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Details: Parent Category: Travel Category: Europe | Published: 30 July 2012 | Hits: 32059

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Spain is in the news.

Spain has now become the fourth Eurozone country, after Greece, Ireland and Portugal, to get bailout funds in the growing crisis gripping the Euro.

Unemployment is high and services are being cut to reduce debt and bring budgets into balance. Some economists doubt this is possible within the context of a single currency shared with Germany and France. There have been violent but futile street demonstrations.

In September 2008 we travelled in Spain and Portugal. I had travelled in both countries twenty years earlier and wondered what might have changed. This is what we found.

Until 2008 the economy of Spain had been regarded as one of the most dynamic within the EU, attracting significant amounts of foreign investment and creating many new jobs. It showed.

Portugal had not been so prosperous and was already in economic trouble. Since our visit in Spain too has also gone into reverse.

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Travel

Sri Lanka

In February 2023 we joined an organised tour to Sri Lanka.

Beginning in the capital Colombo, on the west coast, our bus travelled anticlockwise, in a loop, initially along the coast; then up into the highlands; then north, as far as Sigiriya; before returning southwest to Colombo.

Fiction, Recollections & News

A Secret Agent

If you have an e-book reader, a version of this story is available for download, below.

Chapter 1

- news flash -

Body in River

Monday

The body of a man was found floating in the Iguazú river this morning by a tourist boat. Mary (name withheld) said it was terrible. "We were just approaching the falls when the body appeared bobbing in the foam directly in front of us. We almost ran over it. The driver swerved and circled back and the crew pulled him in. The poor man must have fallen - or perhaps he jumped?"

The body was discovered near the Brazilian side but was taken back to Argentina. Police are investigating and have not yet released details of the man's identity...

Iguazú Herald

Everywhere we look there's falling water. Down the track to the right is a lookout. Over the other side of the gorge is Brazil, where the cliff faces are covered by maybe a kilometre of falling curtains of white, windswept water. Here and there the curtains hang in gaps or are pushed aside by clumps of trees and bushes, like stagehands peeking out into a theatre before the performance.

Opinions and Philosophy

Manufacturing in Australia

This article was written in August 2011 after a career of many years concerned with Business Development in New South Wales Australia. I've not replaced it because, while the detailed economic parameters have changed, the underlying economic arguments remain the same (and it was a lot of work that I don't wish to repeat) for example:

between Oct 2010 and April 2013 the Australian dollar exceeded the value of the US dollar and that was seriously impacting local manufacturing, particularly exporters;
as a result, in November 2011, the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) reduced the cash rate (%) from 4.75 to 4.5 and a month later to 4.25; yet
the dollar stayed stubbornly high until 2015, mainly due to a favourable balance of trade in commodities and to Australia's attraction to foreign investors following the Global Financial Crisis, that Australia had largely avoided.

2011 introduction:

Manufacturing viability is back in the news.

The loss of manufacturing jobs in the steel industry has been a rallying point for unions and employers' groups. The trigger was the announcement of the closure of the No 6 blast furnace at the BlueScope plant at Port Kembla. This furnace is well into its present campaign and would have eventually required a very costly reline to keep operating. The company says the loss of export sales does not justify its continued operation. The remaining No 5 blast furnace underwent a major reline in 2009. The immediate impact of the closure will be a halving of iron production; and correspondingly of downstream steel manufacture. BlueScope will also close the aging strip-rolling facility at Western Port in Victoria, originally designed to meet the automotive demand in Victoria and South Australia.

800 jobs will go at Port Kembla, 200 at Western Port and another 400 from local contractors. The other Australian steelmaker OneSteel has also recently announced a workforce reduction of 400 jobs.

This announcement has reignited the 20th Century free trade versus protectionist economic and political debate. Labor backbenchers and the Greens want a Parliamentary enquiry. The Prime Minister (Julia Gillard) reportedly initially agreed, then, perhaps smelling trouble, demurred. No doubt 'Sir Humphrey' lurks not far back in the shadows.

So what has and hasn't changed (disregarding a world pandemic presently raging)?