Eurozone crisis roars back to savage Spain Article Analysis Essay

Eurozone crisis roars back to savage Spain Article Analysis - Essay Example Spain is considered one of the most important economies of the world. Considering this importance of the Spanish economy, several economies of the Eurozone as well as of the world have expressed concerns regarding the effects this economic trouble this will create throughout the world. These factors will be discussed in this assignment in detail later and economic theories will be presented to analyze if the Spanish government has been right in implementing its policies or not. The article which will be discussed in this assignment is regarding the economic crisis which Spain is facing and the troubles that lie ahead for Spain in the foreseeable future. The article was written by Liam Halligan who is the chief economist at the Prosperity Capital Management, and this article was published in the Daily Telegraph. Spain as mentioned above has long been considered one of the world’s most important economies with its great potential in real estate and investments from foreign companies. Spain is the fourth largest economy in the Eurozone and the world’s twelfth biggest economy. This has actually raised more fears that if such a huge economy goes bust, then to what extent will it negatively affect the European and worldwide economies. The Spain crisis started in 2008 when the worldwide and European recession arose and the debt crisis began to take dominance. All of a sudden, the unemployment rates increased drastically and the burden fell on the people as well as the government because it had much lower tax revenues and a lot of social benefits to distribute in addition to the repayment of debts which were previously borrowed in the early 2000’s. ... In the early 2000’s, the Spanish economy went through a boom in real estate and this triggered a huge amount of private borrowing from European Central Banks (ECB). At that point, no one had predicted that the year 2008 will prove to be a disaster for most of the European economies. When the Eurozone crisis struck, the banks and financial institutions started to demand their money back due to funds shortage. Also several economies who had lend the money to Spain asked for servicing its debts due to the fact that they needed money to counter the recession. At this point, the prices of property began to fall due to the recession and the borrowers were finding it harder to service the debts because the investments for which they had borrowed money were turning out to be bad investments. Today, the private sector debt in Spain is around 300 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is considered extremely high. Figure 1: Spain government Debt to GDP Ratio (Trading Economic s) The Figure 1 above shows that the Spanish government debt to GDP ratio stands at 60% which is high for a country whose private sector is leveraged with debt to an astonishing figure of 300 percent. With Spain being indebted to other economies, mostly European, to such an extent, the time was fast approaching when it had to repay its debt gradually year by year. When the time of servicing the debts came, it had to borrow more money from other sources so that it could repay the previously borrowed money. With the Spanish economy already so highly leveraged, the European Central Bank and financial institutions were reluctant to give them the money. With this reluctance, the

Plato and a More Definitive Understanding of Art and Philosophy Essay

Plato and a More Definitive Understanding of Art and Philosophy - Essay Example Plato bases his argument upon several highly subjective and controversial premises: a) art in the Republic should first be didactic with the purpose of inculcating the virtues of being a good person, b) Those who merely seek the reflections of the forms and not the forms themselves are not artists and c) Most people view illusions as reality; only the artists/philosophers see the light. Naturally, theses statements not only represent a great range of issues, they encourage detractors to focus upon the inherent flaws and weaknesses that are therein represented. In this way, the following essay will seek to provide the reade with an informed understanding of the inherent weakness of Plato’s approach to the issue of art/philosophy. Naturally, the first level of argument which can be discussed is with regards to how Plato defines virtue. As one might expect, many pages and indeed entire passages of Plato’s work have been concentric on defining virtue in the means through wh ich it can be maximized within our world. However, with that being said, it must be understood that virtue within the specific delineation of what defines arts and how it should be represented to the populace is ultimately a subjective understanding. In such a way, by promoting the belief that art should only be exhibited if it entails the possibility of fostering virtue and promoting the â€Å"goodness† of the person is something that cannot be defined by a single understanding and should not be presented as the benchmark by which art should be manifested. By providing something of a tangential analysis, the author can point to the fact that Nazi Germany fostered what they understood to be a â€Å"virtuous† society that fostered the goodness of the stakeholders that they deemed fit to be included within such a definition. Moreover, the totalitarianism of the Third Reich was not only visited upon the way in which ethnic minorities were treated, it also was expanded to the way in which political ideology, philosophy, and indeed art itself was presented. It does not take a great deal of historical analysis to point to the fact that the third right was heavily involved in promoting its own version of what art and artistry should entail. So much was the Third Reich interested in this specific understanding of redefining art that they even presented their own populace a traveling art exhibit which was dubbed as â€Å"degenerate art†. The ultimate purpose for referencing the third right within this understanding of Plato’s virtuous end good definition of art is with respect to the fact appointed to the ultimate subjectivity that a society and/or an individual may ascribe with regards to the way that art can and should look. Such inherent weakness points to the fact that an all-inclusive and simplistic definition of how art should be manifested should be shined and the individual should seek a more realistic delineation of the way in which art is defined and represented within a particular society/group. Another noted shortcoming with regards to Plato’s definition of art/philosophy and the means by which it should be integrated with the populace is with respect to the fact that he denotes that those who merely seek the reflections of the forms and not for themselves are not artists. Although it is with great respect that this author approaches the writings an understanding of Plato, it must also be understood that what is being referenced within this particular definition of what art should and should not be is a highly personal view upon what defines this genre. Ultimately, the definition of who is responsible for reflecting these forms and not focusing upon the form itself is a definitive right of the philosopher/artist to represent the subject matter in the