El suport de la memòria

 Publicat a Diari Més de Tarragona el 29 de juny de 2022

Inversions

 Publicat a DiariMés el dijous 16 de juny 2022

Investments/inversions

( the article plays with the meaning in Catalan of invest versus invert, as the spelling is the same)

Inverting/Investing is turning upside down, depending on how you look at it. When we talk about investments, however, it often seems to mean putting money somewhere or other, usually to make a profit. Those who have a lot of money is what they do. This is what the banks do which are the ones that have money, theirs or the people who deposit them there. Those of us who don't have money, at most, invest what we earn in ourselves: food, living, etc. Occasionally, if we have made savings we can try to invest them, always but prudently. These are private investments, each one's own.

When we talk about public investments, we talk about something else. It's everyone's money, collected through levies, that is to say what they take from us whether we like it or not, in other words: taxes. And that, at least theoretically, they are destined to return them, redistributed in one way or another, for the benefit of everyone. Everyone wants to say what they pay, and also those who do not pay taxes for various reasons.

It is therefore a round trip of money.

Taxes are an old invention. They even appear in the Bible. One of the apostles, Matthew, was a tax collector. The matter of the Pharisees questioning whether taxes should be paid, looking at the effigy of the emperor and saying "to Caesar what is Caesar's" does not make it very clear. True, but those were other times. Today, tax money belongs to everyone... but distribution is a more complicated issue.

The Spanish state is quite old and they still think that with everyone's money they can do what they want. And they do. They are spent on submarines that don't float, highways that no one goes on, high-speed trains that pass through where no one lives and the maintenance of a force of droopy officials, businessmen hanging from the BOE who do useless work and other fool's errands. Of course, there is a part that goes to pensions and salaries of doctors, nurses and teachers. But some illustrious imbecile like the president of the Bank of Spain says that giving money to pensioners, which in fact means returning what they contributed, is too expensive for the economy.

The return to the people, in large part, should go to investments in works for the profit and use of everyone: public works. But the cast is somewhat skewed.

Catalonia, which contributes substantially with taxes of all kinds to the state treasury, barely receives, not what it deserves, but even less, only 35% of what was budgeted for the year. These are called “no executed” investments. Meanwhile this kind of black hole that is the central state in Madrid swallows his own and that of others shamelessly.

Occasionally, they have the cheek of announcing investments that have the pro-government media talk about "rain of millions". A few days ago they promised 7 million for a piece of the World Heritage Roman ruins like the Necropolis, when there is not even a preliminary project nor does it contemplate the part to be excavated that remains under the old tobacco factory, the Tabacalera. Why seven and not ten?, or four?. Flying pigeons (fools dreams, in Catalan), like those that have taken over the old tobacco factory building.

Railways, communications, motorways unfinished for decades such as the A-27, a Mediterranean corridor shorter than my grandma  home hallway, and a thousand more.

Mistrust them. Investments will never come. Neither with the current central government nor with any other that succeeds them. The state administers everyone's money with the impunity that gives it knowing that it can always agitate the staff by venting Spaniards anger against Catalonia. It gives them votes in elections where they don't talk about anything that interests the people, but that's how they set it up.

Until we turn it all upside down.