Economists are often asked to give an opinion on what we predict will happen in the economy, especially in light of the events we are experiencing. For my part, I usually answer that the correct answer is that I have no idea, but that out of courtesy to the asker I can anticipate, more from experience than from certain knowledge, that... I will not make jokes about economists' forecasts, but in our defense I will highlight the complexity of a moment in which geopolitics is the cause of uncertainties, in which what intervenes is a set of interdependent factors and, even more so, driven by the character who today leads the White House. This geopolitical framework has as a forecast more than a single economic variable, to which an element of risk can be associated. And when risks are chained, the probability of each forecast, which we obtain by multiplying by a value less than 1, becomes very low. Everything depends on everything! So that, despite the fact that today we have, unlike in the past, better forecasting tools and more reaction instruments than ever, these situations, increasingly complex and interconnected, are more difficult to anticipate. The safety net falls, logistics or the transport of goods breaks down, the value chain is lost and everything is paralyzed at once.This generates a certain frustration: economic science cannot anticipate, avoid, or sufficiently correct cycles or their effects on people's well-being! In the Middle Ages, science in general had less to say than today to set the world aright. Today, there are more things that were previously considered exogenous, which could not be influenced, that are no longer so. The world's misery, lack of water, hunger, loss of health, inequality: we know they are treatable and we can act on them. And even though we know we can, we don't. This cannot leave us with a clear conscience.We live in a world of exciting progress in the field of technology, but which frightens us later, seen up close; they generate as much hope as fear. Innovations that question many jobs, assets — as it has settled in. MAGA already has roots.

The traps in solitaire of some economists and politicians require that many others must be attentive so as not to lose touch with the economic reality in which intervention is desired. Thus, when they tell us that income is improving, and that employment is improving even more, they are indirectly telling us that productivity is falling; sometimes to imply later that this drop is due to the lack of effort of the workers, ignoring the role of business surpluses in the accompaniments of technology to labor. Likewise, it is frightening to see how some pride themselves on job creation, despite the extremely high unemployment rate that Spain maintains (and would have more if we correctly counted the number of unemployed). Let us remember that fixed-term discontinuous employees are not considered unemployed, even though they receive benefits, and that, therefore, ingenuity must be forced to calculate the effectively employed population.

The Spanish healthcare system needs reforms importantThis uncertainty about the future has led the most daring politicians, guided only by their ideology, to implement changes. The winds of privatization began in Galicia, later spreading throughout the country.It's because of the Valencian Community, and a storm was brewing in Madrid. President Ayuso, in fact, inherited many of the reforms now being debated. But if you only have ideology and no evidence of the implemented proposals, you can only defend them by making the little macho, instead of learning by doing and correcting course if necessary.

I'm meeting more and more people who are opposed to paying taxes. Some, young people, say that with their meager earnings, they only need their taxes withheld; after all, they don't see many public services that benefit them in terms of benefits. Between pensions and healthcare, it seems everything goes to the elderly. It's also easy to see how many citizens and professionals continue with the "with or without a receipt" policy to lower service prices. Finally, I know many wealthy people who don't pay taxes (for me, this is the best definition of who is rich!), since they are rich enough to afford the complexities of tax engineering and the tax advisors who maintain it. And yet, they find it all worthwhile in terms of the savings they make by not paying taxes. And some who do pay taxes, however, complain bitterly when they see how others, more daring, opt for the safe route of tax evasion and avoidance and barely pay any taxes, just to slap down the compliant taxpayers by demonstrating that they aren't "smart enough."

I would like to offer an analytical assessment, free from preconceived notions, without going into detail, but considering the most basic structural features of the new funding proposal. I don't believe its effects on final results can be fully anticipated, despite the important work on figures and ordinality rankings carried out, for example, by FEDEA and by this same newspaper based on government sources. We're missing some details about what's in the denominators of the ratios and how the calculations for the agreement were made. The final figures are difficult to guarantee, beyond the money one might assume will be involved in one way or another. (And if the current Spanish government wants it)It will reach every community. But I don't think the new formula, in the hands of some other government, will guarantee ordinality. And it's clear that it's not the same to be third in the order of per capita resources with one euro less than the second as it is with one euro more per capita than the fourth. I think that's why, regarding ordinality, the minister It hasn't gotten wet beyond voluntarily securing it for Catalonia in 2027.

The clamor from a large part of the business community to reduce the tax burden borne by companies and investors in order to foster innovation, job creation, talent retention, and so on, is a recurring theme. It's difficult not to sympathize with this position, although the demand cannot be to eliminate everything that is bothersome. It's not about abolishing, by the easy route, any of the taxes that generate certain business problems in a general way, but rather about adjusting taxation to specific objectives.

There are still those who remember my time on the Governing Council of the Bank of Spain and ask me about the collapse of the savings bank system during the crisis, driven by nostalgia and the need for financial repositioning of the Catalan productive economy. Of course, for this reason, some of us would like a new, entirely public banking system, going beyond the current tasks of the Catalan Finance Institute: a public banking system that, for now, I don't quite see coming. In any case, I would like to highlight an interesting recent speech by the Governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escrivá, at the general assembly of the European Association of Cooperative Banks, although he was referring to the cooperative credit sector in Spain.

It's very easy to engage in demagoguery when it comes to taxation. On the one hand, nobody wants to pay taxes voluntarily, despite knowing that if we all refuse, we'll probably all end up losing. On the other hand, things are sometimes quite complicated due to the very legislation itself, which, in its attempt to be refined, becomes very complex, and in the end, some analysts opt for a simplification that serves to argue in favor of abolishing taxes. They often do so by arguing lower your arms Faced with regional tax dumping, the existence of the state tax is overlooked. And sometimes, there is some hidden interest at play, since for the good of the economy These are proposals that always benefit the most powerful classes. For example, based on the idea that taxes are confiscatory, they call for the abolition of the wealth tax, without much consideration of the overall tax system for income and wealth, income from work and capital, or productive and non-productive assets, when in fact, the maximum taxable income for income and wealth is capped at 60%.

For now, the only unusual thing about Catalonia's new and long-awaited regional funding is that it's probably languishing in limbo, and that's because of the Andalusian mammograms. It might be surprising, but it's true. Let me explain.

I write about this topic with some skepticism about the results, but I do so believing that I'm helping to understand quite complex regional financing problems. And this currently has political significance, both in terms of the stability of the Spanish and Catalan governments—in that order—and the fear that the far right could come to power.

A merger attempt marked by its heightened hostility is coming to an end. As citizens, we should rejoice that it didn't serve to increase the country's banking concentration. I don't think shareholders and employees of both necessarily have to think the same. BBVA, a large bank, has seen its strategy and the credibility of its management eroded in the medium term. The exact opposite is true for Sabadell: congratulations to its managers, but it's becoming a very complex task for them, and it's starting now. The opposite will happen to shareholders: despite Sabadell's success, the stock price is expected to suffer in the short term. Its value is falling, inflated by the same expectation of a takeover bid and an extraordinary dividend distribution that must not decapitalize the bank.

You can contribute your tax contributions in one autonomous community, pay taxes in another, and use the public services of a third. I know the case, for example, of a person who is a real resident of Valladolid; there he contributes his tax contributions to his office, works there, and receives income and capital gains from the resources he uses. However, he is a tax resident in Madrid, where he owns an apartment as an investment and where he occasionally travels by high-speed train. He knows what he must do to justify this to the Tax Agency, to show that he lives in the Community of Madrid at least half the year, since he pays less income and assets there. Thus, the costs of the services related to his activity are borne by Castile and León, and the Community of Madrid collects the money. But his self-declared administrative residence is in Ibiza! He travels there during the summers and on more than one weekend, because he thus benefits from transport discounts that his tax contribution doesn't help finance. As an administrative resident in the Balearic Islands, this community receives the corresponding regional funding, based on the registered population. Therefore, his residence legal It's not really anywhere. It's not where it's listed, in Valladolid: there's no family doctor here, although if you need to go in for emergencies like displaced citizenNor is it where he pays taxes, in Madrid, where, with the tax savings, he can pay for private healthcare. And it's not there where his public services are funded, but in the Balearic Islands, which receive an income without assuming any costs, since, after all, the transport subsidy is paid by the State! How can we be stuck in this frenzy of royal, fiscal, and administrative residences, without a minimum cross-check of data or identifiable responsibilities in the financing of a welfare state against which many people, like the one in the aforementioned case, practice their particular tax dumping?

Historian Jordi Nadal said this when referring to the Catalan economy in light of its industrialization and modernization in the 19th century. At this point, in the 21st century, perhaps we could say that tourism is – island tourism in particular, given its demographic weight and contribution – the large factory (of foreign currency) of Spain. Without the inflow of foreign currency provided by tourism, the current account balance—more than 4% of GDP—would not be balanced, nor would the income and energy deficits be fully covered. Certainly, Catalonia is the main recipient of the nearly one hundred million annual visitors, with 25% of the total; 50% above its demographic weight. But, relatively speaking, the Islands are, in relation to their population, the main contributor to the external balance, to the trade deficits, of a Spanish economy that otherwise imports much more than it exports, with a number of stays five times the Principality's own, already very high figure. A contribution that represents 13 percentage points of GDP and is growing steadily.

It is true that to a certain extent tax dumping is used as an element of political distraction, because in the issue of financing there are other singularities, including the regional agreement, and they don't appear in our country's political discourse. But this doesn't mean that the Community of Madrid under the neo-conservative Ms. Ayuso isn't doing so. Madrid is engaging in fiscal dumping, yes. Andalusia isn't. Nor is Murcia. If these communities lower their taxes and collect less, that's their problem, because they'll have less spending capacity and won't be able to claim the equalization transfers later. To each their own. In the case of these other communities, if they use their fiscal autonomy to lower taxes, with a loss of revenue if applicable, the reduction will be real.

In tourism, it's now time to decline. At least, relative to previous growth rates. We'll see how society experiences a process of this nature. We'll see it from a variety of perspectives: will maintaining record visitor numbers year after year constitute decline? Of course, from the perspective of maintaining the figure, which would already be a milestone, this would imply a zero growth rate! Will recording growth rates lower than those of the past be perceived as decline? More of the same: in terms of growth rates, but increasing less rapidly than before, will it be considered a failure, despite reporting absolute increases in visitors? Is it necessary to decrease in absolute terms, or would it simply suffice to replace one type of tourist with another, considering greater productivity—that is, greater income generation per employee—as a satisfactory improvement? For the same turnover, it may not be necessary to have so many tourists if they are more willing to pay.

This is not an economics article. It's about politics. And we must talk about it, because if we don't resolve the current political mess together, economic prosperity will not reach the Islands and will not be able to foster sustainability, social cohesion, or the living conditions of citizens. Therefore, we need politics, but not the kind we suffer from the two major Spanish nationalist parties, some critical and others cynical, accusing each other of corruption and always subservient to an interest they consider superior to that which calls voters to elect their representatives.

Through a proposal from Más, the Parliament of the Balearic Islands wants to limit Aena's use of the Balearic airports, which are currently treated as if they were its own private backyard. From the monopoly they exercise, in favor of their shareholders, they multiply visitor arrivals and installed capacities, which provide them with income from both the slots They charge for the equipment they rent. At excessive costs, these rentals are then transferred, within the facilities, to prohibitively expensive merchandise. Water, for example, cannot be brought in through airport security filters, and a return trip within the facilities often costs four euros—or more—for a small bottle of water; such is the fixed cost passed on for facilities that are Aena's big business. The same applies to aircraft entry and exit. By not paying the full environmental cost of their carbon footprint, companies can afford to pay what they are asked for the use of runways, making alternative territorial facilities less attractive, as they would decentralize demand and become competitive. This way of understanding the public interest as achieving returns for shareholders sits poorly today with the aspirations of citizens. The State should therefore not behave like just another shareholder, nor collect cash like everyone else. It's up to them to be sensitive to the demands of places like Barcelona and the Balearic Islands, which have had their say. And, in the absence of that sensitivity on the part of Aena's current management, perhaps there's no choice but to accept the governments' demands for full management or co-management of their airports, and not leave the desire to achieve more reasonable levels of tourism than the current ones in the hands of shareholders.

It seems that the administrations, and in particular the Generalitat, based on their own powers, study reduce the taxation of low incomes in personal income taxThe controversy arose from the recent increase in the interprofessional minimum wage, which was implemented without touching the exempt minimum. This means that, marginally, more people in the low-income group must file income tax returns because they are not covered by that exemption. This issue is on the agenda of the Spanish Parliament. In contrast, the Catalan Parliament is undertaking the reform by lowering the rate for low incomes (apparently by a small amount, from 10.5% to 9.5%, subject to final approval). Thus, if this is the intention, the best way to reduce taxation for those who earn little, given the current powers of the Generalitat (Catalan government), is indeed to lower the tax rate for these incomes, and not by exempting them from the obligation to file, as some parties claim. Let me explain. Filing an income tax return is one thing, and paying personal income tax is another. Exempting them was a way to reduce administrative burdens, based on the assumption that filing a tax return is complex. But today, with withholdings and a minimum of computer technology, this burden is already reduced. And exempting from tax returns has more drawbacks than benefits. Anyone with income earned during the year should notify the Treasury; and, if applicable, not only avoid paying taxes, but also receive a "tax credit." The declaration of personal and family circumstances is simply a snapshot of the taxpayer's reality, allowing them to fine-tune both the taxes payable and the right to receive benefits. Using deductions, bonuses, and differentiated rates, it is possible to adjust taxes, subsidies, and universal benefits, but tailored to each individual's situation. It's not about raising more revenue, but rather, within a neutral budget, being more careful about who pays and who receives.

These days, both with preliminary work and with the preparation of the plenary session of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy, the debate on the forgiveness of the debt of the autonomous communities and the new system of autonomous financing begins. We heard about the first one on Monday.; the second one will be seen. Some comments on this.