Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Return of the Lira? Italian general election, 2018

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #26
    Christ, Salvini wants a flat tax. That's a winner for the dispossessed.

    Comment


      #27

      Comment


        #28
        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
        They are fronted by a respected anti-Mafia campaigner, but have minuscule popular support and have seen their campaign marked by episodes of Homeresque incompetence.

        As one can note from the badges, many of these "parties" are nothing but electoral vehicles for personal factions led by career politicians. Forza Italia wins the hypocrisy prize for including "Berlusconi Presidente" on its badge notwithstanding the fact that he is legally barred from public office.

        This is a good piece on Casa Pound (the hooligans with the turtle).
        Thanks for the link ursus, very interesting, on many levels (not least the case of Ezra Pound after whom CasaPound is named, it’s only briefly mentioned in passing in this Guardian long read so I won’t go into it as it’s off topic - I’ll put it on hold, if there are any takers I’ll try to come up with a potted presentation of the cunt over the weekend).

        Anyway, more to the point and sorry if I come across as a buzzkill as my rambling point-question whatever will seem very boring I'm sure compared to the great fun you’re having with your Simpsons (nothing wrong with that): this 40% youth unemployment in Italy as quoted in the Guardian piece (“In 2010 youth unemployment was at almost 30%, and would rise to over 40% by 2015”), is that real or just lazy journalism, what do people here think? (those who may know Italy very well or know that particular topic - comparisons of unemployment figures, particularly youth unemployment - as it's an international matter after all).

        I’m asking because I’m struggling to understand how these youth unemployment figures are generally arrived at (I’ve just read 32% in the French press BTW but I suppose it depends which year is used, I think it was 2016, that said a variation of 8% points in just one year sounds a lot to me and might precisely highlight the gist of my point). For starters, the age brackets used for calculation purposes across the board seem to be moot, are we really comparing like for like between countries? etc.

        Then, next potential pitfall: the very definition of phrases such as “youth unemployment” or “the proportion of the economically inactive population or population who are unemployed”, that seems to vary from one country to another, sometimes with variations within the same country I vaguely remember reading.

        Take for instance this often bandied-about percentage of “25% youth unemployment in France” that you see in the French and foreign media alike (or, conversely, any youth employment rate, eg 28% in France versus 50% in the USA which I've just seen on the Net), it might not be that simple, it seems to me (but I could be wrong) that there is a big confusion between “rate” and “ratio”, the two routinely get lumped together. According to this Independent article for instance, the French percentage of youth unemployment hovers around 9%.

        What are France's figures?

        According to Eurostat, the French youth unemployment rate in 2016 was indeed 24.6 per cent, or around one in four. And this was around double the UK rate of 13 per cent.

        But the EU statistics agency also reports that the French youth unemployment ratio in that year was just 9.1 per cent, not so dramatically different from the UK ratio of 7.6 per cent.

        So, depending on which metric one uses, the French youth joblessness situation is either twice as bad as the UK’s, or roughly the same.

        One reason France looks worse on youth unemployment rates is that it has a much higher post-compulsory education participation rate than the UK, and that’s why the difference is much less when we compare the unemployment ratios than when we look at unemployment rates,” explains Nigel Meager, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.

        This is borne out by 2016 OECD data on education participation rates. This finds that the number of French 18 year olds in tertiary education is 38 per cent, rising to 47 per cent for 20 year olds. For British 18 year olds the comparable figures are 21 per cent rising to 40 per cent for 20 year olds.

        The French youth unemployment rate is significantly higher than the UK figure in large part because the rate is calculated as a share of a smaller pool of active workers.
        The way data in general is calculated can vary greatly from one country to another unless the comparison are made strictly on a like-for-like basis (so only applicable to the most basic of comparisons, eg car sales between 2 countries), the metrics are different, there are numerous variables etc. it's a bit messy, even more so for something like unemployment/youth unemployment stats which is a politically loaded topic, which will depend on available structures etc.

        And even if the data emanates from a recognised international labour organisation, the end result can still be hugely off the mark, IMO it’s flawed because:

        1) these international organisations use figures provided by each country, so while the methodology used by these organisations might be standardised, the nature of the raw material will be different as the calculation and presentation of unemployment rates are not universal (eg the highly questionable OECD PISA comparisons. Yet the media routinely use the PISA data as the be-all and end-all, these PISA stats get repeated ad nauseam and what started as unreliable guesstimates or a half-baked “set of performances” only a few years ago has ended up as incontrovertible FACT! churned out and "validated forever" by the fake news industry – so said fake news is politically exploited of course – whereas a high level of caution should be exercised in the first place, FFS the blatantly dubious premise of the PISA data should preclude such direct and crude comparisons between countries; the PISA data is not necessarily uninteresting but is unfit for its intended use which is now regrettably more or less as a marketing ploy).

        2) because national practices differ radically, eg the distortion of unemployment figures between France and the UK due to several objective factors, such as a) the fact that it’s much easier to register, and remain registered, as unemployed in France than in the UK, b) the fact also that there’s far more incentive to be registered unemployed in France than in the UK and so on.

        Hence my question with respect to the validity this 40% about Italy where also, as an extra complication, you’ve got somehow to factor in the weight of the underground economy, not as a measurement to be added into the mix of course as it cannot be measured, but built into your analysis or reasoning, at the very least something that should warrant a mention when discussing anything related to the work market in Italy (and that of France, to a lesser degree, as the parallel economy is sizeable there too).
        Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 03-03-2018, 16:40.

        Comment


          #29
          As usual, I agree with all of that and am therefore very skeptical of the 40 percent figure.

          Three particular issues with the Italian data

          1) the black economy is absolutely massive

          2) a very significant portion of the most talented and most employable young people have emigrated

          3) regional differences are profound

          Comment


            #30
            If an italian spends five years working in the black economy, what do they put on their CV?

            Comment


              #31
              Working abroad and travelling?

              That one isn't unknown over here.

              Comment


                #32
                CVs are such an Anglo Saxon concept

                Comment


                  #33
                  Yeah, tbh, I was thinking that that was going to be the answer.

                  Comment


                    #34

                    Comment


                      #35
                      IAW there is the Institute of Applied Economic Research, University of Tubingen.

                      I thought they were more into Classics there.

                      Comment


                        #36
                        That US figure is bollocks for a start. Nearly 5% of the US workforce aren't even meant to be in the country.

                        Comment


                          #37

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Some welcome perspective from the Guardian on the perennial theme of "[insert Southern European country – incl. France] has gone to the dogs and is finished" so beloved by the declinists.


                            This Sunday, more than 30 million Italians will go to the polls to elect a new legislature and, indirectly, a government. It will be the first major European election of 2018, after a somewhat confusing and inconsistent pattern of elections in 2017, and the international media is sparing few cliches.

                            Almost no journalist can resist making references to Italy’s almost inherent “political instability”, referring to the many “political crises” and national elections and governments the country has had in recent history – even though Italy had one government more and held one election less than the (allegedly stable) Netherlands in the 21st century.

                            In the runup to the 2018 Italian elections, the international coverage is dominated by stories that present the usual Italian tropes in all possible combinations. As always, Italy is “on the brink” of political chaos or worse. Article after article covers topics such as mafia and immigration, the rise of fascism, the risk of political violence, or the threat of populism to Italian democracy and the European Union. Don’t get me wrong, many stories are factually correct, even if they often overstate the relevance of their topic.

                            For example, the neo-fascist group CasaPound has indeed become more visible, but it has hardly “brought Mussolini back to the mainstream”. First of all, CasaPound is much too small for such a sizeable popular effect.

                            Second, and more importantly, Mussolini has never been away from the mainstream. The neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) was represented in the Italian parliament from 1948 onward, until the party transformed into National Alliance (AN) and, with the help of Silvio Berlusconi, became a key player in early-21st-century Italian politics. While the AN described itself as “post-fascist”, party leader Gianfranco Fini still described Mussolini as “the greatest statesman in history” in 1994.

                            Similarly, populism is a threat to both Italian democracy, and the European project, but it has been for almost 25 years now. Silvio Berlusconi led his rightwing populist Forza Italia (FI) into a government with the populist radical-right Northern League (LN), and the “post-fascist” AN, for the first time in 1994.

                            […]

                            The problem is that these stories capture only part of the story and exaggerate the newness and uniqueness of developments in Italian politics. Yes, the 2018 elections are going to be a contest between three problematic camps – a right wing that includes the populist radical right, a left wing centered around a party without ideas, and an idiosyncratic populist one that is trying to figure out what it wants.

                            Etc.

                            Comment


                              #39
                              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                              As usual, I agree with all of that and am therefore very skeptical of the 40 percent figure.

                              Three particular issues with the Italian data

                              1) the black economy is absolutely massive

                              2) a very significant portion of the most talented and most employable young people have emigrated

                              3) regional differences are profound
                              Thanks for your input, very good point about the Italian diaspora. It's an old country too, very low birth rate for a generation or so now, third oldest country in the world, all of which explains a lot politically. (51 million registered voters for a population of 60m - it was only 47m in 2013, I didn't understand why such a difference so I dug around a bit and found this.)

                              Significant regional differences are common to all large/large-ish populated countries but they are indeed particularly marked in Italy (more like a divide there really), maybe even more so than in the UK. I regularly travelled within Italy from the 1970s – with my parents and family – to the 2000s (north and Tuscany mostly as I had friends there but also Mezzogiorno, Sicily etc.) and the differences really are striking, even to an outsider's eye.

                              On an unrelated note ursus, a recent Marianne had a feature on Huey Long (available online too but paywall, Huey Long, le "Mussolini des bayous", full piece here), I’d never heard of him before, fascinating stuff (ITW of Paul Auster too in the same Marianne, # 1089, very good if a little short).

                              Originally posted by Kev7 View Post
                              that should warrant a mention when discussing anything related to the work market in Italy
                              What a fugly Gallicism this is, a far too literal translation of "marché du travail"... (I like the French near-equivalent term for that, "un barbarisme"*, wiki: du latin barbarismus (« expression vicieuse »), I should have written "the job/labour/employment market" of course.)

                              (*Actually, I've just found out that "barbarism" - with the same meaning - exists in English too, I didn't know, I knew the word in English but not in this particular acceptation. I suspect that it's far less used than in French, that or I'm far less knowledgeable than I'd like to think)
                              Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 04-03-2018, 11:39.

                              Comment


                                #40
                                .

                                Comment


                                  #41
                                  Huey Long was indeed a fascinating figure and one who still casts a shadow in Louisiana politics.

                                  Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men is a masterful re-telling of his story.

                                  That Guardian piece is valuable. I’ve been annoyed at all of the Berlusconi comeback stories given that, like Mussolini, he never left.

                                  Comment


                                    #42
                                    Good piece on the structural impediments to women working in Italy

                                    Italy has the second-lowest female employment rate in the European Union, according to Eurostat, ahead of only Greece. One in four Italian women do not return to work after giving birth. Those who keep working often see earnings drop more than 35 percent, according to INPS, Italy’s social security institute, mostly because mothers have to reduce working hours since child care and other support is so limited.

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      Excellent piece, thanks ursus.

                                      It also highlights the mess the Italian admin is, it really seems to be something else. I remember an Italian acquaintance of mine in the early 2000s telling me that, circa 1999, she'd passed the national teaching exam necessary to obtain full professional teaching status and work in state schools but, approx. 3 years later, she was still awaiting the/any reply from the Italian Department for Education as to when she'd be appointed or when she could start the teacher training course proper at a Teaching college (I can't quite remember the sequence of events), anyway, she reckoned she had another 3 or 4 years to wait as well. The central admin was so disorganised, cash-strapped etc. that they only had a vague idea of how many teachers they'd need each year, how and where to dispatch them etc. and were basically winging it from one year to another, possibly even from one month to another. I don't know what happened to her in the end but she might still be on the waiting list... (met her in England, she was working over here mainly to improve her English, her main speciality was French but she was keen to add English to her bow, I think at that point she was thinking of working for the private sector, teaching or otherwise).

                                      Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 04-03-2018, 13:56.

                                      Comment


                                        #44
                                        It is really difficult to describe the level of dysfunction to someone who hasn’t lived with it,

                                        Turnout down a bit as of Noon, though comparisons are difficult because the last two general elections also had voting on Monday. Turnout higher in the north than the south as of now.

                                        Comment


                                          #45
                                          Is it not getting better on that score? The OECD have praised Italy a fair bit.

                                          Comment


                                            #46
                                            But I'm sure what's really needed is to elect some Mussolini fans and Coco the Clown.

                                            Comment


                                              #47
                                              Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                                              Is it not getting better on that score? The OECD have praised Italy a fair bit.
                                              The OECD probably have to grade Italy on a different curve to the rest.

                                              Comment


                                                #48
                                                I’m amazed there is no generational conflict in Italy. Everyone under 50 is being screwed by the gerontocracy.

                                                Comment


                                                  #49
                                                  And yeah I’m wondering if the Anglo pundit class have been awake for the last 20 odd years. Being propped up by fascists is how Berlusconi rolls.

                                                  Comment


                                                    #50
                                                    Lots of the young have left or haven't been born in the first place because the prospects for them were so shit.

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X