Thursday, June 28, 2012

NEW YORK TIMES: "Spanish Officials Hailed Banks as Crisis Built"

True, but the piece only mentions a handful of people; it's basically about the central bank's chairman a few years ago, Mr. Caruana and Mr. Viñals. But it leaves out Mr. Fernández Ordóñez, just ousted. And leaves out political officials, who ignored as much as the central bank chairmen the alert that a big storm was coming. After all, the 2006 report by the central bank's own analysts that the NYT article mentions was also sent to Pedro Solbes, then Finance minister in Zapatero's cabinet.

Or Zapatero himself, who bragged for years that Spain's financial system was in the "Champion's league" and would never be in trouble. Or then-Housing minister in his government, Ms Carme Chacón, who infamously walked our of a BBC interview when they had the 'temerity' of asking whether there was a real estate bubble in the country. And so forth.