Every time we talk about immigration we make a mistake. We speak of a single immigration when, in reality, there are two. And both pursue completely different objectives.The first is labor immigration. Its purpose is to incorporate workers where the market needs them. Spain needs it. Our population is aging, there is a shortage of professionals in numerous sectors, and a good part of the recent economic growth is explained precisely by the increase in the active population. Denying this is ignoring reality.The second is welcoming immigration. It is formed by people fleeing a war, persecution, violence, or extreme situations of exclusion. Here the criterion is no longer economic. It is moral. A democratic society must reserve resources to protect those who need them most.The problem is that politically we manage them by mixing them up. Labor immigration should respond, above all, to the needs of the labor market. What professional profiles do we need? In which sectors? With what integration conditions? Reception immigration should respond to a completely different question: how many people can we serve with dignity with the available resources?Australia and New Zealand are among the developed countries with a higher percentage of immigration. They are not closed societies. Quite the opposite. But they differentiate very clearly between labor immigration and humanitarian immigration. In the first case, residency remains closely linked to employment. If the employment link disappears and another job is not found within a reasonable period, the person is forced to leave the country. In a period of between three and six months. If you do not leave, you pay the cost of deportation and for three years you cannot re-enter the country. Result, very few people in overstay (illegal status). This does not prevent maintaining humanitarian reception programs. It simply avoids managing two completely different realities with the same criteria.Last year, in Spain, there were 840,000 immigrants in an irregular situation. Only 50,000 departures were ordered. And, finally, in two years only 8,000 were executed. Then there are the countless options offered to the immigrant without a job to stay: socio-formative roots, social roots, second chance roots...It is quite easy to stay in Spain without working. And I am sorry, but that cannot be. One comes here to do tourism and leave money, to work and contribute, and, only if appropriate, to be welcomed out of solidarity.We should manage labor immigration with a firm hand. Reception immigration, with an outstretched hand, but limited to a maximum number that we can assume and sustain.Labor immigration and reception immigration. Both are necessary. But let us not design one with the mechanisms of the other. Because then things like what happened in Ceuta occur.

It has always seemed unfair to me to confuse a cheapskate with a rat. They are completely different categories.The miser has every right in the world to spend little. The money is theirs. If they want to buy a second-hand car, wear the same coat for twenty years, or ask for tap water at a restaurant, they are perfectly free to do so. Their austerity is paid for by them, and no one has any reason to reproach them for it.The cheapskate plays a different sport. His specialty consists of managing to have the expense that corresponds to him end up coming out of the money of those around him. He is an expert at shifting small costs onto others. He is not a swindler or a liar; he is someone who, simply, manages to make it you who ends up paying a part of what corresponds to him.The penny-pincher saves their own money without harming anyone. The cheapskate saves with other people's money.We all know one. There is that person who, after ordering the most expensive wine, the steak, and dessert, suggests splitting the bill because "it's much easier that way." On the other hand, the day they only order a salad and a mineral water, they propose dividing the bill based on what each person consumed.But there are bolder ones. After splitting the bill, he discreetly collects the receipt before anyone can react. He approaches the bar and asks for an invoice in his company's name. In other words, he gets his friends to pay for part of his meal and, furthermore, he deducts it. If he manages to deduct the expense, from three diners onwards, the cheapskate is already making money from the lunch. It's not bad at all.My best friend told me that he used to have lunch once a year with an old university classmate. When they brought the bill, my friend, even though he knew he had already paid the previous year, would politely reach for his wallet. Then the other would say to him: "Are you paying this year?" "Yes, this one and the last one," he would always think to himself. And, out of politeness, he would keep quiet and pay. In the end, he decided not to call him to go to lunch again.We all understand that a friend might go through a bad patch and not be able to pay. What is hard to accept is discovering that someone is turning friendship into a permanent funding model.The cheapskate is also the one who calls you to have you review a contract "because you know about these things," the one who asks you to introduce them to a client even if it could affect your own business, the one who needs you to dedicate an afternoon to them because "it costs you nothing," but who, when you are the one who needs a favor, is usually very busy.The stingy person does not consider themselves stingy. They define themselves as a practical person who knows how to take advantage of opportunities.I have already said it: the miser protects his own money; the rat makes business with yours.

Meta has agreed to pay nearly $17 billion to settle lawsuits filed by dozens of U.S. states accusing it of designing Facebook and Instagram to foster addiction among minors.Some time ago, it caught attention to know that some executives of large technology companies strictly limited their children's access to social networks. Perhaps no one knew better than them the power those algorithms had to retain attention.The 17,000 million accepted represent the implicit recognition that something went wrong. What we can no longer recover is the lost time or the consequences that all this business may have left on an entire generation of young people and adolescents.If a company pollutes a river, the money from the fine can be used to clean it up. If an accident is compensated, the victims can be compensated. But how is adolescence repaired? How is the deterioration of self-esteem, the permanent comparison with unreal lives, the lost hours of family coexistence, or the anxiety problems that many psychologists associate with the intensive use of social networks compensated?I'm clear: there are damages that can no longer be repaired.And this is the most important thing. The problem is not just Meta. The problem is that the legislator and the judiciary continue to arrive late when it comes to technology. It happened with the internet. It has happened with social networks. And it will happen again with artificial intelligence.It is not about stopping innovation. The Internet and social networks have brought extraordinary things. AI will also bring them. The issue is something else. If we know that a technology can modify behaviors, generate dependence, or affect delicate processes such as learning, mental health, or the development of minors, does it make sense to wait ten years to start regulating it?Bill Gates has just written on his personal blog that governments must pace the advancement of AI with the capacity of economies to absorb the labor and professional retraining that it will entail.Technology will continue to advance much faster than laws. And needless to say, also much faster than social and economic policies. Precisely for this reason, the big debate should no longer focus on what sanctions we impose when damage has already been done. It should focus on what limits we want to establish before damages appear that no compensation can repair.It is something that I find incomprehensible. How is it possible that we take so long to adopt measures and establish limitations to protect health, employment, and job stability?And this is said by a liberal.

A bookshelf assembled by us might be slightly crooked. A sauce prepared at home can be considerably worse than the one from the restaurant. A drawing by our child might lack proportion, perspective, and any resemblance to the object depicted. None of this prevents us from looking at it with pride, as if it were something almost insurmountable. Especially the child's drawing.This phenomenon is known as the "Ikea effect", a term coined by researchers Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely. In their experiments, they found that people valued objects they had helped assemble or create – Ikea boxes, origami figures, or Lego pieces – more than people who had not participated in their creation.The Ikea effect is explained because we incorporate our effort into the result. The object comes to contain a small part of ourselves.Companies know this well. Some products arrive unassembled. Others allow you to choose colors, add initials, combine ingredients, or design certain features. The customer works, but experiences this work as customization. The greater their involvement, the stronger the bond with the result.The phenomenon goes far beyond furniture. A meal tastes better when we have cooked it ourselves. A trip seems more valuable when we have organized it for weeks. A business idea excites us more if it was born in our notebook. Or on the bar's paper napkin! Even a potted plant produces more satisfaction when we plant the seed and slowly observe its growth.We live effort as an investment. After dedicating time to something, we need to think it was worth it. Recognizing that the result is mediocre would force us to admit that we have wasted our time and that we lack skill. That is why we mentally increase the quality of the result.The Ikea effect can be used well. Participating increases commitment. Employees get more involved in plans they have helped to build. Students remember better the conclusions they reach on their own. Citizens take better care of the spaces they have collaborated in improving.Creating generates affection. The problem begins when we confuse love for the process with the quality of the result. Sometimes, a crooked shelf remains a crooked shelf, even if we've spent the whole afternoon assembling it.In the end, we are human and subject to dozens of biases. Discovering them forces us to evolve and perfect ourselves as people.I hope you have enjoyed this summer series dedicated to behavior. Next week I will return to current events.

There are objects that acquire value as soon as we bring them through the door of our home. Before buying them, we examine them with coldness, distance, and even distrust. Afterwards, when they are already ours, they seem different. A normal, everyday mug becomes special. The armchair that was in the window of a furniture store retains an unexpected authenticity. The home we want to sell is always worth more than any of the apartments in the same building. This phenomenon is known as the "endowment effect". Ownership modifies our perception and valuation. We ask for more money to part with something than we would have been willing to pay to acquire it. The object, however, is exactly the same. Only its relationship with us changes: it has gone from being in the world to being part of our world. Possessing creates bonds.This explains many difficult negotiations. Whoever sells a house incorporates years of memories into the price. Whoever buys it only sees square meters, state of preservation, and location. The seller hands over a part of their biography. The buyer acquires a property. Both believe they are talking about the same thing, but they value different objects.It also happens in companies. A founder overvalues his company because he created it. A team defends a mediocre project because it is theirs. A manager resists closing a business line to which he has dedicated years. All ownership has an emotional dimension.The endowment effect explains the full closets and the eternal exclamation during a move: "But why am I keeping all this!?" We keep clothes we don't use because giving them away is perceived as a loss. We keep books we'll never open again just in case we feel like flipping through them one day. We accumulate cables from old devices, lest one day we decide to reconnect them. Each object seems to contain a future option: one day it might be useful. The reality is that we keep them only because they are ours.Online marketplaces offer a magnificent portrait of this bias. The seller sets a price inspired by affection. No one makes an offer. That's why so many stationary bikes, lamps, and furniture continue to be advertised for months.One way to correct the endowment effect is to ask ourselves this question: if this object were not mine, how much would I pay for it today? The answer usually lowers its value with surprising speed.The most interesting thing is that things don't change when we own them. We change ourselves. We confuse belonging with value and end up belonging a little to everything we believe we own.

Learning has a side effect that is rarely discussed: when we understand something, we quickly forget what it was like not to understand it. Knowledge opens a door and then erases part of the path that led to it.This phenomenon is called the curse of knowledge. When we know something, it's hard for us to adopt the perspective of someone who doesn't know it yet. What is evident and clear to us begins to seem to us that it should also be evident to everyone.A doctor explains a diagnosis using everyday words. A professor rushes ahead because the reasoning seems simple to them. A lawyer drafts a clause convinced that its meaning is clear. A manager assigns a task with two instructions and is surprised when the result does not match what they had imagined.This also happens in the personal and family sphere, at home. Someone tells a story omitting half of the background because they have it present. One expects their partner to understand the reason for their anger without needing to explain it. A father helps his son with his homework and ends up saying one of the least useful phrases in the history of teaching: "But why don't you see it?"It is not a matter of impatience. There is a very simple explanation. The expert has organized the information into blocks, connections, and categories. He no longer considers isolated pieces. He sees the whole. The beginner, on the other hand, is still trying to figure out which piece comes first.The curse of knowledge costs money. Many companies describe their products from the inside out. They talk about technology, processes, and features, while the customer tries to decipher instructions that seem like a sudoku. Specialists create incomprehensible presentations. Departments use acronyms that exclude everyone else. The more an organization knows about its activity, the more it may cost to explain it simply.It also affects innovation. Someone who has been working on an idea for months assumes data that the public does not know. Then they interpret the lack of interest as resistance or lack of skill.That's why the best communicators remember the doubts they had and turn them into the very order of their entire explanation. Now that's mastery!But doing so requires a conscious effort. It is necessary to recall the initial questions, eliminate unnecessary vocabulary, and observe at what point the other is lost. Explaining well implies reconstructing a path that we already travel without looking.Knowing a lot helps solve problems. Remembering how we thought before knowing helps explain them.I hope I have explained myself well!

During the month of August, I will step away from the usual economic matters. I will talk about behavior: about those little quirks of our mind that influence how we buy, work, argue, choose, and spend. I love the analysis of human behavior! In fact, that's why I like economics so much.The phenomenon I want to write about today is called the "spotlight effect". It consists of overestimating the attention others pay to us. We believe that our mistakes, our appearance, or our gestures are much more visible than they really are.We leave the house with a stain on our shirt and think that everyone has seen it. We say something foolish during a dinner and, when we go to sleep, we continue reconstructing the scene, even losing sleep over it. We put our foot in it during a work meeting, convinced that the next day the whole room is still thinking about it. Normally, almost no one has noticed any of these things.The explanation is as follows: each person lives at the center of their own movie. It's the movie of our lives. We hear our own thoughts, know our own insecurities, and remember every little mistake. It's hard for us to understand – and remember! – that others are starring in another movie, just as absorbing, in which we barely appear as supporting characters.The spotlight effect has economic consequences. We buy clothes to make an impression that perhaps no one will register. We choose a car thinking about what it will communicate. We pay more for a brand because we imagine it will be observed and interpreted. We also hide mistakes at work, avoid asking questions, and reject opportunities for fear of appearing clumsy. The supposed judgment of others conditions real decisions.Social networks have reinforced this illusion. We post a photo and measure the reactions of "lovers" and "haters". We turn our lives into a small shop window. However, those who look at the screen spend a few seconds on each image before returning to the subject that interests them most: themselves.In fact, a large part of social anxiety is born from confusing the intensity with which we live our lives with the attention we attract outside of ourselves. They are two completely different magnitudes.Understanding this bias brings immediate relief. We can dress more freely, ask what we don't know, and more naturally accept our stumbles. Most of our mistakes are forgotten much sooner than we think.We think we live under a spotlight. In reality, each person carries their own on top. And they are too busy illuminating themselves to carefully examine others.

During the last few decades, inflation has had a very clear image. It was the bottle of oil, the loaf of bread, or the shopping basket. Families would go to the supermarket and check that, with the same money, they filled the cart less. This feeling marked the economic debate for a long time.Today inflation continues to be present, but it has changed its nature.The latest CPI data show that food no longer leads price increases as it did during the inflationary crisis. Instead, services and some unavoidable expenses are gaining weight: insurance, repairs, education, hospitality, telephony, or certain supplies are registering increases higher than those of many consumer goods. General inflation remains around 3%, but its composition is no longer the same.It may seem like a statistical nuance. In reality, it changes how families perceive the loss of purchasing power. Let me explain: when the price of an appliance goes up, many people can postpone the purchase for a few months or wait for a sale. On the other hand, with many services, there is no room to postpone it. Car insurance is due when it's due. Dental check-ups hardly allow for postponements. The bill for certain utilities or the price of many daily activities are part of households' monthly budget.That is why this new inflation is less visible, but more persistent and more difficult to manage in family budgets. It is no longer concentrated on a specific product that grabs headlines. It is spread across numerous expenses that, one by one, seem manageable. Added together, they end up affecting the consumption capacity of many families.This change also has consequences for businesses. During the energy crisis, it was enough to explain that the cost of raw materials or transport had increased. Today, a growing part of the pressure comes from overhead expenses. These are increases that are more difficult to absorb and also more difficult to reverse.My recommendation for personal finance is not to stop tracking how much it costs to fill the shopping cart, but to pay more attention to the set of small payments we make throughout the month. Often it is here where the real wear and tear on the family budget occurs.Inflation is like that. It changes form, sectors, protagonists. It also changes how it affects the domestic economy. Understanding this shift is almost as important as controlling supermarket prices. It's true that with the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, we've experienced it with electricity and fuels, but now it's much harder to combat. It's the other inflation.

Fire. Again? We can't believe it. Just two weeks ago we saw the flames up close. Again, a giant column of black, reddish, and white smoke. We estimate the fire is less than a kilometer away.In a few minutes they will confine us. The tragedy of Almeria comes to mind. Trying to flee is dangerous, I know. But I also know that if we decide to leave, it has to be now. We have a baby. In a few minutes we may no longer be able to choose.We make the decision. We leave. Three adults, a baby, and two dogs. Now, things. In seconds you have to decide what you take with you and what you leave behind. Without thinking, you make an accelerated inventory of your life. And you establish a hierarchy that you had never considered. Many things that hours before seemed important cease to be so. We leave at full speed. We manage to get away. Some relatives offer us a place to spend the night. We stop to buy the essentials: a travel crib, a mattress, two changes of clothes, a little food, chargers for the phones, dog food, and a toy car so the little one has something to entertain himself with.During the journey we see seaplanes flying over the mountains. We call neighbors and friends. They are safe, they tell us. They are afraid. Us too. Even if one is already far away, the fire continues inside.We feel fear, doubts, helplessness, the urge to cry, vulnerability. The little one observes us. He perceives that something is happening. The tone of our voices, the calls, the rushes... And, suddenly, he smiles. A pure smile, oblivious to the fire and our anguish. And then you understand that, in extreme situations, there is always someone who reminds you what the true order of things is. Love and health.The rest is secondary. Being with the people you love, safe. At night they confirm that our house has not burned down. But the roads are still cut off. So we go to the apartment. We set up the crib. We prepare something for dinner. And, suddenly, word of honor, we realize that the toy car we had bought was a fire truck. The little one presses a button and a siren starts to sound. A siren...This is the summary: we have brought our son home safe and sound; our son has rescued us from our anguish; the firefighters have saved our town, and, while they will continue fighting the fire all night, the siren of that little toy, an echo of the real one, distracts our son so he can sleep out of all danger.Firefighters are heroes. True heroes. Thank you, and a thousand times thank you.

These days, news about shootings, organized gangs, and knives in the city of Barcelona are accumulating. I don't know if we are facing a change in trend or simply more media visibility. But they have all reminded me of an economist who received the Nobel Prize for formulating a surprising question: what if part of crime could be analyzed as an economic decision?Gary Becker revolutionized economics by applying his tools to areas that until then seemed reserved for psychology or sociology. He studied discrimination, family, education, and also crime. His approach was as simple as it was provocative: many people who commit crimes make, consciously or intuitively, a calculation between the expected benefits and costs of their future action.This cost depends on three factors. Firstly, on the benefit that the crime provides. Secondly, on the probability of being arrested and convicted. And, thirdly, on the severity of the penalty if punishment is ultimately imposed.Imagine a thief who expects to get a big haul and believes they have very little chance of being caught. Even if the penalties are high, the risk they perceive may continue to pay off for them. On the other hand, if they consider it very likely to end up before a judge, the incentive to commit a crime decreases considerably. From this perspective, police and judicial effectiveness can exert a deterrent effect as important as the toughening of penalties.Naturally, not all crimes respond to a rational calculation. There are impulsive aggressions, mental health problems, emotional violence, or behaviors difficult to explain through economic incentives. Becker never maintained the contrary. His theory refers above all to those crimes in which there is planning, organization, and an expectation of benefit: robberies, bank heists, store assaults…Therefore, when news about criminal gangs or organized crime appears, it is worth remembering this theory. The question is no longer just how many crimes are committed, but also what incentives those who commit them perceive. Do they consider the benefit to be worth the risk? Do they believe the probability of being caught is low? Do they perceive criminal consequences as a real cost?Economics does not replace law or criminology. It offers another way of observing the same phenomenon. And herein lies the value of Becker's contributions. More than half a century later, his theory continues to invite us to ask ourselves these questions because, if part of delinquency responds to incentives, rethinking these incentives can be the first step towards designing more effective policies.

When a fire devastates a region, the first figures that appear are the hectares burned, the destroyed homes, and the agricultural losses. These are incomplete data. It is necessary to distinguish between direct, indirect, induced (or long-term), and intangible costs. The analysis does not incorporate the human cost of the injured or lost lives. It focuses on the economic impact.The direct costs are the most evident: lost timber, destroyed crops, dead livestock, damaged homes, affected roads or power lines and, of course, the cost of extinguishing the fire: about 10,000 euros per hectare.The indirect effects: a fire can make a large part of a region's economic activity disappear for months. Rural tourism is one of the first affected. Reservations and visits are cancelled, and many travelers, even if the fire is already extinguished, opt for other destinations. This affects the hotel industry, small businesses, and outdoor activity companies. Their income can drop for weeks or even several seasons.Extraordinary resources allocated to restoring forests, repairing infrastructure, strengthening surveillance, and granting aid to those affected are no longer allocated to other productive investments. This is the so-called opportunity cost.Among the induced costs, also called long-term costs, are future investment losses: the entrepreneur who was thinking of opening a rural house or a business and postpones the project or moves elsewhere… A fire reduces future investment, employment, and activity. It is an economic damage that is difficult to measure because no one knows what is not happening.And, finally, intangible environmental costs, without a market price but with an enormous economic cost: the loss of biodiversity, of carbon capture, of water regulation, of protection against erosion or, simply, of the destroyed landscape value. These damages can exceed the value of material losses.The cost of the Gavarres fire, adding up all the concepts, will probably exceed 150 million euros. Destroying a forest takes a few hours; rebuilding the economic fabric around it takes a whole generation.Now I take off my economist hat. And costs appear that the economy does not capture: the sadness of seeing our Catalonia burn, the fear that invades us, the psychological impact on those affected and those not affected and, above all, the distrust towards our neighbor.Last week, the flames of a wildfire covering several hectares reached a few meters from my house. Last night, a neighbor was celebrating a gender reveal (party to announce the baby's sex) with rockets and firecrackers. Eight days earlier, part of his municipality had burned down.I wondered how long it takes to forget what a fire entails.

Barcelona has gone from 110 applicants per rental dwelling to 437. This data was provided this week by KPMG at the APIE courses, and it summarizes the market situation better than any other. Before the housing law, there was already tension. Now there is a bottleneck. Four times more demand for each available apartment.In the same intervention, another relevant figure was cited: since the approval of the law, approximately 120,000 homes would have disappeared from the rental market in Spain, of which about 60,000 would correspond to Catalonia. These are sectoral estimates, they should be treated as such, but they fit with what many citizens perceive when looking for an apartment: fewer ads, more filters, more competition, and a greater sense of impossibility.The regulation of rent has achieved something that its defenders can present as a success: prices have risen less in Catalonia than in Madrid. According to data cited by Fedea, between the first quarter of 2024 and the fourth quarter of 2025, rent accumulated an increase of 5.7% in Barcelona and Catalonia, compared to 8.5% in Madrid. The difference exists. It is important to acknowledge it. The regulation has moderated part of the increase.The question is: was it worth it to contain a three-point increase compared to Madrid if, in return, there are half the apartments and the number of applicants per apartment quadruples?Access to housing is measured by the rental price, of course, but also by accessibility. A smaller increase in rent is of little use to someone who cannot even visit the apartment. A more protected contract greatly benefits someone who is already inside an apartment, but is of little use to someone trying to get in.It is true that part of the fall in visible supply can be explained by lower turnover and more contract renewals. This was precisely one of the effects sought by the regulations: to give stability to the existing tenant. Surely those who already lived for rent have been a little more protected, but this protection has a downside: the new applicant finds a smaller, more selective and harsher market.Many economists warned about this from the beginning. The price is a symptom of a problem, not its root cause. When the price rises too much, it indicates scarcity, lack of supply, excess demand, or a combination of all of them. Managing the price without resolving the scarcity can alleviate the fever, but it does not cure the infection.Housing policy needs to increase supply, provide legal certainty and mobilize land. Capping prices collapses supply. It was textbook. The problem persists.

If it is confirmed that the jewels found in the Zapatero case were part of a fraud, the economic question is: why jewels? Why would someone choose this circuit and not an intermediary company or an account abroad?The answer lies in the very nature of the object. A jewel concentrates a lot of value in a very small space. It can be handed over in person. It can be kept in a safe. It can be transported with relative ease. It does not require any bank transfer, leaves no digital trace, and can remain outside the declared circuit for years. From an economic point of view, it functions as black money converted into an object. This is its appeal. Whoever receives a jewel can keep it without it appearing anywhere. It is invisible money. If no one sees it, if no one declares it, and if no one asks about its origin, the wealth exists, but it remains off the tax radar. The tax obligation continues to exist, but the tax authorities cannot detect anything.The problem arises when this jewel has to be converted back into money. A jewel does not pay expenses. It does not pay a pension. To recover liquidity, it must be sold. And here begins the second part of the circuit. If it is sold on the formal market, the invoice appears, the buyer's identification, traceability, and the key question: where did this jewel come from? If it comes from a hidden payment, a disguised donation, or an irregular import, the regular sale can uncover the previous fraud. For this reason, these types of assets often end up in parallel markets. They are sold, at a discount, to buyers who are also interested in operating outside the system. The seller receives less than they would get in a jewelry store or at a formal auction, but avoids declaring. The buyer pays less and may be transforming opaque cash into a small, valuable, and transportable asset. The loss of price is compensated, in part, because taxes and controls do not emerge.In an ordinary jewelry purchase, the applicable VAT in Spain is the general rate of 21%. However, other taxes may arise depending on the origin, transfer, or possession of the asset: wealth tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, transfer tax, or capital gains. The opaque circuit seeks precisely to avoid this.The economic route is this: hidden money, jewelry, storage, opaque resale, new hidden money. It is not a sophisticated mechanism. It is ancient. It is the most efficient way to move wealth without going through the bank.The judicial key in the Zapatero case will be to prove its origin. A jewel can come from an inheritance, a legitimate purchase, a declared donation, or an illegal operation. Economically, the difference lies in the trace. When the trace is missing, it is fraud against the Treasury.

An old politician once said to the one who called him president: "I am not the president. I am the person temporarily holding the presidency".Something similar happens with monarchies. Charles III has succeeded Elizabeth II. Inheriting a crown does not mean automatically inheriting the emotional bond that the previous person built over decades. The symbol remains, but it must be re-housed in the newcomer.And in the same way, because no one is saved from this, when a pope dies, it's not just one person who changes. The emotional relationship of millions of people with this position also changes.For years, the pontificate is embodied in a face, a voice, gestures, a way of greeting. At first, the new pope seems almost an intruder. Not because of him, but because he is not yet part of the collective imagination. The office is already his. The affection, not yet.This is why the visit of Leo XIV to Spain is of interest beyond religion. It can also be read from the economy of intangibles: reputation, trust, authority, legitimacy, public presence. Intangibles sustain companies and institutions.The Vatican knows it. It is one of the oldest and most sophisticated organizations in the world. It does not improvise its gestures. A papal visit combines pastoral, diplomacy, communication, and narrative. Every setting, image, photograph, and crowd around it contributes to building the narrative. The new narrative.Spain is an ideal place for a pope who is beginning to build his position. He does not come just to evangelize. He also comes to be seen. To receive warmth. To produce images of continuity. To stop being a distant figure from Rome and to gradually become a recognizable presence.Our country offers something very valuable: cultural Catholicism, street, Mediterranean emotion, and universal heritage. Madrid, Montserrat, the Sagrada Familia, or the Canary Islands are settings with an enormous symbolic charge. The Sagrada Familia, moreover, has this dual condition so useful for Rome: a temple and a global icon.Spain lives an interesting paradox. Religious practice has decreased, but the Catholic symbol is preserved. There are fewer Sunday masses, but processions, shrines, and patron saint festivals continue. This mixture allows the Pope to appear surrounded by affection without seeming trapped in the past.It would be poor to see it as a cold marketing maneuver. But it would also be naive to think that these visits are just pious displacements. In institutions of this scale, public presence builds authority. And authority needs emotion.A pope does not become "the Pope" on the day of his election. On that day he receives the office. Then another task begins: to occupy it before the eyes of the world. Spain, this week, has lent him its squares, its temples, and its crowds to begin doing so.

Sam Altman is glad to have been wrong. The CEO of OpenAI admitted a few days ago that the labor apocalypse associated with artificial intelligence is progressing with much less force than he himself had predicted. He expected a faster destruction of entry-level administrative and professional positions, the so-called white collars. Why? Artificial intelligence is changing work. It is automating functions. It is reducing the need for some tasks. It is forcing many companies to review processes, teams, and profiles. But something important has been discovered: that the great gain in productivity appears when AI works with people, under human judgment, within organizations capable of redesigning their processes well. The reason is simple. Artificial intelligence and people make different mistakes. They are, in mathematical terms, orthogonal.An AI can summarize a hundred-page report in seconds, sort data, compare documents, write a first draft of a text, or detect things that a saturated or tired person overlooks. It has formidable resistance to repetitive tasks. It maintains concentration. It processes enormous volumes. It executes without getting tired. The human being brings a different kind of value. It detects context. It perceives nuance. It suspects when an impeccable answer sounds absurd. It understands that a technically correct solution can be inappropriate, offensive, risky, or useless. It applies common sense, experience, responsibility, and intuition.This is where we find complementarity. AI is very good where people get tired. People are decisive where AI loses touch with reality. When both work together, the result surpasses either of them separately in many professional tasks. Professional work is not just a sum of tasks or operations. A lawyer does not just draft clauses; a doctor does not just apply protocols; a journalist does not just write sentences; a manager does not just process information. Professionals mix technique, trust, judgment, relationship, memory, and decision-making. This combination has proven to be more resilient than previously thought.The company that only sees AI as a payroll-cutting machine will miss out on an essential part of the opportunity. The company that integrates it as a lever to free up time, improve analysis, accelerate tasks, and elevate the judgment of its teams will have a much greater advantage. Altman's mistake says a lot about human work. It is more complex, contextual, and difficult to replace than many had imagined. Expressed as an algorithm, it would be: AI + Human > AI.

Lately, we see news of quite a few redundancy procedures: H&M is negotiating the departure of 106 people; Nestlé has proposed a redundancy plan for several hundred workers; Telefónica closed another massive layoff process a few months ago.What is surprising is that the economy is doing well. Spain, although with less strength than a few years ago, is still growing. The GDP is holding up. We are controlling inflation. Consumption is resisting. Restaurants are full. Airports too. People continue to buy. Why, then, so many EROs?Here appears Amazon. And not just Amazon, of course. But Amazon better than anyone summarizes the reason for the massive layoffs in an environment of economy that is not in crisis.In 2024, Amazon surpassed 8 billion euros in gross sales in Spain. It's half a point of GDP; an outrageous amount. The general e-commerce figure is, however, misleading. It's said to be one in every ten purchases. But in certain sectors, it has skyrocketed. For example, in fashion, almost 25% of clothing purchases are already made online.Here, what is happening with occupation is better understood. Fashion stores, for example, do not compete only against the store next door or the other brand. They also compete against the sofa at home, the mobile phone in hand, the desire to give yourself a treat, and, above all, a return without explanations or queues at the checkout.In economics we use a concept: friction. In consumption, friction is having to leave home, travel to the store, compare and search, look for fitting rooms, wait for your turn, try on clothes, queue at the checkout, carry bags... If something went wrong, you had to go back and argue.Now all of this is done in a few clicks. One click. Another click. In about twelve clicks, you have the product. Delivery the next day to your home and easy returns if it's not what you expected. The friction is minimal: the consumer encounters almost no obstacles.Word of honor: this week, a colleague told me that at five in the morning he woke up without sleep, grabbed his cell phone and bought himself a Bad Bunny t-shirt. It was Tuesday, not the weekend.Some redundancies are better understood from here. Employment is shifting. Fewer people at the counter and more in the warehouse; fewer at the checkout and more programming algorithms; fewer sales assistants and more delivery drivers…Buying in the afternoon and receiving the next day a product located perhaps 600 kilometers away requires data, prediction, automation, routes, intelligent warehouses, and systems capable of anticipating demand. This is also AI!The topic is not technology, but how it modifies social habits.

When I read that Puig and Estée Lauder were interrupting merger talks, I wasn't surprised. I don't have inside information. Call it intuition. Or memory. But, from what I knew of the company, I never quite saw clearly that it could work out. And, in a way, the news made me happy.I explain it from three perspectives.The first is personal. My first job was at Antonio Puig. It was 1991. The offices were on Travessera de Gràcia. The first day, don Mariano Puig received me. When years later I left, it was also he who said goodbye to me. Marc Puig had his office two or three doors from mine. In marketing, we were barely a dozen people. We often went to the factory on Potosí street. There I learned a great deal. The family delegated and gave people a huge amount of freedom.But, above all, I saw a family business in the deepest sense of the term. Not as a synonym for small, but for responsibility. For lived ownership. For commitment to the long term. For a way of understanding the business that did not entirely separate the surname, the project, and the country.I understand that family companies change. Branches multiply. Generations succeed each other. Management becomes complicated. Sometimes a moment comes when selling, merging, or diluting control seems reasonable. But, at least the Puig I knew, was not a Puig designed to lose command. It was not imaginable. It was not part of its culture.The second plan is for the country. Puig is listed on the stock exchange, yes, but it continues to be controlled by a Catalan family. The family retains around three-quarters of the capital and more than 90% of the voting rights. Companies with their decision-making center here generate rootedness, suppliers, talent, sponsorships, taxation, presence.In an operation with Estée Lauder, by relative dimension, it was difficult to think that real control would not end up shifting. Perhaps not on the first day. Perhaps not in the first board meeting. But these things happen slowly. First structures are shared. Then functions are rationalized. Later decisions are transferred. And one day you discover that a company from here no longer fully decides from here. We would have lost a part of Puig's Catalan identity.The third plan is economic. It was not a merger of equals. Estée Lauder invoices more than double Puig, but loses almost a billion when Puig earns 600 million. Valuations are very difficult.Be that as it may, Puig continues to be a great company. A company that began selling colognes and soaps, door-to-door, in a Seat 600 on the roads of Spain, and which has managed to become a global multinational in luxury, perfumery, fashion, and beauty.There aren't so many stories like this. They must be taken care of.

AI already accounts for more than 60% of global investment in startups, according to a report by PwC and South Summit collected by ARA a few days ago. In 2022 it was 30%. By 2025, two out of every three dollars in global venture capital will go to artificial intelligence companies. As always when money runs faster than caution, the magic word appears: bubble.Well, I don't see it that way. The fact that many AI companies have to disappear doesn't mean AI is a bubble: it means we are facing a technological race. And in a technological race, not everyone wins. Few win. Very few. The rest are left behind.It happened with the internet. It happened with mobile applications. It happened with social networks. It happened with electronic commerce. From each wave, two, three, or four giants emerge. Behind them remain thousands of dead projects, burnt investors, exaggerated promises, and PowerPoint presentations. In the case of the dot-com bubble, the problem is that there were approaches that never generated any value nor were they a business.But no one would say today that the internet did not generate value. No one would say that the mobile phone did not change the economy. No one would say that e-commerce was smoke. There was excess. There was naivety. There were losses. But there was also real transformation.With artificial intelligence, something similar happens. 95% of start-ups will lose their investors' money. Perhaps even more. Many applications will have no market. But this does not turn the phenomenon into fiction.A bubble appears when the price completely separates from value. When it is bought only because tomorrow someone will buy it at a higher price. When there isn't enough business below to justify the investment. In AI there will indeed be business. A lot. The question is who will capture it.Venture capital funds know this perfectly. They don't invest thinking they will get it right: they invest accepting that they will lose in almost all investments. They look for one. The one that multiplies by a hundred, by two hundred, or by a thousand. This single investment pays for the entire previous graveyard.It's the logic of the gold rush. There are thousands running to the mountain. Most find nothing. Some sell shovels. A few find a vein. And these, who are few, explain the stampede. But there is gold. What happens is that there isn't enough for everyone.That's why it's important not to confuse two different things: that a technology generates value and that everyone who invests in it makes money. AI will be a brutal concentration of profits in a few hands. AI is not smoke. It is a technology that is already entering companies, offices, factories, hospitals, banks, and administrations. Another thing is that many are paying the entrance fee for a party where there will be neither drinks nor food for everyone.

According to a study cited by Cinco Días, 70.8% of users of the betting platform Polymarket lose money. At the other extreme, 0.1% concentrate 58.5% of the winnings and 1% accumulate 84.1%. Many enter thinking they are participating in an intelligent market. Very few take home almost all the money.Polymarket presents itself as a prediction market. Its users bet on future events: elections, judicial decisions, inflation, sports results, political appointments, or military conflicts.Betting on whether a footballer will score a goal, well, that's fine. But betting on whether the United States will launch missiles against Iran, honestly, I don't understand it. Even less so on a legalized platform.Its defenders use a fallacious argument. They claim that thousands of people, incentivized with real money, incorporate data, analyses, and intuitions. And that, thanks to this, the sum of all these bets results in a form of collective intelligence faster and more precise than any news or official communication from a public or corporate body.Let's see, betting on who will win an election already poses dilemmas. Betting on whether one country will bomb another opens the doors to immorality. Furthermore, leaked or insider information is an opaque advantage that turns into money.The U.S. Department of Justice announced charges on April 23, 2026, against a U.S. soldier accused of using classified information to earn over $400,000 on Polymarket through bets related to the military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.There were also suspicions surrounding bets linked to attacks against Iran. Several newly created accounts on Polymarket reportedly won around $1.2 million after betting, shortly before, that the United States would attack Iran before February 28, 2026.A market can be technically sophisticated and morally miserable. It can produce useful information and, at the same time, incentivize repugnant behavior. It can be called prediction, investment or financial innovation. But when someone makes money because other people will be bombed, captured or murdered, the word market falls short.What collective intelligence are we talking about? I would speak more of collective immorality. War already generates too many indirect benefits. Turning its probability or calendar into a direct bet goes beyond obscenity. The tragedy of others begins to have a price. Pain transforms into contract. And death, into an opportunity for profitability through gambling.How disgusting.

Incredible. Taylor Swift has patented her voice and an image from her concerts as a trademark. The singer wants to protect two phrases spoken by her and a specific image from her The Eras Tour in front of unauthorized uses of artificial intelligence. Matthew McConaughey has done something similar with his voice, his gestures, and some recognizable elements of his public identity. It is incredible that we have reached this point. For years we have registered trademarks, logos, compositions, literary works, graphic and industrial designs, inventions, characters, products... That is to say, we have registered what we produced, what we invented, what we generated from our skills and intelligence. Now we take a step further to confront AI. We patent our voice. Not what we do, but what we are. A voice acquires the rank of an industrial asset. A way of looking, of speaking, of appearing on stage or greeting the public can become legally protected material. The human enters the commercial register. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted several of Swift's applications, as well as those of other singers in recent months.Artificial intelligence has changed the nature of copying. A voice can be cloned. A face can be reconstructed. A performance can be reused to create another. An unknown singer may discover that their timbre has been used to fuel a song they did not sing. Any artist can end up as raw material for a creation they neither know, nor authorize, nor are paid for. Registering voices is like trying to catch the moon in a basket. AI does not need to copy a voice exactly. It can evade it with another formulation. It can approximate it without touching the protected perimeter. It can learn from millions of anonymous voices uploaded to musical applications, social networks, home videos, contests, tutorials, or any platform where, when we download it, we press “accept the legal conditions” without reading them. Let's get realistic. It will be impossible to stop the use of humans to create digitally.The path will have to be different. It will be necessary to identify. Distinguish. Certify. Just as there is an ISO for certain processes or a designation of origin for a wine, we will need a clear signal that says: made by a person. I call it: "human designation of origin." Sung, written, or performed by a person. It is information that the consumer has the right to know. Here will be the true value. In a market flooded with synthetic content, humans will need guarantees, traceability, and a seal.The future of creation will not consist in competing against the machine, but in preserving the origin. Like good wines. Not only the result will matter. It will matter to know which land it comes from.