BBC:

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is expected to offer his resignation within the next half-hour, sources in Athens have told the BBC.

Mr Papandreou will meet Greek President Karolos Papoulios immediately after an emergency cabinet meeting has finished. He is expected to offer a coalition government, with former Greek central banker Lucas Papademos at the helm.

Mr Papandreou himself would stand down, the BBC understands.

The Greek government was on the verge of collapse after several ministers said they did not support Mr Papandreou's plan for a referendum on the EU bailout.

The bailout would give the heavily indebted Greek government 130bn euros and a 50% write-off of its debts, in return for deeply unpopular austerity measures.

Mr Papandreou had called a vote of confidence for Friday.

However, he was faced with a parliamentary revolt after several of his MPs withheld their backing. Some called for early elections or a government of national unity instead.

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"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

So on one had it could be said he was taking the easy way out.

On the other he was offering direct democracy on a critical, long term issue to his people.

Better shut him up.

Putting a banker in charge of the government was a nice touch too.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

Originally Posted by AnonymousIdiotSavant

So on one had it could be said he was taking the easy way out. On the other he was offering direct democracy on a critical, long term issue to his people. Better shut him up.

Not quite. I think Merkel and Sarko have it right. If you want a referendum, the question ought to be whether you want to stay in the Euro, possibly Europe and nothing else.

Either the Greeks stays in and submit or they get out. And try to make their way into the wide world on their own. Iceland survived that choice pretty well. I doubt Greece would be so lucky but whatever. People's choice.

One thing you cannot have is people rioting against the rescue plan and 7 out 10 Greeks saying they want to stay in the Eurozone. Fuck that. What else do you want? Carla Bruni Sarkozy performing oral sex on every Greek sailor? Not.Going.To.Happen.

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Unless otherwise specified, I am posting as a regular poster. When I will act as a mod, I'll make sure you're in no doubt.

I understand that sentiment, but I think its sort of Crocodile Tears because clearly nobody wants to push Greece out of the Euro Zone and live with those consequences.

So instead Merkel lords over the world stage despite the fact that German bankers are just as much to blame as Greek politicians for this particular mess... with the Greeks taking 90% of the flack in the global media.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

Oh don't get me wrong - If the Greek leave, it is going to cost a pretty penny to the French and Germans as they will instantly have to recapitalise their banks.

But, personally, I want that to happen. The package negotiated was less than half baked anyhow, a band aid to calm things down.

If the Greek leave and we have to recapitalise EU banks by force, all to the good, I say. Then the fight will be how much equity and bond value do we destroy? My personal preference would be to wipe out equity holders and impose some kind of small haircuts on bonds, by order of seniority - but complicated by entry price.

I am not sure this was ever done. But my point is that if you bought French/German bank bonds post 2010, you did so on the gamble that the EU would make you whole, not because you thought those are credit worthy institutions. I think such gamblers should lose their money in part or wholly.

If you had some exposure since donkey years then I'd be more careful. Wiping out people's supposedly safe savings didn't end up well in the Lehman's case.

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Unless otherwise specified, I am posting as a regular poster. When I will act as a mod, I'll make sure you're in no doubt.

Greek TV apparently reporting G-Pap will NOT resign.
Speech to be given later in the evening.

Fun Fun Fun

F

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

You got to be joking??!!!

-------------------------------------------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/wo...r=1&ref=greece

Greek Leader Calls Off Referendum on Bailout Plan

Yiorgos Karahalis/Reuters
By RACHEL DONADIO and NIKI KITSANTONIS
Published: November 3, 2011

ATHENS — After a tumultuous day of political gamesmanship, Prime Minister George Papandreou called off his plan to hold a referendum on Greece’s new loan deal with the European Union, withdrew his previous offers to resign and opened talks on a unity government with his conservative opponents.

In an address to his party’s central committee on Thursday evening, he said there was no need for a referendum now that the opposition New Democracy party had said it would back the debt deal. He invited that party to become “co-negotiators” on the new deal.

“The question was never about the referendum but about whether or not we are prepared to approve the decisions on Oct. 26,” he said, referring to the European Union debt deal. “What is at stake is our position in the E.U.”

Shortly afterward, the finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, confirmed the cancellation of the referendum and added that the government will now seek approval of the loan deal from a full majority of 180 in Parliament, rather than the simple majority of 151 that has supported previous measures.

The developments reestablished a tentative stability in Greece that still could be dashed in a stroke. Mr. Papandreou must sweat out a vote of confidence on Friday whose outcome is far from assured. If he survives that, he and the opposition leader, Antonis Samaras, will have to negotiate their conflicting visions for the future. Mr. Samaras would like to see a transitional government of technocrats leading to early elections, perhaps in two months, while the prime minister prefers a coalition government that would rule for at least six months.

The decision to drop the referendum came after Mr. Samaras, switched course and decided to back the loan deal, which would involve a 50 percent write-down of Greece’s debt. Earlier, Mr. Samaras had been content to sit on the sidelines and scoring political points by opposing the deal and previous bailouts.

Speculation had been rife all day Thursday that Mr. Papandreou would abandon the referendum plan if the opposition would back the European deal. Before going into a brief emergency cabinet meeting, Mr. Papandreou suggested that he was prepared to walk away from the referendum proposal, saying that it “would not have been necessary if there had been consensus with the opposition.”

At first, Mr. Papandreou was said to have offered to resign before a confidence vote scheduled for Friday. By late afternoon, however, Greek news media reported during the cabinet meeting that he not only was refusing to resign but was in fact calling off the referendum plan. He only did so later in the day.

Mr. Papandreou had said the referendum was aimed at broadening consensus, which meant forcing the opposition to back the loan deal. Analysts said that he may have been happy to drop the idea once that goal was accomplished on Thursday.

After the cabinet meeting ended, Mr. Papandreou spoke with Mr. Samaras by phone.

Even if he survives the coming hours or days in office, the prime minister is widely seen as having expended nearly all his political capital. Ever since Greece asked for a bailout from the European Union in April 2010, he has struggled to satisfy seemingly irreconcilable constituencies: the Greek electorate and Greece’s foreign lenders, who have insisted on tough austerity measures in exchange for aid, pushing Greek democracy to the breaking point.

Mr. Papandreou had stood by his referendum plan when he met with European leaders in Cannes, France, on Wednesday, where they were gathering for the Group of 20 summit. The referendum announcement on Monday angered European leaders and threw the entire debt deal into chaos, causing turbulence in world markets.

Divisions within Mr. Papandreou’s government flared into the open on Thursday when the finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, and his deputy broke ranks with the prime minister to oppose a referendum, saying it could jeopardize Greek membership in the single currency euro zone.

Faced with the growing insurrection among his own ministers, who only a day earlier appeared to have rallied around the referendum plan, Mr. Papandreou called the urgent cabinet meeting on Thursday afternoon.

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Unless otherwise specified, I am posting as a regular poster. When I will act as a mod, I'll make sure you're in no doubt.

I liked how the markets bounced at the news that there wouldn't be a referendum. Sure, everyone's in favour of the right of the Greek people to decide and thinks that the EU's reaction is totally misjudged, right up until the moment that it's their pension that stands to gain or lose a few quid.

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Step 1: pour oil on troubled waters
Step 2: set fire to it

Ordinary Greeks are taking matters into their own hands

Grassroots refusal to put up with austerity is quickly gaining momentum, as people give up on mainstream politics


Hara Kouki and Antonis Vradis
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 November 2011 15.08 GMT

In early October, a peculiar news item barely made its way into the back pages of Greek national press: in the northern city of Veria, a small group of people had started reconnecting the electricity supply of households disconnected from the national grid due to bill non-payment. This kind of solidarity action seemed rather abnormal.

Then again, it is difficult to define what constitutes normality in the country nowadays – the upper echelon of political power is in an unprecedented turmoil, and Tuesday's referendum announcement by prime minister George Papandreou, followed by him reportedly preparing to step down, has thrown his political allies and foes into a tailspin. Parliamentary opposition parties are calling for a "national unity" government, snap elections, or a succession of the two; the entire mainstream political spectrum in the country seems to have entered a delirious state of panic. In a stunningly surreal scene, eurozone leaders and global markets are nervously waiting for people in Greece to cast a vote.

And yet, at this precise moment, Greek people are realising they are left with what they had at the outset – that is, absolutely nothing to hope for from the mainstream political scene.

Take Yannis, a 43 year-old man working in a bank in Athens, who doesn't want to return home because it is going to be cold again. The heating will be off, as nobody in the block can afford the heating prices. His 16-year old daughter, Sophia, does not want to go to school, as she finds little meaning in preparing for her exams: why would she want to enter university knowing full well she will never find a job in Greece, anyway? Or take Eleftheria's father, a 72-year old pensioner leaving in the village of Kymi, who called her today while she was returning home and hesitantly asked her for money to buy his medicine that the state fund no longer covers for. His pension was recently cut by 50%. "But, please," he pleaded, "do not tell your mother." Back in the city, Eleftheria's streets are lined with garbage which has been lying there for more than three weeks.

Thousands of workers are to be put on reduced pay schemes across the country and hundreds are being fired on a daily basis. The government has raised already existing taxes and introduced a variety of new ones across the board, while slashing salaries and pensions in both the public and private sector. Official unemployment rose by more than 35% year-to-year and now stands at just under 20%; homelessness is on an enormous increase across the country, while tax on food consumption has shot up from 13 to 23%. At the same time, public transport is being dismantled and hospitals across the country barely function. For the first time, there were no books to be distributed in public schools and universities are in utter disarray. The "bloated" public sector has been portrayed as responsible for all the misery the country has to endure. At the same time, social services have been intentionally abandoned, making it easier for enraged citizens to accept the privatisation of the public sector in return.

People here feel the country is gradually sinking, carrying them down a path dug in arbitrariness and injustice. Yet at this very moment – when it is not only the rules of the game that are challenged but the game itself – they seem to feel empowered to act in ways that would not have appeared feasible in the past: they physically attack politicians, mock and cancel military-inspired national public parades and humiliate army officials attending them, participate in neighbourhood assemblies and mass demonstrations (irrespective of the amount of tear gas thrown against them by the police), create grassroots trade unions to demand their labour rights, occupy workplaces, disrupt public services and protest in violent, impulsive, unpredictable ways.

In these peculiar times, when there is nothing to lose for so many, everything becomes possible. In the northern Athens suburb of Nea Ionia, the municipality is now actively calling for locals to shun the new tax, offering instructions to avoid its payment on its official website and promising legal support and even volunteers to reconnect potentially disconnected supplies. Grassroots refusal to put up with austerity is quickly gaining momentum, regardless of everyday politics of fear and emergency, or never-ending market crashes. In return, the realisation is sinking in that a possibility for tangible change only lies in people changing their understandings, their habits, the ways in which they do politics: while asked to cast a vote, Greek society sees a major role recast.

Ordinary Greeks are taking matters into their own hands | Hara Kouki and Antonis Vradis | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk