And fascism returns to Italy:
"The power of financial markets has upended traditional democratic processes [and caused] concerns across the political spectrum about the growing influence of financial markets in democracies"
"Berlusconi resigns, and era ends; Parliament OK’s austerity plan; transition next" November 13, 2011|By Elisabetta Povoledo and Rachel Donadio, New York Times
ROME - Marking the end of a tumultuous week and of an era in Italian politics, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned last evening after Parliament approved austerity measures sought by the European Union.
The lower house passed the measures yesterday by a vote of 380-26, a day after they were approved by the Senate, trying to keep a step ahead of market pressures that sent borrowing rates on Italian bonds skyrocketing last week to levels that have required other eurozone countries to seek bailouts.
So the BANKSTERS BENT BERLUSCONI OVER so they could GET THEIR AUSTERITY PLANS in PLACE!!
The vote, and Berlusconi’s resignation, comes amid the biggest crisis facing the EU in decades, in which the power of financial markets has upended traditional democratic processes....
And you Europeans thought fascism was defeated with Hitler.
The mandate of the next government will be to push through measures to help reduce Italy’s $2.6 trillion public debt and increase growth to keep the country competitive.
Mandate given by WHO!?!
The austerity measures approved by Parliament include selling state assets and increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67 by 2026.
They would decrease the power of professional guilds, privatize municipal services, and offer tax breaks to companies that hire young workers.
Italy’s political parties were fighting to maintain their positions in a new government and to ensure their futures would not be doomed by passing the unpopular measures.
The main obstacle to the government of Mario Monti, 68, a former European commissioner and a well-respected economist with close ties to EU officials, could come from Berlusconi’s increasingly divided center-right coalition. Many members would rather go to early elections than have a technocrat backed by the EU.
“I don’t believe the markets should decide governments,’’ the minister of infrastructure and transportation, Altero Matteoli, said in an interview.
The clash over Monti raised concerns across the political spectrum about the growing influence of financial markets in democracies. In Italy and elsewhere, a dysfunctional political class has been “impotent’’ in the face of market dynamics and their impact on people’s lives, the commentator Luigi La Spina wrote yesterday in the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa.
But the main opposition party and other lawmakers, fearing that elections would lead to an unsustainable period of market turmoil, support a transitional government.
Those lawmakers are divided between those who would like a unity government, in which members of the right and the left would pass legislation and share the political cost, or a formation in which both coalitions would support the new government and vote on legislation, but leave the ministerial positions to nonpoliticians.
The prospects of a Monti government have revealed the “very eccentric’’ nature of Italian politics, said Norma Rangeri, editor-in-chief of the left-wing daily newspaper Il Manifesto.
Monti, she said, is a liberal conservative whose nomination is being blocked by the center-right, while the center-left, which supports him, “should be looking for the opposite of what Monti represents.’’
“What is opening is the most uncertain scenario that we can imagine,’’ she said.
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"Italy’s many problems go beyond debt crisis" November 13, 2011|By Uri Friedman, Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Italy’s problems run far deeper than a collapsed government and high borrowing costs - including heaping piles of trash in Naples and unsustainable birth rates - and those issues are plaguing the country behind the scenes....
The youth jobless rate in Italy is around 30 percent, and Nick Squires of the Telegraph newspaper said a jobs market built on patronage and an “institutionalized gerontocracy’’ may be partly to blame. “While millions of older Italians have jobs for life,’’ he notes, “their children scrabble from one short-term contract to another and often work for free.’’ He adds that young people are “locked out of work by a closed shop system which affects dozens of trades and professions,’’ and afflicting Italy with brain drain by emigrating abroad.
The root of Italy’s problems, the Wall Street Journal said, is that the country “financed generous entitlements with high taxes and towering piles of debt,’’ and now finds the money running out as the economy sputters....
All this so BANKS can GET PAID!
Then there are taxes. An Associated Press report found that “easygoing Italians, expecting little from the state, rarely think twice about paying under the table for home improvements, dental work, or even a frothy cappuccino.’’ The numbers back this claim up. In 2007, the Austrian economist Friedrich Schneider estimated that Italy’s shadow economy accounted for more than 22 percent of GDP.
Hand in hand with the black market and widespread corruption comes tax evasion. Back in 2004, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi wondered aloud whether the country’s high taxes made tax dodging a “natural right.’’ It is a sentiment that many Italians seem to have taken to heart. The wealthy often send their money to tax havens in Switzerland or Luxembourg. Italy’s Economy Ministry noted in 2009 that half of Italy said taxpayers weren’t declaring much more than $20,000 in income.
Honestly, I'm TIRED of all the RAISE TAXES STUFF (even on the rich) so that BANKERS can GET PAID!
Another festering problem is that, since the mid-1990s, the southern Italian city of Naples has been plagued by waste management issues stemming from overflowing landfills, broken incinerators, illegal dumping, and municipal worker strikes.
The plight of trash-filled Naples underscores a broader phenomenon: tensions between, as the CIA’s World Factbook puts it, a “developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less-developed, welfare-dependent, agricultural south, with high unemployment.’’
This divide and the resentment it breeds have prompted Italy’s Northern League party, an anti-immigrant [and] influential member of Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, to at times call for the north to secede from Italy.
I always like that talk. The less centralized the better!
In extreme moments, party leaders called for police to shoot at boats carrying illegal immigrants.
Now if they called for shooting banksters on sight they might have something there!
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"Two governments move quickly to stabilize; Italian Senate OK’s debt plan; Greek leader names Cabinet" November 12, 2011|By Gaia Pianigiani and Niki Kitsantonis, New York Times
ROME - With Europe under mounting pressure to act quickly to tackle its debt crisis, the leaders of Italy and Greece moved forcefully yesterday to reinvigorate their governments and show their sincerity about economic austerity. Financial markets rallied on the news.
You SEE WHO THEY SERVE, right?
The Italian Senate approved a package of austerity measures, a first step toward easing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from office, while in Athens, Greek leaders of the parties in a new coalition of three parties finalized details of a national unity government....
Days of political turmoil roiled bond markets this week, pushing the cost of borrowing in Italy to levels that economists regard as unsustainable and adding to the pressures on politicians....
And you thought my title was just hyperbole?
The promised changes in Greece and Italy heartened investors as well, at least for the moment: the leading stock market indexes in Britain, France, and Germany all gained yesterday, and the rally extended to Wall Street....
At least we know WHO IS IMPORTANT to the PAPER!
Despite the financial market reaction yesterday, deep-seated worry persists about Europe’s efforts to prevent the debt crisis from plunging the entire global economy into retreat.
In a sign of American impatience, President Obama called Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Giorgio Napolitano of Italy late Thursday.
In service of you-know-who.
Related: Obama reads riot act to European leaders in late night phone calls
AmeriKan media minimized it.
Speaking at a meeting of Asia and Pacific Economic Cooperation countries in Hawaii, Timothy F. Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, said Thursday: “The crisis in Europe remains the central challenge to global growth. It is crucial that Europe move quickly to put in place a strong plan to restore financial stability.’’
Weren't we hearing the same thing about three years ago?
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"Italy breaks impasse, puts an economist into top post; Financial fears helped push transition deal" November 11, 2011|By Rachel Donadio, New York Times
ROME - Italy pulled back from the brink yesterday, as lawmakers seemed poised to usher out Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and replace his government with a cabinet of technocrats most likely led by a former European Commissioner, Mario Monti....
The transition - which materialized on the same day that Greece named its own new technocratic government under Lucas Papademos, an economist and former head of the Bank of Greece - had been held up by infighting among members of Italy’s entrenched political class, who were anxious to preserve their power, privileges, and political bases....
Many politicians do not want to be associated with the passage of tough measures that might reduce their power and reelectability....
Just like the AmeriKan Congress!
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"Uncertainty leaves Italy in political chaos; Berlusconi’s status at issue; bankruptcy fears loom" November 10, 2011|By Elisabetta Povoledo and Rachel Donadio, New York Times
ROME - A day after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pledged to step down once the Italian Parliament passes austerity measures, Italy was engulfed in political chaos that has pushed the eurozone to its biggest test yet and raised the once unthinkable prospect of a major industrial economy going bankrupt....
Italian lawmakers were frantically negotiating a way forward, while European leaders scrambled to forge a backup plan for a country too big to bail out.
The uncertainty over the timing of Berlusconi’s departure - and questions over what would follow - kept Italy in the crosshairs of the financial markets yesterday, and prompted President Giorgio Napolitano to issue a statement reaffirming that the prime minister would resign as announced and that Parliament would approve austerity measures “within a few days.’’
Indeed, Italy’s fate appeared in the hands not only of the markets, but also of Napolitano, an 86-year-old former Communist who must exercise moral persuasion on a government known more for its sex scandals than economic policies....
And whose fault is that, dog shit media?
The political turmoil comes at a time of rising risk. Barclays bank yesterday issued a note saying that Italy “may be beyond the point of no return,’’ and other financial analysts - and officials in the Italian Finance Ministry - said the country could survive for several more quarters even with bond yields around 7 percent.
Nevertheless, the market jitters spurred Italy’s Parliament to move with uncharacteristic urgency, agreeing to start discussion of the emergency measures, with the aim of adopting them as early as the weekend, several lawmakers said.
HMMMMMMMMMMM!!!
But concerns were widespread that the substance of the measures, which were officially presented by Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti last evening, might not live up to the stringent demands of the current financial markets....
A delegation from the European Commission and the European Central Bank began meeting with officials in Rome yesterday to step up surveillance of Italy’s reform program, days after the International Monetary Fund said it, too, would monitor Italy’s progress.
Italy has been turned over to the IMF.
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"Berlusconi agrees to conditional resignation; Austerity plan would have to pass first" November 09, 2011|By Elisabetta Povoledo and Rachel Donadio, New York Times
ROME - Cornered by the European debt crisis, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy offered a conditional resignation yesterday, agreeing to step down but only after Parliament passes an austerity package demanded by the European Union, a move that could bring the country closer to early elections.
Berlusconi, one of Europe’s wiliest leaders and the principal figure in Italian politics for 18 years, had failed to reach a parliamentary majority in a key vote yesterday, increasing the pressure on him to resign as financial markets drove up Italy’s borrowing costs to record levels and raised further alarms about economic contagion in Europe....
In other words, the "markets" FORCED HIM OUT so they could get their AUSTERITY PACKAGE THROUGH!
By linking his fortunes to the austerity bill - whose contents have not yet been finalized, let alone implemented - Berlusconi may have pulled off a political coup, effectively blocking both the opposition and dissidents from within his own party from bringing him down in a confidence vote over the measures.
Nope.
If Berlusconi stepped down after the vote, which is expected later this month, that would give him more leverage to ask for early elections instead of creating the conditions for a government staffed by technocrats.
The day he stops being prime minister, Berlusconi would also risk losing immunity in several corruption trials.
Who cares about those anymore?
While representing a significant setback for a leader once seen as invincible, Berlusconi’s announcement does not prevent him from presenting himself as his party’s lead candidate in future elections. Yet that outcome was looking more unlikely with Italy’s borrowing costs spiking to record highs and European leaders increasingly seeing him as a liability for Italy.
And now he is gone.
Speaking after a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels yesterday, Olli Rehn, European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said Italy’s economic and financial position was “very worrying.’’ He added that the European Commission was “concerned about the situation and we are following the situation very closely.’’
The budget vote came hours after Umberto Bossi, a key ally in Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, asked him to step aside for the sake of the country, the eurozone’s third-largest economy and a new epicenter of a crisis that has raised investor anxiety in markets around the world.
He never had a chance.
Bossi asked the prime minister to relinquish his post in favor of Angelino Alfano, the secretary of Berlusconi’s Peoples of Liberty Party, but political commentators said such a government would be seen as a weaker Berlusconi government and even less credible....
Yup.
Expressing alarm about Italy’s rapidly rising borrowing costs, a reflection of investor fears over the country’s economic future, Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party said, “We all know that Italy runs the real risk of not being able to access the financial markets in the next few days.’’
The vote came after yields on 10-year Italian government bonds - the price demanded by investors to loan Italy money - approached 7 percent, the highest since the adoption of the single euro currency 10 years ago.
In other words, the BANKSTERS DROVE HIM OUT so they could get their austerity plans through.
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"Financial fears in Europe begin to focus on Italy; Berlusconi rejects calls to step down" by Anthony Faiola | Washington Post, November 08, 2011
ROME - Italy’s bonds are among the most widely held in the world. Any hint that they might not be worth their promised value could shatter confidence in the ability of other indebted governments, particularly in Europe, to make good on their obligations.
Yes, EVERYTHING must be SUBSERVIENT to DEBT PAYMENTS to BANKS!
Yesterday, Italy’s fate seemed increasingly tied to that of Berlusconi, a wily 75-year-old politician who, in his opera-plot-like tenure, has survived scandals from allegations that he hosted sex parties to accusations of corruption.
With his fragile leadership now seen as one of the biggest obstacles to passage and implementation of a critical reform package, reports that he might be preparing to resign sparked a sudden turnaround rally in Italian stocks and bonds. The market optimism faded, however, after the prime minister posted an official denial on his Facebook page.
And now he's gone.
Nevertheless, calls for Berlusconi’s resignation are intensifying dramatically, with rebels defecting from his party and some of his closest allies advising him to step down for the good of the nation. Berlusconi signaled yesterday that he was ready for a fight, telling the Libero newspaper that he would call a no-confidence vote himself.
“I want to look the traitors in the face,’’ he said, referring to the longtime allies who are fleeing his side....
Many here see a script being written that, in the coming days or weeks, could become Berlusconi’s final act....
I'm sorry I read it backward, dear readers.
Italy’s sheer size (its economy is bigger than Russia’s or India’s) would test the resources of eurozone nations and the International Monetary Fund to come up with a bailout....
It would TEST TAXPAYERS' WALLETS, too!
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Anything else happening in Italy?
"FLOODS RAVAGE ITALY'S COUNTRYSIDE -- Violent rains lashed Italy this week, killing at least nine people and leaving six others missing. The country's northwestern coastal region of Liguria and the central region of Tuscany were hit hard, with floods and mudslides in Monterosso (above) and other villages. Rescuers searched yesterday for survivors (Boston Globe October 28 2011)."
I guess that gives you a picture of what the Globe thinks is important in Italy.
