I think you lads need to take the advice of the Joseph Stieglitz of Dad's Army, Corporal Jones.
" Don't panic, don't panic"
Cast your shell-likes over this
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/italy/g ... bond-yield
Look at the graph and then change the data selection from starting at 2000 to starting at 1993. You will then see that in Jan 1995 the 10 year Italian goverment bond yield was close to 14%, not the 7% which is causing our good financial commentators to shit themselves.
Now you might say to Corporal Jones "Ah yes but Italy's debt to GDP ratio is much higher today, something like 120%. But then Corporal Jones would reply "Permission to speak, Major Gussett Sniffer, but the average debt to gdp ratio for Italy between 1978 and 1998 was more than 100%. Don't panic! Don't panic!"
To which you might reply "Ah Jonesy, what it's all about is the deficit, the difference between what we have coming in and what we have going out mate rather than the actual debt!" To which Jonesy will reply "The average deficit to gdp percentage ratio between 1978 and 1998 was 9.4%. In 2011 it's about 4%.
"Oh wise one, Jonesy, what is this Italian crisis about then?"
"Permission to speak, sir. Some of those nasty bond traders are trying to make a killing. Give em a bit of cold steel sir, they don't like it up 'em"
To be continued.....
Cheers
D