Sovereign debt bubble thread

[Zanza]

So? Can't have a higher cost to society than this unemployment.

So Spain doesn't have a pile of unused money sitting around.

Spain might not, but we can always make more money. Inflation is currently not a problem at all for Europe.

[Admiral Yi]

Spain might not, but we can always make more money. Inflation is currently not a problem at all for Europe.

Hey, knock yourself out.  It doesn't affect me directly if the ECB monetizes debt.

[Sheilbh]

Another job creator would be a single market in services and more free trade deals, especially with China.

In other news the PS have proven yet again that they're the least reformed party of the left in Europe and by some distance the most amazingly French

French socialists attack 'selfish' Merkel
By Hugh Carnegy in Paris
©Reuters

Simmering tensions in the eurozone have been laid bare by a ruling French Socialist party document denouncing Chancellor Angela Merkel's "selfish intransigence" over austerity and Britain's "Thatcherite" prime minister.

The attack, in a leaked draft paper on European policy, capped a week in which calls have mounted from several European leaders for a review of austerity policies championed by Germany. The leak is likely to embarrass President François Hollande, who insists he has a good working relationship with Ms Merkel, despite acknowledging "friendly tension" between them.

The document bitterly attacked the conduct of right-leaning administrations during the eurozone crisis, including David Cameron's British government, but reserved its harshest words for Ms Merkel.

"The [European] project is today battered by a marriage of convenience between the Thatcherite leanings of the current British prime minister – who only conceives of a Europe à la carte and of rebates – and the selfish intransigence of Chancellor Merkel, who thinks of nothing but the deposits of German savers, the trade balance recorded by Berlin and her electoral future."

Ms Merkel's government has resisted calls from José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, and Enrico Letta, Italy's prime minister designate, for a softening of austerity. On Friday, Spain said it needed two more years to meet its EU deficit targets.

But arguably the greatest strains are between Germany and France, the eurozone's biggest economies and traditionally the joint motor of EU co-operation. François Fillon, prime minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr Hollande's centre-right predecessor, said on Friday during a visit to Berlin that relations between the two had "rarely been so bad".

Socialist party officials said personal remarks about Ms Merkel would be removed from the final policy document, but that the party had "a huge problem" with austerity.

The paper attacked Mr Sarkozy's strategy of working closely with Ms Merkel. "Friendship between France and Germany is not the (same as) friendship between France and the European policy of Chancellor Merkel," it said.

Mr Hollande, battling a weakened economy, badly needs Berlin's support for his own appeal to delay hitting EU budget deficit targets. Senior German ministers this week made public statements of support for his government policies – regarded privately by many in Berlin as insufficient to turn around the French economy.

But the document, revealed by Le Monde newspaper on its website, exposed a raw resentment against Germany's dominant position that lurks below the surface. Claude Bartolone, the socialist speaker of the National Assembly, this week called for "confrontation" with Germany over its insistence on austerity.

The socialist document, drafted ahead of a party conference on Europe scheduled in June, said Mr Hollande had offered an alternative vision of growth for Europe to the "cynicism" of conservative governments who proposed only free trade and austerity. "France has the only sincerely European government among the big states of the EU," it declared.[/u] ( )

It sharply criticised Mr Barroso as a "prisoner of the great feudal conservatives". It called for a renegotiation of austerity plans "imposed on Greece and Spain" and a revision of the eurozone's stability pact, which introduced stricter budgetary controls on member states by Brussels.

It backed other longstanding German-opposed French positions on the crisis, including giving the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone's rescue fund, a banking licence and access to European Central Bank funds, and the mutualisation of eurozone sovereign debt.

"French socialists want Europe. What they fight is a Europe of the right and its triptyque: deregulation, deindustrialisation and disintegration," the document said.

Bravo!

[Zanza]

Spanish regions with similar unemployment rates as other countries...

[The Brain]

Down, Tim.

[Syt]

Is that good ... bad? I don't have the employment statistics of Micronesia, Gabon or the Marshall Islands at hand.

[Zanza]

I guess this one is easier to read, but I found the comparison to Afghanistan and Gaza interesting. It tells you more than just a percentage...

[Syt]

What bugs me about Austrian unemployment statistics is that the monthly report usually focuses on the change in percent, not so much the actual levels, which usually means you have to dig a bit.

A typical statistic in the news would look like this:



This has a bit more data:



Please note that Austria counts unemployed differently at home than the EU does (they put the registered unemployed in relation to the registered employed people - self employed people are not part of the equation, for example)), resulting in higher numbers than the Eurostat ones.

[Iormlund]

Even inflated, we can beat you guys just with those that haven't had a job in over two years.   :wacko:

[Iormlund]

Someone linked in P'dox to the latest Commission's forecast reports. I found amusing that the prediction for unemployment for Spain was obsolete before the ink was dry. 2013 Forecast: 27.0%. Actual 1Q figure: 27.2%.

It's like they are not even trying anymore.

[Zanza]

So it is completely unthinkable that the next three quarters have unemployment at 26.9%? That's not really such a great achievement and it would be all that's needed to make the prognosis true. Just takes some more workers in tourism and agriculture in summer and it works out.

[Zanza]

Spain might not, but we can always make more money. Inflation is currently not a problem at all for Europe.

Hey, knock yourself out.  It doesn't affect me directly if the ECB monetizes debt.

Inflation has fallen to 1.2% in the Eurozone. That leaves a lot of room to print money to write off bad debt.

[mongers]

Damn that's bad. 

Had in interesting chat with an economic historian yesterday, we'll I say chat, mostly me listening intently and not trying to show my own ignorance too much. 

But good grief, I seem to know very little about early 19th century economic and social history.   

[Barrister]

Damn that's bad. 

Had in interesting chat with an economic historian yesterday, we'll I say chat, mostly me listening intently and not trying to show my own ignorance too much. 

But good grief, I seem to know very little about early 19th century economic and social history.   

What an absolutely appalling display of ignorance on your part. 

[mongers]

Damn that's bad. 

Had in interesting chat with an economic historian yesterday, we'll I say chat, mostly me listening intently and not trying to show my own ignorance too much. 

But good grief, I seem to know very little about early 19th century economic and social history.   

What an absolutely appalling display of ignorance on your part. 

I don't deny it, I need a reading list.