It's getting worse.

We all know they were a bit out of their minds in the loony left, but now they've definitely gone crackers. Pedro Sánchez, the magician that ended the Mediterranean migrant crisis by harbouring the Aquarius, has reached an agreement with Iran-funded neo-Commies Podemos on the General State Budget for 2019—which is still to be passed in Brussels and Madrid—whereby they've resolved to artificially raise the Spanish minimum wage up to €900 a month. The good news is that those that work for others will earn more, as though they lived in Switzerland or Luxembourg. The bad news is that this is post-recession Spain—let's not forget—and only big companies will be able to stand such a policy. Not sure about the newsagent's around the corner.

But what's more, since the minimum wage is linked to the self-employed social security contributions, these—which had already risen in the Rajoy era—will equally go through the roof. Most of us, freelancers, currently pay a monthly amount of €278 for social security, which is unthinkable in any other European country; but, from January 2019 on, we'll be made to pay the ridiculous amount of €314 a month [!!!] should we earn an income higher than €900. And, on top of that, little is known about what's going to happen with those that can't make as much money as the new minimum wage figure. There exist two options: to be exempt from paying, which translates into not having a pension after retirement, or pay a cheaper amount, which implies contributing for a poorer pension. The latter is, of course, the least bad option for those of us who dislike wasting our time and wish to keep contributing while seeking for a better source of income.

In my case, a miserable freelance linguist: should I teach foreign languages privately, I'll probably be exempt from contributing and, simultaneously, assume the consequences of it. Nevertheless, should I get to translate something or teach a course, I'll be made to pay €314 a month for my work instead of using that money for paying rent or investing in myself and my property. It's like being given a fine for... Working! 😰

From Pixabay. Free of copyright.

Hispanic Heritage Day.

It's been a while since I last identified as a left-wing Galician nationalist. I've discovered the liberal authors, such as Milton Friedman and Thomas Szasz, and have become a less collectivist person. Yet my aversion for authoritative states hasn't changed; just channel it differently. So, I'm not very excited about the 12th of October. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, I still am—and am perceived—as a Spanish man. So, on a day like today, I feel like standing up for Spain.

In spite of the black legend of the Spanish empire, the truth is that the American nations—Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and English-speaking—are much more responsible for the Amerindian genocide than Spain, whose Catholic missionaries didn't wipe out the natives but rather baptised and taught them how to read (in Castilian Spanish, of course). I won't deny that Spaniards played a highly complex chess game, by allying with some indigenous nations under Aztec, Mayan and Inca rule, in order to bring those empires down; or that a lot of people died when getting infected by European diseases. However, making us, present-day Spaniards, bear the karma of the native American genocide is racist.

Needless to say, the history of the United States, where the bulk of the population is either white or black (at least, before 1892), is the record of the building of a new country at the expense of the native Americans' lands (e.g. Trail of Tears, 1831-50). But the history of some Latin American nations is no different. I find it equally necessary to denounce the human rights violations carried out by the Latin American republics, because there still are Amerindian peoples over there with their own languages and cultures. Those countries, often ruled by populist governments, have a very strong tendency to divert attention away from their own crimes by singling out Spain, a country that retreated from the Americas 300 years ago.

Among all the Latin American nations, as far as the rights of indigenous peoples are concerned, the most criminal nation has fairly been the Argentinian Republic, who're celebrating the Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (sic) today, and, nowadays, shame looms over Mexico, Chile and, very especially, Brazil. 

Image by Laura Hamilton from Pixabay.