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Spain did not got hit by WW2 cause it was absolutely destroyed by a civil war beginning 1936. After that a dictatorship of 40 years and when it opened all industry got hit cause it was heavily protected and could not compete in open markets, add to that most of the working industries were cheaply sold to friends of the dictatorship who were, and some of them still are, in power positions.
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Is being 9th in (nominal) GDP rating now is mentioned as "even"? 90% of the world is behind Russia.
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> a distant sixth in economic size behind even Russia.

By what metric? Because Spain is sixth also by population, and I have the feeling you are using total GDP as scale. Using that, China is the richest economy, and India is the third richest country in the world. Meanwhile Switzerland and Singapore (really rich in reallity) are below 30th, and below Nigeria or Pakistan.

By per capita GDP we Spain are not even 6th, because Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Monaco, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland... are above us and also above Germany, UK or France.

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Which just proves GDP is a low IQ metric to measure how good a country is to live in.

I certainly would rather live places like Mallorca or Donostia than in many places that are ahead of Spain in the silly GDP game.

Speaking of low IQ, it's pretty amusing to read that someone things Spain came out unscathed from the events of 1930s and 1940s.

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You mean Spain the fastest growing European country by many metrics? Not sure, we're here, been chilling all summer, time to get back to work now :) What happened to the country you live in?
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Spain’s youth unemployment is the highest in Europe. I hope it’s improving, but economically Spain has not recovered post-2008 in line with others in the EU.
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Don't worry. Finland has taken over with the highest unemployment and will likely soon have the highest youth unemployment.
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Probably because in Finland you are provided housing and money even if you don't work.
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> fastest growing European country by many metrics

Countries grow in secondary matters and the primary ones (civilization) remain unattended.

And by the way, when something "grows fast", do not misunderstand the indicator... Ethiopia had a 13% annual growth recently; Guyana has a 16% annual growth at this time: you are not thinking that "life is good there" and "Miami videoclip vibes everywhere", right?

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According to GDP per capita, Spain is below Italy, but above Portugal. Has its position changed much over the last century? I would be interested to see a measure of that, but how far back is it feasible to estimate GDP per capita?

I don't know how Spain was affected by WW2, but they had a very nasty civil war just before WW2. I'm not sure if that's relevant to GDP per capita, though, because a war can sometimes improve the economy by leading to the overflow of a system in which progress is blocked by a relatively rich ruling class.

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My grandparents would routinely call the 40s "The years of hunger" so you can guess which way it went.
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Insanely ignorant comment.
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> With all that said it would be strange if they would be further, prosperity comes from hard work and discipline.

It must really suck for all of you living outside of Spain, looking at us taking naps and being "inefficient" with all our communism, yet we have health care, and work/life balance and have time enough for family and hobbies.

Of course, best is to just see it like there is no prosperity in the country, because there are no startup unicorns or billionaires buying up our media.

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That is again an ignorant comment. Youth unemployment is 2nd highest among EU countries (https://www.destatis.de/Europa/EN/Topic/Population-Labour-So...) and also Spain currently has a housing/property crisis.

You don’t need startup/billionaires to buy your media, but they are snatching up your land for sure.

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You don't know how hard is to maintain a country when you have to run in front of the bulls while making a paella at the same time you dance some flamenco./s

I guess that's your view of Spain, you should read and view things from more modern years than the 1950's. Also talk or Morocco and his allies USA and Israel about the immigrants that the mafia sent into Spain and Spain has never been communist or socialist, unless you don't what socialism and communism is.

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PSOE happened
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Since the end of the Civil War in 1939, Spain has spent roughly 65% of the time under Right/Far-Right rule and 35% under Left/Center-Left rule.
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> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

But then again, discussing politics hardly ever gets less divisive here or elsewhere.

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The fault in that comment is to be unsupported by arguments.

Otherwise, there would be no divisiveness in fairly assessing measures in Economics.

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I was been there. I mean socialist fantasy and everyone was equally poor except party members. It is astonishing to watch this shit happening in different countries with different cultures during long period of time. But with same end. And it is not prosperity. This time in Berlin as recent example: https://www.politico.eu/article/berlin-election-housing-cris...
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Why are the protesters in Berlin holding signs in English?
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Because they want to have the eyes of global press on Germany
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