ESPAIN IS DIFFERENT

Difficult but not impossible December 12, 2011

It has been a very long time since the last time I posted something on this blog. Today I am going to write about the mood of the country. As everybody knows we are in the midst of the worst capitalist crisis the world has ever suffered since 1929. Some countries have gone through it with few scratches but most the economies from many countries are completely battered. In the case of this Mediterranean country, called Spain, the fall has been specially pronounced. A country which had finally had joined the club of the rich guys in a couple of decades finds that in less than three years –since the credit crunch began in 2008 until the present moment- it has 5 million people unemployed. Everything that it had seemed to be achieved suddenly looks like a mere mirage. We have gone from a point of over optimism –it was such that our former PM stated that we were on course of surpassing the GDP of France- to a state of helpless despair in the lapse of only three years. As you can imagine the psychological impact of these developments on the populations has been massive.

The credit spree previous to the crash affected people’s behavior and changed some healthy habits from our lifestyle. We were a country where people had a strong culture of going out to socialize in bars –we still are but in a much lesser extent-, happy to go on holiday to our own coast and not minding too much if their cars weren’t precisely the latest model. Due to economic growth, rise in employment and easy access to credit everybody, like in many parts in the developed world, got brand new cars, expensive houses and holidays abroad at the expense of the small luxuries the average Spaniard enjoyed daily.

The now! Current State of Affairs

Spain is a country with many shortcomings but with excellent assets. From my personal point of view pessimism, lack of self-belief and a too high level of unemployment is the biggest threat for the future of our nation. We have the talent, the people and the infrastructure. Our science has improved enormously in the last year. Unfortunately the country is not capable to make this research profitable. Some of our translational companies (we had none in the 80s!) are amongst the biggest in the world (Santander, BBVA, Ferrovial, Telefónica, Endesa and many more) Our road and train networks, ports and airports are world-class. We have one of the largest, if not the largest, high speed railway in the world. Our university has educated a good number of very capable professionals that our labour market is not able to absorb. Instead other nations are benefiting from this situation hiring many of these Spaniards who cannot develop their professional career in their homeland. I believe that if we could progress before it is not impossible to repeat it again. On 20^th November 2011 a new conservative government has been elected. It has received massive support. Regarding the colour of the current government I would like to recall to the words that Deng Xiaoping pronounced on one occasion: “doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice”. Using bad words: I honestly don’t give a fuck about the colour of the government as long as this is able to harness all the good things the country have and it is capable of turning the tide.  We cannot be that bad. If we have the talent to win world championships in all sort of sports we must have it to save our own neck.