however while this makes ferrari a good example of successful entrepreneurship (sorry, planet!), it seems that when firms get as big as fiat, say, the really heavy duty problems kick in.

small businesses work locally because everyone is scratching each others' backs, and because everyone dodges taxes and doesn't want any anonymous 'denuncia', so pay their debts and treat each other very civilly, united in existential complicity against the 'thieves in rome' who don't deserve the tax money and spend it so corruptly.

also it's a well-known secret around here, that no small business will be busted for not paying taxes until it gets to the point of being worth taxing.

so people have a few years under the radar.

if they acted otherwise no-one would be able to make ends meet while investing themselves in the 'new' economy, haha

so compassionate huh?

of course they have meanwhile earned your undying enmity by making you jump through bureaucratic hoops and creaming you every step of the way with different cute little 'bollos' (stamps) that are needed for every document, and no of course you can't buy one at the counter, so you lose your place in the queue to go to the tabacchi.

and the queues move really slow because the real action is behind the curtain, happening to the cousin or 'well-recommended' person who never had to bother with the queue at all.

then there's the rage of all the 'statali' ((civil (sometimes, if they feel like it) servants)) who have a grudge against the entrepreneurs, because the former have their taxes docked from their paychecks and feel bad because they know that if the small businesses paid their due taxes, then theirs would be lower-

never mind that they spend half the mornings in the bar chatting and drinking so many coffees that they get cranky and hypoglycemic as mealtimes approach.

as they do so religiously...

never mind that they can retire at 40 and get pensions and settle down and grow grapes, make sausages, forage mushrooms with the family, play cards and bowls.

i once saw a 'stale' waiting in a queue at a bank, and he was ranting about this very subject of compulsory taxation, and what was hilarious was seeing how no-one agreed with him, they were all busily studying their shoes, or gazing into the middle distance as if they were trying to recall a line of dante or something.

the poor man was furious, and alone in his misery.

he sure had their attention!

and i'm sure he took his sweet revenge daily, pouring sand into gears and spanners into works all his, or her- (shortish) working days, with full and collegial support from all his colleagues-in-confusioneering.

little moments, when the veil is drawn back...

and a fundamental conflict of interests is revealed that is repeated millions of times till the cumulative effect is italy as we see it now.

so you speak the truth, it's a miracle anything works AT ALL, and italians are masters at rolling with the punches, having been trained from early on to expect the unexpected, and work around....and around....and around....

there is tremendous talent out the yin-yang, but so much slipperyness and wheel-spinning you have to take a l-o-n-g view, and pray to the madonna, vocally, intemperately, and often.

gnashing of teeth is the only other option.

luckily there are compensations, or the whole country would have snapped by now.

oh wait!

flexibility is a wonderful thing, i really do love it here, warts and all, i'm grateful for the good things i don't snark about.

watching the face off about vicenza and frejus and the tau, i feel torn too.

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower