What are Britain, France and Italy to do about Germany?

Under the guise of a review of two books on Germany, the Charlemagne column in tomorrow's Economist Magazine raises the reality of German power in today's EU. Read here.

On the week of the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, this seems most appropriate. Norman Tebbit, one of her closest ministerial colleagues, finely tuned in to her beliefs, in his comment last weekend for the Mail, blamed those in her Party who had her removed as working for Brussels, many suspect that is in fact merely code for German influence and objectives.

The 26 other countries of the EU will eventually have to decide their own attitudes to German control of their former nations, many European citizens whose forebears fought and emigrated to avoid such a fate, are likely to be unhappy at that prospect.

The leaders of the larger non-German EU ex-nations have a formidable problem to face, Italy actually physically lacks a leader as well as the character attributes one associates with such a position, as seems to be the case for both Britain and France. Nevertheless something has to be faced, we cannot go on much longer with children being allowed to starve in Greece, as was reported in the New York Times yesterday!

German asset stripping of the PIIGS continues apace - Audi/Ducati

A full report may be read in Business Week, although a price was apparently strangely absent from the official release! A quote:

VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech, who turned 75 yesterday, has long coveted the brand. He publicly expressed interest in buying Ducati in April 2008 before eventually losing out to Investindustrial. The purchase will make Ducati the 11th brand in VW’s portfolio, alongside super-car marques Lamborghini and Bugatti and heavy-duty truck manufacturers Scania AB (SCVB) and MAN SE. (MAN)

Spain & Italy - A Scary Chart

Here is one from Acting Man, link!

Italians blame Spain for 41% jump in their 3 year borrowing costs over one month!

The EU continued with its long track record of spreading distrust and despair across its member states today, as may be noted from this quote from FXStreet.Com:

The Italian Treasury held a bond auction today during which it sold 2.89 billion euros of three-year bonds, somewhat less than the 3 billion on offer. The bonds maturing in March 2015 were sold at a yield of 3.89% (in comparison with 2.76% the country had to pay at the previous auction in March). One-year debt costs had also gone up at an auction held the day before.

Italian officials blamed Spain for this outcome, claiming that it was a contagion effect from the country's debt crisis.

A sudden rise in short term interest rates is one thing, but a 41%jump in costs for 3 year loans must surely be simply horrendous and previously unknown beyond banana republics and third world countries with undeveloped economies. Surely this is not what the EU replaced the elected government of Italy to achieve? How long for Monti now one must wonder?

Spain and Italy, the awful nightmare disguised by Draghi's LTRO's

No added comment is needed here from this blogger, just a quote of two consecutive paragraphs from the Acting Man blog of today linked here:

We would point out here: although the market is currently cutting Spain some slack in the wake of the ECB's LTRO's, Spain's debt situation is not any better from what it was in November of last year when the market panic was at its height. On the contrary, the situation is clearly worse now, as the government had to admit that last year's deficit was higher than advertised and that this year's will again be higher than originally planned. In short, if the market was in panic in November, it would actually have even more reason to be in panic today. This underscores that the main determinant of short term financial market action are perceptions and sentiment. Facts like those cited above work to alter these perceptions over time. Just wait for the LTRO effect to dissipate, and we will likely be back at square one.

Italian Shenanigans

Last week it was revealed that Italy had to pay Morgan Stanley some $3.4 billion in January that it owed on account of a derivatives trade that has blown up (more precisely, an interest rate swap that went exactly the wrong way – for Italy, that is). It seems that this is only the tip of the iceberg however: Italy is in the hole by $31 billion on its various outstanding derivatives bets.

Charles Dumas on the hopelessness of the Greek and Italian mess.

Link to a short Bloomberg video clip is here.

While they dine in Davos several EU countries fall apart!

Italy is variously described in its press today as paralysed, split in two and subject to a pitchfork revolution. Ten days of petrol station stoppages will follow the virtual general strike of public transport taking place today.

Greece of course is in a similar situation. Portugal is following and Ireland whose future generations have been placed in massive debt for decades ahead is suffering a large exodus of skilled workers.

This is the real EU, by which tranquil, prosperous and democratic Switzerland is surrounded, in which lies Davos, all very happily well outside the EU.

The picture of the EU appointed Ruler of Italy below is in La Repubblica, linked here and the striking image is from ansa.

Monti's threats to Germany of Italian political backlash

There are some interesting comments on the thread to this report of Monti's typical EU Commissioner, spoilt brat outburst, linked here. See the utter hopelessness of the Italian situation on debt in the posting on this blog of last evening, beneath this.

Who will be allowed to lend to Italy?

Acting Man blog points out the following:

 As one analyst interviewed by Reuters perceptively remarked, Italy remains the elephant in the room. It is now rated BBB+, but it remains on 'negative watch' at Fitch and Moody's, which makes further downgrades likely. The big problem is of course that Italy's debt represents the third biggest sovereign bond issuance extant in the world and that it needs to refinance a hefty chunk of this debt this year. Fewer and fewer institutions can effectively hold on to Italy's debt as it receives further downgrades, as all have to follow their internal rules on what grades of debt they can hold in what quantities. So this is likely going to become a major focus.

Meantime in Rome the appointed President of the EU Council Herman Van Rompuy had this to say to the appointed apparatchik Signor Monti, presently running Italy:

 ...today marks your first 60 days in office and what you and Italy have already accomplished is impressive. I'm sure you will be able to present your "first 100 days" achievements with even more extraordinary results. The Italian agenda is the European agenda. There is no distinction or tension between what is pursued here in Rome and what we are pursuing in Brussels. Italy - a founding member of the Union - is acting in the right direction and making once more its contribution for a better and more prosperous Europe....

Which comment will history prove the most perceptive?

Italy's purchased politicians pass placeman Monti's EU package

EU appointed Italian Premier Monti, ex-EU Commissioner, easily won the confidence vote of the EU purchased parliamentarians in the Italian lower parliamentary house, anxious no doubt, to ensure they would not quickly fall victim themselves, to the kind of penury they were so keen to pass into law at the behest of the EU appointed Monti and his cabinet of so-called technocrats.

Yesterday I posted an image from nine years ago of an exchange about the threat to democracy from the EU with quotes from Sir Winston Churchill. Co-incidentally, nine years ago today, ie 16th December 2002, I had posted about the dangers of the EU controlling police and armed forces, and suggested a scenario that could in the future be played out on the streets of a Northern Italian idustrial city. I will post the entire image at the foot of this posting, but quote here that particular paragraph as it is so strangely apt today:

"Can he not foresee a situation where unrest caused by a severe economic crisis, bringing protesters on to the streets of say some North Italian industrial city, gets so out of hand, that the local police and carabinieri and maybe even the the Italian army (possibly because of feelings of sympathy with the protesters) are unable  to restore order, that it might not be contrived that the then Italian prime minister might feel compelled to call for help from the ERRF ie Frans wonderful EU police force. Especially as the policies causing the unrest would have been drawn up and enacted by Brussels, possibly even, without Italian consent...."

(Emphasis added to the last sentence by Ironies Too blog editor 16/12/11)

Who would or could have guessed, only nine years ago that Italy and Greece would today have EU appointed prime ministers, both former high-ranking eurocrats, with their countries' economies almost entirely destroyed by their own EU policies? Here is my full postinng from the Financial Times Forum of only nine years ago today!

The picture I drew for Italy at some distant future point, now looks positively benign compared to the stark reality. Never forget that all this accords with the longstanding EU project masterplan - consolidation of centralised power through crises!

EU Commission V.P. Olli Rehn makes it clear that he runs Italy

The press statement on the dreadful package of tax hikes and spending cuts which this blog has dubbed as technocratic terrorism and dubbed MontiMental, is linked here.

It makes dreadful reading for democrats left anywhere within the daily more evil EU

Japan's largest investment bank cuts Italian holdings by 83% over 2 months

While stock markets surge in anticipation of false hopes for real EU action, Reuters releases this startling news!

Belgium, Dexia and beyond...

Please read the posting linked here for further all the gruesome details. Note also that Italy is also now trying to convince its citizens to buy its bonds! Wow and waiving commission! (1403 GMT Update WSJ on Belgium bond sale today read here).

Scene at the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville in Brussels in September 1830, on occasion of the Belgian revolution (painting by Gustave Wappers). It was all for nothing, you're going to be submerged in the EUSSR now.

(Image via Wikimedia Commons)

European Leaders ineptitude soars to new highs!

Any strategist in the midst of a crisis of the scale of that now experienced by the Euro Currency, would surely have leapt at the opportunity offered by the Thanksgiving Holidays US financial markets break, to seize the initiative with some bold new measures to stun the speculators and naysayers once and for all!

Instead they meet in Strasbourg, do and say absolutely nothing and the next day, allow an Itian bond auction this morning to climb to new record levels, read here.

Is this all part of a cunning plan, more here very soon!

Constitutional/Reform/Lisbon Treaty VP conspirator rumoured as Italian Foreign Minister

The EU termites are already coming out of the rotted woodwork of the Italian former democracy this evening, with Giuliano Amato reported to be the likely new Foreign Minister, an individual deeply steeped in all that is unworthy in the EU. A quote on his untrustworthiness from his Wikipedia entry is quoted here:

At the end of his period as Prime Minister, Amato gave a speech to the Parliament in which he solemnly promised that at end of his term he would retire from politics, stressing that his was a true commitment and that he would not break this promise as some politicians (whom he characterized as "mandarins") used to do. However, this promise was short-lived; Amato has regularly come under criticism for having made such a solemn commitment and failìng to keep it.

One thing Amato has in his favour, he once had the decency to admit the whole Lisbon Treaty process was a complete confidence trick, as I recorded in 2007 on this blog, linked here. It contained an audio video link here.

Italy placed under EU Totalitarian control - run by Monti

The statement just made by Monti seems to allow no room for democracy nor for any political involvement. More from this blog as it comes available.

IMF's lightweight Lagarde, flounders on Italy's debt dilemma

No shame over arbitrary governments removal from the IMF chief here, why should Japan, or indeed other democratic nations now agree to extend their voters' funds to such a shameless organisation?

Berlusconi resignation repercussions.

Italian politics seem about to play some strange tricks on the EU. Prime Minister Berlusconi won the vote on the 2010 budget by 308 votes to zero as his opponents abstained. Following a meeting with the President of Italy, it appears Berlusconi will resign when the latest EU/ECB/IMF austerity package is approved around the end of this month, a General Election could then follow in January.

It should be recalled at this point that Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League, and Berlusconi's coalition partner, earlier caused problems as he would not sign off on a pension extension to 67, presumably as such would potentially prove electoral suicide for him in his northern parliamentary strongholds!

Will not the same be true to a greater or lesse extent for all the political parties with a General Election looming. Only Berlusconi would seem able to stand in such a national plebiscite and claim that his party resisted captulation to the giggling non-entities Merkel and Sarkozy, who had humiliated Italy with their ill-judged sniggering.

Interesting weeks seem to lie ahead, in Italy while in Greece the coronation of a new Prime Minister, reported to most probably be Lucas Papademos an EU placeman with Central Banking and an ECB background could open the prospects of even more difficult events as the realities of the cancelled referendum are daily brought home through ever growing national misery!

EU Placemen to run Greece and Italy

The plans have been ready for years, (democracy is in ruins and wealth detroyed,) now it all begins to fall into place, surely even the disinterested can now believe it!

Read more from Mary Ellen Synon's blog in the Daily Mail, linked here.

Berlusconi turns down IMF Loan

The FT carries the report, while most eyes are upon Athens, linked here. Note the following passage that ties in nicely with the Troika mentioned in British PM Cameron's paper to the G20 on Global Governance, presented earlier today, as follows:

The addition of IMF monitors, who will publish quarterly reports on Italy’s progress, makes the mission almost identical to so-called “troika” teams of Commission and IMF evaluators who conduct reviews of the eurozone’s three bail-out countries.