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RE: Populism is Popular in Italy -- Brussels is in Trouble

in #politics7 years ago

If by austerity you mean withholding taxes from the southern regions, then yes. But, at the same time, they wouldn't lose access to the EU markets if they left the euro... though the EU would threaten and bluster all day every day about that. Moreover, reimposing the Lira would lower the cost of those products to sell to an over-priced euro-zone as well as the rest of the world.

The euro is strangling Italy at this point and that, frankly, has always been the plan. The Northern League has been openly secessionist for more than a decade on this very issue. They know that their customers in Europe will still buy their stuff. It will be Brussels that will have a hissy fit, but Brussels is very vulnerable right now, given that the ECB is literally the only buyer of Italian debt.

And that problem is the ECB's problem, not the Bank of Italy's. When you owe the bank a thousand dollars it's your problem, when you owe the bank 300 billion dollars? that's the bank's problem.

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