# One billion euros



## Mexberry (Dec 19, 2011)

The way one billion is written in the media, €1B , looks so compact that I tend to overlook how much money it really is. One billion euros is in numerical form €1000000000.
Spain could possibly require 100 billion of them to bail out their banks. 
For visual impact I thought about writing out €1000000000 (9 zeros) one hundred times below, but that reminds me too much of school detentions , so I leave it up to your imagination. When written out in full it brings home to me just how badly the banks were managed and regulated. The 25% unemployed are the ones truly paying the price as are homeowners who have lost their equity or entire houses.
Mexberry.


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## Muddy (Jan 14, 2010)

Mexberry said:


> The way one billion is written in the media, €1B , looks so compact that I tend to overlook how much money it really is. One billion euros is in numerical form €1000000000.
> Spain could possibly require 100 billion of them to bail out their banks.
> For visual impact I thought about writing out €1000000000 (9 zeros) one hundred times below, but that reminds me too much of school detentions , so I leave it up to your imagination. When written out in full it brings home to me just how badly the banks were managed and regulated. The 25% unemployed are the ones truly paying the price as are homeowners who have lost their equity or entire houses.
> Mexberry.


Maybe they'll end up printing a 1 billion euro note! Then it wont look so bad lol


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## Calas felices (Nov 29, 2007)

*Unemployed*

Just as horrendous is the unemployment figure:
564 000 000 - particularly so when you realise each one is a person who could have a family relying on them


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Latest estimate for the bailout is a mere €40 billion. That's about equal to the estimated annual expenditure on pornography in the USA.


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## Guest (Jun 9, 2012)

Alcalaina said:


> Latest estimate for the bailout is a mere €40 billion. That's about equal to the estimated annual expenditure on pornography in the USA.


Not even porn is doing well,
BBC News - Louis Theroux on porn: The decline of an industry


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Calas felices said:


> Just as horrendous is the unemployment figure:
> 564 000 000 - particularly so when you realise each one is a person who could have a family relying on them


I hope there are too many zeros on the figure


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

jimenato said:


> I hope there are too many zeros on the figure


hmmm 2 too many I think

5,640,000


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## Muddy (Jan 14, 2010)

xabiachica said:


> hmmm 2 too many I think
> 
> 5,640,000


I wonder what the total would be if all family members were included.
Would put a clearer perspective on it if there was only one wage earner in a household and they were out of work etc!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Muddy said:


> I wonder what the total would be if all family members were included.
> Would put a clearer perspective on it if there was only one wage earner in a household and they were out of work etc!


worse than that - there are many many households of 3 generations living on the grandparents' pensions

_that _would be an interesting figure


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## Muddy (Jan 14, 2010)

xabiachica said:


> worse than that - there are many many households of 3 generations living on the grandparents' pensions
> 
> _that _would be an interesting figure


wow, had no idea that was happening. I'm feeling the pain just thinking about it.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Mexberry said:


> The way one billion is written in the media, €1B , looks so compact that I tend to overlook how much money it really is. One billion euros is in numerical form €1000000000.
> Spain could possibly require 100 billion of them to bail out their banks.
> For visual impact I thought about writing out €1000000000 (9 zeros) one hundred times below, but that reminds me too much of school detentions , so I leave it up to your imagination. When written out in full it brings home to me just how badly the banks were managed and regulated. The 25% unemployed are the ones truly paying the price as are homeowners who have lost their equity or entire houses.
> Mexberry.


The difficulty is magnified since a billion is realkly 1 + 12 zeroes (i.e. a million million). The American billion (1 + 9 zeroes) is a millard.


BTW the way to do a Euro symbol € is to hold down the <Alt> key and type 0128 on the numeric keypad.


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## Mexberry (Dec 19, 2011)

Muddy said:


> Maybe they'll end up printing a 1 billion euro note! Then it wont look so bad lol


.
Zimbabwe printed a million"kwatcha"( I think that is the name) note a couple of years ago before they switched over to using the $. Now available on e bay for a fiver.
Mexberry.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

baldilocks said:


> BTW the way to do a Euro symbol € is to hold down the <Alt> key and type 0128 on the numeric keypad.


How do you do a pound sign on a Spanish keyboard?


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> How do you do a pound sign on a Spanish keyboard?


<Alt> + 0163

For any other symbols Click on "Start", then "Run" and type "charmap" Select the character you want (for most common fonts and symbols, it is the same coding) You can then either "Select" then "copy" and paste OR if you just "select", it will usually give you the coding as "Keystroke" at the bottom right.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

The current situation has nothing to do with 'regulation' of Spanish banks. It is directly connected with the free movement of capital that is one of the pillars of the Single European Act.
Banks, corporations and individuals within the eurozone were able to borrow freely at very cheap rates, chiefly from German banks and financial institutions. This was extremely tempting to corporations and others in countries such as Spain and Ireland where it stimulated a construction boom and Greece where it was poured into an already bloated public sector.
Under the provisions of the SEA Governments were powerless to stem the inward flow.

Hopefully when the dust of this current inevitable crisis has died down a new European Union will emerge, where national governments will be able to regain control of inward and outward capital flows.


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

folklore said:


> Not even porn is doing well,
> BBC News - Louis Theroux on porn: The decline of an industry


Sadly very true.
I've turned most of my adult websites into selling celebrity stuff now.
Used to be a very good source of income.


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

mrypg9 said:


> Hopefully when the dust of this current inevitable crisis has died down a new European Union will emerge, where national governments will be able to regain control of inward and outward capital flows.


Just curious here...
Do you really see this happening?


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Solwriter said:


> Just curious here...
> Do you really see this happening?



I'm not sure but as I believe in fitting my opinions to the facts, I'm ready to entertain thoughts I wouldn't have a year ago.

You and I would agree that a 'sea change' in political outlook is urgently required...and these tend to occur only after wars or truly cataclysmic events. But I 'm beginning to think that the original concept of merging seventeen nations with such disparate economies into a currency union must have been dreamed up in the early hours in by a group of inebriated Eurocrats in a bar in Brussels....

Talk of changing this currency union into a closer fiscal and political union makes me think the drinks party has moved to a psychiatric institution.

If we had a half-way decent social-democratic government in the UK, one committed to a social market economy not a market society, we could perhaps take the lead. We could renegotiate our terms and conditions for remaining within the EU as it now is, we could withdraw from the SEA and I believe that we would take a group of other equally sceptic states with us to form a two-tier Europe.

I voted 'Yes' in the 1976 (I think it was) referendum...but that was when we still spoke of the Common Market.

For most people, the only signs they saw of creeping integration was, if they bothered to look, at passport control signs at airports when the Common Market became the EEC and then the EC and finally the EU.

I was not consulted about this, like the other UK citizens of our 'democracy'. 
If we have a referendum on our continuing membership of the EU and I were able to vote I would study the options put before me very carefully before making a commitment either way.
But I fear the options given will be equally unpalatable to anyone who wants to see a Europe run in the interests of the majority of working people and their families.


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

mrypg9 said:


> I'm not sure but as I believe in fitting my opinions to the facts, I'm ready to entertain thoughts I wouldn't have a year ago.
> 
> You and I would agree that a 'sea change' in political outlook is urgently required...and these tend to occur only after wars or truly cataclysmic events. But I 'm beginning to think that the original concept of merging seventeen nations with such disparate economies into a currency union must have been dreamed up in the early hours in by a group of inebriated Eurocrats in a bar in Brussels....
> 
> Talk of changing this currency union into a closer fiscal and political union makes me think the drinks party has moved to a psychiatric institution.


Agreed. 



mrypg9 said:


> If we had a half-way decent social-democratic government in the UK, one committed to a social market economy not a market society, we could perhaps take the lead. We could renegotiate our terms and conditions for remaining within the EU as it now is, we could withdraw from the SEA and I believe that we would take a group of other equally sceptic states with us to form a two-tier Europe.


This presupposes several things...
That the UK will ever, in the near future, have a half-way decent social-democratic government.

That the UK would be able to renegotiate terms and conditions, rather than pushing themselves to the sidelines as happened recently.

That the concept of a two-tier Europe is feasible for countries such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland.



mrypg9 said:


> I voted 'Yes' in the 1976 (I think it was) referendum...but that was when we still spoke of the Common Market.
> 
> For most people, the only signs they saw of creeping integration was, if they bothered to look, at passport control signs at airports when the Common Market became the EEC and then the EC and finally the EU.
> 
> ...


I think this is one of the reasons that referendums are not taken very often.
Governments talk about time and money wasted, and how a democracy cannot be run efficiently on referendums...
But truthfully, they think that the vast majority of the people who they 'represent' will fail to give them the results they require, despite laying out all the 'facts' in front of them.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

baldilocks said:


> <Alt> + 0163
> 
> For any other symbols Click on "Start", then "Run" and type "charmap" Select the character you want (for most common fonts and symbols, it is the same coding) You can then either "Select" then "copy" and paste OR if you just "select", it will usually give you the coding as "Keystroke" at the bottom right.


£

It works. Thanks.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> £
> 
> It works. Thanks.


That's what we are here for.

Incidentally, if you are using MS Word, just holding down <Ctrl> and typing <'> (that's an apostrophe), release <Ctrl> the typing a,e,i,o, or u will put an acute accent on the relevant letter, very useful if one doesn't have a Spanish keyboard.

<Ctrl>+<Shift>+<~> then <n> will give you ñ and using <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<:> then <u> will give you ü. With any of the foregoing using <Shift> with the relevant letter will give you the upper case letter accented.


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## Muddy (Jan 14, 2010)

Mexberry said:


> .
> Zimbabwe printed a million"kwatcha"( I think that is the name) note a couple of years ago before they switched over to using the $. Now available on e bay for a fiver.
> Mexberry.


I think I might try getting into printing paper money, seems like it might be a good business to get into soon lol


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Muddy said:


> I think I might try getting into printing paper money, seems like it might be a good business to get into soon lol



When we first lived in Prague we were koruna millionaires......


At that time £1 =43 CZK.

So for less than £24k you too could be a millionaire.....


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

*Spain's savings banks' culture of greed, cronyism and political meddling*


Strapline for interesting piece in today's Guardian...


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> *Spain's savings banks' culture of greed, cronyism and political meddling*
> 
> 
> Strapline for interesting piece in today's Guardian...


Here's the linky

Yes I read that earlier - shocking!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> *Spain's savings banks' culture of greed, cronyism and political meddling*
> 
> 
> Strapline for interesting piece in today's Guardian...


I wish you'd learn to post links.................

Spain's savings banks' culture of greed, cronyism and political meddling | World news | The Guardian


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## Muddy (Jan 14, 2010)

baldilocks said:


> That's what we are here for.
> 
> Incidentally, if you are using MS Word, just holding down <Ctrl> and typing <'> (that's an apostrophe), release <Ctrl> the typing a,e,i,o, or u will put an acute accent on the relevant letter, very useful if one doesn't have a Spanish keyboard.
> 
> <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<~> then <n> will give you ñ and using <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<:> then <u> will give you ü. With any of the foregoing using <Shift> with the relevant letter will give you the upper case letter accented.


That's handy.
You can also try adding an additional language under Control Panel, Regional and Language Options, Languages, Details, Add.
Select the language you want etc.You then should be able to add a Hot Key like Alt + Shift to switch between the keyboards, you can also add it to the Task Bar.
E.g. by pressing Alt + Shift it turns the + and - keys into ?¿ when Shift is used!
Then quick press of Alt + Shift switches back to the UK keyboard.
I was hoping to reprogram the £ key to a € sign on the Spanish keyboard layout but will have to look into that!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

jimenato said:


> Here's the linky
> 
> Yes I read that earlier - shocking!


 you beat me to it!


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Where on earth has the Grunaid got the idea that the PP is the "people's party"? The PP is the residue of Franco's Nationalist mob and is more right wing than the UK Conservatives.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Phew!! Praise the lord!!

Spain has at last asked for a 100 billion Euros for its corrupt banks. Crisis over then - we can all have a few beers and relax. 

I don't know why they didn't do it weeks ago and save us all this angst.


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## country boy (Mar 10, 2010)

jimenato said:


> Phew!! Praise the lord!!
> 
> Spain has at last asked for a 100 billion Euros for its corrupt banks. Crisis over then - we can all have a few beers and relax.
> 
> I don't know why they didn't do it weeks ago and save us all this angst.


Read all about: Piece of cake!!

Spain to Request EU Aid for Banks - WSJ.com


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

But what will the banks do with it? Just pay off the loans they've already built up! Until they actually start investing in growth, we are no better off. It's just a very expensive sticking plaster.

It will be interesting to see what the criminal investigation of Bankia throws up. The PP strongly resisted any sort of enquiry, not surprising since a lot of PP politicians were involved in running the seven banks which merged to form Bankia last year, and helped themselves to some juicy bonuses.

State prosecutor opens criminal probe into Bankia | In English | EL PAÍS


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> But what will the banks do with it? Just pay off the loans they've already built up! Until they actually start investing in growth, we are no better off. It's just a very expensive sticking plaster.
> 
> It will be interesting to see what the criminal investigation of Bankia throws up. The PP strongly resisted any sort of enquiry, not surprising since a lot of PP politicians were involved in running the seven banks which merged to form Bankia last year, and helped themselves to some juicy bonuses.
> 
> State prosecutor opens criminal probe into Bankia | In English | EL PAÍS



The banks can't use the money to invest in growth, though. They need that capital to stay liquid.

The disgraceful corruption which has characterised the management of these banks is nothing less than a national shame.
It is not just the PP which has had its hands in the till. PSOE, IU, all political parties are tainted here.
Which is why decent people of all political views who sincerely want to change the way things have been done should join up. 
Agitate and educate from within the system. It's the only democratic way, open to all.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> The banks can't use the money to invest in growth, though. They need that capital to stay liquid.
> 
> The disgraceful corruption which has characterised the management of these banks is nothing less than a national shame.
> It is not just the PP which has had its hands in the till. PSOE, IU, all political parties are tainted here.


Sure, but I think you'll find that in the Bankia case it is very much the PP's bête noire. Otherwise why would Rubi and Lara be insisting on the criminal investigation which Rajoy was so against? Check out this article from the Irish Independent;



> Further complicating matters is the deep involvement of Mr Rajoy's Partido Popular (PP) in the Bankia fiasco. Bankia was formed in December 2010 from the merger of seven local savings banks.
> 
> Each of the 17 autonomous regions in Spain has its own local savings bank and most of these, particularly those in Madrid and Valencia, have long been under the control of PP regional administrations. Bankia's former chief executive, Roderigo de Rato, who was forced to quit last month, is a prominent PP supporter.
> 
> There have long been rumours that these regional administrations used their local savings banks to dole out loans to politically well-connected property developers.





mrypg9 said:


> Which is why decent people of all political views who sincerely want to change the way things have been done should join up. Agitate and educate from within the system. It's the only democratic way, *open to all.*


Have you heard the word _enchufismo_?

One of the biggest planks in Spain's pro-democracy movement's platform is a change in the way politicians are selected and elected. It is virtually possible to get in unless you are part of the "clan", a close-knit group which looks after its own interests. Even if you succeed in becoming a candidate, the clan will put your name so far down the list that you stand little or no chance of getting a seat.

This happened to a neighbour of mine, a dedicated and hardworking politician strongly opposed to corruption and enchufismo. He was a member of the PSOE but he was a schoolteacher from outside, not one of the four families who have dominated the party here since it began. In the end he got so fed up with being put at the bottom of the selection list that he left and joined the IU. He is now deputy mayor (not in the most honourable of circumstances, but that's another story!)


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> Sure, but I think you'll find that in the Bankia case it is very much the PP's bête noire. Otherwise why would Rubi and Lara be insisting on the criminal investigation which Rajoy was so against? Check out this article from the Irish Independent;
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I hear what you say...and I have heard it from others in PSOE too. But what else can you do but fight from the inside and agitate outside? 

In a minor way, that 'exclusivity' can be found in British party politics of both main parties. When I became active in the Labour Party, our local CLP was dominated by a group of retired trades union delegates who controlled everything. As a gay opiniated female I could never be part of their 'in-crowd' so (echoes of Stalinism here) they had to be removed. Long, hard work....but we managed to recruit enough new members to shift them.

In some parts of the UK CLPs are dominated by 'clans'....the West of Scotland, the London Labour Party and the North-East being a few examples.

But I'm not suggesting it's the same as Spain.

At the moment I feel like lining up a few people against a wall....as in China, where Fred Goodwin would have been swiftly dealt with.....


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

Don't you just love politicians...
BBC News - Spain's Rajoy hails bank rescue as 'victory for euro'


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## Muddy (Jan 14, 2010)

Solwriter said:


> Don't you just love politicians...
> BBC News - Spain's Rajoy hails bank rescue as 'victory for euro'


I watched that earlier, came across as sad as it looked even with the translation it was cringeworthy spin lol


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