What’s happened in the past is useful to understand what’s going to happen in our country in the future. In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, the debt/GDP ratio nearly doubled: it went up from 60% to 110%, and this happened because in 1981 the Treasury gained full autonomy (in what is referred to as a “divorce”) from the Bank of Italy. Since that moment, the State has not been able to count on an internal lender to borrow from and it has had to offer ever increasing interest rates to finance the debt.