The true problems in Spain are:
- An inept political class. They have no vision, no true principles, most are unprepared to uptake the responsibilities thay are assigned to. Very especially, there is no accountability. All Spanish citizens are equal; unfortunately, some (specifically, politicians) are more equal than others.
- An inefficient, unjust, very slow and biast judicial system. It takes years for court cases to resume, it's costly, there's too much uncertainty. Judges are no doubt above the law.
- Decentralization. The Autonomous Community model in Spain has created too great a replication of functions and activities, and thus costs. There is also a loss of focus on important issues.
- Savings Banks (Cajas de Ahorros). Banks have tempered the crisis well in Spain. The problem is those banks in hands of politicians, that is, savings banks. Politicians have been allowed to guide these institutions in their own interest, losing millions, and no-one is accountable.
- Justice. Who audits and cares for fraud? Banks, telco's, construction company, etc. It's worthwhile to carry out fraudulant business practices. Because of the slow and unjust judicial system, most cases don't reach court, and those that do are expensive, slow and not always just. So it's profitable to rip people off. The government does not watch over these abuses to assure it's kept down to a minimum.
- Unemployment. Can only remain as high due to a large submerged economy. Instead of lowering taxes in order to favor declaring income, they opt for the opposite, further bleeding those that pay taxes and, more important, reducing tax payer benefits.
There are more I shall address in subsequent posts.
The politicians: they don't speak English, much less other languages such as French, German, etc. No proven track records. Most all, especially the head honchos,have never proven themselves in the real world. Incapable of managing anything efficiently. A bunch of losers whose only merit is to have risen in the scales of their political parties. Many have barely no knowledge of economics, no idea how ends must meet at the end of the year. No idea as to how a public administration should function. No vision, no insight. Not a clue that you cannot build ordinary expenses to be paid with extraordinary revenues. And their discourse is pathetic, low level, intended to keep their citizens as stupid as possible. Unfortunately, there's practically no-one left to vote for: 2 clountry-wide parties with inept leaders, PSOE and PP; a communist party that couldn't do a worst job, simply pathetic, ridiculous and underserved of a party that has fought so much; natioanalist parties that only strive to achieve getting more for their regions - they don't give a damn for the country and along with all the former, have the merit to have built what the country is today: a big inefficient debt generating country that, as is the case with losers, only blames others for their self inflicted problems.
ResponderEliminarAn insecure judicial system with contradictory rulings. We say Argentina is judicially insecure (re Repsol takeover), but should humbly look to ourselves. The judicial system is slow, moody, variable, insecure, beaurocratic, technologically obsolete.
ResponderEliminarThis results in uncountable injustices: multinationals and large companies such as telcos, construction firms, banks, abusing their customers, knowing only a small percentage of the cheated will dare uptake legal actions, which are expensive, slow and too frequently unjust.