(Reuters) - Police and protesters clashed in Spain on Wednesday as millions of workers went on strike across Europe to protest spending cuts they say have made the economic crisis worse.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled, car factories and ports were at a standstill and trains barely ran in Spain and Portugal where unions held their first ever coordinated general strike.

Riot police arrested at least two protesters in Madrid and hit others with batons, witnesses said, and in Rome students pelted police with rocks in a protest over money-saving plans for the school system.

International rail services were disrupted by strikes in Belgium and workers in Greece, Italy and France planned work stoppages or demonstrations as part of a "European Day of Action and Solidarity".

"We're on strike to stop these suicidal policies," said Candido Mendez, head of Spain's second-biggest labor federation, the General Workers' Union, or UGT.

More than 60 people were arrested in Spain and 34 injured, 18 of them security officials after scuffles at picket lines and damage to storefronts.

Protesters jammed cash machines with glue and coins and plastered anti-government stickers on shop windows. Power consumption dropped 16 percent with factories idled.

International lenders and some economists say the programs of tax hikes and spending cuts are necessary for putting public finances back on a healthy track after years of overspending.

While several southern European countries have seen bursts of violence, a coordinated and effective regional protest to the austerity has yet to gain traction and governments have so far largely stuck to their policies.

Spain, where the crisis has pushed millions into poverty, has seen some of the biggest protests. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is trying to put off asking for European aid that could require even more budget cuts.

Passion was inflamed when a Spanish woman jumped to her death last week as bailiffs tried to evict her from her home. Spaniards are furious at banks being rescued with public cash while ordinary people suffer.

In Portugal, which accepted an EU bailout last year, the streets have been quieter but public and political opposition to austerity is mounting, threatening to derail new measures sought by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

His centre-right government was forced by protests to abandon a planned increase in employee payroll charges, but replaced it by higher taxes.

Passos Coelho's policies were held up this week as a model by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is despised in much of southern Europe for insisting on austerity as a condition of her support for EU aid.

"I'm on strike because those who work are basically being blackmailed into sacrificing more and more in the name of debt reduction, which is a big lie," said Daniel Santos de Jesus, 43, who teaches architecture at the Lisbon Technical University.

Some 5 million people, or 22 percent of the workforce, are union members in Spain. In Portugal about a quarter of the 5.5 million strong workforce is unionized.

Major demonstrations were planned for the evening in Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona and other cities.

Pretend you are standing on a 25 foot wall in the fog and have two choices to get down to ground level to avoid being hit by lethal gunfire:

1. Jump and land on your feet- which you know will at least break both legs, but will ensure you getting to the ground quickly and away from the gunfire; but which you know will result in you never walking the same way again with the grace, speed, gait and stride you have for the last 10-20+ years of your life; or

2. Walk down a long, long ramp that stretches from the top of the wall where you are standing to a place on the ground that might or might not be exactly where you would land if you simply jumped; and since the ramp is so long and curvaceous and the fog so thick that you don't know what hazards it may pose and whether it will actually end up on the ground where you need to be to avoid being hit by lethal gunfire.

Which of these two extremes do you choose to take? What combinations of the two might be available? What other options are there that you may not be fully aware of?

No single right answer that all will agree with as being the best...














(P.S. You have a misspelled word in the subject line.)

Americans are too lazy to riot.

They'll send in the Mexicans to do it for them!🐴

I nominate Pepe to riot for me.

I will sit outside and drink beer and smoke cigars.
I know that our enlightened gubment will do what is best for me and all of us in this best of all possible worlds!

Yours,
Candide


🍺 🇨🇮

The real owners of Spain are conducting a money grab – property too.


Pretend you are smoking a really good cigar on a mountain top with a scenic view of the surrounding lands, their flowing beauty lavishly playing off into the distance, while a scantily clad wood nymph pours you a beer as she takes off her . . . .

Wait, I lost my train of thought.

I knew it would be too simple for a "C-Bid LIBERAL" like you (and myself).

It was a playful an obvious over simplification, granted. But I don’t think it is the Cbid Liberals that normally have problems with over simplifying matters. In fact, some of the postings I read from the Cbid right are simple beyond all reckoning.

I do see this as a wealth grab by the owning class. Perhaps more opportunistic, perhaps fully contrived. But then I am so simple as to believe that the Fed orchestrated much of the great depression in our own country.

The beauty of waiting until austerity hits is that you don't get to chose. The lenders choose for you or refuse to lend any more money.

This is all about debt and the need for more debt to survive. This is just what happens when the lenders decide they are not going to lend any more money. The world loved to live on debt but now hate the foreclosure process.

Well, everyone does play by the same rules . . . . .

Borrowing rules are pretty simple.....you're supposed to pay it back. (except the US government for now at least.)

Why should they hate it, they got bailed out, and got to keep and sell the homes, and to write off the losses?

Who said "they" hated it? By the way, who is "they"?!

SCOREBOARD BITCHES!

Pinochet could save Spain from itself.

🍺

Just trying to frame the conversation as to two general options on different sides of a spectrum, but the thread didn't go that way. You will have to pardon the little economist in me. LOL.

The conversation has already been framed by the lenders as a result of the poor habits of the borrowers.

National bankruptcy or austerity mandated by lenders are the options.

Of course.
I just thought the conversation parallels the extremes of choices we Americans have at this point or might have in the future, and that the conversation would go there.

It has nothing to do with any sort of choices Americans have. We still have creditors and we have "hope". Sucks to be somewhere that doesn't!

I say rescue the Kobayashi Maru crew, and to hell with the Klingon Neutral Zone and the Organian Peace Treaty.