Lucky us, here is Spain, we have a big general strike called for Thursday. I’m just happy I shouldn’t need public transport or any services that day, and I’m sure all the shops in my neighborhood will be open.

There is something inherently depressing about how economic ideas get warped whenever anyone tries applying any of them in politics. Not living beyond your means? Good idea. The fresh-water economics austerity drive in the face of the economic problems of the last four or five years? Bloody stupid.

But now that people are generally realizing the fresh-water school was full of nonsense, the left is re-exerting its own brand of nonsense on the debate. Yes, cutting mindlessly in a demand-driven recession is stupid. But there’s no arguing that Spain still has way, way too many bureaucrats and administrators, most of whom do little work. I’ve only been here a couple of years and am certainly no expert, but what I’ve seen looking incredibly wasteful and inefficient.

But of course we cannot begin to have a rational talk about this sort of thing without people from the left or the right hijacking the discussion and warping it into something else.

At least the demonstrations I have seen so far in Spain have all been well mannered and relaxed (with the smell of a lot of pot smoke everywhere).

PS: Funny comment from a friend of mine who grew up in Spain years ago:

I think things were better under Franco and I hated living under Fascism.