Feanor

You have confused me with Kerstin and her polls where we vote "black shirt" and then she goes for "yellow pants".
I can't take a pic now because I have washed everything.

How to do what?

You know, before the adoption of the Euro Italy was more or less the european China, meaning we exported lots of cheap stuff thanks to the fact our currency was one of the weakest and we did not have strong competition from Asia and east Europe because of the well known politics around the "cold war".
Today we are left with the high quality and luxury merchandise only because, out of some very little niches, we aren't strong in technologies and related productions.
Also tourism is not competitive any more because of the same reasons.

And what have we won?
Actually I am happy east Europe is not behind the "iron curtain" any more and they are joining the EU. I hope also Russia will become more and more closer to the EU because we need each other.

But the "globalization" in economy and the "de-localization" of productions in poor countries of Asia is not a good thing IMHO. Plus it is getting coupled by strong immigration which is having some impact on italian society, which wasn't meant to be multi-cultural, besides the economical difficulties.

The header image comes (without permission) from this site:
http://www.tednasmith.com/silmarillion/
In case you don't know the Silmarillion, google for it

The strong currency is good to keep the value stable but right after the adoption of the euro we got prices, especially food and clothes, doubled or tripled. Since the average salaries grow about 2% per year, that means people have lost about 30-40% of their income during these years just for the currency change.

We don't have "borders" any more with other EU countries in the north but suddenly the southern-eastern border became hot because of people coming from Albania and Africa across the sea. In about 10 years we got million immigrants that for about 3-5% of the italian population (numbers are uncertain. I made a post about those people comminting 30-35% of the crimes). Like I said above, you couple this with italian firms moving productions abroad. The effect is destabilizing.

@"anonymous" (put your name): Yes, I am like a comet, I appear in the sky and go shopping once every 20 years or so.

Yes there are difficulties but it is not all the same.
For example, I understand that italian cars are produced in Poland because it costs less there. It is inevitable but in some years the polish workers will want to be able to buy the cars they build, so the life standard in Italy and Poland will equalize in time.
Instead, I've bought a shirt that costed me 3 euros and it came from Bangladesh. I don't understand how you can move shirts from Bangladesh and still earn money here from such a small price UNLESS the human life in Bangladesh values zero and the work is made by slaves for free. Yes, I understand probably some people in Bangaldesh eats because of the shirt, otherwise probably they would not. But there is something wrong in the concept.

About USA, they basically lived like rich while making other people pay for their bills. I am one of those investors who bought american founds and now I am hoping one day they will give my money back.