Greece, Portugal and Spain had socialist governments for decades. All European countries that are in difficulties are countries with socialist governments for the last few decades. Socialists like to spent money from other people. But now all this money has been spent or left the country.
The Spanish women are truly beautiful I wonder if the poor economy has forced the prostitutes to lower their prices. Might be a great time to visit.
big deal, they are just back where they were in the 90's ..., a little worse off. The RE bubble created plenty of jobs that are now gone. Also I understand there is a large underground economy in Spain, so being unemployed doesn't mean you survive only on govt checks ... Like all moribund european countries they would create jobs if they dismantled their bloated govt agencies and regulations. Of course that will never happen, so they are doomed.
Scandinavian countries are doing just fine, and as far as I know they are the most "social" in europe. Looks to me that the main reason for this disaster is c-o-r-r-u-p-t-i-o-n. Note that the Scandinavian countries are also the least corrupts.
Scandinavian countries have a different form of socialisme. You cannot compare it. Scandinavian countries are selfsupporting in energy, south europe not. Scandinavian countries have very high taxregimes, south europe not..... Scandinavian has more a socialistic form of capitalism.
"socialist form of capitalism". How is it different from socialism? Now what do you think are the long term effects of corruption for a country? Spain having no money. Give us a break! Also, during this time, Spain is giving much more than ?? billion Euros/year to the Vatican. So there is good money in Spain. http://www.vaticancrimes.us/2013/04/spain-initiates-campaign-against.html the thing about discretionary trading, one really has to dig up facts to get a fair picture.
Socialism is taking money from other people and spent it on irresponsible things. A lot of this money goes to illegal people or people who don't want to work but live on someone elses money. People who have no job can get between 1000 and 1500$ every month without working, they get free housing because they are "poor" and free healthcare..... free everything. And those who are "lucky" to have a job can pay up to 55% of taxes on their income from labour. Socialist politicians need the votes from these illegal or lazy people so they spoil them with money... from working people. The more lazy and illegal people the more money there is for the socialist politicians. With their salary socialist politicians are in the top 5% of well paid citizens, so in fact they are capitalists using poor people and socialism to become rich. I know several of them who have a villa in Toscane for holidays. "socialist form of capitalism" is capitalism but also taking care about poeple who have bad luck (maybe no job or sick), but at the same time the receivers of all this "wellfare" have to take responsability and do everything they ccan to improve their own situation. So they have to be active an not lazy. And of course there is corruption too. But corruption exists everywhere, although not at the same level.
I think we can agree that corruption is the root of the problem. corrupt politicians should definitively be sent to jail and made to pay back any money stolen from the national common pot of money. I think the Greeks started to understand that lately.
First, I have contributed a lot to "national common pot of money". Now, if you look to a country income/expenses, you will notice that these benefits to people, are usually a small amount compared tp other type of spendings. As you are in the US, I wonder what is the annual military spending - including subsidies to companies and staff ( via scolarships, secondments, ...). Personally, I am more keen, after say a 3 months benefit periods, for people to be given quasi automatically an activity in exchange for benefits. I can't really see what good it does for people not to have to wake up for some productive activities. Just remember I am a trader. lol.