Yes, indeed, come on, Italy, you can do it, I always put my faith in you, and if you succeed then you will have achieved the miracle of proving, for the first time ever, that this blog was dead right in one forecast! I have said on several occasions that my pound sterling was on Italy to be the catalyst for the breakdown of the euro and Ambrose E-P indicates in an article in The Telegraph that the time might not be far off.
No less than the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, himself, has spelled it out by warning that:
“widespread social tension and unrest” in 2014 as the Long Slump drags on.
Those living on the margins are being drawn into “indiscriminate and violent protest, a sterile lurch towards total opposition”.
His latest speech is a veritable Jeremiad. Thousands of companies are on the “brink of collapse”. Great masses of the working people are on the dole or at risk of losing their jobs. Very high rates of youth unemployment (41pc) are leading to dangerous alienation.
“The recession is still biting hard, and there is a pervasive sense that it will be difficult to escape, to find a way back to full growth,” he said.
Of course, President Napolitano has no useful suggestions to make as to how Italy can avoid the rapidly approaching disaster. He was, according to A E-P, a convinced Marxist in his youth who supported the Soviet Union in everything it did, until it collapsed, of course, and then he switched his enthusiasm to the European Union in general, and to the euro monetary system in particular, so you can see the man is obviously as thick as a plank!
However, A E-P thinks there will soon be a concerted move by the Med states, led by France, to use their numerical and quite legal powers to over-rule Germany by insisting that the European Central Bank behave, well, like a central bank which will give Frau Merkel the heebie-jeebies!
The plates, they are a-shiftin'.
'Do it, Italy'!
