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Spain Get Your Money Out Whilst You Still Can?

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  • Chargem
    Chargem Posts: 69 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Glen_Clark wrote: »
    In Britain unemployment benefit is about £300 a month -in Spain its 1200 Euros a month - and they have cheap housing!!

    The Spanish unemployment benefit is *up to* €1,200 (based on your last salary before you were unemployed), for a limited time period only and requires you to have worked in the last five years to claim - I don't think it is as peachy as you are implying.
  • srcandas
    srcandas Posts: 1,241 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Glen_Clark wrote: »
    In Britain unemployment benefit is about £300 a month -in Spain its 1200 Euros a month - and they have cheap housing!!

    This miss information demonstrates you know little about spain. The benefits there are for most non existant.

    Knock the UK by all means if you must but as someone with family suffering in Spain making light of their situation is not helpfull.

    Unemployment there is now 27.2%, salaries are falling for those lucky to have a job, and dole is paid only as said under certain conditions and for limited time. Over 300000 families rely solely on an old person's pension.
    I believe past performance is a good guide to future performance :beer:
  • pqrdef
    pqrdef Posts: 4,552 Forumite
    What we should have noticed by now is that government spending cuts don't reduce deficits. Destroying economies reduces tax revenues. Putting people out of work means paying them dole for nothing, and the work still needs doing. Cutting benefits and home helps ends with people in prisons and hospitals where they cost more.

    We can't fix this just by playing games with monetary and fiscal policy, as if everything else that needs to happen will just happen on its own by magic. What's needed is a basically healthy economy.

    That means organising capital and labour to make the stuff that's currently being imported, and then buying the local stuff instead of the imports.

    The Germans won't like it, but the Germans will have to go screw themselves. Because a mechanism has to be found to maintain trade balances, and if it isn't tariffs, or floating currencies, or subsidies, then it will have to be something else. But at last there are some signs of the Germans dimly beginning to see that bankrupting their customers isn't the smartest idea.

    I don't know where we got the idea that protectionism is bad and free trade is good. Free trade is only good for the winners. Protectionism needn't restrict trade any more than is necessary to maintain a balance, and a balance is imperative.

    The Spanish obviously aren't reaping the advantages of the single market. They aren't even exploiting the home market. This has got to be fixed.

    The Americans have a better way, but it relies on big flows of Federal money from rich areas to poor areas, and it'll be a while before Europe gets round to that.
    "It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis
  • Glen_Clark
    Glen_Clark Posts: 4,397 Forumite
    srcandas wrote: »
    Unemployment there is now 27.2%,
    Unermployment here is probably 27.2% if it were counted it the same way.
    I could write pages about how the unemployment statistics are fiddled, but I haven't the time as most people would get bored and not read it. Just look at who counts as unemployed, and who doesn't, for a start.

    For the poor their biggest outgoing is usually rent, and its far cheaper in Spain. Because Spain has already had its house price correction. Osborne seems determined to keep the house price bubble inflated at all costs, because high house prices is all he has got to offer voters before the election - and I believe that is what will finally break us.:(
    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair
  • Glen_Clark
    Glen_Clark Posts: 4,397 Forumite
    pqrdef wrote: »
    What we should have noticed by now is that government spending cuts don't reduce deficits. .

    Depends where you make the cuts.
    The problem we have is a cowardly government who is only prepared to make cuts on those not likely to vote Tory.
    Top public sector pay, and particularly pensions, need to be brought back into line with the private sector for a start, but the government seems to have backed down on that one. They are trying to cut housing benefits at the same time as forcing up housing costs by subsidising sub prime mortgages with taxpayers borrowed money!!!!
    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair
  • pqrdef
    pqrdef Posts: 4,552 Forumite
    Glen_Clark wrote: »
    because high house prices is all he has got to offer voters before the election - and I believe that is what will finally break us.
    A house price crash would break us sooner. The losses need to be drained away, but gradually.

    It would help if the banks could make some profits to set against their bad debts, but that's virtually impossible. So they need an injection of capital to allow them to stop forbearing and start foreclosing. But that's against right-wing moral principles. Still, we can hope - ideological Chancellors often end up being dragged into the real world and converted.
    "It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis
  • pqrdef
    pqrdef Posts: 4,552 Forumite
    Glen_Clark wrote: »
    Top public sector pay, and particularly pensions, need to be brought back into line with the private sector for a start
    You think they should be increased?

    Private sector pay and pensions at the top have gone through the roof and there's no sign of any scaling back.
    "It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis
  • Masomnia
    Masomnia Posts: 19,506 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Glen_Clark wrote: »
    Unermployment here is probably 27.2% if it were counted it the same way.

    It is counted the same way.
    “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.” - P.G. Wodehouse
  • srcandas
    srcandas Posts: 1,241 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Glen_Clark wrote: »
    Unermployment here is probably 27.2% if it were counted it the same way.

    Glen I fully understand your concerns about the UK. The cost of living is increasing, skill sets of the young and old need improving, we need to reduce our dependance on europe and open more manufactuering opportunities in the emerging markets, and we need to address the housing issue, we need better affordable elderly care, we need a more caring society, we need more honest politicians, we need to address transport costs, ........

    But still your comparison with Spain shows a total miss-understanding. My family in spain is over 50% unemployed. Most receive no support of any kind and have no hope of finding a job. Most have been unemployed for over 2 years. The salary of my BIL for hard factory work starting at 5am is 800 Euros a month. The job queue for his job is kilometers in length.

    In the UK my family is fully employed. In my local town there are lots of job ads. Yes a graduate my find it hard to get into their particular career slot but work can be found and with benefits people do not need to starve.

    Yes you can argue about stats calculation but to believe Spain's 27.2% is comparable with the UKs 8% totally undermines your argument. Just walk the streets of a spanish city and the streets of any UK town and you will see that they are not comparable.

    ps. Back to topic: I should say I keep the minimum in my spanish bank account and would not be surprised if Rajoy attempted a money grab. But if a stupid move by him leads to the break up of Spain and a new start then so much the better.
    I believe past performance is a good guide to future performance :beer:
  • dzug1
    dzug1 Posts: 13,535 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Glen_Clark wrote: »
    Top public sector pay, and particularly pensions, need to be brought back into line with the private sector for a start, but !!

    Top private sector pay/pensions are way way above the public sector

    So you are saying they should be increased? (The answer is yes if you want to get the right people into the job btw)
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