George and I

Today it’s George Washington’s birth anniversary. Yes, the first president of the United States was born on February 22nd, and so was I (a few decades later). I have browsed through Washington’s life to see whether there was any other common characteristic in our lives, but I cannot find any significant coincidence.
However I still have time to add some more common characteristics in our biographies. As you may have guessed, when I go back to Catalonia, I plan to join politics. My intention is to return when I retire, in about 25 years. I may then become the first president of Catalonia, not an independent Catalonia, I still think that this is not the right way to go in the new Europe, but of a Catalonia that has found its sweet spot in Spain and Europe.
Do not ask me what this sweet spot is, I do not know it yet, but I have 25 years and hundreds of blog postings to figure it out. Maybe a nation within the Spanish nation, maybe a US-type state in a federal Iberia, perhaps part of the extended nation of “Baleària” (my politically correct alternative to “Països Catalans” or Catalan countries) formed basically by Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencia with the following main characteristics:
- Name: Baleària
- Capital: Castelló de la Plana (Valencia)
- Language: co-official Catalan and Spanish
- Flag: equal to the Catalan flag
I am hoping that this compromise would satisfy the majority after reaching a number of trade-offs:
- Name after the Balearic islands, avoiding complex name combinations like Pirineus-Mediterrània (Pyrenees-Mediterranean) or stupid acronyms like Cavaba
- Capital in the old kingdom of Valencia
- The official languages recognize the unity of the Catalan language (Valencian could be used as the unofficial synonym of Catalan, or the variety of Catalan spoken in Valencia as described by the Spanish Language Royal Academy). Spanish would also be official at the same level to warranty the rights of the Spanish speaking and to make sure that Baleària remains competitive in Spain and the Spanish speaking markets
- Flag: the Catalan version of the flag is common to all existing flags.

This could only be possible if politicians like Carod-Rovira and Camps only get a small minority in the parliament and the vast majority vote for people with common sense, like …, I cannot find any name among today’s politicians …., let’s say someone like me.
Baleària would be a part of a federal Spain with only 4 or 5 states, because having 20 states or autonomic regions is hurting the economy now and will hurt it even more in the future due to the unbearable level of overhead and duplications in the public sector that create a non “lean” environment with lots of waste (in the context of a “lean” supply chain that, in my opinion, can be applied successfully to the public sector).