<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - spent]]> 10 <![CDATA[When we grow too much: Keynes's lesson that the Balearic Islands cannot forget]]> In the Balearic Islands, we don't just have a growth problem. We have a problem with how we manage it. This debate is often presented as a discussion between more intervention or more market. But that's not the issue. The issue is when, how, and with what limits each policy is applied.John Maynard Keynes is remembered as the economist who advocated public intervention in times of crisis. But his central idea is more uncomfortable than is often presented: to be able to spend when everything is falling, you must first have been able to not spend when everything is growing. This is the part we have forgotten.In the years leading up to 2008, public revenue increased sharply. However, a significant portion of this income did not reflect structural economic growth, but rather an exceptional moment in the real estate cycle. The income was high, yes, but unstable. The problem was not spending. The problem was spending as if that income were permanent.This is not a one-off anomaly. It is a recurring pattern. When public revenues grow rapidly, the illusion is generated that more spending can be permanently sustained. But part of these revenues depends on exceptional factors – prices, credit, activity concentrated in certain sectors – that cannot be maintained over time. Spending, on the other hand, does remain. And this is where the problem begins.When the cycle turned, revenues plummeted as quickly as they had grown. And with them, the fiscal margin.At that moment, an expansionary policy was attempted to compensate for the fall in private demand. It was coherent. It was necessary. But it was not viable on the terms that the situation demanded.The increase in the deficit, market distrust, and tension over public debt forced a premature adjustment. Keynesian policy was interrupted ahead of schedule. And the cost was transferred to the real economy: job destruction, business closures, a deeper recession than would have occurred with sufficient fiscal margin.The theory had not failed. What had failed was the moment when it had been decided to be prudent.This pattern is not exceptional. It is recurrent. In expansion phases, extraordinary income is incorporated into the budget as if it were structural. Spending grows on this basis. And when the cycle reverses, the system is left without the capacity to respond.The problem is not ideological. It is institutional. No government –of whatever stripe– has incentives to contain spending when all is well. It is much easier to spend current income than to reserve room for future crises. But without this room, counter-cyclical policy becomes theoretical.In territories like the Balearic Islands, this dynamic is even more accentuated. A significant portion of public revenue depends on sectors very sensitive to the cycle, such as construction and tourism. This makes the good years very good… and the bad ones much more difficult to manage.The question is not whether the public sector should intervene in a crisis. It is whether it will have the real capacity to do so. And this capacity is not decided in the recession. It is decided in the good years.The debate about economic policy is often framed in terms of more or less intervention. But perhaps the relevant question is another: are we capable of designing rules that compel us to be prudent when we don't need to be? Because, without this discipline, fiscal space does not disappear by accident. It disappears by design. And then, when the crisis arrives, it is already too late.Being Keynesian is not just knowing when to intervene when the economy falls. It is knowing not to spend when the economy grows.

]]> <![CDATA[The Balearic Islands reached 15.3 million tourists by October, a 2.5% increase.]]>

The Balearic Islands received 15,281,771 international tourists through October, a 2.51% increase, who spent over €20.469 billion in the region, a 5.1% increase, according to data published Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute. In October alone, the archipelago welcomed over 1.5 million international tourists, a 1.72% decrease compared to the same month last year, with spending exceeding €2 billion, a 1.6% drop. Despite the decline, this is the second-highest figure for international tourist arrivals and the second-highest for spending in an October for the region in the historical record. On average, each tourist visiting the Balearic Islands spent €195 per day in October, 3.64% more than in the same month of the previous year, and stayed an average of 6.83 days in the Balearic Islands. In total, the average expenditure per person was €1,330, 0.18% more than in October of the previous year.

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