9 Reasons Why Spain Is A Dead Economy Walking

"The following are 9 reasons why Spain is a dead economy walking....
#1) Even before this most recent crisis, unemploment in Spain was approaching Great Depression levels. Spain now has the highest unemployment rate in the entire European Union. More than 20 percent of working age Spaniards were unemployed during the first quarter of 2010. If people aren't working they can't pay taxes and they can't provide for their families.
#2) In an effort to stimulate the economy, Spain's socialist government has been spending unprecedented amounts of money and that skyrocketed the government budget deficit to a stunning 11.4 percent of GDP in 2009. That is completely unsustainable by any definition.
#3) The total of all public and private debt in Spain has now reached 270 percent of GDP.
#4) The Spanish government has accumulated way more debt than it can possibly handle, and this has forced two international ratings agencies, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, to lower Spain’s long-term sovereign credit rating. These downgrades are making it much more expensive for Spain to finance its debt at a time when they simply can't afford to pay more interest on their debt.
#5) There are 1.6 million unsold properties in Spain. That is six times the level per capita in the United States. Considering how bad the U.S. real estate market is, that statistic is incredibly alarming.
#6) The new "green economy" in Spain has been a total flop. Socialist leaders promised that implementing hardcore restrictions on carbon emissions and forcing the nation over to a "green economy" would result in a flood of "green jobs". But that simply did not happen. In fact, a leaked internal assessment produced by the government of Spain reveals that the "green economy" has been an absolute economic nightmare for that nation. Energy prices have skyrocketed in Spain and the new "green economy" in that nation has actually lost more than two jobs for every job that it has created. But Spain so far seems unwilling to undo all of the crazy regulations that they have implemented.
#7) Spain's national debt is so onerous that they are now caught in a debt spiral where anything they do will harm the economy. If they cut government expenditures in an effort to get debt under control it will devastate economic growth and crush badly needed tax revenues. But if the Spanish government keeps borrowing money their credit rating will continue to decline and they will almost certainly default. The truth is that the Spanish government is caught in a "no win" situation.
#8) But even now the IMF is projecting that the Spanish economy is going nowhere fast. The International Monetary Fund says there will be no positive GDP growth in Spain until 2011, at which point it will still be below one percent. As bleak as that forecast is, many analysts believe that it is way too optimistic considering the fact that Spain's economy declined by about 3.6 percent in 2009 and things are rapidly getting worse.
#9) The Spanish population has gotten used to socialist handouts and they are not going to accept public sector pay cuts, budget cuts to social programs and hefty tax increases easily. In fact, there is likely to be some very serious social unrest before all of this is said and done. On May 21st, thousands of public sector workers took to the streets of Spain to protest the government’s austerity plan. But that was only an appetizer. Spain's two main unions are calling for a major one day general strike to protest the government's planned reforms of the country's labor market. The truth is that financial shock therapy does not go down very well in highly socialized nations such as Greece and Spain. In fact, the austerity measures that Spain has been pressured to implement by the IMF have proven so unpopular that many are now projecting that Spain's socialist government will be forced to call early elections."

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