Italy Has No Fiscal Discipline Whatsoever

European Union Under (Internal) Threats

Recently we raised the question as to whether the present Eurozone can survive.  Clearly the UK's leaving will remove one of the major funding countries within the EC.  When Greece blew up, Angela Merkel was successful in persuading Europe to socialising the debts of Greece in exchange for far more fiscal austerity.  

But Italy's problems are of a different magnitude altogether.  Italy has formed a government which has no fiscal discipline whatsoever.  John J. Xenakis explains why:

Italy’s plummeting financial markets have mostly recovered and appear to be stabilized as the “populist” government that had appeared to collapse early in the week came to power, though with a different cabinet of ministers.

The “populist” coalition is between the left-wing Five Star Movement (M5S), led by Luigi Di Maio, and the right-wing La Lega (The (Northern) League), led by Matteo Salvini. Although the two parties differ on many issues and distrust each other greatly, they decided to form a coalition based on their shared anti-euro, anti-EU, and anti-immigrant policies, and particularly on the fact that they have no fiscal discipline whatsoever.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Italian Justice System Restores Its Integrity and Honour

When judicial officers try to assuage and satiate public demands, injustice seeps out like bodily fluids from a decomposing cadaver.  Finally, the Italian justice system has cleaned up--at least in one notorious case.  Donna Leon, of Guido Brunetti fame, will be pleased.  

Amanda Knox acquitted because of 'stunning flaws' in investigation

Judges’ legal reasoning says case against Knox and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito lacked evidence to prove wrongdoing

The Guardian

Italy’s highest court acquitted Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito of the 2007 murder of the British university student Meredith Kercher, because there were “stunning flaws” in the investigation that led to their convictions, according to judges’ legal reasoning.

A panel of judges at the court of cassation in Rome found that the state’s case against the pair, who were definitively cleared of murder in March, lacked enough evidence to prove their wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt, and cited a complete lack of “biological traces” in connection to the crime.

Touchstones

Italian Perversions Condemn Us All

First, the story (courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald):

Italy's highest court has overturned the conviction of a 60-year-old man for having sex with an 11-year-old girl, because the verdict failed to take into account their "amorous relationship".  Pietro Lamberti, a social services worker in Catanzaro in southern Italy, was convicted in February 2011 and sentenced to five years in prison for sexual acts with a minor. 

The verdict was later upheld by an appeals court.  But Italy's supreme court ruled that the verdict did not sufficiently consider "the 'consensus', the existence of an amorous relationship, the absence of physical force, the girl's feelings of love".   The court's October 15 decision to order a retrial was made public in December by Il Quotidiano della Calabria and slowly spread to social media networks, where it sparked heated reactions against the Italian justice system.  According to Il Quotidiano, the girl came from a poor family who had known and trusted the social worker.

From the perspective of the Christian Gospel both the original crime and the reasoning of the Italian supreme court are evil.  But our challenge to all who are not Christians is to declare where they stand on matters such as this.

Orwellian Dystopia Emerging in Post-Fascist Italy

The Rise of Homo-fascism

Posted on December 20, 2013 

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.

Turtle Bay and Beyond

 

If you thought Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty is being treated unfairly by A&E, then you have to get a load of what is happening in Italy with regards to media treatment of dissenting views on homosexuality.

The government has just issued a new set of guidelines for journalists on how to treat “LGBT” people. The guidelines, funded by the Council of Europe, dictate what terms and images must be used by the media and which cannot be used when treating LGBT subjects. Journalists who do not comply are threatened with legal and professional penalties.    Journalists are instructed not use negative sexual images from gay pride events and to refrain from employing terms like “natural family”, “traditional family” and “gay marriage”. The guidelines explain that those terms are discriminatory and that marriage and family alone will do.