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Martin Armstrong Warns Italy's Recession Means "The End Of Democracy"
Submitted by Martin Armstrong via Armstrong Economics,
Italy has entered that phase of zero-point growth. Italy’s people have been beaten by Europe and no longer expect recovery. But then, yesterday, the Statistical Office of the economic data for the second quarter of 2014 released economic numbers that ??froze a dumb look even on the faces of the hardcore pessimists. For the second time this year, Italy experienced a slump of its gross domestic product by 0.3% year on year. The economic data is so bad to the point it has not been seen for 14 years, that everyone no matter what side of the political fence is whispering or shouting the same world – “Recession!”
The advantage of Italy and its legendary corruption has been its equally inefficient government that has allowed the people to just ignore it and get along with life in the real world of the underground economy. When you look at the numbers at the gross level, one cannot imagine how Italy has functioned economically. However, looking closer one sees the vibrant underground economy that has allowed the people to make their own living and still prices, taxes and debt per capita are much lower than everywhere else in Europe, Italy’s real problem – it joined the Euro which did not benefit the Italians and only increased their national debt in “real terms” as the Euro rallied to excessively high levels in this wave of deflation.
The solution for Italy? The politician’s dream. Brussels want to take away the right of the Italian people to vote on anything meaningful. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has hoped to celebrate his “epochal success” in the parliamentary reform in practice. The Senate in Italy was rather unique. All legislation had to go through the Senate which was elected by the people and had the power to dismiss the government. This was actually a very good idea. However, it prevents tyranny from Brussels and this is the real problem. Renzi has succeed against the resistance of the deputies. The Senate, the second chamber of Parliament, today or at the latest on Friday decide to self-disempowerment. Weeks hardest struggle – to physical violence – come to an end.
Renzi and his outwardly so youthful Parliament Minister, Maria Elena Boschi (33), have been hard enough to push through the reforms that will end democratic processes in Italy. Not since Benito Mussolini has Italy lost such power of the people. Dissidents from their own social democratic ranks threatened to burst the tyranny being brought to Italy by Brussels backed Renzi and Boschi, they have perhaps bribed way too many people to sell out the country to Brussels for any dissidents to mount a legal challenge. They even succeeded in breaking up the Berlusconi camp, which Brussels covertly organized a behind the curtain coup to drive him from office when it was intending to take Italy out of the Euro.
In future, the Senate is only 100 instead of 315 members under the pretense that this will save a lot of money and the real objective to hand Italy to Brussels. Renzi claims his reforms are copied from the German Bundesrat, but he only perseveres marginally the pretense of the relationship between the state and regions. The Senators are not elected by the people but are to be appointed by the state parliaments from among the local politicians and the mayor thereby eliminating the people in the very same manner as the EU Commission that nobody votes for and cannot be removed without revolution.
Italy is where the Republic was born in 509BC that sparked a contagion that spread with the overthrow of monarchy giving birth to Democracy in Athens in 508BC. The land that had inspired the American Revolution against monarchy is now itself surrendering the last vestige of democratic process yield to the growing tyranny of Brussels under the pretense of saving the Euro.
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Martin Armstrong is a closet seppo dollar bull
The End of Democracy is a non sequitur, oxymoron, past tense, dead upon print archaic concept.
Democracy.... How quaint
I suppose his Modus Operation is:
Dont get mad because it happened the same thing 2000 years ago ... here is what the computer says ...
Smart guy dont get me wrong, but the world has moved on ... he might have been a good option back in the 80s ... with maggie thatcher and all that ...
1993-1999 wasn't normal growth either, a direct result of easy credit and extended financing. This POS has a long way to fall to reach normal.
I don't mean this in a bad way but I wish they would put Martin back in jail.
Martin Armstrong is an idiot.
The end of democracy? Sounds like a good thing! (If democracy ever existed to begin with.) Democracy, or tyranny of the majority, is an ugly, idea. The founders of the U.S. constitution, for instance, hated it.
Nowadays the average idiot, including Martin Armstrong, acts as though democracy is some kind of good, positive ideal, and war propaganda about "spreading/protecting democracy" resonates so well.
You're getting it wrong. Aristotle also hated democracy. Because what it meant in the old days was just demagogy. But the system right now is more of a democratic republic. Which is a mix of the 3 pure forms of government: Democracy (legislative), aristocracy (judicial), monarchy (executive). The idea is that pure forms of govt have the seed of their own destruction. And because the 3 forms compete amongst themselves, they should keep each other in check. As for a system, a mixed one, is quite ingenious. But well, corruption exists in every human aspect; wouldn't be surprised when ningen fucks this shit up too. 'Twas a good idea though.
and under which patronage did Aristotle put himself? the father of Alexander the Great. classic case of not biting the hand that feeds you
"The Senators are not elected by the people but are to be appointed by the state parliaments from among the local politicians and the mayor thereby eliminating the people in the very same manner as the EU Commission that nobody votes for and cannot be removed without revolution."
senators appointed by local elected parliaments? let's see if someone else came to this bright idea before the Germans did (thinking hard)
oh. yes, now I remember. The Founding Fathers of the United States of America did. That is, before the XVII Amendment in 1913
and what do appointed members in a Senate do? what the local elected parliaments tell them. they are, after all, recallable delegates
but go on, and mistake democracy, republic and "all that" further as something that is only visible in direct elections. it makes it easy to call "unelected! unelected!"
ah, it's so damn easy to produce some populist propaganda.
Again, what Italians might do soon is to have a Upper House (aka Senate) in the same way as the Germans have now and the US had for the first 120 years
just as a reminder: among the 28 sovereign members of the EU, only 2 heads of government are directly elected, and the remaining 26 are appointed by the directly elected parliaments. meaning that when a head of government starts to go bonkers - or against the will of the parliament, it can be replaced easily
see below for further views on appointed senators (yeah, that's "unelected")
"The original intent of the founders was to have a Federalist system which consisted of individual states and a small central government with very limited powers.
The idea was that the states would send the senators to Washington to represent them.
If a senator started voting against the best interests of the state which he represented, he could be immediately recalled. What happens today when a senator violates his oath of office and votes for unconstitutional bills? Nothing. Senators are elected for six years and even when those six years are up, it is almost impossible to take them out - See more at: http://www.garciareport.com/17th-amendment-bad-repeal-it/#sthash.U2LtxVj..."
"Tea Party supporters are widely calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution which provides for the direct election of US Senators by the residents of each state.
Prior to the adoption of the 17th Amendment, state legislatures appointed their state's US Senators.
Repealing the 17th Amendment would revert the US to the state legislature appointment process in place at the founding..." http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/12/883798/-Repealing-the-17th-Amen...
He is not wrong Arius in the macro trends. Just dont follow him down the rabbit hole.
I will keep my republic or nothing, screw democracy
Are you going to vote for it?
Are you going to die for it?
America was born from the shed blood of patriots. Will you shed yours ?
Most likely
Most likely
Willingly ?
No one sheds blood willingly, they are backed into it and finally realize they have no choice and there are no other options.
The key phrase is "finally realize", only truly free people are able to form their own conclusions regarding the world around them. Most accept what they are told and do not "finally realize" anything and thus take no action.
As an Italian-American, who has never identified with my Italian heritage and only with the country of my birth, I am not sure how to feel about Italy falling back into fedual EU control. I probably should care, but really am so much more worried about what is happening on this side of the Atlantic.
America and the idea of America will morph away to something else.....with a whimper.
No one is going to do a thing.
No
George S. Patton:
No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.People will be talking about free speech next, FFS!
Time to get out of the EU
This is the option that seems the most obvious yet "one dare not mention it! Nein! Nein!"
Typical DV speculation here but I think the Netherlanders are gonna execute on that one. The irony of course being they are gaining the most from all this "euro-ness" since they're sitting on the largest natural gas reserve in Europe currently. (And the only one in Europe right now I might add.)
Then again...
I don't mean this in a bad way, but are you mentally disabled by chance?
End of Democracy? Good riddance. I'd much rather have liberty.
Tah dah!
I don't think it's one of the choices being offered.
....oh poop...
Democracy - the tyranny of the many over the few.
Like 1,000 sheep and 10 wolves voting on what's for dinner.
Looks like mutton's back on the table, boys!
That vote would have grass on the menu ? 2 Wolves and a Sheep on the other hand ;) Of course we empower the 10 to out vote the 1000 so I guess you're right.
There *is* another possibility...
STAMPEDE!!!
It is actually more complicated and even dangerous than that. I have been enamored of Mencken lately. To paraphrase, "Democracy is the idea that the electorate knows what it wants...and gets it good and hard."
In a Democracy there is the severe misconception that people even know what to do. If I went out to twenty people on the street and asked them to vote on how to proceed in removing a brain tumor it really would not matter what the majority opinion was. Unless one was a brain surgeon not one of them would have a clue as to what to do or even how to do it...or how to regulate it...certify it...permit it, etc.
The same applies to economics in terms of labor laws, international trade and regulating most anything. I have had to rethink my ideas on pluralism and frankly it ends up confirming the wisdom of maximum liberty.
Goddamn Waps never worked a goddamn day in their goddamn lives. Worse than the goddamn greeks!
I always thought it was spelled 'Wop'
could be wrong, I guess. Maybe it's a Brit thing.
I thought it was "dago."
Day-Glo
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP)
I wuz thinkin' you might be a dumazz b/c of your reply to DV. I wuz wrong, yer an idiot until you prove otherwise. Wop, Dago, Greaseball- those terms apply strictly to Italians who emigrated to FSoA.
WASP is a much broader term. It mostly applies to a group of immigrants who summarily killed and interned the indigenous occupants of north america in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Yeah, I know- history, like math is hard. Especially if you don't know it.
With Out Papers= WOP
W.O.P.
WITHOUT PAPERS - as they came in at Ellis Island some had no documents
Guappo.
Italian tires suck because dago wop,wop,wop. Get it...they go wop,wop,wop, yeah...nevermind.
And because the helicopter was invented by an Italian they go wop wop wop, guinnea guinnea guinnea!
The politician’s dream. Brussels want to take away the right of the Italian people to vote on anything meaningful.
Isn't that what's happening here? With so much unchecked regulation, much of which the majority wouldn't support and with lawmaking via Executive fiat? We're already there!
The President and members of Congress who are for so many of these life strangling moves simply claim "It wasn't me!"
Just another step in the inevitable descent from Socialism to Dictatorship.
Democracy in the land of the free ended spectacularly on November 22, 1963 when Kennedy's brains were splattered across the trunk of the Presidential limousine and Jackie valiantly tried to retrieve them. Since that day, the military industrial complex has ruled and dominated not only America, but the entire West.
Now the NSA spies on everybody including the Supreme Court, Congress and the White House. If you do not know that we are a fascist police state, you may want to continue to keep smoking whatever you have been smoking for the last few decades.
The most extraordinary passage in the memo requires that the Israeli spooks “destroy upon recognition” any communication provided by the NSA “that is either to or from an official of the US government.” It goes on to spell out that this includes “officials of the Executive Branch (including the White House, Cabinet Departments, and independent agencies); the US House of Representatives and Senate (members and staff); and the US Federal Court System (including, but not limited to, the Supreme Court).”
The stunning implication of this passage is that NSA spying targets not only ordinary American citizens, but also Supreme Court justices, members of Congress and the White House itself. One could hardly ask for a more naked exposure of a police state.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/13/surv-s13.html
The Zupruder film does not show the assassination of JFK.
Your inadvertently helping the killers.
November 22, 1963 when Kennedy's brains were splattered across the trunk of the Presidential limousine and Jackie valiantly tried to retrieve them.
Always enjoy your posts. I thought this comment on J interesting. When faced with that kind of horror you are not going to think about retrieving gray matter. IMO she was trying to get away. If one were to follow William Cooper's theory (murdered also) supposedly from the enhanced Zapruder film, he was shot by the driver, hence his head going backward, not forward as in the Warren Commission report. Good ol' BOL Teddy tried to talk J out of marrying AO. Her response was "if they are killing Kennedy's, I'm not staying here. AO can afford me & my children protection". Now whether she would have received SS protection, I can't say, but it does stand to reason that IF the shot did come from the driver who is she going to tell & why would she say anything that would give the slightest hint the driver did it and put both her & the kids in jeopardy?
Here is proof she retrieved Kennedy's brains from the trunk of the limousine:
But what seems to have been overlooked, amounts to far more powerful and objective corroboration for this notion. Mrs. Kennedy, in fact, made it very clear at that time, exactly what she had recovered from the trunk. This is from Mrs. Connally's Warren Commission testimony,
Of course, it is clear that Mrs. Kennedy had nothing in her hand when she turned to reach across the trunk, so she had to have acquired the brain tissue afterward. Governor John Connally heard Mrs. Kennedy say exactly the same thing, as he reported in his WC testimony.
You already provided the solution to the problem in the beginning - underground economy. Cash money, BTC, silver maples, bribing local officials. Untraceable mediums of exchange. Let Brussels and gestapo types like Renzi and whatever her name is enjoy using banks, credit and government "services". In the end there will be nothing left in the coffers, and we'll see if the jackboots will be able to enforce the pleb bail-in.
The great thing about barter is how hard it is to combat.
As for government or financial institutions 'services', given it is made as difficult as possible to avoid using them, it's pretty much coersion.
If there's only one bridge over the river, the guy charging you to keep your clothes dry has pretty much got it made.
Italians just haven't gotten used to a currency that doesn't inflate to extinction every couple of years. Give them time, they may come to appreciate it.....and Italy still has a LOT of gold...they'll be fine in the long run.
Don't know much about Italy's Au situation, but here's a coupe of thoughts.
#1 Hope it's stored close to home.
#2 If you are quoting what the Italian government says about it's gold, you may want to throw a little skepticism at that.
Goddamn Dago government? Just another goddamn mafia. Goddamn Dagos are as unable to govern themselves as those goddamn Greeks.
half of it is in the same place where the German gold is...
one of these days his sky is falling prediction may come true. until then i would rather listen to financial advice from chicken little.
betwen this clown, BS form mental midget ron paul and a few other idiots, this site has become worthless for info and actionable advice
Time to pull the rip cord. cya
Don't let the door hit ya on the way out, ya bugger!
Haven't you learned, you do the opposite that ZH recommends. You truely can't fight the Fed.
...form mental midget ron paul..
Your a genesis!!!
What esle you git?
The events in this article, basically the "Brussles coup" and the culling of the Senate, has already happened, or is going to happen? Where do I find more information on this as this topic is really interesting to me, I don't know where to look. Italy was on my short list of places to ex-pat to, since I have the right of return there, and people living in the rural areas get left alone from what I am told.
My ex-pat short list:
Italy
Russia (Need to learn Russian to be citizen, ouch!)
Tasmania (rural and filled with otherworldly beauty)
You can't go by the numbers for Italy's GDP. I have been there, done business and everything (including real esate sales; the reported price of the transaction is usullay one fifth of the transacion price) is done in the black market. No one trusts the government and they attempt to beat it any way they can.
Italian unemployed statistics, GDP, income tax returns all baloney.
To be totally honest the Italans are way ahead of us; as we drift lower in our economies here in North America we will go do the same. Fuck the man and take of ourselves. Go to Black.
Is Italy in a recession? Who knows? In reality all of the West has been in a recession since 2000 whatever the govt. BS numbers say....................
They say once you go Black you never go back.
I remember reading a number of articles in '11/12 that estimated that anywhere from 25-40% of economic activity in Italy is black market and thus not accounted for in the official GDP numbers.
It is common for businesses in Italy to (a) not issue receipts and (b) demand that transactions be settled in cash only - no electronic forms of currency accepted.
what goes around comes around - underground economy will help commoners survive
I always wondered what the true meaning of democracy was.
Now I know that a state with 40% GDP from organised crime, an entire city taken over by criminal gangs (Naples), bunga-bunga leadership, an oppressive religious centre, a massive waste disposal disaster and a brutal police force is what it means to be truly democratic.
Thanks Martin!
Hopefully Brussels will make the trains run on time.
A common joke by the superior Europeans about the goddamn Wops is: Q: What do these goddamn people do all day? A: Give each other haircuts.
Sure hope none of these inferior Europeans are allowed to immigrate here. We need more goddamn chinks so we can have better math scores, sure don't need anymore baseball players that's for goddamn sure. You don't see these goddamn chinks playing little league, they send their goddamn kids to learn things in college. Goddamn chinks gonna be running this goddamn country some day.
The EMU was a bad idea in the first place and this just proves it. Italians should fight to the death to keep their sovereignty. This bureaucracy in Brussels is a sham and a travesty. Every European government should be pissed about this blatant power grab. Abolish the EU!
Yes, the black market is the fastest growing market and will be THE biggest by 2020. Why? Oh, so many, many reasons. Least of which is speed of a transaction, transparency and the simplicity of the black market. Italy is way black. Everyone is off the books...
Needed a plumber. Asked the maid...fifteen minutes had a guy who worked for two hours and bought 28 Euros worth of parts. Now if I had gone to the "association" for the repair I would be hosed when and if the work was completed.
Well, their republic did end up in a centuries long military dictatorship with a republican facade to please the masses. Of course, the masses loved the dictator more than they loved the senate. But keeping the senate running was still important. For PR.
The pasta is still pretty good.
ummmmmm dude, Italy has always been pretty much communist / fascist.
Hah. If I could, I'd bet against this Armstrong prediction (and everyone before this) and I'd be a zillionare by now. Someone who lives in a cloud of farts as Martin ain't so easy to find.
Martin Armstrong is smart enough to know that sophisticated black market economies do not exist where there is a proper, transparent, functioning democracy. So... what is he trying to sell?
"what is he trying to sell?"
Color mirrors to the idiots. And when I mean idiots, I mean someone more of a dumbass than him.
The US Rebublic sprung you out of jail Armstrong. The Democrats just wear hooted gear and find blame to hand out trinkets for a new voter.
The leadership of every country in the world is being led by criminals and idiots. Bullish for guillotines and pitch forks.
Did I really just read in this article, that the author is comparing the foundations of ancient European high cultures with plutocracy?
Please end democracy now!
Mob rule sucks and pretending that voting will ever change anything insults my somewhat limited intelligence.
Where in the world is Beppo Grillo?
Italy in recession again?
"Germany Close To Recession":
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/11020183/Germany-clos...
Democracy? When was any of the European countries democratic? Allowed to vote does not equal to freedom or democracy.
A strict republic with only male suffrage over the age of 40 with no one who receives public funds voting or monarchy. Either option beats the hell out of the current paradigm.