This type of “analysis” and rumour mongering usually hides a bottom line somewhere for somebody and it plays on the ignorance of economic facts and prejudice about Italy and Italians. Italy’s transformation to an industrial power post WWII was on par with the transformation of Japan. Fact. Now that the Americans no longer have an interest in Italian political affairs, after the fall of the Berlin War (ie. to keep the Comunists out and to prevent ’strong’ government via an imposed post-War constitution), there has also been progress on political stability, electoral reform etc.

The facts do not support a negative outlook on Italy, quite the reverse. I won’t go into them here but evenutally I will post on my blog, just because I can’t stand this total ignorance passing for analysis. Has anyone here even quoted a single statistic or real hard fact regarding the Italian economy ? I can’t find any.

Watch say “My Big Fact Greek Wedding” to get a slightly different perspective. The culture of Northern Europe is not universally revered. Although you may not be aware of that fact, it is still true. The Anglo-Saxon world, and indeed Germans, seem to be obsessed with the success of the Roman Empire (and both have tried to emulate that success with laughable results), at the same time though there seems to be this need to denigrate Italy which was the centre of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. What is it with you guys: jealousy ?

Britain attempted to join, was turned down twice, and finally joined to the chagrin of some existing members. Many see the British merely as sand in the wheels, preventing progress and generally behaving badly because Britain is not at the helm of the project. Norway is still not a member either of the EEC or of the Euro. Scandinavia is not really the centre of the European project AT ALL. The countries who joined opportunistically after it became clear that the EEC was a success neither define the EEC, the Euro, or the goals of the European project. But then you don’t know that because you know nothing about the topic at hand. If you wish to pass comment about what EUROPE is it would be helpful if you were at least a litte familiar with Europe itself.

Your offensive comment adds NOTHING to the discussion here. But then that wasn’t really your intention, was it?

Of course. But being part of the eurozone and being in the EU are not synonymous, as Sweden, Denmark and the UK illustrate. Indeed of the current 25 EU members only 12 are in the eurozone. If Italy does give up the euro at some point it will be interesting to see how all the acrimony this will produce is handled, by I am certainly not suggesting that Italy will leave the EU, this is not the point.

Actually, yes, but real short. When I was discussing Italy’s probability of entry into the Euro with Italian official back in the mid 1990s, one very smart young official told me something like the following: we can discuss the economics forever and never agree. But we should always remember that what this boils down to is, does Italy prefer being part of Europe or would it like to join north-africa (no racist pun intended here). I saw this as a profound truth and this led to my greatest forecasting success in many years. Perhaps, we should still look at this issue along the same lines, not least because the guy in charge is the same guy as in the mid-nineties, and in fact succeeded the same incompetent chap (remember Krugman: there is a difference between runnng a country and running a company) as in the mid-nineties.