Italy vs. The Banksters

By James Corbett

Remember when Bilderberg “helped create the euro in the 1990s”?

And remember when that oxymoronic single-currency-for-many-nations-with-distinct-monetary-policies was launched in 1999?

And remember when Goldman Sachs helped Greece cook its books so it could join the eurozone in 2001?

And remember how that blew up in the EU’s face a decade later with the onset of the Greek Crisis?

And remember how the Greek Crisis triggered the EUpocalypse and brought panic to Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain?

And remember how the EU (read: Germany and France) just started calling them all PIIGS and treating them like unruly children?

Yes, like some demented game of hot potato, the ill-conceived, ill-fated scheme to mash all the economies of Europe together under one currency has left whoever is holding the bag at any given moment facing a full-blown existential crisis. Now it seems that it’s Italy’s turn once again in the hot seat.

Don’t worry. If you’re just catching this story mid-stream, here’s the skinny.

For the last year or two, the blustering blowhards of the financial world have been wringing their hands over Italy and its potential to light the next spark in the never-ending dumpster fire that is the eurozone crisis. There are a number of factors that play into this: There’s Italy’s crippling public debt ($1.7 trillion and counting). There’s Italy’s fragile banking sector (worsened by a “doom loop” of banks buying Italian government treasuries even as the government intends to open the spigots and tank their credit). There’s Rome’s ongoing wrestling match with Brussels over European rules limiting government deficits, with the EU constantly threatening punitive action if the Italian government doesn’t tighten its belt even further.

And then there’s Italy’s “populist” government.

I defy you to go more than two or three sentences in any MSM story about the ongoing Italian crisis that doesn’t refer to Italy’s “populist” government, or its “euroskeptic” government, or its “extremist” government. Whatever one thinks of the various policies that fall under this broad “populist” brush, one thing is for certain: “Populists” are generally more reticent to respond “How high?” when the banksters tell them to jump, which is why populism is so vociferously and unanimously opposed by all mainstream pundits and commentators.

That “populism” is inherently evil is treated as such a self-evident fact that it is never even questioned, much less explained, by these pundits. Thus we have the Old Gray Presstitute warning of the “Rome government’s populist spending plans” and The Grauniad [sic] opining that “the market turmoil in Italy would show voters the dangers of supporting populists.”

But what is this dreaded populist government (a coalition of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement and the far right Lega, headed up by Matteo Salvini) actually going to do about the debt crisis? Why, make it worse, of course!

Yes, it seems the populists are itching to flash a rigid middle digit at the EU by blatantly flaunting the eurozone’s deficit rules. Their preferred path to prosperity is evidently to slash taxes and increase spending. Their plans even include a “citizen’s income” payment that has been likened to the universal basic income idea that is gaining popularity among the precariat.

But here’s the real question: How are these populists going to pay for all this? And here’s the answer: By issuing mini-BOTs!

So what’s a mini-BOT, you ask? Good question!

Read the rest of the article on James Corbett’s Steemit channel HERE.

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