Twilightpeaks.net
TP.net => The Great Beyond (OOC) => : X-EOM/SS (Marco) June 29, 2009, 10:31:49 AM
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Hi to everyone,
I'll be on vacation and fully offline from 4th to 12th July
Marco
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Have a good one ;D
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a brief trip in Tuscany hills in a farm with my wife and my son... sunny but mild with tasteful wines and a lot of good dining
:)
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See, now that makes me jealous. One day I will get to go to Italy.
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Italy is a good place....really...
but many times I think about leaving to elsewhere...really :(
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Why? Great weather, great history, great wine and great food? What more could you want? :)
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very high tax-evasion, high corruption, little chances to find a profitable work expecially for youngest and for fired people after their40s, lowest salaries among the most important EU-Nations, highest taxes rates among the most important EU-Nations, high crime rates connected to the political and financial world, most ignorant students among EU nations and many others...have I to continue ? :-[
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Berlusconi...
However, trouble is; if you good people leave there won't be noone to drag the country in the right direction once the opportunity arises. Be patient and stay focused on the good times ;)
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Any country where political sections of the newspapers read more like celebrity gossip and scandal sheets has to be okay by me.
Berlusconi - putting the sex back into Italian politics.
And they think we had it bad in the UK with the expenses scandal and charging the public for the cleaning of a moat.....
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Any country where political sections of the newspapers read more like celebrity gossip and scandal sheets has to be okay by me.
Berlusconi - putting the sex back into Italian politics.
And they think we had it bad in the UK with the expenses scandal and charging the public for the cleaning of a moat.....
In England some MP had charged some of their private expenses on the Parliament's Bill, right?
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Berlusconi...
Berlusconi is acting like a mad emperor of old times...
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And they think we had it bad in the UK with the expenses scandal and charging the public for the cleaning of a moat.....
In England some MP had charged some of their private expenses on the Parliament's Bill, right?
Sort of. The UK's MPs, based at the Houses of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster, have been claiming on their expenses and allowances, most of which was hidden and covered under parliamentary priviledge - however the Freedom of Information Act which this govt. passed has been used to make it unsustainable for them to still be hidden. Then 2 months before they were due to be released in a redacted form the Telegraph (a big national paper) got hold of them unredacted and started publishing the details. For one whole month it was all anyone could talk about. Over 100 MP's are now expected to be investigated for fraud and several are expected to be found guilty.....
A Nuke under the mother of all parliaments would have had less effect than the shock that rippled through the UK; whether it has any lasting effect is another matter, but it seems that one third of MPs will not be standing for re-election.
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Sort of. The UK's MPs, based at the Houses of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster, have been claiming on their expenses and allowances, most of which was hidden and covered under parliamentary priviledge - however the Freedom of Information Act which this govt. passed has been used to make it unsustainable for them to still be hidden. Then 2 months before they were due to be released in a redacted form the Telegraph (a big national paper) got hold of them unredacted and started publishing the details. For one whole month it was all anyone could talk about. Over 100 MP's are now expected to be investigated for fraud and several are expected to be found guilty.....
A Nuke under the mother of all parliaments would have had less effect than the shock that rippled through the UK; whether it has any lasting effect is another matter, but it seems that one third of MPs will not be standing for re-election.
A scandal like this would have no effect in italy...in italy more than 20 MPs had already been condemned for crimes (of course the didn't any days of jail). among the most important you can find
Marcello Dell'Utri, one of the most important lieutenants of Berlusconi was condemned for being part of Mafia,
Roberto Maroni, current Minister of Internal Affairs, was condemned for having beaten a policeman
Umberto Bossi, main political ally of Berlusconi, has been condemned for 100.000 € taken illegally
the most tragic is Mauro Borghezio, elected at EU-parliamente who has been condemned for having lit with fire some African immigrants...
I could fill pages and pages of italian scandals...
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sorry, I forgot the communist MP (I don't remember his name right now) condemned for ahving organized a terrorist band with the goal to overthrow the government with terroristical strikes ;)
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Oh yes, but we are being terribly English about it all.
"It's an OUTRAGE!" and so on and so forth...
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The MP's decided collectively a decade or so ago that big pay rises would be politically unacceptable - so they raised the expenses that were considered 'reasonable' instead - and basically MP's just bunged receipts in until they hit the 'right' total. The details are now being rifled through by journalists and making for hilarious reading.
The real killer for many of them is directly of their own making - they started blurring the definition of tax evasion, avoidance, etc a few years ago to get a 'moral momentum' behind making people pay more tax - i.e. it's legally fine to do 'X' (pay into your pension, give money to your wife, let your parents stay in your home if they get ill) but as it cuts your tax bill it was morally wrong and shouldn't be done... that way they hoped to stop people doing stuff without actually enacting laws.
Quite a lot of MPs were using a blameless provision in UK tax law called the principle private residence exemption - basically you aren't taxed on the sale of your main home, and to handle difficult sales, you can overlap homes for up to three years without having to worry about tax.
However unlike most people MP's routinely have two homes - one in their home constituency, and one in London near parliament - with the latter pretty much paid for by the taxpayer. And they were flipping the PPR back and forth lick a yoyo to basically avoid tax on 2 or even 3 properties at a time...
Us accountants have been winding the Revenue up something chronic about the whole thing - they usually come down on expenses 'cheats' like a ton of bricks and some of the MP's comments defending themselves are priceless, the inspectors have taken it in fairly good humour so far (although they still demand the money of course).
As someone with a lot of international clients I find it all hilarious, 'MP quite over £500 expense that's really rather silly' really doesn't measure up to the stories I hear from my african, russian, east european, etc clients about their politicians...
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Finally I'm going to vacation...just few minutes and I'll be out of my office...
Sleep! food! wine! my wife and my son! I'm coming... 8) 8)
only one bad thing: since Bjorn is anout to completing SR and PH I'll not able to read them until 13th july so I had to wait a week more before reading them :'( :'(
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As someone with a lot of international clients I find it all hilarious, 'MP quite over £500 expense that's really rather silly' really doesn't measure up to the stories I hear from my african, russian, east european, etc clients about their politicians...
You can also find amusing a lot of stories about italian politicians but maybe you haven't italian clients...
;D
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No Italian clients, and the french are too discreet to talk (in English anyway, the gossip in French about 'nothing' is continual). So my fun stuff has to be local or come from further afield.
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I'm back...
Im'back since sunday but hackers had prevented me to post this before... :-[
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I'll be on vacation again from 8th August to 16th August
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My vacations are officially beginning 8) 8)
See you on 17th August :)
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Enjoy :)
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I'm back...eager to play again :)
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I'll be on vacation from 15th Septemper to 20th Semptember :)
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again? :-0
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They're only 6 days and only 4 are working days.
First two days I'll be at home with my son because my wife has a business travel. Last 3 I'll be at her parent's home on the lake...
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Italian laws of working are very large with holydays.
I have by law near 38 days (regularly paid) of vacation per year. If a worker doesn't spend all of them in the year the reamining must paid by the employer before the end of February next year.
My employer, the major italian bank, doesn't want to pay me them so it "forces" me every year to spend all of them
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Sorry, the count written before is not correct. I didn't sum the holydays like Xmas, Easter and others so....let me see...a more realistic number is 50
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Good lord. My sick days and vacation days put together only total up to 16, plus 7 holiday days (Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc).
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Good lord. My sick days and vacation days put together only total up to 16, plus 7 holiday days (Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc).
Thats also sick albeit in another way ;D
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yes Bobby....this one of the many things that contributes to make Italy a nation with many unemployeds.
Firms tend to have less workers than they need because italian workers are the most expensive and less productive of EU nations.
They are the most expensive not only because the many paid holydays due to them every year but also for the high contributions for puplic pension (in Italy a pulic pension is made by contributions both from workers and their firms).
Firing in italy is very difficult for private firm with 15 workers or more (it's common only if the firm goes bankrupt) and virtually impossibile for public workes (they're near 20% of all the italian workers)
So if one has the disgrace to lose his job he has in fact a double digrace: to lose his job and to not be able to find another one, expecially if he is more than 30 years old.
Tragedy is that even if they're are the most expensive in EU-area they receive a less net wage than German or French workers.
I.E.: I lead a group of 11 people. They get a net wage of near € 15.000 per year but each of them cost almost the double to the firm. My wage is higher but not SO higher. To compare how much is the wage think that in the city of Milan a single room in a house (not in centre) divided with 2-3 other persons could cost 600-700 per month (of course with no regular contract so the renter easily gains € 2000 per month without paying anything in taxes). For this reason I live afar from Milan.
Just one of the many oddities of my country. :-[
As an humourist used to say: "Italy has its feet in Africa and a single toe in Europe" :-\
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I believe the single most important factor is the difficulty in getting rid og people no longer needed for various reasons. A standard of 3 months can make a big difference even if high salary/vacation rate.
Just my 2 cents
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You've centered the point Kasper.
Then Italian firms do a lot of tricks to avoid this kind of way:
1)They usually employ people on short - term based contracts (from 1 to 6 months), with chances to renewals. When things go bad simply they don't renew them and people stay at home (just as it's happening in my firm)
2) They assign some branches of their activities (not considered to be part of their core business) to other firms, tied by a contract of service. The other firms usually employ people in #1 manner. When the contract is out and things go bad the secondary firm has no more customers and go bankrupt
3) They divide the main firm in smaller ones (belonging to the same group), each of them with less than 15 workers, so they can fire whenever they want. or some of them must be sold to others or be tied only by a contract of service (like #2)
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Someone once did a survey of tax take and holiday and concluded that in Europe high taxes meant that employees asked for more holiday instead of more pay compared to the US - the UK will be 51.5% from next year at the top (up from 41%) and already we have people serious considering down-sizing trading £ for days.
I get 25 days + public holidays. I generally use 5-10 days holiday on training courses, pro bono work, etc leaving me a two week vacation, xmas, and a few days here and there. I normally feel guilty about the amount of holiday I get, it seems wasteful somehow. But the blackberry is rapidly removing the distinction between work and holiday anyway so maybe technology will close the gap.
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In the next two weeks I'll be in Rome...
this time not for tourism but for work..
I might be able to check forum and email box in the evening but seldom.