counted

Earning more than 600,000 euros a year seemed like a rarity in Spain. The Treasury has already counted almost 19,000 cases

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Twenty years ago, coming across someone who earned more than 600,000 euros a year was like the girls in Galicia: there are there there arebut it is difficult to find them. That exclusive club existed, but its members could fit on a city bus. Today a few are needed. According to data provided by the Tax Agency on the salary ranges of taxpayers in Spain, the highest incomes grow much faster than the rest of salaries. The jump that breaks the historical series. According to consolidated data for 2024, 18,829 taxpayers declared income from work above 601,000 euros annually. This figure represents a jump of 27.8% in a single year, and is the highest figure since the history of this series exists. Although almost 19,000 people receiving that annual salary may seem like a good figure, it is enough to put it in context to determine that they barely represent 0.08% of the almost 25 million declarations submitted that year. Since 2007, when the financial crisis broke out, this group has grown from 10,580 people to almost 19,000 today. It is an increase of close to 78% in less than two decades. Madrid, the magnet of large incomes. If this Treasury statistic confirms anything, it is that wealth is not distributed the same between territories. 8,278 of those 18,829 taxpayers live in the Community of Madrid. Catalonia follows, and specifically Barcelona, ​​with 4,040 taxpayers with a salary of more than 601,000 euros per year. These figures far exceed those offered by Andalusia, the Valencian Community or Galicia, which are the next in number of employees in the highest percentile. This concentration has an explanation beyond the location of the headquarters of large companies. As and how they stood out In the tax consultancy TaxDown, Madrid maintains, by far, the lower rates of autonomous personal income tax of Spain. Its maximum aggregate rate reaches 43.5%, compared to the 54% that can be paid in Catalonia or Valencia. Added to this is a Wealth Tax that has been practically canceled for years. This combination of tax cuts has been pointed out as a clear case of tax competition between communities (dumping), which helps attract large assets from other regions. The rest of the tax pyramid. It is advisable not to lose sight of what salary ranges the majority of workers in Spain really fall into. He largest section continues to be that of those who earn between 30,000 and 60,000 euros per year, concentrating 5.8 million people, 23.5% of the total filers. Just behind are the immediately lower ranks, those who charge between 21,000 and 30,000 euros (4.6 million) and between 12,000 and 21,000 euros (4 million). They are the salary brackets that, in practice, support the bulk of the country’s salary income collection. Although it does not represent an increase as spectacular as that of employees in the range above 601,000 euros per year, the growth in the number of taxpayers in the range between 150,000 euros per year and 600,000 euros also stands out. This group is made up of 194,681 taxpayers, which represents 0.79% of the total, but has experienced an increase of 20.9% in just one year. Action, reaction. This rebound in high incomes explains some data that until now seemed unconnected. According to data of the “World Wealth Report 2026” prepared by Capgemini, the number of large assets in the country has also increased by 5.3% in the last year. That is, according to the data in that report, the 13,100 new millionaires that Spain added, could be the same ones that in recent years have been added to the highest salary range recorded by the Treasury. In Xataka | “I am a millionaire and I don’t know what to do with my life”: a millionaire is looking for ideas because money has not given him happiness Image | Unsplash (Ru Dur, Mads Eneqvist)

“They considered those lands as if they had no owner, since they counted their inhabitants as nothing”

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Just take a walk through Malaga to come across dozens of little blue signs with two letters, “AT”. That is, “tourist apartments”. This has been the case for a long time, but in recent years tourist pressure has become increasingly intense. Maybe that’s why, on almost every AT poster, you can see stickers that say “Before this was my house”, “Mayor Your dead”, “To Your fucking house”, “I stink like a tourist”. And it is interesting to look at them because they are a very precise x-ray of how the same problem is channeled in completely different ways. That distinction has been written for 230 years and the nuance marks everything. When Kant kicked out all the tourists Königsberg. Anyone who knows anything about Kant You will know that he was not exactly a revolutionary. The German philosopher barely left his city on the shores of the Baltic and, in fact, was famous for following a routine so exact that neighbors could adjust the clock time with their walks. Of course, he didn’t have the blood in his veins to throw anyone out of Königsberg. However, in ‘On Perpetual Peace’ (1795) He developed an idea that, brought to our days, can help us understand the limits of tourism: that of hospitality. Hospitality? Yes and, believe me, it is a slippery concept. Historically, this same concept served the theorists of the School of Salamanca to justify the conquest of America and Kant to drive people out of his city. The devil, as always, is in the details. After all, any philosophically developed concept of hospitality focuses on limits: it focuses on recognizing that the stranger has the right not to be treated with hostility as long as he comes in peace. That is, you have the right to visit, to sightsee in our cities. But (and here is the heart of the artichoke) what you do not have the right to do is to rearrange the site to your liking. Kant uses the idea of ​​’inhospitable conduct’ to condemn the Western powers: ‘visiting’ or ‘trading’ meant for them to treat the lands as if they had no owner and its inhabitants as ‘nothing’. ‘Hospitality’ cannot become a way of remaking the place you arrive at to your advantage. And why are we interested in this? Because Spain Spain broke its record in 2024: 93.8 million international tourists, 10.1% more than the previous year. Only in July 2025 11 million people arrived. That pressure is changing cities to serve tourism. But is that wrong…? To understand the contemporary nuances, it is worth bringing up the philosopher Lea Ypi and her update of the Kantian concept of colonialism. In his works on this topicYpi points out that the problem is not the origin of the visitor, nor that the natives have a kind of ‘ownership’ over the territory: the problem is the dynamics that deny the locals a relationship of equals with the visitors. That is to say, touristification is not bad because it fills cities with foreign tourists, but because it is a phenomenon that, taking refuge in lack of definition, reorganizes the city for the benefit of outsiders and, along the way, expels those who live in it. The moral problem is not the immigrant or ‘expat’ who arrives in a community and integrates into it to strengthen it; The problem is that it erodes it and puts it at its service (even if it is not with armies and cannons, even if it is with an asymmetry in economic relations). As the theorist recalls Margaret Moore“residents” is defined by having a life tied to a place, not by being born there (or having property there). The unfaithful trustee. Because yes, in many cases this touristification is only possible thanks to the necessary collaboration of many ‘natives’ who are enriched by it. However, that argument often forgets that, although these people have concrete property rights that they are entitled to exploit, they also have a fiduciary responsibility for the common good. The owners who indiscriminately put groups of tourists into neighboring communities until they become uninhabitable are not exercising their right, they are ignoring their responsibilities towards the community of owners and the city in which they carry out this activity. That is, it’s not the who, it’s the what. The distinction is fragile, it is true. But it is useful to understand “what is wrong” with touristification. And for something written over 200 years ago by a very troubled guy from Königsberg (who, as far as we know, never set foot on a beach) it’s not bad at all. Image | Xataka In Xataka | What did Immanuel Kant mean when he argued that patience is not “a force of resistance, but rather one that hopes to make suffering satisfactory?”

Spain counted on immigration to reverse its demographic drama. Now immigrants are also stopping having children

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I had never lived so many people in Spain. Not at least since there are official records. A few days ago the INE revealed that at the end of the first quarter of 2026 the country had around 49.7 million residents, “the maximum value in the historical series.” In reality there is little surprising about it. The INE takes time using that tagline in its statements on population, in which it also insists on another idea: if Spain is moving in record numbers it is basically thanks to the increase in people of foreign origin. The balance between births and deaths in the country is far away to be good. The problem is that this demographic salvation table shows symptoms that it will not work indefinitely. What has happened? What Funcas just published a studysigned by Héctor Cebolla and María Miyar, which basically analyzes whether Spain can rely indefinitely on migration to save it from the demographic winter. In fact, the report of think tank seek (literally) explore “the limits” of immigration for “demographic adjustment.” It is an important topic for two reasons. First, because the arrival of foreigners has become the great engine of population growth in Spain. Second, because despite the increase in the registry and the fact that the INE has been registering for some time record numbers of residentsthe truth is that the Spanish demographic engine is not exactly oiled. In 2025, the INE counted 446,982 deaths and 321,164 births, which leaves red numbers vegetative growth. And what is your conclusion? That although the migratory flow is acting as a demographic lifeline, we cannot trust that its effects will continue forever. “Immigration has made it possible to sustain population growth and cushion aging, but it has done so through a mechanism that requires continuous and increasing flows, loses effectiveness over time and does not correct the underlying trends of demographic imbalance,” comment María Miyar Busto, director of Social Studies at Funcas. It is not about denying the positive effects of immigration, but about “recognizing the limits of the model” and placing it “in its rightful place in the analysis of public policies.” Above all, thinking about the future in the medium and long term. “The short-termism that dominates the debate on the benefits of immigration has not allowed the analysis of the long-term consequences and has favored the absence of an explicit demographic strategy,” duck Onion. Why this warning? Because after analyzing data on migratory flows and tables of age ranges, birth rates and population growth, Funcas researchers have reached several worrying conclusions. For example, they have proven that although Spain manages to attract a significant number of immigrants, it is not as effective when it comes to retaining them. They have also confirmed that the population of foreign origin shows signs of a progressive aging and that over time their demographic patterns (such as birth rates) end up being similar to those of Spanish families. What does the data say? To begin with, Spain has a problem when it comes to determining the migrant population. The country is attractive enough to attract foreigners, but only a portion ends up putting down roots here, contributing to the demographics and economy. And to show you a button: although between 2002 and 2024 they entered Spain almost 15 million of people, the population only increased by seven million. That leaves our country in a peculiar situation. Spain is the main recipient of immigration in Europe in relative terms and between 2013 and 2023 it absorbed 16% of the immigration that arrived on the continent, however for years its retention rate has been one of the lowest in the region: 51%. That, remember Funcasforces Spain to maintain “high inflows to sustain a population that is constantly renewed.” Why is that a problem? Because for the model to continue supporting Spanish demographics, it requires “growing and uninterrupted” migration, something complicated every time that population arrives from countries (especially in America) who are also aging. Is it the only warning sign? No. The study de Funcas also questions whether immigration will serve to rejuvenate the registry. Researchers calculate that the foreign population that has already turned 55 years old shot up by 42% between 2021 and 2025. This is almost 20 percentage points more than the growth recorded by the immigrant population between 20 and 54 years old, which increased by 25%. What’s more, the think tank It is estimated that around a quarter (22%) of immigrants have already blown out the 55 candles. How young are the immigrants? “The population born abroad is no longer a young population, but rather less aged than the native population,” they respond from Funcas, which also warns that this “gap” between residents born in Spain and abroad will reduce as the immigrants who moved to Spain at the beginning of the century, between 2000 and 2008, before the great brick crisis, approach retirement age. To underline this idea, the research center provides a revealing calculation. “In absolute terms, the increase in the immigrant population aged 55 or over between 2021 and 2025 (42%) means that more than 615,000 people of that age were added to the Spanish population, a figure equivalent to the population of Malaga, a dynamic that anticipates greater pressure on the health and dependency systems,” slide. The phenomenon is especially clear in Spain, one of the EU countries where the most adult immigrants arrive. If you look at 2024, only 13% of new residents were under 15 years old. At the opposite pole, 18% were over 55. Do they behave differently? That is another of the keys that Funcas focuses on. If we Spaniards ourselves resist having large families or move to rural areas…Why should immigrants, people who often face a more complex economic starting point and lack a family support network, act differently? Onion and Miyar even talk about a “Spanishization” of reproductive behavior. Despite the significant increase in the number of women of childbearing age, the total number … Read more

The US believed it had crushed Iran’s missile city. They have counted the complexes again, and it is as if they had shot in the air

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During the Gulf War, several American pilots returned convinced they had completely destroyed numerous Iraqi underground shelters. Days later, reconnaissance images revealed something disconcerting: Many of those complexes were still active because the explosions had barely blocked secondary entrances while the main infrastructure remained intact under tons of rock and concrete. The big surprise. For weeks, the White House presented the campaign against Iran as a crushing demonstration of modern military power: stealth bombers, precision missiles and coordinated attacks with Israel that had supposedly left the Iranian strategic network reduced to rubble. donald trump came to affirm that Tehran already “had nothing” in military terms and that its missiles had been dispersed and out of combat. However, the new secret evaluations US intelligence agencies describe a radically different and deeply uncomfortable scenario for Washington. After reanalyzing satellite images, underground access and logistical activity, American analysts discovered that Iran maintains operational 30 of its 33 complexes of missiles in the Strait of Hormuz and retains a good part of its mobile launchers and arsenals, in addition to having recovered the 90% access of its underground facilities. The feeling within some national security sectors is beginning to be disturbing: after spending thousands of missiles and selling the world the idea of ​​total destruction, the immense Iranian “missile city” remains practically where it was at the beginning. Architecture of a fortress. Here you have to remember something what do we count weeks ago. The real problem for the United States is not just how many missiles Iran retains, but how they were built and distributed their complexes for decades. Tehran turned entire mountains into underground defensive systemswith tunnels, protected warehouses, redundant access and mobile platforms capable of moving missiles from one point to another even after a bombing. Many installations were not designed to resist a specific attack, but to ensure that they always there will be something operational after any initial wave. That’s where the intelligence reports are causing real concern: Many of the entrances were temporarily sealed, but not completely destroyed, and the vast majority of the complexes they regained access operational in a matter of weeks. In some cases, the Iranians may even continue to launch missiles directly from the facilities themselves. The result is a very different image from the American public narrative: rather than eliminating the threat, Washington seems to have scratched the surface of an infrastructure conceived precisely to survive a war of technological attrition. The hidden price of the operation. The other great revelation of the conflict is not underground in Iran, but inside the own US arsenals. The campaign consumed gigantic amounts of advanced ammunition: more than a thousand stealth cruise missiles, around a thousand Tomahawks and more than 1,300 Patriot interceptors, figures that are equivalent to entire years of industrial production. The Pentagon attempted to balance two incompatible priorities: destroying extremely hardened Iranian complexes and, at the same time, do not empty completely its strategic reserves in the face of possible future crises with China or North Korea. This limitation explains part of the most controversial tactical decisions of the war. Rather spray completely many underground complexes, planners opted to seal access and entrances using fewer bunker buster bombs than necessary to destroy the entire facility. Now the consequences are beginning to appear starkly: it spent enormous amounts of high-end weapons, but the Iranian network continues to retain significant operational capacity. Hormuz as center of gravity. All of this takes on an even more delicate dimension due to where most of Iran’s surviving capacity is concentrated: the Strait of Hormuz. Approximately a fifth of the world’s oil circulates through that maritime strip, and US intelligence believes that Iran maintains enough missiles and launchers there to to continue threatening warships, oil tankers and critical infrastructure. The US Navy maintains a practically continuous presence in the area with more than twenty ships patrolling and holding the blockade, but the strategic reality is beginning to become uncomfortable: even after a gigantic military campaign, Washington has not been able to eliminate Iran’s ability to turn Hormuz into a nightmare for global trade. There is no doubt, this persistence completely alters the initial perception of the war. What seemed like a demonstration of technological supremacy is also beginning to look like a warning about the real limits of modern air power against deeply dispersed underground networks. The political contradiction. Ultimately, the conclusions of the intelligence “count” They are also opening an increasingly visible political rift in Washington. While the White House publicly insists that the operation was a historic success and accuses those who question that story of “virtual betrayal,” internal reports describe a enemy far away of being neutralized. And the contradiction threatens to become both a strategic and political problem. If the ceasefire collapses, Trump would have to decide between accepting that Iran retains a relevant military capability or relaunching an even more costly campaign using ammunition reserves that will most likely take years to recover. The dilemma is especially delicate because European allies They already fear delays in arms deliveries destined for Ukraine due to American industrial wear. The war against Iran was designed to demonstrate strength and restore deterrence, but what is beginning to emerge, however, is another, much more uncomfortable reading: that even the most powerful military machine on the planet may discover too late that destroying a “missile city” buried under mountains is much more difficult than announcing its destruction on television. Image | Iranian Media In Xataka | Suddenly, a military outpost sprouted up in the Iraq desert: it was Israel in its bombing campaign of Iran In Xataka | While everyone was looking at Hormuz, Russia has found a much more important route to supply drones to Iran

Juan Roig believes that domestic cuisine has the days counted. There are eight million Spaniards who are already beginning to prove him

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“I said it and I maintain it: in the middle of the 21st century there will be no kitchens”, with that simple phrase, Juan Roig (the executive president of Mercadona) summarized the future Of his company just a month ago: it was not only a banal prediction, it was a declaration of intentions. Then half Spain He was thrown on him. But there was something that half Spain did not know and Roig, yes: there are already eight million people who resort to the prepared dishes of the supermarket. And it’s just the beginning. What is happening? If we go to the datawe can see that, in recent decades, home cuisine had been in clear decline. Millenials ate 30% more often in restaurants than any other generation; When they cooked, they spent less time (one hour less than the week X) and, when they bought, they opted more for prepared meals, pasta and sweets than the rest. They are US data, but We could find A similar process in all Western countries It is true that in recent years the situation seemed to have changed (the survey World Cooking Index Gallupfor example, said that homemade cuisine had increased 10% in Spain in 2022 compared to 2018). However, everything seems to indicate that it is something close to pandemic that, little by little, everything returns to previous trends. And that have been seen from supermarkets. The figures The Kantar consultancy was given This same March and fit as a glove with another good number of related data. As Elena L. Villalvilla explainedduring 2024 Spanish households consumed more than 700,000 tons of prepared dishes: that is 17 kilos per head. Which represents an increase of 6.6 % compared to the previous year. The same data presented Roig last month confirmed the trend. The precooked dishes section of the supermarket chain “is already profitable and continues to grow.” In fact, it is present in 1200 of the 1600 establishments and follows an ambitious incorporation program (salmon with vegetables, roasted vegetables with romesco sauce, roasted rib or seafood salad). But the bet goes further. At least in Mercadona. As explained in DAP“The disappearance of kitchens not only translates into a greater offer of prepared dishes, but also in a simplification of fresh products, destined to reduce the time we dedicate to the kitchen. “ The best example is the fish market section in which the products ready for cooking are increasingly weight without the intervention of any store in store. And why? From the Kantar point of view, the explanations are very simple: “comfort, lack of time and the increasingly elaborate and healthy proposals by supermarkets.” As explained by the Director of Great Consumption ClientsVeronika Khurshudyan, in Infobae, consumers “not only buy food, look for solutions.” This is the background key: solutions. Because, deep down, the twentieth century has been a century in which more and more food process stages have been taken out of domestic kitchens. Today, our country Only 28% of the Spaniards cooks from fresh foods. Fourth range foods (raw packaging, minimally processed and ready for cooking) began to introduce in the late 80s in Spain. And, although they have been with us for 35 years, Only recently have they introduced themselves completely. Just behind the fifth range: an arrival that It was truncated by the pandemicbut that has already recovered and takes speed. That is based on Roig’s prophecy; But, above all, that is based on a good part of the key changes in the food of the future. Image | Deski Jayantoro | Joana Costa In Xataka | Mercadona fried eggs are an example of how in the future the kitchen will be recreational, not food

Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg and Altman believe that our mobiles have the days counted. Tim cook doesn’t have it so clear

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Substitute is sought for the mobile phone. We have been looking for it for years, but it is that smartphones continue to prove to be perfect products in almost all the scenarios. However, several great technological leaders They seem clear that the mobile has an expiration dateand the AI ​​and a potential change in the way we interact with technology have the fault. Elon Musk and Neuralink. The tycoon has been trying to win the AI ​​career for some time With his startup XAI And his Grok model, but also has another startup that will end up being the one that makes the mobile disappear. It is neither more nor less than Neuralinkwhose implants could become an extraordinary option to communicate with technological devices. Bill Gates and the tattoos. The Microsoft co -founder converted to Philanthropist has already advanced in 2022 that one of the potential substitutes (or rather, accessories, at least in this case) of mobiles They are electronic tattoos. He himself ended up investing in a startup called Chaotic Moon —What was acquired by Accenture in 2015 – that combines aesthetics and biotechnology. The orientation of these tattoos is for the health moment, but it could be used for other uses. Mark Zuckerberg and glasses. Much more plausible looks like Meta and Mark Zuckerberg, than with their Ray-Ban Meta connected glasses It proposes an increasingly promising alternative to the mobile. Maybe not for everything, of course, but every time for more things. These devices can win many integers thanks to artificial intelligence, and in fact we saw how their evolution, the Project Orionit does raise a future in which perhaps the mobile is much less relevant. He already said it: His prediction is that In 2030 we will not get so much the pocket smartphone Thanks to connected glasses. Sam Altman and the AI ​​iPhone. Meanwhile, the OpenAi CEO, Sam Altman, also seems to be clear that hardware can end up being the perfect substitute for our mobile devices. We still do not know what type of device is raising, but it has joined the famous Jony Ive who for years was the head of Industrial Design in Apple. Together they have the objective of Create the “AI iPhone”. Tim Cook continues to believe on the mobile. Faced with all of them, Tim Cook believes that mobile phones still have a long way ahead. In the presentation of results of the first fiscal quarter of 2015, the Apple CEO highlighted its optimism about the future of mobiles When saying “I think there is still a lot of innovation in smartphones.” Its pro vision are for example a product that is not raised to be used outdoors, but they seem to have a rival for the finish line in study through the Project Atlas. Hardware with AI has been a failure. The truth is that a year ago the fever of devices with AI seemed to promise a turning point. However both the Humane Ai Pin like him Rabbit R1 They ended up being two great technological fiascos. None met expectations, and today both products are practically missing from the map. The optimism of Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg or Altman is striking, but today the mobile seems to continue having rope for (much) time. Image | Xataka with Grok In Xataka | Rabbit R1 and the Humane Ai Pin are too green. It turns out that we already have the best AI device in the pocket

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