Fun times in Europe -- chickens coming home to roost department

From the Beeb:

Bulgaria government to resign, PM Boiko Borisov says
Bulgaria's government has announced it is resigning after nationwide protests against high electricity prices and austerity measures, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov has said.

And the sad thing is that it sounds like the Prime Minister is just the kind of politician they need to have:

The PM said he had decided to go after protesters against rising electricity prices clashed with police in Sofia.

At least 14 people were injured during Tuesday's demonstrations.

"I will not participate in a government under which police are beating people," Mr Borisov said.

"Every drop of blood is a shame for us,"

Mr. Borisov is probably doing everything right -- the citizens of Bulgaria need to listen and realize that they have voted themselves free stuff and it is now time to pay the butcher's bill... Next up from Reuters:

Anti-austerity strike to bring Greece to a standstill
Greek workers walk off the job on Wednesday in a nationwide anti-austerity strike that will disrupt transport, shut public schools and tax offices and leave hospitals working with emergency staff.

Greece's two biggest labor unions plan to bring much of the near-bankrupt country to a standstill during a 24-hour strike over the cuts, which they say only deepen the plight of a people struggling to get through the country's worst peacetime downturn.

Representing about 2.5 million workers, the unions have gone on strike repeatedly since Europe's debt crisis erupted in late 2009, testing the government's will to implement necessary reforms in the face of growing public anger.

Greece's population is 10.7 million and significantly, just under 20% of the population is age 65 or older so the majority of these people are drawing their retirement pensions. Just looking at the 10.7 million, if 20% of these people are retired, this leaves a working population of less than 8.56 million people. Obviously, the actual number is a lot lower as this is the population from age 1 through age 64. If these unions represent 2.5 million people, they represent about 30% of the total labor force. This is too big a number -- the unions have a lock on the Greek workforce -- too much power concentrated in one place and the entire nation is suffering for it... Socialism has always failed. The ideas are nice in theory but the bar will always get ratcheted up and up and up until the system collapses -- and it will always collapse. We are headed down the same path as Greece and the other EU nations.