BERLUSCONI SAYS HE MAY WITHDRAW HIS CANDIDACY IF MONTI STEPS IN!!!

all the parties have afraid of proposing it... this is unchartered territory

zerohedge‏@zerohedge

The Consensus cumulative GDP forecast since 2003 for Italy and the US is 20.5% and 15.8% below the actual outcome

I kind of wonder whether there are other reasons no one dares say officially what everyone thinks and sees.

zerohedge‏@zerohedge

MONTI SAYS MARKETS SHOULDN'T FEAR POLITICAL VACUUM IN ITALY. all about those markets

Silvio Berlusconi Has A Great Attack On Mario Monti's Obsession With 'The Spread'

Read more: [link to www.businessinsider.com]

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD: Mario Monti's Resignation Is The Only Way To Save Italy

Read more: [link to www.businessinsider.com]

Berlusconi Is No Donald Trump — Here's Why You Have To Take Him Seriously

Read more: [link to markdow.tumblr.com]

Berlusconi shouldn’t be counted out in Italy

December 11, 2012, 12:59 PM
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Financial markets around the world are taking Italy’s latest political turmoil in stride, apparently confident that a mainstream politician committed to outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti’s technocratic vision – if not Monti himself — will prevail in early elections, leaving Silvio Berlusconi to gnash the scenery like a frustrated wrestling heel.

But investors may be a bit complacent, argues Neil Mellor, currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon.

Granted, Berlusconi’s People of Liberty, or PDL, party polls around 16% support, well behind the center-left Democratic Party, whose leader has pledged to maintain Monti’s reforms. But while a lot can be said about the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, “one irrefutable fact is that the former prime minister recognizes an electoral angle when he sees it,” Mellor said, in a research note.

And right now it doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that the three-time former premier “has been lured back into the ring by the glowing potential of an antiausterity platform — a platform that would give him the best chance of bridging the current chasm in the polls,” Mellor said.

Indeed, one just need to look at the attack Berlusconi launched in a television interview (and repeated on his Facebook page) mocking Monti’s call for a yield spread between Italian IT:10YR_ITA+0.18% and German DE:10YR_GER+0.55% government bonds of 287 basis points. Berlusconi railed that the “spread is a scam” and seemed to imply that the run-up in Italian borrowing costs last year was merely a ruse engineered to force his ouster and clear the way for Monti’s unelected technocratic government.
... [link to blogs.marketwatch.com]

zerohedge @zerohedge 10 min
BERSANI SAYS BETTER MONTI NOT TO RUN IN ELECTION

zerohedge @zerohedge 7 min
BERLUSCONI SAYS HE MAY WITHDRAW HIS CANDIDACY IF MONTI STEPS IN

interesting party landscape in italy

[link to www.businessinsider.com]

zerohedge @zerohedge 2 min
BERLUSCONI SAYS ITALY-GERMANY BOND SPREAD IS 'SCAM'
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zerohedge @zerohedge 3 min
BERLUSCONI SAYS 'COLOSSAL LIE' TO SAY HE BROUGHT ITALY TO BRINK
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zerohedge @zerohedge 4 min
BERLUSCONI SAYS HE'S ENVIOUS OF POWER MONTI HAS IN GOVT. So .... he is not withdrawing?

Thnx for updates Luis!

zerohedge @zerohedge 4 min
BERLUSCONI SAYS ITALY ECONOMIC FUNDAMENTALS MUCH WORSE NOW

zerohedge @zerohedge 11 min
BERLUSCONI SAYS HE TRIED TO CHANGE NAME OF PDL TO FORZA ITALIA