In the middle of the summer of carpe diem, in which without a reservation it is very difficult to dine almost anywhere (again this is what my Krahe survey tells me)the lack of employees has pernicious effects on the quality of service. But it doesn’t matter too much: before we freeze in autumn, it seems that they have collectively decided to hurry up the summer even though the cañas and bravas take longer than usual to be served. Neither inflation, nor the umpteenth wave of covid, nor the clouds that come from the north seem to distress us. The data
Economists speak of reserves made before the war in Ukraine, of savings pools generated by the pandemic, of the injection of cash from European funds. But the numbers and data do not explain everything: the photographs of the Sanfermines chupinazo were not the classic debauchery of the pre-pandemic years. There was debauchery, of course, and alcohol and wine-stained white t-shirts, but the images also showed a collective cut of the sleeves to ashens, warriors, bored, epidemiologists, percentages, interest rates, pundits and central bank officials. This August 15 in Spain will be worth seeing, it will be the end of the world to the sound of the Eclipse and Maravilla orchestras that populate the country. And then, well, we’ll see what we do, how well Isabel Díaz Ayuso knew how to read the collective state of mind, the wind of the times.
The relationship between economics and psychology is more than studied. If we all say all the time that in the fall we will enter a recession, if we are convinced of it, we can take it for granted that we will indeed enter a recession. to the facts (the price of energy, the increase in interest rates, the rise in credit and mortgages, for example) will be joined by the stoppage of consumption caused by the pessimistic mood in families and companies. Maybe yes, maybe we won’t go into a recession. What we can surely already know is that waiters’ salaries will not increase in the fall just as they have not increased with the labor shortage in the summer, betting on low wages is a sure thing in the Spanish economy.
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Germanic mentalities observe with suspicion, and even stupor, the summer of carpe diem. They tell us that in the rest of Europe they are preparing for autumn and winter, which, as is well known, is cruel and inhospitable. when only Siberian wind arrives from Russia and not gas. In the geostrategic and macroeconomic version of the fable of the ant and the cicada, in which ordinary Spaniards play the role of irresponsible people who do not know where the shots are going compared to our judicious neighbors. These apostles of austerity ignore that the collapsed airports are European, that the tourists who are going to shower our coasts and bars with euros this summer are also European, and that the bad mood and post-pandemic satiation is everywhere: look, if not, at Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and the waning popularity of Joe Biden.
Fed up with crises, pandemics, wars and misfortunes, the 20s of the 21st century are those of carpe diem. Thoughtless? Perhaps. Will there be a hangover? Sure, and hard. Understandable? Also. And positive: the summer from which they take away the bailao will fill the pantries with many ants so that they are not cicadas in the fall. As long as they don’t work as waitresses, of course.