About that Austerity in Spain: There Isn't Any

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Published : July 23rd, 2013
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Category : Opinions and Analysis

I have long contended there is little austerity in Spain and there certainly isn't much reform either. I now have some numbers to back that up.

Via Mish-modified Google-translation from El Economista, please consider personnel costs rise despite full state salary freeze.

Despite the 5% snip in public salaries in 2010, the subsequent wage freeze in 2011, the elimination of extra pay in 2012 and the current freeze in Administration salaries, the overall payroll became cheaper by a only 2.1% year-over-year to December last year.

The budget of expenses and monthly payments, which has been updated recently by the General Comptroller of the State Administration (IGAE), casts doubt on the effectiveness and / or proportionality of adjustments labor.

For example, until the end of May, the state paid 14.17 million euros to its temporary staff, an increase of 9.5% over last year.

This upward trend in payments to temporary staff is constant from the beginning of this exercise. since, January 31, 2013, these state payments increased 21.3 percent (4.13 million total) about 3.4 million higher than the same month a year earlier.

It may seem paradoxical, but in the last two two years, the State Administration has virtually the same costs for temporary staff. What it cut one year, it added back the next, in nearly the same amount.

Similarly, spending on senior positions in May 2012 was 29.7 million euros. It is now 29.86 million euros, an increase of 0.5%.

According to the General Comptroller, remuneration to civil servants decreased 2% from a year earlier.

However, despite this saving palpable in payrolls of officials, the State has not been able to lower their personnel costs, since payments until May totals amounted to EUR 10.184 million (10.139 million last year) , an increase of 45 million, representing an increase of 0.4%.
When Keynesian clowns point to Spain and say "austerity doesn't work", ask them "where is the austerity?" Also ask "where is the labor reform?" Then ask "where is the pension reform?"

Then kindly point out there is little to no austerity, and little to no reform, but there has been massive tax hikes, exactly the wrong thing to do.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Mish 13 abonnés
Mike Shedlock / Mish is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. He writes a global economics blog which has commentary 5-7 times a week. He also writes for the Daily Reckoning, Whiskey & Gunpowder, and has over 80 magazine and book cover credits. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com
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Commerce existed before government and still exists outside of government.
Government can not exist outside commerce. Government is completely dependent upon commerce.
Government uses big guns to force commerce to do its bidding.

Government produces nothing. It is a consumer with a ravaging hunger that compels it to prostitute itself.
There are two "laws of government":
1. Government is self perpetuating.
2. Government has a built in growth factor.

Austerity is impossible for government on a voluntary basis. See law #1 and #2.
Government governs nothing without force. And even then it is spotty.
Big money or a big mouth attracts government's attention.
Government already knows who I am, where I am and my loyalties.

This brings us full circle to Spain's non-existent austerity programs.
Don't stampede the herd! Give the new normalcy bias a chance to take hold.
Cut the growth of spending.
Inflate just a bit to cover the cuts plus a smidgeon more.
Don't stampede the herd. The herd is insane by the "law of association". Some famous guy, I want to ascribe it to Nietzsche but I'm not sure and it isn't worth a web search, said something along the lines of "insanity is rare in individuals but the rule for people in groups".
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Vox, good grief old boy.
"Continuing to besmirch Keynes' reputation as a result of policies carried out by others that he would have disagreed with is intellectually fraudulent."
Maynard Keynes was an intellectually crippled shit for brains.
You stated,"... his work relies upon several false assumptions."
If you start with crappy assumptions, you end with crap.
Maynard's reputation is, was and will always be crap. If he was so damn smart about economics, why did he die broke?
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But I'm not gonna down arrow you because you used the phrase, "Continuing to besmirch Keynes' reputation as a result of policies carried out by others that he would have disagreed with is intellectually fraudulent." I love the word besmirch and the phrase made me giggle like a 13 year old girl.
Thanks Bubba. Wow! Besmirch Keynes. I never would have believed the idea would ever be put to print.
This would have been a far better article had Mish not displayed his ignorance of Keynesian economics at the end. Keynes advocated for a 3 pronged approach to battling depressions. The first part was to reduce interest rates, for it was felt that doing so would stimulate business investment. The second part was to have government increase its spending, primarily through infrastructure projects. And the third part was to have tax rates lowered.

Yes, interest rates have been cut to the bone. But as Spain does not control its own monetary policy (set by the ECB) they have no ability to create an easy money policy, which would enable them to put the unemployed to work. As for what is still within Spain's power, tax policy runs completely in the opposite direction of Keynes' final plank.

It is disturbing to see how Mish and virtually every other contributor make this same mistake. i suspect not one of them has ever read Keynes. If they had, they would not routinely mistake the Voodoo economics practised today for what Keynes advocated.

Do not get me wrong. My purpose is not to defend Keynes, for his work relies upon several false assumptions. Firstly, he wrongly assumed that government is honest, which it clearly is not. And he also wrongly assumed that government is capable of understanding the economy.

While a rose by any other name is still a rose, economic policies that incorporate but a portion of Keynes' theory are not Keynesian economics. Continuing to besmirch Keynes' reputation as a result of policies carried out by others that he would have disagreed with is intellectually fraudulent.
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Commerce existed before government and still exists outside of government. Government can not exist outside commerce. Government is completely dependent upon commerce. Government uses big guns to force commerce to do its bidding. Government produces no  Read more
overtheedge - 7/23/2013 at 11:53 PM GMT
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