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Austerity Fascism Is Coming And It Will Be Brutal

The austerity measures currently being considered and indeed implemented in the UK and other European countries, with the United States not too far behind, can be summarized as follows.

- Massive cuts to public services that are two or three times larger in size than anything we’ve witnessed since the second world war.

- Both capping of and reduction of salaries for public sector workers that will inevitably lead to huge strikes, bringing whole countries to a standstill for weeks on end, further eviscerating any economic recovery. Public sector workers in France and Spain are already staging large industrial strikes. As we saw in Greece, strikes routinely lead to riots and violence.

- Shocking tax increases that if they mirror previous trends could amount to an astounding 98 per cent tax on all earnings over a low level of income. Such increases would virtually eliminate the middle class because all earnings over around £20,000 ($28,000) would almost entirely go straight to the government. Knowing that such exorbitant hikes would cause millions of people to try to evade tax, thousands of new tax inspectors are being hired to crackdown on evaders. In the United States, 16,000 new IRS agents were recently hired in anticipation of people avoiding massive tax hikes that are in the pipeline, as well as new taxes as a result of Obamacare, which will begin to be implemented in the coming years.

- Cuts in social welfare payments that will devastate the poor if they are already laboring under runaway inflation. The economically deprived will take to the streets with a mind set of nothing to lose if the government handouts they have become dependent on are drastically reduced.

- VAT increases for people who already pay some of the highest income tax levels in the world. Europeans are forced to pay a 15-25 per cent surcharge on the purchase of most items and services, and this stealth tax is only set to increase. Greece recently upped its VAT from 21 per cent to 23 per cent. In the United States, President Obama has made it clear that a value added tax is “still on the table” as the IMF also outlines plans for a financial transaction tax which amounts to yet another insidious stealth tax on consumption.

- Governments will try to seize pension funds by continually raising the retirement age so pensions are constantly kept out of reach until people die. In Greece, the government is linking the pension to the average life span index, so most people won’t even get it before they die. Strikes across France in response to similar proposals have closed schools, delayed flights and caused chaos.

- In many European countries, laws govern the amount of employees private companies can fire in any one period of time. In Greece, the number of people companies will be allowed to lay off has doubled from 2% to 4% of their work force. Taken to its extreme, this could double unemployment in the private sector, placing yet more strain on unemployment benefits, which will also be reduced, and driving people into poverty.

All of these measures have been implemented to one degree or another in Greece and we witnessed the consequences. What makes the situation far more terrifying is the fact that the austerity measures being readied for Europe and especially the UK are far more drastic than what the Greeks have been dealt.

Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/austerity-fascism-is-coming-and-it-will-be-brutal.html