Word: civilities
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...prices for the best seats over a race weekend to an average of $722, a rise of 50% from three years ago. Average three-day attendance fell from 187,724 in 2008 to 161, 613 in 2009. "In Bahrain, all you could see in the stands were a few civil servants," says one attendee. (See a brief history of Formula...
Greece ground to a halt as workers went on a 24-hour nationwide strike and tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest civil-service pay cuts and higher taxes in the biggest and angriest demonstrations so far against the austerity measures. Although most of the protesters were peaceful - and even included in their ranks uniformed police officers and firefighters - groups of masked and hooded youths waged running street battles with riot police, smashing the windows of banks and luxury stores and hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails. The police responded by covering central Athens with a haze...
Papandreou had tried to avoid provoking Greece's powerful unions and initially resisted making cuts to civil servants' base pay. But after the initial round of austerity measures, announced in December, failed to convince international markets and the country's European partners that Greece could rein in its ballooning deficit on its own, Papandreou's administration was forced to tack on a second, harsher round of measures. The $6.5 billion package includes cuts in civil servants' salaries, a freeze on pensions and a host of tax increases, including a 2% bump in the value-added...
...public mood promises to sour even further. Most of the austerity measures haven't even been implemented yet. The VAT increase goes into effect on March 15, and civil servants will see their upcoming Easter bonuses - equal to half a month's salary - slashed by 30%. Greeks are already feeling the pinch of the economic downturn, and many fear the measures will only deepen their pain. The government's official prediction is that the economy will shrink by 0.3% this year and then begin to recover. But many Greeks and economists think those expectations are overly optimistic...
While European Union officials have praised Greece's most recent round of austerity measures, many Greeks have been critical - and not just the protesters. Konstantinos Michalos, president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce, which represents more than 100,000 businesses, says the across-the-board salary cuts for civil servants would disproportionately hurt the poorest and lead to a decline in consumer spending. "The austerity package was necessary, but it's in the wrong direction," he says. "When the actual measures take effect, I think we will have even more demonstrations...