PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Primavera 2024

[Zelig]

Cuando Asustadísimos se refiere al Hos*** o al Punto Final... lo que viene inmediatamente después es una caída o un derrumbe de precios. Y la noticia de hoy, por asociación de ideas, me ha llevado a pensar precisamente en el derrumbe y en las consecuencias del mismo. La caída de los precios inmobiliarios provocará el aplastamiento a nivel económico o financiero de tanta gente que ha invertido y se ha endeudado en el inmobiliario. Es una imagen o representación mental, nada más.

Una de "huevofritismo".

Seis personas de mi cercanía extendida (de unas ¿80? que conozco más o menos bien) han comprado piso después de la pandemia. Sólo una para vivir. El resto como inversión para alquiler.
Ninguno se va a ir a la quiebra. Pueden palmar bastante dinero y quedarse con un pisito bastante difícil de colocar, pero ninguno va a dejar de pagar la poca hipoteca que tienen, todos han metido del 50% al 100% en efectivo.

Haciendo unas cuentas rápidas veo que en Madrid hay 2.500.000 pernoctaciones al año de un millón y pico de turistas. 25.000 viviendas vacacionales por 365 me da 9 millones. Aquí se ve que la oferta demanda no funciona del todo y sin contar con la existencia y nueva proliferación de hoteles.

Habrá alguno que deba millonadas y quiebre y le deje 10 zulos al banco, pero ni de coña ni al 80% de deuda.
Si los constructores no están construyendo algo se olerán de lo de la demanda. Desde la pandemia que sigo unos Lofts con terraza que me interesaron y ahí siguen a la venta. ¿Es normal más de 3 años para vender una promoción con lo malisimamente mal que está la oferta?

Ahora mismo no se está construyendo mucho. Lo "inmobiliario" contrata a cuatro corbatas verdes. No veo que nos arrastre a la caida como en 2007. Más bien al revés, nos desahogaría bastante.

No sé, creo que ahora mismo si se fuera al peo el precio del pisito no veo a nadie arruinandose "2008 style". Perdiendo fantasias animadas sí.

Otra cosa son los fondos buitres y demás chiringuitazos, pero esos son especialistas en desaparecer y dejar la oficina limpia de un día a otro y a unos miles de filatélicos asustados.

[Noodles]

Cuando Asustadísimos se refiere al Hos*** o al Punto Final... lo que viene inmediatamente después es una caída o un derrumbe de precios. Y la noticia de hoy, por asociación de ideas, me ha llevado a pensar precisamente en el derrumbe y en las consecuencias del mismo. La caída de los precios inmobiliarios provocará el aplastamiento a nivel económico o financiero de tanta gente que ha invertido y se ha endeudado en el inmobiliario. Es una imagen o representación mental, nada más.

Una de "huevofritismo".

Seis personas de mi cercanía extendida (de unas ¿80? que conozco más o menos bien) han comprado piso después de la pandemia. Sólo una para vivir. El resto como inversión para alquiler.
Ninguno se va a ir a la quiebra. Pueden palmar bastante dinero y quedarse con un pisito bastante difícil de colocar, pero ninguno va a dejar de pagar la poca hipoteca que tienen, todos han metido del 50% al 100% en efectivo.

Haciendo unas cuentas rápidas veo que en Madrid hay 2.500.000 pernoctaciones al año de un millón y pico de turistas. 25.000 viviendas vacacionales por 365 me da 9 millones. Aquí se ve que la oferta demanda no funciona del todo y sin contar con la existencia y nueva proliferación de hoteles.

Habrá alguno que deba millonadas y quiebre y le deje 10 zulos al banco, pero ni de coña ni al 80% de deuda.
Si los constructores no están construyendo algo se olerán de lo de la demanda. Desde la pandemia que sigo unos Lofts con terraza que me interesaron y ahí siguen a la venta. ¿Es normal más de 3 años para vender una promoción con lo malisimamente mal que está la oferta?

Ahora mismo no se está construyendo mucho. Lo "inmobiliario" contrata a cuatro corbatas verdes. No veo que nos arrastre a la caida como en 2007. Más bien al revés, nos desahogaría bastante.

No sé, creo que ahora mismo si se fuera al peo el precio del pisito no veo a nadie arruinandose "2008 style". Perdiendo fantasias animadas sí.

Otra cosa son los fondos buitres y demás chiringuitazos, pero esos son especialistas en desaparecer y dejar la oficina limpia de un día a otro y a unos miles de filatélicos asustados.

Entonces no habrá hostión 2025? (Pregunto)

Y los transicionistas seguimos "echados al monte" y ya van...

100/100 (q recuerdos)   

Q vuelva ppcc a rondar los foros de noticias, que al menos nos entreteniamos cuando algún "purasangre" le discutia

Asustadisimos no es ni la sombra de Pisitófilos Creditófagos

Emosido Engañado 

[senslev]

Ppcc acertó en su día , hubo bajadas de entre el 40 y 60%. Lo que esperábamos, en general pienso yo, es que lo que pasó no iba a volver a pasar. Pero se ha decidido otra cosa, bienvenido Mr. Feudalismo. Creo que los bbcc han tenido mucho que ver o, más bien, quiénes controlan los bbcc.

En cualquier caso habrá reversión a la media, y cuanto más se estire la estupidez, más hostión habrá, como tantas otras veces. ¡Es el ser humano, amigos!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds

Digamos que el ladrillo vale infinito, bueno, pues después vendrá la energía, luego vendrá la sanidad, luego la educación, luego la alimentación, luego el agua y finalmente, se inventarán algo para acaparar oxígeno en botellitas, y si no puedes pagarlas...es el mercado amigos.

Tal y como está montado, sólo puede quedar uno.

[tomasjos]

El.hecho de que no puedas sacarle al pisito más que el 30 o 40 por ciento de su precio de compra o que el alquiler se divida por tres o directamente no se alquile y haya que pagar comunidades e ibis ya es un palo gordo. Fin al efecto riqueza - nadie podrá vivir como un raja sumando el sueldo y dos o tres pisos de alquiler- y a partir de ahí veremos qué pasa.

[Centinela]

[Visionado obligatorio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCWG8jGdB2g
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs]

Excelente entrevista. Efectivamente el miedo es la emoción predominante y el motor de la geopolítica, principalmente del lado de los USA. La tristeza de Sachs es conmovedora.

Desde que empezó la guerra de Ucrania, me han sorprendido las opiniones de Jeffrey Sachs, su currículum vitae me hacía pensar que era más otro halcón de think tank estadounidense.

Y si, la verdad es que lo noticiable sería que Estados Unidos no quisiera guerra. Como dicen en mi pueblo, a los americanos les gusta la guerra más que a los perros la uva.

[asustadísimos]

[La desinmobiliarización de la economía trae consigo la muerte del orgullo de 'himbersor' inmobiliario y, con esta, una ola de libertad. No va a ser siempre comer mierda, ¿no?

Me viene a la cabeza el 'Lascia ch'io pianga' de Händel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrJTmpt43hg           

• Lascia ch’io pianga
       Deja que llore
• Mia cruda sorte,
       por mi cruel destino,
• E che sospiri la libertà!
       ¡Y que suspire por la libertad!
• E che sospiri,
       Y que suspire
• E che sospiri la libertà!
       ¡Y que suspire por la libertad!
• Lascia ch’io pianga
       Deja que llore
• Mia cruda sorte,
       por mi cruel destino,
• E che sospiri la libertà!
       ¡Y que suspire por la libertad!
• Il duolo infranga
       Rompa el dolor
• Queste ritorte
       esta revuelta
• De miei martiri
       de mi martirio.
• Sol per pietà,
       ¡Solo por piedad!
• De miei martiri
       De mi martiri...
• Sol per pietà.
       ¡Solo por piedad!
• E che sospiri la libertà!
       ¡Y que suspire por la libertad!
• E che sospiri la libertà!
       ¡Y que suspire por la libertad!

P. S.: No olviden que el juego de dinero-sin-trabajar de El Ladrillo dejó de funcionar con la avaricia en la segunda mitad de los 2000. Ahora funciona con el miedo, ya sea a quedarse en la calle, ya, a quedarse con dinero. Pero ninguno de los miedos es real. El sector lo genera artificialmente a golpe de desinformación. No coman mierda, por favor.]

[Derby]

https://www.apolloacademy.com/the-outlook-for-inflation/

The Outlook for Inflation

Demographic trends will weigh on inflation over the coming decades, but the secular stagnation forces pulling inflation down are currently being offset by upward pressures on inflation coming from deglobalization, energy transition, defense spending, restrictions on immigration, easy financial conditions, and easy fiscal policy.

Put differently, the structural forces pushing inflation down are currently being offset by cyclical forces putting upward pressure on inflation.

That’s the reason why interest rates will not only be higher for longer in the short term but also in the longer term, see also the second chart, which shows that the market is currently pricing that the Fed funds rate will be between 4% and 5% over the coming years.

[Derby]

https://www.wsj.com/world/birthrates-global-decline-cause-ddaf8be2

Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed.

Birthrates are falling fast across countries, ​with economic, social and geopolitical ​consequences
(...)

[R.G.C.I.M.]

https://www.wsj.com/world/birthrates-global-decline-cause-ddaf8be2

Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed.

Birthrates are falling fast across countries, ​with economic, social and geopolitical ​consequences
(...)

Que interesante.
No solo el gráfico.  Sino su autor.
Parece que la familia hizo los deberes y el servidor publicp de la administración de 3er nivel supo educar a los descendientes para que mereciesen el salto a servidor de la administr del 1er nivel.

Fdez-villaverde.

Casual.ebte justo ahora estaba repasando universo 25 de calhun. Me pone el conceto de hundimiento comportamental.

Sds.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed.
Birthrates are falling fast across countries, ​with economic, social and geopolitical ​consequences

By Greg Ip and Janet Adamy · 2024.05.13

Children played on swings at a school in Tamba, Japan. Buddhika Weerasinghe/Bloomberg News

The world is at a startling demographic milestone. Sometime soon, the global fertility rate will drop below the point needed to keep population constant. It may have already happened.

Fertility is falling almost everywhere, for women across all levels of income, education and labor-force participation. The falling birthrates come with huge implications for the way people live, how economies grow and the standings of the world’s superpowers.

Demographics are supposed to be a slow-moving force, but the baby bust is happening so quickly and so widely that it's taken many by surprise.

Some estimates now put the number of babies each woman has below the global replacement rate of about 2.2. The U.S. long ago passed that level. South Korea’s rate, the world’s lowest, was once unimaginable.

In high-income nations, fertility fell below replacement in the 1970s, and took a leg down during the pandemic. It’s dropping in developing countries, too. India surpassed China as the most populous country last year, yet its fertility is now below replacement.

“The demographic winter is coming,” said Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, an economist specializing in demographics at the University of Pennsylvania. 
​
Many government leaders see this as a matter of national urgency. They worry about shrinking workforces, slowing economic growth and underfunded pensions; and the vitality of a society with ever-fewer children. Smaller populations come with diminished global clout, raising questions in the U.S., China and Russia about their long-term standings as superpowers.

Some demographers think the world’s population could start shrinking within four decades—one of the few times it’s happened in history.

Donald Trump, this year’s presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has called collapsing fertility a bigger threat to Western civilization than Russia. A year ago Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared that the collapse of the country’s birthrate left it “standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society.” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has prioritized raising the country’s “demographic GDP.”

Governments have rolled out programs to stop the decline—but so far they’ve barely made a dent.

A father held his baby in a newborn care unit in Patiala, India. Photo: Elke Scholiers/Getty Images

Demographic surprise

In 2017, when the global fertility rate—a snapshot of how many babies a woman is expected to have over her lifetime—was 2.5, the United Nations thought it would slip to 2.4 in the late 2020s. Yet by 2021, the U.N. concluded, it was already down to 2.3—close to what demographers consider the global replacement rate of about 2.2. The replacement rate, which keeps population stable over time, is 2.1 in rich countries, and slightly higher in developing countries, where fewer girls than boys are born and more mothers die during their childbearing years.

While the U.N. has yet to publish estimated fertility rates for 2022 and 2023, Fernández-Villaverde has produced his own estimate by supplementing U.N. projections with actual data for those years covering roughly half the world’s population. He has found that national birth registries are typically reporting births 10% to 20% below what the U.N. projected.

Rosie Ettenheim/ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

China reported 9 million births last year, 16% less than projected in the U.N.’s central scenario. In the U.S., 3.59 million babies were born last year, 4% less than the U.N. projected. In other countries, the undershoot is even larger: Egypt reported 17% fewer births last year. In 2022, Kenya reported 18% fewer.

Fernández-Villaverde estimates global fertility fell to between 2.1 and 2.2 last year, which he said would be below global replacement for the first time in human history. Dean Spears, a population economist at the University of Texas at Austin, said while the data isn’t good enough to know precisely when or if fertility has fallen below replacement, “we have enough evidence to be quite confident about…the crossing point not being far off.”

In 2017 the U.N. projected world population, then 7.6 billion, would keep climbing to 11.2 billion in 2100. By 2022 it had lowered and brought forward the peak to 10.4 billion in the 2080s. That, too, is likely out of date. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington now thinks it will peak around 9.5 billion in 2061 then start declining.

Rosie Ettenheim/ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

In the U.S., a short-lived pandemic baby boomlet has reversed. The total fertility rate fell to 1.62 last year, according to provisional government figures, the lowest on record.

Had fertility stayed near 2.1, where it stood in 2007, the U.S. would have welcomed an estimated 10.6 million more babies since, according to Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire.

In 2017, when the fertility rate was 1.8, the Census Bureau projected it would converge over the long run to 2.0. It has since revised that down to 1.5. “It has snuck up on us,” said Melissa Kearney, an economist at the University of Maryland specializing in demographics.

A second demographic transition?

Historians refer to the decline in fertility that began in the 18th century in industrializing countries as the demographic transition. As lifespans lengthened and more children survived to adulthood, the impetus for bearing more children declined. As women became better educated and joined the workforce, they delayed marriage and childbirth, resulting in fewer children.

Now, said Spears, “the big-picture fact is that birthrates are low or are falling in many diverse societies and economies.”

Some demographers see this as part of a “second demographic transition,” a societywide reorientation toward individualism that puts less emphasis on marriage and parenthood, and makes fewer or no children more acceptable.

Rosie Ettenheim/ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

In the U.S., some thought at first that women were simply delaying childbirth because of lingering economic uncertainty from the 2008 financial crisis.

In research published in 2021, the University of Maryland’s Kearney and two co-authors looked for possible explanations for the continued drop. They found that state-level differences in parental abortion notification laws, unemployment, Medicaid availability, housing costs, contraceptive usage, religiosity, child-care costs and student debt could explain almost none of the decline. “We suspect that this shift reflects broad societal changes that are hard to measure or quantify,” they conclude.

Kearney said while raising children is no more expensive than before, parents’ preferences and perceived constraints have changed: “If people have a preference for spending time building a career, on leisure, relationships outside the home, that’s more likely to come in conflict with childbearing.”

Meanwhile, time-use data show that mothers and fathers, especially those that are highly educated, spend more time with their children than in the past. “The intensity of parenting is a constraint,” Kearney said.

Erica Pittman, a 45-year-old business banker in Raleigh, N.C., said she and her husband opted to have only one child because of demands on their time, including caring for her mother, who died last year after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. Their 8-year-old son is able to participate in theater workshops, soccer and summer camps because the couple, with a combined income of about $225,000 a year, has more time and money.

The Pittman family in Raleigh, N.C. Photo: Angela Owens/The Wall Street Journal

The Pittmans outside their home. Photo: Angela Owens/The Wall Street Journal

“I feel like a better mom,” Pittman said. “I feel like I can go to work—because I have a fairly demanding job—but I can also make time to volunteer at his school, be the chaperone for the field trip and do those kinds of things, because I only have one to coordinate with my schedule.”

Pittman said she only questions their decision when her son says he wishes he had a sibling to play with. In response, she and her husband, a middle-school history teacher, pick vacation destinations with a kids’ club, such as a Disney cruise, so her son can play with others his age.

‘Plugged into the global culture’

Fertility is below replacement in India even though the country is still poor and many women don’t work—factors that usually sustain fertility.

Urbanization and the internet have given even women in traditional male-dominated villages a glimpse of societies where fewer children and a higher quality of life are the norm. “People are plugged into the global culture,” said Richard Jackson, president of the Global Aging Institute, a nonprofit research and education group.

Mae Mariyam Thomas, 38, who lives in Mumbai and runs an audio production company, said she’s opted against having children because she never felt the tug of motherhood. She sees peers struggling to meet the right person, getting married later and, in some instances, divorcing before they have kids. At least three of her friends have frozen their eggs, she said.

“I think now we live in a really different world, so I think for anyone in the world it’s tough to find a partner,” she said.

Sub-Saharan Africa once appeared resistant to the global slide in fertility, but that too is changing. The share of all women of reproductive age using modern contraception grew from 17% in 2012 to 23% in 2022, according to Family Planning 2030, an international organization.

Mae Mariyam Thomas, at her house in Mumbai, India, has opted to not have children. Photo: Atul Loke for The Wall Street Journal

Mothers held their premature babies at a hospital in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Photo: issouf sanogo/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Jose Rimon, a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University, credits that to a push by national leaders in Africa which, he predicted, would drive fertility down faster than the U.N. projects.

Once a low fertility cycle kicks in, it effectively resets a society’s norms and is thus hard to break, said Jackson. “The fewer children you see your colleagues and peers and neighbors having, it changes the whole social climate,” he said.

Danielle Vermeer grew up third in a family of four children on Chicago’s North Side, where her neighborhood was filled with Catholics of Italian, Irish and Polish descent and half her close friends had as many siblings as her or more. Her Italian-American father was one of four children who produced 14 grandchildren. Now her parents have five grandchildren, including Vermeer’s two children, ages 4 and 7.

The 35-year-old, who is the co-founder of a fashion thrifting app, said that before setting out to have children, she consulted dozens of other couples and her Catholic church and read at least eight books on the subject, including one by Pope Paul VI. She and her husband settled on two as the right number.

“The act of bringing a child into this world is an incredible responsibility,” she said.

Rosie Ettenheim/ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

New policies

Governments have tried to reverse the fall in fertility with pronatalist policies. 

Perhaps no country has been trying longer than Japan. After fertility fell to 1.5 in the early 1990s, the government rolled out a succession of plans that included parental leave and subsidized child care. Fertility kept falling.

In 2005, Kuniko Inoguchi was appointed the country’s first minister responsible for gender equality and birthrate. The main obstacle, she declared, was money: People couldn’t afford to get married or have children. Japan made hospital maternity care free and introduced a stipend paid upon birth of the child.

Japan’s fertility rate climbed from 1.26 in 2005 to 1.45 in 2015. But then it started declining again, and in 2022 was back to 1.26.

This year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida rolled out yet another program to increase births that extends monthly allowances to all children under 18 regardless of income, free college for families with three children, and fully paid parental leave.

Inoguchi, now a member of parliament’s upper house, said the constraint on would-be parents is no longer money, but time. She has pressed the government and businesses to adopt a four-day workweek. She said, “If you’re a government official or manager of a big corporation, you should not worry over questions of salary now, but that in 20 years time you will have no customers, no clients, no applicants to the Self-Defense Forces.”

An event celebrating Children’s Day in Tokyo on May 5. Photo: Gu Yiping/XINHUA/Zuma Press

Doctors and nurses took care of a baby in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary. Photo: attila balazs/epa-efe/rex/Shutterstock

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has pushed one of Europe’s most ambitious natality agendas. Last year he expanded tax benefits for mothers so that women under the age of 30 who have a child are exempt from paying personal income tax for life. That’s on top of housing and child-care subsidies as well as generous maternity leaves.

Hungary’s fertility rate, though still well below replacement, has risen since 2010. But the Vienna Institute of Demography attributed this primarily to women delaying childbirth because of a debt crisis that hit around 2010. Adjusted for that, fertility has risen only slightly, it concluded.

In the U.S., while state and federal legislators have pushed to expand child-care subsidies and parental leave, they have generally not set a higher birthrate as an explicit goal. Some Republicans, though, are leaning in that direction. Last year, Trump said he backed paying out “baby bonuses” to prop up U.S. births, and GOP Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake recently endorsed the idea.

Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio said falling fertility matters beyond the economic pressures of a smaller labor force and unfunded Social Security. “Do you live in communities where there are smiling happy children, or where people are just aging?” he said in an interview. Lack of siblings and cousins, he said, contributes to children’s social isolation.

He’s studied potential solutions, in particular Hungary’s approach, but hasn’t seen proof of anything that works over the long term.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found little evidence that pronatalist policies lead to sustained rebounds in fertility. A woman may get pregnant sooner to capture a baby
bonus, researchers say, but likely won’t have more kids over the course of her lifetime.

Economic pressure

With no reversal in birthrates in sight, the attendant economic pressures are intensifying. Since the pandemic, labor shortages have become endemic throughout developed countries. That will only worsen in coming years as the postcrisis fall in birthrates yields an ever-shrinking inflow of young workers, placing more strain on healthcare and retirement systems.

Neil Howe, a demographer at Hedgeye Risk Management, has pointed to a recent World Bank report suggesting that worsening demographics could make this a second consecutive “lost decade” for global economic growth.

The usual prescription in advanced countries is more immigration, but that has two problems. As more countries confront stagnant population, immigration between them is a zero-sum game. Historically, host countries have sought skilled migrants who enter through formal, legal channels, but recent inflows have been predominantly unskilled migrants often entering illegally and claiming asylum.

High levels of immigration have also historically aroused political resistance, often over concerns about cultural and demographic change. A shrinking native-born population is likely to intensify such concerns. Many of the leaders keenest to raise birthrates are most resistant to immigration.

A woman helped her mother-in-law in Hoengseong, South Korea. Photo: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

As birthrates fall, more regions and communities experience depopulation, with consequences ranging from closed schools to stagnant property values. Less selective colleges will soon struggle to fill classrooms because of the plunge in birthrates that began in 2007, said Fernández-Villaverde. Vance said rural hospitals can’t stay open because of the falling local population. 

An economy with fewer children will struggle to finance pensions and healthcare for growing ranks of elderly. South Korea’s national pension fund, one of the world’s largest, is on track to be depleted by 2055. A special legislative committee recently presented several possible pension reforms, but there’s only a short window to act before the next presidential election campaign heats up.

There’s been little public pressure to act, said Sok Chul Hong, an economist at Seoul National University. “The elderly are not very interested in pension reform, and the youth are apathetic towards politics,” he said. “It is truly an ironic situation.”

—Anthony DeBarros contributed to this article

Saludos.

[Mistermaguf]

Digamos que el ladrillo vale infinito, bueno, pues después vendrá la energía, luego vendrá la sanidad, luego la educación, luego la alimentación, luego el agua y finalmente, se inventarán algo para acaparar oxígeno en botellitas, y si no puedes pagarlas...es el mercado amigos.

Tal y como está montado, sólo puede quedar uno.

Bueno, no hace falta irse más lejos que a USA para ver que su burbuja sanitaria es muchísimo más escandalosa que la inmobiliaria; existe casi desde que existe USA y no solo a nadie le parece raro, sino que lo ven como uno de sus pilares de libertad económica: cuando se comparan con la tradición europea de sistemas públicos de salud (cuyos costes están mucho más ajustados con el valor real de esos servicios) se consuelan diciendo que ellos pagan muchos menos impuestos y que lo bueno es que ellos pueden decidir "cuándo y cómo quieren pagar sus gastos sin que el estado los obligue a nada".

De ese modo, nadie ve nada extraño en que una pequeña intervención ambulatoria de rutina se facture en miles de dólares. Yo he sido testigo de facturas de 1.600 dólares por una consulta externa debida a una fisura en un dedo, que se solventó en hora y media mediante una radiografía, un vendaje rígido y una receta de analgésicos para 4 días. Bastó un médico generalista y una enfermera para realizar ese trabajo de altísima capacitación. Pero el paciente estaba muy contento porque el seguro médico le cubría el 80% de costo, y él "sólo" tuvo que pagar apenas unos 300 dólares.

No hace falta ser muy espabiláo para notar que esos 300 dólares ya cubren muy sobradamente los gastos de una consulta, una radiografía y un vendaje (incluyendo el tiempo de trabajo del personal sanitario, el material médico, la amortización de las instalaciones y el equipamiento sanitario y todo lo que quieras ponerle encima). Más aún, ese precio probablemente ya es el doble del coste real. De modo que los otros 1.300 dólares (que son un 500% de humo agregado por sus santos cojones) es el impuesto revolucionario que el complejo jurídico-farmacéutico-sanitario usano se embolsa por las bravas ante las narices de todo el mundo.

En cualquier caso la pregunta es ¿cómo es posible que nadie advierta que esos precios disparatados no tienen ninguna relación con el coste o el valor del servicio prestado? ¿Alguien cree que diagnosticar y entablillar un dedo cuesta 1.600 dólares? Y sin embargo eso es posible, y para lograrlo sólo tienes que usar el método de la rana en la olla durante años, que consiste en "naturalizar" el absurdo.

La "naturalización" de algo es uno de los métodos de control social más efectivos y baratos, y se ha utilizado desde que existe la civilización humana. El único inconveniente es que en términos económicos tienes que limitarlo a uno o dos ítems, porque la realidad no permite el disparate generalizado en todo a la vez: en nuestras sociedades se ha convenido que la naturalización del latrocinio esté cebada en lo inmobiliario, pero en cuanto esto no dé más de sí se intentará con lo siguiente que está en cola. Teniendo en cuenta los antecedentes, los dos sectores más obvios son la salud, la energía, o ambos.

Hacia allí vamos. esto del ortograma y los cuarteles generales no lo veo yo muy prometedor, digo yo en cómodamente sentado en mi sillón de mediodía sabatino...