The comments follow this week's bankruptcy of Martinsa-Fadesa, Spain's biggest corporate failure. The property developer - with an empire of housing estates, hotels, shopping malls and hotels - collapsed after failing to refinance €5.1bn (£4bn) of debts. The company's demise was a textbook story of aggressive over-expansion at the top of the cycle, driven by high debt gearing. It has €11bn of assets.

El Pais reports that house prices crashed by 20pc in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, based on 183,000 completed transactions.

The Martinsa-Fadesa collapse has sent tremors through the whole property and construction sector. The share price of giant developer Sacyr has halved over the past month.

Since no one seems to be posting anythig, here is some more evidence that the european economy is facing its worst slump in recent history:

SPAIN

Spain's finance minister Pedro Solbes has stunned the markets with an admission that his country faces the worst economic crisis in its history as the full effects of the property crash spread through the economy.

"This crisis is the most complex we have ever lived through given the plethora of factors on the table at the same time," he told Punto Radio in Madrid, breaking with past efforts to put a reassuring gloss on events.

Mr Solbes said the Madrid bourse had suffered an "earthquake", crashing 27pc since the start of June. He blamed the toxic cocktail of high oil prices, the global credit crisis and the sharp slowdown in the key export markets of North America and Germany

LOL check out the band in second part of my earlier posted video xD

watch?v=qnc5bYgwpX4& feature=user

Sad story from EU's neighbour :(

And who gets hurt by the regulations? big businesses just pass the cost to the consumer.

He he, that's all about UK abandoning EU regulations ;)

Consumers and the environment are down the list in importance to many US corporations.

Their objective is to make money, and if they sell a product that is defective in some manner, it doesn't really matter to them.

The profits will far outweigh the law suits in their eyes.

That is true Tupiii89, and about time.

If you look at the massive destruction to the environment done by US companies in the past [and present], one can only say "thank god for that! About time they were faced by a government they looks beyond just how much money these companies make". :)

Mark Schapiro said in that article that even US based companies now have to obey EU regulations or quality standards. An interesting thought...

Thank you to the guy who found it and sent me the link. Its much appreciated :)