It Wasn't A Happy May Day, Not In Europe-- And Probably Not At Chez Paul Ryan

Except for Seattle, it was a pretty quiet May Day here in the U.S. where Boehner, Ryan, Miss McConnell and Obama are introducing the devastating Austerity agenda more gradually than they did in Europe. May Day was marked by protests by workers across the globe, starting in Asia, with as many as 150,000 demonstrators getting the ball rolling in Jakarta, while smaller protests sprang up in Seoul, Phnom Penh, Dhaka and Manila.

With 80 countries around the world marking May 1 as a public holiday, Istanbul's Taksim Square was in lockdown on Wednesday, after the Turkish government banned May Day protests there.

The square is the site of a 1977 May Day massacre in which dozens of people died under disputed circumstances.

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Istanbul, said: "There have been scuffles, particularly in areas that lead to Taksim Square, which has been sealed off.

"Protesters say they should be given access to celebrate May 1 in a place of symbolic importance; they want to honour the memory of those who were killed here. There is a tug of war under way between the government and people."

...In Moscow, the Russian capital, authorities sanctioned 16 separate rallies, including one led by Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party.

Other groups, including the Communist Party, are holding gatherings of their own. Up to 90,000 people are expected.

Protests in Greece were widespread and included a major transport workers strike but were generally peaceful. There were demonstrations in 80 Spanish cities, were Austerity is especially catastrophic to a devastated middle class and where the unemployment rate in 27%. And in Italy, the new Pope took the side of working people over the oligarchs and plutocrats. It must have infuriated Catholic fascists in America like Paul Ryan to see Pope Francis denouncing Austerity yesterday.

Pope Francis on Wednesday urged political leaders to make every effort to create jobs and said unemployment was caused by economic thinking “outside the bounds of social justice.”

“I call on politicians to make every effort to relaunch the labor market,” the Argentine pope told thousands of followers at his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, which coincides with May Day demonstrations around the world.

“Work is fundamental for dignity,” he said.

“I think of labor market difficulties in various countries. I think of people, not just young people, who are unemployed often because of an economic conception of society based on selfish profit outside the bounds of social justice,” he said.

Paul Krugman warned his European counterparts they were heading in the wrong direction-- and still are. "Sometimes," he prodded, "economists in official positions give bad advice; sometimes they give very, very bad advice; and sometimes they work at the OECD."

It’s almost exactly three years since the Paris-based OECD gave what may have been the worst advice of any major international organization-- worse than the European Commission, worse than the ECB. Not only did it join in the demand for fiscal austerity, it also demanded that the US start raising interest rates rapidly, so as to head off the threat of inflation-- even though its own models showed no such threat.

So here we are three years later. No inflation takeoff in America (and the Fed trying to find ways to boost demand at a zero rate); austerity economics has crashed and burned; the latest numbers from Eurostat look like this:

And what is the OECD’s chief economist (still the same person) saying?

The euro zone is at risk of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by abandoning efforts to cut budget deficits and fix long-standing economic problems, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development‘s chief economist warned Monday.

…Mr. Padoan said the growing perception that austerity has been futile is incorrect.

“Fiscal consolidation is producing results, the pain is producing results,” he said.

He added that euro-zone policy makers need to do a better job of communicating their successes to a weary population.

I believe that’s eurospeak for “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”