Corporatocracy is an economic, political and judicial system controlled by business corporations or corporate interests.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 190 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of last resort to national governments, and a leading supporter of exchange-rate stability. Its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world."
In economic policy, austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spending, raising taxes while cutting spending, and lower taxes and lower government spending. Austerity measures are often used by governments that find it difficult to borrow or meet their existing obligations to pay back loans. The measures are meant to reduce the budget deficit by bringing government revenues closer to expenditures. Proponents of these measures state that this reduces the amount of borrowing required and may also demonstrate a government's fiscal discipline to creditors and credit rating agencies and make borrowing easier and cheaper as a result.
Olivier Jean Blanchard is a French economist and professor. He is serving as the Robert M. Solow Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as the C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The European debt crisis, often also referred to as the eurozone crisis or the European sovereign debt crisis, was a multi-year debt crisis that took place in the European Union (EU) from 2009 until the mid to late 2010s. Several eurozone member states were unable to repay or refinance their government debt or to bail out over-indebted banks under their national supervision without the assistance of third parties like other eurozone countries, the European Central Bank (ECB), or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
PIGS is a derogatory acronym that has been used to designate the economies of the Southern European countries of Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain. During the European debt crisis of 2009–14 the variant PIIGS, or GIPSI, was coined to include Ireland. At the time these five EU member states were struggling to refinance their government debt or to bail out over-indebted banks.
Greece faced a sovereign debt crisis in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Widely known in the country as The Crisis, it reached the populace as a series of sudden reforms and austerity measures that led to impoverishment and loss of income and property, as well as a humanitarian crisis. In all, the Greek economy suffered the longest recession of any advanced mixed economy to date and became the first developed country whose stock market was downgraded to that of an emerging market in 2013. As a result, the Greek political system was upended, social exclusion increased, and hundreds of thousands of well-educated Greeks left the country.
The anti-austerity movement refers to the mobilisation of street protests and grassroots campaigns that has happened across various countries, especially in Europe, since the onset of the worldwide Great Recession.
Debt crisis is a situation in which a government loses the ability of paying back its governmental debt. When the expenditures of a government are more than its tax revenues for a prolonged period, the government may enter into a debt crisis. Various forms of governments finance their expenditures primarily by raising money through taxation. When tax revenues are insufficient, the government can make up the difference by issuing debt.
The United Kingdom government austerity programme was a fiscal policy that was adopted for a period in the early 21st century following the Great Recession. Coalition and Conservative governments in office from 2010 to 2019 used the term, and it was applied again by many observers to Conservative policies from 2021 to 2024, during the cost of living crisis. With the exception of the Truss ministry, the governments in power over the second period did not formally re-adopt the term. The two austerity periods are separated by increased spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first period was one of the biggest deficit reduction programmes seen in any advanced economy since the Second World War, with the emphasis on shrinking the state, rather than fiscal consolidation as was more common elsewhere in Europe.
The 2010–2014 Portuguese financial crisis was part of the wider downturn of the Portuguese economy that started in 2001 and possibly ended between 2016 and 2017. The period from 2010 to 2014 was probably the hardest and more challenging part of the entire economic crisis; this period includes the 2011–14 international bailout to Portugal and was marked by intense austerity policies, more intense than the wider 2001-2017 crisis. Economic growth stalled in Portugal between 2001 and 2002, and following years of internal economic crisis, the worldwide Great Recession started to hit Portugal in 2008 and eventually led to the country being unable to repay or refinance its government debt without the assistance of third parties. To prevent an insolvency situation in the debt crisis, Portugal applied in April 2011 for bail-out programs and drew a cumulated €78 billion from the IMF, the EFSM, and the EFSF. Portugal exited the bailout in May 2014, the same year that positive economic growth re-appeared following three years of recession. The government achieved a 2.1% budget deficit in 2016 and in 2017 the economy grew 2.7%.
The Greek government-debt crisis is one of a number of current European sovereign-debt crises. In late 2009, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning Greece's ability to meet its debt obligations because of strong increase in government debt levels. This led to a crisis of confidence, indicated by a widening of bond yield spreads and the cost of risk insurance on credit default swaps compared to the other countries in the Eurozone, most importantly Germany.
The eurozone crisis is an ongoing financial crisis that has made it difficult or impossible for some countries in the euro area to repay or re-finance their government debt without the assistance of third parties.
The Italian government debt is the public debt owed by the government of Italy to all public and private lenders. This excludes unfunded state pensions owed to the public. As of January 2014, the Italian government debt stands at €2.1 trillion. Italy has the lowest share of public debt held by non-residents of all eurozone countries and the country's national wealth is four times larger than its public debt.
The following lists events that happened during 2014 in Belgium.
The anti-austerity movement in Greece involved a series of demonstrations and general strikes that took place across the country. The events, which began on 5 May 2010, were provoked by plans to cut public spending and raise taxes as austerity measures in exchange for a €110 billion bail-out, aimed at solving the Greek government-debt crisis. Three people were killed on 5 May in one of the largest demonstrations in Greece since 1973.
The Kallikratis Programme is the common name of Greek law 3852/2010 of 2010, a major administrative reform in Greece. It brought about the second major reform of the country's administrative divisions following the 1997 Kapodistrias reform.
The Troika is a term used to refer to the single decision group created by three entities, the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It was formed due to the European debt crisis as an ad hoc authority with a mandate to manage the bailouts of Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Portugal, in the aftermath of their prospective insolvency caused by the world financial crisis of 2007–2008.
Jessica Smyth, known by the stage name Biig Piig is an Irish singer and rapper based in West London. She performs in English and Spanish and is signed to Sony Music Entertainment.
The 2012 European general strike, first known as the 2012 Iberian Strike, was a general strike called initially by Spanish and Portuguese unions on 14 November 2012, to whom several unions and collectives from other European countries joined in strike or other form of protests.
