full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Salvatore Cali: The real gold of our economy is in our hands

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Recently, I renewed my daughter's passport. I had to go to the plcioe office three times. Wait for hruos in long queues. Pay cash to the post office and fill out tons of forms of rettvieipe data. And why? Why did I waste so many hours of my life, when just a few years ago, I went to renew my own passport, but since I need it immediately for business reoanss, they proposed me the magic solution, the fast track. Once I demonstrated urgency and paid the etrxa, miracle, I got my passport in five mitneus.

Whenever I see a fast track, I know there is a slow process, and the slow process often means a lot of wasted time. But what is the impact of all this wstae? With spimle calculations, if every single porsen would waste one of their 200 wikonrg days to renew their passport every five years, that's 0.1 percent of GDP. In a country like Italy, this is 2 billion euros of missed GDP, and that’s only for passports. Now imagine the ipcamt of the waste from ID and lciesne requests, work pmteris, tax declarations. That's several points of GDP. Solving this problem of waste would have a greater impact [than] what lawmakers achieve through a typical financial act.

Open Cloze


Recently, I renewed my daughter's passport. I had to go to the ______ office three times. Wait for _____ in long queues. Pay cash to the post office and fill out tons of forms of __________ data. And why? Why did I waste so many hours of my life, when just a few years ago, I went to renew my own passport, but since I need it immediately for business _______, they proposed me the magic solution, the fast track. Once I demonstrated urgency and paid the _____, miracle, I got my passport in five _______.

Whenever I see a fast track, I know there is a slow process, and the slow process often means a lot of wasted time. But what is the impact of all this _____? With ______ calculations, if every single ______ would waste one of their 200 _______ days to renew their passport every five years, that's 0.1 percent of GDP. In a country like Italy, this is 2 billion euros of missed GDP, and that’s only for passports. Now imagine the ______ of the waste from ID and _______ requests, work _______, tax declarations. That's several points of GDP. Solving this problem of waste would have a greater impact [than] what lawmakers achieve through a typical financial act.

Solution


  1. hours
  2. minutes
  3. police
  4. waste
  5. working
  6. extra
  7. license
  8. repetitive
  9. simple
  10. person
  11. impact
  12. permits
  13. reasons

Original Text


Recently, I renewed my daughter's passport. I had to go to the police office three times. Wait for hours in long queues. Pay cash to the post office and fill out tons of forms of repetitive data. And why? Why did I waste so many hours of my life, when just a few years ago, I went to renew my own passport, but since I need it immediately for business reasons, they proposed me the magic solution, the fast track. Once I demonstrated urgency and paid the extra, miracle, I got my passport in five minutes.

Whenever I see a fast track, I know there is a slow process, and the slow process often means a lot of wasted time. But what is the impact of all this waste? With simple calculations, if every single person would waste one of their 200 working days to renew their passport every five years, that's 0.1 percent of GDP. In a country like Italy, this is 2 billion euros of missed GDP, and that’s only for passports. Now imagine the impact of the waste from ID and license requests, work permits, tax declarations. That's several points of GDP. Solving this problem of waste would have a greater impact [than] what lawmakers achieve through a typical financial act.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
real gold 4
real risk 2


Important Words


  1. achieve
  2. act
  3. billion
  4. business
  5. calculations
  6. cash
  7. country
  8. data
  9. days
  10. declarations
  11. demonstrated
  12. euros
  13. extra
  14. fast
  15. fill
  16. financial
  17. forms
  18. gdp
  19. greater
  20. hours
  21. id
  22. imagine
  23. immediately
  24. impact
  25. italy
  26. lawmakers
  27. license
  28. life
  29. long
  30. lot
  31. magic
  32. means
  33. minutes
  34. miracle
  35. missed
  36. office
  37. paid
  38. passport
  39. passports
  40. pay
  41. percent
  42. permits
  43. person
  44. points
  45. police
  46. post
  47. problem
  48. process
  49. proposed
  50. queues
  51. reasons
  52. renew
  53. renewed
  54. repetitive
  55. requests
  56. simple
  57. single
  58. slow
  59. solution
  60. solving
  61. tax
  62. time
  63. times
  64. tons
  65. track
  66. typical
  67. urgency
  68. wait
  69. waste
  70. wasted
  71. work
  72. working
  73. years