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For most of the 1500's and the 1600's it was mostly a Spanish sea. After the failure of the Armada invasion of England in 1588, England and France contended for supremacy in the sea in this region. Gulf of America or Gulf of the Americas is more appropriate than Gulf of Mexico considering it borders Texas, Alabama, and three other American states. This is where containerized shipping started in Mobile. Mobile is the location of the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico which shows the early voyages and the settlers in the region.

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Spain sold 4.5 billion euros of debt, on Jan 17, 2013. The average interest rate on 2 year bonds was 2.71%, down from 3.36% in Dec. 2012. The interest rate on the 10 year Spanish bond was at 5.03%.

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Few remember it today, yet there was a period of players during the Ken Rosewall-Rod Laver period of the sixties and seventies that the lob and the drop shot were what made tennis exciting and fun. Ilie Nastase, a Romanian player of that time was adept at the drop shot and lob. Kurt Streeter of the NYT looks at the game of Spanish player Alcaraz and his frequent use of drop shots even from a distance that are taking tennis back to that era. In the woman's game Tunisian player Jabeur is also known for the drop shot. Marshmallows is a.k.a. for drop shots.

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A plan being put together in eurozone financial circles is for Spain to request aid and the European Stability Mechanism fund to provide far less than 100 billion euros approved for aid to Spain. With the request Spain would agree to conditions set by the EU, ECB and the IMF for improving competitiveness, reducing rigidity in labor markets, and controlling spending by regions in Spain. This would lead to the ECB taking action to buy Spanish bonds and lower borrowing costs.

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Pedro Sanchez is seen as pulling off a surprise in the recent Spanish snap election by increasing his Socialist workers party votes to 31.5% soon after losses in local elections. The Guardian looks at Pedro Sanchez and his career in leading the Socialist Workers Party since 2014. He is prime minister since 2018 and formed a coalition with Podemos which resulted in policies that gave Spaniards a welcome respite from inflation and the cost of living which is down to 1.9% in Spain. Spaniards were provided with monetary support and free public transportation during the pandemic years lessening the effects of that period and the cost of living crisis in Europe.

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Pedro Sanchez is attempting to form a new government in Spain with the support of Catalan parties. His Socialist party voted with 87% in favor of forming a new government with smaller parties without using the word amnesty for Catalans who protested in 2017 for independence. PSOE's organizational secretary Santos Leon says the party is determined to not let the opposition Partido Popular weaken the welfare state at a time of cost of living crisis and following the pandemic by coming to power at the federal level. In 2023 only 42% of Catalans want independence, 52% actually oppose it, making it easier to let Pedro Sanchez put this episode in Spanish history behind.

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The new head coach of Real Madrid is Spanish player Xavi Alonso. He follows Carlo Ancelotti who leaves to coach the Brazil national team.

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There are problems with TikTok as social media app that are shown under The Enemy Within in Movement for Global Literacy of Lyrarc.com that relate to global literacy of children spending many hours on the app taking time away from homework and reading, when over half of American children 12-18  perform below basic requirements on reading proficiency tests. Similar loss of reading comprehension in UK and France. China can regulate its internet by restricting it in ways that won't hurt literacy in China. India has banned the app.  There are problems with TikTok that relate to literacy and cultural literacy that Democrats or Republicans or the Supreme Court have failed to bring up let alone address. These concerns should grow in the minds of Americans concerned about preserving the cultural literacy that has existed in the US for the last 200 years- it is about who Americans are as a Nation of immigrants from Europe of the Renaissance and the Modern World. US is a mix of population from European nations of 204 million, of a black population of about 48 million in 2025, 7 million native Americans, and Spanish speaking Americans of 62 million, Asian population of 25 million. The US is at a critical juncture in deciding what kind of a nation it will be. Will it lose it's basic character of a nation which draws its inspiration from European civilization's defining characteristics of the Renaissance, the evolution of science and democratic forms of government leading to creation of the Modern World. The 25 million Asians immigrated to the US for a large part seeking this kind of modernization of society from what they left behind and this is largely true of Spanish speaking immigrants and Spanish settlers who settled California, Texas and Florida as Spain settled the American colonies before the English and French. TikTok ban opposed decreased from 2023 to end of 2024 by 18% from 50% to 32%, according to Pew Research. Pew does not say that this is the result of growing use of TikTok by teenagers and children for entertainment by 12-15% in the period 2023-2025. Between 2021 and 2023 use of TikTok in the US increased by 12% from 21% to 33% from which we can extrapolate that it increased by about 12-15% between 2023 and 2025 if it is growing at the same pace. Politicians oblivious of the effects on cultural literacy in the US are allowing it to be embedded in the US in ways that hurt basic reading and cultural literacy skills. ...

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Three events made the US a continental democracy built out of the colonial Empires of the British, the French and the Spanish under four presidents- Jefferson with Louisiana Purchase, Polk settling the Mexican American War, Lincoln defending the Union, and his vice president buying Alaska from Russia. James Polk 1845-1849 was the 11th president of the US. At the time of the Missouri Compromise he deftly kept the Union together. A protege of president Andrew Jackson from Tennessee Polk also worked hard to create the bicoastal Nation the US is today by extending the work of president Jefferson who setup the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, to bring the new Republic's frontiers in the West to the Pacific territories that were part of the Spanish and British colonial Empires. For the northern frontier he settled on the 49th parallel with the British instead of 54 degrees parallel 40 minutes or 54-40 that was the slogan for the Polk 1844 election campaign taking the border to the northern frontier of the Oregon Territory.  Polk was faced with settlers in Texas who had set up their own state in the south the Texas Republic under General Sam Houston in 1836. A situation Polk handled by integrating the new Texas Republic into the new Nation and faced with a military taking control of Mexico in 1846 under General Paredes and confrontation with the US, leading the US into the Mexican American War 1846-1848. The integration of Alaska was completed under president Andrew Johnson in 1867- Johnson was Vice president under Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War- when he had Seward negotiate the purchase of Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars in 1867.   ...

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Spain will allow a European banking supervisory authority to visit banks and exercize financial supervision over banks receiving aid from the EFSF, the EU rescue fund. In addition investors including small retail investors will have to take losses to reduce the loans required to recapitalize Spanish banks.

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In an effort to calm unsettled global financial markets ECB president Mario Draghi said in a speech on July 26, 2012: "Within our mandate, the ECB is willing to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro and, believe me, it will be enough." Yields on Spain's government bonds reached 7.5% as investors shunned Spanish bonds fearing the need for a government bailout.

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Speaking to Cadena Sur, a Spanish radio network, EU Commission Vice President, Joaquin Alumnia said the EC will have plans to monitor the restructuring of each bank that gets EU funds. He said: "Whoever gives money never gives it for free. There will be people coming to Spain to make sure the money will be properly used."

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Spain released reports by audit firms that showed 62 billion euros would be needed to recapitalize the affected parts of its banking system. This is below the 100 billion euros in rescue funds offered by the EFSF, the eurozone rescue fund, in loans to the Spanish government. The Spanish government is pushing for direct aid to the banks to cut the knot between the banking risk and sovereign risk that is pushing up the yields on Spanish bonds to 7% in June 2012. Spain's 3 largest banks will not be accepting aid funds- Banco Santander, BBVA, and La Caixa.

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Most of the profitability gains for BBVA bank in 2014 came from having less bad debt, and for Santander from lower bad debt charges. Loan balances for BBVA and Santander fell by 2% in 2014. Bad debts still make up 6 to 7% of total loans for the banks, suggesting further such gains for Spanish banks. The ECB's monetary easing action should slow defaults on loans in Spain even further.

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Pedro Sanchez's efforts to defuse tensions over Catalonia and still form a government in Spain, without alienating Spanish voters following a tight election. Sanchez needs support from 24 of 25 members of parliament from separatist parties of Catalonia to reach the 176 he needs to form a government. Sanchez calls his efforts to reduce tensions between Barcelona and Madrid "dejudicializing" the process instead of "amnesty," and has been able to govern with support of other parties. In the July election his PSOE Socialist Workers Party was 1.4% percentage points behind the centrist Partido Popular. The PP leader Feijoo has failed to form a government and Sanchez will have a chance to form a government in October.

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The Spanish government agreed to open the books of Spanish regional governments and the regional savings banks to reduce concern in financial markets about Spain's debt. Spain's government debt is 53.2% of GDP in 2009, which is lower than Greece at 127%, Italy at 116%, Portugal at 76%, Ireland at 65%, and Germany at 73%. Spain's problem is the a large amount of private debt accumulated during15 years, in the low interest rate environment after joining the eurozone. Joining the euro sent interest rates in Spain down because it removed the risk of devaluation. The government was restrained by the Maastricht treaty criteria but private investors and regional banks could borrow freely, and they borrowed extensively, with money going into home building and construction. The fear is that the Spanish government will end up taking on much of this debt. The other problem is that Spain needs to refinance much of that debt in 2011, at a time when investors are nervous about eurozone debt. Spain's central government will need to raise 170 billion euros in 2011, regional governments another 30 billion euros, and Spanish banks another 90 billion euros. The government has set up a special facility for Spanish banks to draw on of 99 billion euros....

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Moody's downgrades the credit ratings of 26 Italian banks in May 2012. Italy's largest retail bank Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, showed net profit of 804 million euros, up 22% from the prior year. Of this 183 million euros was from capital gains made using the ECB low cost loans under special ECB financing to buy government debt. The ECB financing was through the Long Term Refinancing Operation launched by the ECB in December 2011, which benefitted Italian and Spanish banks.

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A detailed account of the developments that unfolded for Bankia bank during and after the initial public offering of its shares, after it was put together from seven failing cajas savings banks with bad real estate loans made during the housing bubble. The procrastination and small steps taken to paper over the problems by the Spanish government and regulators during the last year of the Zapatero administration and into the first year of the Rajoy administration.

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Prince Felipe uses Catalan in a visit to Girona. He praised the Catalan language saying Catalan "is in a permanent, sincere and enriching dialogue and co-existence with Spanish." Under the Spanish constitution following the Franco period divisions, the king is thrust into the role of "arbitrating and moderating" between institutions. The Partido Popular of former premier Anzar and current premier Rajoy, is seen as performing poorly in interaction with regions such as Basque and Catalonia. Spanish public opinion, as reflected in a 2014 poll of the newspaper El Pais, show 75% of Spaniards supporting the king playing a role in creating a dialogue and facilitating agreements between politicians.

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India's response says Amitav Ghosh is better being like the Spanish response to the Madrid bombings 11-M as it is known in Spanish, than the American response to 9/11. The American response was military buildup and the invasion of Afgahnistan and then Iraq. The Spanish response was says Ghosh was of vigilance, patience and careful police work in coordination with neighboring countries. And in the case of India the added effort to eliminate the terrorists hideouts and safe houses in cooperatation with other countries. Tightened security in all areas and bringing it on par with the security in countries that have addressed the challenge at a much better level.

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China is slowing infrastructure projects after loaning $30 billion to Venezuela. As Venezuela's economy declined under Maduro Venezuela is paying this off with oil exports in what is called a creditor trap. Both Russia and China are intent on trade with the US, Russia to open up business and trade and China to preserve it's trading and business relationship for its exports at a difficult time for it's economy. This tacitly preserves the idea of US direction in a beneficial way for the western hemisphere that was part of the message in 1823 by president Monroe to Congress. In the Mexican War, through Manifest Destiny during the administration of James Polk in 1843 this was still the accepted idea when Ulysses Grant a future president and civil war general on the side of Lincoln fought in that war. This brought slavery free, Spanish feudalism free, democratic processes and modernized economies to California, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, much of the West and the Pacific shoreline. Russia hopes to get the US to accept it's aspirations to be a modern Northern power in Europe. The US DJT Republican administration has shown it's respect for Russia in its zone of influence, with it's main objection to Russia in Ukraine being the massive invasion of a neighboring country. When compared to Mexico it was the US replacing the Spanish who had invaded the Aztec tribes in Mexico setting up feudal regimes, not the US invading a neighboring country. The European Union and Germany now bear the burden of defending Western Europe as a European power. The situation is similar in Asia where China has it's area of influence and India, Japan, Australia as Asian powers sharing zones of influence in Asia with China, so that the US can maintain good relations with China including fair trade that brings back it's manufacturing. The US would continue to support Taiwan as an independent country. This balance can ensure peace in the Americas, Europe and Asia as nations modernize and choose better governance under governments that relate to their history and geography, as opposed to Communist and anti-communist or democratic or anti-democratic, when they meet the aspirations of their people.   ...

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If you love soccer or football you should see this interview by Frank Lampard of 2024 Ballon d'Or winner, Spanish player Rodri Fernandez. Rodri plays for Manchester City. The interesting thing about this Premier League You Tube video of Oct 29, 2024 is that British player Frank Lampard, and now coach, is he shows Rodri moments in each game on an iPad and asks him how he does it- the moves he makes as a midfielder on the field, including the picture in his head about the field in those moments.

Lampard does an excellent job showing Rodri at his best, the skills, the instinct, the preparation and the hard work, the discipline, and the extraordinary humility of Spanish footballers.