{"id":36761,"date":"2018-08-18T06:33:01","date_gmt":"2018-08-18T11:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36761"},"modified":"2018-08-18T06:33:01","modified_gmt":"2018-08-18T11:33:01","slug":"looks-like-italian-default-is-back-on-the-menu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36761","title":{"rendered":"Looks Like Italian Default is Back on the\u00a0Menu"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tomluongo.me\/2018\/08\/16\/italian-default-menu\/\">Looks Like Italian Default is Back on the\u00a0Menu<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini was right to call out the EU over the failure of the bridge in Genoa this week.\u00a0 It was an act of cheap political grandstanding but one that ultimately rings very true.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a perfect moment to shake people out of their complacency as to the real costs of giving up one\u2019s financial sovereignty to someone else, in this case the Troika \u2014 European Commission, ECB and IMF.<\/p>\n<p>Italy is slowly strangling to death thanks to the euro.\u00a0 There is no other way to describe what is happening.\u00a0 It\u2019s populist coalition government understands the fundamental problems but, politically, is hamstrung to address them head on.<\/p>\n<p>The political will simply isn\u2019t there to make the break needed to put Italy truly back on the right path, i.e. leave the euro.\u00a0 But, as the government is set to clash with Brussels over their proposed budget the issues with the euro may come into sharper focus.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at the budget it is two or three steps in the right direction \u2014 lower, flat income tax rate, not raising the VAT \u2014 but also a step or two in the wrong direction \u2014 universal income.<\/p>\n<p>Opening up Italy\u2019s markets and lowering taxpayers\u2019 burdens is the path to sustainable, organic growth, but that is not the purpose of IMF-style austerity.\u00a0 It\u2019s purpose is to do exactly what it is doing, strangling Italy to death and extracting the wealth and spirit out of the local population, c.f. Greece and before that Russia in the 1990\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>So, looking at the situation today as the spat between Turkey and the U.S. escalates, it is obvious that Italy is in the crosshairs of any contagion effects into Europe\u2019s banking system.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looks Like Italian Default is Back on the\u00a0Menu Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini was right to call out the EU over the failure of the bridge in Genoa this week.\u00a0 It was an act of cheap political grandstanding but one that ultimately rings very true. It\u2019s a perfect moment to shake people out of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21275,124,195,200,233,279,282,284,21274,21273,418,434,1464,20251,16963],"class_list":["post-36761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-bridge-collapse","tag-central-banks","tag-debt","tag-default","tag-ecb","tag-eu","tag-european-central-bank","tag-european-union","tag-genoa","tag-gold-goats-and-guns","tag-imf","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-italy","tag-matteo-salvini","tag-tom-luongo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36762,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36761\/revisions\/36762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}