Unemployment, Vacancies and Inflation

The Beveridge curve. Now animated.
And a happy new year!

Onion Ring

India. Bad weather, few onions. The price doubled within few days. Inflation started raising. India is a major producer and exporter of onions, which are also an important ingredient of many indian recipes. With large part of the population, about 25%, within the threshold of poverty, the problem has become a social and political issue. Possibly the onion crisis is more urgent the G2 mobile lines corruption case. Within few days export has been banned, while tariffs abolished. No export, free import of onions. Government even started to distribute them at a controlled price. All with the hope of calming down prices. Will it work?

Italy and Immigrants

A nice work from quattrogatti.info. Some data about immigrants in Italy put together into an easy video (in italian). Simple data yet relevant since here you often hear weird things that are not supported by facts.
That's the video:

And here some stats for a quick look...

Buy, Buy, Buy!

A comment on this graph that I found on lavoce.info. It is the Mediaset S.p.a. quotation on December 14th.




And here the relevant timing of the confidence in the Italian Parliament:

Tax and Controls over People

Yesterday I have known from the radio program of Oscar Giannino on Radio 24 that from January the first Italian citizens are going to be a little bit more ground down by taxes, State and its beaurocracy.
We already have one of the highest tax rates in the world, a messy beaurocracy and an impressive tax evasion rate. Up to now our tax rate didn't do much in reducing public debt and people feel their money are inefficiently used. The impressive number of laws didn't do much in improving legality, nor our freedom. We need lawyers, commercialists and any kind of professionals just to do things that could be easily done at home by ourselves if only well designed. And whatever you do there is almost surely some kind of tiny crazy law you're breaking. Eventually we end up with a rather high degree of illegality, which I would define frictional illegality.
Is then tighter control going to solve those problems? I don't think so. On the contrary my impression is that honest people are going to be worse off. Again.

A Little Great Book

I want to signal a book that I find worth of reading.
It's small, well written and quite smart.
It's a book that anticipates the Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" by 11 years and Pietro Verri's "Elementi del Commercio" (Elements of Trade) by 4 years, being published in 1765. Smith was probably not aware of this book. If you have read some parts of Adam Smith's work, I am sure that you are going to enjoy it. It's amazing to see how similar ideas are presented and discussed in short and easy terms.
In one word: brilliant.

Some Thoughts About Economics

Economics is about people.
Economics is a practical discipline.
Economics is not neutral.
Economics, emotions and equality.