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Be surrounded by lots of British people in New Zealand, from time to time the hijos de la G Bretaña come up with questions about Gibraltar. Few things touches more our Spanish balls than seeing those monkeys that never die in the rock and the Royal Quilt waived by the gibraltareños, those guys that are able to speak the English of the King and the worst Spanish with Andalusian accent. Well… the origin of this situation is situated in another King Charles. Charles II was the last Habsburg king of Spain. His health was notoriously poor, and he was considered mentally and physically unfit to rule. This is what happens when his family had been marrying cousins for generations…. The guy was so ugly that not even Carreño, the best student of Velazquez, could paint him “right”.
People believed he was cursed or "bewitched"—hence the nickname "El Hechizado." Despite his clear inability to govern effectively, no one in his court dared to tell him the truth. His advisors, ministers, and even doctors concocted absurd treatments to "cure" him. They claimed he was cursed by witches, subjected him to bizarre rituals, and wasted vast resources trying to "heal" him with potions and prayers…. What made it worse was that his court was in constant chaos, plagued by factions and internal power struggles. The beauty was easier to manipulate than a kid with ice cream. Despite the dysfunction, the court maintained a facade of control, and nobody questioned the absurdity of what was happening. Of course, such a “Hechizado”, could not procreate and when Charles II died without an heir, the Spanish War of Succession broke out, plunging Europe into conflict. It was a kind of France against Germany in Europe, with the British on the German side, this time. The Spaniards decided to kill each others in preparation for better times. When the British saw that they were going to lose, let the Habsburgs at the bottom of the culvert… To say thank you, Spain gave just a rock… until today. Not being able to tell the truth brings many problems to your life. Consequences for generations. You won’t make much progress, and you’ll always have a rock in your shoes. I’m building something to remove rocks. You can tell me if you are interested, below. ​Click here. ​ PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day. PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below. |
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You hear this word a lot in PPP meetings. Bankable. “This contract must be bankable.” Everyone nods. No one asks the obvious question. What does bankable actually mean? Let me translate. A PPP contract is bankable when a bank can look at it and say: “Fine. If everything goes wrong… we still get our money back.” That’s it. Not innovation. Not sustainability. Not beautiful PowerPoints. Money back. In Question 50 of the course below, I explain what really makes a PPP contract bankable. Because...
Innovation is one of the biggest fallacies in construction and PPP contracts. Governments love the word. It appears in every PowerPoint presented to ministers, investors and journalists. Innovation. Innovation. Innovation. But what exactly is innovation? A toilet that cleans your as$ with a water jet and eliminates toilet paper. Innovation? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends. In Question 28 of the course below, I explain how “innovation” actually works in PPP bids. How to win points if you are...
One of my fauvorites… A toll road PPP. Beautiful business model. Traffic studies. Economic growth projections. Sophisticated demand modelling. Consultants everywhere. Like queuing for free ice-cream… The road opened in 2007. The project was the South Bay Expressway SR‑125 toll road. Everything looked perfect on paper. Except for one small detail. Drivers. They didn’t show up. The financial model predicted tens of thousands of vehicles per day. Reality? Sometimes traffic was 70–80% lower than...