Any social, personal or institutional problems, first thing an American does is to see how you can solve it by itself. A Spanish, instead, the first thing that happens is that the Government resolve. Or the community. Or the Town Hall. For that I pay my taxes!, it is usually your final argument. And that which, unlike other countries, here there is an important tax evasion, there is 20% of underground economy and usual in any fudge is that you ask.
Incl. or Excl. VAT?. The recent earthquake in Japan offers the last evidence of the usual transfer of liability to the Government. The citizens of that country have assumed the devastating consequences of the disaster with stoic resignation without requiring anything to anyone.
In contrast, first thing they did our compatriots residing there was complaining about the Spanish Embassy, as if their scarce officials only had to keep an eye on them day and night. It is that, as recalled one diplomat over another event, when an automobile accident woke up in a remote hospital, first thing he did was criticize the Spanish consul wasn’t next to her bed. If anything, this time, our Government sent a costly plane which, to make matters worse, returned half empty. By this peculiar national idiosyncrasies, what happens: how is that with a 20% unemployment not out people on the street in Spain to find work?, I was wondering the other day a foreign friend. Well because here we do not want to work but grants, subsidies and other Levantine, he was my embarrassed answer.