Centre and peripheries (3) - Portugal, an Iberian periphery

The evaluation of the demographic dynamics, education levels, and in foreign trade imbalances shows Portugal’s growing weakness and dependence relatively to the Spanish state, in a context in which both are peripheries a Europe suffering from a process of economic and democratic entropy. 

Summary

 

1 - People, the most precious capital 

1.1 - Migrants 

1.2 - Knowledge, the great wealth 

2 - An unbalanced and unequal external trade 

2.1 - Iberian countries’ foreign trade profile

3 – Per capita incomes 

We have recently observed the inequalities between the various countries and their regions since 1990, and Portugal’s presence among the peripheral areas or those in demographic regression is very visible in this study, and this. Somewhat further back in time we noticed the purchasing power variations in Portuguese municipalities between 2004 and 2013, which were materialized in the observation of a greater homogeneity between the various regions, as a result of a more extensive impoverishment in those municipalities where the income was higher within, of course, the Portuguese context. 

In the present text we will focus on the inequalities within the Iberian Peninsula by disaggregating, as far as possible, the scoring elements by the Portuguese regions and the Spanish state’s autonomous regions. 

1 - People, the most precious capital

As we said recently, the population dynamics is an indicator of prime relevance to see whether a region is prosperous or evolves towards relative poverty. In the first case, it is attractive to its natives and also to people coming from its outside; and, in the second case, it tends to repel its own natives due to lack of attractiveness, and reduce its own reproduction (birth) rate. 

For the sum of the two peninsular states, demographic evolution is quite different in the present century, as can be seen in the following table. In Spain, even including the last years with very low

Center and peripheries in Europe (2) - Portugal, a case of peripheral disaster

Within the context of some narrowing of Europe’s inequalities, Portugal is a country with evident relative impoverishment. 

1 - Evolution of per capita GDP 

2 – Households’ gross income 

3 - Those labor costs  

We have recently carried on a synthetic explanation of the inequalities in the EU, which are the consequence of a process that has taken place over the past 45 years. And we used the word synthetic because we have privileged an indicator - demographic evolution - which clearly reflects the evolution of the position of each European region in the hierarchy built by the current neoliberal capitalism. 

In this paper, we will observe those inequalities between countries at the light of per capita GDP, household income, and business’ costs with labor, including some details related to what has been going on in Portugal.

1 - Evolution of per capita GDP

The evolution of per capita GDP for the EU-28 group, measured in euros, for the period of 1970 to 2014, shows a very rapid growth until 1990, with a slowdown in the next five years, a recovery in the decade of 1995 to 2005, with the later period ending with a very weak growth, subsequent to the systemic political, economic, and financial crisis, which continues to grow deeper.

The ten years of crisis - winners and losers

Ten years later, the only things neoliberal measures have to show for are a fragile financial system and a budding new speculative bubble; and the consecrated GDP growth remains anemic, based on low wages and on the Chinese performance. Keynesians also are not a shiny alternative.

The political classes execute the orders for the continuing meekness of the plebs, feeding nationalisms, xenophobia and, soon, assumed fascisms; benefiting from the absence of an up-to-date leftist thinking.

In the US, Trump proposed changing the Defense budget from $582,000 M to $636,000 M but the Senate found it too little and increased it to $696,000 M, with the only rejections coming from Bernie Sanders and four Democrats. Where will the next wars be?

The planet becomes a dangerous place to live. Where is the alternative?

Summary

1 - Who keeps the financial system afloat?

2 - A stalled and politically unopposed system

3- The dominant neoliberal logic

4 - What does the economist scholastic say?

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1 - Who keeps the financial system afloat?

 

In August 2007, it became clear that subprime mortgages, with initially low interest rates –  launched as a means of overcoming the crisis arising from the dotcom sinking in 2001 and the September 11 attacks of the same year – were creating a housing bubble which busted when a large number of insolvent families emerged at its base. As these credits had been securitized, i.e. embedded in successive issues of securities, their holders had two options: to sell them at a loss or to keep them in portfolio, at the risk of a higher loss. 

The EU project. Internal devaluation, the euro and the new Viriatos*

There are several false alternatives out there. They lie between austerity and exiting the euro with currency devaluation; between this EU and the nationalistic closure; between the Brussels and the national oligarchs, always within an antidemocratic context.

(continuation coming soon – Union of the European Peoples or nationalism on the loose)

Contents

1 – EU – a project inserted into the capitalistic globalization

2 – The expansions of the 80s and the creation of the first periphery

3 – The fall of the Wall and the narrowing of the political view

4 – The expansion/deepening dilemma

5 – The devaluation of wages, income and rights

   5.1 – Currency devaluation and its consequences

   5.2 – Internal devaluation and its outcomes

6 – Current dangers

 

1 – EU – a project inserted into the capitalistic globalization

The EU project, under the initial generic name of EEC, was a post-war element born of the realization that recovery from the conflict’s devastation demanded a concertation within the noble area of the so-called liberal capitalism – the Occidental Europe and the USA. 

The USA, having avoided the ravages of war and suffered human losses not comparable with those that occurred in Europe – especially in the USSR, in absolute terms, and in Greece, in relative terms – had its production infrastructure unscathed and needed to keep it so, in order to avoid an unemployment crisis caused by demobilization, as had happened in the 30s.  Even within the context of the Cold War it would be necessary to replace part of the military production by consumer goods and equipment and a dismantled Europe was a fertile field in which to apply that policy.

How the financial system captures Humankind through debt (concl.)

Capture is a form of violence. A debt that is based on capture is illegitimate, even if it is accepted by the political classes, where absent-minded and corrupt people cohabit.  Counting only the derivatives created by the financial system, each human being’s share is $125000; and even if they’d be satisfied with just the interest, at a rate of about 3%, each human being would have to contribute, on average, with $3750 towards the fattening of the financial capital.

Read previous papers here: first and second

Contents

4 – Illegitimacy regarding the debt’s constitution devices

5 – The debt’s unsustainability

5.1 – The Portuguese debt’s unsustainability  

How the financial system captures Humankind through debt (2)

That debt ascribed to us by the financial system and the political class is not ours. It is illegitimate because nothing to the people’s benefit comes from it, and to accept it is to legalize the robbery of our future.

Contents

0 – Introduction

1 – The parties’ free will

2 – A primordial political illegitimacy  

3 – Illegitimacy as to the objective  

3.1 – Occultation, the mother of all swindles

3.2 – Conditions for evaluating legitimacy

How the financial system captures Humankind through debt (1)

Debt, in becoming perpetual, is transformed into an income that feeds capitalistic parasitism. Regardless of the debt being the one subscribed by us, or the one labeled as public and endorsed to us by the political class, by order of the financial system.

Contents

1 – From currency to debt and the role of the State

2 – How to build debt and its meek acceptance

3 – Capitalism does exist, it is best not to forget

4 – The role of States in the financial system’s fattening

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1 – From currency to debt and the role of the State

There has been a long epoch where debts were part of the naturally occurring exchanges between people seeking to satisfy their needs, within the interaction context amongst members of the same community, and where usury was not part of their way of thinking.  Debts were part of the natural imbalances within the community, and had no role as differentiating and autonomous elements of domination of creditors over debtors; credits as assets and debts as liabilities.