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OPINIÓN

The gold of Spain

By Per Svensson

miércoles 22 de octubre de 2014, 11:21h

In November 1532 the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire with a force of 180 men and 37 horses. He captured the God-king of the Incas by betrayal, but promised to set him free if he filled a room of 7 by 5 meters with gold as high as a man could reach. The Incas complied, but king Atahuelpa was nevertheless killed.

In the following years huge amounts of gold found it's way to Spain.  However,  after a new method to mine silver was developed, silver exports to the motherland were soon more important than gold, with Seville becoming the centre for imports from the New World;  the population of the town boomed from 25,000 in 1517 to 90,000 in 1594, whilst the native population in Middle America receded from 11 to 2.5 million.

Enormous wealth flowed through Seville, but it was not used to develop production but spent on luxury at the court and new military adventures all over the world. The result was rampant inflation and a financial and economic crisis lasting for many years.   By the end of the 16th century Spain was as poor as it was before the New World was discovered.

 

The new gold

In the 50 years from 1960 to 2004 foreign citizens bought 1.5 million dwellings in Spain, at an estimated average price of 50,000 euros. That meant an influx of  75,000,000,000 euros in hard foreign currency, in addition to the money the foreigners spent on taxes, fees, food, wine, home equipment and travel, over the years several times the property investment.

A new set of conquistadores felt they had discovered “El Dorado.” From 2004 they built 800,000 dwellings per year, 4 times the normal need of the Spanish population. At the same time they quadrupled the sales price of dwellings.

The result is a financial and economical crisis that will last for years. At the end of it, Spain will be much poorer than it was before 2004.

 

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