Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero on the world economic crisis and Spain

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Socialist Party; SPOE) just gave a speech on economics that I can't decide whether it's sad or just pathetic.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

The El Mundo account (Zapatero reclama 'planes urgentes' para incentivar la economía mundial 29.10.2011) makes it sound a bit better than the one from El País (Zapatero dice que España no crecerá si no se soluciona la crisis de la deuda 29.10.2011).

For anyone who might be under the impression that the SPOE is partisan of the working class against the wealthy, this speech should help disabuse them of that notion. Zapatero expressed his approval of the latest stopgap measures of the EU to deal with the debt crisis. He says the key to moving the Spanish economy forward is to knuckle under to the demands of the financial sector as dictated by the EU and the European Central Bank (ECB) for more austerity economics. In order to induce the Confidence Fairy to come to their rescus.

Has everyone in the world forgotten that the phrases "con job", "con man", etc. comes from the word "confidence"? A "confidence man" is someone who defrauds his victims by winning their confidence in him and his false claims for whatever his scam is. Herman Melville did a wonderful novel called The Confidence-Man about one of that profession.

Zapatero the Socialist leader does express his regret over the high unemployment in his own country he was elected to lead, which now affects a fifth of the labor force; the Spanish unemployment rate is over 21%. Zapatero feels their pain. He even said, "Yo me siento el principal responsable" ("I feel like the main one responsible"). Not that he would go so far as to defy the European lords of finance on behalf of unemployed Spaniards. But he's sorry about their situation.

Spanish-language report from EFE on Spanish unemployment, Casi cinco millones de desempleados YouTube date 10/29/2011:



He also peeped about how it would be nice if Germany and some of the emerging economies of the world would do something to get the world economy growing faster. I suppose this was kind of a pitch to India and China to give the EU money to put into their rescue fund to prevent private banks from having to take losses from their bad bets on Greek debt.

Zapatero made his statements at the Cumbre Iberoamericana (Ibero-American Summit) in Paraguay.

Sad or just pitiful? It's hard to say.

Tags: spain, world economic crisis, zapatero