Spain ... economy, pain, protests: what's the future?

[andy]

Only my personal view:-
Spain is not a Country, it is a collection of autonomous regions. They can set their own laws, taxes etc.
None of them want to be governed by a central state. Look at Basque region and Catalonia for examples.
They (the politicians of the regions) are used to being corrupt, a lot of tax money doesn't make it back to the central coffers.
There is no chance of any of the regions becoming independent - they cannot raise debt. This is needed in all economic systems.

About time they (the politicians of the regions) did what they were elected to do - run the regions and not their own pockets.

[rant mode off]

[Janet]

Standard & Poor's has downgraded Spain's credit rating again. It's now BBB-, one level above junk status. Further downgrades are also possible ...

BBC

[Janet]

and democracy itself is in trouble without an effective press. In Spain, it's questionable how effective it is anyway, but when El Pais is in big trouble, we can say this is very serious.

El País is to axe a third of its workforce as the country's media sector shrivels under the combined weight of the global newspaper crisis and a worsening domestic recession.

The announcement has provoked bitter tensions within the newspaper as fears grow that the sale of a major share in El País's debt-laden parent company, Prisa, to a group of New York-based investors in 2010 will lead to the paper being bled of resources or sold off. Juan Luis Cebrián, the veteran former El País editor who is now Prisa's chief executive, dropped the bombshell on the workforce a week ago. Of the 464 staff, the company plans to sack 128, send 21 into early retirement and exact a 15% pay cut from the remainder. Under labour law changes introduced earlier this year, the cost of shedding one-third of the workforce is about half what it would have been in 2011.

Journalists at the paper responded with a two-day withdrawal of bylines, and plan to begin disruptive stoppages shortly. As tempers frayed, a union meeting urged the editor, Javier Moreno, to resign while Cebrián was urged to pay back millions of euros he has earned in recent years. Management claimed the paper's survival was at stake. "Either we change our model and the newspaper's structure or we cannot continue producing El País," said the newspaper's chief executive, José Luis Sainz.

Link

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]

Don't you think a large part of their problem could be the internet?  It is having a major effect on newspapers worldwide as their business model (selling papers) is not effective in the internet age.  (What age are we in?)  I have no idea of the amount of newspaper sales/readership or uptake of internet in Spain, so am basing my assumption that the internet has impacted El País on the others. 

What about the other Spanish papers?   

[Janet]

The protests are still going on. As the BBC reports:

Thousands of people have joined fresh protests in the Spanish capital, Madrid, angered by budget cuts and calling on the government to quit. Demonstrators held a minute's silence with their backs to parliament, then shouted "resign" with fists clenched. Parliament was guarded by hundreds of police officers.

New figures this week showed about a quarter of working-age people in Spain were now unemployed. Saturday's protesters came from all over the country and were met by vans of riot police, says the BBC's Pascale Harter in Spain. Just hours earlier, she says, 300 police had staged their own protest in the capital, setting off fire crackers and blowing police whistles over the same issue - budget cuts.

One banner read: "The police can't take it any more."

Is another golden dawn about to break in Spain? A political one, of course .....

[Janet]

Do you remember that mayor in Spain who encouraged people to rob a supermarket and distribute food to the poor (am I remembering this correctly??)

Now, some 20 indignados have raided a Mercadona in Barcelona ... they took basic foodstuffs and distributed them to people in need. Store staff said the incident happened shortly before 11am, and that the raiders took a trolley full of goods. They went through the checkout, but refused to pay and left the shop. The manager called the police and meanwhile managed to stop other trolleys being taken away.

This isn't going to get any better, is it?

Linky

[poker]

If you want to know where Spain is heading look at Jerez .

If you read this , its not so bad yet in the Canaries .
Think we are lucky to always have a steady flow of tourists spending and bringing money in all over the year .

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/11/21/inenglish/1353507214_212572.html

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]

That is a very sobering article.  I wish our local overlords would take note and take action, but I fear that is not the Spanish way.  Not looking good for the future.

[Janet]

The prospect for 2013 is "the pain deepens" ... so says THIS article which is very sobering reading.

[Janet]

One thing that isn't in the future is a guaranteed reserve fund for pensions. Spain's emptied the fund, to "invest" in debt ...



Where does this end?