

Hidden Data in The Spanish Economic Crisis - mmaunder
http://markmaunder.com/2012/06/10/spanish-economic-crisis/

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narag
Unfortunately, underground economy has been a problem here for long. But
that's just a secondary effect of other problems, specially the dysfunctional
job market.

The root of the current credit crysis is no mistery. When the housing buble
bursted, the banks were left with a huge number of houses that nobody could
buy. Instead of accounting for the losses, they swept them under the rug,
taking the houses off the market and pretending everything was fine.

This was a known problem. If you can read Spanish, take a look at this blog,
alerting about exactly that problem, from March 2011:

[http://www.jesusencinar.com/2011/03/no-me-creo-los-
numeros-d...](http://www.jesusencinar.com/2011/03/no-me-creo-los-numeros-del-
banco-de-espana.html)

The title says it all: "I can't believe Bank of Spain's numbers." The autor is
the CEO of idealista.com, the most important real state web of Spain.

A couple of weeks ago Bankia, one of the biggest spanish banks, could not hide
it anymore. That was the beginning of the end.

EDIT: an interview to the same guy in English:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-22/bank-of-spain-
under...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-22/bank-of-spain-
underestimates-lenders-shortfall-idealista-says.html)

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darkpicnic
It's wonderful to paint an idealistic picture of a people reclaiming their
economy from "evil bankers", and god knows it's wonderful to think of a new
economic system that is more balanced and just, but no matter how you spin it,
it's people taking advantage of a system.

It's much easier and incredibly selfish to simply benefit from a broken system
instead of trying to change it.

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Freestyler_3
Hidden? It's the EU people looking at things with their EU glasses and the
don't see any problem, they see opportunities to gain power. To bleed
taxpayers out of more money and to get the local governments on a tight ship
with the controlling agency that check if people are paying their taxes/ not
abusing their system. And on top of that cutbacks on all the things that cost
the government money.

This EU ship hopefully sinks, so we can just build our own raft again. Why
can't we just be all tiny countries? If you wanna be part of some big thing go
live where the big thing is.

~~~
pinaceae
because only this tight connection between germany, france and the uk is
providing europe's longest period of peace - ever. the while thing started in
the 50s and is the greatest, most succesful peace initiative ever.

~~~
adventureful
The EU integration has certainly helped, but so has the fact that Western
Europe no longer has any super power nations and no single country with an
overwhelming advantage. For the last 50 years the US has towered over
everybody in Western Europe militarily. The US shouldering the military burden
has reduced European military build-up and capacity. Effectively the same
thing it has done regarding Japan (you can argue whether that's good or bad).

Who's going to try to assault France or Britain anyway? They have substantial
nuclear weapons capability. They'd wipe out Germany in one launch round. Then
besides Germany, who else in Western Europe could even be a credible threat to
peace? Nobody.

So long as Britain and France have long range strike capability with nukes
it'd be impossible to win a war against them, and all but makes an EU war
pointless. Nobody wants to get into a war that is literally impossible to win.

------
seivan
It's a very known fact that countries like Greece, Spain Portugal and Italy do
shit like this. And Swedes, Germans and others pay for it.

~~~
hk_kh
If you think Spain's problem is normal people evading taxes, you are wrong.

Every middle-class worker is paying taxes, and social security. The only ones
not paying anything are low-class (who cares?), high-class, and extra-high-
class.

I am not that much into this EEUU movement of "tax the riches" but the sector
of people evading taxes are right there.

It's sad to read things like this, saying Spanish, Portuguese , Greek and
Italian people enjoy evading taxes.

Now, tell me more about MY country.

------
vibragiel
I'm sorry, are those spectacular bridges, incredible amount of roads and
immaculately clean cities being sustained by the informal tax-evading economy?
You can't praise both "worlds" without turning a hair.

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moron
I thought the "informal economies" in places like Spain and Italy was well-
known. At any rate, I don't understand why a bunch of people evading taxes is
supposed to make us feel better about Spain's ability to service its debt.

