Et tu Italy?

No surprise to readers here...

The next meme to fall is the silly "flat earth" thesis, which basically ignores fundamental principles of scarcity - more specifically, the cost of transportation and frictional costs for the flow of trade throughout the world (more on that later)

Growth slump may force Italy out of eurozone
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 12:19am BST 30/07/2008

Italy is sliding into a deep structural crisis and risks being forced out of Europe's monetary union as the region's economic downturn gathers pace, according to a new report by Capital Economics.

Over the last decade, the country has failed to reform its labour product markets sufficiently to cope with the rigours of euro membership and is now caught in a spiral of decline as the working population starts to shrink. Productivity growth has slowed to 0.5pc a year.

"An ugly combination of weak GDP growth, poor international competitiveness, and rising government borrowing costs could lead to renewed calls for Italy to leave the euro," said the report, written by Julian Jessop and Roger Bootle.