Protests in Spain

[Section_31]

THEY call themselves "youth without a future" - young Spaniards frustrated by their inability to start a career, earn a steady wage and move out of their parents' homes.

 

And for the past week they have fuelled nightly demonstrations in Madrid and dozens of other towns and cities as part of a grass-roots protest movement organised on the Internet that has tapped into long-simmering grievances which have worsened with Spain's economic crisis.

 

The demonstrations ahead of local elections tomorrow have drawn tens of thousands, including unemployed of all ages and pensioners angry over the government's economic policies. But young people make up the vast majority.

 

Paula Mendez Sena, a 24-year-old architect by training, said she was taking part because she has been unemployed since graduating. Her 25-year-old partner who has an engineering degree is also out of work.

 

"At our ages our parents had jobs, a house and children. When are we going to have work and everything our parents had? If I think about it I feel like crying" she said at Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square as some of the dozens of demonstrators who camped out there overnight rested on sleeping bags nearby.

 

Handmade signs posted on the walls of stores in the square reflect the anger felt by many youths.

 

"If you don't let us dream, we won't let you sleep," read one prominent cardboard sign.

 

Inspired partly by the youth uprisings in North Africa, the movement is organised on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter where it has tens of thousands of followers.

 

"The revolutions in Arab nations demonstrated that collective action can crystallize change," said Pablo Padilla, a 22-year-old anthropology student who is a leading activist with "Youth Without a Future", one of the groups convening the demonstrations.

 

"What doesn't lead to change is sitting on the sofa," add Padilla, who began a three-month internship at a website in April that pays just 300 euros ($424) a month after spending a year and a half out of work.

 

Jose Feliz Tezanos, a sociologist at Madrid's UNED university, said the Internet has provided disgruntled youths with a "meeting place" where they can organise that did not exist before.

 

"Social networking sites are the breeding ground for the movement. The environment is not explosive, but it is flammable. A spark would be all it takes to set off signficant conflicts," he said.

 

Police detained 19 people for disorderly conduct and damage to public property early on Tuesday when they cleared the roughly 150 youths who had camped out at Madrid's Puerta de Sol square.

 

The nightly protests have since grown in size and police have not moved to clear the square. The demonstrators say they plan to stay in the square until Sunday when Spain holds municipal and regional elections.

 

While Spain's youth unemployment rate has long been much higher than that for the general population, it has soared since the Spanish economy went into a tailspin following the collapse of a property bubble in 2008.

 

The jobless rate for those under 25 stood at 44.6 percent in February, more than twice the average for the country and the highest youth unemployment rate in the European Union.

 

Mr Tezano estimates that two-thirds of those with a job find themselves in a "precarious work situation" - on temporary contracts or low-paid internships.

 

Government spending cuts to slash the public deficit and reforms intended to revive the economy, such as changes to the labour code that makes it easier to fire workers and the decision to raise the retirement age to 67 from 65, have added to young people's anxiety about their future.

 

"They are cutting all the rights which cost our parents and grandparents blood and sweat to earn," said 32-year-old Claudia Ayala, who is working part-time at a shop while she looks for a job related to her degree.

 

"Spain has been putting up with this situation but it reaches the point where you have to say 'enough'. And that moment has come."

 

Amen sister.

 

When is the west going to get this show on the road then and stop talking about austerity in places like greece, Ireland and Portugal somehow being the answer?

 

It's time for a protectionist western block. The West's people simply can not compete with the vast hordes of slave labour and the autocratic capitalism of places like China and India (where protectionism exists already) so why bother?

 

As Marla Daniels says 'you can not lose if you do not play'.

[Guest TK-421]

So that's where Simon had to dash off to in a hurry.

[Hermes]

"At our ages our parents had jobs, a house and children. When are we going to have work and everything our parents had? If I think about it I feel like crying"

 

She said, clutching her mobile phone and Ipod, before going home to watch satellite TV and everything else she wastes her money on.

[Liverpool lad]

We won't be far behind them, shit being in your twenties now, tough to get yourself on the housing ladder and there is hardly an abundance of work out there.

[Section_31]

"At our ages our parents had jobs, a house and children. When are we going to have work and everything our parents had? If I think about it I feel like crying"

 

She said, clutching her mobile phone and Ipod, before going home to watch satellite TV and everything else she wastes her money on.

 

People have disposable income because they have no mortgage or bills, not the other way around. The net worth of your average 20 something in terms of posessions, pensions and savings I'd wager is probably far less than five grand, if that. Their parents probably had a 40k home.

 

It's been building for years. Binge drinking culture, debt culture, it was all part of the same problem, youth who had no future and who were looking for new distractions and new ways to redefine their lives. The simple things, like having four walls and a roof, a family and a job/trade - the kind of things that people have taken for granted since Roman times - have largely eluded them.

 

There needs to be a fundamental shift in the ideology that underpins our economics. It can no longer be run purely to maximise profit, because the further we go down that road the more people become a smaller part of the equation - you only have to look at the supermarktes replacing checkout girls with machines - while head office clears an extra £1bn profit on top of the an annual turnover of £12bn it was racking up anyway.

 

There should be free markets, but they should exist to make money AND to keep people employed, not simply the former, otherwise we're going to see major unrest and sharp rises in crime and social chaos as the years go by.

[Hermes]

The price of everything will rocket over the next few decades as China and India start to consume more and more and commodities and food become scarce.

[Hermes]

There should be free markets, but they should exist to make money AND to keep people employed, not simply the former, otherwise we're going to see major unrest and sharp rises in crime and social chaos as the years go by.

 

Unions and Socialists won't allow that, they keep the wages artificially high to the point where employing more people would ruin the business. If you want more employed the wages have to fall, otherwise the work goes to India/China.

[Section_31]

The price of everything will rocket over the next few decades as China and India start to consume more and more and commodities and food become scarce.

 

I don't think it's quite as simple as being a case of supply and demand, there's destructive market forces at work, just like with energy prices.

 

Energy prices don't go up because there's a shortage, they go up because someone decides they do. As soon as they go near $100 a barrell the yanks start making noises about 'green technology', at which point the price drifts down again and the green agenda is shelved. Same old shit.

 

With crop science and green tech, it's perfectly possible to live in a balanced world. The problem, as ever, is that the global economy is run by cunts.

 

It's ironic that China is out there at the moment being 'friends' to Africa and South America, helping to build infrastructure and putting their own companies in place. It's mildly amusing in a sense because it's all being directed by the state. While we, with our 'free markets', are not able to even dream of that degree of long term planning, our companies lurch from extreme to extreme chasing short term shareprice rises.

 

It's ironic that the likes of the Chinese will actually use our own love of capitalism against us, they've figured out its flaws and are engaged in a sort of arms race. Just like Raegan managed to bankrupt the Soviet Union, China has bankrupted us - and it's our fault.

 

Guardian.

 

Financial speculators have come under renewed fire from anti-poverty campaigners for their bets on food prices, blamed for raising the costs of goods such as coffee and chocolate and threatening the livelihoods of farmers in developing countries.

 

The World Development Movement (WDM) will issue a damning report today on the growing role of hedge funds and banks in the commodities markets in recent years, during which time cocoa prices have more than doubled, energy prices have soared and coffee has fluctuated dramatically.

 

The charity's demands for the British financial watchdog to follow the US in cracking down on such speculation comes against a backdrop of cocoa prices jumping to a 33-year high as it emerged that a London hedge fund had snapped up a large part of the world's stock of beans. On Friday, traders say, Armajaro took delivery of 240,100 tonnes of cocoa – the biggest from London's Liffe exchange in 14 years and equal to about 7% of annual global production, according to the Financial Times.

 

A 150% rise in cocoa prices over the past 18 months has forced many chocolate-makers to raise their prices and often to use less cocoa.

 

The WDM's Great Hunger Lottery report says "risky and secretive" financial bets on food prices have exacerbated the effect of poor harvests in recent years. It argues that volatility in food prices has made it harder for producers to plan what to grow, pushed up prices for British consumers and in poorer countries risks sparking civil unrest, like the food riots seen in Mexico and Haiti in 2008.

 

Deborah Doane, WDM director, said: "Investment banks, like Goldman Sachs, are making huge profits by gambling on the price of everyday foods. But this is leaving people in the UK out of pocket, and risks the poorest people in the world starving.

 

"Nobody benefits from this kind of reckless gambling except a few City wheeler-dealers. British consumers suffer because it pushes up inflation, because of unpredictable oil and raw material prices, and the world's poorest people suffer because basic foods become unaffordable."

 

The group used figures in Goldman Sachs' annual report to estimate that the bank made a profit of $1bn (£650m) through speculating on food last year. The bank, however, says the "overwhelming majority" of its activities in commodity markets are on behalf of clients and that the WDM's profit estimates are "ludicrously overstated".

 

The charity is urging the UK government to take the lead within the European Union in demanding more transparency and tighter controls in commodities markets. It says 800 people have pledged to call the Financial Services Authority watchdog this week to complain about speculators' growing influence on food prices and demand changes similar to those in the US.

 

A new financial reform law was approved in the US at the end of last week, which campaigners hope will help curb the kind of speculation that last month was blamed for a sudden 20% jump in coffee prices as hedge funds rushed to cover their positions taken in the hope that prices would fall. Banks for their part, argue that the bulk of food price rises are down to changing demands and that financial market derivatives are an important mechanism to allow farmers to hedge their risks.

 

Goldman Sachs dismissed the WDM report as "horribly misinformed on a number of fronts".

 

A bank spokesman, Michael DuVally, said: "Research by respected international bodies, like the OECD, demonstrates clearly that long-term trends, including increased meat consumption by the growing middle class in the emerging markets and the increased use of biofuels in the developed markets, have created a backdrop for global food shortages."

 

The investment bank also denied it was lobbying against changes to market rules. "We have repeatedly said that we support effective reform. Our lobbying effort is designed to achieve reform that will continue to allow producers to hedge their risks so that consumers get the benefit of greater price stability. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous and downright misleading," added DuVally.

 

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation recently cheered anti-poverty campaigners by stating that spikes in food markets "might have been amplified by speculation in organised futures markets" and that some regulation of commodities futures markets was desirable. But its report also said that any intervention should be "cautious and stop short of imposing tight limits or an outright ban on such trading".

 

Such a strong crackdown could hit liquidity in those markets used for hedging purposes, it warned.Instead, regulatory measures should focus on raising confidence in the "good functioning" of the market, including by increasing amount of available information on futures trading. Another would be to closely investigate any instances of suspicious behaviour by traders, as already practised by the US futures trading supervisory body, it said. But campaigners such as the Fairtrade Foundation argue that such markets do not allow smaller farmers to hedge. Rather, the price swings harm them because they are often net buyers of food yet cannot take advantage of short-term price spikes in products they are growing for sale.

 

Toby Quantrill, the foundation's head of public policy, said: "Fairtrade's experience is many consumers are willing to pay a little extra if they know that farmers in developing countries are benefiting, but will be less than impressed if they think they are simply helping city-boy profiteers to line their own pockets."

[Section_31]

Unions and Socialists won't allow that, they keep the wages artificially high to the point where employing more people would ruin the business. If you want more employed the wages have to fall, otherwise the work goes to India/China.

 

Simply not true. There are companies out there like John Lewis where the employees all have shares in the firm's success, and the CEO has his wages capped. Then on the flip side there are firms like Tesco which rake in obscene amounts of profit every year and yet still pay piss-poor wages and will replace staff with automated checkouts to save money.

 

It's not about making money for these corporations, it's about making as much money as possible at all costs. BP's safety record being another good example.

[Carvalho Diablo]

Before their current agreement lapsed, the NFL had a lonstanding salary cap; if a salary cap was to be imposed upon the entire world (!) how much would it be in £'s do you think ?

 

And would you be happy at that sum ?

[Section_31]

Before their current agreement lapsed, the NFL had a lonstanding salary cap; if a salary cap was to be imposed upon the entire world (!) how much would it be in £'s do you think ?

 

And would you be happy at that sum ?

 

I don't think there should be limits on what people can achieve, I just think that when they have achieved they should be made to give something back.

 

The idea that taxing the rich is wrong has somehow gained credibility in the last two decades, which is lunacy really. Even someone like Bill Gates didn't beome rich because he's got magic powers, he became rich because a society existed which allowed him to be raised and educated, and which provided jobs and wages to the many millions of people who bought his shit.

 

The idea that, once he's made his money, he should then be allowed to fly like a caged bird, go and live in Monaco, and we should all be so lucky, is fucking lunacy.

 

The wealthiest people in this country are not bearing the brunt of this so called financial crisis, they just screw the system, just like they do all over Europe.

 

We live in a world where American banks helped Greece's wealthiest people hide billions from the taxman, most of which ended up in Swizzerland, and where American banks helped Greece itself hide the true extent of its structural debt, which then speculated on its financial demise, and which later downgraded its credit rating.

 

We're all living at the pleasure of institutions which, quite frankly, are slowly eating the world.

[Liverpool lad]

Section is winning here

[Hermes]

I don't think there should be limits on what people can achieve, I just think that when they have achieved they should be made to give something back.

 

They do, it's called income tax and corporation tax. But if you put it up too high they emigrate to a lower tax country and you lose their business and all the jobs they provide.

 

The likes of Bill Gates and Tesco employ millions directly and indirectly.

[Section_31]

They do, it's called income tax and corporation tax. But if you put it up too high they emigrate to a lower tax country and you lose their business and all the jobs they provide.

 

The likes of Bill Gates and Tesco employ millions directly and indirectly.

 

This Government recently lowered corporation tax and made it easier for firms based abroad to keep more of their cash. All corporations are hoarding their profits, especially banks - even though they should be lending it.

 

Tesco do indeed employ people but they're symbolic of a modern employer, raking in countless billions while employing people on part time or short term contracts. These jobs are garbage compared to what went before, even when people worked down the docks or at Ford they had pensions, trades, apprentices etc.

 

The only alternative we have these days is to work for shit wages on shit terms, or they'll take their operations abroad where people are more than willing to work for fuck all because they haven't got a pot to piss in.

 

When you hear governments say they're 'listening to the concerns of business', we all know what that means - and it won't end in quality jobs and lives for young people, that's for sure.

[VladimirIlyich]

I don't think there should be limits on what people can achieve, I just think that when they have achieved they should be made to give something back.

The idea that taxing the rich is wrong has somehow gained credibility in the last two decades, which is lunacy really. Even someone like Bill Gates didn't beome rich because he's got magic powers, he became rich because a society existed which allowed him to be raised and educated, and which provided jobs and wages to the many millions of people who bought his shit.

 

The idea that, once he's made his money, he should then be allowed to fly like a caged bird, go and live in Monaco, and we should all be so lucky, is fucking lunacy.

 

The wealthiest people in this country are not bearing the brunt of this so called financial crisis, they just screw the system, just like they do all over Europe.

 

We live in a world where American banks helped Greece's wealthiest people hide billions from the taxman, most of which ended up in Swizzerland, and where American banks helped Greece itself hide the true extent of its structural debt, which then speculated on its financial demise, and which later downgraded its credit rating.

 

We're all living at the pleasure of institutions which, quite frankly, are slowly eating the world.

 

Not to mention using the countries resources,the people,the banks who lend him other peoples money to build up his business into what it is today.

 

This is why the idea of 'self made' millionaires/billionaires is a phallacy as they never do it all by themselves,lottery winners excepted of course.

[dennis tooth]

Private money goes nowwhere fast, public money puts man on the moon builds NHS's and private money sits offshore with a pina colada.

[Ponz]

Simply not true. There are companies out there like John Lewis where the employees all have shares in the firm's success, and the CEO has his wages capped. Then on the flip side there are firms like Tesco which rake in obscene amounts of profit every year and yet still pay piss-poor wages and will replace staff with automated checkouts to save money.

 

John Lewis sell relatively complex luxury goods, which necessitates hiring skilled and trained employees with a stake in the business. Tesco are a bog standard retailer whose competitive advantage derives from price rather than quality. There's nothing sinister about the latter applying a very different business model to the former.

 

As for Spain, their youth unemployment rate is so high because labour laws make it prohibitively expensive to hire graduates on permanent contracts (thereby protecting unionised incumbents).

[Delmar]

The price of everything will rocket over the next few decades as China and India start to consume more and more and commodities and food become scarce.

 

Unions and Socialists won't allow that, they keep the wages artificially high to the point where employing more people would ruin the business. If you want more employed the wages have to fall, otherwise the work goes to India/China.

 

These two posts are contradictory. If the prices will skyrocket here due to the demand in China and India, so will the prices and salaries in China and India. Salaries here will then be closer to those in China and India regardless, no need for them to fall.

 

If the Unions and Socialists (as you call them) wish to be on the side of their own, they should concentrate on unionizing China and India, and campaigning for the people in those countries to get same salaries, working hours, and benefits as we do. Why would they be less deserving than us?

[Pony Princess]

i feel sad when you all argue D:

[Section_31]

John Lewis sell relatively complex luxury goods, which necessitates hiring skilled and trained employees with a stake in the business. Tesco are a bog standard retailer whose competitive advantage derives from price rather than quality. There's nothing sinister about the latter applying a very different business model to the former.

 

As for Spain, their youth unemployment rate is so high because labour laws make it prohibitively expensive to hire graduates on permanent contracts (thereby protecting unionised incumbents).

 

Are you having a laugh?

[Anubis]

BBC News - Spain: Protesters defy ban with anti-government rallies

 

 

Spain: Protesters defy ban with anti-government rallies

 

 

Thousands of people have taken part in protests across Spain's main cities, defying a government ban on political protest ahead of local elections.

 

In Madrid, some 25,000 protesters occupied a main square. Others gathered in Barcelona, Valencia and Seville.

 

The protesters are angry with the government's economic policies and the country's high youth unemployment rate.

 

Spain's electoral commission had ordered those camped out in Madrid to leave ahead of Sunday's elections.

 

But, as the ban came into effect at midnight, the crowds started cheering and police did not move in.

 

The protest began six days ago in Madrid's Puerta del Sol as a spontaneous sit-in by young Spaniards frustrated at 45% youth unemployment.

 

The crowd camping out in the square overnight grew and the protest has spread to other cities across the country.

 

According to Spanish news agency, Efe, a total of some 60,000 protesters has gathered across Spain, in Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao as well as the capital.

 

The protesters, dubbed "los indignados" [the indignant], are demanding jobs, better living standards, a fairer system of democracy and changes to the Socialist government's austerity plans.

 

"They want to leave us without public health, without public education, half of our youth is unemployed, they have risen the age of our retirement as well," said protester Natividad Garcia.

 

"This is an absolute attack on what little state welfare we had."

 

Another protester said she was taking part because she had no employment prospects despite having a degree.

 

It is perhaps surprising that Spain's youth has taken quite so long to come out onto the streets. Unemployment among 16 to 29-year-olds is estimated to be around 45%.

 

The jobless rate for the whole population is over 20% - the highest in Europe. And not only are they fed up with their economic situation, they are also calling for an end to domination of the political system by the two main parties.

 

There is something inevitable about economic crisis leading to protest.

 

The student demonstrations in Britain, the riots in Greece, and the union protests in France, Italy, and Belgium were all born of the same frustration.

 

Europe's leaders have chosen, to a greater or lesser extent, to ignore the voices on the streets. Believing instead that austerity is the way out of the economic crisis.

 

And, so far, the protests across Europe have not grown into anything big enough to force them to change tack

 

"This should make the political classes aware that something is not right," said 25-year-old Inma Moreno.

 

Many of the participants have drawn parallels between their actions and the pro-democracy protests in central Cairo that revolutionised Egypt.

 

Political rallies are banned under Spanish law on the day before elections to allow for a "day of reflection" - a ruling which was upheld by the electoral commission.

 

Some protesters had said they feared a police crackdown, but Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the police were "not going to resolve one problem by creating another".

 

As the midnight deadline to disperse approached, many of the protesters wore tape over their mouths to imply they felt they were being prevented from speaking.

 

The BBC's Sarah Rainsford, in Madrid, said there was a moment's silence as the ban came into effect, before the square erupted in jeers, cheers and chanting.

 

Police were on the scene but did not intervene and the outdoor sit-in appears to be growing rather than ending, says our correspondent.

 

What started as a spontaneous movement now looks like it could be here to stay for some time, she says.

 

Spain's 21.3% unemployment rate is the highest in the EU - a record 4.9 million are jobless, many of them young people.

 

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has expressed some sympathy for the protesters, noting their "peaceful manner".

 

"My obligation is to listen, be sensitive, try to give an answer from the government so that we can recover the economy and employment as soon as possible," he told radio Cadena Ser.

 

However, his Socialist government is expected to fare badly in Sunday's local and regional elections.

[Section_31]

There's nothing the Spanish government can do, just like there's nothing the Irish government can do, and nothing even Obama can do. There are forces at work here that are more powerful than mere governments.

[Ben]

I've just got back from one of those protests in Spain, it was a lot of fun and I'm now pissed, to be honest though most of the people there didn't really know what they were protesting about, all they know is something is wrong and they don't like it. Sleeping in the main square though isn't going to do much to solve it, the intention is there from a lot of people but the messages are mixed.

[jonnybastard]

The glorious day comes ever closer.

[Stu Monty]

It still surprises me the amount of people who seem pretty bright but can't get their heads around how fucked up the system of global capitalism we live in really is. I mean, it's not like the evidence isn't all over the place at the moment and you could quite easily horrify yourself with a day at a PC.

 

Once again the retarded "They employ people, make them pay any tax at all and they'll leave" argument rears its head. And then what would happen? Someone else would fill the gap to sell bread and milk to people, they'd just take slightly less profit from it because they'd see that you can pay tax, make a profit and still pay people a reasonable wage.

 

The problem is that the people who have to make people pay tax are put in power by the people that they have to make pay tax. These people also control the societal norms and prevailing views as they own vast majorities of the media.

 

The game is rigged. The 1% ain't loosening their grip any time soon.