Spain's economic pain continues

[jirit]

Spain's powers to be are getting creative in their desire to find more money.

Seems a whole host of new fines and fees are surfacing in different towns and cities designed to collect money from various victims.

Beware

 

[Wanderer64]

The people of Spain are learning a hard, deserved lesson. Vote in a right wing government called the People's Party, and watch the people who are least responsible and least able to afford to pay for the economic failures get squeezed even more.

 

[Anniesantiago]

Hey Jirit, do you have examples???

 

[jirit]

The article points out some examples of recent new fees and fines that have been levied against citizens of various towns and cities.

Some of fines are understandable, others not - like still charging mothers for school lunches, that the mothers themselves have made for their kids' lunches (in order to save costs).

I am not sure if or when it might impact pilgrims walking the camino.

But it is not hard to imagine that fees for certain places or events or activities rising significantly and a two tier pricing structure (much like you see in other European countries) come into effect. A lower price for locals and a higher price for tourists - not that I am personally against this last example, since I believe this is fair in many situations.

After walking the via de la plata and seeing first hand billions of euros being used to build high speed rail that few in Spain can afford to use (unless it discounted significantly), that is destroying some of the smaller towns along the way, then reading about mothers being charged for lunches they made...

... I can not help personally find the situation sad - that it demonstrates in my opinion the lack of imaginative visionary thinking by public officials required to get Spain out of its current economic situation.

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi, jirit,
Could you give us a link to the article? Thanks, Laurie

 

[jirit]

Please accept my apologies - I thought I had included the link in the original post

Here it is:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ers-fortune-tellers-for-cash/article14763473/

 

[jirit]

Please accept my apologies - I thought I had included the link in the original post

Here it is:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ers-fortune-tellers-for-cash/article14763473/

One city along the Camino Frances route that is affected by this mess is Leon, though I have not read of any reports in new fees or fines being levied there.

http://www.asdforex.com/2013/07/the...h-cities-that-may-repeat-the-fate-of-detroit/

 

[piogaw]

The people of Spain are learning a hard, deserved lesson. Vote in a right wing government called the People's Party, and watch the people who are least responsible and least able to afford to pay for the economic failures get squeezed even more.

i am saddened to see spain in the crisis they are in now. i have seen right wing government (aznar), left wing government (zapatero), then right wing government (rajoy) replaced one another, but nothing has change. the victims are the proud people of spain. there is a lesson to be learned, you can not trust the politicians.

i sincerely hope spain will pulled out of this crisis, but realistically i wonder how? i hope the peregrino community can be more generous in helping out the small pueblos on the camino routes.

god bless.

 

[Wanderer64]

Piogaw, your point is very well taken. My previous comment is too simplistic. This is a crisis that transcends all main (left-right) political parties in Spain, and extends well beyond the Spanish border. I guess the current govt will always be an easy target. In my view Spain's woes are a manifestation of a badly broken global market economy paradigm and banking system that desperately require a radical rethink and overhaul, if not too late for that. Clearly the status quo is not working.

All we can do as pilgrims is support the local Camino economy as best we can. I feel relatively good about the fact I was able to inject more into the Camino economy than most pilgrims. I understand that pilgrims have their own economic limits, but I'm glad I was able to help a lot of family hostals, pensions (private rooms), bars and restaurants, rather than paying the bare minimum for albergue lodging and cooking 30 cent spaghetti every night at an albergue kitchen. I sense that some fellow pilgrims often scoff at the suggestion of staying at anywhere other than albergues, but those other places are often the economic hearts of those little pueblo communities.

 

[kilgore]

I totally agree with Piogaw. It's not a problem about which party is in the government. I think that the problem is deeper and rooted in the history of this country. But I don't want to talk about all this sadness here. I only say that Spain is now, overall, a country of services and tourism. So every pilgrim coming from abroad should be very welcomed.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Spain used the EEC money injection for a construction boom on the theory that production creates its own demand. The problem is that the demand was for food and consumer items, not the housing that they could not afford. The result was many projects like the one at the golf course near Ciruena, which is a ghost town. Giving money at the top of the food chain did not work. So much for trickle-down economics.

Pilgrims inject money at the bottom of the food chain. It goes to the owner-operator of the restaurant, supermercado and albergue. I think it is much more effective in improving the economy. When those folks make enough, maybe they can buy one of those condos that the construction workers could not afford. Some of the new homes in places like Santa Catalina de Samoza are spectacular, and I would bet they belong to the albergue owners...

 

[stevenjarvis]

I'm sure there's nothing that can't be solved by spending a few million Euros creating a unified global BRAND for the Camino ......