What happened to making plans ...

Dear friends,

I live in Rome, Italy and while I walk on the streets, I see a large number of migrants asking people for money or trying to wash car windows at a street light. These are people that came to Italy searching for a better life, whether for economic or political reasons. Many Italians look at them as an expense to the government but it makes me think about is how migration has changed from when my family immigrated, as many others, to a new country after the second world war.

How many families can say that theirs goes back centuries when people lived simple, hard working lives in the country of their ancestors? People migrate for different reasons and now as Italy is faced with difficult times, young Italian men and women are moving away for employment. Isn’t this the same as when our families migrated after the war or as the millions of migrants that are arriving in Italy? Yes and no because when our families migrated many years ago, as well as young Italians that recently migrated, they found employment. It’s all about earning enough to survive but each and every person has a different concept of surviving.

Migrants in Italy think about food and shelter at the end of the day whereas young Italians think about having a better life than what they left behind. Now there is a difference, the Italian government gives migrants a telephone with a twenty-five euro recharge every month. They get shelter, food and clothing at the Caritas (similar to Red Cross) and they seem happy to be in Italy with very little. The problem is that while young Italians are leaving Italy to find employment, Italy needs a younger generation that works in order to contribute to pension and taxes. Well, this isn’t happening because as the Italian population is getting older, the country is filling up with people that don’t work and don’t contribute to the Italian economy. So what exactly does that mean?

It means that Italy will be facing harder times than expected and it is very likely that it won’t be in a position to pay out pension to those who have contributed forty-four years and four months when they retire at the age of sixty-seven. To make matters worse, the government believes raising the retirement age to seventy will fix the problem.

So what will Italians do when they do reach the pensionable age? Who will give them food and shelter if the government will not pay out what the population is entitled to? The government doesn’t give Italian families food or shelter if they are unemployed - there is no welfare plan in Italy. Either a person works and survives or lives off of the goodness of friends and families.

I wish I could step into a time machine and zoom to the future to know how Italy will be only to go back in time to fix all the bad choices the governments (numerous governments over the years) made which changed the lives of many Italians in the process.

Have a great weekend.

Grace :)