Editorial:
There is nothing worse than a fully-fledged crisis for most of us. The value of our possessions go down; we are unable to find credit and must keep that old car another year; short of money, we must accept a rotten price on a house or some land; while those who owe us money may not be able to pay, the banks and the tax-people will eagerly strip our account. Those of us who are worse off may lose our only source of income, joining the legions of the unemployed. We may even lose our house to the bank (while still, for some reason, continuing to owe that same bank the mortgage plus some monstrous legal fees). In short, a crisis is a terrible thing. So we read of those who benefit from a crisis, like the one suffered in extremis by Spain since 2008. Speculators, as Público.es calls them, have done well from La Crisis. As those who are weaker must sell at a bargain price, those who are stronger will make a killing. Yes, a crisis now and again is good for business.
Housing:
House buyers can now download a useful guide (in Spanish) to explain how to find hidden property debts at the Property Registry, as produced by the Valencian 'Decanato de la Comunidad Valenciana de Registradores de la Propiedad y Mercantiles'. It will tell you of how to resolve any debts or liens on the property, to discover any embargos or ejecuciones hipotecarias which may be present. The Property Register will have any and all debts on the property registered with them, so – check before you buy!
The Guide mentioned above begins primly with: 'Buying a home is possibly the most important investment that people can make in a lifetime. Therefore, when you are thinking of acquiring a property, you should find out beforehand if there are any unexpected charges on the dwelling, what they may mean and thus what decision must be made. Some of these burdens would make buying the property a mistake, while others are solvable without too much stress, and others still, are of no importance...'. In short, beware of nasty surprises!
'Unable to pay her mortgage, Manoli Herrera turned over her flat to the bank and moved into one of six abandoned buildings occupied by other jobless families in Sanlucar de Barrameda, a seaside town on Spain´s southern coast. … Twenty struggling families, many with children, moved into the building on June 30.
Several days later another 60 families moved into five nearby buildings. The six new buildings belong to a real estate developer that went bankrupt and disappeared. A message written on a white bed-sheet that hangs from the courtyard of one of the occupied reads: "Everyone has the right to a home. Fighting for a home."...'. From The Global Post.
The first 'Green Shoots of Recovery' article has arrived: 'Upmarket value for money in Valencia: The Spanish region is an attractive option for overseas buyers as the green shoots of recovery continue to sprout...'. From The Telegraph. Enjoy!
Finance:
'The Spanish economy grew 0.6 percent from April to June, or one decimal point more than initial Bank of Spain estimates, official figures released on Wednesday show.
The growth of 0.6 percent is the fastest quarterly growth in six years, the preliminary figures from Spain's national statistics institute, the INE show. It also marks the fourth consecutive quarter of growth for the national economy...'. From The Local.
Unemployment fell in Spain by a whopping 340,000 people in the Second Quarter, according to figures from the EPA. 24.47% of Spaniards (who seek employment) are currently without work (Things improve heading from the south to the north: Andalucía at 34.74% to the almost European rate of Navarra at 15.88%). Work related to tourism and 'services' appear to have helped the figures. There is also an increasing number of 'unemployeds' who simply don't bother to register as they feel it to be a waste of time. El Huff Post discusses this issue here. An estimate of their numbers comes from the INE, and stands at 483,600. Expansión, meanwhile, analyses where the 402,600 new jobs have come from, with the top employers being tourism (with 215,000 extra jobs this summer).
A graphic from El Confidencial on the unemployment rate in different countries across the world as at the end of 2013. Next door Portugal was at 16.9% Huh!
An interesting graphic from El Diario on the fiscal balances of the autonomies, how wealthy they are and how much they receive in State funding.
The electric bill is apparently going up again. Who helps the power companies push through these price-rises? Who knows (but, from an article in El Mundo from last February called '43 políticos 'enchufados' en eléctricas', there is always a future in the boardroom for an enterprising ex-politician).
Corruption:
As the Catalonian news-site ara.cat has it: 'Admitting to "feeling much pain", the former President of the Generalitat, Jordi Pujol, admitted last Friday that, as some Spanish newspapers have been saying in recent months, his family holds illegal money in banks abroad. Indeed, there have been movements of money in recent years to Andorra and Switzerland by both Pujol's wife Marta Ferrusola and their children, especially the oldest, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, whose former lover has already accused of moving black money...'.
One suggestion from the ex-girlfriend of Jordi Pujol Jr above is that the family fortune comes from commissions from public works and the money held outside Spain stands at over 100 million euros. Jordi Pujol was the founder and 'Most Honorable' man behind modern Catalonian politics. Unfortunately, between one thing and another, the Pujol fortune appears to be nearer 500 million euros, which is a severe embarrassment for Artur Mas, who was discussing his plans for independence from Spain with an intransigent Mariano Rajoy yesterday (Wednesday) in Madrid.
Vozpópuli, skirting around the same subject, notes the sale of the State-owned Catalunya Caixa, which took a 12,000 million loss. No one, says the website, appears to be in trouble – certainly not the ex-PSOE minister Narcís Serra, who ran the bank into the ground, nor the current Finance Minister De Guindos, who said in 2012 that 'the credit of 100,000 million euros conceded to Spain by the Central European Bank to recapitalise our banking system would cost nothing to our citizens'. At the same presentation, Mariano Rajoy made a similar promise, that 'the credit to the banks would be paid back by the banks'. So far, the reconstruction of our banks has cost the Public 43,224 million euros, says the news-site.
There's a nice piece on Narcís Serra at El Correo titled 'The Socialist who doubled his income while Catalunya Banc collapsed under his stewardship'.
'Five years after it began, an investigation into the largest political corruption scheme in recent Spanish history is over — or at least it is for 45 of the nearly 200 official suspects in the Gürtel case. High Court judge Pablo Ruz on Tuesday concluded the portion of the pre-trial probe that affects some of its most relevant suspects, including alleged ringleader Francisco Correa, former Popular Party (PP) treasurer Luis Bárcenas and several ex-mayors...'. From El País in English.
The promotion agency that is used by Doritos, the crisp people, were offering a special prize of 20,000 euros for the customer who invented the best new flavour for the company. We all sent in our ideas. The winner, surprisingly, was the son of the head of the self-same advertising agency.
White Elephants:
The regional PP wants to open the Corvera airport, possibly by the end of 2013, despite not having the correct permits from the Spanish Air Security Agency AESA, and in the hope that Brussels takes over a 180 million euro bond on the new airport and, further, that the actual Murcia airport at San Javier, just 30kms away, would be peacefully closed by the AENA. The opposition parties in Murcia are having a fun time with their criticisms!
Politics:
The new leader of the PSOE, the handsome looking Pedro Sánchez, has caused an immediate 1% rise in the 'intention of vote' for his party, following his accession two weeks ago, according to El Diario. The PP is down nationally from 45.2% at the last elections to a current 33.8%. The PSOE has fallen over the same period from 29.2% to 24.1% today. The third force in Spanish politics is Podemos at 13.7%, which has taken a chunk of IU voters, plus, apparently, some from the centre and even the right. Graphic here.
'The Government assures that its arms sold to Israel are not being used against the Gaza population', says a headline over at Infolibre. Last year, Spain sold 5.9 million euros worth of weapons to Tel Aviv. No doubt, they are just being used for decoration.
'The Hotel Algarrobico is Legal' shouts the headline from Wednesday's Ideal. It seems that the building licence conceded to Azata del Sol in 2003 was legal, says the Andalucian Superior Court of Justice. Now, of course, Azata del Sol can sue the Andalucian Government for stopping work and degrading the gigantic building. Should be a nice sum of money – probably more than they would have got trying to run the hotel... or wait, are they going to try and finish it now?
Various:
An opinion piece at El Diario notes that Spain will become the only Western country to insist on a tax to share information on the Internet. '...Even though you decide to share your content for free or through the use of a 'copyleft' licence. You will not be allowed to refuse a private entity, in this case CEDRO, to collect an (unspecified) amount in your name which will then be distributed to the AEDE media. As you're not a member of the AEDE (unless you run a daily paid-for newspaper), you won't be able to divide the spoils. Checkmate!...'.
It calls for users to boycott the newspapers that make up the guild known as the AEDE. There's a useful 'plug-in' here. Otherwise, it's easy enough, just don't add a link.
Almería. A Reader (concerned about the 12,000 'illegal' homes in the Almanzora Valley) says: The Mayor of Carboneras proposes to open the Hotel Algarrobico as a hotel or residence for the elderly. Great! If the Junta knocks your house down then you can go and live there.
'Well! There I was thinking that the invernaderos, the 28,576 hectares of farms under plastic in western Almería, were bad for the environment, destroying the water table and impoverishing the soil. Nothing, it turns out, could be further from the truth! The invernaderos are huge destroyers of CO2 and, indeed, do much to stave off the threat of Global Warming! According to the always reliable Voz de Almería, the plastic farms destroy some 280,000 tons of CO2 each and every year. Not only that - the unsightly farms are (as La Voz puts it so elegantly) 'the authentic engine of the demographic and socio-economic development of the province of Almería''. From The Entertainer Online.
'A campaign to persuade British ex-pats to vote in the European and local elections fell well short of its target, according to the Electoral Commission. An estimated 5.5 million Britons live overseas, but only a fraction – around 20,000 – were registered to vote in the UK as of February this year. The commission ran a campaign in the weeks before the elections on May 22 to encourage 25,000 more of them to register. However, only 7,079 did so – less than a third of the number hoped for...'. From The Telegraph.
'Imagine a world where women have no control over their own body, a world where choosing to abort the foetus growing inside your womb is illegal. Imagine this world where the state bans abortion unless the baby is severely deformed, the mother’s health at serious risk or it is the result of rape.
Now take a look around you. You’re in 21st century Spain. And in one month’s time it could really come to pass that clandestine abortion clinics once more raise their ugly heads, completely unregulated and terrifyingly unhygienic...'. From The Olive Press. Or, as per the old days, a quick flight to London...
'“Proposed new Spanish Hunting Law”: There has been very little publicity or information regarding the proposed new Hunting Law. The proposal as we understand is to prohibit walkers and cyclists being in the mountains on hunting days. The shooting season starts on 12 October and goes on until Easter with shooting allowed on Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays and all fiesta days...'. Found at Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers.
'A report on the world situation of the nuclear industry, "The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2014", has just been published. This report has been prepared by a group of independent experts and notes that Spain generated in 2013 more energy from wind turbines than from any other source, including nuclear power. Never until now has wind power been the largest source of generation of electricity in any country for an entire year...'. From Greenpeace España.
The Spanish government wants to stop the long lines at the Gibraltar border from adversely affecting the around 6,000 Spaniards who have to commute into the British territory to work every day. On Tuesday, the Official Gazette published a decision to create a special document for “border workers” who will be able to get in and out of Gibraltar through a fast-track route. To avoid accusations of discriminatory treatment, Spain is also offering fast-lane access to Gibraltarians who work in Spain, although in practice these are much fewer...'. From El País in English.
Spain's first bondage-themed hotel - equipped with a massive dungeon and all the latest gear – has been stopped from opening its doors by the local village authorities.
The small Valencian village of Vilafranca, with only 2,500 inhabitants, would have gained notoriety on Friday had the opening of Spain’s first BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism) hotel gone ahead.
“With the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon in full swing, I saw a business opportunity that hadn’t been exploited yet in Spain,” the businessman, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Local...'. More here!
Well, here's a tiny country we have never heard of: the Couto Mixto, an independent state located between Portugal and Spain which was only absorbed into the Spanish province of Ourense in 1868. The republic comprised the three villages of Santiago de Rubiás, Rubiás, and Meaus. More about this odd foot-note of history here.
Nasty animals, insects and spiders in Spain. There aren't many that bite or sting, but here are the worst: 'Creepy Crawlies in Spain' (Lenox says he has been stung four times by scorpions over the years).
Flamenco at 5.15. A short film made by the National Ballet School of Canada.
Letters
"Spain is a great place to live, but it's currently not a safe place to invest in. Despite Government claims to the contrary, the country remains in a savage decline, with enormous problems which are simply not being addressed. Tourism aside, the country seems to act increasingly like a failed experiment. We need some sensible answers, which the Government is incapable of providing. It's time to represent the People, not the Corporations." (BoT 74 editorial)
Hello Lenox,
I thought I must write to you as I was interested in your opening comment in your last BoT re Spain's economic problems. Unlike yourself I do not believe in the sacred Euro and I do believe it is certainly one of the major causes of Spain's present predicament. Germany in particular has now managed to remove the threat of less efficient countries in Europe undercutting them by relativity painless devaluation by installing a hard currency which has proved detrimental for Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland. Probably the UK would be in there also if we had been foolish enough to join.
The process which Spain and Greece in particularly find themselves in, i.e. "internal devaluation", is very dangerous and can easily lead to a continual downward spiral in their GNP. This is a situation in which they may find it impossible to recover from for a very long time. I believe that the only road for recovery for these blighted countries is devaluation which they cannot do while locked into the Euro. Spain, Greece, France, Italy and even the UK have had to resort to devaluation in the past to assist the recovery of their economy.
Results of Internal devaluation:-
Cutting spending by government and businesses inevitably leads to loss of jobs. (Brussels insists that Spain must cut back its spending)
The loss of jobs leads to lower spending by the public in addition to the government.
This lower spending leads to further business failure
Business failure leads to further unemployment.
This then results even less spending contracting the economy even further leading to greater unemployment.
And so the downward spiral continues.
This clearly is happening in Spain!
The alternative solution for Spain - To leave the Euro and devalue by 30% (Suggested by some economists)
Spain would immediately become very competitive; its production costs would drop and its manufacturing etc would become possibly cheaper than that of Germany!
This would encourage foreign investment and expand Spain's industrial and production base leading to a surge in exports of manufactured goods and also it's produce. (Manufactured goods, wine, olive oil, vegetables etc.)
Spain would once again become very popular for tourists and retirees leading to a recovery of the property market and expanding the service industry.
Unemployment would begin to fall leading to greater spending and thus further expansion of the economy, thus resulting in an upward spiral.
Spain's external debts would be reduced by 30%. It is estimated that for every three Euros income in the Spanish economy One must be used to pay its interest on its debts.
Although costs of imports would increase goods eg. electronic goods, Petrochemicals, Foreign cars etc, home produced goods would become more competitive against those imported, thus giving a boost to Spanish industry and exports. The downward spiral would then come to an end. As Iceland has discovered this would be difficult for a while but in the long run it is the only answer to many years of austerity for the ordinary person.
Why will it not be done?
The European banks have too much at stake. Spain owes millions to these institutions which would never be paid in full.
The Euro is the Sacred Cow and must not be allowed to fail or to be shown to have any weakness, even if it means stealing from depositors bank account as occurred in Cyprus recently or putting the weak members of the EU into punishing debt.
A country by devaluing it currency steals the advantage of the high productivity counties such as Japan, Germany etc thus making their products more expensive while their own become more competitive.
In conclusion; unfortunately the majority of the population of these suffering counties are influenced by their politicians who frighten them into believing that leaving the Euro would be worse than a nuclear strike. This I believe will continue to be the case and will only change if and when there are major changes in their government or extreme social unrest.
John.
Finally:
A Spanish joke over at YouTube. A customer must pay for his coffee according to the time of the day he consumes it (it's a crack against the electric companies' costings).
…...
Si (
No(
