The man who screwed an entire country

[xchrom]

http://www.economist.com/node/18805327

SILVIO BERLUSCONI has a lot to smile about. In his 74 years, he has created a media empire that made him Italy’s richest man. He has dominated politics since 1994 and is now Italy’s longest-serving prime minister since Mussolini. He has survived countless forecasts of his imminent departure. Yet despite his personal successes, he has been a disaster as a national leader—in three ways.

Two of them are well known. The first is the lurid saga of his “Bunga Bunga” sex parties, one of which has led to the unedifying spectacle of a prime minister being put on trial in Milan on charges of paying for sex with a minor. The Rubygate trial has besmirched not just Mr Berlusconi, but also his country.

However shameful the sexual scandal has been, its impact on Mr Berlusconi’s performance as a politician has been limited, so this newspaper has largely ignored it. We have, however, long protested about his second failing: his financial shenanigans. Over the years, he has been tried more than a dozen times for fraud, false accounting or bribery. His defenders claim that he has never been convicted, but this is untrue. Several cases have seen convictions, only for them to be set aside because the convoluted proceedings led to trials being timed out by a statute of limitations—at least twice because Mr Berlusconi himself changed the law. That was why this newspaper argued in April 2001 that he was unfit to lead Italy.

[ixion]

1. I think that isolating these consolidation events over the past few decades to a single individual

is missing the point.


There is a group of people with a very clear agenda. This is an international group of people who don't see the world in arcane terms of 'countries'. They've gone beyond all that. The goal is to create something beyond the over-simplified Pax Americana. It goes beyond one country. The goal, so it seems, is Pax Opulence. That is, a world of, by and for the wealthy.


It's nothing new. Ever since there were wealthy people they've been trying to figure out ways to take over the world. It seems hard-wired into our genetic makeup.

Unless we're able to derail their plans, we will find ourselves in a Neo-Feudal Age before we know it.

[Fuddnik]

4. "we will arrive find ourselves in a Neo-Feudal Age before we know it"

Too late.

[ixion]

6. I think you're probably right

there's a chance, in theory, that this next phase could be avoided, but historically speaking, the odds are against it.

[Fuddnik]

2. But, he never tweeted a pic of his underwear to an adult woman!

[xchrom]

3. only because he didn't think of it. nt

[Fuddnik]

5. Poor old guy probably couldn't afford a camera.

[kenfrequed]

9. Is this thread supposed to be an analogy?

Because I don't really get it.

[Lucky Luciano]

13. Would you bet on that statement? nt

[OwnedByFerrets]

7. I thought this post was gonna be about Monkeyboy bush.nt

[QuintanarooBoy]

8. And I was thinking Cheney

Both seem to be logical assumptions.

[ixion]

10. It is, albeit indirectly

in my opinion.

[jbfam4]

12. You took the words right out of my mouth.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. "Italy comes 80th in the World Bank’s “Doing Business” index, below Belarus and Mongolia"

Wow. That's some achievement by Berlusconi.