"WE ARE EUROPEANS"

Every day when I read the news, I realize that Spain is getting deeper and deeper in the hole of the crisis. Not only is the fact that the banks and the financial system in Spain are at their worst time in their history, besides, is fostered by the lack of trust the media and the politicians are spreading over the population.
If you dont believe in yourself, who is going to believe in you?, thats what they should ask themselves.

We should take the example of our athletes,  the common factor in our atheletes is the fact that they are fighters, they never give up a battle until their opponent is exhausted, we used to be recognized as brave people, and now its only happening in the sports.

We are living in a very competitive world,  every day its more connected and the people move from one country to another and try to not set down at any place, just in case they have an opportunity somewhere.

Its surprising that in Madrid among  the chinese people the unemployment rate is very very low, and on the other hand the same indicator among the Spanish people reaches unexplored levels.

To fightback these problems, we must start to take some measures.

The first one, is that there is a reality and that one is that all the spanish talents are  leaving  the country, but most of them expect to come back some day.

The fact that they are leaving the country while they are still young, its great, it provides them experience, knowledge and many other benefits. Then after they get all that experience and make money, Spain should try to lure them with some competitive perks, and try to get all their experience and apply it to relaunch the country.
Then these people will run factories and employ citizens, but to make it happen the politicians should start to look outside and realised that many countries in the world are fighting for every penny in the market, so we must be competitive and efficient in many ways.

The other issue I would like to highlight is based on the idea of changing our mentality. They first time in my life I realized about it, was in a flight from Oslo to Stockholm, which was during the summer and there were many Spanish tourists, we were at the gates of the plane and infront of it there was a fridge with sandwiches and refreshments, then the natives were taking one sandwich and one drink, there was infront of us a spanish family and they took not one-one, they took many sandwiches and many refreshments. 

I understand that mentality if you were from a very poor country but we are europeans and we have to start working, living and thinking as europeans, we cannot live like europeans and behaving like from a third world country.

We have to live and think like a first world country, creating  high value products and services if we want to survive in the future, we have to believe in ourselves, and start building the idea of "country brand", there are many companies making it, but that philosofy must be spread among all the citizens.

In the future will be always people who will make whatever we make cheaper, so we have to make it better and provide more added value.

If not, the economic market will take you out.

We are leaving in a world were only the strongest and the ones whom adapts better to the market changes succeed.
Thats the ugly truth.

JESP GENERATION

First of all, I would like to introduce myself.
Im from Spain and currently Im 28 years old. I have two degrees and some work experience.
I belong to what we call in Spain the JESP generation, which translated to English means,Spanish young people over prepared.
And if you have a look at our stats in Spain, you can see the unemployment rate is above the 25%, thats the general one, but among the youth it ramps up to 46%. Some people are starting to call us, the lost generation.
Now, in my case after finishing my studies, I figured out my way out of the country, then I decided to come to the US, and find my way here. Now Im working  here in Washington DC, after seeking and waiting using a trainee visa.
The situation in Spain and for so many people at my age is starting to become desperate. Every one who I talk to, says that they are lucky if they have an interview and many of them are struggling to stay at the same job.
I know and everyone knows that the life quality in Spain is very high, with a sensible wage you can live very well, and furthermore the families in Spain are a very strong bond.But there are no jobs to absorb all the people coming out the universities.
There are many reasons why we have ended up with this situation but to display some of them:
- In Spain the idea of being an entrepeneur is not so encouraged as it is in other countries, and without entrepeneurs there are no business and without business there are not jobs.
When you want to start a company in Spain you can create it very fast, but since the company is running, they stab you with taxes, besides, the protection to the employees is very high.
I understand that the government must protect the citizens, but many times you see very old people occupying post that should be occupied by young people and the boss cannot fire them because in that case he should sell the business.
In Europe we have to change our minds, and start to live in the reality, we are living in a very competitive world, where the Chinese, Indians and South Americans who before never complained about the differences in the world now they want to live like we used to live. So now the world has to share its resources among more people, so it means that there is less for everyone.
Another reason why this has happened, is because in Spain the government has focused to generate and encourage the degrees with better social reputation, like lawyers, business, engineers among others. But meanwhile the carpenters, plumbers and other blue collar workers, didnt get any studies or preparation for their jobs, and they made even more money than the white collar workers.
 The Government should create better studies for them and generate degrees and final degree projects to evaluate their skills, like they do in Germany.
Those are some of the reasons why we are so sinked in Spain, there are many more, though.
I have some hopes about the future in Spain but our generation have to make many changes to make it work again and take Spain in the right way. Lets see if in a close future with so many expats abroad getting experience and knowledge with the ones getting better prepared, can generate new jobs and give a push to this country.