9 ms·

The man who screwed an entire country

158 points by pier0 15y ago

Jd 15y ago
The title implies that Italy would have done better with a different prime minister, but I have no reason to believe this would be the case. Lots of European economies have done worse and Italians are, well, Italians.
- diego_moita 15y ago
  > Lots of European economies have done worse I think the article already addresses that. It stresses that "Italy’s economic illness is not the acute sort, but a chronic disease that slowly gnaws away at vitality". Spain, Ireland and Portugal might be in worse shape but they might be coming to understand that they need a tough treatment; Italy doesn't. The PIGS are at shock; Italy is just dazed at stupor. > Italians are, well, Italians :^) OK, you won.
- acangiano 15y ago
  > Italians are, well, Italians Care to elaborate on this? "Blacks are, well, blacks" would sound racist. I'm not sure this highly upvoted comment of yours is much nobler in spirit.
  - Jd 15y ago
    "Racism" is a somewhat vague term for which I believe the current usage is primarily born out of the American civil rights movement. Europeans on the other hand have been comfortable with labeling various national characteristics for centuries -- various national characteristics that are undoubtedly true. These come in negative, positive, and contested categories. For instance, the British are known for their "stiff upper lip," Germans (traditionally, not contemporarily) for their warlike sentiment, etc. In America we have the sense that these things are mutable, and this is partially true, but it is unreasonable to expect people to change overnight, and it is especially unreasonable to expect that some external force (e.g. purely economic forces) will produce the massive changes that might be perceived as necessary for a society to adapt to modernity as the Economist writers perceive as necessary and laudable. In any case, I think it is unacceptable to focus only on the negative aspects of a people. "Blacks are, well, blacks" would generally be racist since virtually no one would use that in a positive sense. Italians often self-perceive that their resistance to the way things are done in a capitalist world is based on some inner nobility -- and although I generally disagree, I think there is still a grain of truth there. Besides, Italians are among the most openly racist peoples in Europe -- people from Northern Italy are even comfortable calling Southern Italy part of Africa (not meant in a positive sense!).
    - lyudmil 15y ago
      I've been living in Italy for two years now and I have to say I don't see this resistance to the capitalist world you assert they have. In the North, where I live, the economy is large and lively, people are rich, and they work hard. There is, of course, a palpable difference between the way of life here and in Northern Europe, but it isn't as big as I think most people expect (the food and coffee are better). It feels very similar to a typical European capitalist economy. Of course, that's only half of the story. Southern Italy, despite it's idyllic landscapes and hedonism, has some serious economic, demographic, and social problems and they don't deny it. I have never felt they wore it as a badge of honor to signify some inner nobility, as you posit. Most Italians I've talked to want to solve these problems and believe they're actively working to do it. They don't feel the fact that they enjoy a good quality of life impedes their ability to develop a strong economy - they think the best of both worlds is possible.
      - Jd 15y ago
        Granted, I am conflating Northern and Southern Italy and most of my knowledge of both is from Italian expatriates who have deliberately left Italy to work in other countries due to dissatisfaction with the conditions there. As for "They don't feel the fact that they enjoy a good quality of life impedes their ability to develop a strong economy," they could simply be wrong. Certain aspects of traditional cultures (e.g. long meal times and afternoon nap times) may simply be incompatible with increased productivity. You may want to have both, but this may be impossible. "Nobility" may not be the best word to use, but certainly there is something laudable about valuing the family highly, etc. I would, however, posit that aspects of what this means in the present world indicate that you can't have all of the aspects of a traditional world (e.g long meal times, living with your grandparents) and expect economic improvement.
        lyudmil 15y ago
        From what I've seen the long meals and afternoon naps are a myth (even in Spain people don't do that anymore). In fact, I'm willing to assert Italians work harder than the French. They have a 40 hour work week (the French have 35) and three weeks vacation (5 in France, by law). The French are exactly as hedonistic as the Italians, so whatever incompatibilities the Italian way of life has with a strong economy, they would be a factor in France as well. However, I have yet to read the article or comment on HN supporting the urgent need to completely restructure the French economy.
  - nostromo 15y ago
    I think the context is important -- and the OP is not talking about Italians as a race but Italians as a nation with certain characteristics. Read this way, it's more akin to saying, "Americans are, well, American."
    - protomyth 15y ago
      And probably be just as wrong. Trying to group people is always fraught with peril, but doing it in a dismissive way ("are, well,") is really not going to help the point. Italy isn't a mono-culture, neither is America.
- bh42222 15y ago
  it is their unreformable country’s. Yet the notion that change is impossible is not just defeatist but also wrong. In the mid-1990s successive Italian governments, desperate not to be left out of the euro, pushed through some impressive reforms. Even Mr Berlusconi has occasionally managed to pass some liberalising measures in between battling the courts: back in 2003 the Biagi labour-market law cut red tape at the bottom, boosting employment, and many economists have praised Italy’s pension reforms. He might have done much more had he used his vast power and popularity to do something other than protect his own interests. Entrepreneurial Italy will pay dearly for his pleasures.
phlux 15y ago
He is their George Bush. Seriously, in the last decade we have seen more direct, deliberate corruption and out right political douchebaggery than I would have thought possible. And in all of these scandals, not a single politician has paid. Just like I said when Inside Job came out, if there was any doubt that we are living in a oligarchy, let all doubts now be cast aside.
- sigzero 15y ago
  Sorry, it isn't George Bush's fault. He is a nice scape goat. Congress has the purse strings. It's their fault and it is still their fault. They could have stopped him at any time they wanted. No balls on either side.
  - antidaily 15y ago
    Only if you don't count Bush taking us into the trillion dollar Iraq war without a congressional war declaration. not that i want to debate the merits of congress.
    - neolefty 15y ago
      The real question is: will Cheney get a new apprentice, or will Bush kill him and get an apprentice of his own? Or was Rove the apprentice? And was Mitt Romney's true parentage concealed, and was he secretly raised in the Utah desert by trustworthy moisture farmers? Always two there are.
    - anamax 15y ago
      > Only if you don't count Bush taking us into the trillion dollar Iraq war without a congressional war declaration. Congress approved, via explicit votes, the Iraq war at multiple points. There has never been a requirement for legislation that says "we declare war".
      - jbooth 15y ago
        So who was that on TV constantly boosting the idea and bringing it into the State of the Union address, etc? Are you making the case that the Bush admin doesn't 1,000,000% own the Iraq war? Really? (FWIW, they were pushing tax cuts simultaneously). Just cause Congress got bullied into approving these things doesn't mean they weren't Bush initiatives.
blumentopf 15y ago
It's amazing that the Economist still touts Anglo-Saxon "panaceas" for growth: deregulate, get rid of red tape, focus the economy on services rather than manufacturing. When Germany entered a period of stagnation after the Euro-introduction in 2002, the Economist made exactly the same prescriptions. Look what that ideology has done to the US and the UK: countless jobs in manufacturing have been offshored and growth was simulated through financial "innovations". Personally, I buy lots of organic food products from Italy (e.g. laselva-bio.eu) as well as clothes (e.g. slowear.it), and for a simple reason: They're the best on the market. Therein lies Italy's potential.
- arethuza 15y ago
  Italy produces some of the most desirable products: cars, clothes, consumer goods, motorbikes, food....
- tokenadult 15y ago
  Personally, I buy lots of organic food products from Italy (e.g. laselva-bio.eu) as well as clothes (e.g. slowear.it), and for a simple reason: They're the best on the market. You have endorsed the quality of Italian products made by private business enterprises. To keep this discussion on topic for Hacker News (ahem), I wonder what you think about how well the current Italian governmental administration is allowing business owners like that to succeed. The overall economic growth figures for Italy reported in the submitted article suggest that the preferences of consumers like you are not sustaining steady economic growth in Italy. Could that be the result of government mismanagement?
  - ignifero 15y ago
    It seems like exports of lucrative sectors are still strong in Italy. Of course, as in most europe, taxation is heavy. The main factor hindering growth seems to be high wages.
    - grn 15y ago
      I think that non-wage labour costs can be an important factor. I think they are quite high across Europe. Could anyone tell the numbers for Italy? (for example: in Poland a net wage of 2700 PLN (~ $1000) is a gross wage of 4500 PLN (~ $1650)).
iwwr 15y ago
What is the particularly damning thing about this guy, moreso than a typical politician?
- hcho 15y ago
  He's much more entertaining than the typical politician, which makes him extremely dangerous.
- revorad 15y ago
  That he has managed to stay in power for so fucking long despite being the lowest of scumbags even compared to a typical politican.
- ptbello 15y ago
  It's the scale, man. The sheer scale of it. Average corrupt politicians have a mistress, or two, or three; he has a harem of a couple dozen, several of which minors. The average corrupt politician casts his shadow on the media; he owns the media. He has brought the concept of "conflict of interest" to a whole new level.
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    The sheer scale of it. Average corrupt politicians have a mistress, or two, or three; he has a harem of a couple dozen, several of which minors. The allegation that some are minors is distasteful, but the fact that he sleeps with more women than you feel comfortable with is neither here nor there when talking about how he "ruined a country". It's depressing to see The Economist's article open by talking about his sex life. It's utterly immaterial. His grip on the media, his lack of reforms, his policies on this that and the other, his changing the law to avoid prosecution for fraud allegation - those things matter to the story of how he "ruined Italy"; how many people he sleeps with and how righteously outraged Americans are by it? Doesn't matter.
    - chadgeidel 15y ago
      Multiple sexual partners aren't the issue. When one uses the term "harem" it paints a different picture - the casual disregard for half the human race. Perhaps that contributes to "The female-participation rate in the workforce is 46%, the lowest in western Europe." I'm loathe to use "litmus test" type analogies, but I believe this behavior is telling.
raquo 15y ago
Here's another man who screwed up a country: Russia's Putin. In power since 2000, insane amount of fraud, perpetuating corruption, no free speech, no rule of law, police state and pretty much any other state-level deficiency you can think of, and at a much bigger scale than you can imagine. As a result Russia's state is much closer to Nigeria than pretty much any EU country (no, I'm not pointing at Nigeria randomly, it's true) and the brightest people are fleeing the country as if it's a sinking ship (and, well, it is).
- phlux 15y ago
  And don't forget that if you cross Putin he will chase you down and assassinate you with radioactive umbrellas.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - bh42222 15y ago
    radioactive umbrellas You're mixing your East European assassination techniques. Umbrella: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov Polonium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinen...
    - nkassis 15y ago
      I guess you could combine the methods. ;p
- JCB_K 15y ago
  I wouldn't say Putin is an asset to any country, but you can't blame it all on him either. With people like Lenin, Stalin and Jeltsin as your predecessors you don't really start off good.
  - raquo 15y ago
    I agree, but I'm not asking for superhero rulers either. Even Medvedev with his limited powers has done tangible good to the country (I can see it most clearly from small business perspective). If Putin gets back to full power in 2012, Russia is pretty much doomed. With such high oil prices Russia could survive for a long time, slowly rotting away just like Italy is described in the article. Although, since Russia has already much lower quality of life, and since bringing the president or even a member of parliament to court is completely unthinkable here, we would rot down much faster.
cadalac 15y ago
When I went to the page, I thought that was Gary Bettman.
javad123 15y ago
Unfortunately when it comes to Berlusconi, the Economist has no credibility. They simply hate him.
- thadeus_venture 15y ago
  That's actually true, the Economist has always been very critical of Italy. I have a couple Italian friends who cut their subscriptions a while back because of one article or another. I wouldn't go so far as to say they have no credibility, but they do have a sizable history of negative articles about Italy. Their criticisms may have been justified, but I think that's still a useful piece of knowledge.
- speleding 15y ago
  Quite the opposite: their hate of him has been consistent and their predictions have proved quite accurate. It would be much less credible if they only started hating him now, after everybody else realized he's a crook too.
jodrellblank 15y ago
After a paragraph of how terribly Italy is doing in the world rankings, the governor of the Bank of Italy is leaving ... to take the reins at the European Central Bank? Is this a case of being awful therefore promoted, or was he spectacularly good at stopping Italy from getting worse?
- radu_floricica 15y ago
  Central Bank governors are strangely resilient and separate from day to day politics. I'm Romanian and we've had a string of our own Berlusconis here, but since '99 we've had just one Bank Governor, and a very capable one. He even left his position to work as a Prime Minister for a about a year, and then returned to the Central Bank. He's completely uncharacteristic of everything else in Romanian politics.
- Confusion 15y ago
  You can only do as much good as your environment allows you to do. Expecting Medvedev or Draghi to singlehandedly solve the problems of their countries is unrealistic. I expect Draghi to be capable at his new job, because old methods of covering incompetence up -- methods that work in Italy -- won't work at the ECB.
hugh3 15y ago
Blah blah politics blah blah blah. Flagged.
known 15y ago
I think all politicians suffer from Narcissism.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4de76b9fccd1d52920160000/anthony-weiner-crotch-shot.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.businessinsider.com/oh-please-of-course-anthony-weiner-sent-that-picture-2011-6&usg=__WnkANvGHPIV4C8BaLVD8bk_-hyE=&h=319&w=570&sz=61&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=BL0tzenbS6qKAM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=189&ei=f9XyTeboI8iutwfPg8mSBw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Danthony%2Bweiner%2Bcrotch%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1276%26bih%3D591%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=283&vpy=102&dur=3388&hovh=168&hovw=300&tx=152&ty=128&page=1&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&biw=1276&bih=591 http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static3.businessi... What good is karma if you can't use it?
the_gws 15y ago
I am Italian and I dislike Berlusconi. That said it must be recognized that all of Italy's issues were already there before him. We can't really say that Italy has worsened with him but we can surely say that it hasn't got any better. There were a lot of expectations in 1994 that he was going to change Italy and bring the liberal revolution it sorely needs. Alas, none of them were met.
chriserin 15y ago
Italy's economy is a hard economy to judge because of an out-sized black market (to the tune of 30% - 40% gdp), any article of Italian economic statistics needs to a least mention this. http://italianthro.blogspot.com/2010/09/southern-italys-economy-underestimated.html http://italianthro.blogspot.com/2010/09/southern-italys-econ...
gnufied 15y ago
Whatever happened to 'No politics' here?
- tokenadult 15y ago
  Whatever happened to 'No politics' here? The rule has never been absolute, but a strong preference. The HN Guidelines that appear as a bottom-of-the-page link on most HN pages http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html say, "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." The welcome message that briefly appears as a top-of-the-page link to newly registered users http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html (but appears not to be mandatory to read for anyone) says, "Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads." By the way, the rest of the welcome message is a good reminder to everyone here about how to make Hacker News a better community. I thought it was (barely) interesting to discuss why Italy, which is evidently full of smart industrialists, is not thriving better as a national economy. If a politics story doesn't have an angle like that related to the environment for forming new companies for hackers, I usually just ignore it, and I try to silently downvote purely partisan political comments in threads wherever I find them.
chopsueyar 15y ago
At least Italy can put a name on their guy.
stretchwithme 15y ago
I remember him grab a meter maid's ass from behind on the street in front of other officials and cameras. il douche.
aufreak3 15y ago
Individuals are easy targets for finger pointing when it comes to "who screwed up X". In the case of something as large as a country ... what were the rest of the gazillion folks doing? Supporting the screwups?

158 points by pier0 15y ago

Jd 15y ago

The title implies that Italy would have done better with a different prime minister, but I have no reason to believe this would be the case. Lots of European economies have done worse and Italians are, well, Italians.

diego_moita 15y ago
> Lots of European economies have done worse I think the article already addresses that. It stresses that "Italy’s economic illness is not the acute sort, but a chronic disease that slowly gnaws away at vitality". Spain, Ireland and Portugal might be in worse shape but they might be coming to understand that they need a tough treatment; Italy doesn't. The PIGS are at shock; Italy is just dazed at stupor. > Italians are, well, Italians :^) OK, you won.
acangiano 15y ago
> Italians are, well, Italians Care to elaborate on this? "Blacks are, well, blacks" would sound racist. I'm not sure this highly upvoted comment of yours is much nobler in spirit.
- Jd 15y ago
  "Racism" is a somewhat vague term for which I believe the current usage is primarily born out of the American civil rights movement. Europeans on the other hand have been comfortable with labeling various national characteristics for centuries -- various national characteristics that are undoubtedly true. These come in negative, positive, and contested categories. For instance, the British are known for their "stiff upper lip," Germans (traditionally, not contemporarily) for their warlike sentiment, etc. In America we have the sense that these things are mutable, and this is partially true, but it is unreasonable to expect people to change overnight, and it is especially unreasonable to expect that some external force (e.g. purely economic forces) will produce the massive changes that might be perceived as necessary for a society to adapt to modernity as the Economist writers perceive as necessary and laudable. In any case, I think it is unacceptable to focus only on the negative aspects of a people. "Blacks are, well, blacks" would generally be racist since virtually no one would use that in a positive sense. Italians often self-perceive that their resistance to the way things are done in a capitalist world is based on some inner nobility -- and although I generally disagree, I think there is still a grain of truth there. Besides, Italians are among the most openly racist peoples in Europe -- people from Northern Italy are even comfortable calling Southern Italy part of Africa (not meant in a positive sense!).
  - lyudmil 15y ago
    I've been living in Italy for two years now and I have to say I don't see this resistance to the capitalist world you assert they have. In the North, where I live, the economy is large and lively, people are rich, and they work hard. There is, of course, a palpable difference between the way of life here and in Northern Europe, but it isn't as big as I think most people expect (the food and coffee are better). It feels very similar to a typical European capitalist economy. Of course, that's only half of the story. Southern Italy, despite it's idyllic landscapes and hedonism, has some serious economic, demographic, and social problems and they don't deny it. I have never felt they wore it as a badge of honor to signify some inner nobility, as you posit. Most Italians I've talked to want to solve these problems and believe they're actively working to do it. They don't feel the fact that they enjoy a good quality of life impedes their ability to develop a strong economy - they think the best of both worlds is possible.
    - Jd 15y ago
      Granted, I am conflating Northern and Southern Italy and most of my knowledge of both is from Italian expatriates who have deliberately left Italy to work in other countries due to dissatisfaction with the conditions there. As for "They don't feel the fact that they enjoy a good quality of life impedes their ability to develop a strong economy," they could simply be wrong. Certain aspects of traditional cultures (e.g. long meal times and afternoon nap times) may simply be incompatible with increased productivity. You may want to have both, but this may be impossible. "Nobility" may not be the best word to use, but certainly there is something laudable about valuing the family highly, etc. I would, however, posit that aspects of what this means in the present world indicate that you can't have all of the aspects of a traditional world (e.g long meal times, living with your grandparents) and expect economic improvement.
      - lyudmil 15y ago
        From what I've seen the long meals and afternoon naps are a myth (even in Spain people don't do that anymore). In fact, I'm willing to assert Italians work harder than the French. They have a 40 hour work week (the French have 35) and three weeks vacation (5 in France, by law). The French are exactly as hedonistic as the Italians, so whatever incompatibilities the Italian way of life has with a strong economy, they would be a factor in France as well. However, I have yet to read the article or comment on HN supporting the urgent need to completely restructure the French economy.
- nostromo 15y ago
  I think the context is important -- and the OP is not talking about Italians as a race but Italians as a nation with certain characteristics. Read this way, it's more akin to saying, "Americans are, well, American."
  - protomyth 15y ago
    And probably be just as wrong. Trying to group people is always fraught with peril, but doing it in a dismissive way ("are, well,") is really not going to help the point. Italy isn't a mono-culture, neither is America.
bh42222 15y ago
it is their unreformable country’s. Yet the notion that change is impossible is not just defeatist but also wrong. In the mid-1990s successive Italian governments, desperate not to be left out of the euro, pushed through some impressive reforms. Even Mr Berlusconi has occasionally managed to pass some liberalising measures in between battling the courts: back in 2003 the Biagi labour-market law cut red tape at the bottom, boosting employment, and many economists have praised Italy’s pension reforms. He might have done much more had he used his vast power and popularity to do something other than protect his own interests. Entrepreneurial Italy will pay dearly for his pleasures.

phlux 15y ago

He is their George Bush. Seriously, in the last decade we have seen more direct, deliberate corruption and out right political douchebaggery than I would have thought possible. And in all of these scandals, not a single politician has paid. Just like I said when Inside Job came out, if there was any doubt that we are living in a oligarchy, let all doubts now be cast aside.

sigzero 15y ago
Sorry, it isn't George Bush's fault. He is a nice scape goat. Congress has the purse strings. It's their fault and it is still their fault. They could have stopped him at any time they wanted. No balls on either side.
- antidaily 15y ago
  Only if you don't count Bush taking us into the trillion dollar Iraq war without a congressional war declaration. not that i want to debate the merits of congress.
  - neolefty 15y ago
    The real question is: will Cheney get a new apprentice, or will Bush kill him and get an apprentice of his own? Or was Rove the apprentice? And was Mitt Romney's true parentage concealed, and was he secretly raised in the Utah desert by trustworthy moisture farmers? Always two there are.
  - anamax 15y ago
    > Only if you don't count Bush taking us into the trillion dollar Iraq war without a congressional war declaration. Congress approved, via explicit votes, the Iraq war at multiple points. There has never been a requirement for legislation that says "we declare war".
    - jbooth 15y ago
      So who was that on TV constantly boosting the idea and bringing it into the State of the Union address, etc? Are you making the case that the Bush admin doesn't 1,000,000% own the Iraq war? Really? (FWIW, they were pushing tax cuts simultaneously). Just cause Congress got bullied into approving these things doesn't mean they weren't Bush initiatives.

blumentopf 15y ago

It's amazing that the Economist still touts Anglo-Saxon "panaceas" for growth: deregulate, get rid of red tape, focus the economy on services rather than manufacturing. When Germany entered a period of stagnation after the Euro-introduction in 2002, the Economist made exactly the same prescriptions. Look what that ideology has done to the US and the UK: countless jobs in manufacturing have been offshored and growth was simulated through financial "innovations". Personally, I buy lots of organic food products from Italy (e.g. laselva-bio.eu) as well as clothes (e.g. slowear.it), and for a simple reason: They're the best on the market. Therein lies Italy's potential.

arethuza 15y ago
Italy produces some of the most desirable products: cars, clothes, consumer goods, motorbikes, food....
tokenadult 15y ago
Personally, I buy lots of organic food products from Italy (e.g. laselva-bio.eu) as well as clothes (e.g. slowear.it), and for a simple reason: They're the best on the market. You have endorsed the quality of Italian products made by private business enterprises. To keep this discussion on topic for Hacker News (ahem), I wonder what you think about how well the current Italian governmental administration is allowing business owners like that to succeed. The overall economic growth figures for Italy reported in the submitted article suggest that the preferences of consumers like you are not sustaining steady economic growth in Italy. Could that be the result of government mismanagement?
- ignifero 15y ago
  It seems like exports of lucrative sectors are still strong in Italy. Of course, as in most europe, taxation is heavy. The main factor hindering growth seems to be high wages.
  - grn 15y ago
    I think that non-wage labour costs can be an important factor. I think they are quite high across Europe. Could anyone tell the numbers for Italy? (for example: in Poland a net wage of 2700 PLN (~ $1000) is a gross wage of 4500 PLN (~ $1650)).

iwwr 15y ago

What is the particularly damning thing about this guy, moreso than a typical politician?

hcho 15y ago
He's much more entertaining than the typical politician, which makes him extremely dangerous.
revorad 15y ago
That he has managed to stay in power for so fucking long despite being the lowest of scumbags even compared to a typical politican.
ptbello 15y ago
It's the scale, man. The sheer scale of it. Average corrupt politicians have a mistress, or two, or three; he has a harem of a couple dozen, several of which minors. The average corrupt politician casts his shadow on the media; he owns the media. He has brought the concept of "conflict of interest" to a whole new level.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  The sheer scale of it. Average corrupt politicians have a mistress, or two, or three; he has a harem of a couple dozen, several of which minors. The allegation that some are minors is distasteful, but the fact that he sleeps with more women than you feel comfortable with is neither here nor there when talking about how he "ruined a country". It's depressing to see The Economist's article open by talking about his sex life. It's utterly immaterial. His grip on the media, his lack of reforms, his policies on this that and the other, his changing the law to avoid prosecution for fraud allegation - those things matter to the story of how he "ruined Italy"; how many people he sleeps with and how righteously outraged Americans are by it? Doesn't matter.
  - chadgeidel 15y ago
    Multiple sexual partners aren't the issue. When one uses the term "harem" it paints a different picture - the casual disregard for half the human race. Perhaps that contributes to "The female-participation rate in the workforce is 46%, the lowest in western Europe." I'm loathe to use "litmus test" type analogies, but I believe this behavior is telling.

raquo 15y ago

Here's another man who screwed up a country: Russia's Putin. In power since 2000, insane amount of fraud, perpetuating corruption, no free speech, no rule of law, police state and pretty much any other state-level deficiency you can think of, and at a much bigger scale than you can imagine. As a result Russia's state is much closer to Nigeria than pretty much any EU country (no, I'm not pointing at Nigeria randomly, it's true) and the brightest people are fleeing the country as if it's a sinking ship (and, well, it is).

phlux 15y ago
And don't forget that if you cross Putin he will chase you down and assassinate you with radioactive umbrellas.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- bh42222 15y ago
  radioactive umbrellas You're mixing your East European assassination techniques. Umbrella: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov Polonium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinen...
  - nkassis 15y ago
    I guess you could combine the methods. ;p
JCB_K 15y ago
I wouldn't say Putin is an asset to any country, but you can't blame it all on him either. With people like Lenin, Stalin and Jeltsin as your predecessors you don't really start off good.
- raquo 15y ago
  I agree, but I'm not asking for superhero rulers either. Even Medvedev with his limited powers has done tangible good to the country (I can see it most clearly from small business perspective). If Putin gets back to full power in 2012, Russia is pretty much doomed. With such high oil prices Russia could survive for a long time, slowly rotting away just like Italy is described in the article. Although, since Russia has already much lower quality of life, and since bringing the president or even a member of parliament to court is completely unthinkable here, we would rot down much faster.

cadalac 15y ago

When I went to the page, I thought that was Gary Bettman.

javad123 15y ago

Unfortunately when it comes to Berlusconi, the Economist has no credibility. They simply hate him.

thadeus_venture 15y ago
That's actually true, the Economist has always been very critical of Italy. I have a couple Italian friends who cut their subscriptions a while back because of one article or another. I wouldn't go so far as to say they have no credibility, but they do have a sizable history of negative articles about Italy. Their criticisms may have been justified, but I think that's still a useful piece of knowledge.
speleding 15y ago
Quite the opposite: their hate of him has been consistent and their predictions have proved quite accurate. It would be much less credible if they only started hating him now, after everybody else realized he's a crook too.

jodrellblank 15y ago

After a paragraph of how terribly Italy is doing in the world rankings, the governor of the Bank of Italy is leaving ... to take the reins at the European Central Bank? Is this a case of being awful therefore promoted, or was he spectacularly good at stopping Italy from getting worse?

radu_floricica 15y ago
Central Bank governors are strangely resilient and separate from day to day politics. I'm Romanian and we've had a string of our own Berlusconis here, but since '99 we've had just one Bank Governor, and a very capable one. He even left his position to work as a Prime Minister for a about a year, and then returned to the Central Bank. He's completely uncharacteristic of everything else in Romanian politics.
Confusion 15y ago
You can only do as much good as your environment allows you to do. Expecting Medvedev or Draghi to singlehandedly solve the problems of their countries is unrealistic. I expect Draghi to be capable at his new job, because old methods of covering incompetence up -- methods that work in Italy -- won't work at the ECB.

hugh3 15y ago

Blah blah politics blah blah blah. Flagged.

known 15y ago

I think all politicians suffer from Narcissism.

chopsueyar 15y ago
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4de76b9fccd1d52920160000/anthony-weiner-crotch-shot.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.businessinsider.com/oh-please-of-course-anthony-weiner-sent-that-picture-2011-6&usg=__WnkANvGHPIV4C8BaLVD8bk_-hyE=&h=319&w=570&sz=61&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=BL0tzenbS6qKAM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=189&ei=f9XyTeboI8iutwfPg8mSBw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Danthony%2Bweiner%2Bcrotch%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1276%26bih%3D591%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=283&vpy=102&dur=3388&hovh=168&hovw=300&tx=152&ty=128&page=1&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&biw=1276&bih=591 http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static3.businessi... What good is karma if you can't use it?

the_gws 15y ago

I am Italian and I dislike Berlusconi. That said it must be recognized that all of Italy's issues were already there before him. We can't really say that Italy has worsened with him but we can surely say that it hasn't got any better. There were a lot of expectations in 1994 that he was going to change Italy and bring the liberal revolution it sorely needs. Alas, none of them were met.

chriserin 15y ago

Italy's economy is a hard economy to judge because of an out-sized black market (to the tune of 30% - 40% gdp), any article of Italian economic statistics needs to a least mention this. http://italianthro.blogspot.com/2010/09/southern-italys-economy-underestimated.html http://italianthro.blogspot.com/2010/09/southern-italys-econ...

gnufied 15y ago

Whatever happened to 'No politics' here?

tokenadult 15y ago
Whatever happened to 'No politics' here? The rule has never been absolute, but a strong preference. The HN Guidelines that appear as a bottom-of-the-page link on most HN pages http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html say, "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." The welcome message that briefly appears as a top-of-the-page link to newly registered users http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html (but appears not to be mandatory to read for anyone) says, "Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads." By the way, the rest of the welcome message is a good reminder to everyone here about how to make Hacker News a better community. I thought it was (barely) interesting to discuss why Italy, which is evidently full of smart industrialists, is not thriving better as a national economy. If a politics story doesn't have an angle like that related to the environment for forming new companies for hackers, I usually just ignore it, and I try to silently downvote purely partisan political comments in threads wherever I find them.

chopsueyar 15y ago

At least Italy can put a name on their guy.

stretchwithme 15y ago

I remember him grab a meter maid's ass from behind on the street in front of other officials and cameras. il douche.

aufreak3 15y ago

Individuals are easy targets for finger pointing when it comes to "who screwed up X". In the case of something as large as a country ... what were the rest of the gazillion folks doing? Supporting the screwups?