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Spain Is World's Most "Miserable" Nation, Worse Than Greece, Venezuela And South Africa
A quick ranking of the world's most "miserable" countries, based on the conventional measure of the Misery Index which is simply the Unemployment Rate plus Inflation, shows just why most people in Spain are, well, less than happy (and Spain is damn lucky there is no subset of the Misery index for just those aged 25 and under as we would certainly need a bigger chart). As the chart below shows, the Spanish "misery" is now the greatest in the world, at some 30%, and is worse than South Africa, Greece, Venezuela, Argentina and Egypt.
But fear not Spain: Croatia which is set to join the EU in July is forecast to have a debt/GDP ratio of 63.6% by 2017 from 29.3% in 2008 as growth stagnates. The country has one of the lowest labor participation rates in Europe at about 50 percent, the ILO says. In other words, at just 26%, it a virtual guarantee that Spain pole position is about to be eclipsed as Europe does the one thing it is truly good at: spread misery for the "common good."
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Miserable....but green as hell.
Where's Trav?
He's so hard up for Spain.......Life goes on.
right here, motherfucker
this is the problem, Durden is full of shit and so is this article. funny how they deemed Spaniards miserable without actually asking any spaniards.
Just come up with your own metric and say "ZOMG those people must be MISERABLE"...why? Because they don't have an american-style economy?
Look, fuckheads, WE are the people who are fucking miserable; look around you. This is the most miserable nation...all we do is bitch and kill people. We have diversity running loose, fuckin illegal aliens everywhere, our culture is in FULL DECLINE. Look at our TV, music, art...anything.
Stop projecting, America.
Why aren't the fucking losers in Spain revolting?
it's to hot... they'll do it tomorrow... or maybe the day after...
Right after siesta time... or, mañana, mañana.
If Spain would have just listened to Paul Krugman... /sarc
Someday the peasants will discover Y = C + I - G + NX
I find it hard to believe Spain is worse than Venezuela with its 21,000 murders per year in a country of 28 million, 7’ high barbwire residential fences everywhere, 20% inflation rate, and 60 kidnappings a day.
But then again Chavez is on his death bed.
Fat dudes in a speedo in any country are revolting to me.
Why aren't the fucking losers in USAmerikka revolting?
EBT cards and Jerry Springer.
I... I... agree with you trav... WTF IS WRONG WITH ME TODAY!!! I NEED A DOCTOR!!! :)
Croatia, generally speaking, always disliked associating itself with 'Yugoslavia.' Well, i wonder if they are more happy now?...or maybe when they join the EU?
.
I realize that Yugoslavia was a failed experiment...but thats beside the point.
can't speak to croats, but the serbs I met when in serbia were considerably happier despite a relatively bleak future than typical americans.
Look- all these immigrants are only here to make money. They're not here for anything else.
As a Balkan-boy I can confirm that "happiness index" down there doesn't include the quantity of iPads, ferraris or yachts you possess,because people there know you cannot
buy yourself happiness.
You Westerners have a few thousand years and a couple of collapsed civilisation ahead of you until you reach that level.
Good life philosophy ...
Not to digress from the main topic, but... Croatia, "be carefull what you wish for." How has independence worked out for them? They had a better 'deal' in old Yuogoslavia when they were 'somebody'.
'Old Yugoslavia' was a great, safe and very cheap vacation destination. 'Tito-bandito' kept the various republics together, and as leader of the non-aligned countries, kept them in line also. His "value add" brinksmanship was the cause for The West helping him financially. Cost of doing business... for a tiny fraction of what we burn these days on any given day.
Wow, I agree with you today, Trav.
Measuring "misery" as in the chart seems puerile at best. That is not to say the data displayed is not accurate.
In my experience, Americans are far more miserable than Europeans in general, and than Spaniards in particular.
While the data above will not make a people fell "miserable" by default, you know I don't share your perception of Spain at the moment. The thing keeping up Spaniards' mood is that they are utterly convinced that the crisis is over, and by summer we'll be at 2003 all over again.
In my experience, Americans are far more miserable than Europeans in general, and than Spaniards in particular.
While this is largely true, you do not see self immoltation going on in the USA,as has been seen in Spain.
That's true. That's what happens when people are not on a bijillion psychoactive drugs.
Come on, that kind of even is tragic, but you know it does not represent a society's feeling. I could say you do not see mass shootings in Spain. that's a retarded argument.
Self immolation, no. We have the gubmint do it for us.
Misery is a function of expectation. Perhaps, on balance, the expectations of the American flock is greater than that of the European flock.
Word to muh gold toof, u be spittin da troof and shit!
Stretch out the timeline, it's been all downhill since Constantine made worshipping the jewish God the only game in the empire and his successors literally killed off the "pagan" loverrs-- you know guys who actually preferred logic and thinking over stupidity and hocus-pocus.
the only ones miserable are the ones not taking their happy pills.. you need to get into the matrix
Hey, Trav...
My friend in Spain sez they are fuckin' miserable. Verdad? She's waiting for Catalonia to secede.
FORWARD SOVIET!
Que Viva Espana!!!
There used to be days when those kind of numbers would guarantee that your President would not be elected...
~~~
Nowadays when you go over 25%, your election gets rigged, & the government takes away your guns & raises your taxes...
Note: I say 'over 25%', because if TRUE unemployment & CPI were reported in the US, it would be right about that number... Good thing BLS stats are bogus, CPI is 'ex food & energy' & we have a bunch of carrier groups floating around... [They HATE US for our freedom to bomb them back into the stone age]...
~~~
What sickens me more are these fuckin Bloomberg Charts [which paint an entirely false picture to anyone who doesn't know what's going on]... Nevertheless ~ they'll hand the chart over to some pretty anchor [showing ample clevage], & she'll proceed to deflect your focus on those poor saps over there... [if she can get your eyes off her tits]...
Wake up and feel the misery Spain, and see ya, don't want to be ya.
how many of the retards commenting on Spain have actually ever been to Spain?
Europeans tend to be FAR happier than Merkins. Merkins are comparatively spoiled fucking brats who throw violent tantrums at the first disturbance.
This nation is about overreacting for everything- it's jewish. Neurotic, hyper passive/aggressive, and bitchy warmongers.
Well I've never been to Spain, but I've been to Oklahoma... (and it's not bad)
Again with the Yews. Perhaps we should better designate by adding "Self-Styled Canaanite Yews"? Lumping all Yuden together is as wrong as saying all Christians are murdering pedophiles just because the Smirking Chimp claimed to be a Christian (which of course, none of these evil bags of shit follow Laws of Moses).
Trav you are a racist little redneck motherfucker, who needs to be taken to the woodshed and have your balls put in a vice, and squeezed like lemons until you agree to bake some cookies for the local Mexican or Chinese illegals looking for work at the side of the road!
Well Eireann, can I glean from your username that you are, like I, an Irishman?
Let me as you this: Have you been to these places? What was your opinion of Dubai or Zimbabwe or South Africa? I haven't been so I cannot thrash someone else's opinion of them. Does having visited somewhere in the world and not enjoying something of the local culture make one a racist? Hmmmm........by that logic everyone who ever had a disappointing holiday is a fucking facist zealot.
You know Trav isn't the only one saying that whites have fared badly in S.Africa since apartheid ended. And we all know what has happened in Zimbabwe. Or are you now saying this isn't actually so? Or is it the fact that you wish it wasn't so? And if it is so, is Trav "racist" simply for pointing it out?
Get down off your fucking politically correct horse and come into the real world.
Obama's mother is Irish Jew. Jews consider the "Jewishness" to be passed through mother's blood. Therefore, Obama is an Irish Jew. Bet you thought he was a Mooslim? :)
"Irish Jew"? Isn't that an oxymoron? Or just made up?
Yes there are Joos in Ireland. Our Minister for so-called justice is a Joo. Whether he's a real Irish man is another matter.
haha...um...while I certainly appreciate the support, you are REALLY going to ask someone for a logical explanation on why I am racist?
Each and every time you justify this label this way, you give it legitimacy. You are trying to make a logical assault on its legitimacy when you should merely REJECT IT. You cannot make a logical assault on the legitimacy of miasmas or alien abductions, can you? If you legitimize these labels you will end up having them used on you as others gang up to try to impose cloture.
I am racist by the definition of the word, as are you. The word has no real meaning. Call me a unicorn next.
Chinese people mill around at the side of the road looking for work? Where tf is this?!?
I have been to Spain and have friends there, I agree with you in some respects, others, ehh. Spain is a great country that has internal and external problems like most, they way over spent "but in one regard, they over spent on infrastructure" this is actually a good deal, at least they have something to show for their lost money. If and when they come out of this downward spiral, they will not have to rebuild much.
Other countries in Europe "Italy, worst" have a extremely poor infrastructure and nothing to show for any money spent. Italians should be at the top of the list of feeling miserable, with the most beggars per capita I believe.
Face it, Spain is the bread basket, large varieties of foods and cheap labor, when Europe gets hungry this is where they will turn to for food.
Everything will just need to reset, wages, taxes, government size, etc......
If it wasn't for all the great wine, food, cars, art, fashion and beautiful women, Italy would definitely be "worst".
In Soviet Amerika, only infrastructure built with tax is democracy bomb to be dropped on brown heads. Excellent investment for people!!!
It's a good job for Spain that this does not also include retail sales numbers as Spain's have plummeted. Take a look at this analysis of what is happening..
"Retail Sales
The Spanish statistics office has told us this today about December.
As this comprises the crucial Christmas season we can see that there was no seasonal cheer or pick-up for Spanish retailers this time around. In fact if you look at the numbers for the year overall we in fact see that there was a further decline.
We get an additional guide to this below.
The statistics agency probably now regrets also using a calendar or working day adjusted series as this shows an even worse decline in December as it is 10.7% below the year before.
Another worrying sign is that even food sales have turned solisly downwards as the annual fall in those in December was 5.1%."
http://www.mindfulmoney.co.uk/wp/shaun-richards/spain-shows-more-signs-of-economic-decline-as-her-mortgage-interest-rates-rise/
The black market is alive and well in spain..the retail black market and the jobs black market.
True. In my working class neighbourhood in Madrid, we buy our foodstuffs, kitchenware and some clothes on a sunday street market.Prices are 30 to 50% less, and no VAT.
About 20% of my total expenditure on these products goes to licensed retail, and I'd say I'm above average in my neighbourhood. Supermarkets here hardly carry produce anymore cause noone buys it there. (And we eat more % of fresh produce than americans).
Half my friends are working black market (University graduates, masters degree)
ZOMG you guys are not chasing retail merchandise from approved retailers with VAT and other taxes!!! You are evil terrists who are anti-american!!! I bet you are using CASH instead of electronic interest-bearing credit cards too!! You are rejecting the system of USURY and debt serfdom and just getting on with living life and using bearer notes. WTF is wrong with you, this is EVIL.
So sayeth our media and government. They say it so often and so loud that I almost wonder if those in charge there are in some way related to those who benefit from the lending racket. Hmm...thought gone, Bergeron device made a loud siren.
okay....
1. Sun = +1
2. warm = +1
3. Nice chicks = +1
....
REALLY!!! IF YOU LIVE IN BELGIUM WHERE THE WEATHER SUCKS 366 DAYS A YEAR, YOU DON'T WANNE CALL SPAIN A MISERABLE PLACE!!!
You can eat neither the sun, nor the warmth, nor the ...chicks....so to say.
who says you can't eat chicks? :)
Just ask 5 woman you pass onto the street: CAN I EAT YOU
Watch their reaction...
SMELLS LIKE FISH! TASTES LIKE CHICKEN!!
weather, scenery, yes...chicks, not so much. Hottest chicks anywhere i've been were in Rome. Tourism high season so assume that those OBVIOUSLY east euro chicks were not real romans, but whatever. Eye candy everywhere. Belgrade takes second place; every 10th or so is a supermodel.
The women in brazil are also pretty smokin and in the NE, the men are ugly. If you're noncolored, you can score pretty much whomever. Especially americans...we are the conquerors and you just gotta have that aura and you're set.
Yes, chicks in Rome are hot. But they get even hotter and the outfits more sexy the closer you get to Milan.
Man.. you need leason in Sex.
Yu kneed a leson in speling
Yu Amelican? Yu Spleak Amelican?
hello to sunny marbella from me old friend
Hola brucy, hope well.
Hola brucy, hope well.
See how happy the Irish are ? Spaniards just don't drink enough.
Ill take Claudia Basolls out of her misery...
The high unemployment rate for South Africa is extremely misleading and is very often used by many media outlets to paint South Africa as a place of instability.
The high unemployment is not so much a structural economic issue as a sociological one. The reason it is so perisitently elevated is very high immigration from the rest of Africa (Zimbabweans are SA's mexicans) who do the work even SA blacks dont want to do.
Secondly, it has to do with reproduction rates among the black population which are now just adjusting to post-malthusian fertility rates.
In other words, black families have not yet adjusted to the idea that the majority of children will live to adulthood (due to 1st world medicine etc.) and thus have not yet experienced the decline of birth rates which eventually hit every developing market.
PS- There is as much sunshine and warm weather here as in Spain! And the land has lots of hidden treasures- not just gold but some of the best agriculture on earth...
http://www.agrisell.co.za/farms_for_sale/property.asp?area=451&property=...
black reproductive rate is an evolutionary strategy. It's not going to be "realized" away.
Blacks in the first world still have it.
It is mitigated only by things on the right hand side of Bartlett's sheet.
I routinely go places that are supposedly fucking miserable and I encounter people FAR HAPPIER than the average Merikin, who is ready to get into a fucking fight if Dick's sold out of the particular model of bicycle that little precious was supposed to get as an Xmas present.
Merikins project their unhappiness onto others. They don't understand that there is more to life than running like a fucking hamster on a fucking wheel like the Red Queen to make some joobux for some semite to buy his teenage daughter a nose job or a bigger bar mitvah for his effeminate, neurotic son.
If you don't let your society get infested by this love of money, such that it pervades every aspect of your existence, you're intrinsically much happier.
BULLISH
What Are you talking about Tayler? Portugal is the nest of the most corrupt troglodytes europe has ever seeeen! BAnif is insolvent, the submarine scandal has put government on the hook for 34 million, with the german Ferrostaal, and nobody knows where the money went. Something is cooking to invent the need of a new airport, and all the accesses, including one more bridge, to /in Alcochete, leaving tax payers crucified with billions. Corruption perpetrated by organized troglodytes of the catacombs, continues to to suck the last drop of blood from the rest of the country!!! What is wrong with you Tayler? Where is your radar tuned to?
What Are you talking about Tayler? Portugal is the nest of the most corrupt troglodytes europe has ever seeeen! BAnif is insolvent, the submarine scandal has put government on the hook for 34 million, with the german Ferrostaal, and nobody knows where the money went. Something is cooking to invent the need of a new airport, and all the accesses, including one more bridge, to /in Alcochete, leaving tax payers crucified with billions. Corruption perpetrated by organized troglodytes of the catacombs, continues to to suck the last drop of blood from the rest of the country!!! What is wrong with you Tayler? Where is your radar tuned to?
If money is your source of misery, then count your blessings. Thoughts and prayers to Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, etc.
PS- just my $0.02 but I have lived/travelled in several places in the world and there are few people in the world that are happier/nicer/more hospitable than black Africans.
The most unfriendly (miserable) people I have ever encountered were In Dubai. Especially the guest workers there that get treated like scum. Try stopping someone to ask for directions in Dubai and see how it goes...
Dubai always makes me think of what it would be like if Hell decded to put a theme park modelled on an American shoppong mall.
My concerns with troubled African countries are the genocide, rapings, militia-gangs and child soldiers amoung other problems. If the people have hope and high spirits despite these things then they are truly remarkable. I'm not sure I could feel the same way since I cannot even when I'm not there.
africans are in most cases so dramatically different than African Americans that it blows the mind right outta the head. Hell, they even move over on the roads if you want to go faster.
However, um...yeah. They rob, murder, mutilate white people in Africa for being white. There's been a genocide of farmers in RSA since apartheid fell, nevermind what happened in zimbo. They are hospitable to a point just as lions are relatively pleasant during the day after a big meal. You are advised by black guides not to wander around in their own countries. Hell, they even roll their eyes at people like swedes who assume everywhere is safe just like this private game reserve is.
Dubai is a shithole...ugliest place I've ever been, bar none. The khalifa is a ridiculous piece of engineering, utterly staggering, like Coruscant or something, but the place has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Dubai=meaning of life is SHOPPING for luxury western brands. THAT is their hallmark, oh we have Hermes and LV and Chanel ALL in the SAME mall!!! Wow whoopie shit look at us.
Fkin arab trash; vacuous, soulless, empty. Materialism. Yet people rave at it.
"our culture is in FULL DECLINE"
Never knew you had a culture. A powerful entertainment industry yes you have but a culture...?
Get out of NYC, WashDC, LA and the US is filled with culture. Africa, been there, done that, and yeah, lot's of nice people most of them poor as a church mouse, but ...
....and moreover, this is only a stepping-stone to a more dire existence! 'Watch out France...u next?
Who da thunk that global banking would destroy countries and leave them at deaths door? I guess Josey Wales was right... Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.
as fro "green" Spain, the heart of the land is one big fucking desert... Remember all the movies Sergio Leone shot there cos he couldn't afford to fly to Nevada or Texas?
Plus those dumb Spaniards have planted tons and tons of GMO's so the land is fucked for decades... Well done!
The exact places Sergio Leone shot at now provide massive amounts of fresh produce for Spain, France, and Germany, thanks to plastic hothouses. You can see the hothouse areas shining, from outer space. That in turn is accidentally reversing desertification of the south, as rain patterns are changing to an increase.
I agree with you on the GMOs, however, forests are growing back on their own, and I don't mean pine tree reforestation schemes, but native species repopulating all non agricultural areas.
I am in fact concerned that if we go the greek way, this new growth will get cut down to burn.
The misery index sounds vaguley familiar.....
Federal Reserve dual mandate anyone?
USA is #3 based on the Shadowstats figures.
Another Bronze for Team USA!
The minute I saw Ireland, where I live, as the least miserable of all the countries on the chart, I knew the chart was utterly meaningless.
Ireland is a shit hole.
Ireland is a shit hole
Yes, and most are coming here to find jobs, either illegally or legally
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/01/irish_immigr...
Young Irish stuggle in job market:
http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/articles/2011/08/24/young...
Right on the money Shizzmoney. We are exporting our native young, all educated at great expense over many years, the children of Ireland, and replacing them by the thousand with the dregs of Africa, Asia and eastern Europe. People who don't speak English, have no loyalty to Ireland, and who, when there's enough of them will eventually start agitating for special rights from their self created ghettos.
This in a nutshell is the policy of the last couple of Irish governments.
It may be a shithole, but there is something extraordinarily sexy about an Irish lass. I don't know if it is the accent, or the confidence, or the slight promiscuousness that I have seen in most. It works for me.
i was trying to hit one in Spain of all places lol...they have whores' eyes
But at least Spain is not Uganda....
Big distortion in this Top Ten chart -- it uses Argentina's official inflation rate of around 10 percent from Indec.
But estimates of its true rate of inflation -- from private economists who release their work via opposition politicians, after several of them were fined $100,000 -- cluster around 24%.
Argentina lies so blatantly in its official statistics, that it's on the verge of being expelled from the IMF.
Use 24% inflation, and Argentina comes out NUMBER ONE ... campeones del mundo, baby!
To be fair, the chart should be remade using the REAL numbers.
Argentina is not the only one bullshitting, but are they campeones at it?
:D
Probably so. The cumulative gap between 10% and 24% rates is enormous.
The official inflation index is up about 60% since the end of 2007, while the private index has TRIPLED:
http://www.inflacionverdadera.com/
Tourists can verify that taxi fares and restaurant bills have roughly tripled over that period, too.
Likely the G7 shave one percent or so off their inflation rates, but Argentina is in a league of its own.
According to ShadowStats U.S. inflation is 6% and real unemployment is 23% yielding a real misery index of 29%. That makes the U.S as miserable as Spain.
As several other posters have rightly pointed out, the chart is based upon "official" levels of unemployment & consumer inflation.
When the true levels are used, the picture is very different.
I was in Spain last year running with the bulls. Everyone was drunk and happy living of government paychecks - not sure where the misery was. Topless beaches were not miserable either.
So, I can go to the US, to a strip club, then I can go see a rodeo, and like, make conclusions of what is happening in the economy? And make conclusions as to whether the strippers/rodeo participants are on ETB?
Sometimes things just don't work out at all as expected: AAPL, PM prices for ZH'ers, EU for Spain. Spain was prosperous when they weren't saddled with the over-priced Euro or EU's Giga-regulations. They can have it good again, but Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece need to have their own currencies and freedom from the yoke of Brussels. Maybe a Northern and a Southern Euro zone.
As an investor, this tells me that Spain & Portugal are good for cheap real estate. You know... buy during doom & gloom or, better still (per the Rothschild philosophy) "when there's blood in the streets". Then it's a real buyer's market.
What? Belarus not on the list? I thought they were going through hyperinflation right now...
...or Honduras for that matter?? There public systems are shtutting down because they can' t pay their bills. Crime is skyrocketing, etc, etc... Given the choice I'd much rather live in Spain than Honduras...for now.
If Spain was not getting cash from the EU it would be hell on earth.
Just wait though...