"To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram, who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a special enclosure where there are oats- that this very ram, swelling with fat, is killed for meat". - Tolstoy, ‘War & Peace’. After so many false dawns, the recent announcement by Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy that the government was revising down its 2013 economic forecast hardly caused a blink among a citizenry that is now … [Read more...] about Beyond their ken?
About Edward Hugh
Do EU migration trends put Spain’s health and pensions system at risk?
According to The Economist’s Buttonwood, “desperate times require desperate measures”. I am sure this is right, times in Spain are certainly getting desperate and many of the measures being implemented in Brussels, far from being radical look much more like continually closing the door after the horse has bolted. The issue Buttonwood draws our attention to in the blog post accompanying this statement is that of migration trends within the euro area and the impact these have on trend GDP growth and structural budget deficits in the various member countries. This is an important issue indeed, since such movements seem to be an unforeseen and largely unmeasured by-product of the current … [Read more...] about Do EU migration trends put Spain’s health and pensions system at risk?
The great Portuguese hollowing out
As Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva once put it, "A country without children is a nation without a future." He was, of course, referring to his country’s ultra-low birth rate, which is just over 1.3 TFR and has been below replacement level (2.1 TFR) since the early 1980s. In 2012 only just over 90,000 children were born in the country, the lowest number in more than a century – you need to go back to the 19th century to find numbers like those we have been seeing since the crisis really took hold. But added to this longstanding, yet unaddressed, problem there is now another just as dangerous one. High unemployment levels and the lack of job opportunities are leading an increasing … [Read more...] about The great Portuguese hollowing out
Has Spain’s economic contraction become self-perpetuating?
Spain’s political leaders are in cheerful mood at the moment. According to the country’s Economy Minister Luis de Guindos, the Spanish economy will return to growth in the second half of 2013. “The perception of the Spanish economy has improved and will continue to do so over the coming weeks and months,” he told his audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Earth-shattering it will not be, but grow it will, he insisted. Perhaps, he suggested, the economy will be stationary in the third quarter, with very slight growth in the fourth. And quite possibly he is right. The core of the problem is whether any faltering growth emerging in the last three months of the year will be sustained … [Read more...] about Has Spain’s economic contraction become self-perpetuating?
To be or not to be: Catalonia as an independent state
There’s nothing especially new about the present dispute between Catalonia and Spain’s national political leadership. Arguably most of the key arguments date back at least to the 1970s and the end of the Franco era, while the seeds of the present dispute are to be found in the country’s written constitution which was finally put together in 1978, when the threat of military interference in political life was still a real and present danger. Indeed the one thing that both sides of the argument seem to agree on is that the regional system of comunidades autónomas which was established back then doesn’t really work. Equally, after so many years of constant wrangling, most citizens on both … [Read more...] about To be or not to be: Catalonia as an independent state