The Spanish economic situation is similar to a Galician on a ladder: we don’t know if it goes up or down. As the executive director of Fedea, Ángel de la Fuente, tells me, “no one really knows if we are doing well or if we are going badly.” Faced with this situation of extreme volatility, the only thing that companies can do is live in the moment, carpe diem, adjust expenses and wait to see what happens.
If we pay attention to the Government and its followers, the situation is exceptionally good: we are growing more than anyone with the lowest inflation in Europe, jobs are being created at a good pace, tourism and consumption are going like a shot, fuel prices and electricity are the most advantageous on the continent and the war in Ukraine does not seem to affect us.
As it is said in Moncloa, things are not going so well in the rest of the world, but Spain is the exception, it has become the locomotive of Europe thanks to the good management of Pedro Sánchez at the head of the left-wing coalition government . And this is recognized everywhere, even by the most orthodox capitalists who have gathered this week in Davos.
perspectives
Despite the good economic data, the ECB recalls that interest rates will continue to rise
Nobody seems to put any but, although neither does anyone explain how it is possible that the country that produces the least is the one that grows the most and the one that is doing the best. Apparently we no longer belong to that group of PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) as we were classified The Economist in the previous crisis.
On the contrary, if we look at the catastrophists of the opposition and their propaganda apparatus, not all that glitters is gold. According to what they say, Spain is still one of the few European countries that has not yet recovered everything they lost during the covid crisis. Four years wasted despite the enormous aid received from the EU and the easy and free financing of our bulky debt by the ECB.
According to the head of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Spain is a country doped by subsidies and aid it receives from the EU. Consumption, credit and investment are being paid for with public debt. In other words, the apparent good situation is artificial and will turn into a debt crisis once the elections and the European presidency are over.
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The truth is that there is no way to verify what each other says. The manipulation of data, information and even statistics is a constant. Analysis and opinion polls have become throwing weapons. The only thing that matters is winning the elections, the municipal and the general ones, and before this everything else is secondary.
The international scene doesn’t help either. The IMF only three months ago said that the worst was yet to come. However, the data is positive. Inflation has begun to come under control thanks to the drop in the prices of raw materials and energy. This explains the stock market rally that has taken place and that has made it possible to recover everything that had been lost due to the war.
It’s been a midsummer night’s dream, until the ECB president came out to remind herself of the obvious: interest rates will continue to rise at a half-point rate until prices are brought under control. That means growth is going to stall in most of Europe, especially Germany, which remains dependent on Russian gas.
The economic paralysis will also reach the US for the same reason, and production in China will continue to be low due to the consequences of the policy change in the face of the covid. The three economic engines of the world are facing a situation of technical stagflation. But it does not matter. Spain is doing well!
