Lusi has used the Fiscal Shield to bring back to Italy millions of euro in election expenses taken from the account of the Margherita {Daisy} party, in which account financing of the PDminusL also ended up and he could then use the money with complete serenity (*). The charlatans of democracy deny any responsibility, in fact they even get very angry. Rutelli “We’ve been betrayed. It’s theft!” Bersani in relation to a new law on the parties: “It’s urgent to proceed: let’s give ourselves a very short timeframe.” The election financing, abolished by a referendum, brought back as the reimbursement of election expenses, is equivalent to about a billion euro. How much of this money has been taken away and then brought back into our country thanks to the Fiscal Shield desired by the parties? The answer to this question could be given by the Finance Police by carrying out a check up (to be made public) on all the accounts held by the parties. The hurry and the bipartisan will to approve the Fiscal Shield in its time are at least suspicious. A law, that is a mark of infamy for the Republic is an insult to the honest tax payers that have seen total tax dodgers, scoundrels, perhaps criminals, make their booty clean with a 5% tax and after that able to compete in the market, while they were paying their taxes right down to the last cent, with companies that had the availability of capital that had been ”given back its virginity”, fraudulently taken from the State and from all the people.
Let’s take a step back to 2009 and let’s see who in the so-called Opposition, agreed to the Fiscal Shield. Thirty two deputies in the Lower House, with a “no confidence” vote could have avoided the return of the billions of the Great Tax Dodgers and the mafia capital removed from the tax authorities and they could have brought down the government. But they were not present in the Chamber. 20 votes would have been enough. The list: 24 PDminusL: Argentin, Binetti, Bucchino, Capodicasa, Carra, Codurelli, D'Antoni, Esposito, Farina, Fioroni, Gaione, Ginefra, Giovanelli, Grassi, La Forgia, Lanzillotta, Madia, Mastromauro, Melandri, Misiani, Pistelli, Pompili, Porta, Portas. 7 UDC: Bosi, Ciccanti, Drago, Libè, Pisacane, Ruggeri, Volontè. 1 IDV: Misiti.
“Thinking badly is a sin, but often it’s spot on” said the Black Box of the Republic, Giulio Andreotti. For an operation of transparency it’s necessary for the 32 people absent at the voting on the Fiscal Shield and at the “no confidence” vote relating to Berlusconi (they could have saved us two nightmare years ...), surely all without any shadow, should make public their fixed and liquid assets before and after their entry to Parliament. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we. See you in parliament unless they do an electoral law that prevents that.
PS: Given that NOT ONE newspaper or TV station has remembered, I’ll do it. The MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} is the only one to have refused the reimbursement of election expenses of one million seven hundred thousand.
(*) source: Corriere della Sera

“The idea of a fixed job for your whole life? What monotony! Young people will have to get used to the idea that they won’t have that." That’s what Monti was saying yesterday. Don’t worry Rigor Montis! Young people are not getting bored. They’ve been moving forward for some time. Not only do they no longer believe in the fixed job, but not even in the variable one. And as fast as they are not believing, or perhaps so as not to get too bored, in recent years they have been fleeing abroad. Italy is the second European country after Romania for emigrants.
The young people that have said good bye to the “Bel Paese” for reasons of “force majeure”, lack of available work and no hope of having it, starvation wages and no security, are mostly graduates and those with diplomas. They have studied in our Universities with sacrifices on the part of their parents that are often unimaginable, to become emigrants. Most of them will not come back, simply because they cannot come back, to live and work “on projects” at 600 euro a month and supported by their family. If this bloody haemorrhage continues, this abdication of the future (the young people are the future!) is not an emergency, well then what is?
Youth unemployment is fed by this government’s wretched choices and by those of the previous government. The other States invest in innovation. We invest in cement and bomber planes. The useless tunnel of the TAV in Val di Susa will cost 22 billion, and the F 35 15 billion. With these colossal figures it’s possible to create innovation zones, for technological development. Get Italy to take off again by hanging on to technicians, engineers and computer people. Olivetti, Telettra, Telespazio, Italtel, the whole of the nation’s computer industry has been substituted by the cement industry. But where do we want to go?
In Europe, youth unemployment is on the increase, and even in this case at two speeds. Obviously, we are in the big group that is preparing the way with 31% (*) but the ranking does not take account of the young people that have emigrated. The average for the eurozone is 21,3%, 10 points less. What boredom, what monotony! A country that doesn’t manage to give a future to the new generations is a country on the road to extinction.
(*) source: Eurostat

The story of Rutelli Bread&Chicory is a novel of long long ago. Seduced, betrayed and robbed by its treasurer, the guilty one by virtue of antonomasia in every party worthy of respect. The treasurer has by now taken the place of the majordomo. He’s the first one under investigation for any missing cash. The names of the companies used by Luigi Lusi, the Margherita party’s treasurer and a PDminusL senator to remove 13 million in expense claims could have been taken from the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook: "TTTsrl", "Paradiso Immobilare", "Luigia Ltd" and "Giannone-Petricone" the architecture studio used to throw the investigators off the scent, in Toronto (Petricone is the surname of Luisi’s Canadian consort). The money was withdrawn from the Margherita party’s current account, into which money for the financing of the PDminusL landed up and it was destined for various types of spending including an apartment in the centre of Rome for a value of one million nine hundred thousand euro. Rutellone was also authorised to operate on the account, and he was unaware of everything. "Plis visit my bank account!". The transfers from the account took place over a period of three years with the explanation written as “payment of consultancy invoices”.
Rutelli with the "Maldive Style” tan, is disheartened: “I knew nothing about this”, “We are angry and saddened”, “The party intends to recover the money wrongly taken.”. The latter statement is to be framed. In effect, we are speaking of “money wrongly taken”, of the billion euro of public financing made out to be expenses even though the referendum had abolished expenses. More “money wrongly taken” than that! If the treasurer of a party steals the money that was wrongly taken from the citizens it is a double “wrongly taken”. After the Lega’sTanzania, we have the Canada of the Margherita party in the PDminusL. The next time, where will the expenses be exported? In Papua New Guinea?
I’m sure that Rutelli has nothing to do with it. Look at him. Does it seem to you that he is capable of managing a current account? Impossible. And a young old marmot/duck paid with public money in Parliament and in the city of Rome since 1983. It’s not by chance that Lusi has been the general secretary of the Italian Catholic Guide and Scout Association. Bersani thundered “I am unpleasantly surprised [as happened with Penati - editor] We are awaiting clarifications. If individual responsibilities were to emerge ... we have mechanisms able to decide on the appropriate measures.” Get money out of politics! They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we. See you in parliament unless they do an electoral law that prevents that.

We are so busy talking about the economy that we have forgotten democracy. Perhaps from a technical point of view, the Monti government is not a coup d’état, but that is what it is basically. It was Napolitano that elected it having been pressured by the EU to avoid an economic catastrophe denied by all the parties and the institutions until last summer. Where the hell were they before? Out picking daisies?
The former Berlusconi government and Parliament itself are not expressions of democracy but offspring of the party-ocracy. A distortion of the will of the people. Napolitano obstinately defends the parties from “anti-politics” and from direct democracy. We have an unconstitutional Parliament of convicted criminals and people with no ability who wouldn’t even find a job as dishwashers, “appointed” by five party secretaries. It has failed and it’s still there telling us what to do. Italy’s obscure illness is the party-ocracy that since the time after the last war, step by step has reduced any space for democratic confrontation and has taken control of the State. Piero Calamandrei, a father of the constitution, said at the beginning of the 1950s: “Calling deputies and senators “representatives of the people” no longer means today what was meant by this term in other times: rather one should call them employees of their party. The parties have been transformed from free associations of volunteer-believers, into armies organised with a top level staff of Commissioned officers and Non-commissioned officers in permanent active service. The election depends on the choice of candidates and that is done not by the voters, but by party functionaries. And the candidates, rather than having personal merit in specific professional competences are chosen for their attitude to becoming good functionaries of their party in Parliament." Since then, the situation has got worse. democracy is denied and there is no important decision relating to the citizen that is taken not by him but by the parties that allow themselves every licence thanks to the servile and ignoble journalists. With the results of the referendum, such as those on party financing and nuclear, they clean their backsides. The popular initiative laws like the “Clean up Parliament” one, are ignored. And all that happens with total silence from the Constitutional Court. What’s needed is for “direct democracy tools” to be inserted into the Constitution: the proposing referendum with no quorum, the obligation to vote within 60 days on popular initiative laws with open voting and the direct election of candidates. The next Vday will be for the introduction of direct democracy in Italy. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we. See you in parliament unless they do an electoral law that prevents that. “Calling deputies and senators “representatives of the people” no longer means today what was meant by this term in other times: rather one should call them employees of their party.

The banks are no longer granting loans to businesses, notwithstanding the fact that they have secured a 50 billion Euro European Union loan. The businesses in question are often facing a stark choice, namely, to shut down or to approach the loan sharks, i.e. the criminals for a loan. The Mafia groups are sitting with a little annual war chest of more than 100 billion, so they are certainly able to satisfy any need, except that shortly thereafter they take over the businesses in question. What we’re doing is saving the banks and handing over the businesses to the Mafia groups. The paradox is that this is going on while down in the South many businessmen are refusing to pay for protection and are therefore risking their lives. The banking system will land up being the victim of its own policies and the Mafia will own the entire Country.

Financial journalist and writer Filippo Astone's Passaparola

The Cosa Nostra and globalization
Good day to you all. My name is Filippo Astone, financial journalist and author of investigative books and I spend my time dealing with business, finance and Italian Capitalism. Italian financial journalism tends to either hustle, sanctifying business and capitalism, or immediately write them off as a dead loss. I, however, have always tried to point out their complexity and I think that the same counts for my latest offering, entitled “Senza Padrini: Resistere alle Mafie Fa Guadagnare” (literally “Without Godfathers: Resisting the Mafia pays dividends”). I took a look at this movement of Sicilian businessmen who are standing up against the Mafia, not for reasons of ethics, principles or heroism, but simply because the Mafia groups are hampering economic development and are therefore harming their respective companies. I have intertwined this story with the destructive economic impact that the Mafia groups have had on Italy. Currently everyone is talking about the financial crisis, yet they conveniently forget that one of the main causes of our decline and our impoverishment has been the so-called Mafia economy. Following the massacres, the Cosa Nostra is in decline and today the Calabrian ‘Ndragheta is the most important of all the Mafia groups. After the 1993 massacres and the Falcone and Borsellino murders, the authorities applied some pretty major investigative and repressive pressure and, at the same time, the international drug traders dropped the Cosa Nostra and began hooking up with ‘Ndragheta instead. The Columbians no longer did business with the Sicilians but turned instead to the Calabrians. If the truth be told, this kind of entrepreneurship that is independent of the protection rackets and free of the Mafia has always existed. Few people know, for example, that there is a small mechanical engineering hub in Caltanissetta that even manages to export its products. The one who began this revolution, together with Ivan Lo Bello, is Antonello Montante, who runs a company called MSA (Mediterranean Shock Absorbers), a company that manufactures special shock absorbers and exports some 70% of what it produces. The shock absorbers used on the “Freccia Rossa” (literally Red Arrow) trains are manufactured by MSA and they therefore don’t need any favours from the politicians or reliance on territorial connections. The new climate created by the decline of the Cosa Nostra and the greater opportunities provided by globalization have benefited these kinds of businesses, which would otherwise have had to remain in the shadows. To this we must add the characters of the individuals who finally realised that it was possible for them to rebel, and the straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact that a mafia boss who had concentrated the bulk of his power in the Sicilian branch of Confindustria is now sitting in jail. That individual goes by the name of Pietro Di Vincenzo and he was a major Sicilian construction mogul, as well as being the President of the Caltanissetta branch of Confindustria and President of the Sicilian Construction Federation. The rebellion against the Mafia began in Caltanissetta as a rebellion against Di Vincenzo himself, instigated by a group of young businessmen who wanted one of their members at the head of the local branch of Confindustria but were being hampered by the Mafia. Then, at the same time, there was also the petrochemical hub at Gela, which also happens to be one of ENI’s biggest plants and which had pretty much become an all-you-can-eat buffet for the mafia-run businesses. We mustn’t forget that Gela was one of the biggest Mafia hot-spots in the entire universe. It is no longer so after this rebellion because, in 2007, Engineer Rispoli, the son of a magistrate, came in as the new head of the Gela petrochemical hub whose turnover amounted to quite a few billion Euro. The latter decided to no longer give the business to the Mafia companies, to introduce certain controls on suppliers and to ensure that everything became legal. In the Province of Caltanissetta, of which Gela is a part, Eni controls some 40% of the votes. They introduced a legalisation policy which required all ENI supplier companies to comply with certain rules and so all the crooked and Cosa Nostra suppliers were weeded out, also thanks to the fact that Gela’s legendary Mayor at that time was Rosario Crocetta, who backed these changes because Di Vincenzo was not only a Mafia boss and a construction mogul, but as a construction entrepreneur he also controlled the Sicilian desalination plants. What was happening was that Gela did not have enough water notwithstanding the fact that the town had invested millions of Euro in desalination plants, money that had been paid over to Di Vincenzo and so, for this reason Crocetta decided to oppose Di Vincenzo.

The entrepreneurs take to the Web to save themselves
Montante, Lo Bello, Venturi and Catanzaro were living under constant escort at the time but, as expected, there was obviously a reaction so these entrepreneurs adopted a strategy to take to the Web. Libero Grassi was killed because he was isolated and therefore, by hitting him, the problem would be solved. There are so many of them that even if one of them were to be killed, the network would carry on. Then, in any event, there is the additional benefit of the repressive pressure being applied, which has become extremely heavy indeed. Currently Sicily has a heavy concentration of the best magistrates and the best law and order officers and now, whenever a particularly talented policeman is identified, he is invariably sent down to Sicily. On the one hand this is a good thing, however, on the other hand it could also be a bad thing since perhaps it implies that the less well-trained and less talented people are being left up in the North so, given that the Mafia groups are busy invading the North (for example Asti Province) they are finding it easier to get established there. Up North, people find it culturally more difficult to admit the pervasiveness of the Mafia economy, so much so, in fact, that the directive issued by Confindustria Mezzogiorno (literally the Southern Chapter of Confindustria), chaired by Cristiana Coppola, which makes it obligatory to expel or suspend anyone found to be colluding with the Mafia and was made compulsory for all the southern branches of Confindustria, was instead made voluntary for the northern branches of Confindustria and, to date, only the Assolombarda and Imperia branches have complied. The Veneto and Piedmont branches of Confindustria have no intention whatsoever of complying with a provision that would be relatively simple to comply with if the truth be told. The reason for this is totally cultural in that there is a total refusal to admit that this problem is indeed occurring. This refusal to admit to uncomfortable or negative realities due to factors such as strength of character or morals is the root of many ills. For example, the companies... the Mafia groups (above all the ‘Ndragheta) somehow manage to worm their way into struggling companies because they simply take them over, initially by lending them money. However, any businessman who accepts these loans actually refuses to face reality, namely that he should rather be taking the company books to Court and, instead, he chooses to resort to accepting this so-called help that will inevitably lead to his own demise. There are even some dramatic cases where businessmen have initially let these mafia guys in so that they could borrow money from them in order to keep their struggling businesses afloat, only to later find that their companies have been taken away from them and they were then obliged to act as Mafia agents, quiet little northern businessmen who have now let their companies go and have become mere bookkeepers, accountants and proxies for the Mafia. Mafia terminals, now that’s the right term.

The Mafia chooses local politics
The crisis is extremely beneficial to the criminals because, as it is, these Mafia businesses distort the markets and ensure that the market rewards the worst performers since the Mafia business has the competitive advantage represented by privileged relations with the politicians, the threat of physical force and easy access to money. In an economy that is in crisis, the worst performer with these advantages has a much better chance of weathering the crisis. Not only that, but as the number of companies in difficulty or with a lack of access to capital increases, so the Mafia groups have more companies to which they can offer easy credit. Companies that are apparently healthy but are in fact controller by the Mafia have more cash available than other companies that are perhaps being sold off by the banks that have shut off their lifelines, so the Mafia-controlled companies find it easier to weather the storms.
At this moment in time, besides National politics where they are also active because of their need to influence the major investment decisions and judicial policies, the Mafia groups are even more interested in gaining power at the local level. The Mafia groups’ core business depends strongly on local politics. The movement on the ground, which is where their main strength lies, really needs local politics. They need the construction contracts, and now there is a new line of business in which the Mafia groups are very strong, namely wind power, which requires permits from politicians and is really becoming big business. The minute any piece of farming land is equipped with wind power generators or solar panels, it’s value suddenly increases tremendously, hence the need for these political contacts. The risk is that this federalism that is being vaunted as the solution to all our problems may indeed become a reality as a kind of Mafia-style federalism.
I would like to mention the names of a number of these entrepreneurs who are members of this network that is so tightly meshed that it is impossible to break the bonds. In addition to Antonello Montante and Ivan Lo Bello, there are also Ivo Blandin in Messina, Davide Durante in Trapani, who has had the courage to make 30 suspensions in an area where Matteo Messina Denaro, Giuseppe Albanese in Palermo, Domenico Bonaccorsi in Catania, Rosario Marù, who is Montante’s deputy in Gela, and Giuseppe Catanzaro, who is President of Confindustria in Agrigento and state witness in one of the more dangerous legal inquests against a Mafia boss who was threatening him. As entrepreneur and President of the Agrigento businessmen, Catanzaro headed up the turnaround and engineered some 37 suspensions and expulsions. Pippo Callipo, the man behind the Calippo Tuna brand and special commissioner for Confindustria in Reggio Calabria, has managed to make more than 30 suspensions and expulsions and then there is Alberto Meomartini who, as head of the only large Confindustria branch in the North, insisted on complying with the protocol that includes the expulsion of anyone found to be colluding with the Mafia.

The opinion polls show the MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S) {5 Star MoVement} to be experiencing strong growth, above 7%. A poisonous solution for the System that would be FINISHED with the entrance to Parliament in 2013 of 40 citizens not subject to the power games. If the M5S gets 7%, the fear makes it 90. For the parties and the media, this forecast has had the effect of an electric shock. The politicians and the lobbies, no longer able to ignore an unpredictable phenomenon, that is uncontrollable and absent from the P2’s programme, have moved to the defamation stage. To the search for the minimum detail, to phrases extrapolated from the blog and reinterpreted. To the hunt for the “grillini” {Grillo-followers) that feel that they are no longer “grillini”. The newspapers and the TV channels know their job as shit machines perfectly well. Feltri compared to Boffo was an amateur. The left wing newspapers excel in this particularly well. Progressivists know really well how to do their jobs as badmouthers using the backsides of the others and placing themselves on a pedestal..
The shit machine that has as its leading lights some of the most famous cartoonists, hacks from La Repubblica and from l’Unità but also to various extent from all the other newspapers, has acted in unison. The objective, that’s not even hidden, is to separate Grillo from public opinion and to get the “bravi ragazzi” {good lads} of the M5S to come back within the enclosure of the progressivists, a rationale of the PDminusL blessed by Napolitano, but also by Fini’s new “destra rosè” {rose-coloured Right wing} that has shared the thalamus (in relation to Ruby) with Berlusconi for twenty years.
In the space of a few weeks I have been labelled first an "evasore” {tax-dodger} and a "terrorist” for a statement about Equitalia that’s almost trite: "If Equitalia has become a target we need to understand the reasons as well as condemning the violence”. Then I’ve been attacked for the presence of a porn star in the M5S list for the forthcoming local elections in La Spezia (false news ... shame) by those who have nostalgia for bunga bunga, then marked as a racist for having written that automatic citizenship for foreigners born in Italy is today an object of distraction that is useful only for the parties in getting votes. Oh - and on that point, who wrote the "Bossi- Fini” law? Was it perhaps Fini himself? Really him? I really have nothing against citizenship for immigrants, but the methods and the time frames have to be thought out at a European level. Why is it that the parties in Brussels haven’t discussed this instead of the play-acting, the honorary citizenships, the election-oriented banquets? It’s better to have the usual PDminusL dramatisations with banquets and hugs. "E' il potere dei più buoni” {It’s the power of those who are the most goodie-goodie} come as Gaber sang “I’m thinking of the new types of poverty that have high visibility”. The latest “porcata” {filthy thing}: the Tav in Val di Susa, a shocking act of destruction both economically and environmentally but above all of democracy. For mentioning “geometric power” I find I’m one of the red brigades. You won‘t stop me and above all you won’t stop the citizens. Meanwhile continue writing bullshit. It’s the only thing a servant can do.