Posted by
davecatbone on Sunday, January 18, 2009 8:08:48 AM
The Economic Disaster we're in has spread across the globe. And the situation in some places is getting serious. Social unrest and rioting over conditions is popping up as countries run out of money and their economies contract.
The Guardian notes:
Bulgaria
Population 7 million. Troubled by
corruption and political instability. Dozens of people, including 14
police, injured during riots in Sofia last week.
Latvia
Population
2.2 million. Centre-right government likely to call elections after
riots over harsh conditions following IMF bail-out.
Lithuania
Population
3.5 million. Street clashes and 86 arrests after 7,000 people attended
a Vilnius rally called by trade unions to protest at public sector pay
cuts, reduced social security payments, an increase in VAT and an end
to tax breaks on medicine and home heating.
Estonia
Population
1.4 million. So far calm, and government has more reserves of cash and
public confidence than elsewhere, but a 3.5% contraction in the economy
in the third quarter of last year is likely to cause problems. Support
for the prime minister, Andrus Ansip, and his government is falling
quickly.
Lithuania. Watch this area.
UPI:
Lithuanian protesters'
snowballs were answered by police rubber bullets when an
anti-government rally devolved into a riot in Vilnius, medical
officials said.
How long will they stick to snowballs? It didn't last long here in Boston in 1770.
The New York Times notes:
The financial meltdown is not the only factor throwing Baltic
countries off balance this winter, said Julianne Smith, director of the
Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington. The war between Russia and Georgia and the gas deadlock
between Russia and Ukraine underlined their vulnerability, she said.
“They’ve
spent the better part of the last two decades transforming their
economies,” she said. “Suddenly, they wake up and they are no longer
the Baltic tigers. When you pair that with the energy concern and acts
of Russian intimidation, it definitely can be described as the perfect
storm.”
Ukraine keeps popping up in the news. And from Bulgaria:
"We are fed up with living in the poorest and most corrupt
country," the Sofia protest organisers said in a statement. "This
unique protest unites the people in their wish for change and their
wish to live in a normal European country."
Poor and Corrupt country? Sounds like our southern neighbor, does it not? The Wolf truly is always at the door, and it's time we keep our eyes open on what going on outside the window. Hope & Change® is bound to lead to a disillusioned mass, not unlike the Baltics and Eastern Europe after seeing the economic promise of the end of the USSR vanish.