I tell you it’s never a dull moment in Europe or Italy. We have volcanoes ricking havoc in the skies. We have Greece falling further into an economic ruin and here in Italy we have no elections for 3 years, or do we? The other 2 problems are getting plenty of western press so I’ll dive into the Italy problem for you, the reader. We just had an election where the right leaning party won (the PDL of Silvio Berlusconi). Now of course both sides SAY they won but let’s be blunt. Silvio Berlusconi’s side picked up a couple of regions thanks to the left (Partito Democratico) being a bunch of idiots. Now Silvio’s “Party of Love” (I’m not making that up) is having a big old family feud. The PDL is made up of 3 groups one lead by Fini, one by Berlusconi, and one by Umberto Bossi. The problem is not everyone in party agrees on the direction. Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini have been at odds for a while and it’s finally coming to head. Today the real nut-job of the party Umberto Bossi has chimed in and it seems a split is now inevitable. I say Umberto Bossi is a nut job because he honestly believes that Italy should be split in two so the wealthy North can live without being bothered by those dirty southerners (and I can’t write what he thinks of foreigners). Bossi’s son recently went so far as to say he has, and will never, visit Italy south of Rome. If that wasn’t enough he also said he’s not a fan of the Italian National Soccer Team in the upcoming World Cup. Now that’s just crazy talk... you see why I call them nut jobs?...
So the next step is will this rift lead to Italians voting again. You see every time a party loses a majority in the houses of parliament the Italians have to vote again because you HAVE to have a majority to get anything passed. So if Fini is kicked out or leaves the PDL and he takes his support with him then it could mean that Berlusconi no longer has the votes in Parliament needed to pass new laws. I find it hard to believe that all this would not be part of Berli’s plan, so I’m thinking he’s been buying up Fini supporters in the background this whole time so that if Fini leaves he goes by himself. Then again Berli did spend most of his time in power working on laws that would benefit him so maybe he knew this split was coming and he wanted to make sure his ass was covered before getting into new laws that Bossi wants…. Silvio did a good job of covering his ass… So the politics leading up to the election was all left verses right with scandals and controversies. Now it’s plain political infighting among the people that should have it made for the next 3 years. It’s almost as if they are afraid of not being the center of attention.
All this political mess and I now just noticed that two BIG Italian banks had their credit rating downgraded, Intesa San Paolo (my bank!!!) and Mediobanca (the bank run by Berlusconi!!!!!)
