12/07/2012
"Black march" meets thin blue line as Madrid mining protest turns ugly, headlines
El Pais from Madrid. Seventy-six people were injured in clashes between marchers and police as the "black march" organised by protesting miners arrived in the capital.
The 200 marchers were joined by thousands of sympathisers and members of the labour unions as they marched to the industry ministry. Demonstrators included members of the 15-M protest movement, teachers protesting cuts in education, families and politicians. Also present were what an interior ministry spokesman described as "anti-system groups, armed with bottles, rockets and bricks".
This
coincided with the Spanish government unveiling new austerity measures designed to slash â¬65 billion from the public deficit by 2014.
Prime minister Rajoy had, it is said, yielded to EU pressure to try to avoid a full state bailout. He announced a three-point hike in the main rate of VAT on goods and services, bringing it to 21 percent, plus cuts in unemployment benefits and civil service pay and perks.
That the protests in the streets of Madrid then turned violent is not seen as a coincidence by
Reuters. But the pain is only just starting, and there are a lot more cuts to come.
And, as a marker for future targets,
El Pais records that the top management of companies in the blue-chip Ibex 35 index last year awarded themselves a "healthy pay hike" despite an overall drop in corporate earnings while public sector workers suffered wage cuts.
The average remuneration of the directors on the boards of the biggest 35 listed companies in Spain was up 4.4 percent at â¬522,000 from a year earlier. In the case of chairmen and chief executive officers, average wages climbed to â¬2.4 million euros from â¬2.2 million a year earlier. The average remuneration per board was up five percent at â¬7.5 million.
Corporate greed, so far, has had a relatively muted response. But these overpaid corporate parasites need to be aware that they are living on borrowed time. In Spain, as here, it will only need a flashpoint, and very ugly things will be happening. The corporates are
the new enemy.
UPDATE: David Jones in the
Daily Wail adds some background: "Airports that have never seen a plane, ghost towns of luxury flats: The hubris behind Spain's descent into anarchy".
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