Italy 2013 official results thread

[Keystone Phil]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/world/europe/beppe-grillo-italys-gadfly-reflects-a-movement.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The requirements of M5S candidates are interesting and pretty strict: no one with criminal record or even a previous alliance with another party is permitted. Read the article to see the standards one must keep if they win an elected office.

[rob in cal]

Intresting that Berlusconis group did so much better in FPTP electoral system. This must be because the left would have a ton of wasted votes in Tuscany, Emilia Romanga area I guess.  Unlikely that a FPTP only system would be approved though.

[rob in cal]

I read somewhere that Bersani said if the left won the election the first law to be voted on would be citizenship reform, so that anyone born in Italy, regardless of the citizenship of the parents would become an Italian citizen, known here in the US as birthright citizenship.
   Anyway, has this been discussed at all after the election, as something Bersani is still insisting on, even in a coalition situation?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Another technocratic government seems like a great idea if they fancy a M5S landslide.

And Grillo, being a cynic POS, is trying to force them into one. M5S turncoats are our only hope, it seems.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Who would be Prime Minister if M5S somehow won? It couldn't be Grillo from outside Parliament, could it? Would any President of the Republic in their right mind appoint him senatore a vita?

[Franknburger]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/world/europe/beppe-grillo-italys-gadfly-reflects-a-movement.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The requirements of M5S candidates are interesting and pretty strict: no one with criminal record or even a previous alliance with another party is permitted. Read the article to see the standards one must keep if they win an elected office.

Oh, that sounds so familiar - Hamburg 1982 revisited. Maximum 2 terms in office, minimum salary, the excess going to social projects, etc. It took the Hamburg Greens (myself included) 5-8 years to realise that you cannot run a city state, not even speaking of a nation, the way you run a student council. Unfortunately, italy will require a much steeper learning curve ..

The Grillinis will probably make a great political generation 10-20 years down the road, provided they don't ruin Italy in the next two years.


Thomas Ebermann, Leader of the Hamburg Greens, early 1980s

[Keystone Phil]

Grillo can't serve because of his criminal record, as far as I remember. Ironic that he's the leader the party's "no criminal record" requirement.

[SPQR]

Amongst their 20 proposals,there are:
minimum income for every Italian citizen (how to finance it? nobody knows)
A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.
Abolition of Equitalia (who's going to collect taxes? Equitalia 2? Or people will just pay spontaneously?)

and a lot more of either populist bs or vague proposals.

Mother of God...

[You kip if you want to...]

A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.

Not that crazy...

[Franknburger]

Amongst their 20 proposals,there are:
minimum income for every Italian citizen (how to finance it? nobody knows)
A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.
Abolition of Equitalia (who's going to collect taxes? Equitalia 2? Or people will just pay spontaneously?)

and a lot more of either populist bs or vague proposals.

Mother of God...

Out of these 20 proposals, which three could be used to keep them busy with until summer (2 to vote seriously on and try out whether a working relation may be established, and number 3 to prove to the public that it is hopeless to continue that way and new elections are the only feasible solution)?

[SPQR]

Amongst their 20 proposals,there are:
minimum income for every Italian citizen (how to finance it? nobody knows)
A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.
Abolition of Equitalia (who's going to collect taxes? Equitalia 2? Or people will just pay spontaneously?)

and a lot more of either populist bs or vague proposals.

Mother of God...

Out of these 20 proposals, which three could be used to keep them busy with until summer (2 to vote seriously on and try out whether a working relation may be established, and number 3 to prove to the public that it is hopeless to continue that way and new elections are the only feasible solution)?

Corruption
Conflict of interest
Electoral law
Abolishing the public funding to political parties (even though I think it would be stupid)

[Franknburger]

A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.

Not that crazy...

Of course crazy. Italy getting out of the Euro would mean full domestic control on the money printing press, which is turned on immediately for all sorts of nice gifts. Inflation, de-valuation every 1-2 years, everybody is happy except for those living on pensions (which are getting eaten up by inflation).

That's exactly the kind of environment you hope for if you intend to bring about fundamental reform, and put an end to corruption and patronage, isn't it?

[palandio]

Exterior devaluation has been applied (relatively) successfully in Italy in the Nineties to get out of the mess created by Craxi&Co.
The recipe that is applied now is interior devaluation and "structural reforms". The success is yet to be seen...

[SPQR]

Exterior devaluation has been applied (relatively) successfully in Italy in the Nineties to get out of the mess created by Craxi&Co.
The recipe that is applied now is interior devaluation and "structural reforms". The success is yet to be seen...

IMO,the answer cannot be an European Union which stays the way it is now. There needs to be more cohesion,accompanied by less focus on strict parameters which reality has proven wrong again and again,and focus more on productive investments.
It's time to accept that price control is not sufficient.

Anyhow,I don't trust my fellow citizens in making choices such as "in/out of the Euro". If they believe populism a la Berlusconi or Grillo,it won't take much to believe populism on "let's go back to the Lira and devaluate year after year,yeah!".

[You kip if you want to...]

A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.

Not that crazy...

Of course crazy. Italy getting out of the Euro would mean full domestic control on the money printing press, which is turned on immediately for all sorts of nice gifts. Inflation, de-valuation every 1-2 years, everybody is happy except for those living on pensions (which are getting eaten up by inflation).

That's exactly the kind of environment you hope for if you intend to bring about fundamental reform, and put an end to corruption and patronage, isn't it?

Well, the Euro's done such great things for Italy over the past few years, hasn't it?

[Antonio the Sixth]

This "abolish public financing of parties" is one of the most counterproductive ideas of reform floated around in recent times. It's a great gift for parties run by billionaires like Berlusconi.

A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.

Not that crazy...

Of course crazy. Italy getting out of the Euro would mean full domestic control on the money printing press, which is turned on immediately for all sorts of nice gifts. Inflation, de-valuation every 1-2 years, everybody is happy except for those living on pensions (which are getting eaten up by inflation).

That's exactly the kind of environment you hope for if you intend to bring about fundamental reform, and put an end to corruption and patronage, isn't it?

Well, the Euro's done such great things for Italy over the past few years, hasn't it?

Italy has done quite well economically from 2002 to 2008.

[SPQR]

A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.

Not that crazy...

Of course crazy. Italy getting out of the Euro would mean full domestic control on the money printing press, which is turned on immediately for all sorts of nice gifts. Inflation, de-valuation every 1-2 years, everybody is happy except for those living on pensions (which are getting eaten up by inflation).

That's exactly the kind of environment you hope for if you intend to bring about fundamental reform, and put an end to corruption and patronage, isn't it?

Well, the Euro's done such great things for Italy over the past few years, hasn't it?

Oh,so if we just get out from it,things will be suddenly better! How did we not realize...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Anyway, maybe we should resume our discussion on the political aftermath of Italy in the general "Italy 2013" thread? We might well have another election later this year, so that would make sense. I'll ask Al to unlock it.

[Keystone Phil]

Anyway, maybe we should resume our discussion on the political aftermath of Italy in the general "Italy 2013" thread? We might well have another election later this year, so that would make sense. I'll ask Al to unlock it.

I thought the same. This isn't even about results anymore.

[You kip if you want to...]

This "abolish public financing of parties" is one of the most counterproductive ideas of reform floated around in recent times. It's a great gift for parties run by billionaires like Berlusconi.

A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.

Not that crazy...

Of course crazy. Italy getting out of the Euro would mean full domestic control on the money printing press, which is turned on immediately for all sorts of nice gifts. Inflation, de-valuation every 1-2 years, everybody is happy except for those living on pensions (which are getting eaten up by inflation).

That's exactly the kind of environment you hope for if you intend to bring about fundamental reform, and put an end to corruption and patronage, isn't it?

Well, the Euro's done such great things for Italy over the past few years, hasn't it?

Italy has done quite well economically from 2002 to 2008.

So let's cherry pick and forget the last five years in favour of the first six.

[Franknburger]

Actually, I did not want to start a Euro debate here. My point was that it is much easier for MSS to bring forward their political reform agenda with Italy inside the Euro-zone, than with Italy running independently.

As to 'productive investments' - I have seen too many of them first becoming 'white elefants', and afterwards massive money-burners: Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, Stuttgart 21, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, etc. Yeah - construction creates jobs. But it is also the most corruption-prone sector asides from defence. And we have just seen in Ireland and Spain that construction bubbles are not sustainable, and hit hard when  they burst.

Invest in education - yes, great idea. But neither Italy's, nor Spain's, nor Greece's problems have to do with a lack of well-educated young people. To the opposite - society does not know what to do with all the talent, thus it remains unemployed.

What is needed is not investment (at least not initially). What is needed is a generational project - for a region, a country, at best for all of Europe, if we jointly can agree on one. Germany (plus Denmark, maybe also plus the UK, Austria, and the Czech Republic) has found its project, namely CO² reduction without relying on nuclear power (one of the intentions of my "Unemployment maps" thread is to demonstrate how that project is gradually reshaping the German labour market and economy).

The Italian 'project' has traditionally been making the world more pleasant to live in (good food, good drinks, fashion, furniture, musical instruments, etc.).  That 'project' has for long had problems to get traction south of, say, Naples (even before there was a European Common Market or the Euro), and it may well be that there is time for a new project. But do you seriously think such a project can (and should) be defined in Brussels?

On the danger of sounding pathetic: A crisis is a chance for new ideas and a new start. In the 1980s, East Frisia had uneployment rates around 25%, so the laid-off ex-shipbullders experimented around on building wind turbines. Today, the region is the heart of Europe's wind turbine industry and as dynamic as hardly any other German region.

Good ideas and entrepreneurial spirit (which Italy should possess enough of) are one thing, the other thing is ensuring that such ideas are not killed by bureaucracy or vested interests. And that is something you can start working on immediately, even if the ideas have not yet become visible. And, of course, you need social and political dialogue over the direction the country shall take. That is not a short, not a simple, not an easy, but the only sustainable way.  

[RogueBeaver]

Apparently Renzi's in Rome today meeting with Monti and Napolitano.

[RogueBeaver]

If I'm reading the headline right, Napolitano saying they can't speed up the process... Italian-speakers anyone?

http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2013/03/05/napolitano-impossibile-convocare-camere-in-anticipo-monti-vede-renzi/520960/

[Keystone Phil]

Grillo says to trust no one, not even a technical government.

This is what you get when you vote for a troll, Italy.

[RogueBeaver]

Renzi will "participate in leadership."

http://www.reggionline.com/notizie/2013/03/05/matteo-renzi-verso-la-direzione-del-pd_29567