Italy: Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Save?

Italy: Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Save?
Published: Monday, 7 Nov 2011 | 2:54 AM ET Text Size
By: Catherine Boyle
Staff Writer, CNBC.com

Italy's economic problems took center stage Monday as its government, led by increasingly threatened Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, faced yet another key vote.

The health of the euro zone's third-largest economy has come into focus despite Berlusconi accepting IMF monitoring and surviving several confidence votes in recent months.

Italy's size makes the potential consequences if it were to fail more wide-ranging than the much smaller Greece.

"Italy has much more systemic implications," Thanos Vamvakidis, Head of European G10 FX Strategy, BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research, told CNBC Monday.

"It's too big to fail, too big to save."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45187059