The disaster of the economy by Lega

“To err is human, to persevere in error is diabolical”. The old adage well sums up the basic character of the League which has persisted from when the leader was Bossi to today, under the leadership of the "Captain" Matteo Salvini. In the Lega's DNA there is the irrepressible drive to bring disaster to the Italian economy. Indeed it had happened in 2011 when, mainly due to the League, Berlusconi could not keep the commitments he had made with Europe to reform pensions, the labor market and to cut public spending a little, above all through the sale of companies controlled by local authorities. The consequence was a rise in spreads and a growing difficulty of the banks in financing the economy, so much so that we entered a recession as early as the third quarter of the year, when the centre-right government was still in the saddle, and then we fell off the precipice when the Monti government was forced to adopt drastic recovery measures to avoid the worst troubles that would have led to a default of the entire Italian financial system with disastrous consequences for companies and employment.

Now a few years away Matteo Salvini seems to be on the right track to repeat past mistakes, in particular on pensions and in general on the fight against any cut in public spending. All seasoned with bombastic statements such as "I don't care about the spread" or "if Brussels insists on making us change the maneuver, I will give more money to the Italians”: in fact, in his opinion, the one that has just been launched is a maneuver by the people. His followers go on TV to say that there is an international conspiracy against the sovereign government or that the Brussels bureaucrats have not been elected by anyone and therefore are not entitled to speak.

Indeed the first signs of crisis are already evident and these declarations only accentuate the fears of savers and potential investors, prompting them to stay away from Italy. The fall in stock market prices of both shares and bonds has already done lose to Italian savers 200 or 300 billion, as if a nice patrimonial had been put in place without even benefiting the state coffers. It is true that for now these are virtual losses, i.e. losses not realized by those who continue to hold the securities and do not sell them, but nevertheless there is a serious wealth effect on households that reduce consumption and on the balance sheets of banks and insurance companies that own many bots and securities of other companies.

Plus yes they are all listing operations of medium and small companies were completely blocked which in recent times had approached the Stock Exchange in order to be able to finance their growth plans. So many real investments are at least postponed and this is already having repercussions on industrial production and on the general growth of the economy. The Bank of Italy has estimated that GDP growth in the third quarter was 0,1%, ie almost nil. In the fourth it will be maybe zero. This casts a shadow over the government's estimates of growth for next year. In fact, if we continue like this, not only will we not achieve the expected 1,5% but we will even be below the 0,6-0,8% of the so-called trend. In short we risk ending up in a “recession”.

And if this happens, what do the geniuses who govern us think they are doing? They said they would cut spending or raise taxes to meet the 2,4% deficit target. But by doing so they would depress the economy even more and thus take away the chances of debt reduction. In short a perverse spiral to get out of which we hope we don't need a new caretaker government capable of imposing blood and tears recovery!

The most convenient way for the Italians would be to completely review the maneuver by focusing everything on increasing both public and private investments, on supporting employment, especially among young people and women. In short, our economy was struggling to emerge from a ten-year crisis and jobs continue to rise. Many good companies had recovered and were about to make a further technological and market leap. It was necessary to support this process not only with the tax authorities but with a strengthening of research and innovation and some reforms of the legal system aimed at creating a more favorable environment for businesses and entrepreneurs. And instead of competitiveness we never talk. Someone had deluded themselves that the Grillini and Lega supporters being new (or almost new) were capable of defeating the corporations blocking the Italian economy, and instead Di Maio and Salvini were careful not to touch the great interests of farmers, traders, industrialists who they live on the monopoly, and indeed they immediately went to smooth their hair, apart from propaganda shots which were not followed by the facts.

Many are starting to think that Salvini has a diabolical plan: using Italy to blow up the European Union and bring our country into Putin's orbit. After all, he said that he is better off in Moscow than in many European capitals. If true, this would be a real "betrayal" of the country and certainly not beneficial to the Italian economy linked to European markets. Who knows if the entrepreneurs of the North have carefully evaluated the situation!