{"id":24068,"date":"2017-05-25T08:52:31","date_gmt":"2017-05-25T13:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24068"},"modified":"2017-05-25T08:52:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T13:52:50","slug":"catalonia-threatens-spain-with-financial-bloodbath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24068","title":{"rendered":"Catalonia Threatens Spain with \u201cFinancial Bloodbath\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2017\/05\/24\/catalonia-independence-threatens-spain-bond-default-banks\/\">Catalonia Threatens Spain with \u201cFinancial Bloodbath\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"entry-meta\"><strong>Catalonia\u2019s independence would set off Spain\u2019s debt time-bomb.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>On Monday El Pais <a href=\"http:\/\/elpais.com\/elpais\/2017\/05\/22\/inenglish\/1495435474_319567.html\">published<\/a> leaked excerpts from what it claims to be the Catalonian regional government\u2019s road map to independence. The secret document includes a plan for the region to unilaterally break away from Spain should its citizens be prevented from holding a referendum on independence in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00a0provoked a fierce backlash from Madrid.\u00a0\u201cThis proposal is an unacceptable attempt to blackmail the state,\u201d Spain\u2019s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a hastily convened press conference. Spain\u2019s defense minister Mar\u00eda Dolores de Cospedal likened the plot to a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat. In the meantime, Madrid continues to refuse to even entertain the idea of allowing a referendum on Catalan independence, despite the fact that in just about every survey of the last few years 80% of Catalans, including many unionists, have requested one.<\/p>\n<p>It would mean the loss of 25-30% of Spain\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP), says Spain\u2019s Minister of the Economy, Luis de Guindos. And that\u2019s something the government \u201cwill never let happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Catalonia knows it has a card up its sleeves: its <a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2017\/02\/11\/contagion-risk-market-see-catalonian-default-as-spanish-default-moodys\/\">tick-tocking debt bomb<\/a>. Catalonia can no longer issue its own debt and depends on the central government\u2019s national liquidity fund (FLA, for its Spanish acronym) for about 60% of its funds. As ratings agency Fitch <a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2016\/03\/19\/catalonia-flirts-with-default-threatens-spains-debt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">warned<\/a> in April last year when it sent Catalonian debt even deeper into junk territory, the region has grave liquidity problems that will require \u201cproactive management\u201d and \u201cclose collaboration with the central state \u201d \u2014 something that\u2019s clearly not on the cards any time soon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Catalonia Threatens Spain with \u201cFinancial Bloodbath\u201d Catalonia\u2019s independence would set off Spain\u2019s debt time-bomb. On Monday El Pais published leaked excerpts from what it claims to be the Catalonian regional government\u2019s road map to independence. The secret document includes a plan for the region to unilaterally break away from Spain should its citizens be prevented [&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":[2,5,6],"tags":[117,5660,968,9099,743,4255],"class_list":["post-24068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-catalonia","tag-don-quijones","tag-independence","tag-secession","tag-spain","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24068","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=24068"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24070,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24068\/revisions\/24070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}