Alex

Arquitecto en New York. UPV + Pratt Institute. Historia, geografía & ecología son mis hobbies. Mis hij@s mi pasión.🇪🇸🇺🇸🇯🇵 “die with memories, not dreams”

[Alex @aibenzal]

Don @antoniobotias mire: Plano de #Murcia . Año 1943. US Map Service, War and Navy Department. #Historia #Urbanismo #ciudad #Huerta #riosegura @laverdad_es

[Rep. Anna Paulina Luna @RepLuna]

.@SecRubio needs to immediately put pauses on all visas from Morocco if their country cannot STOP the invasion of Spain. Why reward the bad behavior?

[Toni Kroos @ToniKroos]

Football won

[José María Olmo @josemariaolmo]

Yo entiendo que el PSOE e incluso sus socios salgan a atacar a la Audiencia Provincial de Badajoz, a la central nuclear de Almaraz, al cambio climático y a Franco de la condena de David Sánchez por prevaricación. Es comprensible porque su objetivo es mantenerse en el poder, sin importar cómo.

Pero hombre, si sois periodistas o ciudadanos con un mínimo de inteligencia, respetaos un poco. Que la sentencia relata una pila de pruebas incontrovertibles de que el hermano del presidente del Gobierno se aprovechó de múltiples irregularidades en un concurso público de empleo para conseguir un puesto de Alta Dirección remunerado con dinero de los contribuyentes.

Tapaos un poco, que la legislatura se os está haciendo larga. Que al final, con tanta trama de corrupción, tanta prostituta, tanto amaño de obra pública y tanto nepotismo, alguien va a pensar que defendéis a Sánchez de la misma forma y con la misma honestidad que la prensa oficial loaba a la familia Ceaușescu, a Gadafi o al propio Franco.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@paulg Immigration to a country should follow the same principles as successful companies follow with recruiting

[Bloomberg @business]

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez remains unyielding against the growing pile of corruption charges that have reached his household https://t.co/sYr7mo4Og1

[kuno @kunoo]

"Don't buy Crypto, it’s risky “

Crypto guys:

[Elisa Beni @elisabeni]

Pues que se vaya por inútil. Porque teniendo a su disposición los servicios de inteligencia y habiendo podido ser informado por la directora de la GC, por el FGE y por tantos otros, si sabía menos de un complot a sus espaldas que los periodistas… donde mejor está es en su casa.

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

How has the Spanish economy performed over the very long run?

To answer, I use Leandro Prados de la Escosura’s (@LdelaEscosura) data on real GDP per capita from 1277 to 2024. I express Spain’s figure as a ratio to Britain’s, since Britain was the first economy to achieve modern economic growth, from around 1660, and has been the leader, or close to it, ever since.

Spain, within its present borders, was prosperous in the Late Middle Ages, well ahead of Britain, then a peripheral corner of Europe. The Black Death and its aftermath hit Spain harder, and by 1360, the two economies had converged.

That parity held until 1600, when Spain began a long decline, in absolute terms (on the eve of the French Revolution, it was barely above its 1600 level, after a deep slump in between) and in relative terms (Britain pulled steadily away). The standard explanations, the Habsburg wars, and the serial bankruptcies run into one problem. They can account for the poor performance between 1550 and 1650, but not for the stagnation between 1650 and 1789. 140 years of stagnation is far more than wars and debt under the Habsburgs can explain.

The series also shows that Spain did not benefit from its empire. That is a problem for every theory tying colonies to modern growth. At most, one can argue that colonies were a necessary condition for takeoff (I do not believe even that, but leave it for another day). One cannot argue that they were sufficient.

The period from 1789 to 1936 was no kinder. The economy grew a little, and Spain built a modern but unfinished liberal state. Yet it never closed the distance to Britain. It is hard not to read the period from 1789 to 1936 as a national failure and the Civil War as its final consequence.

The recent efforts of some historians to paint those years in brighter colors strike me as unfounded. Spain did not fail at modernization as badly as China, but it did not succeed. A deeply corrupt dynasty, closed and incompetent elites in Madrid, Barcelona, and Bilbao, and an economic policy built on intervention and protection (by 1920, Spain was the most protectionist economy in the Western world, so much for the friends of protection) together made the country a basket case.

A cruel civil war left Spain at its historical low, with just 31% of the British GDP per capita. The foreign visitors who arrived in the early 1950s found a poor, backward country.

Policy in the first twenty years of the dictatorship was awful. Autarky was not so much imposed by the Allies as chosen. Spain’s rulers, using their quasi-fascist Weltanschauung, believed growth would come from state intervention, closed markets, and unorthodox fiscal and monetary policy.

Then, in 1959, policy changed. Spain adopted a more orthodox fiscal and monetary policy and opened to foreign investment and trade. The results were spectacular. For forty years, Spain grew briskly and became the modern country it is today. By 2001, it had reached 77% of British GDP per head.

But the internal contradictions of two things eventually became binding: the growth model launched in 1959, and the political regime created by the 1978 constitution. By 2024, Spain had slipped back to 74% of British GDP per head. This is worse than it looks. Britain itself has done poorly over the past twenty years, and losing ground to a weak performer is a bad sign.

Spain stands at a crossroads, economic and political. The country’s foundations no longer work, but its political and business elites have failed to understand this fundamental reality. A good grasp of its economic history helps make sense of its present predicament.

[Dios @diostuitero]

Peor que los corruptos son los miserables que los amparan.

[José María Olmo @josemariaolmo]

El Gobierno y sus portavoces: No es una entrada y registro.

El auto:

[Estefania Molina @EstefMolina_]

Lo he dicho muchas veces: la moción de censura a Rajoy no fue por la sentencia de la trama Gürtel. Cada vez es más evidente. Cayó porque a los independentistas así les convino (ERC y PDeCat querían vengarse por el 1-O de 2017). Por eso, el coste reputacional para los socios de Sánchez cada vez es más alto. No hace falta ni siquiera una sentencia firme para que caiga un Gobierno: basta con la parálisis legislativa o tener a dos exsecretarios de organización en procesos judiciales, uno exministro. La investigación por Plus Ultra solo abunda en la sensación de estupor de ver que los socios son mero atrezzo y no se molestan en fiscalizar nunca nada. El problema es que hoy ERC y Junts sencillamente han elegido ser rehenes de sus amnistías, sus relatos y de haber colocado a altos cargos en empresas públicas. Y el PNV, implorando que al PSE no de le ocurra en otra legislatura pactar con Bildu.

[Juan Ramón Rallo @juanrallo]

Abandonó la presidencia, habiendo arruinado a los españoles, para comenzar a enriquecerse personalmente a costa de arruinar a los venezolanos.

[EL MUNDO @elmundoes]

La alerta roja de la fiscal antidroga de Huelva: "España, lentamente, se está convirtiendo en un narcoestado" https://t.co/MxWaJvhMm0

[ABC.es @abc_es]

🔵 #OPINIÓN | Menos Estado, menos corrupción

🗣️ La corrupción no se ataja multiplicando los vigilantes, sino reduciendo el campo de juego en el que esa corrupción es siquiera concebible

✍️ Juan Ramón Rallo https://t.co/wLW5wU5ZP9

[Estefania Molina @EstefMolina_]

Interesante ejercicio de contorsonismo entre los socios que apoyan al Gobierno, desde que saltara la noticia de la investigación de Zapatero hasta la publicación del escrito del juez. Se demuestra hasta qué punto hoy algunos viven de relatos, y les trae sin cuidado el fondo de nada de lo que pueda ocurrir o haber ocurrido presuntamente en este país, a no ser que les interese sostener otra cosa para exaltar a sus nichos de votos. Y mientras tanto, a llamar ultraderechista a todo aquel que discrepe de sus posicionamientos. Esta es también la democracia que nos queda, pero la hemeroteca no se borra.

[Juan Soto Ivars @juansotoivars]

Zapatero hizo negocio con la pobreza de los venezolanos. Eso dice el auto.
Zapatero mientras te daba leccioncitas morales cada vez que abría la boca y era el faro de su partido. Eso lo añado yo.
Desconfiad siempre de los moralistas.

[Bloomberg @business]

Spain’s governing Socialist party suffered its worst defeat ever in the country’s largest region, even as the conservative People’s Party also ceded ground https://t.co/s69Bg7cCZu

[Alex @aibenzal]

@NassauExec Bruce, congestion pricing makes sense. Everything else i support you!

[Alex @aibenzal]

@stats_feed AMERICA, the land of opportunity, where dreams come true. A true meritocracy.

[EL MUNDO @elmundoes]

Andreas Schwab, presidente de la Comisión de Control Presupuestario: "¿Cómo pido yo a los alemanes que trabajen más mientras España paga pensiones con los fondos europeos?" https://t.co/UZmXNwUHcJ