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Renzi’s 2.17 Trillion Euro Headache

italy GDP 10 Year Moving Average

Alarm bells started sounding over Italy’s national debt situation after it was revealed that the GDP growth forecasts of Italy’s government were inaccurate. Instead of growth, Italy had, for the third time, slipped back into recession, or rather, its economy’s twenty-year decline had not bottomed out. Standing at 135% of Gross Domestic Product, and continuing […]

Will Italy’s Matteo Renzi Eat Christmas Cake?

Heading in a better direction?

Matteo Renzi, Italy’s latest unelected prime minister, swept into power on big promises to turn Italy round. He brushed aside his predecessor Enrico Letta and grasped the reins of the wobbly old horse that is Italy. The spin flew from Renzi’s lips – reforms in 100 days was one of his more memorable claims. The 100 […]

Is Italy Committing Economic Suicide?

italy GDP 10 Year Moving Average

The title of this post may sound a little extreme and probably should be Is Italy Being Suicided?, but seeing as suicide is not a verb in English, I’ve erred towards grammatical correctness. If, however, I had been writing this post in Italian, then ‘suicided’ would be a valid word. In Italian, the implication behind ‘suicided’ is […]

Is Italy Snubbing Cottarelli’s Common Sense Cuts?

italy-feature

Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has asked the European Union for a degree of flexibility to permit the nation to attempt to spend its way out of the economic doldrums it now finds itself in. The EU response was somewhat lukewarm and tied to the introduction of structural reforms. Such reforms, despite much talk, have […]

Italy: Exports and Consumer Spending Collapse. Government Vacillates.

Heading in a better direction?

Italy, a sorry situation, if ever there was one: Exports down over 4%, consumer spending down again and falling; the number of poor has doubled since 2007; one million jobs have gone. Corruption levels are causing major problems. What’s Italy’s government doing? Not a fat lot. In fact, Italy’s government for reasons which are unfathomable […]

Italy’s Surprise Recovery

Despite the bad news that seems to hover permanently over Italy’s economic future an unexpected ray of sunshine has broken through. Purchasing managers indices measure what industry is ordering now for future delivery. They are regarded as solid indicators of where an economy is heading. Industry does not increase orders if it is not expecting […]

How is Renzi’s Italy Coming Along?

Heading in a better direction?

Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi catapulted to power at the end of February 2014 and duly promised Italy a reform a month. Indeed, at the start of March, Renzi announced that he’d sort out Italy in a mere 100 days. Has he managed to? No, not at all. Renzi’s 100 day one reform a month […]

Italy Can’t Go On Like This

italy-feature

The title of this article on the Wall Street Journal website is self-explanatory: Can Italy Find Its Way? Resistance to Change Means Slow Recovery For those who have not read it, the problems affecting Italy mentioned in the WSJ article, and mentioned more than a few times on Italy Chronicles, can be summarized as follows: extreme resistance to […]

Will Italy Emerge as the Saviour of Europe?

Europe Needs Reform

If the future of the European experiment is uncertain its short-term survival may be due to Matteo Renzi’s 40 per cent vote in Italy. In an election where anti EU forces had strong results in France, Britain and Denmark with anti Euro rumblings in Greece and even Germany, it was Italy’s strong pro Europe result […]