THERE'S SOME YEARS that I don't earn that much:

Spanish banks, saddled with 176 billion euros ($243 billion) in “troubled” holdings in the real-estate industry, face an “uncertain setting” because of a weak economy that may mean their bad loans will rise, the Bank of Spain said.

“In the next few quarters, the volume of asset-impairment losses can be expected to remain high,” the regulator said in its twice-yearly financial stability report, published today. “This, along with the foreseeable adverse trend in net interest income, constitutes a difficult scenario for the income statement of Spanish banks.”