Thursday, October 25, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Hitler Clothing Store: Business Plan Epic Fail or Marketing Genius?
http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20120829-368474.html
What is
curious about the opening of this store involves a similar controversy six
years ago when a café in Mumbai opened with the name “Hitler’s Cross.” The owner refused to change the name because
he thought it was catchy and stated many of the same reasons as Shah
articulated above.
Although the article does not elaborate as to the type and the amount of press “Hitler’s Cross” received, one can surmise that it was fairly substantial in light of those involved in pressing (no pun intended) him (Israeli Embassy, Germany and U.S. Anti-defamation League) to finally give in. The story also doesn’t say if the café succeeded or failed but in my opinion it doesn’t take much to connect the dots as to why a business person would take drastic measures like this—free press and a lot of it.
In Shah’s case, did he really not know about Hitler? I’ll lay odds he knew about Hitler’s Café. One need only to look at the logo for clues. The type font and the colors used in the advertising: steel gray, red and white, look strikingly military. Perhaps if he were to have used orange, brown and blue (a bit more in keeping with western wear), he might be more believable. Perhaps if there were a cowboy hat over the i instead of a swastika, or if the environment for start-ups in India weren’t so brutal for entrepreneurial survival maybe we could take him at his word.
And then there is the matter of ethical implications. Yeah—where are they? And what is going on in India that there is an “unusual degree of respect” (according to the article) for Hitler and Mein Kampf? Granted, he could have paid for the design but then that raises a lot of other questions we don’t have time to consider in this summary. Instead, all this smacks of desperation and survival of the fittest tactics that with the roll of the dice one can imagine a name like Hitler landing on snake eyes. Daring, brilliant and stupid all wrapped in the same tootsie roll.
http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20120829-368474.html
They say that any kind of press is good press especially the
negative sort. That’s the first thing I thought of when reading about store
owner and entrepreneur Rajesh Shah opening a men’s western wear clothing store
named, “Hitler” complete with a colorful red swastika over the i. Could this be
a business plan epic fail or a brilliant marketing strategy?
Shah, who opened
the store on August 19 in Ahmedabad City in India, claims that he had no
knowledge of who Hitler was nor of the atrocities that he perpetrated on the
six million plus Jews in Europe during World War II and would only consider
changing the name if he were compensated for re-branding costs to recoup
potential losses from the money spent on the logo, business stationary, and the
hoarding.
Where was his business plan and who were his investors? Turns out he
sank about 150,000 rupees ($2700) into the start-up costs and wants to recoup
if forced to change. Yes I said forced to change.
Although the article does not elaborate as to the type and the amount of press “Hitler’s Cross” received, one can surmise that it was fairly substantial in light of those involved in pressing (no pun intended) him (Israeli Embassy, Germany and U.S. Anti-defamation League) to finally give in. The story also doesn’t say if the café succeeded or failed but in my opinion it doesn’t take much to connect the dots as to why a business person would take drastic measures like this—free press and a lot of it.
In Shah’s case, did he really not know about Hitler? I’ll lay odds he knew about Hitler’s Café. One need only to look at the logo for clues. The type font and the colors used in the advertising: steel gray, red and white, look strikingly military. Perhaps if he were to have used orange, brown and blue (a bit more in keeping with western wear), he might be more believable. Perhaps if there were a cowboy hat over the i instead of a swastika, or if the environment for start-ups in India weren’t so brutal for entrepreneurial survival maybe we could take him at his word.
And then there is the matter of ethical implications. Yeah—where are they? And what is going on in India that there is an “unusual degree of respect” (according to the article) for Hitler and Mein Kampf? Granted, he could have paid for the design but then that raises a lot of other questions we don’t have time to consider in this summary. Instead, all this smacks of desperation and survival of the fittest tactics that with the roll of the dice one can imagine a name like Hitler landing on snake eyes. Daring, brilliant and stupid all wrapped in the same tootsie roll.
One
thing is irrefutable and startlingly clear: his store captured the attention of
the Associated Press and was highlighted on Yahoo and with it the potential of
going viral. Not to mention, I am writing about it and will talk about in
class. What other business owner can claim that right now? And how much would
it take in advertising costs to get those legs? So if he changes the name soon
would the idea have been brilliant?
If he keeps the name, what does that say of
the ethics and cultural proclivities in India? Does that matter in this case?
What will it mean to have had succeeded and should we care? Could the same
problem arise here in the states? Would it look the same? I am not going to
open Pol Pot’s Underwear Store any time soon but what is important to
understand is our level of awareness of other cultures and what it would mean
to be insulting or offending to a group of people with deep wounds and tragic
histories.
A business plan would have been a great step in uncovering what one
needs to know. I really do wonder if Shah had one and if he did, why did it
matter more to take such an extreme step rather than to be sensitive to a
particularly delicate demographic? Of
course, he could be just telling the truth and is upset because now he has to
considering changing his presentation. Let that sink in for a bit.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Private Contractors to Build and Run UK Police Station
A night in the cells used to be spent courtesy of the boys in blue.
But from April private contractors will be building police stations and employing the staff to run them as well.
With police forces seeking savings in the face of the government’s austerity-led budget cuts, G4S, the world’s largest security company, has won the first contract in Britain to staff and build a police station. The deal, expected to be signed within days, represents the most radical outsourcing of law enforcement to the private sector yet.
The deal with Lincolnshire Police Authority will see G4S take over jobs formerly handled by police officers. In custody operations, for instance, uniformed sergeants with powers to arrest will always be on hand but G4S employees will do almost everything else, from accompanying offenders to their cells to carrying out drug testing.
Police representatives have already voiced misgivings. Simon Reed, vice-chair of the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, was cautious about the enterprise – pointing out that police force staff have an enshrined sense of public duty, whereas private employees may not.
“Our concern is the resilience of the companies doing this,” he said. “When we have national emergencies or unforeseen events, will they be able to bring their staff in to work long hours, regardless of what their contracts say?”
G4S says, however, that the deal will benefit frontline officers. Kim Challis, group managing director of the company’s government and outsourcing services division, said: “Not only does it support frontline policing, but it will help officers to make the best use of their time, allowing them to focus more on operational duties.”
The contract is worth £200m over 10 years with an option for a five-year extension. Other local police forces are considering similar partnerships this year.
As part of the contract G4S will build a new police station with a two-storey office complex and 30 cells on a “hub and spokes” model. This allows for additional cells to be added rapidly in the event of public disorder or a sports event that turns violent.
Just over half the force’s 900 civilian staff will transfer to G4S, while the remainder will be kept on as police employees alongside the 1,100 officers. New staff employed by G4S will undertake the security company’s seven-week training programme, which meets home office guidelines for custody workers.
The contract comes as police forces grapple with government-imposed funding cuts of about 20 per cent over four years. Barry Young, chairman of the Lincolnshire Police Authority, said the spending squeeze had brought the force to crisis point.
“The cuts left us with no choice but to look for drastic changes in the way we do things. We have always had some of the tightest funding conditions in the country and the [new spending settlement] meant it was imperative to close a huge funding gap.”
The force aims to make savings of £16m-£20m over the 10 years
Although police forces have already outsourced discrete parts of their operations to specialist companies, this is the most comprehensive deal yet. Last year it emerged that West Midlands police had contracted out some of their counter-terror operations to a team employed by G4S.
Ms Challis said “it was great to see a G4S concept coming to life”.
“The new police station is an integral element of our strategic partnership with Lincolnshire Police Authority. It’s a tangible way that we can deliver real savings to the authority, while providing police with the best facilities and technology available.
Copyright The Financial Times
But from April private contractors will be building police stations and employing the staff to run them as well.
With police forces seeking savings in the face of the government’s austerity-led budget cuts, G4S, the world’s largest security company, has won the first contract in Britain to staff and build a police station. The deal, expected to be signed within days, represents the most radical outsourcing of law enforcement to the private sector yet.
The deal with Lincolnshire Police Authority will see G4S take over jobs formerly handled by police officers. In custody operations, for instance, uniformed sergeants with powers to arrest will always be on hand but G4S employees will do almost everything else, from accompanying offenders to their cells to carrying out drug testing.
Police representatives have already voiced misgivings. Simon Reed, vice-chair of the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, was cautious about the enterprise – pointing out that police force staff have an enshrined sense of public duty, whereas private employees may not.
“Our concern is the resilience of the companies doing this,” he said. “When we have national emergencies or unforeseen events, will they be able to bring their staff in to work long hours, regardless of what their contracts say?”
G4S says, however, that the deal will benefit frontline officers. Kim Challis, group managing director of the company’s government and outsourcing services division, said: “Not only does it support frontline policing, but it will help officers to make the best use of their time, allowing them to focus more on operational duties.”
The contract is worth £200m over 10 years with an option for a five-year extension. Other local police forces are considering similar partnerships this year.
As part of the contract G4S will build a new police station with a two-storey office complex and 30 cells on a “hub and spokes” model. This allows for additional cells to be added rapidly in the event of public disorder or a sports event that turns violent.
Just over half the force’s 900 civilian staff will transfer to G4S, while the remainder will be kept on as police employees alongside the 1,100 officers. New staff employed by G4S will undertake the security company’s seven-week training programme, which meets home office guidelines for custody workers.
The contract comes as police forces grapple with government-imposed funding cuts of about 20 per cent over four years. Barry Young, chairman of the Lincolnshire Police Authority, said the spending squeeze had brought the force to crisis point.
“The cuts left us with no choice but to look for drastic changes in the way we do things. We have always had some of the tightest funding conditions in the country and the [new spending settlement] meant it was imperative to close a huge funding gap.”
The force aims to make savings of £16m-£20m over the 10 years
Although police forces have already outsourced discrete parts of their operations to specialist companies, this is the most comprehensive deal yet. Last year it emerged that West Midlands police had contracted out some of their counter-terror operations to a team employed by G4S.
Ms Challis said “it was great to see a G4S concept coming to life”.
“The new police station is an integral element of our strategic partnership with Lincolnshire Police Authority. It’s a tangible way that we can deliver real savings to the authority, while providing police with the best facilities and technology available.
Copyright The Financial Times
Saturday, February 11, 2012
ECB’s Draghi Can Play Pivotal Role in Solving Greek Crisis: View
What's disturbing about the article I am about to post is not so much the substance of it, which in my opinion is bad enough, but the assumptions readers will make regarding what is fair solely based on what is being reported.
In recent months, Greece has been painted as extremely irresponsible, self-centered opportunists, taking advantage of billions they were lent and too lazy to make necessary sacrifices
and too egotistical to make compromises among its political leaders.
What is not at center stage is Greece's existential right to control its own destiny.
Through fiscal manipulation and blackmail Greece has lost much of its autonomy in economic and political decision-making because of the debt it owes to the central banks and its private equity lenders.
The truth is Greece is being threatened by the Troika (ECB, IMF, and the EU) with the possibility of a horrifically messy default. Unless it imposes harsh austerity measures (as outlined by Troika) none of the bail out money will be released to keep schools open, hospitals operating, municipal services such as bus service, power, utilities, police, fire fighters, ambulances or the government functioning.
If Greece is allowed to default, the credit market will freeze solid, businesses will fail, no paychecks will be issued, currency value will tank, there will be a run on the banks and the nation will plunge into utter chaos and violence. Austerity does not look much better either. It would leave Greece totally bankrupt, steeped in poverty and starve its economy of any growth--throwing it deeper into recession and leaving it at the mercy and control of their creditors.
The main difference in outcome if Greece were to default is that it could potentially destroy the entire Eurozone and take with it the global economy.
Without a doubt, Greece has been put in an extremely humilating position and it sees no good options on the table to avoid any catastrophe.
Meanwhile in this article, the ECB has deemed itself the savior, the benevolent and kind friend making concessions for an ungrateful, overindulgent, self-centered nation. The truth is the Troika is using economic terrorism to secure power over Greece and the entire Eurozone. The problem is the positioning of the central banks over sovereign nations.
Without further adeiu:
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has taken a decidedly more activist and creative approach than his predecessor, Jean-Claude Trichet, toward supporting the euro-area economy and propping up its banks. Now, he has an opportunity to take the initiative with Greece, the currency union’s sickest economy.
After weeks of wrangling, Greece is close to completing yet another inadequate deal to fix its finances. If all goes as planned, it will get as much as 100 billion euros ($132 billion) in debt relief from private creditors, and 130 billion euros in loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to help cover its borrowing needs while it carries out austerity measures.
The stated goal: to lower the government’s suffocating net debt burden of more than 150 percent of gross domestic product to the slightly less suffocating figure of 120 percent of GDP by 2020 -- a level that would still leave it among the euro area’s most indebted.
Greece’s end of the bargain is extremely onerous. The government must reduce its annual primary budget deficit by about 7 percent of GDP, or more than 15 billion euros -- the equivalent of what it spends every year on social programs. With unemployment at more than 20 percent, industrial production down 11.3 percent in the last year and the economy expected to shrink 4.5 percent in 2012, the budget target all but guarantees that Greece will be back for another bailout, if it manages to avoid a descent into civil unrest.
Official creditors, such as the European Union and the ECB, have the power to increase Greece’s chances of pulling through. They hold about 40 percent of the country’s sovereign debt. If they agreed to take losses alongside private creditors, Greece’s net debt burden could be brought down to roughly 80 percent of GDP immediately. The move would halve the deficit reduction required of Greece, significantly improving its economic prospects and reducing the amount of new loans it would need from the EU and the IMF to stay afloat in the years ahead.
Here is where Draghi comes in. By various estimates, the ECB holds between 36 billion euros and 55 billion euros of Greek debt, much of it purchased on the open market at a deep discount to face value. According to Bloomberg News, euro-area officials have said the ECB is considering ways to give Greece a break on that debt, possibly in a deal that would involve selling it at cost to the European Financial Stability Facility.
This would be an excellent move: It would allow the EFSF to lighten Greece’s debt load and would point the way toward more official participation in a realistic solution to the crisis. It would also permit the ECB to avoid losses that could otherwise undermine its ability to keep buying the bonds of other troubled countries such as Spain and Italy.
Action from the ECB would be only a first step. European leaders, in particular German Chancellor Angela Merkel, face serious domestic political obstacles to providing debt relief. They might also believe that the more Greece is beholden to them, the more leverage they’ll have to press for further austerity measures. That approach carries a big risk of pushing Greece -- and possibly the global economy -- straight off a cliff.
In recent months, Greece has been painted as extremely irresponsible, self-centered opportunists, taking advantage of billions they were lent and too lazy to make necessary sacrifices
and too egotistical to make compromises among its political leaders.
What is not at center stage is Greece's existential right to control its own destiny.
Through fiscal manipulation and blackmail Greece has lost much of its autonomy in economic and political decision-making because of the debt it owes to the central banks and its private equity lenders.
The truth is Greece is being threatened by the Troika (ECB, IMF, and the EU) with the possibility of a horrifically messy default. Unless it imposes harsh austerity measures (as outlined by Troika) none of the bail out money will be released to keep schools open, hospitals operating, municipal services such as bus service, power, utilities, police, fire fighters, ambulances or the government functioning.
If Greece is allowed to default, the credit market will freeze solid, businesses will fail, no paychecks will be issued, currency value will tank, there will be a run on the banks and the nation will plunge into utter chaos and violence. Austerity does not look much better either. It would leave Greece totally bankrupt, steeped in poverty and starve its economy of any growth--throwing it deeper into recession and leaving it at the mercy and control of their creditors.
The main difference in outcome if Greece were to default is that it could potentially destroy the entire Eurozone and take with it the global economy.
Without a doubt, Greece has been put in an extremely humilating position and it sees no good options on the table to avoid any catastrophe.
Meanwhile in this article, the ECB has deemed itself the savior, the benevolent and kind friend making concessions for an ungrateful, overindulgent, self-centered nation. The truth is the Troika is using economic terrorism to secure power over Greece and the entire Eurozone. The problem is the positioning of the central banks over sovereign nations.
Without further adeiu:
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has taken a decidedly more activist and creative approach than his predecessor, Jean-Claude Trichet, toward supporting the euro-area economy and propping up its banks. Now, he has an opportunity to take the initiative with Greece, the currency union’s sickest economy.
After weeks of wrangling, Greece is close to completing yet another inadequate deal to fix its finances. If all goes as planned, it will get as much as 100 billion euros ($132 billion) in debt relief from private creditors, and 130 billion euros in loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to help cover its borrowing needs while it carries out austerity measures.
The stated goal: to lower the government’s suffocating net debt burden of more than 150 percent of gross domestic product to the slightly less suffocating figure of 120 percent of GDP by 2020 -- a level that would still leave it among the euro area’s most indebted.
Greece’s end of the bargain is extremely onerous. The government must reduce its annual primary budget deficit by about 7 percent of GDP, or more than 15 billion euros -- the equivalent of what it spends every year on social programs. With unemployment at more than 20 percent, industrial production down 11.3 percent in the last year and the economy expected to shrink 4.5 percent in 2012, the budget target all but guarantees that Greece will be back for another bailout, if it manages to avoid a descent into civil unrest.
Official creditors, such as the European Union and the ECB, have the power to increase Greece’s chances of pulling through. They hold about 40 percent of the country’s sovereign debt. If they agreed to take losses alongside private creditors, Greece’s net debt burden could be brought down to roughly 80 percent of GDP immediately. The move would halve the deficit reduction required of Greece, significantly improving its economic prospects and reducing the amount of new loans it would need from the EU and the IMF to stay afloat in the years ahead.
Here is where Draghi comes in. By various estimates, the ECB holds between 36 billion euros and 55 billion euros of Greek debt, much of it purchased on the open market at a deep discount to face value. According to Bloomberg News, euro-area officials have said the ECB is considering ways to give Greece a break on that debt, possibly in a deal that would involve selling it at cost to the European Financial Stability Facility.
This would be an excellent move: It would allow the EFSF to lighten Greece’s debt load and would point the way toward more official participation in a realistic solution to the crisis. It would also permit the ECB to avoid losses that could otherwise undermine its ability to keep buying the bonds of other troubled countries such as Spain and Italy.
Action from the ECB would be only a first step. European leaders, in particular German Chancellor Angela Merkel, face serious domestic political obstacles to providing debt relief. They might also believe that the more Greece is beholden to them, the more leverage they’ll have to press for further austerity measures. That approach carries a big risk of pushing Greece -- and possibly the global economy -- straight off a cliff.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Greece: Strike Protesters Burn German Flag Due to Forced Austerity Measures
Police used pepper spray against the protesters, who burned a German flag, during a brief flare-up of violence at the rally which was joined by some 25,000 people despite the heavy rainfall.
The generally peaceful rally, organized separately by general and communist trade unions, was called against widely reported plans by the government to slash the minimum wage and impose other drastic cuts.
Unions and employers have already rejected calls to cut the minimum wage, currently at 751euros per month, arguing that it would make the country's four-year recession even worse.
"This is a crime against the nation," Vangelis Moutafis, a top strike organizer at the country's largest union, the GSEE.
"They are driving wage-earners into absolute poverty. They are wiping out the unemployed and retired people ... They are selling off the state for nothing. This must not continue. It's a crime and it must be stopped now." (Athens News/gw)
Monday, February 6, 2012
Papademos postpones bailout meeting | Athens News
A meeting between Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and the leaders of the three political parties supporting his interim government has been postponed until Tuesday.
Later on Monday, Papademos will have another meeting with members of the EU-IMF troika mission in Athens to conclude negotiations on crucial chapters of the deal that are still not settled.
Earlier on Monday the government missed the noon deadline for responding to painful terms for a new EU/IMF bailout as patience in Brussels wore thin over drawn-out negotiations among its feuding political leaders.
The leaders of France and Germany told the government on Monday time was running out in talks on a broad debt restructuring deal and the country would only get bailout money from Europe if it lived up to its promise to deliver economic reforms in return.
"We want this accord," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. "Greece's leaders have made commitments and they must respect them scrupulously ... Europe is a place where everyone has their rights and duties. Time is running out, it needs to be concluded, it needs to be signed."
He and German leader Angela Merkel held a news conference after an annual meeting of top government ministers from both countries where they kept pressure up on the interim government to meet reform suggestions set out by "the troika."
Contrary to earlier reports, an official from the finance ministry said "there is no deadline" for the interim government to say whether they accept the painful terms of a new bailout deal to avoid a messy default that could threaten the country's future in the eurozone.
He said the entire Government side had to agree terms of the rescue, which would be the second for Athens since 2010, with international lenders before the next meeting of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers.
"The only deadline is to have a staff agreement for the second bailout and the agreement of the political leaders before Eurogroup," said the official, who requested anonymity.
No date has yet been set for the Eurogroup meeting, although it is expected this week.
Political leaders must agree on unresolved problems - including labour market change and shoring up domestic banks - to secure the 130bn euro rescue Greece needs by March or risk inflaming tempers in the European Union over what is seen as its dithering on implementing reforms.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said after five hours of talks on Sunday that party chiefs had agreed measures including wage cuts and other reforms as part of spending cuts worth 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.
But Pasok spokesman Panos Beglitis said a number of major issues demanded by the troika, representing EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund lenders, remained unresolved.
"There are two big issues left – labour and banks ... those have been left for tomorrow," Beglitis said.
Beglitis made clear the leaders of the three parties had much to negotiate as the deadline nears, and must respond to the proposals by noon.
Domestic banks are up to their necks in junk government bonds now worth a fraction of their face value and two coalition parties - New Democracy and the rightwing Laos – have opposed any further spending cuts.
Now the coalition parties must respond to a working group of senior eurozone finance ministry officials who are preparing for a meeting of their ministers later in the week.
Big issues
Newspapers Ta Nea and Imerisia wrote on Monday, without naming their sources, that holiday bonuses in the private sector would be maintained but that the minimum wage would likely be cut to 600 euros from about 750 euros.
Ta Nea added that the European Union and IMF were also pushing for a 35 percent cut in supplementary pensions, another sticking point in the talks.
By late on Sunday, no meeting of the Euro Working Group had been formally scheduled for Monday but it could hold a conference call or schedule a face-to-face meeting at short notice, depending on the outcome of talks in Athens.
Alarmed by the prospect of yet more budget cuts, the country’s two main trade unions said they would call a 24-hour strike for Tuesday in protest against policies which they say have only driven the economy into a downward spiral.
Leftist and communist-affiliated groups will rally on Monday to march to parliament. (Reuters, AMNA, Athens News)
Later on Monday, Papademos will have another meeting with members of the EU-IMF troika mission in Athens to conclude negotiations on crucial chapters of the deal that are still not settled.
Earlier on Monday the government missed the noon deadline for responding to painful terms for a new EU/IMF bailout as patience in Brussels wore thin over drawn-out negotiations among its feuding political leaders.
The leaders of France and Germany told the government on Monday time was running out in talks on a broad debt restructuring deal and the country would only get bailout money from Europe if it lived up to its promise to deliver economic reforms in return.
"We want this accord," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. "Greece's leaders have made commitments and they must respect them scrupulously ... Europe is a place where everyone has their rights and duties. Time is running out, it needs to be concluded, it needs to be signed."
He and German leader Angela Merkel held a news conference after an annual meeting of top government ministers from both countries where they kept pressure up on the interim government to meet reform suggestions set out by "the troika."
Contrary to earlier reports, an official from the finance ministry said "there is no deadline" for the interim government to say whether they accept the painful terms of a new bailout deal to avoid a messy default that could threaten the country's future in the eurozone.
He said the entire Government side had to agree terms of the rescue, which would be the second for Athens since 2010, with international lenders before the next meeting of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers.
"The only deadline is to have a staff agreement for the second bailout and the agreement of the political leaders before Eurogroup," said the official, who requested anonymity.
No date has yet been set for the Eurogroup meeting, although it is expected this week.
Political leaders must agree on unresolved problems - including labour market change and shoring up domestic banks - to secure the 130bn euro rescue Greece needs by March or risk inflaming tempers in the European Union over what is seen as its dithering on implementing reforms.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said after five hours of talks on Sunday that party chiefs had agreed measures including wage cuts and other reforms as part of spending cuts worth 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.
But Pasok spokesman Panos Beglitis said a number of major issues demanded by the troika, representing EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund lenders, remained unresolved.
"There are two big issues left – labour and banks ... those have been left for tomorrow," Beglitis said.
Beglitis made clear the leaders of the three parties had much to negotiate as the deadline nears, and must respond to the proposals by noon.
Domestic banks are up to their necks in junk government bonds now worth a fraction of their face value and two coalition parties - New Democracy and the rightwing Laos – have opposed any further spending cuts.
Now the coalition parties must respond to a working group of senior eurozone finance ministry officials who are preparing for a meeting of their ministers later in the week.
Big issues
Newspapers Ta Nea and Imerisia wrote on Monday, without naming their sources, that holiday bonuses in the private sector would be maintained but that the minimum wage would likely be cut to 600 euros from about 750 euros.
Ta Nea added that the European Union and IMF were also pushing for a 35 percent cut in supplementary pensions, another sticking point in the talks.
By late on Sunday, no meeting of the Euro Working Group had been formally scheduled for Monday but it could hold a conference call or schedule a face-to-face meeting at short notice, depending on the outcome of talks in Athens.
Alarmed by the prospect of yet more budget cuts, the country’s two main trade unions said they would call a 24-hour strike for Tuesday in protest against policies which they say have only driven the economy into a downward spiral.
Leftist and communist-affiliated groups will rally on Monday to march to parliament. (Reuters, AMNA, Athens News)
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