Re: (Day)light robbery
 

Fredbargate;9782310]
That is not always happening, at least in big cities were controls are more difficult. There are more controls now, mainly because neighbors and local shop owners who do keep the legal times call and complaint. But it's a small fine and they will open again.
I am stating my personal experiences and not gossip
Neither am I, I aso have my own experiences and can see some shops in big cities. I might have missed the latest controls and fines, but when I go to Spain it's not unusual to see a few out of opening times. As per my friend, she's been working in the same NBotaría for over 15 years and she's not the gossip type.

They should not have to adapt to illegal practices, to start with. Especially when we are talking of small one-two people shops who simply cannot work all day and cannot afford to contract people. Also many Chinese work as "volunteers" or "part-timers" when they are there most of the day. That is also illegal.
The whole world has to adapt to changing conditions, Europe in particular. What are these illegal practices? in my twenties I was working 32 hour shifts in the construction industry in UK , they were known as ghosters, start at 8am and finish at 4 pm the next day.
And I might been younger than you, I have also been working well over 40 hours per week, the wost job was 9 hours per day 6 days a week =54 hours, not being paid extra hours, and even getting nominally far more than what I was actually being paid. At that time I needed the job, nothing else to do. We also have shift turns, and they can be legal depending on the sector. They will always say" lo tomas o lo dejas, como las lentejas" (=you can take it or you can leave it, as with lentils).


They paid me what I wanted for my property.
So? I haven't said that they pay less than the asking price, but you, they and anybody can now pay much less than some years ago. In many cases a pitiful.

"A friend of mine working with a Notary tells me that many clients tell her that the normal way of buying houses, flats, locals by Chinese people... is simply giving them a suitcase full of money. Scary!"
I believe this is the way many Spaniards have sold their property in the past to all nationalities. This is the way Spaniards avoid taxes. The Spanish lawyers and the Spanish notaries have to be party to it.
As I said, I find it scary because of the ways they have managed to get the money. Of course many people everywhere will try to do that, but the system has changed and it's harder to do it, just as it's harder in the UK.

The Chinese who bought my property owned a shop that they had paid €1.3 million for and had a mortgage in excess of €700,000. The bank was still willing to loan them 70% on my property which took them to over €1 million on mortgage. I cannot see a bank loaning that much to the operators of one business unless that business is viable on paper which it is unlikely to prove if it is syphoning money off to send abroad. Or we have another bent Spanish bank manager.
We have so many!!! :lol: But, as long as they can give proof of their business (and who knows how much they declare), and have a NIE, they can buy cash.

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

You described yourself as Posh :nod: in another thread (something 'posh' people never do) so I presume you are wealthy and would never worry about prices, I'm sure you'd have paid more in F&M's for bits and bobs when you lived in 'Posh' areas of London :rofl: So don't worry about the brits living on scraps or buying cheap tat in Spain :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: Uncouth oiks that they are; I spit on them.

There was an article on the Blacks Leisure group going under in the UK, a company that grew up with the Boy Scout movement ect but who are competing with ebay and pound shops often selling the same gear for a much lower price.

The song was "Video killed the radio star" now it would be called "The internet killed the local shop"? This is the reality of 2012 UK and I've no doubt that the same will hit Spain as its online shopping infrastructure catches up with us :(

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

evamar please read what I have written

In your 6 day week I would work 96 hrs and still work on the 7th day

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

That takes us back to the start of this thread, The Chinese are asking much less than the Spanish for the same products therefore the Spanish need to adapt. That also goes for other nationalities in other countries.

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

I think you are a bit confused

I am not "posh" in any way and have never described myself as posh

And you are completely missing the point. I was just explaining that capitalism does not price things "fairly" but based on what someone will pay. Read any marketing textbook

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

Sometimes adapting to the incomers way of doing things is not possible even when a livelihhood depends on it, and eventually can damage the economy even more.

A lot of Chinese business are worked in by the whole family, quite often paying no wages because they live together in the same house.

It is not possible for a european family unit to live the same way.

i for one would not want to see a backward step,whereby Spanish couples have children for cheap labour as they need them to work for almost free, because they all eat from the same pot.

You make it sound so easy, have you any idea how much Spanish labour costs are,

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

Of course it is - we simply choose not to! and that's our choice and so, ultimately, puts the prices up.

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

"Before I lived in the posh bits of Barcelona and London. You get to see a few more realities down here"

I'm well aware of what capitalism is, worked in it and done rather nicely from it over the years :D

Back on track. I admire the work ethic demonstrated by the Asian community, they often work longer hours operating at lower profit margins than many of 'us' would be prepared to do.

A young Indian couple took over a failing local store (small village, one shop) and opens 07:00 - 22:00 every day of the year, if they are not there one of the family is. Prior to their take over the shop was run by a local English couple, 09:00 - 18:00 and 10:00 - 12:00 Sunday, next to no stock, miserable, crazy high prices and all they did was moan about how bad trade was. The new couple run a good range of stock, well priced and if you ask for something they don't have I guarantee its there within a couple of days.

The Chinese/Asians work long and hard and don't waste any money, good luck to them.

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

:rofl:

Do you work for a tabloid newspaper? You do a great job of twisting quotes around

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

It is not so many years ago that we did.

I believe in the near future, hopefully after I'm no longer here, we will have no choice.

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

And before your time, 5 years olds were climbing up and cleaning chimneys and most people didn't even had a loo inside their house.

And my mother was working some 10 hours 6 days per week when she was 12, missing lots of school days, for almost nothing. And even before that, as soon as she was able to help my grandmother, she was working for free. Then she was also exploited until there were laws against child working and limiting the weekly working hours. And there were then many people looking for potato peels in bins and boiling them to have something to eat, and my mother lost 4 of her 8 kids because of the hard conditions of life. As JFS said, families had lots of kids firstly because of the hard life conditions they had to assume that many will die, and secondly because those who did survive will work and be extra earners. What is that to do with the current situation here?

What is your point comparing past times with the present??? :confused:

Each time has it's own regulations, 40 hours per week is now almost standard practice in most jobs everywhere in Europe, even the UK, and I for one wouldn't like to go back at my grandmother's time regarding work and life conditions... I guess you have your pension, so you are quite protected against the current situation, but not sure you would like your 5 year old grandchildren to go and work because that was normal 150 years ago here and surely in China kids are working now too?

So, back to the point, if they come to a country where legal weekly working hours are 40 per week, and there are regulations regarding the opening times for shops, THEY have to adapt. They can sleep on the floor on the factories in their country and make 20 hours per day every single day if that's what they understand is normal. But the Chinese immigrants cannot do here the same as they do in China.

Precisely the problem is that we don't care of the condition of the people in China and many other places while we have money to buy their stuff, and rich pigs from the Western and rich pigs from their own countries make fortunes exploiting those people because they don't care about their lives and most are seen as prescindible for the common good.

It is Western's fault for closing everything here because they are cheaper and letting them to supply us... and then make sure that we feel that we have to buy things that we don't need and making stuff with a short life so that we'll have to buy more and more... that's where you can start appealing to the very few people who actually move the world's economy and ask them to bring back factories to the Western... then we'll see how bad our work conditions get, but at least you can talk and compare to China. At this point we are not really producers, everything comes from China even if we put a Western label. We are consumers. But this cannot continue anymore, we cannot spend money and even those who still have some know better than to do it, big spending and credit have past their days. Really rich people have no problems, never had.

And then we have silly people saying that Spain and other countries have to reduce salaries and make themselves more competitive... keep your pension and tell that to high earners... most people are killing themselves to keep a sh**ty job paid well under 1K euros with sh**ty conditions because they are the only working person in their families. Whatever their experience and education.

I know that the situation is bad, but seeing it made even worst by immigrants who are living in the same conditions as we did 150 years ago, with illegal competence to local business and then sending away from the country most of the money they get here...

If we follow your point of view, we'll be back to the point where lives were unimportant and we simply fight for survival. We are already starting, but it will far harder with so much world population.

Unfortunately I will see it, most of you are actually lucky pensioners.

:frown: :thumbdown:

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

You makeit sound so simple,but it isnot....

And that is the reason that there are thousands of pensioners in Spain (especially in rural communities)without pensions, because the whole family lived together and farmed the land, not earning a wage or contributing to the system.

Unlike the UK if you dont contribute you dont draw out at the end.

The family lived together, and I dont deny that in the past they lived well, but then the need for money grew, as electricity was installed, you cannot pay the bill with a few dozen eggs, you know.

Also inheritance taxes have to be paid on inheriting a property, so you had cash poor heirs having to pay a load of taxes,just to stay where they were.

So no we have a lot of old people who worked incredibly hard thoughtout their whole life, but who did it in the way you are advocating, so now their life is a stuggle just to eat.

So how simple it is to say that people dont live that way by choice, because it is an unsustainable way of life, and I thought that poeple who have lived in Spain for a long time, would have seen the result of an outmoded way of life in a modern country.

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

Well said Nena..............I agree wholeheartly.

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That only works when others buy their stuff... when we all stop wasting money, the system collapse. Many people now are forced to buy only the strictly necessary. And many who woulnd't be happy to have that couple's life a couple years ago, would now accept any condition... at least in Spain, not so sure if you can get money for doing nothing.

I cannot see that the only solution is to go back 150 years and simply survive.

Re: (Day)light robbery
 

Anyone see on the Spanish news a week or so back the Chinese shop owners demonstrations about their not being allowed to sell alcohol ?

I don't know the details or the reason why this is the case, but they obviously consider that they are not being treated equally or fairly.

In view of the already reasonable prices of alcohol in Spain, a price war between Chinese and Spanish would be interesting, though I would have thought that the Spanish, as producers, would surely already have the upper hand with regards to most types of alcoholic drinks.