News Spanish bailout

[rynnor]

And this global breakdown risk is why they will eventually suck it up, go eurobonds and commit to 50 years of economic stagnation.

I'm not sure that will help in the long run. I read an interesting article about the fall of the Roman Empire that didn't cite the usual Barbarians etc. but instead laid the blame to the gap between rich and poor growing too large. People at the bottom became disenchanted and gave up on aspiring to become citizens and the whole thing crumbled.

If the elite dont start acting differently they may see their house of cards collapse.

 

[cHodAX]

Because they are terrified that without it Spain has no choice but to default and the house of cards will fall as a result. They must prop Spain up or it's all over.

How could the EU stability fund - setup to bail out EU members in trouble - give money directly to some dodgy Spanish Bank when the Irish had to take austerity to get a bailout for their dodgy bank?

 

[cHodAX]

Tbh - if it all went to hell your biggest risk would be from locals killing you for supplies...

And your Irn-Bru stocks!

 

[cHodAX]

Well, personally I am stocking up on pasta, rice, flour, sugar, veg oil, salt and corned beef. Not silly amounts but enough to get me through a rough month should the worst happen, if it isn't sorted out after that then we are all a bit fucked anyway.

 

[Raven]

And remember. You can't survive on rabbits alone! You will die of starvation.

Useless fact of the day.

 

[cHodAX]

And remember. You can't survive on rabbits alone! You will die of starvation.

Useless fact of the day.

Less rabbits = more carrots. Rabbit and carrots covers all your essential dietary requirements!

 

[Hawkwind]

So glad I popped some money into gold 2 years ago. Maybe the only currency worth anything soon

 

[Raven]

Only if you hold the gold under the bed.

 

[Vasconcelos]

Edit to make a logical order:



Your talking about Cajas right? Little banks being run by Politicians (which is crazy - you cant trust politicians near money) that got into trouble so grouped together to form Bankia so that they could be bailed out by the Spanish Government?

What I don't get is can the Central Government control the budgets of the Regions?

Spot on.

Although not as little. CajaMadrid, the former Bankia, was already the 4th bank of Spain, and LaCaixa (their catalan counterpart) is still the 3rd bank of Spain.

And about the control of the regional budgets. Again, spot on.

In 1978, when Spain signed their current constitution, the country was divided into 17 regions, ala Germany, BUT, and this is a big BUT, not adopting a federal country model at he same time. Thus, the central goverment have been transferring all the core competences to them, including healthcare, education, and budgeting (with the funds coming from the central goverment ofc), and lots of taxing rights (not the big annual one tho).

All the country (cept the nationalist parties ofc) is demanding the goverment to fix this mess, take back the main competences to the central administration, and cut this extremely oversized system of regional politizians, wich have turned Spain, into the EU country with the biggest population of politizians (national, regional and local), as an example, Spain has almost double the politizians than Germany, despite Spain having half of their population, both countries with a regional country model.

As you can guess, the cost of mantaining this "cast" of politizians is huge, most of them with redundant or irrelevant jobs, and with the salaries of an executive manager of a private company mind you. All entitled to the goals of their political parties, instead to serve the citizenship, all corrupt and long ago sold in return of favours to the local or regional fortunes of dubious origin. So its not only about the huge mantainance cost of unproductive jobs, but also about cutting this source of corruption (see Bankia) that have rot the country.

Im only hoping that the rest of the EU citizenship has realised about this, and DONT FUKIN SPEND a cent of their money and put it on the hands of a corrupt caste of spaniard politizians, who mainly do with the public funds as they wish, w/o taking into consideration the real needs of the people. Demand your leaders not to give your money to this people, specially directly to the banks. Instead, demand your leaders to find a way of helping the country population and not help the country's politizians.

 

[Hawkwind]

Spanish Government pays silly money for civil jobs, Spanish Air Traffic Controllers are some of the highest paid in the world! Starting pay is 170,000 euros and as high as 800,000.
No wonder they are broke. Compare that to the UK, 15-18k after the college training camp. Rising to 30k when training is complete and 45k once they get their validations. Highest possible for senior air traffic controllers is just over 90k.

 

[Scouse]

People at the bottom became disenchanted and gave up on aspiring to become citizens and the whole thing crumbled.

This.

I've already completely given up on our "society"

 

[Vasconcelos]

Spanish Government pays silly money for civil jobs, Spanish Air Traffic Controllers are some of the highest paid in the world! Starting pay is 170,000 euros and as high as 800,000.
No wonder they are broke. Compare that to the UK, 15-18k after the college training camp. Rising to 30k when training is complete and 45k once they get their validations. Highest possible for senior air traffic controllers is just over 90k.

Thats just The Sun material. A mere top of the head of the iceberg.

The real problem arent 500 air traffic controles (who tho rly well payed, by no means earn 800.000€ year), the real problem are the 17 regions, divided into 52 provinces, divided into 8.000 towncouncils (grouped at the same time into yet another category of local goverment called "mancomunidades" equivalent of your counties), which are the playground of more than 400.000 politizians (400.000!! ffs, more than the population of many big capitals of Europe) entitled to their own private goals (cept a few honorable exceptions). And I'm not talking about the usual public worker, no, I'm talking bout pure politizians, so you can guess how they earnt their jobs.

 

[Hawkwind]

Not quite the quite the current bun.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/t...lers-threaten-strike-how-the-row-erupted.html

 

[Turamber]

I read an interesting article about the fall of the Roman Empire that didn't cite the usual Barbarians etc. but instead laid the blame to the gap between rich and poor growing too large. People at the bottom became disenchanted and gave up on aspiring to become citizens and the whole thing crumbled.

Think it was more of a case that virtually everyone was considered to be a citizen by the end of the Empire in the West. People had other options than to join the army so it was full of barbarians who were meant to fight other barbarians... it will not end well.

The economic reason doesn't hold water as the Empire continued in the east for another 1,000 years yet they had the same rich/poor gap, just fewer frontiers with barbarians on them and a much longer history of urban settlement.

Besides all writers find something in the fall of the Roman Empire to justify their own preconceptions. In the early 1900's and between the wars French writers were consumed with German aggression and blamed the fall of the Empire on that, thus mirroring their own fears.

 

[old.Tohtori]

All i've read is spain, money, bank bank, machine gun, rabbits cause starvation, money, guffins, romans did it, but NO mention on how this will affect spanish hotties with their short skirts and tight cleavage

 

[cHodAX]

It just means they have less money for clothes and so will have to wear even less!

 

[Vasconcelos]

The 'health' of our women is still top notch, don't ye worry.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Phew, nevermind then and carry on

 

[cHodAX]

The austerity measures have really kicked in over there, she is almost naked! Let's hope Spain collapses soon and she loses those bikini bottoms!

 

[Wij]

From the President of Estonia

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/111786

Spain and Greece won't accept a drop in living standards back to something in line with their actual productivity. Estonia did. Also interesting reflections on east/west divide.

 

[DaGaffer]

From the President of Estonia

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/111786

Spain and Greece won't accept a drop in living standards back to something in line with their actual productivity. Estonia did. Also interesting reflections on east/west divide.

I detect a degree of bitterness there about the east/west thing that he kind of contradicts himself later on; the real fault line in Europe is north/south not east/west; and actually always has been. There's even (whisper it) an element of protestant work ethic v. catholic fatalism going on.

All the stuff about the US turning towards the Pacific was predicted by pretty much every political theorist and historian as far back as the late eighties, it was also predicted that Europe wouldn't step up to its own defence responsibilities, it was even celebrated as the so-called "peace dividend" that more cautious heads said was an irresponsible attitude.

Note in the whole article Britain wasn't mentioned once. Despite being the largest supporter of European enlargement, Britain just doesn't fit into the European landscape; problem is I think we're getting increasingly distant from the Americans as well, and "splendid isolation" doesn't really work in the modern world when you don't have a massive captive empire market.

 

[rynnor]

Despite being the largest supporter of European enlargement, Britain just doesn't fit into the European landscape; problem is I think we're getting increasingly distant from the Americans as well, and "splendid isolation" doesn't really work in the modern world when you don't have a massive captive empire market.

I dont think we are getting increasingly distant from the US - we are just getting less and less important to them as the world moves on so they focus their attention where needed. They know we will basicly support them and we dont have anything they need so we are on the shelf

Can you really imagine political union between all the disparate nations of Europe - thats what Merkel wants but I dont think the people of Europe really do.

As long as we have access to the European marketplace we will be ok.

 

[Ormorof]

From the President of Estonia

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/111786

Spain and Greece won't accept a drop in living standards back to something in line with their actual productivity. Estonia did. Also interesting reflections on east/west divide.

In the Nordics theres always been a prejudice that the baltic states are bit "loose" - with many Scandinavians claiming that honesty and integrity are high on their list of things they value in people... but frankly thats self-aggrandizing crap

In the last year or so i have been working quite a lot with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and I am stunned at how much more efficient their operation is in comparison to the rest of the nordics

Estonia as an example has one of the highest rates of internet usage in europe, they can vote online, their online banking is way ahead of the ones in use here in the rest of the nordics and in the UK

so i agree with the article, i think we in the "normal" europe tend to underestimate the baltics and eastern states

 

[rynnor]

The Markets have decided Spain is still in trouble even if Banking wont destroy them now - record bond prices - the markets expect a full bailout + austerity.

 

[cHodAX]

It's the fucking credit rating agencies again, they don't care about the bailout and if it works, they are just determined to break the euro at any cost. We have bailed out the tune of 500 bn euros so far and it would work if these cunting agencies weren't so desperate to keep on downgrading nations who's situtation has not changed and even in the case of Spain who are already undertaking austerity measures. What more do the cunts want? Blood? They have it, Spain has 25% unemployment for fucksake.

 

[rynnor]

Spanish debt is still set to increase while its GDP is shrinking - thats whats upsetting them plus the suggestion that Bonds may become a 2nd class security since one of the Euro loans has priority over bonds which isnt going to please Spanish bond investors.

 

[mr.Blacky]

As long as we have access to the European marketplace we will be ok.

Not if the marketplace is very poor.

 

[cHodAX]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18438044

Here we go again, Moodys with another credit rating downgrade, now only one level about junk. Once that happens Spain is utterly fucked regardless of the bailout. These cunting Yanks want the Euro to fall over, I am sure of it.

 

[Raven]

So do I!

 

[cHodAX]

So do I!

It sounds a nice idea, then you consider that they are our largest export market by far and we import insane amounts of food from them. It's a disaster for us if the euro falls over, no matter how attractive the idea initially seems.