Large anti-austerity protests in Spain, Portugal
MADRID (AP) — Tens of thousands of people from all over Spain rallied in the capital Saturday against punishing austerity measures enacted by the government, which is trying to save the country from financial collapse.
Spain is stuck in a double-dip recession with unemployment close to 25 percent. The conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has introduced stinging cuts and raised taxes in a bid to reduce the deficit and to reassure investors and officials from the 17-nation eurozone.
The marchers in Madrid unfurled banners with slogans such as "Let's go! They are ruining the country and we have to stop them."
"This government's policies are causing too much pain," union chief Ignacio Fernandez Toxo said. "It's a lie that there isn't another way to restore the economy."
The situation looks set to get worse in coming weeks. At a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Cyprus on Friday, Spain revealed it would present a new set of economic reforms by the end of the month. It's a move that raises expectations that Spain might soon ask for financial help.
The economic reform plan will be unveiled by Sept. 27. It is expected to be the launch-pad to Spain's tapping of a new European Central Bank bond-buying plan.
Just before Saturday's march began, buses transporting protesters blocked several major roads in the Spanish capital. The main organizers were Social Summit, an association of more than 150 organizations, and the Workers' Commissions and General Workers trade unions.
The Interior Ministry's regional office said it had expected more than 500,000 people to reach a central Madrid square, but later said 65,000 had attended to listen to speeches made by protest leaders.
Toxo called for a referendum on the government's austerity and bailout plans, saying the measures were so different from the ruling Popular Party's election pledges that Spaniards should have the right to express an opinion on them.
Rajoy was swept to power with a large majority in November elections, having said "I have no plans to raise taxes."
Large anti-austerity protests also were planned in neighboring Portugal on Saturday.
The Madrid protest comes four days after another anti-government gathering in the northeastern city of Barcelona that attracted about 1.5 million demonstrators, according to police estimates.
"We've had our pay cut. We don't get the firefighting training and equipment we need. There are more students and fewer teachers in our children's classrooms, and health care is also being cut," firefighter Carlos Melgaves said, while marching in a group of about 50 firefighters. "We can't take it anymore."
Spain's economy minister, Luis de Guindos, said his government is aware it is asking citizens to make sacrifices.
They "are absolutely unavoidable if we are to correct the difficult economic climate we are experiencing," he said in Cyprus, where Europe's finance ministers were meeting Saturday. "We are laying the foundations for a recovery."
Rajoy has accepted a loan of up to €100 billion ($127billion) to help ailing banks reeling from a collapse of the country's real estate and construction industries. His government also has faced punishingly high interest rates while raising money on bond markets to keep the economy in liquidity.
The country is widely expected to ask to sell its bonds to the European Central Bank, but the conditions attached have been the subject of ongoing negotiations.
In Portugal, another package of recently announced government austerity measures could turn the nation's sullen acceptance of belt-tightening into an explosion of anger similar to that seen in Greece over the past two years.
More than 50,000 people said on Facebook they would attend a large protest in Lisbon and organizers called smaller demonstrations in 40 other Portuguese cities.
Last week, Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho announced an increase in workers' social security contributions to 18 percent of their monthly salary from 11 percent. The cut is equivalent to a net monthly wage.
Portuguese Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar said income taxes will go up next year and public employees will lose either their Christmas or vacation bonus, roughly equivalent to a month's income. Many pensioners will lose both.
Protester Magda Alves said the austerity measures being applied to overcome the eurozone financial crisis were not working.
"What is being done in Portugal now was done in Greece, it is being done in Spain, and was also applied in other countries on other continents," Alves said. "The result was always the same: disaster."
Spain is stuck in a double-dip recession with unemployment close to 25 percent. The conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has introduced stinging cuts and raised taxes in a bid to reduce the deficit and to reassure investors and officials from the 17-nation eurozone.
The marchers in Madrid unfurled banners with slogans such as "Let's go! They are ruining the country and we have to stop them."
"This government's policies are causing too much pain," union chief Ignacio Fernandez Toxo said. "It's a lie that there isn't another way to restore the economy."
The situation looks set to get worse in coming weeks. At a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Cyprus on Friday, Spain revealed it would present a new set of economic reforms by the end of the month. It's a move that raises expectations that Spain might soon ask for financial help.
The economic reform plan will be unveiled by Sept. 27. It is expected to be the launch-pad to Spain's tapping of a new European Central Bank bond-buying plan.
Just before Saturday's march began, buses transporting protesters blocked several major roads in the Spanish capital. The main organizers were Social Summit, an association of more than 150 organizations, and the Workers' Commissions and General Workers trade unions.
The Interior Ministry's regional office said it had expected more than 500,000 people to reach a central Madrid square, but later said 65,000 had attended to listen to speeches made by protest leaders.
Toxo called for a referendum on the government's austerity and bailout plans, saying the measures were so different from the ruling Popular Party's election pledges that Spaniards should have the right to express an opinion on them.
Rajoy was swept to power with a large majority in November elections, having said "I have no plans to raise taxes."
Large anti-austerity protests also were planned in neighboring Portugal on Saturday.
The Madrid protest comes four days after another anti-government gathering in the northeastern city of Barcelona that attracted about 1.5 million demonstrators, according to police estimates.
"We've had our pay cut. We don't get the firefighting training and equipment we need. There are more students and fewer teachers in our children's classrooms, and health care is also being cut," firefighter Carlos Melgaves said, while marching in a group of about 50 firefighters. "We can't take it anymore."
Spain's economy minister, Luis de Guindos, said his government is aware it is asking citizens to make sacrifices.
They "are absolutely unavoidable if we are to correct the difficult economic climate we are experiencing," he said in Cyprus, where Europe's finance ministers were meeting Saturday. "We are laying the foundations for a recovery."
Rajoy has accepted a loan of up to €100 billion ($127billion) to help ailing banks reeling from a collapse of the country's real estate and construction industries. His government also has faced punishingly high interest rates while raising money on bond markets to keep the economy in liquidity.
The country is widely expected to ask to sell its bonds to the European Central Bank, but the conditions attached have been the subject of ongoing negotiations.
In Portugal, another package of recently announced government austerity measures could turn the nation's sullen acceptance of belt-tightening into an explosion of anger similar to that seen in Greece over the past two years.
More than 50,000 people said on Facebook they would attend a large protest in Lisbon and organizers called smaller demonstrations in 40 other Portuguese cities.
Last week, Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho announced an increase in workers' social security contributions to 18 percent of their monthly salary from 11 percent. The cut is equivalent to a net monthly wage.
Portuguese Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar said income taxes will go up next year and public employees will lose either their Christmas or vacation bonus, roughly equivalent to a month's income. Many pensioners will lose both.
Protester Magda Alves said the austerity measures being applied to overcome the eurozone financial crisis were not working.
"What is being done in Portugal now was done in Greece, it is being done in Spain, and was also applied in other countries on other continents," Alves said. "The result was always the same: disaster."
If the sequestration occurs on Jan 2nd with the automatic budget cuts there will be a $543 million cut from food stamps. 46 million very poor people on food stamps now. If you want a revolution get people starving. Capitalism has failed again miserably worldwide. The endless boon and bust cycles caused by privatized currencies are all part of thye plan to concentrate wealth as much as possible to the few at the top. Its just the natural cycle of capitalism.
@Blindman
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Oh yes, I remember the former USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I remember how well shared success worked for them.  I remember how the average worker took home the equivalent of $30 a month, stood in bread lines waiting to buy what scarce goods were available. Families lived with as many as ten or twelve people crammed in to a dingy one bedroom Moscow apartment. Nobody owned a car. Meanwhile the political class lived in their dachas on the Volga river, sipped the finest imported French wines from their Waterford crystal goblets imported from England, drove their Mercedes Benz automobiles imported from Germany and ate the finest foreign cuisine, sushi imported from Japan, caviar from the Caspian Sea, the best the world has to offer. Yep, redistribution of wealth is great if your a Harry Reid, Barack Obama, or a Nancy Pelosi. Not so good if your a blindman.  Â
 @ByeByeBarry  @Blindman Yet we unlawfully push these global despots generationally. All of us, everywhere, all the time. Our appetites are no different than theirs generally other than degree.
 @Blindman "46 million very poor people on food stamps now."Â
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Very poor? Not all of them. You see 'em at the grocery store. Samsung S3 cell phones. Car with 22" rims. Two piles on the belt. One for EBT, the other full of beer and cigs.
 @Blindman State controlled economies have a far greater disparity of wealth between elites and non.  It's just the nature of Collectivism.
Gosh, if we only continue to do what we have been doing but do more of it, the economy will recover.
 @Sid Vishess Sounds like a good argument against more GOP economic policies of spend spend spend while cutting taxes for everyone.
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If you read this article, it immediately mentions how the conservative Spanish parliament has raised taxes.Â
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I think they are better at basic math than our conservatives.Â
 @caphillkid  @Sid Vishess These people are always conservative. Every wink is risk borne out of fear for that money, and screw the people, just like here.
 @caphillkid Raised taxes never nets the anticipated amount. Cutting taxes never produces the anticipated drop-off in revenue. I opposed Bush's spending increases and entitlement increases. Conservatives oppose spend and tax. Unfortunately, there exists a wing of the GOP that doesn't. We are still trying to weed them out, but it ain't gonna be easy. If Romney and/or the House and Senate can't get the job done in 4 years , he should be primaried out of a second term. And no, I don't have his poster on MY wall.
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Although thanks to QE3, Mr. I.N. Flation  will be busting down the front door instead of knocking on it. And we all know inflation hurts the lower and middle economic classes the most... don't we?Â
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Lotta red in that pic... although I can't make out the raised fist and the Che signs.
And dig the International Symbol for No Cuts. What a bunch of gatos locos!
Fiat currencies never work. History shows they are unsustainable.
Coming to amerika soon. As food prices start to soar through this winter people will start to get anxious. Austerity will be kicking in here after the 1st of the year. 47 million amerikans on food stamps is a lot of poor people. I only make $1000 a month in retirement income and even I don't qualify for food stamps. Shows you how poor these people really are and so many of them.
This is just another example of why the EU, as conceived, must fail. The economic bases of the union countries are too far apart for a single currency to function. Countries like Spain and Greece would likely not be in this situation if they were still on their own currencies. Those currencies floated freely (mostly) on a world market. Just like the US Dollar, in times of economic down turn, they were devalued. Foreign goods went up, but due to exchange rates, exports often went up. In that case, unemployment went down and the country recovered and prospered. Now I know there is much more to it than that. Given access to low interest, and a fixed currency, they spent like the proverbial âdrunken sailorâ. The answer is not to keep leading these countries deeper into debt in an attempt to keep them in a union they can never afford. Let them go. There are going to be defaults eventually, everyone needs to bite the bullet and cut their losses sooner than later. Those countries released will recover after a bit of pain, but they will never be anything but a drain on the more productive EU nations if they are kept in the union. One big problem is France. They are broke but wonât admit it. They are way too big to bail out, and their banks are so overleveraged that even just a Greek default could topple them. This is what could destroy the entire EU. This is why they keep digging the hole deeper. They just keep hoping a miracle will suddenly appear and the whole problem will miraculously disappear. You can not spend your way out of debt.                 Â
 @oldster70 Except that you can spend your way out of debt if you run a central bank, but Spain sure don't.
At least they aren't protesting us.Â
 @caphillkid Not yet.... It would seem many around the world are ready to jump off!
 @Funky-Munky  @caphillkid It might be funny to see the spinning Earth shed about 50,000 particular folks at that.