The Spanish savings banks (SSBs) built-up excess capacity and risk concentration influenced by many stakeholders’ interests, including politicians in their decision-making bodies. SSBs were not subject to typical market discipline mechanisms, and blurred competences between the central government and the autonomous provoked the crisis of the Spanish financial system. Read the full analysis by the IMF in the attached documents.
Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
The Spanish Financial crisis and its source, the Spanish Saving Banks
Tuesday, June 12th, 2012Balancing the Books
Monday, June 4th, 2012£2.9bn, the cumulative worth of the 92 league clubs in England and Wales for 2010/11, up 9% on the previous season.
Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance showed that despite the challenging economic conditions, football clubs are continuing to increase revenues and with £1.2bn paid to the treasury in Tax, football’s worth to the overall health of the economy cannot be underestimated.
Significantly, capital expenditure by these clubs totalled £167m in 2010/11 with over £3bn invested in stadia and facilities over the last 20 years. (more…)
Is Marriage a Legal Contract?
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012In the Volokh conspiracy blog, the question about marriage being a contract is asked.
He responded “I thought I’d respond to this on-blog because it illustrates a considerably broader point: In law, as in life, concepts like “contract” aren’t unitary things, so that either something is a contract and has all the properties of a contract or something isn’t a contract. There are different kinds of contract, with different qualities, and different possible definitions for the term “contract.”
To begin with, “contract” is a quite broad concept. I don’t want to try to give a thorough definition here, but suffice it to say that an exchange of promises might well be a contract even if the promises don’t involve money, goods, or even services. Thus, for instance, “Each of us promises not to be anyone else’s bridge partner” can be a contract; it’s an exchange of promises not to engage in certain conduct. (Note that the contract doesn’t promise that I’ll be your bridge partner, just that I won’t be anyone else’s.) Substitute something else for “bridge,” and you’ll have one aspect of a marriage contract. (more…)
Multiplication Philanthropy
Monday, May 21st, 2012Leverage is the mantra of the times in philanthropy, and rightly so. People want to know that the charities they support are using donations as effectively as possible. Donors and institutional funders are more demanding, more discerning, and less detached. They’re no longer content with writing a check and securing their place in heaven. They want results.
But they’re looking for them in the wrong places. They’re missing the greatest leverage point of all: the multiplying effects of smart investments in fundraising. If you want to maximize the social effects of your donation, why would you buy, for example, $100,000 worth of great educational programming for inner city kids when the same $100,000 directed toward fundraising could generate enough money to buy $1 million worth of it? (more…)
Football Financial Future
Friday, May 4th, 2012As reported by FC Business, Football League clubs took a huge step to self sufficiency when they agreed to the implementation of Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations last week. Based on the UEFA model, Championship clubs will have until the 2014/15 season to get their house in order or face stiff penalties.
Leagues One and Two will also introduce a version based on limiting a club’s spending on player wages as a proportion of total turnover. A similar rule has been in place in the League Two for a number of years now. (more…)
Lea Global Named Second Largest International Association
Monday, April 9th, 2012Konsilia is the LEA Global member in Qatar and Spain since 2005. Now LEA Global / The Leading Edge Alliance, has been ranked by the International Accounting Bulletin as the second largest international association of independent accounting firms for 2012.
The LEA Global is an international alliance of independently owned accounting and consulting firms. Established in 1999, The LEA has more than 180 member firms worldwide with collective revenues of 2.6 billion USD. There are approximately 100 countries represented in the association. (more…)
What Do We Lawyers Do?
Thursday, April 5th, 2012Many clients ask me what do you specifically do as a lawyer and how do you add value to my business and life?
Although I am an abogado in Spain and a barrister in England, I like to call myself Counsel as my main role is advising clients on courses of action affecting their own or their business’ well being.
As money, taxes and legal implications exist from the most mundane to the highest aspiration in this world, sound and friendly counsel plays a fundamental part in every client’s life.
Not trying to oversimplify the profession, the other roles we play in the context of Counseling are: (more…)
The Life and Work Balance Concept is Outdated
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011Although this is not a tax topic, it will influence the way we think and will probably make life less taxing. The authors of Tribal Leadership declare work-life balance as a nonsense concept. According to them if you let it, it will damage your career, hurt your family, make your life mediocre and make you feel guilty all the time.
The article published recently in Money Watch is included below.
In 2000, my Tribal Leadership co-author John King and I devoted a chapter in The Coaching Revolution to why work-life balance was an idea whose time had passed. More than a decade later, with global social and economic problems on the rise, it’s time to leave the “work-life balance” concept on the scrap heap of history and move on to a better model. For those who have been living in a cave for the last 20 years, work-life balance is the idea that work and life are two different spheres, both wanting more time than you have to give.