Fiat 500 – Cute Advertising for Cute Design

Italy’s automotive industry emblema seems to have reached unhoped-for popularity abroad. Italian car design  is widely acknowledged as full of quality and innovation, but with fiat 500, this statement is even more true. It was yesterday when I saw, for the first time, the new 500’s commercial, and I must say it really is cute! It was made by Krow Communication, a fast growing London based creative agency. Although a little bit overpriced, fiat 500 is an iconic pop-culture product, and as all the other every.day design pieces shown in this simple but exciting ad, definitely cheers you up! The message was safely received:

fiat 500 among your daily objects

 is just the place where it belongs …

Economists: brand new stars.

Economists were and still are, to a certain extent, a mysterious breed. Their studies and position in the real economy’s world have often been questioned on their usefulness. Jokes about economists flourish, indeed. Here are some examples:

“An economist is a trained professional paid to guess wrong about the economy.” 

or

“Economics is the only field in which two people can share a Nobel Prize for saying opposing things.”

 

Accused of being far from reality, unuseful for what matters real industrial economy, economists were not among the scientists and brilliant engineers who were the protagonists of the last 24 years. Technological innovation took the stage, and let the poor and boring subject of economics among the sciences with no focus on real life and application. Now things seem to have changed. The actual slump brought new attention to the figure of the economics’ expert and researcher. We could call this “Sudden popularity”. They are interviewed, consulted, their advises constitute the “juicy piece” of several shows and newscasts. Suddenly everyone sees in economics the only key capable of solving, or at least softening a crises which was not caused by economics in its purest definition. Wild finance is the first responsible. So Kondratiev’s cycles’ definitions and monetary policy mechanisms’ aren’t foggy topics anymore. This situation though, isn’t going to last that long. Once the crisis will be overcome (as it will surely be) economists will return to their lives, once again ignored and once again ready to give wise advises to those unknowing, when the times will require it.

Goodbye Prof. R. Antinolfi

Prof. Ricciotti Antinolfi

 

Only by chance I have discovered, today,  that on February 1st this year, my Economic Policy professor at the University of Naples disappeared. I can say that my choice of attending his course was one of the best in my entire career; it wasn’t an easy subject, I had to give the exam three times before taking it (I wasn’t satisfied with the grade), but he made it possible for us to learn how to have a critical approach to economic policy and keep our own opinions as independent and free from any kind of external influence.

He was professor at both Siena’s University and Naples’. In 1984 he was host at Harvard University to research on J. K. Galbraith economic thought. He mainly focussed his research on: macroeconomic theories, history of economic thought, theory of property rights and entrepreneurship, Italian economy, development problems in southern Italy. He was an amazing professor and a great man.

Goodbye Professor