2.25 million Catalans voted in an independence "opinion poll" yesterday, and over 80% said both yes to becoming an autonomous state, and yes to being fully sovereign (breaking from Spain altogether).
That makes about 1.8 million for secession, out of a total of 5.4 million registered voters living in Catalonia. A third of all voters.
A 42% turnout is impressive, bearing in mind this was an unofficial poll organised by 40,000 volunteers - the UK's 2005 General Election turnout was only 61%.
But even if absolutely everyone voted in an official Catalonian referendum and two-thirds said no, that would still leave a deep division. I can't see that sticking your fingers in your ears is a viable strategy for Madrid.
Devo max for Catalonia?
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All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2014
Sunday, November 09, 2014
Spanish sovereign debt and JPM
James Higham writes (also on Orphans of Liberty):
A couple of money men I know said, in 2010, that the big issue at that time was sovereign debt and China is cited as one of the main players.
I wrote years ago about Peabody and how there was an induced grain crisis in America in the mid-1800s, out of which the eventual JPM did very well indeed and JPM is a topic upon which many on left and right do agree.
Our site’s JD wrote to someone who knows money, asking:
I don’t understand money as I wrote a few years ago here-
http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2014/11/07/545bf1f2268e3e634d8b4586.html
I can’t find any English report on this so far but it looks as though JPM are telling their clients not to buy Spanish debt. (I have never understood how or why anyone would want to ‘buy’ a debt, presumably these are the famous ‘junk bonds’ which were at the root of the recent financial problems?)
Their reasoning is that were Podemos to reach a position of power in Spain then a lot of the debt would be cancelled. Podemos are preparing an audit which will decide which debts are legitimate and which are not and the latter will be written off.
JPM in their analysis also consider the bizarre situation that PP(right wing) and PSOE(left wing) could form a coalition after the next election to prevent Podemos forming a government. I have seen elsewhere that polls suggest that if an election were called tomorrow Podemos would win!
So my question is – what are the implications of a Debt Jubilee, the Biblical idea that all debts should be written off after seven years? (Not just in Spain but everywhere) And who would lose by such a Debt Jubilee? Not me for sure, I have no debts. Rarely use a credit card and pay cash for whatever I need.
A commenter, The Hickory Wind, who lives in Spain, stepped in to observe:
I’m late to the party as usual, but anyway…
Simon Harris’s original piece is interesting and informative to anyone who doesn’t know much about Spanish politics, but those who do will recognise that he has swallowed uncritically a bit too much of the propaganda. There were two points I would have made to him, but the second annoyed me so much that I didn’t bother.
Firstly, the historical case has very little to do with the modern politcal reality, or with the justice of the cause. Even if the history is properly understood and correctly interpreted, what once was can tell you little about what should be now. It’s not that he does it badly, just that it isn’t particularly relevant.
The second point, the one that made me switch off, was when he described the Popular Party as extreme right. This sis a serious falsehood for someone who is claiming to inform a distant public of an important local matter, and he must surely know that it is false. The PP is partially and indirected descended from some remnants of the old Falange, in much the same way that the Socialist party is descended from a Trotskyist Socialist Workers party (they still have it in their name), but one is mainstream centre right and the other centre left, and they have been throughout their periods of government in democracy. For someone who claims to be an experienced commentator on Catalan affairs to suggest otherwise is little short of a direct lie.
I enjoyed your reply, but you underestimate the historical strength of Catalan identity, although it is true that it has been deliberately whipped up in recent years by politicians who used it to gain a power base, and have now painted themselves into a corner. It is only partly based on language. There is also a sense of a different historical path, which is not entirely correct, but identity is not about truth, and a sense that many of the other regions of Spain (especially Galicia, Extremadura and Andalucia, are completely foreign to them, in their people and their culture, as well as their history.
Incidentally you are wrong to dismiss the Catalan language as just a dialect of Spanish. Although it is easy enough for a Spanish speaker to understand and to learn, it belongs to the Gallic family of Romance languages, which split from the Iberian group 1,000 years ago, and it has a rich literature and tradition of its own dating back to the middle ages. Anecdotally, some of the books that inspired Don Quijote’s madness were Occitan tales of chivalry, still extant.
I think I have droned on enough now, so thank you for your patience
Which gets away a bit on the question of Spanish debt itself but sets the overall scene and on that basis, its inclusion here is argued. Thus, the other party in this collusion of three bloggers, Sackerson, had this piece up at his place, about corruption in Spain, which still does not get us any closer to the issue of JPM’s advice.
This reply from Sackerson is in no way personal advice but touches on the general world situation as he sees it:
There are, I understand, hedge funds speculating in sovereign debt. There’s a City adage “two views make a market” and if they can buy bonds cheaply and guess right then they make a fortune if the government honours its obligation – I understand buying British bonds during and after Waterloo was the foundation of the British Rothschild fortune.
One twist I read about recently was a fund buying sovereign debt that was to be defaulted (partly or wholly) and then using international law to enforce it in full. We are in a time when the rich are making law to suit themselves.
Of course, the speculators could be wrong, but if you’ve previously made a personal fortune in bonuses who cares if the firm goes down? This appears to be the story of the banks.
Goldman Sachs were caught some time ago giving advice one way to their smaller investors and the other way to large and favoured clients. I stopped reading the financial press when none of them foresaw the great financial crisis.
The world is interlinked with finance, debt and speculation. The total value of derivatives – side bets to you and me – appears to dwarf the GDP of the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)#Size_of_market
I am no longer sure what money actually represents, since it’s backed and limited by nothing at all.
The point has been made – by Australian economist Steve Keen, among others – that instead of bailing out banks, the money should have been given to the people to bail them out, because with less debt they would spend more and create jobs for each other.
A debt jubilee sounds great; except that pensions use government bonds to shore up their guarantees to pensioners. And what would happen to house prices if, say there were no mortgages any more? It’s like trying to predict the outcome of a massive barroom fight.
I found this from JPM to its private clients [pdf]
… which seems to confirm that advice JD read that they gave.
Pause for a moment and note that we are divided by language so much. For example, on the Amanda Knox issue, the reason America believed one thing was that their sources were all from one camp, in the English language. However, those reading italian had an entirely different view. Ditto with the bin Laden SEAL killing. Those reading Arabic have an entirely different view to those reading only English.
There’s a piece of advice in that – to really know what’s going on, accepting that the MSM globally is in captcha, to know other languages or to access machine translations is most helpful. Going to a Spanish blogger on these things and getting a machine translation does often given a different perspective.
The major financial press is not all that helpful. Bloomberg reports that Black Rock is buying Spanish short-term [early October, 2014] but that still doesn’t touch on sovereign debt.
Why should JPM advise that way when S&P had advised that it wasn’t all that bad, Spain’s sovereign debt as an investment, in May, 2014?
Not sure this Spanish govt advice is helpful. Nor this.
Perhaps this will help:
The European Central Bank bought covered bonds for the first time since President Mario Draghi unveiled an asset purchase program last month.
The ECB acquired short-dated French notes from Societe Generale SA (GLE) and BNP Paribas SA as well as Spanish securities from other lenders, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Draghi said he intends to expand the bank’s balance sheet by as much as 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) to stave off deflation in the euro area.
Policy makers are under pressure to take action as euro-area inflation slowed to 0.3 percent in September and the International Monetary Fund said the region has as much as a 40 percent chance of entering its third recession since 2008. Growth will reach 1.3 percent next year, slower than he 1.5 percent pace predicted in July, after a 0.8 percent gain this year, the IMF said Oct. 7.
“From today we will begin to know how aggressive the ECB will be in bidding for bonds,” said Agustin Martin, head of European credit research at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA in London.
It’s blindingly obvious I’m no money man but am, I think, a reasonable political thinker. Podemos represents a cry for help from the Spanish and may be behind the Catalan call of ‘let’s get out of this mess now’. Whether their leadership has been promised funding upon Spanish break-up [don't forget the Muslim push into Spain as well, history revisited] is an unknown.
Podemos is left wing academic intellectual. As such, it is ignorant and it’s only solution is to nationalize. Not playing by the international money rules does seem attractive to many Spaniards – see their polls and is the leftwing alternative to what Nigel is doing over here.
The difference is that things still have to be financed over there, even nationalized, e.g. public sector salaries and a wildly freefall Spanish currency is not going to help with that – at least such a thing has not helped before [see Russia 1997/8, through which I lived in that country].
Nigel’s solution is to stay within capitalism but trade with other countries free of the EU toxicity. And the notion that Europe would cease trading with the UK is not borne out by stats on inwards and outwards movement of money – the UK is still attractive as an investment. Only the unelected “leadership” of the EU is trying to talk up the opposite.
Therefore, in the light of Podemos and the possibility of nationalization, JPM is ambivalent but cautious. Most major players say go short for now and see what happens.
Which still doesn’t answer the question of who owns Spain or will in the near future.
A couple of money men I know said, in 2010, that the big issue at that time was sovereign debt and China is cited as one of the main players.
I wrote years ago about Peabody and how there was an induced grain crisis in America in the mid-1800s, out of which the eventual JPM did very well indeed and JPM is a topic upon which many on left and right do agree.
Our site’s JD wrote to someone who knows money, asking:
I don’t understand money as I wrote a few years ago here-
http://www.nourishingobscurity.com/2012/01/money/But I was reading this today-
http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2014/11/07/545bf1f2268e3e634d8b4586.html
I can’t find any English report on this so far but it looks as though JPM are telling their clients not to buy Spanish debt. (I have never understood how or why anyone would want to ‘buy’ a debt, presumably these are the famous ‘junk bonds’ which were at the root of the recent financial problems?)
Their reasoning is that were Podemos to reach a position of power in Spain then a lot of the debt would be cancelled. Podemos are preparing an audit which will decide which debts are legitimate and which are not and the latter will be written off.
JPM in their analysis also consider the bizarre situation that PP(right wing) and PSOE(left wing) could form a coalition after the next election to prevent Podemos forming a government. I have seen elsewhere that polls suggest that if an election were called tomorrow Podemos would win!
So my question is – what are the implications of a Debt Jubilee, the Biblical idea that all debts should be written off after seven years? (Not just in Spain but everywhere) And who would lose by such a Debt Jubilee? Not me for sure, I have no debts. Rarely use a credit card and pay cash for whatever I need.
A commenter, The Hickory Wind, who lives in Spain, stepped in to observe:
I’m late to the party as usual, but anyway…
Simon Harris’s original piece is interesting and informative to anyone who doesn’t know much about Spanish politics, but those who do will recognise that he has swallowed uncritically a bit too much of the propaganda. There were two points I would have made to him, but the second annoyed me so much that I didn’t bother.
Firstly, the historical case has very little to do with the modern politcal reality, or with the justice of the cause. Even if the history is properly understood and correctly interpreted, what once was can tell you little about what should be now. It’s not that he does it badly, just that it isn’t particularly relevant.
The second point, the one that made me switch off, was when he described the Popular Party as extreme right. This sis a serious falsehood for someone who is claiming to inform a distant public of an important local matter, and he must surely know that it is false. The PP is partially and indirected descended from some remnants of the old Falange, in much the same way that the Socialist party is descended from a Trotskyist Socialist Workers party (they still have it in their name), but one is mainstream centre right and the other centre left, and they have been throughout their periods of government in democracy. For someone who claims to be an experienced commentator on Catalan affairs to suggest otherwise is little short of a direct lie.
I enjoyed your reply, but you underestimate the historical strength of Catalan identity, although it is true that it has been deliberately whipped up in recent years by politicians who used it to gain a power base, and have now painted themselves into a corner. It is only partly based on language. There is also a sense of a different historical path, which is not entirely correct, but identity is not about truth, and a sense that many of the other regions of Spain (especially Galicia, Extremadura and Andalucia, are completely foreign to them, in their people and their culture, as well as their history.
Incidentally you are wrong to dismiss the Catalan language as just a dialect of Spanish. Although it is easy enough for a Spanish speaker to understand and to learn, it belongs to the Gallic family of Romance languages, which split from the Iberian group 1,000 years ago, and it has a rich literature and tradition of its own dating back to the middle ages. Anecdotally, some of the books that inspired Don Quijote’s madness were Occitan tales of chivalry, still extant.
I think I have droned on enough now, so thank you for your patience
Which gets away a bit on the question of Spanish debt itself but sets the overall scene and on that basis, its inclusion here is argued. Thus, the other party in this collusion of three bloggers, Sackerson, had this piece up at his place, about corruption in Spain, which still does not get us any closer to the issue of JPM’s advice.
This reply from Sackerson is in no way personal advice but touches on the general world situation as he sees it:
There are, I understand, hedge funds speculating in sovereign debt. There’s a City adage “two views make a market” and if they can buy bonds cheaply and guess right then they make a fortune if the government honours its obligation – I understand buying British bonds during and after Waterloo was the foundation of the British Rothschild fortune.
One twist I read about recently was a fund buying sovereign debt that was to be defaulted (partly or wholly) and then using international law to enforce it in full. We are in a time when the rich are making law to suit themselves.
Of course, the speculators could be wrong, but if you’ve previously made a personal fortune in bonuses who cares if the firm goes down? This appears to be the story of the banks.
Goldman Sachs were caught some time ago giving advice one way to their smaller investors and the other way to large and favoured clients. I stopped reading the financial press when none of them foresaw the great financial crisis.
The world is interlinked with finance, debt and speculation. The total value of derivatives – side bets to you and me – appears to dwarf the GDP of the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)#Size_of_market
I am no longer sure what money actually represents, since it’s backed and limited by nothing at all.
The point has been made – by Australian economist Steve Keen, among others – that instead of bailing out banks, the money should have been given to the people to bail them out, because with less debt they would spend more and create jobs for each other.
A debt jubilee sounds great; except that pensions use government bonds to shore up their guarantees to pensioners. And what would happen to house prices if, say there were no mortgages any more? It’s like trying to predict the outcome of a massive barroom fight.
I found this from JPM to its private clients [pdf]
… which seems to confirm that advice JD read that they gave.
Pause for a moment and note that we are divided by language so much. For example, on the Amanda Knox issue, the reason America believed one thing was that their sources were all from one camp, in the English language. However, those reading italian had an entirely different view. Ditto with the bin Laden SEAL killing. Those reading Arabic have an entirely different view to those reading only English.
There’s a piece of advice in that – to really know what’s going on, accepting that the MSM globally is in captcha, to know other languages or to access machine translations is most helpful. Going to a Spanish blogger on these things and getting a machine translation does often given a different perspective.
The major financial press is not all that helpful. Bloomberg reports that Black Rock is buying Spanish short-term [early October, 2014] but that still doesn’t touch on sovereign debt.
Why should JPM advise that way when S&P had advised that it wasn’t all that bad, Spain’s sovereign debt as an investment, in May, 2014?
Not sure this Spanish govt advice is helpful. Nor this.
Perhaps this will help:
The European Central Bank bought covered bonds for the first time since President Mario Draghi unveiled an asset purchase program last month.
The ECB acquired short-dated French notes from Societe Generale SA (GLE) and BNP Paribas SA as well as Spanish securities from other lenders, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Draghi said he intends to expand the bank’s balance sheet by as much as 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) to stave off deflation in the euro area.
Policy makers are under pressure to take action as euro-area inflation slowed to 0.3 percent in September and the International Monetary Fund said the region has as much as a 40 percent chance of entering its third recession since 2008. Growth will reach 1.3 percent next year, slower than he 1.5 percent pace predicted in July, after a 0.8 percent gain this year, the IMF said Oct. 7.
“From today we will begin to know how aggressive the ECB will be in bidding for bonds,” said Agustin Martin, head of European credit research at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA in London.
It’s blindingly obvious I’m no money man but am, I think, a reasonable political thinker. Podemos represents a cry for help from the Spanish and may be behind the Catalan call of ‘let’s get out of this mess now’. Whether their leadership has been promised funding upon Spanish break-up [don't forget the Muslim push into Spain as well, history revisited] is an unknown.
Podemos is left wing academic intellectual. As such, it is ignorant and it’s only solution is to nationalize. Not playing by the international money rules does seem attractive to many Spaniards – see their polls and is the leftwing alternative to what Nigel is doing over here.
The difference is that things still have to be financed over there, even nationalized, e.g. public sector salaries and a wildly freefall Spanish currency is not going to help with that – at least such a thing has not helped before [see Russia 1997/8, through which I lived in that country].
Nigel’s solution is to stay within capitalism but trade with other countries free of the EU toxicity. And the notion that Europe would cease trading with the UK is not borne out by stats on inwards and outwards movement of money – the UK is still attractive as an investment. Only the unelected “leadership” of the EU is trying to talk up the opposite.
Therefore, in the light of Podemos and the possibility of nationalization, JPM is ambivalent but cautious. Most major players say go short for now and see what happens.
Which still doesn’t answer the question of who owns Spain or will in the near future.
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All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
Wednesday, November 05, 2014
Catalonia: nationalism or regionalism?
The Catalonia issue burns hotter. Recently, adoptive Catalonian Simon Harris argued here the economic and historical-cultural case for independence. Even a proposed proto-referendum run by volunteers has been suspended by the Spanish Government's Constitutional Court.
It's clear that identity is a powerful driver in these matters. Yet, as "JD" counter-argues today - in a way that certainly won't please Catalans, but the substantive point has to be addressed - breaking up Spain (there's more than one region that has separatist movements) into cantons makes the whole country easier to swallow. This is, after all, the EU's plan for the UK, with its "regions" including a trans-Channel "Arc Manche".
As with the Scots, the question has to be asked, what is the point of gaining national independence only to be ruled by an even remoter and less responsive power in the form of the European Union? Does this not play into the hands of those who divide in order to rule?
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All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
It's clear that identity is a powerful driver in these matters. Yet, as "JD" counter-argues today - in a way that certainly won't please Catalans, but the substantive point has to be addressed - breaking up Spain (there's more than one region that has separatist movements) into cantons makes the whole country easier to swallow. This is, after all, the EU's plan for the UK, with its "regions" including a trans-Channel "Arc Manche".
As with the Scots, the question has to be asked, what is the point of gaining national independence only to be ruled by an even remoter and less responsive power in the form of the European Union? Does this not play into the hands of those who divide in order to rule?
READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
Spain: Corruption...
JD writes:
____________________
Last week the Guardia Civil in Spain, after a couple of years quietly gathering evidence, arrested 51 regional politicians. Although corruption among officials and businesmen is a well known, but unspoken , 'fact of life' in Spain, the suddenness of the action came as a shock to everyone. The newspapers have been full of little else ever since.
But 51 people taken in for questioning is just the tip of a very large iceberg - I have just been reading this-
"The figures for corruption in Spain show that there have been more than 1,900 people charged in prosecutions for corruption and at least 170 have been convicted of such crimes in the last legislature. However, most of those convicted are not in prison, either because they were given suspended sentences or were disqualified from public office or fined or they still have appeals pending.
"According to data gathered by Europa Press, among those accused and convicted are people who have held positions in political parties or in public administration at all levels as well as businessmen, lawyers, trade unionists and families of all of them, mainly for urban planning corruption , tax fraud and illegal recruitment of both personnel and business."
http://www.elimparcial.es/noticia/143987/nacional/Radiografia-de-la-corrupcion-en-Espana:-mas-de-1.900-imputados-y-al-menos-170-condenados-en-130-causas.html
The corruption is widespread and convoluted. The leading figure in Catalan politics for the past 30 or 40 years (Jordi Pujol) is being investigated along with his two sons, Francisco Granados deputy mayor of the Madrid region has been arrested and it appears that his family are all part of his 'scam', the miners' union chief has been asked to explain where he got his millions from, Mariano Rajoy is desperately doing a damage limitation exercise as most of those arrested are from his party, the Bankia chief is in jail (I think, I'll have to go and check the papers again)
I was told this morning that Valencia is the worst region for 'backhanders' from property developers and the 'white elephant' that is the new Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport would seem to confirm that. However, I'm not the only one who is lost! This is from the newspaper El Mundo-
"The avalanche of cases makes it difficult to track down those involved in the corruption that span the country. ELMUNDO.es offers an interactive map that lists all cases at regional and national level as well as the largest municipal scandals of this century, focusing on the political class and senior officials linked to parties, making up 80% of the listed in this sample involved. This is a work in progress and we would like your cooperation. If you have any precision or suggestions, please write to elmundo.datos@elmundo.es http://www.elmundo.es/grafico/espana/2014/11/03/5453d2e6268e3e8d7f8b456c.html "
As you can see they are asking for people to email with stories which sounds like an invitation to crash their server as I am sure everyone, including me, can give an example of how the wheels are oiled.
If you check the map at the link you will see that there are 38 names in Cataluña, 80 in Valencia region, 74 in Madrid region and a staggering 111 in Andalucia! Aragon, Navarra and Asturias are the only regions with a 'score' of zero (so far!)
As they say, this is a developing story but it looks as though it will run and run. There are cases which are already 'out of time', which have passed the date before which a case must be brought to Court which means they will have to start again. The lawyers will be the only winners here, as usual.
The fall-out continues and we are seeing new stories emerging all the time.
I not sure that these people are wicked as such, it is very easy to lose sight of core values when one is in a position of authority or even close to those in such positions. The actuality of helping friends and colleagues happens all the time to a greater or lesser degree in all walks of life. I can testify to that with a tale of my own: Some years ago I was working in Venezuela for a very big construction company (French company) and they had a 'Mr Fixit' who would help with administration, to liaise with officialdom etc. When I had completed my work there, this Mr Fixit took me to Caracas airport and within about ten minutes of arriving at the front door I was sitting in the 1st Class departure lounge. No check-in, no security check, no queues, no passport control (Mr Fixit took my passport and came back with it stamped)
Now, if that sort of thing were to happen all the time, as it does with politicians and businessmen, it would be very easy to become detached from reality and gradually drift into a position of expecting it to happen as a matter of course.
So it is easy to see now and why they are merely giving in to temptation and are blinded by the sin of avarice.
This is happening in Spain now. To what extent is it happening in the rest of Europe? How large a problem is it in the UK?
Is there anything that can be done about it?
As I say above, it happens all the time at all levels of society, even in small ways - you scratch my back... etc. Is there any way of amending human nature?
Shakespeare knew all about human nature-
"but man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd—
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep."
[JD adds:]
You are welcome to add your own observations. I am more forgiving of the failings of human nature; some of those implicated are out and out villains, but some of them are just giving in to temptation. It is easy to be seduced by the preferential treatment you receive. If I could pass through every airport as easily as I did through Caracas, life would be far more comfortable and expectations would rise accordingly to the point where it would seem like an entitlement. Which is why politicians actually genuinely believe they have 'done nothing wrong'.
At what point does 'doing a favour' turn into corruption? Should the Parliamentary Lobby be allowed or banned for example? Life is complicated, is it not :)
READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
____________________
Last week the Guardia Civil in Spain, after a couple of years quietly gathering evidence, arrested 51 regional politicians. Although corruption among officials and businesmen is a well known, but unspoken , 'fact of life' in Spain, the suddenness of the action came as a shock to everyone. The newspapers have been full of little else ever since.
But 51 people taken in for questioning is just the tip of a very large iceberg - I have just been reading this-
"The figures for corruption in Spain show that there have been more than 1,900 people charged in prosecutions for corruption and at least 170 have been convicted of such crimes in the last legislature. However, most of those convicted are not in prison, either because they were given suspended sentences or were disqualified from public office or fined or they still have appeals pending.
"According to data gathered by Europa Press, among those accused and convicted are people who have held positions in political parties or in public administration at all levels as well as businessmen, lawyers, trade unionists and families of all of them, mainly for urban planning corruption , tax fraud and illegal recruitment of both personnel and business."
http://www.elimparcial.es/noticia/143987/nacional/Radiografia-de-la-corrupcion-en-Espana:-mas-de-1.900-imputados-y-al-menos-170-condenados-en-130-causas.html
The corruption is widespread and convoluted. The leading figure in Catalan politics for the past 30 or 40 years (Jordi Pujol) is being investigated along with his two sons, Francisco Granados deputy mayor of the Madrid region has been arrested and it appears that his family are all part of his 'scam', the miners' union chief has been asked to explain where he got his millions from, Mariano Rajoy is desperately doing a damage limitation exercise as most of those arrested are from his party, the Bankia chief is in jail (I think, I'll have to go and check the papers again)
I was told this morning that Valencia is the worst region for 'backhanders' from property developers and the 'white elephant' that is the new Castellón-Costa Azahar Airport would seem to confirm that. However, I'm not the only one who is lost! This is from the newspaper El Mundo-
"The avalanche of cases makes it difficult to track down those involved in the corruption that span the country. ELMUNDO.es offers an interactive map that lists all cases at regional and national level as well as the largest municipal scandals of this century, focusing on the political class and senior officials linked to parties, making up 80% of the listed in this sample involved. This is a work in progress and we would like your cooperation. If you have any precision or suggestions, please write to elmundo.datos@elmundo.es http://www.elmundo.es/grafico/espana/2014/11/03/5453d2e6268e3e8d7f8b456c.html "
As you can see they are asking for people to email with stories which sounds like an invitation to crash their server as I am sure everyone, including me, can give an example of how the wheels are oiled.
If you check the map at the link you will see that there are 38 names in Cataluña, 80 in Valencia region, 74 in Madrid region and a staggering 111 in Andalucia! Aragon, Navarra and Asturias are the only regions with a 'score' of zero (so far!)
As they say, this is a developing story but it looks as though it will run and run. There are cases which are already 'out of time', which have passed the date before which a case must be brought to Court which means they will have to start again. The lawyers will be the only winners here, as usual.
The fall-out continues and we are seeing new stories emerging all the time.
I not sure that these people are wicked as such, it is very easy to lose sight of core values when one is in a position of authority or even close to those in such positions. The actuality of helping friends and colleagues happens all the time to a greater or lesser degree in all walks of life. I can testify to that with a tale of my own: Some years ago I was working in Venezuela for a very big construction company (French company) and they had a 'Mr Fixit' who would help with administration, to liaise with officialdom etc. When I had completed my work there, this Mr Fixit took me to Caracas airport and within about ten minutes of arriving at the front door I was sitting in the 1st Class departure lounge. No check-in, no security check, no queues, no passport control (Mr Fixit took my passport and came back with it stamped)
Now, if that sort of thing were to happen all the time, as it does with politicians and businessmen, it would be very easy to become detached from reality and gradually drift into a position of expecting it to happen as a matter of course.
So it is easy to see now and why they are merely giving in to temptation and are blinded by the sin of avarice.
This is happening in Spain now. To what extent is it happening in the rest of Europe? How large a problem is it in the UK?
Is there anything that can be done about it?
As I say above, it happens all the time at all levels of society, even in small ways - you scratch my back... etc. Is there any way of amending human nature?
Shakespeare knew all about human nature-
"but man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd—
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep."
[JD adds:]
You are welcome to add your own observations. I am more forgiving of the failings of human nature; some of those implicated are out and out villains, but some of them are just giving in to temptation. It is easy to be seduced by the preferential treatment you receive. If I could pass through every airport as easily as I did through Caracas, life would be far more comfortable and expectations would rise accordingly to the point where it would seem like an entitlement. Which is why politicians actually genuinely believe they have 'done nothing wrong'.
At what point does 'doing a favour' turn into corruption? Should the Parliamentary Lobby be allowed or banned for example? Life is complicated, is it not :)
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All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Spain: Corruption - or just "the way we do things here"?
Californian business journalist Wolf Richter reports (htp: Zero Hedge) on the Spanish corruption scandal, which is particularly hot as it comes at a time of general economic pain for ordinary Spaniards.
Actually, a double scandal: allegedly, politicians have been awarding government contracts in exchange for slush money, plus a detective agency has been used to keep tabs - and possibly gather dirt - on a host of prominent figures.
The gaff was blown by an ex-policeman employed by the agency (Método 3) who was left out of pocket when it went bust. He grabbed computers, files and clandestine recordings in lieu of payment.
One of those recordings is of a conversation between the leader of the Catalonian People's Party (PP) and the ex-girlfriend of the son of the former President of Catalonia. The girl allegedly reveals that her boyfriend has been smuggling large cash sums for his family across the border into Andorra.
The PP leader, Alicia Sánchez-Camacho, lodged an official complaint when she found out that a secret taping of the talk was among the Método 3 material, and now a monster investigation is under way.
As with the British MPs' expenses scandal of 2009, it's the timing that has sharpened the public response. What might otherwise have earned a cynical shrug of the shoulders is now threatening to claim scalps, including that of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose name appears repeatedly in handwritten ledgers relating to a slush fund in Switzerland.
Brett Hetherington, a freelancewriter who lives in Catalonia, has emailed World Voices the local perspective:
"I would say a couple of things about this reeking, venal scandal. The man at the heart of it, the late Jordi Pujol is a hero to many people here in Catalonia as he largely seen as the main person responsible for Catalonia's post-Franco autonomous powers...
"This part of the world (still) has a lot going for it but institutional honesty is obviously not one of the strong points. Cheating on your income tax and using the "black" or cash-economy is the done thing. In my experience, cheating, in whatever form, is thought to be the clever thing to do. Children do it from a very young age and at a local (wealthy) private school where I used to work, it was completely standard to cheat in tests and teachers knew about it and did not punish it.
"The family is probably the most important single unit in Mediterranean Europe, so favouring a brother, son or cousin is entirely normal. It is not just those at the top of the political pyramid who do this. It is a practise that is as ordinary as drinking a glass of wine here. Having connections is called "enchufe" - literally, 'plugged-in. 'It is difficult living here without some kinds of connections to help you advance your lot, so the common-place act is the one that scratches a friend's back when they will also soon scratch yours."
Interviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations last week, Professor Alfredo Pastor of the IESE Business School played it down as a "limited crisis" and set it in the context of Catalan demands for greater autonomy. The EU/bankers' agenda rolls on like Juggernaut, he wishes us to believe.
We shall see.
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy.
Friday, February 08, 2013
Spain: The Slow City movement
Time. It is the one thing that many of us feel like we don’t have enough of. Generally, we move through our lives at a rapid pace with mobile phones permanently on and our attention fixed on work and earning a living.
But in Catalonia, just as in other parts of the planet, there is an increasing number of people who are trying to reject a hectic ultra-modern lifestyle. They want to experience things in an unhurried way and the international Slow Movement is now helping that to happen.
Inspired by Italian Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Foundation, which quickly spread world-wide, a number of other Slow movements have begun to emerge, especially across Europe. These now include Slow Science, Slow Design, Slow Money, Slow Travel, Slow Cinema (in this country with, Eduard Punset Casals, the Barcelona-born economist, lawyer and science writer/commentator) and even a Slow Parenting book by Helle Heckman, to add to Carl Honoré’s greatly influential title, “In Praise of Slow.”
On top of all this, we have Slow Towns (CittaSlow, in Italian) which in Catalonia is the two Empordà Baix villages of Begur and Pals on the Costa Brava. (The Spanish Slow Towns are Bigastro, Lekeittio, Mungia and Rubielos de Mora.)
But what exactly is a Slow Town?
According to the official website “There are currently 147 Cittaslow towns in 24 countries across the world making Cittaslow an internationally recognised standard [of] accreditation that acknowledges the dedication and commitment of community members who work hard to make their part of the world a healthier, greener, happier, slower place to inhabit.”
The mayors of each town are representatives on the international organization of CittaSlow and they are charged with the responsibility of co-ordinating the preservation of their regions’ “distinct identities in the face of global homogenisation.”
Only a town with less than 50,000 residents can apply for formal recognition and CittaSlow states that those who are accepted “are not state capitals or the seat of regional governments, but are strong communities that have made the choice to improve the quality of life for their inhabitants.”
To achieve the status of “Slow Town,” the town council must agree to accept the guidelines of Slow Food and work to “improve conviviality and conserve the local environment.” It first has to pay 600.00 euros to the Cittaslow central office.
Apart from the continuing promotion of Slow Food restaurants and suppliers, some programs already implemented in Slow Towns include recycling projects, after-school programs, and the provision of information for tourists that helps them have a genuine “local’s” experience. For general public use in festivals for example, town councils can also buy Cittaslow biodegradable pulp plates and cutlery made from cellulose, while in their offices using approved recycled paper notepads.
In Catalonia the Slow Food branch in Lleida is particularly active and the Facebook group of the “Slow Movement Catalunya” has in excess of 150 members. They say that they are a social movement that: “defends a slower life, without pressure and eating calmly with friends [in addition to] advocating working at a reasonable pace and not more hours than is necessary, gazing at the sea, playing with children, conscientious thinking and going out for a tranquil walk.”
Last year Carlo Petrini, the founder and President of Slow Food International spoke at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. As the first ever outside speaker to be invited to address the floor in the this forum's ten-year history he gave Slow Food's perspective during a session on the right to food and food sovereignty.
How long might it be before a Catalan from one of the many Slow movements does the same?
Links:
http://www.slowfoodterresdelleida.com/
An edited version of the text above was first published in Catalonia Today magazine in February, 2013.
Reproduced by kind permission of the author, Brett Hetherington. All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Spain: The pain in Spain leads many to complain
Picture: Wikipedia
There was a time when Spain was as exotic and unexplored to Brits as Mali; but even now, there is much about the country that the tourist probably doesn't know, and I certainly don't. CIngrams has taken up my suggestion of a piece on the Spanish experience of the Great Financial Crisis, and for me it stimulates many further questions, which I'll put onto the Supplement page.
He begins by looking at the local protests:
The 15-M ‘movement’, which started at the time of the local elections in 2011 (held on the 22nd of May) mainly consisted of the usual young, hairy types who like to think that they can change the world by shouting slogans. They began peacefully, and in most places they continued peacefully, and the arguments they made were, on the whole, valid criticisms of the cumbersome and opaque electoral system, which multiplies parliaments and civil servants at many different levels, which gives members of those parliaments no incentive to represent the people who vote for them, as they owe their position entirely to the often unknown party controllers, to whom they must be loyal. Parties are state-funded and you cannot choose, and sometimes do not know, who you are casting your vote for. That is decided by the party.
Some of their complaints were about the banks, and showed a certain ignorance of economics typical in the young and those who have not yet worked for anything of their own, but I found them to be approachable, peaceful, not stupid, and I wondered if the government would actually start to take them seriously at some point.
Noises were made, but nothing much happened. As usual. What tends to happen is that these protests, even when based on good ideas and conspicuously peaceful, are taken over by the usual suspects, or fade away to nothing. Both of these things happened. The Occupy movement was quiet different from the 15-M, and the original purpose and form was lost, and just fizzled out.
Once the government started to recognise the gravity of the situation and actually do something rather than make political noises, it started by doing the wrong things, then attempting the impossible. They decreed, back in 2009, a programme of digging holes and filling them in again, in an attempt to pretend unemployment was lower than it was. Some useful work was done, but much of was a waste of money. They raised VAT, in an attempt to bring in some very short term income, while depressing commerce and investment in the medium term. Only a politician would think that a good idea. They also got rid of as many contracted personnel as possible, in order to reduce their wage bill. Something they were, at the same time, trying to stop other organizations from doing.
Civil servants in Spain have jobs and pensions for life. They cannot be laid off if they become unnecessary, and they are extremely difficult to sack even for laziness and incompetence. Whenever I have to deal with the civil service the difference I see between them and similar workers in the productive economy is enormous. (I could go on about this for hours. Forces self back to point.) So there are two ways the government can reduce its wage bill. One is to terminate the contracted staff, that is those who are not full‘funcionarios’, or who work for companies hired for specific projects. These are mainly building works working on roads and public buildings. The local and national governments here threw many thousands of them onto the dole when the money really, really ran out.
The second way is to reduce the salaries of the permanent workers. Incidentally, the idea of giving public employees unbreakable contracts for life comes from the 19thC and was intended to stop incoming governments from sacking most of the civil service and filling it with their friends. But a solution to a specific problem of corruption when the civil service consisted of only a few thousand people at most, has been allowed to continue until the present day, when there are over 4 million people whose wages are guaranteed with our money. There has never been the political will, or courage, to touch this system and there probably never will be. It is possible though that it will slowly be allowed to wither, at least by governments of the right, and most public employees will indeed be on contracts which can be ended when they have done what they were hired for. I am not too sanguine, however.
The early protests were led by the Civil Service unions, for this reason. They got little sympathy from the public because with 4 million unemployed (it’s nearer 5m now) and a similar number unable to reach the end of the month and with the possibility of losing everything at any moment, the public felt that people with a salary for life had little to complain about, even if that salary was a bit less than it used to be.
The unions see it as a good excuse to increase their standing with their members and attack the new, centre-right government. The new opposition suddenly claims to have all the answers it couldn’t find when it was in charge. Everybody complains, but everybody expects someone else to get them out of trouble. That is human nature, but it makes the problems worse, and more difficult to solve.
The trade unions regularly appear on the streets, waving flags and shouting slogans that express their grievances and suggest some solutions. They achieve nothing, of course, but it adds to the circus of life. They have not normally been violent except during the national strikes they called in May and November last year. These were poorly supported but in the larger cities the far left makes sure they are noticed and make the evening news, by giving their members permission to break things and attack people. This is for their own political ends, and is not going to solve any of the social problems that exist.
Beggars are also appearing on the streets. Not the usual drug addicts and gypsies, but ‘normal’ people were clearly once working families and who’ve tried every other way they can think of of making ends meet. This shows that, despite what I say in the next paragraph, there are problems much more serious than ‘the government isn’t giving me as much as I would like’, which you hear from most people.
People don’t realize or have forgotten what it is that makes an economy work. So many people now believe that government spending isthe economy, and that banks are evil, that it will be hard to re-create a country where hard work, investment, successful businesses employing people, are recognised as good things, to be encouraged and aspired to. The Chinese immigrants are now doing what the Indian and Pakistani immigrants did in Britain forty years ago. They are taking over small shops in large numbers, working long hours seven days a week, offering people things they want, when they want them, at good prices, bothering no one and making sure their children study hard so they can be doctors and lawyers and won’t have to spend 12 hours a day in a little shop. The number of people who routinely moan about this as though it were a bad thing shows that the recovery will take a long time. It doesn’t occur to them that they could do it themselves. It’s too hard for them, so they want someone else to do it. They then seem to assume that they themselves should somehow earn more for not doing it than the people who do actually do it.
Similarly, there are many immigrants from South America and Eastern Europe (The non-gypsies and non-gangsters) who are working very hard at what the local people don’t want to do. Most domestic cleaners, carers for children and the elderly, and many agricultural workers and bar staff, for example, are now immigrants, and have been for some years. Some unemployed people would jump at the chance to look after the elderly or work long hours in a bar, but most wouldn’t, and anyone with any kind of qualification fails even to understand the question.
It’s going to be long, slow and messy.
Extract reproduced with the kind permission of the author.
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Spain: Crispulito the hedgehog
From the Spain-based Sounds In The Hickory Wind:
Hedgehog Fetishism Revisited
My spiny co-blogger is a creature of strange habits. I have previously accused him of having an underwear fetish as he will run off with any bit of used clothing that happens to get left on the floor. They used to end up in one of his nests, which is why I assumed he liked being surrounded by the smell of human intimacy. But I may have misjudged him (slightly).
I now wonder if he just likes playing with things that smell like us, and he left them in his bed partly for warmth and partly to be sure he could find them again. But now that the heat is really beginning (it's 90º and we're only in spring) and he's been with us long enough to know his way around and to treat us as no more than a harmless, and sometimes useful, inconvenience, he just leaves them lying around when he's finished playing.
Because playing it is. In the summer he keeps them in his bed, too, but in summer we're in the mountains and it cools down rapidly once the sun goes down. But now, the days are hot and the nights are sweaty and he doesn't need a blanket. So he plays with underwear, and socks.
He pushes them with his snout, unable to see where he's going, following the sock as it veers left and right, until it gets caught on something or hits a wall. Then he stops, evaluates the situation, changes its position with his teeth, and goes off again, running behind it until it gets away from him again. He can do this for long periods. Then he will suddenly tire, leave the sock where it is, and go off to eat, drink, or run round in circles, something else he is very fond of.
He used to have a larger circuit, involving several rooms each with more than one door, so he could arrive back where he started and go round again. The region thus created was not simply connected, and I assumed that was part of the fun. However, he has recently taken to running round in much smaller circles, of two or three feet, beside the bed, and he does it so quickly that he often loses his rear legs on the polished wooden floor like a F1 car taking the chicane late in a race. Quite why he finds this entertaining I couldn't say, though I do have a theory.
The problem, I suspect, is that, like all animals, he has hormones, instincts, sap, urges, an understanding of the phases of the moon etc, but he doesn't know that there is such a thing as a hedgesow. If he ever met one I can imagine his face clearing and his shoulders untensing as a lot of things suddenly fell into place. As it is, he is forced to expend his energies and seek an explanation of his inner feelings in forms of play.
Yes, Crispulito is a geek, a Trekkie, obsessed with the details of objectively pointless pastimes because he can't "pull".
Copyright. Reproduced with the kind permission of the author, who says of himself and his friend:
"I am an Englishman who has spent his adult life in Spain, mostly as an English teacher, translator and occasional writer of textbooks. For the last 13 years I have lived in a small city in La Mancha, the hot and dry area south of Madrid. Here I run a language Academy, teach in a high school, teach the odd course at the University, translate articles for anyone who needs it, and drink cold beer while moaning about the government, You might say I am a professional Englishman. We spend the summer, and weekends whenever possible, in the lake district of Ruidera, 70 miles east of here, where we have a house. [Many of the photos on the blog are of that area]
Some five years ago my wife saw a hedgehog in a petshop and informed me she wanted it. Being a loving husband I obliged, and he has had the run of the house ever since. Aside from his documented fetishism, he is rather paranoid, never quite sure if he can trust you, and selfish with food, in that when he finds anything especially tasty he looks at you out of the corner of his eye and then runs under the nearest piece of furniture to enjoy it in peace. We have told him that we have chocolate and nuts of our own, and we have no wish to share his beetles, but he isn't taking any chances. He likes to be with us, sleeping under the bed and coming to run around the living room as soon as he gets up in the evening, but he isn't very keen on being picked up and stroked. He has a special, put-upon expression which he reserves for these occasions.
He is now nearly five, as I said, but is a happy- if slightly neurotic- and healthy hedgehog, who still spends the night running around the house, eternally optimistic that around the next corner there will be another little morsel. Which we usually make sure there is. In the summer he loves the farm because it smells of the wider world and he cleans the floor of ants and spiders and so on every night. When we arrive there I swear his face lights up."
I confess to sharing this writer's erinaceous weakness, as my family raised an orphan hedgehog to fat and sassy adulthood in Cyprus, many years ago. For more on Crispulito's charming ways, and the love of Spain generally, please see CIngrams' blog "Sounds In the Hickory Wind" (Europe bloglist in sidebar).
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