Italy's Shaky Financial Future

As with many aspects of modern banking, the word "bankrupt" has its roots in Renaissance Italy. The original banks were Florentine merchants who would sit in the open street behind little benches ("bancas" in Italian) upon which would be stacked their money. If trading went against them and their capital was reduced to nothing, their bench would be said to be broken, or "banca rotta." It is fitting then that, 500 years later, the European country with the most worrying debt problem is Italy....