In trading, you have to be defensive and aggressive at the same time
- #880,242
- Mar 1, 2014 12:59pm Mar 1, 2014 12:59pm
- | Membership Revoked | Joined Mar 2009 | 16,693 Posts
- #880,243
- Mar 1, 2014 1:56pm Mar 1, 2014 1:56pm
- Joined Aug 2009 | Status: Technical fundamentalist | 2,202 Posts
Monthly moan ending February 2014
As balconies go, the one that I was looking at a week ago was not amongst the most ornate. Indeed, if not for the building that it was attached to, the balcony could have been located in any European city that aspired to give a little semblance of artistic influence to its presentation.
As it was, this particular balcony just so happened to be attached to the Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence, Italy. And which is perhaps why it was a little cheap-looking... as standards go in this part of the world.
For those that wish to visualise how this balcony appears, it is the one that faces the Piazza della Signoria square. It’s also apparently where Francesco Pazzi was hanged after the failed Pazzi conspiracy. An event orchestrated by the Pazzi family of bankers - and hired assassins - in order to overthrow the de' Medici family’s financial hold over Florence. Dear me, they’re a nasty bunch, are those that like to control money.
Oh, and it is also the balcony where Dr. Hannibal Lecter is shown to cut the guts out of inspector Rinaldo Pazzi, before throwing him off the side. With, I might add, a length of throat-warmer attached firmly around his neck. (I think it’s a tradition kind of thing.)
Ah… Italy. The land of fine coffee, dirty politics, exquisite Parma prosciutto, tax-evasion, and, of course, bunga bunga. Erm, no, I mean dolce vita.
And life there certainly seems to be in this land of fine living; all of it walking around in a style that in itself requires the eye of he who appreciates the classic look, to wander far from his training of gentlemanly propriety. But then, well, I’m a man that appreciates the Renaissance, and beyond, and so do keep my eye open for any modern masterpieces that may pass my way.
I was also keeping my eye open for any action up on the balcony of barbarous butchery, overlooking, as it did, my seating down in the composed café below. Yes, one could argue that I should have perhaps been more interested in reading a little Dante, but why read of such constricting desperation to life, when instead, one can admire the view whilst eating a fine pasta.
It was a dish taken al fresco style, while I wondered if I could be whacked - across the head, that is - if I chose to take a little nibble from some of the fine meat walking by me.
Thankfully, my reserve was maintained, and thus my enjoyment of the afternoon was not spoilt as I sat and thought about if the Italians ever stop talking. Either between themselves, or on their mobile telephones. Pff, I think they must have shattered eardrums, or brain cancer from the constant holding of a telephone to their ears, as they all seemed to shout at the telephones, whilst waving their arms in all directions. A peculiar act, to me, as the receiver of a call cannot see the caller.
Anyway, this constant gesticulation may have been spurred on by the fact that the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano - who is elected by parliament, not the electorate – has asked the major of Florence, Matteo Renzi, to form a government. This means that the Italian population will once again be handed a leader that, popular or not, has no publically-endorsed mandate to dictate. But then, well, when did democracy ever get in the way of such Machiavellian tendencies?
Now don’t get me wrong, I rather like what I’m hearing from Matteo Renzi – his disgust at modern politics in Italy, and greater Europe, striking several chords with not just me, but the increasingly impoverished that I saw roaming the streets of Florence. Yet, as I looked towards the balcony of broken bramosia, I did give thought as to whether the Italian population, progressively suffering from fast-falling incomes, would show that they have finally had enough of unelected politicians being tapped on the shoulder, before being put into lucrative high office.
Indeed, as I watched half of Africa selling mobile phone cases, and counterfeit goods of all design, to a passing public that may not have understood these immigrants’ desperation to send a Euro back home to the wife and kids, I did consider how according to the OECD, representatives of the Italian Government are paid well above any other parliamentarians within Europe. They also enjoy the highest income gap between their take from their national pot, and what the rest of the Italian population can hope to receive as their cut.
That said, maybe Matteo Renzi, often labelled ‘il Rottamatore’, and which in English means the scrapper, may just be the man to turn things around in Italy. For whom, I’m not sure, but Italian bonds have reacted positively to the nod to appoint him as the youngest ever Don… and I don’t mean as a fellow for Oxbridge. Hmm, do the money-men know something about this that the rest of us do not?
Regardless, this favourable return for the investors probably explained why my afternoon was fairly uneventful; the true powers that be, currently satisfied, and so allowing democracy to be prostituted once more to the whim of the powerful; the absence of any scarlet-coloured stomach scattering upon the floor of the Piazza della Signoria square, providing some conformation to this analysis.
And so it was that my day was slowly taken over by my considered amusement at how those in Italy that are actually trying to do the right thing, are told by the government that they cannot.
I refer, should the reader wish to know, to how the true prostitutes of Italy have been trying for years to pay taxes on their ‘salaries’, but refused the right to do so as their profession has proved difficult for the Italian Government to categorise. Or to put it more precisely, proved a profession that the Italian Government wish not to be recognised by any statute of occupation that may besmirch the wished-for presentation of Italian culture to the world.
This state of suspension from satisfactory society seems to be about to change, as, in the age of the clampdown upon tax evaders, the currency of the working-girl is now being accepted into the government coffer.
Kind of, that is, as in true Italian red-tape fashion, the authorities have decided that the best way to collect this ‘unpaid’ tax, is to haul the laced-covered bottoms of prostitutes into court, and then fine them for all of the years that they could not pay their share. And we are talking large sums here; with one prostitute saying that the government’s estimation of her yearly earnings was ridiculous, and that she only earned around twenty thousand Euros… that, by the way, is per month.
Bugger me, that’s a take that is on a par with the politicians in this country. Politicians that will be guaranteed that which the prostitutes are currently trying to secure by paying taxes: a state pension.
I wonder if these ladies can claim tax-deductible expenses that could include such items as torn tights, broken buttons… prostrated plastic protections that prevent many an Italian wife from unexpected paternity petitions.
Europe: It’s a wonderful example of how those that actually exhibit moral behaviour are treated like criminals, whilst those that hide their immorality underneath the right suits, are often venerated by a public that admire their status and wealth… this privilege often arising from the investment within killing machines in far-off lands, or financial bullets aimed at the very public that know not what it is that they support.
Author of: For Pip's Sake! (Available at Amazon... :-) )
- #880,251
- Mar 1, 2014 9:51pm Mar 1, 2014 9:51pm
- Joined Apr 2013 | Status: I'm learnding! | 8,973 Posts
- #880,253
- Mar 1, 2014 11:01pm Mar 1, 2014 11:01pm
- Joined Sep 2008 | Status: Married - 5 Wives | 14,713 Posts
The Thief of Wall Street
- #880,257
- Mar 1, 2014 11:56pm Mar 1, 2014 11:56pm
- Joined Mar 2010 | Status: Trader | 42,434 Posts
2013-07-31 Today's Phrase of the Day: Hold off from any recycle bin experts
- #880,259
- Mar 2, 2014 12:38am Mar 2, 2014 12:38am
- Joined Feb 2012 | Status: Trader | 21,377 Posts
In trading, you have to be defensive and aggressive at the same time
- #880,260
- Mar 2, 2014 2:58am Mar 2, 2014 2:58am
- | Joined Nov 2011 | Status: attitude is everything.. | 1,492 Posts
Patience is a virtue...