2013 Economic Freedom Report highlight Italy's troubles

The appalling state of Italian economy is no longer getting international headlines but the slide of the county toward third world standards is continuing unabated.
The new 2013 report on Economic Freedom has been published; a full report can be found here and again Italy's ranking is a disaster for a major economy.

On the overall score Italy is ranking 83rd which by itself is an appalling result for a major developed economy, positioning itself below Uganda and Sri Lanka.

But when it comes to Freedom from Corruption Italy manage to score an appalling score of 39 together with Ghana and Macedonia.


Below some extracts from the report delving into an analysis of Italy's shortcomings:

The foundations of economic freedom remain weak in the absence of an efficient judicial framework to provide effective and timely resolution of cases. Corruption, often involving government officials, is a growing concern, severely undercutting confidence and trust in the government.

As per the rule of law and corruption Italy is faring among the worst countries, below the motivation for such low ranking:

Property rights and contracts are secure, but court procedures are extremely slow. Many companies choose to settle out of court. The legal system is vulnerable to political interference. Widespread corruption has bred a culture of lawlessness and tax evasion and has weakened respect for the judiciary. Enforcement of intellectual property rights is below developed-country standards.

And when it comes to attracting investments:

Regulatory complexity causes delays and increases the cost of entrepreneurial activity. Completing licensing requirements takes over 200 days and costs more than the level of average annual income. Serious labor market rigidities constrain job growth, and the informal labor market accounts for a large proportion of employment. Stagflation engendered by the eurozone crisis presents monumental monetary policy challenges.

       
       

Read more about Italy Economy.
        See more from the 2013 Index.

   

OVERALL SCORE BY COUNTRY:

Hong Kong	89.3
Singapore	88
Australia	82.6
New Zealand	81.4
Switzerland	81
Canada	79.4
Chile	79
Mauritius	76.9
Denmark	76.1
United States	76
Ireland	75.7
Bahrain	75.5
Estonia	75.3
United Kingdom	74.8
Luxembourg	74.2
Finland	74
The Netherlands	73.5
Sweden	72.9
Germany	72.8
Taiwan	72.7
Georgia	72.2
Iceland	72.1
Lithuania	72.1
Austria	71.8
Japan	71.8
Macau	71.7
Qatar	71.3
United Arab Emirates	71.1
Czech Republic	70.9
Botswana	70.6
Norway	70.5
Jordan	70.4
Saint Lucia	70.4
South Korea	70.3
The Bahamas	70.1
Uruguay	69.7
Colombia	69.6
Armenia	69.4
Barbados	69.3
Belgium	69.2
Cyprus	69
Slovakia	68.7
Macedonia	68.2
Peru	68.2
Oman	68.1
Spain	68
Malta	67.5
Hungary	67.3
Costa Rica	67
Mexico	67
Israel	66.9
Jamaica	66.8
El Salvador	66.7
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	66.7
Latvia	66.5
Malaysia	66.1
Poland	66
Albania	65.2
Romania	65.1
Bulgaria	65
France	64.1
Rwanda	64.1
Thailand	64.1
Dominica	63.9
Cape Verde	63.7
Kuwait	63.1
Portugal	63.1
Kazakhstan	63
Turkey	62.9
Montenegro	62.6
Panama	62.5
Trinidad and Tobago	62.3
Madagascar	62
South Africa	61.8
Mongolia	61.7
Slovenia	61.7
Croatia	61.3
Ghana	61.3
Paraguay	61.1
Uganda	61.1
Sri Lanka	60.7
Italy	60.6
Saudi Arabia	60.6
Namibia	60.3
Guatemala	60
Burkina Faso	59.9
Azerbaijan	59.7
Dominican Republic	59.7
Kyrgyz Republic	59.6
Morocco	59.6
Lebanon	59.5
The Gambia	58.8
Zambia	58.7
Serbia	58.6
Cambodia	58.5
Honduras	58.4
The Philippines	58.2
Tanzania	57.9
Gabon	57.8
Brazil	57.7
Benin	57.6
Belize	57.3
Bosnia and Herzegovina	57.3
Fiji	57.2
Swaziland	57.2
Samoa	57.1
Tunisia	57
Indonesia	56.9
Nicaragua	56.6
Vanuatu	56.6
Mali	56.4
Tonga	56
Kenya	55.9
Yemen	55.9
Moldova	55.5
Senegal	55.5
Greece	55.4
Malawi	55.3
India	55.2
Nigeria	55.1
Pakistan	55.1
Bhutan	55
Mozambique	55
Seychelles	54.9
Egypt	54.8
Côte d'Ivoire	54.1
Djibouti	53.9
Niger	53.9
Guyana	53.8
Papua New Guinea	53.6
Tajikistan	53.4
Bangladesh	52.6
Cameroon	52.3
Mauritania	52.3
Suriname	52
China	51.9
Guinea	51.2
Guinea-Bissau	51.1
Russia	51.1
Vietnam	51
Central African Republic	50.4
Nepal	50.4
Laos	50.1
Micronesia	50.1
Algeria	49.6
Ethiopia	49.4
Liberia	49.3
Burundi	49
Maldives	49
Togo	48.8
Sierra Leone	48.3
Haiti	48.1
Belarus	48
São Tomé and Príncipe	48
Bolivia	47.9
Lesotho	47.9
Comoros	47.5
Angola	47.3
Ecuador	46.9
Argentina	46.7
Ukraine	46.3
Uzbekistan	46
Kiribati	45.9
Chad	45.2
Solomon Islands	45
Timor-Leste	43.7
Republic of Congo	43.5
Iran	43.2
Turkmenistan	42.6
Equatorial Guinea	42.3
Democratic Republic of Congo	39.6
Burma	39.2
Eritrea	36.3
Venezuela	36.1
Zimbabwe	28.6
Cuba	28.5
North Korea	1.5

Blackrock Castle

Blackrock Castle, formerly Mahon Castle, is a 16th century castle located about 2km from the heart of Cork city, Ireland on the banks of the River Lee.
In the late 16th century, the citizens of Cork appealed to Queen Elizabeth I to construct a fort at Blackrock to "repel pirates and other invaders". In or around 1600, a round tower was constructed to safeguard against pirates "carrying away" vessels entering the harbour.
Blackrock Castle houses Ireland's first fully interactive astronomy center developed by the award-winning multimedia company Martello Media. The exhibition is now open to the public and is themed "The Search for Extreme Life in the Universe".

Global Manufacturing Ranking

The leaders of global manufacturing are changing rapidly, China, India and Russia are rising and Germany, Japan, UK, and Canada are sliding. The following chart simplifies the evolution of global manufacturing economies over the last four decades.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Sassi di Matera

The Sassi di Matera (meaning "stones of Matera") are ancient cave dwellings in the Italian city of Matera, Basilicata. Situated in the old town, they are composed of the Sasso Caveoso and the later Sasso Barisano.
Matera has gained international fame for its "Sassi". The Sassi originate from a prehistoric (troglodyte) settlement, and are thought to be the second oldest city in the world.

The Sassi are houses dug into the rock itself locally called "tufo". Many of these "houses" are caves, and the streets in some parts of the Sassi are located on the rooftops of other houses. The ancient town grew in height on one slope of the ravine created by a river that is now a small stream. The ravine is known locally as "La Gravina".

In the 1950s, the government of Italy forcefully relocated most of the population of the Sassi to areas of the developing modern city. Riddled with malaria the unsanitary conditions were considered a shame for Italy. However, people continued to live in the Sassi, and according to the English Fodor's guide:

Matera is the only place in the world where people can boast to be still living in the same houses of their ancestors of 9,000 years ago.

Until the late 1980s this was considered an area of poverty, since these houses were, and in most areas still are, mostly unlivable. Current local administration, however, has become more tourism-oriented, and has promoted the re-generation of the Sassi with the aid of the European Union, the government, UNESCO, and Hollywood: one of the benefits of the ancient city, is that there is a great similarity in the look of the Sassi with that of ancient sites in and around Jerusalem. This has caught the eye of film directors and movie studios.
Principally due to this reason the Sassi were the set of many films, as for example "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (Pasolini, 1964), "King David" (Bruce Beresford, 1985), "The Passion of the Christ" (Mel Gibson, 2004) and "The Nativity Story" (Hardwicke, 2006).

Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!

In this funny and impassioned talk, he proposes that the first step is to listen to the people you're trying to help, and tap into their own entrepreneurial spirit. His advice on what works will help any entrepreneur.

Spanish Crisis Video

For those wondering what is happening in Spain worth checking this good documentary on the Spanish Crisis and its construction bubble crash:

How successful is your country?

Goldman in his recent study notes that the competitive strengths of companies often stem from the advantages of the countries they reside in.

These include a combination of resource availability (food, energy, mining and others), demographics, trade positioning, infrastructure quality and above all, the presence of strong, inclusive institutions that encourage innovation.

So, what follows is Goldman's attempt to map the various success drivers of the world’s countries.

Goldman divides the drivers into four categories:

Innovation
Patents per capita, R&D as a percentage of GDP, venture capital as a percentage of GDP and the birth rate of companies.

Institutions
Confidence in national institutions, days aken to enforce a contract, the cost of starting a business and the GINI co-efficient that measures income inequality.

Resources
Net crude oil exports/(imports) as a percentage of consumption, per capita food surplus/(deficit), copper + iron ore + aluminum surplus/(deficit) and retirees as a percentage of population.

Infrastructure
Transport (airports per capita, railways per sq km), electricity production per capita and internet penetration.
Italy again scores among the worst countries in Europe just after Greece; in brief its institutions are weak, Internet penetration is appalling and when it comes to enforce contracts; it is the worst country in Europe and far behind many third world countries like Nigeria or Kenya who rank much better than Italy on this aspect.


The overall scorecard...





and a close up on Europe... (click image for huge version)


Source: Goldman Sachs

New Tiburtina Station Rome

Tiburtina station is becoming the main stop on long distance and high speed trains increasing its visitors from 22 to 50 million annually. 

The new design is a bridge over the existing spinal chord of the rail tracks. It aspires to be a station at international level and a meeting point at neighbourhood level. It is a bridge but also an urban boulevard that is reconnecting two areas that had long been separated by the tracks: the residential Nomentano and the more rundown Pietralata.

The Bridge-Station is designed with flexibility of space in mind: inside, suspended multi purpose volumes have been created and vertical support structures have been eliminated to help reduce the impact of vibrations coming from the trains whizzing past below. Similar to the tongue of a bell, thanks to gravity each suspended space soften the vibrations transmitted by the container.
The station is a 240m long glass parallelepiped raised 9m above the ground, measuring 50m in width at a constant height of 10.5m. The 8 floating rooms housing cafés, VIP lounges, control rooms and restaurants are connected to the ground level by escalators and lifts and to the other volumes by a runway along the side of the bridge. The 2 squares at either side of the entrances to the station have been redeveloped to accommodate the offices of Italian railways, a new metro line, a bus terminal, a shopping centre, offices and parking spaces.

Europe at a glance: Drunkest, fattest, laziest countries

Some interesting updated stats on Europe courtesy of the The Washington Post

Alcohol:
Despite common perceptions that the French sip wine all day or that Scandinavians muddle through the long winters with the aid of aquavit, Luxembourg actually tops the list of Europe’s alcohol consumers, with nearly 15.3 liters bought per capita annually — a 12 percent increase since 1980. (The OECD points out, however, that foreigners actually purchase much of that because of Luxembourg’s lower-than-average alcohol taxes.) Not counting Luxembourg, Latvia and Romania top the charts of alcohol consumption among adults:

Meanwhile, the supposed dolce vita of the Italians has become more temperate. They’ve reduced their alcohol consumption by nearly 60 percent since 1980, to a modest 6.9 liters.
And even though higher taxes and more rigid advertising laws have caused alcohol consumption in the E.U. to decline by 15 percent since 1980, the region still has the highest level of alcohol consumption in the world, and alcohol is the third leading risk factor for disease there, after tobacco and high blood pressure.
The problem is that as parts of Europe sober up, other countries have been drinking more — and new types — of alcohol:

There has been a degree of convergence in drinking habits across the European Union, with wine consumption increasing in many traditional beer-drinking countries and vice versa.

Obesity:
The rate of obesity has doubled over the past 20 years in the E.U., to 17 percent, making it a “major public health concern,” the authors write. Hungarians are the most obese people in the E.U., at 28.5 percent, closely followed by Britain.
Hungary’s neighbors, the Romanians, are the most svelte:

The authors note the use of taxes on fat and sugar — such as those recently passed in Finland, France and Hungary — as potential solutions. However, one such measure in Denmark was recently repealed after it was found to have too detrimental of an impact on consumers and businesses.

Physical activity:
Overall, only one in five children in the E.U. member states say they exercise regularly. The study didn’t measure physical activity among adults, but if sedentary children become pudgy grown-ups, the Italians are in trouble. Just 7 percent of girls and 12 percent of boys there reported daily physical activity, while the Austrians were most active:

Source: Washington Post

Health at a Glance Europe 2012