Το φιτρί αγόρι (colourful life)

Delicious, rico, νόστιμο spanish cured ham (or jamón ibérico). Some days I like to eat a bit of jamón after work. Although I’m living abroad this is one the things from Spain that makes me “smile” But what does this have to do with the international bank crisis? Well, we (normal people who likes and dislikes jamon) are gonna “pay” somehow government and bank mistakes.

Let’s start from the beginning.

How did it start?

I guess you’ve heard about the “subprime mortgages” where a bank gives you money and it doesn’t check much if you will be able to pay it back. Some time ago banks started to be more greedy than they usually are. They thought that even if they give all the money they have in loans, in the end they will get back all their money plus a nice profit.

At the same time, people were buying careless. You don’t have the money? the bank will give it to you. No matter what you wanted, you could get it. This also pushed sellers to increase prices because: “the bank will give you the money”.

The Process/The cycle.

Meanwhile governenment was happy watching how the economy was growing. Press conferences to show how well our economy is going and lots of smiles. Remember: when you buy a house, taxes will be in the total amount you’ll pay.

Banks thinking in the birght future return of their “investments”, people buying like crazy, prices rising, goverments hypnotized by the sound of more euros comming.

Repeat this for some time. And you’ll get:

The boom (salaries also overflow).

One day, someone who also likes jamón went to the supermarket to buy more but he couldn’t because it was too expensive. In that very moment his life changed because he didn’t have enough money to continue buying (jamón) so he stopped buying unnecessary things. At the same time other jamón eaters started to have the same problem. They couldn’t buy jamón, and some couldn’t even pay the debts they had acquired.

Banks started to worry about their future profits. And other profits from overpriced jamón (and other goods) started to disappear. Without sales there is no profit, and without profit (or money on your pocket) you cannot buy goods or pay debts. Massive lay offs, more people without money to buy jamón.

We started to go: cuesta abajo, de culo y sin frenos. Literal translation: down the hill, on our arses and without breaks. Free fall.

If a bank was supposed to cost and ammount A two years ago, now with so many debts plus an uncertain future, its price was highly reduced: The stock market started to crash. Banks realized they have no money to continue running, because they spent all the money form the savers in risky “business”.

Trying to breathe.

The greedy banks ask for help. When you cannot afford a house, the government dosn’t give you money. Or when you cannot pay your insurance. Some times people can’t even buy food. If that happens to you today, tomorrow you won’t have a politician in your door offering government’s help.

People who was able to manage themselves and save money were just about to loose ther savings beacause “someone” gave it to the ones that don’t save or cannot stop buying unnecesary things. If a government doesn’t react now… What the *piii* do we need it for?

So the government reacted spending the money used to maintain schools, hospitals, and public services on the greedy banks. Injecting the money they needed to appear again healthy and recover their value.

My rant.

At least in Spain we all knew that sooner or later house prices will stop raising, and people will realize that they cannot buy them because they don’t even have money to buy a cheap jamón. Meanwhile the goverment didn’t prepare a plan to direct the economy in other ways than “building houses”. They just enjoyed the benefits.

Governments allowed this to happen. They were supposed to care about us, plan country needs, manage the economy. But one day you just realize that the only thing they plan is their salary raises for next year. So I just think about why do we need to pay so much for people who cannot plan in advance. I’m not saying thay they need to know the future, just be prepared and realize of what’s going on.

The worst is that governments also enjoyed the benefits when prices were rising and people was buying like crazy. They were selling healthy economies based on bloated prices.

And now governments invest our money to save the same greedy people that started this. It’s like they’re some kind of con team ready to help each other and also ready to steal our money.

Moral of the story.

Eat Jamón.