come fare cadere un governo - Moderatore
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By: Moderatore on Martedì 13 Maggio 2014 12:07
E tre. Dopo Lorenzo Bini Smaghi (banchiere e prof. che ha rappresentato l'Italia alla BCE per anni) che nel suo libro dell'estate scorsa diceva la stessa cosa, dopo Alan Friedman nel suo libro appena uscito diceva la stessa cosa, ora addirittura l'ex-ministro del Tesoro USA, Tim Geithner, dice la stessa cosa nel suo libro uscito ora. E' dungue confermato che c'è stato un complotto nella UE per far cadere il governo Berlusconi nell'estate del 2011.
Questo solo perchè Tremonti e Berlusconi volevano andarci piano con l'austerità. Prova a pensare cosa succederebbe se andasse al governo qualcuno che veramente vuole cancellare il patto fiscale e rompere i vincoli finanziari europei (o uscire dall'euro).
Come spiega Geithner, il trucco per fare cadere un governo dell'eurozona (che non sia la Germania o Olanda) è semplice: la BCE e il Fondo Monetario tagliano la liquidità al sistema bancario del paese "dissidente".
Ad esempio, la BCE da quello che si legge ora, sta per lanciare un altra ondata di acquisti di debito("stampando moneta"), cioè comprerà si pensa debito che le banche hanno a bilancio ( le si alleggerisce di crediti marci che hanno, da qui appunto l'espressione "Alleggerimento Quantitativo"). Bene, se il governo italiano non piace si esclude l'Italia...
---- dal Fatto di oggi ----
#i#... quanto si legge in “Stress Test”, libro appena uscito dell’ex ministro statunitense del Tesoro, Tim Geithner, di cui La Stampa pubblica in anteprima alcune parti. Secondo la sua ricostruzione alcuni funzionari europei lo avrebbero contattato nell’autunno del 2011, in piena crisi economica, chiedendogli di partecipare a un piano che convincesse l’ex premier italiano a lasciare il suo incarico. ^Geithner sostiene che i funzionari UE “volevano che noi rifiutassimo di sostenere i prestiti dell’Fmi all’Italia, fino a quando non se ne fosse andato (Berlusconi, ndr)”.#http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2014/05/13/berlusconi-ex-ministro-usa-funzionari-ue-ci-proposero-di-far-cadere-il-suo-governo/983306/^
Geithner, dopo averne parlato anche con Obama, rifiutò la proposta: “Parlammo al presidente di questo invito sorprendente, ma per quanto sarebbe stato utile avere una leadership migliore in Europa, non potevamo coinvolgerci in un complotto come quello. ‘Non possiamo avere il suo sangue sulle nostre mani’, io dissi”, come si legge in un passaggio del libro. L’ex ministro, invece, per superare quei mesi critici e salvare l’eurozona, cercò di rafforzare la collaborazione con il presidente della Bce Mario Draghi.
A confermare pressioni per le dimissioni di Berlusconi è intervenuto anche il presidente del Copasir (l’organo di controllo dei servizi segreti italiani del Parlamento), Giacomo Stucchi. “Non sempre tutto è vero, non sempre tutto è falso” ha detto il senatore leghista. E ha aggiunto che “sicuramente dei condizionamenti ci sono stati, perché altrimenti non si capisce quello spread che cresceva dalla sera alla mattina”.
Indiscrezioni che si vanno ad aggiungere a quelle riportate nel libro di Alan Friedman, “Ammazziamo il gattopardo”, in cui il giornalista ha svelato che già dall’estate del 2011 Napolitano stava sondando il terreno per portare a Palazzo Chigi il senatore a vita Mario Monti. ...#/i#
e per i retroscena, proprio ieri è uscito questo racconto su cosa successe allora, con la Merkel che si mette a piangere e grida che non siu suiciderà politicamente (se l'italia non le concede l'austerità)
----- ^Financial Times di ieri: "Come fu salvato l'Euro"#http://justpaste.it/ffqm^ ----
...#i# Many in the room expected the evening to be dedicated to persuading Mr Berlusconi to accept IMF assistance. The Italians had rejected it that morning, arguing it would create the impression they could not handle the crisis on their own, while providing insufficient resources to deal with the fallout. They countered with an offer to accept IMF monitoring, but not funds.
But Mr Obama opened the session with something different. He had a new plan to increase the size of the eurozone firewall – an idea that put Germany front and centre.
The decision by Mr Sarkozy to cede the chair to Mr Obama, consciously or not, should not have come as a surprise. Since the outset of the crisis, Paris and Washington had almost identical recipes for solving it: a firewall of such size that no bond trader would question whether the eurozone had sufficient funds or political will to rescue the heavily indebted south.
To both Mr Geithner and his French counterparts, the most obvious source for that firewall was the ECB, which literally has the power to print money. The US had demonstrated the crisis-fighting power of a central bank when the Federal Reserve bought up huge tracts of Treasuries in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ collapse. But Berlin has long opposed using a central bank to fund governments.
It was a matter of principle
German opposition was rooted in its dark history: the hyperinflation of the interwar years that helped doom the Weimar Republic had been caused, in part, by central bank printing presses, which churned out marks to pay war reparations. At German insistence, the ECB had been modelled after the Bundesbank, which was given complete independence from meddling politicians when it was established in the 1950s, to avoid a repeat of the 1920s . The German government also demanded that the EU’s 1992 Maastricht treaty, which laid the foundations for the euro’s creation, bar the ECB from buying sovereign bonds.
Both Mr Geithner and Mr Sarkozy had spent months trying to solve two seemingly mutually exclusive problems: increasing the firewall enough to convince bond traders there was sufficient eurozone money to prevent a Greek default from being repeated elsewhere, while not falling foul of German objections.
On the eve of Cannes, US and French delegations agreed a new plan to increase crisis-fighting reserves they hoped would be acceptable in Berlin. It involved a form of cash known by few beyond the cognoscenti of international public finance: special drawing rights, or SDRs.
Technically, SDRs are not money. They are an asset created by international agreement in 1969 and held by the IMF for its member countries, a substitute for gold or US dollars in global financial accounting. Sometimes referred to as “paper gold”, they cannot be held by anyone other than the IMF and must be converted into another currency before they can be spent. And yet they have real value, with one SDR currently trading close to the value of one British pound.
In 2009, in the wake of the Lehman crisis, G20 leaders increased the amount of SDRs in existence by $250bn, essentially creating new IMF firefighting reserves out of thin air. At Cannes, the US and France wanted to do it again but instead of giving them to the IMF, the eurozone would devote €140bn in SDRs to its depleted bailout fund.
Our preference is that the ECB act a bit like the Federal Reserve did, but that doesn’t seem to be a viableoption’
- Barack Obama
Even those involved in drawing up the plan admit it was hastily thrown together. Back in that Obama-chaired meeting, the group found themselves enmeshed in German politics. “Our preference in the US is that the ECB should act a bit like the Federal Reserve did but that doesn’t seem to be a viable option,” Mr Obama said at the start, in a clear reference to German opposition.
But Ms Merkel now had another problem. Officials said she was open to Mr Obama’s idea. But SDRs are not controlled by national governments; they are controlled by central banks. And Jens Weidmann, the head of the Bundesbank, was opposed.
The Bundesbank, which is responsible for representing Germany at the IMF, had picked up word of the scheme through sources at the fund in Washington. Mr Weidmann had quickly drafted a letter to the German government outlining his objections. Mr Weidmann’s reasoning was both practical and ideological. Practically, the German central banker felt the plan smacked of desperation. Using foreign reserves to fill the bailout fund would send markets the wrong message: only through financial jerry-rigging could funding be found.
But more importantly to Mr Weidmann was the principle: SDRs are, like a country’s gold holdings, part of a government’s foreign reserves, which are the exclusive responsibility of the independent central bank to manage – not for politicians to commit willy-nilly to rescue programmes. The Bundesbank had no problem with the 2009 decision to increase SDRs for the IMF, since that is what SDRs were for. But committing them to the eurozone’s bailout fund set a dangerous precedent.
Mr Weidmann’s letter urged Ms Merkel to bury the proposal. But according to German officials, their delegation did not get the letter before leaving for Cannes. Instead, they only learnt of Mr Weidmann’s objection over the phone after they arrived in France, and then in a series of calls attempted to convince him to change his mind. It had become clear to Ms Merkel’s camp that they were about to be surrounded that morning during a bilateral meeting between the chancellor and Mr Obama in the cellar of the Palais. “The French, the Italians all would be willing to do this,” said a member of the German delegation.
But Mr Weidmann could not be moved.
So when Mr Sarkozy quickly endorsed Mr Obama’s idea at the evening session, and turned to Ms Merkel for her support, she delivered the bad news: the Bundesbank had rejected it and she could not agree without the Bundesbank. She supported the plan politically, and if Italy agreed to the €80bn IMF programme she may be able to go to the Bundestag to increase the size of the rescue fund itself. But on SDRs, the answer was no.
‘The storm was over’
To some in the room, the discussion seemed otherworldly. Although the eurozone was on the brink of imploding because of Greece and Italy, it was Ms Merkel – whose economy was the stalwart anchor of the continent – who had been cornered. Mr Obama had agreed with the Italians that the IMF programme was a bad idea. “I think Silvio is right,” Mr Obama said.
Mr Sarkozy attempted to manage the three-way impasse. The US wanted Germany to contribute its SDRs but Germany was only willing to give a partial commitment if Italy gave in on the IMF programme. Giulio Tremonti, Italy’s finance minister, held firm: Rome would accept IMF monitoring but no programme. Would the Italian monitoring plan, plus a commitment by Germany to contribute bilateral loans, be enough, Mr Sarkozy asked.
“No. Germany has one-fourth of all [eurozone] SDR allocations,” Mr Obama objected. “If you have all the EU countries together but not Germany . . . it starts losing credibility.”
Then came Ms Merkel’s tearful breakdown. “That is not fair. I cannot decide in lieu of the Bundesbank. I cannot do that.”
The emotional outburst appeared to temper the American and French demands for an agreement there and then. “He saw that he went too far,” one European in the room said of Mr Obama.
The US president asked whether Ms Merkel could work it out with the Bundesbank by Monday. Mr Sarkozy suggested finance ministers meet to agree the details before the summit ended the next day. Perhaps something vague could be mentioned in the summit’s communiqué, Mr Obama suggested. No, said Mr Sarkozy, but we could meet again in the morning.
It was as if the two men had not heard her. She made the point again: “I’m not going to take such a big risk without getting anything from Italy. I’m not going to commit suicide.”...
And with that, the meeting ended. Leaving the late-night session, Mr Obama put his arm around Ms Merkel as if to comfort her – a scene captured by the White House’s official photographer. The image adorned the walls of the West Wing for months.
The leaders met again the next morning but the momentum was gone. “The storm was over,” said one person at both meetings. The SDR plan would never again see the light of day. Italy would get a monitoring programme but no funding. And to compound the failure, Mr Berlusconi at his closing news conference publicly acknowledged what everyone had assiduously attempted to keep secret: that the IMF had offered him a rescue programme. Italy would suffer the stigma of needing a rescue but without receiving any assistance.
The Cannes failure provided new oxygen to the eurozone fire. When markets reopened, Italian borrowing costs soared. Within the week they would nearly touch 7.5 per cent. Greece’s would go above 33 per cent, a level almost without precedent for a developed country. Now, with no new firewall in place, it was unclear what would save the euro.#/i#