Indeed.
How are things in Portugal?
Worse. As I predicted, we're becoming Greece. We're just 18 months late in the episodes, but the movie is the same one.
The unemployment rate is 16% (official) and I'll probably reach 20% in 2014; the GDP decreases and we're at the level of 1996; the public debt jumped from 86% in 2010 to 117% now (124% next year); the budget deficit is yet 7%.
We're already the 2nd european country with the heaviest tax burden. Part of these new taxes are in fact a confiscation, a capture, of the salaries, pensions and labour income. Our real salaries (not counting with inflation) decreased 10% over the last 2 years. And we don't see these taxes applied in a strong social welfare state and social protection. In fact, the public services (health service, transports, education, etc) have a much worse quality since then.
Add to this the fact that Portugal is the 2nd or 3rd european country where the gap between rich and poor as well as social inequality and distribution of richness and wealth is the worse.
Meanwhile, everything is being privatized. We privatized or we're privatizing the national energy net, EDP (the biggest electric company); some public transports; TAP (the national airline company); the enterprise that manages the national airports.
BPN, a fraudulent private bank that the State had to nationalize to avoid bankrupcy and contamination; the biggest scandal in 2008 where the taxpayers buried €9000 million... Was reprivatized by... €60 million.
The Government also wants to privatize RTP/RDP, the public television and radio, turning Portugal the only European country without a public service in radiodifusion and television. They also want to privatize the news agency Lusa (the equivalent to Reuters or Agence France Press); the water distribution network... And I'm forgetting many things they want to sell by a ridicuously low price... To "friends" of them.
The Health Minister closes public hospitals, urgencies and local health centers... And the week/month after, a private health service opens in the same city. Notice: the Health Minister comes from an private group who has businesses in the health sector.
Plus, we have a Prime-Minister who's a son of a bitch, who uses the typical european-catholic strategy of the guilt and, with the help of the media, he blames the people for where we are now, making them feel guilty, so his agenda is implemented. It's for our own good.
He (and his ministers) have also already told the young people to immigrate because they have no place here; he has already call us slobbery and sentimental for complaining against this, and says that we deserve this and that this is the only way and there are no side options. He wants to change the Constitution in the same way Orban made in Hungary, turning it also into a proto-fascist regime.
Socially, people are furious and unstable but tired and powerless.
Unlike the greeks and the spanish, we complain a lot, but we don't have much action. We're taken by the fear, because that's what we're put: to live with constant fear. Fear of losing the job, of losing the house, of not having money to eat or send the kinds to the school, of not having money to medicaments, etc.
However, it feels like a time-bomb. On September 15th there was a demonstration, not called by a trade union (which is unusual, but it reflects that people don't even trust any more in trade unions) that joined 600 000 people only in Lisbon. For the size of Portugal and the city it's impressive. It was the biggest demonstration since 1974 and it had people of all kinds, all political views, all social classes. This time it was peaceful. But I don't know for how long people will hold the rage and explode. There are already a few violent signs here and there in singular events.
There's a huge speech in the streets, the cafes, on the internet, against all kind politicians, from left to the right, against trade unions. People are starting, to believe, for example, in populist big-ego journalists with politic aspirations. The President of the Republic - the biggest culprit of all this because he was Prime-Minister for 10 years between 1985-1995, back to our integration in the UE, where money rained from mostly from Central Europe to shut down our productive sectors (like all industries, like fishing, like agriculture) - doesn't appear, doesn't speak to the country and sends messages... On his facebook.
Portugal became a Republic on October 5th 1910. So, 102 years ago. It's a national holiday.
It won't be any longer... Because they want to end with this (and others) symbols of the national identity.
This year's commemoration was a mirror of how the country is. Instead of celebrating to date in town halls of Lisbon (an outdoor space where all people could attend) as usual, the President and the politicians "ran away" from the people's anger and celebrated it "hidden" in a closed space. The most comically ridiculous part was when the national flag was hoisted... Upside down! In military terms, to hoist a flag upside down, it means that the country was taken over by squatters...
The Finances Minister is an autist with Asperger Syndrome who dreams about his Excel sheets and his theorical ultraliberal models that are so good that he failed every since forecast he made in his reports since the Government 16 months ago. For example: he and the "troika" had initially predicted an unemployment rate of 12,9% for 2012. We don't know the numbers of September yet and in the summer it was already 16%.
The Justice Minister is a dangerous woman, who makes statements that give me cold chills, that remind me of the justicialism of 1950's South America.
There's no Culture. Culture always represented a ridiculous part of the national budget, no more than 0,5%. With this government, it's 0,1% of the 2012 budget. Most cultural structures are shutting down. This government sees Culture and the artists as an enemy.
The Education Minister is as dangerous as the Justice Minister. He's pratically a fan of Salazar's education policies, as he demonstrates in his articles before he came to the government.
The government is making blind cuts in Education and Health. 2013's budget is having less 11% in Education and less 14% in Health.
But, in the other hand... Guess what? Both Defense and Internal Administration (Police, etc) are gonna have more 17%!
Here in our neighbours Spain, they have an unemployment rate of 25%. I don't know how a country can live with it.
And they don't even have "troika" yet. Because when they won't hold anymore, ask for a "bailout" and a "troika" arrives, the unemployment rate will easily jump over 30%.
This week I heard news that in Spain some people are already commiting suicide the day before they are dumped out of their houses.
Plus, as predicted, nationalist tensions are growing a lot. Cataluña wants independence and they're releasing a referendum. País Basco (where the heirs of Herri Batasuna, the political party linked to the ETA terrorists, had great elections results last weekend) will follow right after.
Spain will collapse. It'll be a tragedy for Portugal, because Spain is our biggest commercial/economical partner and we're Spain's too.
If a new Salazar came, people would embrace it.
The media shoots logs to the fire and demands a portuguese Mario Monti, which is non-political a Prime Minister (seen as a senator of the nation) non-elected, supported by the government parties, who can hold the legislature and the troika memorandum.
The leader of the (pseudo-)Socialist Party, the other party who uses to be in the governement, is a moron, a doggie. A populist, doesn't have an opinion about anything, his speeches are the most plastic and "convictionless" thing ever heard, and he and his party votes as abstention for everything that is important. He's as credible as the Prime Minister.
The two right parties in the Government are "dead" in the opinion pollings (24% to PPD/PSD and 6-10% to CDS-PP).
The PS (pseudo-Socialist Party) has 29-34%. The two real left parties are too small to make Government. And the three left parties (I shouldn't count the PS, because they're left only in the name) are enemies and will never make a coalition.
So, there's no political alternative to this and people trust no party, no leader, no politicial. It's a political swamp. The most dangerous thing, I think.