Spain?
 

Tim, right now we are living in a beach house up on the north coast of Spain - if you need 6 tonnes of wood for winter, you must be in Teruel, Spain? Now that we have met in the Hub Pub, hope we bump into each other in a Spanish cafe.

Based on my own experience - bi annual visits to Spain over the last twelve years, I defer to

Cost of Living Index by Country 2016

While your analysis sounds enticing, the reality is quite different - using your own criteria - local purchasing power - the local purchasing power in Spain is 105.31% when compared to New York City as 100% Meaning residents of Spain have to pay 5.31% more than residents of New York city for the same local goods and services relative to local wages.

click "Explain these indices" on web site for an explanation.

Of course, most probably your "wages" and my "wages" are not taken into account as the chart uses "average wage" in each country - and via a search each city. Guess it is just the old Peace Corps volunteer showing his teeth here. Your glote over how inexpensive Spain is - might be true for you and me and other expats, but very misleading in general.

I found the chart most interesting, and useful by contributing to an understanding of the issue/issues being discussed here. And, it forwards my argument of PC GDP.

xfiltrate

xfiltrate, sometimes in life it can be a good idea to let things so. You have your opinion, others have theirs. Anyone who wanted to make their point has done so. There is no reason to keep it going. You will not change other people's opinions and they won't change yours.

I'm sorry, but that's not correct..

Local purchasing power, means ; Local Purchasing Power shows relative purchasing power in buying goods and services in a given city for the average wage in that city. If domestic purchasing power is 40, this means that the inhabitants of that city with the average salary can afford to buy 60% less typical goods and services than New York City residents with an average salary.

So.. in fact people in Spain can buy relatively 5% more stuff than people in New York..

Which btw, is a ridiculous comparison, since living costs in NYC are skyhigh..

Representative democracy in action, again.
 

Pro-EU MPs could stage guerrilla campaign to reverse Brexit decision | Politics | The Guardian

The article is an interesting reflection on representative democracy and what it might mean to our elected representatives - by no means is it the first time that UK MPs have stated that they are not elected to represent those who elected them.

The article is about one day old and has over 7000 comments attached at the end.

The vision of the EU, for the EU
 

I was struck by a recent news item concerning the island of Puerto Rico (a USA territory) and how it is getting on with it's economy.


A couple of sample articles from the internet illustrate the current problems of Puerto Rico (PR), although the news item that caught my eye was more related to the preponderance of USA companies that have their businesses registered in States such as Delaware which is reported to be an “internal” tax haven* within north America.
Op-Ed: Puerto Rico’s Crisis Should Matter to Connecticut’s Residents | ctlatinonews.com


Puerto Rico's poor economy could lead to Connecticut influx


What struck me are the similarities between the individual US States, their relationships with the federal government and the situation between the EU and it's current 28 members.
Fundamentally, Germany does not want to carry the debts of the southern European countries, such as Greece, any more than the central government of the USA, which does have a common currency, wants to bail out Puerto Rico.


The first link above gives these as some of the issues current in PR:-
“The reasons behind the island’s current economic woes are complex, with blame to go around: poor budget practices, federal funding shortfalls, predatory lending by financial institutions, the Great Recession, demographic changes draining the tax base, and the complicated and oft unjust relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, to count just a few.”
At least some of these are analogous with the situation in the EU.


It was reported somewhere or other, but I lost the reference, that the German balance of payments (something that is rarely mentioned in the UK nowadays) is as much in the black as the combined balance of payment accounts of all the other 27 members are in the red.
Basically, this is because the introduction of the Euro gave the German industrial effort a massive boost via the intrinsic currency deflation this achieved compared with the earlier use of the Deutschmark.
Meanwhile, the German banks lent money to countries such as Greece to rebuild, for instance, their military hardware including new Leopard tanks and new submarines, all built in Germany.
Now, Greece cannot pay the loans back and so the banks are recompensed by means of ECB funds – the vast majority of recent funding for Greece did not go to that country but to the creditor banks.
This is basically what happens when you run out of other people's money.


Perhaps the USA will learn a trick or two from the example of northern/southern Europe although it does seem that they aim to kick the can along the road some way by invoking bankruptcy protection for PR.


The future for the EU can be seen in the contrast between the poor and rich States of the USA; the solution is freedom of movement of populations to go to where the work is, combined with single, consistent levels of taxation, a common currency and standardised laws to enable this to occur.
As each new country is assimilated into this new order, then new ones can be found looking toward the east and to the south, into Africa (Morocco has a long-standing application to join the EU).

*In Europe, the equivalent to Delaware are Andorra, Luxembourg, Ireland and a few others for either personal or corporate tax affairs.

Nice figures, but they don't reflect reality—Spain has a massive black economy approaching 25% of GDP.

Thanks for the Correction
 

Thanks Donkey, you were right in correcting me... the chart should be interpreted as an average wage earner in Spain can afford to purchase 5%+ more goods and services than an average wage earner in New York city.

That is exactly my point to Tim. Living costs relative to the average wage earner in New York are "sky high" this means living cost for the average wage earner in Spain are very close to sky high.

Thus, while the cost of living in Spain for expats - like Tim and myself, seems inexpensive it is almost sky high for the average Spanish wage earner.
Thanks for the correction.
Tim, I did not consider Spain's "massive black economy of 25% GDP," but assuming the other countries also have massive black economies, the comparison should hold. I know little about the illegal drug economies
of the U S and the UK (for example) except that both are massive.

xfiltrate

Maybe this helps the cost of living discussion
 

A little while ago it was reported that the UK now includes for the illegal drug economy in the GDP figures for this country.
It being totally illegal, at present anyway, such figures are arrived at by some form of estimation.

IIRC, there is also included an estimation of the GDP turnover for prostitution.
Only the wacky UK or perhaps the USA does the same?
Anyway, it tells a good story and no one really seems to care.

In your own ways you are all agreeing with the late George C:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk

all is not lost in the shadows,at least in the UK
 

Walkabout, thank you for all your contributions to this topic, if Uk is doing it
(pun intended) I wonder if all other EU GDP numbers (pun intended) include similar estimates for prostitution and illegal drug sales.

Prostitution is legal in Argentina and given a wink and a nod in Spain, well if you are lucky - I would not risk it in Spain. Anyway, I always deduct the expense of my mistress in Argentina from my taxable income. We might be on to something here, any one up for a great documentary? I will leave you to decide if the last is a pun or not and remain your fellow hubber.
Viva 23 de junio
xfiltrate

Cameron/Farage Debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oB0SHTh08E

You're trying to twist the argument to suit statistics that are firstly wrong and secondly meaningless.

I prefer to think of it that he is agreeing with me! :rofl:

Adios for now
 

Isn't that like stating the particular issue we are discussing, which is, the relative merit of PC GDP when deciding a yea or nay vote on 23 de junio, can be carried on without any mention whatsoever of established PC GDP perentages?

A la UK v Switzerland.

Statistics determine if an argument is meaningless or not, valid arguments are based on statistical evidence. So yes, as you have stated, I do tend to twist my arguments to fit the statistics.

If we agree the representation of PC GDP in this instance is wrong because of neglecting to consider an undefined "Black economy" of 25% how can that point of view be separated from any other economy based statistic? Walkabout has suggested that UK "black economies" might be estimated and included in UK economy statistics.

Frankly, he might have been joking. But who knows, which is probably your point exactly, so I will now address the Puerto Rican economy as related to his comparison of th EU and the USA. Have you read his post "The vision of the EU, for the EU" posted 16 hours ago? It is excellent.

Tim, this has been great fun. I do hope we meet again in Spain, Argentina, or here in the hubb pub. Here, Here!

xfiltrate

It's no joke
 

The UK press reported this widely at the time - all of 2 years ago.
And it transpires that it is an EU regulation to boot.

During the debate here in the UK, it was suggested a while ago that the big growth activities in the UK are dealing in "legal highs" (which has recently been declared to be illegal) and people trafficking; from the latter follows the black economy of low wage rates for washing cars on the high street - it is amazing how many people need their vehicles to be washed by hand by someone other than themself.

Drugs and prostitution add £10bn a year to UK economy - Telegraph

Drugs and prostitution to be included in UK national accounts | Society | The Guardian