Why does the TAV have to be done? In the last few years I’ve thought long and hard, right from the first post published on the blog way back in the distant past in 2005 after the attack by the Police on the people of the Valley at Venaus.
The TAV is a useless bit of work and even an imbecile if he had the information would understand that. The startling cost of 22 billion to be paid almost completely by the tax payers (even the partial financing from the EU is derived from the contributions that we pay to Europe). A goods line in a valley where there is already in existence a train line with a maximum of 50% transported in relation to the effective capacity and in constant decline for ten years. A 52 kilometre tunnel that will be finished in 12 to 15 years having been planned 25 years before, inside a mountain that is rich in asbestos. This in a country where there is not enough money for health, for local transport, for education. A ragged-arsed country that squeezes us like lemons, is throwing 22 billion down the bog for a useless hole.
If the TAV is so useless it thus means that it is very useful for someone. If it’s not possible to turn back, it means that the System is not in the political or economic conditions, or in connections with organised crime, to do so. Perhaps they have already received kickbacks and they are not in a position to return them? One can ask a thousand questions about the waste of public money with no apparent reason. Why is Passera so openly in favour of the TAV? Perhaps IntesaSanpaolo has interests in the work? What role have the banks in this gigantic predation? Passera has not been elected by ANYONE and yet he is having a go at teaching the people of the Val di Susa about democracy while Rigor Montis acts as lookout. What is the role of organised crime in this custard pie created by the delirium of politics? Why did ‘ndrangheta people whose phones were tapped in Turin, say to vote for Fassino as mayor?
Against the people of the Val di Susa, the people of Power have lined up tightly packed, without shame, without imposing any limits of decency on themselves. From “Libero” to “La Repubblica”, from Belpietro to Scalfari, from the Lega to the PDL, from Bersani’s red cooperatives to Lunardi’s white cooperatives. If they lose, they'll go home and the public works that are of use only to the parties and the lobbies and the public debt will stop in the whole of Italy; works like “La Gronda” or the “Expo” in Milan. The parties will collapse. Perhaps someone will end up in prison. The TAV is a mountain of shit and anyone who wants it to happen is an Alpine Guide. After twenty years I feel the arrival of a new “Tangentopoli”. The wind is blowing and it’s the warm wind of Spring. They will never give up. Neither will we.

We were a people of saints, navigators and heroes. The Costa Concordia and the Costa Allegra (but who chooses these names?) have destroyed our reputation. We have gone from Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci to Captain Schettino. The saints have signed up to political parties and they write books. The heroes have been under the ground for some time. In Italy there is no other outcome for them. Anyone who survives is not enough of a hero and does not cause enough annoyance. Falcone, Borsellino, Ambrosoli and many others are dead and since then, they have become part of the Italian elite, wallpaper that is good for all purposes, transformed into TV icons, into mafia and pop corn. How could we define the Italians today? Or rather how do the others define us? Mafia people, uncivilised, tax dodgers? In this country everything is uncertain. Justice, work, religion, news. The Italian is in the trenches, scorned abroad and hunted in his own country. He has no reference points apart from his family, the only value that, if it were put at risk, would oblige him to start a revolution, that in Italy would however be more similar to a vendetta than to a national renewal. He’s living in the rubble like the rats and he no longer cares. For some time he’s been thinking that the degradation is normality, home, refuge. He no longer knows anything and he believes or pretends to believe in everything. What’s important is getting to tomorrow. He’s not interested in understanding, nor in raising the issue of the dogmas about growth at any price, even at the cost of life, of the environment, of the future of our offspring. What’s important is to get by so as not to die. Who said that? The Costa Allegra that landed up drifting in the Indian Ocean is now being towed by a French fishing vessel towards the Seychelles. Its engines are out of use. The passengers have slept on deck. A snapshot of Italy. Is this lethargy that has lasted for decades and that seems eternal, perhaps going to end? Without a reawakening of consciences and the return of democracy (the current set-up should be called by its name: dictatorship) the country won’t make it through. The economic collapse is a symptom and a detonator.

PS: Libero.it is blocking the newsletters sent from the blog. The staff cannot manage to contact it. Can someone help me?

"All roads lead to Capitalism. Slaves are imported from the Third World, which is being ruthlessly exploited by the Capitalists for its raw materials, in order to control the labour market in the western world. Capital is exported to developing countries like China and India in order to make the money grow thanks to yet more slaves and at the expense of the environment. Capitalism must have Growth at all costs, but only for itself and, to this end, it feeds off the world." Beppe Grillo

Economist Nino Galloni’s Passaparola

Recovery takes time
Good day to all the friends of Beppe Grillo’s Blog. My name is Nino Galloni and I’m an economist by profession. Today I wanted to review the merits of a number of fundamental economic issues relating to our Country’s economy, but not only our economy. Let’s start with the issue of public debt and ask ourselves how come we have such a high level of public debt? Well, because in the early ‘80s it was decided to fund both productive and other public expenses, even the fight against terrorism, by issuing bonds bearing high rates of interest. At the time, the political and monetary authorities’ plan was aimed at cutting out a certain ruling class that was making too many investments, the kind of investments that had made Italy great. The other aim was to cut the legs off many small-medium size firms that were deemed to be essentially unproductive. The end result, however, was that interest rates increase exponentially and contributed to doubling our public debt. All other things being equal, if we had followed the advice of other leading economists who were instead totally marginalised, our current public debt would be somewhere between 60% and 65% of GDP.
A lot is said about this public debt, or sovereign debt, however, if the truth be told, paradoxically it would be better if less was said about it because it is nota s important as they would have us believe. For example, Greece’s public debt is only 1/8 of what has been lost because of all that has been said about it since last summer. Italy’s public debt as a percentage of GDP can be very easily reduced by simply increasing our GDP! Precisely the opposite of what has been done to date. We can go ahead and invest public money. An article written by Federico Rampini and published on no less than page one of La Repubblica spoke about these new, modern monetary theories. These are anything but modern theories; they are the monetary theories of the serious post-Keynesian thinkers that have always highlighted the fact that the issuing of money or low-interest bonds is not the problem. The problem is simply that we can only continue to issue new monetary vehicles for as long as our technology enables us to keep up by providing sufficient goods and services. Unlike the case of days gone by, today our technology can provide us with unlimited goods and services so that every human being could have everything he/she needs, however, there are certain interests that seek to prevent this from happening.
Problems only start to emerge when the distribution of goods and services is hampered for some or other reason, for example during the course of the recent Pitchfork Demonstration when products were prevented from getting to their destination so the prices went up. Another example is the current confusion surrounding petroleum products. If the truth be told, a litre of fuel should cost somewhere between 20 and 40 cents, depending on the type of fuel, the rest however, as we all know, is made up of levies and market speculation and strangulation. Then, obviously, if they used the currently available technology to produce motorcars that cost one hundredth or even one thousandth of what our current vehicles cost to run, then not only the problem of transportation costs but also the problem of pollution would be solved once and for all.
It seems to me that the current government has made the same old mistake of saying: “First we must get the public accounts back in check, then we can worry about economic recovery”. In actual fact the precise opposite is true in that a healthy economic recovery is what we need in order to get the public accounts back in check, as was proven by the disaster of the Maastricht parameters throughout Europe, parameters that were only more or less achieved by Germany, simply because Germany’s is a more highly developed economy. All the other less developed countries have a catastrophe on their hands from the point of view of these indicators.

Solutions that hit the people hard
Italy has hastened to embark on a path that will lead to a worsening of the crisis if the drop in consumption results in a drop in the level of supply.
We talk a lot about recession but instead we should be fighting it, otherwise there is a risk that the recession will get worse. The reality is that the world as we know it is changing, most firms are not making any profits and if they’re not making profits then all they’re doing is trying to hang in there to survive, to watch their resources and at least to offer their stakeholders some sort of present if not a future. What this does is ensure that the supply remains more stable than expected instead of changing according to demand, which offers some sort of temporary salvation. However, if the level of supply were to crash, we would all be up the creek without a paddle because prices would increase and income levels would drop!
The apparently easiest solutions, those that hit the people hard such as increasing taxes, lower efficiency of the public services and the cutting of consumption and public servants’ salaries are all wrong and are precisely what leads to a slowdown in development, or rather economic stagnation. We should be doing precisely the opposite, within the limits of what is possible. It’s true that everyone should cut their coat according to their cloth, however, applying standard public service contracts and replacing “easy” public service employment practices such as employing recommended candidates, short term contracts and useless consultancy contracts with sustainable real jobs is the main way of balancing the public accounts, increasing contribution levels and ensuring labour stability!
The problem arose back in the early 80’s when the monetary authorities at the time, namely Italian Central Bank Governor Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Treasury Minister Beniamino Andreatta chose to go the route of increasing bond interests rates, total separation of the Treasury and the Italian Central Bank and the non-coverage of even the most basic and essential costs of economic development recovery by issuing public bonds with extremely high rates of interest. What was needed at the time was industrial restructuring but, as former Italian Central Bank Governor Paolo Baffi once said, they had to have growing demand so that the restructuring could be done with fewer workers being laid off because more lay-offs in turn meant more unemployment benefits and fewer workers meant less contributions coming in, more public spending and therefore a growth in public debt.
At the moment we are still fairly far from where Greece is because we have production diversification and an adequate level of supply but, should the level of supply drop and our level of production diversification decrease, we could very well head down the same route that Greece has gone. The route that Greece has gone is one in which the country grows too little and therefore the importance of debt increases. If I make debt, it means that I have to have sufficient income to repay that debt, but if you prevent me from having an income that enables me to repay the debt, then you are effectively chaining me up!
At the International level, the most important issue is the 16 trillion Dollars that the Federal Reserve has bestowed on the troubled banks to help their liquidity, which is essentially the very same thing that the European Central Bank has done too, namely printing money like there’s no tomorrow. Draghi has recognised this and we are probably headed for an unexpected period of significant growth in terms of the financial tools. If this goes, and continues to go hand in hand with a corresponding ability by the technology to produce adequate quantities of products and services, not only won’t we have inflation, but we will probably come out of this crisis.

In conclusion, therefore, the liberalist paradigm which says that you must free resources with less tax and less public spending, in other words first get the public accounts in order before starting a recovery, has been refuted by the facts. However, it is unlikely that the new paradigms will prevail because the old ruling class, the one that has been responsible for the current situation over the past 30-odd years, continues to sit on the fence, so let’s get a move on and spread the word!

In a year’s time there’ll be national elections. In a year’s time we will be more or less in the same condition as Greece is today. According to the most optimistic forecasts, GDP in 2012 will be down by 1.3% and that means about one million two hundred thousands fewer jobs. The only countries worse than us will be Greece and Portugal, which are nations that have basically gone bust. Credit to companies has disappeared. Credit already granted will be called in and no more loans will be made. Banks are holding up thanks to the loans from the ECB, money that anyway belongs to the States, thus our money, money belonging to the citizens. Money taken away from development to buy public bonds and banking bonds. The country has reached its limit and they are trying to revive it by checking on receipts in the shops, that are closing down ever more frequently, and with alarming penalties from Equitalia in relation to ordinary citizens. A joke.
Social disorder is about to happen and the parties are getting ready. In Spring 2013 anything could happen. The elections are a watershed. There are various working hypotheses to prevent a radical change and the disappearance of the current parties. The bar of 8% for the Lower House and of 12% for the Senate. A double reward for coalition (if you don’t become an ally and get over the bar you still find yourself with a handful of parliamentarians). The birth of a Single Party (the “Party of the Nation”?) with PDL, PDminusL and Udc in the same bundle. More or less what happens now with the unified vote for Rigor Montis from Berlusconi, Bersani and Casini. Basically an officialisation of a state of affairs for another legislature while maintaining a billion in public financing and the squashing of any result of a referendum or popular laws. As before, but more so.
The elections will be incandescent. I’m not excluding the possibility of a postponement if the situation were to get out of control. The bombing season could return. They will never give up (neither will we). See you (in any case) in Parliament.

I wonder what the meaning of the word “Justice” is today. This is perhaps the most important question that we have to ask ourselves. Is Justice for all or is it reserved only for those who can afford a famous legal team and after year upon year, arrive at the time limit of the Statute of Limitations? Or the Justice of the untouchables, that will never see prison, whether they are parliamentarians or the police officers accused of carrying out beatings during the G8? Perhaps the Justice of the poor souls, often people from outside the European Union, who have a lawyer assigned to them and a conviction that is more or less certain? How many types of Justice exist in this wretched and impenetrable Nation? The Justice that is administered by income or by caste? The capitalist Justice where income is an element that is always in favour of the accused, incontrovertible proof of innocence? The Justice of the 250,000 laws in which even Kafka himself would get lost? A Justice that makes up for the Vanished Politics that for twenty years, when it can, has alternated with Finance in administering Italy?
A Justice that applies laws created by a Parliament where serried ranks of convicts are seated? A Justice system that applies laws with no discussion notwithstanding who it is that was the inspiration for the law, whether it’s an Andreotti, a Dell’Utri, a Cosentino, a Berlusconi? A Justice system that never casts doubt on the spirit of the law and depends uniquely and religiously on it? A blind Justice system administered by bureaucrats? Or a Justice system that interprets the law where the Judge is sovereign in making decisions? The law is applied or interpreted? To decide between Good and Evil does it have to be the Parliament, even if it is made up of corrupted people and mafia people? Or perhaps the Judge and his conscience? If the law is unjust, is the one applying it a Just Person? And the people have the role of “the stone guest”? Get Up, Stand Up for your rights!

The newspapers are destined to disappear. Meanwhile they are still living on at our expense thanks to the so-called direct and indirect contributions.
They are the megaphone of the parties and of the areas to which they belong. We are paying them so that they can take us for a ride. In recent years, since the V-Day in Turin, there has been a bit of progress. They get less money.
What’s needed is to take a definitive step and eliminate ANY direct and indirect contribution (“the newspapers pay sales tax at 4% and not at 20% like normal mortals.…” Lopez). It’s intolerable closing the factories and financing the daily newspapers. Anyway it’s just a matter of time, that in this case is a gentleman. Information is shifting to the Internet and the newspapers are by now getting to be similar to an archaeological find.

Interview with Beppe Lopez, author of "La casta dei giornali” {the caste of the newspapers}

Indirect contributions
Greetings to the friends of Beppe Grillo’s blog. My name is Beppe Lopez. Some of you already know me because I am the author of “La casta dei giornali” {the caste of the newspapers} in which we have denounced all the public contributions to the publishing industry, especially in relation to fraud, tricks etc. I am standing here. This is Palazzo Chigi, as you know. Here is the Headquarters of the publishing department, and to be precise the public place where this money is handled. I remember that in the year this book came out, this department had given the assisted newspapers something like 700 million Euro. Tremonti first halved these contributions to the newspapers in some way. Monti almost cancelled the payments at first, but now they are trying to bring back a bit of the contributions. As usual the ones called the sector lobbies are in action to try to convince even the technical people that the newspapers need the contributions. Naturally, the most important reason is because otherwise the newspapers without these contributions, the existing newspapers that for 20 years have been enjoying these contributions. Today what is certain, I have written down some figures, is that Monti has reduced the annual payments that in the golden days amounted to 700 million euro a year and that has been slowly reduced to 170 million.

...



Yes to state contributions with specific criteria
There are still incentives for electricity. However we are facing a moment in history. Now finally we can do what should have been done if the contributions had been abolished as Grillo wanted and as even Di Pietro wanted because it’s possible to start again.

...

Judge Caselli is one of us. He is the best sponsor of the “No Tav” campaign group. His actions are to be judged by the effects they have. And no one more than him is supporting the people of the Val di Susa. He is taking the “No Tav” message from city to city, from Milan to Genoa with the excuse of presenting his book "Assalto alla giustizia” {Assault on Justice}. As he has stated “The “No Tav” that I want to silence, are making a mistake.” The more he talks, the greater is the increase in solidarity for the Val di Susa in the whole of Italy. Caselli who compares the “No Tav” to the people of the camorra mafia is the best advert against the waste of 23 billion euro to make a tunnel for the non-existent goods traffic. With the arrest of 26 people in the whole of Italy and the notification to 15 people of the obligation to stay home before the trial, Caselli has created a “No Tav” pandemia. In Trento, Macerata, Palermo, Pistoia, Modena, Genoa, Bergamo, and Milan, the citizens who didn’t yet know about the destruction of the territory and the waste of public money in Val di Susa now know about it. If the Turin Prosecutors Office has decided to keep two women with unblemished records in prison for weeks, one of whom is the mother of three children, for reasons like “moral contribution”, Caselli should receive the honorary citizenship of the towns of Chiomonte and of Venaus for having brought together and made indignant, tens of thousands of people of the Val di Susa and of Italy. Honestly he cannot do more for the “No Tav” campaign. Every Italian bookshop should host him. He should be listened to in a religious silence. He is the lethal weapon available to Alberto Perino. Anyone standing up to him has basically not understood him. He has to be able to say what he wants to, like every Italian citizen, including those living in the Val di Susa. And to be able to underline from the Brenner Pass in the North to Cape Passero in the South that the framework of the charge for the arrests refers to “devastating and uncontrollable collective violence, strategically planned in advance”. Compared to the “No TAV”, organised crime is totally unimportant, crikey.

Taxes should be paid in correspondence to a service received. Tax when the service exists. Those who pay taxes are by now used to considering them as funding that will not be paid back. Usually the service does not exist and the Italians are more often paying for it privately as for the preschool provision and health services. They pay for two and they get one. They’re used to it.
Rigor Montis, ever more similar to the lanky Father Karras in the film “The Exorcist”, has brought in the tax on the “presumed service”. To pay the RAI tax in fact, even in the absence of a TV, it’ll be enough to be in possession of a PC or an iPhone. The RAI is defined as a “public service” and more modestly, a “little service for the parties”. For the destruction of the RAI, let it be Berlusconi, Fini, Casini, and Bersani, who pay. They are the end users of the TV News. The companies, in which famously the employees turn on their PC to watch Vespa, will be taxed for presumed access to the RAI programmes. Crikey, if an employee were to be discovered watching Mazza during their lunch hour, they should be sacked for being in a state of non compos mentis. The presumed service is a fiscal invention that can be applied to any moment in our lives. In future, there’ll be the introduction of the “Serviceometer” that will evaluate the services that you can use. If you can use them, you must pay for them. It doesn’t matter that you couldn’t care less about the services made available. In reality, this way of doing things has already existed for some time for the newspapers that you pay for even if you never buy them, so why not for the RAI? Perhaps the RAI journalists are less like servants than those of the newspapers? Rigor Montis has opened up a new frontier. Are you not using the motorway? You pay anyway a forfeit toll of 500 euro a year. Is your offspring not going to University? Shell out the tuition fee all the same. You are not a fisherman and there are rivers in your region? You are asked to pay an amount for a fishing permit. It’s the route to getting the accounts to balance. The signs on your shop cast shadows on the pavement on a sunny day? Pay the shadow tax even when it’s raining. And it’s always raining! And the government’s always stealing!

PS: The MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} has no physical Headquarters as laid down in the Non Statute: ARTICLE 1 – NATURE and HEADQUARTERS.

“Panem et circenses”. As time goes on there is ever less “Panem” and all that remains are the “circenses”, in other words the football. Italy is a Republic that is founded on football. Football is politics and winning the Champions League or the Italian League trophy can bring in up to 5% more votes. Football is power. It makes governments and gives rise to political movements. How long would Italy be able to go on without its football?

Journalist and authorGianfrancesco Turano's Passaparola,

Lotito’s "Lazio" and Pozzo’s "Udinese"
Good day to all the friends of Beppe Grillo’s Blog. My name is Gianfrancesco Turano, I work as a journalist for the “L’Espresso” newspaper and I have just published my latest book, which is entitled “ Fuorigioco” (literally “Offside”). It is a great book that talks about 10 Presidents of “Serie A” teams, the main ones being Moratti, Berlusconi, Di Benedetto, Lotito, Della Valle, Zamparini, Pozzo and De Laurentis, the real bosses of our football system. Theoretically at least, this system was originally established to provide pure entertainment, but it then went via the economic system and became entertainment, yes, but entertainment Italian-style, in other words strongly influenced by a political component. Theoretically, entrepreneurs get into the football scene in order to make money and for some time already the Italian teams have been proper limited share holding companies that are often owned by the large corporations, as is the case with Fininvest, which has a controlling interest in the “Milan” team, the Gruppo Della Valle, which has a controlling interest in the “Fiorentina” team and Filmauro, which has a controlling interest in De Laurentis’ “Napoli” Team. In theory, these football clubs’ objective is profit, pity that they usually fail to achieve this objective, indeed they fail miserably, with truly horrendous consequences from a financial point of view.
A case in point is Moratti’s “Inter”, which has no backing group and has managed to lose 1 billion and 350 million Euro since Moratti’s arrival on the scene back in ’94. So why then are the entrepreneurs getting involved in football, you ask? What is their main reason for doing so? We have to assume that many of them obviously do so because football is their passion, as is the case with Moratti, because he (himself) has never had any major political interests. We do know, however, that certain members of his family do indeed have political interests because Letizia, for example, was a minister for Forza Italia and was also Mayor of Milan. As for the others, the main one being Silvio Berlusconi, have built their entire political careers on the back of football and in some cases we have even seen that it is politics that has asked the entrepreneur to take over a football club, but why does this occur? It’s obvious: because a small, medium or large football club, whatever the case may be, is not only a team, but can also constitute a huge political party. The “Juventus” football club, for example, is effectively a party made up of more than 10 million fans, and the same thing goes for the “Milan” and the “Inter” teams. This would be sufficient to, how shall I say, justify the comparison between politics and business in football. If the truth be told, there have been cases where a politician has gone to knock at the businessman’s door in order to urge him to take over a football club.
Let me quote an example, namely the case of Claudio Lotito. Claudio Lotito took over the “Lazio” team at a time when the Rome club was controller by Sergio Cragnotti’s Cirio Company, which had just gone bung. At the time, Lotito was a semi-unknown little businessman who worked in the cleaning sector, a sector that is, in turn, heavily reliant on good relations with politicians because that type of business relies on tender contracts awarded by local authorities, public bodies and companies controlled by public shareholders. So they asked the businessman to take over the football club because the “Lazio” team simply could not be allowed to go belly-up. Any other limited shareholding company would have been obliged to take their accounts to Court, but the “Lazio” team could not be left to the same fate because the Lazio fans, and the Lazio “Ultras”, a group that has often been infiltrated by people with extreme right-wing tendencies, had already made it very clear that if the Lazio team was allowed to go bung, then they would simply start breaking furniture. After a series of demonstrations by the Lazio Ultras, Silvio Berlusconi stated that the “Lazio” team could not be allowed to go under due to the potential risk to public law and order so, and here we’re talking about 2003/2004, his government decided to create a provision, specifically for the “Lazio” club, that would enable the club to pay off their huge tax and contribution debt in 23 easy instalments. If I remember correctly, these debts will only finally be paid off in 2027. 23 Instalments would be like manna from heaven for anyone who owes money to Equitalia or the Receiver of Revenue, a dream that is obviously not for everyone, yet the “Lazio” club succeeded.
There’s another example, in the form of the “Udinese” football club. The “Udinese” football club is another exception, like the “Milan” club, that has been owned by the same person for a very long time, in this case by Giampaolo Pozzo who has been there for the past 26 years, just as long as Silvio Berlusconi. Both began their tenure back in 1986. When Pozzi took over “Udinese”, the club had just got over, or rather was still trying to get over a major crisis because the club had had its heyday with Zico, the great Brazilian footballer, and was facing financial difficulty. The Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Administration, the Udine Provincial Administration and the Udine Municipal Administration, in other words the politicians, were doing everything in their power to find a solution and so they found this engineering entrepreneur, a man that manufactured drills and cutters for a living. And so Giampaolo Pozzo became President of the “Udinese” football club and one of the few people that still today manage to show a profit via a football team, but this is merely of secondary importance. Why do I say that it is merely of secondary importance, you ask? Well, for the very reason that I mentioned earlier. It is of secondary importance because the main thing, the main assurance that a team President has to be able to give the politicians is that the fans will be happy and that the future is looking great for the “Serie A” because “Serie A” equals public peace, a kind of political/sporting stability that makes fans accept the status-quo, at least to some extent.
Another example we can mention is one from very long ago, namely Achille Lauro’s “Napoli” club. Achille Lauro, who was one of the movers and shakers of the Monarchy Party, became President of the “Napoli” football club in order to exploit the power of football fans for political purposes.

Berlusconi’s “Milan” and Zamparini’s “Palermo”
So you see, Silvio Berlusconi did not come up with a new idea after all. In any event his story is different because his relationship with the “Milan” football club is somewhat particular. As we know, he obviously purchased the “Milan” football club, although he was a luke-warm “Inter” supporter and was not particularly interested in football anyway. First he unsuccessfully tried to buy Fraizzoli’s “Inter” before purchasing Farina’s “Milan” club, which was in the process of declaring bankruptcy. Please note that he snapped up the club in Court, and that for very little money. When “Milan” became winners, he made his move into politics. He then also proceeded to win the elections in ‘94 and after having used “Milan” as a springboard, including Capello, the trainer and the managers, the Milanello press conferences became like a political grandstand where players, trainers and technical staff members made propaganda on behalf of the newly-established Forza Italia Party. When the issue of conflict of interests arose, and it arose immediately and remained in the spotlight ever since, people began raising the problem of this man who was simultaneously Prime Minister, head of the largest political party in Italy, one of the biggest businessmen in the television sector and, just by the bye, also happened to own the “Milan” football club. In 2004, then Minister Franco Frattini decided to settle the conflict of interests issue once and for all. Thanks to the Frattini Law, Berlusconi was obliged to step down as President of the “Milan” football club and he then appointed a man by the name of Adriano Galliani as Executive Vice President to take his place, at which point, as Michele Serra said at the time, he ostensibly became nothing more than the owner of the club. He obviously did much the same thing with Fininvest and then with Mediaset. But what is happening now? When the last Berlusconi Government fell and Mario Monti moved into Palazzo Chigi, Berlusconi no longer had any conflict of interest problems, so the first thing that was rumoured in his family circle is that he would go back to being President of the “Milan” football club. The first person to say this was his daughter Barbara, in an interview with La Gazzetta. Barbara is the only one of Berlusconi’s five children that has shown any real interest in the “Milan” football club and, in front of the television cameras after Milan’s four nil win over Arsenal in the Champion’s League, he stated that you simply cannot say no to a daughter and that he would therefore probably be coming back as President of “Milan”. He states that he will not be standing for re-election to the post of Prime Minister in 2013 but that he may be back as President of the “Milan” football club. So Berlusconi’s story goes something like this: he is a businessman, he buys the “Milan” football club, from “Milan” he goes into politics and now he is going to go from politics back to “Milan”. It is a triangle that many people have interpreted in their own way. One interpretation of Berlusconi’s return as President of “Milan” could be as follows: At the moment, Berlusconi is outside the political scene and he is no longer in all the newspapers, which for him is a tragedy since he is used to seeing five or six pages in every newspaper dedicated to him and being in a position to dictate policy, even to the opposition, but now this has all but disappeared. For someone like Berlusconi who thrives on media exposure, he sees this as a threat, so one interpretation of his return to “Milan” could be that, as President of the club, he could make some sort of a comeback, something that politics has denied him. Also because he states that “I will not be standing for re-election in 2013”, but this would certainly not be the first time that he has said one thing and then promptly done something else.
Zamparini is President of the “Palermo” football club. He is a businessman from the Friuli region who initially bought the “Venezia” football club before buying the “Palermo” club. He originally went down to Sicily because he wanted to build a large shopping mall, but he then proceeded to buy the “Palermo” football club, a club that was down and out in “Serie C”, and he was obviously successful because he managed to take the club all the way back up to “Serie A”. He made a great name for himself, which made him decide a few months ago, in 2011 to be precise, to establish the “Movimento per la Gente” (literally the People’s Movement”). This is a populist type of movement whose main aim is to engineer a sort of recovery and a liberation from the tyranny of Equitalia. Zamparini has said that he does not personally want to go into politics, but rather to establish a patently political movement, so this is yet another example of that triangle arrangement that we spoke about earlier with regard to Berlusconi. The entrepreneur buys a football club and moves into politics after supposedly being pressured to do so since the “Palermo” football club has always had a decidedly political flavour: one of the most recent Presidents of the “Palermo” football club, back in the early 2000s was former trade unionist and former General Secretary of C.I.S.L., Sergio D’Antoni, who subsequently moved on from trade unionism to politics with the creation of a centrist/post Christian Democratic party. Even today, the Vice President of the “Palermo” football club is one of the Micciché brothers, brother of Micciché the politician: the third brother, Guglielmo, is the brother of Gianfranco the politician and Gaetano, one of Italy’s biggest bankers who works for the Intesa San Paolo Banking Group.
Another historical feature of the “Palermo” football team is it has always had a problem with infiltration by the Cosa Nostra. Indeed, at certain times the club was even controlled by the Cosa Nostra and run by managers who had very close ties with the Costa Nostra. What with Zamparini’s intention to build a new shopping mall in the Partanna Mondello area near the old Zen, and the plans for a new stadium, the Cosa Nostra once again began to raise its head, so what happened next, you ask? Well, to cut a long story short, what happened is that Zamparini suddenly found the Mafia knocking at his door. One of the “Palermo” trainers relived one of the scenes from the first Godfather movie when the severed head of a deer was left on his doorstep at home. At that point his first reaction was to ignore the threat totally – all credit to him, obviously – and so he rejected the pressure being applied by the Mafia, also thanks to his close personal friendship with Piero Grasso, the Super-Prosecutor who works for the National Anti-Mafia Directorate and is also an ardent “Palermo” supporter. Somehow Grasso stepped in to help his friend Zamparini and protect his favourite team against the Mafia threats. This episode proves just how intertwined politics and football really are because the Cosa Nostra always tries its best to get its hands on many companies down in Sicily, but not on “Palermo”, no way. There’s simply no way with “Palermo” because of the direct involvement of the National Anti-Mafia Directorate. Perhaps it would be a good thing if they showed the same level of involvement when it comes to other companies too.

Di Benedetto, a sign of something new
Now let’s open a new window on Di Benedetto. The biggest sign of new things to come that I mention in my book is the appearance of Thomas Di Benedetto’s name amongst the Presidents of the various Italian football clubs. But why is this a sign of something new? Well, because the “Serie A” has pretty much always been a kind of “old-boys club” when it comes to club ownership and foreigners have only been welcomed as right wings as opposed to full backs, but the club owners have always been Italians, and top-dogs at that. Di Benedetto is a US citizen and, notwithstanding his Campania roots, he comes from Boston and, together with his partners because he is not going it alone, he has introduced, or rather intends to introduce an American management style at the “Roma” football club, so here’s another case of someone saying I’m going to buy “Roma” because “Roma” will make me money. The strange thing about Di Benedetto is that his political/entrepreneurial background is very reminiscent of those of his “Serie A” colleagues. Di Benedetto, who has worked in the real estate and finance fields, also happens to be President of a major lobby group located in K Street in Washington, which is very near to the White House and the preferred address for all the major US lobby groups. Back in the early 80’s Di Benedetto was a man with political inclinations who was very close to the Reagan Administration and, at this time, when the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to be very, very far away, he was one of the top western businessmen who were doing business in the Soviet Union at the time. Later, when the Soviet Union eventually collapsed, he was right there, snapping up abandoned military barracks and land.
When he came along to build the new stadium, he somehow had to come to some agreement with the politicians, so he had to meet with Alemanno, Provincial Premier Zingaretti and Ms. Polverini. Therefore, to some extent at least, even our American friend had to adapt when he comes to Italy.
This book of mine has been a gesture of love to football. I am no less passionate about football than your average Italian and indeed perhaps I am even a little more passionate about it. That is precisely why I tried to show those who are as passionate as I am what goes on behind the scenes so that, the next time you go and watch a match, have fun and support your team by all means but, for heaven’s sake, spread the word and don’t vote for them!

Take everything away from an Italian politician, even his wife and his favourite football team, but not his money. Without public financing he cannot live. For him, money is like air, his only reason for existing. A referendum abolished the financing, but from his point of view, the referenda have no influence. They are anti-democratic. For him, to get financed by the people is better than fucking. It’s the characteristic of a pimp. If you touch his money, he can even go mad and waffle on about historical and accounting sentences to the newspapers, always ready to pick up the braying of the politicians.. The parties, fearful that the citizens will go mad and insists that they don’t receive more than a billion euro to invest in Tanzania or in Canada or in personal real estate, like Lusi, have put forward Bersani who has expressed his opposition to “the unanimous and personalist curvature ... the parties are a democratic nervation and already 50 years before Pericles the decision was taken to finance them.” Poor man, he was confused. He was distracted with Penati and Tedesco. He didn’t want to say Pericles but Ali Baba and the forty thieves. Pericles will turn over in his grave in the face of Bersani’s blasphemy. A quick bit of revision for the PDminusL, from the the speech that Pericles delivered to the people of Athens:
“Here our government favours the many rather than the few: this is why it’s called democracy/ Here in Athens that’s how we do things/ The laws ensure justice that’s equal for everyone in their private disputes .../ When a citizen distinguishes himself, then he will be called to serve the State in preference to others ... as a way of recompensing his merit, and poverty is not an impediment/ ... A citizen of Athens does not neglect public affairs when he is looking after his own private business, but above all he doesn’t deal with public affairs to resolve his own private matters/ We have been taught to respect the magistrates, and we have been taught to respect the laws and to never forget that we have to protect those that have been offended/ ... We don’t consider a man that takes no interest in the State to be innocuous, but useless; and although only a few are able to bring forward a policy, all of us in Athens are able to judge it/ ... We believe that happiness is the fruit of liberty, but that liberty is only the fruit of valour ...”
To sustain the “democratic nervation”, there was an intervention even from the PDminusL treasurer, Antonio Misiani who was in tears as he explained that the financing has been halved “from 289 million in 2010 to 143 in 2012” without adding however that up until 2010, the financing was double. In fact when a legislature is interrupted, as happened in 2008, the remaining amount is paid out all the same, together with the new financing. This play-acting has to stop. The Italians said NO to electoral financing with a referendum and NO it must be. The parties are outside democracy. See you in parliament unless they do an electoral law that prevents that.

One in four doesn’t make it. 24.5% of Italian families are at risk of poverty. They don’t manage to pay the rent, the mortgage. They don’t use heating. They don’t even open the gas or electricity bills. They still eat, but ever more frequently they are queueing up at the Caritas soup kitchen. Some have a go at begging but they are almost excusing themselves at the same time. They lower their eyes like a beaten dog. Unemployment is above all something that especially hits the youngsters that leave the country as soon as they can. In the South, emigration has become the only possibility, just like after the war.
We are getting used to this reality as though it didn’t relate to us. An illness that always affects the others, that you have to talk about quietly with condescension. “He’s gone bust and yet he was doing so well.”, or with a barb of criticism “If he wanted to, he could find a job” or with arrogance “This couldn’t happen to us” We are becoming a nation of wretches and paradoxically it’s nothing to do with us. At least until it does come round to us. A quarter of Italians is a colossal number, equal to fifteen million people, and it’s growing. How many of us will it grow to? Once upon a time we had “panem et circences” {bread and circuses}, now we just have circences with football. We cannot transform Italy into a two level society: those who eat and those who don’t. We all need to eat a bit less and tighten our belts. The only measure that has never been mentioned by the Monti government is the “patrimonial”, a blasphemy for a banker, it hits the rich who "sono tristi se noi piangiam” {are sad if we cry} as Jannacci sang. Instead what needs proposing is the creation of a fund for a citizen’s income that’s equal for everyone who’s unemployed to cover basic needs, from housing to food shopping. Together with a citizen’s income there should be the creation of true job centres that offer a job and if you turn it down that means you would lose out on the income. No one can be left behind.

Tedesco, who is the former cabinet member for health in Vendola’s Cabinet, will not go to prison. The Bari Prosecutors Office asked for his arrest. The Immunity Committee, chaired by Marco Follini, turned down the request. By now, Parliament is a free zone, not subject to the law. Tedesco is in the PDminusL which he joined after the Mixed Group as a face saving exercise. Twelve people from the PDL and the Lega voted against the arrest, however, the magnificent seven of the PDminusL and the IDV voted for the arrest of their former party and coalition colleague. They could afford to do that as there were fewer of them. Tedesco was not going to prison anyway and they made a good impression. It’s so “chic” that they are even indignant for the “slaughter of the rule of law”. The turbulence in relation to companion Tedesco, Vendola’s right hand man, was known about for a long time and before the possible arrest, it was organised for the optimum Bersani to enter the Senate in place of Paolo De Castro who resigned because of incompatibility. In Apulia, no one knew anything. Vendola was too busy with Marcegaglia’s incinerators, with Don Verzè’s hospitals financed by the Region, the funny stories about public water, but even by an unlimited company and with the “spoils system”. “The political praxis of the “spoils system” was in fact so pressing in the regional Health System as to lead the governor Nichi Vendola, even to support the appointment of one of his “protected” people for the position of director general, even to insist on changing the law for "usum delphini”, to overcome the obstacles in the regulations preventing the appointment of the person that he wanted so much.” In the words of the investigating magistrate at the Bari tribunal, from the document used to ask the Senate for authorisation to arrest Tedesco. Most of the Regions’ expenditure goes on the Health System and Tedesco was Vendola’s earring, the sultan of Apulia.
Tedesco is the protagonist actor in a modern fairy story, in which Parliament is an inviolable castle, the magistrates are made fun of, the guilty one doesn’t go to prison, his party condemns him to be used by the simpletons, knowing full well that he will be saved. The one with political responsibility, Vendola, plays the part of the three monkeys and then everyone shoots off to the restaurant to express indignation at the veal tail stew, with Bersani at the head of the table. What more do you want from a fairy story with a happy ending? See you in parliament unless they do an electoral law that prevents that.

PS: There are no plans for national meetings of the M5S nor for new versions of Woodstock at Rimini as reported in some newspapers.

Up there hidden in the gallery, inside the Theatre of Italy, where every tragedy is transformed into a farce and the memory of the past is spoiled by the hereditary Alzheimer’s of a cynical and disintegrated society. From up there, they are watching the destruction they have created. How many are there? A million, two million? They live off our blood and they don’t even stop at taking the tiniest of drops. The annuities, the golden salaries, the election financing, financing for publishing, the feeding troughs of the Great Public Works together with the white-red cooperatives protected by the trades unions. They are true connoisseurs of the fixed job, of the lifetime’s armchair. Pasolini, in his poem called “Ballata delle madri” {Ballad of the mothers}, blamed them for having created sons of monsters, domestic pigs on sale for beetroot and some fattening feedstuffs, indolence and indifference. “Servile Mothers, for centuries accustomed/ to bend your head without love/ to transmit to your foetus/ the ancient shameful secret/ to be content with the leftovers of the feast./ Servile Mothers, who has taught you/ how the servant can be happy ....”
Yesterday at San Remo they asked for the receipts at the bar and the word “anti politics”, that’s the term used to refer to the wish of the citizens to participate, was thrown into the hubbub on the stage. Poor Italians, fucked and happy, disinformed right to the end. The billion in reimbursed election expenses, is not discussed, instead of being abolished on the spot, and not even the scoundrels who have taken advantage of the Fiscal Shield (I want a list of them online signor Monti!). How is it possible to stay inert in the face of a System that gives away 6 to 7 hundred million in direct financing to the newspapers every year and shifts the hands of the pension clock to after your death? From the gallery they are screwing us around and we are applauding them. They want to abolish the Provinces and they are electing provincial councillors. They are talking about the need for sacrifices and they are not renouncing any type of financing. Renouncing is easy, it’s enough to just give it back. To get money like the M5S has got it, doesn’t even need a law. When they arrest their councillors, as has happened in Apulia and in Lombardy, they carry on like defiled virgins and they go and hide under the robes of the priest.
We need to starve them. It’s the only exit route. Take away from the parties, the newspapers and the lobbies, everything right up to the last cent of public money. The M5S in Parliament will do that by example and with proposed laws. We are coming. Dinner time is over. There will no long be free meals. Pasolini analyses the present and future destiny of Italian society, its leadership class, the irreversible and violent end of a history lasting centuries.

If in Italy there are 19 million pensioners and four million public employees out of 60.7 million inhabitants, how many Italians have to pay taxes to maintain the 38% of the population excluding children, students and unemployed people? This is Monti’s dilemma. The problem was resolved by previous governments by increasing the public debt, but now the debt is blocked. Monti is squeezing like a lemon, the productive society, every social category and even the coffers of the towns. Italy has the highest taxation rates in Europe. If Monti goes on like this, tax dodging will explode. In fact, a live tax dodger is better than a dead tax payer and many entrepreneurs, tired of playing the hero, are moving abroad together with their capital. Taxes can only get smaller, not increase. The would-be pensioners, and especially those aged forty/fifty know that they will never get a pension, and for the few jobs they are fighting the young people, ever more unemployed. But Monti doesn’t know this ... The incentives of the debt and increasing taxes can no longer be used while the tax revenues are destined to go down drastically owing to the collapse of thousands of companies and for the missing income tax that will not come from the million people who are soon to be unemployed. Spending is shrinking. The only alternative for Monti is to break the Magic Circle of the pensioners and the public employees that up until now have suffered the crisis less than the private individuals. The adoption of the Greek solution is inevitable. Sacking tens of thousands of public service employees and cutting pensions above a certain level with the introduction of a maximum pension that could be 2000 euro a month.
Monti has no choice. But he prefers not to choose because he would straight away be defenestrated. It’s not even possible for him to start to take action on the Provinces. But the Magic Circle is destined to break. The egg timer cannot stop. Whole swathes of the Centre South live off public administration and pensions. They won’t let themselves die of starvation to save the banks. The trade union members are mainly public employees and pensioners. The Confindustria represents the interests of Marcecaglia-type and Benetton-type concessionaries, glued to the State’s eating trough. The parties, the ones responsible for the disaster, live on only in death announcements in the newspapers, camouflaged as articles. The country is in a straitjacket. Anything could happen.

Raphael Rossi has used facts and figures to prove that differentiated waste collection is indeed possible in Italy, that incinerators are unnecessary and that the only real problem is in fact the lack of political will. Raphael is a former President of ASIA, the company responsible for urban waste removal in Naples, as well as former city councillor and deputy President of AMIAT (Azienda Multiservizi Igiene Ambientale Torino). During his tenure, the rate of differentiated refuse collection in Turin went up from 26% to 42.4%. He was once offered a bribe in exchange for the purchase of some useless equipment, which he refused and then proceeded to lay charges of attempted bribery and corruption against the company managers. As a reward, his appointment at AMIAT was never renewed, which goes to show that as far as the System is concerned, an honest man is a danger to be avoided at all costs.

Rapahel Rossi's Passaparola,

In Scampia, 64% of all the urban solid waste collected is differentiated waste

Good day to all the friends of Beppe Grillo’s Blog. My name is Raphael Rossi and I am a specialised differentiated waste disposal technician with particular emphasis on door to door differentiated waste collection, which is the area where the most positive results can be achieved. Today I’m going to talk about the current state of affairs concerning solid urban waste disposal in Italy, but above all I’m going to talk about what are potentially the best practices that can be implemented by regions, town councils and administrators throughout the Country in order to achieve some excellent results in terms of differentiated urban waste removal. This is because differentiated waste removal, in other words separating the various different types of solid urban refuse prior to collection so that they can actually be sent for recycling instead of being collected all together and going through an incinerator or worse still, directly for disposal, and thereby becoming a potential source of ground and air pollution. In either case it amounts to a waste of resources and a risk of environmental pollution. Instead, by separating the various types of refuse, we are actually able to recycle many of these waste products and give them a new life.
Here in Italy, the bulk of the refuse generated by the Italians lands up at the waste disposal sites and the level of differentiated waste disposal accounts for a mere 25%, nowhere near the levels achieved in other Countries where only a small fraction of their solid urban waste is burned in incinerators or lands up at the waste disposal sites. The reality here in Italy is very different indeed. Certain Regions have already managed to reach regional average differentiated waste disposal levels in excess of 50% whereas, unfortunately, certain other regions continue to hover around the 10% level. It must be pointed out that these are all very recent figures because until just a few years ago it was believed to be impossible to achieve differentiated waste disposal figures of 50 or 60% in the large towns, but only in small towns and villages. Nowadays all or most large Italian cities and towns have introduced some sort of door-to-door differentiated waste collection system, achieving rates of 50 to 55% and in some cases even 60% differentiated waste collection. In Turin, across roughly half of the city door-to-door differentiated waste collection has reached 60% while one specific quarter of Rome achieved 65% differentiated waste collection already a few years ago, and in Naples, which is a very, very complex city indeed both from a social and an urbanisation point of view, some excellent results have been achieved in certain areas where door-to-door refuse collection was begun, with some areas even achieving around 65% differentiated refuse collection.
In the Scampia quarter, the latest one in which this system was implemented and a very difficult one from a social point of view, they have achieved 64% differentiated waste collection, an excellent result from a quantitative point of view and a great effort because if a door-to-door differentiated waste collection programme is implemented carefully it is always a good thing, what matters is not only the quantity but also the quality. Unfortunately, the downside of all communal rubbish skips is that all it takes is one careless user to negate the efforts of all the other conscientious users whereas, in the case of systems that rely on domestic or individual rubbish bins, in other words where a bin is allocated to each individual household, it is possible to do some quality control and to warn or fine the people that behave badly.

The importance of organic refuse

The cases I have just mentioned are merely some excellent and laudable exceptions, such as the one of Naples where the areas where they have introduced door-to-door differentiated waste collection the rate has reached 60%, because the overall rate for the city of Naples as a whole is sitting at around a mere 22%. In Turin, the areas we spoke about earlier and where they have door-to-door differentiated waste collection they have achieved a figure of 60%, however, the overall rate for the entire city is a mere 40%, so the situation here in Italy is really a case of areas of light and shadow, like leopard spots if you will, with certain virtuous areas achieving levels as high as 75 or 80% differentiated waste collection whereas in certain other areas the differentiated waste collection levels drop as low as 10%. What this means is that overall we are sending tens of millions of cubic metres of recyclable waste to the disposal sites each year, around 20 million cubic metres to be precise, thereby creating a huge headache for future generations, which will be obliged at some point in the future to rehabilitate all that land that we have ruined and wasted.
It is extremely important for us to increase the levels of differentiated waste collection and for all our town councillors to implement virtuous systems for collecting not only solid urban waste, those that are currently collected by the Conai, in other words not only glass, not only plastic packaging materials, not only aluminium and the waste from the consortiums of the production chain, but also the organic waste, the kitchen waste, which is so simple and easy to recycle. It is easy to see how an apple can go from our plate to be collected as differentiated waste and land up as compost, after all, this process has been happening in nature since time immemorial, so all we have to do is to do the same thing on an industrial scale. It is far more difficult to understand that, in the case of the apple, if we simply chuck it in with all sorts of other rubbish, it suddenly becomes a pollution factor because, when it is dumped at the waste disposal site together with all manner of other rubbish, like batteries for example, that same apple will contribute to the production of percolate and therefore turns into a potential pollutant. In the same way, if that apple is eventually sent to the incinerator, it will require a certain amount of energy to burn it because it is mostly made up of water. It is extremely important for all Italian town and city councils to implement systems for the separate collection of organic refuse and kitchen refuse, not least of which because Italy is currently a net importer of compost from abroad so, given that we need compost and potting soil for our nurseries and even for planting geraniums in our gardens, it is interesting to note that it is normally imported from abroad, yet here in Italy we continue to simply chuck away an awful lot of organic refuse.

Aiming for zero waste

Let’s define these systems: a door-to-door differentiated refuse collection system is a system that involves the use of small containers allocated to individual families or to entire apartment blocks. These containers are situated at the roadside from where they are collected and emptied regularly, in accordance with a predetermined schedule. The interesting thing about this system is that the container is no longer totally anonymous and for general use, but it is marked either with a code or a specific name, so everyone immediately knows that it is allocated to Raphael Rossi rather than Mario Bianchi. The Turin case is particularly interesting because the level of differentiated refuse collection in Turin increased from 2% to 42% between 1995 and 2010, an increase that could easily be viewed as being merely a gradual increase, bit by bit and year by year, a series of small efforts that eventually produced results. This official data from the Turin City Council includes a graph showing that the level of differentiated waste collection in those areas where a door-to-door collection service has been implemented stands at about 60%, as you can see from the green bar on the chart, whereas in those areas where the differentiated waste collection is done on a street-by-street basis, the average is only 25 to 30%, which tells us that the type of differentiated waste collection system implement has a major impact on the results achieved and that door-to-door differentiated collection systems produce excellent results.
Then there are other town councils that have set even more ambitious differentiated refuse collection targets. As you know, that the European Union has set a minimum differentiated refuse collection target of 65% and an active re cycling target of 50% so, in essence, what the European Union is saying is that it is not enough to do differentiated waste collection, but that everything that is collected as differentiated waste must then be recycled. There are certain town councils that have set themselves yet another target in addition to the already ambitious targets set by the EU, namely to aim for zero waste, which is obviously a policy objective, by which they are saying: “Let’s look beyond the obstacles to find some way of viewing the residual refuse, in other words the stuff that has to be taken to the disposal sites, the stuff that simply cannot be differentiated, as a mere planning error and then begin to plan in a different way so that this refuse ceases to exist and no longer has a negative impact on the environment”. The long-term objective is a society where there is no such thing as refuse to be sent to some or other disposal site, but where everything is re-usable, recyclable and recoverable.
Achieving the target of zero waste means that after having achieved the highest possible level of differentiated waste collection and after having implemented every possible waste prevention and reduction initiative, such as opposing the sale and consumption of mineral water in plastic bottles, we have to decide what can be done with the residual refuse. I am a member of the Zero waste scientific committee set up by the Capannori Town Council and we meet every year to decide which item of refuse we would like to see eliminated and to set an objective to stop producing the said item. One year we looked at nappies, another year we looked at textiles and another year we looked at disposable coffee pods and it was absolutely amazing to see how these small items of refuse, which had suddenly become major items once everything else had been recycled, could actually also be recycled and in some cases even re-utilised.

Check up on your municipality

Now let’s touch on the problem of the cost of these door-to-door waste collection systems because in this way we can also begin to understand why these systems have not been adopted everywhere. In order to do this, we have to split the total cost of providing a differentiated waste collection service into two separate line items. On the one hand there is the cost of the people and the trucks that collect the refuse and, on the other hand, there is the cost of sending any undifferentiated refuse collected to an authorised disposal site or sending it to be burned in an incinerator. Door-to-door collection systems carry a higher cost, obviously because the containers are smaller, there are more of them to be emptied and they are located at private homes or apartment blocks rather than out in the streets so by definition it costs more to collect the refuse. However, these differentiated systems provide excellent results and instead of sending 75 of every 100 tons of refuse to the disposal site only 25 of every 100 tons will be sent for disposal. Therefore, if disposing of the refuse is so expensive it becomes cheaper to collect differentiated waste door-to-door while, on the contrary if disposing of the refuse is cheap, a sit still is at some of the older disposal sites or the old incinerators that perhaps don’t match the environmental standards of the newer ones, it may happen that door-to-door differentiated waste collection is not necessarily the cheapest system and, therefore, it has to be done for purely environmental or civil reasons instead of purely financial reasons. This is why, in certain parts of Italy, they have not yet introduced this kind of system and why a number of councillors claim that it has not been done because the costs are too high. It is important for us to tell these councillors that it may cost too much but let’s start by working out both the collection costs and the disposal costs for comparison.
The short term aim of differentiated waste collection is to repeat the Italian best practices in the rest of Italy and to expand the ***. This would enable us to increase the national level of differentiated waste collection to 60 or 70% within a very short space of time. Keep in mind that certain Italian Regions, like for example the Piedmont Region and the Veneto Region, already have differentiated waste collection levels of around 50%, so we can easily repeat this kind of performance throughout the rest of the Country. In the medium term we could even imagine being able to reduce that tiny portion of refuse that cannot currently be recycled to Zero.
So, what this Country’s citizens can indeed do is check up on their respective Town Councils, separate all their household refuse and make sure that their respective town councils are handling the differentiated waste properly, this by checking on the collection percentages achieved by their town councils and reminding their councillors that the law and all the European Union directives have set a minimum target of 65% for differentiated refuse and an overall target of 50% for the recycling of refuse. Therefore, what the members of the public and the councillors must do is to ensure that these targets are actually met.
Furthermore, in the interests of all of the above and in the interests of our environment, let’s not forget that we all simply must spread the word!

The CIA website was brought down by Anonymous. It’s a “two fingers” to Power, but it’s also a warning. No one is safe from the Internet. The blackout of the website came about with the sending of a very high number of requests coming from hundreds of computers all over the world (DDoS). Anyway, the United States is accused of having tampered with the functioning of part of the Iranian nuclear power plants with Stuxnet, a virus propagated by the computers in the industrial machines supplying false instructions to the apparatus and false information to the operators. The Internet against the System, the System against the Internet. It’s the start of the World War Web. Anonymous’s motto is “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.” Each person is worth one, but interconnected humanity has a value that tends to infinity. Is this the message?
In the last few weeks, Anonymous attacked the websites of the US Department of Justice, of Universal, of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), following the closure of Megaupload and Megavideo for copyright violation and the arrest of their top people. Copyright? In prison for violation of copyright? In Italy the whole of the national land space would not be enough for the construction of new prisons. But even Anonymous could do nothing against the Internet and the Italian State’s information systems. Remember Italia.it, the website that cost tens of millions of euro that was to relaunch Italy? Rutelli’s "Pliz, visit the website, but pliz visit Italy” and the world’s laughing stock of Stanca, the Minister of Innovation, with an awful website? And are you thinking of the total incommunicability (they must do so much desk work to achieve this) between the citizen and any administrative website? And the demands for payment created by the mind of a mad computer? We have Anonymous Inside! We are out in front. Half the country does not have broad band, does not get information from the Internet and does not access online services. Anonymous would beat us hands down.

To have the cover of TIME magazine devoted to Monti is more than deserved. The spread is under control. The bund no longer causes fear. The public debt is still the same as before, but it already has a better appearance. It almost seems rejuvenated. The Great Public Works are not stopping. The most important American base in Europe at Vicenza is not under discussion. If there’s a war, we are the first target, but we are proud of that. Our troops are joyfully safeguarding Afghanistan ("In Afghanistan marciam, il perchè non lo sappiam” {in Afghanistan we’re marching, but we don’t know why}). Italy is participating in the embargo against Iran. What more do you want from a faithful ally? A few nuclear warheads to look after at Aviano and at Ghedi Torre? No problem. They’re already there. Nuclear is banned in Italy but the nuclear weapons of the stars and stripes are always welcome like the memorable American bombings on our cities in the Second World War.
CDSs are spurting out from all the pores of the American banks. “L'enfant du pays” Mario has gone back home to Goldman Sachs, where he has spent the best years of his life. The Americans must love us, otherwise why have they not gone away since pitching their tents in 1945?
Veni, Vidi, Monti. Better than Julius Caesar in Gaul. The defeated ones are the unemployed, the companies that close down, the young people who flee abroad in tens of thousands, the pensioners who will die in the work place, the employees without rights. We are just at the beginning. When we get to the magnificence experienced by Greece, with mass sackings, and widespread poverty, Monti will win the Oscar for the best protagonist stuntman, the Nobel in Stockholm for the Recession and the Order of the Golden Spur from the hands of Ratzinger. Monti is not “amerikano”, he’s just a bit tanned. Obama loves him. It’s a banking affection, the one that stands up to everything and lasts over time.

The gas that we import gets thrown out of the window. We could halve imports. In fact we waste at least half. The efficiency of our generating stations goes from 35% to 55%. Furthermore, the Italian energy system is strongly centralised and this brings about losses in the distribution. If we add in that the passive houses, that consume 15 kw/m2 per year, between 10 and 15 times less than a normal house, are almost non-existent, you can understand in whose hands we are. A national energy plan is more than ever urgent and necessary.

Interview with Paolo Ermani, president of the Paea Association



The strategy of programmed suicide
Greetings to all the friends of Beppe Grillo’s blog. My name is Paolo Ermani of the Paea Association and for a long time I have been dealing with energy issues, saving energy, and renewable energy. The current situation, regarding gas and the interruption of supply in recent days is the offspring of a system that is absolutely irrational and inadequate. The energy system in Italy is heavily centralised. The centralisation is the root of all the waste and all the blackouts.

...



The advantages of thermal insulation
The solutions given by the expersts are: “If our problem is dependency, let’s increase dependency. If our problem is the greenhouse effect, let’s increase the greenhouse effect.” But why act like this? Because the first and only thought of the energy monopolists is their wallet, and these people have absolutely no interest in safeguarding the environment and the people, even because there have been similar crises in the past,

...



Energy saving on a par with wellbeing
We have Marchionne who still belongs to the Pleistocene era who still wants to sell cars in Italy in a country where there are more vehicles than people with driving licences, thus if one thinks that from these people the solutions are forthcoming, we can abandon every hope. But in fact we ourselves can place many solutions on the table.

...

The PDL and the PDminusL have met up to avoid the “electoral shattering” and to bring “bipolarism” to fulfilment. Basically to have just two parties in Parliament. It’s the supersedence of the “Porcellum”: the "Merdellum”. Berlusconi and Bersani want to raise the bar, perhaps to 8%, cutting out smaller parties and the MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement}. There’s the risk that 50 to 60% of the voters including those that won’t go to vote because of the nausea, thus most of the country, have no representatives in Parliament The certified end of democracy. From Mussolini’s “Only Party” to the P2’s “ Two Twin Parties”. These individuals who have destroyed the Nation and who talk too much of “electoral shattering” have shattered my balls. What “shattering” are they talking about? In Parliament two coalitions have been elected: PDL and Lega, and PDminusL and IdV, and the UDC of cuffarian electoral memory. Two plus one. What arithmetic are La Russa and Violante going on about? The appeal for the discussion table came from Berlusconi, the most disqualified politician in the entire globe. The PDminusL immediately replied like the most willing of the “escorts”. When it has to give it, it never draws back. To exclude the country from representation to propose once more the same faces in Parliament that have shelved it, and to prevent campaign groups from coming in is a serious action that can bring unpredictable consequences especially with the development of the crisis.
We have understood for some time that this lot don’t want to go away. For them, democracy is an optional. They are not subject to the laws nor to the orders of the public prosecutor's offices when there is a request to have access to the current account of the party, as happened for la Margherita and Lusi yesterday in the Senate. I insist that the accounts of the parties should be available online with the evidence for each individual transaction. I insist that the money not spent for the reimbursement of election expenses should be returned to the State. A part of this money is even coming from my taxes. The press presents headlines about election agreements with great pomp, as though it were a victory and not a defeat for democracy. There are days when I wonder why on earth I’m doing this. Sometimes I don’t know how to answer. I look at myself in the mirror, a bit older and a bit more befuddled. Today however, I have no doubts. The response is anger. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we. See you in parliament unless they do an electoral law that prevents that.

The MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} is defending the freedom to demonstrate for everyone within the laws. Who can place themselves above the laws? Just an outlaw or a journalist in bad faith. If the law forbids a demonstration, then it has to be the law, the prefecture to forbid it. To want to substitute the law with a decision of the town council, as has happened at Rimini, to prohibit Forza Nuova from using the square today, and perhaps tomorrow to prohibit anyone else, is against democracy. Voltaire said: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." The MoVimento 5 Stelle wants “liberty for the fascists” thunder the farts of the deep space, the hacks and the politicians with a pong under their noses that every day are looking for a needle in the arsehole of the MoVimento 5 Stelle. The Emilia Romagna regional councillor Defranceschi declared: “It’s not up to us, nor is it up to the Majority to decide who can demonstrate and who cannot, because it’s everyone’s right. It’s the Prefect that has to decide who can come out into the streets. It’s clear that we are condemning xenophobia and those who affirm that they want to burn books as though we had gone back to the nazi-fascist era. But there’s the need to be coherent. So when the Lega say they want to remove the tricolour from the squares, when Bossi says he wants to clean his backside with our national flag, are those demonstrations to be authorised? Forza Nuova should probably be declared illegal but I repeat, this decision is not up to us.” I agree!
Do you remember the second Vday in Turin when the libertarian voices of the Left attacked the demonstration dedicated to the freedom of information? We were the fascists ....
"I grillini come Mussolini” {the Grillo supporters like Mussolini} was the headline at that time of an article in Micromega that also wrote: “Grillo supporters are too permissive” in relation to “the obscurantist and avowedly violent spirit of the black extremism ....”
Pertini, as President of the Lower House, reaffirmed the right of each deputy to be able to express himself without being interrupted, making particular reference to Almirante’s MSI people. Was Pertini a fascist? Are the journalists intellectually honest?

The hamster wheel is turning, turning. We only ever stop to have a bite to eat and to sleep, but every morning the wheel awaits us. The more we move our little paws the less we think about things. One day, however, we will climb off the wheel and break out of our cage in order to follow our dreams. But when will that be? Tomorrow, the day after, or next year perhaps? Old men getting a minimum state pension? When will it be the right time to make a change and try to have a better life if not now?

Author Simone Perotti's Passaparola:

Thinking, examining and making changes.
Good day to all the friends of Beppe Grillo’s Blog. My name is Simone Perotti. I’m an author who worked in a company for 19 years before deciding to spend all of my time writing and sailing. I became a sailor in order to survive before my books began to become successful and to this day I continue to be a sailor, a skipper if you will, as well as a sailing instructor. I also clean boats and I do anything else that is related to the sea. Everything we do in life we normally do for one of two reasons, either for love or because we are forced to, in which case, any downsizing will no longer be the result of a personal choice as it has been for many people in recent years, in fact more so than what we may think, but rather the result of necessity since the great promise made by the System, namely that we would all leave the countryside and eventually even the factories to live in the city, and we would all have a collar and tie, a desk, a motorcar, a house and a middle class life will never materialise and is never going to happen. The system is no longer in a position to drain all the working resources to which it once had easy access, so it cannot provide what it promised and it can no longer provide wellbeing as promised so, in other words, it was either just one big lie or at least a serious error of judgement. The most serious and most unpleasant thing about the way things stand at the moment is the fact that the main role players in this system, the ones that actually conceived it and developed it are not doing any soul-searching whatsoever. I would perhaps still be prepared to accept the errors that were made and accept that it was all done in good faith … but now, unfortunately, things have become all too clear and what we need to hear is someone saying “We made a mistake!” We cannot accept a system such as this capitalist system that promises wellbeing for all and is then unable to deliver what has been promised, so our current capitalist system needs to be reviewed, and that’s something that people like Berlinguer, Pasolini and many others were already talking about back in 1977.
But no one listened to them. The time has come to do some serious soul-searching, yet neither Monti nor anyone else is doing any soul-searching and this is not a good thing. People cannot simply be expected to accept a change of direction without the leader admitting that mistakes were made in the first place.
There is no question that this downsizing has to take place and it is going to involve taking 1, 2, 3, 4 or perhaps 10 steps backward, which is obviously not going to be a painless process. When something is done for love, the motivation is strong and there is a certain amount of conviction involved. However, something that is done through necessity is different. These things have to be done without delay, immediately, even though these steps backward are going to be difficult for everyone that hasn’t been able to plan for them. Those people who have been living in a more sustainable manner for some time already, trying to consume less and spending less time at work because the extra income was not actually essential for living, in other words, those who have thought about the problem of consuming less, being more free and not having to work quite as hard, but doing just what is necessary in order to live, are now going to be far better off. The system needs to be changed because it is unsustainable and because there is another way that has to be looked at. It seems to me that our intellectuals and our economists have not made any attempt to come up with a new, workable system. We went from being a monarchy to being a Republic by first developing the political theory of Republicanism, a move away from feudalism and other earlier systems, by developing a new concept of organisation, but this is the first time in history that we will be changing from one system to another without anyone having sat down and theorised first, except perhaps for a few marginalised and vilified downsizing theorists who have given this some thought.
In any event, we have to change, even in the absence of any sort of guidelines, and this places the onus squarely on the shoulders of individuals who, as individuals, have to think it through, examine the options and then bring about change.

Getting back in touch with reality
Downsizing does not mean sitting on the couch and doing nothing all day, or not working simply for the satisfaction of being a lazy slob. Downsizing is a new model for development, not a plan for involution or non participation in the daily liturgy of an economy that is condemned to either grow or collapse. It doesn’t mean not having anything else to do and indeed not wishing to do anything at all. What it means is doing just enough and no more, consuming only what is actually necessary and no more, envisaging a kind of development of our Country that is based on different things since our Country has no energy resources or mineral wealth, and based on other things that are far more important, such as our landscapes and our many abandoned villages that need to be recovered. New construction is not possible because we don’t have the room, so we have to recover our earlier and even ancient buildings that are just sitting there waiting to be renovated, inter alia also in order to protect the land from the landslides and ground collapses that are increasingly becoming regular events. What we need to do is to clean up this Country so as to turn it into a garden and to clean up our seas. Simply cleaning up our coastline and our seas will keep tens of thousands of people busy for a good long time, while turning this Country into a veritable mecca for tourism and the hotel trade. We need to produce electricity in a different manner because things simply have to be powered by energy other than that obtained by burning hydrocarbons. There are many things that need to be done, but the problem is that no one is currently developing any plans without any philosophical flights of fantasy.
For me the choice was very simple. I worked for 19 years and I even had a pretty good career. I began as a temporary worker and in the end I landed up as a manager. I was very fortunate. I worked very hard and I believed everything that I was told, namely that if I worked hard and gave my all I would reap the benefits of the widespread growth. At a certain point, however, one day I simply realised that this was not so. I was working extremely hard, as a matter of fact all I was doing was working and I no longer had any time left to do the things that are important to me. The money that all my hard work brought in was needed to purchase useless things and indeed, more often than not, I was driven to spend money that I didn’t even have, using credit facilities to purchase things that I had to have in order to impress heaven alone knows who. This system was not bringing me any wellbeing at all, so at that point one has to do one’s sums and ask oneself “Is what I am doing making me feel good? Am I happy?”. I believe that life is like a recipe and a good recipe does not consist of only one ingredient, it needs many ingredients that are well mixed and well balanced and although this is merely my personal opinion, that was no longer my situation. I’m standing here wearing 4 or 5 jerseys, one on top of the other, because my house is ice-cold since I don’t have any central heating. All I can do is burn wood in the fireplace and that’s how I keep warm, standing a metre and a half away from the fireplace. As I move away from the fire, the house is ice-cold, but this has no effect whatsoever on my happiness or unhappiness, it’s simply a choice that I have made.
Every time I need to buy something, I tie myself to a cost that involves me becoming a slave and since these are not the things that make me truly happy, I would rather live with the problem of feeling cold in winter or having to resort to putting in a major effort to chop wood in order to warm myself up. I have realised that this kind of hard work is not something that is to be avoided at all costs, but rather something that is to be welcomed because all that lack of hard work that I perceive as being a comfortable office in Milan, or a hyper-heated home that swallows up tons of crude oil on a daily basis, that way of life, that lack of effort is not an indispensable resource and, if anything, everyone needs to do a good bit of hard work in life because that is what keeps us in touch with reality.
It was possible to change lifestyle. It would have been enough to spend less, reduce your personal consumption and it would have been enough to live in a place where homes cost 300 Euro per square metre and not 6-thousand Euro like in the big towns and where, just in passing, it costs you far less to do the shopping and where you are not obliged to eat out in restaurants 4 times a week and spend 6 or 7-Thousand Euro a year but you can cook at home instead. Here in La Spezia I eat fish morning, noon and night because that is one of the things that costs less and it is absolutely doable. My electricity bill for two months amounts to 15 or 18 Euro, I produce a good part of what I eat and yet I can still do far more, especially since I have just begun. This is just the beginning of a whole new life. I’m finding it hard, by all means, and over time I will learn to do other things even better, but it is by no means impossible. The only life that is impossible is the one that they tell us we should live, life in a big town doing jobs that we certainly would not have chosen if we had followed our true passion, earning money and seeking certainty. But how on earth can you seek certainty in a life in which the only real certainty is that we will die by the time we get to 90 years of age? Am I going to die any earlier just because I changed job? I too will die at 90, but at least in the meantime I will have tried my best to live because the other option would be death. These are our fears, fed by the advertising and disinformation, which would have us believe that if you leave your job, you’re screwed and if you opt out of the System you will never be able to go back.

Taking back our time
The rarest commodity around is time. Time, however, has one particularity, namely that while it is said that even money comes and goes, time goes and that’s it. Seneca knew this only too well two thousand years ago already, as did the pre-Socratics, the philosophy that has attempted to steer mankind in certain directions over time, and universal culture. We are the only ones that don’t appear to have realised this yet so, as if we had all the time in the world, we seem to continue to waste time from morning to evening throughout our life, doing things that don’t matter, in an attempt to live our lives in the most original and authentic manner possible, as if we have so much time to blow anyway and the time will come to do the things that really count. But the truth is that the perfect time will never come because that time is now. From now until then, assuming of course that that time will indeed come, we will have wasted time and this simple concept is reason enough for us to seek to change our own way of life. Since I stopped going to the office every day and began living on very little, I have tried to make the best possible use of my time. I live in a very different way and I feel a lot better for it because I now have lots of plans and lots of dreams to fulfil. The time at my disposal is now spent entirely on fulfilling those dreams, it is all for me and for the people that I love, who I can now finally go and visit. How sad are those telephone conversations, often with our best friend rather than a mere acquaintance, as and when we contact each other and the half of our conversation goes something like this: “Hi, how are you? It’s been too long, but you know how it goes…we really should get together again one of these evenings and spend some time together”, knowing full well that it’s not going to happen because we spend all of our time in the company of people that we never chose in the first place, more often than not with work colleagues that have been imposed on us and that we would dearly love to strangle with our bare hands but don’t, thank the Lord.
All that time is a treasure that we have wasted and that should make us lie awake at night, just thinking about how guilty we are of wasting so much time. One of the most urgent things that we have to do, crisis or no crisis, is precisely to take back control over our time and to try to live what we have left of our short time on Earth to the fullest because the truth is that we may not live to be 90, we could just as well die tomorrow due to illness or some other perfectly normal cause, something that actually happens to many. Furthermore, there are certain people walking around who are extremely superstitious and refuse to talk about such things. Now I don’t know where these people come from, perhaps from the Middle Ages, but those of us who, I trust, are modern people, can calmly discuss the fact that we could realistically die at any moment and we know not when that moment will be. The Gospel warns us to “Stay alert for ye know not when nor whence…”. Now I’m not Catholic, in fact I’m anticlerical, but I must admit that that is great book that we should somehow listen to.
Goodbye all and spread the word!

Every so often we need to play. Today’s game is to change Italy’s past. To go back in time and get a slaughter to fail, delay a meeting, prevent a murder, get a law approved - or not approved. Not just the important events, even situations that are apparently insignificant, but are such that they can cause a “butterfly effect” as discussed in Ray Bradbury’s story “A Sound of Thunder”. That idea that tiny changes in the past can produce great effects in our present. There is just so much choice.
On Sunday 19 July 1992 hiring a breakdown van in Palermo and shifting the car to via D’Amelio, in front of the building where Paolo Borsellino’s mother lived. Antonio Caponnetto said: “Twenty days before the attack, Paolo had asked the Questura to arrange for the removal of vehicles in the area in front of his mother’s home. But the request was not put into action. Even today I’m waiting to find out the name of the civil servant responsible for Paolo’s safety.” Perhaps Borsellino would have become the President of the Republic instead of Napolitano. A dream! On 16 March 1978 going through the Monte Mario neighbourhood in Rome, to the home of Aldo Moro and obliging his body guards to make a deviation to avoid via Fani. Italy would thus not have been handed over to Andreotti-the-guy-subject-to-the Statute-of-Limitations, companion of mafia-guys and protector of Sindona, who on that very day presented his new government to Parliament. If Craxi had not fled, there would not have been Berlusconi and twenty years of berlusconi-ism and anti berlusconi-ism, while the country was collapsing one day at a time. Between the two, the choice is complicated, like it is between a stroke and a heart attack, but Craxi has not been with us for years and his disciple is alive and kicking and will remain among us for who knows how much longer. It would be possible to try to see the effect it has. On 17 February 1992 stopping the entrepreneur Luca Magni at the entrance to the “Pio Albergo Trivulzio” in Milan while he was carrying the envelope to Mario Chiesa (who was caught red-handed while he was trying to get rid of the bank notes down the toilet). “Mani Pulite” {the criminal investigation whose code name translates to “Clean Hands”} would never have existed. Craxi or Berlusconi? This is the dilemma. In the Autumn of 1998, kidnapping Prodi and hiding him in a hole in the mountainous plateau of La Sila to prevent the entrance into the Euro. On 27 October 1962 in Catania obliging the pilot, di Mattei, to inspect the “Morane-Saulnier MS-760 Paris” aircraft that then exploded during flight because of a bomb. We would have kicked out the “Seven Sisters” for the “Dog with 6 legs” (logo of the Italian energy company - ENI} and perhaps the History of the Middle East would have been better.
What would you change as a time traveller?

Lusi has used the Fiscal Shield to bring back to Italy millions of euro in election expenses taken from the account of the Margherita {Daisy} party, in which account financing of the PDminusL also ended up and he could then use the money with complete serenity (*). The charlatans of democracy deny any responsibility, in fact they even get very angry. Rutelli “We’ve been betrayed. It’s theft!” Bersani in relation to a new law on the parties: “It’s urgent to proceed: let’s give ourselves a very short timeframe.” The election financing, abolished by a referendum, brought back as the reimbursement of election expenses, is equivalent to about a billion euro. How much of this money has been taken away and then brought back into our country thanks to the Fiscal Shield desired by the parties? The answer to this question could be given by the Finance Police by carrying out a check up (to be made public) on all the accounts held by the parties. The hurry and the bipartisan will to approve the Fiscal Shield in its time are at least suspicious. A law, that is a mark of infamy for the Republic is an insult to the honest tax payers that have seen total tax dodgers, scoundrels, perhaps criminals, make their booty clean with a 5% tax and after that able to compete in the market, while they were paying their taxes right down to the last cent, with companies that had the availability of capital that had been ”given back its virginity”, fraudulently taken from the State and from all the people.
Let’s take a step back to 2009 and let’s see who in the so-called Opposition, agreed to the Fiscal Shield. Thirty two deputies in the Lower House, with a “no confidence” vote could have avoided the return of the billions of the Great Tax Dodgers and the mafia capital removed from the tax authorities and they could have brought down the government. But they were not present in the Chamber. 20 votes would have been enough. The list: 24 PDminusL: Argentin, Binetti, Bucchino, Capodicasa, Carra, Codurelli, D'Antoni, Esposito, Farina, Fioroni, Gaione, Ginefra, Giovanelli, Grassi, La Forgia, Lanzillotta, Madia, Mastromauro, Melandri, Misiani, Pistelli, Pompili, Porta, Portas. 7 UDC: Bosi, Ciccanti, Drago, Libè, Pisacane, Ruggeri, Volontè. 1 IDV: Misiti.
“Thinking badly is a sin, but often it’s spot on” said the Black Box of the Republic, Giulio Andreotti. For an operation of transparency it’s necessary for the 32 people absent at the voting on the Fiscal Shield and at the “no confidence” vote relating to Berlusconi (they could have saved us two nightmare years ...), surely all without any shadow, should make public their fixed and liquid assets before and after their entry to Parliament. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we. See you in parliament unless they do an electoral law that prevents that.
PS: Given that NOT ONE newspaper or TV station has remembered, I’ll do it. The MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} is the only one to have refused the reimbursement of election expenses of one million seven hundred thousand.
(*) source: Corriere della Sera

“The idea of a fixed job for your whole life? What monotony! Young people will have to get used to the idea that they won’t have that." That’s what Monti was saying yesterday. Don’t worry Rigor Montis! Young people are not getting bored. They’ve been moving forward for some time. Not only do they no longer believe in the fixed job, but not even in the variable one. And as fast as they are not believing, or perhaps so as not to get too bored, in recent years they have been fleeing abroad. Italy is the second European country after Romania for emigrants.
The young people that have said good bye to the “Bel Paese” for reasons of “force majeure”, lack of available work and no hope of having it, starvation wages and no security, are mostly graduates and those with diplomas. They have studied in our Universities with sacrifices on the part of their parents that are often unimaginable, to become emigrants. Most of them will not come back, simply because they cannot come back, to live and work “on projects” at 600 euro a month and supported by their family. If this bloody haemorrhage continues, this abdication of the future (the young people are the future!) is not an emergency, well then what is?
Youth unemployment is fed by this government’s wretched choices and by those of the previous government. The other States invest in innovation. We invest in cement and bomber planes. The useless tunnel of the TAV in Val di Susa will cost 22 billion, and the F 35 15 billion. With these colossal figures it’s possible to create innovation zones, for technological development. Get Italy to take off again by hanging on to technicians, engineers and computer people. Olivetti, Telettra, Telespazio, Italtel, the whole of the nation’s computer industry has been substituted by the cement industry. But where do we want to go?
In Europe, youth unemployment is on the increase, and even in this case at two speeds. Obviously, we are in the big group that is preparing the way with 31% (*) but the ranking does not take account of the young people that have emigrated. The average for the eurozone is 21,3%, 10 points less. What boredom, what monotony! A country that doesn’t manage to give a future to the new generations is a country on the road to extinction.
(*) source: Eurostat

The story of Rutelli Bread&Chicory is a novel of long long ago. Seduced, betrayed and robbed by its treasurer, the guilty one by virtue of antonomasia in every party worthy of respect. The treasurer has by now taken the place of the majordomo. He’s the first one under investigation for any missing cash. The names of the companies used by Luigi Lusi, the Margherita party’s treasurer and a PDminusL senator to remove 13 million in expense claims could have been taken from the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook: "TTTsrl", "Paradiso Immobilare", "Luigia Ltd" and "Giannone-Petricone" the architecture studio used to throw the investigators off the scent, in Toronto (Petricone is the surname of Luisi’s Canadian consort). The money was withdrawn from the Margherita party’s current account, into which money for the financing of the PDminusL landed up and it was destined for various types of spending including an apartment in the centre of Rome for a value of one million nine hundred thousand euro. Rutellone was also authorised to operate on the account, and he was unaware of everything. "Plis visit my bank account!". The transfers from the account took place over a period of three years with the explanation written as “payment of consultancy invoices”.
Rutelli with the "Maldive Style” tan, is disheartened: “I knew nothing about this”, “We are angry and saddened”, “The party intends to recover the money wrongly taken.”. The latter statement is to be framed. In effect, we are speaking of “money wrongly taken”, of the billion euro of public financing made out to be expenses even though the referendum had abolished expenses. More “money wrongly taken” than that! If the treasurer of a party steals the money that was wrongly taken from the citizens it is a double “wrongly taken”. After the Lega’sTanzania, we have the Canada of the Margherita party in the PDminusL. The next time, where will the expenses be exported? In Papua New Guinea?
I’m sure that Rutelli has nothing to do with it. Look at him. Does it seem to you that he is capable of managing a current account? Impossible. And a young old marmot/duck paid with public money in Parliament and in the city of Rome since 1983. It’s not by chance that Lusi has been the general secretary of the Italian Catholic Guide and Scout Association. Bersani thundered “I am unpleasantly surprised [as happened with Penati - editor] We are awaiting clarifications. If individual responsibilities were to emerge ... we have mechanisms able to decide on the appropriate measures.” Get money out of politics! They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we. See you in parliament unless they do an electoral law that prevents that.