Italy could blow up Europe as we know it

[MMC]

The EU is just political slavery sold as "unity" among Europeans.

Every ruling class in history has sought further political consolidation as a means of accruing more power and wealth to themselves.

And after some time, these increasingly consolidated political systems become intolerably corrupt, inefficient, and anti-democratic, which results in popular resistance via secession movements.

It's a cycle that has been playing itself out for as long as "civilization" has existed.

Cmon now.....shouldn't you be blaming Italy for everything going back to the Roman Empire? The Vatican, the Church, for spreading all that Christianity around?

What....can't dump on the US for what Italy is doing?

[Tahuyaman]

I am fine with economic globalism; I am not fine with cultural globalization.

Are you ok with a universal world currency?

[Peter1469]

Are you ok with a universal world currency?

Nope. It couldn't possibly work with the economic disparities between nations.

I do like that the USD is the global reserve currency.

[Tahuyaman]

Nope. It couldn't possibly work with the economic disparities between nations.

I do like that the USD is the global reserve currency.

So when you say that you support economic globalism, you are not advocating a one world currency?

[Peter1469]

So when you say that you support economic globalism, you are not advocating a one world currency?

No.

Trade.

[Peter1469]

Italy’s thwarted populists may have their revenge on Europe

Despite being blocked from forming a government, Italy's populist parties are gaining steam for the next elections.

Also, Italy's markets dropped causing European and US markets to follow suit.

That election, expected in the autumn or early next year, is shaping up to be a battle over Italy's future in Europe. The populists immediately directed their ire at Mattarella and the European elites supposedly undermining Italy's popular will.

Luigi Di Maio, leader of the Five Star Movement, the party that won the most votes in the March election, deemed the president's actions “unacceptable” and called for his impeachment (a process that, like so much else in Italian politics, would be long and complicated).


“They've replaced a government with a majority with one that won't obtain one,” Di Maio told supporters at a rally near Rome.


“The upcoming elections will not be political, but instead a real and true referendum ... between who wants Italy to be a free country and who wants it to be servile and enslaved,” said League leader Matteo Salvini on Monday, raging against the European establishment. “Today Italy is not free; it is occupied financially by Germans, French and eurocrats.”


The populists' critics accused them of fiddling while Italy teeters toward a new economic crisis, the value of its bonds slumping over fears of what could come next.


“They were supposed to govern, but they’re fleeing their responsibility: either they aren’t capable, or they’re afraid,” wrote former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi in a Facebook post about the populists. “In recent weeks they’ve burnt billions of savings of the Italians, with scatterbrained statements on the euro, on our debt, on the future. And today, instead of jump-starting the government as they could easily have done, they attack the President of the Republic, calling for his impeachment.”

[Peter1469]

Well the two progressive parties are going to be allowed to form a government after all. They are anti-immigrant, skeptical of or anti-EU, and pro-Italy.

Italy appeared Thursday to step back from the brink of a continent-rattling political crisis , with officials agreeing to a deal that averts the threat of fresh elections and puts two populist parties in charge of the euro zone’s third-largest economy.

The agreement was the latest twist in a topsy-turvy week for Italian politics, one that on Tuesday had sent global markets tumbling amid jitters that the country was careening toward a new vote and a possible euro exit. Investors feared an even greater populist surge if a fresh election were held.


But negotiations Wednesday and Thursday yielded an unexpected breakthrough, culminating in a presidential announcement late Thursday night that the country’s new government will be sworn in Friday.


The anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right League will govern together, forming the first purely populist coalition to lead a core Western European country since the creation of the European Union. And they will get their preferred prime minister, the little-known law professor Giuseppe Conte.


“We will work resolutely to improve the quality of life of all Italians,” Conte announced Thursday night after the president, Sergio Mattarella, formally asked him to lead a new government.

[Mister D]

Good news. I didn't realize Italy was the third largest economy in the E.U.

[Peter1469]

Good news. I didn't realize Italy was the third largest economy in the E.U.

I think the article is wrong about that. Italy is currently 4th. Once Brexit is complete they will be 3rd. But 3rd or 4th is pretty impressive.