50 years behind

These days our newspapers have quietly slipped into electoral mode, giving space either to useless debates on ethics between left and right wing coalitions (who the hell has ethics any more in today's Italian politics?) or to sensational pieces of news, such as the chance that pornstar Rocco Siffredi may join the Isola dei Famosi, perhaps the most sleep-inducing of today's reality shows.

In the worst cases you may even bump into articles elaborating on how democratic cashmere may be.

Before going and getting drunk on toilet disinfectant, of course, you will have turned on Re-immigration. And for your consolation, here's a nice and interesting piece of news: the EU is 50 years behind the US for innovation.



Unbelievable? no way - actually I had a hard time believing that Italy is ranked as "average" in the list of European countries, so I checked the full report and figured out why we do not rank bottom of the bottom, as we would deserve if judged by our R&D expenditure, which is the lowest in the EU when compared to GDP.

Actually, if you check the rate of innovation outputs (such as patents) compared to inputs (such as money invested in R&D), you can see that Italy fares pretty well. So we innovate much more than others compared to what is invested in innovation.

Why is that? because, fundamentally, we are very receptive to innovation, as this ranking confirms. And it is evident if you just walk the streets: Italians are keen on trying out new things, they are ahead of many others in mobile technology, they encourage design to advance by being very selective when choosing products from the market and they are generally very demanding (that's also why they always complain, if you are wondering).

If you check the innovation readiness ranking you can perhaps notice a curious fact: out of the four countries that are rated as most innovative, two (Finland and Germany) rate way below EU25 average, and two others (Denmark and Sweden) rate slightly above, but still way below Italy. Out of ten Italians, six are attracted or enthusiastic about innovation, while in Germany the number is just above four.

And why is it that Germans and Finns don't want to use new technologies, but produce way more innovation than us? you name it: our government is busy trying not to lose the next election, and whoever wins them will do everything they can to keep voters happy by a series of populistic measures (less tax for everyone!!!) and by re-inforcing lobby protection mechanisms (see my Christmas wish number 5). After all, aren't we number 42 in the economic freedom ranking (kudos to Mahmood for the link).

Can you imagine someone running for election by shouting "you'll all have to pay more taxes because we need to find the money to become more competitive" actually getting any votes? Come on! innovative Italians out there want to save money to buy the latest SUV equipped with the latest technology.

So let's get back to reality. I'm happy not to be the last in Europe this time (and my warmest thanks to Greece who usually saves us from occupying that position in other rankings).

Happy New Year (and a sixth wish)

A very happy new year it is, with the first of my wishes (see my earlier post) having already come true!

Yes, this is not a dream. Exactly 12 hours after I posted my wish for Fazio's resignation in this blog, the magic happened, and for once Italy got back a part of its dignity.

Why only a part? in order to answer, you should know the background of this story, here is a good summary.

Let me try to explain the basics to you if you still think you are not familiar enough. Warning: what follows (in italics) is a complex and boring attempt of an explanation for an extremely complex financial operation. The story is also typically representative of what happens in Italy with this sort of stuff, so skip if if you have stomach problems.

A foreign bank wants to buy an Italian bank and makes a hostile buyout offer. It practically offers a certain amount of money to all the shareholders in exchange for their stock, and if the majority of them accept it will take the bank over regardless of the bank's administration council's will (hence the term "hostile").

The two banks in question are ABN AMRO, the Netherlands' biggest bank group and one of the largest in Europe, and Antonveneta, which is facing difficult times due to its overpaid and inept management structure.

Now what happens just a bit later is that a much smaller Italian bank (called BPI), led by a suspicious chap with loads of friends sitting at strategic places in government buildings, makes the same kind of offer. Everyone is surprised by this, since BPI is really small, and people with a grain of salt in the brain are starting to ask where they may be getting the monies for such a big buyout.

Now, surprise surprise, it turns out that Mr. Fiorani was allegedly getting monies by cheating ordinary people who had simply trusted his bank. In the meantime, Fazio was passing him confidential info during the obligatory bid assessment that the Bank of Italy has to carry out.

Ok, the thing is much more complex than that, but anyway Fazio had two basic choices:
- if he was aware of what was going on, he should have resigned (since he was basicaly participating in a crime);
- if he was not aware what was going on, he should have resigned (since he should have known about these facts).

Now this should have happened half a year earlier, not after judges issue an investigation warrant against him. So only part of Italy's dignity was recovered. But better late than never.

So my first wish has come true before Christmas. This entitles me to a sixth wish to add to the list of five. This is a big one, so I'm aware that it's going to stay in the wish list. But I'm an optimistic person, so I'll put it out.

6) See Italy lead an international alliance for the reconciliation of Israel and Palestine.

This means active reconciliation, in terms of common development projects, investments, infrastructure development for basic freedom of movement and an airport for the Gaza strip and West Bank that is co-financed by Europe and Israel. It also means sharing intelligence targeted to the final defeat of Hamas and all other similar organizations who criminally exploit poor and uneducated people in in order to carry out terrorist attacks against a democratic country in the name of religion.

And what is your wish? Let me hear that in the comments section!

Happy new year!