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Se nøje på de hulkingcontainerskibe, der forlader havnen i Barcelona disse dage og du kan fange et

glimt af en national økonomi overskrift langsomt mod genopretning.

De fleste fartøjer forsvinder i horisonten sidde en brøkdel dybere i vandet end den dag de ankom: for hver fire containere lastet med varer, som losses, Barcelona nu sender seks fuld containere i udlandet. 

Et par år siden, før starten af Spaniens brutale afmatning gik trafikken i anden retningen. Skibe ville ankomme fyldigere end de venstre, mens havnens spidery havn kraner arbejdede overarbejde for at tilfredsstille Spaniens skyhøje efterspørgsel efter varer fra hele verden.

"Jeg har arbejdet i denne port i 22 år, men jeg har aldrig set sådan en stigning i eksporten. Og heller ikke har nogen anden,"siger José Alberto Carbonell, generaldirektør for Port de Barcelona. I de første otte måneder af året, med den spanske økonomi stadig kontraherende, nød havnen en 8 procent stigning i eksporten. Forsendelser til øst Asien, Latinamerika og andre hurtigtvoksende områder steg specielt kraftigt med containertrafik Algeriet op 22 procent, Brasilien op 15 procent og Mexico op 13 procent.

Fra sit syvende etage kontor med udsigt over Middelhavet, har hr. Carbonell en privilegeret udsigt ikke blot af Ebbe og flod af Barcelonas havn trafik, men også staten af Spaniens økonomi i almindelighed. Havne, siger han, tjene som en "termometer" af et lands økonomiske sundhed – og han har for nylig vist umiskendelige tegn på bedring. "Der er en meget bedre humør nu end sidste år," siger han. "Folk er ikke euforisk. Men der er ikke længere tvivl over for de virksomheder, vi arbejder med overlevelse".

Fra støj og travlhed i Barcelona dokker til tykt gulvtæppe ro, der indhyller Madrids ledende bankfolk, er meddelelsen kommer fra landets erhvervsledere den samme. Spanien, siger de, ikke kun vej ud af recessionen, men det har brugt de barske år for nedturen for at gøre økonomien mere konkurrencedygtig, mindre afhængige af fast ejendom og mere afhængige af høj værdi eksport. "I de sidste en-og-en-halv år, Spanien har vist vilje til at gøre det rigtige," siger en top bankmand i Madrid. "Uanset om det er nok, jeg kan ikke sige, men der er afgjort blevet bedre."

Det er en forbedring, men der har gjort lidt til at løfte den økonomiske elendighed påført millioner af spanierne. Selv i hjertet af Madrid, landets stadig-blomstrende hovedstad, kæmpe besøgende til spot tegn på, at krisen aftagende. Butikker stadig forskallingen på alarmerende tempo, mens Mut i kø uden for byens mange suppekøkkener som længe som nogensinde. I fattigere spanske regioner såsom Andalusien er økonomiske trængsler endnu tydeligere udstillet.

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Barcelona will have up to 60 million euros to spend on new players in the close season, according to the man in charge of their economic affairs.

"Barca is in a position to buy four players," vice president Javier Faus told Catalunya Radio. "We have between 50 and 60 million euros net for signings."

The club brought in one player last summer, the controversial signing of Neymar that prompted allegations of misappropriation of funds and tax evasion and resulted in the resignation of president Sandro Rosell.

Including a payment of 13.5 million euros to the Spanish treasury after fraud charges were laid against the club, the Brazil forward ended up costing just under 100 million euros, close to the record fee arch rivals Real Madrid paid for Wales winger Gareth Bale last year.

Barca did not sign anyone in the January transfer window, disappointing some fans unhappy with a series of shoddy displays in defence.

At the least, the Spanish champions will need replacements for goalkeeper Victor Valdes and captain and central defender Carles Puyol who have said they are leaving at the end of the season.

There are also question marks over the futures of reserve goalkeeper Jose Manuel Pinto and full back Martin Montoya because their contracts expire in June.

Borussia Moenchengladbach sporting director Max Eberl hinted in January that Marc-Andre ter Stegen would replace Valdes after the Germany keeper rejected a contract extension with the Bundesliga club.

The 21-year-old has a contract until 2015 but Eberl said he had turned down a new deal and the Bundesliga outfit had decided to allow him to join "a top European side".

Barca may be in the market for a second new centre back as academy graduate Marc Bartra has yet to win the full confidence of coach Gerardo Martino.

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How the Government Botched Its Effort to Hold Wall Street Accountable After the Crisis

The Department of Justice (DOJ) fell down on many of its efforts to hold Wall Street accountable for mortgage fraud after the crisis, according to a new audit from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

The DOJ promised the public that it would place a priority on going after mortgage fraud. But the report finds that “DOJ did not uniformly ensure that mortgage fraud was prioritized at a level commensurate with its public statements.” One telling example is that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ranked mortgage fraud as the lowest threat in its lowest crime category. The OIG also visited FBI field offices in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York and found that either it was a low priority or not even listed as a priority. Meanwhile, the FBI got $196 million in funding to investigate mortgage fraud between 2009 and 2011, yet the number of agents doing the investigation decreased in the same time, as did the pending investigations.

On top of these findings, the OIG reports that data was so poorly collected at the DOJ that it’s difficult for it to assess what was going on. And this bad data also led to the department misleading about its efforts to the public. In October of 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a press conference that his department had filed 110 federal civil cases that involved more than 73,000 homeowner victims and total losses of more than $1 billion. When the OIG followed up about these numbers, it became clear that there were significant errors with them — the total losses, for example, were $95 million, 91 percent than originally claimed. Yet the department kept referencing these numbers even after it realized its mistakes.

The report does have some praise for the DOJ. It offers two examples of where the department prioritized going after mortgage fraud: “the Criminal Division’s leadership of its mortgage fraud working group and the FBI and USAOs’ participation on more than 90 local task forces and working groups,” it notes. And more financial reports here.

A spokeswoman for the DOJ also pointed to the fact that the number of mortgage fraud indictments almost doubled between 2009 and 2011 and that the number of convictions rose by more than 100 percent, saying, “As the report itself notes, even at a time of constrained budget resources, the department has dedicated significant manpower and funding to combating mortgage fraud.”

But the audit’s findings are disturbing given the scope of fraud and how little justice homeowners have seen since the crisis. Prosecutions for financial fraud hit a 20-year low in 2011, in the wake of a crisis created by risk-taking on Wall Street. Lawmakers continually prodded the DOJ over what they felt was an attitude that banks were “too big to jail,” “too big for trial,” or that they had a “get out of jail free” card.

Meanwhile, the national mortgage settlement struck in 2012 over servicing abuses has brought very little relief for homeowners. Two years later, most banks are flouting the terms, as only two were fully in compliance, and servicers are still rampantly abusing homeowners. Meanwhile, little of the money set aside to help homeowners dealing with foreclosure has actually reached them, and some of the checks were so small homeowners refused to cash them.

Other efforts to hold Wall Street accountable after a crisis that took as much as $14 trillion — or perhaps even more — out of the economy haven’t produced many results. Just one financial executive has been held accountable, while most banks have walked away with settlements that aren’t nearly as large as they at first may appear. The Securities and Exchange Commission has won back just $2.7 billion in fines, penalties, and disgorged profits, and while it started demanding that banks admit to wrongdoing in settlements, there is evidence it may be throwing the towel in on prosecutions related to the financial crisis.

Over the last few decades, the average person's interest in the stock market has grown exponentially. Because of the lack of stock-market-related websites that impart the steps required to begin trading safely, Corliss Group Online Financialwas formed. Feel free and read more articles about stock-market education and only relevant and essential information required to trade shares on the stock market.

The above article is a repost from ThinkProgress.