Ironic, isn't it.

Editor,

If Italy's economy is so strong and Italy would run a surplus leaving debt service out of the calculation, the obvious question is: why did Italy's government borrow so much money?

And with 60% of Italy's debt being held by Italians, the obvious answer is: because Italy -- like all of the developed economies that drank the neoliberal Kool-Aid of "tax efficiency" and "international competitiveness" dreamed up in the 1980's to loot economies big and small -- replaced taxing corporations and rich people with borrowing from them.

Capitalists like making money on their money, and they do not like to spend it. So wages, after steadily rising with productivity for almost 50 years, flat-lined in the 1980's, and taxes paid by corporations and rich people plummeted.

Wages thus were replaced by personal debt, and tax receipts thus were replaced by sovereign debt.

All to the benefit of banks and other holders of that debt who enjoyed a whopping paycheck for sitting back and doing nothing. Now, of course, that these debt burdens have become too big to repay, the lenders are complaining that the debtors are lazy and do not want to work.

Ironic, isn't it.

Re: "Europe’s Banks Found Safety of Bonds a Costly Illusion" (11/11/2011)