Italy could halve its debt by forcing the wealthy to buy its bonds

German economists has an idea to minimize Italy's debt

The bad news is that Italy's government has a massive debt problem; the good news is that Italians are relatively wealthy. Despite the disparity in their government's and current economic situation, the average Italian household is more wealthy than his or her German counterpart.

Bundesbank public finance chief Karsten Wendorff floated the idea of a wealth tax.

"Instead of a European fund that buys Italian government bonds and that is ultimately backed by European taxpayers, a national fund should be created," Wendorff wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Saturday. "This fund would buy Italian government bonds."

The fund would oblige Italian households to put something like 20% of their net wealth in Italian government debt, which would be called solidary bonds.

I can't imagine that idea being very popular, especially coming from Germany.