Posted on 10/13/2009 4:36:52 PM PDT by Stultis
Watch the video report at the source. Crowd yells at Mr. Bean to resign.
Downthread I'll post some other recent news about Spain and the disasterous leadership of Zapatero and his socialists.
Seems like a good time for a round up since Mr. Bean met with Captain 0 today. (Bambi pawned off some Gitmo detainees on Bean.) You will easily note the many similarities between Zippytero and Dear Leader. I mean besides the funny ears.
Spain's government takes its re-enactment of the Second Republic too far in economic realism
By Gerald Warner
September 25th, 2009
The most loathsome government in Europe, outside of Downing Street, is in deep doo-doo and it is a joy to behold. The ludicrous regime in Spain of José Luis Zapatero has driven the country into bankruptcy. From its inception, as a consequence of a knee-jerk, eve-of-poll hissy fit by the electorate after its conservative predecessor stupidly blamed the Atocha station bombing in Madrid on ETA instead of al-Qaeda, the Zapatero government has been little more than a Spanish Civil War re-enactment society.
Persecuting the Church, trying to force doctors to commit abortion against their consciences, pulling down statues of General Franco and renaming streets in honour of Red murderers, digging up “victims of fascism” who (whoops!) embarrassingly turn out to be corpses from the independence struggle of 1808-14 – no student union extravagance of gesture politics has been neglected. Zapatero even acquired membership credentials for the Dead Poets’ Society with his attempt to disinter García Lorca for propaganda purposes. It was all good, clean fun – a real agitprop knees-up, while it lasted.
Unfortunately, Zapatero has now gone too far in his attempt to resurrect the obscenity that was the Second Republic, by replicating its economic achievements. Informed commentators (as distinct from the government) are now forecasting a full-blooded depression in Spain, with unemployment reaching 25 per cent – just as it did under the Republic. Wages have to fall by 10 per cent in real terms, say the experts: try telling that to the comrades in the trades unions. Youth unemployment has already reached 38 per cent. Unemployment benefit has added 3 per cent of GDP to the budget deficit.
[read more at source]
Spanish elections have consequences....just like American elections. Fool enough morons and any mongrel can be elected....
Zapatero’s, however, will have extremely long-lived consequences that I doubt will ever be changed. His acceptance and passage of so-called “gay marriage,” for instance. I doubt that kind of nonsense will ever be expelled from Spain. I’d guess it would certainly be just as difficult of ridding their society of the Moors.
The stifling waves of Zapatero’s political correctness and government programs will linger on, with Spain all the worse for it.
A WSJ economics blog notes that housing starts are up in Spain due solely to government subsidies (ostensibly) intended to improve housing affordability for low income families, and to stimulate investment and job creation. (Sound familiar?)
In Twist, Spanish Housing Starts Rise (September 25, 2009)
As the blog dryly notes (incredulistic emphasis added):
But many independent economists say that subsidizing the construction of new homes at a time when there are an estimated 1 million unsold homes in Spain will prolong the industry’s correction.
Oh, gee, ya think!?
Does Spain have another Generalissimo Franco serving in the Canaries ready to come back to overthrow the current regime?
Is history going to repeat itself?
Spain tips into depression
Spain is sliding into a full-blown economic depression with unemployment approaching levels not seen since the Second Republic of the 1930s and little chance of recovery until well into the next decade, according to a clutch of reports over recent days.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 10:28PM BST 24 Sep 2009
The Madrid research group RR de Acuña & Asociados said the collapse of Spain's building industry will cause the economy to contract for the next three years, with a peak to trough loss of over 11pc of GDP. The grim forecast is starkly at odds with claims by premier Jose Luis Zapatero, who still says Spain's recession will be milder than elsewhere in Europe.
RR de Acuña said the overhang of unsold properties on the market, or still being built, has reached 1,623,000 . This dwarfs annual demand of 218,000, and will take six or seven years to clear. The group said Spain's unemployment will peak at around 25pc, comparable to the worst chapter of the Great Depression.
Spanish workers typically receive 50pc to 60pc of their former pay for eighteen months after losing their job. Then the guillotine falls. Spain's parliament has rushed through a law guaranteeing €420 a month for long-term unemployed, but this will not prevent a social crisis if the slump drags on.
[much more at source]
The pain in Spain falls mainly on the Prime Minister
How many are on the Spanish coast?
Spanish PM blasts "powerful" businessmen
Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:15pm IST
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Monday accused business leaders of selfishly arguing for easier rules on firing workers...The Socialist leader's rhetoric has become more aggressively left-wing in recent months as he tries to maintain the support of core voters...
Asked who he meant by the powerful, Zapatero replied: "All those who have been asking the government to make it easier to fire workers."
"That's who I mean by the powerful. I really think they lack a certain sense of what is good for the country and a certain sensitivity," he said.
Spanish companies want labour rules made more flexible to boost productivity in an economy where inflation long outran the eurozone average and which became over-reliant on services and construction during a now defunct property boom...
In other words, the economy needs the freedom to move workers out of unproductive industries, like building homes that won't be needed for almost a decade (see above). But, like all socialists, Zippy wants to freeze the labor market.
The article goes on to note his plans to boost taxes (sound familiar?) in light of budget deficits that have reached an astounding 10 percent of GDP (familiar?). Business is upset with him for the obvious reasons, and the left is complaining that ratcheting up the VAT will impact the poor disproportionately.
He does look like Mr. Bean.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9B0AF9G0.htm
Spanish PM defends tax hikes
By DANIEL WOOLLS
September 28, 2009
Spain’s prime minister on Monday defended his plans for euro11 billion ($16 billion) in tax hikes even though the country is stuck in recession....
Just got back two days ago from my first visit to Spain. What a beautiful country and extremely friendly people. I was very pleasantly surprised how well our group of Americans was treated. I would go back in a minute. They were heartbroken at losing the 2016 Olympics and to that end it seemed like all of Madrid was undergoing some kind of construction. We all wondered who was going to pay for this massive infrastructure construction.
Well, shame on him. There are no connections between the two. None. Nada. Zip. ...
NCPPF (National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom) Executive Director Kit Gage is a veteran legal activist, serving also as head of the National Lawyers Guild, founded in the 1930s and officially cited as a legal front group for the old Communist Party. The NCPPF has acted as a legal-aid office of sorts for members or alleged members of a wide variety of terrorist groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [piasa note : supported by Libya & Baathist Iraq], the Egyptian Islamic Jihad [piasa note : EIJ is a member of Al Qaeda], Hamas , the Basque ETA separatist group of Spain, the FALN of Puerto Rico, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Shining Path of Peru, and for Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of the 1975 murders of FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams. --------------"Undermining war on terror : Muslim groups weakening fed laws under guise of protecting civil liberties," World Net Daily, March 10, 2003
1999 to 2001 : (MERCY INTERNATIONAL DIRECTOR HAMID AICH AIDS TERROR GROUPS -- INCLUDING SPAIN'S BASQUE SEPARATISTS ETA; See RESSAM, ALQAEDA, DUBLIN CELL) It is believed that between 1999 and 2001, Aich assisted 22 Islamic terrorist organizations, and even funded non-Islamic groups, for instance giving $200,000 to the ETA, a separatist group in the Basque region of Spain. Aich was also the director of Mercy International’s Ireland branch. (This charity has several known al-Qaeda connections by this time (see 1988-Spring 1995 and Late 1996-August 20, 1998).) Despite these connections, he will continue to live openly in Dublin after the newspaper discloses his location. [Mirror, 9/17/2001]--"Profile: Hamid Aich,"http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=hamid_aich_1
The old Soviet Union quite purposely brought diverse terrorist groups (e.g. Irish, South American, Palestinian, etc) together for the explicit purpose that they could share information, techniques and provide mutual support.
Just because the entity that used to host the multicultural terrorist seminars and conventions is no longer on the scene, that's no reason that, once established, this fruitful practice would be abandoned.
This WSJ article explains how the problem of controlling spending in Spain — even if the socialists were trying — is compounded by the fact that much spending is in the hands of regional and municipal governments:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383500568639279.html
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