When the French asked for bread, Marie Antoinette, wife of King Louis XVI, exclaimed: “If they have no bread, let them eat cake.” What followed was the Revolution with its baskets of chopped off heads. Mubarak, Ben Alì and Gaddafi instead of cake, have distributed hot lead to the people. A few hundred dead among the demonstrators has not been useful in stopping the North African Revolution. Mubarak has been struck down by a heart attack, Ben Alì has disappeared and Gaddafi is taking refuge behind snipers and the isolation of his country. Is what is happening now like the “assault on the bread ovens” or a revolution for democracy, or both? Is poverty revolutionary? Is the stomach revolutionary?
There’s an economic indicator, called the misery index, created by Arthur Okun and it measures the poverty of a State. The index is found by adding the rate of unemployment to the inflation rate. The higher the value, the greater the misery. In the latest classification, Egypt was in 6th position, Greece (close to defaulting) in 7th place and Tunisia in 9th place. A relationship is evident. But who is seen in the first four positions? Chavez’s Venezuela is at the very top, followed by South Africa, Spain and Pakistan. These countries are among those marked out for forthcoming revolts in the near future. The negative position of Spain is surprising, as is the astonishing position of Italy, in 23rd position with a better score than the average for the EU and better than France, UK and the Czech Republic. Finally a positive score. Let’s split the castanets with Spain (misery index 22) with 10, 1,- less than half (source: Eurostat and IMF).
Our score relates to the year 2010 and it is made up of 1.5% inflation and 8.6% unemployment. But these figures exist just in the books of “Tremorti’s” dreams. In fact, ISTAT itself has given a figure of 12% for unemployment (3.4% higher than the official value), but in reality, if you consider those that are no longer looking for work, it’s about 14%. Inflation is calculated on the basis of a ‘basket’ that does not take account of the real cost of living. Anyone who is paying the electricity bill, central heating, petrol, motorway tolls and basic necessity goods knows very well that inflation is at at least 5% a year (3.5% higher than that declared). If we use the ISTAT figure for unemployment, then Italy works out at 13.5%, close to Ireland and Portugal. If we keep going, adding in the extra 2% of discouraged unemployed people, we arrive at 15.5– a hair’s breadth from Turkey and Tunisia. Finally, if we make use of the perceived inflation we reach the top with 19 as the score for the misery index, so in fifth position on a par with Egypt and ahead of Greece.
At the time of ‘Bottino Craxi’, there was optimism of desire, today, there’s the optimism of desperation. The people are no longer given cake but cannon balls. Who knows how it will turn out this time.

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P.S. Meetings for the creation of 5 Star Civic Lists have been organised in the following towns:
Abano Terme, Arezzo, Arzergrande, Chivasso, Crotone, Este, Montignoso, Montefiascone, Ospedaletto Euganeo, Rocca Priora,Sennori, Vasto, Vimercate
Suggest a meeting in your own town .