Spain did NOT bankrupt itself on the "green energy = jobs" wild goose chase. Spain was actaully one of the few countries actually complying with the sovering debt rules of the euro (France and Germany, the framers of these very rules was not).
Spain's problems stem mainly frmo the following:
- Eurozone interest rates during the boom were set to suit the French and German economies, and were far too low for the periphery. This resulted in an enormous construction bubble as well as enormous wage inflation.
- When the bubble popped, construction almost instantly halted, meaning a lot of people ended up out of work. Exacerbating this was now that Spanish labour was uncompetitive because of the high wage inflation, leading to very high unemployment rates.
- Spanish banks were pretty exposed to not only the thieving scum on Wall Street selling subprime mortgates as AAA-rated debt, but also exposed now to their own mortgage default problems as a result of the bubble popping, causing a credit crunch, driving more businesses out of business.
- France and Germany still haven't learned: Eurozone interest rates are still set as to what the French and German economies need and are too high for the periphery. (Therefore I don't have any sympathy with the French and Germans when they whine about having to bail out other eurozone countries: they were a big part of the problem).
None of this had anything to do with "green energy".