En los últimos días hemos seguido recibiendo noticias negativas sobre la economía, tanto a nivel nacional, como europeo y mundial. A modo de ejemplo, la disparatada tasa de desempleo que actualmente tiene España (cercana al 14%, que increíblemente no provoca un estallido social), la profunda recesión que espera a Alemania en el 2009, y la desastrosa situación del sistema financiero británico.
Me gustaría profundizar un poco sobre este último punto. Dada la crítica situación de las instituciones que operan en la City, ya hay quien llama a Londres "Reikiavik del Támesis", no sin razón ni mala baba (la misma que ellos emplean cuando hablan de los PIGS). Actualmente, la mitad de los bancos ingleses son propiedad del Estado y uno de ellos, el RBOS, ha dado pérdidas de 30.000 millones de euros en 2008, esto es, 82 millones de euros diarios. Solo el HSBC parece libre de pecado, por ahora.
El crecimiento económico en torno a la City londinense ha estado basado en los últimos años en la desregulación, de forma que se fomentaba la realización de operaciones, sobre las cuales no se pedía mucha información (otra vez vuelve a salir mi "admirada" FSA), de dudoso riesgo, pero que atraían más y más entidades, favoreciendo así la economía londinense, inglesa y británica. Ahora que todo ha explotado, el país está dirigiéndose hacia una recesión sin precedentes, liderando el mundo en esta dudosa clasificación junto a sus vecinos irlandeses (otros que tal bailan).
Sin embargo, lejos de admitir errores pasados y enmendarlos en el futuro, los ingleses siguen en sus trece en lo referente a no incorporarse a la zona euro, manteniendo una moneda, la libra, que hace un siglo era hegemónica en el mundo, pero que en la actualidad no pinta nada; y frenando todo intento europeo para instaurar un regulador paneuropeo de las instituciones financieras. ¿Acaso no han aprendido la lección? ¿O es que temen convertirse, como también se ha dicho ya con bastante mala intención, en un suburbio de Francfort, financieramente hablando?
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Second time in Bonn
Last Saturday I went for the second time to Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. In both cases, my friend Alina was involved in the visit: the first time we went together with our teammates from Düsseldorf and on Saturday we just met as she is living in Bonn and I in Frankfurt.
During my stay in Bonn, no longer than seven hours, I had two important problems with the transport system (VRS in its acronym in German). Firstly, I bought the wrong ticket from the trip from the ICE train
station to the city centre, but as the train was leaving I decided to take the risk. After all, they do not check the tickets so often in Germany. Well, yeah, you are right. Just in the station before mine and two seconds after I had said to myself that I was saved, two men came to my wagon and identified themselves as employees of the VRS. Luckily, the first two men they approached did not have a valid ticket and did not even have money to pay the fine, what kept them busy until my station arrived. At that point in time, I left the train as if nothing had happened but with my heart strongly beating in my chest. Then, some hours later, when I was buying the ticket back to the ICE train station, I had some problems with the machine as it did not accepted by 10 cents coins. And every time I cancelled the purchase, I got a 2 euros coin. And it happens three times...! Amazing, I even managed to earn some money while in Bonn!
I must admit that this time I was not so delighted by Bonn as some years ago. In fact, the historical centre is rather small and one can walk through the whole of it in less than an hour. The distances between the Rhein, the town hall, the university and the cathedral (the four main places to see in the city centre) are easily affordable on foot. In any case, what I like a lot from Bonn is its flag: quite similar to the Spanish one, je, je, je.
Alina lives actually in Bad Godesberg, which is the former diplomatic neighbourhood. It still has a number of consulates and a significant amount of remarkable villas. Definitively, nothing to do with Bonn itself and one of the places in Germany I would not mind to live in. I should have taken any pictures of them, because this place is really, really beautiful.
During my stay in Bonn, no longer than seven hours, I had two important problems with the transport system (VRS in its acronym in German). Firstly, I bought the wrong ticket from the trip from the ICE train
station to the city centre, but as the train was leaving I decided to take the risk. After all, they do not check the tickets so often in Germany. Well, yeah, you are right. Just in the station before mine and two seconds after I had said to myself that I was saved, two men came to my wagon and identified themselves as employees of the VRS. Luckily, the first two men they approached did not have a valid ticket and did not even have money to pay the fine, what kept them busy until my station arrived. At that point in time, I left the train as if nothing had happened but with my heart strongly beating in my chest. Then, some hours later, when I was buying the ticket back to the ICE train station, I had some problems with the machine as it did not accepted by 10 cents coins. And every time I cancelled the purchase, I got a 2 euros coin. And it happens three times...! Amazing, I even managed to earn some money while in Bonn!I must admit that this time I was not so delighted by Bonn as some years ago. In fact, the historical centre is rather small and one can walk through the whole of it in less than an hour. The distances between the Rhein, the town hall, the university and the cathedral (the four main places to see in the city centre) are easily affordable on foot. In any case, what I like a lot from Bonn is its flag: quite similar to the Spanish one, je, je, je.
Alina lives actually in Bad Godesberg, which is the former diplomatic neighbourhood. It still has a number of consulates and a significant amount of remarkable villas. Definitively, nothing to do with Bonn itself and one of the places in Germany I would not mind to live in. I should have taken any pictures of them, because this place is really, really beautiful.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Une grosse fête
Samedi dernier la BCE a fait une grande fête dans la Alte Oper à Francfort. On a fêté les 10 ans d'euro, qui est né en janvier de 1999. J'avais déjà été dans la Alte Oper mais cette fois je l'ai vu très differente, tous étais prête pour notre fête et on ne pouvais pas voir les sièges, par exemple. Le programme comprennait un discours (bref, merci beaucoup) par notre président, Jean-Claude Trichet, et un show avec des acrobates, qui me a plaît beaucoup.
Tout le staff de la BCE a été invité à cette fête, aussi les hauts diregeants. Le vice-président, Lucas Papademos, m'a souhaité bonne année 2009. Mais le plus important est que j'ai dancé près du Trichet (comment se montre dans la foto ci-dessous). En plus, il m'a marché sur le pied et m'a dit en anglais: "Excuse me". Le president de BCE m'a présente ses excuses... à moi. Non beaucoup peuvent dire ça, vrai?
Je voudrais finir avec une mention à notre bande de jazz, qui a jouè despuis 7 de la soir jusqu'à 2 du matin. Et ils étaient vraiment bons! J'espère que au moins on les aie paient ce extra-temps.
Et c'est tout! Mes excuses se mon français n'est pas très brillant, mais il y a longtemps que je ne le pratique pas et j'ai oublié tant...
Tout le staff de la BCE a été invité à cette fête, aussi les hauts diregeants. Le vice-président, Lucas Papademos, m'a souhaité bonne année 2009. Mais le plus important est que j'ai dancé près du Trichet (comment se montre dans la foto ci-dessous). En plus, il m'a marché sur le pied et m'a dit en anglais: "Excuse me". Le president de BCE m'a présente ses excuses... à moi. Non beaucoup peuvent dire ça, vrai?
Je voudrais finir avec une mention à notre bande de jazz, qui a jouè despuis 7 de la soir jusqu'à 2 du matin. Et ils étaient vraiment bons! J'espère que au moins on les aie paient ce extra-temps.Et c'est tout! Mes excuses se mon français n'est pas très brillant, mais il y a longtemps que je ne le pratique pas et j'ai oublié tant...
Friday, January 16, 2009
Things I do not fully understand
Today I will briefly list something I do not understand in our society, from a variety of aspects of it.
First, I cannot understand the "good image" some countries or communities have. For example, take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nobody has urged the Palestinians to stop launching rockets towards Israel these days and in the last years nobody has tried to persuade them to recognize Israel as a state and start learning to live together with them. No, in this conflict there must be "good" and "bad" guys, as in western movies. The same happens to me with Canada; for unknown reasons I cannot find any negative thought about Canada.
Secondly, Facebook. I am member of it, of course, but I do not spend much time there. After five minutes I am bored to death and I do not understand how people can get addicted to it. It seems I am losing something, as I prefer to do something with my friends face-to-face, instead of reporting it in a website. I have also installed some applications in my profile (kind of "Disney character you are" and so on), but it has not changed my life that much.
Last but not least, I do my best but I can find any significant profit in pressing the bottom for closing the doors of an elevator desperately. Hey, you are going to save two seconds (in the best scenario possible) in your life; so come on, take it easy... No, instead you must press this button as if your life depended on that.
This last paragraph relates to the tendency at work in offices to stay longer as a way to show the others how much you work. Well, from a certain point of view, it might mean that you are not very efficient because you need more time than expected for doing your job, je, je, je. But in many cases, if someone says that he must stay in office until 7pm, he is considered as somebody brilliant and successful. Even worse if this person has a Blackberry and has to report to the office while on holidays; then we are in front of a genius! In my case, I tend to do the contrary: I prefer to work early in the mornings and to spend my evenings as I prefer, and I assume that my employer can perfectly live without me at the office during my holidays.
Sorry if this post is not so well structured but it is Friday night, I am tired, it is cold in Frankfurt and I want to go to bed. Next time I will do it better, for sure!
First, I cannot understand the "good image" some countries or communities have. For example, take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nobody has urged the Palestinians to stop launching rockets towards Israel these days and in the last years nobody has tried to persuade them to recognize Israel as a state and start learning to live together with them. No, in this conflict there must be "good" and "bad" guys, as in western movies. The same happens to me with Canada; for unknown reasons I cannot find any negative thought about Canada.
Secondly, Facebook. I am member of it, of course, but I do not spend much time there. After five minutes I am bored to death and I do not understand how people can get addicted to it. It seems I am losing something, as I prefer to do something with my friends face-to-face, instead of reporting it in a website. I have also installed some applications in my profile (kind of "Disney character you are" and so on), but it has not changed my life that much.
Last but not least, I do my best but I can find any significant profit in pressing the bottom for closing the doors of an elevator desperately. Hey, you are going to save two seconds (in the best scenario possible) in your life; so come on, take it easy... No, instead you must press this button as if your life depended on that.
This last paragraph relates to the tendency at work in offices to stay longer as a way to show the others how much you work. Well, from a certain point of view, it might mean that you are not very efficient because you need more time than expected for doing your job, je, je, je. But in many cases, if someone says that he must stay in office until 7pm, he is considered as somebody brilliant and successful. Even worse if this person has a Blackberry and has to report to the office while on holidays; then we are in front of a genius! In my case, I tend to do the contrary: I prefer to work early in the mornings and to spend my evenings as I prefer, and I assume that my employer can perfectly live without me at the office during my holidays.
Sorry if this post is not so well structured but it is Friday night, I am tired, it is cold in Frankfurt and I want to go to bed. Next time I will do it better, for sure!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
It's cold out there
Yeah, half Europe have been under a snow and ice storm in the previous days. Let's say a few words about this.
Frankfurt has also been affected by the storm, with record low temperatures of -15ºC and maximum temperatures during the day of -5ºC. For example, today I was walking in the city centre at 4pm and the temperature was -6ºC. I have never lived in a place with such low temperatures, but it seems I am getting used to it. For the following week, the forecast expects minimum temperatures of -4ºC and I find them warm!!!!!!! I wonder how I will react to positive values in temperatures, after more than one week without them.
These low temperatures has frozen the snow fallen one week ago, as you can see in this picture of the Oppenheimer Platz:
To make the situation funnier, I switched off the central heating before going to Spain for Christmas holidays; just imagine how I found my apartment when I came back, two weeks later. What a stupid idea, to tell you the truth... Now, things are better, but the first night was simply horrible, I had to sleep under a number of blankets, with my socks on,...
In Spain, the situation has been critical during the weekend, with important snows and a lot of problems in the airports, the roads and so on. This picture was taken by my parents on Friday morning:
Wow, I had never seen so much snow at home. It seems this storm is leaving Europe, so in a few days, everything will come back to normality.
Frankfurt has also been affected by the storm, with record low temperatures of -15ºC and maximum temperatures during the day of -5ºC. For example, today I was walking in the city centre at 4pm and the temperature was -6ºC. I have never lived in a place with such low temperatures, but it seems I am getting used to it. For the following week, the forecast expects minimum temperatures of -4ºC and I find them warm!!!!!!! I wonder how I will react to positive values in temperatures, after more than one week without them.
These low temperatures has frozen the snow fallen one week ago, as you can see in this picture of the Oppenheimer Platz:
To make the situation funnier, I switched off the central heating before going to Spain for Christmas holidays; just imagine how I found my apartment when I came back, two weeks later. What a stupid idea, to tell you the truth... Now, things are better, but the first night was simply horrible, I had to sleep under a number of blankets, with my socks on,...In Spain, the situation has been critical during the weekend, with important snows and a lot of problems in the airports, the roads and so on. This picture was taken by my parents on Friday morning:
Wow, I had never seen so much snow at home. It seems this storm is leaving Europe, so in a few days, everything will come back to normality.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Pequeña decepción
Hace unos días estuve en la exposición de Star Wars que actualmente se puede visitar en Madrid, con material de las seis películas. Como ávido seguidor de estas películas, era mera cuestión de tiempo que pudiera ir a la exposición, con un ánimo no demasiado objetivo y dispuesto a disfrutar de todo lo que pudieran tener, mereciera o no la pena.
Sin embargo, al final, no todo me gustó tanto. Empezando por la cola que me esperaba a la entrada a pesar de haber comprado la entrada por anticipado. Así que no me quedó otra que esperar más de media hora hasta poder entrar en el recinto. Y, cómo no, tuve que pasar por debajo de un detector de metales, no fuera a ser que introdujera algún elemento peligroso en la exposición: lo de siempre.
El contenido de la exposición está muy bien, pero no basta, necesito algo más. Hay apenas diez maniquíes de personajes de la serie y abundan las pantallas con imágenes de las seis películas. Tampoco se han vuelto locos trayendo maquetas de los vehículos y naves espaciales; hay los justos, por no decir, pocos y pequeños. Además, había demasiada gente, demasiado niño y demasiados que no han visto las seis películas un mínimo de cinco veces y que hicieron chirriar más de una vez mis oídos con sus audaces afirmaciones.
Pero no perdamos el norte, que la exposición nos ofrece la posibilidad de ver a los androides C3PO y R2D2, a Darth Vader, a algún que otro habitante de la morada de Jabba, a los soldados imperiales, a Darth Maul (el personaje más estético, con gran diferencia, de las seis películas), al maestro Yoda, a los wookies,...
Sin embargo, todo cambia a la hora de salir de la exposición. Primero, una serie de consolas XBox con un juego sobre los jedi nos abre el apetito, que luego acaba de saciarnos la tienda de recuerdos, un lugar donde los precios están desorbitados por completo. No es posible que un llavero cueste cinco euros, que un sobre con una nave de papel casi diez euros y que una figura cabezona de plástico esté cerca de los veinte euros. Si se ha conseguido sobrevivir a esta dura prueba, quedan las sesiones de fotos en escenarios de la película, a cinco euros como mínimo. Y uno no puede evitar la sensación de que esta exposición no es más que un "saca-cuartos" y una excusa para que los irracionales fans compremos algún recuerdo a precio de barril de petróleo. Y no entiendo por qué esta búsqueda desesperada de dinero, porque a George Lucas y su gente no les hace falta para llegar a fin de mes...
Sin embargo, al final, no todo me gustó tanto. Empezando por la cola que me esperaba a la entrada a pesar de haber comprado la entrada por anticipado. Así que no me quedó otra que esperar más de media hora hasta poder entrar en el recinto. Y, cómo no, tuve que pasar por debajo de un detector de metales, no fuera a ser que introdujera algún elemento peligroso en la exposición: lo de siempre.El contenido de la exposición está muy bien, pero no basta, necesito algo más. Hay apenas diez maniquíes de personajes de la serie y abundan las pantallas con imágenes de las seis películas. Tampoco se han vuelto locos trayendo maquetas de los vehículos y naves espaciales; hay los justos, por no decir, pocos y pequeños. Además, había demasiada gente, demasiado niño y demasiados que no han visto las seis películas un mínimo de cinco veces y que hicieron chirriar más de una vez mis oídos con sus audaces afirmaciones.
Pero no perdamos el norte, que la exposición nos ofrece la posibilidad de ver a los androides C3PO y R2D2, a Darth Vader, a algún que otro habitante de la morada de Jabba, a los soldados imperiales, a Darth Maul (el personaje más estético, con gran diferencia, de las seis películas), al maestro Yoda, a los wookies,...
Sin embargo, todo cambia a la hora de salir de la exposición. Primero, una serie de consolas XBox con un juego sobre los jedi nos abre el apetito, que luego acaba de saciarnos la tienda de recuerdos, un lugar donde los precios están desorbitados por completo. No es posible que un llavero cueste cinco euros, que un sobre con una nave de papel casi diez euros y que una figura cabezona de plástico esté cerca de los veinte euros. Si se ha conseguido sobrevivir a esta dura prueba, quedan las sesiones de fotos en escenarios de la película, a cinco euros como mínimo. Y uno no puede evitar la sensación de que esta exposición no es más que un "saca-cuartos" y una excusa para que los irracionales fans compremos algún recuerdo a precio de barril de petróleo. Y no entiendo por qué esta búsqueda desesperada de dinero, porque a George Lucas y su gente no les hace falta para llegar a fin de mes...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)