Taken 183 billion Euros from the pockets
of Italian workers and pensioners in the last 8 years
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How much money has been “taken” from the pockets of Italian families from the 1 January 2002 to the 31 December 2009? The answer is breathless: 183 billion Euros. Around 400 thousand billion of the old Lira. Around 20 budget laws of the State. This money has passed from the pockets of employees and pensioners to sellers, supermarkets, insurances, banks and builders.
But how? People have always thought that the increase of prices and speculations were due to the Euro and its high exchange rate. But in reality this is the biggest economic-financial fraud of the last 150 years. A fraud which was built through seven speculative manoeuvres to “increase” prices in eight years. Paradoxically this criminal increase stopped last year because of the world crisis caused by “toxic bonds”. Everything went around the increase of assets and services which reached, at the end of these eight years, incredible limits: from 104% to 290%. A crazy number. This situation did not take place in the rest of Europe, where the Euro also started circulating from the 1st of January 2002.
But who discovered this enormous fraud and how can it be demonstrated? The data comes out from a deep economic-financial analysis carried out by two Italian consumer associations: Adusbef and Federconsumatori.
But did the State help someone? Obviously yes. Berlusconi and Prodi helped businessmen, decreasing taxes for them. Prodi and D’Alema created new laws for flexible and non-permanent jobs, in order to save the businessmen money; Berlusconi lowered taxes for those who earned more that 100 thousand Euros. Still Berlusconi helped banks against the international financial crisis.
But who took at least 40% of these “undue” 183 billion Euros? Obviously the banks. So in eight years, what level of inflation have we reached? According to official data, just 19.36%. In reality things went in a different way. Out of 99 products and services analysed by the two consumer associations, during these eight years, the price of 87 products has increased more than the official inflation and in some cases by seven times compared to the same goods in other European countries.
Do you want some examples? Here they are: sandwiches increased by 162%, margherita pizza by 155%, coffee by 104%, insurances by 125%, ice-cream by 290%, clothing by 150%, meat and fish by 100%, bread from 70% to 210%, despite the price of the wheat paid to farmers has decreased in the same period by 30% -60%. And what about average wages? Before 2002 people earned on average 1 million six hundred/ 2 million Lire, while today one thousand/one thousand and one hundred Euros, while non permanent workers earn between 400 and 900 Euros. A real disaster. Before the Euro, public services had social prices. So this is a catastrophe that destroyed families and the middle class.
Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute
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