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Don't Blame Austerity: Five "Dastardly" Ways Italy Burned Through Taxpayer Money
It took years (after our initial report in 2011) but finally the Greeks realized that the main reason the Troika had been fleecing them all along, is that of the €227 billion in bailout funds disbursed to Greece, the amount that actually reached the Greek population was... 11%. The rest went back to repaying Greek creditors in some form.
This is another way of explaining why while the PIIGS countries raged against "evil austerity", their debt load as a percentage of GDP was consistently rising year after year, and has hid new all time highs as of the most recent reading.
So what was really going in Europe over the past 5 years, if the debt load kept creeping higher, and yet little money was actually making its way to the broader population?
The answer is simple: abuse of taxpayer funding, also known as fraud and corruption. And while it may come as a surprise, more European tax money has been lost to fraud in Italy than in any other European country, Greece included (perhaps because most of the free cash was already earmarked for creditor repayment).
As Italy's TheLocal reports, the EU anti-fraud office, Italy currently has 61 open investigations into fraud involving EU funds. This means Italy has the second highest number of investigations in the EU, ranking just below Greece's neighbor to the north, Bulgaria.
As the Local reports, fraud with EU money is commonplace in Italy, but is far from an Italian-only phenomenon. Here is a list of some of the most dastardly, or as the Italian outlet pegs it "insane" cons pulled by Italians with EU money.
1) Digitaleco's dodgy DVDs
From 1998 to 2005 a fake company known as Digitaleco received over €3 million in EU funding to produce DVDs. However, by 2005 the company plant was still missing a roof and was not connected to a waste system. Still, it had mysteriously been certified as completed by regional officials in Calabria.
Strangely, regional authorities in Calabria made no attempts to recoup the money and subsequent raids across the country implicated a former public official in Calabria, the treasurer of the Catholic UDC party and a fundraiser for Silvio Berlusoni's Forza Italia party in the scandal...
2) A lift to nowhere
Over €2 million of EU taxpayers hard-earned cash was used to build a lift in the small Italian town of Sutera, Sicily. The lift was finished in 2012, but has never been used as the costs of running the lift were too expensive for the small town.
Now it is feared that much of the budget may have ended up lining the pockets of local mafiosi...
3) Clean electricity? Clean money!
Italy's poorer south is a prime target for EU development funds: unfortunately it is also the nerve centre of the global mafia. Between 2007 and? 2013 the EU structural fund granted €350 million to Sicily - money local mafia were looking to get a slice of.
Vito Nicastri used some of these funds to build up a huge empire of renewable energy on Sicily that was used as a front for the Mafia, which is suspected to have used green businesses to launder illegally earned money.
Nicastri had over €1.2 billion euros worth of assets seized by anti-mafia police in April 2014.
4) Crime Doesn't Pay
It's not always the case that EU funds disappear in Italy - at least not forever. In 2012, Italy was ordered to repay the EU a whopping €420 million after anti-fraud investigators found evidence of foul play in the way EU funds had been used to rebuild the A3 Motorway between Salerno and Reggio Calabria.
The A3 is symbolic of the challenges Italy faces in its war on corruption. The project has been dogged by repeated scandals. In May this year, Italian Premier Matteo Renzi declared that the motorway would be finished within a year. Construction began in 1966 - so watch this space!
5) Rocket Man goes to Napoli
But that's not the only time the EU has asked Italy for a refund. In 2009 the regional of Naples was forced to pony up the EU dough it had spent on an Elton John concert.
Following a Brussels led investigation, Naples was ordered to repay the €720,000 of the regional development fund it had splashed out on the gig.
EU officials stated that the money should have been used for longer term cultural projects.
When It comes to Italy and EU money, sorry often seems to be the hardest word.
* * *
So, dear PIIGS citizens, while we understand you are angry that so little of the taxpayer funds meant for you reached the general public, please don't blame it on austerity - the truth is what is taking place in Europe has little to do with actual belt-tightening or spending cuts as the record (in both absolute and relative terms) debt load across Europe shows, and everything to do with your corrupt politicians and crony capitalists abusing what little funds were destined to improve your living standards.
And if you do want to blame someone, blame your corrupt politicians: it is they who sold you all out, with or without Goldman's debt-masking FX swaps (which the ECB still refuses to probe as they will reveal Mario Draghi's direct responsibility for the imminent Greek default).
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BUNGA BUNGA!
It’s midnight in Greece…
Do you know where your IMF payment is?
[If you fail to pay your Exorcist bill… do you get repossessed?]
It's time to dress up Frau Merkel in an Archduke Ferdinand outfit.
The money went into the pockets of those who exchanged their counterfeit for the money.
You mean the people have been trading worthless fiat euros for gold?!?!?!
GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!
This is why I have faith the whole system will soon come to a halt. We have entered into the collapse phase. Think the people are sharpening their pitch forks yet? or do they need the food to start becoming unavailable/un-affordable still?
possibly soon but I think it will take much longer than most people expect. The power of printing money is immense. It can hide many things for a long time but it cannot hide the truth forever.
"Nicastri had over €1.2 billion euros worth of assets seized by anti-mafia police in April 2014"
What happend to Vito? What? the local policia begged Vito to let them have a bone to show he is cooperating.
Southern Europe looking a lot like Mexico
Well, if that piece of shit (no, not this site) The Local, reported it it must be .......???
WTF?
This piece of shit, The Local, has censored every single one of my most cogent comments to date.
Who the fuck cares what they reported and who the fuck can validate them?
FRAUD has no solution other than criminal prosecution because it perpetuates itself. Arrest them.
The free shit army is on the march.......
The free shit army is being imported into southern Europe from nothern africa right now. The best part is there leaders are using tax dollars to help it. They are litterally spending tax dollars to increase the drain on tax dollars. You can't make this shit up. Collapse in 3 2 1... God forbid the men over there start any nationalist organizations looking out for thier countries best intrest they just get labled Nazi's, it doesn't matter if it's applicable or not. Except in the Ukraine where they openly call themselves Nazi's then we re-brand them in the media and give them aid and weapons.
The FSA is the corporate army.
11% went to the public, the peons that lie on their paltry tax returns.
The majority of the money goes to banksters who were too stupid or working with corrupt government types to apply sound business principles to their loans. And since there was no pain, they will continue to do same or worse.
Are you suggesting that this debt just came out of thin air, rather than the conventional belief that it went to the FSA years ago?
What I am suggesting is that the amount you see in the checkout line by the welfare lady buying deep fryied chicken is trivial compared to the stuff you don't see by the corporate FSA who have been bailed out and have raped future generation of tax payers.
The corporate FSA activities are far in excess of welfare chicken eaters.
I still maintain the view that Spain's debt has been severely underreported
They look better off than the US. Isn't the US at 100% tax = Current debt service ? At least I thought that was the business plan.
Hell, Regans Grace commision pointed that out in the 1980's regarding "where your income tax dollars go".
That report was quietly shelved when the conclusions drawn from the findings was that the US tax system was basically a criminal enterprise supporting corruption on a massive scale.
Income tax: the Fed's collateral for its vapor money.
If the shoe fits, steal the mother fucker.
Gee!
JUST LIKE Obama's
Solar and Electric car SCAMS!
It’s not a scandal untill the hookers, drugdealers and pedophiles spill the beans on our beloved politicians!
How many millions go to paperpushers in gov offices that are unneccessary?
Most are necessary for the unnecessary rules and regs (so called laws) that the bureaucrats are expected to carry out. Your biggest money black hole is the "Security State" extremely high maintenance cost on all those camera systems, TSA/Homeland security people. They get paid to stand in place and produce nothing other than an intangible guise of security for an over hyped, in the grand scheme of things inconsequential threat of "terror". You are more likely to die from a bee sting.
You want to have fun with your local municipality? Do a FOIA request for all money spent on Maintenance contracts for surveillance systems. The Grants paid for only the installation and initial purchase not the upkeep. Always ask for it in digital or electronic form (on a CD), so that you don't get hit with the 25 cents a sheet fee.
My wife just had a security camera system installed in a library that would put a Brinks high security facility to shame.
Free money grant. Use it or lose it.
Crimes against libraries in the last 12 years? One broken window from a thrown rock.
I asked when she was going to apply for her own MWRAP for book sales.
Italy and the REST.
It is the responsibility of the EU to disburse those Grants earmarked.If they don't reach their intended source you finger the EU for CORRUPTION.
Subsidies for Romanian farmers NEVER leave BUCHAREST and so on and so on.
WAKE THE FUCK UP DUMMIES.
Italy? I didn't think we were done with greece yet. I hope the algos can handle multiple simultaneous crises .
Fuck Italy, let them slide off the map.
Hey man we need those sources of excellent recipes.
Tomato paste and basil.
The rest is just carbs and fat.
Italy invented the fork you eat with . Others may have invented the one the peasants use.
The Politician's Creed:
"YOU pay the taxes, WE pay our pockets..." Now, get the hell out of here while WE attend to business.....
In Massachusetts, the economic boom, was really due to spending $17 billion on a set of tunnels originally estimated to cost $2 billion.
Italy has a lot of gold so in effect, they are kinda trying to influence the price of their gold up.... by spending lots on crap.
" the PIIGS countries raged against "evil austerity", their debt load as a percentage of GDP was consistently rising year after year, and has hid new all time highs as of the most recent reading."
This is known as a death spiral. The more you do to pay back creditors, the deeper in debt you become. It is a closed positive feedback loop. The more you pay the deeper in debt. The layman calls it a death spiral.
The EU, for all it's bluster about destroying Russia and sending the troops to the borders to defeat the non-existant threat, the EU is collapse prone at home.
Washington is pulling the strings, via NATO and via compromised EU leaders, with direct CIA agents, Directly black mailed by the NSA, or directly paid off to follow Washington's orders.
Do not look to Germany to solve the EU, it is Washington who rules.
Will this be the twentieth year running that auditors cannot sign off EU accounts?
EU anti fraud squad?
That's a fucking joke.
The entire EU is a fraud.
I expected the Elton John connection was going to be "Burn Down the Mission".
Why does this site continue to refer to tax payer funding? Taxes fund nothing. The Federal Reserve buys Treasuries or primary dealers sell treasuries to raise government funding. Taxes pay for none of this. Taxes are collected to draw money out of the economy to control inflation. Before 1913 the government was funded and there were no taxes.
See the reason for taxation, Benjamin Strong the first chairman of the Federal Reserve describes the reason for taxation.
If taxation funded the government, then there would not have been the 6 trillion dollars available to spend on all the wars since 911. If the draw were on tax payer funding, there would not have been an adequate source of funds. The debt incurred by the Federal Reserve is not the responsibility of our future great-grand children. It's part of the scam. It's the Federal Reserves responsibility for incurring this debt. Wise up!
EU and government money was not stolen but it was used for a lot of useless projects ,because it was viewed as free money for development in poorer areas,as long as they built something.There are many empty buildings never used. Every recipient of this money in other countries as well did not use it wisely.If one removes the interest charges the Italian budget is actually balanced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU
instead of 'company store' substitute 'Goldman sucks'
ask Draghi working for 'the squid' when he 'structured' the off the books vehicle allowing Greece entry into the EU
Phew, I'm glad the corruption isn't this bad in the US
Only 11% reached the Greek population. And the 19% used to recap Greek banks so that they could start again buying Greek bonds? And the 32% you categorize under "maturing debt" is not the money spent to both haircutting and restructuring the Greek debt so that most of it now has to be repayed in 30 years at interests rates just 0.5% higher than the ESM countries', which BTW causes e.g. the lender Italy to face now worse debt service requirements than Greece? Stop this rhetorical bullshit and stick to the facts.