spainrico

The Giles Tremlett column today does not give much hope for optimism -

Spain: the pain of austerity deepens

Domino

yes, living in a working class village in Andalucia - one of the hardest hit areas for unemployment - I find the story emotive

but for the same reasons I find I must discount alot of the hyperbole that goes with it.

i see no sign of the Spanish families selling off their 2nd homes which they migrate to for the summer which lay empty for the rest of the year. Granada during the summer the traffic flows reverse every morning/evening as they will still work but travel in from the summer home.

yes there are people in dire straits, that cannot be denied, but then how many of them lived the high life without having savings.
we all know of their UK equivalents, but they have govt benefits they can claim which Spain doesn't have. Think of the Human Rights cries there would be if the UK treated its people in the same way.

Spain has problems, Spain needs some help and support but negativity reports which are not balanced with elements of positivity will only make things worse not better.

IMHO
¬

snikpoh

Around here, a lot of second homes are now on the market.

I truly do not believe that they will sell - you need buyers for that and they simply don't exist at the moment.


I still can not get my head around how some families are existing - no work, no benefits to speak of yet they still have to pay for their children's education etc. etc. How do they do it?

bigglesworth

AEP today, which makes quite frightening reading. Mind you, I think from the syntax and punctuation, he may have been celebrating a tad more than he ought. And he has always been a bit of a doom-monger.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...ft-behind.html

Lynn R

I like the "Icelandic" solution proposed by some of the comments on the article - a global write off of "digital debt" as one person calls it - in other words, tell the financiers to whistle for it!

As Snikpoh says, I just don't know how so many families are surviving in these times when so many are without work, but around me (and I live in a not very well-off area), surviving they seem to be and I don't see people rooting through bins for food. There are a few rooting through bins, for sure, but they are the same few that have been doing the same thing for 10 years, looking for stuff they can sell on for scrap, that's how they make their living. It was noticeable last night how quiet everywhere was for Noche Vieja, no parties spilling out into the street or youngsters roaring off to the clubs on their motos after midnight as there used to be, and very few fireworks. But Mercadona yesterday morning was absolutely heaving, I've never seen it so busy.

Pocaloca

Yes I saw that - if a quarter of Spain's budget for 2013 is going on servicing its debt, that seems like the best option. People are suffering wage cuts and austerity just to make the fat cats fatter!

I guess we'd have to leave the EU, otherwise they'd just replace the government with technocrats like they did in Italy, but I'm growing more convinced that going it alone could be an option for Spain. We are going to suffer ten years of austerity either way, and at least we'd be able to make our own decisions.

bobd22

Is that not worries Mrs Merkel (Spain going on its own), I have read a few times that they think Spain is certainly capable of doing just that. To be honest I do not think anyone knows how this whole thing will pan out. Each country is obviously going to put it's self interest first. Also Mrs Merkel has her own election coming up this year.

rspltd

How is Spain going to manage on it's own when it has been taking money from the EU every year since it joined?

Domino

that appears to be the same statement for a number of countries as shewn in
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-file...EU27_Money.pdf

Spain's situation isnt quite so bad when compared with other "nett receivers" such as those from the "IA" countries (those whose country name end in "ia")

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rspltd

The difference is that Spain joined in 1986 and hasn't stood on it's own feet (as it were) since then.

Domino

and how long do you expect the "IA" countries to take.?

in all teams, groups, companies there are strong performers and not so strong.
commercially many strong products provide the basis for not so strong products to remain on the shelves

look at global investment organisations like KKR, they take on poorly performing companies and turn them round and then sell them on at a profit

I don't recall anyone ever saying that there wasnt an element of beneficial support within the EU, it has always had strong and poor performers, in the case of Spain it came out of over 30 years of Franco holding them back in the dark ages as similarly was used inside the Iron Curtain. Hence the "IA" countries will be a millstone around our necks for decades.

In the Iberian Peninsular, Portugal has a worse deficit.

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cricketman

You're becoming boring

One of the aims of the EU is to provide funding to those countries who need infrastructure developments. Spain was due to become a net contributer 2 or 3 years ago, but the economy tanked

The relatively richer countries of the EU e.g. Germany benefit because they get to sell all their goods to the poorer ones. Germany benefitted hugely from selling its cars to the Southern European countries over the past 10 years or so, and have also benefitted by placing their factories there so having to pay less for labour

As to the original question, yes I am slightly worried. This year is going to be worse than last year no doubt. The puzzle is just who is suffering in Spain and by how much. I've read all the newspaper articles etc but the people I know seem to be just getting by as always, but under a cloud of depression

cricketman

In terms of money yes, but the Eastern European countries have a lot of cheap agricultural land, and their workers will spread across Europe and work for very low wages, which benefits companies (although not the local workers)

I was talking to a Turkish friend a few years ago who said that the EU was keen to take on Turkey because the county is huge and could provide Europe with a lot of cheap food

Domino

how much is actually manageable and as to "cheap" food - at what cost to the rest of the union in loss of jobs as local produce becomes too expensive against food that is dumped at silly prices.

remember UK vs France over the Golden Delicious and lamb arguements.??

surely the future should be for ALL workers to get better lives, not just shifting jobs from one country to another. we know that generally it doesn't work with call centres et al and it cannot work with food.
all that will lead to is resentment, fighting on the streets and food wars whilst there are people going hungry across the border sitting on under utilised land.

It isn't the job of the EU to shift labour and food production to one "favoured" country at the detriment of others within the union.

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cricketman

I agree, I am not siding with the EU. I only wanted to explain that not all benefits are in terms of the immediate contribution. e.g. while Spain has been receiving EU contributions it has been sending out megatons of cheap food across Europe

The whole economic model needs changing. Globalization will simply lower the quality of all our lives to that of the global average while the maga-rich take a large slice of the profits. There are not enough resources in the world to hope for everybodies quality of life to improve

Myself, I hope for the exact opposite process. A Regionalization of the economic model where villages or neighbourhoods can be self-sufficient in terms of resources and energy, but still trade at a global level in the high-tech enviornment for knowledge sharing etc