediate savings recently announced by Britain's new coalition government, but are comparable with what the UK may face over the next 12 months.

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: austerity; italy; protest; publicemployee
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To: bert

hundreds of public service workers rallied

They said it right there in the beginning....


21 posted on 05/30/2010 6:21:28 AM PDT by EBH (Our First Right...."it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,")
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To: johniegrad; All

“italy has roughly 60 million people and about 5% are government employees. Anybody know what the percentage is here in the US?”

According to Wolframalpha.com in the USA, 22.57 million are government employees, out of a workforce of about 155 million.

That makes the percentage of government employees about 14% in the USA.

Nearly 3 times the rate of socialist Italy? Wake up folks, the USA ALREADY IS SOCIALIST, BIG TIME!


22 posted on 05/30/2010 6:24:11 AM PDT by AnalogReigns
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To: TigerLikesRooster

“Advance guard of angry women...”

Uh oh, that was how the french revolution started!


23 posted on 05/30/2010 6:25:42 AM PDT by jocon307 (It's the spending, stupid.)
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To: AnalogReigns

Somehow I think that 5% figure is wrong. I suppose if that is only Federal employees, maybe. But add state, county and city employees (or however Italy’s public sector is structured) I’d think it is much higher. Regardless, all public sector employees feed off the taxation of the private sector, so it doesn’t matter where they’re employed, does it?


24 posted on 05/30/2010 6:32:21 AM PDT by john drake (Roman military maxim; "oderint dum metuant," i.e., "let them hate, as long as they fear.")
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To: bert

“The article is deceitful. The angry women are actually angry government workers. These are the equivalent to Acorn and SEIU heavies in say Baltimore or maybe Philadelphia.”

You may remember during the Gingrich government shutdown in the mid90s, a number of ‘federal employees’ on network news demanding that they be allowed to go back to work. They didn’t care if they go paid, they just wanted to be back at work doing the peoples business.

Actually, a few weeks later, it was disclosed that these were full-time federal union representatives. It’s a little known secret that the federal government fully funds a number of federal employees to do union work on a full-time basis. They have no federal job responsibilities. All they do is union work. These were the guys on TV demanding to be allowed to go back to work.


25 posted on 05/30/2010 6:50:15 AM PDT by DugwayDuke
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To: TigerLikesRooster

They need a dose of Reagan applied directly to the forehead.

Wanna strike? Go ahead. Just don’t plan to have a job come Monday.

That’ll fix it.


26 posted on 05/30/2010 6:59:42 AM PDT by NYCslicker
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To: TigerLikesRooster

“Serena, a government public relations officer who declined to give her surname, said: ‘I’m really afraid because it will be very hard to find another job. I may have to become a waitress just to get by.’ “

Dear Serena,

In the U.S., this is what we call “reality.” I encourage you to become acquainted with it.


27 posted on 05/30/2010 7:04:02 AM PDT by NYCslicker
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To: TigerLikesRooster

[Warning! Sexism alert!]

I think that a fundamental truth is manifest in this story.

Women are by instinct the more dependent sex. They crave protection, just as (throughout prehistory and history) the physically stronger males have afforded it. It is natural for women to demand support and protection.

It is also natural for men to respond by defending women. There are few things more effective than for a women subtly to appeal to a man for help, protection, and comfort. A man who responds will normally feel satisfaction and pride in his role as protector and provider.

In modern terms, under the reign of ideological feminism, this appeal for protection is often transferred, and becomes a demand on the state: the biggest “daddy” of them all. Women are more likely to demand social programs, and are more socialist in their attitudes. They not only want benefits, but they demand that the state “care” about them, which is something a large, impersonal bureaucracy can never really do.

But, one may protest, modern women are now trained to be independent, and have their own “careers,” and even join the military. Hollywood loves to depict tough, marshall-arts-enabled “female warriors.” But the more unrealistic the role impressed upon modern women, the more they will act out their true, instinctive nature in other ways.

Add to this that modern women are probably the unhappiest generation in our history, and we can expect more of female rage. We can also predict with great certainty that most commentators will totally miss the significance of theses things — but at least you and a few other readers of these words will understand.


28 posted on 05/30/2010 11:32:57 AM PDT by docbnj
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To: TigerLikesRooster

“Italian MPs are the best paid in Europe”.
I thought French parliamentarians were the best paid in Europe. They often have several postings, mayor on one town, county commissioner on another place, etc.. Also French ministers get their salaries for life!


29 posted on 05/30/2010 10:27:57 PM PDT by paristwelve (Feeling sorry for things is just an excuse for not celebrating your own happiness.)
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; bigheadfred; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; ...

I don’t blame them — I really hate it when governments cut austerity. ;’) Thanks TigerLikesRooster. Topic from the 30th.


30 posted on 06/02/2010 5:24:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv ("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
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