Copy Iceland, Not Italy

Iceland took one look at the extortion-by-austerity plan international banksters were demanding and told them to fuck off and die.

Italy just got the same ransom note but has chosen to surrender.

Guess which economy is dying and which is recovering.

Down with Tyranny:

(Last week) we talk about the option Europeans ensnared by banksters to go the Icelandic route. Rounding these banksters up and shooting the lot of them would be the most just thing to do. Iceland, however, decided to put them on trial instead.

Most of the E.U., bizarrely, is following conflicted and corrupted political elites who are urging surrender to the banksters instead. The bankster shill Germany installed as the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, is pushing a mindless, hardcore Austerity regime on his country, one demanded by Germany, the banksters and the international 1%-- and one that will drive the Italian people into destitution and suffering. I had to get John Amato to translate the video (just below) for me.

It's Elsa Fornero, Italy's Labor Minister, and as you can see, she's unable to complete her announcement and breaks down in tears. That's because on Sunday night Monti's government announced the Austerity agenda that, among other things, raises the age of retirement and freezes pensions against inflation, which the 1% will now use to drive the rest of us into penury. She started crying when she tried to say the word sacrifici (sacrifices). And, yes, that's Monti looking embarrassed next to her. There was some heckling as he spoke to Parliament.



Monti's (or Germany's) "Plan to Save Italy" calls for plenty of sacrifce -- and guess who's hide they're coming out of. Hint: not the elites who caused the worldwide financial collapse. In fact, the plan to raise income taxes of the wealthy somehow didn't make it into the announcement-- although Monti and his German patrons are demanding higher taxes on second homes, yachts, private jets and fancy cars-- taxes that the Italian elites have long figured out how to avoid entirely. The tax that will make a difference is an increasing VAT (sales tax)-- possibly to as high as 23%. That's about the most regressive tax there is and it falls squarely on the shoulders of the working poor and middle class. And Monti is foregoing a salary. That's supposed to make it sound fair and palatable. There were no announcements about growth (like stimulus projects), but Monti claims to stay tuned; he's got them up another sleeve for another day.

Over the past decade the standard of living for the average Italian worker has actually decreased. More than a million Italians have emigrated. But that was nothing compared to what's about to happen. Monti warned Italy that there are no alternatives, hoping none of them are aware of what Iceland did to solve a similar problem that came to its shores a little sooner. But the German, French (and British and American) banksters don't give a rat's ass about Iceland and can live with them escaping debt-slavery... as long as no one else tries it.

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Monti warned his critics, much the way you hear Republicans doing here (and you will hera much more of that in coming months) that if Italy doesn't adopt all these Austerity measures they're going to turn into Greece. "Without this package, we believe Italy would collapse, Italy would go into a situation like that of Greece, a country we admire but we don't want to imitate." He'll be going after labor unions next.

SNIP

Maybe working people need a new political party that represents the 99% and doesn't include corrupt politicians. They should do it fast, since Merkel and Sarkozy have some unification plans that will foreclose on political rights for Europeans.

From DWT's previous post on Iceland:

Smith urges the Eurozone to look to Iceland for their salvation-- Iceland, which didn't actually get rid of serfdom until 1894, long after Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. Unwilling to let the banksters get away with it-- the way corrupt and conflicted politicians in the U.S. and Europe are doing-- Iceland opted for "sanity and growth... They renounced their unpayable debts and debt-serfdom, and let the market reprice their currency, debt and risk. The nightmare is past for them; they chose wisely."

No, there is no spending crisis - unless you call failing to spend enough to reduce unemployment a crisis. No, there is no deficit crisis - we've got no inflation and near-zero interest rates. No, we do not have to murder the middle class to please the banksters.

Let's follow the lead of Iceland, which after refusing austerity and charging banksters with fraud, now has one of the few healthy economies on the planet.