| inbluevt | Date: Thursday, 2013/08/01, 10:52 AM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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Belén Romana merely has to step out of her office and into the street to be reminded of the battle she is waging. Outside, at the end of Madrid's Paseo de la Castellana, the two slanted office towers owned by the Bankia conglomerate jut into the sky. They have become a symbol of the crash in the Spanish real estate and savings bank sector -- as well as of the entire country's dire problems. Romana's job is to dispose of the remains. She is the head of Sareb, a so-called bad bank onto which eight Spanish lenders were allowed to unload more than €30 billion ($40 billion) in real estate and loans last winter.
This toxic legacy of debt is supposed to be paid off over the next 15 years. The reorganization of Spain's financial sector is seen as the most important part of the reforms introduced by conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to overcome his country's economic and debt crises. But whether the plan will succeed remains uncertain, as real estate prices continue to slide amid continued concerns over the country's financial institutions.
There are also growing doubts about Rajoy's abilities as a crisis manager. A corruption scandal surrounding Luis Bárcenas, the former treasurer of the governing People's Party party, is a
reminder to Spaniards of how a group of political and economic elites has taken the country to the brink of ruin. Bárcenas has admitted to maintaining a network of illicit accounts filled with money from various individuals, including developers, who made substantial donations to the party and its officials in return for lucrative contracts.
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Message edited by inbluevt - Thursday, 2013/08/01, 10:55 AM |
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