03-04-2010, 01:16 AM
In his introductory remarks as chair for the PIIGS financial crisis
panel discussion at the Left Forum, Doug Henwood confessed to a certain
schadenfreude over Latvia's misery in light of the country's rabid
anti-Communism in the 1980s. Here's more grist for that mill:
NY Times April 1, 2010
From Lithuania, a View of Austerity?s Costs
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
VILNIUS, Lithuania ? If leaders of the world?s many indebted countries
want to see what austerity looks like, they might want to visit this
Baltic nation of 3.3 million.
Faced with rising deficits that threatened to bankrupt the country,
Lithuania cut public spending by 30 percent ? including slashing public
sector wages 20 to 30 percent and reducing pensions by as much as 11
percent. Even the prime minister, Andrius Kubilius, took a pay cut of 45
percent.
And the government didn?t stop there. It raised taxes on a wide variety
of goods, like pharmaceutical products and alcohol. Corporate taxes rose
to 20 percent, from 15 percent. The value-added tax rose to 21 percent,
from 18 percent.
The net effect on this country?s finances was a savings equal to 9
percent of gross domestic product, the second-largest fiscal adjustment
in a developed economy, after Latvia?s, since the credit crisis began.
But austerity has exacted its own price, in social and personal pain.
Pensioners, their benefits cut, swamped soup kitchens. Unemployment
jumped to a high of 14 percent, from single digits ? and an already
wobbly economy shrank 15 percent last year.
Remarkably, for the most part, the austerity was imposed with the
grudging support of Lithuania?s trade unions and opposition parties, and
has yet to elicit the kind of protest expressed by the regular,
widespread street demonstrations and strikes seen in Greece, Spain and
Britain.
To be sure, Mr. Kubilius has many critics here and abroad. Government
austerity in the midst of a recession runs counter to the Keynesian
approach of increasing public expenditures to fight a downturn. That was
the path most countries chose.
But Mr. Kubilius and his team say that with a budget deficit of 9
percent of G.D.P., a currency fixed to the euro and international bond
markets unwilling to lend to Lithuania, the government had no choice but
to show the world it could impose its own internal devaluation by
cutting public spending, restoring competitiveness and reclaiming the
good will of the bond markets.
Another motivation was to conform to the rules of membership for the
euro currency union, which Lithuania hopes to join by 2014.
Indeed, outside of Ireland, no country in Europe has come close to
replicating Lithuania?s severe spending cuts without the aid of the
International Monetary Fund. Ireland passed the most austere budget in
the country?s history, and public sector pay cuts were a centerpiece of
the government?s reform effort.
The Finance Ministry has forecast growth of 1.5 percent this year, and
this week Moody?s increased its outlook on the Lithuanian economy to
stable, from negative.
?From a credit rating perspective, Lithuania has put itself on positive
trajectory,? said Kenneth Orchard, a senior credit officer in Moody?s
sovereign risk group.
As European nations consider what the social and political costs will be
when they take steps to cut public sector spending, Lithuania offers a
real-time case study of the societal trade-offs.
Speed and communication are the most crucial to success, Mr. Kubilius
said in an interview in his office last week.
?You have to have a dialogue with your social partners, and you have to
do the most difficult cuts as quickly as possible,? he said. ?I told
them this is history. You need to decide now how you want to be
described in our history books.?
Like Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania rode a boom driven by banking and
real estate earlier this decade.
Construction came to dominate the economy, and low interest rates
spurred a housing boom. Many Lithuanians took out low-interest-rate
mortgages denominated in foreign currencies.
With the onset of the crisis, house prices plunged, building ground to a
halt and quite suddenly thousands lost their jobs and began to default
on their debts.
While the quaint cobblestone streets of Vilnius may project an air of
prosperity, one does not need to travel far to witness the pain many
Lithuanians are feeling.
Monika Midveryte, a university student, and her mother are now
supporting the family after her father lost his construction job. Now,
she said, he sits at home in front of the television drinking his
troubles away. ?He has no hope.?
The psychological toll has been immense. Suicides have increased in a
country where the suicide rate of 35 per 100,000 is already one of the
world?s highest, local experts say.
According to figures collected by the Youth Psychological Aid Center,
telephone calls to its hot line from people who said they were on the
verge of committing suicide nearly doubled last year to 1,400, from 750.
As the president of Solidarumas, one of Lithuania?s largest trade
unions, Aldona Jasinskiene has an acute understanding of how bad things
are ? not just as the head of her union, but as a mother.
For more than a year, her salary has paid the 2,300 litas, about $900,
in monthly mortgage payments for her 40-year-old son, who lost his
construction job. Ms. Jasinskiene says his mental health is suffering,
he is fighting with his wife and his family of four dines on potatoes
three times a day.
Now, with her own pension having been slashed, she is left with just 300
litas a month to support herself and her 15-year-old granddaughter.
Ms. Jasinskiene said she signed the agreement with the government
because unions, which are extremely weak in Lithuania, were not capable
of calling the type of general strike well known in other parts of
Europe, and because she wanted to do what she could to prevent even
deeper cuts.
While Mr. Kubilius points to positive signs like renewed growth, busy
cafes in Vilnius and upgrades by the credit agencies, from her vantage
point, Ms. Jasinskiene sees no upturn.
?He is telling you a fairy tale,? she said. ?Unemployment is going up
and up.?
Algirdas Malakauskis, a priest at St. Francis and St. Bernardine Friary,
has also experienced the recession?s toll firsthand.
He has had to preside over an increasing number of funerals for people
who have taken their own lives. Parishioners now come to him seeking
work, and his elderly parents, whose pensions have been cut, are angry.
Like a surprising number of people here, however, he has not turned on
the government. ?You can see they are doing everything that they can to
keep the situation stable,? he said.
Still, the tough measures have drawn criticism outside Lithuania.
?The internal devaluation strategy may have succeeded in delivering
short-term stabilization, but at what cost?? asked Charles Woolfson, a
professor of labor studies at the University of Glasgow who has
expertise in the Baltics.
Professor Woolfson points out that deepening social alienation in
Lithuania has resulted in the sharpest rise in emigration since the
country joined the European Union in 2004.
?Then it was the migration of the hopeful,? he said. ?Now it is the
migration of the despairing.?
There is no greater totem to the excesses of the lending frenzy that
gave Lithuania one of the highest growth rates in Europe in 2007 than
the sparkling Swedbank office building. Completed just last year, it is
16 stories high and monopolizes the modest Vilnius skyline.
Swedbank is the dominant bank in Lithuania, and its aggressive lending
to first-time home buyers ? including Ms. Jasinskiene?s son ? continues
to be a millstone for many here.
?People are angry,? said Odeta Bloziene, who runs a unit within the bank
that gives advice to Lithuanians who are having trouble repaying their
loans. ?But we never run away from our customers.?
In the reception area of the bank?s headquarters, bankers laughed and
drank beer from a well-stocked bar as rock music played in the background.
It is a far remove from the soup kitchen at St. Peter and St. Paul?s
Church in Vilnius, where 500 people a day line up for a free meal of
soup and Lithuanian pancakes.
Mecislovas Zukauskas, 88, a retired electrician, has lived through the
devastations of World War II, the Soviet occupation and, most recently,
the death of his wife. He is taking his pension cut in stride.
?The government does what it wants to do,? he said. ?We can do nothing.?
panel discussion at the Left Forum, Doug Henwood confessed to a certain
schadenfreude over Latvia's misery in light of the country's rabid
anti-Communism in the 1980s. Here's more grist for that mill:
NY Times April 1, 2010
From Lithuania, a View of Austerity?s Costs
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
VILNIUS, Lithuania ? If leaders of the world?s many indebted countries
want to see what austerity looks like, they might want to visit this
Baltic nation of 3.3 million.
Faced with rising deficits that threatened to bankrupt the country,
Lithuania cut public spending by 30 percent ? including slashing public
sector wages 20 to 30 percent and reducing pensions by as much as 11
percent. Even the prime minister, Andrius Kubilius, took a pay cut of 45
percent.
And the government didn?t stop there. It raised taxes on a wide variety
of goods, like pharmaceutical products and alcohol. Corporate taxes rose
to 20 percent, from 15 percent. The value-added tax rose to 21 percent,
from 18 percent.
The net effect on this country?s finances was a savings equal to 9
percent of gross domestic product, the second-largest fiscal adjustment
in a developed economy, after Latvia?s, since the credit crisis began.
But austerity has exacted its own price, in social and personal pain.
Pensioners, their benefits cut, swamped soup kitchens. Unemployment
jumped to a high of 14 percent, from single digits ? and an already
wobbly economy shrank 15 percent last year.
Remarkably, for the most part, the austerity was imposed with the
grudging support of Lithuania?s trade unions and opposition parties, and
has yet to elicit the kind of protest expressed by the regular,
widespread street demonstrations and strikes seen in Greece, Spain and
Britain.
To be sure, Mr. Kubilius has many critics here and abroad. Government
austerity in the midst of a recession runs counter to the Keynesian
approach of increasing public expenditures to fight a downturn. That was
the path most countries chose.
But Mr. Kubilius and his team say that with a budget deficit of 9
percent of G.D.P., a currency fixed to the euro and international bond
markets unwilling to lend to Lithuania, the government had no choice but
to show the world it could impose its own internal devaluation by
cutting public spending, restoring competitiveness and reclaiming the
good will of the bond markets.
Another motivation was to conform to the rules of membership for the
euro currency union, which Lithuania hopes to join by 2014.
Indeed, outside of Ireland, no country in Europe has come close to
replicating Lithuania?s severe spending cuts without the aid of the
International Monetary Fund. Ireland passed the most austere budget in
the country?s history, and public sector pay cuts were a centerpiece of
the government?s reform effort.
The Finance Ministry has forecast growth of 1.5 percent this year, and
this week Moody?s increased its outlook on the Lithuanian economy to
stable, from negative.
?From a credit rating perspective, Lithuania has put itself on positive
trajectory,? said Kenneth Orchard, a senior credit officer in Moody?s
sovereign risk group.
As European nations consider what the social and political costs will be
when they take steps to cut public sector spending, Lithuania offers a
real-time case study of the societal trade-offs.
Speed and communication are the most crucial to success, Mr. Kubilius
said in an interview in his office last week.
?You have to have a dialogue with your social partners, and you have to
do the most difficult cuts as quickly as possible,? he said. ?I told
them this is history. You need to decide now how you want to be
described in our history books.?
Like Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania rode a boom driven by banking and
real estate earlier this decade.
Construction came to dominate the economy, and low interest rates
spurred a housing boom. Many Lithuanians took out low-interest-rate
mortgages denominated in foreign currencies.
With the onset of the crisis, house prices plunged, building ground to a
halt and quite suddenly thousands lost their jobs and began to default
on their debts.
While the quaint cobblestone streets of Vilnius may project an air of
prosperity, one does not need to travel far to witness the pain many
Lithuanians are feeling.
Monika Midveryte, a university student, and her mother are now
supporting the family after her father lost his construction job. Now,
she said, he sits at home in front of the television drinking his
troubles away. ?He has no hope.?
The psychological toll has been immense. Suicides have increased in a
country where the suicide rate of 35 per 100,000 is already one of the
world?s highest, local experts say.
According to figures collected by the Youth Psychological Aid Center,
telephone calls to its hot line from people who said they were on the
verge of committing suicide nearly doubled last year to 1,400, from 750.
As the president of Solidarumas, one of Lithuania?s largest trade
unions, Aldona Jasinskiene has an acute understanding of how bad things
are ? not just as the head of her union, but as a mother.
For more than a year, her salary has paid the 2,300 litas, about $900,
in monthly mortgage payments for her 40-year-old son, who lost his
construction job. Ms. Jasinskiene says his mental health is suffering,
he is fighting with his wife and his family of four dines on potatoes
three times a day.
Now, with her own pension having been slashed, she is left with just 300
litas a month to support herself and her 15-year-old granddaughter.
Ms. Jasinskiene said she signed the agreement with the government
because unions, which are extremely weak in Lithuania, were not capable
of calling the type of general strike well known in other parts of
Europe, and because she wanted to do what she could to prevent even
deeper cuts.
While Mr. Kubilius points to positive signs like renewed growth, busy
cafes in Vilnius and upgrades by the credit agencies, from her vantage
point, Ms. Jasinskiene sees no upturn.
?He is telling you a fairy tale,? she said. ?Unemployment is going up
and up.?
Algirdas Malakauskis, a priest at St. Francis and St. Bernardine Friary,
has also experienced the recession?s toll firsthand.
He has had to preside over an increasing number of funerals for people
who have taken their own lives. Parishioners now come to him seeking
work, and his elderly parents, whose pensions have been cut, are angry.
Like a surprising number of people here, however, he has not turned on
the government. ?You can see they are doing everything that they can to
keep the situation stable,? he said.
Still, the tough measures have drawn criticism outside Lithuania.
?The internal devaluation strategy may have succeeded in delivering
short-term stabilization, but at what cost?? asked Charles Woolfson, a
professor of labor studies at the University of Glasgow who has
expertise in the Baltics.
Professor Woolfson points out that deepening social alienation in
Lithuania has resulted in the sharpest rise in emigration since the
country joined the European Union in 2004.
?Then it was the migration of the hopeful,? he said. ?Now it is the
migration of the despairing.?
There is no greater totem to the excesses of the lending frenzy that
gave Lithuania one of the highest growth rates in Europe in 2007 than
the sparkling Swedbank office building. Completed just last year, it is
16 stories high and monopolizes the modest Vilnius skyline.
Swedbank is the dominant bank in Lithuania, and its aggressive lending
to first-time home buyers ? including Ms. Jasinskiene?s son ? continues
to be a millstone for many here.
?People are angry,? said Odeta Bloziene, who runs a unit within the bank
that gives advice to Lithuanians who are having trouble repaying their
loans. ?But we never run away from our customers.?
In the reception area of the bank?s headquarters, bankers laughed and
drank beer from a well-stocked bar as rock music played in the background.
It is a far remove from the soup kitchen at St. Peter and St. Paul?s
Church in Vilnius, where 500 people a day line up for a free meal of
soup and Lithuanian pancakes.
Mecislovas Zukauskas, 88, a retired electrician, has lived through the
devastations of World War II, the Soviet occupation and, most recently,
the death of his wife. He is taking his pension cut in stride.
?The government does what it wants to do,? he said. ?We can do nothing.?
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.