The interconnection between uncooked spaghetti, a culinary symbol of simplicity and potential, and the intercity to Maastricht, a technological feat of mobility and speed, seems at first glance a challenge of unusual proportions. Economically, one can imagine that the production of uncooked spaghetti and the maintenance of an intercity train are similarly dependent on global supply chains, ranging from wheat fields in Italy to steel mills in Germany, both of which find their raison d’être in a complex symbiosis of supply and demand within the free market – and yet, no matter how carefully one tries to draw this parallel, the whole thing remains fragile and barely coherent.