Just thought I'd throw this into the pot, it's a 7 minute video on the sad plight of the unemployed en España:
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bdYQWgn7eec
And, this is a thought-provoking post from the esteemed Mary on the Spain expat forum:
"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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Well there you are. Basically I think she talks cobblers.
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To top it all she talks in cliches that mean nothing at all. Ex-Pat ? She voted with her feet and therefore she can be safely ignored.
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Actually it would appear that there are a number of reasons she can, and should, be ignored, her complete plankness is just one.
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pity really, there are some good bits in there that are outweighed heavily by the rubbish.
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She's probably over done the Gin, but then it is/was the season to be merry.
She smokes cannabis too, just one 'joint' per night, for medicinal reasons, she's knocking on a bit you see.
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It's a bit rambling but not much to disagree with after the gibberish at the start. Bit like listening to somebody who's been in the pub 3 hours longer than you have.
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Woman writes ignoring the changes to the work environment caused basically by two major drivers:
1. automation
2. cheap production in East Asia.
She can change to any kind of economy she likes but those two things have changed the workplace: for ever. Gone are the mass factories, the mass employers of semi skilled labour- for ever.
What she writes is economic illiteracy - and does it show..
Rather like the Luddites... who complained about the impact of the First Industrial Revolution and the impact of the steam engine on the home producers of fabrics and clothes...
Complain all you like madam, the world changes...
Last edited by: madf on Mon 30 Dec 13 at 09:29
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I broke my golden rule posting whilst drunk...I discovered vodka jellies last night (party in a local celeb's house).....I was rather drunk,for which I apologise. Still can't make sense of it sober.
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>> Woman writes ignoring the changes to the work environment caused basically by two major drivers:
>> 1. automation
>> 2. cheap production in East Asia.
That doesn't in itself condemn Spain to high unemployment. It just means they have to get poorer and/ or the Asian workers get richer, through the mechanism that includes exchange rates.
You are ignoring the fact that Spain is on the wrong side of the Euro exchange rate. The Euro crisis was caused by the Euro...we should be glad GB got that one right, or we would be in the same state as Spain, in all likelihood.
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The Spanish crisis was caused by uncontrolled borrowing in Spain to fund an unsustainable property building spree--- as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of empty completed/semi completed properties.
Yes it was financed by cheap interest rates,,, but at the end of the day a Government can control speculative building if it wants to and thus dampen down a property boom --- lots of ways within its control - building permits etc.
The Spanish Government chose not to.
Yes Mr Brown got that right... in terms of not joining the Euro... So we've had two Governments in two decades (eventually) making the same decision. In the 1980s, we tried to shadow the Euro - a dismal failure.and discarded .and GB decided to follow stay out.
Pity the LibDems don't understand that but hey ho that's politics..
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Spain,like Eire depended on building boom, cheap borrowed money BUT also dependent on rich Northerners buying 2nd homes in the sun for hols or retirall. This made Spain far worse than others.
Something like 1million new and unsold flats & homes.
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The real beneficiary of the Euro is, of course, Germany.
By giving the same nominal value to its new currency (The Euro) as those countries whose economies were not on the same level it allowed German goods to be sold to those countries at a price which their own, previous currencies, would not have allowed.
The initial conversion rates of national currencies to the Euro very soon failed to work, once prices were all denominated in Euros.
Certainly in Spain the introduction of the Euro created rampant overnight inflation.
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If anyone is interested in reading the other posts regarding the YouTube video that I originally got from the Spain expat forum:
www.expatforum.com/expats/spain-expat-forum-expats-living-spain/297938-no-job-land.html
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I refuse to read stuff written at length without paragraphs.
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"And, this is a thought-provoking post from the esteemed Mary on the Spain expat forum:"
Drink-inducing, yawn-provoking, more like.
Could we have a 2-line summary:
What is she saying?
What does she suggest doing about it?
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>> What is she saying?
>> What does she suggest doing about it?
She's saying neo-liberal globalization is exacerbating inequalities on a world scale and is inherently unstable.
She doesn't offer a solution but hopes a sort of post-Keynesian management can be imposed on the world economy. Nice idea, but some hope...
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>> She's saying neo-liberal globalization is exacerbating inequalities on a world scale and is inherently unstable.
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That's very good, AC. Thank you. :)
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>> Could we have a 2-line summary:
>>
>> What is she saying?
A lot of people are in the cart, but while the majority are OK there won't be a revolution or a majority vote for anything different.
Eventually government economists and finance ministers will realise that you can't leave everything to the wealth creators/greedy people unless you want parallel widespread deprivation (and implied boom/bust), and the managed economy will become fashionable again.
>> What does she suggest doing about it?
Waiting, I think.
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 31 Dec 13 at 01:50
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No job land - R.P.
