Italy -
My comment : How will the ECB react to a Dec 4 failed referendum ?
November 19 – New York Times (Peter S. Goodman): “Among policy makers alert for signs of the next financial disaster, Italy's mountain of uncollectable bank debt is a subject discussed in tones ordinarily reserved for piles of plutonium. Its banks seem at once too big to fail and eminently capable of doing so… For years, Italian lenders have muddled through, hoping time would cure their afflictions. But Italy's economy has been terminally weak, not growing at all over a recent 13-year stretch… Nearly one-fifth of all loans in the Italian banking system are classified as troubled, a toll worth 360 billion euros, or nearly $400 billion, at the end of last represents roughly 40% of all the bad loans within the countries sharing the euro. In recent weeks, the world's focus has shifted to Germany's largest lender, Deutsche Bank... But if Deutsche has become the crisis of the moment, Italy is the perpetual threat that could, at any moment, present the world with an unpleasant surprise…”
