Spanish Society: So, is it as corrupt as
some say? Or is it only – as a Spanish reader once said – merely
a country of low ethics?
Well, there can be little doubt that, at a
macro level, Spain is extremely corrupt as regards the
corporate-political nexus. Witness its (worsening) ranking with Transparency
International. And the endless (and admirable) litany of accusations,
arrests, trials and sentences. The latest example of these is a Catalan family accused of defrauding the Tax Office – i. e. we Spanish
taxpayers – of hundreds of millions of euros. And who've just
been permitted to escape jail by paying back a mere 93 million of
these. Witness, too, the recent news that Spain was bribed by Churchill to stay out of the Second World War. Doubtless some would
argue that today's politicians are no less corrupt than they were in
the 1940s.
At the micro level of
everyday life, it's certainly arguable that there's no corruption;
you never have to pay someone for something you're entitled to. But
cronyism and nepotism will certainly impact on your life, as you are
pushed down various queues. And you will certainly pay more for everything
because the already very rich are avoiding and evading taxes on a
monumental scale. And because corporate overheads frequently include bribes to politicians. Or always in the construction sector.
That said, it's more true that you will be hit far
more obviously by low ethics. The end result of the latter is that no
one here trusts anyone they don't know. And quite a few of those they
do know:-
- Your ID is demanded for absolutely everything, regardless of how irrational and unnecessary this is.
- A new insurance company won't trust your alleged No Claim Bonus.
- No one will believe your Full Service History when you sell your car. So, they don't even ask for it.
- Friendly bar staff and waiters will charge friends less than they should, if at all.
- Everyone assumes that any 'proof' of anything you provide has been produced by a friend.
- No one believes the banks and insurance companies can be trusted at all. 'Errors' will be made regularly. Ditto the monopoly utility companies, of course.
- No one believes the conclusions of official investigations into tragedies such as those of the Prestige oil spill and the Santiago rail disaster, both here in Galicia.
- No politician ever resigns until, rarely, he or she is sentenced to a brief spell in a luxury jail.
- Etc., etc.
So, is Spanish society
corrupt? Make up your own mind.
Words: Fisty-cuffs???
Over at the no-longer-barbaric Tordesillas 'festival'.
Amazon: Here's an
interesting looking book:-
Pompa y circunstancia :
diccionario sentimental de la cultura inglesa: By Ignacio Peyro
Jiménez
The price:-
- Amazon UK: £52.14. Paperback
- Amazon Spain: €47.03 . Tapa blanda.
Talking of books . . .
Galician Literature Now
available in English:
- Long Night of Stone: Celso Emilio Ferreiro
- New Leaves: Rosalía de Castro
Finally . . . The
Oporto metro. Very clean and efficient. But can anyone tell me what
happens if you don't take your ticket from the machine and then
'validate' it before you go down to the platform?Does the ticket
spontaneously combust? Or you can't get out at your destination if there are exit machines? Or are you just fined, if you get caught, for doing something that seems to be rather pointless. And, in my experience, unique.
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