Italy

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

Now that’s a screaming case of the pot calling the kettle black if there ever was one. Mitt Romney has lashed out at The Donald for being a “phony and  fraud”, but consider this. During his 16-years at Bain Capital, fully one-fourth or $600 million of the firms cumulative $2.5 billion of profits were scalped from companies which went bankrupt soon after Mitt and his partners got out of town with the loot.

Greetings from the sickbed. I had not realized how sick I had gotten in Italy until I returned home and was safe to crash. And crash I did. My doc has prescribed an antibiotic for this sinus infection. I’ve noticed that since my three-year bout with mono, my immune system is fragile, and even a cold often turns into something worse. So, my apologies for light posting. The real tragedy of all this, of course, is that when I’m in Austin this weekend, I will not be able to drink margaritas. Verily, we dwell in a vale of tears.

Submitted by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk via Bawerk.net,

Italy is big enough to matter (it is the eight largest economy on the planet), but so uneventful that most does not pay any attention to what is going on there. We contend that Italy will, during the next year or two, be on everyone’s radar screen as it has the potential to derail the European project for real.

In a shocking new set of cables released by Julian Assange's Wikileaks organization, highly classified documents show that the NSA bugged meetings between UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (over climate change); between Israel prime minister Netanyahu and Italian prime minister Berlusconi (begging for help to deal with Obama); between key EU and Japanese trade ministers discussing their secret trade red-lines at WTO negotiations; as well as details of a private meeting

Germany’s policies in Europe could spark the Eurozone to collapse, as government debt and bailout regulations put the euro and those countries who use it on the brink of a total economic meltdown.  A special advisor to the German government, Professor Peter Bofinger, has predicted that Spain and Italy will be forced to leave the euro in the immediate future because of Germany’s new rules.