The Troika is still hard at work breeding extremism via barmy wish-lists and unpayable taxes

Like some State-sponsored IVF treatment for enabling the birth of hard Left and Right Parties, the Troika continues its triumphant tour through the ClubMed region.

I pointed out last week how the Greek neo-nazi Party Golden Dawn has gone from under 0.3% of the vote to being bigger than Pasok. Yesterday it was the Greek Communist Party’s turn to express their admiration for the neocon hit-squad

Waving the standard banners and anti-austerity slogans,  Greek Communist Party (KKE) trade unionists took over the Labour Ministry’s facade in Athens, effectively locking the Troika out from a meeting between Yiannis Vroutsis and the Troika scheduled for 1:00 p.m.

But the conference did eventually take place, and this is what emerged as the Troikanaut wish-list:

•  possible rise in the retirement age from 65 to 67 years old.
• a decreased notice time for lay-off from 6 down to 3 months
• reduction in lay-off compensation by 50%
• deecreasing employers’ contributions to social security funds/increasing those of employees
• Increase of working week from 5 to 6
• Lowering the already lowered minimum wage again from 586 to 500 euro.

A similar shooting-script is under discussion in Portugal, from where two separate emails came to The Slog’s attention yesterday:

“Did you hear about the latest austerity measures in Portugal? Workers who now pay 11% of their income for Social Security will have to pay 18%. that’s over 63% more…if this measure is approved, my wage will go back to the values of 10 years ago. I will not be able to meet my financial commitments”.

and

“For those who work for others (the ones that can’t flee with their money off-shores) an increase from 11 to 18 percent in the contribution to social security; for corporations a decrease from 23.75 to 18 percent in the same contribution. What was the “motive” for these measures? To tackle  unemployment! What crap! All companies will do with this money is take it into their bank accounts!”