Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone • Hacker News Board

Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone

#151

Post by token_italian » Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 8:51 AM UTC

youeseh wrote: post #22

napolux wrote: post #17

Italian here. AMA :-)

Dear token Italian: I thought your new government was Italy-first. What happened? Austerity continues?

Italian here: - unfortunately most of the people in Italy (with the highest amount of votes) are low-wage populists, so politics are going in that direction (see five star movement)

- there is a permeating sense of social envy against "the rich", the problem is what is considered "rich" in Italy are people that earn more than 1500 euros a month,net...almost all new laws are being created to take wealth from "the rich" (which really means the ones that are "not poor") and redistribute it to populists that don't work or produce minimal wealth

-add to that the extreme ignorance of politicians and population alike (we have a flat tax that isn't flat, a universal basic income that is neither basic nor universal, but most people don't even know what the names mean)...a recipe for disaster

As a result, productive people live in a constant state of psychological stress because you never know how the government is going to screw you next year (forced withdrawal from your bank account? raising capital gains taxes? raising taxes on income?) and are constantly bombarded by newspapers with headlines like "we're going to tax 'the rich' in order to give "universal basic income" to the unemployed)

As someone who comes from a normal low-middle class family and has been clawing his way up the social ladder for the past 10 years, the situation is almost unbearable as you constantly feel the entire country is against you and is fathoming new ways to rob you of your hard earned money, almost all the productive youngsters I know are considering moving elsewhere because you can't really live in a constant state of frustration and anger

Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone

#152

Post by token_italian » Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 8:58 AM UTC

youeseh wrote: post #22

napolux wrote: post #17

Italian here. AMA :-)

Dear token Italian: I thought your new government was Italy-first. What happened? Austerity continues?

I would also add the situation with illegal immigration in the past few years... Imagine earning 1200 usd/month, then after struggling for several years you manage to claw your way to a salary that pays 5000/month, only to find out you're being taxed at 2-3x the rate you were before, and you're really just netting 2000/mo

Then you go to work every morning and see a local hotel with 15 illegal immigrants sunbathing (government structures were overflowing so they started using normal hotels to host immigrants), and you're fully aware these hotels are paid for by receiving government subsides (funded with the aforementioned huge taxes).

That's just one of the several dozens of annoying situations you live with every day

Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone

#153

Post by Wildgoose » Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 9:21 AM UTC

behindmyscreen wrote: post #105

rorykoehler wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I agree with your analysis I would prefer fewer currencies and better redistribution instead. Though there are significant risks the EU could really benefit in terms of cohesion from federalisation.

Perhaps what the EU needed wasn’t a common primary currency but a common secondary currency that was used as a medium to convert currency between members.

That was what the UK suggested at the time.

Instead of a "Single" currency, there should be a "Common" currency (with notes and coins) available to be used in all EU states and whose value was not allowed to devalue against any of its constituent basket of EU currencies, i.e. the inflation rate of the "Common" currency would always be equal to the lowest inflation rate of the currencies that made it up. That would encourage people to hold and use it and over time people would migrate to it. It would also allow businesses to only concern themselves with a single exchange rate, namely that between their national currency and the Euro Common currency.

The UK suggestion was, of course, rejected out of hand.

The EU is about a forcing the creation of a single state.

It is a political project rather than a practical one.

Hence Brexit.

Re: Italy’s austerity-fueled crisis is a warning to the Eurozone

#154

Post by Wildgoose » Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 9:22 AM UTC

kazen44 wrote: post #108

behindmyscreen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps what the EU needed wasn’t a common primary currency but a common secondary currency that was used as a medium to convert currency between members.

this already existed before the euro. It was called the ECU[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Currency_Unit

Not quite. There were no notes and coins and it couldn't be used by ordinary people to do their shopping.