Italy's Malaise...

Italy is old. Yes, I mean it's an old country, literally. But I also mean that it's old. As in, Italians aren't reproducing; there are old people all over the place, particularly in the government; the Italian mentality is also old. They're the slowest in Europe to adapt to pretty much anything high-tech (aside from the cell phone, which took them a long time to get used to as well...Italians trust very little.) For example, their internet packages still charge based on consumption. Let's not even talk about bitrates. The only thing they're capable of being up to speed with is their cars. Nail meets head with this NYTimes article on Italy's problems.

Some excerpts:

"Italy does not seem to rank as it once did for greatness. There is no new Fellini, Rossellini or Loren. Its cinema, television, art, literature and music are rarely considered on the cutting edge."

"Doubt clouds the family itself: 70 percent of Italians between 20 and 30 still live at home, condemning the young to an extended and underproductive adolescence. Many of the brightest, like the poorest a century ago, leave Italy."

"Two popular books that set off months of debate capture the distrust of large powers that cannot be controlled. One, “The Caste,” sold a million copies (in a nation where sales of 20,000 make a best seller) by exposing the sins of Italy’s political class and how it became privileged and unaccountable. Even the presidency, once above the fray, was not spared; the book put the office’s annual cost at $328 million, four times as much as Buckingham Palace."

“I understand the bad humor, the malaise,” said Gianfranco Fini, leader of National Alliance, the second-largest opposition party. “People are starting to get strongly angry because you have a government that doesn’t do anything.”

"Evidence of Italy’s age is everywhere. In parks, clutches of old ladies coo at a single toddler. On television, stars are craggy. (The median age for the presenters of this year’s Miss Italia contest was 70. The winner, Silvia Battisti, was 18.) In the political sphere, Mr. Prodi is 68, Mr. Berlusconi 71."

"Now it is essentially an exquisite corpse, trampled over by millions of tourists. If Italy does not shed its comforts for change, many say, a similar fate awaits it: blocked by past greatness, with aging tourists the questionable source of life, the Florida of Europe."

I wonder...perhaps things will only change when the old, fatcat politicians start dying off and the younger generation (the ones that travel and actually use the internet) will begin to take charge.