Credit & Debit

A puzzling situation of give and take is frequently in the news these days. No, not April's Fool news. Assume you're a supplier of goods or services to one of the Italian public companies. Health care, trains, you name it. Whether at state, region, province, commune or city level, it doesn't matter. All public stuff. Assume you MUST pay all your taxes in due time. Well, that's NOT much of an assumption and, of course you do. Now assume the government pays you for your supplied goods and services. Well, now that IS just an assumption. You are one among 215,000 suppliers affected by a crippled, irrational system. The total past due amount that public companies owe to suppliers is 90 billion Euro. On average, a supplier is being paid after 500 days after delivery. Many cases report past due payments of 1300 days and my maths translate this into 3 years, 5 months and 3 weeks. As a comparison, consider that France pays after 65 days and Germany after 35 days. Each of those 215,000 suppliers has an average credit of 418,000 Euro. It's interesting to note that credit and debit aren't managed as plus/minus on the same book and many suppliers slip into a paradox leading to bankruptcy and countless lost jobs. Some say Italy will make it through tough times. How?

The Third Star

What can gather and bring 400,000 people through Torino's city streets? Would they cry the current dramatic economic situation? Lament increased prices and tax? Demand jobs? Would they protest?
Nope. They are in tears because Alessandro Del Piero retires. They are celebrating Juventus to win their thirtieth soccer championship.

No Wonder

It wasn't too hard to imagine. When the new emergency Italian government launched the latest austerity measures, including tax raises on fuels and a 5% increase on highway tolls, most everybody knew that all goods were to suffer a price increase. About 90% of all merchandise going up and down the peninsula is moved on tires. Which is crazy in terms of pollution, congestion, road accidents and, of course, oil dependency. How ridiculous and unnecessary it is that bottled mineral water from the north is hauled to the south and vice-versa. A typical truck traveling from Reggio Calabria to Milano wastes 1,000 liters of diesel fuel, at a cost of 1,800 Euro, plus about 350 Euro in highway tolls.
Truck drivers demand for lower costs and two days ago they started protests and road blocks. Many crucial spots throughout the country are since impassable and causing havoc. There is serious shortage of fuel products in many areas of the country, and markets and supermarkets shelves are nearly empty while thousands of tons of perishable food are rotting aboard trucks and in warehouses.
Regardless of this awful situation, it's always a wise practice to source local products as much as possible. Let's get the "old days" back to bicycles and carts.
My father's uncles were farmers and before WWII it was normal for them to cover 20 miles (32 Km) one way, and 20 miles back, twice a week to bring and sell produce into town by a horse-drawn cart. They were walking the horse back and forth rather than sitting on the cart and the round trip took all day. Too simple a life? Think of it when hunger will strike and food will be again the most precious thing in our lives. The system is collapsing and the alarm went off buzzing loud. UPDATE as of 6Jun12: The Italian government states that, for the reference period of January through April 2012, the national treasury chest received 3.5 billion Euro less than expected and this is mostly due to missing VAT income.

The Euro: An Endangered Currency Species

Ten years and probably too young, or too late, to die. Is this the fate of the Euro currency?
I can't believe what these EU clown politicians are doing. Enough of listening them claiming "the EU is one country". Which we all know is not, neither substantially nor as a concept. We can rather say Europe is a system of "satellites" economically revolving around Germany which is showing excessive pride.
I have nothing against the Germans in principle but I'd love to see Angela and her friends act like they would really care about "their" European Union. Enough of jokes here, rather pull the lever that lifts the gravity and let the "satellites" go find their way through space as they always did. Some have milk, some have citrus, name it. No need to kill cows, or destroy the fruits, just not to exceed the production quotas assigned to a country. Too much of this or that? Get rid of it. Isn't this a practical way to put one country against the other rather than promoting true unification and respect? Does this help the economy? Well, Italy is very good at being inefficient by itself and the reason why we deal with a horrible public debt and new, heavy austerity measures.
Just admit the European Union and the Euro currency that drew our tears and blood were prank projects. The Central European Bank? I'd need a different joke.

Sizzling summer

One week into summer and here we go, 36.2 C in town today with a heat index of 45.5 C that impairs neuronal activity.
This is nothing though compared to the hot times we're all going to face in this country. The government has decided to proceed with cuts worth 2 BEuro in 2011, 5 BEuro in 2012, 15 BEuro in 2013 and 20 BEuro in 2014. If this is aimed at recovering the limping finances of Italy, I wonder why very little is being done to bring to surface the "submersed economy" - the illegal trade that skips tax - which has a turnover of 250 BEuro per year. Well, if this figure is known to the authorities, I guess someone should then know what and where it's all about. Just VAT alone, which is 20% here, equals to 50 BEuro not conveying into the country's chest. The remainder 200 BEuro would mean another estimated 80 BEuro worth of tax.
Wouldn't then 130 BEuro per year SOLVE all issues? Doesn't it ring a bell that our politicians do NOTHING in this sense and rather cut, cut, cut on essential services to the citizen? Digusting. Yeah, let's blame the "global gloom".
Italy has one among the highest public debts. Almost 2,000 BEuro and growing.

Nothing is forever

Yesterday, June 16, a violent thunderstorm in Torino tore down about thirty large trees in the Valentino Park alone. Many of these were over a century old. Several cars were wrecked but, luckily, nobody was injured. It's amazing what five minutes of havoc can do on this dynamic planet.