Berlusconi avgår

Italien har följt Greklands exempel (eller rättare sagt blev omdirigerat utifrån) och kommer att styras av en teknokratisk regering som utsetts av internationella banker.

Finansinternationalen har utsett en föreståndare för regionen Italien. Vem är egentligen den här mannen, Mario Monti, som blev Italiens nye premiärminister?

Några ”highlights” från hans biografi:

Monti är en internationell rådgivare till företag som Goldman Sachs och Coca Cola

Monti är en viktig medlem av Trilaterala kommissionen (skapad av Rockefeller i 1973)

Monti är en av de ledande deltagarna i Bilderberg

Med andra ord, Mario Monti är Rotschilds marionettdocka.

Dessa ovanstående punkter vittnar om en del och gör att alla kommentarer blir överflödiga. Tillsammans med sin nya grekiska kollegan, premiärminister Papademos (en före detta biträdande chef för Europeiska Centralbanken), blir de ett perfekt team för att lösa den ekonomiska ”krisen” i Europa.

En regering ledd av Monti skulle gå mycket längre än sina politiska föregångare. En regering, som saknar någon demokratisk förankring, ska genomföra order från de internationella finansiella marknaderna. Med tanke på landets enorma berg av skulder (1,9 biljoner € eller 120 procent av Italiens BNP) detta är endast möjligt genom att drastiskt skära ner levnadsstandarden för breda sociala skikt, samma situation som för närvarande äger rum i Grekland. Med tanke på att befolkningen kommer att dras allt djupare ner i fattigdom, kommer det bli svårt för Montis regering att få något stöd från folket. Det blir omöjligt för härskande klassen att hitta ”folkligt stöd” eftersom deras politik är riktad till att förstöra försörjningen för breda skikt av befolkningen. Det skulle innebära att staten blir tvungen att öppet vidta diktatoriska åtgärder mot arbetarklassen. Monti väntas vanda Italiens kris (precis vad Papademos väntas göra i Grekland), men på vems bekostnad? De som ska betala skulder som inte finns, de som ska stå för alla kommande nedskärningar och besparingar, de som ska knega för att finansmaffia blir ännu rikare – ÄR FOLKET! Välkomna till den nya världsordningen!

"---Mario Monti inledde i går förhandlingar med Südtiroler Volkspartei, SVP, och med det högerpopulistiska Lega Nord under ledning av Umberto Bossi. Lega Nord är det enda parti som inte stödjer Mario Monti.

I dag möter Mario Monti vänsterpartiet Demokratiska Partiet PD, och Berlusconis parti Popolo della Libertà. Starkast uppbackning kommer från Gianfranco Finis nya högerparti Framtid och Frihet i Italien, FLI, och kristdemokratiska UDC.---"

"---Förutom PDL och Demokratiska partiet har Monti stöd från en del mindre partier. Berlusconis tidigare samarbetsparti Lega Nord stödjer däremot inte en teknokratregering ledd av Mario Monti utan skulle hellre vilja se nyval. Representanter för Lega Nord har också uttryckt att de hellre sitter i opposition än stödjer teknokratregeringen.

Samtidigt lurar Berlusconi i skuggorna. Under söndagen sa han att han var stolt över vad han åstadkommit genom åren och dessutom skickade han ett skriftligt meddelande till det konservativa partiet La Destra, där han antydde att han vill tillbaka till en regeringsposition genom att hälsa att ”jag delar ert driv och jag hoppas att vi får fortsätta tillsammans”.---"

Mario Monti blir såväl premiärminister som finansminister i Italiens nya regering.

Han svärs in klockan 15:00 under onsdagen. Detta enligt Nyhetsbyrån Direkt, som refererar till Bloomberg News.

"---The new Italian prime minister's decision not to include members of the country's current political ruling class in his cabinet of "technocrats" is the key to understanding his tactics in trying to restore credibility to the country in international financial markets.

There had been widespread speculation during Mario Monti's consultations with the former political leadership that he would appoint Gianni Letta, Silvio Berlusconi's right-hand man for many years, as cabinet secretary for reasons of continuity. But in the end Mr Letta and also Giuliano Amato, a former "technocrat" prime minister, were absent from his list of ministers.---"

"---The son of a banker, Mr. Monti studied economics at Italy’s elite Bocconi University and at Yale. He sat on the board of multiple large multinationals, was an EU Commissioner, is a high-profile member of the shadowy Bilderberg Group, and serves as Italian Chairman for the Trilateral Commission — a think tank described by Piergiorgio Odifreddi as an “ultra-liberal American, European and Japanese Masonry inspired by David Rockefeller.”

To top the bill, Monti — who has been appointed to solve a crisis that started not in Italy but on Wall Street – still sits on the advisory board of Goldman Sachs. You can’t make this stuff up! To make matters worse, Monti is not the only supposedly neutral technocrat with ties to the “giant vampire squid“. Mario Draghi, the new ECB President, was European President for Goldman at the time it helped Greece obscure its true debt levels to allow it to enter the euro.

Lucas Papademos, meanwhile, is a former Vice-President of the ECB and also sits on the Trilateral Commission. Here, the connection with the ECB is particularly worrisome as the central bank is exposed to Greek debt to the tune of at least 45 billions euros. By planting a former Vice-President at the head of the Greek government, the ECB hopes to ensure that it will actually get all that money back. There is a blatant conflict of loyalties here.

Ultimately, as Richard Morris wrote for the New Statesman, Berlusconi and Papandreou were forced to step down “because the markets thought it would probably be for the best if one of their own was given the chance to run things for a while.” And this is the outcome: an unaccountable clique of bankers taking charge of the crisis. Robert Saviano astutely observed the irony of it all: “It is clear that the markets have succeeded where the electorate, the opposition, the media and intellectuals have not.”

The consequences for democracy are profound. The New York Times writeshow “the power of financial markets has upended traditional democratic processes.” The Financial Times talks about “the sidelining of elected politicians, and observes that “in effect, eurozone policymakers have decided to suspend politics as normal in two countries because they judge it to be a mortal threat to Europe’s monetary union.”

All of this is highly problematic since policy responses to economic crises are by their very nature profoundly political. Not only will these policy choices affect the lives of millions of people today, they will also shape the future of the global economic order for many generations to come. The notion that such monumental decisions can be taken in the absence of a genuine political debate is truly preposterous and will totally undermine the legitimacy of the state.

Papademos, for example, will be charged with pushing a highly controversial 130 billion euro bailout program through parliament; convincing the EU-ECB-IMF Troika to disburse the latest 8 billion euro installment of last year’s bailout package; pushing through a budget for next year that will be harsher than any other so far; enforcing a brutal new tax that risks leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity; and starting a 50 billion euro fire-sale of state assets.

How can any of these policy objectives be achieved without a prior consultation of the people? Both Greece and Italy have recently witnessed the outbreak of mass protest and political violence, both of which are only likely to be further aggravated as the so-called “technocratic” governments radicalize the ideological assault on their own people. In the absence of a real political debate, the only way for the people to channel resistance will be through more violence.---"

Robert Saviano astutely observed the irony of it all: “It is clear that the markets have succeeded where the electorate, the opposition, the media and intellectuals have not.”

"---According to its detractors, the European network of influence woven by American bank Goldman Sachs (GS) functions like a freemasonry. To diverse degrees, the new European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi, the newly designated Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Monti, and the freshly appointed Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos are totemic figures in this carefully constructed web.

Draghi was Goldman Sachs International’s vice-chairman for Europe between 2002 and 2005, a position that put him in charge of the the “companies and sovereign” department, which shortly before his arrival, helped Greece to disguise the real nature of its books with a swap on its sovereign debt.

Monti was an international adviser to Goldman Sachs from 2005 until his nomination to lead the Italian government. According to the bank, his mission was to provide advice "on European business and major public policy initiatives worldwide". As such, he was a "door opener" with a brief to defend Goldman’s interest in the corridors of power in Europe.

The third man, Lucas Papademos, was the governor of the Greek central bank from 1994 to 2002. In this capacity, he played a role that has yet to be elucidated in the operation to mask debt on his country’s books, perpetrated with assistance from Goldman Sachs. And perhaps more importantly, the current chairman of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency, Petros Christodoulos, also worked as a trader for the bank in London.

Two other heavyweight members of Goldman’s European network have also figured large in the euro crisis: Otmar Issing, a former member of the Bundesbank board of directors and a one-time chief economist of the European Central Bank, and Ireland’s Peter Sutherland, an administrator for Goldman Sachs International, who played a behind the scenes role in the Irish bailout.---"

"The governments don't rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world," claimed a shockingly outspoken trader, Alessio Rastani, on the BBC two months ago. "The savings of millions of people are going to vanish," he said, warning viewers they should "get prepared" because "economic crisis is like a cancer, if you just wait and wait thinking this will go away, just like a cancer it's going to grow and it's going to be too late."

What was interesting about the media response to this was that, rather than focus on the substance of what the trader was saying, it instead went on a wild goose chase trying to decide whether or not he was a hoaxer belonging to a group called the "Yes Men". But on one point at least Rastani was absolutely right: Goldman Sachs – aka the Vampire Squid – really have the world squeezed tighter and tighter right now within its blood-sucking tentacles.

Consider the three biggest new EU appointments:

The new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, Italy’s new prime minister, Mario Monti, and the new Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos all reportedly have the US investment bank as a common denominator.

Here's James Creedon with the full details:

Papademos was involved in Greece's transition from the drachma to the euro. One of the things that made this transition possible was, of course, a gross exaggeration of the health of Greece's finances – aided and abetted by advisers from Goldman Sachs who showed Greece how to conceal its debts using complicated financial instruments called swaps.

I think most of us, on whichever side of the political argument we find ourselves, can agree that these developments are not healthy. Here is the take on it from a blogger at Liberal Conspiracy (not normally considered Telegraph Blogs' ideological soulmate):

Some serious questions must now be asked about democracy in the Eurozone. What Draghi, Monti and Papademos also have in common is that they are classically trained orthodox economists who have spent a good part of their lives working for the European bureaucracies and banks that have bought about this disaster.---"

"I share your spirit and I hope to resume with you the path of government."