Spain is in a deep, deep recession
- Thread starter crgarcia
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Quote from C6H12O6:
What ? :eek:
I'm italian, I live in Italy, and I have never seen a "public pasta hall" in my life, could you give me an address in northern Italy, so I can go and check out ?
And... middle class what ? You have no idea of what you're talking about, are you ?
I guess this article was fabricated by some creative journalist, then.
When in Italy eat Pasta (not soup - look at last line of article).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7dt4e2MDOEs
Italians Dressed in Sunday Best Forced to Dine in Soup Kitchens
By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Flavia Rotondi
Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Dressed in his best Sunday suit, Fausto Cepponi took his wife and seven-year-old son out for dinner -- at a soup kitchen.
``I never thought I would be in this position,'' said Cepponi, 45, a security guard, dining in an 800-seat charity cafeteria near Rome's main train station. ``I have a job, I had a car, but everything has become so expensive and what I earn just isn't enough. I panic every third week of the month.''
With salaries on hold, prices for staples such as pasta and bread rising and mortgages soaring, efforts to keep up appearances -- ``fare la bella figura'' in Italian -- can no longer disguise that thousands of job-holding Italians are failing to make ends meet. They've been labeled ``The New Poor,'' the title of a book published this year.
Prime Minister Romano Prodi attempted to address the issue in September by issuing a decree that 12.5 million of the poorest Italians, 21 percent of the population, will receive 150 euros ($220) next December, the single biggest expense in the 2008 budget. Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi on Oct. 10 dismissed the payment as ``a short-term fix,'' and said the spread of poverty was holding back Italy's economy.
``It's a hidden and humiliating kind of poverty that has emerged, one that the official statistics can't show,'' said Giampiero Beltotto, author of ``The New Poor'' (2007, 201 pages, $19). ``It's the person in the supermarket buying the chicken with today's expiration date rather than a steak at the butcher.''
Stalled Salaries
The situation reflects a growing malaise across the European Union. In the U.K., the number of people in danger of falling into poverty rose last year for the first time since 1997, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London. In France, two-thirds of those polled in November by Ifop said their purchasing power had shrunk, a 6 percentage point jump since the start of the year.
The European Commission forecasts the pace of economic growth will slow next year as record oil prices sap household purchasing power, the euro's rise to a record crimps exports and fallout from the U.S. housing slump spreads.
Italians have been among the hardest hit. The average Italian salary rose 13.7 percent from 2000 to 2005, the smallest increase in the EU outside of Germany and Sweden, which boast some of the region's highest wages, according to research institute Eurispes in Rome. The EU average was 18 percent, and U.K. salaries jumped 27.8 percent.
Cepponi, who hasn't had a pay raise in three years, earns about 8,400 euros a year. His wife, Franca, took a part-time job at a grocery store to help out. The average Italian household earns 22,053 euros a year.
`People We Know'
The number of poor Italians rose to 7.5 million in 2006, from 7.4 million in 1997, even after promises that trading the lira for the euro would boost prosperity. Almost 9 percent of employed Italians are in danger of falling into poverty, a 2006 Istat report shows. Relative poverty is defined as a household of at least two making less than 970 euros a month.
More importantly, the composition is changing, with poverty spreading to working people who were once part of the middle class, said Guerino di Tora, who runs Rome's branch of Caritas, the Catholic charity that runs the hall where Cepponi eats.
The number of poor families in Italy's industrial north, the wealthiest part of the country, rose to 591,656 last year, a 17 percent increase from 2005.
``We have to revisit our concept of poverty,'' di Tora said. ``It's no longer the poor person defined as the nameless, homeless person in the street. It is people we know.''
Pope Benedict XVI
Rising interest rates have compounded difficulties. One in four homeowners can no longer afford their mortgage payments, which have risen 50 percent in two years, consumer association Adiconsum says. The government's 2008 budget, if approved, will create a 10 million-euro fund to help about 400,000 families that risk losing their homes.
Rents today sap more than half the income of families earning less than 30,000 euros a year, up from a third in 2000, said Guido Lanciano of Unione Inquilini, which represents tenants. Each day nine tenants are evicted in Rome because they can't afford rent, up from about five daily in 2000.
The plight of workers compelled Pope Benedict XVI to make a rare foray into Italian domestic issues after newspapers, including la Repubblica, reported that a 43-year-old factory worker hung himself after his wife lost her part-time job, making it impossible to meet a 500-euro monthly mortgage payment.
`Precariousness of Jobs'
``The precariousness of jobs doesn't allow youngsters to build a family and seriously compromises the genuine and complete development of society,'' the pope said Oct. 18.
Even with jobs, Italians are struggling with the cost of living. In October, the antitrust authority opened a probe into a 20 percent increase in the price of pasta after consumer lobbies led the Basta Pasta! boycott of Italy's national dish.
Stefano, a former post office clerk who declined to give his family name, eats lunch at another Caritas cafeteria in Rome. The 58-year-old says employers won't hire him because he's too old.
``I hit a low patch this month and had to come here,'' he says while standing in line for a plate of pasta. ``What else could I do?''
Not a good article. You can't give a picture of the whole, in particular to an international audience that knows little to nothing about Italy, by going to some charity organizations and interviewing 2 italians out of 60 millions.
I know some charity organizations that give food and clothes to poor people, in particular to the immigrants from outside europe. Of course they help everyone, unfortunate italians too.
But I regard the article with suspicion: for instance, that Mr.Cepponi says he earns 8400 euro/year (that's 700 euro/month), but even an 18 years old boy, hired as a simple apprentice without any skill, earns at least 900 euro/month.
Maybe now he's part-time, so he should look for some other job.
But does it deserve an article at Bloomberg ?
An article like that is more appropriate at an italian journal, to bring awareness of some particular social problems and to raise questions, not at Bloomberg.
re:try spending a day in Pacific Beach (San Diego beach town). Absolutely mind boggling. 90% of the trim here is very fit and extremely hot.
very young however.
Come up to newport or corona del mar...it's were all the cougars hang out
very young however.
Come up to newport or corona del mar...it's were all the cougars hang out
why do you always talk like ahmedinejad???
what does iran get if Euro rules the world, as if the EU is supportive of iran