The survival of Spain and Italy (and Portugal) is day by day being more in the hands of their respective shadow economies, their respective economia sommersa

Sir, no matter where you look in the developed world, you will find dangerous obese bank exposures to what was or still is officially perceived as absolutely not risky, like what was or is triple-A rated and the “infallible” sovereigns; and for the society equally dangerous, anorexic bank exposures to what is officially perceived as risky, like small businesses and entrepreneurs. Nevertheless the bank regulators insist on discriminating against ex-ante perceived risks. 

In this respect, when Robert Zoellick in “Europe is distracted by endless talk of firewalls” April 17, writes that “the survival of the eurozone now depends on Italy and Spain”, but, instead of trying to figure out how their private banks could help out, he recommends a minor capital injection in the European Investment Bank, I can´t help but to feel that the real survival of Italy and Spain (and Portugal) will, in its turn, depend on what the Italians and Spaniards (and Portuguese) can manage to do in their more real and less distorted shadow economies... their respective economia sommersa.

PS. That is specially so when in the official economy regulators apply perceived credit risk weighted bank capital requirements, which so much favors the access to credit of the sovereign over that of entrepreneurs and SMEs.