| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
25 Nov 2005 08:10:26 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Addio, Dolce Vita |
Addio, Dolce Vita
http://economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5164061
Nov 24th 2005
From The Economist print edition
For all its attractions, Italy is caught in a long, slow decline.
Reversing it will take more courage than its present political leaders
seem able to muster, says John Peet (interviewed here)
AT FIRST blush, life in Italy still seems sweet enough. The countryside
is stunning, the historic cities beautiful, the cultural treasures
amazing, and the food and wine more wonderful than ever. By most
standards, Italians are wealthy, they live for a long time and their
families stick impressively together. The boorish drunkenness that
makes town centres in many other countries unpleasant is mercifully
rare in Italy. The traffic may be bad, and places such as Venice and
Florence are overrun by tourists, but if you go off-season-or merely
off the beaten track-you can have a more enjoyable time in Italy than
practically anywhere else.
Yet beneath this sweet surface, many things seem to have turned sour.
The economic miracle after the second world war, culminating in the
famous 1987 sorpasso (when Italy officially announced that its GDP had
overtaken Britain's), is well and truly over. Italy's average economic
growth over the past 15 years has been the slowest in the European
Union, lagging behind even France's and Germany's (see chart 1). Its
economy is now only about 80% the size of Britain's. Earlier this year
Italy briefly tipped into recession; for 2005 as a whole, its economy
is likely to be the only one in the EU to shrink. Growth next year is
expected to be anaemic at best.
Italy
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/669243740d07ae6b
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