[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.