Divorce is always expensive

Any person who has gone through the painful experience of a divorce knows that the economic strain can be just as difficult to endure as the emotional distress. In times of crisis, many marriages survive because the cost of a breakup is too high.

Following this logic, Catalonia would have to pay a high price for splitting off from Spain. It is not effective to extrapolate current economic metrics, because succession would create an entirely different set of parameters. For example, multinational companies with headquarters in Catalonia have been quick to express their concerns about how the region's independence would affect their business.

First, Planeta declared its intention to move its headquarters from Barcelona to Madrid. Yesterday Sanofi and Proctor & Gamble both said that they would follow Planeta's lead. The multinationals view Spain and Portugal as the same market and they worry when they hear talk of independence. Creating a new border in a global economy that tends to erase them would give multinational companies new operational and business challenges to overcome, i.e., moving their regional headquarters. Catalonia would also see its export capacity damaged. It is right now the most liberalized region in Spain, but the bulk of its exports come from 100 companies, many of which are foreign companies that will not want to fracture their current markets.

People who have been married for most of their life often opt to talk things out, try to improve their relationship and heal the wounds. This formula works especially well when there is more holding two people together than driving them apart.