tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:49:32 +0000Business and EconomyStock MarketPress and Blogssociety and politicsReal Estate EconomyEtceteraMarketsOlive OilWeekly RoundupAround here in generalEurozonePortfolioTradesUnderground EconomyeurologyOlive Oil Producer PricesExtra LettucePhotosPressTales of CorruptionIberosphereInvestmentsQorreoTechnical AnalysisNonsensehistorySpain - from the inside and the outside at the same timehttp://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)Blogger783125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-3767391045491991993Thu, 29 May 2014 13:45:00 +00002014-05-29T15:45:46.442+02:00Quarterly Up 0.4%. Big internet stink about the government spending component, the 3.9% 13Q4 drop having been recuperated in its entirety in Q1 this year. This goes back to a less-than-well understood advancing of the government expenditure approval date to late November in an attempt to bring the deficit into line with predictions. Some stuff got passed on to January. Zzzzzzz. Do you really http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2014/05/quick-spanish-gdp.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-7334581148464755304Mon, 28 Apr 2014 06:27:00 +00002014-04-28T10:06:34.221+02:00Edward Hugh has returned to blogging. In his latest piece, the resident British expert on all things Spanish and economic has come to the splendidly silly conclusion that the principal impetus behind Spain's recently improving GDP is a decline in imports with respect to last year. A decline in imports. In his own words: Since imports were down by more than exports, net trade was positive and http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2014/04/no-edward-thats-not-how-it-works.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-2883528965178213488Tue, 17 Dec 2013 18:25:00 +00002013-12-17T19:53:30.899+01:00 A quick Google search shows that the English-language press is having a bit of difficulty understanding the structure of the Catalan independence referendum recently announced for November 9, 2014. Contrast what The Guardian, in perfect consonance with every other article I troubled to read, says about it...  The Catalan regional government head, Artur Mas, said the vote would ask two http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/12/you-cant-make-this-stuff-up-catalan.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-124936331416232766Sat, 23 Nov 2013 13:38:00 +00002013-11-23T14:38:34.483+01:00Something for Spaniards to keep in mind next time they come across one of their elite corps of economics journalists spewing out the standard version.  What with CPI printing negative in October, we though that it would be in the public interest to assist the beleaguered citizens of Spain in taking full advantage of the Deflationary Death Spiral* into the vortex of which their beloved patria is http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/11/deflationary-death-spiral-sighting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-5065857960876250286Thu, 14 Nov 2013 18:08:00 +00002014-01-19T18:56:43.061+01:00 The graph on the left, a tad cherry picked from the famously high youth unemployment statistics and the almost entirely unnoticed (and coincident) dramatic surge in the female over-40 labour force, gives a hint as to how the oft-cited Spanish family support system appears in the INE database. The fact is that the 2.3 million job losses borne by young people between 16 and 29 years old since http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/11/warehouse-13.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-3986910954632833180Thu, 07 Nov 2013 19:42:00 +00002013-11-07T20:42:18.667+01:00Readers might want to fix their gaze on September 2012 in the following charts. Some comment waiting to be made about throwing a VAT increase into the midst of the worst summer of economic news since the dawn of Spanish history. And another about the utility of annual rate-of-change stats in the wake of unusual circumstances. [Short version - wake me up next April.]   http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/11/get-back-to-me-in-spring.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-4635335690412469390Mon, 04 Nov 2013 21:26:00 +00002013-11-04T22:26:12.173+01:00 On the good news front, it's now November and there's still no sign of the Ministerio de Fomento’s 2012 estimate of Spain's unsold new housing stock. On the bad, there appear to be at least a couple of organizations that persist in painting themselves into the corner that has hopefully caused Fomento to abandon the effort forever – and have produced commentaries extrapolating results based on http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/11/that-which-cannot-be-known.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-8038885260966701345Sun, 06 Oct 2013 15:40:00 +00002013-10-06T17:40:27.324+02:00 The second big story that accompanied the run-up in Spanish yields through spring and summer of 2012 was the supposedly massive exit of foreigners from the Spanish government bond market. The chart on the left sheds a bit of light on both the extent of this and what was behind it. The Spanish treasury publishes a monthly report on who owns Spanish sovereign debt. The headline figure, publishedhttp://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/10/bone-meets-meat.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-1974100019353980981Thu, 03 Oct 2013 10:46:00 +00002013-10-03T12:46:20.413+02:00What never ceases to amaze me when economists talk of international investment flows is that they actually seem to believe that national accounts show the real movement of money across borders. Here's a couple of excerpts from a recent piece in The New York Fed's Liberty Economics blog: Foreign private investors were in full retreat from periphery markets in 2011 and through the first half of http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/10/economics-1-real-world-0.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-2540010385309640094Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:50:00 +00002013-09-06T16:50:08.260+02:00 It recently was pointed out to me by the wholly recommendable economics commentator, Shaun Richards, that Ibex Salad may have become the last blog standing. After all, two weeks ago Iberosphere (which on several occasions has stooped to publish my thoughts) gave up on the pipe dream that enough people would be interested in Spain to sustain an English language publication dedicated to this http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/09/warning-service-resumption-imminent.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-8528894428809812749Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:05:00 +00002013-09-03T23:32:00.241+02:00 To get an idea of what a chore it is to retool an economy that had hitched itself on to a real estate boom, the chart on the left shows the percentage share of the 225 billion euro contraction in outstanding business debt attributable to various broad economic sectors, over the last three years. Briefly, a little over 50 percent goes to the real estate services column - read 'promoters and http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-subtleties-of-credit-contraction.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-9133767816044508188Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:01:00 +00002013-06-15T13:02:57.207+02:00I'm quite frankly in absolute awe of a reader who identifies himself as 'Sean'. It seems that he not only has had the tenacity to continue reading Ibex Salad since at least 2007 but he has remembered what he read in these pages six years ago. Here's his comment on our last post, and my response: Sean said...  http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2007/04/double-double-toil-and-trouble.html http://http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/06/reader-of-year.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-6513526749979773738Wed, 12 Jun 2013 03:50:00 +00002013-06-12T05:50:22.065+02:00What is a bubble? The current definition appears to be “anything that has gone up a lot in price”. This won’t do. - Pawel Morski For all those who continue to labour under the illusion that life is going to give them a second chance to predict another Lehman Brothers/subprime event - now personified by the Canadian housing crash crowd - we present the chart on the left. The blue line shows http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/06/bubbles-everywhere.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-503322272184980303Sat, 11 May 2013 11:54:00 +00002013-05-11T13:54:35.682+02:00A big headline political issue in the aftermath of the property bubble has been the matter of home repossessions. Spearheaded by an activist association known as the 'Plataforma Afectados por la Hipoteca', there appear regularly on television news confrontations between authorities attempting to evict insolvent homeowners and groups of a few tens of persons blocking their progress. That this http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/05/that-home-repossession-issue.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-4455135943178550659Sat, 30 Mar 2013 18:31:00 +00002013-03-30T19:34:25.183+01:00The three or four of you who keenly await the monthly update of the 'Credit Conditions' chart in the right sidebar will not only note a change in this edition - we've included another line for the 12-month average of house sales - but will also be marveling at the fact that the 39,670 house sales registered in January were fueled by only 25,447 new mortgages. Simply, more than 35 per cent of all http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/03/cash-is-king-get-out-of-cash.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-5274998362688370679Sun, 17 Mar 2013 20:19:00 +00002013-03-17T21:19:29.141+01:00Catching a few eyes this week was the European Court of Justice decision in favour of a family that had their home repossessed for non-payment of the mortgage. The Spanish banks have not put up much of a fuss and the government itself has assured that it will introduce legislation to codify the conclusions of the trial judge. The chart on the left, showing the age of current sufferers of job http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-ecj-eviction-decision-and-spanish.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-4286390024449138925Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:46:00 +00002013-03-11T21:57:58.430+01:00It's fascinating to witness the immense cathartic effect that the PP funding scandal has had on leftward-leaning Spaniards. Now, with the lifting of last year's endless negative news flow relieving them of having to consider the possibility that Mariano Rajoy was maybe doing the Right Thing, they can revert to that age old national pastime of allowing even the slightest of incidents to release a http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/03/automotive-politics.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-5785267643921300858Sun, 10 Mar 2013 19:18:00 +00002013-03-10T20:18:13.020+01:00 Now at the other end of the cycle with respect to our last entry, the chart shows the decline in GDP for every job lost since 2008. Readers will note that we only included years in which GDP has declined relative to 2008.... and both Germany and Austria are missing. The figure for the former is over 1.4 million euros - a reflection of the fact that their unemployment insurance is in fact an http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-spanish-unemployment-mystery-part-2.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-2515478265033370880Tue, 05 Mar 2013 19:30:00 +00002013-03-05T20:30:16.511+01:00 The three most obvious features of the chart of Spanish unemployment rates since 1985 are: a). the 2012 figure that draws so much attention is not really news. It's not even a record., b). the historical minimum is a bit over 8 percent in 2007 - a crisis number in almost any other industrialized economy, and c). to our knowledge, the fabric of Spanish society did not disintegrate into fascist,http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-spanish-unemployment-mystery-part-1.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-4905731140957117671Thu, 28 Feb 2013 19:05:00 +00002013-02-28T20:07:33.488+01:00Sorry for the absence... that time of year. December current account balance at an all-time record surplus of 4.9 billion euros. For 2012 in its entirety, the deficit improved to around 0.8% of GDP. Spain's international trade balance, calculated on a 12-month basis, continues to set new records. As of year-end 2012, it now stands at positive, 14.65 billion euros. The income http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/02/spains-international-balances-on-roll.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-2545081255678662647Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:35:00 +00002013-01-31T16:37:17.337+01:00 Spain's October current account balance. October 2012 - 1.78 bn euros August 1998 - 1.54 bn euros Fueling it - second highest goods exports on record, continued low income outflows, two-and-a-half year low in outbound transfers and normal seasonal rise in inbound ---------------------------- http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/01/spains-ca-surplus-sets-all-time-record.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-7272018488891142025Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:03:00 +00002013-01-28T21:06:59.015+01:00 We wrote in a piece last September that the sudden bump in mortgage issuance relative to property sales (of all types) was 'Likely the last vestiges of undercapitalized late entry pre-sales taking possession of their homes..' Sounds good in theory, but further investigation proves we were looking in the wrong place. On the left is a graph showing the progress of both rural property sales and http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-does-that-work-rural-mortgage.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-7693065242699291552Sun, 27 Jan 2013 14:29:00 +00002013-01-27T15:35:59.163+01:00 The Tesoro has released Spanish monthly bond holdings statistics. Through November, foreign term holdings (the ones that actually count) have recuperated to levels last seen in July 2011. Judging by the success of December's and - especially - January's emissions, it wouldn't be far-fetched to guess that these would be close to record levels when the figures come out. Aproximately March 25. The http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/01/foreign-bond-holdings-back-to-july-2011.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-6488872133754418528Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:44:00 +00002013-01-27T18:10:19.067+01:00 The previous post has been removed because it sported a largish spreadsheet error. The point remains the same (but without the prose. It's late) - that the young have taken the brunt of job losses in Spain and that those born in the 1970's and before - Aquarians by any other name - have emerged relatively unscathed. Since the total employment peak in the second quarter of 2007, 96 percent of http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/01/children-of-children-of-aquarius.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37012176.post-8082298140203401287Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:26:00 +00002013-01-23T20:26:49.722+01:00 Correction of the chart in the last post - this time using the proper figures properly. Still the same question. Why is the Spanish construction industry using twice as much labour to produce one home as it did prior to 2009? ---------------------------- http://ibexsalad.blogspot.com/2013/01/correcting-our-last-post-question.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Charles Butler)7