Monthly Archives: November 2013

Obesita’ e tasse. Perche’ serve l’educazione e non il fisco.

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The title can be translated as “Obesity and taxation. Why it is necessary an education and not a taxation”
Massimiliano Trovato groups in this book for IBLLibri (the publishing entity of the Istituto Bruno Leoni) a series of contributes on the subject of the policies to solve the problem of a population that shows behaviors that put under pressure the public healthcare system.

The title references the policies against obesity as the core focus, but the book includes contributes that analyze also past and current policies aimed at stopping other personal behaviors (tobacco and alcohol consumption) that have a similar effect on the healthcare system but a longer history of policies aiming at stopping them.
In several cases the taxation had no measurable effect on the consumption of the undesired products and in some had negative effect not foreseen.

The authors of the contributes include: William Shughart II, Randall Holcombe, Gordon Tullock, Edward Glaeser, Richard Tiffin and Mattew Salois, Franco Sassi, Richard Williams and Katelyn Christ, Scott Drenkard, Alberto Alemanno and Ignacio Carreno.

Edward Glaeser essay on “Paternalism and psychology” deserves a special mention because the issue of the risks associated with use of soft paternalism are not limited to the specific subject of obesity and consumptions disincentives.
Soft paternalism is used more and more by the governments of the western world to shape the behavior of the population in all aspects of public and private life as it seems less invasive than hard paternalism, but it’s easily useable as a lock pick to ease the introduction of hard paternalism later down the road without facing a strong opposition.

I liked the entire book and recommend it.
Given the low quality of the cover is not a book that can witstand many reads: it’s one of the few cases when I’d suggest an electronic version instead of the printed one.

Alitalia. La privatizzazione infinita by Andrea Giuricin

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Lately the media, at least in Italy, are full of news about a new crisis of Alitalia and the not-so-creative approach of the government to the problem of the (again) substantially bankrupt company.

This book was written after the very long process that transformed Alitalia, the main italian airline, from a state-owned company into a (supposedly) public one 2009.
It details all the political decisions that impacted an operation that was supposed to be made according to market rule and ended up to have very little free market in the actual decisions.

The book is missing the recent evolution of Alitalia due to the fact that was published in 2009, but provides all the elements needed to read the new wave of announcements of solutions for the problems of the company.
To read it today is a little depressing because the risks foreseen have become a reality and the inefficiencies appear to be still in place, both in the company vision and in the way the politic is attempting to fix the situation.

I fear that Alitalia’s problem will find a (temporary) solution like in the previous crisis: using money from the pockets of the citizens.

Doppio Misto by Raffaele La Capria

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Some time ago I posted briefly about a book with the very same title.
While searching for it in my preferred online bookstore I happened to get La Capria’s book in the list of results and on the basis of the short excerpt available I decided to take it.

I could have used a better criteria to select a book.
I’ve found the book fairly boring, self-centered to the point of being irrelevant for the reader.
The only positive thing is that it a very light load for the brain and take little time to read.
Do yourself a favor and save your money or, if you own it already, save at least your time.