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[zomgbbqftw]

you do know that those are contradicting each other

Not necessarily. People at the end of their career don't really do the same entry level jobs expected of young people. Really it requires investment from businesses to take on extra people rather than just replace retiring people. For that investment to take place the government needs to incentivise it with capital allowances and subsidised training programmes.

 

[IceCold]

This is what the world needs:

 

[Mael]

you do know that those are contradicting each other

I really love when people say that because we all know that the old near retirement people have the same job and is the same burden on a company that a young inexperienced worker...

 

[Ether_Snake]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/blog/2011/nov/10/eurozone-crisis-italy-greece

The yield on France's 10-year government bonds has risen sharply today to 3.45%, amid speculation over its AAA rating (see 3.10pm)

That means that the difference between French and German borrowing costs has hit its highest level since 1992..

[...]

there is also a rumour flitting around the City that one of the credit rating agencies is about to put France on 'negative watch', the first stage to losing its AAA status.

France is the one to fall into the vortex.

Spain can't be far.

 

[Kabouter]

This is what the world needs:


http://i.imgur.com/CvWlD.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]
It's easy to say something that if you've got nothing to lose, like, say, the retirement you've worked hard for all your life. The whole reset-nonsense, and I'm not saying you were serious here so don't worry it's not an attack on you, is some of the most selfish stuff I've ever seen. It's pretty disgusting to be honest.

 

[gcubed]

I really love when people say that because we all know that the old near retirement people have the same job and is the same burden on a company that a young inexperienced worker...

right, its... higher? so they take up more money and are more of a "burden" on the company

 

[Mael]

right, its... higher? so they take up more money and are more of a "burden" on the company

Depends on what you expect of your employees.
You expect long careers? get the young.
you expect contractors? get the old farts
They don't even do the same thing in the companies.

And the loss of AAA? It meanst 2things :
- Sarkozy will drop the election?
- The left (PS, EEV...) is fucked.

 

[gcubed]

Depends on what you expect of your employees.
You expect long careers? get the young.
you expect contractors? get the old farts
They don't even do the same thing in the companies.

And the loss of AAA? It meanst 2things :
- Sarkozy will drop the election?
- The left (PS, EEV...) is fucked.

i agree they dont do the same thing, but paying someone x can preclude you from hiring someone making x/2

 

[Mael]

i agree they dont do the same thing, but paying someone x can preclude you from hiring someone making x/2

That really depends on what the company is doing.
If they actually need a contractor they won't want someone who is inexperimented anyway so the young guy is fucked anyway because he isn't needed there anyway.

the funniest part is now if Sarkozy go for the election, he WILL pass for a 2nd term and he can thank his incompetent opposition for that.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

right, its... higher? so they take up more money and are more of a "burden" on the company

The government saves money though as they don't have to pay out social security to people for an extra 5 years. That goes a long way to reducing France's deficit and restoring fiscal sanity. Part of the money saved could also be used to boost incentives for business investment in training and youth employment.

 

[Ether_Snake]

The government saves money though as they don't have to pay out social security to people for an extra 5 years. That goes a long way to reducing France's deficit and restoring fiscal sanity. Part of the money saved could also be used to boost incentives for business investment in training and youth employment.

Doubtful considering everyone is just looking to cut cut cut.

 

[Mael]

The government saves money though as they don't have to pay out social security to people for an extra 5 years. That goes a long way to reducing France's deficit and restoring fiscal sanity. Part of the money saved could also be used to boost incentives for business investment in training and youth employment.

And there's that too.

Doubtful considering everyone is just looking to cut cut cut.

Anyway that's still money that can be better used elsewhere.

Also it's been planed for 2013 anyway, it's only getting put in place earlier than thought at first.
And you also have to remember that the whole system won't last long anyway, by 2017 we'll have another retirement system anyway.

 

[radioheadrule83]

If you let people retire at a reasonable age and hire more young people, you have to contend with more retired people drawing pensions for longer periods of time. If you extend working life to help you cope with pension commitments, people will then naturally work longer in an already limited job market, meaning fewer jobs for young people. There needs to be a cultural change in societies to help us find the balance and live with people getting older and living longer. More generations under one roof, people putting more money away so they *can* retire early etc.

 

[Mael]

4 - Retraite : l'âge légal à 62 ans interviendra en 2017 au lieu de 2018. L'économie atteindra 4,4 milliards d'euros sur la période 2012-2013. "C'est aussi un moyen de renforcer la compétitivité de l'économie française".

Gain attendu : 1,3 milliard d'euros en 2016 et réduction de l'endettement de 4,4 mds d'euros d'ici 2016.

For the legal age of retirement to go 62yo in 2017 (instead of 2018). We'll save 4,4billion€ on the perod 2012-2013

And they expect : in 2016 we'll be saving 1,3 billion € and the debt will be reduced by 4,4M€ by 2016

So yeah, not so useless.

And I wouldn't cry over old people being too poor or something, they're actually the ones owning the houses and such while young workers currently can't even loan money to buy a house (it's like that since a few years back) thanks to the moronic price they expect people to pay for a house here

 

[gcubed]

http://www.latribune.fr/actualites/...-plan-de-rigueur-le-plus-dur-depuis-1945.html
Fpr the legal age of retirement to go 62yo in 2017 (instead of 2018). We'll save 4,4billion€ on the perod 2012-2013

And they expect : in 2016 we'll be saving 1,3 billion € and the debt will be reduced by 4,4M€ by 2016

So yeah, not so useless.

wasnt saying its useless. Just the two statements back to back seemed funny to me.

 

[Mael]

wasnt saying its useless. Just the two statements back to back seemed funny to me.

Oh I know, I see it coming a lot in debates about people wanting to retire at 60. That's not happening anymore.
Or we can do that but we have to severly cut the money retired people get and they WILL get poor that way.
Anyway if France's economy go down we'll bring Germany along for the ride if only because our markets are interdependant.

 

[Loonz]

Oh I know, I see it coming a lot in debates about people wanting to retire at 60. That's not happening anymore.
Or we can do that but we have to severly cut the money retired people get and they WILL get poor that way.
Anyway if France's economy go down we'll bring Germany along for the ride if only because our markets are interdependant.

Well, it seems the real "party" is about to start. How the hell here in Europe we've managed to make things go that bad?. As a citizen I pay my taxes, I don't have any personal debts, and I'm not special as plenty of people I know does the same. How the hell things are going that bad?. Next year the hell will get frozen here in Europe.

 

[Funky Papa]

Loonz, you seem like the average PP voter: sticking to it because the PSOE botched it. That is why we are so screwed; you are trying to replace the current breed of crooks with new ones, which oddly enough, where the same ones that had in the government 8 years ago! We need to break the circle.

Excuse me but I have to answer to all of this:

- As for Madrid's 11-M bombings, I don't think everything's set on stone. If you've been following the research you'll know that there are plenty of strange things that shouldn't have happened but happened (the destruction of many of the evidences by the police, the apparition of false evidences, that right now are being investigated, yes, RIGHT NOW). You can blame them for being incompetent on that matter, but it was a huge massacre that it's still not completely clear. The investigation is ongoing.

"Ha sido ETA y quien diga lo contrario es un miserable". They didn't know what happened, but they knew they had to stick to ETA because otherwise they'd be royally fucked. They deliberately tried to fool us. As a former PP voter, I will never forgive them for that. I spit on Aznar, Rajoy and Aceves.

- As for the corruption inside our political parties, that's nothing new and everyone's to blame for that. On the PSOE you have that cases of Chaves, J. Bono or right now J. Blanco, this last one accused for giving favors not in exchange of some suits precisely...

Exactly what I'm saying. The PSOE is immensely corrupt, so you reasoning to set the country straight is... give away our country to the next round of thieves? AGAIN? We've been playing this game since Felipe Gonzalez was elected, time to hit the reset button.

- As for the Yakolev, well, not that the idiots that currently rule our country hasn't made any fuck ups with the military. They don't send the vehicles and weaponry our troops really need because that would mean to admit we're in war missions, which I don't know why they don't want to admit. As a consequence of that, our soldiers are fucking suffering. Last week we received the corpse of the last one that died, it wasw mentioned in the last debate.

The legal advisor of the PP contributed to the death of 75 people and botched the identification of the victims in order to speed up everything and bury the scandal before the elections. What's not to understand? It doesn't get any dirtier than that. If that's the quality of their legal counsel, it's pretty damn clear that we are not going anywhere safer with them. At best we'll be stuck with a similar level of corruption.

- As for the freedom of speech, I wonder what makes you think that. I mean, if you think that right now TVE is more free than in the past, well, you're mistaken. They'll always be the voice of their masters. Anyway I wouldn't use any government-funded media to get informed about anything. The best idea for me would be to close them all.

TVE was the government's voice until the last round of reforms. They've been playing a completely different game since then. They may not be neutral, but they are a heck of a lot better than a few years ago (much to the PSOE's distaste, since they expected that journalists would side with them no matter what). The fact that Ana Pastor is allowed to tear away politicians from all parties is positive proof of that. That woman alone is doing more journalism work than all private channels combined.

- As for the program, before the debate you'd had a point, but if you payed attention that PSOE's candidate apparently knew quite well PP's program. So they, apparently, have one.

The PP has bullet points, not a real program. Big difference. They never elaborate too much because they have no idea of how they are going to work them out. They don't have a plan other than letting the PSOE collapse under its own weight.

- As for the cuts, they'll have to do them because otherwise we, as a country, will be gone for good. And if the PSOE somehow managed to win the elections (god, I hope not) they would have to do them as well. Hopefully the cuts affect little to education and health-care and plenty to ludicrous expends, like publicly financing the parties themselves or the main unions with huge amounts of money. Things like official cars have to go before they even think of cutting anything else.

The amount of money that is being defrauded by corporations through tax havens and wasteful spending tied to corrupt politicians is much, much higher than any savings derived from the cuts. We could fix our economy just by punishing those criminals and prosecuting corruption. Neither the PP nor the PSOE are interested in that; instead, they want us to foot the bill of the crisis while they keep robbing us blind. It is outrageous. Why should I vote for the PP when they are doing the same as the PSOE? What is the point?

- As for the church, you can't get rid of it easily as they control plenty of schools and hospitals. And somehow they've managed to rule their schools using less money than the public institutions, which is quite sad if you think about it. Anyway, I would keep the church happy for the time being as they're feeding thousands upon thousands of our fellow compatriots each day through their dining halls, people who have no jobs and no resources of any kind, forgotten for everyone. Not a single one person in the government have done anything for them, only the church. This coming from an atheist. It's a national shame.

The church costs us hundreds of millions each year. They can feed the poor if they please, but using tax money for that is outrageous. That's the role of the state. We need reform.

- They don't have any apparent plan for the bursting of the real state bubble that I have heard about. Not that the party at the current government hasn't cynically take advantage of it in the good times. Now they blame their adversaries for it. Well, everybody is to blame here.

Again, that's the point. Both sides of the same coin. Why vote for any of them?

- As for what you say about some regions, it's interesting that you forget to mention regions that have been ruled by the Spanish left for decades and yet they're still within the poorest of Europe, like Andalusia, Extremadura or Castilla la Mancha. In Galicia the left has been ruling the past years as well, so they share part of the blame if the place is still poor. Madrid is the wealthiest region of the country, without it Spain would be royally fucked, but there the PP is increasing their differences with the PSOE. Why?. As for Valencia and Murcia, well, you have a point there. They keep voting PP instead of a change, I wonder why...

See above.

You are willing to support an immensely corrupt party just because the previous immensely corrupt party screwed it. And you expect positive results? Time to get real.

 

[poisonelf]

You are willing to support an immensely corrupt party just because the previous immensely corrupt party screwed it. And you expect positive results? Time to get real.

I read through the posts, though I admit it's difficult to follow the details being completely ignorant of Spanish political reality.
However, the general feeling is that it's exactly the same as with Greece regarding switching from on thief to the next one, to the previous one, to the next one and so on, while they're backed by completely controlled propaganda machines that present themselves as objective media. Perhaps one difference is that these parties are also dominated by dynasties of specific families here.

I just wanted to add that what Loonz seems to support, going back to a previous corrupt political party because the current one is too corrupt, is pretty much what we did. After decades of PASOK/NEW DEMOCRACY we end up going back to Karamanlis' New Democracy party because PASOK was so corrupt, and then after immense scandals, theft and destruction, back to current Papandreous' PASOK because New Democracy was so corrupt... Look where it got us.
Disgustingly enough, New Democracy is presented by all media as the next logical step. This circle must be somehow broken, and I guess it's the same for Spain too.

 

[Ether_Snake]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/blog/2011/nov/10/eurozone-crisis-italy-greece

What to make of this? Standard & Poor's has admitted that it accidentally told some clients that it had cut France's credit rating this afternoon (just before that spike in French bond yields).

Here's the official statement:

As a result of a technical error, a message was automatically disseminated today to some subscribers of S&P's Global Credit Portal suggesting that France's credit rating had been changed. This is not the case: the ratings on Republic of France remain 'AAA/A-1+' with a stable outlook, and this incident is not related to any ratings surveillance activity. We are investigating the cause of the error.

Rather embarrassing for S&P. Also makes you wonder why such a message was knocking around the S&P systems in the first place....

oops?

 

[Evlar]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/blog/2011/nov/10/eurozone-crisis-italy-greece



oops?

Holy shit, lol.

 

[Funky Papa]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/blog/2011/nov/10/eurozone-crisis-italy-greece



oops?

Can we just find a way to abolish these clowns?

 

[zomgbbqftw]

We didn't get the message but heard that another fund got it so we didn't know what to make of it. Figured it was either fake or not ready to go out.

It does mean that France are going to be downgraded in the next few days. Those messages are written up and stored for release after the close of the market on Fridays. So tomorrow or next Friday I would say is when France will get downgraded. They don't have the fundamentals of a AAA rated nation. Even the UK barely has that down, the only reason the UK has it is because the government have basically not wavered in their plans despite moral and social outrage from many people in the public sector. The only real AAA nations are Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the US (despite not actually being AAA). France is AA/AA+ and the UK should be AAA with a negative outlook rather than stable.

 

[Loonz]

Loonz, you seem like the average PP voter: sticking to it because the PSOE botched it. That is why we are so screwed; you are trying to replace the current breed of crooks with new ones, which oddly enough, where the same ones that had in the government 8 years ago. We need to break the circle.



"Ha sido ETA y quien diga lo contrario es un miserable". They didn't know what happened, but they knew they had to stick to ETA because otherwise they'd be royally fucked. They deliberately tried to fool us. As a former PP voter, I will never forgive them for that. I spit on Aznar, Rajoy and Aceves.


Exactly what I'm saying. The PSOE is immensely corrupt, so you reasoning to set the country straight is... give away our country to the next round of thieves? AGAIN? We've been playing this game since Felipe Gonzalez was elected, time to hit the reset button.


The legal advisor of the PP contributed to the death of 75 people and botched the identification of the victims in order to speed up everything and bury the scandal before the elections. What's not to understand? It doesn't get any dirtier than that. If that's the quality of their legal counsel, it's pretty damn clear that we are not going anywhere safer with them. At best we'll be stuck with a similar level of corruption.


TVE was the government's voice until the last round of reforms. They've been playing a completely different game since then. They may not be neutral, but they are a heck of a lot better than a few years ago (much to the PSOE's distaste, since they expected that journalists would side with them no matter what). The fact that Ana Pastor is allowed to tear away politicians from all parties is positive proof of that. That woman alone is doing more journalism work than all private channels combined.


The PP has bullet points, not a real program. Big difference. They never elaborate too much because they have no idea of how they are going to work them out. They don't have a plan other than letting the PSOE collapse under its own weight.


The amount of money that is being defrauded by corporations through tax havens and wasteful spending tied to corrupt politicians is much, much higher than any savings derived from the cuts. We could fix our economy just by punishing those criminals and prosecuting corruption. Neither the PP nor the PSOE are interested in that; instead, they want us to foot the bill of the crisis while they keep robbing us blind. It is outrageous. Why should I vote for the PP when they are doing the same as the PSOE? What is the point?


The church costs us hundreds of millions each year. They can feed the poor if they please, but using tax money for that is outrageous. That's the role of the state. We need reform.


Again, that's the point. Both sides of the same coin. Why vote for any of them?


See above.

You are willing to support an immensely corrupt party just because the previous immensely corrupt party screwed it. And you expect positive results? Time to get real.

Please, I'm not an average anything, don't speak as if you knew me because you clearly don't. I'll vote for the PP because, as bad as it sounds, is the only real option for recovery we have in Spain right now. I have no sympathy for them, but at least I don't hate them as I hate the left for being so shitty here.

So let me put things straight: in your opinion I shouldn't give my vote to the PP because of some fuck ups they did in the past (the PSOE has more and their fuck ups are as bad or even worse) and some nebulous fears about the freedom of speech and the church.

So instead of that, should I give my vote to the people who did nothing to burst the real state bubble, who negate the crisis until it was too late, who has been consistently lying about the "green sprouts" they say there were, who has had years to try to do something to avoid getting 5 fucking million of unemployed people (many of them being fed by the church because there's no other one who attend their needs), who didn't have the decency to step aside and let others rule when it was clear they have no idea of what to do to set things straight?.

Those are the real options for many. I'm with you when you talk about corruption, but sadly the political corruption is an institution in almost every government of the planet. If you pay attention to my other post you'll see that I'm with you in this issue: first stop unnecessary expenditures and revise every single account in search for fraud, and second a complete overhaul of our system, as we clearly can't allow ourselves as things stand now. Cut completely the autonomías? well, if that's what's needed in order to be able to keep supporting health-care, education, and decent pensions, I'm all for it. Cut every single public administration that is not strictly needed, cut duplications and triplications of the services, cut the official cars, the golden Visas, the new iPhones every year, absolutely everything that has more relation to politicians than to real problems of the citizens.

 

[Kabouter]

We didn't get the message but heard that another fund got it so we didn't know what to make of it. Figured it was either fake or not ready to go out.

It does mean that France are going to be downgraded in the next few days. Those messages are written up and stored for release after the close of the market on Fridays. So tomorrow or next Friday I would say is when France will get downgraded. They don't have the fundamentals of a AAA rated nation. Even the UK barely has that down, the only reason the UK has it is because the government have basically not wavered in their plans despite moral and social outrage from many people in the public sector. The only real AAA nations are Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the US (despite not actually being AAA). France is AA/AA+ and the UK should be AAA with a negative outlook rather than stable.

What about us?

 

[zomgbbqftw]

How can something like this happen ? What the hell are these guys actually doing over there ? I'm not sure it's a coincidence though, I don't trust these guys at all. It's like they're BEGGING to be abolished.

How then would investors know what is and isn't safe? I don't get the current hate for ratings agencies. Back in 2008 when they weren't doing their jobs properly and Lehman went bankrupt holding "AAA" rated derivatives I got the hate, but right now they are doing a decent enough job and just because you don't like what they are saying it's no reason to hate them.

Abolishing ratings agencies is just shooting the messenger, the King's horse is still dead and he will still find out one way or another. Does anyone really think that Italy wouldn't be facing funding issues right now? Or that France wouldn't have bond yields with over 150bp spread from Bunds? I don't. One would have to be seriously naive if they think governments/companies can hide the scope of their poor economies from investors and get away with it by abolishing ratings agencies.

How are we still AAA ?

Germany has a massively strong economy and a huge balance of payments surplus and a low deficit which is still going down. Germany should reach a zero deficit by 2014/15, one year earlier than the UK who has the fastest fiscal consolidation plan in the world (but started from a much higher base, sadly).

 

[zomgbbqftw]

What about us?

Bah, my list wasn't particularly comprehensive. Add Austria, Netherlands, Finland and Switzerland for a more complete list.

 

[empty vessel]

The only reasonable solution to the crisis is having the European Central Bank be the lender of last resort. The economically powerful European countries do not wish to do this because it diminishes their individual power over fellow Euro member economies. But Europe has to decide whether it is a union or not. This isn't a debt crisis. Europe isn't broke monetarily. It's broke socially and politically. It is not wise to have a common currency without a common polity. Europe needs to either step up or step down (preferably up).

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/original-sin-and-the-euro-crisis/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/wishful-thinking-and-the-road-to-eurogeddon/
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/the-ecbs-battle-against-central-banking.html

 

[Funky Papa]

So instead of that, should I give my vote to the people who did nothing to burst the real state bubble, who negate the crisis until it was too late, who has been consistently lying about the "green sprouts" they say there were, who has had years to try to do something to avoid getting 5 fucking million of unemployed people (many of them being fed by the church because there's no other one who attend their needs), who didn't have the decency to step aside and let others rule when it was clear they have no idea of what to do to set things straight?.

Nobody is telling you here to vote for the PSOE. Actually, I beg you not to do it.

So let me put things straight: in your opinion I shouldn't give my vote to the PP because of some fuck ups they did in the past (the PSOE has more and their fuck ups are as bad or even worse) and some nebulous fears about the freedom of speech and the church.

Some? Former?

Corruption cases in Spain with political parties involved (sourced)

That shit is happening. RIGHT NOW. If you can't see that they are equally worthless, there is no sense in continuing this conversation.

 

[Mael]

Well, it seems the real "party" is about to start. How the hell here in Europe we've managed to make things go that bad?. As a citizen I pay my taxes, I don't have any personal debts, and I'm not special as plenty of people I know does the same. How the hell things are going that bad?. Next year the hell will get frozen here in Europe.

Well I can only talk about here in France, but I know that the people in the public sector are usually the scapegoat people like to bash, but they're actually skilled and do their jobs rather well (the outliers can't seem to be ousted though). The people commanding the public sector on the other hand....
They're a bunch of irresponsible assholes, just to give some background I'm from a place and where people actually are more left leaning and all that. I can't tell you how fucking disgusted I am of the people on whole left side of the political spectrum and I'm usually fairly suspicious of the right, well all I can say is they all basically "buy" the elections by saying that we'll do some expensive projects that is done on borrowed money => debts.
That and the fact that they basically sold the industrial backbone of the country....for really nothing.
There's actually a very compelling reason why I keep repeating that going into politic is the only way I know that can improve the situation.
Segolène Royale was right only in that : people need to get fucking interested in the issues before it's too late.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/blog/2011/nov/10/eurozone-crisis-italy-greece

What to make of this? Standard & Poor's has admitted that it accidentally told some clients that it had cut France's credit rating this afternoon (just before that spike in French bond yields).

Here's the official statement:

As a result of a technical error, a message was automatically disseminated today to some subscribers of S&P's Global Credit Portal suggesting that France's credit rating had been changed. This is not the case: the ratings on Republic of France remain 'AAA/A-1+' with a stable outlook, and this incident is not related to any ratings surveillance activity. We are investigating the cause of the error.

Rather embarrassing for S&P. Also makes you wonder why such a message was knocking around the S&P systems in the first place....

oops?

THE WHAT!
Where is the HQ of these clowns! they need to be bitchslapped silly.
WE NEED A EUROPEAN AGENCY TO STOP THIS FUCKING NONSENSE.
These bastards are actually responsible for the spike in French bond yields!

 

[Kabouter]

Bah, my list wasn't particularly comprehensive. Add Austria, Netherlands, Finland and Switzerland for a more complete list.

Phew .

By the way, former state secretary for finance here, Willem Vermeend, is apparently saying the Netherlands will be switching to the D-mark if the Euro fails. I guess I could learn to live with it, just so long as it's not called the D-mark or anything of the sort.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

The only reasonable solution to the crisis is having the European Central Bank be the lender of last resort. The economically powerful European countries do not wish to do this because it diminishes their individual power over fellow Euro member economies. But Europe has to decide whether it is a union or not. This isn't a debt crisis. Europe isn't broke monetarily. It's broke socially and politically. It is not wise to have a common currency without a common polity. Europe needs to either step up or step down (preferably up).

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/original-sin-and-the-euro-crisis/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/wishful-thinking-and-the-road-to-eurogeddon/
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/the-ecbs-battle-against-central-banking.html

Agreed, but it's a short term solution to a much longer term problem. It does nothing to address the uncompetitiveness of Southern Europe and the deep structural and economic reforms required for them to match German competitiveness. Making the ECB the lender of last resort (like any proper central bank really) would also just kick the can down the road, albeit much further than the last bailout agreement and the promise of Asian money which lasted all of 6 days.

 

[Loonz]

I read through the posts, though I admit it's difficult to follow the details being completely ignorant of Spanish political reality.
However, the general feeling is that it's exactly the same as with Greece regarding switching from on thief to the next one, to the previous one, to the next one and so on, while they're backed by completely controlled propaganda machines that present themselves as objective media. Perhaps one difference is that these parties are also dominated by dynasties of specific families here.

I just wanted to add that what Loonz seems to support, going back to a previous corrupt political party because the current one is too corrupt, is pretty much what we did. After decades of PASOK/NEW DEMOCRACY we end up going back to Karamanlis' New Democracy party because PASOK was so corrupt, and then after immense scandals, theft and destruction, back to current Papandreous' PASOK because New Democracy was so corrupt... Look where it got us.
Disgustingly enough, New Democracy is presented by all media as the next logical step. This circle must be somehow broken, and I guess it's the same for Spain too.

First, I'm no t a supporter of anything. I just state what I will do and why. Every other fellow Spaniard with right to vote can do as they please.

Second, I'd love to have a solid option to vote outside the "circle". It's just that I don't see it. Some other posters have suggested voting for parties even more to the left than the PSOE, wtf. The left has shown here than it doesn't have a clue how economy works and how to create (or at least, not hinder the creation) new jobs for the people. I wish our left politicians were more akin to those in Scandinavian countries, but well...

And when I see to right, well, very few ideas outside the economy, but for better or worse I think that's what we need right now. Hopefully when they get to rule the country they can manage to make things work, I don't know.

Not that I believe in anything even remotely close to ideologies, for me those are and always have been BS, as politicians, no matter their background, tend to do things 90% the same. In politics I only believe in two things: don't fuck things up, and don't spend money that isn't yours if you aren't absolutely sure is going to be productive at all.

 

[Mael]

How then would investors know what is and isn't safe? I don't get the current hate for ratings agencies. Back in 2008 when they weren't doing their jobs properly and Lehman went bankrupt holding "AAA" rated derivatives I got the hate, but right now they are doing a decent enough job and just because you don't like what they are saying it's no reason to hate them.

Abolishing ratings agencies is just shooting the messenger, the King's horse is still dead and he will still find out one way or another. Does anyone really think that Italy wouldn't be facing funding issues right now? Or that France wouldn't have bond yields with over 150bp spread from Bunds? I don't. One would have to be seriously naive if they think governments/companies can hide the scope of their poor economies from investors and get away with it by abolishing ratings agencies.

Actually there's ground to think that the spike in the yield is directly a response from the info that they were downgrading the rating of France.
After all some customers of S&P had the news before the spike and probably reacted accordingly which lead to the spike.

Rating agencies need to exists, rating agencies we have no control over and who could have a vested interest in making the situation worse we can do without.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

THE WHAT!
Where is the HQ of these clowns! they need to be bitchslapped silly.
WE NEED A EUROPEAN AGENCY TO STOP THIS FUCKING NONSENSE.
These bastards are actually responsible for the spike in French bond yields!

Not really, take a look at the chart:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GFRN10:IND

You can see the spike from the mistake early in the day, but once word got round it was a mistake prices went back to normal. After that there was a gradual sell off and rise as traders continued to worry about French banking exposure to Italian public and private debt. In my own personal investment basket I have excluded French government bonds for this very reason and I'm sure I am not the only one. Current owners are selling and buyers are not showing up, by basic supply and demand rules bond prices must go down and yields therefore go up.

 

[Ikael]

I am heavily interest in Spanish politics too guys, but we are derailing the tread, period. We should create our own topic for that.

 

[Mael]

Not really, take a look at the chart:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GFRN10:IND

You can see the spike from the mistake early in the day, but once word got round it was a mistake prices went back to normal. After that there was a gradual sell off and rise as traders continued to worry about French banking exposure to Italian public and private debt. In my own personal investment basket I have excluded French government bonds for this very reason and I'm sure I am not the only one. Current owners are selling and buyers are not showing up, by basic supply and demand rules bond prices must go down and yields therefore go up.

that makes more sense,
the thing is if I get it right is basically like this :
French government must bail out its banks in order to avoid them from getting bankrupt on the whole situation from Greece and Italy and as a result has a negative outlook on its own situation.
It's like a national sport here bailing out banks that should have failed and refunding them with public money.
Everyone who knows what's LCL will understand.
Except for a change it's not due to a mismanagement by a French politician...Sometimes things do change.

And still it's baffling to let such mistakes go unscathed and it's not exactly in the interest of the Eurozone to not have its own agency to deal with this line of work. And I don't that there should be political interference because really how can they be taken seriously after the events of 2008 anyway.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

I was only referring to the fact that such information getting out too early is pretty baffling, not that downgrading France is not understandable or completely wrong. Information getting out like that makes me wonder how well organized/run these organizations actually are, especially given how important/influential they are.

I also wasn't exactly endorsing getting rid of rating agencies, but rather that mistakes like that only help those that want to abolish them/want influence over them (one might remember e.g. Italy doing a razzia against Moodys/S&P after they downgraded them). That aside I think it's justified to be somewhat sceptical towards the agencies, given stories like this:

http://www.businessinsider.com/moodys-analyst-conflicts-corruption-and-greed-2011-8

(Edit: And of course stories like S&P miscalculating the American debt by two trillion.)

Sorry if I didn't make these things clear though.

Ya, so not surprised it's the shitheads at S&P who are also responsible for something like this. What a fucking joke they are.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

that makes more sense,
the thing is if I get it right is basically like this :
French government must bail out its banks in order to avoid them from getting bankrupt on the whole situation from Greece and Italy and as a result has a negative outlook on its own situation.
It's like a national sport here bailing out banks that should have failed and refunding them with public money.
Everyone who knows what's LCL will understand.
Except for a change it's not due to a mismanagement by a French politician...Sometimes things do change.

That's the theory. At one point Sarkozy was trying to get it so the EFSF could be used for bank bailouts, but basically other EU nations said that France have to pay for their own banking problems just like Germany and the UK did in 2008.

My bank has estimated the French government will have to put €200bn into their banks and will end up being liable for over €800bn as asset prices start to crash and liabilities start to rise. That's a lot of money. Even the UK bailout (the largest in history) has cost around £80-100bn so far and the government is expected to make 80-90% of that back when the shares are sold in 5-7 years.

 

[Loonz]

EDIT: Sorry, wrong place.

But I'll try to use the space for something productive.

Real talk. S&P fucks up, costs nations a ton of money and, "my bad" is all they have to offer.

Sorry, but allowing for such a player in the system seems an extraordinarily unintelligent decision by otherwise intelligent men and women.

If you have paid attention to the Eurozone woes, you've seen plenty of otherwise very intelligent men a women taking the worst decisions possible. I would say that intelligence doesn't prevent us from making mistakes, sometimes terrible ones.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

How can something like this happen ? What the hell are these guys actually doing over there ? I'm not sure it's a coincidence though, I don't trust these guys at all. It's like they're BEGGING to be abolished.

Real talk. S&P fucks up, costs nations a ton of money and, "my bad" is all they have to offer.

Sorry, but allowing for such a player in the system seems an extraordinarily unintelligent decision by otherwise intelligent men and women.

 

[el retorno]

Real talk. S&P fucks up, costs nations a ton of money and, "my bad" is all they have to offer.

Sorry, but allowing for such a player in the system seems an extraordinarily unintelligent decision by otherwise intelligent men and women.

Who´s going to rate investments? How are you going to know which is a safe investment? They provide a very crucial service. Just because you don´t like the news that they bring doesn´t mean they need to be abolished. They do have political ends (see the US downgrade) but they are needed in some sense.

 

[GaimeGuy]

Who´s going to rate investments? How are you going to know which is a safe investment? They provide a very crucial service. Just because you don´t like the news that they bring doesn´t mean they need to be abolished. They do have political ends (see the US downgrade) but they are needed in some sense.

the.... investors? Shouldn't they be informing themselves?

If investors are so uninformed that they need someone else to tell them what is and isn't a good investment, maybe they shouldn't be investing in that. And that goes for fund managers as well.

Crunch the numbers yourself, and gain an understanding of a company's core business, underlying culture, and its long term outlook.

With regards to countries? It's a bit more complicated, look at demographical trends, core industries, government programs, infrastructure, and regulatory policy, as well as culture.

The fact that S&P can shout "THIS COMPANY/COUNTRY/BANK HAS A REALLY BAD OUTLOOK!" and it causes the whole market to tumble speaks volumes about how involved the people investing actually are. If the market at large paid any attention in general they would either shrug it off as the ramblings of an idiot or they would already have reservations about the investment themselves and have factored it in.

Obviously a lot of people have no clue about who or what they're actually investing in.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

A small factoid. The UK saw a worsening of its trade deficit last month as imports rose unexpectedly and sharply, outweighing the rise in exports. The ONS released the detail this morning and it turns out that the extra rise in imports was basically all down to a rise in the importation of gold and silver. Next step imports of guns and canned foods will start to rise.

 

[Rourkey]

A small factoid. The UK saw a worsening of its trade deficit last month as imports rose unexpectedly and sharply, outweighing the rise in exports. The ONS released the detail this morning and it turns out that the extra rise in imports was basically all down to a rise in the importation of gold and silver. Next step imports of guns and canned foods will start to rise.

Gonna watch Children of Men tonight.

 

[forknknife]

Please, I'm not an average anything, don't speak as if you knew me because you clearly don't. I'll vote for the PP because, as bad as it sounds, is the only real option for recovery we have in Spain right now. I have no sympathy for them, but at least I don't hate them as I hate the left for being so shitty here.

So let me put things straight: in your opinion I shouldn't give my vote to the PP because of some fuck ups they did in the past (the PSOE has more and their fuck ups are as bad or even worse) and some nebulous fears about the freedom of speech and the church.

So instead of that, should I give my vote to the people who did nothing to burst the real state bubble, who negate the crisis until it was too late, who has been consistently lying about the "green sprouts" they say there were, who has had years to try to do something to avoid getting 5 fucking million of unemployed people (many of them being fed by the church because there's no other one who attend their needs), who didn't have the decency to step aside and let others rule when it was clear they have no idea of what to do to set things straight?.

Those are the real options for many. I'm with you when you talk about corruption, but sadly the political corruption is an institution in almost every government of the planet. If you pay attention to my other post you'll see that I'm with you in this issue: first stop unnecessary expenditures and revise every single account in search for fraud, and second a complete overhaul of our system, as we clearly can't allow ourselves as things stand now. Cut completely the autonomías? well, if that's what's needed in order to be able to keep supporting health-care, education, and decent pensions, I'm all for it. Cut every single public administration that is not strictly needed, cut duplications and triplications of the services, cut the official cars, the golden Visas, the new iPhones every year, absolutely everything that has more relation to politicians than to real problems of the citizens.

You should be voting anyone but PSOE and PP, they are the ones that got us into this mess and don't deserve your vote. And don't worry, they will win anyway, but I hope they don't do it by a large margin. The only way they are going to do any good for our country is if they realise that people are not going to take any more shit. By having this two party system mindset you are just delaying the solution to our problems which is a complete regeneration of our political class with one that really works for the good of the people.

 

[Ether_Snake]

the.... investors? Shouldn't they be informing themselves?

If investors are so uninformed that they need someone else to tell them what is and isn't a good investment, maybe they shouldn't be investing in that. And that goes for fund managers as well.

Exactly. Rating agencies are there to allow people who don't know, to believe. You shouldn't buy what you don't understand. If a huge bank wants to invest in something, they should have their own people figuring the risk themselves.

Rating agencies leads to fewer people doing the work of evaluating risk, which raises the chance of bad investments being made.

Many Eyes Are Better Than One Pair

Rating agencies go directly against this principle.

This is a bit akin to the flood situation in Thailand VS HDD prices having doubled as a result. If only a handful of companies located in the same place on the globe make HDDs, a natural catastrophe can lead to lower inventory and higher prices for everyone. If they were spread out, and more numerous, this would not happen.

If there were no rating agencies, there would be FAR MORE people evaluating risk, for far more clients. This would inherently reduce the risk of bad investments being made across the board.

 

[jaxword]

My uncle lives in Italy. I haven't talked to him in years, but I am thinking of contacting him just to say hi over this mess just to see if he's ok.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

So, after a period of relative calm, Italy yields are up to 7.05%, breaching the 7% barrier again, France yields move up to a record Euro-era spread from Bunds at 190bp and Spain enters the spotlight. The latter may yet be saved by a new government plan of fiscal consolidation and some kind of jobs plan to get unemployment down from Euro-era records of 23%.

To explain why Italian yields are rising despite Bungasconi standing down - he was never really the problem. In fact if anyone was going to deliver fiscal consolidation it was him, that however, is a minority view. Italy has deep structural issues and a too high debt to GDP ratio which will hinder all future growth. To get back on the path to sanity, Italy must default, leave the Euro and reboot its economy. Sticking with 120% debt to GDP so French (and some German and British) banks don't go bankrupt and having an EU technocrat running the country into the ground to make sure those banks stay afloat is going to cause serious social problems in the future.

 

[Jarmel]

So, after a period of relative calm, Italy yields are up to 7.05%, breaching the 7% barrier again, France yields move up to a record Euro-era spread from Bunds at 190bp and Spain enters the spotlight. The latter may yet be saved by a new government plan of fiscal consolidation and some kind of jobs plan to get unemployment down from Euro-era records of 23%.

To explain why Italian yields are rising despite Bungasconi standing down - he was never really the problem. In fact if anyone was going to deliver fiscal consolidation it was him, that however, is a minority view. Italy has deep structural issues and a too high debt to GDP ratio which will hinder all future growth. To get back on the path to sanity, Italy must default, leave the Euro and reboot its economy. Sticking with 120% debt to GDP so French (and some German and British) banks don't go bankrupt and having an EU technocrat running the country into the ground to make sure those banks stay afloat is going to cause serious social problems in the future.

How is the EU even going to be possible going forward without drastic government overhauls in multiple countries. It just seems like everything is collapsing.