Why I love Spain

I was born in Argentina, was educated in the USA and over the last few decades I have alternated living in the USA and Spain while building businesses in North America and Europe. As we move back and forth some American friends have asked me what is it that I love so much about Spain. Considering that USA is unarguably the best country in the world to start a business and I am an entrepreneur why do I always return to Spain? The short answer is that entrepreneurship is not the only thing in my life and in any case I was able to build 4 very valuable businesses in Spain, Jazztel, Ya.com, Eolia and Fon. But here goes my more elaborate answer.

I love Spain because anyone who lives here, Spanish or foreigner gets free health care. And I really mean free. Not like in the USA when you are insured and you have copay, limits, deductibles and so on. An American friend of mine got into an accident as a tourist, was treated for free, no bill ever sent. At one point there was a group of Spaniards who argued that illegal aliens should not get free health care. The majority of Spaniards rejected that concept. People in Spain live four years longer than in the USA. Every Spaniard who pays taxes pays for the Spanish health care system for the benefit of themselves and all others.

I love Spain because anyone here can get free college education, student debt is an unknown concept. Nobody gets a mortgage on their future at 25. If you want a mortgage you buy a home. University education is funded by the taxpayer.

I love Spain because this country is so peaceful: Spain and California have a similar populations, and even though Spain is going through a significant conflict concerning the demand for independence of some of the population of Catalonia, there were 10X more violent deaths in California in the last 12 months, than in all of Spain. Millions demonstrated against each other in Barcelona, nobody died.

I love Spain because it is prosperous and Spaniards are quite well educated and hardworking. To give you a sense, Russia has 3x more people and a similar GDP to that of Spain. After a huge economic crisis for years now Spain has the fastest growing economy of the large countries of Europe.

I love Spain because on average people are honest. When the global crisis of 2008 hit Spain unemployment shot up from 7% to 25% and the crime rate went down. Yes, down. Families helped each other. Crime was not an option.

I love how Spaniards treat strangers. Spain gets as many tourists as Italy and Greece combined. Spain is beautiful, but frankly so are Italy and Greece. They main reason why Spain gets more tourists is because, on average, Spaniards make foreigners feel more welcome. Spain makes more money from tourism than almost all the largest oil exporters make from oil.

I love Spain because this country, as opposed to many others in Europe and now USA, does not have an anti immigrant party, in spite of the fact that, the proportion of foreigners in Spain is slightly higher than that of the USA (14% vs 13%).

And lastly I love Spain because people here are life minded, not money minded. Today we went to a restaurant and after paying for the bill I realized that I had forgotten to give a tip. I called the waiter back and asked to please run the credit card again. He looked at me and said. "Don't worry, what really matters to me is that you were happy with our service and volunteered to pay a tip, we don't need to run the credit card again". Gave me a smile and walked away. Here's the link to Estacion Real, his restaurant, I do recommend a visit, great food and above all, great values.