Greek Rioters Protest Government Austerity

Nicole Itano is assigned to cover the Greek long-brewing crisis for Bloomberg Television. For several days recently, the Bloomberg programming was switched toward coverage of the political, economic, and social upheavals in Greece. This morning Nicole Itano and the rest of her crew had to retreat to the safety of a building, eyes filled with tear gas, and ducking flying objects.

Groups of protestors are trying to break into the Parliament building. Bloomberg TV also cites a report from Agence France Press that 20 people are trapped inside a burning bank building, and that one person was killed.

The protests are a reaction to the Greek president's government employee wage and pension cuts, accompanied by tax increases. Could that happen here? Half of it could-the tax increases.

Unlike other protests, the 100,000 estimated group, is made up of more than the usual hard-core interests. The labor unions have encouraged wide participation and many people have turned up. Greek debt has caused the upheaval, and Prometheus is now having his eyes pecked out by angry social welfare beneficiaries. Larry Kudlow, of CNBC, suggested half-seriously that the Greeks might want to consider selling the Parthenon.

"After all," he said, "they have assets. Why not sell assets?"

Bloomberg Television, as with other Bloomberg business enterprise, was founded by New York City's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The appeal of Bloomberg News, for me, is that it is largely unadorned. Of course, my allegiances to television networks are fleeting. CNBC was my previous favorite, but now it seems the news is always unreasonably good.

The U.S. economy always seems to rebound, in spite of governmental efforts to stifle it, so I'm glad to hear news of a "recovery." There's no doubt, though, that most of the recovery has been within the businesses and institutions which were bailed out by the taxpayers. That's called "creating confidence in the economy." Also contributing to the "recovery" is that the Federal Reserve is giving money to financial institutions at near zero interest rates, and that money is then loaned to us at credit card interest rates. How can a financial institution not recover under those circumstances? The U.S. government pushes taxpayer money into corporations and stock prices go up, naturally. So what if unemployment is at 10 percent?

The trouble with television business news is that it can be influenced by government policy. Billionaire Warren Buffet, an Obama supporter heavily invested in Goldman-Sachs, is a CNBC favorite and frequently appears to tout favored business enterprises.

Buffett's most recent appearance on CNBC touted the favored business practices of Goldman Sachs. Buffett tried very hard to restore America's confidence in the Goldman Sachs stock price which has plummeted to billion dollar loss levels in the wake of congressional hearings. It's not only Buffett-most of the other heavy Wall Street players want to bolster confidence in the markets in order to lure small private investors back in.

We're doing much better than Greece. "Consumer confidence" is building. The congressional hearings on Goldman-Sachs were a great success in convincing real economists that Congress, the President, and most of his economic advisors know very little about the Wall Street economy, but that won't stop them from taking advantage of a political opportunity. So says an interesting commentary I read on the Bloomberg web site.

So what's a common schmuck to do? Take bad news for good news, I guess. Right now, the U.S. dollar, which would be weak right now under zero interest rate massive government spending conditions, has gained strength against the Euro.

Maybe it would be a good idea to go to Europe while the Greek crisis is pushing the Euro down and creating European panic. Yeah, that's what I should do. If it's still not closed due to the 3^rd general strike this year. Oh, but I'll probably have to travel by boat-- there's the problem with Greek airlines. The air traffic controllers have walked off the job in protest against the pay cuts. Who needs them, anyway? Small matter, not as bad as the teargas and the shops being shuttered due to the general strike.

Aside from the 100,000 protestors, I'd have Athens all to myself.