BUZZURRO

Yesterday I decided to go food shopping. I have written several posts about the horrors I have found in the supermarket. Here is another one: price increases.

Usually I buy tomatoes every week, but last week I did not, and our house was completely empty of them. Today I went to the store and almost cried. €1.89 a kilo, when just 2 weeks ago I paid €1.42 a kilo for the same tomatoes.
I walked over to the zucchini, which are usually very cheap, but they also had a similar high price .

What’s going on? I know that we are in December, and vegetables are not at their cheapest when it is not the season for them, but an increase of nearly .25 percent in 2 weeks? That is not normal. Something is wrong here. At least I am not the only one who noticed that there is a problem though.

Read this article filled with quotes by the Cia (”Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori”, Italian Agricultural Confederation, not the Central Intelligence Agency !)

Italy: Christmas speculations on fresh produce prices

Rome - According to recent investigations made by the Italian agricultural organization Cia, fresh produce prices have increased between 10 and 40% in just two months. “The increases are totally unjustified. It is just a Christmas speculation” the Cia says, underlining that the prices for the growers are the same they were last year, if not even less in some cases, as for the clementine price.

Read the rest of article here.

At this rate I’ll never be able to afford to eat well. I’ll have to
(shhh, I won’t write it too loudly. DIET.)

Italy considers return to 19th century to keep up with Asia:

Struggling to cope in the face of cheap Asian imports, Italy has become the first of the rich G7 countries to contemplate a return to 19th century working hours and a six-day week.
Leisurely Saturdays can no longer be taken for granted, said Italy’s business federation, Confindustria.
It also called for an annual 1pc cut in wages for the next five years, the first time such draconian pay-deals have been proposed since the Great Depression.
“We have to break the taboo over working on Saturdays,” said Alberto Bombassei, the body’s vice-president.
“We need higher productivity to compete in the market place. To do that we have to modify all contracts. I know it’s not going to please people,” he added.

Read the rest of the article here.

This proposal seems a little harsh to me. And not very effective either.
They want to improve employee productivity by having annual paycuts ? WHAT ? How about giving higher raises to the more productive employees ? Try to give them an incentive to work harder, instead of cutting their pay and forcing them to work longer hours. Why do they think all these labor unions vowing to protect workers right sprung up in the first place ?

According to ANSA Italian news site in English..

Whale “headquarters” in Italy

I know I’ve gained a little weight since I’ve been in Italy, but I’m not that fat yet. Really !

Genoa, December 8 - Italy is to host the headquarters of the Mediterranean’s only marine mammal sanctuary, set up to protect and encourage the growth of dolphins, whales and other marine life .The decision came at the end of a two-day meeting between France, Italy and Monaco, discussing progress in “constructing” the sanctuary and possible future developments .The headquarters will be located in the Palazzo Ducale in the northwest port city of Genoa .

OH ! The article is about actual whales and dolphins. OH. OK. That’s different. I like whales and dolphins.

Read the rest of the article here.

This really pisses me off. Sure, workers have a right to ask for more money, but did they ever hear of mediation ?

Piero Fassino complained that the government had “blocked the country’s growth and made Italians’ jobs precarious.”

OK, now do you think going on strike every other month is going to help the Italian economy? Do you think losing one days wages is going to make all Italians richer? And, how do you think the jobs got precarious, you bozo Fassino? Perhaps by going on strike every month?

Every other month it seems there is another large strike affecting something important.
This time the strike is to complain about the proposed budget cuts for 2006.
Why they can’t just write letters to all those politicians in parliament, I don’t know.

These strikes are stagnating everything. The Italian Economy is either growing very little or not growing at all. If they keep on striking, the ‘growth’ will be negative…

A week after I first arrived in Italy I developed a headache.
I walked to my local Supermarket to buy aspirin, but alas, I could not find them anywhere in the store.
When Buzzurro came home from work I told him that I looked all over for aspirin in the supermarket, and could not find them. He asked me if I had gone to a pharmacy.
“No,” I answered. “Of course not. I went to the supermarket.”
He replied that in Italy, ALL medicines, those requiring a prescription as well as those who don’t, by Italian law can only be sold in a pharmacy.
The next day I went to a pharmacy and saw a box of aspirin on sale. There were 10 in a box and the price was 3 euros and 80 cent.
“What !” I thought to myself “3 euros and 80 cent. For 10 aspirin? Are they crazy here?” (but bought them anyway because I still did have a headache).
This was my first experience with the miseries brought upon the Italian nation by the monopoly of pharmacies, Federfarma.

Federfarma is opposed to the selling of over the counter OTC medications in any place other than a pharmacy.
Of course this keeps the prices of the non-prescription medicines such as aspirin extremely high.
They set the prices.
Competition is not a factor at all.
Their reasoning being that selling non-prescription medicines in a store other than a pharmacy is dangerous and will create grave risks for diseases caused by misuse or overmedication.

They want the public to buy all medicines in a pharmacy because the pharmacist explains the doses of medicine needed and how to correctly use them.
I for one have never had a pharmacist explain to me how to take an aspirin.
I buy them at their extremely high price, go home, and read the instruction booklet for the medicines which is included in the box of them.
I assume that other people in Italy can read and do this too.
Non-prescription medicine is the costliest in Italy than in all of Europe, the US and for all I know, the rest of the world.
I read somewhere that there is a small group of Italian consumers that they have a petition requesting the sale of non-prescription medications in stores other than pharmacies.
I don’t know who they are, I’ve never seen a petition, but sign me up ! It’s a worthy cause.

According to ANSA news service, getting jobs in Italy requires contacts.
You just figured that out now ANSA reporters? You didn’t get your jobs based on skill I see.

Recently a survey was done showing that ‘raccomandazioni’ (connections) are still thriving.

The poll of 100,000 private firms by the Union of Italian Chambers of Commerce (Unioncamere) found that almost 43% were in the habit of hiring people they knew.
Only 43 percent ? Just looking around, I think the true number would be 99.9 percent.

We will never forget your sacrifice.
Your deaths were not in vain.
Rest in Peace.

The Muslim riots that started in France over the deaths of 2 teenagers and is now fueled by ‘frustrations’ has seeming spread to other European cities, such as Brussels and Berlin.

More details here:

One of the Italian center left politicians, Romano Prodi, has said that the riots may happen in Italy.
Of course they may, and tomorrow the world may be invaded by little green men who come from Mars.
Nobody can read the future, but what we can do instead is to take educated guesses about what will happen.
He gave his. Now I will give mine.
It might be a little less educated in the formal sense than his, but as it states in the title of this blog “I might be wrong, but I doubt it.”
I wasn’t born yesterday! I have 2 eyes and a brain (and an internet connection)
It is true that many Muslim immigrants live in ghetto-like areas, can’t seem to get jobs, and then when they do they are either illegal ‘nero’ jobs or jobs with illegal contracts.
But, this is the case for most Italians.
There aren’t segregated Muslim quarters in which they live. There is much more integration. At least for their Italian-born children.

If their children are of working age and claim discrimination against them, they are probably right, but then again there will be discrimination against 99.9 percent of the population looking for jobs not offered in companies owned by family or friends of family too.

The Italian government might treat their new immigrants as scum, but then they treat native Italians as scum too, so there will be no “if only we were treated like Italian citizens life would be better” because their treatment would still be the same. Bad.

The main reason why I think riots won’t spread to the Muslim immigrants in Italy is that unlike the rioters in France that are largely made up of 2nd and 3rd generation french citizens, most immigrants here are first generation and remember clearly why they wanted to immigrate in the first place.

They remember well what they left. They are happy to be here.
Everybody else in Italy may riot, but not them.