Berlusconi to resign after parliament OKs reforms

[Queequeg]

Has Italy ever considered some kind of financial incentive to have larger families?  I know Russia is doing something along these lines-albeit haphazardly and incompetently.  It will be interesting to see how dysfunctional Med countries deal with collapsing birth rates when they aren't as likely to draw talented immigrants.

God, what a tard you are.

How do you expect to support any kind of welfare state with a rapidly declining population without immigration?  How do you expect to have a growing economy when every worker is supporting a retiree, let alone a bloated bureaucracy like Italy, or a hostility to new business?  How do you expect to draw talented immigrants with a totally stalled economy and hostility towards immigrants?  I don't see Italy finding a way out of this easily.  If you could grace us with your brilliant insight in to the limitless potential of the Italian economy, please share with the class, Marty.

Russia is trying to deal with it through ham-fisted subsidies to new parents, most of the English speaking world is succeeding in drawing talented immigrants, but I don't think any Southern European nation is. 

You can get talented immigrants? What, Sweden shouldn't have picked hundreds of thousands of unskilled Muselmen?

When I think of immigrants, I tend to think of Chinese PhD students because there are so many on campus.  How many Europeans think of that?

[Iormlund]

You don't have to increase the population forever to support retirees. Just make them retire later, which is only logical since people live much longer now.

As for the other thing, we have a hard enough time keeping our very own scientists, mostly because the ingrate bastards don't like to work for peanuts per saecula saeculorum.

[Razgovory]

You don't have to increase the population forever to support retirees. Just make them retire later, which is only logical since people live much longer now.

As for the other thing, we have a hard enough time keeping our very own scientists, mostly because the ingrate bastards don't like to work for peanuts per saecula saeculorum.

The problem is that even though people live longer, they are often not fit to work.

[The Brain]

[Martinus]

Has Italy ever considered some kind of financial incentive to have larger families?  I know Russia is doing something along these lines-albeit haphazardly and incompetently.  It will be interesting to see how dysfunctional Med countries deal with collapsing birth rates when they aren't as likely to draw talented immigrants.

God, what a tard you are.

How do you expect to support any kind of welfare state with a rapidly declining population without immigration?  How do you expect to have a growing economy when every worker is supporting a retiree, let alone a bloated bureaucracy like Italy, or a hostility to new business?  How do you expect to draw talented immigrants with a totally stalled economy and hostility towards immigrants?  I don't see Italy finding a way out of this easily.  If you could grace us with your brilliant insight in to the limitless potential of the Italian economy, please share with the class, Marty.

Russia is trying to deal with it through ham-fisted subsidies to new parents, most of the English speaking world is succeeding in drawing talented immigrants, but I don't think any Southern European nation is. 

You can get talented immigrants? What, Sweden shouldn't have picked hundreds of thousands of unskilled Muselmen?

When I think of immigrants, I tend to think of Chinese PhD students because there are so many on campus.  How many Europeans think of that?

Your first mistake is to even consider looking to Russia for viable policies. But we know you are a Russophile cretin.

Now, having got that out of the way, "financial incentives" to have children are counterproductive because they largely don't work or work only for exactly the type of people you do not want to have kids (like the poor and irresponsible ones).

In post-patriarchal societies, getting out of male dominance, like Italy (or Poland), the biggest cause for decreasing birth rates is that they adopted a dysfunctional model of "gender equality" that forces educated middle class women (i.e. exactly the demographics you want to reproduce) to choose between career (and financial stability) and parenthood (which means reliance on men for sustenance). You increase birth rates in such societies not by giving people handouts, but by creating the environment (both in terms of legal protection and infrastructure/facilities, like day care) to allow women to share career and parenthood.

Edit: Just to clarify, I did not meant to imply that gender equality is dysfunctional. Just that a "on paper" gender equality that is not supported by a system of legal and infrastructural changes that adapts working conditions to parenthood (the way Scandinavians, Germans and the Dutch have done) is dysfunctional because it presents women with a devil's choice.

[Razgovory]

So how is your plan coming along Marty?

[Caliga]

And it has happened. I can hardly believe it.

Italy crisis: Silvio Berlusconi resigns as PM

Silvio Berlusconi has resigned as prime minister of Italy, after dominating the country's politics for 17 years.
President Giorgio Napolitano accepted his offer and is likely to appoint technocrat Mario Monti his successor.

He'll be back.

[Syt]

And it has happened. I can hardly believe it.

Italy crisis: Silvio Berlusconi resigns as PM

Silvio Berlusconi has resigned as prime minister of Italy, after dominating the country's politics for 17 years.
President Giorgio Napolitano accepted his offer and is likely to appoint technocrat Mario Monti his successor.

He'll be back.

[Syt]

[Sheilbh]

He'll be back.

Jesus, you could be right:

Silvio Berlusconi hints at comeback as Italy tries to form new government
Italy's president begins consultations while Berlusconi tells supporters: 'I hope to resume the path of government'

As Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, began hurried consultations on the formation of a new government, Silvio Berlusconi sent a clear message that he intends to return to power.

The first politician summoned by the head of state arrived at the presidential palace at 9am sharp on the morning after Berlusconi was jeered and booed from office there by an exultant crowd of more than 1,000 people.

In a final humiliation, the 75-year-old billionaire, whose government has led Italy to the very brink of financial catastrophe, dodged out of the palace by a side door after submitting his resignation.

But in a message sent to a meeting of a party of neofascist diehards, La Destra, the TV magnate said: "I share your spirit and I hope to resume with you the path of government."

Mario Monti, the economist expected to take Berlusconi's place later on Sunday, made no comment on the send-off given to the outgoing prime minister.

Instead, in response to questions from reporters outside his hotel, he looked up at the clear blue sky and said: "Have you seen what a splendid day it is?"

Monti and his wife, Elsa, then set off for mass – a first, eloquent sign he intends to put behind him the Italy of "bunga bunga" parties and showgirl politicians.

But the showgirls will stay in parliament until the next election, and the attitudes with which Berlusconi imbued the nation will not disappear overnight.

The morning news on the first channel of the state-owned RAI radio network carried a report on the shenanigans outside the presidential palace from which the insults hurled at Berlusconi – "buffoon" and even "mafioso" – were tactfully omitted.

On Saturday, parliament cleared the way for the fall of his government by giving final approval to a package of economic reforms and deficit-reduction measures agreed last month with the EU to stem mounting panic over Italy's ability to repay its €1.9tn (£1.6tn) public debts.

After Berlusconi delayed his resignation, raising fears he might try to cling to power, the interest rate on Italy's government bonds shot above 7% to a level no eurozone state has reached without subsequently needing a bailout.

The consultations held to form a new government in Italy often take a week or more. But Napolitano was aiming to complete them by evening.

The markets' reaction to a Monti government is likely to depend largely on what conditions, if any, Berlusconi's party succeeds in attaching to it. Many in the Freedom People movement would have preferred a snap election which the right, notwithstanding Berlusconi's unpopularity, would stand a good chance of winning.

The People of Freedom party delegates attending the talks with Napolitano can be expected to press for the incoming administration to be constrained by a strict programme, limited to the implementation of the economic package agreed with Brussels, and a deadline for its completion.

According to some reports, the party's representatives may also demand a seat in the cabinet for Berlusconi's right-hand man, Gianni Letta, a former newspaper editor and executive in the media mogul's TV group.

The bitter divisions in Italian politics that are another aspect of Berlusconi's legacy prevented a cross-party grand coalition.

The only career politician thought likely to sit in the new cabinet is Giuliano Amato, as foreign minister. Amato, a socialist, was Italy's prime minister from 1992 to 1993 and from 2000 to 2001.

The all-important job of finance minister was expected to go to Guido Tabellini, the rector of the Bocconi University in Milan, which has supplied Italy with much of its financial elite. Monti both studied and taught there.

[Queequeg]

In post-patriarchal societies, getting out of male dominance, like Italy (or Poland), the biggest cause for decreasing birth rates is that they adopted a dysfunctional model of "gender equality" that forces educated middle class women (i.e. exactly the demographics you want to reproduce) to choose between career (and financial stability) and parenthood (which means reliance on men for sustenance). You increase birth rates in such societies not by giving people handouts, but by creating the environment (both in terms of legal protection and infrastructure/facilities, like day care) to allow women to share career and parenthood.

I actually don't disagree with anything you wrote.  I know enough about the reasons behind declining birth rates in Eastern and Southern Europe to know that it has far more to do with gender norms.  I was just wondering how Italy is going to deal with declining birth rates.  I doubt we will see a full-scale readjustment of sexual norms there any time in the next twenty years.  Russia's measures are haphazard and largely ineffectual, but that sounds pretty Italian to me.

[Josquius]

So...interesting developments...a technocracy....has such a thing ever been done?

Jesus, you could be right:

I don't disagree with the crux of that article, Silvio sucks and everyone is glad to see him go...but....blimey. Biased much?

[Caliga]

My name's not Jesus but I'll tolerate being worshipped if you so choose.

[Sheilbh]

So...interesting developments...a technocracy....has such a thing ever been done?

It's how Berlusconi's first time as PM ended

[Iormlund]

So...interesting developments...a technocracy....has such a thing ever been done?

Franco's Spain was run by technocrats after the autarky pursued by earlier fascist governments proved disastrous.