23 febbraio 2007
Perchè Non Possiamo Avere Un Paese Normale? - Why Cannot We Have a Normal Country?
19 febbraio 2007
Buone e Cattive Notizie - Good and Bad news
Italy seems to have started to grow again, after having rested for the last 4 years. GDP has grown 1.1% q/q, 2.9% with respect to the same quarter in 2005. This translates in a GDP growth of 2.0% in 2006. On a quartely basis we did even better than the US and UK! However we have to considere that these are preliminary estimates, which could be subject to revisions, even big ones. Growth is mainly due to the recent German expansion, but also to our businesses which started to think globally, forced by stiff international competition. These good news are also bad news. Recently, there has been shy attempts to liberalize the goods and services markets, reforms which we desperately need. The danger is that this reform spirit will disappear, blocked by an higher than expected growth. We do not have to wait because our economy started to grow again, we have to change our economy right now, when changes are less painful. Moreover a Repubblica survey showed that people appreciate much more those ministers who are fighting to liberalize, and penalize those who are against changes. This is a clear signal: go ahead with change, now that we are growing. We don't have to use the first signals of growth as an excuse to stop this process.
3 febbraio 2007
Come in Italia si Affrontano i Problemi - How We Tackle the Problems in Italy
I was reading an article on Corriere della Sera on Friday, when I understood that the principal problem is that in Italy no one seems to understand which is the cause of low birth rate in our country. The Italian Institute of Medicine noted that the Italian male is ageing and he does not want kids anymore. All true. Italian adolescence sometimes arrives until 34 years old (!!) and just 18% of parents think that children should leave the household at 18 years old. Everyone knows that. Well, do you know how we try to solve the problem? In the article were cited "communication campaigns" to promote parenthood fundend by the ministry of Health and ministry of the Family to avoid that Italy will become a sterile society! First of all maybe the experts of the ministry did not notice that our society is sterile since many years not only for a birth rate point of view but also of ideas. Moreover how do they think to solve the problem with communication campaigns? If you read the comment by Alberto on the university post you will have the answer. The Italian youth do not marry and they do not make children because we work for free right in the period in which we should create our indipendent family. Which fool would marry without an income to pay the rent? The choice not to have children is driven by rational individuals who wants to survive, not starve. We wait without doing nothing and we also tolerate that old personnel from the ministry propose ridicolous measures to help us creating our own family. They did not understand that first they have to give us dignity and a job to survive.