This concerns a Nation, not only a political party

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

It is incomprehensible that in order to save a few hundred thousand euros, budget cuts are being made in R+D+i, subsidies for dependent persons, and the salaries of university professors... while transferring thousands of millions to the banks. What happened to the more than 300,000 million euros that banking institutions have consumed at the BCE’s “bar”? Where are the thousands of millions that are “missing” from so many banks and savings institutions? 

Reduce the deficit and provide incentives without increasing unemployment and producing irreversible stress in Spain’s social fabric. 

We need a project for the future to provide us with the strength to endure progressively difficult conditions. I like to repeat that the future has yet to be written. But to do so, to build a future of solidarity that protects all human beings, without exceptions, we need to know the truth, see transparency in the behavior of public officials, and be informed of the diagnoses and the reasons for the treatments prescribed. 

Without health, education and knowledge there can be no encouraging plans for the future. 

Without explanations, without prior consultation, without flexibility, without the capacity to reconsider... the social environment will become progressively strained. Production models must be changed so as not to repeat the conduct that has led to “bubbles”, speculation, delocalization and exaggerated investments in security. 

Automatization and robotization cut jobs and manpower requirements while, at the same time, increasing the possibility for employment within a new context created by the new information and communications technologies. 

A country’s stability largely depends on its ability to “reestablish the balance”, which is typical of the middle classes that are capable of acting with generosity toward those below them and with firmness toward those above. It would truly be detrimental to threaten such a relevant social function in order to prevent greater inequalities and evils. 

Don’t fall in the “European trap” of stubbornly reducing the deficit, while only taking into account risk premiums and the “markets”. For a long time Stiglitz and Krugman have been warning us that budget cuts alone will never stimulate growth. 

Yesterday I promised to offer a series of “ideas” for change (the majority of them are obvious):

-Progressively raise income taxes, particularly with respect to high net worth individuals. 

-Radical transformation of SICAV variable capital investment companies, rapidly implementing control mechanisms, granting them tax breaks only when warranted, and preventing their funds from migrating to European tax havens. 

-Generalized and proportional wealth taxes, monitoring all deposits in Spain and abroad. -Ban short-selling on stock markets. -Immediate rectification of the fiscal amnesty measures that are counterproductive, unethical, and discouraging to honest taxpayers. 

-Energetic action on the part of the tax authorities against tax fraud. 

-Tax on financial transactions. 

-Reactivation of activities within the scope of R+D+i, education and healthcare. 

The destiny of the citizens of this nation is at stake and –forgetting the lack of solidarity during our immediate past- must be the result of the concerted action of everyone to put the markets in their place, put an end to the monumental fraud that the European Union has allowed rather than promoting correct action on the part of the European Central Bank and a rapid fiscal federation, in order to invent the future that we all desire. 

Yes: This concerns the interests of a nation, not of a political party. 

An entire nation can face the present challenges, within the European framework. A political party alone, no matter how strong its majority, cannot.

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