Saturday, December 20, 2008

Support the economy: spend more and pay less income taxes...

I wonder if this idea has also been explored and discussed. I don't know how to search for it. So, I simply state it and see if somebody reacts.

Everybody agrees that economy is healthy if people spend money by purchasing produced goods. Everybody knows also that when you buy goods you pay one tax: TVA.

So, the reasoning is simple. One of the reasons why I cannot spend money for purchasing goods is because I owe income taxes to the state, which in turn already takes money from me through TVA.

So I propose that you pay income taxes only on earned money that you don't spend in goods and for which you already have paid TVA. This measure would push people in spending more their earned money because they can deduce this money (not the TVA, but the whole amount) from incomes taxation.

You would pay instead taxes for earnings from financial speculations and interests.

My question is: is it feasible? Are there any problem with this proposal?

I really hope somebody react to this post.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The future of Italy is in its past.

Where are the economic opportunities for Italy? They are mostly in its past!

Where exactly? In its culture heritage, in its wonderful resorts, in its beautiful lifestyle full of art, music and fine food.

If you were about to choose a place where to install a R&D center for a big company, would you chose a place where living is easy? Yes of course!

But why this does not happened in Italy, which fulfills this requirement? The answer is simple: all the rest is missing!

What is basically missing is infrastructure for business, lightweight bureaucracy, an international environment (Italians who live in Italy barely speak their own language), business and technical skills of local people (here I mean not just managers, but ordinary people), competitive universities and research centers.

So what? Maybe our last chance to survive an economical disaster is to capitalize on our past: history, art, fine food, music, ...  Somebody already calls Italy the "World's Disneyland". Why not? Entertainment is big business and we possess the necessary "know-..." What is missing now is the "how"!



Thursday, December 04, 2008

Where is Italy?

EUROPEANA is a new initiative to bring the European's cultural heritage to the Internet.

It is a huge digital library that has been by the European Digital Library Foundation.

Here is the list of participant insitution and as you can see (this is at November 2008), Italy is missing. Yeah, Italy the craddle of "renaissance" culture with Da Vinci, Michelangelo etc. is not part of the effort.

Italy is again missing an opportunity of being part of the cultural discourse that is developing in Europe.