{"id":181636,"date":"2016-04-27T19:18:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T00:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/04\/27\/are-you-shting-me\/"},"modified":"2016-04-27T19:18:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T00:18:00","slug":"are-you-shting-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/04\/27\/are-you-shting-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Sh%$ting Me?"},"content":{"rendered":"
It appears that some people in Europe are so sick and tired of the consequences of Angela Merkel’s, and Germany’s, incompetent hegemony that they are hoping that Italian governance can fix Europe<\/a>.<\/div>\n

When Italy is your solution to your governance woes, you are in up a certain creek without a paddle:<\/p>\n


As the European Union begins to disintegrate, who can provide the leadership to save it? German Chancellor Angela Merkel is widely credited with finally answering Henry Kissinger\u2019s famous question about the Western alliance: \u201cWhat is the phone number for Europe?\u201d But if Europe\u2019s phone number has a German dialing code, it goes through to an automated answer: \u201cNein zu Allem.\u201d <\/p>\n

This phrase \u2013 \u201cNo to everything\u201d \u2013 is how Mario Draghi<\/a>, the European Central Bank president, recently described<\/a> the standard German response to all economic initiatives aimed at strengthening Europe. A classic case was Merkel\u2019s veto<\/a> of a proposal by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to fund refugee programs in Europe, North Africa, and Turkey through an issue of EU bonds, an efficient and low-cost idea also advanced by leading financiers such as George Soros<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Merkel\u2019s high-handed refusal even to consider broader European interests if these threaten her domestic popularity has become a recurring nightmare for other EU leaders. This refusal underpins not only her economic and immigration policies, but also her bullying of Greece, her support for coal subsidies, her backing of German carmakers over diesel emissions<\/a>, her kowtowing to Turkey on press freedom, and her mismanagement of the Minsk agreement in Ukraine. In short, Merkel has done more to damage the EU than any living politician, while constantly proclaiming her passion for \u201cthe European project.\u201d <\/p>\n

But where can a Europe disillusioned with German leadership now turn? The obvious candidates will not or cannot take on the role: Britain has excluded itself; France is paralyzed until next year\u2019s presidential election and possibly beyond; and Spain cannot even form a government. <\/p>\n

That leaves Italy, a country that, having dominated Europe\u2019s politics and culture for most of its history, is now treated as \u201cperipheral.\u201d But Italy is resuming its historic role as a source of Europe\u2019s best ideas and leadership in politics, and also, most surprisingly, in economics. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Italy?  Italy is the solution to the EU’s governance problems?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
If you are holding up Italy as a better alternative on governance of anything, you have dug yourself into a very very deep hole.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that some people in Europe are so sick and tired of the consequences of Angela Merkel’s, and Germany’s, incompetent hegemony that they are hoping that Italian governance can fix Europe. When Italy is your solution to your governance woes, you are in up a certain creek without a paddle: As the European Union …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[984,1009,1164,1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-government","category-teotwawki","category-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}