You've responded to an objective assessment of Italy's economy --- it's hugely in debt and lags the EU in job creation and GDP growth --- with subjective claims about organic food and clothes. Everyone seems to realize that Italy's economy is dominated by exports, including those organic foods and designer clothes. They're still getting their credit rating downgraded. Now what?
Which country doesn't have a downgraded credit rating? Also who is doing this "credit rating"? Standard & Poor's? The same crooks who fluffed up the ratings of fraudulent MBS & CDOs a few years ago helping to setup the housing crisis in the first place?
But no, let's further deregulate & offshore jobs to countries that have poor humane rights records so our corporate overlords can get ever richer.
A mystifying comment. Because today's banks are loaded up with sleazy bad actors, there's no such thing as compounding interest? Because S&P sold its reputation for a few deals, there's no such thing as creditworthiness?
S&P, Fitch & Moodys didn't just sell their reputation for a "few deals". Pretty much every MBS or CDO was rated highly by these companies. Trillions of dollars worth. A large part of this is due to the fact that they are paid by the "bad actors" inside the investment firms & banks that they're suppose to be "independently" rating. If we banned that form of relationship that would be "regulation" which is "bad".
So, here we are with these same companies in charge of sovereign credit ratings. The same companies that played a large part in creating a credit crisis are the companies that get to set creditworthiness. Magnificent system we have.
So in order to make these credit rating agencies happy, we must deregulate further, lower taxes further, turn into a service level economy & freeze or depress wages so we can hope for short-term gains in our economy. Which makes corporations happy, banks happy & market makers happy thus our creditworthiness goes higher. It seems rather biased for those who are on top & those who caused the calamity in the first place. Once the economy stabilizes those smart rich people on top can start making imaginary investments with their friends until they create another crisis. Rinse & repeat. Look where prosperity has come from over the last 15 years. Bubbles & scams.
Does this look sustainable? Who really benefits from this?
Do you believe that an international banking conspiracy is deceiving us about Italy's debt standing at over 120% of GDP?
Do you believe that Italy's debt is that high because Italy overleveraged itself on mortgage-backed securities?
Did you read the other comments on this thread, where Italy's central bank director complained about Italian wage stagnation and its two-tiered employment system, and its poor tax revenues?
No they are not necessarily deceiving us on the outstanding debt in Italy. But they certainly weren't sounding the sovereign credit alarm or MBS/CDOs alarm when the money was rolling in, even though they had direct access to data & probably knew what was coming down the line. 120% of GDP is concerning but not end of the world. The USA has a higher ratio. Italy's credit rating has actually been lower before. If we were extremely concerned about GDP/debt ratio & credit ratings then perhaps we should all adopt a model like China.
Italy didn't get to where it's at entirely because of MBSs but the crisis certainly didn't help any country's financial situation & many countries had to shore up banks & took a credit hit.
There are definitely some issues with how Italy operates. Having a philandering-media-monopoly-owning-billionaire tyrant in charge certainly doesn't help.
While changes probably need to be made, the fact is that changes always need to be made. Radically switching to a pro-corporate/anti-worker strategy because shady rating agencies might downgrade you a point is silly.
I think it's fair to say that "Objective assessments" don't have a high level of confidence either. Economies have their ups and downs, and Italy still has some very profitable sectors and a diversified economy. Hopefully Silvio will be out before disaster comes, and indeed the Italians have to correct course before they become the new Greece.
Actually I've responded to the advice the Economist is giving in that article, which isn't objective at all. Italy needs to boost the sectors it's great in, instead of applying generic Anglo-Saxon recipes.
This "generic Anglo-Saxon" epithet sounds like an emotional appeal. The facts are straightforward, aren't they?
Italy has an immense public debt. It is getting more and more difficult for Eurozone countries to finance sovereign debt. Its population is aging. Pension costs are rising. Productivity, according to Mario Draghi, is stagnant, in part because employment in Italy is structured weirdly, with large numbers of closely-held firms with a two-tiered system of full-time full-benefit workers hired through nepotism and armies of temp workers†. Civil cases in Italy average more than 1,000 days. The country has wild gaps in educational outcomes between different regions.
I don't think you can write all this off as an "Anglo-Saxon conspiracy". These are ideas that can be described with simple numbers, aren't they?
† Articles about Italy have long attributed this to Italy's family culture, in which people cohabitate with their extended families long into adulthood, but it seems just as likely that this is a result of laws making it hard to fire people.
"Anglophobia. Within the intelligentsia, a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases. During the war it was manifested in the defeatism of the intelligentsia, which persisted long after it had become clear that the Axis powers could not win. Many people were undisguisedly pleased when Singapore fell ore when the British were driven out of Greece, and there was a remarkable unwillingness to believe in good news, e.g. el Alamein, or the number of German planes shot down in the Battle of Britain. English left-wing intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia, or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain must be in the wrong. As a result, ‘enlightened’ opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy. Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle, the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next."
Substitute "Britain" for "Britain and America" in the above passage and the mentality of critiquing "generic Anglo-Saxon" economic neoliberalism is plain to see.
In France there are similar laws which make it hard to fire workers, yet I don't see the same phenomena of young people staying with their family until their late 30s.
A "young" Italian, by living with her parents, doesn't have to worry about rent, food or other basic expenses and can use her modest salary to pay for recreational activities.
