http://www.news.com.au/top-stories/breakthrough-test-proves-phar-lap-poisoned/story-e6frfkp9-1111112400165

I think you’ll find a synchrotron at the ESRF in Grenoble.

“this crisis must lie at the doors of the ECB. They should have seen the problem coming as a result of the application of their one size fits all interest rate policy, and advised the Spanish authorities to take specific measures to counteract the impact.”

So it’s the ECB’s fault because they didn’t keep a better eye on the corrupt tendencies of Spanish and Catalan politicians who mismanaged the money? Should they have set up a board in Brussels that oversaw spending? How would local politicians have felt about that? I’m curious, did you raise these objections at the time or only now with the benefit of hindsight?

Then there is this, “Even country’s like the UK who have their own currency, and their own central bank to buy their debt are struggling economically…” As the esteemed economist Paul Krugman has pointed out, repeatedly, the UK’s woes are a result of policy decisions made by the conservative led government. Having their own currency meant that they could have handled the crisis in a different way. Same with Japan. I’ll be happy to provide links.

Finally, the “new United States of the Euro Area” do you think countries such as Holland, Germany and France are willing to give up more sovereignty to create this? Not based on the last Dutch elections, where despite electing pro-European parties, a line in the sand was drawn that this is it as far a integration. Should Spain continue to deteriorate, it’s just as likely it become part of a new southern euro-zone with Italy and Portugal. Of course, if Greece leaves the EU, which has lost its “horror” according to a German minister, then chances increase dramatically that Spain follows.

Which is not the case, at least as far as the economy was concerned in 1960s. Read “los anos de desarollo” Franco’s economic miracle??: http://books4spain.com/blog/%E2%80%9Clos-anos-de-desarollo%E2%80%9D-franco%E2%80%99s-economic-miracle/

As Edward correctly states the problem with the Spanish economy is deep seated and long term it goes way back beyond Franco from the dominance of the Catholic Church and its refusal to embrace the reforms of the Renaissance to its topography, geographic location and landownership structure, all of which have contributed to its delayed socio, economic and political development.

In 1976 Spain became a tentative democracy and a constitutional monarchy and in 1986 joined the then EEC becoming the single biggest recipient of EU funds, whilst having only gone through a short, sharp learning curve in political and economic terms. This has had its pros, for example, reinforcement of democracy, a huge improvement in the national transport infrastructure network, etc. but also its cons, for example, a false sense of economic security (made worse as I stated at the time and many more times since, by joining the euro), which in turn has led to an unwillingness to take difficult decisions to improve the long term competitiveness and flexibility of the economy – a situation which exists to this day.

n talking with Professor Andrew Kakabadse, Professor of International Development at Cranfield University School of Management, about what influences the development of culture, national characteristics and leadership skills (he has written a book on the reality of cultural differences using several countries as examples) one of his principle conclusions is that the re-distribution of wealth, combined with sustained investment in social and economic “assets”, e.g. education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc., are major factors for any country.

He cited Germany as a good example where, over a relatively short period of time, approximately two generations, such policies have successfully created a unified country whose citizens, on the whole, feel they are part of one large family. As he puts it – it has moved from a shareholder to stakeholder model. On the other side of the coin, Ireland and Spain both appeared to be moving in this direction with their new found wealth after joining the EU but now, as we know, their economies are collapsing with, in Spain at least, “legacy” socio-economic characteristics coming to the surface because the re-distribution of wealth has not been sufficiently wide spread and investment has been poorly targeted.

Using all the information above, and your own knowledge and experience of Spain, I’ll leave you to come to your own conclusions about what the future holds for Spain!

My article Why is Spain politically and economically bankrupt? explores this in more detail http://books4spain.com/blog/why-is-spain-politically-and-economically-bankrupt/

On the other hand, I don’t think this little affair compares to pretending video evidence of murdered children doesn’t exist.