01 Jun 2010 8:13 AM:

 England were pretty mediocre.  On the plus side, Capello has a history of delivering his teams when they matter and not bothering too much with warm-ups, friendlies.  The performance level will be much higher during the tournament.  On the downside it is not great to go into a tournament with so many question marks in key areas: central midfield in absence of Barry, who will be goalie?, who partner Rooney?  My personal preference would be for Joe Hart in goal, the usual back 4, Carrick in midfield until Barry is back alongside Joe Cole, Lampard and Lennon with Gerard up with Rooney.

 

Chances - about 10-1.  I am most interested to see how Argentina get on - with Messi and some of their other players they should be real contenders.  Spain have a great chance as well.

Thread: World Cup 2010 thread

--------------------------------------

24 May 2010 3:09 PM:

 I think you are supposed to be repaid within a month.  If you are uncertain about the deposit insurance, it is called FGD and there is a website called fgd.es that explains all.  More likely the government will just keep bailing out the cajas so noone has to call on the insurance.  Could be expensive according to telegraph because there are 445 billion € of property loans outstanding and many of them to the cajas.

Thread: Caja Sur calls in the administrators

--------------------------------------

24 May 2010 7:43 AM:

 Apparently after a cash injection the branches are all going to be open today as normal.  Whether there will be queues of people round the block trying to withdraw all their money I don't know.  Could be interesting.

Thread: Caja Sur calls in the administrators

--------------------------------------

23 May 2010 12:00 AM:

On Friday the Bank of Spain sent in three administrators to CajaSur to take it over because there capital was inadequate to guarantee solvency.  Today I learn they are to pump in 0.5 billion € to keep it afloat.  I am a depositor so not overly happy but at least there is deposit protection of 100.000€ per account holder.  I have updated my guide to the Spanish economic crisis to take account of this and the austerity package announced by the government.

 

http://www.advoco.es/home/22-latest/50-spanish-economic-crisis-takes-a-new-twist.html

Thread: Caja Sur calls in the administrators

--------------------------------------

15 Apr 2010 8:16 AM:

You should be able to go to the local “Tesoreria de la Seguridad Social” , complete a “Solicitud de Afiliacion” form and get a social security number.  This doesn't oblige you to start paying into the system and can lie dormant until you sign up a to a social security regime either when you become employed or self-employed.

Thread: Spanish social security - is it worth signing up?

--------------------------------------