Posted on 09/28/2012 4:02:10 AM PDT by blam
Italy's South Is Headed For Economic Meltdown
Nick Squires, The Telegraph (UK)
September 28, 2012
Italy's blighted south is heading for social and economic meltdown as a result of job losses, a massive exodus of people and "industrial desertification", according to an alarming new report.
Unemployment in the "Mezzogiorno" is around 25pc compared with the national average of 10pc, according to Svimez, a think tank on economic development for the region.
Less than one in four women work, 147,000 jobs were lost between 2007 and 2011 and 1.35m southerners fled the region in the last decade in search of better opportunities.
Many of them came from the region’s big cities, including Palermo and Catania in Sicily, Naples in Campania and Bari in Puglia.
They headed for more prosperous parts of Italy, notably Rome, Milan and the Emilia Romagna region, a powerhouse of food production and medium-sized businesses.
Consumer spending in the south has been stagnant for the last four years and GDP per capita is around half of that in the wealthy north of Italy.
A string of bitter industrial disputes, involving a steel works in Puglia and a coal mine and aluminium plant in Sardinia, have focussed attention in recent weeks on the south’s industrial decline and lack of investment.
The sobering report was released as Mario Monti, the prime minister, tries to reassure Europe and the United States that Italy is no longer at risk from eurozone contagion and that the fundamentals of the economy are sound.
During a visit to New York, the former European Commissioner said he was “quite sure” that Italy would no longer be a source of turmoil in the eurozone.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Joe Weisenthal
September 28, 2012
Uh oh After being higher earlier, things are nose-diving again in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.
The IBEX is down 1.1%.
This is similar to what's playing out throughout Europe.
Italy is down 0.7%.
US futures are down modestly.
Italy has been struggling for awhile..unions have a choke hold and when a bussiness fails the gov takes it over. An Itallian told me that if things got too bad here he would go to Italy to work because they can’t fire people over there. dumb.
Sure, you have a job, come to work all you want...there's just no money to pay you.
#1 -— Muslim immigrants will take over this part of Italy so....
#2 Visit Italy now if you have been intending to
I think they get gov pay..thats why these countries are in trouble..UNIONS
what do they expect ...you cant let unions drive a business into the ground and still have jobs. there is no one left to pay them but they think throwing a fit in the streets will put food on the table.
Did my visiting there in the early 60's...fell in love with San Remo and the girl whose father ran the bank there, Rose Ann Servido...
Moslem immigrants won’t be taking over this part — the ‘Ndranghetta, Camorra and Cosa Nostro won’t allow that. Also, the people here are fighters, that’s one of the problems...
what is interesting is that the south is where civilisation first came to Italy. The Greek states set up first in Sicily and then in Calabria around 900 BC competed with the Phoenicians and were the dominant people — dominant even in ethnicity. Even after the fall of the Western Empire, the southern part of Italy was part of the Byzantine Empire for centuries until conquest by first the Saracens, then the Normans, then the Angevins, then the Spanish (Kingdom of the two Sicilies) before finally reuniting with the rest of Italy
I just got back from Thailand and met some Italians that immigrated from Italy. One was a restaurant owner who told me that the taxes were so high he worked Jan to July to pay taxes. Then everyone in Europe takes August off so he did not make money that month. So he only made money 4 months out of the years. He was tired of getting F**k"ed".
I’m learning about how the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was liberated/invaded (pick your point of view) by the Liberal northerners in the 1860s. There were massacres all over the South to put down the “brigands”, some were indeed criminals but many of whom were actually just staunchly Catholic Bourbon loyalists. 61 men women and children and priests were shot dead in my mom’s hometown.
You’re right. Naples was the center of Italian culture in the early 1800s. By the end of the century it was in shambles, its wealth was appropriated by the Piemontesi, and that’s why so many southern Italians ended up in dire poverty and came here. They were driven out by Liberals. Quite literally.
I stumbled upon all of this when I found a possible ancestor of mine was court-martialled in the 1860s for giving aid and comfort to “brigands.”
all of the foot of Italy and sicily were part of Magna Graecia :) and they were also earlier settled by “Sea Peoples” — cousins of the Philistines
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