Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Odds and Ends

Not much time for blogging. Working on the MGB. I've got the thing completely rebuilt, but now I've got to rewire the whole car from scratch. I'm redesigning the electrical system from the ground up.

I installed the starter, the first part of the system. Powered it up with a remote starter switch. Nothing. Pulled the starter and tested it out on the ground. It worked like a champ. Put it back in the car, got a little teeth grinding, then nothing. Pulled the radiator and fan so I could turn the engine over with a socket. I was afraid that sitting around for two years had frozen it up. It turns, but not easily.

So that's where we are with that.

Subject change.

Financial and stock markets are emotional things. There's no magic number beyond which you can't recover, there's a magic feeling that tips the scales. Dig this bit from the NYT.
After working six years as a senior executive for a multinational payroll-processing company in Barcelona, Spain, Mr. Vildosola is cutting his professional and financial ties with his troubled homeland. He has moved his family to a village near Cambridge, England, where he will take the reins at a small software company, and he has transferred his savings from Spanish banks to British banks. 
“The macro situation in Spain is getting worse and worse,” Mr. Vildosola, 38, said last week just hours before boarding a plane to London with his wife and two small children. “There is just too much risk. Spain is going to be next after Greece, and I just don’t want to end up holding devalued pesetas.”
When you get enough Señor Vildosolas deciding to bail out, you're done. Where's that point? When is it coming to Spain? When is it coming to California or Illinois? When does the whole thing fall to pieces?

Who is John Galt?

Update: If you're watching the Democrats convention, think of this: They're not concerned with Señor Vildosola leaving nearly as much as they are with making sure Señorita Vildosola has access to birth control and abortion. In some sense, the Democrats are saying to both of them, "Screw you."

2 comments:

tom said...

Devalued pesetas? I thought they got rid of pesetas. Or is he talking about after leaving the euro?

That's one aspect I'm having trouble understanding. A euro is a euro is a euro. I think the reason people move their money from one country to another is not the euro's value, but their country's ability to hold onto them. There's no FDIC to bail you out when your country's banks go under. Right?

I know the Brits loved to holiday in Spain, but why are the Spanish moving to the UK? Haven't they heard of the "emergency" taxes on anybody with any money? Why isn't there an influx to Switzerland, or even the eastern european states that are doing well (there are still some, aren't there?)?

K T Cat said...

The Spanish banks hold Spanish national bonds. It doesn't look like there's any way the government of Spain can service those debts. That means Spanish banks are in big trouble and Spaniards with sense should be getting out while they can.

Which they are. Spanish banks lost 7% of their deposits last month as people took their Euros out and moved them elsewhere.

As for the Peseta, that's what you'll get if and when Spain leaves the Euro.

Moving to the UK: out of the frying pan and into the fire, if you ask me. I guess the guy didn't want to cross the Atlantic.