The figure established in 2007 to monitor price increases: limited powers, late interventions and a bureaucratic paradox that lets prices fluctuate
Dear Mister Prezzi, I am writing you this postcard because, suddenly, I remembered your existence. How strange huh? Every time there is a reckless increase in prices, it turns out that in Italy we have Mister Prices, that is, you, a ministry official in charge of controlling reckless price increases.
Without, however, being able to control them. Yes, that’s right: you have the ability to “observe”, “scrutinise”, “monitor”, “report”, in practice you are the voyeur of tariff obscenities. A kind of umarell in the speculation yards. In the sense that speculators fleece us and you watch them (or monitor them, if you prefer) without having the tools to stop them. At most he compiles a report to say that speculating is a really bad thing. As if we didn’t already know that ourselves. We have asked ourselves many times what the hell is the point of having Mister Prezzi, and every time we have given ourselves the same answer: nothing. Or, at most, to say “we have activated Mister Prices”, as the minister did the other day Ursus. Put like that, it almost seems like a real thing. But, in fact, what have we activated? The nameplate on the door? The letterhead? Because these are the only effective weapons you can count on, dear Mister Prezzi: a little to stop the greedy speculators. And in fact she doesn’t stop them at all. Every time it boils down to “monitoring”. To “observe”. She is a guardian of the escaped cows, the man who cries over the paid increase. More than Mister Prices, Mister X. Uselessness made function. Or official. The position was established with the financial law approved on 24 December 2007. Since then, six Mister Prezzi have been appointed, his companions in misfortune. You are the unfortunate seventh. His name is not known to most people: his name is Benedetto Mineofrom Palermo, 65 years old, former CEO of Equitalia, as well as boss of the Revenue Agency, is now a high official of the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy. He has been in office as Mister Prices since 2021, without an additional salary (thank goodness: God forbid), and has seen the most violent storms pass before his eyes, from the Ukrainian war to today, without being able to do anything to stop them. And, moreover, without even being able to do anything to predict them. Like a Bernacca that announces rain when we are already all wet…
His name Benedetto (blessed, so to speak) comes up, in fact, every time the crisis has already exploded. After, not before. It lies asleep for months and months, we forget about its existence, then prices go crazy and, after they go crazy, it comes along to “monitor”. But what the hell are you monitoring, excuse me? We can see for ourselves that they’re fleecing us, don’t you think? You who are in the ministry should do something to avoid it. Or he should give up the title of Mister Prices which thus smacks of mockery. In 2023 there was talk of his possible return to the Revenue Agency. “In his place,” he wrote Republic on January 10 of that year, “a figure will arrive who will make himself heard and will put fear into the oil companies.” We were deluded and instead, nothing: she remained who doesn’t scare anyone. No other figures. Just his usual fool.
