How dare they! Give us all your money, Hans, and shut the face up in the meantime.
What happens when S&P tells Italy it has to increase the cuts fivefold to avoid more downgrades? At that point the strikes in Italy will be 24/7/365.
Dear lord, I’m so sick and tired of news. Haven’t checked out icanhazcheezeburger in awhile, maybe lolcats can cleanse the mental palate.
World's Only Rational Man 
Go to the MLP portion of the Cheezburger empire. http://bronies.memebase.com/
Ha ha, hadn’t seen that one yet. Thanks!
Irony alert!
Italy’s national debt is lower than Germany’s. Germany has moved over the 2 trillion Euro border a short time ago. Italy is below that.
Also, when I was in my hometown I saw the current national debt of Austria. 2010 an economist told me that our national debt was 70% of our GDP and that, by 2012, they were expecting 75%. So far the good news. Now reality: our national debt in 2011 is 80% of the GDP.
Trust politicians to make bad things worse.
What is Germany’s debt as % of their GDP vs Italy’s?
Everything I’ve found tells that the German GDP is 3.3 trillion Euro and the Italian is around 2.1 trillion Euro (most recent data I could find from 2010.) So okay, the Germans get out of that a bit better than Italy. Still, however, Germany’s not far from being like Italy.
GDP per capita, there Germany is only ahead by barely 9k USD. So not that impressive anymore.
Inflation is also a close call. The sad thing, however, is hat Germany has a significantly larger workforce, yet manages to be ahead of Italy by really just a margain.
Wonder what the percentages of tourism are for the two? Italy might get a significant boost in that regard.
Indeed. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if the difference wasn’t that big. Germany has the entire South going for it in this case. People flock to Bavaria in masses. Especially overseas tourists love it, thanks to castle Neuschwanstein and the whole Ludwig myth. I think it’s so popular in Asia that the Chinese are considering (or have already built) a 1:1 copy of the castle. The whole Sisi myth is another thing. The musical Elisabeth was and still is highly successful in Asia, especially Japan, but that hits more into Austrian tourism than the German counterpart.
I’d like to go to Germany sometime on a food/music/history/heiritage tour. Would be a blast. Not that my ancestors came over recently, mind…
Sooner or later my German Science Babe is going to break down and invite me over.
Surely…?
Please?
Bring some weapons, you’ll need them. Avoid certain areas, make sure people don’t find out you’re US American, don’t take public transport after certain hours and you should be fine.
Arrgh. It keeps wanting to change my name. And it can’t even spell my handle correctly!
It’s the government. Run.