A scary thought…

These days, I find myself thinking things that I never thought I would consider. I am starting to have my doubts about the Tripartite coalition government. Sometimes, when one’s strength weakens, I wonder if, perhaps, maybe, it was not that bad under CiU after all. Was it?

Let me set the record straight: I have never in my life voted for CiU. But nowadays I wonder: will I end up voting CiU in 3-4 years? That's a scary thought!!

I have always held the view that CiU would never lead the country anywhere. They may be good managers and talk a good game, but I don’t understand what is the outcome they are looking for. What do we want to achieve for Catalonia? Do they want to be part of Spain or not? And in what terms? Probably they are as confused as I am. But I have never voted them. I never got excited about CiU’s political message. I have been a loyal ERC voter (except a period when I was a communist… the shame!) for many years now.

ERC has taken a massive gamble with the Tripartit 2. A President with more power, perhaps less charisma but with more control of the media is now in charge. With Montilla, a proper Spaniard is in charge of the Generalitat. He is someone that wants Catalonia to be just like any other autonomous region in Spain. We know what his political project for Catalonia is: Spain. With Montilla we have certainty. At least with CiU I had some doubts.

Will ERC be able to influence government policy and decision-making with such a man in charge? So far it is not looking good but then again I don’t live in Catalonia so what do I know anymore?

Then I read that a security guard is still in prison for shooting at a car being driven by two thiefs that were trying to run him over. The man, who has all the required accreditations, is still in prison. I don’t understand why. As far as I can read in the press, this is no Tony Martin (the English farmer who shot two gipsies on the back as they were running away). Someone correct me if I am wrong but the thieves were in a car, trying to run him over, he fires away, one dies in hospital a few days later. The security guard has been accused of murder and is still in prison. I find this whole episode quite amazing to be honest.

But nothing surprises me in Catalonia anymore: we also have now a communist in charge of the police! What next?

I also read that the Government has passed a law in the Catalan Parliament that would allow the Generalitat to expropriate empty residential properties. Apparently this is in order to mitigate the acute shortage in housing and to increase the supply of properties available for rent. Even the most incompetent of economists knows that expropriation is the least effective policy mechanism to alter market characteristics. Has anyone in the Tripartit ever heard of the concept of Pigovian Tax?? Has anyone in the Government analysed if expropriation is the most cost-effective method? Would it not be easier to close tax loopholes and raise taxes for empty properties?

I am going over to Barcelona to visit family between the 20-26th December. I am looking forward to catch up with family and friends and eating out. But I am also wary that the country I left almost 8 years ago is changing beyond recognition. And I am not sure anymore it is for the better. I guess I will be able to have a wee look for myself shortly.

As I like to be an optimist, let’s finish on a positive note. It has been announced today that National Geographic will be published in Catalan. This is very good news indeed and will ensure that younger generations will have access to a high quality natural science publication in our precious and endangered language. Well done to the publishing house, RBA.

Never give all the Heart

Never give all the Heart
W.B. Yeats
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.

O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

------
PS: Apologies to regular readers but I have been far to busy lately and right now I could not care less about politics.

too busy studying!

Right ladies and gentlemen.
I have not forgotten about the blog, it is just that I am studying like crazy for the CFA exam.
Much, much more difficult that I initially thought; I have taken this week off work to study. This week I have been at the library from 9am until 8.30pm. Exam is on December 2nd so normal services will resume after that weekend.

PS1: Montilla, an immigrant born in Andalusia, has today been invested President of Catalonia. Will Spain ever have a Catalan primer minister again? Even just a candidate?
PS2: And now that the anti-Catalan Ciudadanos speak Spanish in the Catalan Parliament, could the Spanish parlament stop the prohibition of addressing the chamber in any language other than Spanish? What language is being discriminated by the law?

Arrrgh, can't wait to get this bloody exam off the way!

Dangerous games

The results are almost official and the counting is over:

*1999: PSC-PSOE and ICV had joint lists in Girona, Tarragona and Lleida, but not in Barcelona.
Turnout in brackets.

The above table shows the results of the last three Catalan elections. It shows that the electoral map does not change much.

Today, however, it is a very sad day for Catalonia. A party named Ciudadanos has been elected to Parliament, the Barcelona area returning 3 MPs. Despite being the first the party was participating in the electoral process, the media has given them plenty of space and coverage. This is most unusual in Spanish elections: normally the media does not cover parties without current elected representatives. In this case, the Spanish media has only been too happy to give them plenty of media coverage, unlike the dozen or so other parties with no representation.

Ciudadanos are a populist, pro-Spanish and viciously anti-Catalan party. Their policies will cause our language and culture to disappear within a generation. They are a vindictive party, with divisive policies and sectarian hatred for anything related to Catalonia. In the Barcelona area, where there are millions of first and second generation immigrants from the south of Spain that moved there under Franco, this party has achieved about 80,000 votes, enough to go over the 3% threshold and thus gain 3 elected representatives.

It remains to be seen what their impact is going to be in Catalan politics. Probably not much. However, the objective of the Spanish media has been achieved: there is now an openly and populist anti-Catalan party elected in Catalonia. This is painfully similar to what the Spanish nationalists did to the Valencia region in the 80s and 90s. They supported a movement called ‘blaverisme’. These are violent thugs that attacked (and continue to do so) bookshops, universities, community centres, etc. They too received plenty of financial and media support from the Spanish right and their divisive linguistic policies in Valencia have rendered the language almost extinct. Now, with Valencian language and culture in the doldrums, they are going for us. Ciudadanos are the equivalent of the Blavero movement and they share the same objective: to remove Catalan language and culture of the educational curriculum, to make our language an optional pastime, nothing more than a folkloric anecdote from the past.

Now that Ciudadanos has been elected to parliament, they will get a slice of the public funding that elected political parties receive, and more importantly, they will get more media coverage at the next election. As if they did not have enough already with all the help of the Spanish press.
Optimists will point out to history: Lerroux was also elected in Barcelona in the 1930s, and was quickly dispatched at the following elections. In the first Catalan elections after the end of Franco’s dictatorship, a party called Partido Socialista de Andalucia was also returned to parliament with two members for Barcelona (1979). They quickly merged into the PSC-PSOE.

That is wishful thinking in my view. The difference now is that there is a sizeable percentage of our population (around 4-6% in the Barcelona area near the city) that lives in the suburbs of Barcelona and Tarragona that does not feel any sense of belonging to Catalonia. They are Spanish, feel Spanish and don’t want to learn Catalan, even though they live in Catalonia. In a normal country, (Switzerland, Belgium) this would not be a problem. I don’t know of any countries where migratory movements are used as a basis to alter and influence linguistic policy and rights. What next: Arabic or Romanian will also become an official language in Catalonia just because a few thousand people resent and object to learn the local language of Catalonia (i.e: Catalan)?

These are very worrying times. With political representation, Ciudadanos will inflame social tensions and will wind up people to pursue political gains. IF anything this underscores our fragility as a stateless nation, and our coward and complacent attitude to our own national issue.

There are many hidden messages in the results. Turnout was almost 6 percentage points below 2003, and all parties have lost votes except the neo-communists or eco-socialists of ICV. This a find most surprising for this is a party that has behaved as a mere appendix to the PSC-PSOE. Yet they have been rewarded with the addition of three MPs to their previous nine.

It appears that there has been a flow of votes in the Barcelona area away from the PSC-PSOE and PP towards ICV and Ciudadanos. In the province of Barcelona (85 MPs) PSC-PSOE has lost 4 and PP 1. Of these, 2 seem to have gone to IC-V and 3 towards Ciudadanos. In Lleida, the PSC-PSOE loses 1 that goes to IC-V.

ERC has lost 2 MPs in Barcelona, and they seem to have gone to CiU. CiU has won in the 4 provinces and in 38 out of the 41 counties (comarques). The other 3 counties are Barcelona City, Baix Llobregat (south of the city) and Valles Occidental (north-west). In these areas, which are mostly populated by Spanish speaking first and second generation immigrants the PSC-PSOE has won, with the Ciudadanos party doing fairly well. In some towns and quarters in the city, it has achieved results ranging from 3-7% of the vote. In the upmarket quarter of Sarrià-St Gervasi or in the suburban Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Ciutadans trails behind ERC only by about 2%. Worrying stuff indeed and perhaps a sign of things to come.


What I find most disheartening are all the missing votes for ERC. This dispel the myth that some parties have ‘loyal’ voters. ERC has lost about 130,000 votes compared to 2003, about 2.38% share of the vote. The PP has lost about 55,000, about 1.25% share. All parties have lost votes apart from IC-V.

PSC-PSOE has haemorrhaged a full 200,000 votes in Barcelona province, and PP about 55,000; yet only about 78,000 of these missing votes have gone to Ciudadanos, and about 30,000 to ICV. Where are the other 147,000 votes?. Does this mean that there is hidden vote out there for Ciudadanos to win. Very scary indeed.

The tripartite (PSC-ERC-ICV) has lost 4 MPs. CiU has won 2 in Barcelona.
There are two majorities possible:
1) a repeat of the tripartite
2) CiU + ERC government.

ERC chiefs meet tomorrow to decide on alliances but I would be surprised if they chose to repeat a tripartite with the PSC-PSOE given the minor corrective and absenteeism of their electorate. ERC voters are supposed to be the most loyal and faithful yet they have abstain in great numbers. I think the grassroots do not want another tripartite coalition.
Interesting and worrying days and years ahead. It could be the trigger we need to wake up our dormant national pride or it could be the beginning of the end for Catalonia.

Chelsea are the scum of the Earth

What can I say? Chelsea and Mourinho are the scum of the Earth, a cancer that we football fans are suffering. I just hope and pray that man never wins the Champions League backed up by the Russian money launderer. Drogba was a disgrace today. What a shame they scored in the fucking last minute. The refereed was a liability: at least we now know that he will not be refereing the final. What a shite performance.

And this is not even about Chelsea FC: this is about a man who does not know the meaning of sportmanship: Mourinho. I have always believed that what goes around comes around and I am positive that Mourinho and the current Chelsea team will get theirs coming sooner or later.

We may not qualify now for the knock-out stages, but it doesn't matter. We can held our heads high while Mourinho and Chelsea continue to bring the game into disrepute.
Time will put everyone in their place.
We will see where Mourinho and Chelsea are in 5 years time.

Financial markets, “nationalism” and ignorance

Today, I was struck by two comic cartoons in Spanish newspaper El País. I don’t read often this newspaper (I use the term generously), even though it is the least bad of Spanish newspapers, as it is nothing more than the spin machine of the PSOE and the nationalistic Spanish Left. Nevertheless, every weekend I visit the website and check out the comic strips for the last week. Today, I found two cartoons that caught my attention. One is about the stock market and the other is about so-called 'nationalism'.

Let’s deal with the one about the stock market first. Below is the comic strip.

In Spanish, the byline reads: “Do not worry about stock markets fluctuations: they only reflect the state of mind of the wealthy” (‘Bolsa’ is Spanish for stock market).

The drawing not only reflects the ignorance of the cartoonist in financial matters but also his prejudiced bias against something he does not understand yet seems to dislike profoundly.

El Roto is a brilliant cartoonist; his drawings are sparse, direct and without unnecessary additions. Often, I find myself in agreement with his simple, yet powerful messages. In this case, he misses the point. An artist should always research the subject matter; in this drawing, El Roto appears unable to overcome his own prejudices and investigate how financial markets work and why and how everyone is impacted by what happens in them. I guess that when he is ready to collect his pension, he will wish he had paid more attention to the stock markets when he was younger.

As there is plenty of literature that explains in lay terms the characteristics of financial markets and how they impact in everyday life, I will just provide a few links for the uninitiated.

Investopedia, in English and with a massive dictionary and beginner tutorials.
As always the Wikipedia is a superb resource to get to the basics of things. The Economist is always a reliable source and their books are superb for beginners.
In Spanish, I quite like Bolsamania and Cárpatos daily column, whenever I have time to read it.
In Catalan, we have a few sites: Entorns, a financial information portal; and Les Finances, operating as a ticker news service with graphs. On economics, we have the site of Professor Ramon Tremosa. Most of his newspaper articles are in Catalan or Spanish, but some of his academic work is in English. I like this one about the extent of the fiscal deficit Catalonia is suffering at the hands of Spain. He sounds too much of a Keynesian for my liking and a bit leftie but, hey, nobody is perfect: I am a bit of a leftie too (every now and then), and I have just become a member of The Co-op and I bank with the only ethical bank in the UK, smile, the internet bank. And anyway, who says that ethics and sustainability are a leftie thing?

But I digress. What I wanted to say is that El Roto exhibits his ignorance and prejudice with that particular drawing. I wonder what the newspaper's owner (Mr Polanco) thought today when he read it.

Then, we have this strip by Máximo, also in El País newspaper today Friday 27th October 2006.

The by-line reads: “Nationalist of the world: universalize!”
Now, I would not disagree the above statement. I believe in fluid international trade and relations. However, the cartoonist in this drawing, when he refers to ‘nationalists’, he excludes Spanish nationalists (like him or his newspaper). For many Spaniards (either on the Left or the Right) it is only Basques or Catalans who are nationalists, and apparently therefore not universal. They do not consider themselves to be Spanish nationalists, and as they are not nationalists, they become, magically, universal and cosmopolitan. This is the fallacy that the Spanish Left, and the media empire behind El País and Cadena SER radio network, has tried to convey to generations of young Spaniards. Yet, careful observation and analysis of their arguments leaves the discerning observer in no doubt they are as nationalists as any Basque or Catalan ‘nationalist’.

Spanish nationalists believe and want a nation-state called Spain and that’s why the Spanish Left and Right unite in their common goal of suppressing any traces of Basque or Catalan culture and identity when voting together in the Madrid parliament or in Europe to recognise the Catalan language as an official language for use in Parliament. To them, Spain means Spanish language (mandatory by Constitutional Law for all), and Catalan is just an add-on, something optional and voluntary. They are pursuing the same objective for their nation (Spain) as we are doing for ours (Catalonia). The only difference is that they already have a State behind them. They control the public administration, the media, and capital flows through their investment allocation decisions. If Spain were like Canada or Belgium, there would not be many Catalans opting for independence. But, alas, as Spain digs deeper and deeper in its centralising and nationalistic hole, more and more people in the Basque Country and Catalonia, fed up with having tried to modernise Spain, to make it a normal European-style democracy, are willing to show their discontent and vote for political parties that do not adhere to this Spanish-centric vision of the Spanish State. And this is despite the threat of military intervention, the ongoing vitriolic anti-Catalan campaign, and the criminalisation of political parties. Perhaps, only the extremist Radio Marija in Poland is comparable to the lies, racist prejudices and hatred preached in the Spanish radio network COPE and the Madrid-based press like El Mundo, ABC, etc.

Elections in Catalonia are next week and polls suggests that not much is going to change from 2003. It remains to be seen what’s the performance of the Catalan parties CiU and ERC and the sitting-on-the-fence pseudo-communists of ICV. Also, there is growing anxiety of the results of the new party Ciutadans. This is the 21st century version of what Lerroux tried almost a century ago. They also have the support (financial and media-wise) of the Spanish Left and the Spanish Right. And like Lerroux, they want nothing more than dividing Catalans according to their mother tongue or place of birth. Fortunately, Lerroux was sent home “tae think again”, as a Scot would say, and I hope and pray that next week the despicable Ciutadans are also sent packing to Spain, where they belong, for their divisive policies and anti-Catalan agenda would bring nothing but misfortune to Catalonia.

Green Stained in Blood

The below is an article of Josep C. Vergés, you can read the original version published in the Racó Català following this link. (cat and eng). It is a bit strong for my liking but on the whole I agree with Sr Vergés that the communist falacy of ICV has to be exposed. I also fully support the idea of Green policies becoming mainstream and not a concept hijacked by unreconstructed marxists. My friends in Catalonia must be having a good chuckle right now reading this! Guys, do not worry too much: I am a shark -but still have a conscience.
==============================
"Don't go to the lagoons, because today there are hunters," I am warned on World Bird Day in the Ebro delta. The environment ministry of the Catalan government, controlled by the former communists of ICV, celebrates that we have the park with the greatest number of birds in Europe by killing them.

Greens have been the left wing appendages of socialists in Catalonia and all over Europe which uses proportional representation. When Angela Merkel failed to win a majority together with the Liberals last year in Germany, there was some desultory talk of bringing the Greens in, but the love-hate relationship of Greens and Liberals prevented any serious discussion. As liberal Oswald Metzger explains: “Both parties fish in the same pond and have similar basic principles. The Green voter base today is what once Liberals claimed for themselves: well educated, well off, well established and, of course, better paid. “

ICV in Catalonia, originally the communists and the bad guys in George Orwell's “Homage to Catalonia” during the Civil War, are still the bad guys today as far as I can see. In 1994 they added green to their traditional red flag to avoid extinction, which is what happens in democracies when voters can choose between freedom and despotism. The red-green Daltonic view of the world is really unadulterated Marxism as the ICV programme states: “We want a society built on democracy and socialism, sustained by true left values. The current economic system based on the profit logic and continued growth systematically destroys its own conditions for survival. We are the inheritors of the democratic and national trajectory of the communists and of a long tradition of the most select and noble values of Marxism, socialism, euro-communism and communism. Times have changed and the left must adapt in order to survive.” That is, the ICV excommunists cannot go on with State control, worker power and market controls for fear of the voters. Greens all over Europe have swallowed whole this bankrupt economic Marxism.

Once a year the entire Swiss government goes on walkabout to meet the people. This Summer I caught up with them at KZO College in Zurich Oberland. One graduating student, with a master project forming a real company –a trendy bag small-scale manufacturer- provided the gift carrier bags for each member of the Bundesrat, as they are known, in each party's colours- red for socialist president Moritz Leunberger, yellow for liberal Pascal Couchepin and green, no not for the Greens who are not in this collegiate body, but for firebrand Christoph Blocher, because his SVP was originally an agrarian party. In separate one hour meetings with student classes the latter gave a not very encouraging description of a politician. Asked whether he ever told the truth: “You are not yet of voting age so I have no problem telling the truth to you.”

Swiss politics is truly a fine art, but even finer is the evolution, the first I know of, of some Greens towards liberalism. Since 2004 there exists a new Green Liberal party: “We are green, but we serve caviar with our salad. We are the bridge between green politics and economic sense. Our heart is green but we are liberal in economics. Freedom lies at the centrepiece of a liberal point of view. If we take responsibility for ourselves this should be enough to be able to live together.” Green Liberals split from the Greens because of their Marxist policies. Green Liberal Parliamentarian Martin Bäumle: ”Green cannot be exclusively left of the socialist party.” The Swiss Green coordinating body calls the new party “irresponsible” and with Soviet efficiency has voted 100 to 1 not to have any contacts stating that the Greens stand clearly to the left and that the differences with the Green Liberals on economic and financial policies are too large. Green co-president Tiana Moser: “Our diverging objectives and paths are not compatible.” So it is heart warming to learn that in Switzerland some greens are willing to stand up and fight for freedom. Of course if they succeed there will be a diplomatic problem in the next Swiss government walkabout. What colour bag should they be given full of economic liberties? The Green Liberal breakthrough in Switzerland makes more sense than the regurgitated Marxist fare of the greens all over Europe and worse still in Catalonia with ICV celebrating World Bird Day rifle in hand with their green flag stained in blood.

Thin-skinned candidate leaves interview in a huff

My goodness, there seems to be no shortage of news stories in this heated election campaign!

The story of the last hours is the following.

Xavier Sala i Martin (english) is a Professor at Department of Economics at Columbia University. He is something of a celebrity in Catalonia and in Spain because:

- He dares to challenge the Left on their ‘social’ economic policy.
Just to put you in the picture, in Catalonia it is becoming something of a struggle not to be a communist or a pseudo-socialist, progressive, anti-globalisation, pseudo-leftie. The word liberal (which in the US the Right uses to refer to the Left or the Progresives in a derogatory manner) in Spain and in Catalonia is used as a quasi-insult to refer to those who believe market forces is often a better resource allocation mechanism than the State. This simple concept is anatema to many in Catalonia and Spain, where some people still fly the Communist flag as a symbol of freedom. For them, private capital is bad and public good is achieved through public allocation and management of resources.
Mr Sala is a liberal, or worse still, a neo-liberal! (A neo-liberal in Spain is like a neo-con; bad). His work on global wealth distribution and poverty indicators is often quoted in the FT, The Economist, etc.

- He was interim President of the FC Barcelona at last elections. He has a few good pictures of himself with the club touring the USA on his website.

- He wears extremely colourful jackets. Check his site if you want to see the ultra-bright jackets for yourself.

Now we know a wee bit about colour-mad Mr Xavier Sala i Martin.

La Vanguardia is a Barcelona-based, Spanish-language newspaper. It is a middle-of the road, quite centrist newspaper, as opposed to the left-leaning, PSOE-controlled El Periódico and El País. La Vanguardia is against independence but moderately in favour of improving the political settlement between Spain and Catalonia towards a more devolved framework. La Vanguardia has a good business and literary section but its sports coverage is rather poor. La Vanguardia was the only Catalan newspaper that was not banned under Franco. Its owners have always had the ability to get on well with whoever was in power: Franco, or PSOE or CiU or more recently the tripartite coalition in Catalonia. La Vanguardia is pragmatism and moderation.

Now we know a little bit about La Vanguardia.

Well, La Vanguardia commissioned Mr Sala to conduct interviews with the 5 main candidates at the next Catalan elections.
Mr Sala interviewed the socialist candidate (José Montilla, PSC-PSOE).
It turns out that Sr Montilla lost his temper during the interview and left in a huff accusing Mr Sala of being “sectarian”. The newspaper published the interview except the last exchanges, in which Mr Montilla insults Mr Sala. The word in the street is that this was due to lobbying by the PSC-PSOE apparatchik. Being a true liberal, Mr Sala duly uploaded the interview onto his own website at the University and also a transcript in Catalan and Spanish. Sadly, Mr Sala has not found the time to translate it into English for the benefit of his University colleagues. Perhaps he wants to avoid the ignominy of having to explain to them that Mr Montilla will probably become President of Catalonia on November 2nd.

An mp3 file of the interview can be found here (mp3 file, 9MB). The interview was conducted in Catalan.
An audio transcript of the interview in Catalan can be found here. And the translation in Spanish, here.

All in all, it is quite amazing stuff. What surprised me when listening to it is how quickly Mr Montilla loses his temper; how he struggles to keep composure under intense questioning (for Spanish standards anyway, nothing of the kind of interviewing you find on the BBC). I fear to think what could happen to our thin-skinned candidate if he ever appears in the BBC News 24 Hardtalk programme or in Radio 4 ‘The Moral Maze’. No way José!

Mr Sala also questioned Artur Mas, the candidate of the CiU party. This is the party (two parties in fact) that ruled Catalonia for 23 years. It is a pity we cannot hear the audio of the interview. But in print at least, Mr Mas appears to have more resilience to answer uncomfortable questions than Mr Montilla. Now, Mr Sala has been accused in the past of being close to CiU, and probably he is, if not by conviction at least by default: he would find difficult to support any of the three left-ish parties or the Spanish nationalists of the PP).

The campaign is being quite nasty for Catalan standards. There is a lot of vile and aggression. Whoever is the most voted candidate, it will probably fall short of an absolute majority. A coalition government after all what is being said will not be easy, although we all know by now that politicians have a short memory span…