Bulletins and News Discussion from March 3rd to March 9th, 2025 - Austerity And Its Consequences - COTW: Greece

Image is of a crowd protesting in Athens.

Last week, on Friday, hundreds of thousands of Greeks poured into the streets to strike and protest on the second anniversary of the deadliest train crash in Greek history, in which 57 people died when a passenger train collided with a freight train. On this February 28th, public transportation was virtually halted, with train drivers, air traffic controllers, and seafarers taking part in a 24 hour strike - alongside other professions like lawyers, teachers, and doctors.

The train crash is emblematic of the decay of state institutions brought about from austerity being forced on Greece in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, in which the IMF and the EU (particularly Germany) plundered the country and forced privatization. While Greece has somewhat recovered from the dire straits it was in during the early 2010s, the consequences of neoliberalism are very clearly ongoing. Mitsotakis' right-wing government has still not even successfully implemented the necessary safety procedures two years on, and so far, nobody has been convicted nor punished for their role in the accident. The austerity measures were deeply unpopular inside Greece and yet the government did not respond to, or ignored, democratic outcry.

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A story of success

Massive blackout in Buenos Aires leaves more than half a million without power
More than 600,000 people were left without electricity Wednesday as massive power outage hits Buenos Aires and its southern suburbs – event the Casa Rosada was affected.
A massive blackout affected neighbourhoods in Buenos Aires City (CABA) and the southern suburbs of the capital on Wednesday amid sweltering temperatures. Several power on Wednesday left some 620,000 users without electricity in Greater Buenos Aires – including the Casa Rosada.
Meanwhile temperatures soared above 35 degrees Celsius, with the famous 'sensación térmica' heat index touching 44°C, with a yellow alert issued for "extreme temperatures." Electricity firm Edesur, which serves the southern part of Buenos Aires, stated on X that "a failure occurred in a high-voltage line," affecting multiple substations. The blackout followed another massive one recorded in the early hours of Wednesday.
By mid-afternoon, service had been restored to 70 percent of those affected, while around 200,000 customers remained without power, a spokesperson from the Energy Secretariat told the AFP news agency. At the peak of the outage, some 622,000 users had experienced the cut, said the spokesperson.
The blackout, which even affected the Casa Rosada presidential palace, hit more than a dozen neighbourhoods in the city's centre and south. Disruption was observed at dozens of intersections as traffic lights failed and traffic jams developed. Subte metro services were suspended, with some travellers left in carriages between tunnels.
A large part of the Barracas neighbourhood, in the south of the city, spent hours without electricity amid the sweltering heat. People stepped outside to cool off or sought shade on the street. Some shopkeepers set up petrol-powered generators at the entrances to their businesses. Petrol stations saw queues of people lining up with jerrycans to fill up. Gilda Ávila, an employee at a laundrette in Barracas, lamented that she couldn't use the washing machines.
"I have a ton of clothes to deliver. And in this heat, it's unbearable. Prices keep rising, and nothing gets better," said the 39-year-old woman. In 2024, electricity rates in Buenos Aires rose by 268 percent while inflation reached 117.8 percent, according to a report from the University of Buenos Aires and the scientific institute CONICET – the impact of the removal of large subsidies for public utilities. "This morning, we had to throw away a lot of merchandise," 35-year-old butcher Eduardo Marecos. "We pay nearly a million [pesos a month] for electricity, so going through this is awful."
milei promised we'll be "like Germany" in about 35 years or so, uh... guys.., is he pulling another scam?
Two companies are responsible for energy distribution in Buenos Aires and it's surroundings: Edenor and Edesur, both are born out of the "Shock Therapy" of the early 90s, part of the massive wave of privatizations carried out at the orders of the IMF. Therefore, the entire grid is privatized and there is little to no incentive to invest because money line goes down.
Privatization will be considered a crime against humanity in the future and all who carried out privatizations will be executed by firing squad.
- milei promised we'll be "like Germany"
  He is actually fulfilling that promise though? Deindustrializing, cutting welfare and rising energy prices! Thats like germany
  
  And going full nazi too!
  
  Yep
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_employment
- sounds like someone's electricty is also managed by Enel
  
  YUP
- Privatization will be considered a crime against humanity in the future and all who carried out privatizations will be executed by firing squad.
- I remember house sitting in an identical situation to this. All the food in the fridge went off and I spent a lot of time finding cool kitchen tiles to lie down on. Getting to sleep was real hard. The cats also joined me for tile hunting. It was 3 days of pretty much zero function
  
  It's awful, sleeping is impossible. Back when we had more common power outages in my area I had to sleep on the roof during these extremely hot nights because staying inside was impossible lol, lots of mosquitoes and the first light will absolutely kill your sleep. We also had to throw away a lot of food which is really sad.
  The real issue comes when there are old people who live in like the 5th floor of an apartment building and they can't go up or down because the elevator is obviously not working, and during hot summer days they might have health complications that make everything much worse.

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