Thread: Mike Shedlock: Italy on Verge of Downgrade to Junk; Silvio Berlusconi’s Supporters Th

Thursday, September 26, 2013 10:56 PM

Italy on Verge of Downgrade to Junk; Silvio Berlusconi’s Supporters Threaten Mass Resignation from Parliament

Silvio Berlusconi supporters threatened to resign form Italy's parliament en masse today, even though a week ago Berlusconi himself said he would not end the coalition. To someone in the US, such a ploy makes little sense, because as soon as you resign, you lose your vote.

Parliamentary rules described below suggest there may be some merit in the idea, but I still think a coalition collapse by ordinary means (withdrawing support) is more likely. Regardless, one way or another, the threat of a coalition collapse is back in the picture.

In response to the threat of a government collapse Standard & Poor’s warned of a further downgrade “by one notch or more” if Italy could not demonstrate “institutional and governance effectiveness”. Italian sovereign debt is just two notches above junk.

The Financial Times reports Italy PM Letta returns to resignation threat from centre-right

Fresh from assuring potential Wall Street investors that Italy was “young, virtuous and credible”, prime minister Enrico Letta was heading back to Rome late on Thursday to save his coalition government from collapse after Silvio Berlusconi’s supporters threatened a mass resignation from parliament.

The 76-year-old former prime minister – convicted last month for tax fraud and also appealing against a separate conviction for paying for sex with an underage prostitute – threw the government into chaos on Wednesday night when his centre-right Forza Italia party warned it would quit parliament if a senate committee voted to expel its leader from the upper house next month.

As Mr Letta has repeatedly warned, Italy can ill afford higher costs in servicing its €2tn of public debt, with its budget deficit for 2013 currently forecast to overshoot the 3 per cent limit agreed with the EU.

A mass resignation from parliament would cause legislative chaos just when the government must seek approval for its 2014 state budget. Parliamentary procedures dictate that each resignation must be voted on individually, a process that would have to be repeated if deputies nominated to replace them also resigned.

Renato Brunetta, lower house leader for Forza Italia, told the Financial Times he was already collecting resignation signatures from the party’s 188 MPs. He declined to say how many he had received so far.

With the head of state adamantly opposed to dissolving parliament, politicians are scrutinising whether Mr Letta could find the 30 or so votes he would need in the senate to form an alternative majority. Opinion polls show that elections would lead to a repeat of February’s hung parliament, with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement once again holding the balance of power.

Time Running Out For Letta Coalition

Even though Berlusconi is prone to change his mind frequently, and his supporters make threats they do not carry out, it appears this time, one way or another, the Letta coalition is nearly finished.

Italy's president, Mr. Napolitano, said he would not succumb to pressure to dissolve parliament and call new elections, but what other choice can he make, unless Letta picks up votes from Beppe Grillos's 5-Star Movement?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com



http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...e-to-junk.html

Monday, September 30, 2013 4:57 AM

Spain's Retail Sales Fall 4.2%, 38 Consecutive Negative Months

Somewhere along the line the economic situation in Spain will bottom, but there are no real signs yet that a recovery is underway.

Courtesy of El Confidencial, via translation, please consider Retail sales fell by 4.2% and totaling 38 months in negative

Retail trade sales fell by 4.2% in August compared with the same month in 2012, expanding by 2.5 points year July's decline of 1.7%. The National Statistics Institute (INE) reports 38 months of consecutive annual decreases.

Employment in the retail sector fell by 1.9% in the eighth month of the year, two percentage points less than in July, with declines in all modes of distribution. The largest decreases were scored small chains and department stores, where employment contracted by 4.7% and 3.7%, respectively.

Retail sales fell in August in 15 autonomous communities. The largest annual declines occurred in Castilla y León (-9.2%), Basque Country (-8%) and Aragon (-7.7%), while only Balearics managed to increase its sales, with increases of 3 , 2% and 2.7%, respectively.

Employment in retail trade decreased by 13 communities during the eighth month of 2013, mainly in Madrid (-5.7%), Castilla y Leon (-3.6%) and Murcia (-3.1%). The only the recorded progress Balearic Islands and Valencia, with increases of 1%, 0.9% and 0.7%, respectively, while La Rioja remained unchanged in their occupancy.

The Spanish government has been talking recovery for several months, so where is it?

Eventually there will be a positive month or more, but after this decline, it will hardly constitute "recovery"

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com


http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...all-42-38.html

Monday, September 30, 2013 12:48 PM

Berlusconi Faces Party Revolt; Collapse of Italian Government Hangs in Balance; Rush For Votes is On

Late last week, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ordered five ministers to resign from Italy's government. They did, and as a result, current prime minister Enrico Letta's coalition government is on the verge of collapse.

Mr Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right Forza Italia party, said the resignations were a response to the government’s decision on Friday to increase in sales tax from next month.

Mr Letta, prime minister, rejected Mr Berlusconi’s explanation as an “enormous lie”, and called the decision “mad and irresponsible and aimed exclusively at covering up his personal affairs” – a reference to Mr Berlusconi’s criminal conviction for tax fraud which is likely to lead to a ban on holding public office.

Beppe Grillo, the comic-activist leader of the movement, who has ruled out supporting a government led by the Democrats, on Saturday night called for snap elections. But his autocratic style of leadership and a purge of several parliamentarians who refused to toe Mr Grillo’s line have fuelled speculation that the Democrats might just be able to put the numbers together to form an alternative majority, including centrists led by former prime minister Mario Monti. Equally it is not clear whether all Mr Berlusconi’s MPs will remain loyal to their billionaire leader of the past two decades who turns 77 this weekend and is facing a year of house arrest or performing community service.

Mr Napolitano, who holds the constitutional power to dissolve parliament, has repeatedly expressed his opposition to holding snap elections. But if Mr Letta’s government were to fall and no alternative majority was in sight, then Italy could be faced with the unprecedented and extremely worrying prospect of staging elections before the end of the year at the risk of derailing the 2014 budget.

Rush For Votes is On

Today the rush for votes is on. Berlusconi, who has a long history of winning close votes may have overplayed his hand this time and Berlusconi faces party revolt over coalition collapse.

"Who is not with me is out," declared a headline in Monday’s Il Giornale, a Milan daily owned by the Berlusconi family, as the former prime minister arrived in Rome to ensure party unity ahead of a crucial senate vote expected late on Wednesday.

The numbers game has begun in earnest as Enrico Letta, centre-left prime minister, prepares to address both houses of parliament in a last-ditch effort to keep his government in office after Mr Berlusconi pulled his five ministers out of their five-month-old coalition at the weekend.

Mr Letta’s Democrats control the lower house but alone they are 54 votes short of an absolute majority in the senate following last February’s deadlocked elections. With the likely support of leftist allies, four recently appointed life senators and 20 centrists led by former prime minister Mario Monti, that deficit is reduced to a dozen or so.

Mr Letta is openly banking on wooing disaffected members of Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party after all five ministers perfunctorily ordered to resign by Mr Berlusconi publicly expressed their misgivings and then slammed Il Giornale for running a front-page editorial that came close to accusing them of betrayal.

Although few doubt Mr Berlusconi’s powers of persuasion and his tenacity, the prospect of their 77-year-old leader being banned from holding public office and serving one year under house arrest, or performing community service, has reinforced the sense that the centre-right is entering a post-Berlusconi era.

The nannycrats in Brussels do not want snap elections because it opens up all kinds of budget battles.

The vote is going to be close. And the closer it is, the more pressure president Napolitano will apply on a few holdouts to sway the election.

Italy 10-Year Bond Yield



Yield on the 10-year Italian bond spiked 24 basis points today to 4.66% but closed at 4.43%, up only 2 basis points (0.02 percentage points)

Perhaps this is a sign Letta has the votes. We will find out on Wednesday.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com


http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...-collapse.html