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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 07:11 AM Apr 2013

spain Is Beyond Doomed: The 2 Scariest Unemployment Charts Ever

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/spain-is-beyond-doomed-the-2-scariest-unemployment-charts-ever/275324/



Spain is in a great depression, and it is one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen.

Five years after its housing boom turned to bust, Spanish unemployment hit a record high of 27.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013. It's almost too horrible to comprehend, but 19.5 percent of the total workforce has not had a job in the past six months; 15.3 percent have not in the past year; and 9.2 percent have not in the past two years. You can see this 1930s-style catastrophe in the chart below from the National Statistics Institute.



Here's the story of Spanish unemployment in three acts. During the boom, joblessness was relatively high due to persistent structural problems. Then it shot up fast and faster as Spain's building bust and then Lehmangeddon hit in 2008. But it has kept climbing up since the panic abated, albeit at a less catastrophic pace, due to the toxic combination of too tight money and budgets.

In other words, austerity hasn't been the path to prosperity. It's been the path to perma-slump.

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spain Is Beyond Doomed: The 2 Scariest Unemployment Charts Ever (Original Post) xchrom Apr 2013 OP
THe 1% Continue The Domination And Are Consolidating Their Gains cantbeserious Apr 2013 #1
i think it's becoming a contagion. xchrom Apr 2013 #2
Probably True - With The Power The 1% Holds - Does It Matter? - Probably Not cantbeserious Apr 2013 #4
tue dat. nt xchrom Apr 2013 #5
They know exactly what they are doing. pangaia Apr 2013 #18
They're looking for places to run Warpy Apr 2013 #26
The world is becoming a plutocracy: Wealthy/serfs Faygo Kid Apr 2013 #17
Just a matter of time before this turns violent. Katashi_itto Apr 2013 #3
Agree, chervilant Apr 2013 #9
No kidding. jsr Apr 2013 #11
Except, of course, for the Basque region, where their economy is doing relatively well, or growing. jtuck004 Apr 2013 #6
i was aware the basque region was doing better than the rest of spain. xchrom Apr 2013 #7
What I find fascinating, and scary, is nearly the entire U.S. acting like victims of Stockholm jtuck004 Apr 2013 #8
I for one am taking money from the rich. Cleita Apr 2013 #12
You're not taking their money when you work for them. Sirveri Apr 2013 #24
If I have to work, and I do, I think it's better to take money from them in the Cleita Apr 2013 #25
you're in the catch 22. Sirveri Apr 2013 #29
I don't find that so much as resignation. Warpy Apr 2013 #27
I used to think that, but the more I looked at it, I realized that resignation requires jtuck004 Apr 2013 #30
That's where the Mondragon (sp?) co-operative is located isn't it? socialist_n_TN Apr 2013 #20
I think it probably has quite a lot to do with it. It's no bed of roses, but they are doing jtuck004 Apr 2013 #23
K & R malaise Apr 2013 #10
k/r marmar Apr 2013 #13
I have to confess that I have absolutely no idea of how to interpret that first chart Orrex Apr 2013 #14
The length of the entire bar is the unemployment rate - the different colors and their lengths... reformist2 Apr 2013 #15
I thought that might be the case, but... Orrex Apr 2013 #16
It does make it hard - when it comes to graphs, sometimes less is more. reformist2 Apr 2013 #19
I know that revolution is a hard and uncertain road........ socialist_n_TN Apr 2013 #21
Timeline toddwv Apr 2013 #22
I just came back from Spain and Bay Boy Apr 2013 #28

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
2. i think it's becoming a contagion.
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 08:18 AM
Apr 2013

and i don't think the 1% have the brain power to figure out how to get out.

Faygo Kid

(21,477 posts)
17. The world is becoming a plutocracy: Wealthy/serfs
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 10:06 AM
Apr 2013

That's certainly true here in the U.S. Look at that disgusting dinner last night.

chervilant

(8,267 posts)
9. Agree,
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 09:02 AM
Apr 2013

and I think we're already seeing some forms of violence that are inextricably linked to the radical income inequity imposed on the masses by a handful of hedonists who've capitalized (no pun intended) on the macro-level socio-political constructs that enable AND justify their hubris (patriarchy, capitalism, corporatism, etc).

Calhoun's experiments on overpopulation offer an interesting glimpse of alpha male behavior that begs the question, "why do so many of us justify (nay, *applaud*) the 1%?"

I am now in a rural location, close to a relatively clean creek (and river). I feel safer here, and am thankful every day for the flora and fauna that surrounds me, replenishes me, and keeps me grounded.

 

jtuck004

(15,882 posts)
6. Except, of course, for the Basque region, where their economy is doing relatively well, or growing.
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 08:41 AM
Apr 2013

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/25/163629203/while-spain-struggles-the-basque-region-shines

Or here, where in one of the comments someone points out that unemployment in that region is a third of what it is in the rest of the country: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/if-only-europe-could-sell-unemployment.html

They don't invest in bankers or take money from hungry people while making sure elected officials can fly without being inconvenienced, there is lots of co-operative work, lots of investment in vocational education (which has been dismantled elsewhere in the country) being the end-all be-all.

It doesn't have to be this way, either there or here.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
7. i was aware the basque region was doing better than the rest of spain.
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 08:43 AM
Apr 2013

it's kind of fascinating.

 

jtuck004

(15,882 posts)
8. What I find fascinating, and scary, is nearly the entire U.S. acting like victims of Stockholm
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 08:59 AM
Apr 2013

Syndrome, as if we have been taken hostage by the wealthy. We know better than to keep doing their bidding, we know we could stop anytime and there are far more of us than it would take to change things. We have evidence in front of us as to how we could do better, yet everyone is so afraid that they will lose what little bits of cheese they have we are too afraid to reach out and help ourselves.



Cleita

(75,480 posts)
12. I for one am taking money from the rich.
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 09:35 AM
Apr 2013

I suggest others do the same wherever they can find a way to do so. I live in a very affluent county, so I found a niche I can fill as a pet sitter and plant waterer when they go on vacation. It's a matter of being responsible and trustworthy and doing a little extra to get the referrals. In this day and age with all our electronic gadgets, I can send little videos every other day showing them what Fluffy and Fido are doing while they are on vacation. My clientele love it. It's something the other pet sitters don't do. It pays $10 plus mileage, which is a good job for a seventy year old lady like me. I intend to get more per hour in the future, once I establish a good rapport with a regular clientele, since I just started out doing this.

I believe this is the way to go. We, who are in need of jobs, need to find ways to make those people pay us for services or other ways we find to extract money from them. Another thing I thought of, if anyone has carpenter skills and a small space to work in, is as a closet and drawer organizer for rich people. You would need a small investment in tools, license and insurance. There are plenty of instructions on the internet to follow. I could see it as rather lucrative self-employed business.

Sirveri

(4,517 posts)
24. You're not taking their money when you work for them.
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 08:14 PM
Apr 2013

People think they are because they're getting paid. But ultimately they are making that person more money than they cost them, or they wouldn't be hired. Do you cost less than an agency? Probably so. How valuable is their time to them, obviously more than what they're paying for you.

This is why the general strike and striking works.

Cleita

(75,480 posts)
25. If I have to work, and I do, I think it's better to take money from them in the
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 08:19 PM
Apr 2013

form of fees than take money from poor people. I used to work as a bartender in a working class bar. My tips essentially came from working class guys. Fortunately, most of them were union workers so they were a little better off than the non-union guys. Now I take money from people who can well afford it and I make them pay. My services are more expensive than the local kennels.

Sirveri

(4,517 posts)
29. you're in the catch 22.
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 09:00 PM
Apr 2013

If you're truly rich, monetarily, you don't need to work, so you invest your wealth to generate more wealth. The rest of us do not have the liberty, and thus we have a fundamental disconnect, we're forced to provide labor for less than it's worth because we require the income for our very survival. In this way it is quite difficult for us because the rich have all the leverage in the employee-employer relationship. An interesting thing about taking the money from the rich, is that all their money ultimately came from the poor. They pay their employees less than the labor they provided, and pocketed the difference as the 'profit margin'. So by taking money from the rich you're ultimately taking money from the poor anyways. And since they always make more than they spend, the more you charge the more they must extract from their business. Like I said, catch 22. You're always taking money from the poor, because everyone takes money from those who labor, the rich more so than others. What's really funny is that the money you spend that they give you goes right back to them eventually. The solution might be to simply remove them from the equation, however most can't afford to do that because we require them to sustain ourselves. Hence we're stuck, waiting for our silver spoon traitor to come and rescue us from our precarious predicament.

Warpy

(110,900 posts)
27. I don't find that so much as resignation.
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 08:27 PM
Apr 2013

Right now, they think they're powerless, it's been too long since someone came along to tell them just how powerful they really are.

 

jtuck004

(15,882 posts)
30. I used to think that, but the more I looked at it, I realized that resignation requires
Tue Apr 30, 2013, 02:35 AM
Apr 2013

an awareness of the problem, but most people don't seem to have that. We have several generations of people who have grown up never knowing there could be any other way (doesn't take that long, really - "I freed a thousand slaves, I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves" H. Tubmann). We have schooled the life out of our population, taught them to look to others for nearly everything, jump through the proper hoops, respond to marketing with acquiescence instead of skepticism, all in the name of profit and efficiency.

Now we have elected officials that are the sole property of the wealthy, and a population that actually is letting the hungry and cold fall by the wayside so business people and elected officials on airplane rides won't be inconvenienced, so our military can be better funded. We are paying taxes, and both parties are funneling that money to the wealthy as fast as they can, to the detriment of, say, the 6 million people who have been yanked out of their homes, or the 47 million on food stamps.

And most people follow along like Elizabeth Smart, failing to realize that all it would take is to quit doing what her captor told her to do, just run screaming into the street, and it would have all been over. Instead it took 9 months, and she had to be cajoled away from their grasp by armed police. There are myriad examples of this, and now we have a nation of over 300 million people apparently who don't even seem to realize that just need to talk to each other, work together a little bit. And while there are a few people here and there who tell them that they really do have all the power, they no longer seem to have a conceptual understanding of their position.

If someone really did get enough of them to stop the system, the next thing they would do is crucify the bastard because he can't give them the little scraps they are getting from their Masters, because they have no conception of what freedom is any longer.

I think that's something other than resignation. But perhaps not.




socialist_n_TN

(11,481 posts)
20. That's where the Mondragon (sp?) co-operative is located isn't it?
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 11:12 AM
Apr 2013

Do ya think that might have something to do with it?

 

jtuck004

(15,882 posts)
23. I think it probably has quite a lot to do with it. It's no bed of roses, but they are doing
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 03:55 PM
Apr 2013

considerably better than the rest of the country, doing things much differently by practicing cooperation, and investing in people as if that was their future.

Orrex

(63,084 posts)
14. I have to confess that I have absolutely no idea of how to interpret that first chart
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 09:44 AM
Apr 2013

Is there more purple than blue in every case, and more cyan than anything else?

Or do you read each color-gradation as an independent chart?

I'm not entirely math-ignorant, but this format simply eludes me.


Little help?

reformist2

(9,841 posts)
15. The length of the entire bar is the unemployment rate - the different colors and their lengths...
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 09:48 AM
Apr 2013

correspond to the percentage that have been unemployed a given number of months, as indicated in the key.

For example: The bar on the far right goes up to 27%, indicating the unemployment rate in Spain is now 27%. The blue part of the bar (at the bottom) indicates about 7% have been unemployed for less than six months. The red part of the bar indicates another 5% or so have been unemployed 6-12 months, and so on.

Orrex

(63,084 posts)
16. I thought that might be the case, but...
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 09:51 AM
Apr 2013

It seems like a great way to make it hard to interpret the change in any one field over time, especially for those (like what I'm calling cyan) at the top, where the cumulative change over the various field-types will be greatest.

But thanks for the explanation!

reformist2

(9,841 posts)
19. It does make it hard - when it comes to graphs, sometimes less is more.
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 10:26 AM
Apr 2013

You're welcome by the way!

socialist_n_TN

(11,481 posts)
21. I know that revolution is a hard and uncertain road........
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 11:13 AM
Apr 2013

but sometimes it's the most logical one to take.

Kick for importance.

toddwv

(2,830 posts)
22. Timeline
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 03:31 PM
Apr 2013

2008 Spain's economy enters recession.
2009 Spain implements a stimulus package.
2010 Spain's economy exits recession.
Later 2010 and 2011 Spain announces austerity measures.
1st Quarter 2012, Spain's economy enters recession again.

At what point does a critical mass of the population collectively explain "What the fuck?"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9319175/Spains-economic-crisis-a-timeline.html

Bay Boy

(1,689 posts)
28. I just came back from Spain and
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 08:47 PM
Apr 2013

I'm surprised to hear how poorly they are doing. From my observation things seemed to be going well. The streets were busy with cars and buses and the stores were filled with shoppers.

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