InfoAnda - Analysis: Fat cat Italian politicians dodge Monti's austerity |

Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case
Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They

Taiwan denies boycotting Australian film festival
Thursday, August 6, 2009

AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e

Merkel's support dips, regional ally resigns International
Thursday, September 3, 2009

By Sarah Marsh and Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German

Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who

Asian markets mixed after Wall Street rally
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an

Small Explosion Damages New York City Starbucks; Residents Evacuated | 25 May 2009
Gen. Petraeus calls relationship with Karzai sound | 3 September 2010
New book satirizes reality TV, PC Britain, media | | 29 September 2011

Republicans Call For Closer Scrutiny Of Obama Economic Stimulus | 30 December 2008

Forum Views () Forum Replies ()

Read more with google mobile : Analysis: Fat cat Italian politicians dodge Monti's austerity |

Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Home Business Business Home Economy Technology Media Small Business Legal Deals Earnings Social Pulse Business Video The Freeland File Markets Markets Home U.S. Markets European Markets Asian Markets Global Market Data Indices M&A Stocks Bonds Currencies Commodities Futures Funds peHUB World World Home U.S. Brazil China Euro Zone Japan Mexico Russia India Insight World Video Reuters Investigates Decoder Politics Politics Home Election 2012 Issues 2012 Candidates 2012 Tales from the Trail Political Punchlines Supreme Court Politics Video Tech Technology Home MediaFile Science Tech Video Tech Tonic Social Pulse Opinion Opinion Home Chrystia Freeland John Lloyd Felix Salmon Jack Shafer David Rohde Bernd Debusmann Nader Mousavizadeh Lucy P. Marcus David Cay Johnston Bethany McLean Edward Hadas Hugo Dixon Ian Bremmer Lawrence Summers Susan Glasser The Great Debate Steven Brill Jack & Suzy Welch Breakingviews Equities Credit Private Equity M&A Macro & Markets Politics Breakingviews Video Money Money Home Tax Break Lipper Awards 2012 Global Investing MuniLand Unstructured Finance Linda Stern Mark Miller John Wasik James Saft Analyst Research Alerts Watchlist Portfolio Stock Screener Fund Screener Personal Finance Video Money Clip Investing 201 Life Health Sports Arts Faithworld Business Traveler Entertainment Oddly Enough Lifestyle Video Pictures Pictures Home Reuters Photographers Full Focus Video Reuters TV Reuters News Article Comments (0) Full Focus Editor's choice Our best photos from the last 24 hours. Full Article Images of March Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Huge quakes off Indonesia stir panic, but no big tsunami | 12:04pm EDT Defiant North Korea begins injecting fuel into rocket | 7:48am EDT Special Report: How Gaddafi scion went from reformer to reactionary 10:28am EDT Huge quakes off Indonesia stir panic, but no big tsunami 10:11am EDT Tsunami warning issued for two southern Thai provinces 5:46am EDT Discussed 311 Tyler Perry Pulled Over, Accuses White Cops of Racial Profiling via Facebook 292 Analysis: Justice Kagan–Giving liberals a rhetorical lift 289 Trayvon Martin call was ”mistake, not deliberate”: NBC Watched Transgender beauty says she wants to compete for Miss Universe Tue, Apr 3 2012 Quake off Indonesia sparks tsunami alert 7:25am EDT Horror hits the runway in Japan Fri, Mar 23 2012 Pictures Reuters Photojournalism Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more Syria: A year of conflict A look back at a year of protests and armed clashes against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Slideshow Fracking controversy Fracking is used to extract oil from deep within the earth. However, there are concerns it may contaminate groundwater. Slideshow Analysis: Fat cat Italian politicians dodge Monti's austerity Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Obama campaign slams Romney for not paying "fair share" of taxes Tue, Apr 10 2012 Italy Northern League leader resigns amid fraud scandal Thu, Apr 5 2012 UPDATE 4-Greek pensioner kills himself outside parliament Wed, Apr 4 2012 Analysis: Resistance to austerity stirs in southern Europe Sun, Apr 1 2012 Euro zone agrees to boost rescue capacity Fri, Mar 30 2012 Analysis & Opinion Spain’s fiscal amnesty sends wrong message Essential reading: Tax fairness or tax competiveness?, Shockingly low taxes, and more Related Topics World » Italy » Greece » Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti (C) arrives at the Arab League headquarters to meet their chief Nabil Elaraby in Cairo April 10, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih By Steve Scherer ROME | Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:55am EDT ROME (Reuters) - When Prime Minister Mario Monti called on all Italians to make sacrifices to avert a Greek-style crisis, the political class that backs him in parliament wasn't listening. While most voters face higher taxes, stagnating wages and rising unemployment, Italy's army of politicians and senior officials are clinging to fat salaries that far outstrip those of their peers abroad. Monti, a technocrat who relies on party politicians to get his austerity policies through parliament, recently issued a decree which will prevent public servants earning more than U.S. President Barack Obama. Many now earn considerably more. Ordinary Italians are paying the price for a decade of political stalemate, profligate spending and corruption. Monti, who made his appeal for sacrifices when he took office last year, has imposed an austerity package adding 24 billion euros to Italians' tax bills in 2012 alone. But Italy's wealthy, including its politicians and senior bureaucrats, are hardly carrying their share of the burden. "There has not been an equal distribution of sacrifices," said Monica Montella, an economist at state statistics office ISTAT. "In proportion to their salaries, higher incomes are paying less." Renzo Bossi, the 23-year-old son of a powerbroker, offers an example of how the political class enjoy the spoils of office. Renzo struggled to earn his high-school diploma and failed his final exam three times. But never mind - his father was Umberto Bossi, head of the Northern League until a funding scandal engulfed his party, and chief parliamentary ally of Monti's predecessor as premier, Silvio Berlusconi. Aged 21, Renzo Bossi became the youngest ever member of Lombardy's 80-strong regional assembly. This job in local politics earned him more than 150,000 euros a year ($196,200), 13 percent more than members of the U.S. Congress made in 2011. "Elected politicians at all levels are paid more than those in America," said Antonio Merlo, head of the University of Pennsylvania's economics department and co-author of the book "The Ruling Class". Renzo resigned on Monday as the party became the focus of an embezzlement probe. He hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing. His case is just one of many, and some politicians feel free to let the state fund their private lives. In 2007, former justice minister Clemente Mastella took his son to see the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, just like many parents in Formula One-crazy Italy. Instead of driving or taking the train like everyone else, they went by state jet. The one-day plane ride from Salerno to Milan cost taxpayers 20,000 euros. A THOUSAND LAWMAKERS Italy has almost 1,000 national lawmakers, twice the U.S. number even though Italy has just a fifth of the population - and they earn more than their U.S. counterparts and most of their European peers too. The majority have a base salary of 11,283 euros per month before tax, plus 3,503 euros for expenses which they do not have itemise. By contrast, the lowest-earning households are being hurt most by rising fuel, property and sales taxes. They live on less than 8,000 euros per year, or 667 euros per month, after taxes. Berlusconi, who was forced to make way for Monti last November, launched his own austerity drive even though he himself is a billionaire and led a life of legendary extravagance, including holding parties which have drawn charges that he paid for sex with an underage prostitute. Austerity drives are nothing new in Italy. In 1992, then Prime Minister Giuliano Amato asked Italian taxpayers to make "blood and tears" sacrifices following a currency crisis. Amato now enjoys two state pensions worth more than 31,000 euros a month, before taxes. Things are very different at the other end of the pay scale. In a study for economic think tank lavoce.info, ISTAT's Montella used Bank of Italy data to calculate that the poorest families already lost almost 12 percent of their real income between 2006 and 2010, more than double the national average. Unlike their leaders, ordinary Italian families are traditionally thrifty but austerity has forced them to change. Last year households saved only 12 percent of their gross income, the lowest level since 1995. And some are so desperate that they see suicide as their only option. In March, a Moroccan worker in Italy set himself on fire to protest against not having been paid for months, and an Italian businessman did the same over a tax dispute. The Moroccan survived but the businessman died. PARTY FUNDING Italians are increasingly dissatisfied with the parties and politicians that led the country for the past two decades, with more than 40 percent saying they wouldn't vote for any of them if there were an election today, polls show. Yet the parties have shown little readiness to change, despite growing calls for an overhaul of party funding rules, Renzo Bossi, who according to court papers drove an Audi A-6 bought with party funds, highlights the sense of entitlement shared by Italy's political class, where family members regularly receive top-paid jobs and party funds can find their way into private, offshore bank accounts. Election campaigns, parliamentary groups and even party newspapers are funded by the Italian state, and cost more than 400 million euros in 2011, Corriere della Sera newspaper calculated, while the state spent 5.9 billion euros on campaign financing between 1974 and 2012. Even after a minor cut to lawmakers' expense accounts made earlier this year, they continue to be paid 60 percent more than the European average, but past efforts to rein in the excesses have all run into the sand. A special committee appointed last year to fix lawmakers' and top bureaucrats' earnings to a European average resigned last week, saying it didn't have the authority to impose the salary cuts. SALARY CAPS The constitution does not allow Monti to slash political salaries directly, but he can intervene to cut those of public managers. Monti has signed a decree setting a salary ceiling for public managers at 293,658.95 euros ($387,000), just below Obama's $400,000 annual pay. The decree should become effective by the end of April, a government source said. This will more than halve the annual income of the highest salaried public servant, Antonio Manganelli. As director of the police force, Manganelli makes 621,253.75 euros ($818,539) a year - more than four times what U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller earns. Cutting back the cost of politics will be hard in a country where pork-barrel public spending is commonplace, said Sergio Rizzo, co-author of the book "The Caste" about Italy's extravagant political class. "A big part of Italian public spending is unproductive and supports political patronage," he said. Rizzo cites the Sicily's regional government which has 19,000 full time employees, six times those of the northern Lombardy region in Italy's business and industrial heartland. Sicily also has another 27,000 temporary workers, even though the island's population is about half that of Lombardy. Overall, Italian public expenditure is more than 50 percent of annual gross domestic product, which is in line with many European countries that have extensive state services and welfare privileges. "But the quality of the public services is not nearly as good in Italy as in Denmark and Sweden," Rizzo said. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pietro Giarda aims to hand over a preliminary spending review detailing where cuts can be made by the end of this month, and some reductions will come by the end of the year, a government source said. But the process is slow, and each minister will have a say over what cuts can or cannot be made at their ministry. Meanwhile, fuel taxes rose in December and regional income taxes increased in March. More is to come: the first stage of a new property levy is due in June, and value-added tax jumps by 2 percentage points in October to 23 percent. All this makes Italians feel that Monti wants the shirt off their backs, and maybe even more. A picture many are posting on their Facebook pages shows a man in his underpants sprinting down a street with five policemen in hot pursuit. "Stop!" shouts one of the cops. "Monti doesn't want your underwear too!" (Additional reporting by Giuseppe Fonte; editing by David Stamp) World Italy Greece Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above. Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Back to top Reuters.com Business Markets World Politics Technology Opinion Money Pictures Videos Site Index Legal Bankruptcy Law California Legal New York Legal Securities Law Support & Contact Support Corrections Connect with Reuters Twitter Facebook LinkedIn RSS Podcast Newsletters Mobile About Privacy Policy Terms of Use AdChoices Copyright Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance Our next generation legal research platform Our global tax workstation Thomsonreuters.com About Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Careers Contact Us Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

Other News on Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Bring a bag and the dog: Brits in Mali flee Qaeda |
Venezuela's Chavez to attend summit, says Colombia |
Kidnapped Costa Rican diplomat freed in Venezuela |
Tablet boom waiting for corporate wave |
Court narrows reach of computer fraud law |
RIM losing money on BlackBerry hardware: analyst |
Spielberg studio gets about $200 million from Indian backers |
Protect your eyes, The Three Stooges are back |
'Girls': It's sex and New York city for new generation |
Son of Bogart and Bacall to sail on restored African Queen |
Talk show host Ricki Lake marries |
Macy Gray lends raspy voice to others' songs |
Lindsay Lohan says club battery claim one big lie |
Defiant North Korea begins injecting fuel into rocket |
China ejects Bo from elite ranks, wife suspected of murder |
Syrian forces press assault as peace plan falters |
Manila summons China's envoy over South China Sea standoff |
Korean Air says jet diverted in Canada after threat |
Saudi Arabia denies activist on hunger strike |
Putin speech may offer clues on next Russian government |
Peru says rescue of 9 trapped miners imminent |
Red Cross makes first visit to Turkmenistan jail |
DOJ may sue Apple over ebooks as early as Wednesday: sources |
Starboard to AOL: Patent sale not enough |
Best Buy CEO resigns during personal conduct probe |
Nokia smartphone bug hits U.S. ambitions |
House to take up cybersecurity bill with revisions |
IBM targets rivals with info tech maintenance product |
Global cyber arms race engulfing Web
Rock week rolls Shepherd off Dancing With the Stars |
DreamWorks Studios gets more financing-source |
Ron Wood says Rolling Stones headed back to studio |
Robin Gibbs fighting pneumonia, misses concert |
Jazz musician Herbie Hancock to pen memoir |
UK's One Direction sued by US band with same name |
'Simpsons' creator reveals the real Springfield |
Son of Bogart and Bacall to sail on restored African Queen |
Huge quakes off Indonesia stir panic, but no big tsunami |
Putin signals support for NATO Afghan supply hub |
French left preps NATO allies for fast Afghan exit |
Sudan halts South Sudan talks after oilfield attack |
Analysis: Fat cat Italian politicians dodge Monti's austerity |
Yemen air force, troops kill 62 militants |
Afghan elite raiders say they are U.S. equals |
An Error has occured |
Nokia shares tumble after loss forecast |
Nokia launches first NFC Windows Phone |
RIM to launch updates of popular BlackBerry apps |
House to take up cybersecurity bill with revisions |
Sands opens Macau casino, eyes $35 billion Spain complex |
Greece at new risk of being pushed off euro
Bodies of missing Tenn. mom, Jo Ann Bain, and daughter found
Female Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever
AMD Trinity Accelerated Processing Units Now in Volume Production
The Avengers (2012 film), made the second biggest opening- and single-day gross of all-time
AMD to Start Production of piledriver
Ivy Bridge Quad-Core, Four-Thread Desktop CPUs
Islamists Protest Lady Gaga's Concert in Indonesia
Japan Successfully Broadcasts an 8K Signal Over the Air
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Egypt : Mohammed Morsi won with 52 percent
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up
AMD Launches AMD Embedded R-Series APU Platform
Fed Should not Ignore Emerging Market Crisis
Fed casts shadow over India, emerging markets
Why are Chinese tourists so rude? A few insights

USD EUR - 1 year graph		BlogMeter 1.01