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Silvio Berlusconi "You got a lot more for the Lira "


Frederick
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His words as reported yesterday on the position of Italy in the Euro Zone

He took care not to criticize the single currency itself but lamented that the exchange rate at which Italy’s lira was converted into the euro in late 1998 had impoverished some segments of Italian society. “You don’t get much in your supermarket trolley for EUR80 today, whereas you used to get a lot for 80,000 lire,” he said.

But he insisted that Italy’s economy was broadly prospering. “The restaurants and vacation spots are always full, nobody thinks there is a crisis,” he said.

That's all right then !
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[quote user="NormanH"]Of course the frightening thing is that a lot of people actually believe that if their country went back to the old currency they would go back to having the same spending power..
[/quote]

 

In France as in the UK there used to be £ S D. Maybe we should go back to that[6]

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[quote user="Frederick"]His words as reported yesterday on the position of Italy in the Euro Zone He took care not to criticize the single currency itself but lamented that the exchange rate at which Italy’s lira was converted into the euro in late 1998 had impoverished some segments of Italian society. “You don’t get much in your supermarket trolley for EUR80 today, whereas you used to get a lot for 80,000 lire,” he said. But he insisted that Italy’s economy was broadly prospering. “The restaurants and vacation spots are always full, nobody thinks there is a crisis,” he said. That's all right then ![/quote]

On C4 News he went on to say something along the lines of "the people seem to have the money but the banks and the government doesn't". It seems to me that there is an equally as big amount of people working 'on the black' in Italy as there are in Greece.

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[quote user="sweet 17"]...  I think it would be so difficult to have 11 (or whatever number it is now) different currencies instead of just the one.[/quote]

27 different currencies it would be now.

As to difficulties [8-)]!...  I've worked for over 10 years now in the same company and it used to have stores all over Europe and the world. At one time I had to deal with : UK sterling, French francs, US dollars, Spanish pesetas, Italian liras, Austrian shillings, Netherland florins, Deutsch marks, Belgium francs, Luxembourg francs, Swiss francs ... Possibly forgot a few along the way... Some of the managing store staff were assigned to be sort of 'floating' staff and went wherever if one manager in one country's store was ill or absent for whatever reason etc ... converting the different currencies on their expense claims, reconciling it to UK£ and reimbursing them in their own country's currencies was a nightmare.

That is were I saw the benefit of the €uros but couldn't see the benefit of the €uros to the Joe Bloggs, Mr and Mrs Average in each country. The €uros should have been kept as a 'virtual' unit of currency for trade alone and each country still with their own currency internally.

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Berlusconi has been one of the most controversial figures in world politics for some time. He has faced accusations of corruption, narrowly survived votes of no confidence and earlier this year, according to the Guardian, was put on trial for criminal charges. He was alleged to have had sexual encounters with an underage prostitute named “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” among many other allegations concerning his personal life. Now, Silvio Berlusconi, the questionable Prime Minister of Italy, won't serve out the end of his 3rd term. Berlusconi has lost support in the government and has resigned. Here's the proof: Silvio Berlusconi resigning as Prime Minister of Italy.
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I think the problem with Italy and Greece (and a few other countries) is twofold. firstly they have proportionate representation and secondly the politicians are power crazy (just like the majority world wide). They have to make deals with other parties to get power and to do so they have to dilute their own policies and accept some of the policies of the other parties they do deals with. Whilst they are busy doing these deals to stay in power they are not watching what is happening to the county or worse accept some stupid idea the other party has so they can stay in power. It's also by the way very disappointing for those that voted the party in based on their manifesto because the bits they voted for may have to be dropped because the other party won't form an alliance if these policies remain.

The other issue is that rather than make deep cuts to the public sector and reform the countries pension system etc they keep them as they are to appease their political partners. The money both Italy and Greece borrowed from the EU (anyone see the documentary - "Being Greek for a Week") which was destined to develop the infrastructure etc has been spent on paying inflated public sector salaries and state pensions and not on the things they actually got the loans for, basically they used the money to keep people quiet. By doing this no 'added value' has been added to the countries to help them become more competitive and grow their industry so they can earn money to pay back the debt. It's a bit like borrowing money from your bank to set up a business then using it to buy a new car and have a good holiday. The EU cannot escape accepting some of the blame either. They should have lent the money in stages, bit like borrowing money to build a house. You borrow money to lay the foundation's and when they are completed and inspected you release more of the loan stage by stage. Nobody bothered to check where this money was going, they just kept handing it over.

I personally think that fiscal union is a must for the EU and it is the logical way to go but before we do this there needs to be some changes, the biggest being that the highest officials like the President of the EU etc need to be elected by the general public. We need to get over this 'sovereign state' thing and move on. There is no reason why we can't have a similar system to the US with a EU government sitting at the top but with state governments under it that can set their own laws, raise tax's on top of the federal tax etc. Humanity has to evolve and move on, we need to be a 'one world'.

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Nowadays, Italy is in the midst of debt crisis. That even its prime minister resign he can never change the fact that Italy's debt crisis deepens. The third term of Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister of Italy has been

fraught with scandal and he won't be finishing it out. Berlusconi has

been constantly dropping support in Italy’s parliament, and he has

offered to resign as soon as key financial changes are passed. Source

for this article: [url=http://www.newsytype.com/13417-silvio-berlusconi-resigning/]Silvio

Berlusconi resigning as Prime Minister of Italy[/url]

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I remember complaints in Italy about the price of a cup of coffee shooting up after the euro was introduced.  On the other hand I used to travel extensively in my work and I ended up with a fine array of more than 20 plastic bags containing various currencies:  still have many of them as they are non-convertible or obsolete now: in that respect the euro makes sense as an international currency but on a local level I'm sure people prefer their own (especially the French?)
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That's the thing though isn't it, we think about ourselves and the problems of converting money for different countries and how much simpler it is now. But, think about business's, one of the reasons I think the UK was stupid not to join, with all this importing and exporting within the EU from one EU country to another. In reality few products are exported externally from the EU, middle and high end cars, wine etc but the rest moves round the EU. The UK for instance exports 40% or more of it's manufactured goods to other EU countries, it also imports quite a lot of foods (with the collapse of the pound against the Euro we are seeing food prices rise). The Euro is simple and quick to use which is why the other night on News Night many Greeks and Italian business people were horrified at the possibility of going out of the Euro.
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[quote user="Quillan"]The Euro is simple and quick to use which is why the other night on News Night many Greeks and Italian business people were horrified at the possibility of going out of the Euro.[/quote] They will all be insolvent within a month!! Finance/Credit/loan/mortgage/lease, they are EUR dominated, and will remain in EUR. Local currency devalues by 60%. Repayments go up 150%. Imports from EZ go up 150%. No trade on credit account. No access to any form of new credit. SAP/Oracle/Sage/MS Dyanamics take 30 seconds each month to load forex rates. After that sales/purchasing/accounts/production is seamless. All corporate travel uses credit card these days. Not cash! It's NOT a holiday! The forex conversion is at market rate, and automatic. Anyway it won't happen. The ECB has turned on the printing presses. It had to. The market saw any EZ breakup as strengthening EUR, and started buying, having assumed breakup was a done deal. The Dwarf and the Hausfrau rather like the advantages the weak countries bring to the party. France runs a bigger external trade deficet than any other EU country (including UK). Imagine what would happen to French trade and jobs, if EUR appreciated 30-40%. Carnage!
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[quote user="Quillan"]

I think the problem with Italy and Greece (and a few other countries) is twofold. firstly they have proportionate representation and secondly the politicians are power crazy (just like the majority world wide). They have to make deals with other parties to get power and to do so they have to dilute their own policies and accept some of the policies of the other parties they do deals with. Whilst they are busy doing these deals to stay in power they are not watching what is happening to the county or worse accept some stupid idea the other party has so they can stay in power. It's also by the way very disappointing for those that voted the party in based on their manifesto because the bits they voted for may have to be dropped because the other party won't form an alliance if these policies remain.

The other issue is that rather than make deep cuts to the public sector and reform the countries pension system etc they keep them as they are to appease their political partners. The money both Italy and Greece borrowed from the EU (anyone see the documentary - "Being Greek for a Week") which was destined to develop the infrastructure etc has been spent on paying inflated public sector salaries and state pensions and not on the things they actually got the loans for, basically they used the money to keep people quiet. By doing this no 'added value' has been added to the countries to help them become more competitive and grow their industry so they can earn money to pay back the debt. It's a bit like borrowing money from your bank to set up a business then using it to buy a new car and have a good holiday. The EU cannot escape accepting some of the blame either. They should have lent the money in stages, bit like borrowing money to build a house. You borrow money to lay the foundation's and when they are completed and inspected you release more of the loan stage by stage. Nobody bothered to check where this money was going, they just kept handing it over.

I personally think that fiscal union is a must for the EU and it is the logical way to go but before we do this there needs to be some changes, the biggest being that the highest officials like the President of the EU etc need to be elected by the general public. We need to get over this 'sovereign state' thing and move on. There is no reason why we can't have a similar system to the US with a EU government sitting at the top but with state governments under it that can set their own laws, raise tax's on top of the federal tax etc. Humanity has to evolve and move on, we need to be a 'one world'.

[/quote]

I presume that by proportionate you actually meant to write "proportional" if that is the case, I am puzzled by the fact that the most successful democracy in europe is with little doubt Germany which has a proportional system of suffrage at the Bundestag level and in most of the Lander.

Are you suggesting therefore that proportional representation is only a problem when adopted by southern europeans with "dago" genetic tendencies whilst northern "aryan" electorates are exceptions to your general rule of political science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_member_proportional_representation

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