the situation in Italy

there are more (created) problems than solutions nowdays.
-first you introduce the problem and then you can also present everybody with the (only possible!!!) solution.

it's quite clear to me that the majority of people on the planet live in a semi-offuscated status of mind.I have seen people partying when Osama Bin laden was killed (10 years down the line,million dollars spent, and the body was trown in the sea to avoid rebellion..yeah right am gonna buy this one,sure...)I have seen people partying for when Berlusconi was (AGAIN!) re-elected, Im sorry but italians have the prime minister they deserve: my generation is unfortunately too concentrated on girls on TV and football.
too many promises, to many lies, it's easier to keep someone "half-awake" and feed him with constant and belivable lies rather than keep somebody awake to face the truth.

I am sorry,but ain't gonna buy any more of this: the planet is lead by 20 people who play their games and run countries like they were a monopoly game,and NONE of these people are either bankers or politicians.

I am sorry, there is no more juice you can squeeze out of people, we are all STUPID IDIOTS, but sooner or later we wake up.
I am not an economist, I am not a university literate, but I OBSERVE REALLY WELL and the situation right now it's not good.
there is no crisis,there are people dying for the sake of someone who wants humanity to be one big ensamble of sleeping idiots.

aint gonna happend for me, I seek the truth and I am in the quest for REAL LIFE,no Mcdonald premade stuff, I want the juice of things and I LOVE COFFEE, so Tv does not work for me, daily papers dont work for me, internet DOES work for me.

my grandfather was used to say"you want to cook a frog?then put it in the pan and THEN turn on the gas...slowly bring up the temperature until it's boiled and the frog will never notice it ans slowly die"
there us a lot of truth here...
1984 anyone?

my 2 (fed-up with "keep the faith in the institutions") cents...

no peace, WAR but INNER WAR TO WAKE UP!!!!!

Mattia.

JohnRoberts said:

ppa said:

JohnRoberts said:

I don't see any EU member country really benefiting from the sovereign debt crisis. While the common currency does seem to favor the strong manufacturing/exporting member nations. This is not directly an effect of the sovereign debt crisis, but an unintended consequence of the shared currency, without completely unified fiscal policy. 

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yes for the sovereign debt crisis,

no for the unified fiscal policy, europen countries are too different between them to have an unified fiscal policy now, EU is not USA.

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The last thing I am going to do, is lecture you about Italy, but I have been watching the EU project for a long time.

Since you make the comparison between the US and EU, one key difference is that the US states can not run deficit budgets, only the us federal budget has that luxury.  If the EU states were likewise restricted from deficit borrowing, the sovereign debt problem would not exist.

I appreciate this is an oversimplification and offers little solace for how to get out of the current hole.

For now the best that can be done is prop up all the central banks, and reduce spending to survive intact long enough to grow out of the debt hole. A few of the southern EU countries have made pro growth changes to cut away at the layers of bureaucracy in an attempt to stimulate business and economic growth. 

I'm sure each country has it's own unique variation, but there seems to be a common theme. The music finally stopped.

JR

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I think that the better thing are an unique fiscal policy as in USA, I think that this should be the goal, but  each EU country wants to resolve the problems given by EU policy with its solutions, not with a common plan EU made. In USA common problems are resolved by a common policy, if I remember correctly. But I think it is obvious, because EU is yet too young and its countries have peoples different between them, and, them main thing, is often that common problems have different aspects in each country.

Mata,

I entirely sympathise with you and share your sentiments.

In the west we worship at the church of freedom, which sounds like a good idea except that it means freedom from financial morality to some gifted people.

We are not all created equal and some are extremely good at treading others underfoot to get where they think they deserve to be.  The capitalist system is designed to give everyone the freedom to succeed but unfortunately it must always be at the expense of the least gifted or least inclined in that direction.  I don't know what the answer is, maybe good old fashion shame might be better than revolution, that only seems to give another kind of power hungry people the upper hand.  An internet petition might work by naming and shaming individuals, but there is then the legal angle to overcome.

You are not alone.
best
DaveP

JohnRoberts said:

A few of the southern EU countries have made pro growth changes to cut away at the layers of bureaucracy in an attempt to stimulate business and economic growth. 

I'm sure each country has it's own unique variation, but there seems to be a common theme. The music finally stopped.

JR

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simplified bureaucracy in Italy is a thing that several papers have reported so sometimes oversimplified outside Italy.

The problem in Italy is that the Prof. Monti's Governor has reduced a lot the bureaucracy for few and increased the bureaucracy for a lot of people, including myself.

In Italy the bureaucracy for a limited liability company is very much greater than in UK or in USA, we speak of 4-5 times and more!!!  :'( :'(

In Italy a company has big fixed costs for fees and tax advice. The fiscal regime is so very very much complicated than in USA that often many tax advisers here have an university master degree and not infrequently a Phd! To have an idea, here, a small or very small limited liability company costs 250-500 euro/month for tax advice excluding taxes.
 

my accountant advised me jokingly that to reduce the costs I would have had to get married an english girl or an american girl (or at least, an UK or USA company with members resident there).
Obviously, is not for me a sacrifice to get married a nice english or american girl , ;D, but to get married for taxes sounds me a bit strange idea.

BTW we should consider that a main problem in Italy is the mafia.
Mafia in Italy makes 80-100 billion euros of income, and these money are all stolen from the Italian people. 80-100 billion euros of income is a timid estimate, to have an idea of the problem.

ppa said:

my accountant advised me jokingly that to reduce the costs I would have had to get married an english girl or an american girl (or at least, an UK or USA company with members resident there).
Obviously, is not for me a sacrifice to get married a nice english or american girl , ;D, but to get married for taxes sounds me a bit strange idea.

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You could always spend a year dead for tax reasons.

-a

ppa said:

my accountant advised me jokingly that to reduce the costs I would have had to get married an english girl or an american girl (or at least, an UK or USA company with members resident there).
Obviously, is not for me a sacrifice to get married a nice english or american girl , ;D, but to get married for taxes sounds me a bit strange idea.

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Getting married to save money is always subject to unintended consequences.  ;D

Of course you could always just move here, as many of your countrymen have over our previous history (that is what makes us us). If you want to enjoy a better business environment you better hurry since our current administration seems to favor being more like yours.

JR

Andy Peters said:

ppa said:

my accountant advised me jokingly that to reduce the costs I would have had to get married an english girl or an american girl (or at least, an UK or USA company with members resident there).
Obviously, is not for me a sacrifice to get married a nice english or american girl , ;D, but to get married for taxes sounds me a bit strange idea.

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You could always spend a year dead for tax reasons.

-a

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Do you file an amended return for that year after you resurrect yourself?

Might be easier to stay dead, once you are dead.  8)

JR

JohnRoberts said:

Getting married to save money is always subject to unintended consequences.  ;D

Of course you could always just move here, as many of your countrymen have over our previous history (that is what makes us us). If you want to enjoy a better business environment you better hurry since our current administration seems to favor being more like yours.

JR

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yes, I agree.
only if I will fall in love I will get married with an UK or USA girl.
But mine was a joke to make people understand as the italian fiscal regime is so aggressive agaist the italian citizens. Mine is just a provocation to stir the consciences of ouside Italy.

USA is a good place for business because USA Governor is seriously interested (not only in press releases) to do conditions  to do business even for the little companies. 
UK does the same and also seems to do better than USA, BTW UK is at 3 hours of airplane from Italy and also is in EU.


 

Andy Peters said:

You could always spend a year dead for tax reasons.

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I don't want to don't pay taxes, it is right to pay them, I would like, as all italians here, to have a right level of fiscal pressure.

Many italian companies evade a portion of their taxes and fees only because, without these cutting, they cannot survive at this very aggressive fiscal regime (I pay however all taxes). 
A big problem for an little italian company is the very high fixed costs for taxes, fees and for the big accountancy given by this very complex fiscal regime. This is the main problem for many little  companies in Italy.
For a simple little limited company with no employees,  the fixes costs are very often over 10,000 euro , but often, for the companies with ONLY A FEW of employees we speak often of 25,000-40,000 euro. At this fixed costs we must adding the tax amount paid for the gain of the company.
So for a company without gain is impossible to survive.

Just to be precise, in Italy there is not a no-tax level, even the poors must be pay the taxes.
If a craftsman have had a gain of only 1000 euro/year , 200 euro of this 1000 must be to pay the taxes. Practically he must eat less to pay his taxes. There are many craftsmen with a gain/year of only 5000-8000 euro in Italy. 

I think it cuts both ways in Italy.

My wife is half Italian and has a family home outside Modena. We once had the plumber to fix the burst pipe. This guy turned up in a slick black Mercedes. I went "wow". My wife's cousin said "it's his work car come to the Piazza on Friday night and see his leisure car. Rightly enough he turned up in a Red Ferrari. I am not bullsh*tting.

My wife's cousin who is born and brought up here moved to Italy about twenty years ago. He returned to UK just over three years ago, swearing he'll never go back to live in Italy. I showed him few things in tax, VAT etc. He could not believe how easy it was to run a business in the UK. Here as a self employed you pick up the phone and hallo, I am Joe Blogg,  started working from 1st April. Couple of days later you receive a letter of acknowledgement from Inland revenue. The end.

Unfortunately in terms of bureaucracy Italy still follows a communist eastern block model. People also seem to accept it and do nothing about it. Obviously there is also a part of the society who has a vested interest in this model.