blog_passport_full11

Italy at the nexus of stupidity and luck

  • By David KennerDavid Kenner is the Middle East editor at Foreign Policy. He is based in Beirut, Lebanon, and has been with FP since 2009 (a long time, he knows). He worked for FP previously in Cairo, where he covered the early days of the Arab Spring, and before that in Washington. He has attended Georgetown University and the American University of Beirut and has reported from Libya, Egypt, Gaza, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraq.
  • david.kenner
  • @davidkenner
Italy at the nexus of stupidity and luck

Italy has taken its fair share of losses in the current economic downturn.  However, the damage hasn’t been severe enough to elevate it to one of the top five countries that we fear could become the next Iceland.  In scanning the reddit comments on our list, I noted one Italian with a hilarious explanation for why Italy hasn’t been more affected:

We (Italy) are somewhat not in this mess because our banks did not understand the last 5 years of finance and did not pretend to understand it, so they stayed out. We are now in the spot where stupidity and luck meet.

Photo:  AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYS