Peter Fieldman
Well, another year almost gone with its share of natural disasters, austerity measures and conflicts, which our political leaders seem incapable of resolving.
As corruption continues unabated and public money continues to disappear down a black hole, Spain votes for introducing draconian new laws to restrict the freedom of the people and calls for lower salaries for workers in the private and public sector while the boardroom bosses continue to increase their own remuneration packages. They should call it the Protect the Elite law. In the immortal words of Cary Grant: «It doesn’t seem quite fair does it.»
How many more banks are going to be called to account for the Libor and mortgages frauds? Are they all pirates or are there any banks left which can be trusted? It is another example of how the gap is widening between jusstice and the law. When banks are punished rather than bankers it is similar to that of a car stopped for speeding and the police sanction the vehicle and not the driver.
Nice to see the Xmas spirit alive and well with those accused of corruption, tax evasion or fraud sending their xmas gift list to the magistrates, taxman and courts to arrange deals to avoid prison or huge fines. It always surprises me when politicians or business people, who have been earning comfortable but not enormous salaries, and are indicted or convicted for fraud, suddenly find hundreds of thousands or millions of euros to obtain bail or pay massive fines? How much public money has actually disappeared and where is it?
The absence of justice in the banking scandals and the Prestige disaster reminds me of how the French call it: “responsable mais pas coupable.” And talking about the French, having lived in France for a longtime I know that when the French get angry things can get rough, and they are getting angry.
Senyor Mas makes an official visit to Israel and India with a bunch of cronies and their wives despite Catalonia’s debts, and is received with full diplomatic honours reserved for a country’s leader. It really annoys me how many so called representatives of the people, local and national, somehow justify overseas freebies with their wives and friends using public money. (Mas said his India trip was not paid from public funds).
Spain’s Regions are private fiefdoms with the barons all looking at each other’s privileges while the country is like a mini European Union and just as ungovernable. When we need more European harmonization, how can Spain continue to operate with 17 separate mini states with different laws, languages and taxes? And now Scottish independence is on the agenda. Maybe we shall see a new currency – the Haggis or Thistle. The controversy over the fences with knives in Ceuta and Melilla has raised the question of how to end illegal immigration, especially child victims of mafia traffickers. Usually walls are to keep people in, not out. With Cameron trying to restrict access to Bulgarians and Rumanians, and France wanting to remove its Roms, immigration is going to be at the top of the agenda in next year’s Euro elections. The usually efficient Germany has taken two months to form a Government and unilaterally proposes tolls on foreign vehicles which is discriminatory and illegal and decides to allow double nationality to children born of foreign parents, which I believe damages the concept of total integration. So much for European unity.
I read that Nozar, a real estate company with a massive debt of 1.5 billion euros, is asking its creditors to write off 75% with the balance repaid over several years, and the bad bank, Sareb, is selling off its housing stock at rock bottom prices to investors to sell off at a profit. It seems a portfolio of properties in Vallecas is being offered to occupiers for 150,000 euros each by Goldman Sachs after Ivima sold them to the bank for 70000 euros each. Two questions. Why can’t ordinary families write off their debts in similar fashion and instead of repossessing people’s homes or selling them off to speculators, why don’t the banks allow homeowners to purchase them cheap and refinance them over a long term at favourable rates of interest?
Ask why the creditors did not put Nozar into liquidation and sell off its assets cheap. It is called protecting friends. Isadore Faine, head of Caixa called for more entrepreneurs to save Spain. Funny coming from one of the privileged banking and IBEX corporate bosses who never risks their own money and collect huge remuneration packages for managing their companies with their nice golden parachutes. These should be banned since they have nothing to do with retaining talent but insurance so directors can leave with fortunes regardless of their competence. While the IBEX corporations are loaded with billions of euros of debt the pymes can’t raise any loans. And we wonder why the economy is stagnating and there are no jobs. And the shutting down of Canal 9 (RTVV) in Valencia regrettably adds to the number of journalists out of work.
Last month I was in Florence to see a rising political figure, Matteo Renzi, the city’s mayor. While I was there Berlusconi was still hanging on but he has finally gone, stabbed in the back by his deputy with the sweet sounding name of Angelino Alfano (now known as Brutus) and the Senate. And he calls it a coup d’etat! It seems that local politicians and employees of Rome’s public transport bus company were making money by printing their own tickets to sell to passengers. Well, Italians are known for their creative talent.
And now for the good news: Madrid’s garbage strike is over. It is rather unfair to put all the blame on Ana Botella. Is she a Botella half full or half empty? A strike is a legal right in our democracies and New York, Naples, Paris and other cities have all seen rubbish piling up without the Mayors being taken to the cleaners. What it does show is that the garbage collectors and hospital laundry workers are far more important to our society than the politicians and bankers who only know how to collect and launder money.
Being Xmas there is an endless bombardment of advertisements on TV, the radio, in the press and on internet for cars, or rather for buying an emotional experience, accompanied by a beautiful or handsome passenger. Politicians jump for joy as car sales increase while at the same time they do everything to reduce the impact of the motor vehicles on the roads through parking restrictions, taxes and tolls. And why are there so many companies advertising expensive watches when everyone has a mobile phone to check the time? Do we need time pieces anymore or are they destined to become the mobile phones of the future?
Like most citizens I have paid my IBI. I went to the central Hacienda office in Madrid, was given a number and waited my turn. I took notice of the dozens of civil servants doing their job behind the counters dealing with citizens who had come to fulfill their tax obligations. I reflected that without an honest, efficient and organised public administration whether it is tax, education, health, transport or garbage collection, run and operated by dedicated people, our society and democracies cannot function. It shows that garbage collectors and hospital laundry workers are more important than corrupt politicians and bankers who only know how to collect and launder money.
The New Year revolution, I mean resolution, should be to end institutionalised corruption and see politicians with ‘manos limpias’ (really ‘clean hands’, nothing to do with the right wing lawyers association called like that and who were against judge Garzón).
«La libertad ha de ser una práctica constante para que no degenere en una formula banal. El mismo campo que cría la era, cría las ortigas. Todo poder amplía y, prolongadamente ejercido, degenera en casta. Con la casta vienen los intereses, las altas posiciones, los miedos de perderlas, las intrigas para sostenerlas. Las castas se entrebuscan y se hombrean unas a otras» (José Martí). My final thoughts are for Berlusconi, Mas and Botella.
