Pecking Orders

Everything continues quietly as nothing extravagant is promised, never mind done, about the Italian state debt.  The Atlanticist media continues its hysterical screams that Italy is a baddy who owes lots of money, that Germany is a baddy who won't share even though it Lost the War, that France is a deeply baddy cheese eating surrender monkey etc.  Admittedly there is something of a stunned silence over Poland's Foreign Secretary asking Germany to do something (for the first time in Poland's history, as he himself acknowledges).

Settled political stances cannot be turned round as quickly as money markets.   Particularly when the most indebted nation on Earth is slipping from its pre-eminence and keeps using its remaining financial and other oomph to push Germany and central Europe off-balance as Europe gets itself organised; in the hope of somehow, any how, recovering US former  planetary status.

We are resettling post 1945.  It takes time; and this time the premier central European power has also taken care to make its arrangements and its settlements with the East.  Just look at the painstaking work to organise relations with Russia, and with energy supplies, that Chancellor Merkel has undertaken in recent years - and their success.

The frenzied assault upon Italy is the high tide of turning back this new settlement, an assault enabled by Berlusconi's  10 years of criminal governance of a major European power.  This  is estimated to have  caused 28.7% of Italy's  total debt, which has been   accumulated at twice the speed of any other government of the current Republic. On average  it is  60 billion euros a year, ie, over 1000 euros per Italian citizen head per year.  He's gone now, but even a national mess takes time to clean up. And that time is being organised.

Italy is not some kind of Spain, or even remotely a Portugal, Ireland, Greece or Cyprus.  ( The comparison would be to rank the UK economy with that of Ireland.) But unless the  global brinkmanship currently being practised  is not called off we will all find ourselves in a very different kind of chicken run.