# Employment, Crisis, Tourism



## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

A report on the news and in the local press for the Canary Islands, shows that for the month of October, tourism in the islands has *increased* by 10 per cent, when compared with the same figures last year. It is said also that the tourist industry is re employing some of those laid off because of the earlier reduction in trade.

This can only be be good news, 

Hepa


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Hepa said:


> A report on the news and in the local press for the Canary Islands, shows that for the month of October, tourism in the islands has *increased* by 10 per cent, when compared with the same figures last year. It is said also that the tourist industry is re employing some of those laid off because of the earlier reduction in trade.
> 
> This can only be be good news,
> 
> Hepa



Yes, altho it was so terribly bad the year before, I would imagine that a 10% rise wouldnt have brought it back up to what it was or should be???! Heaven knows what next year will be like - Spains in for some tough stuff according to the EU news!!???

Jo xxx


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

*Offer of Employmernt*

Today myself and my wife were, approached to take positions as teaching assistants.

Neither of us have teaching qualifications and only I have limited teaching experience.

The post was 26 hours per week teaching children of various ages in the local colleges and schools.

It was emphasised that under no circumstances should we speak in Spanish and that teaching experience was not required.

The requirements were that we are native English speakers and that we are residents on the island. 

Not seeking employment nor needing financial remuneration we declined the offers.

However I know "One swallow does not make a summer" but are things on the up?

here is a link I have since located,
DIRECCIÓN GENERAL DE ORDENACIÓN, INNOVACIÓN Y PROMOCIÓN EDUCATIVA


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

jojo said:


> Yes, altho it was so terribly bad the year before, I would imagine that a 10% rise wouldnt have brought it back up to what it was or should be???! Heaven knows what next year will be like - Spains in for some tough stuff according to the EU news!!???
> 
> Jo xxx


Try to book an Hotel Room in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife for the Christmas period, we managed but only just. Seemed as though it was Bethlehem, full up!

My friend has just started a car sales business, here on the island, and I am happy to day he is surviving, well more than that, he's making money.

Construction sites that have been idle for ages, are active again, there is a new bar restaurant being built in the next village. Fruit is being exported by the truckload on nearly every ferry that leaves. I am told that air traffic controllers have been recruited in England.

I might be completely wrong, but here we seem to be bucking the trend, there is a feeling of optimism here,

Hepa


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Fingers crossed for as all!! The news is all doom and gloom re Ireland, Spain Portugal.... the euro is about to crash?????? But if it does it will create new interest??? Who knows where its all heading, BUT, optimism is half the battle and I like to think that it will see us all through. The media, especially the UK media thrives on misery and milk it to death IMO!!!!

Jo xxx


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Hepa said:


> I know "One swallow does not make a summer" but are things on the up?
> 
> For mainland Spain the answer must be 'No'.
> You are unfortunately one small part of a very big picture.
> ...


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## littleredrooster (Aug 3, 2008)

mrypg9 said:


> Hepa said:
> 
> 
> > I know "One swallow does not make a summer" but are things on the up?
> ...


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> Hepa said:
> 
> 
> > I know "One swallow does not make a summer" but are things on the up?
> ...


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

jimenato said:


> mrypg9 said:
> 
> 
> > Maybe Spain needs some of that nasty medicine that cured these problems in the UK around about 1979.
> ...


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## nigele2 (Dec 25, 2009)

Mary very true but I certainly had boom years in the 80s 

But back on Spain I now think thankfully the collapse is very close. And that I think will in the long term be good for Spain.

Merkel is now openly defending the Euro - which means the Euro is under serious threat (bit like when a football manager gets the support of the chairman )

Only Portugal stands between Spain and bailout. But Spain would need an enormous bailout. Will the German people accept that? (At least the UK will not offer extra help with that one )

And the run on the Madrid stockmarket gathers pace. In the last 12 months:

DAX (Germany)+19 percent, CAC (France) +0.5 percent;, FTSE +7.7 percent, Belgium +5.3 percent, Bombay +13.6 percent. Tokyo +8.6 percent, ..... It is very difficult to find any stock market that has not made progress in the last 12 months.

Madrid -21 percent and it now seems in free fall.

You can do the same with many different indicators from many sources - much the same result.

Sadly the only benefit I can see for me is my friends who print Euros in the UK will get more business printing Europigs or whatever they will be called  But Spain will be able to rebuild


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

Is it all doom and gloom on the peninsular, or is it just here on the forum?

The people here still have smiles on their faces, at weekend some of the bars are so busy that you cannot get a seat and during the week they are still serving meals. The people who frequent such establishments are in the main locals, a few tourists, and some Spaniards that are working here.

Perhaps we are coming out of the recession and maybe you will follow later. I must say that on my visit to Asturias in September, all the places I went to visit seemed very busy,

Hepa


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Hepa said:


> Is it all doom and gloom on the peninsular, or is it just here on the forum?
> 
> The people here still have smiles on their faces, at weekend some of the bars are so busy that you cannot get a seat and during the week they are still serving meals. The people who frequent such establishments are in the main locals, a few tourists, and some Spaniards that are working here.
> 
> ...


Quite honestly, in the pueblo where I live (pop. 5000) you wouldn't know there was a crisis, at least on the surface. The main source of income is agriculture, not tourism. 

25% of the population are over retirement age and they are very well looked after, by their families and by numerous welfare agencies.

The Ayuntamiento still provides contract work for the unemployed, including the refurbishment of derelict buildings in the historic old town (which are then used to house low income families). 

Living costs are very low; lots of people grow their own ffruit and veg and keep chickens and goats in their _huertos_ or _parcelas_ and share with their friends and family. When things break, they get mended rather than replaced.

To me, this is a meaningful and sensible way to live. The only group who are seriously affected by the crisis are the well-qualified young people who have to leave the area to get work. But I suspect they would do that anyway, crisis or no crisis.


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## littleredrooster (Aug 3, 2008)

mrypg9 said:


> jimenato said:
> 
> 
> > But it didn't cure our problems, did it....
> ...


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> Quite honestly, in the pueblo where I live (pop. 5000) you wouldn't know there was a crisis, at least on the surface. The main source of income is agriculture, not tourism.
> 
> 25% of the population are over retirement age and they are very well looked after, by their families and by numerous welfare agencies.
> 
> ...


Thank goodness another optimist!! 
Hepa


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Hepa said:


> Thank goodness another optimist!!
> Hepa


Well not really, because it can't last. Eventually people will succumb to consumerism, and/or the state will cut welfare spending, and it will end up just like some towns in Cornwall or the Lake District where most of the property consists of holiday homes for the wealthy.

But hopefully we're good for a few years yet ...


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

littleredrooster said:


> mrypg9 said:
> 
> 
> > Strange, no mention of Brown, who did more than anyone to leave us up to our necks in the brown stuff.
> ...


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

The quotes have been messed up. It wasn't me what said that it was Mary.



littleredrooster said:


> Strange, no mention of Brown, who did more than anyone to leave us up to our necks in the brown stuff.
> Had he got back in, we would have been well on the way to becoming a third World country, relying on OPs handouts just to survive.
> 
> What the next lot will be like I dread to think.
> ...


It's "Beyond New Labour"

Red Ed derided as Buzz Lightweight as he relaunches Party with 'Beyond New Labour' slogan | Mail Online


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

I think this thread is now so way off course from the original post, time to un subscribe,

Hepa


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

jimenato said:


> The quotes have been messed up. It wasn't me what said that it was Mary.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's silly.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

jimenato said:


> It's "Beyond New Labour"
> 
> Red Ed derided as Buzz Lightweight as he relaunches Party with 'Beyond New Labour' slogan | Mail Online


Aw, bless his little cotton socks. I wish he'd go back and read his Dad's books though.
Ralph Miliband and sons | Books | The Guardian


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Hepa said:


> Thank goodness another optimist!!
> Hepa


when optimism brings in money to feed us and our dog, pay our rent, put diesel in the LR....I'll join the Optimists Club.
Until then I'll consider the facts as far as they are available to me and try to plan my life accordingly.
In my book, an optimist is someone who goes out in heavy rain without an umbrella as 'it will stop raining soon'.
The four million plus unemployed will not get jobs by adopting a 'look on the bright side' philosophy. 
I would rather be a realist and face facts - threy will change sooner or later.
Both pessimism and optimism are equally pointless. 
Neither has power to change things.


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## nigele2 (Dec 25, 2009)

Hepa said:


> Thank goodness another optimist!!
> Hepa


Who's optimism?

There is a bias on this forum towards people who will benefit from Spain's financial disaster. If you do not need an income from Spain you will benefit from cheap labour and a downward pressure on prices. Those in nice areas, who take reasonable precautions, will probably escape any increased crime. Those in tourist areas may even see foreign investment and the creation of a load of low paid jobs. Such people can be optimistic for themselves 

Harder job persuading a member of the lost generation of Spain to be optimistic 

IMO Spaniards tend to suffer inwardly in silence rather than display their horrors outwardly. As many have said they fall back on the family. This might explain why on the surface the outsider sees a rosier picture.

But there are still more people begging in my village in Asturias (not a poor area) than the year before. And these are not drug addicts but unemployed people with families. And there are more immigrants selling doggy DVDs and CDs. And short term shop leases, where before there were established businesses, being taken out because doing something is better than being unemployed. But each failure is another families life savings gone.

Perhaps when the end nears the spanish will be stirred into action but it may be too late for at least a generation or more.

But I'm optimistic before very long the whole pack of cards will crumble and a fresh start can be made. I just hope the change is sufficiently radical that there is real change and not what happened last time.


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## littleredrooster (Aug 3, 2008)

nigele2 said:


> I just hope the change is sufficiently radical that there is real change and not what happened last time.


Maybe time for another Franco,.... without the atrocities of course.

Looking back at the economics and politics of the past hundred years or so, crisis seems to have been the order of the day, with the country virtually continuously drifting from one disaster to the next and no one actually taking the bull by the horns to straighten things out.
For many years before the inevitable Civil War, there was no firm leadership and Spain was just drifting like a ship with no rudder or sails, with the various factions of the mainly Socialist govts. forever too busy squabbling amongst themselves, to take any worthwhile positive action regarding the economy.
I have little doubt that had they come through on the winning side, that situation would have continued, maybe until the present day, as it did throughout the war itself.
Little doubt the present Socialist govt has likewise been lacking firm leadership and difficult decisions have only ever been taken as a last resort, when there was little option. 

You ask why I make no mention of Maggie, Mary.
Well apart from having her photo above my bed,(only joking ),.I did have every respect for what she did during her first period in office.
The UK under Wilson and Callaghan was going downhill fast, with endless strikes,devaluation of the pound, no firm policies and just like Spain, far too busy squabbling amongst themselves, to face up to the obvious problems and meet them head on.
No wonder Maggie appeared like a breath of fresh air, with her firm approach which was so desperately needed at that time, to bring the country back into the real World.
However there is little doubt she lost her way later on, becoming far too dictatorial, and it was probably as well that she stood down when she did.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

littleredrooster said:


> The UK under Wilson and Callaghan was going downhill fast, with endless strikes,devaluation of the pound, no firm policies and just like Spain, far too busy squabbling amongst themselves, to face up to the obvious problems and meet them head on.
> No wonder Maggie appeared like a breath of fresh air, with her firm approach which was so desperately needed at that time, to bring the country back into the real World.
> However there is little doubt she lost her way later on, becoming far too dictatorial, and it was probably as well that she stood down when she did.


To me, she was the person who picked up the UK by the scruff of its neck and dragged it kicking and screaming into the light from the dreadful old labour/union tyranny/strike ridden/awful dark days of the seventies.

She got a lot wrong later but she did what was necessary at the time - killed off the unions and old labour with it.

It was nasty medicine but it worked.

google 'winter of discontent' and click on 'images'


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> Quite honestly, in the pueblo where I live (pop. 5000) you wouldn't know there was a crisis, at least on the surface. The main source of income is agriculture, not tourism.
> 
> 25% of the population are over retirement age and they are very well looked after, by their families and by numerous welfare agencies.
> 
> ...


What about house prices? They've gone seriously through the floor here in a similar-ish village and quite close. Although I suppose we have a higher proportion of expats...


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## littleredrooster (Aug 3, 2008)

jimenato said:


> What about house prices? They've gone seriously through the floor here in a similar-ish village and quite close. Although I suppose we have a higher proportion of expats...


According to the forecasts I've seen, 2011 is expected to be the worst year yet,with house prices dropping a further 20% or more.

With Mr Bean still burying his head in the sand, it seems that a bail-out could yet be on the cards, which would no doubt be a major disaster for the Euro.


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## NancyS (Nov 25, 2010)

Hi Hepa

You said you were approached by a school to teach for them. Do you know which one? I am interested in moving to Spain and teaching English. I currently live in Vietnam and would like to move at the end of Feb '11. I have an EU passport so it wouldn't be a problem for me. I have my TESOL diploma too. And if you or anyone else knows of any other places that are looking for teachers, please let me know too. That would be much appreciated. 

Thanks
Nancy :wave:

(Oh yes, I'm not an expat in Italy. I'm searching in a few places and could only give one place when joining :-D)


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

NancyS said:


> Hi Hepa
> 
> You said you were approached by a school to teach for them. Do you know which one? I am interested in moving to Spain and teaching English. I currently live in Vietnam and would like to move at the end of Feb '11. I have an EU passport so it wouldn't be a problem for me. I have my TESOL diploma too. And if you or anyone else knows of any other places that are looking for teachers, please let me know too. That would be much appreciated.
> 
> ...


There are an awful lot of teachers of all standards looking for work here, so being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people is the best way of finding work here at the moment. However, you could try looking thru local papers on line (the dur in English, Friday ad are two that spring to mind)

Jo xxx


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## NancyS (Nov 25, 2010)

jojo said:


> There are an awful lot of teachers of all standards looking for work here, so being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people is the best way of finding work here at the moment. However, you could try looking thru local papers on line (the dur in English, Friday ad are two that spring to mind)
> 
> Jo xxx


Thanks Jo, I'll have a look at the online papers. I can imagine that a lot of people are looking for jobs in Spain, or even Europe for that matter. In Asia there are a shortage of teachers, especially in China. But I'm not interested in working in China, lovely country but too many restrictions. We had no Facebook in Vietnam for while but luckily the government finally lifted that restriction and we are able to use it again. The locals were going crazy as it's so popular here. In China you cannot use it. I don't want to live in the dark ages. 

Nancy :ranger:


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

NancyS said:


> Thanks Jo, I'll have a look at the online papers. I can imagine that a lot of people are looking for jobs in Spain, or even Europe for that matter. In Asia there are a shortage of teachers, especially in China. But I'm not interested in working in China, lovely country but too many restrictions. We had no Facebook in Vietnam for while but luckily the government finally lifted that restriction and we are able to use it again. The locals were going crazy as it's so popular here. In China you cannot use it. I don't want to live in the dark ages.
> 
> Nancy :ranger:


Well good luck, my nephew worked in China as a TEFL teacher for a few months and loved it, he was never going to stay there, but he enjoyed experiencing the cultural differences.

Jo xx


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## Sonrisa (Sep 2, 2010)

nigele2 said:


> the chairman )
> 
> Only Portugal stands between Spain and bailout. But Spain would need an enormous bailout. Will the German people accept that? (At least the UK will not offer extra help with that one )
> 
> ...


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## Sonrisa (Sep 2, 2010)

About employment, I have noticed how many of my friends and family in Madrid, have in the last year either get a better paid job, changed companies, or finally get a promotion. In fact there is only one person (out of a wide circle) that I know in working age, that is currenly unemployed, and she is not actively looking for work since she is pregnant and wants to wait. 
A quick look in the some papers or employemnt websites shows that they are jobs going on for skilled workers. 

Fair enough, a lorry driver with no spanish skills and no official spanish driving permit will probably have a hard time finding a job. But there is work to be found for professionals with the right skills. True, salaries aren't that great, otherwise I would be in Spain right now. but it is not all the doom and gloom that some sources want us to believe


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

littleredrooster said:


> Maybe time for another Franco,.... without the atrocities of course.
> 
> Looking back at the economics and politics of the past hundred years or so, crisis seems to have been the order of the day, with the country virtually continuously drifting from one disaster to the next and no one actually taking the bull by the horns to straighten things out.
> For many years before the inevitable Civil War, there was no firm leadership and Spain was just drifting like a ship with no rudder or sails, with the various factions of the mainly Socialist govts. forever too busy squabbling amongst themselves, to take any worthwhile positive action regarding the economy.
> ...


I am in agreement with all you wrote.
especially about the painful days of the last Labour Government. 
My political views have changed but not really as much as it seems from the outside. I have never had any time for dogma whether from the left or right and I am suspicious of 'abstractions' in politics. For example, to me fairness is now more important that equality as fairness can be applied in a practical sense whereas equality can't.
I'm fascinated by David Cameron. To me he seems to be an old-fashioned One Nation High Tory.
Remember his speech on becoming PM? He actually praised the outgoing Government saying the country was in an all-round better state than when it took office.
The Daily Mail and a lot of the Conservative Party in Parliament and the constituencies dislike and distrust him (should that be 'mistrust?)...
I rather admire his deft political footwork. Not so sure about the Chancellor but Ian Duncan Smith is on the right track, doing what Blair wanted to do but Brown blocked.
I do not like Ed Milliband. What a pillock, saying he was 'proud to be a socialist'.
That sort of thing should be kept to one'sself....


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

jimenato said:


> To me, she was the person who picked up the UK by the scruff of its neck and dragged it kicking and screaming into the light from the dreadful old labour/union tyranny/strike ridden/awful dark days of the seventies.
> 
> She got a lot wrong later but she did what was necessary at the time - killed off the unions and old labour with it.
> 
> ...



I only partly agree.
Yes, the situation in 1979 was dreadful. Unions were too powerful and weren't prepared to exercise that power in the interests of the British people as a whole. The Bullock Report, derided by the hard left Union leaders, offered the best chance for industrial democracy, peace and prosperity.
But there were very many days lost to strikes under Thatcher too.
Trades Unions are an essential part of democracy. There were no free Unions under Communism or Fascism. It would be truly tyrannical for any democratic government to even try to 'kill off' unions. Mrs. Thatcher was a great supporter of the Polish free Union Solidarnosc, remember. The problem was the leadership of British Unions at the time...hard left, committed to destroying the capitalist system and therefore unwilling to work within it.
Mrs Thatcher squandered a great opportunity for change by not using the oil revenue to invest in new green technologies and other industrial sectors with a real future. She was not a conservative in the British tradition but an old-fashioned free-market Liberal...not even a neo-con, which I believe Blair was.
Incidentally, privatisation was not a policy in 1979. The first sell-off of state assets was by Dennis Healey when he sold off part of BP. The Thatcher Government sold BT not out of ideological conviction but because it needed to raise capital for much-needed modernisation and could only obtain the huge amount required by floating it.
Mrs. T. was far more pragmatic than she is given credit for.
But as I said, her tragedy was that she failed to achieve her most cherished aims and left office with record levels of public spending, a huge increase in the number of people on welfare and a nation up to its ears in debt....
Scarcely Victorian values.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Dizzie Izzie said:


> . But there is work to be found for professionals with the right skills.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

jimenato said:


> What about house prices? They've gone seriously through the floor here in a similar-ish village and quite close. Although I suppose we have a higher proportion of expats...


There are 2000+ foreigners on the padron in your town, if I recall correctly, only 47 in mine. They look similar but their economies are quite different.

The VPOs (subsidised new builds or reforms for low income local buyers) are snapped up as soon as the paint is dry. Spec built properties put up before the crash are standing unsold and empty. Some expats are still trying to sell their houses at close to the prices they paid for them, and nothing´s moving.

There´s a lovely old cinema going for a million euros if anyone´s interested?


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

littleredrooster said:


> According to the forecasts I've seen, 2011 is expected to be the worst year yet,with house prices dropping a further 20% or more.
> 
> With Mr Bean still burying his head in the sand, it seems that a bail-out could yet be on the cards, which would no doubt be a major disaster for the Euro.


ZP is about the only European leader who has shown reluctance to punish the working class for a crisis caused not by them, but by the excesses of the financial systems. For that I admire him. 

Spain does need stronger leadership, but not in the direction the PP would take it. The level of corruption and blatant pocket-linng in that party is scandalous.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> ZP is about the only European leader who has shown reluctance to punish the working class for a crisis caused not by them, but by the excesses of the financial systems. For that I admire him.
> 
> Spain does need stronger leadership, but not in the direction the PP would take it. The level of corruption and blatant pocket-linng in that party is scandalous.


Zapatero may well end up punishing the working class by refusing to face head-on the problems he must solve. You could say they are being punished already by having the high rate of unemployment.
Who exactly qualifies to be described as 'working class', by the way? My OH was a Company owner and Director and worked a seven day twelve hours a day plus week. Surely she qualifies.
Are you still 'working class' if you are a plasterer earning £30k plus a year?
We are all workers and most of us are also capitalists in our own little ways.
Look at the situation clearly.....if Governments don't bail out banks, then who will? The only alternative is default. ....which puts an end to any chance of future sovereign borrowing at affordable rates.
Default also means that your and my savings and pension funds are at risk of extreme devaluation.
So what's to be admired? Zapatero is behaving like a man who doesn't consider the cost of fuel for the pricey car he has bought.
I have yet to read/hear a credible alternative to a taxpayer funded bail out for banks and other financial institutions. Most of these bail outs are in fact investments, just as the UK loan to Ireland will benefit the UK taxpayer....borrow at 3.5 percent, lend at 5 percent makes sound economic sense to me.
And before you ask....yes,I think the whole system is rotten to the core..it stinks. It's profoundly unfair.
But it's the only game in town for the short and medium term futures and we have to play by the rules.
And in the long term...who knows???

But I agree totally about the PP.


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## nigele2 (Dec 25, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> ZP is about the only European leader who has shown reluctance to punish the working class


An interesting viewpoint. Increasing VAT, lowering social payments, sacking large numbers of public sector workers, crippling the economy, lowering public sector salaries, maintaining the worst unemployment levels in Europe, telling the people that spain was virtually immune from the crisis, suppressing and giving the people nothing but the PP by making himself unelectable? 

Guess it depends how you look at it. 

When he accidentally came to power I was hopeful but sadly he has not delivered. Is he a liar, incompetent and/or been very unlucky? I'm not sure but I guess it doesn't matter.


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## Sonrisa (Sep 2, 2010)

nigele2 said:


> An interesting viewpoint. Increasing VAT, lowering social payments, sacking large numbers of public sector workers, crippling the economy, lowering public sector salaries, maintaining the worst unemployment levels in Europe, telling the people that spain was virtually immune from the crisis, suppressing and giving the people nothing but the PP by making himself unelectable?
> 
> Guess it depends how you look at it.
> 
> When he accidentally came to power I was hopeful but sadly he has not delivered. Is he a liar, incompetent and/or been very unlucky? I'm not sure but I guess it doesn't matter.


when you say "sacking large number of public sector workers" please can you tell me where you found that information?

I'm away from Spain, so it's difficult to keep up to date with the news


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Spain's bond yield at its Treasury sale on Thursday was 5.2 per cent, the highest since Spain joined the euro and close to the 5.5 per cent that the new European Emergency Fund offers to countries unable to raise money on the markets at sustainable rates. Optimism should be put on hold, at least temporarily.
All this talk about Germany being unwilling to 'bail out' Ireland, Spain etc. plays on the ignorance of the German public ...and the European public in general.
It is not widely understood that these are not gifts...they are LOANS. German taxpayers stand to make hundreds of millions of euros from the rescues.
Where do people think Germany and the other countries involved get the money for these bail outs? They don't have millions of euros lying around in their treasuries.
They BORROW....at lower rates than they LEND to Greece, Ireland and probably Portugal and Spain next. The UK and Germany borrows at 3 per cent. They lend at two or more percentage points higher.
Just as the USA and the UK have received repayments from banks, financial institutions and other beneficiaries of temporary Government support, so will the UK and Germany.
But some people don't let facts get in the way of prejudices....


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

nigele2 said:


> An interesting viewpoint. Increasing VAT, lowering social payments, sacking large numbers of public sector workers, crippling the economy, lowering public sector salaries, maintaining the worst unemployment levels in Europe, telling the people that spain was virtually immune from the crisis, suppressing and giving the people nothing but the PP by making himself unelectable?
> 
> Guess it depends how you look at it.
> 
> When he accidentally came to power I was hopeful but sadly he has not delivered. Is he a liar, incompetent and/or been very unlucky? I'm not sure but I guess it doesn't matter.


He is like all other political leaders - a little cork bobbing up and down on the turbulent waters of the bond markets.
Not mad or bad. Just sad.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> Zapatero may well end up punishing the working class by refusing to face head-on the problems he must solve. You could say they are being punished already by having the high rate of unemployment.
> Who exactly qualifies to be described as 'working class', by the way? My OH was a Company owner and Director and worked a seven day twelve hours a day plus week. Surely she qualifies.
> Are you still 'working class' if you are a plasterer earning £30k plus a year?
> We are all workers and most of us are also capitalists in our own little ways.
> ...


OK, firstly by "working class" I simply mean people who have no alternative but to work for a living in order to survive - i.e. they aren't living on wealth generated by inheritance, speculation, investments, or other people's labour. 

Up until spring this year, ZP repeatedly promised that “we will never make the workers pay for the crisis”. Most of Spain's current deficit comes from the Plan E project, which employed 400,000 construction workers on public projects and pay benefit of €421 a month to the approximately 25% of unemployed people with no social security entitlement.

However when it became apparent that the recession was deeper and longer lasting than previously thought, he bowed to pressure from Merkel and the IMF and introduced austerity measures - not by large-scale redundancies and withdrawal of services as is happening in the UK, but by imposing an average 5% cut on public sector workers pay, scrapping a "cash for babies" payment of 2000 euros introduced in 2006 to try and boost the birthrate, and freezing pensions from 2011 (having increased them by 6% or so this year). They have also scrapped various road-building and other infrastructure projects.

The increase in VAT to 18 percent still leaves Spain with one of the lowest rates in Europe.



mrypg9 said:


> I have yet to read/hear a credible alternative to a taxpayer funded bail out for banks and other financial institutions.


Nationalise them! Once they are in public ownership _all _the profits and bonuses will come back to the taxpayers and the pensioners.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

nigele2 said:


> An interesting viewpoint. Increasing VAT, lowering social payments, sacking large numbers of public sector workers, crippling the economy, lowering public sector salaries, maintaining the worst unemployment levels in Europe, telling the people that spain was virtually immune from the crisis, suppressing and giving the people nothing but the PP by making himself unelectable?
> 
> Guess it depends how you look at it.
> 
> When he accidentally came to power I was hopeful but sadly he has not delivered. Is he a liar, incompetent and/or been very unlucky? I'm not sure but I guess it doesn't matter.


As I said in my reply above, he was eventually forced to take the austerity measures but I still believe it hurt him deeply to do so. He's not a liar; he is probably incompetent if you want the sort of leader who will work tirelessly to maintain the capitalist status quo, and he is certainly unlucky to have been in power at the point when Spain's bubble burst (a bubble created by the previous administration, incidentally, with the aim of making quick profits but with no regard for enduring stability).


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> All this talk about Germany being unwilling to 'bail out' Ireland, Spain etc. plays on the ignorance of the German public ...and the European public in general.


And for your continued entertainment, here's how it all happened:


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Dizzie Izzie said:


> when you say "sacking large number of public sector workers" please can you tell me where you found that information?
> 
> I'm away from Spain, so it's difficult to keep up to date with the news


They aren't sacking large numbers of public sector workers in Spain. They are imposing an average 5% pay cut (except on the lowest paid workers) and trying to avoid cutting essential services.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

It seems to me that half the problem with Spain is that tax avoidance is a national sport. If just half the people who dont pay tax were to pay it, Spains finances would be in a much healthier position

Jo xx


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

jojo said:


> It seems to me that half the problem with Spain is that tax avoidance is a national sport. If just half the people who dont pay tax were to pay it, Spains finances would be in a much healthier position
> 
> Jo xx


Very true, but not just in Spain of course. In Britain, tax evasion costs an estimated £30 billion a year!

Tax evasion costs Treasury 15 times more than benefit fraud - New Model Adviser Edition - Citywire


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> OK, firstly by "working class" I simply mean people who have no alternative but to work for a living in order to survive - i.e. they aren't living on wealth generated by inheritance, speculation, investments, or other people's labour.
> *
> We all live on other people's labour, though. And since an employer is usually also a worker s/he must therefore be included in the ranks of the working class?
> What's wrong with living on investments if you've worked to accumulate them? We worked hard, invested i.e. saved the money we made, retired when we had enough then lived on our investments pending pensions kicking in. Pensions are a form of investment. Did we suddenly stop being 'working class' when we stopped working and started living on the honestly acquired fruits of that work??
> ...


*Taking banks into public ownership is a sensible short to medium term measure but totally nationalising the whole banking system is not that simple and is, frankly, not that feasible.. How on earth could the Government afford the enormous sum which would be needed to acquire ownership? People are complaining about the cost of the partial nationalisation. How many banks would you nationalise? What about banks that aren't wholly owned by indigenous shareholders/creditors etc.? That includes most leading banks, incidentally. What about foreign-owned banks?
What about the fact that the financial sector includes many different institutions? Are you going to nationalise the whole financial sector?
What about the reaction of foreign non-nationalised banks to a state take-over? What about the reaction of other lenders? How would the Government obtain funds for social purposes if the markets turned their backs on state-owned banks?
What makes you think that state ownership would improve efficiency or promote social justice? The record of previously nationalised industries is dire on both counts as a proper examination of the electricity, gas, coal and other industries testifies.
Are you proposing that a Government should take privately owned banks into state ownership without public approval? 
There's no way the current electorate would vote for what they would correctly see as outdated 'socialist' measures.
Taking banks into state ownership for a limited period and clearly defined aims is an effective strategy that has previously been successfully employed by France, Norway and other countries. Tighter regulation and the separation of retail and investment banking is a more sensible way forward.
You can't solve thev problems of the twenty-first century with solutions fom the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.
*


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina;; he is probably incompetent if you want the [B said:


> _sort of leader who_[/B] *will work tirelessly to maintain the capitalist status quo*, profits but with no regard QUOTE]
> 
> 
> What other sort do you find in functioning democracies? People have been wishing their lives away waiting and hoping for socialism for hundreds of years...when it has arrived it has been in the form of inefficient totalitarian systems which people are only too happy to see the backs of. Even Cuba is embracing a limited form of capitalism.
> ...


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> *Taking banks into public ownership is a sensible short to medium term measure but totally nationalising the whole banking system is not that simple and is, frankly, not that feasible.. How on earth could the Government afford the enormous sum which would be needed to acquire ownership? People are complaining about the cost of the partial nationalisation. How many banks would you nationalise? What about banks that aren't wholly owned by indigenous shareholders/creditors etc.? That includes most leading banks, incidentally. What about foreign-owned banks?
> What about the fact that the financial sector includes many different institutions? Are you going to nationalise the whole financial sector?
> What about the reaction of foreign non-nationalised banks to a state take-over? What about the reaction of other lenders? How would the Government obtain funds for social purposes if the markets turned their backs on state-owned banks?
> What makes you think that state ownership would improve efficiency or promote social justice? The record of previously nationalised industries is dire on both counts as a proper examination of the electricity, gas, coal and other industries testifies.
> ...


I didn't say there was anything wrong with living off investments etc. I was just providing a non-judgemental definition of what working class means, in an economic context.

You and I have been down this road before, of course. I still believe there is a viable alternative to both the rampant greed and unrestrained growth which characterise 21st century capitalism, and the repressive totalitarian regimes of the last century (which I refuse to call socialist, because they weren't). 

Governments give huge subsidies to private banks without public approval. They go and make war on foreigners without public approval. Why would they need it to take the financial sector into public ownership? Actually, I think most of "the public" would approve wholeheartedly. 

And as far as the former nationalised industries in the UK are concerned, maintaining the railway network now costs the taxpayer more than ever and is less efficient than ever. Whereas the state-owned railways in France and Spain are cheaper, cleaner, run on time ...


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> I didn't say there was anything wrong with living off investments etc. I was just providing a non-judgemental definition of what working class means, in an economic context.
> 
> You and I have been down this road before, of course. I still believe there is a viable alternative to both the rampant greed and unrestrained growth which characterise 21st century capitalism, and the repressive totalitarian regimes of the last century (which I refuse to call socialist, because they weren't).
> 
> ...


If there were a viable 'third way' alternative,believe me, I'd welcome it with tears of joy. But where is it?
Socialism is such a fluid, ill-defined term, isn't it? Most people who describe themselves as socialists are choosing their own definition, of which there are all the Heinz varieties. I take the strict economic definition, that which is recognised generally by economists and historians and by Marx himself to be the correct one: the ownership by the people aka the state of the means of production and distribution. By that definition - and what other is there? - these regimes were indeed socialist and they incorporated this term proudly into their 'brand names'...'People's Republic of Poland' and so on. 
It's not on to say they weren't socialist just because you judge them -quite rightly - to fall short of the democratic standard you value. If it quacks and waddles like a duck...it's a duck!
You skipped over the practical difficulties I posed to wholesale bank nationalisation by saying that Governments take the country into war etc....well it's actually Parliaments that do that. Parliaments which are elected by the people and can be removed by the people. I've seen no polls or evidence that the public would support nationalisation of the banks - regulation, yes. But there is zero enthusiasm for extending state power, oddly, considering the state of national economies, over most of Europe.
As for nationalisation being cheaper, more efficient etc....I stand by my statement that the record of nationalised industriesin the UK is poor in terms of both industrial democracy, efficiency and cost competitiveness. Figures for output, wage levels of industries such as coal, steel, haulage etc. are available to prove this. And where was the industrial democracy in these nationalised industries? The strike record of nationalised industries shows this is a myth. Dockworkers, postmen,steelworkers, miners....all had prolonged strikes against the industries they 'owned'. Of course state-owned railways are cheaper....the taxpayer subsidises them. No such thing as a free lunch. And British privatised railways, though more expensive since the traveller not the non-traveller meets the cost, are on the whole clean punctial and efficient, although there are some lamentable exceptions, I agree. When times are hard it seems people turn away from the left.
'Working class', 'socialism' and similar concepts are really nothing more than terms of historic interest.
I don't like contemporary capitalism or much of contemporary society any more than you do but I believe in erecting a shelter against the storm however imperfect rather than staying outside and cursing the elements.

Apologies for hackneyed cliche....but it could have been worse. I could have written: 'It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness'.


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## nigele2 (Dec 25, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> They aren't sacking large numbers of public sector workers in Spain. They are imposing an average 5% pay cut (except on the lowest paid workers) and trying to avoid cutting essential services.


But they are terminating many temporary staff - like my SIL who has been working the public sector for 7 years!!! Odd employment rules do not apply to the public sector in Spain


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

jojo said:


> It seems to me that half the problem with Spain is that tax avoidance is a national sport. If just half the people who dont pay tax were to pay it, Spains finances would be in a much healthier position
> 
> Jo xx


Well 2 years ago mr bean wanted to get all the 500€ notes ( in total 54 billion €'s ) back into circulation by offering a ' no questions asked ' amnesty if paid into bank accounts but the tax inspectors put a stop to that !

Spanish hoards of €500 notes could aid liquidity | World news | The Guardian


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

nigele2 said:


> But they are terminating many temporary staff - like my SIL who has been working the public sector for 7 years!!! Odd employment rules do not apply to the public sector in Spain


I hope you mean terminating temporary contracts, not staff! I know times are hard, but not that bad, surely!

Sorry to hear about your SIL. They are still issuing temporary contracts in my town, both for roadmending etc and for jobs like classroom assistants and librarians. Four women have just been given three-month contracts to make new robes for Nuestra Señora! I haven´t heard of any redundancies but I guess the money will run out eventually.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

gus-lopez said:


> Well 2 years ago mr bean wanted to get all the 500€ notes ( in total 54 billion €'s ) back into circulation by offering a ' no questions asked ' amnesty if paid into bank accounts but the tax inspectors put a stop to that !
> 
> Spanish hoards of €500 notes could aid liquidity | World news | The Guardian


I thought they'd been withdrawn now?


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