Quoted Text

Greek austerity measures linked to increased suicides
New study raises concerns over health impacts of sudden public spending cuts
By Amar Toor  on February 2, 2015 06:30 pm  Email @amartoo
57

Suicides in Greece rose sharply and remained high after the introduction of recent cost-cutting austerity measures, according to a study released today. The findings, based on reported suicides over a 30-year period, add to growing concerns about the immediate health impacts of major public spending cuts passed across Europe following the global financial crisis.

The study, published in the BMJ Open, examines trends in monthly suicides in Greece from 1983 to 2012. Its authors monitored monthly suicide totals changed following 12 pre-selected economic events: eight austerity-related and four prosperity-related. In October 2008, as Greece entered a recession, suicides among men spiked by 13 percent and maintained a higher average in the months that followed, the study reports. In June 2011, when a new round of austerity measures was met with protests and strikes, suicides among both men and women increased by 36 percent, and they remained high.

"IT MIGHT BE THE ECONOMIC POLICIES THEMSELVES THAT ARE DRIVING IT, BUT ALSO THE PUBLIC MESSAGING."

Suicide rates in Greece and much of southern Europe have historically been low compared to other developed countries. But a 2011 study found that rates have increased across Europe following the financial crisis, especially in debt-saddled Greece. In 2010, the Greek government began rolling out a series of controversial measures that would raise taxes and cut billions in public spending, sparking widespread protests and general strikes. The cost-cutting also left its public healthcare system under considerable strain, prompting closer studies of its health-related impacts. A 2014 study found a direct link between spending cuts and increased suicide rates among Greek men, while a 2013 paper found a similar connection in Spain following the financial crisis. Others have expressed more skepticism about the relationship between Greece’s economic crisis and elevated suicides. The study released today is the first to link monthly suicide data over multiple decades to specific austerity-related events, though its authors are quick to note that their findings shouldn’t be interpreted as a policy critique.

"We are not economists or finance ministers or bankers, so we don’t have any comment about the actual austerity measures and what’s in them and how they’re constructed," says Charles Branas, an epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania and lead author of the study. "However… I think perhaps policy makers can understand there are potentially negative public health impacts that follow austerity measures like this — perhaps very soon after austerity measures. It might be the economic policies themselves that are driving it, but also the public messaging of the policies."

Education and prevention are critical, though the media may have a role to play as well, Branas says. According to his analysis, male suicides briefly jumped by 30 percent after a Greek pensioner publicly committed suicide in April 2012. The event received widespread coverage and, as the study notes, was reported in ways that could promote copycats: details of the man’s life, his method of suicide, and quotes from a note he left behind. Interestingly, one prosperity-related event — the adoption of the euro currency in January 2002 — preceded a sharp but temporary 27 percent decrease in male suicides.

"WE CANNOT CLOSE OUR EYES TO WHAT IS OBVIOUS."

Branas stresses that his study examines only the short-term impact of austerity-related events on suicides and that it excludes data on attempted suicides. The authors controlled for changes in population, demographics, unemployment, and other variables, though they acknowledge that the difficulty in isolating the impact of a single event. The pensioner’s public suicide, for example, happened during the same month as the announcement of national elections, heightening political and economic tensions.

Thomas Hyphantis, a psychiatry professor at Greece’s University of Ioannina, who was not involved in the study, says Branas’ work "confirms without doubt" that the Greek crisis has had a detrimental impact on suicides.

"It is true that not all suicides are due to the financial crisis and austerity measures, and this should be seriously taken into account, especially by the media when presenting individual suicides or suicide rates," Hyphantis said in an email. "However, it is also true that not all suicides have their origins in the individual’s biological or psychological background, and the research at hand has established the link between suicide rates and austerity measures taken in Greece. We cannot therefore push this message ‘under the pillow’; we cannot close our eyes to what is obvious."

Others raise doubts that the announcement of austerity measures would have such an immediate impact on suicide rates. "Of course, suicide is not an option that [somebody] takes in a couple of days or months," says Nikolaos Antonakakis, an economics professor at Vienna University for Economics and Business, who was not involved with the study. Antonakakis, who co-authored the 2014 study linking spending cuts to increased male suicides, adds that the model used in today’s study could be extended to examine longer periods before and after austerity measures are announced. This, he says, would give a better sense of the mechanisms through which the policies may lead to increased suicide rates. "If they’re applied immediately, and lead to immediate pension cuts, then of course the effect on suicide will be more immediate," he says. "But it also takes some time" for their full economic effect to be felt.

Experts agree that Greece’s suicide trends are worrisome, and its economic outlook remains grim. But its politics have suddenly changed. Last month, the left-wing Syriza party swept into power. Their first order of action: rolling back austerity.

Quoted Text

Greek Debt is Solvable Without Either Austerity or Socialism
February 9, 2015     Posted by Staff under Inequality / Concentration     



Greece: The Dangerous Game

A majority of voters in Greece, a eurozone country, elected Syriza which had declared that the bailout conditions — authored in Brussels and Berlin — had broken the Greek economy and caused a humanitarian crisis.

New Prime Minister Tsipras notes that Greece’s debt levels at 175% of GDP are unsustainable. Already the new finance minister has stopped the privatisation of two ports and is moving to increase the minimum wage and rehire some public sector workers.

The German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says: “Elections change nothing. There are rules”.

There has already been voluntary debt forgiveness by private creditors, banks have already slashed billions from Greece’s debts.

Angela Merkel and other leaders will be fearful that if they further help Athens, other eurozone countries will come looking for help with their debt or their austerity programs.

See source

Euro Bankers Kick Syriza in the Face

The European Central Bank (ECB) announced that it would no longer accept Greek government bonds and government-guaranteed debt as collateral. The immediate effect of the announcement was to raise Greek borrowing costs and squeeze its banks, and to increase financial market instability within Greece.

It looks very much like a deliberate attempt to undermine the new socialist government. They are trying to force the government to abandon its promises to the Greek electorate, and to follow the IMF program that its predecessors signed on to.

Previously the ECB sought to cut spending on health care, pensions, and unemployment compensation, and change labor laws that favored workers, in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Ireland.

See source

Syriza Will Help the Real Estate Cycle Keep Turning

Syriza says it’s going to remove all those cartels and Greek oligarchies. Hmm …

Here is the real reason why Syriza won the election — something few others ever focus on. The prior conservative Greek government, on the advice of the IMF, pushed through a property tax — a small, minor even, tax on land. Greece didn’t have one previously.

Greek taxpayers have traditionally invested in property as a hedge against the country’s high inflation rates. According to local bankers, about 80 per cent of Greek residents own at least one property, even if they live in rented accommodation.

Syriza promised to get rid of the tax, should they be elected. The Greeks voted for them in droves.

The tax will go, the attitude to property speculation remain, a debt compromise will be reached. and Syriza will end up a one term government. Prices will of course spike once the tax is removed. And those that buy may eventually join the existing Greek property oligarchy and cartel.

In my view, if you borrow money, you have to pay it back. Full stop, end of argument.

See source

Ed. Notes: The left claims the powers-that-be demand austerity because they’re greedy. The right claims that the weak nations over-borrow because they’re lazy and wasteful. Even if one or the other or both are right, they miss the big picture.

Why should any government have to run a constantly growing debt? Why should bureaucracies constantly grow? Why should wages rise instead of prices fall? Why should the workweek never shrink? And why do some people think money is so important but not the things that money stands for — such as products and never-produced land?

If only political people could think outside the box, like scientists do when they make phenomenal discoveries. They’d see that every society spends an immense amount of money on land (location). Presently, people pay for land to owners, sellers, and lenders. That is the basic error. People need to pay their community — land dues in, “rent” shares back out.

Once adopting this geonomic policy, society could replace inefficient government spending with the Citizens’ Dividends, and replace counterproductive taxes with land dues (including emission fees, airwaves fees, etc).

Even small applications of geonomics have worked well, well enough to tell us that problems like the Greek debt are exaggerated and solvable with enlightened leadership.