Spain OMG!

[alreadypacked]

Sometimes papers from outside the country are the first to tell what's really going on.

The woman, 33, said that she had once worked at the post office but that her unemployment benefits had run out and she was living now on 400 euros a month, about $520. She was squatting with some friends in a building that still had water and electricity, while collecting “a little of everything” from the garbage after stores closed and the streets were dark and quiet.

Such survival tactics are becoming increasingly commonplace here, with an unemployment rate over 50 percent among young people and more and more households having adults without jobs. So pervasive is the problem of scavenging that one Spanish city has resorted to installing locks on supermarket trash bins as a public health precaution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/wo..._20120925&_r=0

[Robinho]

Spain would be very wise to eliminate the min wage immediately.

[doomage]

Anti-scavenging bins... could be a good plan B.

[speling bee]

Wait until Catalonia attempts to secede.

[Old Hack]

Been going on for a while now, probably 18 months. The banks have thousands of houses they are scared to repossess and lots of people have walked out of them. I think the banks I dea is, if we repossess the lot, the real scale of our debts will come out. The bail out Spain asked for just now, is for bailing the banks out without them having a good look at their books if they repossessed all of the houses on their books. Prices will plummet.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Spain would be very wise to eliminate the min wage immediately.

Why? Do you buy the idea that it would lead to more jobs? Who told you that, employers who want to pay lower wages? MRDA: well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Scrapping the minimum wage puts no more people in work, it just makes less income for the working poor and more profit for the employers. If there is any kind of welfare state it then supports the poor, so the net result is employers becoming richer at taxpayers' expense.

Why do you think it would be acceptable to employ someone and pay them less than a living wage?

[Robinho]

Why? Do you buy the idea that it would lead to more jobs? Who told you that, employers who want to pay lower wages? MRDA: well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Did you mean fact?

[Pickle2]

400 Euros a month with no bills to pay? Better off that being on the dole in the UK.

[sasguru]

Why? Do you buy the idea that it would lead to more jobs? Who told you that, employers who want to pay lower wages? MRDA: well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Scrapping the minimum wage puts no more people in work, it just makes less income for the working poor and more profit for the employers. If there is any kind of welfare state it then supports the poor, so the net result is employers becoming richer at taxpayers' expense.

Why do you think it would be acceptable to employ someone and pay them less than a living wage?

You have to understand Robby is an ignorant, free market idealogue who thought the US got rich due to the free market as opposed to massive protectionism right up to the 2nd world war and free labour for centuries before . You wouldn't believe the amount of cretins on CUK.

[original PM]

Why? Do you buy the idea that it would lead to more jobs? Who told you that, employers who want to pay lower wages? MRDA: well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Scrapping the minimum wage puts no more people in work, it just makes less income for the working poor and more profit for the employers. If there is any kind of welfare state it then supports the poor, so the net result is employers becoming richer at taxpayers' expense.

Why do you think it would be acceptable to employ someone and pay them less than a living wage?

well surely it will depend on whether the minimum wage is actually set too high for the current cost of living.....

cannot make a blanket statement without all the facts.