Thousands in Spain protest austerity, corruption

Reuters via nbcnews.com ^ | February 23, 2013 | Paul Day

[John W]

Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched through cities across the country on Saturday to protest deep austerity, the privatization of public services and political corruption.

Gathering under the banner of the "Citizen Tide," students, doctors, unionists, young families and pensioners staged rowdy but non-violent demonstrations as a near five-year economic slump shows no sign of recovery and mass unemployment rises.

[freedumb2003]

>>Thousands in Spain protest austerity, corruption<<

But mostly austerity.

[Travis McGee]

“Free rainbows and unicorns for everyone!”

[livius]

They’re living with the Zapatero legacy (think “Obama” in Spanish). He lavished money on his cronies, made the state the main player in the economy, and gave away those unicorns (0 interest mortgages to unemployed “young people” - that is, leftists up to age 45 - for apartments and houses they could never afford) to keep his voter base strong. And Spain was sinking in debt as a result.

And now the Spanish are PO’d that they have to pay the bill for Zapatero’s populist frolics. Unfortunately, the conservatives now in power (freely elected by the people) are those who have to do the heavy lifting to correct this - and they are being blamed for what Zapatero did. Sound familiar?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks IbJensen.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks John W.

[fhayek]

Sadly, the portrait you paint is a vision of a post Obama America. The media (and therefore, the popular conception) is that Obama is not to be faulted for any of our economic woes. When TSHTF, and an adult gets into power and has to undo as much of the damage that Obama created, he will be blamed for the mess. We all know this is true.

It has already started. The sequester, which is a mere pittance compared to the trillions that should be cut, is being regarded as being catastrophic to the economy. As if the United States economy cannot function without perpetual deficit spending. The republicans, because of their support for the sequester, will be blamed for a stagnant economy, even thought it has been that way for four years. The sequester is the only sign of fiscal sanity that we have seen out of Washington in years.

[soycd]

Typical leeches can’t seem to figure out that milking those that work for a living to carry their dead weight is the definition of “political corruption.”

[jmacusa]

“Zapatero’’ means ‘’shoemaker’’ in Spanish. Spain needed a leader and got a shoemaker.