\nCiao amore! Italien zerst\u00f6rt sich selbst – und rei\u00dft Europa mit\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Hello friend! Italy destroys itself – and takes Europe with it<\/p>\n
In its – Morning Briefing<\/a> – on the same day, the chief editor was abusive and racist with respect to Italians and Italy.<\/p>\n It summarised the cover story by claiming that there were two disasters emerging out of Italy (the following paraphrases from my translation of the German):<\/p>\n 1. The new populist government would drive up debt and would soon be facing bankruptcy. This would make it impossible to save within the Eurozone.<\/p>\n 2. That Italy is significantly contributing to the erosion of common values in Europe by daring to criticise the EU and siding with right-wing populists.<\/p>\n Then you read the editorial comment – Schuldenland Italien: Die Schnorrer von Rom<\/a> – and you realise that things are really out of control.<\/p>\n The headline was “Debt nation Italy: The scroungers of Rome”.<\/p>\n The sub-title said asked:<\/p>\n \nWhat do you call a nation that stops first to let its good life be financed by others – and then threatens its financiers when they ask for debt repayment?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The article has a photo from the Marina in Portofino (just down the coast from Genoa) with luxury motor yachts on display, as if that is representative of modern Italy.<\/p>\n The column goes on to elucidate how rich Milanese are taking over the Swiss mountains and driving agriculture out. And how the new Italian government:<\/p>\n \n… promises Italians heaven on earth: less taxes, early retirements and a universal basic income.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We are told that the average Italian household is richer than its German counterpart and could easily pay of the national debt if it gave up their “lax tax ethics”.<\/p>\n The article claims that Italy has been living the good life (dolce far niente) with the finance of others and then is threatening to hit the financiers over the head because they want their debts paid back.<\/p>\n The article doesn’t exactly say who these ‘financiers’ that Italy is living off are.<\/p>\n But apparently, this Italian behaviour is worse than begging, because “at least beggars say thank you when you fill their bag”.<\/p>\n They say that the behaviour is better described as “Aggressives Schnorren trifft die Sache schon eher”, which, more or less means, “aggressive scrounging is closer to the mark”.<\/p>\n But moreso, the Italians are blackmailers according to the article – because they are saying to Germany and other Member States – either you relax the austerity rules or we blow the whole store up.<\/p>\n And if they decided to default on the debt then “Germans would lose all the rescue money they have given to Italy”.<\/p>\n The article also links Italian Mario Draghi (ECB boss) as a co-conspirator in this Italian attack on Germany wealth.<\/p>\n It ends by saying the nations take pride in not scrounging on others. But, apparently, Italians have overcome the shame of scrounging on others.<\/p>\n Amazing really that this sort of stuff can be published in this era.<\/p>\n Remember also that Der Spiegel grew out of the Nazi devastation of Europe as a progressive force (founded in 1947).<\/p>\n It has always claimed a higher moral ground through its granular investigative reporting (Source<\/a>).<\/p>\n It is also considered to be a centre-left publication, sympathetic to the SPD, although the latter is no longer a sign of a centre-left position.<\/p>\n As it stands, this type of commentary renders Der Spiegel a rabble. But because it is highly influential in setting public opinion in Germany, it also demonstrates how far away Germany is from any reform agenda that would make the Eurozone workable.<\/p>\n And on the question of scroungers, a sentiment I have seen expressed regularly in the recent weeks in relation to Italy – you know, Italy is just bleeding the EU dry, stuff – the claimants should consult the data.<\/p>\n According to the EU Expenditure and Revenue data<\/a> – Italy is a net contributor to the EU Budget.<\/p>\n Italy is a net contributor<\/strong> – in 2016, putting in 3,206.8 EUR million (or 0.19 per cent of its GNI) to Brussels than it received.<\/p>\n Here is a graph of the balances for the 2016 EU fiscal accounts as a per cent of the nation’s Gross National Income (positive means the nation is receiving net funds from the EU, negative means it is a net contributor).<\/p>\n Next week – I will also be writing about this topic.<\/p>\n In brief, the new German Finance Minister, Olaf “Wolfgang Sch\u00e4uble” Scholz was given coverage in the last few days by Der Spiegel magazine claiming that he was pushing forward a reform agenda for the Eurozone in the form of a Eurozone-wide unemployment insurance scheme with the aim of “supplementing national systems for unemployment insurance” (Source<\/a>).<\/p>\n A stack of Europhiles have been tweeting their heads off suggesting this was the thawing of German resistance to Emmanuel Macron’s reform agenda and a reflection that the SPD-element in the GroKo is going to change the German position on Europe.<\/p>\n More delusion, of course.<\/p>\n The scheme is just another ‘fiscally-neutral’, “no debts will be communitized” scam.<\/p>\n Nations who would access the ‘insurance’ fund to cover the consequences of “massive job losses and a heavy burden on its social-security system” would “once the recession is over … pay back the funds it borrowed”.<\/p>\n If that is what represents reform and progress for the Europhiles then it is a pitiful state they are in.<\/p>\n I am sure the British will be thankful at some point that they are at least placing the future in their own hands once Brexit is completed.<\/p>\n At some point, when I have done more research I will write about the Venezuelan situation in some detail. I have been amassing data and official documents for the last few years now and it is taking some time to sort through them all, not the least reason being is that my Spanish is poor and so it takes me a long while to read official government documents.<\/p>\n But, this 46:37 minute video from the Empire Files group (published June 7, 2018) is worth watching and conforms with a lot of the information I have been accumulating about Venezuela.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Spiegel_Cover_June_2_2018.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nAnother Eurozone dead end – Scholtz on unemployment insurance<\/h2>\n
Venezuela<\/h2>\n