Berlusconi holding Italy Hostage

A brilliant article on Berlusconi and the sorrow state of Italy by Tim Sparks can be read HERE

A brief summary below:

Vote me out of jail, or I will bring the country down with me. This, essentially, is the message Silvio Berlusconi—four-time prime minister, owner of the country’s three main commercial TV channels, criminal defendant many times over—has just sent to the Italian government, one that clarifies at last the exact nature of what is at stake in Italy at the present moment: is this a modern state where the rule of law prevails or is it the fiefdom of an institutionalized outlaw?

After a dozen trials, many of which have gone through all three levels of Italian justice (primary trial, appeal, counter appeal), after making ad personam laws to have his crimes de-penalized, or using delaying tactics to have trials thrown out because the crimes alleged in them are time-barred, or facing guilty verdicts at one level and acquittals at another, Berlusconi has finally received a definitive and unappealable criminal sentence at the highest level, for tax fraud in the region of €7 million ($9 million) and for the creation of a slush fund of some €280 million ($375 million). Sentenced to four years in prison, he has benefited from a pardon aimed at emptying the country’s jails, which has reduced the sentence to one year—this despite the fact that, being over seventy, he will be allowed to serve his sentence at one of his various luxury homes. However, as an elected member of the senate, he enjoys immunity from arrest and cannot be forced into confinement until the senate approves his expulsion, a vote that could take place in September. He has now made it clear that if that vote goes against him he will bring the whole house down.

2013 Economic Freedom Report highlight Italy's troubles

The appalling state of Italian economy is no longer getting international headlines but the slide of the county toward third world standards is continuing unabated.
The new 2013 report on Economic Freedom has been published; a full report can be found here and again Italy's ranking is a disaster for a major economy.

On the overall score Italy is ranking 83rd which by itself is an appalling result for a major developed economy, positioning itself below Uganda and Sri Lanka.

But when it comes to Freedom from Corruption Italy manage to score an appalling score of 39 together with Ghana and Macedonia.


Below some extracts from the report delving into an analysis of Italy's shortcomings:

The foundations of economic freedom remain weak in the absence of an efficient judicial framework to provide effective and timely resolution of cases. Corruption, often involving government officials, is a growing concern, severely undercutting confidence and trust in the government.

As per the rule of law and corruption Italy is faring among the worst countries, below the motivation for such low ranking:

Property rights and contracts are secure, but court procedures are extremely slow. Many companies choose to settle out of court. The legal system is vulnerable to political interference. Widespread corruption has bred a culture of lawlessness and tax evasion and has weakened respect for the judiciary. Enforcement of intellectual property rights is below developed-country standards.

And when it comes to attracting investments:

Regulatory complexity causes delays and increases the cost of entrepreneurial activity. Completing licensing requirements takes over 200 days and costs more than the level of average annual income. Serious labor market rigidities constrain job growth, and the informal labor market accounts for a large proportion of employment. Stagflation engendered by the eurozone crisis presents monumental monetary policy challenges.

       
       

Read more about Italy Economy.
        See more from the 2013 Index.

   

OVERALL SCORE BY COUNTRY:

Hong Kong	89.3
Singapore	88
Australia	82.6
New Zealand	81.4
Switzerland	81
Canada	79.4
Chile	79
Mauritius	76.9
Denmark	76.1
United States	76
Ireland	75.7
Bahrain	75.5
Estonia	75.3
United Kingdom	74.8
Luxembourg	74.2
Finland	74
The Netherlands	73.5
Sweden	72.9
Germany	72.8
Taiwan	72.7
Georgia	72.2
Iceland	72.1
Lithuania	72.1
Austria	71.8
Japan	71.8
Macau	71.7
Qatar	71.3
United Arab Emirates	71.1
Czech Republic	70.9
Botswana	70.6
Norway	70.5
Jordan	70.4
Saint Lucia	70.4
South Korea	70.3
The Bahamas	70.1
Uruguay	69.7
Colombia	69.6
Armenia	69.4
Barbados	69.3
Belgium	69.2
Cyprus	69
Slovakia	68.7
Macedonia	68.2
Peru	68.2
Oman	68.1
Spain	68
Malta	67.5
Hungary	67.3
Costa Rica	67
Mexico	67
Israel	66.9
Jamaica	66.8
El Salvador	66.7
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	66.7
Latvia	66.5
Malaysia	66.1
Poland	66
Albania	65.2
Romania	65.1
Bulgaria	65
France	64.1
Rwanda	64.1
Thailand	64.1
Dominica	63.9
Cape Verde	63.7
Kuwait	63.1
Portugal	63.1
Kazakhstan	63
Turkey	62.9
Montenegro	62.6
Panama	62.5
Trinidad and Tobago	62.3
Madagascar	62
South Africa	61.8
Mongolia	61.7
Slovenia	61.7
Croatia	61.3
Ghana	61.3
Paraguay	61.1
Uganda	61.1
Sri Lanka	60.7
Italy	60.6
Saudi Arabia	60.6
Namibia	60.3
Guatemala	60
Burkina Faso	59.9
Azerbaijan	59.7
Dominican Republic	59.7
Kyrgyz Republic	59.6
Morocco	59.6
Lebanon	59.5
The Gambia	58.8
Zambia	58.7
Serbia	58.6
Cambodia	58.5
Honduras	58.4
The Philippines	58.2
Tanzania	57.9
Gabon	57.8
Brazil	57.7
Benin	57.6
Belize	57.3
Bosnia and Herzegovina	57.3
Fiji	57.2
Swaziland	57.2
Samoa	57.1
Tunisia	57
Indonesia	56.9
Nicaragua	56.6
Vanuatu	56.6
Mali	56.4
Tonga	56
Kenya	55.9
Yemen	55.9
Moldova	55.5
Senegal	55.5
Greece	55.4
Malawi	55.3
India	55.2
Nigeria	55.1
Pakistan	55.1
Bhutan	55
Mozambique	55
Seychelles	54.9
Egypt	54.8
Côte d'Ivoire	54.1
Djibouti	53.9
Niger	53.9
Guyana	53.8
Papua New Guinea	53.6
Tajikistan	53.4
Bangladesh	52.6
Cameroon	52.3
Mauritania	52.3
Suriname	52
China	51.9
Guinea	51.2
Guinea-Bissau	51.1
Russia	51.1
Vietnam	51
Central African Republic	50.4
Nepal	50.4
Laos	50.1
Micronesia	50.1
Algeria	49.6
Ethiopia	49.4
Liberia	49.3
Burundi	49
Maldives	49
Togo	48.8
Sierra Leone	48.3
Haiti	48.1
Belarus	48
São Tomé and Príncipe	48
Bolivia	47.9
Lesotho	47.9
Comoros	47.5
Angola	47.3
Ecuador	46.9
Argentina	46.7
Ukraine	46.3
Uzbekistan	46
Kiribati	45.9
Chad	45.2
Solomon Islands	45
Timor-Leste	43.7
Republic of Congo	43.5
Iran	43.2
Turkmenistan	42.6
Equatorial Guinea	42.3
Democratic Republic of Congo	39.6
Burma	39.2
Eritrea	36.3
Venezuela	36.1
Zimbabwe	28.6
Cuba	28.5
North Korea	1.5

Italy is the most corrupt developed country

Here the new report on world corruption, the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2012, outlines how corruption is a major threat.
Corruption destroys lives and communities, and undermines countries and institutions.
The Corruption Perceptions Index scores countries on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
While no country has a perfect score, two-thirds of countries score below 50, indicating a serious corruption problem in the world.
Italy ranked 72nd worst than South Africa,Bosnia Ghana and Macedonia, the only developed country aside from Greece to be ranked so bad.
 In Transparency's words: "Corruption amounts to a dirty tax, and the poor and most vulnerable are its primary victims."



Corruption translates into human suffering, with poor families being extorted for bribes to see doctors or to get access to clean drinking water. It leads to failure in the delivery of basic services like education or healthcare. It derails the building of essential infrastructure, as corrupt leaders skim funds.

Heather Brooke: My battle to expose government corruption

Our leaders need to be held accountable, says journalist Heather Brooke. And she should know: Brooke uncovered the British Parliamentary financial expenses that led to a major political scandal in 2009. She urges us to ask our leaders questions through platforms like Freedom of Information requests -- and to finally get some answers.
Worth listening carefully!

Tax collectors steal 100 million euro from the Italian Government

Employees protesting not being paid since 5 months

Another day another colossal fraud in Italy!
Today Mr. Saggese, the boss of Tributi Italia, a tax collection agency has been arrested for pocketing 100 million euro from taxes collected on behalf of over 400 Italian cities.
Mr. Saggese had been arrested twice in 2001 and 2009 nonetheless he become the director of Tributi Italia which was until recently the biggest collection agency in Italy with a revenue of 280 millions in 2008 and thousand of employees who have lost their job.
The agency is currently filing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, while the government has been considering a bailout of the firm.
His former administrator Mr. Cali' had been arrested in 2007 for a 93 million euro fraud against Banca di Roma while many of the auditors were not even qualified.
It did help of course to enrol government auditors and pay lavishly some inspectors to join the company, furthermore city administrators and councillors were granted luxury holidays and gifts to cooperate.
Tributi Italia was paid a commission of 30% of the amount collected and in some cases the commission went up to 75%.
According to investigators the amounts stolen were used in part to pay debts contracted with banks and more than 20 million euro were pocketed by Mr. Saggese.
Of course having control of so much money meant a lot of leverage power for Tributi Italia who was also able to dictate to municipalities to hire friends and relatives.
The 400 cities which took advantage of Tributi Italia services are either broke or in deep trouble and the final price is being paid by the citizens who are losing services and jobs.
The money has vanished and so far has not been traced yet.
Municipalities, regulation authorities, Ministry of Finance, government and regions were either blind, pretending to be blind or useless in controlling the largest tax collection agency in Italy.
This is again not an isolate case, many more scandals like this will rock Italy soon, let us not forget that Tributi Italia started to fail when austerity started to bite and reduced tax figures.
Corruption is surfacing because the economic crisis is stalling its engine.
Be prepared to enjoy soon more colourful tales from Douche Land!

Italian politics reaching new level of corruption

While the International Press is rightly blaming the Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy for a lavish consumption of alcohol in time of austerity.

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his advisers often consume more than 1,000 euros ($1,286) of alcoholic drinks when they fly on the government’s official jet, Interviu magazine reported in its Sept. 24 issue.

For Italians though, to waste 1000 euro on beer is merely a drop in the ocean of waste the Italian government is accostumed to.
Latest case, Italy's Ambassador to London, Giorgio Maria Economides decided to replace a simple Lancia with license plate "ITA 1" with a more artistic Maserati (shown below in front of the Embassy) at the bargain price of $200.000:




Way to go Ambassador in representing a broke country with class and style!

We must admit though that Italian politicians at home are far classier than our Ambassador in London.
Today Mr. Fiorito, the Regional Leader of the PDL (Berlusconi's party) has been arrested in Rome for embezzlement, he ransacked 1.3 million euro from the Region of Lazio for his many private pleasures, he was not alone 70+ more councillors did the same with public money.

Last week the Governor of Lazio, Polverini resigned after it was found that for more than 2 years the entire council of the Region of Lazio was hell-bent on spending public money like if there was no tomorrow.
The estimate is that in 2 years they spent over 30 million euro.
Some of the most interesting expenses are the following:

14000 euro in a wineshop
16000 euro to pay private electricity bills in arrears

thousands more paid for unspecified "collaboration services" to the fiancee of Mr. Fiorito
5000 euro dinners 
Toga Parties paid with public money: photos here
Hookers
Trips for councillors and lovers/hookers to exotic locations
Houses and Villas
Jeeps bought on the occasion of a rare snow storm in Rome

and much much more...

This is not an isolate case many more regions in Italy are facing the same scrutiny and new stories are surfacing on the Italian press each week.

Last week the Region of Piedmont has been searched by investigators after the discovery that all the regional councillors have requested refunds for travels and activities even during the summer stop of the regional Council.
The best part is that regions do not check if true what declared, it was enough for a councillor to say he travelled 5000 miles in one month to obtain refunds amounting to tens of thousands of euros per month.
For those interested in reading the full details here a link to published data

Although, let us not fool ourselves, this is NOT an attempt to clean up the house, this is action pointing to strike political forces and push them to accept another Monti term or at least to be servile when it comes to vote and accept the Prime Minister diktats.

Italy is between a rock and a hard place, Italian politics is rotten, diseased and inept at ruling the country, hell-bent as it is in ransacking public money for their private interests. They have no credibility left but they are still useful to Monti being discreditable and therefore prone to manipulation.
On the other side, an un-elected prime minister is ruling the country with no public consent and following EU diktats not ratified by the people.
Italians are being told that politicians are scum and they are unable to rule therefore an enlightened technician has to take control.

What if next elections will bring to another rotten parliament or a fragmented one unable to form a government?
Are we going to ask again Monti to rule the country because our politicians are unable to do it?
Are we going to suspend again the right of the people to decide of their future?
Would this still be a democracy?

Stereotyping Europe

No Comment Required!



Source: Pew, Greeks and Germans at Polar Opposites, European Unity on the Rocks

Corruption and Human Development

Transparency International released annual data for the Corruption Perceptions Index. The Economist plotted it against the UN's Human Development Index:

Comparing the corruption index with the UN's Human Development Index (a measure combining health, wealth and education), demonstrates an interesting connection. When the corruption index is between approximately 2.0 and 4.0 there appears to be little relationship with the human development index, but as it rises beyond 4.0 a stronger connection can be seen. Outliers include small but well-run poorer countries such as Bhutan and Cape Verde, while Greece and Italy stand out among the richer countries.