A few weeks ago, around the Christmas holidays, Isabel Díaz Ayuso had the audacity, the wit, the courage or call it what you prefer, to ask the people of Madrid and all those who come to the capital to enjoy this healthy environmental coolness that be generous with the waiters, stretch a little and tip a little more. At this time I do not know if the president’s request will have had its effects on a large scale, but I know for sure that there is at least one who has taken the idea seriously and has listened to Díaz Ayuso, he is his great political rival Pedro Sanchez.
The president decided, about ten days ago and now it has come into force, to give a good “tip” of 17 euros a month -0.55 cents a day-, which means a total of just 200 euros a year, to all vulnerable families with annual incomes of less than 27,000 euros. Those 17 euros per month sound like a practical joke, even if it is for a bonus. Less gives a stone! Some will say. Well, allow me to doubt it because this same Government with such a social conscience, at least in lip service, scratched its pocket, our finances, the same one that we all pay for, to give a free Youth Cultural Bonus of 400 euros, double the money that families in need, and thus be able to celebrate the anniversary of those Spaniards who will reach their majority, 18 years.
In addition to an open bar for all, for high and low, rich or needy… there was great annoyance with the surreptitious intentions of an Executive who always acts exclusively based on his interests. The question was clear: Why doesn’t the Government pay those who turn 16 or 17? Perhaps it is, and they do not think that I am rude, only those over 18 because they can go to the polls, and that is a shameless way of ‘buying’ their vote. Total, the money does not belong to anyone and the girl is very grateful when it comes to letting herself be spread with butter. It is the way that the Moncloa gardener has of taking a good look at his “flowers”; On the other hand, the other flowers, those of the tax class, are squeezed a little more and that they give them two cacti and a new raise of.
But let’s get to the heart of the matter which includes other tips and electoral issues. No one doubts that Pedro Sánchez is concerned about the poor, but he is as concerned as 18-year-olds, basically so that they continue to be poor and, above all, continue to “need” that help; and in case they have any doubt that they no longer have it and decide to vote for him, who is the only one who pays for his poverty, instead of helping to get them a good job. That is the great labor need that this country has and that is promoted so scarcely by this Executive that is content to cheat with discontinuous landlines and make up the unemployment data. The government’s problem is the lack of prudence when it comes to reinventing and misrepresenting the obvious data. They have insisted that reality is determined by them and they do not allow anyone to question their laboratory results. Since they changed the president of the INE, the indicators have begun to “work” for the gallery according to the taste of Pedro Sánchez. You are so clear. Long live the INE and its data that always comes out to ask for us!
Common sense warns that helping those who are in the queues of hunger, those who are really poor, cannot be achieved with ‘tips’ or appetizers, with third degree patches. The poor are helped by offering them a job so that they stop being one as soon as possible. When they give you economic “help” that allows you to live badly, it is difficult for one to enter into the dynamics of real work and the necessary prosperity. Even if they give you a salary and they pay you a little more, you get so used to the fact that others provide you with everything -including salary and vote- without the need to make a minimum effort, and lose all capacity for improvement and prosperity. I am not referring only to this Government but to all those who, in one way or another, condemn citizens to continue being poor because of the indolence and carelessness of politicians who are not capable of taking more decisive and prosperous attitudes to the social good of the majority.
The poor are not helped with tips in an election year, but they offer good training and show them that there is an interesting world of work that can make you a “superior” and more dignified being when you achieve the desire to fight for your job and your Personal development. They, the politicians, say that they do everything for you, that they have a social conscience and that they sacrifice themselves for your needs, that they are patatín and patatán, but they cannot achieve -because they do not want to- that companies offer more jobs, it would be enough to reduce a part of contributions to SMEs. But no, it is easier to raise taxes and give “tips” that cause electoral dependence, and emotional destruction.
Now that the psychological fact of motivation is so fashionable, we should demand that the unemployed also enjoy this possibility and attend mental preparation courses to recover their self-esteem, as well as their job, instead of parking them in their boring houses and with a miserable “paguita” that gives them to go through life. The famous phrase of the Chinese proverb is more necessary today than ever: “Give a man a fish and he will eat today. Teach him to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life”… and if, in addition to training him well, you prepare him mentally to distrust politicians, you turn him into a full-fledged citizen capable of not being influenced by the “tips” of his rulers. As Josep Plá said in one of his books, “when a friend asks you for money, don’t give it to him; buy him a good suit and a good tie, and let him get to work. You will save money, and you will make him happy.”
