Rome abandons 2013 goal for balanced budget
Source: Financial Times
Mario Monti has delayed by one year Italy’s goal of balancing its budget rather than risk deepening the economic recession by imposing further drastic austerity measures.
Financial analysts broadly accepted what they saw as an inevitable policy shift by Rome’s technocrat government, a view reflected on markets where Italy’s bond yields rose only slightly in response to the news delivered after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
There was also scepticism, however, that Italy would meet its new target of balancing the budget in 2014 after a projected deficit of 0.5 per cent in 2013, with analysts doubting the government would meet its revised forecast of a 1.2 per cent fall in GDP this year followed by growth of 0.5 per cent in 2013.
“We are fighting every day to avoid the dramatic destiny of Greece,” Mr Monti told a news conference after the cabinet approved the government’s revised budget plans.
Read more: http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/74e35ed8-895e-11e1-85af-00144feab49a.html
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Nothing about his Goldman-Sachs link on Wikipedia for "Mario Monti" - but there is on Goldman page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs
Either an alternative becomes viable, or there will be chaos, imho of course. Greece is now considered as needing humanitarian assistance. Advised by Goldman-Sachs, who amongst others control anglosaxon rating agencies. Blargh. "Eurozone sovereign debt crisis" = manufactured BS = international banking crisis, still.
85% of the Greek bailout went to banks. Majority of that went to banks of other EU countries (flashback: "rescue" of AIG).
Austerity = deregulation, privatisation and killing welfare systems. More Friedman recipes for a Friedman crisis. It is simply unbelievable.
Democracy is almost dead. Only a stubborn minority agrees with austerity over here. As far as I see reading main EU newspapers & comments, nobody knows whom to vote for to stop this madness (exception: rise of the Pirate part in Germany and PASOK + ND possibly not getting a majority in upcoming Greek election, that's gonna be interesting).
The Germans hold the key, they seem to still have a semblance of a democracy, their high court affirming the need for the parliament to agree to bailouts. The french election is promising as well, with Hollande as socialist candidate saying he will renegotiate treaties to include growth programs.
The entire crisis in "Europe" is leading to further fiscal consolidation (the Fiscal Compact) so if only they included social safeguards and a nice banking/estate tax, we could emerge stronger. The way it looks however, it's gonna be creating huge profits for multinationals picking up sectors (privatising police in the UK!) that should remain public, and establishing another low-wage zone.
I want to get started on my garden...
Sorry for the 
