What with the Christmas edition of lotería nacional captivating the imaginations and hopes of all of Spain this morning, is there a better moment to mention what an economic cripple* this country has generally been when free money wasn't falling on it from the heavens? Outstanding examples are the siglo de oro and the period following accession to the European Union.In the same vein, consider President Zapatero's shameless bitching and grovelling to get a seat at the G-20 financial crisis meetings. It perhaps had not occurred to him that a country that receives 7 billion euros a year in 'structural' and 'cohesion' funds from the EU, based on certain regions' demonstrated ability to never catch up to the pack, is perhaps not fully qualified for membership.
*Obvious exceptions to this in the past were the cities and hinterlands of Barcelona and Bilbao that were very successful in creating self-sustaining economies not based on arbitrating property transactions of possibly dubious legality, cheating siblings out of inheritances, tax evasion, the purchase of titles and the hoarding of cash.
Good luck and happy holidays.
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9 Comments:
Incluyes el último periodo desde acceso al euro en tu definición de "the period following accession to the EU"? También nos ha estado lloviendo dinero gratis desde 1999 ... bueno, pensábamos que era gratis y ahora resulta que tenemos que pagarlo de vuelta.
Good luck and happy holidays to you, too.
And thanks for your blog and humour.
JL
Thank you JL. You can be mayor of Monótono de Enmedio.
I didn't win a penny. But I did have the annual thrill of watching the ritual. A stage packed with notaries to ensure that some 14 year-old hadn't figured out how to rig the number.
Mr. Sánchez,
I was trying to be brief. First the EU sent us money, then the ECB means to lever it up 20 or 30 times on the only thing we understand - property. Indistinguishable from the lottery.
I've changed my mind. You can be number 1 on the PM list. I'm going to town técnico.
I am not agree with the PS part of this post, where you point aut that Bilbao and Barcelona have created their respective self-sustaining economies without any "cheat". I mean, it is completely true that the cities aforesaid are rich today. But we have to remeber that their prosperity was created on the tax-free regime in Bilbao and on an über-protectionist text industry (in the 19th century) in the second case.
It is really long to explain my opinion here, but if you want to have an email discussion with me you can write me.
Best regards.
You're not saying that the rest of the country was left behind because of its natural honesty and sense of fair play. Are you?
No. The rest of the country is not more honest, or more free market mind. But, using the same reasoning, are you saying that the rest of the country is less intelligent or more lazy than Bilbao or Barcelona? I think you are not saying it.
In my last comment I was trying to say that these two cities not have any over developed habilities to carry out their economies. One of them use its tax-free market to accumulate wealth and to attract resources from the rest of the country (in which there is no tax-free). That is a fact, and we can see it nowadays. The second city focus all its industry in text products. It was an interesting movement, and I really admire the catalonian entrepreneur spirit of 19th century, avoiding the centralist mind goverment, and pushing Catalonia develop. I would like to see the same spirit now, not to hear the regrets of the centralism. But we have to be realistics too, and to point out that the same manufacturers push the goverment to create high tariffs for the other nations text products, to implement protectionist politics. The protectionist politics push the other nations to raise up their tariffs for spanish agriculture products, and that can be seen like one of the reasons which explains the economic backwardness of the rest of the country, specialy in the south of it. And here I want to underline that is ONE of the multiple reasons.
Regards.
(Sorry for my bad english).
Fran,
My only point was to say that there were two parts of the country that did not need free money from the ultramar in order to prosper. Whether they 'cheated' or not didn't strike me as relevant - anymore than the post-modern mercantilism of China detracts from the their economic growth.
Your English is fine, except you confuse text (texto) with textile (textil). The rest nearly perfect.
Thanks
Dear Charles.
I am agree with your opinion, in the way of this two regions have much of their prosperity without the "help" of the silver of Potosí mines. It is interesting to see that every region or country in the world which has a cash cow, when it dies, discover its poverty. Spain is one of the best examples of that in history, because the country delay their own industrial revolution due to the abundancy of easy money.
But this prosperity respond to some special opportunities, not only to avoid the free mony from the ultramar. For instance, one of the biggest market of catalonian textile products was Cuba, when it was a colony.
Regards.
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