"It Is Hard To Sell"

"Italian politics is not a comedy.  But for a very long time we have had politicians who leave by the door and come back through the window."  

The reference, of course, is to Silvio Berlusconi, a mere eight months out of office as prime minister of Italy, and rumours are rife that due to popular demand, the woman-chasing Berlusconi may be persuaded to return to challenge once again for the country's top political job, rescuing it from the technocrat and boringly decent current Prime Minister Monti.

An event that, were it to occur, would go quite far to challenging the statement that 'Italian politics is not a comedy'.

The IMF's latest report on Europe's economy is predictably gloomy.  Growth in the euro zone is expected to continue contracting.  Expectations are that it will barely nudge in the following year and the effects of that will have certain consequences all over the world.  A bankrupt European Union will be in no position to trade.  And its penurious circumstances will impact other countries' frail recoveries.

If Canada is any yardstick to go by, the lack of attention to the plight of European Union countries like the PIGS - Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain - is inexplicable in its lack of understanding of precisely how deeply that impact will inevitably be.  Canada has been courting the EU for a free trade deal opportunity to expand its trade with that massive market.

When the reality is that regardless of how large that market is, its potential is lost when there is only Germany, France and England for the most part, left standing on two solid feet grounded in economies which wouldn't take all that much to shatter; France and England because they're threatened by debt and economic slow-down, Germany because it's expected to foot the bill for the surgical infusion of euros for the failed states.

China has finally begun to share the pain.  Their economy has slowed, not exactly to a trickle but below the 10% annually that they require to keep the yearly emerging youth cohort employed; they're currently at 7.6%, a figure any other country would embrace, but no other country has a population of 1.3-billion. 

"We have excellent products in Italy, but,when there is no money, it is hard to sell.  The only businesses still doing well are the gas stations because Italians love to drive and mobile phone companies because Italians love to talk.  On top of all the bad economic news, we have had earthquakes, too.  That has scared many tourists away."