Berlusconi stares into the abyss

Updated

Italy's borrowing costs for 10-year bonds - the usual metric for judging market rates - have now soared past the 6.66% barrier. It's a critical threshold given that those previous bailed-out nations - Portugal and Ireland - fell through the debt trap door at close to this point. But the eighth-biggest economy in the world is different. It has more overall liabilities than Ireland, Portugal and Spain combined.

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