That path only leads to depression, my friend. If sexism and/or racism is the criteria, Berlusconi was in and out of office for 17 years. Victor Orban is in office right now. Marine Le Pen is a very real possibility next year. That's a lot of Trumpets if I may borrow Mark Blythe's term for it...

It's also a lot of people willing to overlook seemingly disqualifying characteristics. Which cuts to what truly fills me with sadness: just how pathetic of an alternative must the Left, of which I am a part, be providing these days if people prefer the right-wing alternative, no matter how ugly its face might be...

There was an interesting comment on NC's list of links yesterday, comparing Trump to Berlusconi.

This part, for instance, is quite poignant:

The exquisite thing about the modern reality show campaign/administration is that you get to keep your vices and actually leverage them. No need to hide your underage prostitutes (or worse not have any) when you can make them part of the Grand Show. This weeks episode is “Virility. Got caught buying a parliamentarian with 1 mil euros in a paper bag? This weeks episode is “Cunning”.

- In Merkel's defence, she's never been elected for her track record of empathy.

- Your gulag is the envy of the "civilized" world. Out of sight, out of mind. Quite frankly, between letting people rot on godforsaken islands and marauding bands of Nazis setting their shelters on fire, I think our two nations got the entire spectrum of despicable behaviour covered.

- 14k on airfares per person, almost 5k for ground transport -- just what did they travel in? Then again, that picture looks like she's desperatly trying to fit in with the blue blooded elites.

- I don't get Abbott. Steven Harper neither, for that matter. How can a reasonable people float this kind of person to the top? There are plenty of loonies around, but always with a solid base of loonies behind them (eg Berlusconi or Cameron). But not Abbott & Harper...

Nothing is good about this situation and there is no reason to think this will end in anything but Greek default.

Greece's government, elected by its citizens ran up a large and unsustainable debt which was masked by easy credit before the GFC and fraudulent accounting.

There were many contributors. Corruption, hugely wasteful state owned enterprises, joining the euro zone before they were ready to lose the ability to devalue their currency and lower interest rates, and flagrant tax evasion.

But as a country they're collectively responsible for not demanding the necessary reforms of their politicians to ensure they were not vulnerable to a credit crisis when the GFC hit and lenders began to look more scrupulously at individual European countries rather than Europe as a whole. Equally, Italy is responsible for voting Berlusconi into power for every year their economy recorded negative growth under his government. Spain is responsible for not providing sufficient oversight to bad bank lending leading a huge indebting bailout package.

Some of Syriza's reforms are reasonable. Tackling corruption and trying to break up oligopolies are worthy ideas, but they are unlikely to be easy and yield any immediate benefit. Raising the minimum wage and planning to hire back state workers as they have already promised will almost guarantee they will cease to receive EU funding/ECB assistance and later IMF funding.

The simple truth from the point of view of Germany and other austerity backing Nordic countries is if they buy their loans (and in effect transfer money to Greece) without austerity stipulations, there will be no pressure or guarantee that structural reforms that allow Greece to function independently will ever be implemented. These lender government and by extension its people have no interest in transferring wealth to Greece if it stalls its reforms.

Yes fire sales of state owned enterprises suck but the likely alternative at this point if the Troika lending is stopped is that all other lending stops and Greece defaults. At that point there would be mass loss of state sector jobs and sky-rocketing unemployment relative to what is now being experienced. It would take years of reform for the Greek government to be lend-worthy again. There is simply no trust for any alternative to austerity on the part of north Europe.

Currently Greece has reported positive growth in the past quarter and excluding debt repayments is running a budget surplus. Realistically, yes they cannot pay back the 180% of GDP. The likely way forward is after several more years of real reform they (+ Spain & Portugal) would get better terms from the EU as politically, leaders in Germany and elsewhere will be able to make the case that their objective has been achieved.

The ECB's QE package is in some ways already part of this. What I guarantee won't happen is electing Syriza to oppose bailout terms helping to secure that. Germany et al will quite rightly see that if they acquiesce to Greece they will encourage other populist parties in Spain, Portugal, Italy and France and stall reforms.

Could Germany and others in theory provide a huge cash infusion to Greece, Spain and Portugal now? Sure. And those parties would be voted out in the next election and the terms reversed. Even with the relative stinginess of current loan terms, the likes of UKIP and the National Front with their anti-EU stance, have gained political standing in the EU parliament and will likely see huge boosts in upcoming domestic elections.

Depends on your definition of revolution, I suppose.

Look at Europe for a minute.

- The Greeks see the rise of Golden Dawn, an openly fascist party.
- Marine Le Pen's FN, an extreme right wing nationalist party, is polling at #1 in France.
- Italy got rid of Berlusconi, which for them is about as close to a revolution as you can get without massive bloodshed.
- The society in the UK has gone so unimaginably lopsided that the Red Cross is handing out food packets for the first time since the end of World War 2.
- Let's not even talk about the Hungarian government and its atrocious track record over the last years.

These are some pretty drastic changes, and rarely for the better.

In reply to this comment by aimpoint:
Wow I just read up some of the stuff on Silvio Berlusconi, how is he not in jail already. What about the drowned teenage gypsies though?
In reply to this comment by Yogi:
>> ^aimpoint:

The background on wikipedia about it shows that a younger upcoming technician "predicted" the earthquakes using the less reliable radon measuring methods then went on TV to warn everyone. The old guard of the system called him an alarmist and put a gag order on him. Seems that this might have had an effect on people after the fact. Also seems like a script for a bad sci-fi movie.
Oh and because its Italy, the mafia is somehow involved.


I so rarely get any news about Italy but everything lately has been terrible. Let's take a look.

Amanda Knox trial: Good job idiots, don't need evidence just put everyone in jail.
Silvio Berlusconi: you brought that shit on yourself.
Ignoring the bodies of drowned teenage girls cause they're gypsies: Wow that takes the mother fucking cake, bunch of sad assholes, Italy should be blown the fuck up.

And now this. Everything I hear about Italy is fucking pathetic, and I'm mad about it. I'll protest my country later, we need to stop Italy now!



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1038747/The-world-shocked-Italian-sunbathers-ignoring-dead-gipsy-girls--But-Italy-showing-chilling-Roma-childr
en.html

copy and paste the link, it won't work otherwise.

Wow I just read up some of the stuff on Silvio Berlusconi, how is he not in jail already. What about the drowned teenage gypsies though?
In reply to this comment by Yogi:
>> ^aimpoint:

The background on wikipedia about it shows that a younger upcoming technician "predicted" the earthquakes using the less reliable radon measuring methods then went on TV to warn everyone. The old guard of the system called him an alarmist and put a gag order on him. Seems that this might have had an effect on people after the fact. Also seems like a script for a bad sci-fi movie.
Oh and because its Italy, the mafia is somehow involved.


I so rarely get any news about Italy but everything lately has been terrible. Let's take a look.

Amanda Knox trial: Good job idiots, don't need evidence just put everyone in jail.
Silvio Berlusconi: you brought that shit on yourself.
Ignoring the bodies of drowned teenage girls cause they're gypsies: Wow that takes the mother fucking cake, bunch of sad assholes, Italy should be blown the fuck up.

And now this. Everything I hear about Italy is fucking pathetic, and I'm mad about it. I'll protest my country later, we need to stop Italy now!

>> ^aimpoint:

The background on wikipedia about it shows that a younger upcoming technician "predicted" the earthquakes using the less reliable radon measuring methods then went on TV to warn everyone. The old guard of the system called him an alarmist and put a gag order on him. Seems that this might have had an effect on people after the fact. Also seems like a script for a bad sci-fi movie.
Oh and because its Italy, the mafia is somehow involved.


I so rarely get any news about Italy but everything lately has been terrible. Let's take a look.

Amanda Knox trial: Good job idiots, don't need evidence just put everyone in jail.
Silvio Berlusconi: you brought that shit on yourself.
Ignoring the bodies of drowned teenage girls cause they're gypsies: Wow that takes the mother fucking cake, bunch of sad assholes, Italy should be blown the fuck up.

And now this. Everything I hear about Italy is fucking pathetic, and I'm mad about it. I'll protest my country later, we need to stop Italy now!

The Economist makes the best frontpages. Example

@Bruti79 not disagreeing there, one of his comments the day before his trial for soliciting sex with a minor was due to begin: "I did a poll among women asking them if they would have sex with Berlusconi; 33 percent answered yes, 67 percent said ‘again?’”

Yeah, but Berlusconi was also a corrupt jackass.

Those aren't even close numbers!!!!

The arc of history is long.... xenophobia hopefully stops working in the foreseeable future.

In reply to this comment by radx:
By the way, first results indicate that Berlusconi lost both Naples (64.7% for de Magistris) and Milan (55.2% for Pisapia).

What a great way to start the new week.

@BoneRemake, @bareboards2

Alright, I tried to be nice. The both of you can go and chill the hell out. For starters, I don't talk for Chic, but I personally read the post wrong interpreting it as "Someone with a good memory can find the post" I figured I'd help out and do that for you, not realizing I had read it wrong.

Second place, finding the dupe itself was ridiculously easy. I didn't even type anything, I clicked one of your damn tags. When you're sifting something, try actually looking for it, All I did was click Berlusconi or whatever it was, and Boom, it was on the bottom of the page. A little reasearch would've made sure this wasn't a dupe in the first place.

Finally, It's a dupe. A freaking dupe. it's supposed to be killed off by the community, otherwise there wouldn't be a siftbot command of it. Want the old one to get more votes? you're a big boy now. Quality and promote are your friends.

It was a freaking accident. Chill out. Go drink some tea or something, you're in the wrong here, not us.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'berlesconi, parking police, did not know being filmed' to 'berlusconi, parking police, did not know being filmed' - edited by calvados

Yeah, this video is indeed very old. And from what I remember, that is not even Berlusconi but some impersonator, just someone who looks like a lot to Berlusconi.