89 Replies to “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

  1. From the linked article; “the non-presence of politicians in the government would help it.”
    In other news, no politicians have disagreed with the author after penning the above line.

  2. Obama has set the bar pretty high so I would say they have a lot of wiggle room to try pretty much anything. I can’t see how they could top him.

  3. Italy has been officially “Blitzkrupted”. Not a single Panzer shot fired. At least they waited until after Rememberance Day to unleash the fury of the Bankwaffe on the Italian people.
    To think that 72 years after the invasion of Poland, Germany would get back an old Axis ally the old facist way…own them forever.

  7. But will the trains run on time?
    Posted by: Scar at November 17, 2011 1:08 AM
    No. It’s still Italy.

  8. Yeah, it’s hard to imagine these non-politicians will do the bang-up job that Berlusconi managed to do, in between one-night stands with hookers one quarter his age.
    Perhaps now there will finally be change for the better in Italy — young girls will get to keep Silvio for a full week.

  9. What Martin B @12:19 said
    At least they waited until after Remembrance Day /Week.
    The audacity is staggering and the sound of crickets deafening.
    I weep for the lives lain down and anger at the useful idiots and the donkeys that have lead the European masses.
    Learn well my friends, least the same fate befalls you.
    How easy is freedom lost.

  12. But will the trains run on time?
    Posted by: Scar at November 17, 2011 1:08 AM
    No. It’s still Italy.
    Posted by: Black Mamba at November 17, 2011 2:08 AM
    Mussolini wasn’t elected either and the quote refers to his ability to make the trains run on time. Italy has reverted to facsism, yet again.

  13. Hang on here. The elections are scheduled for 2013. As long as the elections proceed as scheduled this is not a coup or putsch.
    I think this is a remarkable opportunity. Since all these bankers, lawyers and professors are not professional politicians they won’t care about being re-elected. That leaves them free to do the right thing to fix the economy no matter how unpopular it is. It all comes down to the character of these people.

  15. Ken nails it again. Chris – you beat me to that. “make the trains run on time” was definitely a Fascist thing.

  17. @ Black Mamba, re: Chris (7:23am) and C_Miner (8:07am):
    See, comments like these are why you need me around here.

  19. Actually, Mussolini was elected, and, like the leaders of many minority parties in the history of Italy, was called upon by the King in late 1922 to form a government, in coalition with members of a variety of other parties.

  20. Roseberry,
    Yes Mussolini was elected the first time around. Most modern dictators start that way – but its where they end up and what they do next that history remembers them for. And he did make the trains run on time. That is to say that the mechanisms of state and industry ran efficiently under his rule, which is exactly what is expected of the new ruling (unelected) elite. No matter how benevlolent a dictatorship is, its still a dictatorship. As they say the road to ruin is paved with the best intentions.

  21. @ Al_in_Ottawa … your naiivity about bankers, lawyers and professors is staggering!
    Bankers will bail themselves out; lawyers will create blizzards of billable paperowrk to make those bailouts “legal”; professors will continue analysing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, And then hold seminars (and publish papers in “peer reviewed” journals) whining about the bankers and lawyers.
    Watch and learn young man!

  23. It’s basically a coup d’état. Elected officials have been removed from office by personnes unknown and replaced with unelected quangos.
    The same thing was done in Greece.
    The Eurocrats are attempting to keep the sinking ship afloat and will stop at nothing seeings how desperate they’ve become.
    But then the lack of deomcracy in the euro zpne was ampkly demonstrated when te Irish referendum results ( a resounding “non” to joining the monster) were simply ignored and the Irish Prime Minister was forced to resign out of shame for not having deliviered a “yes”.
    The EU is run by a kind of politburo, and the velvet fascism it has so far managed to set up is going to become far, far less velvet as they engage in more and more overt acts of repression to keep thing together.

  25. Yep…it’s fascism….again.
    “Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co. on those German capitalists and small businessmen who once backed National Socialism as a means of saving Germany’s bourgeois economic structure from radicalism. The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food- stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism.”
    (Source: Time Magazine; January 2, 1939.)

  26. Davers6, I said that the opportunity existed, I didn’t say it would happen. As I said it comes down to the character of the new administration. Not all bankers and lawyers can be self-serving bastards, right?
    Despite being in my 40s and my penchant for reading every history book I can lay my mitts on I remain optimistic about the human race.
    P.S. it’s spelled ‘naivete’ with an accent on the last ‘e’ if you have a French keyboard. Yes, I am a spelling Nazi. Cheers,

  27. It is kind of ironic that the government is made up of bureaucrats and one of their primary responsibilities is to “trim the country’s
    bloated bureaucracy”.
    I will not be surprised if a few more of these “technocracies” pop up in Europe, provide the appearance of stability and “good government”,
    and then other developed countries ask for the same thing. When Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Communist Russia all appeared to have beat the depression, there was a vocal minority asking to do the same thing here.

  28. The appearance of democracy has finally lost its appearance.
    Now it is time for the games to begin.

  29. We all know a technocracy works so much better than a democracy.
    As was once said (forget the source):
    “A world run by the experts would be a nightmare.”

  30. A nation gets the government it deserves.
    This “junta of 3-piece suits” might even actually get Italy back on a sound financial footing. They can scarcely do worse than their elected predecessors.
    And if it doesn’t work, maybe it will send a wake-up call to other countries in Europe.

  33. Remember this day, folks. Democracy in the EU is all but dead.
    And if you have not already done so, you need to buy and read Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism.”

  34. You should really start reading past the headline, Kate. Just because you are only capable of spitting out one-line blurbs doesn’t mean the rest of the world is equally limited.

  36. “Alex I said it before I will say it again. GO TO HELL.”
    No such place. But you can always imagine me there, if it makes you feel all warm in your tummy.

  37. Remember this day, folks. Democracy in the EU is all but dead.
    – Mark
    The EU was never a democratic enterprise.
    So, democracy isn’t “all but dead”.
    It never existed.
    All that’s dead is the pretence of democracy.
    I find myself quite amazed at some people here stating that “heh, now they can get something done ‘cos they won’t have to worry about getting elected.”.
    To succeed with that argument you’d have to convince me that the technocrats:
    A) Are really interested only in the “greater good” of Italian society, i.e., aren’t self-interested, and
    B) That they know what the “greater good” is, and
    C) That they would actually KNOW what to do to pull that off.
    See Hayek: The Fatal Conceit and anything by Mises.

  40. Alex hell,sheol, hades. A place were they burned garbage. That were you and your comments should be.

  41. Since the ELECTED politicians enabled/created the mess, Italy can hardly do worse than, in effect, turn the Country over to the Receivers to clean up the mess. I agree with Al_in_Ottawa, and ‘gordinkneeehill’, give it a chance. Italy is hardly in a position to create World Class Sh*t any worse than it’s already done.

  42. “Alex hell,sheol, hades.”
    The main commonality between those three concepts is that a twit with a shoddy education spat them out on the same page.
    Now run along, child. You really shouldn’t be on here without mommy’s permission.

  45. This just ain’t gonna work….
    The EU has been a technocracy for a long time…run by unelected eurocrats…
    That Van Rompey feela appointed as President…who promptly declared his appointment was an important step towards world government…..
    Remember Nigel Farange….”who are you? Nobody has ever heard of you!”
    Why not go the route which generally works…a military coup….it put revolutionary France back on it’s feet….reformed Chile…then there is that obvious success by Kemal Attiturk….
    The inconvenient truth is that most military establishments are a highly organized, disciplined, able, meritocracy that is not running a popularity contest.
    Of course there is that other problem…power corrupts and absolute power corropts absolutely.
    That said in the short run, generally military coups are an easy, effective solution….

  46. Just a minor quibble. I don’t think Italy is moving into fascism. Fascism doesn’t mean just ‘unelected governance’; it’s a particular self-absorbed nationalist purity mode of governance. I’d rather say that Italy has moved into a technocratic phase of extreme social engineering. Fascism and communism are also social engineering governances but technocracy has its own unique stamp.
    I agree with me no dhimmi – the EU was never really a democratic enterprise. That’s not to veto it; I think there are other reasons against it. It was set up as a multileveled ( and there ARE elections) body to oversee the fiscal and economic infrastructure of a set of independent nations. That’s its problem right there. Not its democratic flaws or size but its infrastructure.
    The number of seats each country has in the EU parliament is different per country according to population, with Germany having the most.
    What I see as its biggest flaw is: How can you have one part of a nation, the most basic part, the economy, in large though not total part run outside of national control, while the rest of the economy and everything else, is run internally within each member nation? To me, this is the basic flaw in the EU – that infrastructure.
    For example, in Canada, we have a federation; each province has a different number of seats in parliament according to population (well…). BUT, the powers of the federal govt do not clash, or should not clash, with those of the provinces. In the EU, and I may be very wrong, but I see a clash between the EU and the independent sovereign states.
    So, this sets up a situation where, as in Greece and Italy, they can internally develop massive social benefit programs that their own citizens cannot afford. BUT – since they share the currency of the EU, their lack of economic responsibility affects the economic viability of all the other nations.
    We somewhat have a similar situation, where, for example, Quebec’s expansive social benefit programs cost far more than its citizens can afford, and the ROC does indeed subsidize Quebec. It hasn’t reached the crisis stage of the EU and I doubt it if can – because we do have that split in powers between the levels of govt..but…there’s a similarity.

  47. Posted by: a@c at November 17, 2011 1:54 PM
    For the love of pete, a@c, don’t feed the damned troll.

  48. Italy has the world’s first Technocracy! (Actually, maybe not — Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship was once described by academics as a “Technocracy”). Let’s just call it something post-modern to keep it relevant: A Junta Autocracy with a “progressive” bent. (Oops, maybe that won’t work either — isn’t that just a fancy name for post-modern Communism, or the contemporary dictatorship of China?)
    So far we have witnessed the economic collapse of the philosophical birthplace of Democracy: Greece. Now we are witnessing the economic collapse of the birthplace of Democracy’s most important ancient propagator: Italy. Socialism caused the collapse of both, now Socialism pretends to offer the solution to the problem it is responsible for creating.
    Sorta like giving someone with a raging fever a bowl of hot soup and wrapping them in heavy blankets in order to reduce their temperature, isn’t it?
    By the way, we are still waiting for the Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP to actually elect leaders of their Parties, instead of appointing them. Hasn’t it been a couple of years that the Libs still have an appointed leader and have ignored the democratic ballots at their last convention (technically, Stephane Dion was the last legitimately elected leader of the Libs)?
    Darn Democracy anyway! Always getting in the way of Fascism-Socialism.

  49. The Italian political system has always been a mess. Most of their governments don’t last more than a year before being toppled by scandal.

  50. “The Italian political system has always been a mess.”
    My Italian-born father (recently deceased) always used to tell me: “If at first you don’t succeed, then try, try again”.

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