miércoles, 12 de noviembre de 2008

Highway to heaven

The idea of helping the automobile sector as it was previously done to the financial companies starts to gain followers. The menace of a possible bankruptcy in GM seems to enhance authorities’ fear of increasing even more the already great deal of unemployed, and, nowadays, that would involve serious problems to governments, as people start to point out to them as principal characters of the current crisis scenario.
The wreckage of the financial system would probably have meant a tragedy in our globalized society, as it has turned to be the foundations of global economy. However, the automobile industry, despite the high number of connected jobs, does not threaten all markets. The eventual collapse of a giant like GM would cause thousands of new unemployed, it would be a serious damage in social terms, but it would certainly not affect the stability of the world’s economy.
Helping this companies would encourage each and every company in economic difficulties from no matter what sector to ask for help, and the denial of this help would be unfair this time. It is hard to say to thousands of people that they are going to lose the job they have been carrying out for the past decades, it is hard to face a 57 year old man that has been working in a factory since he was 16 and tell him that his company is going to disappear. To avoid that, it would have been necessary to look in the eyes of dozens of business men and suggest that continuous two digits growth was not sustainable in the long term, that providing the market with such a quantity of all-terrain vehicles was illogical, that… that they worked for a company and had to do their best not just to improve their own wealth.
It is time for new opportunities, it is time for new ideas to come and take the place of those dangerous principles that have driven the situation into this hole. Will we be brave enough to clean this mess up?

lunes, 3 de noviembre de 2008

La bolsa y el fútbol

- Qué José Antonio, ¿Hoy qué va a hacer la bolsa?¿Qué tengo que comprar?
Después de un fin de semana, uno hubiera esperado que le preguntaran qué tal le había ido, si había visto la carrera de fórmula 1, alguna burla por el tropiezo del Madrid… pero no, se encuentra con una interrogación como ésa mientras cuelga la americana.
- Mira, la bolsa es como el fútbol: todo el mundo opina y explica sus teorías y proyecciones, del mismo modo que el domingo por la tarde se cuestionan los planteamientos del entrenador y se sugiere que sería mejor una técnica 4-4-2 con el medio en rombo. Curiosamente, igual que ocurre con el fútbol, donde sólo los que se dedican a ello y algún que otro afortunado aciertan el pleno al quince, en bolsa sólo los que están muy encima de ello y algún que otro aficionado, tienen opciones de llevarse el gato al agua.
Dicho esto, si quieres la opinión de un aficionado al que sólo le ha tocado la quiniela alguna vez y siempre el menor premio…