(This is a letter written from Spain by reader Jose. I’ve known Jose since I was a small boy; he has lived more than 50 years in the USA and during this time he has worked here successfully as a teacher, Union leader and international financier. Jose now lives in Spain part of the year. He wrote this letter recently to a High School Teacher he knows from his time spent in Mineola High School on Long Island where he grew up. I post it because it addresses many issues , like austerity, that we are discussing here in America today. One hope I have for this blog is that it will give it’s readers a glimpse of the many sides of life and of the world, so this letter fits the bill. All comments are welcome of course.)
“I want to share with you that as an ex-union president of the Sweetwater Union High School District, I had no idea as to how a National General Strike works and whom it is against. Today, I participated in the largest demonstration since I have been in Oviedo.
Oviedo is a city of just slightly more than 200,000 inhabitants. I decided that besides participating to express my unhappiness with the government’s economic policies, I would stand at a street corner and try to get a sense of how many people where actually there. I stood at the corner and from the very start I check my watch til the demonstration ended. The demonstration lasted 1:45 minutes, a distance of about 1 to 1.25 kilometers, I would say close to a mile as I saw people in a crowded street go past me for 1:45 minutes. There were so many people that when the first group arrived the last ones had not even started to march. Tomorrow I will probably read that based on police account there were about 1,000 people marching.
I was just looking at yahoo and it said” that in Spain there were protests against austerity measures and labor reform”. This is another newspaper manipulation. In Spain, there is no protest against austerity measures and labor reform, it is a protest about who is responsible (for people) to be on austerity. It was best expressed by the slogan today that said there is money to rescue the banks, but there is no money for public schools and for public hospitals. There is no tax increase on the wealthy, but there is no money to pay for the prescriptions of those who have retired on 600Euros* per month.
The National Strike was about government policies that make the banks not pay for their waste, speculation and fraud of the public funds, but to the contrary get rescue funds from the ECB almost interest free, that is public money, but an unemployed worker who cannot pay his mortgage loses his home to the same bank who takes public money.
The press continues to manipulate the news. Spaniards are not against austerity measures to pay the debt created by real estate speculators such as the big banks, and the waste created by government corruption, however, they are against having funds that normally would go to public schools, public hospitals be used to pay for private use by private banks and other institutions. Worse, they are against having retired workers, on minimal pensions, who paid into Social Security, now have to pay for their own care, while the politicians continue to buy cell phones and lab tap phones with public funds. They continue to travel first class at the expense of the public and so are the bankers, who take public funds and retire with large pensions, but expect the working class to live with austerity.
I was so proud to see thousands of people today take to the streets and to let the politicians and the bankers know that they are not stupid or afraid. There were people of all interest groups, all interest groups, not only unionist, but musicians, actors, scientists, doctors and hospital staff, young, middle age and old. Unless this government shows a much more equitable approach to share in the economic burden by all, this government will not be for long. Even those of the right who voted for it were on the streets today, because they too are smart enough to understand that when it ran it said that it would not increase any taxes and it did totally the opposite, worse it did so on the working class and those who are least able to pay, the retired.”
I’d like to hear from readers in Holland, India, Japan, Germany and from other countries as well.
Franque23
* equals about $775.00
4 comments
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November 15, 2012 at 4:04 am
Jose
I had no idea that you would do this. It is okay, however, had I known, I would have read the essay before I sent it to you. In the future, please correct the English, such as I meant to say “but an UNemployed worker”.
By the way, the Spanish government has ordered all banks to stop evacuations from the homes, condos etc. those who are not paying their mortgages, until it announces new regulations and it will be decided on a case by case situation, before any family can be evicted. It will at least say that those who have lost their jobs, will have probably two years before they can be evicted from their homes and the banks will not be able to charge any late payments, fees or interest on the mortgages. THis has been a result of the large demonstrations in front of the homes when the police arrive to attempt evictions. The crowds in front of the homes are so large that the police, in many cases decide to not remove the demonstrators.
November 15, 2012 at 2:04 pm
franque23
reader Ken writes ; ” Lots of people have been talking about fair and simple taxation …. BUT NOT THE MACHINE OF THE ELITE … they have a reason things must be convoluted … they’re lawyers.”
November 15, 2012 at 2:23 pm
franque23
Kelly writes ;”17% is low for the services our government is expected to provide. They would have to go up to at least 25%. Also, the problem with a flat tax is that the poor spend a disproportionately large percentage of their income on basic necessities (like food and shelter) and no government should tap into the percentage spent by the population on necessities. 25% would likely not be feasible for low-income tax brackets.”
November 15, 2012 at 2:24 pm
franque23
reader Jim mentions a 17% flat tax as one possible solution while noting that this would put a lot of people, accounts etc. , out of work.