Recession...

SATURDAY night and the monthly visit (I hope!) to one of the big hypermarkets for the big shop. The place was packed with shoppers and trolleys were laden with goods from TV to food stuffs. Sunday morning head to Santa Maria market for more shopping (fruit and vegetables this ) and the same story. Despite the cold weather the market was a mass of people who were all spending. Then to my favourite local restaurant for lunch, told to come back at 3.30p.m. because it was fully booked. Walking up the high street and found a restaurant offering a reasonably priced menu of the day but had to wait 30 minutes for a table. As I stood at the bar waiting for a free table I thought to myself where is the recession in Majorca? People appear to be spending and eating out like never before (perhaps they know something that I don´t!). You would never have thought that there are close to 100'000 people without a job in the Balearics. So is the recession that bad in these islands? Well, yes it is because the jobless rate is horrific but let us remember that the Balearics is still one of the richest parts of the country fuelled by the boom in tourism. I suppose that if you scratch the surface you will find plenty of evidence of the slowdown but perhaps it is a question of those who have a job and those that don´t. With the tax rises recently announced by the Spanish government I can´t see this spending boom continuing but let us wait and see.