Shall we solve the EuroZone crisis?

[LemonDifficult]

My first edit to European finance ministers: stop fucking about talking to other suits. Get some sort of consensus from your own populus first.

It does seem that all the talking (greater integration in particular) is going on behind closed doors and through translators, rather than governments properly seeking the support of their people. I see that Greek utility workers are refusing to collect the latest taxes.

No change there then on the Greek inability to collect taxes. I don't know that it'll 'solve' anything but I'm interested in how far they can take it before Greece is given the big heave-ho and has to dust off the Drachmas... or Italy for that matter.

I think hell will freeze over before Eurobods will seek any kind of democratic consensus from the populus....

I think Hell will freeze over before the people of Europe take further integration lying down. Severe penalties and being bossed about by Northern Europe is not something most Southern Europeans will just nod and accept.

They'll just chuck out those politicians at the first opportunity and vote in more radical types.

Please do.

I'm gazing at me euros and wondering wether to send them to live in a bank in the Uk (but oddly sterling seems weak against the Euro, which is confusing me, cos would have expected the troubled Euro to be weak, unless terling in even worse trouble tha the Euro ?) or buy (suddenly really expensive) gold. Like one very small gold bar or something. To hide under the matress.

Have horrible vision of being reduced to chopping down the woods we live in for heating....and food (yum, bark) since all our money is that of a defunct currency, nobody wants/can afford to learn English or buy antiuqes anymore and the end of the world is neigh !!!

/total over reaction

Fastweb, if Sterling is weak against the Euro, what's stopping you?

Also, what's the mood like in Italy? Are you all delighted that it will soon be China and Germany hiring and firing your civil servants?

The mood is very Lega Nordish.

At least it is in my neck of the woods, where the vote share for Lega went up by an ashtoishing amount when the new mayor was recently elected.

It all feels very doom, gloom and not very hopeful.

Here's hoping
The mood is very Lega Nord-ish.

At least it is in my neck of the woods, where the vote share for Lega went up by an ashtoishing amount when the new mayor was recently elected. They didn't win, but still their vote haul was shockingly high.

It all feels very doom, gloom and not very hopeful.

Here's hoping the black economy is as large as claimed and that will keep things ticking over, cos the officaly economy looks threadbare.

I'm in a very rural corner just south of Milan, officially I'm in one of the better off regions, just doesn't feel like it at the moment.

I'd buy sterling(and feel like I got a bargin) despite my confusion about the current exchange rate, but my Italian husband had misgivings about "forrin" money even before he got to watch what looked like Armagedonin the UK on the rolling news.

Now he is convnced that whatever ails Italy is less terrible than what ails Britian and he doesn't want our savings over there.

So I'm back to wibbling about a very small gold bar.

And muttering "we are NOT barbarian hooligans and civil war is NOT about to break out, it was just a few people not the whole population maurding about" on a regular basis.
the black economy is as larged as claimed and that will keep things ticking over, cos the officaly economy looks threadbare.

I'm in a very rural corner just south of Milan, officially I'm in one of the better off regions, just doesn't feel like it at the moment.

oh well I buggered that cut and paste right up

bloody ipad

trying again

The mood is very Lega Nord-ish.

At least it is in my neck of the woods, where the vote share for Lega went up by an ashtoishing amount when the new mayor was recently elected. They didn't win, but still their vote haul was shockingly high.

It all feels very doom, gloom and not very hopeful.

Here's hoping the black economy is as large as claimed and that will keep things ticking over, cos the officaly economy looks threadbare.

I'm in a very rural corner just south of Milan, officially I'm in one of the better off regions, just doesn't feel like it at the moment.

I'd buy sterling(and feel like I got a bargin) despite my confusion about the current exchange rate, but my Italian husband had misgivings about "forrin" money even before he got to watch what looked like Armagedonin the UK on the rolling news.

Now he is convnced that whatever ails Italy is less terrible than what ails Britian and he doesn't want our savings over there.

So I'm back to wibbling about a very small gold bar.

And muttering "we are NOT barbarian hooligans and civil war is NOT about to break out, it was just a few people not the whole population maurding about" on a regular basis.

Yeah, the sterling is horribly undervalued at the moment.

I would recommend getting rid of Berlusconi as a starting point. Just in general, nothing to do with the eurozone crisis.

Keep Berlusconi! He's much needed light relief.

Who do you want to replace the Orange One with ?

Because the lack of a credible opposition has a lot more to do with him being in power than any real popularity on his part.

Nicky Vendola is likee, bit I think most, of the people that like him, are afriad he would grow the national debt at a horrendous rate.

Fini seems to change his poltical spots as often as hechamges his underwear, a former fqcist, but now getting more popular with the middle to quite left part of the spectrum, but there is distrust, because....could he swing back hard right ?

The more to the right lot like some Lega Nord policies, but the top dog is even madder post stroke that he was before, and Maroni, well that would take "national embarassed on an international stage" to new heights.

Prodi? Again? Not sure you'd get many takers for that option.

I have a soft spot for D'Alema, I think he handled himself well during the war in former yugoslavia when it all went horrible, but it is diffixult for left wingers to take him seriously when they watxh him swan about in his yatch. Don't forget that most of Italy looked at the UK expenses crisis goggled eyed thinking " oh how we wish we had your level of light fingered, greedy corruption"

So who on earth can the Orange One be replaced with ?

I'd vote for Alessandro Re but he is a tiny local politician, not my end of the specteum, bit he intervened in my
ocal area when corruption and a lack of application of the
aw was ruining our lives and he appeared to as yet still be mptivated by principle and the reality ofeople's lives.

I don't think though he has the expereince to run a country, but by the time he does have the experience will he have the same qualities that I find so appealing ? Or will the process of cutting his teeth on power corrupt him as much as it has all the others ?

Maybe somebody will come out of the wings in the next year and be a serious contender.

Here's hoping.

Cos sooner or later the cancer is going to take the Orange One off the stage wether he likes it or not, and it would be nice if there was at least one possible leader availble rather than having to settle for a mishmash, argumentative group of inadequates that couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery whe in full control, let alone when preoccupied power grabbing within a highly fragmented, rag taggle coalition.

ipad keyboard meets my crap spelling, a horrble combo, many apologies.

I have now depressed myself further.

Italy is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED !!!

Am going to buy a small gold bar so I have some hope of funding an uni education for my mini Italian Nationalist in the Uk. Or more likely, the Netherlands, since I'm not sure even a big gold bar would cover British fees by 2018.

Got to give the lad as much opportunity to look beyond here for his futire as humanly possible.

If of course we are not all eating bark by then cos the crisis destroyed life as we kmow it.

(sinks into over reaction and gloom again)

Rethinking spanish and german as his additional languages options, mandarin might be a better choice.