Was Sofia Goggia singing her national anthem with such fervor just being another Italian populist? NO!

I refer here to Nobel Laureate Michael Spence’s “The Italian Economy’s Moment of Truth” Project Syndicate July 7.

Spence writes:“Italian banks currently holding considerable amounts of government debt would suffer substantial balance-sheet damage.” 

Why is that? Is it perhaps because bank regulators allow banks to hold Italian debt against the least capital, meaning they can leverage it the most, meaning they can earn the highest expected risk adjusted returns on equity on it? Yes!

Then Spence writes: “Moreover, Italy needs to develop the entrepreneurial ecosystems that underpin dynamism and innovation. As matters stand, the financial sector is too closed, and it provides too little funding and support for new ventures.” 

Why is that? Could it be because regulators require banks to for instance hold more capital against loans to entreprenuers than against residential mortgages? Yes!

Spence writes: “Italy has enormous economic potential. But the challenge lies in unlocking it, which will require several things to happen.”

One reason for that is that the option to restore competitiveness by means of devaluing its currency was closed when the Euro was adopted, and the EU authorities have been too busy with other minutia over the last 20 years so as to concentrate on how to solve the immense challenge with creating a union by pushing a common currency instead of a common currency resulting from a union.

The best of the Winter Olympics 2018 for me was seeing Sofia Goggia singing her Italian national anthem with such enthusiasm. But there was not one bit of Europe present in her voice… and that is an indication Europe is not going in a European direction. Was she a populist?

Let’s face it. Americans dream they are American. Few if no Europeans, dream they are Europeans.

E.g. How many Europeans know how to sing the EU anthem “Joy to the World”?

PS. The euro has done nothing to solve the challenges posed by the use of the euro, and in many ways, like what it did to Greece, it has behaved more as a Banana Union.

PS. “We will safeguard your bank system with our risk weighted capital requirements for banks”, as if they the regulators in the Basel Committee really knew what those risks were, is a hubris fed dangerous technocratic besserwisser populism of the worst kind. 

PS. Just in case you are curious, the worst for me at the WO-2018 was to suffer with Egvenia Medvedeva when not winning gold.

Out of the box tourism: Lessons from Florence

THE CONTEST!

My apologies to the Florentines, but their beautiful city is like the Magic Kingdom of the Renaissance. The inexhaustible flow of tourists, hotels, prices, and lines for attractions, fast or slow meals, and souvenirs, all makes one question, between Medici and Disney, just who copied the model of whom. In my opinion, not only are the gelatos of Florence richer, but also, with the possible exception of Goofy, Michelangelo’s David and the frescos of Fra Angélico are far superior to Mickey, Pluto, and the rest. 

What an inheritance the Medicis left to their city! The Florentine economy will always be easy to manage, since the only thing that their Paperon de Paperoni (Scrooge McDuck) has to do is fix admissions prices. The one little cloud on the horizon could be the quantity of English, Venezuelan, German, and other immigrants who try to take advantage of the infrastructure. What would Machiavelli have thought about entering the European Union?

We know that despite all its possibilities, Venezuela, in a local saying, still has not managed to connect the foot to the ball when it comes to developing its tourism industry. This will never be resolved by naming ministers who spend their time conducting publicity campaigns, or visiting Orlando and Florence. We are not proposing that other Medicis substitute for those who govern us—we can discuss this on another day. But in the meantime, we could emulate the experts.

In Florence 500 years ago, the contest system was used to assure that the best artistic proposals were utilized to adorn the city. So let’s organize a grand contest.

It will be a grand contest to choose a grand team and a grand plan for the strategic development and management of the tourism sector for the next 30 years, with an estimate of costs and results.

A qualified panel of judges should choose the best three proposals, and the proposals should be publicly debated on television. The losers will receive an important prize, and the winners will be commissioned to execute their proposal during thirty years, with a significant fixed, indexed and guaranteed annual budget.

Since televised public contests enjoy high ratings, this contest could also be a way to build pontes novos, new bridges, in our divided society.

The Santa María del Fiore Cathedral took more than 100 years to construct, and for a long time everyone thought its dome would be impossible to build. And so, friends, let’s not lose the hope of finding a local genius like Brunelleschi for our Helicoide (a local 45-year-old monstrous white elephant). 

From El Universal, Caracas, April 10, 2003

Extracted from "Voice and Noise" 2006

A true fountain of inspiration

I recently learned of the demolition of the famous Hotel Fuenti, located on the beautiful coast of Amalfi in Italy. This structure had become a symbol of what seems to be known as environmental "abusivismo” in Italy. At least this is what comes out of the automatic translator I use when navigating Italian web sites. I am sure that this case is fascinating to those who are interested in administrative law or in the study of Italian society. To begin with, this case has been around for the last thirty years.

The demolition of 34,000 square meters of reinforced concrete structure is no small matter anywhere. Exactly how these measures are approved and taken in order to effectively defend the environmental rights of a society or an individual without resulting in legal "abusivismo” is a challenge to one’s imagination.

I am sure that most of us, without going into much more detail, are absolutely sure that whatever the legal regulations the promoters of the Fuenti violated, there are thousands of worse violations that will never suffer this drastic fate.

On the other hand, most of us will probably not shed too many tears over what may be a total injustice that the Fuenti’s owners are being subjected to. One explanation of the above may be what one could call the Fuenti’s high Visual Contamination Index (VCI).

In order to understand the VCI, let us imagine that we can assign points to the ugliness of any structure, ten points for the ugliest to 1 point for the least ugly. Likewise, we could assign points for the relevance or beauty of its location, from one point for the most insignificant to ten points for the most beautiful and relevant. By multiplying both rankings, we can obtain the VCI. In the Fuenti case, if we assign an eight for ugliness and multiply this by an eight for the beauty and relevance of its location, we obtain a total score of 64. This apparently is enough to send the structure to the gallows.

Does this seem easy and fair? Not necessarily. Imagine trying to get two Italians to come to an agreement about the assignation of points for beauty and relevance!

I sincerely hope that the case of the Hotel Fuenti will serve as an inspiration so that we can begin to confront the serious problems of visual contamination that occur in Venezuela, specially on the Island of Margarita.

Playa El Angel, Playa Guacuco, Playa Anywhere. In all of these we can observe how half-finished structures, like a herd of dinosaur skeletons, provide eyesores to all those who care to pass by. Is it possible that these structures insolently consider that simply because they have suffered an accident, financial or otherwise during the initial construction period, they have the right to contaminate our island. Just as an airplane is required to take on sufficient fuel to get it to its next destination, any construction project should be required to have enough resources to get it to completion.

When you study some of the laws that govern this matter, for example the Urbanization Law, you can find plenty of articles that allow, for one reason or another, authorities to paralyze work on any construction project. Surprisingly, there is no mention whatsoever that refers to the obligation of a project’s promoters to actually finish what they started. Evidently, since the laws are drafted by politicians who are not exactly known for their ability to finish what they started, the word “surprisingly” is probably overdone.

Although I consider the road to the demolition of existing structures to be a dangerous one if based simply on visual contamination, I do believe it is possible to develop a good set of rules to handle half finished projects. Obviously, any law drafted to regulate this matter must guarantee affected parties the right to develop alternatives within a specified period of time (years, not decades!).

We must also analyze those projects that, due to simple lack of use or care are severely deteriorated. We are all aware that fashion once considered that holes in blue jeans were “chic”. Likewise, any amount of building materials has been used to create a rustic look to buildings, mostly with a lot of success. However, when we observe walls that are crumbling due to lack of care or, even worse, to bad construction practices, we do not need rocket science to see that something has gone seriously wrong and that we must find a cure.

With every day that goes by, all aspects of defense of our environment become more and more critical. For an island like Margarita that lives of tourism and that is faced with increasingly heavy competition from other locations, the avoidance of visual contamination is more than critical, it is vital.

http://alborotandoturismo.blogspot.com/1999/06/el-fuenti-una-fuente-de-inspiracion.html

PS. And nowhere will you find a visual contamination like nowadays Margarita LagunaMar. I do not want to show you the pictures, as it breaks my heart.