Repubblica.it Interesting article in its island green. Toni used to disaster but I can well understand that considering the comparison fattomi from a friend a few months ago still echoes in my head, "a five hundred if you hit a wall due to serious injuries to passengers, many more than a ferrari."
We carry the full article and look forward to your opinion or Italians abroad.
goodbye eurozoo Celtic Tiger?
Enrico Franceschini
was the grandson of an Italian immigrant came to Ireland to do Mason: brick by brick, Patrick Rocca had built an empire that would have left speechless grandfather. He had a legacy of hundreds of millions, a glamorous wife and friends like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.
If the Celtic Tiger, the nickname earned by his country during the years of prodigious economic boom, needed a symbol, he seemed perfect. But the other day a pistol shot has shattered: Mr. Rocca has committed suicide, shooting himself in the head, in my pajamas, in the garden of his Pharaonic villa with pool. The local press claims that he was going to be ruined by the collapse of the Anglo Irish Bank, overwhelmed by debt and now nationalized by the government, which had invested heavily. And the shot rang out in the darkly rich cocktail society of the Irish capital, "like a bell," wrote a newspaper, "which sounds the end of consumerism and exuberance."
In Dublin, there is no doubt that the party is over .
In September last year, Ireland became the first eurozone country to officially enter into recession after two consecutive quarters of growth negativa.Quel month, ignoring the concerns of other EU member states, the Irish Government guarantee ' total liabilities of 440 billion euro of its six domestic banks. Since then, the crisis triggered here as elsewhere by the end of the financial merry, he fearfully accelerated.
2009 has started with a worst news of the other. Before the failure of Waterford Wedgwood, the crystal and ceramics company's oldest and most prestigious not only in Ireland but also in the UK.
A few days later, the Dell computer corporation, has announced the closure of its plant in Limerick, to transfer fully the headquarters of its European production to Poland, where labor costs are lower than two-thirds : 2 000 employees redundant, the loss of the second largest exporter , with even greater damage if it is estimated that every job resultant five others.
Then in mid-January, the government announced the nationalization of the Anglo Irish Bank: A year ago the bank was worth € 7 billion, now worth just 160 million euro . If the state had not intervened, it went down.
E 'was a triple shock for an economy already struggling with rising unemployment and a budget deficit out of control. After a decade in which Ireland had exceeded all of its partners in the EU and growing richer at a rate of "Asian tiger", hence the nickname that had marked all of a sudden it seemed that this country is intended to deal with the new role that was for a long time: that of poor man of Europe.
As pointed out the stark story that has been repeated at the Dublin Stock Exchange: "What is the difference between Ireland and Iceland? Answer: a letter about six months." That is, if the island a bit 'to the north is almost went bankrupt in late summer, also after ten years of unbridled economic recovery, Ireland will follow the same fate soon.
E 'a rude awakening for a country that just two years ago boasted the highest per capita income among all 27 EU members, except Luxembourg. Supported through the European Economic Union, a favorable tax regime for companies and a housing boom without equal in Europe except in Britain, what was for decades the bottom side of our continent has become the best country for foreign investment, particularly from the U.S..
At one point, according to the Financial Times every five jobs created in Europe, was in a small Irish. In 2006 the then Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said that even "the Irish boom will further increase speed" and probably thought he could continue to govern as long as his colleague Tony Blair in London.
Together, Blair and Ahern had successfully mediated the other thorn in Ireland: the conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholic Republicans (who want reunification with Dublin) and Protestant royalists (who want to remain part of Britain). Without having decided the political future of the once warlike province, both parties have abandoned their weapons and now govern together in a system largely independently from the UK, after thirty years of civil war: a miracle, too, that seemed to belong the new Ireland was no longer a land of hunger, incurable internal conflicts and emigration, no longer identified with a Catholic extremist and obsolete, but modern, tolerant, prosperous, attracting immigrants rather than to export.
Things were going so well here, that writers and artists received a total exemption from taxes, even if foreigners as long as they resided for a number of months each year in Ireland. In short, the country's Bengodi.
The sharp reversal in this trend is partly explained by the global crisis, but domestic factors are specific to aggravate it.
Three elements in particular, similar to what is happening in neighboring Britain. One is the financial turmoil: suddenly people discover that Irish banks were irresponsible lending and investments, who acted with too much confidence, that seemed more committed to distribute bonuses and awards to their managers rather than bring order in their accounts .
Falling sometimes in full illegality, fraud: In December, the Anglo Irish Bank, for the rescue of the government which had just been in debt for billions of euro, for example, admitted that they had given systematically hidden for eight years nearly 90 million € personal loans granted to its president and secretly transferred to an account at another bank in Ireland.
A second cause of the collapse of Ireland is in real estate: buildings have transformed Ireland in the nineties, anywhere from nothing stood tall buildings, residential complexes, extravagant shopping malls, each city and town had its suburbs to luxury ' American, a boom that seemed to have cambiato faccia alla nazione dei prati verdi e dei pub. I pub, in effetti, chiudevano a centinaia, uomini (e donne) non avevano più tempo o voglia di andarci, tutti pensavano solo a lavorare e far soldi, l'etica irlandese appariva mutata.
Ma, come nel Regno Unito, era un boom costruito su prestiti e mutui. Quando è scoppiata la bolla immobiliare, le banche sono rientrate in possesso delle case, il valore degli immobili è precipitato, i cartelli con la scritta "vendesi" e "affittasi" si sono moltiplicati da un capo all'altro del paese. La terza ragione del voltafaccia è più sociale, psicologica. La riassume Mary McAleesem il presidente irlandese: "Siamo diventati un paese consumato dal consumismo. A un certo punto abbiamo cominciato a pensare che non volevamo rinviare ogni gratificazione, volevano tutto e subito".
L'indebitamento personale è oggi trai più alti in Europa . E si risente parlare di emigrare come unica via d'uscita, almeno temporanea.
Per ragioni più personali, scandali e stanchezza verso un leader che aveva governato troppo a lungo, Bertie Ahern è stato costretto a dimettersi un anno fa. A governare c'è sempre una coalizione di centrodestra, ma il suo successore, Brian Cowen, traballa: "Il 2009 porterà sacrifici e dolore", afferma, mentre il ministro delle Finanze Brian Lenihan prevede che Dublino sarà costretta prendere decisioni "che seemed unimaginable until a few months ago.
Someone asked if among these there might be an exit from the Euro: a currency devaluation may be the answer to a shrinking economy. With ' €, that Ireland can not do it. The local economists cite the example of Iceland right to warn that without the euro and Europe, Ireland address the current crisis in even worse conditions.
The relationship between the island and Brussels, in truth, has never been easier. Ireland has already rejected in a referendum on reforms to the Treaty of Union, paralyzing any institutional change in the EU. Now a second referendum is fixed by the end of the year.
The government hopes that the crisis will convince the population that we need "more Europe" than before, "no less. But not everyone is convinced that we will succeed. "If we vote no a second time, we risk losing all the benefits of joining the European Union in Europe," warns the Premier, but sent similar warnings before the first referendum and was defeated the same, although all political parties had made campaign for a Yes to the Treaty of Union.
individuals are generally precipitated Ireland: it is estimated that this year the economy declines by 4.5 percent, unemployment increases to 10 and the deficit at 9.5 per cent of pil.
Among the sixteen countries in the eurozone, only Greece is considered a more risky investment and pay more to borrow money on international markets. The Celtic Tiger roars no more. Barely meows.