Julio says goodbye, leaving most Europeans in the middle of vacation time. Meanwhile, last Friday, inflation hit a record in Spain, consolidating at over ten percent annually. A euro saved a year ago is now worth ninety cents and continues to depreciate day by day. The same is happening with our salaries, and it should be feared that if the arrival of recessionary winds this winter is confirmed (as the improved figures for the first six months in the United States show), our capital savings will fall as well. – real estate, stocks, mutual funds, pension plans – and unemployment is rising dramatically. Perhaps it will not affect Spain – I say recession – considering that we have not yet recovered the pre-pandemic wealth, but it will be difficult to emerge unscathed from a stagnant and hyperinflationary global context. Gas cuts planned for winter are like a metaphor for these new times: For many, the festive leaves are over and we are entering a new era defined by famine.
For the middle class—a very broad concept that encompasses the vast majority of workers in Spain—it should be said that this shortage began many years ago, with the advent of the euro and China’s entry into the global market. In reality it is a scarcity that we might more precisely call erosion and fracture. Erosion is the continuing impact of impoverishment on the per capita income of citizens: a slight wear and tear that accumulates from year to year until it reaches significant proportions. Rather than narrowing over the past two decades, this rupture is made up of the widening social divide despite the growth of social policies and the protective web required by the welfare state. To this must be added the destructive effect of technology, which concentrates wealth and makes work cheaper; industrial displacement, which only now – after confirming its effects – is starting to reverse itself; and the housing bubble, perhaps the most decisive factor in the process of social rupture. Moreover, it seems that there will be no social peace without quality and affordable housing. This is a problem that doubles the pain of supposedly successful cities (or geographies) from Madrid to Barcelona, Mallorca to Malaga. Behind the hyperinflation of the square meter lies the scorched earth of poverty. The fact that housing has not become the axis of welfare policies is one of the mysteries that can only be explained by ideological blindness or the darkest interests of capital.
Julio says goodbye and the holiday downtime is coming to an end. The sun, the beach, the mountains, dinners with friends, the rain of the stars, trips near or far, family reunions… it defines a timeless time and therefore no past, present and future. Autumn – as Patrick Modiano has rightly defined it – represents the season of projects, the movement. And movement does not always herald progress or progress. With inflation come bad times. And no one tells us how to defend ourselves.