- Thousands march in Madrid against government austerity measures
- Greece may seek Spanish-style rescue of banks as part of debt crisis solution
- Shaking Spain: 'Take away people's food & homes - expect violence'
- Stopping the Rot: Stress tests fail 8 Euro banks
- Jim Corr: Top-down engineered financial crash designed to take over Europe
- European bank jitters as Spain steps in to save Cajasur
- More domestic tragedy awaits the Greeks
- Spanish Woman Jumps to Her Death as Eviction Looms
- Allied Irish Banks uses pension bailout to pay ex-chiefs up to €500,000
- EU to introduce single banking supervisor for eurozone
- Bankocracy In Action - Madrid On The Brink
- Mass protest in Spain against ‘authoritarian’ austerity
- Paul Craig Roberts: Collapse At Hand
- Can euro rescue absolve Holocaust guilt?
- Embattled Spain tries to calm fears of run on deposits at bank
You are here
Spain's banks 'need 59.3bn euros of eurozone loans'
Spain's banks will need an injection of 59.3bn euros ($76.3bn; £47.3bn) to survive a serious downturn, an independent audit has calculated.
The amount is broadly in line with market expectations of 60bn euros, and follows so-called stress tests of 14 Spanish lenders.
Much of the money is expected to come from the eurozone rescue funds, the current EFSF and the future ESM.
Spain said in July that it would request eurozone support for its banks.
The Spanish banking sector has been in difficulty since the global financial crisis of 2008, and the subsequent bursting of the country's property bubble and deep recession.
Source and full story: BBC News, 28 Sept 2012
Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer
Comments
Re: Spain's banks 'need 59.3bn euros of eurozone loans'
On Saturday (29 Sep 2012) tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the street if Madrid and Lisbon to protest the elitist war on them. The Madrid demonstration was peaceful until about midnight, when riot police waded into the ground with batons. An Associated Press photographer saw police severely beat one protester who was taken away in an ambulance. The crowd yelled “Fire them, fire them!” — referring to the ultra-right-wing government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his cronies. Spain now has the highest unemployment rate among the 17 nations that use the euro currency.
On Friday the Rajoy’s regime presented a 2013 draft budget that will cut overall spending by a further €40 billion ($51.7 billion), freezing the salaries of public workers, cutting spending for unemployment benefits and even reducing spending for Spain’s royal family next year by 4 percent. Thus, Spain’s depression will continue to worsen.
The Portuguese government is even worse in terms of cutbacks, and the resulting depression. Retired banker Antonio Trinidade said Portugal’s economy is the worst he has seen in his lifetime. His pension has been cut, and countless young Portuguese are increasingly heading abroad because they cannot survive at home. “The young don’t have any future, and the country is on the edge of an abyss. I’m getting toward the end of my life, but these people in their 20s or 30s don’t have jobs, or a future.”
In Spain, Rajoy has an absolute majority and has pushed through waves of austerity measures over the last nine months, in order to increase the gap between rich and poor. Next year he will cut another $51-billion, raise taxes, and restrict early retirements.
All financial “rescues” from the Troika go to the bankers, and worsen the depression.
Source
Spain didn’t get into trouble because its government was profligate. On the contrary, on the eve of the crisis, Spain had a budget surplus and low debt. Large deficits emerged when the bankers’ housing bubble burst, taking tax revenues with it. Even so, Spain doesn’t appear to have all that high a debt burden.
The IMF’s own research suggests that spending cuts in deeply depressed economies worsen the depression, since they reduce investor confidence. Nonetheless the IMF and the troika demand more spending cuts.
Paul Krugman
Last Thursday (27 Sep 2012) in Greece, politicians announced another $15-billion cut in spending, and a raise of the retirement age (for workers that still have jobs) from 65 to 67.