2023-04-16 05:50:53
This week, Minister Montero said in the electoral campaign that it is necessary to highlight “the growth of our country, with a wealth and a GDP that is above our neighboring countries such as France or Germany” in the face of the “undocumented catastrophism” of the opposition. It is curious, because the one that demonstrates a worrying level of lack of documentation is the Minister of Finance.
Using Eurostat data, Spain continues without recovering the GDP of 2019 while France and Germany, and the vast majority of countries of the European Union have already recovered it a long time ago. In per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power (PPS), Eurostat certifies the impoverishment of Spain. Between 2018 and 2022 the indicator a has fallen from 91 to 85, the lowest level since 2011. France is at 102, Germany at 117 for an average of the European Union that would be base 100. In other words, Spain loses six points of convergence with Europe in wealth per capita.
The loss of purchasing power of Spanish families is the highest in the OECD. Spanish families have lost 7.8% in purchasing power since 2019 while comparable economies have outperformed pre-pandemic GDP and gain 1.9%, according to OECD data.
Spain is the leader of the entire European Union in unemployment rate and, in addition, Eurostat adds two million more unemployed and underemployed, with which Spain leads, and by far, the rate of “job slack” that includes unemployment and underemployment. With a real number of unemployed registered in the SEPE that exceeds 3.37 million, the only thing the Government does is disguise unemployment.
The vaunted “employment record” is non-existent. There are 20.5 million affiliates, but they work fewer hours than the 19.3 million before the crisis. The hours worked in the last EPA are 468,000 less than in December 2019. 55% of the employment “created” since the pandemic is public. Public employment has grown almost six times more than private employment, and pulling more debt.
The Government, in addition, has tripled the hole in Social Security and increased the debt by more than 210,000 million euros, the largest increase in public debt in the euro area. According to the Bank of Spain, the total liabilities of public administrations exceed 1.9 trillion euros. The debt over GDP has skyrocketed to 113.1%, but if we include all the liabilities of the administrations, which are paid and owed the same, it exceeds 140% of GDP.
Spain does not grow, it gets into debt. The rebound in GDP is much less than the increase in public debt. According to the latest review by the IMF, Spain will not reach the GDP of 2019 until 2024, with more than 15% accumulated inflation only in 2022-2024 and the highest unemployment rate of all the countries on the list of comparables, and with great difference. An unemployment rate of 12.4%, well above Greece with 10.4% and massively higher than that of the rest of comparable countries, double the average for advanced Europe (6.2%).
The same IMF estimate assumes cumulative inflation between 2018 and 2024 above 28%, since, according to the National Institute of Statistics, inflation between June 2018 and February 2023 is 13.8%, which also dismantles the fallacy that inflation in Spain is lower. Accumulated inflation in Spain between 2018 and 2023 is much higher than that of France and similar to the average for the Eurozone in the same period.
It is terrifying that all this will happen with a government that has fired with a king’s bullet and has had the greatest fiscal and monetary stimulus in the democratic history of Spain.. No government has had more facilities from Europe, access to debt, Next Generation funds and unlimited support from the European Central Bank, which bought 100% of the issued public debt.
The only thing that can be said about Sánchez’s management is that it is disastrous and that the only thing that is undocumented is the government’s propaganda organ.
#undocumented #optimism #disastrous #management