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time to short italian bonds I guess.   edit: new page so repost: Junior G-man posted:LMAO, the answer is .... MOAR TECHNOCRACY! double nine fucked around with this message at 11:47 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 11:45
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I'm not an Italian, but I'm more than willing to bet that the Monti government didn't cover itself in popular glory? Maybe Char or another one of our IT posters want to weigh in on that?
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May 28, 2018 11:48
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mobby_6kl posted:Is 600k a lot for a house in Spain or something? In Prague that'll get you a decent older house but not at all a luxury villa or anything. Might as well post it since it's all over the newspapers.  It's not that surprising for a politician to buy it, it's just that this guy has complained a lot about other politicians living in gated communities and losing touch with the people, so of course the right has jumped at the opportunity to call him out on it. That said, he's definitely a populist and kicking him out would be good for Podemos. But they just took a vote and he has nearly 70% support from their base so nothing will come of it.
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May 28, 2018 12:01
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Junior G-man posted:I'm not an Italian, but I'm more than willing to bet that the Monti government didn't cover itself in popular glory? Since then it has split a number of times and, considering that they have obtained 0 seats in the 3 regional elections that took place in 2018, and 0 seats in the only regional election of 2017, I think we can safely assume his party is completely irrelevant now.
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May 28, 2018 12:04
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mobby_6kl posted:Is 600k a lot for a house in Spain or something? In Prague that'll get you a decent older house but not at all a luxury villa or anything. This guy seems to think so https://twitter.com/Pablo_Iglesias_...luxury-villa%2F
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May 28, 2018 12:13
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Char posted:The situation evolved very quickly during the week, we finally had a showdown yesterday. In light of how the situation ended up, it's easier to understand everyone's strategy so far. Great post, thanks. Would it be fair to say that Lega and M5S engineered this conflict with the president in order to force new elections in which they could strengthen their position, and Mattarella's move is playing right into their hands?
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May 28, 2018 12:14
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Cover in popular glory... well, clearly not. His executive has been controversial. There's not a huge stigma on his job, though: the circumstances which allowed him to enter office were really peculiar (Berlusconi was at his worst), so he's got a bit of the image of the man who came to do what others could not do - well, his executive didn't have an electorate to answer to. The only bad thing that is still mentioned about him is the infamuos "Legge Fornero" - a law which, in the context of trying to stop the hermorraging following the 2008 crisis, lowered by a lot our public expendiure by cutting a lot of fat off our public pension system. "Cutting a lot of fat" is kinda improper, because the law didn't really do anything in terms of equity vs acquired rights, and raised the minimum pension age to 67 years, screwing especially those who were close to the previous age threshold. Other than that, the populace doesn't really remember what Monti did. Despite the reasons that brought him to the position he had, he was a very low key politician, in attitude and subtleness, which is why he's not conventional PM material. To answer a meta-question within the question, Monti's executive has been used to fuel the narrative of European technocrats turning our democracy into a totalitarism, but it didn't really stick, compared with stuff like the immigrant crisis or the state of misery we have in certain southern regions. What I mean is, despite Monti's cutting of pubblic expenditure, we ended up voting mostly for PD in the 2013 elections, which held a political platform with many common points with Monti's government - to the point of having a couple of their senior members in our ministries. So, we really aren't that hostile to technocracies. I should also add that we had very little empathy towards Greece during that period. Pluskut Tukker posted:Great post, thanks. Would it be fair to say that Lega and M5S engineered this conflict with the president in order to force new elections in which they could strengthen their position, and Mattarella's move is playing right into their hands? It would not be an absurd hypothesis, and I'd think that Mattarella is aware of this situation. I don't think it's "playing into their hands" as much as "this is what the Constitution allow me to do" - according to sources, he'd been okay with putting Salvini's second in command to Economy. Saying "both", though, undermines the backstabbing nature of Salvini's decision. Looking at polls, M5S has lost a tiny bit of consensus since the elections, while Lega gained a lot: I don't think that such a stop in their momentum helps M5S' cause. Char fucked around with this message at 12:33 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 12:29
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lollontee posted:"Democracy didn't deliver the results we wanted, so I'm going to do everything in my power to delegitimize my position" -teh persident of italy It's so brazenly against the election's outcome that it's a really bad look. I don't know what he's thinking, unless Mattarella is that up his own rear end in thinking that he doesn't have to answer to Italian voters. I'd assume that the current worry for most Italians is that they're going to end up like Greece if they let the EU have their way with them, and putting the old IMF head in charge of the economy exacerbates that fear tremendously.
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May 28, 2018 12:42
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Elman posted:Might as well post it since it's all over the newspapers. Yeah, the trouble was the tweet and the coincidence of the value matching. In a sane world we all would mock the guy for a day or two and then move on.as far as im aware he bought the house like everyone else,through a bank loan based on his and his wifes salary. Criticism seems to be of the "you dont support capitalism but you buy [thing], hypocrit much?  ".Of couse ,in the end,he too should be :guillotined: Also thats a pretty nice house and i couldnt find something like that in lisbon for 600k, lol that houses are less expensive in madrid.
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May 28, 2018 12:59
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lollontee posted:"Democracy didn't deliver the results we wanted, so I'm going to do everything in my power to delegitimize my position" -teh persident of italy Grapplejack posted:It's so brazenly against the election's outcome that it's a really bad look. For the record, Mattarella floated a couple compromise options for the ministry of treasury. One of them was Salvini's second in command. The other was splitting treasury and finance into two ministries and letting Savona go for the latter. In both cases, Lega + M5S would have been perfectly able to pursue their stated financial policies. Of course, the actual reason they wanted Savona at treasury was to force an Italexit or how the portmanteu goes, a clearly minor policy point that needed no explicit statement into either the electoral promises or the government pact. [/sarcasm] And yet I should look at Mattarella like he's the unreasonable one? Kindly gently caress off and shut up about things you know nothing about, thanks. Also for the record, the president telling the prime minister to go pound sand on a particular name is both an explicit constitutional power and something that does routinely happen (IIRC it happened to one of Renzi's names too). And yet the last time a political party screamed "coup d'etat" about this was when Scalfaro told Berlusconi that no, he wasn't putting his corrupt lawyer as head of the ministry of Justice.
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May 28, 2018 13:17
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Maybe not unreasonable, but it looks really bad. You figure he'd know better than to try Cottarelli post-election.
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May 28, 2018 13:24
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What Mattarella was thinking? Simply that you can't sneak in an explicitly anti-euro minister at the treasury, where said minister could easily cause Italy to leave the Euro, without an explicit leave the Euro popular mandate. E: Grapplejack posted:Maybe not unreasonable, but it looks really bad. You figure he'd know better than to try Cottarelli post-election. Cottarelli is an hail mary. I think Mattarella believes he has the duty to get at least one try in before calling for new elections. Our constitution does explicitly say that the president may disband the parliament before the natural terms and indict new elections, but it's generally accepted that he may do so only if there's an impossibility in creating a new government. (Technically speaking the president may disband the parliament just because, but that's probably the fastest way to actual removal) Omobono fucked around with this message at 13:33 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 13:25
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Omobono posted:What Mattarella was thinking? Simply that you can't sneak in an explicitly anti-euro minister at the treasury, where said minister could easily cause Italy to leave the Euro, without an explicit leave the Euro popular mandate. I don't think there's any way possible to "sneak out of the Euro". I'll be the first to say that I don't know the intricacies of Italian governance structures, but I'm imagining that this would at least take a vote in Parliament, a withdrawal procedure and all sorts of things that can't be done behind closed doors or in the face of large popular expressions of dislike? Getting out is such a huge deal and process that there's no way on earth that you can keep it quiet, even if you wanted to. For now, having a minister of finance & treasury who openly says a simple truth like "the Euro has on the whole not been a big success for Italy" doesn't strike me as beyond the pale.
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May 28, 2018 13:35
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I think, friend Omobono, that you are interpreting too much. He's anti-euro and all but he's not alone in the government and as you correctly pointed out he doesn't have a mandate. Isn't it more likely he'd draw up plans for a potential collapse of the euro ( that Germany has too, btw) and leave it at that? In summary: "This guy doesn't like the euro" == "His naming means automatic Italciao*" might be pushing it. That said, you probably know more about Italy than I do. On other news I am more horrified at how Matarella couldn't accept a minister who isn't all enthusiastically in favour of a currency with a faulty architecture, but the interior ministry who just wants to put people on boats and deport them? That's cool. * Italciao is the correct portmanteau and no one is telling me the opposite.
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May 28, 2018 13:39
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Dawncloack posted:* Italciao is the correct portmanteau and no one is telling me the opposite. I approve of this portmanteau.
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May 28, 2018 13:43
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What if instead of quitting the EU, we make them kick us out?
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May 28, 2018 13:51
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Ghost Leviathan posted:What if instead of quitting the EU, we make them kick us out? I think the most the EU can do is take away a country's voting rights in Council. You can only leave voluntarily a la the UK. It's part of the problem we are currently enjoying with Orban. The Euro, as demonstrated so famously by Greece, has no loving exit at all except make life so intolerable for citizens that they vote to get out. And then that doesn't happen. Junior G-man fucked around with this message at 14:28 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 13:57
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Dawncloack posted:I think, friend Omobono, that you are interpreting too much. He's anti-euro and all but he's not alone in the government and as you correctly pointed out he doesn't have a mandate. Maybe you're right and I'm reading into it too much. Still, the compromises floated were more than reasonable (seriously, Salvini's second in command was one) and the veto power is routinely used, so what's the other interpretation? "gently caress the constitution we do what we please"? They could have accepted a minor compromise and gone merrily on their stated way for a new government. quote:On other news I am more horrified at how Matarella couldn't accept a minister who isn't all enthusiastically in favour of a currency with a faulty architecture, but the interior ministry who just wants to put people on boats and deport them? That's cool. He did get voted on that explicit platform though. That's what horrifies me. quote:* Italciao is the correct portmanteau and no one is telling me the opposite. I'd say it is an inspired one.
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May 28, 2018 14:00
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Maybe you're right and I'm reading into it too much. Still, the compromises floated were more than reasonable (seriously, Salvini's second in command was one) and the veto power is routinely used, so what's the other interpretation? "gently caress the constitution we do what we please"? They could have accepted a minor compromise and gone merrily on their stated way for a new government. [/quote] Oh, of course no "gently caress the constitution", I agree with you. But the optics of the president's decision look awful. Omobono posted:He did get voted on that explicit platform though. That's what horrifies me.  tru that.
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May 28, 2018 14:03
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As I said: the reasoning given for declaring Paolo Savona unacceptable for the role were, according to official sources, image related, as the second in command to Salvini (shown here) was completely fine. I don't know Giancarlo Giorgetti, but I don't think he'd be that far off. So: it was an attempt to calm the rest of Europe - Mattarella basically didn't want to give ammo to anyone. I repeat, the -second in command- of Salvini would've been fine: he wasn't yet a branded radical euroskeptic. Such reputation was built by a couple really specific outings - a detailed plan to revert to national currency, with minute explainations of case studies where attempt to prevent capital flight and media blackouts worked did or did not work. Heis reputation is not that of a man willing to push on the nuclear button, he's the man who is building it. Besides, if that man was really the best one for the role, you really think a puppet minister wouldn't have been fine? Is this really the hill Salvini chose to die on? That's why it is, clearly and simple, the murder of a shaky political alliance.
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May 28, 2018 14:05
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Junior G-man posted:I think the most the EU can do is take away a country's voting rights in Council. You can only leave voluntarily a la the UK. It's part of the problem we are currently enjoying with Orban. This seems like something that they may come to regret. I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me and all that
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May 28, 2018 14:11
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Char posted:
If nothing else, Greece has shown that unless you have a doomsday/Euro-exit device that is fully ready and people are convinced you are willing to use, you will not get any concessions from the Eurozone whatsoever.
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May 28, 2018 14:30
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Ghost Leviathan posted:This seems like something that they may come to regret. We built the Lisbon and Maastricht treaties in the heady pre-2008 / End of History times when we were all going to live happily ever after in consumerist nirvana. Also, what's hubris?
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May 28, 2018 14:31
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italy is also in a different position from greece in that it is the 4th largest economy in the block, instead of the runt of the pack like greece was. italy is too big to lose without disrupting a huge chunk of the european economy, which gives it bargaining power. Of course, all this is irrelevant when the italian parties and the EU makes the calculation that they rather have migrants' lives hosed with over economic reform.
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May 28, 2018 14:35
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Junior G-man posted:
A middle eastern delicacy.
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May 28, 2018 14:36
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Sorry for the lazing editing in the previous post, work called.Junior G-man posted:If nothing else, Greece has shown that unless you have a doomsday/Euro-exit device that is fully ready and people are convinced you are willing to use, you will not get any concessions from the Eurozone whatsoever. This was somewhat addressed as well in Mattarella's speech: given Italy has a huge amount of tiny/small investors, he stated that among his priorities lies his intention to protect our bank accounts, and, paraphrasing his words, that waving a half finished euro-exit weapon towards the rest of the union is not going to alter any existing balance of power, the rationally expectable result would be ruining those small investors. double nine posted:italy is also in a different position from greece in that it is the 4th largest economy in the block, instead of the runt of the pack like greece was. I honestly doubt this position. 70% of our public debt is owned by Italian banks, and I'm pretty sure everyone's doing whatever they can to lower their exposure to our debt.
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May 28, 2018 15:01
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Junior G-man posted:If nothing else, Greece has shown that unless you have a doomsday/Euro-exit device that is fully ready and people are convinced you are willing to use, you will not get any concessions from the Eurozone whatsoever. double nine posted:italy is too big to lose without disrupting a huge chunk of the european economy, which gives it bargaining power. Roughly two thirds of the Italian government debt is held within Italy, which means that at the same time that you convince the other member states that you're ready and willing to use your doomsday device, your own voters will also realize that you're about to blow up the banks where they hold their savings, their insurance companies, and also their pension funds. Good luck with bargaining with both of those groups at the same time. There is no legal way to exit the euro without leaving the EU, any euro-exit device would take years to prepare, these preparations would need to be kept a secret too, and exiting even if prepared would likely still imply economic doomsday. Which is why the Greeks never voted to leave the euro despite great provocation.
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May 28, 2018 15:06
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lollontee posted:I'm going to regret this, but there are no leftists fans of syriza. The only people who like them are social democrats lollontee posted:...And before you embarrass yourself, social democrats have been very consciously and openly centrists for a generation now. lollll
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May 28, 2018 17:19
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the True Leftists must be too busy celebrating their successes in Venezuela  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 28, 2018 17:23
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Char posted:While elsewhere in the world barbarians were wearing loincloth, we were assassinating Julius Caesar Actually, barbarians wear pants. 
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May 28, 2018 17:46
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tsa posted:the True Leftists must be too busy celebrating their successes in Venezuela sir, this is the european politics thread
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May 28, 2018 17:51
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double nine posted:italy is also in a different position from greece in that it is the 4th largest economy in the block, instead of the runt of the pack like greece was. I think that’s a similar approach to the one the Brexiters took in their negotiations. Didn’t turn out that well for them.
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May 28, 2018 18:48
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Regarding Pablo Iglesias and “Chaletgate,” IMO it’s not a big deal because Iglesias was pretty upfront about how much it cost, his mortgage (1,600€ a month, not bad between two politician salaries), and the reason why (he’s having a kid soon). The tweets from 2012 look bad but he’s always been a firebrand so what? I said some hosed up poo poo (albeit not on social media) regarding families and such and now, 6 years later, my perspective has changed a lot now since I have a family of my own now. Also, the town he bought the house in (Galapagar) is his family’s village and his family already has a house there but I think he lives somewhere in Madrid. Galapagar is up in the mountains with a much lower cost of living and some good schools so it doesn’t surprise me in the least (https://www.idealista.com/en/venta-viviendas/galapagar-madrid/ for an idea of the real estate prices around that town). Madrid is no place for a kid to grow up in (lots of pollution = high chance of asthma, for example) so I understand the sentiment. What does chafe me is that Iglesias is such a polarizing figure that honestly at this point he should go back to punditry/university teaching. Dude is super smart but has very little tact, and everything that comes out of his mouth gets misconstrued/twisted by the media that is beholden to the powers that be in this country. Just hand the reins over to Errejon already, he’s just adorable! Fun fact: Galapagar is actually a couple towns over from me and Pablo Iglesias spends his summers there so he’s been spotted in my area before. What’s funny is that my brother-in-law looks like him from a distance so it’s always great when we go to a fancier restaurant and people start grumbling about so-called leftists “living outside their means” because all leftists should live like hobos and eat gruel or something. Fake edit: the most interesting thing about all of this imo is that when Albert Rivera (head of Ciudadanos) bought a million euro house in a fancy-rear end neighborhood in Madrid (Pozuelo de Alarcón), acquiring neighbors such as Cristiano Ronaldo and the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party Pedro Sanchez, there was nary a peep from the Spanish media, because conservatives can do whatever the hell they want here. http://www.diariodepozuelo.es/2017113094595/el-lider-de-ciudadanos-albert-rivera-nuevo-vecino-de-pozuelo-de-alarcon real edit: GaussianCopula posted:This guy seems to think so Yeah there’s a bit of difference between buying a house, an actual house TO LIVE IN AND RAISE A FAMILY in a small town on the outskirts of Madrid, and buying, as the minister of economy and taking advantage of a change in VAT rates, a luxury penthouse in an expensive-rear end neighborhood in Madrid as an “investment,”which is what the original tweet is referring to. You strike me as the type of person we have here in Spain who likes to talk poo poo about Iglesias buying a house as “no true leftist” and then in the next breath bemoans the fact that “those lazy shiftless millennials” aren’t buying enough houses. https://www.elplural.com/politica/2018/05/17/chalet-iglesias-diferencias-guindos DXH fucked around with this message at 19:47 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 19:32
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DXH posted:Fake edit: the most interesting thing about all of this imo is that when Albert Rivera (head of Ciudadanos) bought a million euro house in a fancy-rear end neighborhood in Madrid (Pozuelo de Alarcón), acquiring neighbors such as Cristiano Ronaldo and the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party Pedro Sanchez, there was nary a peep from the Spanish media, because conservatives can do whatever the hell they want here. http://www.diariodepozuelo.es/2017113094595/el-lider-de-ciudadanos-albert-rivera-nuevo-vecino-de-pozuelo-de-alarcon Except, you know, Pablo Iglesias. EDIT: Investigating a bit more: Rivera claimed that he was renting the house, but he also claimed that he would never "criticise a politician for buying a house". Spanish politicians  EDIT EDIT: Sorry, missed the Media part. You're right. Still, I think that newspaper latching on Iglesias is fairer, considering that he has always been trying to paint the entire political class as a "caste", separated from the citizens, and then starts behaving in the same way. Fat Samurai fucked around with this message at 19:47 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 19:40
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DXH posted:What does chafe me is that Iglesias is such a polarizing figure that honestly at this point he should go back to punditry/university teaching. Dude is super smart but has very little tact, and everything that comes out of his mouth gets misconstrued/twisted by the media that is beholden to the powers that be in this country. Just hand the reins over to Errejon already, he’s just adorable!
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May 28, 2018 19:43
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DXH posted:Fake edit: the most interesting thing about all of this imo is that when Albert Rivera (head of Ciudadanos) bought a million euro house in a fancy-rear end neighborhood in Madrid (Pozuelo de Alarcón), acquiring neighbors such as Cristiano Ronaldo and the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party Pedro Sanchez, there was nary a peep from the Spanish media, because conservatives can do whatever the hell they want here. http://www.diariodepozuelo.es/2017113094595/el-lider-de-ciudadanos-albert-rivera-nuevo-vecino-de-pozuelo-de-alarcon It is not the act itself but the fact that he attacked other politicians over the same behavior. If I want to prohibit guns I should not be caught running around with an AR15, as it would damage my credibility.
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May 28, 2018 19:47
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GaussianCopula posted:If I want to prohibit guns I should not be caught running around with an AR15, as it would damage my credibility. oh, you don't have to worry about that
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May 28, 2018 19:50
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Wouldn't they just start twisting his words instead? This line of thought basically just means you'll go through every decent politician until you get a modern social democrat in charge. Yeah, sorry, I still operate under the assumption that Spain has a free and open press like in other countries. Believe me, it’s really frustrating sometimes, as a stranger in a strange land. GaussianCopula posted:It is not the act itself but the fact that he attacked other politicians over the same behavior. If I want to prohibit guns I should not be caught running around with an AR15, as it would damage my credibility. My edit to the original post address this I think, but your analogy doesn’t work for me because Iglesias hasn’t made abolishment of private property his platform. Besides, affordable housing is a right explicitly spelled out in the Spanish constitution, while guns are not? Don’t mind that little provision though, and please stand back while we evict you from your home after signing a predatory mortgage or from your council house/public housing because we said so, we gotta sell all these houses to vulture capitalists! DXH fucked around with this message at 20:05 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 19:57
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Pluskut Tukker posted:Roughly two thirds of the Italian government debt is held within Italy, which means that at the same time that you convince the other member states that you're ready and willing to use your doomsday device, your own voters will also realize that you're about to blow up the banks where they hold their savings, their insurance companies, and also their pension funds. Good luck with bargaining with both of those groups at the same time. My intention was not to claim that italy can force the EU into changing the euro single-handedly (nor should it), but that italy is so much more important to the eu economy that it can get some concessions and get away with it, if those in charge are careful in picking their battles. But I also did not pay attention to the effects on private-held bonds, my fuckup. However leaving ivory tower hypotheticals and coming back to current events: https://twitter.com/AlbertoNardelli/status/1001172050072035328 https://twitter.com/AlbertoNardelli/status/1001174335888003072
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May 28, 2018 20:23
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double nine posted:My intention was not to claim that italy can force the EU into changing the euro single-handedly (nor should it), but that italy is so much more important to the eu economy that it can get some concessions and get away with it, if those in charge are careful in picking their battles. But I also did not pay attention to the effects on private-held bonds, my fuckup. Sorry, I didn't want to argue that Italy wouldn't have bargaining power, because they do, but that there are also natural limits to the extent that they can deploy their doomsday machine. Indeed Italy could probably get away with planning to run somewhat higher deficits over the next few years to give the economy some much needed breathing room, and it would probably be a good idea to let it do so (Lega's plans for wholesale tax cuts probably wouldn't be the best way to go about it though, since those would most likely help the rich mainly and have limited stimulative effect on the whole economy). There is nothing about the stability pact rules stopping them from doing so, it's mainly their talk of leaving the euro which is spooking the rest of the EU and financial markets and thereby limiting their room for maneuver.
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May 28, 2018 23:05
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