GRAPHIC TRUTH: ITALYS LOST DECADE

[FarCenter]

Around half of Italian voters cast ballots for anti-establishment parties this weekend. Why are a majority of Italians fed up with their current situation? Well, here’s one fact worth considering – Italy is the only major European economy that is still smaller today than it was before the financial crisis in 2008.



https://mailchi.mp/eurasiagroup/signal-north-korea-breakthrough-italys-election-chinas-own-rust-belt

Absorbing the Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe has been a real drag on the Western Europeans.

[Merlot]

1. Will be interesting to see what happens to UK after brexit.

[FarCenter]

2. It all depends on what deal they strike to preserve London as a financial hub

England long ago sacrificed the industrial Midlands for the service economy of London.

Unless they can get access to the EU for their financial and services firms in London, the UK will be on the way down.

London's decline in finances will also affect the US, since a lot of New York banks have their European hub in London. They will have a harder time competing for European business from their smaller offices in Paris, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, etc.

[OnDoutside]

5. Other EU countries like Germany, France and Ireland have been lining up to tear at the UK

Financial Center carcass. My cousin is an employment lawyer in London and many of his top clients have already moved to (predominantly) Paris. Even if the UK eventually decides to stay, serious damage will have been done.

[FarCenter]

7. Yes, they can't afford to wait to see what will happen

The safe course is to move the businesses now before the panic.

[OnDoutside]

9. Absolutely. In my cousin's case these aren't people who are going to look for a job when they get to

Paris/Dublin/Frankfurt, they're going to set up the company over there and bring the workers over with them.

[KPN]

3. Big problem. Globalization is spawning

nationalism outbreaks here and abroad that will end up ... where? We all know where it went the last time nationalism was this rampant. Not good.

[FarCenter]

4. As the population heads towards 10,000,000,000, competition between nations will heat up

Nationality and ethnicity determine which team you are on in the competition.

[OnDoutside]

8. The more I look at it, it isn't so much Globalization, it's the response of the legacy countries who

did little or nothing to cross train the workers left behind. In many cases they left them, their families, their towns, to rot. In that situation, their anger is being harnessed by nationalists/fascists/far leftists. People want to see fairness from their politicians, and when they see indifference it makes them angry and open to assholes like Trump.

[lunasun]

10. All good points I will check out your other post linked below

[OnDoutside]

6. I put up a thread earlier of a podcast that gives excellent background info on the Italian problem.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210324454