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http://rt.com/news/161140-italy-drugs-prostitution-economy/

If Mexico and Columbia adopted this accounting model they would lead the world's ecomomies. Unless China placed a value on all the intellectual property it steals, in which case it would outstrip everyone. :D

Wow that's pretty wild. It looks like they had to do the math to get those figures anyway, as required by the EU? It said it would add up to 2% to their country's GDP. I guess that IS still money going into the country, lol, just maybe not going to the Italian government (or maybe a cut is  ;)). Interesting either way...

Not much surprising. The Italian mafia is continuously spreading to the far away corners of the world, while maintaining their positions in the strongholds such as Italy and NY. In Italy itself, the mafia turnover is estimated to be somewhere around $150-200 billion USD every year.

I feel it like zerohedge does. The wealthy are doing anything to make it look like the economies are all recovering and prospering. Politicians see it as wow we don't have to actually improve the economy we can just push some paper and buttons on a calculator to make the economy "grow"

This statistical manipulation indicates the current state of Italy, I wouldnt say this is a positive development

I wonder if America adds the illegal activities to its GDP figures, How much its GDP could increase.

spain has done this since jan, do you not read your reports?

Definitely it is not a positive development. The Italian government just wants to fool its citizens, by inflating the GDP figures. If they are serious, then they should go after the mafia.. but right now they lack the balls to do that.

True, but that is not the first manipulation of Spanish GDP. It is to be noted that after a decline of 17.67% (from 20.356 million to 16.758 million) of the workforce since the ATH of 2007 until recent low of 2013 the GDP only shrank 7% (from 1.441.426 mill to 1.340.266). Did productivity really increase so much since then??

Some people estimate that the real Spanish GDP is about 20% lower than the official one. Of course admitting this would mean that the national debt is not 112% but an even more scandalous 140% of the GDP.

Here is the reason why the Italian government is so desperate to inflate the GDP.

http://philippewaechter.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/italy-2013-q2-gdptrend.png

You're right, this is an attempt to fix numbers and nothing else guys, you know we've had a tactic in the UK and other countries for dealing with unemployment? What governments do is either get them to leave or they park them in 'employment' agencies long enough that it makes the report look good and then they dump the problem on the next party to get elected so they can claim credit for 'fixing' the economy and the stupid part is, people keep falling for it.

Just like the unemployment figures here in the US. We only count people that are actively seeking work and don't count those that have given up. Then our politicians take turns patting themselves on the back for their cooked numbers while real employment and wages plummet.

Here we put part of population to early retirement, other part is either on courses to activate in job searching and then a group is in "Work trial", which is basicly 9€ per work day payment they get in addition to unemployment benefits...

Doing well, "50k" employment oportunities available (including phonesalesman for proviosion and other such where empoyee carries the risks) and 450k unemployed... Not that positive outlook...

Good to see that the EU economy is doing so very well. Makes you wonder what all that fuss was about last year.

The article seems to confuse GDP with GDP growth. If revenues are included in the figures for the first time, that does not translate as GDP growth: estimates should be made for previous years, whereupon the total growth rate can be calculated more accurately.

 ??? ??? ??? ??? ???

The EU economy is not doing well. Many of the member states such as Spain, Greece, Italy and Cyprus are close to collapse (we can add France, Portugal, Belgium.etc to the list very soon). Only Germany is performing well right now.

Fought WW2 to stop German conquest of Europe but they still did it after the war with EU.

Without EU most countries would be better off and Germans poorer

Germans will never be poor thanks to their productive mentality (as opposed to the financial scam-economy other countries have adopted). They lost two world wars and had to take over a bankrupt East Germany after the fall of communism and they're at the top again. I don't think this is thanks to the EU, even though now they do take advantage of their dominant position to make that gap even larger.

Wait so they include the Mafia and the Prostitutes as a Gross Domestic Output
I can't see how adding the underground economy will help them other than well changing their statistics data a bit and skewing a really bad situation into a slightly less worse one.

The move may add up to 2 per cent to Italy's GDP, European Union's statistical service, Eurostat, earlier predicted. This should bring the country’s new government under Prime Minister Matteo Renzi closer to its goal - reaching strong growth and lowering the public debt, which the EU says is now “the major challenge”.

Guess the mafia won a round lol

Yes. The real unemployment rate is even worse than 2008.

It is a numbers game to raise GDP. Now they can 'fix' GDP as they can estimate any number they wish. On the bright side, they have a more accurate model to estimate revenue when they raise sales tax.

Maybe Italians should hand over the government to the mafia :D. I think the godfathers have a proven record of being able to establish and run prosperous organizations despite all the hardships and difficulties :). BTW as I heard many Italian politicians are connected the mob. Do they really need a middleman?  

Is a metaphor. Europe is in its worst crisis since World War II—one which threatens to destroy it. Millions are unemployed, with little hope of a job. And millions of jobs are at risk. The existence of the European Union hangs in the balance.

Currently Germany is one of the most powerful countries in the world, I think it has the fourth largest economy. It has a strong industrial base, is scientifically amongst the best in the world and is one of the key countries in the European Union. I can't remember who said this but a comedian did a joke about English people who chant "Two world wars and one world cup" to German people, to show how England is better, and he responded by saying, "Yes, but there was a stunning comeback in the later stages of the twentieth century leading to a richer, stronger and happier country."

First , it's not about Italy , it's about the entire European Nation.

I should have known how the article is misleading when I realize I was reading RT.
There was an announcement like this one month ago :

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26957683

Longer version about what's being done in italy here:
http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/econo/temidi/td12/td864_12/en_td864/en_tema_864.pdf

I have to agree with you on this. The Germans are extremely hard working, when compared to the lazy groups located to their South (French, Italians, Greeks.etc). But definitely they are taking advantage of their position in the EU.

What's strange?
In many countries like the Netherlands, Spain and Germany, prostitution is legal, and its revenues are counted in GDP figures. Grass is now legal in Colorado, and it will be counted for that state GDP figure, like gambling in Nevada. There's absolutely nothing wrong. What's wrong is that in some countries, those activities have been made illegal.

It's not about legalization, it's about addition of illegal activities value to the GDP figures. These actions will remain illegal.

That isn't strange but quite senseless, because there are nobody paying taxes from illegal incomings.

Prostitution in Spain isn't legal, nor illegal. It's sort of a legal void. In the other two countries you mention, prostitution is regulated and the prostitutes pay their taxes, but that is not the case in Spain. They can perform their activity but there they are always "out of the system", so any numbers the government decides to use are rough estimations.

Although prostitution is legal in Spain, pimping is not. And 90% or more of the prostitution in Spain involves pimping. And in most cases they don't pay any taxes, or register with the authorities. So I'd say that the activities are largely illegal.

Of course pimping is illegal (not only in Spain, anywhere in the world), but I think that % you mention is a bit too high. I'm pretty sure the majority of prostitutes are working on their own free will as they are able to make a lot more money that way than cleaning or working as waitresses for example. A recent study showed that a quite high percentage of female university students are "occasional prostitutes" that pay for their studies this way.

And as I said, there's no way they can register with the authorities since prostitution is NOT a recognized activity in Spain (not outlawed either).

No it's not. It is a legal void , if it would be legal it would be like in Holland  but there are no regulation for it.
You can compare it to drinking , you're safe doing it at home but in some part or cities in Spain don't do it on the street or in club.But even so the police can come even to that house and pick them up if they receive a complain or they can ignore it.

A complete mess that is not bringing anything.

If it would be legal they could have the benefit of having a real job and a pension sometimes and the state will get some taxes out of it.

Interesting fact, the Netherlands have one of the lowest inflation rates in Europe...