An estimated 15-20,000 outside the presidential palace right now, amazing considering it's a Friday evening after work. I haven't gone, it's been a hard week at work, but my other half and all my neighbours are there. All's calm at the moment, but the first smoke-bomb and flares have been lit (not thrown).

It's starting to really heat up now, incredible numbers and range of people at the demo. On the one hand, there's a religious choir singing near the front line, next to them are seriously drunk and up for a ruck Radio Television Portugal workers looking ready to kick-off at any second, throwing fireworks and smoke bombs at the police.

Radical things are really happening here, common people are angry, very different to anything I've seen in a demonstration.

TV has just shown a clip of the "important" people at the meeting with the president. Just seeing their faces infuriates me, utter thieves like Madeiran president Alberto João Jardim are permitted to sit on that table. Old, out of touch twats like Manuel Alegre sitting alongside them.

Seriously, wipe the slate clean of these c*nts and maybe Portugal can move on.

Is Portugal a bit of a gerontocracy, like Italy? I;ve always had the impression that political leadership there was more like Spain - a little bit younger and more with-it. Am I wrong?

Prime-ministers have been getting younger, lots of left politicians are very young. But the strings of power are pulled by people of retirement age. Of the people at the state meeting tonight, I'd estimate 90% are over 65.

People have different motivations, but what generally do they want to happen next? For the old guard to fuck off? Or more radical changes to policy?

Tubby Isaacs wrote:


Nobody really knows for sure, but doing these four things, in this order, would be agreed by most Portuguese:

1. Halt the 7% increase in social security payments and the 5% cut for businesses.
2. Remove the current government.
3. Try to build on the growing popular opinion that the three major parties who have shared the majority of power since the revolution have failed the country. They are all corrupt, serving their own business interests rather than the people.
4. Remove the current President.

I think points 1 and 2 would placate public opinion, but 3 and 4 are absolutely necessary.

The current government are quite new, aren't they? The business tax cut seems very provocative, and not conducive to balancing budgets, but I thought they were generally more competent than previous ones.

There's not a Berlusconi type waiting to jump in with a new party, is there?

Point one has been conceded, now, hasn't it? Great start.

I assume the employers NI cut won't go ahead now.

Any other options?

TonTon wrote:


Yes it has, I should have update this thread sooner but I'm incredibly busy at the moment.

So, a rare victory for peaceful demonstration and the movement of the people. The demo on Saturday was probably the most effective I've been on and a day I'll never forget. Even if the actual march itself was boring and aimless, it shows that the people still have the power to change things, something I thought wasn't possible after the "Stop the War" marches.

It looks like a 1% property tax will be introduced on houses over €1m in value. There will also be a 0.5% tax on business transactions if the unions get their way.

So, it looks like things are getting seriously out of control on the streets of Madrid right now.

Another big demo on Saturday in Lisbon. This one is being organised by the unions and supported and attended by the armed forces and police.

This is fucking scary

Jesus.

Then again, it's long been thought that Golden Dawn includes a significant number of police.

Hollande's 75% tax happened.

1 year only? Looked like fairly progressive austerity overall.

I am truly Shocked And Amazed that austerity in Europe appears not to be working, and is provoking street unrest in loads of cities.

Who, truly, can honestly say they could have predicted this?

E10, what is it, exactly, that you think "working" means to the people who have implemented these policies?

It's only in the UK where policymakers ever tried to sell the notion of austerity as a route to growth. There, it's clearly been a failure. Everywhere else, it's been an alternative to bankruptcy, where the consequences would have been significantly worse. And as no one has yet gone into bankruptcy, it's not self-evidently a failure. Painful, certainly. Could have been implemented more fairly - I don't know all the details in all the countries, but I would assume so. But "not working"? That's a higher bar.

I think when Ireland did its dead cat bounce, there was a fair bit of "austerity to growth" talk about. But there certainly shouldn't have been. Nonetheless, having had a 32% deficit in 2010, 12% or so this year is "working" in some sense.

There's far less choice in the PIGS than Britain about austerity. No-one wants to lend them money for a good reason. That's not at all the case with Britain.

Any news from Portugal? It sounded like a reasonable idea to try and cut employers' NI if they could find somewhere more reasonable to tax more. I guess they've taxed most of the obvious stuff already.

Anton Gramski wrote:


Funnily enough, here's "Spain cutting back for growth tmrw"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19740951

Are these stress tests on banks credible? 60bn doesn't sound too bad. Maybe that's just because they softened my up by saying 100bn before.