These have been a depressing few days. The church's charity, Caritas, spoke of the chronic poverty that afflicts part of Mallorcan society. The town hall in Palma has increased the amount it spends on economic aid to people of the city. Average income levels in the Balearics as a whole are well below what they were some eight years ago.
The latter, it needs pointing out, were 2014 figures, but whether there would be much difference some eighteen months on might be questionable. The experience in Palma would suggest not, albeit there is a caveat in that the town hall has expanded the scope for the aid it hands out.
What is particularly depressing is the fact that there is meant to be an economic recovery. To counter the poverty and incomes' reports have been those which point to what is pretty much a boom time on the high streets (if there were such things). Retail has not known any better times for the past fourteen years. Astonishing. Meanwhile, the price of property goes up, and Ibiza Town can claim to be the most expensive place in Spain. Incredible.
Ignore the depressing reports, adopt an I'm All Right Jack approach and things are astonishing and incredible. But those reports shouldn't be ignored. Things aren't right. They are far from being right. The unions are referring to a structural crisis. The economic one may have passed (for many) but it has left behind a widening imbalance, a major disequilibrium. Maybe it can be possible to begin to appreciate why the Partido Popular, having presided over austerity-turning-riches, is unpopular enough for the electorate to give the likes of Podemos houseroom, even if some of this electorate has previously voted PP. It isn't just corruption. It's the pocket. And the pocket has been picked.
But not for everyone of course. Want to know something else astonishing and incredible? There are 636 owners of more than 32,000 properties in the Balearics: that's fifty each. These aren't banks, these are real people (or real people's companies). In the past ten years the single ownership of multiple properties - from six to ten, from eleven to twenty-five, from twenty-six to fifty - has gone up by roughly 60%.
This, in no small part, has come about because the property market bubble burst so dramatically (albeit not at the top end). Lower-priced property, and lots of it, was available. But it still required someone with a good deal of spare cash to go on a property-buying spree. The time to cash in may have arrived.
The property market, you have the impression (and there seems to be evidence every day to support this), is totally out of whack. (Or rather it's very much in whack if you happen to be among the acquisitive class.) You can never accuse Balearic teachers of missing a good opportunity to indulge in a spot of propaganda, but the image of tented accommodation for one of its membership in Ibiza might be more than just agitation. The problems with rented accommodation on that island appear to be worse than in Mallorca, and they're bad enough as it is here.
The regional government is alarmed at the growing disparity, at the problems with housing and at the level of incomes. But it cannot force onto the market what the market won't accept. It can try, as with its idea of linking hotel star ratings to the "quality" of employment, but this stems at least in part from a political agenda that enjoys casting the hotels in the role of the baddie. Yes, they may only offer contracts for a set number of months, but check out some of the earnings: they aren't as bad as they are made out to be. Not when compared, for example, with the similarly low-paid retail sector.
But to come back to retailing and the current boom in sales. How does this square with incomes in general being so modest and having failed to recover to pre-crisis levels? Does one trust the figure for average income, one of just under eleven grand a year? Who is it that is making all the purchases of household goods that weren't being made even a year ago? The owners of those multiple properties? Foreign owners? Those who are kitting out properties with IKEA stuff and posting them onto Airbnb?
Whatever the answers to these, there is unease - fuelled to a degree by politicians on a mission - caused by the seemingly widening gap in society. Recessions, a sort of maxim goes, are economic occasions when advantages can be sought and gained. Property appears to be one of them. Allied to this is the fall in incomes and the unions' structural crisis afflicting the middle as well as working class. And then there's the chronic poverty.
Thankfully, the sun shines. But it hides the clouds.
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 01, 2016
Thursday, February 20, 2014
The Quality Of Lies
Mallorca, the Balearic Islands. Play the word or phrase association game and what words or phrases would come to mind? How about quality of life? Of course. Above all else there is quality of life. The Confederation of Savings Banks (Funcas) has been playing the word/phrase association game but in a more scientific manner. It hasn't simply plucked a concept out of the deep blue sky or from the richly turquoise seas. It has engaged in measurement, one called the Human Development Index. It has considered the regions of Spain. Mallorca, the Balearic Islands. Quality of life. Where did it go? The islands' index of human development worsened more than any other region between 2006 and 2011. The Balearics have lost more by way of standard of living and quality of life than anywhere else in Spain.
While hard data, such as employment statistics and per capita income, suggest that the Balearics are doing reasonably well (all things being relative, as crisis begins to show signs of becoming less of a crisis), the Human Development Index - a methodology adopted by the United Nations - suggests a rather different picture. It embraces additional factors - population movements, access to health care, standards of education - and through its application by Funcas, it leads to a result that, for many people, will seem staggering; Balearics' quality of life is not as it might be presumed to be or might be hoped to be.
On population, though there is evidence of people leaving the islands - expatriates returning "home", younger islanders seeking employment abroad - there has in fact been a positive rate of internal migration, one largely created by Spaniards from the mainland coming to the islands (presumably looking for work). Yet, that work hasn't necessarily been available, especially not in construction, and the positive population growth just adds pressure to services that were already stretched to the limit. On education, I guess we should by now all know what the problem is; not one to be addressed by introducing a three-language method of teaching but a public education system that has been failing for years and which still fails to prevent the Balearics from having the highest school dropout rate in the country. On health care, it depends. Depends on being a part of the social security system or being allowed to be part of that system. For the immigrant who is "sin papeles", it means exclusion. It can also mean death, as was the case with Alpha Pam.
And then there is poverty. Over a period of only five years, the Balearics fell from a position of having the lowest level of economic poverty in Spain to having one of the highest. The poverty rate in the Balearics tripled between 2006 and 2011; it was the greatest rise among all the regions. Human development has not just stalled, it has gone backwards. Mallorca, the Balearic Islands, quality of life.
The sad truth is that this should have been foreseen, but the complacency induced by tourism has, perhaps until now, failed to bring eyesight to the blind of policymakers seduced by the ability of tourism to offset the worst of economic performance. And had it not been for tourism these past few years, the Balearics would have been engulfed by a giant wave of economic desolation. Many people have observed - and I include myself among them for many years now - that there are structural weaknesses in the Balearics. Education is one such, but the lack of economic diversification and the relatively low levels of industrialisation are others. These weaknesses seemed not to matter when times were such that the islands could build themselves into a position of relative economic strength - literally build - but they have made more incurable the blindness that had been falsely remedied by pairs of spectacles with tourism for one lens, construction for the other but with no spare set for when one of the lenses was shattered.
Though employment can and does increase, if only temporarily, and though per capita income levels are, by Spanish standards, reasonable, these measures merely add to the blindness that doesn't see, or maybe doesn't want to see, the low levels of productivity and the widening inequality gap. Politicians should of course see all this and perhaps they are now seeing. It is they who should be most alarmed at the fall in the Human Development Index and alarmed at the fact that the report which has revealed this fall has been compiled by the Confederation of Savings Banks. What a supreme irony that the institutions which helped to bring about the fall are the ones now telling us how far we have fallen. The institutions which were friends of regional governments. For the politicians, the question is how to respond. Quality of life or the quality of lies.
While hard data, such as employment statistics and per capita income, suggest that the Balearics are doing reasonably well (all things being relative, as crisis begins to show signs of becoming less of a crisis), the Human Development Index - a methodology adopted by the United Nations - suggests a rather different picture. It embraces additional factors - population movements, access to health care, standards of education - and through its application by Funcas, it leads to a result that, for many people, will seem staggering; Balearics' quality of life is not as it might be presumed to be or might be hoped to be.
On population, though there is evidence of people leaving the islands - expatriates returning "home", younger islanders seeking employment abroad - there has in fact been a positive rate of internal migration, one largely created by Spaniards from the mainland coming to the islands (presumably looking for work). Yet, that work hasn't necessarily been available, especially not in construction, and the positive population growth just adds pressure to services that were already stretched to the limit. On education, I guess we should by now all know what the problem is; not one to be addressed by introducing a three-language method of teaching but a public education system that has been failing for years and which still fails to prevent the Balearics from having the highest school dropout rate in the country. On health care, it depends. Depends on being a part of the social security system or being allowed to be part of that system. For the immigrant who is "sin papeles", it means exclusion. It can also mean death, as was the case with Alpha Pam.
And then there is poverty. Over a period of only five years, the Balearics fell from a position of having the lowest level of economic poverty in Spain to having one of the highest. The poverty rate in the Balearics tripled between 2006 and 2011; it was the greatest rise among all the regions. Human development has not just stalled, it has gone backwards. Mallorca, the Balearic Islands, quality of life.
The sad truth is that this should have been foreseen, but the complacency induced by tourism has, perhaps until now, failed to bring eyesight to the blind of policymakers seduced by the ability of tourism to offset the worst of economic performance. And had it not been for tourism these past few years, the Balearics would have been engulfed by a giant wave of economic desolation. Many people have observed - and I include myself among them for many years now - that there are structural weaknesses in the Balearics. Education is one such, but the lack of economic diversification and the relatively low levels of industrialisation are others. These weaknesses seemed not to matter when times were such that the islands could build themselves into a position of relative economic strength - literally build - but they have made more incurable the blindness that had been falsely remedied by pairs of spectacles with tourism for one lens, construction for the other but with no spare set for when one of the lenses was shattered.
Though employment can and does increase, if only temporarily, and though per capita income levels are, by Spanish standards, reasonable, these measures merely add to the blindness that doesn't see, or maybe doesn't want to see, the low levels of productivity and the widening inequality gap. Politicians should of course see all this and perhaps they are now seeing. It is they who should be most alarmed at the fall in the Human Development Index and alarmed at the fact that the report which has revealed this fall has been compiled by the Confederation of Savings Banks. What a supreme irony that the institutions which helped to bring about the fall are the ones now telling us how far we have fallen. The institutions which were friends of regional governments. For the politicians, the question is how to respond. Quality of life or the quality of lies.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Ill Manors - The Majorca Re-mix
Let's all go on a summer holiday
The telly makes us less than ignorant
So we know it's true
That means off-face pissed and violent
She's got business for more than a hug
On second thoughts you don't wanna get mugged
Oh shit, too drunk that was simply dumb
Whose idea was that balcony
He's lost his life, haven't we all
Be a diver, act the fool
What's holidays all in all
Inclusive gaff, sex rituals
Not all year round, not at all
Fewer months before the Fall
Get away with thieving in town halls
Four figure bungs the minimum rule
We're all liars, piss takers
Every single one expat's not what they say
Keep on believing what you read in the papers
Airhead, air-heeled "girls", sloshed blokes all day
Think you know how life on a paradise island is
From everything you've ever read about it or heard
Well it's all true, but not truth that's nicest
There's no need to set foot on the strip
Truth is here, Stacey lets it rip
The cheats and lies, we've lost our grip
Feed the fear that's what we've found
Crisis reigns, we all fall down
Oi! I said oi!
What you thinking of, you stupid Raj-oy!
We're poor round here, run home and lock our doors
But there's no homes no more, we're getting robbed for
Real (yeah) makes my manors ill
My manners ill
For real
Yeah you know we've taken ill, crisis ill!
You'll get found in a beach concrete jungle
New hotels keep ripping up our nature
Whichever road leads to a blinged-up Russian
Hoods in hoods rob blind and fracture
We've got an eco-friendly government
Waste imports help pay Endesa
Built an entire congress centre
Around where we live for sale for rent flats
Take away our money and keep raising tax
Island's health care, yes please many thanks
Petrol tax for health so less in the tanks
Nice knowing there's the FO when we get attacked
Don't give us all that
We're all losing our temper
When'll they close down the consulate centre?
Killing time in what used to be winter
Tourism's confined from May to September
Schools don't work, which language rules, let's get out
People hurting, I predict a riot
Year in year out
No one knows if things'll turn about
What does the King say? Stuff about the youth
Kids on the street no they'll never work, only looking for cheap
Street drinking at botellón proof
All go looting
No not Luton
Stacey, it's closer, cover your eyes
But if you see, you might realise
It'll make you wish you'd stayed outside
Here's what you get for corruption, all the lies
Do what Rajoy does ... smoke a cigar
Oi! I said oi!
What you thinking of, you stupid Raj-oy!
We're poor round here, run home and lock our doors
But there's no homes no more, we're getting robbed for
Real (yeah) makes my manors ill
My manners ill
For real
Yeah you know we've taken ill, crisis ill!
We've had it with corrupt politicians
The bloody rich kids always prosper
'Cos of papa's millions in broken Majorca
Everyone else broke in Majorca
What needs fixing is society
And that means all the impropriety
It's not Stacey's television
It's all the crooks who should be in prison
Oi! I said oi!
What you thinking of, you stupid Raj-oy!
We're poor round here, run home and lock our doors
But there's no homes no more, we're getting robbed for
Real (yeah) makes my manors ill
My manners ill
For real
Yeah you know we've taken ill, crisis ill!
* With full acknowledgement to Ben Drew (Plan B).
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The telly makes us less than ignorant
So we know it's true
That means off-face pissed and violent
She's got business for more than a hug
On second thoughts you don't wanna get mugged
Oh shit, too drunk that was simply dumb
Whose idea was that balcony
He's lost his life, haven't we all
Be a diver, act the fool
What's holidays all in all
Inclusive gaff, sex rituals
Not all year round, not at all
Fewer months before the Fall
Get away with thieving in town halls
Four figure bungs the minimum rule
We're all liars, piss takers
Every single one expat's not what they say
Keep on believing what you read in the papers
Airhead, air-heeled "girls", sloshed blokes all day
Think you know how life on a paradise island is
From everything you've ever read about it or heard
Well it's all true, but not truth that's nicest
There's no need to set foot on the strip
Truth is here, Stacey lets it rip
The cheats and lies, we've lost our grip
Feed the fear that's what we've found
Crisis reigns, we all fall down
Oi! I said oi!
What you thinking of, you stupid Raj-oy!
We're poor round here, run home and lock our doors
But there's no homes no more, we're getting robbed for
Real (yeah) makes my manors ill
My manners ill
For real
Yeah you know we've taken ill, crisis ill!
You'll get found in a beach concrete jungle
New hotels keep ripping up our nature
Whichever road leads to a blinged-up Russian
Hoods in hoods rob blind and fracture
We've got an eco-friendly government
Waste imports help pay Endesa
Built an entire congress centre
Around where we live for sale for rent flats
Take away our money and keep raising tax
Island's health care, yes please many thanks
Petrol tax for health so less in the tanks
Nice knowing there's the FO when we get attacked
Don't give us all that
We're all losing our temper
When'll they close down the consulate centre?
Killing time in what used to be winter
Tourism's confined from May to September
Schools don't work, which language rules, let's get out
People hurting, I predict a riot
Year in year out
No one knows if things'll turn about
What does the King say? Stuff about the youth
Kids on the street no they'll never work, only looking for cheap
Street drinking at botellón proof
All go looting
No not Luton
Stacey, it's closer, cover your eyes
But if you see, you might realise
It'll make you wish you'd stayed outside
Here's what you get for corruption, all the lies
Do what Rajoy does ... smoke a cigar
Oi! I said oi!
What you thinking of, you stupid Raj-oy!
We're poor round here, run home and lock our doors
But there's no homes no more, we're getting robbed for
Real (yeah) makes my manors ill
My manners ill
For real
Yeah you know we've taken ill, crisis ill!
We've had it with corrupt politicians
The bloody rich kids always prosper
'Cos of papa's millions in broken Majorca
Everyone else broke in Majorca
What needs fixing is society
And that means all the impropriety
It's not Stacey's television
It's all the crooks who should be in prison
Oi! I said oi!
What you thinking of, you stupid Raj-oy!
We're poor round here, run home and lock our doors
But there's no homes no more, we're getting robbed for
Real (yeah) makes my manors ill
My manners ill
For real
Yeah you know we've taken ill, crisis ill!
* With full acknowledgement to Ben Drew (Plan B).
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Pleading Poverty: Business eco-tax
I know many a business owner who pleads poverty. And almost as many who are claim to be in penury yet then show off their latest five thousand euro Rolex or race past you in a new Beemer sports utility vehicle en route to one of their five remaining fincas. I take much of this boracic special pleading with a rather larger pinch of salt than that which many below the breadline in Mallorca can afford. Occasionally, just ever so occasionally, I can indulge in the deliciousness of schadenfreude. Did you hear the one about the owner of a car-rental firm who took delivery of a 300 grand Ferrari and promptly wrote it off when taking it out for its first spin?
Not all of this impecuniousness is feigned. Sometimes it is genuine. But there are certainly businesses which are still doing very nicely thank you, despite what their owners might prefer you to believe. And some of these businesses are in the car-rental sector: primarily those with sufficient purchasing power to create volume and to be able to compete on price (up to a point). There are others in the sector which are not so lucky, the smaller operations. It was once explained to me - at length - how margins are for such small concerns. To describe them as low doesn't quite do them justice.
The car-rental sector is rightly angry with the regional government's immovability over the tax on car hire, especially as the government appears willing to negotiate with owners of large retail centres over the imposition of taxes on them. The retailers argue that the so-called environmental tax on their properties will leave them not making a profit. I don't believe this for one moment, just as I don't believe that larger car-rental firms will go to the wall because of the hire-car tax, but I do have some sympathy. Not huge amounts but some.
The government is having a laugh. Does it seriously expect us to believe that it is interested in saving the planet? To dub these latest taxes as environmental is an insult to everyone's intelligence. The government has eyed up where it might be able to extract further pounds of flesh and dressed this flesh up with the propaganda of the "eco". It is sophistry of the highest, or is it the lowest, order. A government which can, certainly if you believe our good friends GOB, march all over virgin beaches or, through its chums at the Council of Mallorca, reverse a previous decision and permit the building of the Sencelles golf development has little credibility when it comes to environmental righteousness. Its justification for the new taxes is garbage. Just call them taxes and don't try and kid anyone.
These taxes are examples of the ways in which governments, both the regional one and the national one, can make things up as they go along or suddenly discover some decision or law from the past and decide to implement it, a classic case in point being the 1988 coasts law, application of good parts of which had been on the statute book for almost twenty years before zeal in the name of the environment finally reared its head (ironically, given that the coasts law is now being reformed). This making up of things, typified by the tax-raising opportunism the regional government has dreamt up, does business no service. I would dearly love to know what Media Markt, having finally been able to open in Palma and having been prepared to invest in the local economy, make of suddenly potentially being presented with a tax demand because, allegedly, customers availing themselves of its products are polluting the atmosphere in the immediate environs of the Ocimax centre.
Businesses need certainty, yet the government appears not to understand this. All it does appear to understand, where business is concerned, is that which comes replete with en-suite bedrooms and lobbies with florally-adorned atriums. I still struggle to understand how a tax on retail centres does not also apply to larger hotel sites. Well, I do understand. The hotels would have a screaming fit, while their guests don't pollute the atmosphere as customers do by arriving by the car load at a hypermarket (no, but they do so in different ways).
The trouble is, though, that just as the government is making things up by arguing the green case for taxes, so some businesses play a propaganda game themselves. If they didn't play the poverty hand, there might be more and genuine sympathy for them. They should understand that there are increasing numbers of people in Mallorca who know what poverty means. New Rolex, anyone?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Not all of this impecuniousness is feigned. Sometimes it is genuine. But there are certainly businesses which are still doing very nicely thank you, despite what their owners might prefer you to believe. And some of these businesses are in the car-rental sector: primarily those with sufficient purchasing power to create volume and to be able to compete on price (up to a point). There are others in the sector which are not so lucky, the smaller operations. It was once explained to me - at length - how margins are for such small concerns. To describe them as low doesn't quite do them justice.
The car-rental sector is rightly angry with the regional government's immovability over the tax on car hire, especially as the government appears willing to negotiate with owners of large retail centres over the imposition of taxes on them. The retailers argue that the so-called environmental tax on their properties will leave them not making a profit. I don't believe this for one moment, just as I don't believe that larger car-rental firms will go to the wall because of the hire-car tax, but I do have some sympathy. Not huge amounts but some.
The government is having a laugh. Does it seriously expect us to believe that it is interested in saving the planet? To dub these latest taxes as environmental is an insult to everyone's intelligence. The government has eyed up where it might be able to extract further pounds of flesh and dressed this flesh up with the propaganda of the "eco". It is sophistry of the highest, or is it the lowest, order. A government which can, certainly if you believe our good friends GOB, march all over virgin beaches or, through its chums at the Council of Mallorca, reverse a previous decision and permit the building of the Sencelles golf development has little credibility when it comes to environmental righteousness. Its justification for the new taxes is garbage. Just call them taxes and don't try and kid anyone.
These taxes are examples of the ways in which governments, both the regional one and the national one, can make things up as they go along or suddenly discover some decision or law from the past and decide to implement it, a classic case in point being the 1988 coasts law, application of good parts of which had been on the statute book for almost twenty years before zeal in the name of the environment finally reared its head (ironically, given that the coasts law is now being reformed). This making up of things, typified by the tax-raising opportunism the regional government has dreamt up, does business no service. I would dearly love to know what Media Markt, having finally been able to open in Palma and having been prepared to invest in the local economy, make of suddenly potentially being presented with a tax demand because, allegedly, customers availing themselves of its products are polluting the atmosphere in the immediate environs of the Ocimax centre.
Businesses need certainty, yet the government appears not to understand this. All it does appear to understand, where business is concerned, is that which comes replete with en-suite bedrooms and lobbies with florally-adorned atriums. I still struggle to understand how a tax on retail centres does not also apply to larger hotel sites. Well, I do understand. The hotels would have a screaming fit, while their guests don't pollute the atmosphere as customers do by arriving by the car load at a hypermarket (no, but they do so in different ways).
The trouble is, though, that just as the government is making things up by arguing the green case for taxes, so some businesses play a propaganda game themselves. If they didn't play the poverty hand, there might be more and genuine sympathy for them. They should understand that there are increasing numbers of people in Mallorca who know what poverty means. New Rolex, anyone?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, August 27, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Poverty in the Balearics above national average
A study by researchers at the Universitat de les Illes Balears places poverty levels in the Balearics at 23.4% of all homes, almost three points above the national average and an increase of over seven points since 2007.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Friday, July 13, 2012
Empire Of The Sun: Balearics poverty
The Spanish word "miseria" can have different meanings. Whichever one you take, they amount to much the same thing. Misery, wretchedness, poverty; they are indistinguishable.
The latest survey of poverty makes the Balearics the fourth poorest region of Spain or, if you prefer your translation, the region which, after the Canaries, Extremadura and Andalucía, is the fourth most miserable and the fourth most wretched. Such a conclusion doesn't do much for all the paradise island guff. It also doesn't do much for the poor who are about to be slammed with a rise in the cost of living because of the increase in IVA. To put this rise in some sort of context, it is estimated that it will cost each household a bit over 700 euros more a year. This in a country where the minimum salary is under 700 (it is in fact around 640 euros per month).
The poverty statistics for the Balearics are bad enough, but if you take them for Spain as a whole, then they are even worse. Spain has the highest index of poverty in the whole of the European Union. And this is a country that is meant to be among the world's richest countries, if only determined by IMF figures for GDP. Yet it isn't surprising. I drew a comparison yesterday with the French minimum salary. This comparison, and comparisons with other European countries, together with their respective general rates of value added tax, are being widely made. There is a very good reason why. Rajoy in his address on Black Wednesday had the brass neck to say that the French rate of VAT was higher than Spain's. Yes, it is, but it won't be once the 21% rate comes in, but more pertinent is the comparative level of income. It is typical for politicians to be economic with their facts, and Rajoy is certainly no different.
The misery and additional poverty that the Spanish Government is about to inflict on the Balearics (and the nation) are not matched by the demeanour of these politicians. The PSOE party locally has gone on Facebook to show a photo of an Italian politician in tears when the announcement had to be made of cuts. It is compared with a truly abhorrent, horrible photo of Rajoy being applauded by members of his cabinet after his address on Wednesday. How dare they? They should hang their heads in shame. Italian politicians could empathise with the misery by being miserable. The Spanish ones can't. They are a disgrace.
In addition to the survey on poverty, another report has been issued. This one calculates that one in four people in the Balearics is at the risk of poverty, a figure that has risen by around 20,000 people in three years. And while this risk increases, the aid, what little there is because Spain isn't particularly generous anyway, is being cut. It is said that the cut to unemployment benefit, another element of the Black Wednesday announcement which Rajoy's cronies were so determined to applaud, will hit the Balearics harder than anywhere because of the dependence upon tourism and therefore the high level of seasonal employment (and unemployment).
The Balearics may not be the worst affected, but if not, this will be because either the Canaries or Andalucía is more affected. Two other regions with the highest levels of poverty, misery and wretchedness.
Yet, how can this all be, some will ask. The wonderful weather, the wonderful lifestyle, the wonderful people, the wonderful ... . Oh, do shut up. It is no coincidence that the Balearics, the Canaries and the region that is home to the Costa del Sol have such high levels of poverty. Each is dependent upon tourism and each employs people on low wages who are finding it increasingly difficult to even obtain employment contracts long enough to enable them to qualify for benefit.
The paradise island line is a facade, a statement of unreality. It is one trotted out by ignorant or smug expatriates who have not the faintest idea. Or one used by visitors who are similarly ignorant. They at least can be excused.
It is the facade, the superficiality of beach lifestyle, of the yacht club, of the golf club, of the doing lunch, of the doing dinner. It is one behind which many can shield themselves. Yet it is a facade that is showing signs of cracking. The Empire of the Sun on the paradise island may not be subject to anything as dramatic as an invasion force turning a world of smug aloofness and parties upside down, but the sun is lowering. It is not going down and never will, but no empire ever lasted.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The latest survey of poverty makes the Balearics the fourth poorest region of Spain or, if you prefer your translation, the region which, after the Canaries, Extremadura and Andalucía, is the fourth most miserable and the fourth most wretched. Such a conclusion doesn't do much for all the paradise island guff. It also doesn't do much for the poor who are about to be slammed with a rise in the cost of living because of the increase in IVA. To put this rise in some sort of context, it is estimated that it will cost each household a bit over 700 euros more a year. This in a country where the minimum salary is under 700 (it is in fact around 640 euros per month).
The poverty statistics for the Balearics are bad enough, but if you take them for Spain as a whole, then they are even worse. Spain has the highest index of poverty in the whole of the European Union. And this is a country that is meant to be among the world's richest countries, if only determined by IMF figures for GDP. Yet it isn't surprising. I drew a comparison yesterday with the French minimum salary. This comparison, and comparisons with other European countries, together with their respective general rates of value added tax, are being widely made. There is a very good reason why. Rajoy in his address on Black Wednesday had the brass neck to say that the French rate of VAT was higher than Spain's. Yes, it is, but it won't be once the 21% rate comes in, but more pertinent is the comparative level of income. It is typical for politicians to be economic with their facts, and Rajoy is certainly no different.
The misery and additional poverty that the Spanish Government is about to inflict on the Balearics (and the nation) are not matched by the demeanour of these politicians. The PSOE party locally has gone on Facebook to show a photo of an Italian politician in tears when the announcement had to be made of cuts. It is compared with a truly abhorrent, horrible photo of Rajoy being applauded by members of his cabinet after his address on Wednesday. How dare they? They should hang their heads in shame. Italian politicians could empathise with the misery by being miserable. The Spanish ones can't. They are a disgrace.
In addition to the survey on poverty, another report has been issued. This one calculates that one in four people in the Balearics is at the risk of poverty, a figure that has risen by around 20,000 people in three years. And while this risk increases, the aid, what little there is because Spain isn't particularly generous anyway, is being cut. It is said that the cut to unemployment benefit, another element of the Black Wednesday announcement which Rajoy's cronies were so determined to applaud, will hit the Balearics harder than anywhere because of the dependence upon tourism and therefore the high level of seasonal employment (and unemployment).
The Balearics may not be the worst affected, but if not, this will be because either the Canaries or Andalucía is more affected. Two other regions with the highest levels of poverty, misery and wretchedness.
Yet, how can this all be, some will ask. The wonderful weather, the wonderful lifestyle, the wonderful people, the wonderful ... . Oh, do shut up. It is no coincidence that the Balearics, the Canaries and the region that is home to the Costa del Sol have such high levels of poverty. Each is dependent upon tourism and each employs people on low wages who are finding it increasingly difficult to even obtain employment contracts long enough to enable them to qualify for benefit.
The paradise island line is a facade, a statement of unreality. It is one trotted out by ignorant or smug expatriates who have not the faintest idea. Or one used by visitors who are similarly ignorant. They at least can be excused.
It is the facade, the superficiality of beach lifestyle, of the yacht club, of the golf club, of the doing lunch, of the doing dinner. It is one behind which many can shield themselves. Yet it is a facade that is showing signs of cracking. The Empire of the Sun on the paradise island may not be subject to anything as dramatic as an invasion force turning a world of smug aloofness and parties upside down, but the sun is lowering. It is not going down and never will, but no empire ever lasted.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
You Have The Poor Always With You
What does the Spanish region of Extremadura have in common with Ethiopia? (And don't say that both start with an "e".)
The two share a strikingly similar percentage in terms of their respective rates of poverty. The measures are different, as greatly different factors come into play, but the percentage of the population of Extremadura currently in poverty is 38%. In 2005, according to figures released by the CIA, Ethiopia, only six notches above the poorest two countries in the world in terms of per capita income, had a poverty rate of 38.7%.
Don't let us confuse the two figures. Local standards of living mean that the poverty rates are calculated quite differently, but even so, if African poverty is considered a bad thing, which it is, should we not be somewhat alarmed by a level of poverty in Spain that, in relative terms, is equally as bad?
Extremadura, as revealed by new figures from the INE (the Spanish national statistics office), is Spain's poorest region. And the Spanish are getting poorer. Provisional figures for 2011 suggest that there has been an increase of just over one percentage point, to 21.9%, of people in Spain who live below the breadline, defined in terms of a two-child family with an income of less than 15,820 euros a year.
The Balearics sit in the middle of the league table of rich and poor parts of Spain;20.6% of the population in 2010 existed in poverty, almost exactly the same as the national average of 20.7% last year. Taking the CIA's statistics, Spain, to put it bluntly, is the poorest country in western Europe. It is poorer than many countries in eastern Europe, and the Balearics are pretty much bang on the same mark.
National and regional wealth do paint a different picture. The Balearics, by GDP per head of population, is one of the wealthiest parts of Spain, and Spain is rated by the IMF as the twelfth richest nation in the world. Not that this necessarily counts for much when a country can get itself into such a crisis of debt. And there is no getting away from the fact that economic crisis has added to the level of poverty and from the fact that, regardless of GDP figures, there is real hardship in the Balearics and an increasing inequality in the distribution of wealth.
Among the various statistics that inform the INE's report is a measure of "delays in payments related to the main dwelling" (by which is meant ability to meet mortgage or rent payments, among others). On this measure, the Balearics are by far the worst region in Spain, by almost five percentage points more than the next poorest performing region, the Canary Islands.
Such a finding can be interpreted in different ways. It could be that people have overstretched themselves where mortgage commitments are concerned - which has certainly been the case - but it might also suggest that the Balearics, and property values in particular, are too expensive, relative to general earnings capacity.
If this is so, and one is inclined to believe it to be so, then the regional government's decision to unblock projects for more luxury property development and the fact that the luxury real-estate market is relatively buoyant at present (buoyant especially where overseas buyers are concerned) put the situation into sharper relief, and it borders on the obscene.
The national government and the regional government in the Balearics operate, by comparison with other European countries, from a low base when it comes to provisions of a welfare state. But what provisions there are, are due to fall to an even lower base. The Bauzá administration is entirely mute on the subject of welfare, save for its wishes to make cuts. And these cuts have so far been more drastic than in any other part of Spain, and we yet to have revealed the full horrors that await under a national Partido Popular government.
In a few days time, we will witness the physical manifestation of the absurdity that is the local economy. The dole queues will be snaking along streets, miles upon miles of humanity, looking for its annual handout from a government that is in no position to make it. Unemployment, greater levels of poverty, cuts to services, cuts to assistance, while all the time the government abrogates responsibility to the private sector and shows not the slightest interest in any form of welfare policy.
One in five people in the Balearics living in poverty, and rising. Two in five in Extremadura. And this is meant to be a wealthy country.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The two share a strikingly similar percentage in terms of their respective rates of poverty. The measures are different, as greatly different factors come into play, but the percentage of the population of Extremadura currently in poverty is 38%. In 2005, according to figures released by the CIA, Ethiopia, only six notches above the poorest two countries in the world in terms of per capita income, had a poverty rate of 38.7%.
Don't let us confuse the two figures. Local standards of living mean that the poverty rates are calculated quite differently, but even so, if African poverty is considered a bad thing, which it is, should we not be somewhat alarmed by a level of poverty in Spain that, in relative terms, is equally as bad?
Extremadura, as revealed by new figures from the INE (the Spanish national statistics office), is Spain's poorest region. And the Spanish are getting poorer. Provisional figures for 2011 suggest that there has been an increase of just over one percentage point, to 21.9%, of people in Spain who live below the breadline, defined in terms of a two-child family with an income of less than 15,820 euros a year.
The Balearics sit in the middle of the league table of rich and poor parts of Spain;20.6% of the population in 2010 existed in poverty, almost exactly the same as the national average of 20.7% last year. Taking the CIA's statistics, Spain, to put it bluntly, is the poorest country in western Europe. It is poorer than many countries in eastern Europe, and the Balearics are pretty much bang on the same mark.
National and regional wealth do paint a different picture. The Balearics, by GDP per head of population, is one of the wealthiest parts of Spain, and Spain is rated by the IMF as the twelfth richest nation in the world. Not that this necessarily counts for much when a country can get itself into such a crisis of debt. And there is no getting away from the fact that economic crisis has added to the level of poverty and from the fact that, regardless of GDP figures, there is real hardship in the Balearics and an increasing inequality in the distribution of wealth.
Among the various statistics that inform the INE's report is a measure of "delays in payments related to the main dwelling" (by which is meant ability to meet mortgage or rent payments, among others). On this measure, the Balearics are by far the worst region in Spain, by almost five percentage points more than the next poorest performing region, the Canary Islands.
Such a finding can be interpreted in different ways. It could be that people have overstretched themselves where mortgage commitments are concerned - which has certainly been the case - but it might also suggest that the Balearics, and property values in particular, are too expensive, relative to general earnings capacity.
If this is so, and one is inclined to believe it to be so, then the regional government's decision to unblock projects for more luxury property development and the fact that the luxury real-estate market is relatively buoyant at present (buoyant especially where overseas buyers are concerned) put the situation into sharper relief, and it borders on the obscene.
The national government and the regional government in the Balearics operate, by comparison with other European countries, from a low base when it comes to provisions of a welfare state. But what provisions there are, are due to fall to an even lower base. The Bauzá administration is entirely mute on the subject of welfare, save for its wishes to make cuts. And these cuts have so far been more drastic than in any other part of Spain, and we yet to have revealed the full horrors that await under a national Partido Popular government.
In a few days time, we will witness the physical manifestation of the absurdity that is the local economy. The dole queues will be snaking along streets, miles upon miles of humanity, looking for its annual handout from a government that is in no position to make it. Unemployment, greater levels of poverty, cuts to services, cuts to assistance, while all the time the government abrogates responsibility to the private sector and shows not the slightest interest in any form of welfare policy.
One in five people in the Balearics living in poverty, and rising. Two in five in Extremadura. And this is meant to be a wealthy country.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Another Day In Paradise: Homelessness
He had a pretty impressive suntan. His feet, open to the elements thanks to the flip-flops, were a mahogany colour. He wasn't doing anything. Just sitting there on a wall by the Eroski supermarket in Can Picafort. His company was a plastic bag. Inside which was a bottle. I knew who he was. Or at least he fit the description. He's the German who lives in an abandoned house. To be more accurate, a house that the family which owns it cannot agree as to what to do with it. Somehow, he had come to be living there. When a member of the family had been to the house, she had been shocked to find it inhabited. Along with all the junk that had come to be stored in it was this German, together with no electricity and no water.
He wasn't doing any harm, so he stayed on. Maybe it was an advantage. Someone to watch over the place. To stop youths getting in. Having a "botellón", taking drugs. It didn't really matter how he had come to be in the house. He couldn't exactly go back. Back to Germany, that is. His passport had long expired. He was a non-person. Time was when he used to work over in Alcúdia. But now he had no bike, and when the weather was bad that was a nightmare to use anyway. He might occasionally get some work around and about. Otherwise, he would wash in a bar in the morning. And in the evening he would be at another bar to take the odd coffee and a leak before bedtime. And at other times he would sit on a wall.
Outside a different Eroski, one in Alcúdia, a gaggle of the outer edges of society gathers to pass the time of day, to shout, to bring the dogs, to raise the plastic bags. Strictly speaking, it is an offence to drink alcohol on the streets. Sometimes they are a nuisance, but there's not trouble like that elsewhere: at the derelict, former nightspot palace of Es Fogueró, the imposingly mysterious ruin by the industrial estate in Alcúdia that gives a similar impression as to having been abandoned, despite its being new.
In Es Fogueró there was a body back in the summer. "El Gallego" was dead. He'd been killed, so the Guardia were to reveal. A brother and sister, also "residents" of the ruin, face a homicide charge. In the building where Julio Iglesias had once performed, the dance had stopped for the Galician. When you end the beguine.
It was a perishing late afternoon in January. Outside yet another Eroski. He was crouching in the walkway to the supermarket. You can forget just how cold it can get during a Mallorcan winter. A coin or a few. What does it take? How utterly merciless I had been. It would have taken very little. Little to shrug off a foul mood and a memory of the "aggressive begging" of London. Because his hadn't been.
While there isn't much overt evidence as to homelessness in places such as Alcúdia, it exists all the same. It is the lie to the nonsensically unthinking rote-speak of "this paradise island". Paradise found and paradise lost.
No one much talks about or wants to know about poverty and homelessness in Mallorca. It's not what the brochures would have you think about. The exact scale of homelessness is hard to put a finger on, in Mallorca and across Spain. Some town halls are now conducting censuses. What is reckoned is that a half of the homeless are foreigners. But not all are recent immigrants. The German has been in Can Picafort for years.
In addition to much low-paid employment in Mallorca, there is now the issue of reductions in assistance from the state. Compounding this are the increased costs of energy - electricity and butane both on the rise again. How many live in fuel poverty in Mallorca? A Mediterranean climate might make you believe such a thing couldn't exist. It does. In housing wholly inadequate in terms of insulation, draught exclusion and damp-coursing. Where the housing exists of course. Because not everyone's that lucky. So they end up on the streets and, in the case of Palma, have a council that wants to impound their consolatory alcohol.
Much of the help extended to the homeless comes through the offices of the Cruz Roja (Red Cross). In 2009 the level of help it gave in the Balearics rose by 38%. Back in 2007, the number of individuals either socially excluded or at risk of being so that it assisted was 697. The actual homeless figure it dealt with then amounted to 547 people. With the withdrawal of much state-based "ayuda", the 2009 percentage rise is unlikely to fall.
The numbers may not sound as though there is a crisis. But these scratch the surface of poverty and of those at the breadline. To whom you have to add the homeless. The soup kitchens of Mallorca have already announced a marked rise in "business" this autumn.
There is an unedifying aspect to Mallorca. It is one of real-estate division. In winter you can walk past the second homes, the villa rentals and hotels of Playa de Muro. You can repeat the exercise elsewhere. Empty. They aren't of course about to be opened up to the homeless. This isn't the point. What is, is the insult of so much land in non-productive use for so long a period. Through the winters.
At least in an abandoned house in Can Picafort, the German has a roof over his head.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
He wasn't doing any harm, so he stayed on. Maybe it was an advantage. Someone to watch over the place. To stop youths getting in. Having a "botellón", taking drugs. It didn't really matter how he had come to be in the house. He couldn't exactly go back. Back to Germany, that is. His passport had long expired. He was a non-person. Time was when he used to work over in Alcúdia. But now he had no bike, and when the weather was bad that was a nightmare to use anyway. He might occasionally get some work around and about. Otherwise, he would wash in a bar in the morning. And in the evening he would be at another bar to take the odd coffee and a leak before bedtime. And at other times he would sit on a wall.
Outside a different Eroski, one in Alcúdia, a gaggle of the outer edges of society gathers to pass the time of day, to shout, to bring the dogs, to raise the plastic bags. Strictly speaking, it is an offence to drink alcohol on the streets. Sometimes they are a nuisance, but there's not trouble like that elsewhere: at the derelict, former nightspot palace of Es Fogueró, the imposingly mysterious ruin by the industrial estate in Alcúdia that gives a similar impression as to having been abandoned, despite its being new.
In Es Fogueró there was a body back in the summer. "El Gallego" was dead. He'd been killed, so the Guardia were to reveal. A brother and sister, also "residents" of the ruin, face a homicide charge. In the building where Julio Iglesias had once performed, the dance had stopped for the Galician. When you end the beguine.
It was a perishing late afternoon in January. Outside yet another Eroski. He was crouching in the walkway to the supermarket. You can forget just how cold it can get during a Mallorcan winter. A coin or a few. What does it take? How utterly merciless I had been. It would have taken very little. Little to shrug off a foul mood and a memory of the "aggressive begging" of London. Because his hadn't been.
While there isn't much overt evidence as to homelessness in places such as Alcúdia, it exists all the same. It is the lie to the nonsensically unthinking rote-speak of "this paradise island". Paradise found and paradise lost.
No one much talks about or wants to know about poverty and homelessness in Mallorca. It's not what the brochures would have you think about. The exact scale of homelessness is hard to put a finger on, in Mallorca and across Spain. Some town halls are now conducting censuses. What is reckoned is that a half of the homeless are foreigners. But not all are recent immigrants. The German has been in Can Picafort for years.
In addition to much low-paid employment in Mallorca, there is now the issue of reductions in assistance from the state. Compounding this are the increased costs of energy - electricity and butane both on the rise again. How many live in fuel poverty in Mallorca? A Mediterranean climate might make you believe such a thing couldn't exist. It does. In housing wholly inadequate in terms of insulation, draught exclusion and damp-coursing. Where the housing exists of course. Because not everyone's that lucky. So they end up on the streets and, in the case of Palma, have a council that wants to impound their consolatory alcohol.
Much of the help extended to the homeless comes through the offices of the Cruz Roja (Red Cross). In 2009 the level of help it gave in the Balearics rose by 38%. Back in 2007, the number of individuals either socially excluded or at risk of being so that it assisted was 697. The actual homeless figure it dealt with then amounted to 547 people. With the withdrawal of much state-based "ayuda", the 2009 percentage rise is unlikely to fall.
The numbers may not sound as though there is a crisis. But these scratch the surface of poverty and of those at the breadline. To whom you have to add the homeless. The soup kitchens of Mallorca have already announced a marked rise in "business" this autumn.
There is an unedifying aspect to Mallorca. It is one of real-estate division. In winter you can walk past the second homes, the villa rentals and hotels of Playa de Muro. You can repeat the exercise elsewhere. Empty. They aren't of course about to be opened up to the homeless. This isn't the point. What is, is the insult of so much land in non-productive use for so long a period. Through the winters.
At least in an abandoned house in Can Picafort, the German has a roof over his head.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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