In Italy, Non Tutto e' "Made in China" !

by Prof. Maurizio Morselli, Business English Trainer

Sento frequentemente che ormai anche nel nostro stupendo e creativo paese e' "quasi tutto fatto in Cina'. Credo sia necessario informarsi meglio e sapere che alcuni importanti e costosissimi prodotti(quindi ad alto profitto) , sono ancora "Made in Italy"e sono fortissimi! Il quotidiano “Haaretz” rivela  che le forze armate israeliane starebbero per assegnare all’industria bellica italiana la commessa di oltre un miliardo di dollari per la fornitura di 25-30 caccia-addestratori “avanzati”. Infatti gli M-346 Italiani, frutto di grande ricerca e investimento tecnico, sostituiranno i vecchi A-4 “Skyhawk” della statunitense McDonnell Douglas, utilizzati dalle “Tigri volanti” del 102° squadrone dell’aeronautica israeliana. Pensate un po'! I nostri aerei da guerra piu' avanzati di quelli USA !
La comunicazione ufficiale del ministero della Difesa è attesa per i prossimi giorni, ma il direttore generale, Udi Shadi, avrebbe già firmato un accordo preliminare con i manager di Alenia Aermacchi durante una sua recente visita in Italia. Inoltre, entro la fine del 2013, i grandi aerei da trasporto della nostra aeronautica C27J e C130 e gli elicotteri Eh101 cominceranno ad essere equipaggiati con il sistema di contromisure a raggi infrarossi “DIRCM” (Directional Infrared Countermeasures) co-prodotto dalla italiana “Elettronica” e dalla israeliana “Elbit”. Il contratto comporterà una spesa di 25,4 milioni di euro. Siamo bravi, no?  Il "Made in Italy" (e non "in Cina) continua a colpire importanti bersagli. Questa maestosa bravura, grazie ai notevoli investimenti e diligente ricerca e innovazione, ci rende naturalmente, competitivissimi nei lucrosi campi della DISTRUZIONE. Peccato che, sfortunatamente, non si trovino mai i fondi necessari per investire e quindi renderci piu' competitivi nei produttivi e umani campi della CREAZIONE: campi quali la ricerca, innovazione didattica, arte, creativita', evoluzione delle politiche sociali ed eliminazione della miriade di superflue e controproducenti politiche burocratiche.
Puo' anche darsi che questi ultimi meno "aggressivi" investimenti siano considerati cianfrusaglie,  sulle quali non possiamo perder tempo a investire talento nostrano. Quindi non mi sorprenderebbe se per queste "cianfrusaglie"   ci rivolgessimo un di' alla Cina.

New American Idioms. This month’s idiom : “NOT MUCH”, compliments of a presidential candidate

Mitt Romney and Colleagues displaying their core motivational factors.  

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney has a new definition of "not much": $374,327.00 .

On Tuesday, the Republican presidential candidate finally admitted that the effective tax rate he has been paying for the last several years is likely well below that of middle-class workers.

In Greenville, S.C., Romney was asked directly what his effective tax rate is. It was a hot topic of discussion at Monday night's debate, at which Romney repeatedly declined to fully commit to release his tax returns.

"It's probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything," said Romney on Tuesday. "For the past 10 years, my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income or earned annual income. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away. Then, I get speakers fees from time to time, but not very much."

Not very much? According to his personal financial disclosure, from February 2010 to February 2011, Romney earned $374,327.62 in speaking fees. A few months later, Romney joked that he was "unemployed."

His rival, Newt Gingrich, said that he made $60,000 per speech -- defending himself against the charge that he served as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, for which he was paid over $1.6 million for strategic advice.

Romney has an estimated wealth of between $190 million to $250 million, according to financial disclosure reports. Upon leaving Bain Capital in 1999, he negotiated a retirement package guaranteeing him a percentage of the firm's profits.

A single worker who earns more than $35,350 in income pays a 25 percent tax rate on earnings above that amount. Many families that earn less than $100,000 per year pay an effective rate of just above that, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The Huffington Post's Jon Ward asked Romney about his tax rate in Iowa last December. "You take advantage of the opportunity to be in America, to build a bright future, and you pay your taxes as required by law," he said. "And if something is a capital gain, it should be treated as a capital gain. If something is ordinary income, it should be treated as ordinary income. And the determination of those things has been made by Congress and by the courts and by the Internal Revenue Service. I've always followed the law as to the taxes that we've paid, my wife and I have paid."

Romney's wealthy welfare comes from a loophole in the tax code that taxes long-term capital gains at a 15 percent rate. Private equity executives are then "paid" with capital gains instead of regular income. The executives, such as Romney, then tell the Internal Revenue Service that they were not being reimbursed a salary for work they performed but instead were merely investors reaping the rewards of risk taking. Happily for the executives, any investments that go belly up and lead to bankruptcy and mass layoffs can be counted against the earnings, which amounts to a tax subsidy for failed projects.

Should someone who considers "occasional speaker’s fees" of $ 374,327.00, “not much”, have the privilege to represent 99% of US Citizens, many of whom have an annual salary of 1/100^th of what he considers “not much” ?

This story has been updated to reflect Romney's speaking fees according to his financial disclosure.
edited for brevity by  M. Morselli

LIP JOB

Did You ever Notice that ALL Liars have the same THIN Lips?.... Just an Observation...

LET FREEDOM RING

AT LAST THE PEOPLE HAVE COME AROUND: Watch this video

We promote democracy everywhere else but at home we arrest peaceful protesters. It's not right and we will no longer be silent.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dntZZe9h84>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dntZZe9h84AT LAST

ROME- OCTOBER 15TH:---HOW POWER HIJACKS US! IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. DO NOT BE SILENT

The most shocking aspect of Saturday’s riot in Rome was the fact that it did not come as a shock. For 10 years now in Italy, at least since the violence at Genoa’s G8 in 2001, there has been the strong possibility of protest marches being hijacked by relatively small numbers of very well organised, well prepared thugs. One can speculate about who are the master puppetteers of the so called "thugs"...?
> Is it orchestrated by the law enforcement authorities who guide this
> Do the law enforcement authorities allow these independent thughs to do their dirty work
> Or are they just stealth organized fringes who do deliver distruction for the sake of vandalism?
No one seems to know... but wat we do know is what happens.
It happened in Rome last year after the 14 December vote of confidence and for the whole of last week, all the papers were talking about the likelihood of violence on Saturday. I have no special sources but from very public ones, it was obvious to warn my American students wanting to show some solidarity with the “Occupy Wall St.” protest to be very careful as there were plenty of signs that something nasty was going to happen. As it happened, they were careful but they did come back with some good primary material for the course on political violence…
Yet both the organisers and the police had made no plans to deal with what was a very effective takeover of the whole demo. Most Italian demonstrations have their own servizio d’ordine, a group of people from the organisers who see that none of their own people cause trouble. Trades unions and more established protest movements have a long experience of managing crowds and acting as buffers between the demonstrators and the police or public. This time the organisers very explicitly had no internal security. When the violence began, there were many spontaneous attempts to contain it but mostly they didn’t stand a chance against well prepared and disciplined spoilers. One 52 year old tried to stop a gang starting on a bank, and lost two fingers from a hand; in another area, there was the paradox of the usually radical and anti-police, anti-establishment left wing Cobas getting help from the celerini, the riot police normally their antagonists.
On the other side, the different police forces were badly prepared, low on morale and in the wrong places. It could hardly have been worse. The close control and divisory tactics that other police forces have developed were not used on Saturday. There is footage of carabinieri, police or finance guards (the three main national police forces, all of whom were present), standing around in the midst of the melée uncertain of what to do next. Like other police forces, though, the Italian ones have had to deal with swingeing cuts in their budgets and like the British at least, they have been accused of being heavy handed in the past (and some suffered either financially or in their careers) so many were afraid of being too aggressive. Finally, the majority was deployed around the sensitive areas in the centre (Parliament, ministries, Berlusconi’s residence) rather than with the demonstrators so that when the violence began there were no police.
Those were the tactical errors. There have been much more longterm mistakes made too.
It is axiomatic that economic hardship increases social tension and might lead to violence. Some politicians and commentators have been warning government of the dangers for months. Antonio Di Pietro and the deputy and journalist Furio Colombo clamour like Cassandra. The response has been to accuse them of encouraging violence.
The clear message from the demonstrations across the world was that banks and governments had either misbehaved or been incompetent and that the young in particular were not prepared to give up their futures for others’ crimes or stupidity. Their expectations have been crushed and they are angry.
But on Saturday all the demonstrations apart from Rome were peaceful and here, the vast majority was peaceful and furious that a few had stolen the show.
Those few are usually referred to as the Black Block as if it was a single organisation. They aren’t – they are small numbers of mostly young people, mostly male who use left wing usually anarchist rhetoric and fascist methods. They use black block techniques developed and tried in Germany and elsewhere over the last 25 years; according to one interviewed in La Repubblica this morning, they have used the Greek unrest as a training camp. Wherever they learnt, they are extremely effective. Calm and unworried as they hack away at armoured glass or a police vehicle; prepared by donning protective clothing before beginning the mayhem and by leaving caches of molotov cocktails and ball bearing or paving stones – the ubiquitous sanpietrini which can be used as an instantly available missile in most of Rome; careful to destroy CCTVs and warn off cameramen but also sometimes oblivious of the hundreds of cameras around.
Those who are able and prepared to use the violence seen on Saturday are quite able to use more serious violence in terrorist attacks and we can only hope that law enforcement agency will be capable of dealing with the symptoms and more importantly, that government agencies are prepared to address the underlying causes and work with the majority on non-violent protesters.
Not very likely, I fear. The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni was the only member of government who made a public appreciation of the non-violent protest. The new head of the European Central Bank (and until the end of the month head of the Bank of Italy) Mario Draghi said before the violence began that the protesters had a point.
But the rest of government tried to put all the blame on “the left”. Berlusconi did not go as far as saying that Bersani, Vendola and Di Pietro, the leaders of the main centre-left parties, were responsible but the innuendo was there – and no doubt will continue. Anything to move attention from fundamental economic difficulties.
They will return to the surface soon enough – but so will the prospect of political violence.

From http://italpolblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/flames-in-rome.html

DO NOT BE SILENT: OCCUPY! OCTOBER 15th in ROME!!! TRANSLATION IN ITALIAN

OCCUPY WALL STREET: A DECLARATION OF THE PEOPLE

  As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.


They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.


They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.


They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.


They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' healthcare and pay.


They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.


They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.


They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.


They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.


They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

OCCUPY WALL STREET: UNA DICHIARAZIONE DEL POPOLO

Riunendoci  in solidarietà per esprimere un sentimento di ingiustizia di massa, non dobbiamo perdere di vista ciò che ci ha portato qua, insieme. Scriviamo, per allearci con tutte le persone che si sentono lese dalle forze aziendali del mondo.
Come un unico popolo, unito, noi riconosciamo la realtà: che il futuro della razza umana richiede la cooperazione dei suoi membri, e che il nostro sistema deve proteggere i nostri diritti; e vista la corruzione del presente sistema, spetta a ogni individuo proteggere i propri diritti e quelli dei loro vicini; un governo democratico trae la sua forza proprio dalla gente, mentre le forze aziendali dimostrano che non cercano consenso della gente per estrarre ricchezza dal popolo e dalla terra; e che nessuna vera democrazia è raggiungibile quando il processo produttivo è determinato solamente dal potere economico di pochi.

Veniamo a voi in un momento in cui la maggior parte delle grandi aziende e i nostri governi pongono il profitto prima delle persone, l'interesse della tasca prima della giustizia, e in cui l'oppressione diventa piu’ importante dell’ uguaglianza. Ci siamo pacificamente riuniti qui, come è nostro diritto, per proclamare i seguenti fatti che gia sono ben noti:

-Hanno preso le nostre case attraverso un processo di preclusione illegale(ingannevoli mutui), pur non avendo il mutuo originario.
-Hanno estratto i salvataggi dai comuni contribuenti impunemente, e continuano a dare a dirigenti bonus esorbitanti.
-Hanno perpetuato la disuguaglianza e la discriminazione sul posto di lavoro in base all'età, il colore della pelle, il sesso, l'identità di genere e orientamento sessuale.
-Hanno avvelenato l'approvvigionamento di cibo per negligenza, e hanno minato il sistema agricolo attraverso la monopolizzazione.
-Hanno tratto profitto dalla tortura e detenzione; hanno praticato il trattamento crudele di innumerevoli animali, e intenzionalmente nascosto queste pratiche.
-Hanno sempre cercato di strappare ai dipendenti il diritto di negoziare per una migliore retribuzione e le condizioni di lavoro più sicuro.
-Hanno tenuto in ostaggio gli studenti con decine di migliaia di dollari di debito per l'istruzione, mentre il diritto all’istrizione  è esso stesso un diritto umano.
-Preferiscono costantemente di praticare l’outsourcing del lavoro(dandolo a ditte private spesso connesse a qualche dirigente della ditta[NDT]), e usano l'outsourcing come leva per ridurre ai lavoratori i benefici della sanità 'e i diritti di retribuzione.
-Le “corporations”  hanno influenzato i tribunali per ottenere gli stessi diritti che spetterebbero a “persone”, pero’ con nessuno dei vincoli di responsabilità che hanno le persone.
-Hanno speso milioni di dollari per team legali per trovare il modo di evadere contratti in materia di assicurazione sanitaria, dei propri dipendenti.
-Hanno venduto la nostra privacy come una merce.
-Hanno usato la forza militare e di polizia per impedire la libertà di stampa e di parola.
-Hanno deliberatamente rifiutato di richiamare i prodotti difettosi mettendo in pericolo la vita alla ricerca del guadagno indiscriminato.
-Determinano la politica economica, nonostante i fallimenti catastrofici che le loro politiche hanno prodotto e continuano a produrre.
-Hanno donato grandi somme di denaro proprio ai politici, i quali dovrebbero essere i regolatori delle pratiche dei “donatori”.
-Continuano a bloccare forme alternative di energia per  mantenerci “petroliodipendenti”
-Continuano a bloccare forme generiche di farmaci che potrebbero salvare la vita delle persone al fine di proteggere gli investimenti dai quali hanno gia tratto un sostanziale guadagno
-Hanno volutamente coperto e nascosto le le conseguenze delle  enormi e inquinanti chiazze di petrolio, di contabilità ingannevole, e di contaminanti ambientali per continuare la corsa a riempire le loro casseforti.
-Hanno volutamente mantenuto la gente disinformata e intimorita attraverso il controllo dei media.
-Hanno accettato contratti privati per uccidere prigionieri, anche nella presenza di seri dubbi sulla loro colpevolezza.
-Hanno perpetuato il colonialismo in patria e all'estero.
-Hanno partecipato alla tortura e l'uccisione di civili innocenti all'estero.
-Continuano a creare armi di distruzione di massa al fine di ricevere contratti governativi

Per i popoli del mondo,
Noi, quelli  dell'Assemblea generale di New York : Occupy Wall Street a Liberty Plaza (Piazza della Libertà),  vi esortiamo a far valere il vostro potere.
Esercitiamo, tutti noi,  il diritto di riunirci pacificamente; occupiamo il suolo pubblico; creiamo, insieme, un processo per affrontare i problemi che abbiamo di fronte, e generiamo soluzioni accessibili a tutti.
Per tutte le comunità dove si formano gruppi di azione e nello spirito della democrazia diretta, offriamo supporto, documentazione, e tutte le risorse a nostra disposizione.
Uniamoci e facciamo sentire la nostra voce!

   

NDT: Nota del Traduttore