Well Prodi’s claiming victory at the moment.
Change hasn’t been easy for Italy and it’s not likely to get any easier. Prodi single-handedly ruined the economy of an entire country in the space of a month when he threw Italy into the Euro without bothering to look at what the results would be.
I’m saddened that Berlusconi hasn’t managed to make the impact he said he would but he has at least loosened up Italy’s ridiculous labour laws. In fairness there’s not a lot you can do when a country’s prices inflate astronomically over a period of 4 years. I’m hardly the biggest fan of Silvio Berlusconi but Prodi is a joke.
If Prodi wins you can officially strike Italy out of any meaningful economic growth for the next 3 years at least. France’s decision to back down on new labour laws will mean that Europe won’t be the lean-mean-global economic unit that Prodi and company so ironically desire.
As an Italian I look back fondly on how Italy once was. It couldn’t hope to compete with China and the global manufacturing market so it’s 70-80s economic makeup needed changing but what we got was massive increases in the cost of living brought on by an ill-formulated gambit based on irrational political affinity.
It used to be cheap to go out, to live, to get your cafe in a bar and pranza at a pizzeria.
Italians love their idea of socialism - boiled down Italian Socialism is “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is also mine”. The Italian left wants another mother to look after them (because we fundamentally are a nation of mamma’s boys) in a way which would make all but the most hardened British lefty violently sick.
Imagine if you will, a situation in which every irrational fear the right have of left wing politics in countries like the UK and US is absolutely justified and you have some idea of how ridiculous the Italian left really is.
Here’s hoping it’s all a bad dream.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at April 11, 2006 02:41 AM