A few years ago, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made one of his famous propaganda gestures in front of the TV cameras. Walking beside the mayor of Caracas and cloyingly applauded by the usual cohort of smiling followers, Chavez demanded details about the ownership of the buildings sitting on … →

The great philosopher George Santayana wrote a memorable sentence:  “Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer”.  Spain’s 2012 budget deficit figures have recently been published and everyone seems cheerful about them, not least the government. Should … →

  “Power tends to corrupt”. This famous sentence written by the Catholic British historian Lord Acton is often quoted but seldom understood. Today, the collective imagination pictures corruption in a very narrow and childish way, restricted to the customary envelope discreetly delivered beneath the table. However, the corrosive effect of … →

By its very nature, power tends to destroy the morals and judgment of human beings. When man thinks he is God, he soon turns into a tyrant and creates his own Tree of Good and Evil, changing it as he sees fit. Of course, power’s destructive potential affects men in … →

Let’s follow John Lennon. Imagine. Imagine a country suffering in 2008 and 2009 a crisis at least as severe as ours but which, thanks to setting in motion a series of deep reforms, grew 5.5% in 2011 and 3.5% in 2012. Imagine that this particular country succeeded precisely by ignoring … →

When the Greek philosopher Plato wrote the “Allegory of the Cave” 2,400 years ago, he was surely thinking about Keynesian economists (that is to say, nearly all economists): a group of men, chained to their convictions, confusing reality with the shadows that the light of real life projects on the … →

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Europe’s behavior fits this definition perfectly. Let’s see why. The world does not trust Europe and, in particular, does not trust the health of its ailing financial sector. In order to lift these clouds of … →

In today’s Spain, paralyzed by fear and doubt, trapped in the shifting sands of a moral political and economic Depression that seems to have no end, we witness in total shock how the government raises our taxes every three weeks shamelessly breaking every promise it made, and trying to neutralize … →

In my previous article “The Myth of the Central Banker” I tried to demystify central bankers on the grounds of their very mediocre forecasting track records and analyses of reality. Their decisions are too often influenced by the dynamics of power and public image, the short-termism linked to political cycles … →

People at the helm of central Banks are currently enjoying huge power, recognition and public attention. The impact of the measures they take or simply announce (even if it’s merely a bluff), is still enormous. This power notwithstanding, their performance is hardly subject to supervision and, following the traditional privilege … →

The European set-up of today, that is, the one represented by the Brussels-based bureaucratic mammoth, the unelected representatives of 500 million citizens, the nineteen sterile and increasingly pathetic anti-crisis summits and the sloppy political invention of the euro, that European organization is in deep trouble, shaken on top of its … →

In the early nineties, Finland, Norway and Sweden suffered a real estate bubble. When it burst, as all bubbles do, an acute banking crisis overwhelmed them and their financial systems nearly collapsed. In spite of this, just two years later the crisis was history and their economies were growing healthily, … →

The best Spanish banker of the last half century was a most extraordinary character. He led a bank brilliantly from 1966 to 1990, raising it to achieve the title of most profitable in the world (in terms of ROE), keeping an extremely robust balance sheet along the way. He never … →

  Austerity is the latest buzzword. In the good old days it used to be regarded as a virtue; today it only seems to mean bitter difficulty, severity and harshness. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that austerity has brought so much criticism with it: easy tasks attract far … →

Through the years, central, regional and local politicians have created, out of the blue, hundreds of thousands of laws, rules and regulations with which we all are obliged to comply. As far as I know, the Official State Gazette publishes 250.000 pages a year; the regional ones, 800.000 a year. … →

In Spain we talk a lot about democracy and very little about freedom. The latter, however, is the weightier of the two concepts. Democracy is not an end in itself but the best means of approaching the ideal of freedom. Richard Maybury defines with masterful simplicity the two basic rules … →

The situation in Europe is worrying and we need to be realistic about it. It is not a matter of arguing about what it should be or what we would like it to be, but of understanding what it really is. To put matters into perspective we need to remember … →

The economic and financial crisis that the western world and, in particular, Spainare now suffering is the Great Debt crisis. Although each country has its own particular features, the common factor is excessive borrowing, first in the private sector, now in the public sector as well. How did we get … →

A few years ago, one of the founding fathers of Spain’s 1978 Constitution told me that its text had been achieved through an on-going process of total improvisation. Back then I found this hard to accept because I had been swayed by the huge myth-building which surrounded the whole process. … →

 The Welfare State as we know it is unworkable and verging on bankruptcy. It set out to protect everyone and has ended up abandoning precisely those persons who need it most. We must have a workable system of social protection and, in order for it to be just that, workable, … →