Spanish bank eviction policy - repossession insanity

[Janet]

Let's look at some figures to compare the 1970s with today.

Some stats show there's more disposable income now than then ... BUT, and it's a big but, there is more demand on its disposal now than then too.

People didn't have cars then like they do now. Agreed. But people used to be able to find jobs locally, go to school locally, go to hospital locally. Now they can't. Cars are actually cheaper to run than rail fares, and people have to travel, so it is unfair to use the "they have cars and we didn't" argument. They need to get to whatever work they can find, and it's often the most economical method ... and given the price of fuel, that's saying a lot.

People buy TVs now rather than rent them. Agreed. But rental became impossible once the rental shops started to close, and ultimately, like cars versus trains, it was cheaper in the medium term, not even the long term, to take credit to buy one outright.

Fridges and freezers, washing machines ... white goods were a luxury. Agreed. Now they aren't. Part of this is cultural. We're just used to having them now. They weren't widespread then, OK, but this wasn't just because people were being more responsible. They just weren't so ubiquitous, nor so comparatively cheap.

There are also costs today that didn't exist then. Mobile phones might be considered a luxury, but the world is interconnected now in a way that was unimaginable then, and I would argue that only a Luddite would say a mobile is a luxury these days. And children have them too ... and yes, that's sometimes indicative of over-parenting, but those children are also far safer too.

Housing though is perhaps the major factor. Shelter has said that average house prices have risen 40-fold since 1971 and if this was was also true in supermarkets, we'd be paying around £50 for a chicken and £20 a jar of coffee!

As Nova said, just to live these days takes two salaries. If society doesn't want future generations, then OK, but if it does, it's a social issue as to how those generations are to be afforded.

[Nova]

Dickens is perhaps the best source for the Victorian workhouse. Characters were so terrified of ending up there that they'd run away and die on the streets rather than be "taken in". Many Victorian Studies scholars, however, think it was even worse than he portrayed it to be. The Mail had an article on it some time ago ... it's HERE.

Thanks Janet.  This makes me want to say to all those who promote a capitalist society that forces everyone to provide only for themselves without taking care of its weakest members:  The English have been there, done that, carried the scars and know what lessons are to be learned from the experience.  Some of us hope to god we never go back to the kind of society that produced the Victorian workhouse.

[Janet]

I just can't help being off topic

As the radical leader Jacques Roux put it at the height of the French Revolution in 1793:

Liberty is no more than an empty shell when one class of men is allowed to condemn another to starvation without any measures being taken against them.
And equality is also an empty shell when the rich, by exercising their economic monopolies, have the power of life or death over other members of the community.

Funny in a way that you quoted this because I was reading THIS earlier about the protests throughout Europe. Once again the gap between rich and poor is becoming enormous, with very little in the middle ... as a friend recently remarked, the middle classes are disappearing. The pictures immediately brought the barricades of the French Revolution to mind ...

I think I'm going to start collecting knitting needles and wool ....... to sell when the time comes ...

[Guanche]

And I shall build the Guillotine!

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]

Janet I don't know where you were in the 70s but all of the things you mentioned have been a standard part of my life all of my life.  Plus tumble dryers, dishwashers, garbage disposals, automatic garage doors..... My parents who both worked always had their own cars. 

Anyway, I agree, a mobile is not a luxury, and since I spend the princely sum of 6.42€ per month, it is not a budget breaker.

I think you're right about housing being the major factor in the increase in the cost of living. 

I don't think anybody is advocating the return to the workhouse system.  But western civilisation cannot afford to pay the welfare bill as currently constituted and it needs radical overhaul and improvement.  And I would argue that attitudes need changing, insofar as entitlements are concerned.

And I do like Briz's quote; M. Roux was prescient. 

[Janet]

I was a teenager in Wales in the 1970s, and very few had cars or even white goods; even fixed-line phones were a rarity! The first dishwasher and tumbledryer I remember was in the 1980s.

I can remember the M4 being opened, and going for a drive with my aunt and uncle "up the motorway"! My uncle was the only person in the family with a car, and I have the clearest recollection of joining the motorway at what was then its end, near Port Talbot, and being the only car on the road between there and Cardiff!!

(edit: have just googled and the M4 opened in west Wales in 1968)

[Nova]

Yep, in the 70s my dad used to drive the thirty miles to work without seeing a single other car on the road!  Cars were a rarity.  I think my mum got her first fridge towards the end of the seventies and it was a real luxury.  Until then cold foods were kept in the larder.  I remember our first colour television when I was little.  In my infancy we only had the 14" black and white.

In the seventies my parents had a fixed line phone but it was a shared party-line.  My grandparents had to walk five minutes to the public phone box to make a call as did everyone on their street well into the eighties.

[Guanche]

without taking care of its weakest members

I am sure a lot of the problem is the almost daily revelations of the abuse of the system. It was never intended for the abuse it now gets, Just like the notorious 'Human Rights' was never intended to be abused by people like the hate preacher Qatada. What fans the fires is the apparent inability of a sovereign authority do do anything about it.

Plus it's difficult to condemn benefit cheats when members of the very Government who are in charge of sorting it out are at the same trough. It doesn't help when they seem to escape with impunity, two cases in the last week?. We daily see members of the upper echelons of society rewarded for stupidity (recent BBC boss) and corruption (bankers)  And even when they are discovered and punished they are free to return to the trough (House of Lords). No wonder some of our society seem to have lost it's moral compass shouting 'I want I want I want'

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]

I am sure a lot of the problem is the almost daily revelations of the abuse of the system. It was never intended for the abuse it now gets, Just like the notorious 'Human Rights' was never intended to be abused by people like the hate preacher Qatada. What fans the fires is the apparent inability of a sovereign authority do do anything about it.

Plus it's difficult to condemn benefit cheats when members of the very Government who are in charge of sorting it out are at the same trough. It doesn't help when they seem to escape with impunity, two cases in the last week?. We daily see members of the upper echelons of society rewarded for stupidity (recent BBC boss) and corruption (bankers)  And even when they are discovered and punished they are free to return to the trough (House of Lords). No wonder some of our society seem to have lost it's moral compass shouting 'I want I want I want'

You are completely correct.

[Janet]

The Government and the opposition PSOE have reached agreement tonight on the income level that will be the maximum to avoid evictions. Both sides are still to discuss further measures, and the final threshold is still to be determined, but it seems that it will be around €19,000, roughly 3 times the minimum wage index. The government wants the measure to be applied to the most vulnerable, including the elderly, disabled or families with dependent children. The Cabinet is expected to approve a decree on evictions this Thursday. JA