Siena's Financial Fiasco: Downfall of a Tuscan Paradise

[sysop]

Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world's oldest bank, took five centuries to accumulate its wealth -- and three years to gamble it away. Its fall from grace is a disaster for its home city of Siena, which relied on distributed profits from the bank. Now the picturesque Tuscan city is trying to come to terms with the new reality.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...848624,00.html

[hedonistbot]

If I had to write the same article for an Italian newspaper it would read something like this:

"Europe's most beautiful city threatened by Germany's rigid monetary policy stand."

That would go a long way solving Europe's problems, right?

And while we are at it, could someone remind me what happened to all those Landesbanken...