Yesterday MeinMann and I were present at the protest for the freedom of the press in Piazza del Popolo. 300,000 people (60,000 according to the police, you bet).
Roberto Saviano was present: “Power and truth don’t match”. It was nice to see so many citizens joining the protest, there was no charismatic leader, no specific banner, but everybody who joined answered to a call from one’s own citizen conscience. Something coming from deep inside. Continue reading ’something from deep inside’
A few days ago a new newspaper appeared at our newsagent: Il Fatto Quotidiano. They publish facts, figures and give the background (Le Monde style) of every story. It’s a thin newspaper, hasnt’t got 70+ pages, but every day there are some news in it. Mr Travaglio has been explaining to us Italians what has been going on in our Parliament with its video communiques during the past years, on the Beppe Grillo blog. But it’s true that not 100% of the citizen surf the net for getting hold of the news. A new newspaper is a good thing.
Yesterday night I was on the bus 71, one of the most multikulti, heading to a Japanese restaurant in Rome’s Chinatown. I was reading Il Fatto and all of a sudden a man in his 60s asks me “Come lo trova?” (How do you like it?”). I told him I quite liked the fact I could read some crude facts not only opinions and polemiche. He said “I love the fact that they published the list!!!” This should always be published!”.
He was referring to the list of left-wing MPs who where not on the job and did not vote against the scudo fiscale*, therefore not doing the task assigned to them: being a real opposition. Now the MPs complain, because one bunch of journalist is counting them and asking questions.
This is the Divided City, on the ground we live like small ants: work, pay taxes. On the stratosphere politicians and their friends are above the rules. But it’s also an isolated country, if you don’t access foreign media (or don’t speak a foreign language).
The whole Europe (and beyond) laugh at us, and it is good that Mock The Week was subtitled in Italian by Il Fatto:
The Outer World wonders what the hell is going on in Italy, and in the meantime, has a good laugh…the fact is, it’s not a commedia.
I’ll go to the manifestazione tomorrow for the freedom of the press…we’ll count each other, the police will say anyway that 53 people participated in the protest, as usual!
*check link
Busy week in Rome this week. Many celebrities in town. All the bosses from the big corporates were in town for the industrialists’ meeting, and for the seismic waves emanated from it, conferences and the like.
So today at 5pm Mr Marchionne appeared magically (from Detroit? from Berlin? from some Ministero?) in steamy hot hot-house Rome, wearing his Linus-style blue jumper in an appropriately sub-zero air conditioned conference room. He sipped an espresso in religious silence at the speakers’ table in front of a couple of hundreds of eyes. I thought the moment was very Louis XIV.
Bits and pieces. He explained platforms and said that an Opel today has a 80% Fiat Punto skeleton. So the operation should make a lot of sense to the German government, if you know that I mean. (But we’ll see how that turns up over the weekend).
He also said that in the car industry top management either comes from the back – the kitchen, ie the factory - of from the glitzy front, the Geneva Car Show. But the car industry cannot look pretty and sassy in the front if it does not clean up its ugly kitchen. (For sure there were some greasy c(r)ooks at the helm, in those kitchens…)
He said that the car industry has been destroying value for too many decades. (That makes a lot of sense. If the car industry were the IT one, we would still be running Lotus 123 and playing Pac Man, with advertising on TV boasting “green figures on a black background: cool!”).
He explained the negative Net Working Capital mechanism. You get paid for the sale of the car before you pay the metal that goes in it. Sort of magic. That magic stops when you stop producing.
He said that the car industry did all sorts of monkey corporate behavior. Buy financial services. Sell them. Buy components manufacturers. Sell them. They tried all the tricks. Now it’s over. (Good auto-critique…or car-critique). Continue reading ‘Marchionne’s auto-critique’
The OECD’s recent study “Society at a Glance 2009″ sort of confirms some opinions we may have when observing society.
So, nothing new under the italian sun or the berliner luft.
Italy is simply stuck, and is not progressing.
How are OECD societies progressing? How effective are their actions in promoting social progress? Society at a Glance provides a basis for addressing these twin questions. It offers a concise overview of quantitative social trends and policies across the OECD. This 2009 edition includes a wide range of information on social issues – such as demography and family characteristics, employment and unemployment, poverty and inequality, social and health care expenditure, and work and life satisfaction –as well as a guide to help readers understand the structure of OECD social indicators.
In the press they talk about The Great Deal (Fiat-Chrysler), talks are underway today in Berlin on the future of Opel.
But only on Beppe Grillo’s blog I can read today some news on the price increases applied by the italian motorway companies. Oil is cheap, and it won’t last long. So toll rentiers seize the opportunity today to levy more taxes on the italian public.
Alitalia and Air One are lame ducks, public transport does not get the necessary investments, people who need to be on the move are forced into using the car.
In the meantime our real unemployment and our real inflation are figures never published in the press…not only the politicians but also the journalists indulge in abundant Schadenfreude, about the 6% GDP fall estimate for Germany, the 20% unemployment rate in Spain but…what about us? No real figures on our own inflation and unemployment, Keine Weltanschauung for the way forward.
Listen to the Sage from Omaha. He says that the only certainty about our future is inflation…(or read “Weimar, utopia and tragedy”).
A scene from Nanni Moretti’s film “Palombella rossa”, where Nanni shouts “Le parole sono importanti! I don’t talk like that! Who speaks badly, thinks badly. Lives badly. Words are important! Words matter!”.
Words matter. In february in Italy we assisted once more to the bad usage of the word Memoria. Giornata della Memoria. Memory of what? I was in Germany that day, and what was celebrated there was the “Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus”. Just to be clear for the future generations, you know.
Words matter. Indeed I was expecting another mashed-potatoization for April 25th, the day of the Liberation from the nazifascism. And it arrived on time. The prime minister suggested that this day should be called from now on “Freedom Day” – Festa della Liberta’ instead of Festa della Liberazione. And let’s face it, a shortcut had been already done so far, with the media stopping at the liberation from the nazism and curiously leaving out the liberation from fascism.
So after having mashed everything in the Giornata della Memoria (memory of WHAT?), now an equally mashed, pre-cooked and pre-digested Freedom Day. It is not by chance that his own private party has the same name.
As per the peculiar definition of Freedom used by the people leading this country, Corrado Guzzanti and Neri Marcore’ provide in my opinion the best applicable definition of this particular brand of Liberta’ to date. Liberta’ as in Casa delle liberta‘, Partito delle liberta’, Popolo delle Liberta’ or Giornata della liberta’ – something which has nothing to share with the Freedom as in Liberte’, Egalite’, Fraternite’ but a petit-bougeois but not liberal, spieβig and vulgar, ultimately mean and free-riding attitude culminating in “Let’s do what the …. we like”.
The truth about Italy? If you thought that more innovation, investment in renewable energies, investing in human capital and not only in good infrastructure could be the answer to the crisis you will be disappointed.
In fact, instead of using the crisis as a leverage for going forward, Italy will use it to seize the opportunity to go back decades. I have more and more the feeling of living in the 80s lately. But here we’re looking further back.
Citizens are invited to form rounds to guarantee the security in their neighborhoods. To add “a room or two” to their houses and improve their flats by adding that desired balcony and gazebo with very lax rules. The government will control less Schwarzarbeit (irregular jobs). Tax evasion will thrive even more. So we’re going backwards, instead of forward. Back to a tribal economy. You, your family, maybe your neighborhood: you do the rules, you enforce them and you do your share of free riding.
Leveraging on the weakness of a population is the key for granting populist consensus to those who hold the power. The italian weakness is the gusto for free riding. Amoral familism of the 1950s is not dead.
“No one in town is animated by a desire to do good for all of the population. Even if sometimes there is someone apparently animated by this desire, in this reality he is interested in its own welfare and he does his own business.(…) Not only publics-spiritedness is lacking, but many people positively want to prevent others from getting ahead”.
Photo: Di Tomaso /Franceschi published on Repubblica
It’s not that I’ve been lazy.
The kick-off with bad macroeconomic news was a bit of a hard start of the year, after the savvy but calm no-man’s-land of the Zwangurlaub, home-sweet-home holidays.
Then it’s been raining almost all week (again!). Manic depression etc.
And on wednesday evening I was almost run over by a motorino, while crossing a street on the stripes. I jumped back – like a wild StripedCat – with a “OooH??” while the girl on the motorino screamed in panic behind her rainy visor “Non t’ho vistooo!!” (I didn’t see you). It’s good to have a feline nickname.
And then some ‘internal consumption” political news on which I will write later on.
Too many emotions this week. Not far from home, this tram/train crash, quite a bit of damage, many wounded, just in front of Porta Maggiore, on roman roads.
One at a time. Please. Too much free riding in Italy…
