I had dinner last night with a 28-year-old Spanish computer science researcher who is visiting a lab here in Boston for two months.

He said that the economic situation in Spain is terrible.

I asked what the root of the problem was, in his opinion. He said:

“We are a country of 47 million people but we’re broken up into 17 states, each of which has its own parliament. So there are a total of 18 parliaments. There are a huge number of politicians and each politician has a large collection of advisers. When construction was booming there was enough tax revenue to support all of this government, but now construction is finished and there isn’t enough money.

Read more: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/09/04/talking-to-a-spaniard-about-spain/#ixzz25cmjAML9