Reporting on Spanish economy for dummies

For positive stories about the Spanish economy (like for example, that apparently "la crisis" is over as of today, woohoo! 0.1% growth, baby!) , please use this picture:



For negative stories about the Spanish economy (imminent bankruptcy of Spanish banks, for example), please use this picture instead:



And you thought coming up with bad metaphors about the Greek crisis was too easy...

Sant Cugat pays the bills on time

Sant Cugat made the Financial Times on a story about how the municipality has kept itself out of financial trouble (Thanks Jeremy!).

One revolutionary idea was to pay suppliers within 30 days. Local governments in Spain tend to regard accounts payable as a sort of free loan that they can use to stretch out finances as long as possible. Of course, nothing being free, suppliers just end up needing to charge more, or go under without the money to pay their own bills.

Since the suppliers tend to be local businesses, towns end up only sabotaging themselves.

Scamming your way into a concertada school via Celiac disease

There are a couple super-exclusive concertada school (partially state supported, so cheap and good, perfect for any self-respecting Catalan) in Barcelona that parents are willing to do just about anything to get in.

All concertada schools have to (by law) use a points system for accepting students in order to ensure fair access for normal kids. Of course, this is Spain, so the next obvious step for people is to figure out how to scam the system.

The latest scam is to get a doctor's certificate (from a friendly enchufe doctor) saying that your kid has Celiac disease. Since this requires special meals (gluten free) for the kids, the parents can get an exception from the points system to jump the queue for their kids. The supposed justification being that the parents need to take their kids for lunch, so they require a school near work.

In the case we heard about, the parents were too lazy to actually take the time to take their kid out for lunch, so the school figured they'd been scammed and kicked the kid out.

Tax guide for Americans and Green Card holders living in Spain

I've created a set of notes for Americans and Green Card holders.

Please let me know if I'm missing anything important.

Spain and the Special Advertising Section

I've always wondered why Spain tends to feature so prominently in many of the special advertising sections of American business magazines. Part of the reasons seems to be that Madrid plays host the inventor of the special advertising section, an Argentinian by the name of Alberto Llaryora.

An excellent article in Qorreo.com describes how this process works. It's not exactly a scam, but definitely has a scammy feel to it.

Alan Furth has a blog entry about Llaryora's company, AFA Press. Apparently this scam only works well the first time, so many resources were spent on searching for "virgins" (ie companies that had not yet been scammed).

Felix Salmon also blogs about the connection between AFA and Summit Communications, which appears to serve as AFA's vehicle for publishing special advertising sections in the NY Times.

One commenter on Felix's blog remarks:

I have been to their 'brainwash' selective training camp in Madrid and I cannot understand how naive young people looking for an exciting job opportunity can be.

To which another commenter replies:

That being said, here is some basic sales training advice: A sales pitch is not a lie. One could say that sales trainings "brainwash" the candidate but I believe that it is done in a GOOD way so he/she can believe in their product and sell it.

I guess this is why I don't work in sales.

Depressed about the garbage

We went for a nice hike yesterday... the only sad part was the amazing amount of garbage laying everywhere. Random household shit, even a broken street lamp post. Seeing garbage on the ground always reminds me of the how human carelessness is ruining the planet. Seeing garbage everywhere while trying to appreciate unspoiled nature, well, it kind of ruins it.

Perhaps my recent trip to Germany made me especially sensitive. When the person we were staying with explained that at their apartment, the neighbors take turns sweeping the sidewalk in front of their building, my jaw nearly hit the floor. If they don't, the building can get fined by the "Ordnungsamt" (the agency responsible for public order... seems almost redundant in Germany)We also went on hikes, and saw no garbage anywhere. In some places, they had even gone too far, and had started cleaning up the underbrush.

Given how cleanliness is so important inside the Spanish home, it amazes me how mentally, just tossing garbage outside your property line makes people feel ok. I remember when we went on a tour of the Benjamin Franklin School it struck me how, despite the inside of the school being somewhat messy and dirty by Spanish standards (I didn't even notice anything wrong, but my Spanish friend was complaining the whole way home), there was a definite lack of garbage build-up just outside the school fence.