Monti, and the root of the crisis in Italy
Sunday’s (08/01/2012) ‘Che Tempo Che fa’ featured Italy’s technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti. The popular talk show on Rai 3, hosted by Fabio Fazio has been running since 2003. Fazio is extremely polite with his guests and this was surely no exception.
I will not go into the detail of Monti’s explanation of how he’s sure the Euro zone is not in an unrecoverable crisis and how Italy’s economy can be on the growth path soon. Fabio Fazio seemed convinced, and one hopes that Angela Merkel will be equally happy with Monti’s explanations when he meets her today.
So, however much I enjoyed listening to Monti, the interview mostly left me thinking about the root of the political crisis that led to Italy needing this unusual form of government to bring back economic stability. Here’s how the interview starts:
Fazio: “La sua manovra ha messo in sicurezza l’Italia? Cio’e` siamo tranquilli o prevedibilmente ce ne sarà un’altra, secondo lei?”
Monti: ”Spero che siamo tranquilli. La tranquillita` nelle cose l’abbiamo raggiunta. La operazione di consolidamento dei conti dello stato Italiano che il Governo ha proposto, il parlamento ha approvato e gl’Italiani hanno molto responsabilmente accettato e` una operazione molto grossa anche in base agli standards Europei, e mette certamente in sicurezza i conti pubblici Italiani.”
Continue watching Part 2, Part 3
In essence, Monti is sure that his government’s intervention has saved Italy’s public finances. If we go by his word, it’s certainly an achievement for having been two months in Government. And yet, here are some considerations based on the interview. For Italian speakers, genuine excerpts are provided at the end of this post.
1. Speaking about liberalisation of the economic forces and drawing a parallel with what had happened recently in Italian politics, Monti says that ”we have seen in the last months of political life that the balanced disarmament of political forces, which in the past experienced harsh disagreements between them, allowed decisions to be taken calmly and in a mutually acceptable way“. So was it all school-playground-style pique prohibiting any sort of agreement being reached before?
2. Monti also calls his, “un governo strano” (an unusual government) and explains that this is because it has no alliances with any of the unions or professional bodies that would normally be able to exchange their support for politicians into protectionist actions (or inactions) from same.
3. Speaking about the economic developments along the years, Monti explained how governments in Italy since the 60s basically followed what happened across the globe. Whilst during the 60s to the 80s the market economy wasn’t popular, this was then completely reversed in the Reagan/Thatcherite period where the market was “deified”. Monti argued that the nationalisation efforts (protectionist strategies) of the 60s, 70s and 80s caused a great deal of harm and these still have significant bearing on Italy’s public debt. Later, the deification of the market economy was even more detrimental in the sense that the financial world was allowed too much liberty leading to the current financial crisis.
4. Monti explained that the public has too bad an opinion of the political class, and that they in general deserve more respect. Significantly however, he said that this transitionary period should be used by all citizens to ask “We that are always ready to blame politicians; I as a single citizen; we as a group of citizens, are we doing our duty for Italy to grow as we would like it to?”
ITALIAN EXCERPTS FROM THE INTERVIEW:
Point 1
Monti: ”nella vita politica, negli ultimi mesi abbiamo visto che un certo disarmo bilanciato tra forze politiche che in passato si confrontavano molto aspramente ha deciso di prendere decisioni in modo pacato e condiviso”
Point 2
Monti: ”…mentre tradizionalmente una parte politica si prende cura di proteggere una certa categoria, un’altra parte politica di protegge un’altra categoria, un governo strano, come quello che ho l’onore di presidiere, non fa parte di nessuno di queste geometrie politiche e quindi puo` permettersi di presentare un disegno all’paese, sperando di essere compreso, e di chiamare un po’ tutti di disarmare privilegi…”
Point 3
Monti: ”ci sono dei cicli: abbiamo avuto un epoca, e bisogna ricordare i diversi cicli perche` se no, si fanno delle analisi un puo` limitate e si danno delle colpe un po’ ingiustamente distribuite. Abbiamo avuto un’periodo durante gl’anni ’60, ’70, ’80 in cui l’economia di mercato veniva vista negativamente, gli stati aumentavono la loro presa sull’economia, c’erano molti nazzionalizzazioni, e i mercati venivano pochi lasciati giochare (dare il loro contributo allo sviluppo economico). L’Italia in quei anni sotto una cultura molto dirigista ha commesso una grande quantita` di errori che pesano ancora oggi sul nostro debito pubblico. Puoi e venuta una fase nell’mondo e forse anche in Italia, con un puo` di ritardo, che ha reagito in eccesso e il pendolo si e` spostato forse anche un puo` troppo nell’altra direzzione. E` la fase cosi` detto di Reagan, di Thatcher, che` ha visto il mercato quasi come una divinita`. Nelle cose economiche non si puo` essere manichei, non c’e` il bene assoluto, il male assoluto, e` una questione di equilibri. Allora nella fase Reagan/Tatcher, soprattutto verso la sua fase finale, la finanza e` diventata quasi un’entita` a se stante, soprattutto negli Stati Uniti, molto meno in Europa, chi gestiva la finanza e` stato talmente riverito, anche dal potere politico, che non si e` pensato a regole abbastanza stringenti sulla finanza, e quando queste regole c’erano non venivano fatte rispettare. Ecco, e` soprattutto in quella fase, che si e` prolungata fino al 2007 infondo, che e` nata la grande crisi finanziaria scoppiata negli Stati Uniti.”
Point 4
Monti: “io sento un po’ di pena per i politici che sono così trattati male dall’opinione pubblica. Si e` creato un tale divario tra opinione pubblica e classe politica, che la mia ambizione, in questo breve periodo, e` duplice: certamente tirare fuori l’Italia da un’emergenza pericolosissima dal punto di vista economico, ma anche favorire con questo periodo intercapedine una riconciliazione tra la classe politica e l’opinione pubblica, e noi opinione pubblica, perche` io mi metto dalla parte del cittadino non avendo mai fatto politica, dobbiamo anche noi in questo periodo riflettere e dire dentro di noi “ma siamo sempre pronti a dare la colpa ai politici, ma io singolo cittadino, noi gruppi di cittadini stiamo facendo il nostro dovere per fare crescere l’Italia come vorremmo?”
The two deaths that got everyone talking in 2011… and what can kill the Internet as we know it
According to Storify, their users selected two major events to build stories from tweets this year. Both are deaths – that of Osama Bin Laden and that of Steve Jobs. If one had to draw a similarity between the two persons, apart from both having worn a beard, it is surely that they have both been disruptive (challenging) of the status quo. By its very nature, disruption causes people to talk, and they did.
On 1st May 2011, somebody else was disrupted – this time, from his attempt to take a break. Sohaib Athar had left the city of Lahore to live in quieter Abottabad and had no idea he shared ground with Osama Bin Laden who lived just a few kilometres away.
The Storify team looked deep at the data of the 3 million times that Storify users searched for a tweet, found it and pulled it into a story – this year.
The 2nd ranked is the tweet of Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual). His tweets of 1st May are indeed a live coverage of the event. His story is all over the internet and you can read that part of history somewhere else. So what’s the news?
Recently, Sohaib Athar tweeted to @Storify saying that their site had been blocked by his ISP. This apparently followed Storify’s mention of the tweet that made history. Both events happened on the 15 December 2011.
Outrageous… you’d say. These things would not happen in America!
BUT that is not necessarily going to remain true for ever. Sohaib Athar, as the copyright holder of that tweet, may soon stop anybody from reproducing it on another webpage! Legislators in America are discussing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, explained that Reddit would not exist says if SOPA was around in 2005.
If someone submits links to a piece of copyrighted material on Reddit or Facebook, our whole site could be shut down.
(Alexis Ohanian)
The Attorney General can issue restraining orders against infringing websites. If Sohaib Athar made claims against the reproduction of his tweet (above), search engines like Google would stop showing links to the whole of WordPress.com even if only one post, from the millions it hosts, allegedly breaks copyright! And Paypal would stop processing their payments!
If you’re wondering how many times WordPress.com bloggers embed tweets, YouTube videos, google maps and Flickr images, this too collectively runs into millions (official stats here). It’s interesting that each one is potentially a copyright breach. And people do it because it’s the nature of the Internet to link and embed. And because social media is all about that.
More Information
1. Petition for the President Obama administration to veto the SOPA Bill. (“This will kill the free flow of information and conversation on the internet.”)
2. Storify is blogging for everyone. Anybody with a Facebook or Twitter account can write a story and link it to all the gossip from the social sites… also YouTube, Flickr, Google+ etc.. The Storify beta website went live eight months ago in April 2011. Analysis of which tweets were used to build stories revealed that the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th talk about the death of Steve Jobs. The 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th, and 9th talked about the death of Osama Bin Laden.
Nokia Lumia lights up London
Nokia Lumia 800 was launched with a bang, lighting up a London night to deadmau5 beats. It’s Monday 28 Nov, and it’s a truly spectacular grand entrance of the latest smartphone into Europe’s metropolis. Oh sorry, or is that Paris or Berlin… no we’ll just leave these struggling with the euro.
You could see and hear the 4D projection across the capital as it was fired onto the 118 metre high Millbank Tower on the Thames river bank.
London is a lovely place to build the sort of hype Nokia needs to compete with other smartphones. In preparation to the 2012 Olympics the Major of London is even partner in LoveCleanLondon – an app to engage people to keep London clean.
But the Nokia Lumia 800 is still not a strong competition to the experience offered by Apple’s iPhone. Not just because it runs Windows, a generic operating system rather than iOS which is built specific to the iPhone. Lumia’s display resolution is lower on a screen which is slightly larger than that of the iPhone. I believe there’s something like 40,000 apps for the Windows phones when compared to 500,000 for the iPhone. Also, if you own an iPhone today and your friends don’t, you’ve heard them tell you that your photos look really good. That is not only because of the 8mp camera, but also because they look great on the phone’s display – and you’ll hardly match that with a Lumia.
Oh! and the Lumia weighs 2g more than an iPhone 4s.
More information
Missing Personal Hotspot on iPhone? How to enable Internet tethering if your carrier disabled it.
Here is the solution to get Internet tethering (sharing) back if you are suddenly missing Personal Hotspot with iPhone’s iOS 4.3.5 upgrade.
My post about tethering the iPhone Internet connection with the iPad was one of the most popular until Personal Hotspot was introduced in iOS 4.3. I thought it was the end of the problem with tethering. Very short-lived though as iPhone allows the carrier to disable Personal Hotspot. A friend of mine who is on Go Mobile Malta lost his Personal Hotspot function when he upgraded to iOS 4.3.5.
No problem.. this is how we sorted it out! The following works and gets Personal Hotspot and re-enables Internet tethering if your carrier stops it.
1. Take note of your cellular data settings before you proceed. If you don’t complete this step, stop here. The configurations are available at Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network.
2. We will now reset these to original factory settings. Settings > General > Reset. Here choose Reset Network Settings. iPhone will ask you to enter your personal code if your passcode lock activated. The phone will reboot to reset. Keep your fingers crossed :)
3. Return to the APN settings screen we talked about in step 1 (Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network) and complete all the settings details copied before. You will find that in addition to this there is an Internet Tethering section at the very bottom. Use the same APN key as for the Cellular Data section which you will find at the very top of this screen.
Cellular Data Internet Tethering for Personal Hotspot on iPhone
4. Once you have the APN settings complete you need to return to the “Network” screen. Click on the Network back arrow shown below to do this.
5. From the Network screen switch Off the Mobile Data and then switch it On again. You may not need this step but sometimes it helps to kind of reset the data connection with your carrier.
After you have completed the above you will find that there is a Personal Hotspot option in the Settings screen.
And Hey Presto! Enjoy using your mobile Internet connection with other devices like iPad, Macbook or your other laptop while you’re on the go. You can even share your iPhone’s Internet with friends over WiFi or Bluetooth.
Will your Kia be tethering iPhone’s internet connection and taking commands through Siri?
Attention:
If this solution has worked for you please share it with others. One more click to tweet this solution or post it on your facebook.
NASA to SpaceX – Man on Mars by 2020?
Three days ago, on the 21st July 2011, the last Space Shuttle landed for the last time, bringing to a close the programme that lifted the first shuttle in 1981. I have always been fascinated by the shuttle, especially by its ability to go and do its business in space and then land on a runway like a giant bird. So that’s a dream gone ablast – watching it lift off one day from Cape Canaveral.
The last mission was STS-135 and it shuttled more than 4,260Kg worth of supplies to the International Space Station. The supplies are vital to sustaining America’s part of the international mission in space. The ISS was first designed as a laboratory in space, developing an understanding of how the human body reacts to long-term exposure away from Earth. This will help to build knowledge on whether colonies of humans staying away from Earth will ever be possible. The space agencies of USA (NASA), Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe participate in mission control from Earth.
The long and short is that NASA will continue to participate in low Earth orbit through a contract of 12 missions with the SpaceX Falcon9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft.
The big question is when will SpaceX be able to operate a manned craft in space? Following the success of an unmanned launch and the succesful return of the capsule to Earth in December 2010, the company was awarded a further contract of $75 million to evolve their technologies such that the Dragon spacecraft can carry astronauts.
“With NASA’s support, SpaceX will be ready to fly its first manned mission in 2014.” says Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO. Until then, American astronouts will have to hitch a ride on Russian Soyuz capsules!
Musk (SpaceX CEO) is also cofounder of PayPal. In an interview to Fora.tv he told Michael Malone that SpaceX will “try” to put humans on Mars by 2020. What does the man who built the future of online payments have to do with spaceflight?! Nothing. He is just terribly smart.
I am confident that someone who can build SpaceX with its three launch vehicles (Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy) and the Dragon spacecraft in eight years (since 2002), can also put a man on Mars given one and a half times that (2020). NASA’s FAQ page on the Space Shuttle puts the cost of one mission to $450 million. A mission with SpaceX will cost $133 million. On the SpaceX updates webpage Elon Musk makes it clear that: If there are cost overruns, SpaceX will cover the difference. (This concept may be foreign to some traditional government space contractors that seem to believe that cost overruns should be the responsibility of the taxpayer.) How’s that for trusting the man?
A few last words to Star.
Star made it to the international media after it was found shot and buried alive near Ghar Hasan in Malta on the 19th May. A dog of mixed breed, Star fought for its life but succumbed to the horrific act of cruelty a few hours ago.
Star is not the only victim of animal cruelty. The international media picked up the story not because it’s unique, but because this dog had survived to tell a tale. Now that Star is dead, the story should not also die. To the contrary, the hero of this story should certainly remain remembered to remind everybody that cruelty on any living creature is barbaric and condemned by all civilised people around the world.
Many of us would think that cruelty exists predominantly in war-torn nations. Maltese people will tell you that our history is a proof of our civilisation – so much that our 7000-year-old temples made it on to CNN’s “9 hidden man-made wonders of the world”! Instead, I wonder more how anybody can live to remember that s/he has committed this cruelty. And, a monument of remembrance to Star should stand high to remind us of this for many years, even if maybe it won’t survive as long as the free-standing temples of Hagar Qim and Ggantija.
