More Proof Austrerity DOES NOT WORK

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In this winter of austerity and Depression-era unemployment, a fog of woodsmoke hangs over the Greek capital on cold nights.

It's coming from the tens of thousands of fireplaces and wood-burning stoves Athenians are using to heat their homes. Most can no longer afford heating oil, the price of which has risen 40 percent since last year. The government also cut a fuel subsidy for low-income families earlier this month.

Some Greeks buy cheap firewood; others used their discarded Christmas trees as kindling. The most desperate are burning old furniture and raiding protected forests. Someone even hacked away the remains of a 3,000-year-old olive tree where Plato is said to have taught.


In the working-class suburb of Aegaleo, west of Athens, 41-year-old Sotiris Sotiriou and his two young daughters, Magda and Sophia, are bundled up in thick sweaters. They add wood from olive-tree saplings in the flames of their living-room fireplace. The saplings grow on a small family plot outside Athens.

"Last year, the fireplace was just decorative," says Sotiriou, who also owns a home improvement shop. "This year, it's how we heat our home."

Like many Greeks, Sotiriou and his wife, Haroula Lappa, cannot afford to buy heating oil. Sotiriou has no business at his home-improvement store, since the Greek construction industry has all but halted.

Nearly all of Lappa's salary as a court clerk goes to their $930 monthly home mortgage payment. After groceries and tax bills, there's nothing left for the heating oil, she says.

She goes outside for a walk and smells the scent of woodsmoke from other fireplaces.

Two weeks ago, she also smelled something else: burning paint.

"Someone must have been burning a door with the windows still set in," she says. "When the girls and I were walking home, it was hard to breathe. We used our coats as masks."

Greeks may actually be burning old furniture to stay warm, says Stephanos Sambatakakis of the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Scientists are studying the particles in the noxious fumes, which could soon leave people suffering from inflamed eyes, respiratory problems, headaches and nausea, he says. Long-term effects could include lung inflammation and, "in extreme cases, lung cancer," he says.

Environmentalist Grigoris Gourdomichalis is worried about another scourge — deforestation. Twice a day, he and his colleagues climb into a jeep and patrol a protected forest on a hill west of Athens. Illegal logging is rampant here.

He says it's not just the poor cutting down saplings to use as fuel to stay warm. Poachers also sell the wood for profit.

"Before World War II, this forest had so many trees," Gourdomichalis says. "But the Germans and Italians took the heating oil and coal during the war, and Greeks were forced to chop down all the trees for firewood so they could cook and keep themselves warm. The forest has since recovered, so we can't let it be destroyed again."

He says the patrols have stopped some of the deforestation. But then he and a colleague spot another threat to the forest: Someone has destroyed a giant water tank used to fight summer forest fires. Gourdomichalis says the tank's steel frame was cut to be sold as scrap metal.

"People are destroying everything in a desperate effort to survive, or they're using the crisis to make a profit," he says, shaking his head in despair.

He peers out the jeep's window at the city below. It's getting dark and cold. He sees the first wisps of the smoky fog that will soon hang over his city.

(Reuters) - Britain's economy shrank more than expected at the end of 2012 with a North Sea oil production slump, lower factory output and a hangover from London's Olympics pushing it perilously close to a "triple-dip" recession.

The country's gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday, sharper than a 0.1 percent decline forecast by analysts.

The news is a blow for Britain's Conservative-led government, which a day earlier defended its austerity program against criticism from the International Monetary Fund. It needs solid growth to meet its budget targets, keep a triple-A debt rating and bolster its chances of winning a 2015 election.

Sterling fell to its lowest in 13-1/2 months against the euro and hit a five-month low against the dollar in response to the data. The euro was also buoyed by a stronger-than-expected German Ifo sentiment survey.

"There are no positive takeaways from today's first (GDP)estimate," said Lee Hopley, chief economist for the EEF manufacturers' association. "Even assuming some unwinding of activity from the Olympics boost in the previous quarter, this still leaves no real signs of underlying growth in the economy."

Britain's economy is now 3.3 percent smaller than its peak in Q1 2008, having recovered only about half the output lost during the financial crisis - a worse performance than most other major economies.

The country slipped back into recession in the last three months of 2011, and only emerged from it in the third quarter of 2012, after a boost from the London Olympics.

After a bout of snowy weather in January - which is likely to have hit spending and output - the risk is that the economy will continue to shrink in the first three months of this year, technically pushing it into a rare "triple dip" recession.

Britain's biggest department store group, John Lewis JLP.UL, said earlier on Friday that snow was responsible for its sales growth stalling in the latest week.

thats a cool video

personally i believe the concept of money will soon fail

Sterling fell to its lowest in 13-1/2 months against the euro and hit a five-month low against the dollar in response to the data. The euro was also buoyed by a stronger-than-expected German Ifo sentiment survey.

After a bout of snowy weather in January - which is likely to have hit spending and output - the risk is that the economy will continue to shrink in the first three months of this year, technically pushing it into a rare "triple dip" recession.

Fail.

This current level of austerity isn't working because there is no growth. But you can't just pass the bill onto future generations...and the shadow chancellor is even worse.

There is no plan. There is no New Deal.

But putting the economy back in Labour's hands? Have we learnt nothing?

You disagree? I feel that this current weather situation is always bad news for economic recovery. What the economy needs more at the moment is the sound of flowing cash tills, not clicks of kettles and fireplaces.

It's just that a couple of years ago there was talk of an upcoming double dip. The expectation of a triple dip just sounds like epic failure to me. This is not a jab at the British, just laughing because of the phrasing.

@ visagrunt. Far from the end of money being a return to the stone age it will actually be for our advancement. We should evolve beyond this inadequate petty amoral unjust method imo.

One day I may explain my view fully.

Until then refer to star strek

@ visagrunt. Far from the end of money being a return to the stone age it will actually be for our advancement. We should evolve beyond this inadequate petty amoral unjust method imo.

One day I may explain my view fully.

Until then refer to star strek

On Star Trek they often bargain with made-up commodities. They trade some technobabble object for some other technobabble object. Sometimes they stoop so low as to bargain "food replicator rations". Currency would be the biggest invention these people could discover.