before privatizing the combined bank to recoup an estimated 400 million euros of their bailout costs. During the course of this transformation, most regional savings banks such as the CAM, Catalunya Banc, Banco de Valencia, Novagalicia Banco, Unnim Banc or Cajasur have since been absorbed by the bigger, more international, Spanish banks, which imposed better management practices. As of 2022, Spanish banks have halved their number of branches to about 20,000 in the decade since the financial crisis and the subsequent international bailout in 2012. The remaining banks have reduced retail opening hours and pushed online banking. A retired urologist with Parkinson's disease gathered more than 600,000 signatures in an online petition "I'm Old, Not an Idiot" asking banks and other institutions to serve all citizens, and not discriminate the oldest and most vulnerable members. Prices Due to the lack of own resources, Spain has to import all of its fossil fuels. Besides, until the 2008 crisis, Spain's recent performance had shown an inflationary tendency and an inflationary gap compared to other EMU countries, affecting the country's overall productivity. Moreover, when Spain joined the euro zone, it lost the recourse of resorting to competitive devaluations, risking a permanent and cumulative loss of competitive due to inflation. In a scenario of record oil prices by the mid 2000s this meant much added pressure to the inflation rate. In June 2008 the inflation rate reached a 13-year high at 5.00%. Then, with the dramatic decrease of oil prices in the second half of 2008 plus the manifest bursting of the real estate bubble, concerns quickly shifted over to the risk of deflation, as Spain recorded in January 2009 its lowest inflation rate in 40 years, followed shortly afterwards, in March 2009 by a negative inflation rate for the first time since the gathering of these statistics started. During the 2009−early 2016 period, apart from temporary minor oil shocks, the Spanish economy has generally oscillated between slightly negative to near-zero inflation rates. Analysts reckoned that this was not synonymous with deflation, due to the fact that GDP had been growing since 2014, domestic consumption had rebounded as well and, especially, because core inflation remained slightly positive. In 2017, moderate inflation between 1-2%, still below the ECB's target, returned as the impact of cheaper fuel prices faded and economic recovery took hold. Economic strengths Since the 1990s some Spanish companies have gained multinational status,