L'hora dels adéus (time to say goodbye)

Four years ago, I started my first blog, Catalonia, Politics and Supply Chain as a reaction to a New Yorker, Ale, who trashed my city, Barcelona, in one of her posts when she still was Sempre Primavera.
These have been 4 very interesting years in my life, both personally and professionally. It has been, however, very difficult to combine my literary and political ambitions with my private and professional lives. In the last 8 months, this has become impossible. My new job required that I travel constantly (about 90% of my time) and I have to devote to my family the little free time I have left. Just as a reference, I will tell you my next 5 weeks schedule, Boston, Germany, Boston, The Netherlands, Boston, Ohio, Boston, Mumbai, Boston, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Boston.

In addition to that, I may be moving to another country in North Europe in the summer to optimize my travel and try to spend a little bit more time with my wife and children.

I want, however, end up this blog with a post that I would call, "Se'm cau la cara de vergonya d'ésser espanyol". It is really upsetting to see that Spain is governed by real idiots and that Catalonia is at the mercy of those morons. During the times of absolutism, it was somewhat logical to be ruled by idiotic monarchs. For instance, Charles II "the Hexed" DNA was more inbred than the average even for brother-sister matchings, his speech could barely be understood, and he frequently drooled (wikipedia). But now, we elect those same idiots. It is not that they are imposed on us and we cannot do anything about it. No, we are masochists and we elect them. No one wants to invite our monolingual politicians anywhere, we have to beg every time to be invited to the G20, even Sarkozy joked about the intellectual challenges of the Spanish prime minister, "but he wins elections", he added.

The Spanish prime minister just reshuffled his government. The new ministers are two Galicians, two Andalusians and one Basque. The Catalan representation in the central government is pathetic, Corbacho (born in Extremadura, I do not consider him a Catalan, neither does he, I think), and Chacon (no Catalan roots either, I am afraid, and strategically put there with machiavellic intentions). She is the Secretary of Defense, the civil head of the Spanish Military, the same army who has the mandate to shoot to kill if someone challenges the unity of the country, as proven during the heroic defense of the "Perejil island". I would describe her as a weakened virus inoculated to the Catalan society to prevent it from developing the Catalan nationalistic flu (pandemic among Catalan Prussian pigs). The only positive note has been the departure of a national disgrace, an Andalusian ministress who would be uncapable of managing a post office in a village with 3 inhabitants. Listen to this video clip and do not forget your Kleenex.



I left the country 17 years ago as a Spaniard with strong Catalan sentiment. I do not longer feel myself Spanish. Spain is for me like my ex-wife. I loved her, she was attractive and fun, but if I had continued with her, I would be now emotionally destroyed and financially bankrupt. Filing for divorce was a difficult decision that I never regretted. Catalonia should do the same with Spain, it will be tough at the beginning, but we will never regret.

In the fall I may come back with a new name, and maybe a different language. My style will continue to be the same, maybe a little bit bolder, since I will not show my real family name, but those who know me, will easily recognize me.

See you again - A reveure - Hasta la vista

The big C

I am tired, really tired of hearing people qualify Catalan nationalism as Nazi. I do not have a big issue with people calling us misguided, provincial, old-fashioned, narrow minded, selfish and things like that. but Nazis, no way.
Three weeks ago I spent the Jewish weekend in Jerusalem, one of the rare times when, while traveling for business, I could do some sightseeing. I visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum. There I could witness the horrors of Nazism, I could see pictures and videos with piles of famine-stricken bodies (pure bone ans skin) bulldozed away by Nazi officers, people forced to remove their clothes and jewelry in front of a ditch and immediately shot in their heads in front of those waiting their turn and German doctors experimenting with a crying nude10 year old girl (I do not know exactly what they were doing, since I could not watch the video for more that 5 seconds).
Not long ago, I read the comment of an alleged Catalan woman, Anna Sevillé, equating the Catalan C levels requirement to the number that the concentration camp inmates had tattooed on their arms. I feel disgusted when those comments come from non Catalans, but when they come from Catalans, I feel deeply saddened.
Even if I do not agree with some of the rules established by the Catalan government and despite my critical views on the Catalan education system, I understand that the key objectives of the Catalan government are genuinely positive:

• Integrating everyone in Catalonia and not having a split society
• Preserving the Catalan culture and language

That is the diametral opposite of NaZism.

I despise all those who use the N word linked to Catalonia in any form. I think that all of you who link Catalonia and Nazism are "fills de puta".

The reality is that Catalan naCionalism, with a big C, C as in Catalonia, as in Caring, as in Civilized, as in Calm, as in Charming, as in Clean, as in Clear, as in Colorful, as in Conscious, as in Correct, as in Confident, is integrating and welcoming. If we had a solid border around us, we would be called patriotic, but the lack of borders turns us into a nuisance.

At the end, I think that the person who described better Catalan nationalism, was one of the ones who despised it the most, Sabino de Arana, the father of Basque nationalism.
While trying to belittle Catalan nationalism, this is the way he described it:
"En Cataluña todo elemento procedente del resto de España lo catalanizan, y les place a sus naturales que hasta los municipales aragoneses y castellanos de Barcelona hablen en catalán; aquí padecemos muy mucho cuando vemos la firma de un Pérez al pie de unos versos eusquéricos, u oímos hablar nuestra lengua a un cochero riojano, a un liencero pasiego o a un gitano".

[In Catalonia, they"catalanize" every person coming from the rest of Spain, and the locals love the fact that even those from Aragon or Castile in Barcelona speak Catalan. Here (in the Basque country) we suffer a lot when we see some Basque verses signed by someone call Pérez or we hear a carriage driver, a Catabrian fabric merchant or a gypsy speak our language (Basque)].

Notes:

1. I also read the book "The boy in the striped pyjamas" I liked it but I would have preferred a slight different end. I would have preferred that the kids swap.
2. Even though I admire the Jewish people and I think that catalans have a lot to learn from them, I do not agree with the way Palestinians are treated. I hope that Obama will settle the issue with a 2 state solution based, as much as possible, on the 1967 borders. It is also clear that not only Catalonia and Spain have stupid politicians, Israel and Palestine suffer from the same disease.
   
3. Yesterday I attended the Boston Catalans Xmas dinner for the first time. I had a real good time.

PIGS or CANDIES

In the last couple of posts, I have managed to draw criticism (to say it mildly) from all parts of the spectrum: Catalan nationalists, Spanish nationalists, the Anglo world, generally amused by the irrelevant fights between Catalans and Spaniards, taking sides as though this were a soccer match being watched sitting in the couch, drinking beer and eating popcorn, but jumping as grasshoppers when someone dares to criticize them a little bit.
So far, the only ones who did not call me names have been the Swedish, let’s see for how long.

I do not know whether you read an article in the Financial Times called PIGS in the muck. The pejorative acronym PIGS used by the Financial Times refers to the countries Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. The article has some merit, but, once again shows the total lack of respect of the Anglo world for those countries and territories below the virtual Pyrenees (with the exception of Gibraltar).
Despite the cheap shots, I agree with the substance of the article, the fact that the economies of those 4 countries have grown out of speculation: “wages rose, debt levels ballooned, as did house prices and consumption”. The foundations of those economies are weak and a recession would hit those countries much harder, especially Spain, as the FT points out. Let’s not forget that unemployment in Spain will very soon reach the 11% mark.

When attacked, I normally side with Spain, but I would like to do it out of juxtaposition and friendship, not out of inclusion and submission. The truth is that I do not want my country, Catalonia, to be part of the PIGS. I want Catalonia to be one of the CANDIES (Catalonia, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Euskadi and Sweden), small countries with strong economic fundamentals, with diversified economies, with real added value activities, with outstanding education systems and international focus.
Catalonia has all the ingredients to be one of the CANDIES, but the fact that Catalonia is part of Spain and has limited control of its policies and resources makes it impossible (together with the fact that the Catalan politicians are totally inept).

In one of my next posts, however, I plan to theorize about those grandiose countries which, for a variety of reasons, believe that they are the center of the universe, France, UK, China, Korea and USA, also known as, FUCK-U (as first described in the LT, the Llorens Times).

Mr Suñé, please godfather a Catalan kid

This week, we have been able to witness, once again, some more examples of stupid and unacceptable behavior of our politicians. I will start with the one, which in my opinion, was the less serious, but which attracted front page coverage in most of the Spanish online media. Mr. Lluís Suñé i Morales, a councilman of the town of Torredembara, south of Barcelona. decided to publish a post to call the attention about the unfairness of the current financing systems and the fact that even though the 8.7% of the Catalan GDP goes to support other regions, we are called unsolidary. Up to here, nothing serious. Many of us have written similar things and we have not made it to the front pages. The problem came when in order to illustrate his point, he added a picture that you can find here in which he urged Catalans to godfather an Extemaduran child with €1000, because the 8.7% was not enough. The picture was offensive, tasteless and most probably illegal since it portrayed a boy and a girl playing in the mud, the boy naked waist down, showing what the Catalan politicians do not have, with the logos of UNICEF, the Spanish government and the Extremadura flag.
This childish approach put Mr Suñé on the spotlight and as a good Catalan "cojonesless" politician, he removed the post and wrote an apology in Spanish language.
I would like to show to Mr. Suñé a video clip taken about 30 minutes away from downtown Barcelona, an area, where he, a member of the communist party, has probably never put a foot on, and invite him to start a real campaign in Extremadura to godfather a Catalan kid, since there are more kids in Catalonia below the poverty line that total number of kids in Extremadura. Maybe this video is a better justification to try to retain some of the 14 billion euros that leave Catalonia to support "less favored" territories. Please take a minute to watch the videoclip published by la Vanguardia.



One of the other two awful behaviors that I wanted to comment briefly today, much more serious that the childish behavior of Mr. Lluís Suñé, is the act of pure nepotism displayed by Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, who, without any parliamentary control, appointed his brother Apel•les Carod-Rovira as representative of the Catalan government in France. Even if he were the best candidate, what he is not, I would find the appointment disgusting and criminal, and yes I would prefer that this money would go to buy computers for the Extremadura children, or even better, to support the kids in the videoclip, but neither to the Carods nor to Mr. Ybarra and his friends like the "businessman" Gallardo.
The last one for the week has been the fact that CiU's Artur Mas has started to break the Catalan unity approach to financing, by coming up with a different alternative. He sold the Estatut for a picture with Zapatero. He will do it once again. Mr Mas, you are the botifler of the decade.

Stand and deliver

A couple of years ago, I came across a 1852 map from Torres Villegas splitting Spain in 4 different groupings:

· Uniform or Purely Constitutional Spain which comprises these thirty-four Provinces of the Crowns of Castile and Leon, equal in all economic, judicial, military, and civil branches. Former kingdoms of Castile, León and Granada.

· Incorporated or Assimilated Spain which comprises the eleven provinces of the Crown of Aragon, still different in the manner of contribution and in some points of private law. Crown of Aragon

· "Spain of the Fueros", or approximately "Statutory Spain".Kingdom of Navarre (actual Basque country was part of Kingdom of Navarre)

· Colonial Spain

I saved the picture in my “pictures to be used file”. I was convinced that if one day, the inter-regional fiscal balances were published, mapping the net balances to the map would be very revealing. And you can now check the result by yourself. The incorporated Spain has a revenue outflow of 23,100 billion Euro, the Statutory Spain is basically neutral and all the Uniform Spain gets a subsidy of 12,500 million Euro, not taking into consideration the additional inflow from the European Union. I think that voluntary solidarity is a good thing, but this is a ROBBERY, and if at least, there were any signs of thankfulness, if when we travel to the rest of Spain people would come and hug or kiss us, I would maybe feel that it is worth the while, even if this unconditional transfer is perpetuating some habits that will make the situation permanent, but the reality is that, when traveling in Spain, we get insulted (called polacos or catalufos) and our cars get vandalized, our products get boycotted and our language treated with no respect.

In the meantime, Catalonia's infrastructure is crumpling, the Mediterranean corridor high speed train is still years from completion (but you can go take it now to go from Valladolid to Bollullos del Condado), we need to pay toll in most of the highways, we still continue to pay inheritance tax and even worse, the Barcelona industrial belt, which requires heavy investment in infrastructures, education, healthcare and neighborhood amenity upgrades, is totally underfunded, unable to absorb the old and the new immigration and turning into a potential social disaster. In addition to that one Extremaduran Euro is only worth 62 cents in Barcelona due to the cost of living differential and let’s not forget that in Extremadura 25% of the workforce are public servants, versus only 8% in Catalonia (too many in my opinion).

The result would be even more skewed if we corrected Madrid's capitality effect (if Madrid were not the capital, it would have the same economy as Guadalajara). Despite the fact that Madrid is a net contributor, mainly because of its status of capital of Spain, it cannot offset the huge deficit that its surrounding provinces generate.

Finally, the analysis of the inter-regional fiscal balances shows that the idea of the Catalan Countries, that I like to call Valeària to avoid unnecessary sensitivities, makes a lot of sense, not only from the linguistic or cultural side, but also from the economical point of view.

Note: I have taken one of the methodologies proposed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy. All the methods yield to the same conclusion, although this methodology is one of the most extreme ones. Click here to see the full report.

I am not a Catalan Prussian Pig, Mr. Hunold!

Some of those who landed in my blog recently may think that I would want to have Catalan as the only language spoken in Catalonia, and I would like it to become second language of choice in USA and China. Nothing further from reality, my approach to language is a very pragmatic one, based on trilingualism for all residents in Catalonia. I am not for segregated schools based on language or any other reason, a single trilingual education system for everyone. You can read a 2 year old summary on my position on language if you click here.
I am a businessman and know that localization is a real pain in the lower back. The ideal situation for businesses is “one size fits all”, global market, single language: English. This reduces costs, accelerates the product roll-out and maximizes the profits. However, there are three reasons why at the end, many companies localize their products: competition, regulation and in some cases, a genuine desire for customer satisfaction.
Languages without a state have it very difficult to reinforce their customer requirements through regulation. For example, Kosovo, that was recognized by Germany and USA as a sovereign nation, three days after their independence proclamation, can now regulate that all products and services rendered in its territory need to be in Albanese, that if products are not labeled in Albanese, they cannot be sold locally, and companies need either to comply or go.
With Catalan, there are several reasons that make the adoption rate of companies much lower than that of other languages with only a fraction of its speakers:
· The fact that all Catalan speakers are bilingual
· The fact that Catalonia is not a sovereign state
· The lack of central government support (unlike other bilingual countries like Malta or Ireland)
· The lack of self-respect of a big portion of the Catalan speakers (around 50%), who would rather go for the cheapest option, instead of paying more for a product where their language is taken into consideration
· The cartels among companies to avoid that if one uses Catalan, the other ones will need to follow to maintain the market share , since the 50% who do care about language, would massively switch to the company which uses their language.

The conclusion is that if you want products or services in your language, you need an own state and ever better, to have a substantial portion of monolingual people. It sounds crazy, but this is the pure reality.
The alternative to that is, on one side, use the market mechanisms to favor those products and companies which use our language, and second have some institutional support to lobby and educate the companies in our territory plus provide legal protection to whistleblowers who expose cartels.
That’s what happened when the Balearic government sent a letter to Air Berlin politely encouraging them to use Catalan in their interaction with its Catalan speaking customers.
Air Berlin could have reacted in many different ways. As for example:
· Saying that they were a low cost carrier and they could not afford it
· Saying that they already have 38 Catalan speaking employees in their offices and that customers could always refer to them
· That they are willing to install pre-recorded announcements in the flights if the Balearian government is prepared to foot the bill
· That the Catalan speaking customers are so smart that they always have a good command of one or several of the languages offered on board
All those would have been acceptable answers, respectful, logical.

However Air Berlin’s CEO, Joachim Hunold decided to make a political statement in the editorial of his inflight magazine, a statement full or inaccuracies, lies and errors, mocking at the Catalan culture, ridiculing its pronunciation (does platja sound so much worst than Achtung?) and inferring that the Balearic islands are where they are today thanks to the European Community and that the Catalans would have never been able to make it happen.
Rajoy, the leader of the conservative Popular Party, could have not done it better, with the only glitch of the implicit pan-Catalan assumptions that Hunold made in his article.

As a Catalan customer of Air Berlin, I did not take the editorial well and I decided that when next time I want to hop from Germany to Barcelona (as I do a couple of times a year), I will use other airlines.
However, what got me furious, was the little cartoon that illustrated the editorial. I got really upset of being called Catalan Prussian Pig, that even though there is not yet consensus whether the Bavarian expression means either Catalan scumbag or Catalan fascist (a euphemistic way of saying the German N word), it is clearly not the way I like to be addressed by a service provider (and Catalonia had, at that point, nothing to do with the whole thing!).

Mr. Hunold showed lack of tact, disrespect, defiance, conceit and vanity, but this did not stop the non Catalan speaking part of Spain, and especially the far right, to applaud and cheer Hunold’s wanton attack.

Today, I just want to say to Mr. Hunold that despite the fact that I love my language with all my heart, no matter how it sounds, and I would have cried of joy if in just one of your flights, one stewardess would have addressed me in Catalan for 5 seconds (in my February flight from Shanghai to Munich with Lufthansa there was a Catalan speaking steward and they announced it), Mr Hunold, I am not a Catalan Prussian Pig. Herr Hunold, ich bin kein Saupreissische Katalaner.

Since last Thursdays, the shares of Air Berlin are down by 30%, what has shaved more than 125M Euro in market capitalization. Today the president of the Air Berlin’s Iberian branch has vaguely committed to implementing Catalan somewhere in the future.

Woman, Catalan and Pregnant

One of the most powerful Spanish military unions has described the appointment of Carme Chacon as a provocation. They literally declared that the appointment of a woman, who in addition to that is Catalan and pregnant, is an insult to the Army institution.

I remind you that the military have the constitutional duty to guarantee the unity of Spain. So they are tasked with the important duty of keeping Spain as a united country and shoot to kill anyone who may threaten a united Spain even if they come from inside. I may be at risk.
As you can imagine my respect for the Spanish military is zero. They are a bunch of fascists who would like to see the dictator Francisco Franco rise from his ashes like the Phoenix avis.

On the other side, I have to agree with them on something. The new Spanish government is a joke. A random selection of macaques at the Madrid zoo would have yielded an higher average IQ than the one of the new cabinet.
I also have to openly say that it is hard for me to see a Catalan as the head of an Spanish army, which has been openly anti-Catalan and that would not hesitate to shoot anyone who would challenge the unity of Spain, in Barcelona, in Girona or in Maçanet de Cabrenys. I felt like crying when she said that "the Spanish Army, never before, has been better prepared to defend Spain's sovereignity and independence" during yesterday's march-past.

Mr Zapatero's cabinet is pathetic. I thought that after 20 years global experience in executive positions in 4 continents, I may not be yet ready for a cabinet position in the Catalan government. Today I think that I may be overqualified.

I am today in Hong Hong and I wanted to talk about trilingual countries (Cantonese, Mandarin anf English here). I will leave this for my next posting.

I didn't do it !!!

Since my vacation, I have not been in the mood of writing anything. The result of the last Spanish elections was so disappointing that I felt like giving up my political blogging endeavor. After a couple of years of chaos in our infrastructures, a trimmed down "Estatut", the deployment of which never starts, continuous threats of boycott, captive airports, etc, etc. etc. and we go and vote for the Socialists. Unbelievable!. It's obvious that personally I have no future in the Catalan political landscape.

The last straw was the additional House representative that the Popular Party got in Barcelona thanks to the votes of overseas Catalans. I promise, I was not the one, I would not vote for the Popular Party in any circumstance because they are simply anti-Catalan, whereas the Socialist party is merely sloppy and incompetent.

You may want to know whom I voted for. I voted for CiU, just because it is the least of all evils. You know I lean towards the right, and that I am a Catalan nationalist, so despite the fact that I believe that CiU lead politicians and especially Duran-i-Lleida and Mas are a bunch of "botiflers" (traitors) and that the former is, in addition to that, corrupt, I decided to vote for the idealistic concept of a competent center-right Catalan nationalistic party, rather than giving my vote away to the enemies of my nation.

The debacle of ERC is also remarkable and shows two things, that the current leaders of ERC (Carod-Rovira, Puigcercos, etc.) are literally morons, not bad people, simply they have not been blessed with an IQ that would allow them to conduct a normal job, and therefore they had no option but to become politicians where no credentials are required and that people do not forgive their slave-like submission to the Socialist party.

If Catalonia does not get a solid, mainstream, serious left wing party, we will continue to be a scoff, an object of mockery and derision. When the PSC becomes the equivalent of the Catalan Popular Party, the party from the Spanish nationalist left wing minority in Catalonia and left wing Catalans vote massively for ERC, then we have a chance of success. But this will only be possible if ERC distances itself from anti-system positions, recruit high level politicians and becomes something similar to the British labor party.

Unfortunately the chances of that happening are slim, and I foresee a decade of flat ECG politicians in the Catalan landscape that will sink our country and make us the benchmark of mediocrity and idiocy.

I am suggesting to the Catalan political leaders to adopt other methods to, at least, keep the people awake until I return in 2017.
I enclose videoclips with the methods used by politicians in other geographies, some of those politicians as dull as ours. The first one is a debate between the Japanese politicians of the autonomous region of Hokkaido (*) (Kalod-Lovila, Puigzelkos and at, the end of the clip, Dulan-i-Yeida) and the other one is an Obama supporter trying to make us forget about his controversial priest (*).


- The most popular videos are here



(*) Totally invented statements

Dos fills de puta

Today I would like to teach you a little bit of Catalan. I will start with the expression "fill de puta" or its plural "fills de puta". The translation is son(s) of a bitch, or as DJ Salinger would write, sonuvabitch. It is used as synonim of idiot, moron or asshole and not in reference to its literal meaning. In general, son of a bitch's mothers are nice women who do not deserve the kind of kids they raised.
As you all know, there are sons of a bitch everywhere, but the percentage seems to be much higher among Catalan journalists. The biggest dickheads are Enric Vila and Salvador Sostres.
With the false pretext to defend the Catalan language, these misguided individuals have developed a strategy to continuously insult immigrants who do not speak Catalan using a xenofobic and racist language which I find unacceptable.
As an example, Enric Vila recently recommended to those people (immigrants who do not speak Catalan) "to go back to their shitty countries with their shitty people, who have not been able to create or defend a minimum level of harmony". Three of four years ago, Salvador Sostres said in an article published in Avui referring to those who spoke Spanish: "only poor people, rednecks and analphabets speak a language which sounds so horrendously when pronouncing the letter j".
However, this kind of language is not exclusive of Catalonia. I have heard similar things in USA and Germany, and actually I once left a meeting when I suggested to hire some Spanish speaking people to deal with Mexican customers and someone said, Spanish is only useful to talk to my cleaning woman and my gardener.
Maybe I am too sensitive, because I am also an immigrant. When I went to Singapore, I only spoke English, but not Mandarin, Malay or Tamil (I learnt Malay while there) and in China, I did not speak Mandarin or Suzhouese when I arrived (while there, I learnt Mandarin and I was able to understand Suzhouese when I left), but I can assure you that I would have not lasted much as a waiter if I had had to wait in any of those languages. Despite this, I made great contributions to those countries and I continuously promote them and their culture. And no one ever told me to go back to my shitty country with my shitty people, much to the contrary.

However, I also want to promote my language, but with respect and education. Only Catalans are to blame for the decline in our language and we could turn things around if we wanted. These are the reasons why Catalan does not make progress:

• Catalan business owners do not want to spend a cent to satisfy customers. They should make sure that there is always Catalan speaking personnel to attend to customers who want to be waited in Catalan. However, the only thing they want is to make money and they hire those who are willing to work for less and in addition to that, they do not provide them with training to improve their language and job skills


• We, Catalan consumers are lazy and do not fight for our rights. If we want service in Catalan and it is not available, we should demand it to the manager or the owner and leave the restaurant if it is not available. But we should always treat the staff with education, they were hired as they are, and it is not their responsibility if they cannot meet the customer needs. If Catalans would only patronize stores or restaurants where service is offered in Catalan, very soon, all businesses would offer it, but we are, in general and including myself, a bunch of sheep. Remember my post “zom una nazió”


• Many Catalan people do not want to work hard. In USA, many waiters and waitresses in restaurants or hotels are college or high school students who work part time to pay for school, car, or vacation. In Catalonia, there are hardly any students who work, they prefer to get allowance from their parents until they are 30 years old. If all university students would work evenings, weekends or summers, the need of foreign labor for service activities would decline and most of the businesses would be able to offer service in Catalan.

But let me tell you that people like Vila and Sostres are a minority. There's sons of bitch everywhere and Catalonia is no exception. Unfortunately people like them cause a lot of damage to the Catalan national cause. We should not blame the weak and the needy. We should only blame ourselves for where we are.

Las Vegas in Los Monegros

It is no point being a visionary, if my Catalan audience does not want to follow me. Most probably I am already too American, too market economy oriented, too focused on the private sector, against a welfare society which penalizes hardworking people and pampers the lazy.
I am often blasted in the Catalan forums when I propose a dramatic downsizing of the government, free enterprise, reduction of the welfare benefits for those who are healthy, but simply do not want to work. I still think that the government should provide a cushion for the needy, senior citizens, children and sick people, but that's it.
But today I will not elaborate about my political views, I will do that step by step, today I want to talk to you about a missed opportunity.
When in December 2005 I was in my room at the MGM hotel in Vegas, I had a dream. I looked trough the window and I saw the flashing hotels superimposed to the desertic background. It reminded me of Los Monegros. I used to cross Los Monegros when I was a kid. We visited, from time to time, my mother's relatives who lived near Saragossa. I still remember crossing the Monegross when I was 4 or 5 in my father's olive green Seat 600. It was in August and the car was literally boiling. The temperature outside was 110 degrees and inside 120. My father stopped at the roadside, somewhere between Alfajarin and Bujaraloz. The Guardia Civil stopped shortly after. My father told them that we had a problem in the car, it was hot as hell. The police inspected the car and found the problem. I had activated the heating. There was a lever to activate the heating under the passenger seat. While playing in the rear seat, I had turned it on. In the 1960's kids did not wear safety belts, just played around without any restrictions.
I also remember that when the Americans made it to the Moon, my grandmother used to tell me that it was all a sham, that she heard that American military film crews based in Saragossa had been seen filming in the Monegros, months before the Americans landed in the Moon. I was a kid and I believed her.

I also remember that in my mother's village, they would call us catalanufos or something similar and they tried to hurt our feelings by saying that we spoke a dialect. They did not offend me (they would now), I thought they were village people and I was coming from the civilization. For a strange reason, my mother always talked to me in Catalan. Most probably because she thought that I would have more possibilities of success if I was bilingual. Almost everyone spoke only Spanish in the 1960s Hospitalet de Llobregat where I grew up.

From the MGM hotel I imagined that I was back in Los Monegros and I thought it would be a great idea to encourage Catalan businessmen (and women) to invest in Los Monegros to set up a Las-Vegas-like leisure complex. I also encouraged them to set up a bullfighting rink, since I was sure that bullfighting would be banned in Catalonia with the new Estatut. In March 2006, I published a post with my recommendations, it was called Las Vegas II.
Unfortunately, no one in Catalonia followed my advice. We could have made millions. It would been the ideal complement to Catalonia, like Vegas is to California. The reality is that a group of International investors has recently unveiled its plans to start a Las-Vegas-like leisure complex in Los Monegros, exactly as suggested by me. Since I proposed the idea two years ago in my blog and my blog was licensed under a Creative Commons Attibution, do you thing I have rights to some royalties? I will check with my lawyer.