With austerity being implemented in Italy, now they are focusing on growth and removal of red tape.

A much needed combo: austerity, growth policies and removal of bullshit red tape.

Despite Italy’s shadow economy, the system should be able to enforce a degree of tax collection.

Interesting chatter of a 600billion Euro loan.

I sure hope there is substance here.

As expected, without the ECB the Italian bond offer was weak. Not a good sign to market confidence. Hence the weak market.

While waiting for my connecting flight I was reviewing the sea of red. Looks like the Italy is causing it w/ it’s CDS’ up nicely today. The EU needs to get their shit together.

But on a DNDN note, the linked article is from David Miller (he knows Dendreon/Provenge better then anyone), expressing his breakdown of the situation. If anyone is interested in DNDN read the article. DNDN looks like an interesting investment proposition here. If management gets things together, this will be back in the 30s by the end of 2012.

“Clearly, Italy is facing issues at the moment, which are essentially market driven, which I’m sure the Italian government, together with its partners, will be very attentive to,” Lagarde said.

She said the IMF had recently conducted a review of Italy’s economy and “some of the Italian numbers are excellent.”

Italy’s primary deficit “was one of the lowest,” she said, referring to the country’s low budget gap and a liquid bond market that is largely in domestic hands.

In translation, the speculators are playing with fire on this one.