Daniel Viaña: "Of course my generation will receive pensions, although they may be less generous"

(Éibar, 1984) says

that «numbers can say one thing or its opposite: you just have to know how to manipulate them».

He releases it very calmly, without blushing, a journalist! But what is this!

And start laughing: the journalist's job, of course, is to reveal that political manipulation so that it doesn't infect the reader.

We breathe.

It is this contextualizing desire of journalism -precise by nature, revealing by extension- that has led Viaña to his editorial debut with

(The Sphere of Books).

What started in this newspaper in full confinement as a series of interviews with 60 of the most relevant economic minds in Spain -

-, now becomes Viaña's livelihood to write this on-board diary about the economy in times of pandemic, with an eye on the future and on the

.

Without wishing to bother, but many readers will wonder: what is the value of compiling interviews already published? There is one essential: highlighting that many important minds in the Spanish economy think similarly about certain aspects.

As you have read it, you see that I thread them, I contextualize them and I draw my conclusions.

What I have done is lean on people smarter than me, with more experience and with more capacity to try to explain an important moment in the Spanish economy but going beyond the economic sphere and covid. Let's go by chapters.

The first highlights that Spain is a bipolar country because it sinks in crises and rises in boom periods.

Doesn't it happen to the rest of the countries? No, not so much.

Spain is more vulnerable than most countries in crises and then, when it comes back,

makes it stronger.

Now it has been the country whose GDP has sunk the most in the Eurozone, it is expected to recover at the end of this year when the average of the Eurozone has already done so.

And Nadia Calviño highlighted these days that Spain is going to be the engine of growth in the coming years.

And yes, of course, but also because we came from a very big smack.

We have only experienced crisis and recovery, crisis and recovery.

In the years of Aznar and Zapatero there were periods of growth that were much higher than those of the rest of Europe, there was talk of a Spanish miracle... But when the 2008 crisis came and Spain had to be rescued, the epigraphs show that we are not facing a aseptic book.

One of them reads: “Raise taxes in the worst recession.

What can go wrong?" There is intention,

to begin with because I express conclusions that have been obtained through the interviews.

And the intention is not to reach preconceived conclusions but the opposite.

Experts maintain that with the economy collapsing, it was not a good time to raise taxes.

Several proper names appear.

Recurring is that of Minister José Luis Escrivá: "From when they discovered that they did not like the political Escrivá so much."

You cover activity related to the Ministry of Social Security. Has this "change" been verified in the published information? In your work?

I think that in the conclusions of the book it is clear that the overturn does not take place in Escrivá but in his attributions.

Now he is a politician and before that he was a technician, a highly respected economist in a body, the AIReF, which thanks to him achieved a very high level of prestige.

What many economists told me is a certain disappointment: first, because he has gone from the auditor, AIReF, to the auditee, which is the Government.

And after he had gotten into politics.

Doctor in Economic Sciences María Blanco said that it is very cool to be a minister and Professor Alberto Montero, that Escrivá is a great technician, but that does not necessarily make you a good politician. Hey, Daniel: you are 37 years old, do you think that you will receive a pension? Of course, my generation will receive a pension.

Perhaps one option is that they will be less generous than they are now.

The pension system, as the experts explain, is generous, because it gives much more than it receives.

I am not saying that pensions are too high, I am saying that, with the averages in hand, the system facing what you contribute and what you receive is generous, because you receive much more than what you have contributed. The interviewees agree that the problem is in its financing.

There has been consensus on the urgency of its reform for years but nobody has...Look, before we talked about Escrivá.

He saw before him a challenge to really reform the pension system and all the experts agree that the most pleasant part has been done, such as indexing them to the CPI, but the most unpleasant part is missing: where are the funds going to come from?

There are those who think that with taxes, others, the most purist, say that the system should be nourished only by what is paid in social contributions. The generational discourse, by the way, takes us to another chapter: «Living worse than your parents and the end of the middle class.” Well, now the normal thing is to access a home at 40 and it doesn't seem normal to me.

Before at that age you already had 10-15 years amortized.

I believe that the purchasing power of the middle class is now lower than it was in my parents' generation.

Live worse?

They will say: you have technologies within your reach that were unthinkable for them, knowing countries, higher education... That's true, but if you go in economic terms, purchasing power, being able to buy a house, being able to average salary to live comfortably... Without a doubt, I used to be older.

It is something that I have asked many times to people who have studied it in depth and everyone knows the theory but nobody knows how the final figures are reached.

Some experts even say that the result is marked and the figures above are invented, others, that it is a political rinse.

I have spoken with experts such as Ángel de la Fuente or Ignacio Zubiri and they maintain that applying what they say they apply does not give the results that do: it is a hoax.

I have also asked who defends the foral system and their arguments are based on the history of the Basque Country and Navarra.

That's fine, but if it is admitted that it is a political option, at least it must be applied in a transparent manner.

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Know more

• Social Security

• Jose Luis Escriva

• Coronavirus

• pensions

• Articles David Lema

Pensions The State will inject 36,000 million into Social Security this year, but will continue to have a 6,000 deficit

International Monetary FundThe IMF fears for the sustainability of pensions and calls on Spain to reduce public debt

Social Security The PNV hopes to imminently close the transfer of the Minimum Income and will demand that of pensions from May

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