{"id":11751,"date":"2015-09-03T06:02:42","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T11:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11751"},"modified":"2015-09-03T06:02:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T11:02:42","slug":"europes-rising-fear-of-upheaval-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11751","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s Rising Fear of Upheaval in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2015\/09\/02\/financial-times-merkel-tout-spain-as-shining-example-of-economic-management\/\" target=\"_blank\">Europe\u2019s Rising Fear of Upheaval in Spain<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>After just over three and a half years of \u201cradical\u201d market reforms Spain is now a lean, fit economic machine \u2013 according to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/853e4696-4b14-11e5-9b5d-89a026fda5c9.html#axzz3kKmkTVd5\" target=\"_blank\">Financial Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite a few minor blemishes, such as a 22% official unemployment rate and 50% youth unemployment, the Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy\u2019s economic record is not only laudable, it\u2019s one that the governments of other crisis-hit economies should follow:<\/p>\n<p>The Rajoy government\u2019s courageous economic reforms, helped by ECB action, have allowed Spain to defy the once widespread prediction that it would remain Europe\u2019s economic laggard. Its turnaround is a lesson \u2014 and not just for Greece \u2014 that remaining in the Eurozone does not condemn a nation to economic failure.<\/p>\n<p>The FT is not alone in this assessment. At yesterday\u2019s joint press conference with Rajoy at the German chancellery, Angela Merkel\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elconfidencial.com\/espana\/cataluna\/elecciones-catalanas\/2015-09-01\/merkel-rajoy-independentismo-catalan_996207\/\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a>\u00a0that even Germany, Europe\u2019s industrial powerhouse and financial sugar daddy, had a thing or two to learn from the example set by Spain. Unsurprisingly, Merkel failed to go into any detail, but she did give Rajoy a ringing endorsement:<\/p>\n<p>Spain\u2019s path is moving forward, upward and many people will take that into account<em>\u00a0come election time<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Politics as Usual<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As is the case with just about everything connected to Europe\u2019s slowly unraveling economy, Merkel\u2019s intervention, like the FT\u2019s, was wholly politically motivated \u2013 something Merkel as good as acknowledged when she stated that Germany has a keen interest in ensuring that Spain\u2019s \u201ceconomic progress\u201d continues.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">Given that recent opinion polls suggest that no single party will gain sufficient votes in December\u2019s elections to govern Spain single-handedly, as Rajoy\u2019s People\u2019s Party has done with ruthless efficiency for the last three and a half years, the German chancellor could end up being disappointed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Europe\u2019s Rising Fear of Upheaval in Spain After just over three and a half years of \u201cradical\u201d market reforms Spain is now a lean, fit economic machine \u2013 according to the\u00a0Financial Times. Despite a few minor blemishes, such as a 22% official unemployment rate and 50% youth unemployment, the Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy\u2019s economic record [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5660,279,281,8262,359,8641,743,4255],"class_list":["post-11751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-don-quijones","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-financial-times","tag-germany","tag-mariano-rajoy","tag-spain","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11752,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11751\/revisions\/11752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}