Berlusconi Resignation Rumor - Private Bank Accounts Will Be Raided By New Italian Government

As you will read in the excerpt below, it wouldn't be the first time in recent memory that private bank accounts were raided by a replacement Socialist government in Italy.

--

Potential capital flight out of Italy

Excerpt:

The consensus seems to be that a “technical government” can step in, implement the reforms required by the European Union and reverse the growing credit crunch affecting Italian bonds.  This is, in my humble opinion, complete and utter nonsense.

After 10 years out of office, the opposition bloc will do its darn best to regain power through snap elections. And if the center-left were to win, their agenda would consist of the only thing they have known since 1945: increasing taxes on the rich and redistributing the money for their own benefit. There is nothing further from the mind-set of Berlusconi’s opponents than the concept of fiscal restraint.

But even assuming a “technical government” is installed for a few months, it could cause even more damage than a center-left regime.  Just ask any Italian who had a bank account — any bank account — on July 11, 1992, and who woke up to find that 0.6% of its balance had been seized overnight by executive order. The stunt came courtesy of then-Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, a leader of the Socialist party under whom many of the current slate of left-of-center politicians were trained and indoctrinated.

And before anybody begins to doubt that such a fiscal maneuver won’t happen again, only Italians who believe in unicorns are dismissing the talk that this time the levy will amount to 2% of account balances above €100,000.

I know many readers will view the above as a piece of conservative ranting, and I will proudly confess to that. But there is a very real financial horror story embedded in the policies proposed by the current opposition bloc. Just as it happened in the early to mid-’70s, tax increases, drive-by account raids and most of all the feelings of vengeance accumulated by the left over their time spent in political irrelevance, are likely to scare capital en masse out of Italian financial institutions just at a time when these banks are least capable of withstanding a run on their deposits.

Continue reading...

Comments

[ETM]

I don't disagree that randomly raiding bank accounts without the support of at least some legislation (which is debated and rationalized), or a general vote, is pretty lousy for a democracy.

But for countries like Greece and Italy, where your typical doctor, mechanic, or dentist drive a nice Mercedes but still charge you double if you want a receipt, some of those bank accounts are fully deserving of that raid. These countries are actually a good picture of what happens when you foment widespread hatred/distrust for the state - the social contract is broken, and huge numbers of people who should are not paying into the system. Instead of fixing it (a huge cultural problem), you just borrow, borrow, borrow... better to admit that you're a third-world country with no social services because of widespread tax evasion, but we'll see pigs fly before that kind of honesty happens.

[Tom Jefferson]

Sounds like a new National Socialist Party is emerging in several nations including the USA in the form of Democrats/Environmentalists and now actively in the news every day in the "Occupy" movement...Funded by the likes of
George Soros on behalf of Obama and his Democratic supporters in congress..

[ETM]

"Tom" -- Maybe you should go post on CNN where idiots might take your random comments seriously. I don't think the DB readers are interested in partisan bickering or conspiracy theories involving "commies". Give it a rest.

[G Street]

I don't know if Mario Monti is leftist or socialist or anything other than globalist. EU Commission 10 years, "staunch defender of the Euro", president and founder of a think tank called Bruegel, which proudly lists on his biography his relationship with Goldman Sachs as an international advisor. Between the fine job he did regulating European banking and his business relations, I'd say he sounds more like the problem than the solution.

[John]

Update:


Berlusconi Bribery Trial Thrown out of Court

http://en.rian.ru/world/20120225/171529495.html

[snip]

An Italian court ended a corruption trial against Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday, RULING THAT THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS HAD RUN OUT on the case in which the former Italian prime minister was accused of paying a $600,000 bribe to a British lawyer...[emphasis mine]

...The 75-year-old ex-premier has been involved in a string of legal cases since he entered politics in the mid-1990s. In some cases he has been acquitted, while others have expired under the statute of limitations.



Folks, this is the same shit happening here with the banks. They are INTENTIONALLY dragging their asses to let them off the hook.

[John]

This goes with the photo in above story...

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/europe/229587-report-former-italian-leader-had-female-entertainer-dress-up-like-obama