Italy Not As PIIGS Redux

I posted this over at e-Talian but felt it was appropriate to do so here as well since the article touches on something I argued here. Namely the grouping of Italy with the rest of the PIIGS is misleading if not wrong.

As a couple of articles pointed out, the problem in Italy is less about debt (which is mostly held by the Italians themselves unlike the Americans and Greeks) but one, though by no means less serious, of growth. The other thing to consider, and it's the one I've mentioned, is Italy still has a manufacturing and industrial base that not only produces and keeps revenues streaming in but one in which large parts of manufacturing is made in Italy.

Italy won't be Greece because it isn't Greece. Or Spain or Portugal for that matter.

"While some lump Italy in with the economic PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) of Europe, don’t be so quick to count this country out. Unlike the U.S., the Italians still make things. Ninety percent of the firms in Italy are family owned (and agile); they value engineers above lawyers and bankers. They see the economic value of green engineering not just for the environment as a whole, but for the local community. And they infuse their manufacturing with family pride. They don’t make lawyers to guide financial advisers who make money by making money; rather, they make machines that make robots that make machines that spin our silk clothes as we prepare dinner on our marble kitchen counters."

I like the part in bold.

Read the article here in Signon San Diego.

"Under the auspices of the Italian Trade Commission, UCIMU (the Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machine Tools, Robots, Automation Systems) recently invited award-winning students and professors to tour manufacturing facilities.



The author and his students represented San Diego State University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Professors and students from Canada, South America and a large contingent from India joined us as we visited Bologna, Milan, Florence, Como and Vicenza.


In Turin we toured Comau, an automobile supplier that manufactures machining centers that create robots which can be used to manufacture machines. We toured Agusta-Westland which manufactures many of the helicopters in the civil and defense sectors in the U.S. We also toured a firm that is responsible for nearly every bent tube used in industry: for lawn chairs, stairway railings, plumbing and street lamps."