Now that I’ve read the book "Soldi rubati" {Stolen money} I feel better. Our illegal economy is the best in the world. With corruption, waste, European fines, mafias, tax dodging , I’ve lost count: 500 billion, 600 billion a year? "Tra questa immensità s'annega il pensier mio" {In this immensity my thought drowns} but however I’ve got a little doubt. If this mountain of money were to come into the hands of Tremorti, or Bersani or Berlusconi, how many TAVs would they do, how many Messina bridges and how many incinerators? In a blink of an eye, Fassino, the military of the Val di Susa, would transform Italy into a logistical aircraft carrier. We find ourselves between tax dodging waste and destruction. "io nel pensier mi fingo, ove per poco il cor non si spaura" {I pretend in my thought , to the point that my heart is almost overwhelmed} .

Interview with the journalist Nunzia Penelope, author of "Soldi Rubatii":

Italy: collapse or decline
My name is Nunzia Penelope. I’m a journalist dealing with the economy and I’ve written a book to show that illegality is not just an ethical problem, it’s a cost. Our public debt of 1,900,000,000 could be reduced to zero in 10 years if we started fighting tax evasion and corruption. That means 120 billion a year for the first year and 60 billion for the second year.

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The bottomless pit of tax evasion and corruption
When I go out and about, I hear people who shrug their shoulders and say: “OK, but how can you get back the money from tax dodging?” Shall I tell you how? For example counterfeiting that can seem to be very banal, that stuff that means you can buy fake handbags on the beach from the vendors from the Maghreb. Counterfeiting costs the Italian economy 18 billion a year.

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Money wasted on the Great Useless Public Works
The problem is if we were to recover this money, how would it be used? Because naturally in an ideal world this money clawed back from the thieves could be used to increase pensions, to offer redundancy pay to all who need it, to pay unemployment benefit, for services and so on. In reality we live in a country where one of the reasons, that’s certainly mistaken,

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