Heard on the radio this morning, an interview with a protestor outside a Spanish Bank.

“I’m protesting because the mortgage company tricked me into accepting a €203,000 loan”.

Neat trick, that. Not “Would you like to borrow €203,000?” “Yes please.”, then…

Two irresponsible parties. The lender and the borrower. The lender tends to know better whether the loan can be paid back.

Add to that an unrealistic property bubble. All bubbles burst despite the denial of the participants.

Of course we’d never fall for it here…

“I’m protesting because the mortgage company tricked me into accepting a €203,000 loan”.

When the loan is sold on the cost of the monthly repayment, much like Littlewoods catalogue, and the bank can almost guarantee the property can be resold at a profit, then yes, I can see how the customer was tricked.
EDITED.

Don’t the Spanish have 2 hours in bed every lunch time?

# the sun’ll come out manyana…#

Do they retire at the same time as the Greeks? Or do they have to work until they’re 30?

Spanish law means you can’t ever escape your debts (AIUI), so even after the banks evict them, they still owe the full amount, hence the banks didn’t are about whether they could ever pay it back as they get the house back (to sell at a loss) and can then chase the debtor till they die for the balance.

I think the 2nd part of the blokes complaint was that the Spanish Government and EU are both bailing the bank that repossessed his house out. Thus the bank makes an irresponsible loan and punishes the borrower whilst having no real penalty for its actions.

He in the meantime gets nothing despite paying for the bank to be bailed out via his taxes.

Interestingly a report out recently showed that the amount of tax collected by the Greek government had gone down as more people were avoiding it not the crisis is getting worse.

Still people seem to miss the main issue – governments spending more than they can afford so they get voted in.

The sooner these basket cases fall out of the EU the better for those left. Then they can either attempt to have the same tax/monetery policys or give up on the whole federal idea.

“I’m protesting because the mortgage company tricked me into accepting a €203,000 loan”.

OK Woppit, how about “I’m protesting because the mortgage industry with all it’s financial expertise set the precedent way too high for borrowing versus personal income, and this company misled it’s less well educated and informed customers about the risks of being unable to repay their loans.” Does that sound more palatable?

FWIW we were cautious and ‘under-borrowed’ in relation to our salaries even with our first “110%” mortgage back in the silly days of 2000-2001 (actually it a 95% mortgage and an unsecured loan for the remainder, and it was with Northern Rock!).

But that doesn’t mean I think that everybody who wasn’t as careful as we were should take the full responsibility for not being able to meet their mortgage payments amid pay cuts and cost of living increases.

In 2000-2001 we could have accepted the “professional and impartial” advice of our financial adviser never mind the sales blurb of Northern Rock and borrowed a lot more than we actually did. I suppose one day I should do some sums and work out where we would be now financially if we had.

Spanish law means you can’t ever escape your debts (AIUI), so even after the banks evict them, they still owe the full amount, hence the banks didn’t are about whether they could ever pay it back as they get the house back (to sell at a loss) and can then chase the debtor till they die for the balance.

This too, which makes a mockery of the application process.

Who would be left?

So…. you’ve defaulted on your mortgage….

I didn’t expect that!

Cross beam’s fouled on’t treddle…

The local bank manager helped my boss fiddle her mortgage application so it would be accepted. (in Spain btw).

Rules/regulations are just optional for too many people over here.

Nobody expects that

Regardless of knock on effects and how Mrs Merkel would feel what’s Spains best course of action?
If Franco junior came along told all the debtors to stuff it and froze the banks what would happen?

Rules/regulations are just optional for too many people over here.

Like tax is optional for the Greeks? And the law is optional for Italians? And pretty much anything is optional for the French? 😆

:Applauds: Druidh!

😆

Don’t the Spanish have 2 hours in bed every lunch time?

No. I work for a company whose HQ is in Barcelona. Usual start time is 0900, lunch 1400 – 1500, finish 1930 – 2000. Some of the senior management may take a longer lunch but not the average member of staff.

There are some very worried people over there.

If Franco junior came along

“Golden Dawn” in Greece… The radio piece suggested that “what we need is a strong leader” is an opinion gaining some traction in Spain.

Viva El Presidente! 👿

No. I work for a company whose HQ is in Barcelona. Usual start time is 0900, lunch 1400 – 1500, finish 1930 – 2000.

I have an office in Barca as well, and I would very much agree with this. Longer lunches only really occur when there are visitors, though. I spend a lot of time there, and my folks are superb. The economic atmosphere in Barca, and Madrid for that matter, is febrile to put it mildly.

Regardless of knock on effects and how Mrs Merkel would feel what’s Spains best course of action?

Change the debt and bankruptcy laws.
Reduce the levels of govt and administration to something that is cost effective.

The economic atmosphere in Barca, and Madrid for that matter, is febrile to put it mildly.

This is the private sector, no? Taking into account that both regional govts are practically bankrupt. 😕

The amount of govt in spain is pretty ridiculous, economically more centralisation would make sense but more regions seem to see more autonomy as the answer. In this part of Spain (the Basque country) the crisis hasnt really happened (well, not like in other parts of Spain), so we’re pretty lucky. This is fueling the idea that autonomy is the best solution, worrying times for Spain. The govt (not just this one) needs to realise that austerity isnt working.

I heard Catalonia is about to Elect Alex Salmond 😯

druidh – Member
I didn’t expect that!

Top factoit heard on the radio last week (from one of the Qi researchers) – the Spanish Inquisition was obliged to give 30 days written notice, so actually everybody expected the Spanish Inquisition, tremendous I thought 😀

With regard to the OP – this attitude is everywhere – it wasn’t my fault I lied on my mortgage/loan/credit card application about my ability to repay the loan. For sure banks have a lot to be held account for as do the governments (who knew exactly what was going on) but every loan has two signatories – the Spanish, Italian and Greek Governments – where they tricked into borrowing all that money ?

EDIT: Barcelona, my daughter worked there for 18 months, despite 25% youth unemployment she got a job pretty easily. When at work she was stunned how little the Spanish did and their casual approach.

but every loan has two signatories

But in a lot of cases the borrower is required to bail out both sides, the banks to pay for others bad debt and themselves to pay their own loan.

@ jambalaya:

Which sector was your daughter working in Barcelona, if I can ask?

I’m Spanish and have been working in Britain for the last 7 years. When I first came one thing that shocked me was the laziness of the staff I was working with… Also was very shocking the amount of people living on benefits and people working part time. I guess there are hard workers and lazy ones everywhere.

I don’t think the main problem in Spain is laziness.
One of the problems is that we are expert creating “economic bubbles” and they eventually burst, as has been said already.
Also what we call “economia sumergida” (black economy?), people working without contracts, or being paid more money than the money they declare, etc

In terms of lunch time, if you have lunch break of 2.5 hours, you’ll be working until 9 pm (9:00-14:00 then 16:30-21:00) I rather be working 9-17:30, like we do here.

Miguelo, a number of people from our Barca office say they’d prefer our hours too. Home to the family earlier!

Do they retire at the same time as the Greeks? Or do they have to work until they’re 30?

Oh Binners just casual racism* surley you can shoe horn a rant about the Euro into this

Wow that david Jones fella seems remarkably well informed about Spain

Superb work Druidh

* Ok its not really but it is pandering to a sterotype and I am some way from forthing or irrate before I get all that again

Wow that david Jones fella seems remarkably well informed about Spain

David Jones, you say?

surely you can shoe horn a rant about the Euro into this

Given the subject matter of the thread, that’s hardly really necessary, is it? The title even contains the word ‘crisis’! Bonus! 😀

“I rather be working 9-17:30, like we do here”

Speak for yourself, where can I get one of those?!!

“Speak for yourself, where can I get one of those?!!”

I know plenty of people that have “one of those”, don’t you?
Not myself, today I’ll be working until 23:00. 😥
Also, when I was in Spain I did a lot of 22:00-8:00 shifts, and 10:00-22:00 on Saturdays and Sundays, but that isn’t what most people do… It was just my case.

In terms of lunch time, if you have lunch break of 2.5 hours, you’ll be working until 9 pm (9:00-14:00 then 16:30-21:00) I rather be working 9-17:30, like we do here.

I bet you weren’t working all of those 9,5 hours though. 😉

I bet you weren’t working all of those 9,5 hours though.

I never said I did… 😉

<amusing anecdotal>
I was talking with a mate a few months ago about this, he was of the opinion that Spain was buggered and there was no way back for them. He’s not the most economically literate so I asked him why he thought that was, and why we in the UK weren’t equally buggered. His (very serious) response was “They’re lazy”. I remembered then why we rarely talk about this kind of thing 🙂
</amusing anecdotal>

Add to that an unrealistic property bubble. All bubbles burst despite the denial of the participants.

I wish it would hurry up and happen here. And that’s not because I want to see lots of people destitute and homeless, it’s because I want life to start becoming more affordable. Too many bad debts and banks/companies/households being kept on life support at the taxpayers expense. (Dons flame proof jacket)

I never said I did…

😆
I once asked someone what time they finished work, five minutes after the boss was the reply. 😯

I wish it would hurry up and happen here. And that’s not because I want to see lots of people destitute and homeless, it’s because I want life to start becoming more affordable.

One of the biggest reasons the PIIGS are in the shit is they can’t do what we do and manipulate the currency to make yourself more competitive.
IIRC Spain is only 30% as competitive with Germany as it was pre Euro, in the past, currency fluctuations would have sorted it, or at least dulled it.
Germany was far too busy lending money to other Euro countries to enable them to buy German goods and keep German workers busy paying more taxes to lend to other Eu …. etc. etc. in order to start the whole roundabout again.
No wonder they were so pro Euro and now desperate to get the PIIGS to sell their souls to pay them back.
The only people austerity is helping is the big Euro banks, it certainly isn’t helping the people.