Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
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Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
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Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#2This is a great article. The EU has done tremendous damage through its obsession with austerity.
Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#3It took less than two decades for Venezuela.
Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#4hug of death?
Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#5I thought it was going to be about Britain. They have been drivning towards the abyss in the last decades. I used to live in London. The difference in public infrastructure and company facilities between the UK and Northern Europe is quite staggering. Now, add the “Ever shrinking Britain” (Scotland leaving after Brexit…, Northern Ireland more part of EU/Ireland than Britain in the future?) to the events and it makes the British Brexiteers really looking like want to cut off their nose to spite the face, except the face is the EU’s and the nose belongs to Britain.
Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#6Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#7The Eurozone was never intended to do the damage it has done to PIGS economies but it has. What is worse, is that it has unquestionably been of benefit to Germany, which has one of the strongest hands in shaping the future of the EU.
If a macroeconomist had sat down to devise a currency that suffocated Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain - export driven economies (remember that tourism is an export as you have to buy the local currency to obtain the 'goods'), and benefited Germany (an economy with an export sector that would normally be severely impacted by a strong services sector's drive to increase the value of the currency) - they couldn't have done much better than the current Eurozone setup.
Arguably we need more currencies in the world, not fewer. Economic homogeneity across an entire nation state can only reasonably expected with small countries (and remember that the Italian Republic is a very new country cobbled together out of provinces, often with significantly different economies.)
Left to float independently, the Deutschmark would not be as low as the Euro is today and the Lira would never be as high.
Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#8hug of death?
Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#9I wish we had a political version of Mr. Rogers. We need better role models for how to talk about politics in ways that are measured, reasonable, and respectful.
Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone
#10This is a great article. The EU has done tremendous damage through its obsession with austerity.
Italy’s inability to sort out their bureaucracy really doesn’t help. (Ever tried to sell/buy a house in Italy, compared to, say Sweden? It is absurd.) Not that it is their only problem. But when rational people vote for Berlouisconi as prime minister, then you know you have a problem at multiple levels, imho.