There have been a few of these cock-ups in recent years. But this latest one takes the biscuit.
The People’s Daily, mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, has reprinted a story from The Onion claiming that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been voted ‘sexiest man alive’.
The Associated Press explains here. Or read the same in the Washington Post. The original Onion article is here. Sadly The People’s Daily has now taken its story down.
Raffaele Sollecito’s book about his experiences in Italy’s witch-burning capital (and until recently my provincial capital), Perugia, is out. I haven’t read it, but The Guardian has an early review.
There are no surprises about the tales of police brutality and incompetence, which I have discussed at length under the ‘Italy to Avoid’ tab.
The one thing that grabs me is that Sollecito says both his family and his lawyers urged him to not to provide evidence in support of Amanda Knox in the hope that the police might let him off (because all they really wanted to do was convict a witch). That is the Italian parenting and the Italian lawyers we know and love. It also explains Sollecito’s evidence in court that he ‘couldn’t remember’ precise details of Knox’s movements the night of the murder. He found some sort of moral half-way house between honesty and the demands of his family and lawyers.
Amanda Knox’s book, out next year, will be much more interesting than this one. It looks like she is taking the time to give Perugia and the Italian judicial system the deconstruction they deserve.
Extraordinary. Mitt Romney has come out during a private meeting with donors and finally told it like it is. I wake up this morning to find a video on YouTube in which Mr. Romney angrily states:
‘Ninety-eight percent of people who work in banking and private equity are dependent on government, believe they are victims, believe the government has a responsibility to care for them. These are people who pay almost no tax.’ He goes on to remark that: ‘These people think they should get a bonus whatever. No serious politician could be expected to represent them and I’ll never convince them they should take responsibility and care for their lives… they are frankly beyond redemption’.
What a ballsy guy. I’m a born-again Republican. Go Mitt!
Sure enough…
Reading the rest of the press I discover that less principled Republicans are already urging Romney to stay away from THE TRUTH and merely reiterate the tear-jerking story of his childhood.
It isn’t yet Custer’s last stand, for Euroland is the longest Hollywood movie ever made. But Flexible Mario’s press conference today gave us the predictable shape of the final showdown.
Mario’s ECB holds in one hand the promise of unlimited sovereign bond purchases of up to three years maturity (this may include buying long bonds with less than three years to expiry, his language was unclear on the detail). The seniority of the ECB claim on the bonds will be no greater than that of private investors. In the other hand, Mario holds the great northern European stick of what he repeatedly called ‘strict and effective conditionality’. Indeed Mario promised a stick more flesh-splitting still, holding out the prospect of not only EFSF-ESM supervision, but also IMF involvement as well.
As a former Italian bureaucrat who was closely involved in his country’s successful efforts to avoid structural reforms in the 90s and 00s, Mario knows better than most that you need to point the gun directly at the heads of club-Med types such as himself.
If conditionality is agreed, and sov’ bond buying in the primary market goes ahead, it will be known as OMT. We must be careful not to confuse this with OMD. OMT means Outright Monetary Transactions. OMD was the 1980s’ band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Clearly, the two things are unrelated.
Mr Market, meanwhile, is very happy. He continues to believe that Flexible Mario’s pronouncements mean that Frau Merkel will pick up the tab for Club Med Europe. But it is not so. All that Flexible Mario has done is to prepare the stage on which politicians will play, a point which he repeatedly stressed.
Finally, the other salient point today: Mario claimed there was zero discussion in the ECB council of the possibility of NOT sterilising some of the bond purchases, if they happen. In other words, quantitative easing is not yet under discussion.
Comic interlude of the day:
Some genius from Fox News asked Mario how dangerous it is that the ECB already has bonds to the value of 33% of Euro-area GDP on its balance sheet. The ECB balance sheet actually contains bonds to the value of about 3% of Euro-area GDP. Yo, Murdoch…
Graphic of the day
This BIS graphic shows how French banks, which had the biggest exposure to the mess to begin with, have also been slower than their German counterparts to unwind their exposure to ‘peripheral’ Europe. Put another way, when you are very deep in ‘le poo poo’, it is that much harder to climb out.
Forgot to mention:
Since the cavalry are mounting up, I should repeat my little ditty of December 2011…
IMF, IMF, riding as to war
We all hope you will not be…
As clueless as before
Oh! [repeat indefinitely until IMF arrives]
What is it with the FT and Italians?
The FT’s love affair with Monti spilleth over (sub needed) even unto Draghi… I can only assume it is because the badly-dressed FT journalists suffer well-cut suit envy.
Queuing on the south side of the San Gottardo tunnel in Switzerland surrounded by Dutch and German cars, I wonder whether my fellow travellers have been convinced by their summer sojourns in Italy that their southern neighbour is changing. Myself, I cannot see it. Italy is miserable from the cuts that have been going on for years. But structurally the story is the same. In this respect, Mario Monti appears to be a continuation of Silvio Berlusconi, minus the bunga bunga.
What has Monti done? A labour law that no one in Italy believes is more liberal than the old one. Nothing to simplify legislation, the tax regime, or the bureaucracy. And absolutely nothing to create a functioning, more efficient judicial system. Just budget cuts. In sum: Berlusconi 2.0.
I am sitting in a German petrol station pondering this when I realise I have to get out of my car to fill it up with LPG. Unlike in Italy, there is no law in Germany that mandates that only a petrol station employee can fill a car up with gas. I glance wistfully over my shoulder, recognising that feudalism has its upside.
Mr Market, meanwhile, is feeling quite sanguine, having convinced himself that Frau Merkel is readying her cheque-book to bail Italy out. Or at least being ready to let Flexible Mario at the ECB write the cheque. The ECB is to announce the latest terms of its support for so-called ‘peripheral’ countries later this week.
Mr Market, methinks, underestimates Frau Merkel. Italians have been asking for 20 years for a northern European mamma who will put the kibosh on their bad habits, and I suspect they are to be rudely surprised by getting what they wished for. One way or another, with the failure of Monti, a bunch of Germans and IMF folk are going to end up moving to Rome to oversee the structural reforms that Italy requires. Either that, or it’s out of the Euro.
Related posts:
Why Super Mario is made of paper. As his 2012 budget foretold. My own cunning plan to solve the Italian debt crisis. How the buck stops in Paris. The global picture of what we are dealing with. Why you should never listen to the Brits about Europe.
It’s been a while.
Back in February I was infuriated when WordPress suffered an IT breakdown and failed to remind me of the need to renew my blog domain. The domain was ‘cyber-squatted’ by some monkeys who stuck up porno pics, links in Chinese for cheap flights, and demanded Euro200 to get the domain back. After a week, I paid up, but kinda lost the urge to blog. WordPress admitted their cock-up, but showed no inclination to cover the expense they created for me.
It is a great, FREE service. But I was pissed.
Meanwhile, I had to do a revision of a new book, which took time and pain. The results, I think, are worth it. The book will be out in March 2013 and, whatever people say, is the most important thing I have written. The title: ‘How Asia Works’. You heard it first.
This blog needs some amending. Since September last year we have been living in Cambridge. But, right now, we are back in Italy, which is still a great holiday destination, even if it doesn’t work as a country.
We drove down through Germany, my new favourite European state, following the spine of western civilisation, aka the Rhine. Starting in the offshore port-financial centre called Holland we progressed to Aachen, imperial seat of Charlemagne — he who made European power shift decisively north after the end of the Roman empire. Fantastic kit in the chapel and museums and a local 35% liquor made with herbs (‘Printen’) that can compete with anything I have tried in Italy. From there to the Mosel valley, just off the Rhine, and very beautful. The youngest counted 23 castles to win the castle-counting prize. Wenches in trad dresses serving, er, German food. Finally Freiburg, university town, with fresh water flowing down shallow gutters around town, a bit like Cambridge. Very nice.
The people seemed not entirely infuriated by the bills they will have to pay on behalf of their southern neighbours. Indeed the polls suggest that Frau Merkel can win a third term. The Germans are truly the grown-ups of Europe. Even if they take the neatness and prissiness thing a little too far.
And so it was that we returned to the Third World. Albeit on holiday this time. But still. You couldn’t make this shit up.
We now know. US$4m is to be paid for Amanda Knox’s story of torture at the hands of Italy’s ‘professional’ classes. It is a lot of money. But then the publishers have calculated that the appetite for a tale of medieval habits sustained in a modern society is considerable. I reckon they will get their money back. Italy is something truly special.
More:
Here is Douglas Preston, who already wrote a book about Giuliano Mignini.
Naughty children shall not have their pocket money. So says every right thinking parent, and so says Frau Merkel about the insufferable Greek ruling class. Even if Greece does get its new bail-out, it won’t see the money. Instead, funds are to be held in an escrow account and released to little Johnny as and when he applies himself to various jobs in hand.
I really can’t say I disagree. Brave Dave Cameron has been urging Merkel and Sarko to ‘just bloody well hand over the dosh’, but since it’s not his money and he doesn’t even participate in Europe, he and the Fat Controller would say that.
Escrow, I think, will be a model arrangement for forthcoming bail-outs for Portugal and Italy. Europe has been round the block with Italy already in the 90s over Euro accession and not a thing got done in terms of structural reform. Frau Merkel is leading Europe. In another 20 years people will look back and realise how important this was. (And what a dreary footnote the Brits were.)
Meanwhile, Reuters seems to have arrived at my view of the Monti government’s efforts so far, posted a couple of weeks ago here.
This is the FT on escrow (sub needed).
The Guardian has put together an interesting graphic on movement between the EU’s leading states. It shows that a million Italians have left their country and that people from other rich states find Italy much the least appetising developed country destination. It doesn’t say much for my judgement.
The annual Reporters Without Borders index of press freedom is out.
The UK is 28. Behind Jamaica, which reminds us that press freedom can’t solve every problem.
Italy is 61. The lowest rank of any major developed country.
China is 174. Out of 179. But still ahead of Iran, Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Eritrea.