Italy is my home. I’ve chosen to live here, not only because O lives here, but also because I love it, warts and all. Sometimes those warts can seem pretty big though. So big, in fact, that no amount of Compound W is going to get them to go away.
With the recent problems in Greece, according to this article, a lot of Greeks are “taking a hard look at their country” and seeing mismanagement and corruption. I would hate to think that things have to get that bad before Italians start to do so, but I’m afraid that may be the case.
You see, to Italians, the person who is “furbo”, who can cheat someone or get away with something illegal, the person who thinks only about themselves and forgets about the rest of society, is a person to be admired. Those who are honest are considered stupid. That’s one of the reasons why Berlusconi has been successful. Many of the people who have voted for him have done so because they admire him for being “furbo”.
The “furbo” don’t pay taxes, they get around them. Sure, we have tax loopholes in the states, but here it’s just blatant non-payment of taxes. A lot of the focus is on shopkeepers who don’t give receipts or who give receipts for less than the actual amount, but in reality, that’s small potatoes. On a somewhat bigger scale are the medical specialists who take private patients in the evenings. They may charge 120 euro for the visit, but will ask you if you need a receipt and if you say no they will give you a 20 euro discount. Sure, you can say that a decent citizen will insist on the receipt anyway and pay the extra 20 euro, but that’s an awful lot of money to someone who has a very limited income. Yet, here’s a doctor who maybe has 10 patients per night, at 100 euros a pop, that’s 1000 euros in a single evening….tax free, on top of what he gets paid for his regular medical duties. Doctors aren’t the only ones doing this of course, there are numerous examples I could give. But, you get the general idea.
My view is, if you want something from the state, then you need to give something back. I don’t mind paying taxes if I get something in return. That doesn’t seem to be the attitude here though. People want everything, but they don’t want it to come out of their pocket. Let the other suckers pay for it.
But this attitude goes all the way to the top. In fact, for a while now in Italy they have been talking about passing a law to give certain members of the government immunity. The newest law that is about to be proposed gives legal immunity to the president, the premier and the cabinet ministers. Since when are members of a democratic government above the law?
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Don’t you just love how Berlu and his band of merry thieves are passing that law to save their corrupt butts!
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Mary Reply:
April 30th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I read an interesting book about Berlusconi which claims that his whole motive for entering politics was basically about saving his butt.
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What you say is all so true, and it drives us nuts as well. I have to say a word in defense of doctors, though. Ours sees patients privately, for E25. We discovered that he gets payed the princely sum of E5 when he sees someone on the health plan… part of getting people to stop cheating is to make the payments reasonable – it’s just stupid to think a doctor (or anyone!) would be satisfied with E5 for a professional visit. I’m not sure Italy will ever become ‘honest,’ in the American concept of the word; we are trying to apply our cultural and political mores to them – which is a very American thing to do! We’ve never understood how Italians can just sit back and take all the bureaucratic crap they’re handed – but they do. It’s how they do things. And isn’t Berlusconi the prime example??! What a joke. Basta!
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Mary Reply:
April 30th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
I’m not really sure how much doctors get paid, although I understand they get a set fee for the number of patients they have. As for charging for private visits, I don’t think that’s a problem, it’s the tax evasion part of it that’s the problem. By not giving a receipt, they’re not just avoiding paying the VAT, they’re not declaring their income either. As for bureaucracy, when I took O with me in the US when I had to get my driver’s license renewed he was amazed. He couldn’t believe I could go in, have my picture taken, my eyes checked and walk out with my new license in such a short period of time. Here it takes weeks and several different trips. Typical.
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No one should be above the law and laws shouldn’t be “fixed” in order to make them exempt.
Two days ago I saw a Greek man on the tv complaining that his wifes’s hospital treatment was basically only successful because he’d “tipped” the surgeon!!!! What the what??? That doesn’t happen in Italy. (Well, not in my experience anyway.) Neither do I have to pay my GP because I don’t go private. Honestly, I think that the Italian national health system (apart from a whole load of unecessary bureaucray) works extremely well.
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Mary Reply:
May 4th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
My example of the doctor was just to show the scale of tax evasion. On the whole, I agree with you about the health system although I know in some regions there are extremely long waits for testing. I usually don’t go private either since I really see no need to, but I did when I was expecting (and even that cost much less than it would have in the states). Otherwise you have to go to the hospital, wait in line and it’s not always the same doctor every time you go. I was more comfortable going to the same doctor each time. I know people who take their children to a private pediatrician too because they weren’t satisfied with the “public” one.
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