Why Spain And Italy Are Like Cyprus, Slovenia, And Greece

by Tyler Durden

The "XXXXX is not YYYYY" jokes aside, Europe's union of nations is beginning to separate increasingly between the haves and the have-nots. The sad truth, as Bloomberg's Niraj Shah notes, is that recession/depression has pushed Spanish and Italian GDP-per-capita below the EU average in purchasing power terms - just like Cyprus, Slovenia, and Greece. Irish GDP per capita was 29% above the average, while Greek and Portuguese per capita output were 25% below. Output per head for the EU ranged between 47% (Bulgaria) and 271% (Luxembourg) of the average. With today's news that retroactive ESM recaps are unlikely, the banking-sovereign symbiosis of Spain and Italy will increasingly come under pressure and with productivity so dismal, there is little hope for now.

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