{"id":1802,"date":"2010-09-28T16:50:29","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T20:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonapollovoss.local\/?p=1802"},"modified":"2018-08-17T14:15:43","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T18:15:43","slug":"update-from-sicily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2010\/09\/28\/update-from-sicily\/","title":{"rendered":"Update from Sicily"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Over the weekend my wife Dawn and I headed to Sicily for a vacation.\u00a0 You might think that I have been preoccupied with food, wine and surf here in Taormina, and you&#8217;d be right!\u00a0 However, I also have been tuning into the state of the Italian economy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Taormina is overrun with tourists from all over the world.\u00a0 Folks from the U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, France, and many other parts are here visiting.\u00a0 Many of these folks are coming via cruise ship and seem to be opening their wallets.\u00a0 This sort of anecdotal evidence is important to verify abstract economic data and to get a first hand reading of what is really happening on the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Recall that the European economy is barely growing, 0.3%, yet, there clearly is consumer spark here.\u00a0 Shops in Taormina are open and selling things with no, or very little discount.\u00a0 There are very few shop fronts empty or awaiting a new lessee.\u00a0 Yes, Taormina is a resort town.\u00a0 However, there was a time within the last year when even the wealthy, or upper middle-class traveler was not making a trip or if they were, they were not spending much money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">For store fronts to be open in Taormina and not empty means that shops are thriving.\u00a0 For there to be no discounts offered in Taormina means that people are buying at full price.\u00a0 What&#8217;s more the mix of shops is predominately higher end kinds of stuff.\u00a0 That is a strong indication of an economic recovery being underway.\u00a0 Remember too, that this is the tourist off-season in Europe.\u00a0 We are two months past the August vacationing month.\u00a0 At the end of most recessions, it is the wealthy who return first to being consumers.\u00a0 And that is certainly happening here in Taormina.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">I don&#8217;t want to read too much into my experience here.\u00a0 But my intuitive sense is that not only is the recession behind the industrialized world, but the economy is also poised for a less tepid recovery.\u00a0 Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it is an endorsement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the weekend my wife Dawn and I headed to Sicily for a vacation.\u00a0 You might think that I have been preoccupied with food, wine and surf here in Taormina, and you&#8217;d be right!\u00a0 However, I also have been tuning into the state of the Italian economy. Taormina is overrun with tourists from all over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}