Spiraling
Istat, the Italian statistical office, just released its Quarterly non-financial accounts for the General Government. As were to be expected, deficit is spiraling out of control (8% on the first quarter, against 7% in 2011), because of higher borrowing costs, and because the economy is doing very poorly.
Two days ago they released the provisional unemployment figures for May: stable above 10% (youth unemployment is at 36.2%!).
It seems that we come full circle, robustly installed in a Recession-Deficit-Austerity-Recession-Deficit-and-so-on spiral.
Austerity works, right? Why on earth, should Italy aim for a balanced budget in 2013? Is this required by current European rules? No(t yet). Is this reassuring markets? No. Is this boosting private expenditure? No. Is this killing the Italian economy? Yes.
Ah, and if at least we did something for those spreads…
Leave a Reply
Keynes Blog
- Paura e confusione a Francoforte April 5, 2013
- I sistematici errori delle previsioni economiche europee February 25, 2013
- Le ricadute dell’austerità sulla Germania February 15, 2013
- L’Europa antifederale February 8, 2013
- La luce in fondo al tunnel? January 31, 2013
- Teorie economiche e governi tecnocratici November 23, 2012
- Le antiche radici dei problemi dell’Unione Europea November 7, 2012
- BCE e FED, Quantitative Easing o Prestatore di Ultima Istanza? La confusione regna sovrana… September 18, 2012
- Disuguaglianze e crescita, il punto di vista progressista e quello conservatore August 27, 2012
- L’Europa dell’Euro è il malato dell’economia mondiale April 26, 2012
