This should be fun when it gets to the U.S....
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/general_strikes_over_austerity_cripple_europe.html
Some warm ups for our own Austerity games...
http://pjmedia.com/blog/3-windows-into-obamas-dangerous-second-term/
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/13/1-6-Trillion-Obama-Doesnt-Want-a-Deal
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/general_strikes_over_austerity_cripple_europe.html
Billed as a "European Day of Action and Solidarity," millions of workers across the continent went on strike to protest austerity measures forced on governments as the result of years of overspending.
Reuters:Hundreds of flights were cancelled, car factories and ports were at a standstill and trains barely ran in Spain and Portugal where unions held their first ever coordinated general strike.
Riot police arrested at least two protesters in Madrid and hit others with batons, witnesses said, and in Rome students pelted police with rocks in a protest over money-saving plans for the school system.
International rail services were disrupted by strikes in Belgium and workers in Greece, Italy and France planned work stoppages or demonstrations as part of a "European Day of Action and Solidarity".
"We're on strike to stop these suicidal policies," said Candido Mendez, head of Spain's second-biggest labor federation, the General Workers' Union, or UGT.
More than 60 people were arrested in Spain and 34 injured, 18 of them security officials after scuffles at picket lines and damage to storefronts.
Protesters jammed cash machines with glue and coins and plastered anti-government stickers on shop windows. Power consumption dropped 16 percent with factories idled.
International lenders and some economists say the programs of tax hikes and spending cuts are necessary for putting public finances back on a healthy track after years of overspending.
While several southern European countries have seen bursts of violence, a coordinated and effective regional protest to the austerity has yet to gain traction and governments have so far largely stuck to their policies.
Spain, where the crisis has pushed millions into poverty, has seen some of the biggest protests. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is trying to put off asking for European aid that could require even more budget cuts.
Some warm ups for our own Austerity games...
http://pjmedia.com/blog/3-windows-into-obamas-dangerous-second-term/
Dependency. Blogger Matt Trivisonno first noticed a delay in the release of the USDA’s monthly food stamp enrollment report, which usually occurs near the end of each month, in early October. When it was data-dumped late in the afternoon on Friday, October 5, two days after the first presidential debate (imagine that), it showed that July enrollment had edged up to a then-all-time record.
What should have come out in late October didn’t arrive until November 9, yet another Friday afternoon, three convenient days after the election. It’s now clear that Team Obama deliberately sat on it, as its contents would certainly have become a final-days election issue had they been known. August enrollment exploded by over 400,000 to a record-shattering 47.1 million.
Revised data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that the economy added 192,000 jobs during that same month. Though that level of monthly job growth, symptomatic of the worst economic recovery since World War II, is still unacceptable, the food stamp rolls should be declining, and they’re not.
TEnergy. In news naturally ignored by the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and virtually everyone else in the establishment media, The Hill reported late last week that the Interior Department “issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West (i.e., 2,500 square miles) originally slated for oil shale development.”
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the Environmental Protection Agency plan to spend the next four years using largely phony environmental concerns to prevent the country from seeing affordable energy costs and from achieving long-term net energy independence.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/13/1-6-Trillion-Obama-Doesnt-Want-a-Deal
$1.6 trillion in new tax revenues, reached by raising tax rates on the wealthy in addition to other "tax revenues." The offer is twice as high as a deal Obama scuttled last year, suggesting he may be prepared to let talks fail again.
Let the games begin...But knowing that Boehner cannot accept tax hikes and remain in charge of the House, $1.6 trillion seems less like a serious opening gambit and more like the highest possible demand that would be guaranteed to prevent a deal without seeming entirely unreasonable. Obama may prefer to go over the fiscal cliff, which would raise taxes by default and cut defense spending and entitlements with both parties sharing the blame. That's what $1.6 trillion buys today.