11–20 of 95 posts
Interesting to imagine an ex-king in disgrace qnd exile from a European country. Having been born under Elizabeth II and having her hang on so long, I can't imagine a similar circumstance for the Commonwealth.
Did you forget about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII ? That’s not that long ago (he was an uncle of Elizabeth II, wasn’t he?)
Interesting to imagine an ex-king in disgrace qnd exile from a European country. Having been born under Elizabeth II and having her hang on so long, I can't imagine a similar circumstance for the Commonwealth.
Did you forget about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII ? That’s not that long ago (he was an uncle of Elizabeth II, wasn’t he?)
Interesting to imagine an ex-king in disgrace qnd exile from a European country. Having been born under Elizabeth II and having her hang on so long, I can't imagine a similar circumstance for the Commonwealth.
Did you forget about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII ? That’s not that long ago (he was an uncle of Elizabeth II, wasn’t he?)
Never expected to read the name "Villarejo" on HackerNews
This is Spain, corruption at all levels. A failed state.
Never expected to read the name "Villarejo" on HackerNews
Dude could've been taken straight out of a movie. Sometimes reality does surpass fiction.
This is Spain, corruption at all levels. A failed state.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spain is a country with huge problems. But it is not a failed state. You should try Venezuela if you want to get the flavour of failure. In any case, Spain is very corrupt, including Catalonia (where I live), but many other EU countries are corrupt too. I think about France and all the corruption cases about weapons procurement contracts (Taiwan frigates, etc.). We can also think about the US ...
> Spain is a country with huge problems Any sources or further reading?
EDIT: I see I'm being downvoted, but I stand by my words. I'll provide more context though. The Spanish Civil War is the pivotal moment in Spanish history in the 20th century and explains a lot of what Spain is nowadays - from the state of autonomías (autonomous regions), to the bitter divide between Left and Right, or the total inability to reach national agreements on education and other strategic matters. Aside from that it's an authoritative and engrossing read.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spain is a country with huge problems. But it is not a failed state. You should try Venezuela if you want to get the flavour of failure. In any case, Spain is very corrupt, including Catalonia (where I live), but many other EU countries are corrupt too. I think about France and all the corruption cases about weapons procurement contracts (Taiwan frigates, etc.). We can also think about the US ...
> Spain is a country with huge problems Any sources or further reading?
But if you want something interesting I will name 3 interesting cases that have shown up in the last few years.
ERE case andalucia, essentially EREs are just the spanish name for furlough but it also includes things like early retirement. Well in Andalucia since 2001 until 2009 a case of local politicians managed to corruptly send up to 680 million to themselves and family members. This is the largest corruption case in Spanish history in terms of money.
Equally news worthy, the opposite political party (we mostly have two) had a case themselves where the tresurer Luis Barcenas was found to have 40 million on a Swiss account which he claimed he used to pay political leaders in Spain bonuses and that the money came from big companies that would bride them to give them public contracts. Essentially the american lobbying but in a country were its illegal.
And lastly there is the case of the Cajas. Cajas are a spanish version of savings banks. They are meant to be small, local, have low risk accounts for worker savings etc. Problem was many had politicians in their boards who would make the requirements for credit much lower, so they could finance public pharaonic architecture that would get them reelected. (Due to this Spain has several unused, someone built them and no plane every landed or took off from them). This opened the gates not only for those politicians but for everyone to get credit incredibly easy which is one of the reasons Spain was incredibly hardly hit in 2008, and one of the reasons it's one of the few countries that has not recovered the loans given to banks.