Politics

These days I’m reading a fascinating book on Roman History called SPQR. And I’ve discovered Roman History is full of lessons for today’s world. As a small token, a line from Plautus, a Roman writer, that appeared in some of his books.

When I was child, I used to play chess. From time to time you would find somebody that just had learned a special kind of opening and had decided to practice no matter what.

I was a Spanish Civil Servant from 2006 to 2012 (technically I’m still a Spanish Civil Servant on leave). I’ve worked for different branches of the Spanish Government from September 2000 to November 2012.

Imagine you´re a Member of Parliament. And you have decided you are not going to give your support to something. And then you get a group of people protesting against you.

From time to time I visit the page where the internal comptroller in Spain posts its budget deficit figures. Last week there was a link to the calendar of future publications.

EDIT: I’ve done again the calculations and are more unbelievable even. I won’t update this post but IMO it is quite reasonable to hit the target. From time I tend to write about the Spanish budget deficit.

From time to time I write about politics in Spain in general and in particular Spanish deficit. Sometimes I try to do some simple estimations and comments. More recently there has been some comments in Spain regarding the publication of regions’ budget deficit up to second quarter.

This is one of my political/economical post (nothing related with computers) I write from time to time. Past February, Spain published its estimation of whole year budget deficit. Many well respected analysts suggested or explicitly wrote that maybe new Government was increasing 2011 deficit so that it could blame previous Government, and also in order to make it bigger so that it was easier to make it smaller.

Disclaimer: I’m talking about public data. I don’t have any unpublished data. In Spain there is some buzz recently about tax increases approved on December 30th. The government had changed and the new one said it was necessary to raise taxes because data said budget deficit where 8% GDP.

Let’s start with politics. I guess it’s less known abroad, but it’s probably more important than the economic situation. First the government. Forget about the past. Let’s start by the end.

I love this video: {{ youtube uVmU3iANbgk }} A few days ago I received a message from one of my tweeps about the weather in Europe and in particular in Spain.

It’s in the news. Spanish Government has declared “State of Emergency”. This declaration gives special powers to the government like the ability to limit the circulation of people, commandeer things or even enter in private properties (but not homes).

Wow. It seems Wikileaks is going to publish some documents showing implication of some world leaders in corruption practices. I don’t have any other information but the Reuters piece of news.

It turns out that I was wrong when I wrote last week’s post. Well, maybe I came to a rather good end result but for the wrong reasons: Income data from May 2009 (and probably June) was tricky because taxes returns were accelerated so that people could vote with their money back in the pocket.

Disclaimer. I’m not an economist or a statician, and I don’t have any governmental internal information. I’m only a spaniard. I’ve just read a piece of news about Moody’s considering Spanish outlook stable.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you— ask what you can do for your country. A couple of weeks ago Jose Manuel Campa was nominated new Secretary of Economy in Spain.