A good investment

I wanted to post this “article” for a long time ago. People ask economists for answers that they don’t really have, this is the truth. People need trust, people want us to tell them what to do, and we don’t know it always. Properly combining limited knowledge and the need for public policy together with common sense is the key.

I think we should talk about the main cause of poverty. In a democratic environment you must believe and feel that you have opportunities and access to a fair portion of the pie. I do not think anyone believes that everyone should be successful but at least they should feel they have the opportunity to do so, for example if someone has good ideas or work for it, then they may be successful and feel it. It is essential to start from the base that opportunities are there for everyone and not just for a few. If we lose that feeling, as it is the case of Spain among with many other countries, the political consequences are disastrous. But how did we start it? We have disregarded education, the pillar of our society. We have left education in the hands of the politicians who change the model very periodically with worse and worse results. Spain has done very little to make teaching attractive, the main problem is the lack of relevance that students see in teaching. 

For example, in Spain we have 25 textbooks for a single subject, the culpable of this as well as in many other fields the Spanish autonomies, as usual. We have a very decentralized system that causes a deterioration of the Spanish educational system and polarizes it by regions. The ANELE denounced that the disparate requirements of the Spaniard autonomous governments, lead a publisher to publish each year an average of up to 25 different textbooks for the same subject of the same mandatory course. It provokes an increase of the prices in these manuals, which deteriorates the coherence of the educative system; it is more than proved that nowadays there is too much diversity in these manuals. It is hard to believe that a student from Galicia, a region from Spain, studies the history of Spain with different content than a student from Andalucia another region of Spain, and this is just an example.

This is very sad because those who do not have a good educational base stay in the margins of society. Students are not offered more options to learn differently. In Japan, the language teacher works with the mathematics teacher. Finland has also begun to deliver these multidisciplinary courses, hoping that students will act as historians, philosophers or scientists. We must teach fewer things but in more depth, Spaniard students are good at memorizing, but they have trouble solving complex problems. Teachers have to leave the classroom and look at what other teachers do, do not divide the contents so much by subject and we must bet on the integration of the subjects and the diversity of itineraries. –Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn- Benjamin Franklin.

In order not to blame just the state and independently of the country, parents must rethink what they are teaching wrong to their children because this is not just a school problem; manners and bases are taught in home. It is enough fail parenting strategies please! Stop telling your children they are special all the time, stop telling them that they have everything they want in life just because they want it, stop giving medals for being last because devalues the reward of the ones who really work hard. In an instant they will realize they are not as special as their parents make them believe, in the real world they will find out that their mom can not help them to achieve the promotion in that job they want just because they want it.

So in the end we have an entire generation that it is growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations. Most of them are growing up in a Facebook, Instagram world where they are good at putting filters on things and showing everyone that life is awesome even if they are depressed. They believe they are so tough but the reality is that there is not toughness on it and most of people have not figured it out yet. Many “kids” don’t know how to form deep meaningful relationships, most of their friendships are superficial, they would not rely on their friends they just have fun with them and for sure they know that their friends will cancel out them if something better comes along. So they do not have the skills to deal with the stress of the harsh reality, they are turning to a social media device, which offers temporary relief. Science proves that people who spend more time in social media suffers high rates of depression. There is nothing wrong with social media and cellphones it is the imbalance. For example, if you are siting at lunch with the ones you want or a meeting and you are texting at the same time to someone who is not there and you are supposed to be listening and speaking, that is a problem, bad education, an addiction. Like every addiction in time it will destroy relationships, it will cost time, it will cost money and at the end it will make your life worse. Another problem of this generation is impatience, because they are growing up in a world of instant gratification. One day if it is not too late they will realize they can not have job satisfaction and strength of relationships with an app. They have to learn confidence, learn patience, learn the social skills, find a better balance between life and technology because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

In conclusion, the more advanced countries have not politicized education the way Spain has done for almost 41 years, the advanced countries have reached a consensus because they know that education is an investment with long-term guarantees. It is a shame for a developed country like Spain that 35% of the young Spaniards between 25 and 34 years old does not have the high school, double that in the OECD. If people do not participate in the reforms and do not help, nothing is going to be achieved. We must depoliticize education through consensus. This causes ignorance in the population and instability for future generations. We live in a world full of radicalism in which it is easy to fall if we do not take action and we must eradicate it on time before it is too late. As well as the independence movements in Galicia, Basque Country and Catalonia, the islamophobia or hate to any ethnic group we are human beings with the gift of reason, let’s use it because the best weapon against radicalism is education as Nelson Mandela said -Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world-, and our job is to change this world we live in a better place.

Let's save Europe!

Since the crises began in 2007, in Europe we believed that if we kept deficits below 3% of GDP, debt below 60% of GDP, and inflation below 2% per annum, the market would ensure growth and stability. However this is not enough. We need an overwhelming fiscal and monetary discipline if we want the European Union to fulfill its dream of “the United States of Europe, a lobby for the integration cause” as Jean Monnet "the father of the EU" the “l’Inspirateur” said.

It is not because of the single market, many people suggest that the Single European Act was made to set the objective of establishing a single market in order to made it easy for money to leave the banks of the weaker countries, forcing these banks to contract lending, weakening the weak further, but of course this is not true. The austerity has not worked yet because it has been implanted in a horrible way, and without any conviction. Citizens in Greece, Spain or Portugal have all voted in large numbers for parties opposed to austerity and more favorable to demagogy. Luckily there are still politicians who give hope to the European dream as is the case of the recently chosen Macron in France.

Many European citizens believed that when they joined the euro, they would give up their economic sovereignty. This is not true at all because the European Central Bank represents all the economies that are part of the eurozone, and each country has its group of banking professionals, they are the supervisors of the banking system of each country together with the European Central Bank. So that the ECB has a social capital, in which each country owns a part of it. The ECB is in charge of maintaining a stable monetary policy and not of making the poor more poor and the rich richer than before, it is obvious.

The ambition of the euro is to bring prosperity to Europe. This would promote economic and political integration. The euro is a project based on integration, in order to create the institutions that would ensure success. We have made many reforms, and many more are coming to make of the European Union a machine of prosperity and not of divergence like many enlightened they are divulging.

To prove what I said before, I would like to explain my experience as a student of economics, in the Erasmus Mobility Program of the European Union. For almost ten months away from home (Galicia, Spain) I have traveled around 13 countries, countries like Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Germany, Turkey, Croatia or Macedonia among many others. The experience that I have lived as a European student is priceless. As you can perceive, not all of these countries are part of the EU completely, but ALL of them are either in the process of dialogue, waiting or taking the appropriate steps to announce their candidacy being part of the Council of Europe.

In these countries I always wondered “What do people think about the European Union?” or “Do you live better or worse in this country since the arrival of the European Union?” and the conclusions were always the same, people are tired of corruption and clientelistic politics, which have led many countries to the brink of bankruptcy. However in general the European Union has provided more benefits than problems for them.

We should not let bad politicians, demagogues, or extremists claim to be about stability and sustained growth. We should ignore these characters and focus on improving our fiscal policies, because even “the best of the monetary policy” that we have implemented, it will not work if we do not implement a good fiscal policy. It is certain that fiscal policy is one of the most important tools of development, clear example of this are Ireland, Germany or Finland. Because it is not about not exerting fiscal pressure, or exercising it excessively. It is about knowing how to manage the proceeds.

Me as a Spaniard and European, I am proud and very happy for the French people, who elected a new president Emmanuel Macron with common sense and a great European spirit, in order to defeat the extremist Le Pen.

However as the great “father of the European Union” once said

- People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them -

Let’s work together to make Europe more united, and a visionary EU, not a dream broken by politicians with no perception of the future and extremist policies inappropriate for a democracy.