It hasn´t been this bad in 37 years and at 27,2% of the population unemployment is even higher than economists predicted. Fundamental reform is clearly needed and not only in Spain.
Prime-minister Mariano Rajoy states he will present new plans to reform the economy but expectations of government plans are low. Rajoy and his ruling conservative party are involved in corruption scandals; not a likely source of a new ´Marshall´ plan to get Spain back on its feet.
Under pressure by demonstrations and strikes Rajoy promised that the new plans will not bring more austerity measures, but it´s unlikely that this government will embark on a Keynesian approach to stimulate the economy.
Softening the pain is not the solution for the drama in Spain: a complete generation grows up without job experience. The youth is hit hardest and people in their thirties go back to their parents as they can´t afford housing.
Time for the Italian approach with a coalition government and political outsiders to draw up a nation-wide reform and stimulation plan?
What other ways are there to get the suffering European economies back on track? Spain is now in its seventh quarter of a shrinking economy, but stronger economies like the Netherlands are in sustained recession as well.
The days of 3% yearly growth are over if Europe doesn´t fundamentally change. #Politics #Europe
And they just lost 4-0 and 4-1 against German football teams..
Yes, tell-tale sign of the state of Europe +Nicolas Charbonnier Germans take everything…
Spain needs a proper government. A technocracy like Italy got seems like the only proper way out. This is not a time or place for soft politicians, but for people who know what they talk about, such as economists and others who actually studied up on what they talk about.
Austerity measures are starting to really cut into Health and basic needs, too… lives are at stake now.
I wonder which devastates them the most?
+Maya Posch soft politicians? do you mean the ones who bow down to pressure from the top? Because the ones we have now are anything but soft in the measures they are taking, but they do not have the welfare of their people at heart.
Small correction, +Max Huijgen. German Banks take everything.
I fear that it will get worse, also in NL. I can only hope it will not end in war.
A technocrat like in Italy who increased the levels of suicides and made escape businesses from the country, meanwhile increasing the levels of poverty and emigration… is this really the solution +Maya Posch?
Oh, well….
+Daniela Huguet Taylor Soft in the sense that they aren't going to fix the economy, but ruin it even further. Even back in the 1930s we already knew that you have to stimulate an economy by investing to revive it. That the current Spanish government refuses to do so just shows how incompetent they are.
+Anton Theunissen Sadly the Dutch government is also highly conservative and will not invest either. They'll just strip down everyone except for the rich and cut down on all public services. In as far as they haven't done so already.
In the end it may be the two big players in the EU, Germany and France, who will be dragging the other EU countries out of the hole they dug for themselves.
+Maya Posch in many cases, the Spanish government is following instructions from Germany or the EU… It might be best if they stopped listening to everybody else, and started taking care of the inside first, like Iceland did.
+Lambert Schlumpf The Italian economy was in dire straits when Berlusconi was forced to resign. The latter had managed to make the Italian economy nearly infertile for any kind of development since he took over in 1994, with virtually no growth and high levels of corruption.
That the Italian economy isn't worse off right now is already something of a minor miracle.
+Daniela Huguet Taylor Spain is a strong country with a very viable economy and industry. There is enough room there to turn things around. As you said it takes a government which is actually willing to look at what it's got.
Kick out the austerity advocates.
It's funny how outside Italy Monti became a saviour and many problems of the Italian people got forgotten. No money? Let's tax the people like everybody else have done so far… I seriously hope that we won't have some EU puppet here in Spain too.
I think that the Euro was a mistake in first place instead. It brought so much poverty in the long run, good did the UK.
What do you mean by "good did the UK" +Lambert Schlumpf?
the UK did good in keeping the GBP.
Because, obviously, it's purely the Euro that is to blame for this, +Lambert Schlumpf
not purely, it helped.
Easier to blame the Euro than to hunt down the bankers and put them on trial for their financial shenanigans.
It helped, and it's hindering now, not allowing us freedom to devalue our currency.
There are many things at fault here, the politicians, the bankers, the euro, the housing bubble… it's not any one thing.
not that it's easier, has just to be taken in account , +Matthew Graybosch.
+Lambert Schlumpf Dunno, according to family I have living in the UK they (the UK) got hit as hard as any other nation by the financial "crisis". It's only more hidden over there.
Personally, I can't say the GBP did very well against the EUR looking at the valuation chart.
It might just be a crazy idea, but isn't Spain one of the sunniest European countries? Perhaps the government could focus on boosting the solar power sector: creating jobs, industries and a host of other benefits – make Spain the solar powerhouse of Europe.
Great idea +James Pope
Only hurdle they have to take is to convince people to invest to get the whole project off the ground. But with the current situation, I don't see it happening……
They got hit because of the bankers f#ç☆ed up, no doubt, but I lived in UK and taxes didn't increase at impossible levels like happened in Italy where I come from. Surely life costs increased like everywhere else also in UK.
+James Pope
Spain is the fourth largest manufacturer in the world of solar power technology and exports 80 percent of this output to Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain
Thank you for the link +Daniela Huguet Taylor, that is indeed impressive.
I'm spaniard, I am unemployed for two years now and I have to say that it is not only a problem of bankers and politicians.
Our own public systems are collapsed or near to be because we have 17 different Taxes, Health, education, etc institutions besides the main State. Every single institution has its on personel.
I have no numbers to say what percentage from the people who is not unemployed now is working directly or not directly for Gov. or Comunidades Autonomas.
There is a lack in the industrial sector. Just car makers have a good market position.
All the rest of just about services. We put all the eggs in one basket when brick and mortar worked.
I am father on one who is now in the primary school. Education is far away to be useful and academic leves plummeted in the lat decades. Because there is no education law in the long term. Every time there is a change in Gov. lot of thing changes. It is not the politicians problem since their children are not now involved in education and if are, then private schools are their best choices.
My grandparents lived a war. My parents lived a postwar. Now I live this. It is not so scare situation like theirs but I am concerned about my future and the future of my family.
We wake up every day with the news of someone´s son who parted to the north. This is today news, but what will happen 20 years ahead? Who will support the wealfare state.? Policiticians?, Bankers?, people abroad?
Change has to be promoted from inside. No single politician has the guts to do it has to be done, because they only think in the short term 4 years ahead.
The disparity in economic growth was unforeseen, but it´s indeed hindering the positive effect of the Euro +Shaker Cherukuri +Lambert Schlumpf +Daniela Huguet Taylor
However there is not a real way back and Spain needed to focus on Europe. The Euro brought welfare to Spain as well.
+Manuel M. Velasco Vega I am convinced in 20 years from now, Spain will be a better place to learn, work, file your taxes and enjoy living in a country with more opportunity and a better political system. Much of European integration has been fueling the same old systems and powers with fresh resources and gone wasted until recently. We have thought that just by using the same currency and having a few overpaid representatives in Brussels to negotiate a better rebate for our membership dues we would be creating a better continent for everyone. We thought that by pretending a sense of community and by diplomatically overlooking differences, contradictions and cheats, we would become one. Well, that did not really work.
We will never be a perfect union and don't need to. Our hope is that all over the world, growth, education and peace are picking up where there is a remotely balanced system of good governance serving its people. I don't know much about Spain, but from what you say about your public services, the solution seems obvious. People who have served the previous system are and will be losing jobs in the process. This is not a pretty sight, but neither is leaving our children with a legacy of ancient administration choking ideas and ingenuity.
P.S. +Max Huijgen I hate to be the nitpick here, but this is hardly a historic low in Spain's crisis. I'd say the crisis is doing fairly well with an unemployment rate beyond 27%.
I'm going to be irritating here 😉 and say that the EU and the Euro is a great idea.
IF
and only IF
All countries started to trust each other and didn’t lie about their economies for so many years. There has been doctored reports from national banks going to the ECB which has fucked things up royal.
Why the EU has got stuck in this F.A. Hayak nightmare is beyond me. Really, we had not had to go the American way of bailing out to big to fail Banks and Insurance Companies.
We could have just nationalised the banks and insurance companies wholesale and when the banks have repaid their debt to society release them to the markets were banks run free and wild.
Only not. During the time of nationalisation of the finnancial institutions the country could do a few things.
1. Use the newly nationalised banks to invigorate the markets by providing funding to the small and medium companies.
2. Pass a European version of the Glass-Stigler act. Effectively regulating financial institutions who have proved time and time again that Ethics and Morals in business takes its notes from the Borgias and Machiavelli.
2. Make it easier for small and medium sized companies to get contracts with the local governments (like communes, oblasts, counties, city halls etc)
3. All newly started companies that are not companies with stocks (Aktiebolag in Sweden, A/S in Denmark dont know what those are called in the rest of EU) can defer their tax until the end of buisness year when the company knows just how much it supposed to pay in taxes. Instead of guessing before hand based on dodgey projections.
4. Help people in debt by simply saying you know all those student loans you have? Don’t worry about them until you have a job or a profitable business.
After that and the lands are stable again, then and only then we can release the financial institutions in to yonder greens.
And yes, I am Swedish.
So I do realise that my views are probably slightly more to the left than some are comfortable with. I'm comfortable with that.
Student loans? We don't have "student loan" problems here… Mortgage loans, that's another thing.
oh perhaps that's a swedish problem only then.
Living costs have gone up here in the UK. Food prices have gone up noticeably this year. I'm not sure how much this is to do with the crisis or how much it is to do with a poor harvest caused by last year's awful weather. We do seem to have fared better than some though.
It's nowhere near as bad as Spain in Sweden, but I have begun looking in to adopting a "Digital Nomad" style of living to make ends meet, uproot and just roam the planet
"Oppa Tim Ferris Style".