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Slightly late this week but I hope everyone wasn’t waiting too long for it ^_~ This week’s issue of Discourse Magazine is available to check out now and it’s chock full of interesting topics around the world.
My article this week is entitled “The Crisis in Spain Turns Political”, p. 21 (or p. 23 if you’re reading the page count through Adobe Reader), focusing on the tensions intensifying between the Spanish national government and the region of Catalonia and their opposing views about the fiscal pact and the direction that’s being taken with the current economic crisis. I’m personally not convinced that independence is the answer (it’s like when observers were calling for the break-up of the euro–it’s highly unlikely at this point because everyone’s economies are so tightly interconnected to each other that I think it’ll be a bigger mess to extricate everyone from the union) but I am surprised that Mr. Rajoy did not entertain the idea of re-visiting and re-negotiating the current fiscal pact as a concession. Part of me thinks that he does have some kind of plan but given what happened this week in Madrid, he cannot afford to stay the present course.
On a related note, as you may have read this week there’s been protests erupting through Greece, Portugal and Spain telling their government enough is enough with the austerity measures and it’s not only heartbreaking to see what the population is going through with these austerity measures, how much they’re sacrificing, but it makes me so frustrated that a) so much mismanagement was going on prior to the crisis and b) there hasn’t been much talk about the governments’ plans to stimulate economic growth. You can only cut so much and the events of this week is a testament to that fact. Watch out for my column in the next issue as I may (likely–hasn’t been finalised yet) be looking at this further.
Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys the latest issue! You can download the .pdf copy of the magazine (or one for your mobile) over at the website, discoursemagazine.ca. Additionally you can subscribe to the magazine so that you can receive upcoming issues directly to your inbox =)