@Fuchs: I think we had that discussion before.

1) Compared to the balance of trade of other countries, for example Italy, Spain had indeed a great influx of foreign goods and capital especially considering the size of the economy. Trading ecomics has indeed some good graphs about it.

2) The Euro did radically narrow the spread and increase the amount of foreign bond holders. The Spanish state was financed in this sense thanks to the Eurozone with a lot more foreign money leaving more capital for the private sector which as I stated in 1) did also experienced a greater relative amount of foreign or foreign-backed capital.

3) As you wrote and I mentioned before the government and the regions happily enjoyed the ride on the crest of the wave. The housing boom greatly helped to keep the debt of the state low by turbocharging the economy and thus tax revenue. In retrospect the managed not just the bust but also the boom poorly.

----


Yesterday I invested heavily in European index fonds with a good composition of good enterprises. The DAX got the highest relative share. We will see how things go in the long run.