We all know about the mafia, or at least we all know it's there and doesn't go away nor feel in the least ashamed of itself; it's just a pre-democratic form of political organisation, a primitive governance system. There's a lot of it about here, defined as criminal by the modern nation state.
And then there's the Left who champion the state and believe themselves to occupy the high, ethical and moral ground of modern post democratic managed governance, with a wholly uncriminalised status. As Bersani assured us, "per l'amor di dio", not them, not corrupt, they are good people.
So what's going on at the Monte dei Paschi, and what has been going on for decades is nothing to do with Bersani and his Partito Democratico. He has told us all so, and we are all supposed to agree because it is the Right and the mafia that is corruptly and deeply intertwined and has no claim to be the managers of modern post-democratic governance.
Except that the Monte dei Paschi is run by a Foundation whose membership is appointed by the Council and the Provincial government of Siena. Both the city council and the provincial government of Siena have been a fiefdom of the communist Left, and its current incarnation as the Bersani faction of the Democratic Party, for half a century. Half a century (which isn't long by Monti dei Paschi standards but it is by ours) under their total control.
There is between three quarters of a billion and over 3 billion euros sloshing about between the Bank and its beneficiaries which has had to be covered by guarantees from the Treasury; that's us, our taxes, our living standards so compromised by a tax burden of over 45%. And they want us to vote for them?
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HG, for the benefit of readers outside Italy, you are of course referring to the revelation my the new management of BMPS that in addition to the derivative trade which nearly capsized the bank last year, the previous boss class have done several other bad deals, and the bill now runs into billions.
Perhaps what I have seen described as the oldest bank in the world is finished.
Now, DeutschBank are in there somewhere. Also, the head of the Bank of Italy at the time was one Mario Draghi.
Your points about the political influence on the management are well taken. However, I would not blame the markets for deciding that probably most Italian banks have time bombs to hide.
Are you in the Garfagnana Jeff? everything alright? The news said 4.5 Richter.
As for the Monte, they seems to be part of a wider pattern of the fusion between banks and political movements. The warping of the political culture of central Italy for not just decades but generations by the control of the communist and descendent left over the bank and treating it as social capital at their disposal, is repeated of course in the north of England, particularly after the de-mutualisation of the building societies there.
I suppose it's a political viewpoint that could be argued but there can be no argument for the distribution of money they didn't have, either in the north of England or central Italy.
Val d'Era, Cara, a little west of Volterra, which I can see from here.
I can also see the Garfagna mountains to the NNE, beyond the Lucca hills, but we are not part of that little Scotland.
Our local phenomenon is not, usually, earthquakes but a mofeta, a volcanic vent which periodically treats us to appallingly smelly and potentially fatal gases. The spot is fertile and sheltered, so sometimes the mofeta kills whole flocks of animals and birds which spend the night there.
Usually, 4.5 Richter is not too bad: a fair rumble and things fall off shelves. I was in worse, once, in another place and only fell over. It may be that this tremor has released some tension in the earth which might have caused more damage later.
When corporates sleep with politicians, the system is impregnated to give birth to fascism. Perhaps as in Spain - and Britain and the USA - when bankers mate with politicians the tendency is for spontaneous abortion.
Still messy and distressing.
I meant to ask next time I wrote: is you fire-damaged area beginning to green over?
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