[danmaz74]

Let's not forget that the 5th place we briefly held was financed by the enormous unproductive deficit spending which is the root cause of our last 20 years of almost-no-growth. That was just growth on drugs, spending the future earnings of young and not-yet-born Italians to satisfy the greediness of voters at that time.

[RobertoG]

"[..] spending the future earnings of young and not-yet-born Italians to satisfy the greediness of voters at that time."

If the Italy of the year 3000 is a wasteland without buildings or industries, never mind how much money have you saved, the not-yet-born Italians will be in problem.

If the Italy of the year 3000 is a highly developed country, with futuristic robots and star trek replicators, they will just have a good life.

Sometimes, with all this chat about debt and earnings we forget what is really important.

Do you want the future Italians have a good life? Invest in infrastructure, technology and knowledge and don't do the opposite trying to "save" not-yet-born people money. That should be obvious.

[tormeh]

Consumption is not investment. That's not to say consumption is bad or unnecessary, but they're not the same. Nobody's talking about increased investment, it's all consumption. Italy's government is not criticised for an investment push it can't afford, but rather unsustainable increases in welfare spending.

Anyway, whenever the Italian government invests, it seems to be into money-pit clusterfucks like Alitalia, so I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about Italian governmental investment. How hard could it possibly be to let that monster die and use the money on something useful?

Before the Italian government can invest properly it needs functioning politics and bureaucracy, which are the real problems anyway. Like in Greece, they're just so hard to fix it's not even an option people talk about. It's always magical solution X or Y ("policy"), never how to fix politics or improve the bureaucracy.

[danmaz74]

It's not about saving. It's about using your resources wisely. The opposite of what this government is going to do.