ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by alib

The Spanish real estate sector as a whole wasn't particularly corrupt, it had actually been steadily improving in that respect, in 2010 it had been ranked at 14th, ahead of Austria and Switzerland in the Global Real Estate Transparency Index 2010.. Though anyone familiar with the little ways of Austrian and Swiss builders might not see that as a recommendation.

The Spanish regional economies vary widely of course, the industrial powerhouse Catalonia is practically a different country from Andalusia and that's where the Krauts go to wait to die. I do think its a good deal more corrupt. But this is really more a matter of good capitalist folk betting large on something they thought was safe as bricks and mortar. Oops!

The level of corruption I think has been underestimated as a huge number of town councils had the man, often the mayor, who was involved in reclassifying green belt zones as buildable or simply refusing permission to build unless there was a percentage for him in a briefcase. This has gone on at a lot of levels and nobody is surprised at arrests made nowadays.

As to Catalonia being a different country, well it is, as much as Jockland or Wales, with the added factor that if you are catalan you speak a different language to the rest of Spain. Ditto Basque country. One of the things that has not helped the debt is that Catalonia and the Basques were granted a high level of autonomy as a sop to not having the independence that many want. This has added an extra level of government which needs to be paid for, and who have also acted as a government and left another level of debt to be recovered from in addition to what the central government hads done. Also in order to smooth things over with the regions they were also given a huge level of autonomy which has also added to the debt problem.
In Catalonia there is a rising awareness that we might just be better off outside Spain left to our own resources and without having to pay for the Madrid government. Why have two sets of incompetent monkeys in charge, which we then need to pay for when we only need one, and who at least speak catalan. OK it's a bit more complex but that's the gist.
So we have to have cuts to pay for the outgoing autonomous government who made a supreme economic cock-up, we have to have cuts to pay for the incompetence of central government and I for one have had enough of taxes being raised not just by the government, but the Generalitat (catalan autonous govt.) and the Town council.
If this persists the there will be a call to test independence and the result could well be positive, which will be resisted fiercely by Madrid. To lose Catalonia, and probably then the Basques would tip Spain's economy down the toilet completely which would then have a huge effect on the rest of Europe, even assuming they survive this crisis.
At the very least the Generalitat is beginning to agitate that the catalan taxes are collected by a catalan treasury which would then pass an agreed percentage onto Spain but would then use the rest to make life better for the catalans rather than pay for free motorways in Madrid while we pay tolls on ours. Until now the government has collected taxes without saying how much and has doled out a proportion here so this move will be resisted also as it will cut central revenue quite a bit.
Either way the problems won't be solved by the apparently inevitable bailout. But one thing that strikes me is that until now people have always said, well it's not good but we just have to stick it out. Now I am witnessing a totally demoralised population who just can't see the end to this all, and that is the worst sign so far.

Whereas it is logical, if you are going to have a universal currency to centrally control it, I think they can only really do that if we have Euro-wide elections on a per capita basis that elect a party to rule Europe for a fixed term.