[tatsuke95]

>In the mean time most people in Western Europe suffer far less from the economic crisis than most Americans

I was with you until this. Europe is suffering because of their austerity choices. Unemployment reached, like, 25% in Spain, FAR worse than the US. But I agree, "collapse" is ridiculous. Europe will chug along, albeit at a lower rate of growth.

I learned from living through this crisis (my first as an adult) that people over react like crazy in these situations. So much doomspeak, still.

[kaoD]

I'm from Spain but I acknowledge you shouldn't count us on "Europe". Our government is plain incapable of handling an economic crisis and it's getting worse over time.

We're Africa.

EDIT: to add some more to my comment in case someone's interested.

Spain's just an olygarchy whose population is (purposely) undereducated about politics. Not long ago you could hear people saying "I don't care about politics!" but still complaining about the effects that political decisions brought to their lives.

I'm not trying to solely blame politicians: after all they've been massively voted in the last elections (People's Party got absolute majority!) although to be honest it was out of despair of uneducated population.

The current right-wing goverment acts as if they were following Hayek's advice but spending is being cut only in middle/low-class services. Their own salaries and benefits are still higher than ever, and preferential treatment to "frienly" corporations is daily news. Money's still not flowing, and medium/low-class smothering is getting it worse because most people spend money in surviving rather than buying products and reactivating the economy.

The previous "left"-wing goverment acted as if they were following Keynes' advice, but the best they could come up with was a plan for pavement replacement where most money went through the toilet. Everyone agreed on their inability to rule a country (even their own voters) which led us to current situation.

This is economic hell and NOBODY can save us.

I expect a hot climate this spring. I'm not sure what's going to happen, but something's going to happen again on the streets.

[jseliger]

Not long ago you could hear people saying "I don't care about politics..." but still complaining about the effects that political decisions brought to their lives.

This could definitely be worse in Spain, but it's not unique to Spain. I hear the same sorts of things all the time and even wrote a blog post about one example: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/connecting-the-dots... .

This is economic hell and NOBODY can save us.

I'm not an economist, but based on my reading and (limited) understanding of the situation, the most likely outcome is the destruction of the Euro as a currency, or at least a vast shrinking of the currency zone. Devaluation would help many of the problems Spain, Greece, Cyprus, and others have. It has other well-known problems but the situation is one in which there are no good options.

[kaoD]

Great blog post, although I meant less "economic illiteracy" and more "actively refusing politics" (though I guess they're related.)

> Devaluation would help many of the problems Spain, Greece, Cyprus, and others have.

That's true, but top-tier economies in the euro zone can't afford devaluation, that's why the European Commission imposes devaluation in wage and services.

What they fail to realize is that they're killing their own exports as they suffocate peripheral economies.

[jd]

The economic malaise in Spain is really unbelievable. Take a look at this chart:

http://bit.ly/YNOc4q

(Also view "Unemployment" instead of "Unemployment rate" on the left menu to see the bigger picture)

[fennecfoxen]

Yeah, austerity may be the most proximate thing, but that misses the chronic condition of depressed economic growth. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.

But they try. Lots of European nations punish capitalists sufficiently that they just do their capitalism elsewhere, so any economic growth due to capital investments is happening elsewhere. Half of Europe's problems come from things like...

Okay, take this guy in Greece, who tried to set up an Internet-based olive-oil business (which you'd think would be a natural fit) and had to submit... stool samples... and faced other inane red tape... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/world/europe/in-greece-bus...

to say nothing of insanely rigid diversity and disability hiring quotas which serve more as hoops to jump through than anything equitable and which depress average Greek wages to the tune of... what was it, 25% or so? need to find that article...

and the labor unions... let me quote the tire guy... "How stupid do you think we are?" http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/us-france-workers-...