Warren Buffett’s 10 Rules and the Spanish Disaster

Few stories of success or failure happen by accident. In Spain, we have worked actively toward ruin and we still haven’t learned.

To take the reins in a country is not exactly the same as leading a family or a business. However, it is worth attesting to the golden principles of investor, entrepreneur, philanthropist and multibillionaire Warren Buffett. These principles — applied to his successful businesses — have been systematically violated and ignored in Spain, as much by leaders as by civilians. This is one more way to explain why our history is one of failure:

1. Reinvest your profits: Quite to the contrary, in Spain we have squandered ourselves, thinking more about the short term than the medium and long term. Everyone has been purely shortsighted.

2. Be different: Quite the contrary, in Spain we have made decisions based on what others were saying or doing. If my neighbor across the street bought two houses, I bought three. If he bought a nice German sedan, I bought a German SUV with all the extra features.

3. Don’t waste time: Quite the contrary, in Spain we have wasted time in bulk. Before beginning his useless life as a cloud watcher, Zapatero squandered our time with experimental, childish, hippie legislation supported by the intellectual bastions of Bibiana Aido.

4. Pay attention to details: Quite the contrary, in Spain we did not even examine the basics as to where our country’s future was heading.

5. Watch the small expenses: Quite the contrary, in Spain, any cost seemed small. We saw no difference between buying nice penthouses, booking nice vacations, or building a fancy convention center. When drinks are on the house, we order doubles.

6. Limit what you borrow: Quite the contrary, in Spain we have lived in the great delusion of abundant, cheap and easy money. We have not complied with our creditors or paid back our debts, nor have we been able to start saving money for reinvestment.

7. Be persistent: Quite the contrary, in Spain we have settled on the idea that after a failure it is best to run away, keel over, or succumb to the ostrich effect.

8. Know when to quit: Quite the contrary, in Spain, practically no one has known how to quit on time. We kept making bet after bet and the wreckage grew and grew.

9. Assess the risk: Quite the contrary, in Spain we have not learned how to consider the best and worse-case scenarios when making complicated decisions.

10. Know what success means: Quite the contrary, in Spain, we know nothing. A nation of strong men knows how to recover from the worst of failures. A nation of mediocrity is incapable of managing the best of successes.

And here we are. As you see, we have overturned Warren Buffet’s “10 Rules for Getting Rich,” in a way that caused us to travel down the most complete and direct road to poverty. Will we learn how to fix ourselves?