Gates-“It’s strange that wages in Spain don’t fall with all that unemployed labor”

Bill Gates recently spent some time in Spain. He asked some relevant questions…From El Pais;

On the country’s current economic problems and high unemployment rate, the businessman and philanthropist was less kind. “It’s strange in that wages have not fallen. If you have a factory that produces coal and no one is buying your coal, then it’s obvious that the price of that coal is too high and you have to bring it down. You have all that labor available, but there is something stopping that equilibrating and other countries moving in when you have all these people willing to work. That level of unemployment tells us that there are some rigidities operating in the labor market.”

(Full interview here).