Fair enough - and agreed. Berlusconi has done an admirable job of adopting American political mores, in terms of bribery, "special interests", and all the rest.

Fair enough - and agreed. Berlusconi has done an admirable job of adopting American political mores, in terms of bribery, "special interests", and all the rest. It's going to take years for his chaos to be unwrought. Frankly, things aren't that much better in the UK, but I stand by the fact that it's a damned sight more straightforward to operate a business here than in the US. I have done both, and have lived in UK, US, HK, ZH, DE, FR, BE, SA, so have a fairly broad (but of course still limited) gamut of experience.