The financial crisis and the first principle of thermodynamics

I fear that someone is not yet clear because of the most serious financial crisis of the last 80 years, but mainly I am referring to some Italian media which, paradoxically, bring into question the very existence, beyond the figures in the game.

According to a survey of De Zeit, the losses accumulated by financial institutions since the start of the crisis would be around 2800 billion dollars. More than 20% of U.S. GDP, well above the wealth produced in Italy in 2007 (2100 billion dollars).

While total 23 thousand billion loss recorded by the stock exchanges in the same period.

What this has to do all this in the first principle of thermodynamics also said, by extension, the law of conservation of energy?

It would be wrong to talk about money lost or stolen, "according to the time the most appropriate term should be" evaporated. "

In stock exchanges it makes a difference because as the water vapor that once cooled, it back into liquid, the money will return in order to pocket the usual suspects. Indeed, as the trend of the time, the 2800 billion dollars lost with the crisis have not disappeared into thin air. One part is unsold homes in the United States (990 billion dollars), another in the pockets of the rich as Mr. Silvio Berlusconi.

The usual "slander" against the premier? In mid-October, the Italian premier has purchased 16 million of mediaset shares when the title of his group was at historical lows.

Nothing illegal for charity, but encourage people to consume and borrow more, I feel really irresponsible. The crisis is evident, as in 1929, was created not by mistrust, but mainly from a widening of the gap between rich and poor of the planet.

There is then the aid of a Spanish professor Manuel Castells that wisely reminds us that consumption is not to make the happiness of mankind. If we would live in another way, leaving missed stimuli "necessary" to the economy, we could use our money to stimulate the mind because that is where he feels our life.

Travel to Catania

"You know the land where the lemon trees bloom?
Foliage shine green in the golden orange
A slight wind blows from the sky blue
Myrtle is quiet, serene bay leaves
Well you know? "
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832), Italianische Reise - Travel in Italy)

For family reasons, I'm spending a few weeks in Catania, it did not happen since almost three decades, just from the years of Mayor "ciuraru" (*) Enzo Bianco.

I feel a bit like Goethe, surprised by the beauty of the place and moved as a child. I feel a little sense of guilt, in light of the warm Sicilian winter, at the thought of my wife left in the 30 cm of snow in Milan.

My point of view is distorted by feelings, the infinite love for my city left with my heart in my throat, the carefree years when the most serious problem was to give an exam at the university and now I see the lost places of my childhood .

Unfortunately, Catania has worsened over the years and I do not understand how the center-left parties have managed to lose yet another round of elections, despite the disasters of the previous administration "sciampagnino" (*) are clear for all to see.

The left "lives" in Catania (not only) in a parallel universe, and so I'm not surprised it decides to emulate Barak Obama, on a virtual world: face book ...

What can I say ... good luck, but I know that without a concrete proposal and adding value to people life, they will be able to organize only a drink at Bar Europa!

Meanwhile today, on a local television, I heard one of its top executives, hoped the elimination of preferences even in local elections (as proposed at national level by the Italian premier Silvio Berlsuconi) ... then nobody wondering why people are no longer able to distinguish what is right or left ...

In my own small, infinitely loving my hometown, I can only support the new mayor Raffaele Stancanelli and hope that this nightmare will end soon and that Catania return to being the radiant city sung by Carmen Consoli.

(*) The people from Catania like to give a nickname to every thing, if the outgoing mayor was cleared with a derogatory nickname (sciampagnino - cheaper drink) no better fate had Enzo Bianco who was accused by his detractors to have only made cosmetic improvements to the city with plants spread over some main street ... from here ciuraro (florist)


Catania 1920 - The Marina

Tribute to Giuseppe Fava ...

I have already devoted a post to the disappearance of Giuseppe Fava in my Italian blog. Today is the 25th anniversary of his assassination, and I would mirror the thinking of his son Claudio.

THE MEMORY
January 5 after 25 years

by Claudio Fava

I weigh confess: Twenty-five years later the murder of my father as I have the suspicion and anger that he had written too many times for the same piece. In which, in essence, it always says that the memory should not be liturgy, that our dead have not died in vain and that evil would do to lower our guard, because the Mafia is a nasty beast especially when it does not need d ' kill. Here, things like this: all sacrosanct. Only now that I tired. Perhaps because in a few years I will have the age that my father had when he was killed and when I feel the risk that he remains the only collection of small papers, gentle things, a way of thinking. Perhaps because I have forgotten the sound of her laughter, and some skies, some flavors that belonged only to us, and are also finished in the meat grinder of time, mixed with honest public thoughts, with the politically correct considerations without that there was never granted a smudges or a curse.

So today I like to think of the living, not the dead. At a time that is not spent in vain and that but I think equally wasted. In short, or not know that in cities that do not kill my father were able even to publish the obituary on his death because the word mafia could not and should not mentioned? Do you know whether or not the publisher of the newspaper that prevented the obituary, Mario Ciancio, is still in its place, honored master of his newspaper and one hundred other newspapers? Do you know whether or not that is not one of the policemen, judges, journalists and ministers who protected Nitto Santapaola, namely the murderess of my father, he never paid the price?

Who moved sympathetically, who accompanied the board, who asked to teach at his wisdom ... "Todos caballeros", despite a quarter-century, their names have been offered to slash the story.

Do you know whether or not the letter of the Santapaola family, father and children inmates at 41bis (special laws for fighting mafia), are now published on the newspaper impunity of their city in order to understand who is to understand who commands still there?

Have you noticed, after a quarter-century of formal words, which in this country of anti-mafia no longer fucks almost nothing?

That my former party in parliament has sent our friends in the Mafia who then spend all else for Jacobins?

These and a hundred other things are now known by heart. But when we remember our dead, we put them simply in our pocket. So, if you let me keep in your pocket too, what I have inside today, thinking about my father killed by the Mafia in an infamous evening of twenty-five years ago.

Giuseppe Fava source: Fondazione Giuseppe Fava