OMG
I have watched and read this whole discussion with disbelief, anger and much sadness.
I will declare an interest i am half British, half Italian I have a south american partner so yes I am biased.
Quite frankly those of you who are slagging off Italians or Italy as a country or people are racist!
No discussion, simple fact is you are!
Racism has many definitions, the most common and widely accepted being that members of one race consider themselves intrinsically superior to members of other races.
It is acceptable for anyone to be critical of another nation or people it is not acceptable to be rude and offensive.
Italy has many problems and Italians know it, they elect SB because if nothing else he provides stability, a country with over 50 parliaments in 60 years needs it. He stands up for Italy in many respects, he is their Maggie.
Why does Italy have such problems, well listen, if any of you are that clever to be able to answer that in a few short sentences, you are wasting your time here and we should all instantly nominate you for a nobel prize.
The few hundred, possibly 1000 Italians I have met have no more in common with each other than a chav and a lord, or a redneck and a manhattanite.
A people get the government they deserve???? I pity America, UK, Germany, France, China, Cuba etc etc. because no government is perfect, Italy just after the war was a poor country mostly agricultural, however now it is one of the worlds leading economies. The UK has in fact made less gains in the same period.
Now back to the subject, Alitalia, why should it fold why are some people so desperate for it to fold and thousands of people be unemployed? because of bad service? or state subsidy? or because it has an Italian flag on the tail what is it?
I have a feeling that the 'economists" amongst us just have a feeling that it is "unfair" that Alitalia is still around it offends their sense of correctness and this isn't how things should be every other airline has to stand on its own two feet why should the Italians get away with it?
Well I say lets give them a chance, there will be no direct government control (no, a government cannot make a wealthy individual or company waste and lose money) because if we don't give them a chance we should also have been banging on BA and Air France's doors amongst others in years gone by, because they too were loss making government inefficient subsidised national flag carriers but whilst they were they came up with the most magnificent of all commercial planes. There is a place and a time for everything, Italy like every other country gets there at its own pace, I want a europe full of individual nations not clones of the UK, America or France
I for one love flying because it enables me to visit other places and countries and meet new people surely that is so much better than sitting in a glass house throwing stones?