# No job land



## mickbcn (Feb 4, 2013)

Very sad.


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## oronero (Aug 24, 2012)

I feel sorry for those that live in cities and do not own some land where they could grow some crops and keep some animals. My grandparents survived like that with little money and brought up six children, times were tough but they survived...relying upon jobs as a means to earn money to pay for food and other bills has gone wrong for so many people.

Perhaps there will be a return to self sufficiency for the more fortunate ones, sadly those that appeared in the clip maybe in a more difficult position. with collateral tied into properties that they have little chance of selling.

So tragic.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

" So the only thing is for them to change their attitude & to think over what they are doing really carefully , because it may turn against them" 

Yes, & I think that is why they have rewritten the "citizens law".


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## angil (Sep 24, 2012)

http://www.seatrade-global.com/news/americas/pemex-in-$410m-order-at-spanish-shipyard-investment.html

We are still waiting for this to kick off! Hope for the welders and carpenters of Spain, maybe?? 

& unlike the men in the video we did have a little bit behind us (not a lot) to cushion the blow of being unemployed (unexpectedly) here in Spain. Just long enough for my husband to "get on his bike" once again & end up working Offshore Angola for the first time in his life.


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## whitenoiz (Sep 18, 2012)

gus-lopez said:


> " So the only thing is for them to change their attitude & to think over what they are doing really carefully , because it may turn against them"
> 
> Yes, & I think that is why they have rewritten the "citizens law".


Gus... I've got to agree... all over southern Europe the politicians are running scared. Thatcher, Blair et al, et seq., and Zapatero, Blanco and Rajoy are doing exactly the same thing here in Spain. All brought in Social reforms that directly affect the 'downtrodden masses.' 

Its only a matter of time before people say enough is enough. 

With the majority of EU governments relying on 2 party politics it will always be the same... "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

I used to live in the Fontarron area of Madrid, next to Vallecas and the "Parque de las tetas" where they were camping out. Perhaps even more frustrating is that many of the flats around that park were given away to gypsies in an attempt to get them off the streets. And now the people whose taxes paid for that found themselves on the streets (or at least camping in a park) instead. Unfortunately the people in the video are under the usual Spanish illusion that giving people more employment rights and effectively making it more expensive for companies to hire people will somehow make more jobs appear.


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## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

Well Europe could stop China flooding the place with cheap goods & that may well help ?


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## JoCatalunya (Mar 16, 2011)

Didn't you guys know, Spain is out of the recession. So sayeth some moron politician a few months back and all because there was a marginal improvement for a few weeks out of how many in a year?



> Well Europe could stop China flooding the place with cheap goods & that may well help ?


China isn't the problem, not in my opinion. 

What is, is the attitude that folk have here when they are in work. How many times have any of us gone to a government office and seen no end of folk just sitting around, not actually doing much if anything? I personally have lost count at how many times I have been sent from one office to another to get a stamp, to go to another to get an appointment so I can return to the first office and be told I need then to go to some other place and start the ball rolling all over again.

And how many times have you seen the whole of the emergency department in some hospital go on a coffee break, leaving patients without anyone to attend to their needs no matter how much hollering anyone does that they are surely bleeding to death.

But here is a thing, instead of throwing people out onto the streets because they fall behind with the mortgage, how about the banks let them stay in their flats, houses etc because fact is, they cannot sell them for love nor money so they may as well have the owner sitting there, looking after it than leaving it empty to get vandalised etc.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

whitenoiz said:


> Gus... I've got to agree... all over southern Europe the politicians are running scared. Thatcher, Blair et al, et seq., and Zapatero, Blanco and Rajoy are doing exactly the same thing here in Spain. All brought in Social reforms that directly affect the 'downtrodden masses.'
> 
> Its only a matter of time before people say enough is enough.
> 
> With the majority of EU governments relying on 2 party politics it will always be the same... "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."


Tony Blair, whom incidentally I detest, having once believed he walked on water, brought in several reforms that helped the low paid, Working Family Tax Credit being one and Gordon Brown's Sure Start helped many poorer families although it never really delivered on its promise. So credit where it's due..although admittedly not much.
The problem with what you post is simply this: although 26% are without work in Spain, 74% are, however precarious their employment may be for some. In the UK the percentage of those in work is even higher. In a democracy you have to persuade the better-off to vote to help the less well-off by willingly paying higher taxes. Revolutions never represent the 'masses' and always end up oppressing them.
Most people have a lot more to lose these days than their chains. Capitalism has raised the material standard of living of the majority to levels unthought of in say 1945. The very notion that working people could own cars, tvs, their own homes, enjoy foreign holidays and even own homes in other countries would have been ridiculed. Social services such as education, health, care for the elderly are available to all.
But I agree there will be change. Indeed, a thinktank whose name I can't remember forecasts global change by 2020. The changes won't be to any kind of socialist planned economy -tried in Eastern Europe and the USSR and failed - or some kind of Trotskyite collectivism -tried in parts of Spain in 1936 -9 and failed *see Fraser: 'Blood of Spain'. Change will most likely come in the form of a move back to a more updated version of Keyensianism. I'd like to see a kind of collective/co-operative ownership within a regulated social market economy, on the John Lewis model.
Not only is the current neo-liberal model manifestly inefficient in economic terms, it is destroying our social fabric and creating massive future problems. I don't use the term 'free market' because there is no such thing...so-called 'free' markets can only exist within a strong powerful state. They are created, they are not spontaneous. 
Change will come imo when the technocrats begin to realise the damage done to thenm and the rest of us by plutocrats..
I hope I live to see it.


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## angil (Sep 24, 2012)

I know its a 'cultural thing' and all of that (15 years in Asia and I had 'culture' coming out of my ears)................................ but when me and my daughter are wandering around Feungirola high street watching shops systematically close before our very eyes, on a Saturday, for their afternoon kip! leaving us wondering where to spend hubbys worldwide wide (heavily taxed in Spain) income I have to assume those folk mustn't be short of a bob or two?!!! In one little store that sold scarves and bits and pieces the shop girl seemed genuinely miffed we were in her store at all (I am guessing nap time was approaching!?).
& in all of our years overseas in expat communities (mostly oil/gas & shipbuilding, but also encounters with automotive, nuclear power plant, Nike & aerospace industries) I only encountered one native Spanish man & he was ships crew so just visiting. I literally met folks from all over the globe (Spanish speakers - Mexicans, Chileans etc) but no Spaniards. Folks all going where the work is. In latter years we met a couple of young Spanish students, girls, who had degrees and were doing their Masters at a Korean University. One of them was my son's tutor. Lovely girl, learning Korean as that is where she saw her future. Having held down 5 part time jobs in Spain before leaving. Thankfully my daughters second language is Korean, Mandarin or Japanese would be next on the agenda not Spanish. Got to think of her future! & its not here! We simply have not encountered the same work ethic here as we did in Asia.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Chopera said:


> I used to live in the Fontarron area of Madrid, next to Vallecas and the "Parque de las tetas" where they were camping out. Perhaps even more frustrating is that many of the flats around that park were given away to gypsies in an attempt to get them off the streets. And now the people whose taxes paid for that found themselves on the streets (or at least camping in a park) instead. Unfortunately the people in the video are under the usual Spanish illusion that giving people more employment rights and effectively making it more expensive for companies to hire people will somehow make more jobs appear.


There is some truth in that...However, low wages mean that workers have very little money left over to buy non-essentials. Low spending power means less money changing hands for goods over counters. That means lower profits and consequently lower tax revenue.
If wages are too low then, as people require food, warmth, shelter as well as other essentials, these wages will somehow need to be topped up. In the UK it's via tax credits which is a subsidy to employers. In Spain I suspect it's largely via the black economy which means that the government and legitimate employers lose out.
Since 1945, UK workers have had employment rights undreamed of before the War. Paid holidays, the Minimum Wage, maternity rights, paid sick leave...doom and gloom forecast by some employers when these and other rights were introduced. They did not lead to the economic disaster some predicted.
What has brought economic disaster and forced down wages is globalisation. Open markets, free movement of people and capital...these are the culprits.
And they weren't the product of some loony left or trade union-inspired conspiracy....


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

angil said:


> I know its a 'cultural thing' and all of that (15 years in Asia and I had 'culture' coming out of my ears)................................ but when me and my daughter are wandering around Feungirola high street watching shops systematically close before our very eyes, on a Saturday, for their afternoon kip! leaving us wondering where to spend hubbys worldwide wide (heavily taxed in Spain) income I have to assume those folk mustn't be short of a bob or two?!!! In one little store that sold scarves and bits and pieces the shop girl seemed genuinely miffed we were in her store at all (I am guessing nap time was approaching!?).
> & in all of our years overseas in expat communities (mostly oil/gas & shipbuilding, but also encounters with automotive, nuclear power plant, Nike & aerospace industries) I only encountered one native Spanish man & he was ships crew so just visiting. I literally met folks from all over the globe (Spanish speakers - Mexicans, Chileans etc) but no Spaniards. Folks all going where the work is. In latter years we met a couple of young Spanish students, girls, who had degrees and were doing their Masters at a Korean University. One of them was my son's tutor. Lovely girl, learning Korean as that is where she saw her future. Having held down 5 part time jobs in Spain before leaving. Thankfully my daughters second language is Korean, Mandarin or Japanese would be next on the agenda not Spanish. Got to think of her future! & its not here! We simply have not encountered the same work ethic here as we did in Asia.


When I wander around Fuengirola, it seems to me pretty pointless for shops to stay open when its siesta and there are so few shoppers, its soul destroying and a waste of time and money - but, most do open again in the evenings when there are potential shoppers around.

I dont believe their siesta mentality can be the blame of their issues. IMO it balances out. Asia is probably going to undergo some changes in the foreseeable future - from what I know - which admittedly, isnt a lot. They work for very little financial reward and maybe getting a peeved at their superiors and reaping the benefits????



Jo xxx


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Some Asian countries have higher wage levels than the UK. If you want to know where the lowest wages are paid, look at the labels on cheap clothes on market stalls!

I have at times wondered why in winter siesta is still observed. But then it's usually because I think I can't wait a couple of hours to buy something not really that important...and I'm not sure that Spaniards should drop a custom they've had for decades to satisfy an impatient English shopper!

'Work ethic' is usually prefaced by the term 'Anglo-Saxon'. Many people think that Europeans have the work-life balance right. When my OH owned her business in the UK she very often worked a twelve hour seven day week and missed holidays. 
The business was profitable but there's more to life than work and money which is why eight years ago we packed up and left the UK to start enjoying life.
Of course people should do a fair day's work for a fair day's wage...but I don't think any economist or politician has -yet - blamed the laziness of Spanish workers for the country's plight.


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## maxd (Mar 22, 2009)

I watched this piece of socialist drivel the other day. People are crying expecting the government to give them more jobs. Lower taxes and contributions for employers, lower stamp duty, encourage investment, (shame the mega casino is now gone) and maybe things will start to grow.

What do they want the government to do, start building extravagant infrastructure projects again? That is why there is so much mess to deal with now. The government are struggling to pay and have no slack for job creation.

I have never been out if work during the last recession and this one. I think people need to move for work to other parts of the country and the world if need be. Tough yes, but things are tough and people need to be creative instead of hoping the administration is going to save them.


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## angil (Sep 24, 2012)

Very little financial reward?? I think maybe you are getting the sweatshops of Bangladesh mixed up with the Worlds Largest shipyards building multi billion dollar oil platforms, factories where your Galaxy phone is designed and manufactured etc etc! I am sure there is a Hangul word for work ethic, shall ask my daughter when she comes out of the shower. 
Whatever changes Asia undergoes (Japan, China & Korea) I very much doubt it will be down to a peeved worker rising up against their superior.
I honestly don't think there is more to life than work and money when you are raising 2 children in this world. Its a lovely idea but 'enjoyment' aint gonna pay the school fees or the rent!
& what came first the abandoned streets or the fact that everyone knows come 1.30pm the shops will be shut til 5pm anyway? If I were on my 'uppers' I would have my shop door open all hours on the off chance someone would come by and make a purchase. Every sale would make a difference even if it was just one impatient English shopper!
If this economy was booming I could understand it. But on one hand we have a Boys from the Black Stuff feel and on the other hand we have a siesta under a palm tree. I don't get it.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

angil said:


> Very little financial reward?? I think maybe you are getting the sweatshops of Bangladesh mixed up with the Worlds Largest shipyards building multi billion dollar oil platforms, factories where your Galaxy phone is designed and manufactured etc etc! I am sure there is a Hangul word for work ethic, shall ask my daughter when she comes out of the shower.
> Whatever changes Asia undergoes (Japan, China & Korea) I very much doubt it will be down to a peeved worker rising up against their superior.
> I honestly don't think there is more to life than work and money when you are raising 2 children in this world. Its a lovely idea but 'enjoyment' aint gonna pay the school fees or the rent!
> & what came first the abandoned streets or the fact that everyone knows come 1.30pm the shops will be shut til 5pm anyway? If I were on my 'uppers' I would have my shop door open all hours on the off chance someone would come by and make a purchase. Every sale would make a difference even if it was just one impatient English shopper!
> If this economy was booming I could understand it. But on one hand we have a Boys from the Black Stuff feel and on the other hand we have a siesta under a palm tree. I don't get it.


And there was me thinking galaxy was a chocolate bar (it might as well be since I had to ask my son what it was lol)!! You're knowledge of the world/spanish economy isnt the same as mine. Apparently there are 260 million+ migrant workers in China alone who actually dont get paid more than around £200 a month apparently. The government legislated minimum wage is £160 a month? But back to Spain, where I'm from opening a shop all day and night in the vain hope that a shopper will come and buy a souvenir isnt cost effective or good for the soul! Spains problems are a bit bigger than that. What it needs is some investment and some real prospects



Jo xxx


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## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

JoCatalunya said:


> Didn't you guys know, Spain is out of the recession. So sayeth some moron politician a few months back and all because there was a marginal improvement for a few weeks out of how many in a year?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Goverment/council workers have never made anything, in any country, except spend their time working the system (in general terms) so there is no point comparing that lot to workers that I alluded to.

Never seen that in a hospital here yet, but there is still time I guess. 

Banks ? for sure the rest should have followed Icelands lead and let them go to the wall (well most) and once gone use taxpayers money (if needed) to buy the default mortgages for a song & then let the owners stay in place just paying a reasonable return ...... win win IMO.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

The siesta bit reminded me of a couple who had been in the local Opel dealers, for a couple of hours, ordering a new car. Salesman said " you'll have to leave now & come back at 5 to finish"
"why?" 
" We close now at 2 until 5" 
They left & went a bought a Seat. :lol:


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

maxd said:


> I watched this piece of socialist drivel the other day. People are crying expecting the government to give them more jobs. Lower taxes and contributions for employers, lower stamp duty, encourage investment, (shame the mega casino is now gone) and maybe things will start to grow.
> 
> What do they want the government to do, start building extravagant infrastructure projects again? That is why there is so much mess to deal with now. The government are struggling to pay and have no slack for job creation.
> 
> I have never been out if work during the last recession and this one. I think people need to move for work to other parts of the country and the world if need be. Tough yes, but things are tough and people need to be creative instead of hoping the administration is going to save them.


So you disagree with the British Conservative Government's massive infrastructure plans, commencing in 2015, which, according to David Cameron, will create tens of thousands of jobs and create £ billions in revenue? Too 'socialist' for you?
If you think mega casinos are the future for a sound, productive economy, most people who know about a real, productive economy would suggest a lie-down in a darkened room.
Have you thought why no government, however right-wing, has implemented those measures you see as simple panaceas? Have you considered the consequences?
One of the reasons the Spanish Government's debt is so huge is the financing of the paro. People without work cost money and they don't spend money. 
When Christine Lagarde tells Europe that austerity isn't working, don't you think she might know what she's talking about?
I'm afraid things are more complex than your simple solutions would suggest.


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## maxd (Mar 22, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> So you disagree with the British Conservative Government's massive infrastructure plans, commencing in 2015, which, according to David Cameron, will create tens of thousands of jobs and create £ billions in revenue? Too 'socialist' for you?
> If you think mega casinos are the future for a sound, productive economy, most people who know about a real, productive economy would suggest a lie-down in a darkened room.
> Have you thought why no government, however right-wing, has implemented those measures you see as simple panaceas? Have you considered the consequences?
> One of the reasons the Spanish Government's debt is so huge is the financing of the paro. People without work cost money and they don't spend money.
> ...


BBC News - Why Spain's regions owe so much money

And that lagarde women is the biggest piece of socialist crap out there and a hypocrite to boot who wants to confiscate 10% of everyone's savings, who tells the Greeks to pay their taxes when she has a tax free income.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Why, I wonder, do some people think their own experiences are universal and must apply to others, I wonder? 
For the record, I've never been out of work either. I have worked in the public sector, run my own translation/ interpreting business and been Director of my partner's SME. But I recognise that I have been fortunate in that I enjoyed a good free education and that a henevolent (Conservative) government enabled me to obtain degrees at what one of the world' stop five universities on a full tuition and maintenance grant.
I had skills in demand throughout my working life. My mother, widowed when I was very young, and my extended family, supported and encouraged me.
I was not one of three children of a single parent, brought up on a sink council,estate and 'educated' in a bog standard comprehensive. I did not leave school with no skills or qualifications.
Of course there are tenacious individuals who rise above such environments but they are few.
It's pointless and cruel to expect a one-legged man or woman to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps'. In my life I've worked very hard and I'm now enjoying the rewards. But a lucky accident of birth was the cause of this, no more, no less and I would hesitate to write off as lazy, work shy or lacking in ambition anyone without the advantages I had without doing anything to earn them.
There but for fortune, as the saying goes...


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

maxd said:


> BBC News - Why Spain's regions owe so much money
> 
> And that lagarde women is the biggest piece of socialist crap out there and a hypocrite to boot who wants to confiscate 10% of everyone's savings, who tells the Greeks to pay their taxes when she has a tax free income.


Next you'll be telling us Franco was a socialist. Stop drinking that cheap Czech firewater, max. This is knockabout stuff.
Can you provide a link to tell us more about the Head of the IMF's fiscal ambitions?
The link you provided is about Spain's regions, most of which are PP controlled, not the Government. You can do better than this.
Btw, the word 'spcialist' is a precise descriptive term, referring to a specific set of economic conditions and structures. It really isn't a generalised term of abuse to be applied to politicians or people whose opinions displease you.
I believe Mme Lagarde is or was a member of the right-wing UMP...not sure though.


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## maxd (Mar 22, 2009)

European Banking Crisis – Seizing 10% of Everyone’s Accounts – Hello Cyprus | Armstrong Economics

Christine Lagarde, scourge of tax evaders, pays no tax | Business | theguardian.com

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde evades fraud accusation - Europe - World - The Independent. No smoke without fire. Disgusting champagne socialist telling everyone how to live whilst she is filling her own pockets.

I am off to bed.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

maxd said:


> European Banking Crisis – Seizing 10% of Everyone’s Accounts – Hello Cyprus | Armstrong Economics
> 
> Christine Lagarde, scourge of tax evaders, pays no tax | Business | theguardian.com
> 
> ...


Nowhere do these link Lagarde with a tax grab. That didn't come from the 
IMF. It was fom the ECB. Two of the links are just personal stuff which may or may not be true and in any case are irrelevant. She was not charged with any misdoings and as attending as a witness. Of course she should pay tax..but I recall you posting that it was everyone's duty to avoid tax.

As for the ' champagne socialist' jibe..don't you think that resorting to that old chestnut is a sign of not having a spund argument? Why shouldn't socialists drink champagne? Should they drink vodka? Or Newcastle Brown?
Silly..
And yes, Lagarde is a member of UMP. Sarkhozy's Party. Some 'socialist'.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

mrypg9 said:


> Nowhere do these link Lagarde with a tax grab. That didn't come from the
> IMF. It was fom the ECB. Two of the links are just personal stuff which may or may not be true and in any case are irrelevant. She was not charged with any misdoings and as attending as a witness. Of course she should pay tax..but I recall you posting that it was everyone's duty to avoid tax.
> 
> As for the ' champagne socialist' jibe..don't you think that resorting to that old chestnut is a sign of not having a spund argument? Why shouldn't socialists drink champagne? Should they drink vodka? Or Newcastle Brown?
> ...


The reason she pays no tax is not because of any avoidance on her part but because UN posts are all tax-exempt. Now I agree that's not right..but it isn't her fault, is it...


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> Nowhere do these link Lagarde with a tax grab.


" IMF head Christine Lagarde has been suggesting a wholesale seizure of 10% of all accounts throughout the Eurozone because there may be riots and discord if there are bail-ins on a case by case basis. The idea is that a wholesale seizure will prevent a bank-run for if bail-ins take place on a case-by-case basis then this might start a contagion."
From the 1st link.
Why they think that an across the board seizure will not prevent unrest is an example of how deluded & out of touch the whole lot are.

Why they think that doing it in this way will " allow the populations to see that it is a 'one-off', never to be repeated" is also mind boggling. 
To start with most people consider that they are the root of all the problems, an inept, corrupt, lying ,two-faced hypocritical organisation , that is only concerned with finding a means to overcome the problem with the least effort & minimal damage to their own wealth ,& positions , & that of their 'friends' , & allowing them to carry on in the same manner which has led to this shambolic disaster.
If they truly believe that a 10% 'tax' on everyone is the only way out then it is truly frightening .
Well that's depressed me for the start of the day /week.
Here's a bit of uplifting to balance it out.


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## 213979 (Apr 11, 2013)

jojo said:


> When I wander around Fuengirola, it seems to me pretty pointless for shops to stay open when its siesta and there are so few shoppers, its soul destroying and a waste of time and money - but, most do open again in the evenings when there are potential shoppers around.
> 
> I dont believe their siesta mentality can be the blame of their issues. IMO it balances out. Asia is probably going to undergo some changes in the foreseeable future - from what I know - which admittedly, isnt a lot. They work for very little financial reward and maybe getting a peeved at their superiors and reaping the benefits????


Hear hear, Jo. 

I find some of the attitudes in this thread absolutely shocking. Lunch time in Spain is between 1 and 4, approx. Do you really need to spend your husbands "worldwide and heavily taxed income" between those hours? :drama:

Go ahead and keep complaining about the locals' customs that you don't like. I will be enjoying the quality of life I have here that I haven't seen anywhere else.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Totally agree with above post. Anything needed that desperately can be bought from a gasolinera or Chinese shop.
As for working to maintain a two or any child family...children need more than money for a happy life. It's the work-life balance that matters.
If people choose to move around the world for work, as most professionals can and do, fine. To be compelled through poverty to uproot yourself from family and culture isn't.
As for threats to our financial assets...I'm not losing sleep.
And when I hear talk of letting banks go to the wall, I wonder how much thought people have given to that suggestion. The outcome would be a total paralysis of daily life with civil unrest and violence. Think about the uproar when RBS mainframe ceased functioning and people couldn't access accounts or use their cards. It was disastrous for business.
And in case anyone hadn't noticed, the UK or Spain are not to be compared with Iceland.


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## Justina (Jan 25, 2013)

I doubt that siesta time has anything to do with economic woes. Here in Cadiz it tends to be only the oneman shops that take the break in the afternoon, but then are open again until 9pm. I have got used to it so doesn't bother me but remember some years back while living in Southampton i used to rush out of work at 5pm to get to our local high street where all the local shops would close at 5.30 on the dot. More efficient people would stock up for the week, but I never can and I try to buy as much as I can from the small shops rather than the supers.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

gus-lopez said:


> " IMF head Christine Lagarde has been suggesting a wholesale seizure of 10% of all accounts throughout the Eurozone because there may be riots and discord if there are bail-ins on a case by case basis. The idea is that a wholesale seizure will prevent a bank-run for if bail-ins take place on a case-by-case basis then this might start a contagion."
> From the 1st link.
> Why they think that an across the board seizure will not prevent unrest is an example of how deluded & out of touch the whole lot are.
> 
> ...


No, Gus, the root of the problem is socialism. All world leaders are crypto- socialists, didn't you know? They sit around drinking Bollinger plotting how to strip the assets of hard- working people.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Have just looked into 'Armstrong '...run by one Martin Armstrong, ex-convict, sentenced for fraud, described as a flake, narcissist and fascist.
Not held in high esteem by serious economists.


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## angil (Sep 24, 2012)

I am still waiting to hear the story on the delays up North with PEMEX (re: my first post on this particular discussion). This sort of delay, which changed our family life, did not happen on any project in Korea. 
You want jobs and investment?! There's your jobs and investment. 
We, & I am guessing my husbands Swedish boss, thought we were getting into something at the start. Shipbuilding in Spain again! But here we are still waiting on a job my husband had a contract to start in May 2013. We didn't come here for sun and fun we came here for a job! We take nothing from this country at all and give everything financially we have back. & I didn't come from the UK, where shops open at 9 and shut at 5 I came from Korea (with a booming economy and proud of it) with shops that open at 10 and stay open til 10 7 days per week. I am seeing things here from an entirely different perspective. 
& yes I see the mid afternoon nap as symptom, just my opinion. I also see a correlation between the fact I didn't ever meet Spaniards living and working expat (ie. going where the work is) and the state of the country. I can't think of another nationality I didn't meet. 
I wonder what industry these people (Spanish) are (were) involved in? The men in the video clip were welders and carpenters? Where? Those are transferable skills. 
I know nothing about Spain or its past industries (other than tourism & presumably shipbuilding judging by the decent quality, but empty, shipyards up North).
I also find using terms such as 'good quality of life' & 'enjoyment' when referring to Spain at the moment a difficult concept to grasp, given the reason for this discussion in the first place.
Whilst my children's 'British' school (Spanish management) was demanding we fork out yet more money for yet more stupidly expensive uniform items I was reading about Spanish school children fainting with hunger in schools in Andalucia. A terrible imbalance.
Of course you need money / work when raising children and if that means dad has to leave the country to find it well so be it! Why do you think we started this life in the first place? Because we desperately wanted to live on a small Island of the coast of South Korea??! No! It was really really tough but coming from the North East of England and in a shipbuilding background you go where the work is.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

angil said:


> I am still waiting to hear the story on the delays up North with PEMEX (re: my first post on this particular discussion). This sort of delay, which changed our family life, did not happen on any project in Korea.
> You want jobs and investment?! There's your jobs and investment.
> We, & I am guessing my husbands Swedish boss, thought we were getting into something at the start. Shipbuilding in Spain again! But here we are still waiting on a job my husband had a contract to start in May 2013. We didn't come here for sun and fun we came here for a job! We take nothing from this country at all and give everything financially we have back. & I didn't come from the UK, where shops open at 9 and shut at 5 I came from Korea (with a booming economy and proud of it) with shops that open at 10 and stay open til 10 7 days per week. I am seeing things here from an entirely different perspective.
> & yes I see the mid afternoon nap as symptom, just my opinion. I also see a correlation between the fact I didn't ever meet Spaniards living and working expat (ie. going where the work is) and the state of the country. I can't think of another nationality I didn't meet.
> ...


Spain is Spain, not Korea!! Its by no means perfect (or quick to change) and there are many views and opinions on how Spain should dig itself out of the current crisis. But we can discuss it all we like and as usual there will always be many, many opposing views. In the end tho, the Spanish government will make the decisions. Whether we agree or not. We have to go where we feel we can do the best for our families

Jo xxx


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## 213979 (Apr 11, 2013)

angil said:


> I am still waiting to hear the story on the delays up North with PEMEX (re: my first post on this particular discussion). This sort of delay, which changed our family life, did not happen on any project in Korea.


I am sorry you are so obviously frustrated with life in Spain. What delay are you talking about? It looks as if Pemex took control on Dec. 17. 
(Pemex takes formal control of Spanish shipyard)



> You want jobs and investment?! There's your jobs and investment.
> We, & I am guessing my husbands Swedish boss, thought we were getting into something at the start. Shipbuilding in Spain again! But here we are still waiting on a job my husband had a contract to start in May 2013. We didn't come here for sun and fun we came here for a job! We take nothing from this country at all and give everything financially we have back. & I didn't come from the UK, where shops open at 9 and shut at 5 I came from Korea (with a booming economy and proud of it) with shops that open at 10 and stay open til 10 7 days per week. I am seeing things here from an entirely different perspective.


What was the quality of life like for the average Korean student or worker?
What is more important to you: living to work or working to live? 



> & yes I see the mid afternoon nap as symptom, just my opinion. I also see a correlation between the fact I didn't ever meet Spaniards living and working expat (ie. going where the work is) and the state of the country. I can't think of another nationality I didn't meet.


A quick flip through the newspaper or a few minutes on google can tell you all about the millions of Spanish moving abroad in search of work. 



> I wonder what industry these people (Spanish) are (were) involved in? The men in the video clip were welders and carpenters? Where? Those are /transferable skills.


You're lucky your husband speaks English. There are a myriad of different reasons that families can't just pick up and leave. What industry do you work in? Does your husband have to take your career into account when you move? What about mortgages and/or family support?



> I know nothing about Spain or its past industries (other than tourism & presumably shipbuilding judging by the decent quality, but empty, shipyards up North).


I suggest you learn a bit more if you are going to make such sweeping generalizations of a place where you live. I understand you are frustrated, but...


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## angil (Sep 24, 2012)

No its not Korea you are quite right! If it were we wouldn't have spent Christmas without dad / hubby for the first time ever!!! He would be building ships up in Navantia with the prospect of more & he would have gotten Christmas off!
My focus on this discussion was not to ever say Spain should or could be like Korea, although that is my most recent point of comparison not the UK.
My points were more about work ethic and the willingness to go where the jobs are. 
& like I said we came here on work contract for a shipbuilding project which has still to come fruition.


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## maxd (Mar 22, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> Have just looked into 'Armstrong '...run by one Martin Armstrong, ex-convict, sentenced for fraud, described as a flake, narcissist and fascist.
> Not held in high esteem by serious economists.


Quite fascinating what happened to him. He was kept in prison for 9 years for contempt of court. The USA's longest every kept political prisoner if you like. Some say he is the greatest economic analyst that has ever lived. His predictions for economic collapses have proved right time and time again. BTW he predicts the next big one in 2015.

No doubt he loves the attention and some say he is a crazy but for me his past performance speaks volumes about his economic confidence model soundness.

Check it out.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mar...=martin armstrong political prisoner&safe=off


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

mrypg9 said:


> There is some truth in that...However, low wages mean that workers have very little money left over to buy non-essentials. Low spending power means less money changing hands for goods over counters. That means lower profits and consequently lower tax revenue.
> If wages are too low then, as people require food, warmth, shelter as well as other essentials, these wages will somehow need to be topped up. In the UK it's via tax credits which is a subsidy to employers. In Spain I suspect it's largely via the black economy which means that the government and legitimate employers lose out.
> Since 1945, UK workers have had employment rights undreamed of before the War. Paid holidays, the Minimum Wage, maternity rights, paid sick leave...doom and gloom forecast by some employers when these and other rights were introduced. They did not lead to the economic disaster some predicted.
> What has brought economic disaster and forced down wages is globalisation. Open markets, free movement of people and capital...these are the culprits.
> And they weren't the product of some loony left or trade union-inspired conspiracy....


I'm not arguing for low wages (I think the minimum wage is a good idea) I just want companies to be able to hire someone to do a job for as long as that job lasts without having to subsequently pay them to stop work afterwards. Similarly I want people to have more freedom to change job and not be tied down to the same job for most of their working lives because changing jobs would mean losing lots of accrued benefits.

The Spanish labour market is blocked by people unable to change job because they have toom much job security, even though they have gone stale and are no longer motivated, and their job could be done better by someone younger. I don't think it is a coincidence that the countries with high job security and the "job for life" mentality are the ones that also have the highest youth uemployment.

Unions are great - as long as they behave like unions - which in Spain very few of them do. Most of them are made up of middle aged men (very few women) looking after themselves and going out on strike if they don't get what they personally want. 

The UK did have an economic disaster - in the 70s - and several decades of economic decline, but you're right it wasn't caused by giving workers basic rights such as maternity leave, sick leave, etc, it was caused by individuals using the unions to gain political power. The UK unions were detroyed from the inside as will be the Spanish ones. Fortunately for the UK when the unions collapsed in the 80s many of the workers rights remained intact, and indeed the labour market was liberalised, allowing people to easily set up their own businesses and take control of their working lives. I fear that Spain might not be so lucky.

Globalisation is inevitable, as are open markets - unless you really want to stop people from different countries trading with each other? The problem is that it isn't happening in a controlled way. Peoples' businesses, the product of many years dedication, are having the rugs pulled out from under them by the speed of change. However when I speak to some of the immigrants in Spain, from places like China and Romania, and I hear how bad they have it back home, I see that the opening of borders has pulled people out of extreme poverty in those countries. For them the lives of the people in the op's video are a distant dream.


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## angil (Sep 24, 2012)

Oh god!

Average student and worker work very very long hours, most have a good standard of living. Certainly not perfect but they aren't camping out. 

Okay hubby is 50 he left school at the worst time possible. There was one point in our married life I even wrote to my local MP as our out goings were more than our incomings but hubby was not entitled to unemployment benefit and I worked more than 24 hours per week so he couldn't get any other benefits. Summink like that anyway. Tough times. Getting any job was a bonus! 

I think most expat me live to work atleast thats how it feels at times! Comes from being on a day sometimes hourly rate! 

After a grim couple of months here in Spain I was just happy he was earning and we could pay the rent and school fees and didn't have to move in with his sister in the UK!

Okey dokey the millions of Spaniards will be serving in bars in the UK etc. Disgraceful. The government should set up a body to investigate employment overseas. Advise their young people to learn French, Norweigen defo English! Get them into engineering etc. Training courses, survival courses for Offshore. Like I said the only Spanish I met were a couple of girls studying and teaching a bit maths and Spanish on the side. There are 65,000 ESL teachers in Korea. English is the business language of the world and of maritime law.

Mortgage?? 2 flats and a house in our married life. House sold about 5 years ago. Too much of a faff to keep on. Family support?? What do you mean??!! Expat wives look out for eachother in the absent of an extended family. Other than that the last time I checked I was a grown up and can manage without help. Although I do miss my Korean lady who ironed, I hate ironing!

Career??!! Okay I had a job, a long time ago. I liked it but it was just a job. I have expat friends who gave up being lawyers, vets and teachers to stay with their husbands. They seemed very happy with their choice!

& I had a serious question regarding Spain. I am interested. (You can't face a shipyard morning, noon & night for 10 years without becoming interested.!) About Spain's industrial potential. Investment in what? 

Those young people they send overseas would in turn bring their money back to Spain & should be encouraged to invest here. The Koreans build Korean and buy Korean and have a low income tax because of this.

Anyhoo! Enoughs enough! I think I am allowed to make any statement I like as long as its not out and out defamatory!

In fact I think I have tried to be constructive.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

angil said:


> Anyhoo! Enoughs enough! I think I am allowed to make any statement I like as long as its not out and out defamatory!
> 
> In fact I think I have tried to be constructive.



Of course you're allowed to make any statement you like as long as its within the forum rules lol!!! BUT - so is everyone else!!!! Its the basis for debate and this thread, altho its getting a bit political for me, is really interesting.

Jo xxx


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## Justina (Jan 25, 2013)

Angil, I don't understand why Pemex brought you here without having a job ready and waiting with a contract signed and sealed. I know about Pemex cos I lived in Mexico for many years. Pemex was the state owned petrol company renowned for its corruption and which has just been privatised by the latest President and his sidekicks. So instead of the money filtering into the govt coffers it will now goto private investors.
I read last year that Pemex had offered to invest in the building of platforms both here in Cadiz and up north and then a few weeks ago Cadiz had disappeared and it was in Galicia that the platforms will be built. I assume that the hold up with the work will be cos of the privatisation of Pemex which is now getting ready to sack hundreds of workers in Mexico. 
Having reread your post then I see that your husband must be getting paid, so at least you aren't starving.
As to Spaniards emigrating to find work you should read up on that before you write. There are thousands of Spaniards around the world working.
As to shops being open all day and night, well perhaps Korean shops can depend on an extended family to keepmthe doors open. Back in the 70's in theUk when lots of Pakistanis and Ugandan Asians arrived and opened shops they too stayed open from morning until night cos of the family help.


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## angil (Sep 24, 2012)

PEMEX have signed a contract with my husbands employer for his company to supply the supervision of the building 2 floating hotels in Galicia this project was signed off in November 2012. My husband has a contract (not from PEMEX) the contract is dated May 2013. The job is delayed, & delayed & delayed. Delays happen all the time but not to this extent as a rule. I know the PEMEX vessels in Korea were also delayed. There will be massive penalties to pay if the build does not go ahead. The whole industry works on back handers and under cutting!! I try not to get involved in the politics and generally just concentrate on the start and finish dates of hubbys contract. Hubby is getting paid cos he got himself a 28/28 rotation job in Angola which was a better option for our family than going back to Korea for 3 months at a time.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

One thing I've learned as an expat is that 'sirve para nada' to compare your new home country with any other. You just frustrate yourself and annoy everyone else.
Best is to just relax and go with it. You'll settle in so much more quickly


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## angil (Sep 24, 2012)

I agree in principal Xabiachica! The video clip just hit a nerve, a very new raw one!!!


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

JoCatalunya said:


> What is, is the attitude that folk have here when they are in work. How many times have any of us gone to a government office and seen no end of folk just sitting around, not actually doing much if anything? I personally have lost count at how many times I have been sent from one office to another to get a stamp, to go to another to get an appointment so I can return to the first office and be told I need then to go to some other place and start the ball rolling all over again.


Maybe that's a Catalan thing, because I've never experienced it in the eight years since we bought a house here. What I have seen is people turning up without checking the procedures beforehand, not bringing the right paperwork, or not understanding instructions in Spanish. That's where using a gestor can be a good option.

There is undoubtedly an excess of bureaucracy, a lot of duplication and inefficiency, and far too many layers of administration. This should be addressed by the new local government reform law, which will streamline the procedures. Though of course that will put more people out of work.

Funcionarios traditionally had "jobs for life" to stop them being replaced by the mayor's cronies every time there was a change of government. That, and a failure to invest in proper training and management skills, leads to the appearance of a lot of "dead wood" at some town halls. Jobs for life are no longer guaranteed though.


JoCatalunya said:


> And how many times have you seen the whole of the emergency department in some hospital go on a coffee break, leaving patients without anyone to attend to their needs no matter how much hollering anyone does that they are surely bleeding to death.


Never seen that round here!



JoCatalunya said:


> But here is a thing, instead of throwing people out onto the streets because they fall behind with the mortgage, how about the banks let them stay in their flats, houses etc because fact is, they cannot sell them for love nor money so they may as well have the owner sitting there, looking after it than leaving it empty to get vandalised etc.


Totally agree. Spain's mortgage default laws are brutal and have been ruled illegal by the European court. Change will come too late for many though.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

I thought the government had ordered the banks not to kick out unemployed households if they didn't pay their mortgages. I can't remember the details but it still seemed a bit unfair as it appeared that households with one person working could still get kicked out for non-payment while those with nobody working couldn't.


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## Justina (Jan 25, 2013)

Well the privatisation of Pemex was literally only passed by the Mexican Congress about ten days ago and I read this morning in La Jornada, a reputable Mexican newspaper that the union is now busily making the hundreds if not thousands of workers redundant. Those that get taken on again will be on the now infamous zero contracts. I realise that hasn't got aything to do with yourhusband's contract but it does involve the rearranging of the incoming bosses who will all be mates and family of the investors, and younsay it all involves kickbacks at all levels.
Cheers.


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## Maddalena (Feb 6, 2010)

angil said:


> I know its a 'cultural thing' and all of that (15 years in Asia and I had 'culture' coming out of my ears)................................ but when me and my daughter are wandering around Feungirola high street watching shops systematically close before our very eyes, on a Saturday, for their afternoon kip! leaving us wondering where to spend hubbys worldwide wide (heavily taxed in Spain) income I have to assume those folk mustn't be short of a bob or two?!!! In one little store that sold scarves and bits and pieces the shop girl seemed genuinely miffed we were in her store at all (I am guessing nap time was approaching!?).
> & in all of our years overseas in expat communities (mostly oil/gas & shipbuilding, but also encounters with automotive, nuclear power plant, Nike & aerospace industries) I only encountered one native Spanish man & he was ships crew so just visiting. I literally met folks from all over the globe (Spanish speakers - Mexicans, Chileans etc) but no Spaniards. Folks all going where the work is. In latter years we met a couple of young Spanish students, girls, who had degrees and were doing their Masters at a Korean University. One of them was my son's tutor. Lovely girl, learning Korean as that is where she saw her future. Having held down 5 part time jobs in Spain before leaving. Thankfully my daughters second language is Korean, Mandarin or Japanese would be next on the agenda not Spanish. Got to think of her future! & its not here! We simply have not encountered the same work ethic here as we did in Asia.


Although we travel in Spain, and do not live there, it has always astounded us to see shops closing for siesta, and closing completely Sat afternoon, etc, when LOTS of shoppers are wandering the very streets looking to SHOP! Have they ever heard of taking alternating lunch breaks so that the shop can remain open and do some business?


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

maxd said:


> Quite fascinating what happened to him. He was kept in prison for 9 years for contempt of court. The USA's longest every kept political prisoner if you like. Some say he is the greatest economic analyst that has ever lived. His predictions for economic collapses have proved right time and time again. BTW he predicts the next big one in 2015.
> 
> No doubt he loves the attention and some say he is a crazy but for me his past performance speaks volumes about his economic confidence model soundness.
> 
> ...


Well, I'll say this for you, max, you have provided me with some interesting stuff to read. I owe the guy an apology....I should have written 'fantasist' not 'fascist'. Both undesirable but an important difference.
As for his theories....it's nothing new. It's a rehash of a theory from the 1930s, I believe, from an economist named Kondratiev. He noticed that boom and bust are cyclical and predictable.. All Armstrong has done is to add a bit of what Americans call 'math' and based his predictions, oddly, on calculations involving pi. A bit 'Mystic Meg'.
Now anyone who reads history knows that economic cycles in capitalism go back centuries. As I see it it's a matter of supply, demand and innovation, with a lot of intervention from totally unpredictable factors and events such as natural catastrophes. I have absolutely no time for any sociological or economic theories -or political ones for that matter - based on a mathematical-scientific model of human behaviour. It all seems rather deterministic and Marxist to me...in fact, rather 'socialist'. 
Dogmatic theorists of left and right fail to take into account the sheer unpredictability of human reaction. These neat little theories are for a while modish and taken notice of but the fad soon passes. These strange people, usually but not always American, come and go like fashions in hair length...and have as much significance.
If you haven't read him already, can I suggest you look into the arch-priest of the 'free'market, Von Hayek? Mrs. Thatcher's favourite bed-time reading, I believe.
Some of it tripe, much of it relevant today but a more worthy guide than any pseudo-intellectual superficially plausible stuff than that emanating from Armstrong's keyboard.
But it was an interesting read...And btw, many people including some on this Forum have predicted a crash in 2015, in the UK at least. The crazy house-buying boom fuelled by public money will be a cause of a major calamity for many of the already in debt up to their eyeballs UK families when interest rates rise as they surely will.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Maddalena said:


> Although we travel in Spain, and do not live there, it has always astounded us to see shops closing for siesta, and closing completely Sat afternoon, etc, when LOTS of shoppers are wandering the very streets looking to SHOP! Have they ever heard of taking alternating lunch breaks so that the shop can remain open and do some business?


No and why should they? It is an old Spanish custom. They've been doing it for centuries. Spanish people are happy with this arrangement so why should they kow-tow to a few foreigners? I thought people came to Spain for culture, climate, a new experience, not to trawl the shops.
Do we really want the whole world to be one homogenous shopping mall? Can we not live without 24-7 opening hours? Yes, shops close at 2pm. They open again at 5pm and most in my neck of the woods stay open until 9pm. Surely that's time enough for anyone wishing to buy a kilo of spuds or a Cartier necklace...
As for closing on Saturday afternoons....try shopping after noon on a Saturday in most of Germany.
Thankfully Spain realises that not all of human life and enjoyment can be reduced to consumerism.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

The idea behind the siesta AFAIK, is that during the heat of the afternoon, apart from "mad dogs and englishmen", people dont want to venture out to shop (or do much else in that heat)! So they close up the shops, manual workers stop working and they all retreat to their cool houses. Then, in the evenings when its cooler, they come out again and then the towns are filled with families and people refreshed. Probably the length of the times open are no different to the UK, its just the timing is different!

Jo xxx


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

angil; said:


> I also find using terms such as 'good quality of life' & 'enjoyment' when referring to Spain at the moment a difficult concept to grasp, given the reason for this discussion in the first place.
> Whilst my children's 'British' school (Spanish management) was demanding we fork out yet more money for yet more stupidly expensive uniform items I was reading about Spanish school children fainting with hunger in schools in Andalucia. A terrible imbalance.
> Of course you need money / work when raising children and if that means dad has to leave the country to find it well so be it! Why do you think we started this life in the first place? Because we desperately wanted to live on a small Island of the coast of South Korea??! No! It was really really tough but coming from the North East of England and in a shipbuilding background you go where the work is.


Sorry but there is more to life than chasing jobs and money. Of course it's important to have a regular and adequate source of income. But there are many other things that make a good life and a quality family life is one of them.
Little babies are not born with a sign saying 'Well-paid work must be your goal in life' stamped on their bums, are they.. There has to be a balance.
I understand that coming from the North-East well-paid jobs are hard to find at home. It's the same in many parts of the UK. My partner's brother worked all over the world earning shedloads of money. Members of my family emigrated to Canada, the U.S. and Australia for a better life. 
We could have stayed on working in the UK and made loads more money. But we decided we had already accumulated enough so packed up the business, sold all our properties and started our wanderings wwhich first took us to Prague then to Spain. Prague was too 'underdeveloped' for a long stay so we moved to Spain, intending to stay a few years then move on to France then back to Scotland.
After a couple of years in Spain we decided to stay. A major factor in our decision was that Spaniards seem to have achieved a healthy sense of how to live well, valuing the things in life you can't put a price on....family, friends, quality leisure time. 
Now I know that we no longer have to worry about school fees and such like and I do understand why some people - and many Spaniards now - are compelled to move round the world to find work. But I think it is something to be regretted for many people, not a cause for rejoicing.
That's all.


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## maxd (Mar 22, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> Well, I'll say this for you, max, you have provided me with some interesting stuff to read. I owe the guy an apology....I should have written 'fantasist' not 'fascist'. Both undesirable but an important difference.
> As for his theories....it's nothing new. It's a rehash of a theory from the 1930s, I believe, from an economist named Kondratiev. He noticed that boom and bust are cyclical and predictable.. All Armstrong has done is to add a bit of what Americans call 'math' and based his predictions, oddly, on calculations involving pi. A bit 'Mystic Meg'.
> Now anyone who reads history knows that economic cycles in capitalism go back centuries. As I see it it's a matter of supply, demand and innovation, with a lot of intervention from totally unpredictable factors and events such as natural catastrophes. I have absolutely no time for any sociological or economic theories -or political ones for that matter - based on a mathematical-scientific model of human behaviour. It all seems rather deterministic and Marxist to me...in fact, rather 'socialist'.
> Dogmatic theorists of left and right fail to take into account the sheer unpredictability of human reaction. These neat little theories are for a while modish and taken notice of but the fad soon passes. These strange people, usually but not always American, come and go like fashions in hair length...and have as much significance.
> ...


Glad you read up on him, Blog | Armstrong Economics | Forecasting the World he does many updates per week on his blog and has a huge following. His models do not only follow economics but also war cycles, political cycles and more. Apparently 2014 is going to be an upturn in the war cycle, I hope he is wrong.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Chopera said:


> I thought the government had ordered the banks not to kick out unemployed households if they didn't pay their mortgages. I can't remember the details but it still seemed a bit unfair as it appeared that households with one person working could still get kicked out for non-payment while those with nobody working couldn't.


Huh, the government can't _order_ the banks to do anything! They issued some guidelines, making it slightly harder to evict households on very low incomes, but the law is still very much in the banks' favour. Some judges and ayuntamientos are managing to delay evictions by legal process.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Chopera said:


> I'm not arguing for low wages (I think the minimum wage is a good idea) I just want companies to be able to hire someone to do a job for as long as that job lasts without having to subsequently pay them to stop work afterwards. Similarly I want people to have more freedom to change job and not be tied down to the same job for most of their working lives because changing jobs would mean losing lots of accrued benefits.
> 
> The Spanish labour market is blocked by people unable to change job because they have toom much job security, even though they have gone stale and are no longer motivated, and their job could be done better by someone younger. I don't think it is a coincidence that the countries with high job security and the "job for life" mentality are the ones that also have the highest youth uemployment.
> 
> ...


Excellent post Deserves more 'likes' than I can give.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

maxd said:


> Glad you read up on him, Blog | Armstrong Economics | Forecasting the World he does many updates per week on his blog and has a huge following. His models do not only follow economics but also war cycles, political cycles and more. Apparently 2014 is going to be an upturn in the war cycle, I hope he is wrong.


I spent a lot of time reading him when I should have been doing other things. But stuff like that interests me and I get bored reading stuff I agree with.
As you know, I enjoy an argument!

Have they finished digging up the road in Devicka yet? It was a dreadful mess last year....


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

maxd said:


> Apparently 2014 is going to be an upturn in the war cycle, I hope he is wrong.


I'll definitely look at it. As for war...when has there ever been a time without war? Since and probably before humans stood on two legs we've been beating the **** out of each other. It's hot-wired into our nature.
Besides, it's good for business.....


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## oronero (Aug 24, 2012)

mrypg9 said:


> . As for war...
> it's good for business.....


...but sadly not for the population caught up in it!

Similar to the financial battle that is occurring...good for the big businesses that make money from the crisis and a small percentage of the wealthy but generally very bad for the people caught up in it!

If people were more self-sufficient, as they once were, growing the majority of what they need for food and earned a little money on the side to pay for extras then perhaps none of this would have been as bad for individuals, the reliance upon money to meet our living needs has been the downfall of many IMO.

Do we really need the big house, latest car, the new i-phone, to look like the celebrity...so sad that so many are chasing the dream that others appear to be living, when those that appear to be living that style are on endorsements that are designed to entice people into spending their money.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

oronero said:


> ...but sadly not for the population caught up in it!
> 
> Similar to the financial battle that is occurring...good for the big businesses that make money from the crisis and a small percentage of the wealthy but generally very bad for the people caught up in it!
> 
> ...


 But all of those industries that make consumables to entice us, also employ us. In the end, money is only a promise and a bargaining tool

Jo xxx


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## oronero (Aug 24, 2012)

With regards to the people in the video wanting Government to be more proactive with regards to getting new jobs, one of the big problem is big business itself. The employers that set up shop and employ up to and over 100 employees, many move to a location as there are Government enticements...they stay until better enticements from other areas, other countries sometimes or different factors such as when they can make higher profits from lower wages and just shut up shop and go.

In the meantime local authorities have employed people to administer the infrastructure required, which is possible from the tax revenues whilst these businesses are operating, but things quickly become a financial nightmare when the revenues from taxation disappear and you are left with insufficient funds to pay for your obligations.

The bigger the employer in an area the greater the risk for that area.


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## maxd (Mar 22, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> Have they finished digging up the road in Devicka yet? It was a dreadful mess last year....


Last time I was there it was still a mess, other side of town from me though. I finally got us a villa in the Canary Islands, so I will be able to complain more first hand now about Spanish stuff.


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## Goldeneye (Nov 12, 2011)

mrypg9 said:


> We could have stayed on working in the UK and made loads more money. But we decided we had already accumulated enough so packed up the business, sold all our properties and started our wanderings wwhich first took us to Prague then to Spain. Prague was too 'underdeveloped' for a long stay so we moved to Spain, intending to stay a few years then move on to France then back to Scotland.
> After a couple of years in Spain we decided to stay. A major factor in our decision was that Spaniards seem to have achieved a healthy sense of how to live well, valuing the things in life you can't put a price on....family, friends, quality leisure time.


I wish we had been as wise in 2007/8 we should have done the same.. I had reached our financial goal, Greed took over, I thought let's make enough more to pay the capital gains and other taxes, so we'll come out with that amount..
Stock market crashed, we lost 85% of our portfolios, hubby got sick seeing our retirement dreams of Travel and living without having to worry about $$$ slip through our fingers..
You are right.. You can't put a price on family, friends, quality of leisure time....
The only thing I would add to that is Health...


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

maxd said:


> Last time I was there it was still a mess, other side of town from me though. I finally got us a villa in the Canary Islands, so I will be able to complain more first hand now about Spanish stuff.


I understand anyone wanting to avoid Czech winters. The first winter was a novelty and we really enjoyed all that snow. The thaw was awful, though. All that mud..
Our mistake, I think, was to move to Cerny Vul we loved the house but it was a ten-minute drive to,Devicka.
The third winter and we were calling up removal firms.
I miss the opera and concerts at Rudolfinum though...best seats in the house for peanuts..


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Goldeneye said:


> I wish we had been as wise in 2007/8 we should have done the same.. I had reached our financial goal, Greed took over, I thought let's make enough more to pay the capital gains and other taxes, so we'll come out with that amount..
> Stock market crashed, we lost 85% of our portfolios, hubby got sick seeing our retirement dreams of Travel and living without having to worry about $$$ slip through our fingers..
> You are right.. You can't put a price on family, friends, quality of leisure time....
> The only thing I would add to that is Health...


Yes, that's important. But Spanish health care is very good, at least in my part of Andalucia. 
I don't think you were greedy. You thought you were being prudent but were unlucky, that's all. We would have done the same. We have been very lucky. We sold everything, commercial and residential properties, in 2006! We left the UK in December 2005. 
We had a huge apartment in a converted nineteenth century woolen mill in a tiny town in the rural Ottawa Valley, Almonte. After we decided not to go to Canada but to Prague we sold it. I went back a couple of years ago. The town had died. The few shops there were shut down, it was a ghost town. We had a narrow escape.
It seems I've been lucky all my life, Lord knows why..that's why I try to be well-disposed to those less fortunate.


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## Goldeneye (Nov 12, 2011)

mrypg9 said:


> Yes, that's important. But Spanish health care is very good, at least in my part of Andalucia.
> I don't think you were greedy. You thought you were being prudent but were unlucky, that's all. We would have done the same. We have been very lucky. We sold everything, commercial and residential properties, in 2006! We left the UK in December 2005.
> We had a huge apartment in a converted nineteenth century woolen mill in a tiny town in the rural Ottawa Valley, Almonte. After we decided not to go to Canada but to Prague we sold it. I went back a couple of years ago. The town had died. The few shops there were shut down, it was a ghost town. We had a narrow escape.
> It seems I've been lucky all my life, Lord knows why..that's why I try to be well-disposed to those less fortunate.


Frustrating thing is ...since 1999 I saw the 'financial crisis' ahead.. So instead of getting into the Tech sector I started investing in Gold and Silver Stocks.. the last 3years (before the crash) saw me making 64%, 98 % and 118% gains 
I believed that once things went to hell... People would en -mass get into Gold.. How wrong was I on that one !
Instead everything was sold including our Gold stocks which are now back to 2001 -2003 levels.. ironically the other sectors have been recovering where as my Gold stocks are down the toilet!!
It was pure Greed on my part.. I didn't even pull anything out so hubby could get his dream Audi TT.. _(He's watching BBC Canada as I type, Top Gear Marathon) _
We now have the same problem with our home.. We are in a dying town and the rebuild on our house is $1M but we'll be lucky to get $600K for it..

I'm glad to hear of someone that came out ahead..


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Goldeneye said:


> Frustrating thing is ...since 1999 I saw the 'financial crisis' ahead.. So instead of getting into the Tech sector I started investing in Gold and Silver Stocks.. the last 3years (before the crash) saw me making 64%, 98 % and 118% gains
> I believed that once things went to hell... People would en -mass get into Gold.. How wrong was I on that one !
> Instead everything was sold including our Gold stocks which are now back to 2001 -2003 levels.. ironically the other sectors have been recovering where as my Gold stocks are down the toilet!!
> It was pure Greed on my part.. I didn't even pull anything out so hubby could get his dream Audi TT.. _(He's watching BBC Canada as I type, Top Gear Marathon) _
> ...


Well, as I said, it was more luck than judgment. 
I remember our conversation about gold...my problem is that I'm too risk-averse. Fortunately my OH is a shrewd businesswoman as if things had been left to me we might well still have been plodding away in the UK.
She just said one day when we were out walking the dog that she'd had enough...so four months later we had put everything on the market, called Pickfords...and off we went, never to return!
It was strange at first, not owning the house we lived in after thirty years...but we realised that we could afford to rent the kind of posh house we couldn't afford to or didn't want to buy. Now, with a very good landlord and a house with a large garden for our dogs, we are really enjoying life.
I'm sure all will work out fine for you too. 
Is there really a Canadian 'Top Gear'? There surely isn't a Jeremy Clarkson equivalent....I used to think Canadian tv was like watching paint dry..but then my Aunt tends to watch bland, inoffensive stuff. She used to be President of the Catholic Women's League of Quebec and, years ago, involved with the Catholic League for Decency..
Maybe we would have enjoyed living in Montreal...who knows? But we are very happy here.


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## Justina (Jan 25, 2013)

Go on do tell what does one have to do to belong to the catholic league of decency?


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Goldeneye said:


> Frustrating thing is ...since 1999 I saw the 'financial crisis' ahead.. So instead of getting into the Tech sector I started investing in Gold and Silver Stocks.. the last 3years (before the crash) saw me making 64%, 98 % and 118% gains
> I believed that once things went to hell... People would en -mass get into Gold.. How wrong was I on that one !
> Instead everything was sold including our Gold stocks which are now back to 2001 -2003 levels.. ironically the other sectors have been recovering where as my Gold stocks are down the toilet!!
> It was pure Greed on my part.. I didn't even pull anything out so hubby could get his dream Audi TT.. _(He's watching BBC Canada as I type, Top Gear Marathon) _
> ...


Are you saying you foresaw the 2008 financial crisis back in 1999? Sorry but I don't buy that - what triggered your prediction? If it's the Glass-Steagall repeal then hats off, but otherwise I don't think you can lay claim to predicting a crash that occured 9 years after making your prediction. Also gold is back to 2010 prices. If you bought back in 1999 then you are still way up on the deal.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Justina said:


> Go on do tell what does one have to do to belong to the catholic league of decency?


It was more about what you shouldn't do, mainly concerned with telling good Cathoilcs which films to avoid lest they be led into an occasion of sin..or something like that. I don't remember it in the UK. It was a North American thing, more sin there, presumably. I think it shut down in the 1970s...overwhelmed by the tidal wave of filth, no doubt.
Both my mother and her sister married Catholics but whereas my aunt took instruction from nuns, converted and took it all very seriously, my mum, a more practical down-to-earth type of person, didn't and left religious stuff to my dad's 
Irish superstitious Catholic but very worldly mother, my dad having died when I was a toddler. Another one of my lucky escapes..
My aunt finds great comfort in her religion. My uncle, a Canadian soldier she met during the War, was also religious. They were married, I presume happily, for over sixty years. It was just as well for them both as divorce would have been out of the question!


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## Goldeneye (Nov 12, 2011)

Chopera said:


> Are you saying you foresaw the 2008 financial crisis back in 1999? Sorry but I don't buy that - what triggered your prediction? If it's the Glass-Steagall repeal then hats off, but otherwise I don't think you can lay claim to predicting a crash that occured 9 years after making your prediction. Also gold is back to 2010 prices. If you bought back in 1999 then you are still way up on the deal.


It was my broker, at the time I knew pretty much nothing about the stock market, all I knew was I wanted a broker who had seen a few Market cycles so I went into various offices and asked for someone with experience, I had read that you are the employer they are the employee, be assertive and interview them..... Of course the receptionist took no notice of my request that I wanted someone with experience not the new person building up a client list....As I was leaving I quipped that she had just wasted my time, _the lady who became my broker was also at the time office manager _heard my comments and asked what the problem was... she & I hit it off, she took me under her wing and took the time to educate me, I would often spend Sundays in her office debating the reasoning she believed so much in the Gold sector, when all my friends were buying Techs.. (at the top) 
No so not me, it was a lady in her late 60's who had a passion for the Stock Market and had been working in the industry since she was 16 running down to the post office to telegraph orders for the brokers and making their cups of tea.. It was in her blood..
She told me to read and follow JSmineset a blog and subscribe to a couple of contrarian newsletters... I wasn't smart enough, I just surrounded myself for a time with people that were.. ( until I 'thought' I knew as much' and got burned....
AND YES THESE PEOPLE DID SEE LOOMING CRISIS..
Jim Sinclair, JS mineset, Peter Schiff, Doug Casey, GATA, Eric Sprott, James Turk, and John Embry.. They all called it...and if you dig far enough back you'll be able to see some of their posts from back then!!

Gold may be back to 2010/11 prices but in most cases the Gold Stocks are back to 2000 -2003 pricing, so nope sadly I am not 'way up on the deal'..
..
..
..


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Goldeneye said:


> It was my broker, at the time I knew pretty much nothing about the stock market, all I knew was I wanted a broker who had seen a few Market cycles so I went into various offices and asked for someone with experience, I had read that you are the employer they are the employee, be assertive and interview them..... Of course the receptionist took no notice of my request that I wanted someone with experience not the new person building up a client list....As I was leaving I quipped that she had just wasted my time, _the lady who became my broker was also at the time office manager _heard my comments and asked what the problem was... she & I hit it off, she took me under her wing and took the time to educate me, I would often spend Sundays in her office debating the reasoning she believed so much in the Gold sector, when all my friends were buying Techs.. (at the top)
> No so not me, it was a lady in her late 60's who had a passion for the Stock Market and had been working in the industry since she was 16 running down to the post office to telegraph orders for the brokers and making their cups of tea.. It was in her blood..
> She told me to read and follow JSmineset a blog and subscribe to a couple of contrarian newsletters... I wasn't smart enough, I just surrounded myself for a time with people that were.. ( until I 'thought' I knew as much' and got burned....
> AND YES THESE PEOPLE DID SEE LOOMING CRISIS..
> ...


My point is that if anybody predicted there was going to be a crash like there was in 2008 as far back as 1999 then they got it wrong, because between 1999 and 2008 there was one almighty boom in certain asset classes, while the stock markets went up and down. To be honest I'm not sure which crash you are referring to - you mention tech stocks and that bubble burst in 2001 - fair enough if you predicted that particular crash in 1999, but that was a completely different scenario to the 2008 crash. 

In fact I don't think anybody really predicted the events over the last decade or so. I thought there'd be housing crash in the UK back in 2003 but I was 5 years too early, and when it did happen I thought it would be bigger than it was. I didn't foresee QE re-inflating asset prices to such an extent. I thought about buying gold in 2008 but decided not to, and missed out on that little bubble. Let's face it, if I could predict these things then I'd be a lot richer by now.


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## Goldeneye (Nov 12, 2011)

Chopera said:


> In fact I don't think anybody really predicted the events over the last decade or so. I thought there'd be housing crash in the UK back in 2003 but I was 5 years too early, and when it did happen I thought it would be bigger than it was. I didn't foresee QE re-inflating asset prices to such an extent. I thought about buying gold in 2008 but decided not to, and missed out on that little bubble. Let's face it, if I could predict these things then I'd be a lot richer by now.


Total Rubbish..... Plenty of people predicted it.. The media only reports what the government and wall Street want them to report...
look up the contrarian thinkers, you can easily do a search.. everything they have said is somewhere in cyberspace.... *YES* they did predict the events that the 'boom' the 'Easy money mortgages, NINJA Mortgages etc would end in disaster, they were the ones that suggested protecting yourself from the coming financial crisis by investing in Gold.. Stupidly I invested in the Stocks rather than the metal...

I remember being in Mexico sitting in Bed listening to Paulson in front of the TV Cameras say to the World the worst of the credit crisis behind us.. I still remember turning to my hubby aghast saying if we 'nobodies' *know* the worst is yet to come.. He surely must know.. A few weeks later Lehman went down...

But I'm not here to argue the point.. take it or leave it.. whatever I say probably won't make one iota difference to you.. Read some of the names I mentioned and either think they were talking outta their collective as ses ~ or not.. 

Either way, I'm not that smart, to not take profits on the way up... I made a fortune only to lose it through sheer greed!! :frusty:

I'm not bothered if you believe me or not.. Here is just one of Peter Schiff's comments _In an August 2006 interview Schiff said: "The United States is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship... I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States."[17] On December 31, 2006 in a telecast debate on Fox News, Schiff forecast that "what's going to happen in 2007 is that real estate prices", which had peaked at the end of 2005,[18] "are going to come crashing back down to Earth".

In his 2007 book Crash Proof, Schiff wrote that United States economic policies were fundamentally unsound.[19] Since then, he has stated many times that, without a change in U.S. government economic policy, there will be hyperinflation in the U.S_ NBC would drown him out, and ridicule him.. I'd been following his reports for years...





..




..


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## Goldeneye (Nov 12, 2011)

Most of these people are forward thinkers looking at 'Cause and effect'

I also own the following books which I purchased hard copy back in the day.... by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving the Soft Depression of the 21st Century (2003) and Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis (2005) 

I don't see them as 'too early' they were predicting what would happen if administration of the time continued along it's current path..

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15892/1/MPRA_paper_15892.pdf <<<<< This paper presents evidence that accounting (or flow-of-fund) macroeconomic models helped
anticipate the credit crisis and economic recession. Equilibrium models ubiquitous in mainstream policy and research did not.

I love this guy... the former comptroller general David Walker, left his position to try and warn and educate the public about what was and is still happening..


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## BBCWatcher (Dec 28, 2012)

I have at least three major problems with this video:

1. Government debt is not inherently bad. Countercyclical government debt is generally exceptionally good, in fact. And who would even attempt to argue that the United States should not have gone into debt in the early 1940s to defeat the Nazis? You cannot start any sort of sensible argument with "debt=bad." It's not. Sometimes debt is fantastic, sometimes it's "bad," and sometimes it's merely innocuous. It's never fatal in a fiat currency regime.

2. The video conveniently omitted U.S. comparisons of total government spending versus total government spending in Europe as percentages of GDP. The fact: the U.S is on the low side in that comparison.

3. The video also conveniently omitted U.S. total tax revenue collections (as a percentage of GDP) versus European norms. The fact: those are lower in the U.S., too.

If you combine #2 and #3, you end up with the (correct) conclusion that the United States doesn't spend a whole lot (though much more on defense and less efficiently on medical care) compared to Europe, and *the U.S. also has vast untapped taxing power*. In short, there's no problem: just increase taxes, primarily on the wealthy and corporations, if you want to reduce deficits. Problem solved!

The comparison with 1912 is silly. We also had polio in 1912, unprecedented rates of immigration, and low life expectancies, among other differences. You might quibble at the margins about the appropriate size and scope of government, but the wrong answer is 1912's.

I suspect David Walker doesn't like that particular solution (higher taxes) to what is mostly a non-problem, at least at this time, but there it is.

OK, moving on to some other issues, one is Social Security. Social Security doesn't add to the debt or deficit. It cannot, by law. It's a contributory program, fully funded by payroll taxes. It's doing very well and will have enough funds to pay out promised benefits, including cost of living adjustments, until about 2033. Thereafter it will start paying out about 75% of promised benefits if Congress does nothing. If Congress simply eliminates the payroll tax cap and extends payroll taxes to non-earned income (as has already been done for Medicare in a fashion), that 2033 date pushes out to something approaching infinity.

The national security budget is out of control and, contrary to David Walker's presentation, represents the largest slice of the federal budget. (The figure Walker describes is only for "core" defense spending, i.e. the DoD and a bit, not the full costs of the national security state which include other parts of the overall budget in DOE, DOT, and many other agencies.) Defense spending should not be properly viewed as a percentage of GDP but rather as real (inflation-adjusted) costs against a baseline -- that would be the comparison that would make at least more sense in 1912 v. 2012 terms. It's not more expensive (in real terms) to defend the United States in 2014 at the same level than it was in 1968 -- the territorial size of the United States hasn't changed. And that's the problem. U.S. national security spending is incredibly inflated compared even to height of Cold War levels. So if you want to reduce government spending, that's the biggest place to do it.

The next biggest place is healthcare costs, but that's been a good story lately with reduced healthcare inflation rates. The U.S. has a very cost inefficient healthcare system, and moving closer to any of the universal European systems would be fine. Just pick one. The PPACA ("Obamacare") takes the U.S. closer to Switzerland and the Netherlands, two of the most expensive systems in Europe. Move more toward France, for example, and you reduce costs and improve quality/coverage even further. The State of Vermont is going to give that a try starting in 2017, and as Vermont goes so goes the nation (we can hope). In short, socialized medicine is cheap and effective. If you think government debt is bad, then you should favor "socialized medicine," and the more socialized the better.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

Goldeneye said:


> Total Rubbish..... Plenty of people predicted it.. The media only reports what the government and wall Street want them to report...
> look up the contrarian thinkers, you can easily do a search.. everything they have said is somewhere in cyberspace.... *YES* they did predict the events that the 'boom' the 'Easy money mortgages, NINJA Mortgages etc would end in disaster, they were the ones that suggested protecting yourself from the coming financial crisis by investing in Gold.. Stupidly I invested in the Stocks rather than the metal...
> 
> ..


Ron Paul is a contrarian thinker?

Thinking like Hoover isn't contrarian.

Remember many of his like shorted US Tresuries and then voted against things like the Paulson bill. Planning on profiting from destroying the US economy. In a normal country they'd have been charged with insider trading. Or treason. Ask yourself why it's legal for US politicans to engage in insider trading.

Gold? You can't eat it. Burn it. Every oz ever mined still exists. It's only value is what a greater fool will give you for it. Tulips you can eat. 

The best part about gold is the people who love it ignore the central banks pushing up it's price by buying tonnes of it. Then they complain about the central banks buying bonds. 

The Schiffs of the world want a market clearing price for everything but what they own. Let the central banks dump all the gold they own on the market so we can see how little it's really worth.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

BBCWatcher said:


> I have at least three major problems with this video:
> 
> 1. Government debt is not inherently bad. Countercyclical government debt is generally exceptionally good, in fact. And who would even attempt to argue that the United States should not have gone into debt in the early 1940s to defeat the Nazis? You cannot start any sort of sensible argument with "debt=bad." It's not. Sometimes debt is fantastic, sometimes it's "bad," and sometimes it's merely innocuous. It's never fatal in a fiat currency regime.
> 
> ...


1) People ignore the fact that normal people use debt every day. Home mortgage. Business loans. You name it. 

2) You can't compare government spending without comparing the total services delivered. If you add in the 20% of health costs in the US then total US spending is likely higher then most countries.

3) same point. It doesn't matter to the citizen if the money goes out in taxes or health insurance. The disposable ends up the same

4) You can't make that point. Social security is a future liability. You can call it off balance sheet but it exists. Saying they'll cut future payouts is like saying they'll pick who eats and who starves. Politicans rarely make those choices. Hiking taxes has it's own issues. It can easily end up counterproductive. Europe is showing this .

The real issue is that those social security contributions are a free loan for the government. Those contributions go into general revenues right?

5) Pentagon has always been a make work project. It's the largest Keynesian government plan in the world.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

To put the terms 'libertarian ' and 'thought ' too closely together is an oxymoron. Just like the terms 'free' and 'market'.
Such views are based not on deep thought but gut instinct. They serve to justify selfishness and greed.
Goldeneye is being honest in admitting the role greed played in her decisions. Credit where it's due.


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## 213979 (Apr 11, 2013)

Maddalena said:


> Although we travel in Spain, and do not live there, it has always astounded us to see shops closing for siesta, and closing completely Sat afternoon, etc, when LOTS of shoppers are wandering the very streets looking to SHOP! Have they ever heard of taking alternating lunch breaks so that the shop can remain open and do some business?


The only fools looking to shop at that hours are foreign tourists.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

elenetxu said:


> The only fools looking to shop at that hours are foreign tourists.


By 2pm the streets of Estepona are deserted. It's as if a giant vacuum cleaner had sucked everyone up. At 5pm the streets start filling again.
While forlorn tourists wander the empty streets searching for somewhere to buy something sensible Spaniards are enjoying a leisurely lunch, chatting with friends or family, making love..
Whoever said 'Man is born free but everywhere I see him in chains'- Rousseau? - was spot-on. We forge our own chains.
Of course a happy life requires food, shelter and stability. You have to work for those things. But the 'joy' of possessions is transient. It fades very rapidly. My partner, family, friends and dogs are beyond any material worth, even if they do piss me off at times, as no doubt I do them.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Goldeneye said:


> Total Rubbish..... Plenty of people predicted it.. The media only reports what the government and wall Street want them to report...
> look up the contrarian thinkers, you can easily do a search.. everything they have said is somewhere in cyberspace.... *YES* they did predict the events that the 'boom' the 'Easy money mortgages, NINJA Mortgages etc would end in disaster, they were the ones that suggested protecting yourself from the coming financial crisis by investing in Gold.. Stupidly I invested in the Stocks rather than the metal...
> 
> I remember being in Mexico sitting in Bed listening to Paulson in front of the TV Cameras say to the World the worst of the credit crisis behind us.. I still remember turning to my hubby aghast saying if we 'nobodies' *know* the worst is yet to come.. He surely must know.. A few weeks later Lehman went down...
> ...


You said you predicted the crash back in 1999. You still haven't said which crash you are referring to, so it's hard for me to understand the point you are trying to make. So I'm going to make two predictions for the next 10 years:

1. The markets will go up

2. The markets will go down

I fully expect that both of my predictions will come true during the next 10 years. What does that tell you? It should tell you that predictions mean ****** all unless you provide a precise time frame. It's no use predicting a crash if the markets go up by another 40% before the crash happens.

I'm well aware of who Peter Schiff and Ron Paul are - they got some predictions right, but they got a lot of other predictions wrong. They both predicted that the dollar would be debased and that there would be hyperinflation for example, and that simply hasn't happened. Gold is on the way back down. It's not a question of me believing you or not, I said I predicted a house price crash back in 2003 so my predictions weren't that different to Schiff and Paul, and I also thought that there would be very high monetary inflation after the credit crunch but, like Schiff and Paul, I got that bit wrong.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Anyone with the most superficial knowledge of the history of capitalism knows that it is predicated on cycles of boom and bust.
As for predicting the exact time, date and place where the next crash will occur...why bother? Unless you are mega-rich ( and if you were you wouldn't be posting on this Forum, you'd be wondering where to tell the captain to which fresh exotic port he should steer your luxury yacht) you really won't experience anything other than business as usual which is that said mega-rich get even richer, some of us are lucky enough to get the scraps off the table but the majority of working stiffs will carry on getting shafted.
As the French say, 'Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose'.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

mrypg9 said:


> To put the terms 'libertarian ' and 'thought ' too closely together is an oxymoron. Just like the terms 'free' and 'market'.
> Such views are based not on deep thought but gut instinct. They serve to justify selfishness and greed.
> Goldeneye is being honest in admitting the role greed played in her decisions. Credit where it's due.


I think she is just saying that she made the wrong prediction regarding markets and got burnt. My point is that nobody gets the predictions right in a meaningful way. It sounds like the mistake Goldeneye made was she got overly exposed to one sector and didn't hedge properly.

Let's face it, we're all in it to make money - you don't purposely put savings into accounts that lose you money do you? You didn't invest in property to lose money did you? And you didn't run a car business to fix people's cars for free. Goldeneye just did what everyone does - they put their money where they thought it would grow most.

She regrets not getting out and puts it down to greed, but she wouldn't be saying that if she hadn't lost money. If I had followed my predictions I would have got out of UK property back in 2005 but I didn't because I couldn't be bothered to sell while living in Spain. I got lucky because as it it turned out my mortgage interest payments were slashed and the property is now worth more than it was before the crash. On the other hand I know people who sold-to-rent back in 2003, thinking there would be a crash, and now they can't afford to buy back the property they sold. Were they being greedy?


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## BBCWatcher (Dec 28, 2012)

NickZ said:


> 4) You can't make that point.


Sure I can. I just did.



> Social security is a future liability.


If you're talking about everything that happens until 2033 or 2034, i.e. twice the standard Congressional Budget Office planning horizon, no, it's not. Or at least it's a fully forecast future liability, forecast and prepared for decades ago. It's a pay-as-you-go system with an accumulated trust fund working exactly as designed. If you're talking about 2034 and beyond, and the level of benefits Social Security is paying, that's a future promise, yes. Whether Congress chooses to fulfill that promise or not is a political question. I think Congress should, and the easiest way to do that is to lift the payroll tax cap and broaden the payroll tax base to include unearned income. Which is exactly what Congress did for Medicare, as it happens.



> Saying they'll cut future payouts is like saying they'll pick who eats and who starves. Politicans rarely make those choices.


Congress makes those decisions all the time. They don't necessarily _like_ to make those decisions, and some of them are default decisions (i.e. decisions through inaction), but those decisions get made.

But nobody has to starve. Inaction means that starting in 2033 or 2034 retirees will receive 75% of inflation-adjusted benefits. That's the absolute worst that could happen, and that's not actually a catastrophe. My preference -- and most Americans would agree with me -- is to maintain 100% benefit levels or better including full COLAs. And to do that is very easy: charge rich people a bit more.

Who's paying for Mr. Walker's video, by the way? Let me guess...somebody who has enjoyed/is enjoying a great deal of wealth and financial success in life?

....Wow, what a surprise: yes. I guessed correctly. Do I win a prize from Peter Peterson, too?



> Hiking taxes has it's own issues. It can easily end up counterproductive. Europe is showing this.


No, Europe is demonstrating the results of cutting public spending in the wake of a huge financial crisis. That causes widespread misery, especially when you don't have your own currency and thus don't have adequate (or any) monetary policy response. Sweden, which has among the highest taxation levels in the world and also its own currency, is doing just fine, thank you.

The U.S. has tremendous untapped taxing power. That's just a fact, demonstrated both within U.S. fiscal history and also across other countries (e.g. Sweden). Indeed, if the U.S. Congress wished it could pay every man, woman, and child a decent guaranteed basic income with taxes set at a relatively modest percentage of the U.S. economy's total output in global terms. Corporate taxes, for example, used to represent about 6% of GDP in the 1950s and now have crashed below 2%. (I noticed Mr. Walker didn't illustrate those statistics either.)

I also notice Mr. Walker left out Japan from his debt comparisons. If debt is such a big problem, then one must have an explanation for Japan's successes. The Japanese government has had the lowest borrowing costs in the world -- at negative real rates -- for over two decades and counting.



> The real issue is that those social security contributions are a free loan for the government. Those contributions go into general revenues right?


So what? Social Security is extremely well designed and extremely efficient. Roosevelt was a genius. To the extent it's a loan, it'll get paid back, primarily via corporate and individual income taxes either in the present or on a deferred basis using government debt instruments (bonds) denominated in nominal fiat currency.



> 5) Pentagon has always been a make work project. It's the largest Keynesian government plan in the world.


It's not the best Keynesianism. Repairing infrastructure (water mains, sewers, bridges, rail lines, mass transit, public buildings, parks, dams, etc., etc.) would be a better choice.


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## zenkarma (Feb 15, 2013)

Chopera said:


> I fully expect that both of my predictions will come true during the next 10 years. What does that tell you? It should tell you that predictions mean ****** all unless you provide a precise time frame. It's no use predicting a crash if the markets go up by another 40% before the crash happens.


Spot on.

The only relevance to any prediction of what the market might do is timing, timing and timing.

If you time it correctly you'll make money, if you don't time it correctly, you'll lose money.

As you rightly say, markets go up and down all the time (the traders and market makers almost rig it that way, it's how they make their money) because economies are cyclical. History tells us that, what goes up usually comes down and what comes down usually goes up. The real key is in predicting what will go up, what will come down and most importantly - when.

If I could accurately predict when interest rates will rise, I'd make a fortune, and whilst I have an idea (or loose prediction of when it will happen) I don't know exactly when. All I know is, they will rise at some point in the future.

Timing is everything.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

BBCWatcher said:


> No, Europe is demonstrating the results of cutting public spending in the wake of a huge financial crisis. That causes widespread misery, especially when you don't have your own currency and thus don't have adequate (or any) monetary policy response. Sweden, which has among the highest taxation levels in the world and also its own currency, is doing just fine, thank you.
> 
> I also notice Mr. Walker left out Japan from his debt comparisons. If debt is such a big problem, then one must have an explanation for Japan's successes. The Japanese government has had the lowest borrowing costs in the world -- at negative real rates -- for over two decades and counting.
> 
> ...


Most of Europe hasn't really cut spending. Much of what they've done is hike taxes. If they had cut spending things would have been even worse. Greece is the main country to have cut spending.

Sweden hasn't had to contribute anything to the Euro bailouts. 

Japan has had deflation most of those years. How often in the last twenty years have real rates been negative in Japan? What success BTW? 

Japan basically started out with the same plan Europe is on now. Go back. They hiked interest rates. Just like the ECB did. They cut spending. It wasn't until 1995 IIRC they even tried anything else. At least that's my memory. By the point they woke up things had totally crashed.

A pay as you go system today is well designed??? A system intended to deal with a population that lived maybe two years in retirement. Would anybody start a pension system today that was set up that way?

They are repairing infrastructure. It's just human and not physical. Investing in people is no less important. How many of the military would have had access to the training they received ?


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Chopera said:


> I think she is just saying that she made the wrong prediction regarding markets and got burnt. My point is that nobody gets the predictions right in a meaningful way. It sounds like the mistake Goldeneye made was she got overly exposed to one sector and didn't hedge properly.
> 
> Let's face it, we're all in it to make money - you don't purposely put savings into accounts that lose you money do you? You didn't invest in property to lose money did you? And you didn't run a car business to fix people's cars for free. Goldeneye just did what everyone does - they put their money where they thought it would grow most.
> 
> She regrets not getting out and puts it down to greed, but she wouldn't be saying that if she hadn't lost money. If I had followed my predictions I would have got out of UK property back in 2005 but I didn't because I couldn't be bothered to sell while living in Spain. I got lucky because as it it turned out my mortgage interest payments were slashed and the property is now worth more than it was before the crash. On the other hand I know people who sold-to-rent back in 2003, thinking there would be a crash, and now they can't afford to buy back the property they sold. Were they being greedy?


I think all such predictions are worthless as market transactions are the result of millions upon millions of individual decisions and thankfully humans have not reached the stage where our behaviour can be predicted with such exactitude.
I hope we never will.

But yes, if she had made money she might well be congratulating herself on her prescience.


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