US & UK - Similar Delusions on Trade

WCH said:

How many of the EU countries have economies in the hole?

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Depends on your measure but the EU economy is growing pretty well, even Greece is seeing more than 2% growth. Unemployment and budget deficits are shrinking as well. The one exception being Italy it seems.

Even Spain has crawled into growth, having been massacred by the crash. Being effectively the retirement village of northern Europe, they had huge amounts of holiday homes, finished and unfinished, clogging their housing market all this time.

WCH said:

How many of the EU countries have economies in the hole?

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Depends on the definition of "hole".

If you go by the 1st quarter numbers.. the UK is last in growth, even outpaced by Greece and Italy, who by many definitions are in a "hole" of some sort. The rest of the EU is roaring ahead. The over all EU growth is only 0.6%, however that is due to the fact that Italy and the UK are so low in growth and account for a large portion of the EU number... basically Italy and the UK are dragging down the over all growth number.. oh and France a bit too.

Another good indicator is unemployment in Spain is down to 17% now and continues to decline and that means the overall EU unemployment is down to 7.7%. Again higher unemployment in France and Italy due to structural issues are dragging up the over all number .. and of course Spains 17% does not help.

Point is, the EU as a block is getting stronger and stronger, where as the UK economy has shown signs of decline.. only thing that is holding up for now is unemployment, but we all know that is a lagging indicator. Just today saw manufacturing drop unexpectedly and the trade deficit jump. No matter how you slice and dice it, the UK economy is starting to hurt due to the insecurities with Brexit and the UK media are afraid to talk about it... funny how losing 1/4 of banker jobs in London is getting so little coverage, considering how big a portion of the UK economy that the banks are.

Manc Skipper said:

Even Spain has crawled into growth, having been massacred by the crash. Being effectively the retirement village of northern Europe, they had huge amounts of holiday homes, finished and unfinished, clogging their housing market all this time.

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Dont forget tourism.. there are so many tourists in Spain due to North Africa being off limits, and Turkey being problematic, that the Belaric Islands have by law put quotas on how many there can come.. and gangs of anti-Tourist Spaniards are harassing tourists (mostly on Mallorca). And I can tell you.. here on the Costa Del Sol.. DAMN there are a lot of people here in August. Oh and another good sign for the Spanish economy, Spaniards are taking more holidays... which again adds to the numbers here. Lets put it this way, cant wait for September to come around Only real positive is the number of bikini babes have increased with the heat...

Not just the Balearics! Barcelona too. It's a Catalan thing? You have to sympathise in a way. Not with the violence, but the housing and parking issues driving the rejection

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nti-tourism-activists-vandalise-bikes-and-bus

Manc Skipper said:

Not just the Balearics! Barcelona too. It's a Catalan thing?

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In a certain manner, yes. Primarily it is of course economic but one has to see that communities that were generally affluent in the past always have the less affluent straggling behind (if indeed not leaving them altogether) once the whole bunch comes out of a crisis. And those less fortunate having gone from "getting by" to "have-nots" not only do not profit from a tourist boom, they don't have any of it "trickling down" to them either. On the contrary, it makes their situation worse with inequality increasing.

Down here Andalucia OTH was always the poorhouse of the peninsula (with or after Extremadura) and tourism as well as snow birds made and make a widely appreciated contribution to the economy. Where those factors do not totally represent a mono-culture down here on the whole, they still do so far more than in the historically diversified Catalunya.

You have to sympathise in a way. Not with the violence, but the housing and parking issues driving the rejection

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Yup, the protesters have a point, their way of expressing it is another matter. There are more worthy addressees in Barcelona and surroundings and they're not tourists either.