September 4, 2011 · 10:00 am

¿Cómo aflorar la economía sumergida?

Por todos es conocido el nivel que la economía sumergida tristemente alcanza en España (“Dinero B”, “¿Con IVA o sin IVA?”, “Ay, si quiere factura le tendré que cobrar el IVA”). En junio la Fundación de Cajas de Ahorro (FUNCAS) estimaba que la economía sumergida podía suponer hasta un 24% del P.I.B.

¿Cómo conseguir aflorar parte de estos movimientos de dinero? ¿Qué incentivo puede haber para el comprador en pagar el IVA? ¿Qué incentivo hay para el vendedor en declarar esos ingresos?

Hace unos meses contraté a una empresa de servicios que envía a una persona un par de veces al mes a limpiar el piso donde vivo. Esta es una de las típicas tareas que en España se mueve en dinero B. “¿Cómo voy a hacer yo un contrato a la señora de la limpieza?” “¿Cómo voy a contratarla a través de una empresa intermediaria si me va a costar más caro?”

En Francia me he encontrado con una idea muy simple a la vez que brillante: los gastos en estos tipos de servicios (limpieza, plancha, cuidado de niños, jardinería…) permiten una deducción en impuesto de la renta del 50% de lo gastado hasta un límite (muy superior a lo que yo vaya a gastar al año). Es decir, por cada 100€ que yo gaste en limpieza, me podré deducir 50€ de impuestos.

En España estos servicios se pagan entre 8 y 10 euros por hora, en negro. La persona que realiza el servicio no declara el ingreso, no paga impuestos sobre ello, no cotiza a la seguridad y no pagamos IVA por la transacción.

En Francia estos servicios cuestan entre 18 y 20 euros por hora. Pero teniendo en cuenta que me deduciré la mitad, me acaba saliendo por el mismo precio.

  • Se establece un contrato de servicios entre una empresa y yo.
  • La empresa contrata a un limpiador, un contable, unos comerciales.
  • Se contrata un seguro que cubre posibles desperfectos o robos, dando al usuario un valor añadido.
  • La factura que me pasan lleva IVA (“TVA”).
  • La empresa paga impuesto de sociedades si tuviese beneficios, de actividades económicas y seguridad social al trabajador.
  • El trabajador paga su impuesto sobre la renta y cotiza a la seguridad asegurándose su desempleo y jubilación.
  • El hecho de haber una empresa intermediaria crea una serie de puestos de trabajo que en España no existirían, además de compras de materiales y servicios (oficina, líneas de teléfono e internet, material de oficina…)

Y todo por esos 50€ que el estado francés dejará de ingresar a través de mis impuestos directos. ¿Por qué me debe subvencionar Francia ese gasto, qué interés tiene? Vamos a ver los números y veréis como le cuadra al estado.

La limpieza del hogar en Francia en números.

Al hacer las cuentas he impuesto que el trabajador reciba un neto equivalente al que recibiría en negro. De ese modo, su incentivo estaría claro: a igualdad de ingresos, mejor estar cotizando a la seguridad social. El precio hora para el usuario finalmente es 1€ más caro en Francia, lo he dejado así en vez de retocar beneficios de la empresa, etc., para poner en valor el extra que el usuario recibe en forma de seguro contra desperfectos y robos, atención de los comerciales, etc. Todo esto al final del año pueden suponerme unos 40€, entiendo que están bien pagados.

Como se puede ver, al estado francés el aflorar 9€ de esta economía sumergida parece que le cuesta 2,30€. Pero hay que tener en cuenta que los gastos generales también suponen ingresos al estado (impuestos sobre la compra de materiales e impuestos y seguridad social de los otros trabajadores de la empresa).Además hay que tener en cuenta que de esta forma el estado se asegura que la persona que realiza la limpieza está trabajando de forma legal y por tanto no está a la vez registrada como desempleada y cobrando un subsidio de desempleo, caso que sucede en España a menudo.

Teniendo en cuenta estos últimos comentarios, es posible que al estado francés le cuadren del todo las cuentas o incluso acabe ingresando más / gastando menos que si no existiese esta medida.

Me parece brillante.

3 Comments

Filed under Economy, France

Tagged as , , , , , ,

August 4, 2011 · 10:00 am

Personal mid-year review

At the beginning of the year I wrote a post about New Year’s resolutions and how this year I was going to take a more structured approach with them. I also explained who and how influenced me to do that.

About 3 weeks ago I started what would be my personal mid-year review and then I shared in Twitter the thought of sharing my approach with you. This is what I want to do in this post.

During some days in January, I brainstormed about what could be my objectives and the approach to be followed. In the end I selected 10 main objectives (“Become a frequent runner again”, “Read over 15 books / become eReader”, “Toastmasters: become ACB & Pres Dis AG”…). Then each of those objectives were split then in about 8-12 milestones to be achieved, each milestone driving me towards meeting the bigger goal.

For example, regarding the running, the first milestones were moderately easy ones as seen today (“Run 3 days before mid January”, “Measure several tracks where to run in TLS”, “Run 8-10 days in January”…) but they meant a great deal of breaking habits or creating new habits.

Once I had the complete list of goals and smaller milestones, I gave a weight to each of them (delivering the 7th speech towards ACB in Toastmasters was worth 12% of the “Toastmasters” goal) and a due date. If I missed the due date but met the milestone afterwards I deducted some amount out of the initial value (that means, I’ll never reach 100% at the end of the year, but if I’m close enough I’ll be more than glad!).

Spreadsheet with goals, milestones, weights, due dates...

Then I set up a kind of earned value management system to track my performance in respect to those goals. This enabled me to see how I was advancing and how I was supposed to be advancing (sure, I said a kind of as there is nothing related to the cost I incurred in achieving those goals, while the value would be assimilated to the weight).

Finally, I not only had this in written but I shared my goals with Luca. This helps in making myself more accountable with those objectives. Sure, you won’t necessarily want that everybody knows your personal objectives, neither do I. But just showing them to someone may help. To me it worked!

Every now and then I get a question from her like “When did you say you would sign up for the French course?”, “Have you already contracted the cleaning services company?”. Those reminders, together with the due dates help me a great deal in catching up with all those milestones that I keep postponing.

Of course, with some objectives I am way more advanced than with others. But let me tell you that the overall result is making me quite happy with the approach, even tough by the end of June I was way behind the schedule!

Goals achievement vs. plan (end June).

Another outcome of the mid-year review has been that I started brainstorming again with myself in order to add new milestones to previous goals (e.g. more running milestones, new trips, more speeches) and adding entirely new goals.

My humble advice: try something similar that fits you, force yourself a little bit, fight the resistance and reap the benefits down the road. See you at the year-end review!

8 Comments

Filed under Personal development

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 1, 2011 · 8:00 am

One marathon, one cause

It is 10 years since I ran my last marathon. I have been running again quite often since the beginning of 2011, and a few of you know that in October 2011 I’ll be running the next Toulouse marathon if health permits.

Some months ago, following a recommendation of my brother Jaime, I watched a movie in Youtube called “The Spirit of the Marathon” based on the experiences of some beginners during their training towards running the Chicago marathon in 2007. I strongly recommend the movie to anyone willing take on such challenge.

In the movie, I especially liked the character of Lori, who apart of conveying a positive attitude all time and sharing a beautiful story behind, is running the marathon supporting a cause.

In February, when I decided to take part in the marathon in Toulouse, I thought it would be nice to do as Lori did and try to raise some funds for a cause, for a charity. However, I didn’t know which one to choose nor how exactly to set it up. In the meantime months have passed by, I have not started raising any cash, but luckily my Airbus Running club has sorted out which charity I could run for.

This year, all Airbus runners taking part in the Toulouse marathon are encouraged by the club to raise funds to help the association “Vaincre la mucoviscidose” which helps families of children suffering the illness and creates awareness about it. I think this is surely a worthy cause to run 42.195km for and raise some funds during the training period.

How can you contribute to such cause?

Easy, I have set up an ING savings account for that purpose. All contributions received in that account will be transferred to the associations bank account by 21st October.

Bank account: 1465 0100 91 2021356780 (ING Direct)
IBAN:  ES68 1465 0100 91 2021356780
BIC / Swift Code: INGDESMMXXX
Beneficiary: Javier Irastorza

Since in France, contributions to charities are deducted from taxes up to a 66% and I do not want to get any tax benefit out of possible contributions from friends, I will double any contribution that you make so as to offset possible benefits and thus contribute myself to the cause as well, i.e.: if you give 5€ for the charity, I will put another 10€, making a total of 15€ for the charity, out of which 10€ would be tax-deductible, equal to the disbursement I had made.

What’s in it for you?

Apart from contributing to a worthy cause, I will explicitly dedicate my marathon in this blog to all those who have contributed to the cause (if they haven’t requested anonymity).

What it’s more, in line with crowd funding initiatives, I have been working since January on a special project that will only be unveiled after the marathon. That project will also be dedicated to the contributors to that cause who will have the chance of enjoying it before the general public.

Summing up

I’ll do:

  • 100% of the training in these months (~1,100km in 17 weeks),
  • 100% of the running in the marathon (42.195km on October 23rd),
  • 66% of the financial contribution to the cause…

All you have to do is give some euros to make up for that 33% that we will contribute to the children suffering from mucoviscidose. Let’s do it together!

Running at "Corrida Pedrestre" in Toulouse, July 1st 2011.

10 Comments

Filed under France, Helping others, Sports

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 29, 2011 · 8:00 am

Numbers, numbers, numbers…

As part of my effort to learn French, I was reading some passages of “Le Petit Prince” last weekend. There was one that directly struck me:

Les grandes personnes aiment les chiffres. Quand vous leur parlez d’un nouvel ami, elles ne vous questionnent jamais sur l’essentiel. Elles ne vous disent jamais: “Quel est le son de sa voix? Quels sont les jeux qu’il préfère? Est-ce qu’il collectionne les papillons?” Elles vous demandent: “Quel âge a-t-il? Combien a-t-il de frères? Combien pèse-t-il? Combien gagne son père?” Alors seulement elles croient le connaître. Si vous dites aux grandes personnes: “J’ai vu une belle maison en briques roses, avec des géraniums aux fenêtres et des colombes sur le toit…” elles ne parviennent pas à s’imaginer cette maison. Il faut leur dire: “J’ai vu une maison de cent mille francs.” Alors elles s’écrient: “Comme c’est joli!

Some days before I had seen the following tweet by the management guru Tom Peters:

Having said this, I can only confess that I am one of those. One of those old people, grande personne, that loves numbers, crunching numbers, spreadsheets, etc…

If you asked me something about for example my drive to the job every morning, I wouldn’t say “Oh, it’s beautiful, there are lots of trees, you can smell this or that”, no, no…

I would tell you: “it takes door-to-door an average of 31 minutes -which coincidentally is the exact time most repeated-, I depart at 8:35am on average, I have tried 3 different routes and route number 3 seems to be about 4 minutes shorter on average than the other 2 routes, I found out that it is as good to be an early comer to the office than to arrive at about 9:30am, while the worst time to leave home is about 8:15am… Tuesdays are the worst days normally, taking on average about 5 minutes more than Wednesdays, the best day”. Numbers.

And I would have said all these because during the last 7 months I had been taking note of the all the numbers related to those trips, crunching them in a spreadsheet, etc, etc…

Door to door time to reach the office.

Frequency of different trip times.

Certaines grandes personnes aimons les chiffres.

2 Comments

Filed under Books, France, Twitter & Media

Tagged as , , , , ,

July 26, 2011 · 9:00 pm

¿Y si el Real Madrid bajase a Segunda?

Como muchos de vosotros sabéis, mi hermano Jaime es seguidor del F.C. Barcelona mientras que yo lo soy del Real Madrid. Hace años, discutiendo en broma le decía a veces “el Madrid no bajará nunca, y si lo hiciese, la Federación tendría que cambiar la Primera División por la Segunda… la Primera sin el Madrid no tiene sentido”. Una fanfarronada, diréis.

La realidad supera la ficción. Mirad lo que está ocurriendo en Argentina con el River Plate tras su descenso:

Quilombo por el descenso de River Plate.

Por cierto, River es mi equipo favorito en aquel país ;-).

Leave a comment

Filed under Sports

Tagged as , , , ,

July 25, 2011 · 11:45 pm

Santiago… ¡Mataindios!

Hoy, como cada 25 de julio, es la festividad de Santiago apóstol. No sé bien porque, pero mientras salí a correr recordé una anécdota del viaje a Perú en 2009 que me pareció oportuna compartir hoy.

A la representación del apóstol Santiago se le da también el nombre de “Santiago Matamoros“, por sus supuestas intervenciones en favor de los cristianos en batallas contra los musulmanes en la Edad Media. Pues bien, visitando la catedral de Cuzco, o Basílica de la Vírgen de la Asunción, nos encontramos con un cuadro del apóstol Santiago donde ya no mata moros sino indios mal llamados incas (aunque yo de historia no sé mucho, entiendo que Inca era solo el rey del imperio). De hecho allí lo llamaban Santiago “Mataindios” o “Mataincas”.

Además de ser “¡Santiago!” un grito de guerra por entonces, supuestamente el apóstol oportunamente apareció para echar una mano a Pizarro y los suyos cuando estaban siendo acechados en su intento de conquistar la fortaleza de Sacsayhuamán.

Qué gran acierto y simplicidad por parte de la Iglesia el utilizar el mismo santo y retórica que había dado éxito en España para evangelizar América…

Como no se podían sacar fotos dentro del templo, no tengo ninguna que mostrar del interior donde se vea dicho cuadro, aunque podéis encontrarlas fácilmente en Google.

Catedral de Cuzco.

Leave a comment

Filed under Travelling

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 4, 2011 · 8:00 am

Space Shuttle last ride

I already wrote that my childhood dream job was to be an astronaut and that led to pursuing aerospace studies. In the same post I recalled a small toy of the Challenger Space Shuttle and how this toy contributed to that dream. Well, this post is just an homage paid to the Space Shuttle, or officially the NASA Space Transportation System, STS.

The last mission of the STS is scheduled for next Friday, July 8th. When the Atlantis is supposed to make the last lift-off for the mission STS-135 which, after 12 days, will end the 30 years of Shuttle flights.

During our last visit to the USA, Luca and I had the chance to see one of the Space Shuttle vehicles at the National Air & Space Museum (NASM). The vehicle at display there is the Enterprise.

I already mentioned in that post there that the Enterprise is the only vehicle of the fleet which never went to outer space. It was used for training purposes, to let the astronauts train the gliding descend they would have to make once the vehicle re-entered in the atmosphere. Thus, some parts of that vehicle are dummies.

The Enterprise hasn’t got the same thermal protection tiles since it wouldn’t need them, however its surface replicates the tiles with some kind of rubber ones so the flow of air around them would be the same as in the other vehicles. Another difference is in the engines at the back. The 3 engines that the Shuttle has at the back are its orbital maneuvering system, which allow it to adjust its orbit (they’re not atmospheric engines to propel the Shuttle in its flight back to Florida). Again, since the Enterprise would never go to outer space it wouldn’t need to adjust its orbit and the engines it has are just dummies to provide the same distribution of weight and forms in the vehicle.

I also mentioned in the previous post about the visit to NASM that the vehicle was going to be named Constitution until a public campaign achieved its goal of naming it Enterprise after the spaceship featured in Star Trek.

Find below some pictures of the Enterprise at NASM:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Economist features this week 3 articles about the Space Shuttle program. I found parts of them very critic of the costs of the program, but nevertheless they give a somewhat complete picture of the history of the Space Shuttle and what may lay ahead for space exploration.

The different Shuttle vehicles (and other related materials) will be distributed among several museums and educational institutions. The Enterprise will leave the NASM and will go to the USS Intrepid in NYC while the Discovery will be hosted at NASM. You may find other locations in this article.

Finally, NASA just unveiled last Friday a wonderful documentary (80 minutes) about the history of the program: its launch, the vast engineering undertaking, the first mission, the Challenger and Columbia accidents, the improvements that the accidents brought, etc. To close the circle, the documentary is narrated by William Shatner, an actor of Worldly fame as he featured James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek. See a small trailer of the video:

PD: In the full length video, in the images shown of the mission STS-95 which brought John Glenn back to Space at age 77, appears Pedro Duque a Spanish astronaut that coincidentally was my teacher at the aerospace engineering school.

Leave a comment

Filed under Aerospace & Defence, Movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 23, 2011 · 8:00 am

The confession (book review)

I’ve lost count of how many John Grisham novels I have read, but they’re over a dozen. They all look the same: legal thrillers, young lawyers, similar location (South USA states), etc., and yet they’re grabbing your attention from start to finish. I guess that the guy picked the formula some 20 years ago and knows how to exploit it (the formula even calls for books of about 450 pages, with about 12 pages per chapter…).

This last one I read, “The confession“, is no exception to the rule. The plot: an innocent man in death row is about to be executed when the confessed killer pops up out of nowhere and will try to stop the execution and around them: a small firm led by an energetic single lawyer, and some despicable characters including a detective, district attorney, governor, hysterical mother of a victim, etc. The result: a rollercoaster of emotions and engaging novel. I even ended a couple of times with headache due to the anger produced by what I was reading!

I recommend the book.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Books

Tagged as , , ,

June 21, 2011 · 10:00 am

Quantity leads to Quality in Toastmasters clubs (#TM59)

About 2 weeks ago I gave a speech at Rosemasters club about the performance of clubs and its relation with the amount of members they have. My assignment was to give a 5-7 minute fact-finding report and then handle a 2-3 minute Q&A period. You may find the video and the script of the speech below.

In this post I just wanted to share a couple of graphics I produced while preparing the speech (one of the graphics is used in the speech) which I find quite revealing for Toastmasters club and district officers.

I took the figures of Toastmasters District 59 clubs at the end of the period 2009-2010 (173 clubs) and checked goals achieved within the DCP program per club versus the members they had at the end of the period. Excluding the clubs chartered within that same year (for which it’s complex to achieve many of those goals in less than a year), I found a clear trend that the more members the club has, the more goals it achieves.

Average members in a club vs. DCP goals achieved (D59 2010).

This fact is so simple that no fact-finding was needed, but I wanted to check whether there was a real difference in membership between average clubs (those meeting 4, 5, 6 goals), good clubs (achieving 7, 8, 9) and the top ones (reaching 10). And the answer is yes. Top clubs have in average over 40 members. Good ones have around 30, while average ones have around 25.

Thus, I believe that clubs should not be content with reaching 20 (as DCP requires) or 25 members. Their goal should to reach around 40 members and ensure they have the highest quality. In that way they would also be on the safe side and resist any sudden loss in membership. Clubs having that many members may face issues of finding slots for members to take active roles in meetings, I guess that the preferable solution is to have extra meetings (meet weekly).

The other interesting graphic shows to what extent incentives shape reality. As Toastmasters officers know, clubs are distinguished when they reach 5, 7 or 9 goals out of 10. A club that achieves 6 goals gets the same recognition than a club reaching 5 (the same applies to a club reaching 8→7, or 10→9). So you can see how officers push members in order to achieve either 5, 7 or 9 goals and how most of the clubs reach exactly those numbers and just a few end up the year with an even number of goals.

Number of clubs with a given DCP performance (D59 2010).

—

Video of the speech:

—

Script of the speech:

What do you think this represents?

Mr TM, fellows,

I joined TM in 2007. At that time, there were 3 clubs in Madrid: Standing Ovation, Excelencia and TM Madrid, which is the club I joined. Why did I join? Because I saw a great atmosphere, listened to 3 different prepared speeches, good evaluations… I thought “this is a club I want to be part of”.

We can say that the Quality of the club was high.

In this speech I will try to show you that in Toastmasters Quantity leads to Quality. I will go through personal experience, a bit of history and some statistics.

6 months after joining the club I became an officer, I was the VP education. Then I started taking note of the number of members and guests that came to every meeting, I did this for 2 years… I can tell you that as this number grew, the meetings were getting better, etc.

Let me now tell you something about Toastmasters.

In Toastmasters there is a system for evaluating clubs. This system is called the Distinguished Club Program, the DCP. It measures several things: how many members achieve CC, AC, how many new members come into the club, etc… The DCP tries to measure the Quality of the club.

There are 10 goals in the DCP that clubs should try to achieve. If a club reaches 5 or 6, it is recognised as Distinguished Club. If a club reaches 7 or 8 goals it gets a higher recognition. If a club reaches 9 or 10 goals is awarded the maximum recognition: President Distinguished Club.

Now let’s see how Rosemasters was doing these years.

Rosemasters was founded in October 2008. That 1st  year ended with 22 members and achieved 3 DCP goals. The 2nd year it was already recognised as Distinguish Club, for having achieved 5 goals, and finished with 22 members. This year, in its 3rd year of existence, it has already achieved 7 goals and can achieve 9, with 20 members. For this it will be recognised as Select Distinguished Club or President.

What this club is doing is remarkable. Let me show you why:

I gathered statistics from all 173 clubs existing at last year end in Europe.

  • Best performing clubs, with 10 goals, had above 40 members.
  • Clubs with a result like Rosemasters this year (7, 8, 9) had on average have 30 members.
  • Clubs which achieved 4, 5 & 6 goals had ~25 members.
  • The weak clubs had ~15 members.

Let’s now look at clubs of the size of Rosemasters: between 18-22 members. They do not achieve as many goals as this club as achieved; this is why what this club has achieved is remarkable.

Why do I tell you this about Quality and Quantity of members?

As I said at the beginning: I believe that in Toastmasters Quantity leads to Quality. I believe that to make sure that this club continues to be healthy, that we continue to enjoy good meetings, we need more members.

I believe that finding members is a collective effort, it cannot be just an action for the VP Membership or the VP of Publicity; we all need to bring friends, family, colleagues from the work…

We should try to have at least 30 members, and then retain them. How to do that? We can discuss I in another speech. But remember in Toastmasters Quantity leads to Quality.

2 Comments

Filed under Toastmasters

Tagged as , , , , , ,

June 19, 2011 · 10:00 am

3 billion of Takatoris

In this post I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts that I discussed with my father and older brother some months ago on the welfare state that we enjoy in Europe.

Luca and I went on a holiday trip to Japan 3 years ago. There, while in Kyoto and thanks to a cultural association, we enjoyed an activity consisting of spending the afternoon and evening with a Japanese family at their place.

The Takatori family lived in the centre of Kyoto (a wonderful city). He was an engineer who worked for a big electronics company (I forgot the name), thus I imagine that he earned a decent salary. The family lived in a 40-50 sqm flat, without bedrooms for the teenage children as they slept in futons in the living room. The Takatoris had no car and travelled either by bike or public transport every where.

At some point in the conversation we talked about travelling, holidays, etc., and then I asked him how many holidays did he had? “120 days.” I was surprised, “120 days?!?” He explained it better: “There are 120 days a year in which I don’t work, including weekends”… I started making the numbers: since the year has 52 weeks, 104 days are weekends, these left only 16 days off for Mr. Takatori, including bank holidays. This was in Japan and a medium class family.

I take it that in the rest of East Asia the conditions will be lower and work ethics will be at par with Japan (think of Chinese shops opening schedules in Europe).

When I compare that with Europe: 35 hour work-week (in France), a collective bargaining agreement with 211 working days a year (or 154 non-work days as Takatori viewed it – since weekends are the same here and in Japan, that means we enjoy 34 days more of holidays, or 7 more full weeks!), subsidies for a myriad of things, retirement at 60 (in France, with protests when raised to 62)… well, there’s simply no comparison.

Sure, the system we have here is something to be proud of, but then again, will it last? It’s not like the Takatoris of Japan, China, South Korea, etc., will refrain to: work an hour or a day more, lower a dollar in a price, retire a year later, etc., so we can continue to enjoy our welfare state.

Will it last? I have no answer, it escapes my power of analysis, but if I were you, I’d start saving yesterday.

 

1 Comment

Filed under Economy, France, Travelling

Tagged as , , , , , ,