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Italian Yields Jump As Salvini Threatens To Crash Government

May 30, 2019

Italian Yields Jump As Salvini Threatens To Crash Government

Clearly emboldened by the EU Parliamentary results, where the League won a plurality of the vote in Italy, Matteo Salvini on Thursday sent BTP yields higher by threatening to crash the Italian government if the Five Star Movement doesn’t back his tax-cut plan.

BTP

BTP yields have been moving higher over the past two weeks as Salvini has brushed off Europe’s threats to fine Italy up to €4 billion over its refusal to rein in its debt and deficit-spending plans. This would be the first time the European Commission has fined a member state over violations of its fiscal rules.

But Salvini, who is now indisputably the most powerful political figure in Italy, isn’t backing down. He has remained defiant, even as Italy braces for the EU to initiate another excessive debt proceeding on Wednesday, when reviews of member states’ fiscal compliance are expected.

As the Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard pointed out in a column yesterday, Salvini has revived threats to initiate an Italian parallel currency – the so-called “mini-BOT” Italian Treasury bills that a Forbes columnist once warned was the “biggest threat to the future of the eurozone.” 

And with Salvini adding to the political chaos by taking the first tentative steps toward ousting Five Star from the ruling coalition, Italian bond holders will have only themselves to blame if they don’t anticipate more market-rattling political chaos, and position accordingly.

One Word: Contagion

June 3, 2018

One Word: Contagion

Terrible news, I’m afraid.

The trainwreck that is Italian politics has always been a hoot to watch. But this time around the implications to what happens in Rome are, as Trump would say, yuuuge.

You’ve probably seen the news-flow out of Europe.

Tasked with finding a suitable candidate to head a coalition between Luigi Di Maio’s Five Star Movement and the far-right League headed by Matteo Salvini, a coalition, which I might add has to be scaring the living isht out of Brussels, has not been an easy task.

Firstly, they went and chose someone nobody has ever heard about.

Why?

Well, Italy has many “colourful characters” in politics, and that is what scares Brussels more than anything else. Draghi’s worst nightmare must be sitting across the table from this guy discussing Italy’s bill to Germany.

In case you’re not up to speed on what these gents stand for here’s a sampling from Matteo Salvini.

Slaves of the European Union? No, thanks!

I can’t wait for Italy, with our government, to regain its sovereignty to defend the national interest in any way possible. Unacceptable intrusion from a European bureaucrat in Italy’s elections. The immigration policies and economic sacrifices imposed by the European Union have been a disaster and will be rejected by the free vote of Italians.

European bureaucrats calm down. League will always defend our fisheries and the agriculture of Italy. Enough with the European standards that slaughter our businesses and our territory!

No! What this coalition needed was someone entirely vanilla, very unlike their own leaders, a nobody, a perfectly useful idiot.

And so they picked Giuseppe Conte.

Who, I hear you say?

Precisely.

But poor Giuseppe didn’t last very long. Heck, he was tasked with what was one helluva job — sugarcoating this…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Italian Elections: The Great Five-Star Surprise 

March 6, 2018

Italian Elections: The Great Five-Star Surprise 

Nearly definitive results of the Italian national elections of March 4, 2018. the “five-star movement” (M5s) got the most votes, although the center-right wing coalition (CDX) has the largest number of seats in the Italian parliament. For the center-left (CSX), it was total disaster.

In several senses, it is not difficult to understand the results of the recent Italian elections. Think of the center-right leader, Mr. Berlusconi, as an older version of Mr. Trump. At nearly 82, Mr. Berlusconi still tries to play the role of the alpha-male womanizer, while his acolytes built up a program based on building a barrier against immigrants (not exactly a wall, because there is a sea in between Italy and Africa, but the concept is the same.). The center-right is also pursuing policies akin to “making Italy great again” (or perhaps grate again, if they were referring to Parmesan cheese).  In short, the Italian right and the American right are very similar, including such details as allowing citizens to bear firearms.

The left – what remains of it – is represented by Mr. Matteo Renzi, the perfect equivalent of Ms. Clinton, in terms of being both hateful and out of touch with reality. Just like Ms. Clinton, Mr. Renzi and his followers managed to conduct such an unbelievably obsolete and counterproductive campaign that one wonders whether he was actually paid by someone in order to finish off the remnants of what was once the Italian Communist party. It was a necessary outcome anyway, the only surprise was how well the Italian left played the role assigned by the Gods to those whom they want to destroy – that is, of becoming crazy. (at least, however, the Italian Dems didn’t blame Putin for their defeat!)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Italy’s Results are Truly Forza Italia!

March 6, 2018

Europe is headed for a breakup.  But, after a year of watching the EU establishment work the polls just enough to maintain the status quo in the Netherlands, France and Germany I wasn’t expecting much from yesterday’s Italian elections.

But with turnout over 73% we got just that.  Voters were clearly motivated to change the course Italy is on.  Now, we knew that Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right coalition would do well alongside upstart Five Star Movement.

The question was always going to be, however, how well would they do?

It looks like it was much better than the polls wanted us to believe.   Last week I told you the markets were getting nervous about this election.  This weekend the news was all about how subdued the reaction was to the polling.

As if a major technical breakout to the upside on Italian bond yields in the face of furious ECB buying wasn’t a strong enough market response?

But, that’s doesn’t fit the plan to gaslight voters and traders to worry about the potential outcome here.

The League of 5-Star Gentlemen

It looks like Five Start Movement will take more than 30% of the final tally, which is a couple of points above where polling had it tracking when the blackout went into effect two weeks ago.

The bigger result is that of The League (formerly The Northern League) who came off their secessionist mountain and ran hard on a platform of euroskepticism and anti-immigration.

The most important person in Italian politics right now is The League’s leader, Matteo “The EU can go F&%k itself” Salvini.

When the final votes are revealed, if The League out-polled Silvio “Establishment Stalking Horse” Berlusconi’s Forza Italia! then he has the hammer in coalition negotiations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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