World Affairs Council luncheon with Consul General of Italy SF

Attended lunch at World Affairs Council, in San Francisco, for Italian Consul General. Mauro Battocchi.  A retired journalist for the Chronicle asked him several questions, one being where to read more about Italy, and Mauro  Battocchi recommended the NYT.    He says, as I heard in China, from the Ministery of Finance, on CNN, that Italy is supported by close to 60% private wealth. 70% of its citizens own their homes. Banks and corporates have low debt.  However, the "fixed job" for life is disappearing.  The idea of "staying in your territory for the rest of your life" is disappearing.   The new prime minister is the youngest in history, only 47 years old, and Italy is restructuring itself to be more liberalized and economically sound.  It is a conservative country; people tend to stay in their home towns, and are loyal to their regions.  Whereas Italy has more than 50% of its capital in private wealth, America has 42percent putting it in 10th place, with Japan, Germany and France and Denmark in a higher place. Italy has 5 million enterprises and for 249 products is the highest in the world in five categories.   Italy plans to pay its loans over a longer period and to develop a less rigid labor market and pension system.  He admits that the Euro is a constraint, but Italy is adapting a "non linear" approach to this phase of renewal.   He recommends "Longitude", a magazine about the world from the perspective of Italy.  Italy is expected to increase soft outsourcing.  His own hometown is in the Italian Alps, and he recommends the Alpine vacation in Italy as well as the Southern cultural and "club med" tours on the Mediterrean.    He says the wines are very good in the Jutta region, and he takes his holidays there hiking.  He has served in Israel and for the UN, before this posting in SF. 

I am reminded that since a child, I have admired "design" in Italy and that the Expo in China capitalized on this dimension, in representing Italy as providing a "a quality" of life, in its cuisine, in in dress, furniture and interior design, in automobiles and so on...that quality of life is represented in the Consul General's speech to us, and now I am even more pleased to have my new Bianchi bike, a very old trademark in Italy. !  Sitting at my table next to me was an attorney from a boutique firm, as she termed it; her husband is on the Board of Directors.   We agree that the WAFC helps us make better choices in our thinking, other than strictly relying on the media, for how we are to think about the world in which we live.