# 27% of Spaniards are out of work. Yet in one town everyone has a job



## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

> Marinaleda is run along the lines of a communist Utopia and boasts collectivised lands (1,200 previously unused hectares, seized by a mass land-grab in 1990 from an aristocrat’s estate) which offer every villager the opportunity to work the fields, tending to root crops and olive groves. In Andalusia, where jobs are currently being lost at the rate of about 500 a day, any work is good work.


27% of Spaniards are out of work. Yet in one town everyone has a job - Europe - World - The Independent


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## JoCatalunya (Mar 16, 2011)

It sounds wonderful.

Save.

If my crop prices have gone steadily down and I cannot make a living from the land I wonder how the people of this town can.
I note that the town is in debt to the tune of 2.4 million euros, which makes me think the utopia is not all it is cracked up to be.
Eventually someone will be looking to have the debt repaid.

I wonder how many olives at 20 cents a kilo it will take to repay it?


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

JoCatalunya said:


> It sounds wonderful.
> 
> Save.
> 
> ...


I'm sure it's not the Utopia it claims to be, and this mayor has been much criticised for some of his actions in the past, but realistically what's 2.4 million euros compared to other ayuntamientos, especially in Andalucia?I don't know, but it's probably very little. Perhaps others on the forum know. 
And the idea of paid work must be very attractive considering the rate of unemployment is I believe 36,87% in that area!
You're right about someone looking for the debt to be repaid though, probably many years down the line...


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

Pesky Wesky said:


> I'm sure it's not the Utopia it claims to be, and this mayor has been much criticised for some of his actions in the past, but realistically what's 2.4 million euros compared to other ayuntamientos, especially in Andalucia?I don't know, but it's probably very little. Perhaps others on the forum know.
> And the idea of paid work must be very attractive considering the rate of unemployment is I believe 36,87% in that area!
> You're right about someone looking for the debt to be repaid though, probably many years down the line...


Andalucia is the 3rd most indebted region in Spain after Madrid & Cataluña.
Large proportions of it's income are from central government funds. 
Madrid & Cataluña have the Gdp to service/payoff the debt. Andalucia doesn't.


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## Aron (Apr 30, 2013)

The figures are from the amount of people registering for unemployment benefit, not how many are out of work. The government are aware of this as. Nobody truly knows the exact jobless figures


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## Cazzy (Nov 23, 2008)

The village in Question is five minutes from me! They can't earn that much because a few months age the Mayor and his band of Merry Men ransacked the local supermarkets for food to feed the starving in his village!1


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## Guest (May 16, 2013)

Although the philosophy behind this movement appears to be humanitarian, the "leader" seems, from the way he is described in the article, to be yet another patriarchal charismatic autocrat. Sigh...


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## JoCatalunya (Mar 16, 2011)

Catalunya is bankrupt.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

mysticsmick said:


> Although the philosophy behind this movement appears to be humanitarian, the "leader" seems, from the way he is described in the article, to be yet another patriarchal charismatic autocrat. Sigh...


He is a self-confessed revolutionary socialist-Trotskyite-anarcho-syndacalist whatever and belongs to a small militant union, SAT, which is typical of the kind of totally unrealistic world this loony tunes guy lives in. It actually union refuses membership to anyone in the police or security industry as they are 'agents of the tools of oppression' or some such claptrap. What do they do if they are burgled or assaulted, I wonder....Dispense their own 'revolutionary justice'?

The reason that they can carry on as they do is that they are doing so within the capitalist system they despise and wish to overthrow. Simple as that. Without the infrastructure, state and regional grants etc. they would be impotent.

The philosophy behind the movement is anything but humanitarian. It is one which can only lead to violence, oppression and a totally evil disregard of common ethics amd morality.
The supermarket raids exemplified this: if people are hungry then stealing is justified. That's the 'ends justify the means' theory. It follows from this way of thinking that if a person opposes your ideology s/he can be liquidated as an obstacle to 'human progress'. This is of course just what Trotsky and his merry band did in the Soviet Union in the post-revolutionary years. This creed led to the deaths of millions under Stalin's collectivisation programme.

Fortunately this self-righteous 'leader' has very little support amongst ordinary Spanish people. It seems as with the SWP in the UK it has more middle-class professional and academic supporters than horny-handed sons and daughters of toil.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Here's some information about debts in Town halls. It states how many euros they owe per inhabitant.The first list is the baddies, the second; the not so bad.
Look at Bilbao!!










From here
Andalucía es la comunidad con los Ayuntamientos más endeudados | Economía | EL PAÍS


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Cazzy said:


> The village in Question is five minutes from me! They can't earn that much because a few months age the Mayor and his band of Merry Men ransacked the local supermarkets for food to feed the starving in his village!1


 Good point!


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Aron said:


> The figures are from the amount of people registering for unemployment benefit, not how many are out of work. The government are aware of this as. Nobody truly knows the exact jobless figures


The government manipulates the figures of unemployment as they do in all governments, I would imagine. One expression in Spanish is to "maquillar" = to put make up on or to embellish


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Here's some information about debts in Town halls. It states how many euros they owe per inhabitant.The first list is the baddies, the second; the not so bad.
> Look at Bilbao!!
> 
> 
> ...


The reason the city of Jaén is in so much debt is they were talked into building a tramway. It is built and sits there rusting because they don't have the money to operate it. A Catalan company was going to take over its operation but the system still stands idle. The Economy here is also oriented around olives and while the prices keep falling, there is no hope of the situation here ever getting any better. The main market for olive oil is Italy who (legally, according to the EU) can add as little as 4% Italian oil and call the whole mixture "Italian Oil". The consequence is that when buyers are offered pure unadulterated Spanish oil, they want what they have been told is the best - doctored Spanish oil labelled as Italian. It makes the prospects of Jaén lifting its head out of the mire very unlikely.


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## anles (Feb 11, 2009)

Aron said:


> The figures are from the amount of people registering for unemployment benefit, not how many are out of work. The government are aware of this as. Nobody truly knows the exact jobless figures


The figures are of the people registered as seeking employment, regardless of whether they are receiving benefit. However, when you are doing a course run by the INEM you no longer figure as unemployed. When you finish the course you are registered again as seeking employment, thus go back to become part of the figures. I think this fact contributed to the supposed large drop in "unemployed" last month that the government made so much of, because at least in my town, the majority of courses start in April and in August. 
The problem of the high level of unemployed is not only the fact that they are now around 27% *of the working population*, but the fact that the working population also has to "keep" the non-working population.


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## JoCatalunya (Mar 16, 2011)

From what I understand you can only have unemployment benefits here in Spain for 1 year after this, I do not know what happens to you. Of course I may be in error and will stand corrected if I am.


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