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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (174602)	11/9/2005 8:11:17 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 281500

They told me the unemployment rate in Sevilla area was between 20-30% (Officially!!). I could only smile and wonder why Spain's unemployment rate was so high.. Let's see.. Work.. or Party??.. Stay with the folks or move out and have to pay for my own apartment?? Seville doesn't necessarily translate to Spain. I did some googling to try to come up with an answer to your question other than making a conclusion based on a bunch of drunks at 4 a.m. It looks like Spain's unemployment rates change significantly from month to month. That's a puzzle. Young people who have never been employed seem to be the worst problem....which reminded me of some student Slovaks I ran into that were in the US on a summer visa working in North Carolina. Similar problem, youth unemployment in Slovakia is around 25%. At the moment Spain's economy is doing relatively well. They even granted amnesty to some 700,000 undocumented workers. businessweek.com Living in England for 3 years was as much clarifying to their economy as it was confusing. On the confusing side. England has a 17% VAT. But not always. I was talking to a shop owner that said it depends on how much revenue the business generates. He has a partnership where the revenue is split between himself and the partner which keeps them below the limit. Consequently, he neither collects or pays the VAT. It's a 17% discount off the top to the consumer. I couldn't even begin to guess how prevalent or unusual that might be in the economy. Though prices are so high in London, it probably doesn't apply much there. Are they Chinese Jews? I don't think so. Even though there's a fairly high unemployment rate in Israel. It's a business in iteself to bring workers into the country even if there's no work. kavlaoved.org.il Kav La'Oved is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the rights of the most disadvantaged workers in Israel, primarily: migrant workers, Palestinians from the occupation territories, personnel company employees, and new immigrants. kavlaoved.org.il Overall, I find the website to be interesting reading. I've come to believe that every country in the world has it's own dirty little secrets. jttmab

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (174602)	11/9/2005 9:29:17 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 281500

Adding to the puzzlement of Spain's economy... The proportion of people owning their own homes was one of the biggest social revolutions of the last century - up from 10% at the start to 70% at the end. The increase over the past 50 years was even more dramatic, with homeownership increasing by 320% (to 17m homes) as housing stock grew by just 80% (to 24.6m). Can ownership go higher? In a league table of 19 nations compiled by the OECD, seven nations have higher proportions of homeownership than the UK. Margaret Thatcher used to be incensed that several European states under communist rule had higher ownership. Tony Blair retains the same itch. Spain, Greece and Italy all have over 80%. Hungary has 92%. But several social democratic states have less than the UK: not just Scandinavians and the Netherlands, but France (55%) and Germany (42%), too. society.guardian.co.uk 80% home ownership in Spain. If you were to continue to google, you would find that 2nd home ownership in Spain is healthy as well. Is home ownership the American dream or is it also Spainish dream, Greek dream and Italian dream? Is the home ownership in Germany low, because they can't or that isn't part of their cultural dream? IMO, there's something going on in the European economies that at least I don't understand. jttmab