We are all Hacienda (or almost)
Watching Montoro on television brings back memories of one of the worst times we've ever lived through, that of the savage cuts that further aggravated the economic crisis. We will forever associate the Great Recession of 2008 with the relentless measures taken by governments to supposedly mitigate its effects. A prescription that not only failed to cure a sick economic system, but almost finished it off. The fallacious mantra they repeatedly told us was the only possible remedy still resonates in our memories: either austerity, or catastrophe, chaos, and disaster. But for many workers, many families, and many small and medium-sized businesses, what happened was precisely the annihilation of their livelihoods. There are those who never raised their heads again, and that widespread feeling of loss and helplessness began at that moment. Companies that worked for the public sector and went bankrupt, others that lived on debt and had to fold when the banks turned off the tap that seemed destined to flow forever. The blame for the collapse of that system, in which the economy grew thanks to massive credit doping, was placed on the very people who were the victims.
The great indecency of those years—a golden shower of political powers allied with economic power—was that they kept telling us that we had lived beyond our means and that, therefore, we now had to squeeze ourselves. The bank's squeeze would have solved our current housing problems, and a star. Cuckolds and paying for drinks, that's what we citizens were, and now that the Mossos d'Esquadra investigations are exposing the corruption of the then Treasury Secretary, it's even more nauseating and traumatic to remember those days of tidal waves to save healthcare, education, or discounts on all public services. We lament that it takes two weeks at the CAP to get us an appointment with the family doctor, without remembering that this is just one of the elements of the landscape we were left with after the fatal scissors.
Montoro's papers reveal persecutions of public figures and political opponents using the mechanisms of the Tax Agency, but many more were affected in those days of the men in black. Writers, journalists, actors, and artists from different disciplines were subjected to parallel inspections or requests in what were genuine raids, the objective of which did not seem to be to detect fraud, but rather to frighten taxpayers and, in the process, pretend that the government was doing the work it should be doing to collect taxes. In many of these cases, the methods bordered on extortion (first pay and then prove you're innocent). They targeted self-employed workers who barely made the minimum wage after paying all expenses, while—as we now know—laws were passed tailored to large companies. Added to the tax engineering that many of them employ, it's no wonder that you and I pay far more taxes than multimillionaires. We no longer talk about wealth redistribution or a fair system for sharing common expenses; what we now know is that while the majority were being driven to economic starvation, there were some who grew not through their own merits but because they had appealed to the system. On top of that, the same corrupting and deceitful elites have the nerve to spout all the meritocratic rhetoric, talking about a culture of effort. They thus disguise the truth, now plainly visible to all: that what they have accumulated is not the fruit of talent or merit—much less of work—but of knowing how to tread with drive and determination on the polished pavement of the offices where corruption brews.
