by Stephen Fidler
Thursday, February 25, 2010
provided byThursday, February 25, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
At the center of the crisis are millions of Spaniards like Olga Espejo. The 41-year-old lost her administrative job at a laboratory in
"What prospects do any of us have now?" Ms. Espejo asks. That question haunts
"
The government rejects talk of crisis. "The fundamentals of our economy are solid," Elena Salgado,
Euro heavyweights
A "shock and awe" infusion aimed at renewing faith in
Some observers, to be sure, believe
Most economists see three options for
The first is for the government to do nothing, leaving the economy to wallow through years of high unemployment and debt defaults. The second is for the government to take a more active role, slashing its spending while taking unpopular measures to boost the supply side of the economy, including overhauling a rigid labor market.
On Tuesday,
"If the reforms come late or are insufficient, our future is undoubtedly worrying," Bank of
Mr. Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute is among the pessimists who doubt the government will take this course. He thinks
A more mainstream view holds that no government,
The government has announced plans, starting with tax rises and spending cuts this year, to slice the budget deficit to 3% of GDP by 2013, a program financial analysts have described as credible. It forecasts that public debt will crest at around 74% of GDP in 2012, compared with 113% today in
Still, Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero has drawn criticism from economists for saying he will deal with the crisis without hurting the country's social programs. "That's not a plan, but an announcement," said Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quiros, president of Freemarket International Consulting in
Spanish private and public debt rose an average of 14.5% a year from 2000 to 2008, according to McKinsey Global Institute. Total debt peaked at the end of 2008 at $4.9 trillion, or 342% of GDP -- a higher percentage than the level in the U.S. and most major economies except Britain and Japan. Six-sevenths of that is owed by the private sector. McKinsey expects households, indebted companies and real-estate developers to shed debt, a widespread "deleveraging" that is likely to trigger defaults and harm the banking system. Most analysts say Spain's banking problems are concentrated in the country's 45 cajas, regional savings banks usually run by local politicians that often went deep into real-estate lending. Nonperforming loans in Spain's banks and regional savings institutions are now estimated at 5% of the total, up from 3.2% a year ago. Santiago Lopez Diaz, a bank analyst at Credit Suisse in London, estimates this may underestimate the total by 30% to 40%.
Roughly half of Spain's estimated 1.3 million unsold houses are now on the books of cajas and banks, which have been slow to sell them because they don't want to realize losses. Financial institutions "have become the biggest realtors in Spain," said Fernando Encinar, co-founder of Idealista.com, Spain's largest property Web site.
The government has tried to force cajas to merge into stronger institutions, and has set up a fund to encourage them to restructure and bolster capital. Analysts expect cajas to post big losses this year that will likely force the government to raise more money to boost the fund.
Massive joblessness could further slow Spain's climb out of debt. Even in good times, unemployment never got below about 8%. Now the rate is nudging 20% overall and close to 45% among young people -- statistics that reveal to economists a deeply flawed employment market.
Wages are set through a complicated system of bargaining with trade unions that imposes wage increases on firms even if their business can't afford it. Because wages are inflexible, Spanish companies can cut labor costs only by firing workers. Yet some workers, hired on so-called indefinite contracts, are deeply entrenched, not least because they are entitled to 45 days' severance pay per year of service. So, when the economy turns down, those on temporary contracts bear the brunt. When prospects brighten, companies think long and hard before inking more indefinite contracts.
That bodes poorly for Eduardo Garcia, 55, who was huddling in line outside a job center recently in Madrid's Santa Eugenia neighborhood. Unemployed for the first time, Mr. Garcia worked for 25 years at a book-and-magazine distributor that closed in November. His wife and 20-year-old daughter are also unemployed. Mr. Garcia said he has had no work offers. "At my age, it will be difficult."
Madrid has vowed to reform the labor market. One proposal would reduce the severance-pay entitlement for new workers by 12 days, to 33 days.
Fernando Eguidazu, director-general of the Circulo de Empresarios, a business association, said Madrid has avoided locking horns with labor. Demonstrations against a proposal to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 took place in several Spanish cities Tuesday and Wednesday.
Unions could resist new labor proposals, he said, but it's a needed step: "If they [the government] try to keep being nice to everybody, we are wasting time and the people and the markets are losing confidence." That sentiment is already apparent in the market for insurance against a Spanish default. The price to insure €10 million in Spanish bonds for five years -- just €2,350 three years ago -- rose this month to €171,750 before falling to €125,000, said data firm Markit Group Ltd.
That translates into increased borrowing costs for Spain, which now pays about 0.8 percentage points more than Germany to borrow money for 10 years. For years to come, Spain will largely be at the mercy of wary bond investors to finance its governments, banks and companies. The national government says it will have to raise €76.8 billion this year and pay back an additional €35 billion of maturing bonds. Amid it all, Mr. Bernaldo de Quiros predicts, investors' worries will ebb and flow over what he calls "a real risk of default" as they await decisive government action. "They more time you lose," he said of the government, "the more devastating the adjustment has to be."