Thursday,
October 30, 2008
Italians Caution About
Debt Will Help lt Through Financial Crisis
The
ANNOTICO Report
Ordinary
Italians are careful and ultra-cautious when it comes to money matters. A
2007 Nielsen Consumer Panel Survey shows that the British, French, Spanish and
Germans (and the Irish if they had been included) all have a much higher
level of family debt than Italians.
Irish Times
Wednesday, Oct
29, 2008
AND, IN these
times of economic crisis, how is dear old
At a briefing
with the foreign press corps the other day, Italian finance minister Giulio Tremonti suggested that
The minister has
a point, or indeed, two points. In more than 20 years of living in
Basically, Italian
private debt represents 43 per cent of earnings as opposed to 66 per cent in
No surprise,
here. I can immediately think of a number of friends who prove the point. Take
"Paola", for example. She is a senior civil servant who deals with
foreign commerce. She got her first credit card at the
age of 48. She almost never uses it in
Or take "Federico".
Even though he is in his late 30s and runs his own small building company, he
has never had a credit card. When he is not busy working for clients, he is
currently building a house for himself. He has been at this for years, building
bit by bit as his earnings allowed. Yet, he would never dream of taking out a
bank loan to speed up the process, indeed he has never been in debt to a bank
in his life.
Or take
"Francesca". She is an old family friend. A couple of years ago, she
accompanied the Baroness on a trip to
The Nielsen
survey confirms the point. While 52 per cent of Brits, 43 per cent of the
French and 39 per cent of Spaniards use credit cards regularly, only
17 per cent of Italians use them. Overall, 66.8 per cent of all Italian
transactions are done in cash. Italian bank UniCredit
estimates that of EU countries, only
What does all
this mean? Well, that Italians are a canny lot. They might suffer from a
staggering public debt (108 per cent of GDP, or thereabouts) but they are
pretty careful with the home accounts. This could be an attitude that will
stand by them, too, in these difficult times.
Then there is the
real estate question. Speaking of
All of this is,
of course, very relative. Yet, Italians are good at belt-tightening. When
George W
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/1029/1225197273902.html
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