It's amazing how macro-economics is the stuff of conversation everywhere I stick my head out into. "We need to get out of the Euro" says the guy selling ice cream, and a few days ago, at the same time ET was discussing the idea of a parallel currency, I was in the health food store, listening to a shopper telling all and sundry that if we created a 'Eurino' for southern Europe we could use that to ameliorate our economy.

"Eurino' has a nice ring to it. There are quite a few Syriza fans here in Italy, if S. is voted in and wants to try something like that there would be strong Italian support.

Schauble creeps me out almost as much as his henchman Padoan. These are not nice people. Strip away their purported grasp of economics and putative use of austerity as cure for all Europe's ills, and what is left?

A horror flick...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty