Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
The next nation on the bankster chopping block is now Italy; with the joke of a Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pretending to care about the massive spending cuts and tax increases imposed on his country thanks to the European Central Bank.
The corrupt European Central Bank pulled the strings of Berlusconi, demanding that he serve up the futures of all Italians on a silver platter to the cannibalistic banking cartels behind this financial crash. Per usual, Berlusconi licked the boots of his overlords and gladly implemented the austerity measures they demanded.
As if Berlusconi had any remaining credibility or if there was a single person who still thought he wasn’t a lying servant of the banking elite, he effectively shattered these delusions by saying the tax increases made his “heart drip blood”.
Yeah right, just like he had lied bald faced for years saying nonsense like that he would “never [put] his hand in the pockets of Italians,” all while he manipulates public opinion through his media empire in order to stay in power.
In exchange for the European Central Bank buying up Italian bonds in order to stabilize their high borrowing rates, Berlusconi agreed to cut 20 billion Euros in 2012 and another 25.5 billion Euros in 2013.
They will do this through imposing a “special levy” on those earning over 90,000 Euros, cuts in government services, raised taxes on returns from financial investments and the firing of a number of local politicians.
Obviously this will have the direct impact of removing what little representation the average Italian has in Italy even further, as if the European Union Committee dictatorship wasn’t exerting enough control over EU nations before.
The largest labor unions in Italy had made a pledge to oppose measures which would impact ordinary Italian citizens and the elderly, but clearly that had no impact whatsoever. When the people who are really in power demand something from a country, the leadership falls into line, or else.
Like America, the Italian economy is in a state of stagnation and consumer confidence is remarkably low. An economist at IHS Global Insight, Raj Badiani, told Reuters that the “tax hikes certainly won’t help the economy,” just like the increased burden would crush American taxpayers as well.
With the manufactured global economic crisis getting worse by the day, the people of every nation are in danger of being even further enslaved by debt and the international banking cartels that issue the debt to their so-called leadership.
Unfortunately, we are seeing this danger become reality across Europe and it is very likely it will be implemented full-scale in the United States thanks to the illegal and highly dangerous Super Congress that was pushed into existence by the joke of a debt ceiling deal.
Berlusconi, like American legislators in Washington, continues to pretend to care about the people he supposedly serves. After they approved the crippling austerity measures Berlusconi told reporters, “We are personally very pained to have to adopt these measures.”
After the measures were put into place, Barclays Capital firm cut their economic forecast for growth of the Italian economy in 2012 to a measly 0.7%, considerably opposed to the unrealistic Italian government forecast of 1.3%.
While the cuts were declared by an emergency decree, parliament must now approve the program as well.
If Italy is like almost every other Western economy on earth, they will happily kowtow to the banking cartels, just as our “representatives” in Washington did here in the United States with the passage of the debt ceiling deal.
The Italian government is claiming that there was no alternative to the austerity measures if markets were to be reassured, as if the average Italian was somehow responsible for the turbulent stock market and thus had to bear the brunt of an economic crisis they had no hand in.
Regional governmental leaders in Italy have called the cuts unjust, rightly so as just like the average Italian, they will be bearing the brunt of these austerity measures.
The head of the Union of Italian Provinces revealed the truth behind the whitewashed language of the Italian austerity measures by saying, “When you talk about municipalities, you’re talking about social services, when you talk about provinces, you’re talking about schools, security at school, local roads.”
These austerity cuts, like all of the measures implemented due to the banker engineered debt crisis, are aimed at destroying the middle class and fomenting social discontent. These cuts will further consolidate wealth into the hands of the absurdly rich while driving the wedge between the rich and the poor even deeper.
To make matters worse for average Italians seeking to bring themselves out of the mire of economic struggle by taking part in the financial system that makes a select few filthy rich, the tax rate on financial income was raised from 12.5% to 20%.
In order to make it seem like the rich are sharing the burden as well, these austerity measures increase tax on incomes above 90,000 Euros by a negligible 5% and 10% on those earning above 150,000 Euros.
If they wanted to actually share the burden they might impose a massive tax on those earning huge incomes who would be effectively unaffected by any tax increases due to their staggering wealth.
However, these individuals continue to skate by and put the majority of the burden on the local scale and the average citizen.
To make this even clearer, the austerity measures will raise the retirement age for women working in the private sector while not presenting any real solutions to the lack of growth and stagnating economic climate.
They will also change all non-religious holidays to be celebrated on Sundays so people cannot get those few vacation days.
This move is just another step in the continued domination of the banking elite and represents what could be a grim future for America unless we refuse to sign on to their manufactured debt and bend over for their brutal austerity measures.
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