[katy]

Spanish banks downgraded to just above junk status, nasty Fitch…it’s all their fault 😆 Fortunate I have the web to catch up on the news instead of the hunky dory Spain put out by some on this forum

[pizzacheaze]

it does get worse, the rain never stops here, i need some sunshine

[Anonymous]

For a easily understood article on where Spain and Europe are standing click on this link:

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2012/06/07/the-morality-of-money

Seamus

[angie]

The article ends with a question ‘will Germany say one day, enough is enough’ which is something I’ve thought a possibility.

Interestingly today it was revealed in a poll, that 54% of Germans said they wished they’d kept the deutschmark and not joined the Euro.

I wonder if it is remotely possible that we will see a German/UK joint currency instead, and a softer Euro or original currencies back? 🙄

On the downgrade by Fitch, it was said that German Banks needed 40 billion Euros injection alone irrespective of a full bailout ❗

[DBMarcos99]

RBS sales of bank branches to Santander collapses

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19929376

The disposal was ordered by the European Commission in return for UK government’s £45bn rescue of the bank.

[logan]

John Maynard Keynes wrote that during severe economic crisis people tend to have ‘low animal spirts’. That in turn tends to lead to a lack of collective energy and despair among the population. In financial circles it leads to a lack of risk taking and the bad situation then becomes much worse.

Keynes of course believed Governments should throw money at the problem. Well that’s been tried and the donkey didn’t move.

The world and especially Europe is now suffering these ‘low animal spirits’ in extreme. It’s really a form of collective depression. Something needs to change quickly. That is the job of political leadership. We need some inspiring new blood in politics, especially in Europe. Merkle and Co just don’t cut it. I get depressed every time I see her. Then there’s the current EU leadership. Van Rompuy, Barroso and the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. Such an uninspiring, unelected bunch of technocrats. 🙁

We believed in Obama and nothing happened. Maybe it’s Romney? Cometh the hour cometh the man. The world sure needs something powerful and pretty rapido.

[DBMarcos99]

@logan wrote:

John Maynard Keynes wrote that during severe economic crisis people tend to have ‘low animal spirts’. That in turn tends to lead to a lack of collective energy and despair among the population. In financial circles it leads to a lack of risk taking and the bad situation then becomes much worse.

Keynes of course believed Governments should throw money at the problem. Well that’s been tried and the donkey didn’t move.

The world and especially Europe is now suffering these ‘low animal spirits’ in extreme. It’s really a form of collective depression. Something needs to change quickly. That is the job of political leadership. We need some inspiring new blood in politics, especially in Europe. Merkle and Co just don’t cut it. I get depressed every time I see her. Then there’s the current EU leadership. Van Rompuy, Barroso and the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. Such an uninspiring, unelected bunch of technocrats. 🙁

We believed in Obama and nothing happened. Maybe it’s Romney? Cometh the hour cometh the man. The world sure needs something powerful and pretty rapido.

I’m fairly sure it isn’t Sr Rajoy!

I’ve had this idea for some time now, even though everyone always disagrees, that Micheal O’leary should be appointed as a country’s economic supremo for 2-3 years. Spain would be a fine example.
He’d promote the place as a low cost destination – perhaps he’d arrange for 20k houses that Jake would buy, but then there’d be extra fees, 17k for legalisation perhaps, 5k to be connected to power etc. Not really that big a change..
But he’d slash a lot of the waste and unnecessary expenditure.
He’s the type of person who wouldn’t be overly concerned at being unpopular, he’d just concentrate on getting the country making money again…

Well it is never going to happen, but if it did, he’d be worth paying 10 million a year.

[Anonymous]

I feel sorry about us the people but I get a warm fuzzy feeling everytime Keynes is proved wrong.

As you stated Logan the same old procedure have been tried quite a few times now and it ain’t working. Time for something new “actually old”. Back to sound money and Ron Paul. =)

[GarySFBCN]

The world and especially Europe is now suffering these ‘low animal spirits’ in extreme.

We believed in Obama and nothing happened. Maybe it’s Romney? Cometh the hour cometh the man. The world sure needs something powerful and pretty rapido.

“Low animal spirits in extreme” is warfare, the rise of dictators, etc. What we have now is nothing close to anything in the extreme. As for Obama, a lot has happened, in spite of having to deal with a congress that is filled with people who only want him to fail for political reasons or worse, racism.

Everyone makes fun of “Obamacare” (Obama’s healthcare plan) and I hear news now and then about how some countries in Europe are considering privatization of health care. Well, using the US as an example, any country that privatizes health care will go bankrupt. More than 15% of the US GDP is spent on healthcare and yet we have worse health outcomes when compared to most developed countries. And the costs continue to rise. If nothing was done, given our huge ‘baby boom’ population, we were headed to even bigger fiscal problems than we have now. The rise in health care cost this year is 4%, a historic low. Next year the rise will jump to 7.5%. With Obamacare, the US is in a position to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, etc. To give you an example of the costs here, my sister who has insurance has a ‘co-pay’ for asthma medication, which means her portion of the cost is $25 for an inhaler and the insurance company pays for the rest. This same inhaler, made by the same company in the same packaging cost €3.14 without insurance in Spain. I’m told that the Spanish prices are discounted 40% – even at full price the co-pay costs in the US are more than double of what the full cost is in Spain.

There are many other ‘investments’ Obama made but the economic problems created, in part, by lack of oversight, cannot be solved in 2,4, or even 10 years. Romney has no plan. Obama lost the first debate in part because he was debating the ‘fake Romney’ who changed most of his policy positions just for the debate. In the vice president debate, Ryan was bashing the ‘stimulus plan’ and yet he asked for stimulus funds for his state. I am not affiliated with any political party in the US, so this isn’t about politics for me. But I do have a low tolerance for hypocrisy so that means that I cannot vote for Romney. Due to the effectiveness of Fox News, 51% of Republicans believe that Obama is not even a citizen of the US. There are so many racists supporting Romney that I am repulsed. Here is a photo from a Romney rally last week:

I feel sorry about us the people but I get a warm fuzzy feeling everytime Keynes is proved wrong.

Ardun, they say that a person’s true feelings about something can be found in a sentence after the word ‘but.’ I won’t debate how you are wrong about Keynes because you are strident and inflexible in your libertarian beliefs, as most libertarians seem to be. However deriving any joy at all because of some ridiculous ideal, at the expense of human suffering, is disgusting.

[logan]

Actually Gary you may be surprised to learn I entirely agree with you. I support Obama and everything he has tried to do.
However I do think he has failed to live up to the expectation he created four years ago. That is usually politically fatal.

The Democratic Party of America does appear to me to have given up on the expectation Romney will win. Obama’s TV contest last week gave me the impression Obama had too. I think that has something to do again with voter expectation. People expect to be lit up whenever he has a massive public event. Once more he failed to deliver and was disappointing. Not good beause the American Presidential elections are reduced to that of a beauty contest.

Romney may well win by default if this continues. Personally I find him uninspiring and I suspect most Republicans do also. However he’s the man and there is little else. Winning by default is the worst of all worlds but at least he cannot disappoint in the future.

[GarySFBCN]

@logan wrote:

Actually Gary you may be surprised to learn I entirely agree with you. I support Obama and everything he has tried to do.
However I do think he has failed to live up to the expectation he created four years ago. That is usually politically fatal.

No, I’m not surprised at all. And I do agree with you about the ‘expectations’. Certainly, I am “disillusioned” when comparing Obama’s promises with his accomplishments. Obama constantly berated Bush’s policies regarding terrorism, including wiretapping citizens at will, maintaining a prison at Guantanamo in order to avoid due process, etc, but he has not changed anything of those policies.

Romney has not provided any economic plan, and we now know that the Romney/Ryan social agenda is much worse than anyone thought.

[peterhun]

@DBMarcos99 wrote:

RBS sales of bank branches to Santander collapses

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19929376

The disposal was ordered by the European Commission in return for UK government’s £45bn rescue of the bank.

Santander is obviously in much worse condition than acknowledged.

[DBMarcos99]

@peterhun wrote:

@DBMarcos99 wrote:

RBS sales of bank branches to Santander collapses

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19929376

The disposal was ordered by the European Commission in return for UK government’s £45bn rescue of the bank.

Santander is obviously in much worse condition than acknowledged.

Well we’ve heard this again and again since 2007 without any real evidence…

But we do know RBS had a 45 billion bail out back then, and are still losing money…what’s the betting they will need yet more money from taxpayers UK? I agree though, that the IT integration issue is probably a get-out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/oct/12/rbs-branch-sale-santander-falls-through

The collapse of the long-planned deal will further delay the bank’s return to private ownership and raises further speculation that RBS may have to be fully nationalised. In August, the cabinet reportedly held discussions about buying the 17% of RBS it does not already own for £5bn.

[peterhun]

They have to sell it, the story here is that Santander don’t have the money to buy it anymore

[logan]

Yes the word in financial circles is Santander could not raise sufficient capital from investors to proceed. Confidence towards Spanish banks is at an all time low. It’s largely their own doing. Many believe they have still not come completely clean with their losses. That may be right or wrong. However its market perception which counts, little else.
Or maybe is it’s just those low animal spirits again. 🙁

[logan]

Well balanced piece by Joe Mcinerney on Obama.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/14/obama-presidency-verdict-jay-mcinerney

[angie]

Spain’s La Caixa Savings Bank pulls out of Port Aventura amusement park in North East Spain, why? 🙄

[DBMarcos99]

@angie wrote:

Spain’s La Caixa Savings Bank pulls out of Port Aventura amusement park in North East Spain, why? 🙄

They sold their share because they found a buyer!

Interesting article as to why Investindustrial the private equity group bought up the remaining 50%

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21565984-private-equity-fund-sees-upside-europes-struggling-periphery-where-others

Investindustrial’s approach is not to tar the whole of southern Europe with the same brush. Its two recent investments in Spain are in wealthy, “quasi-German” regions, as Mr Bonomi puts it. Nearly 40% of the visitors to PortAventura are foreign tourists who care more about steady sunshine and good airport links than about local employment prospects.

Interestingly there are other investors looking to pick up bargains in southern Europe. Time will show whether they are good investments or not..

There are signs that competitors may be returning to Mediterranean shores. Henry Kravis of KKR, a large American firm, said last month that he saw a “real opportunity” in Spain. Bain Capital, another titan, recently paid €1 billion for Telefónica’s call-centre business. A private-equity firm is among those looking to buy Telecom Italia’s media business. Queues to have the nerves jangled will get longer.

[angie]

Spanish Banks’ bad debts hit new all time high in September UBEDA 😯 😮 😉

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20391588

Gosh, 182 Billion Euros now or 10.7% of Bank assets, and this comes from Spain’s Central Bank data so maybe a few Euros short there 🙄

[Anonymous]

hey Ang, that’s cool – more opportunities to be scavenged 😉 😉 😉 😉

[angie]

Well yes UBE, I thought I might think of investing soon, what do you think of my plan for the new islands of Benalmadena? 😉 8) 😛

[Author]

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