Podcast On The Present State Of The Spanish Economy

Caveat emptor, Spanish-based blogger Mathew Bennett and I have started doing podcasts, and you can find the first one here. At this point in time we are concentrating on Spain. Among the points we cover are:

- How does what’s happened in Dubai affect the economic situation in Greece, Spain and the EU?

- Are left- or right-wing political parties causing or solving more problems during the recess...ion?

- Will the Germans, the French or the EU be able to bailout several European countries at the same time if there are several sovereign defaults?

- Are the ECB and the EU trying to pre-empt the IMF in Greece and Spain?

- What are the underlying structural problems with the eurozone funding plan?

- Why is the ECB channelling funds through monetary and financial institutions to buy up government debt in the eurozone?

- How the ECB is trying to use a carrot and stick approach with eurozone governments to control national government deficits and public policy?

- Is IMF intervention now inevitable in Greece?

- Will the ECB will try to play politics and pressure Zapatero in the run up to the 2012 general elections in Spain?

- Is the situation in Spain similar to the situation in Greece?

- Why don’t Zapatero and the Spanish government seem to be reacting?

- Why is there no coherent plan to get Spain back on its feet?

- What is going on with Spanish banks?

- Will unemployment in Spain reach 25% by the end of 2010?

- Which is more important in Spanish economics: image or hard data?

- Will it be possible for the Spanish government to reduce the deficit from over 10% of GDP to less than 3% by 2012 or 2013?

- What state will the Spanish economy be in by the end of 2010?

- What will happen to Spain when the ECB raises eurozone interest rates?

- Might Spain soon be in a worse economic position than Greece?

- What are the ratings agencies trying to achieve with their warnings on Spain?

- Why won’t the Spanish government tell the Spanish people the truth about what’s going on with the Spanish economy?

- Is José Luis Zapatero really the biggest problem for the Spanish economy right now?

Obviously many of these points run parallel to those raised in my recent post "Why Standard and Poor’s Are Right To Worry About Spanish Finances", but maybe, if you have 40 minutes or so to spare, you might enjoy listening to them being made in Podcast format.