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What happened to Spain? They didn’t get hit by WW2 and yet…are a distant sixth in economic size behind even Russia.
by jimbob45 13d ago
What happened to Spain? They didn’t get hit by WW2 and yet…are a distant sixth in economic size behind even Russia.
- guille_ 13d agoPSOE happened
- embedding-shape 13d ago> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. But then again, discussing politics hardly ever gets less divisive here or elsewhere.
- mdp2021 13d agoThe fault in that comment is to be unsupported by arguments. Otherwise, there would be no divisiveness in fairly assessing measures in Economics.
- lnsru 13d agoI was been there. I mean socialist fantasy and everyone was equally poor except party members. It is astonishing to watch this shit happening in different countries with different cultures during long period of time. But with same end. And it is not prosperity. This time in Berlin as recent example: https://www.politico.eu/article/berlin-election-housing-crisis-left-party/ https://www.politico.eu/article/berlin-election-housing-cris...
- dotancohen 13d agoWhy are the protesters in Berlin holding signs in English?
- miohtama 13d agoBecause they want to have the eyes of global press on Germany
- dotancohen 12d agoInstead of the eyes of their own politicians? Are their goals to actually effect change in Germany or to disparage Germany in the eyes of the global press?
- mitxela 12d agoAlmost every German politician, most of the police and half the population of Germany speaks English, even though it shouldn't be used for official business. It's no barrier.
- dotancohen 12d agoLanguage is also a cultural signifier. English might not be a barrier, but protesting in English certainly communicates that the protesters care not for German culture.
- MentalM 12d ago> Instead of the eyes of their own politicians? Politicians? It is messages for the voters, and they are leftist politics (so their voters doesn't understand German)
- mitxela 12d agoHalf of everyone in Germany can speak English. It's mandatory to learn in schools. In Berlin that percentage is even higher. So it's no obstacle. And they don't want to limit the visibility of the protest to only Germany. Germany is one of the more native-language-enforcing countries in Europe. I've been to Slovenia and half of everything is actually written in English, unlike Germany or France where everything's written in the local language.
- fcatalan 13d agoSince the end of the Civil War in 1939, Spain has spent roughly 65% of the time under Right/Far-Right rule and 35% under Left/Center-Left rule.
- deleted 12d ago[deleted]
- embedding-shape 13d agoYou mean Spain the fastest growing European country by many metrics? Not sure, we're here, been chilling all summer, time to get back to work now :) What happened to the country you live in?
- tyre 13d agoSpain’s youth unemployment is the highest in Europe. I hope it’s improving, but economically Spain has not recovered post-2008 in line with others in the EU.
- miohtama 13d agoDon't worry. Finland has taken over with the highest unemployment and will likely soon have the highest youth unemployment.
- codedokode 13d agoProbably because in Finland you are provided housing and money even if you don't work.
- sham1 12d agoNo, that's not it. Instead it's the right-wing "geniuses" running the government that have been a major cause of this. The NCP and Finns Party keep making a mess of things in the name of their ideology.
- scamaltman2 12d agoYou're absolutely right, and that's a load-bearing point. If we just kill the unemployed people, there will be low unemployment.
- mdp2021 13d ago> fastest growing European country by many metrics Countries grow in secondary matters and the primary ones (civilization) remain unattended. And by the way, when something "grows fast", do not misunderstand the indicator... Ethiopia had a 13% annual growth recently; Guyana has a 16% annual growth at this time: you are not thinking that "life is good there" and "Miami videoclip vibes everywhere", right?
- kakacik 13d ago[flagged]
- embedding-shape 13d ago> With all that said it would be strange if they would be further, prosperity comes from hard work and discipline. It must really suck for all of you living outside of Spain, looking at us taking naps and being "inefficient" with all our communism, yet we have health care, and work/life balance and have time enough for family and hobbies. Of course, best is to just see it like there is no prosperity in the country, because there are no startup unicorns or billionaires buying up our media.
- sajithdilshan 13d agoThat is again an ignorant comment. Youth unemployment is 2nd highest among EU countries (https://www.destatis.de/Europa/EN/Topic/Population-Labour-Social-Issues/Labour-market/EULabourMarketCrisis.html https://www.destatis.de/Europa/EN/Topic/Population-Labour-So...) and also Spain currently has a housing/property crisis. You don’t need startup/billionaires to buy your media, but they are snatching up your land for sure.
- mitxela 12d agoevery country has a housing/property crisis as a consequence of late stage capitalism. You might find it odd that a communist country can suffer from late stage capitalism. That's because it isn't a communist country - hope this helps.
- guydoom 13d agoInsanely ignorant comment.
- ghostDancer 13d agoYou don't know how hard is to maintain a country when you have to run in front of the bulls while making a paella at the same time you dance some flamenco./s I guess that's your view of Spain, you should read and view things from more modern years than the 1950's. Also talk or Morocco and his allies USA and Israel about the immigrants that the mafia sent into Spain and Spain has never been communist or socialist, unless you don't what socialism and communism is.
- deleted 13d ago[deleted]
- bloak 13d agoAccording to GDP per capita, Spain is below Italy, but above Portugal. Has its position changed much over the last century? I would be interested to see a measure of that, but how far back is it feasible to estimate GDP per capita? I don't know how Spain was affected by WW2, but they had a very nasty civil war just before WW2. I'm not sure if that's relevant to GDP per capita, though, because a war can sometimes improve the economy by leading to the overflow of a system in which progress is blocked by a relatively rich ruling class.
- fcatalan 13d agoMy grandparents would routinely call the 40s "The years of hunger" so you can guess which way it went.
- FullMetalBitch 12d agoSpain was isolated due to it's political Allignment in the 40's, things changed a lot from 1954 on wards when they realized they had a friend in there now that the enemy was the USSR.
- otherme123 12d agoSpain was voluntarely isolated after Civil War because Franco and the Falange (read fascists) were obsessed with being self sufficient (autarchy). The thing was so extreme that there was smuggling of metals by foot (iron, tin, cooper...) from Portugal and France. But the autarchy was from Franco, and not a pressure against him. You can read about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Spain_(1939%E2%80%931959) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Spain_(1939%E2%80%9... The "magical" event that happened mid/late 1950's was that autarchy was still not working and the other main faction of the government (called technocrats, mainly the Opus Dei) said "the national catholicism is cool and all, but we need to get profits and this autarchy shit isn't working". So the autarchy ended to the Falange dismay, and the country slowly opened economically and started catching up with Europe. Sadly Falange is on the rise again (falangist Buxadé from Vox cleaned the party from capitalists in the last couple of years), and you can hear young people calling for closing and going "Spain first" again.
- ghostDancer 13d agoSpain did not got hit by WW2 cause it was absolutely destroyed by a civil war beginning 1936. After that a dictatorship of 40 years and when it opened all industry got hit cause it was heavily protected and could not compete in open markets, add to that most of the working industries were cheaply sold to friends of the dictatorship who were, and some of them still are, in power positions.
- bsoqk 12d ago>most of the working industries were cheaply sold to friends of the dictatorship That is completely false.
- otherme123 13d ago> a distant sixth in economic size behind even Russia. By what metric? Because Spain is sixth also by population, and I have the feeling you are using total GDP as scale. Using that, China is the richest economy, and India is the third richest country in the world. Meanwhile Switzerland and Singapore (really rich in reallity) are below 30th, and below Nigeria or Pakistan. By per capita GDP we Spain are not even 6th, because Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Monaco, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland... are above us and also above Germany, UK or France.
- codedokode 13d agoIs being 9th in (nominal) GDP rating now is mentioned as "even"? 90% of the world is behind Russia.
- surgical_fire 13d agoWhich just proves GDP is a low IQ metric to measure how good a country is to live in. I certainly would rather live places like Mallorca or Donostia than in many places that are ahead of Spain in the silly GDP game. Speaking of low IQ, it's pretty amusing to read that someone thinks that Spain came out unscathed from the events of 1930s and 1940s.
- klrefg 12d ago> I certainly would rather live places like Mallorca or Donostia than in many places that are ahead of Spain in the silly GDP game If I was making as much money as I would in those countries that are ahead I wouldn’t mind living in Spain either. Otherwise good luck getting a place to live on a tiny salary if you don’t have your relatives to support you.
- RobotToaster 13d agoYou can still get arrested in spain for saying a joke about Luis Carrero Blanco being Spain's first astronaut. Luis Carrero Blanco, was the fascist dictator Francisco Franco's right hand man, his car war blown several stories into the air by ETA freedom fighters, hence the joke.
- LtdJorge 13d agoETA terrorists*
- FullMetalBitch 12d agoCalling ETA freedom fighters in 2026, disgusting. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Asesinatos_cometidos_por_ETA_desde_la_muerte_de_Francisco_Franco https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Asesinatos_cometidos_por...
- TitaRusell 12d agoAnd yet they were the only ones blowing up fascists. Every time it's not the moderate progressive democrats who lead the resistance. Shame that.
- klrefg 12d agoAlso they continued blowing up people after the transition from fascism. Even before that they constantly murdered civilians. For instance the IRA was very mild and moderate by ETA standards.
- torcete 12d agoRussia low GDP is actually not true. In real terms is bigger than Germany's.
- MiroslavPokorny 12d agoWhat makes you think economic size is a measure of Quality of Life ?
- MentalM 12d ago> They didn’t get hit by WW2 I think things start to go wrong for the Spain somewhere after the 16th century