Last week was, as usual, rather hectic and peppered with announcements from Italy’s vociferous prime minister.
Italy’s Prime Minister is forging ahead with announcements, if not reforms. The announcement that public sector pay would be frozen for yet another year caused much consternation especially amongst Italy’s law enforcement bodies who are making noises about a national strike. The government is attempting to work out how to prevent this.
Another Renzi announcement involved Italy emulating Germany’s employment system. Whether this will ever happen remains to be seen and even if it does happen, will it work in Italy?
And yet another statement by Italy’s prime minister concerned cutting spending by Italy’s ministries by 3%. Will it happen? Who knows? What cuts will be made? Unknown.
During his participation at a party even, Mr Renzi, once again, stated that while Italy is down, it’s not out. He did point out, and quite rightly in this Italy’s watcher’s opinion, that the market for Italian goods is enormous. This is true, and he’s one of the first political leaders in Italy to have pointed this out. Others merely moaned about Italy’s businesses suffering at the hands of developing nations doing what Italy has always done but cheaper. Few of Italy’s politicians appear to have realised that when certain nations become wealthier, their populations will go shopping for Italian made products. The growing middle class in China, for example, has more money in its pockets than ever before and its looking for things to spend money on. Time to market Italy’s wares. And I know for a fact that Italian made luxury goods go down very well in China – just ask Salvo Spagna, someone I know who deals in Italian luxury products.
Italy’s Ferguson
A youth in Naples, Italy was shot dead by police. The young man, all of 17 years old, was killed after he and his two friends were told to pull over
