On his way to submit his resignation

He had it coming. Under trial for fraud, sexual misconduct and tax evasion – which can be added to a history of alleged criminal activity – Silvio Berlusconi’s position as Italy’s prime minister has for a long time been tenuous. The country’s current dire economic woes have proven to be the breaking point, but, not with the Italian people. No, the final blow came from a foreign body, the European Union.

Given that he ran Italy’s economy into the ground, tarnished the country’s reputation with his antics, like the bunga-bunga parties where we can safely assume sex, drugs and other fun activities all took place and effectively made the country into one designed for old men while the young and disillusioned were forced to live with Mama or move to another EU member state,  it is probably great that he has finally gone and this time, at 75-years-old, I do not think he will be back.

In an interview before stepping down, Berlusconi said, “Maybe I’ll be the president of AC Milan again”. This is also great news.

As PM, Berlusconi has had to tighten his belt with AC Milan because the country’s economic troubles meant that the people would have castigated him if he dropped €50 million on a new signing – these same people would have voted for him in the next election as they had done before.

Nevertheless, this has been one reason why the club has not made many big signings in recent years. But, now things could change.

That crazy Milanista, Tiziano Crudelli, says he expects a change in the club’s transfer policy should Silvio take back his seat at the San Siro.

“I expect a different market, more investments. Because, let’s be honest, as prime minister during a time of economic crisis in Italy he could not spend and expand for AC Milan—it would have been unacceptable.”

“Without those curbs now, I hope he can bring the club the necessary resources to return to the top of Europe.”

More so than new players, though they would be great, I am hoping for the redevelopment of the Giuseppe Meazza to be announced or even a brand new stadium altogether. Great players will buy us success in the short term, but, a new stadium with the commercial benefits it could attract will help ensure the future of the club.

Forza Milan.

Hoping to see more of this now

A political aside: so much for the sovereignty of EU member states. Greece’s PM as of last week but no longer, George Papandreou, declared a consensus to take place to let his people decide on whether to accept the EU’s austerity measures. Sounds very democratic because it is, however, clearly Greece is not a democracy despite the word’s Greek origins.The EU had to get the austerity measures through, for its own good, never mind what the Greek people wanted. So they forced Georgie boy out and got their own man instead, Lucas Papa… something or rather.

A similar thing has occurred in Italy. While I think it is great for Italy – and AC Milan – that Berlusconi has been ousted, the way it has been done is a cause for concern. The people have not decided, rather, the EU has pushed in one of its own to take over the leadership of the country, former EU commissioner Mario Monti.

Currently head of Bocconi university in Milan, Monti is expected to elect his own cabinet of technocrats whose job it will be to implement the austerity packages imposed by the EU.

Austerity packages that will cut government spending to social welfare programs because apparently this is the solution. But, it is debatable as to whether this is in fact the way to start growing the economy again. There is a whole body of literature that suggests this is not the best way forward.

A Milan journalist, Giuliano Ferrara, held a meeting in support of the country holding elections. Wishful thinking on his part, but, he did say something worth noting,  “the bond yields were being used like armoured cars to suppress democracy”.  And he is right. the panic from the markets drove Italy’s bond yield way over 7 per cent, which for a developed economy with the amount of debt Italy has, is unsustainable. This was an attack by the market on Italy’s economy and the European central bank should done more to avert the crisis rather than allow it to become an attack on democracy too.

In 1997 when the Asian crisis hit, Hong Kong avoided severe damage to its economy because its central bank fought back against the savage investors who left a trail of destruction from Java sea to the sea of Japan.

It is the responsibility of a central bank to protect its domestic economy. In the case of Italy, this responsibility lies with the ECB, however, as events have shown, it has little interest in doing this. One suspects that a large part of the reason was that it simply could not afford to do it for monetary reasons that would affect other member states. Such is the problem with the Eurozone.