Free Republic

President Joe Biden’s foreign policy advisers are concerned that a victory by Italian leader Giorgia Meloni could weaken the united European coalition pushing back against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meloni represents a populist-nationalist shift in power after Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi sought to align Italy with the European Union and teamed up with the G7 nations to push back against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Italians are set to go to the polls following the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Giorgia Meloni, who leads the far-right Brothers of Italy party, has been tipped to become the country's first female prime minister. Meloni, worked as a journalist before entering politics and since 2014 has been leader of the party, which has been historically described as neo-fascist...

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi's coalition government risked collapse on Thursday after the 5-Star Movement, one of its members, failed to support a parliamentary confidence vote including measures to offset the cost of living crisis.The confidence vote has become a focal point for tensions within Draghi's broad coalition as its parties prepare to fight each other in a national election due by early 2023.The risks of a collapse of a Draghi government rippled through financial markets where Italian bond yields rose sharply, indicating investors demanding a higher premium to hold its debt, and shares fell.

Viganò on Italy's New PM (Arrivederci, Catholic Italy)Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem. (On the asp and the viper you will tread, And trample the lion and the dragon.) -Ps. 91:13ET CONCULCABIS LEONEM ET DRACONEMUp until the last century in Italy, free thinkers could spread ideas that were imbued with Masonic principles and rhetoric, because the social body was not liberal. They could stand in front of church on Sunday mornings and spread their lies, even while their own wives and children went to Mass, received catechism lessons, and were instructed by the Church and the...

"He went down a path he shouldn't have, and we shouldn't have listened to him. And we can't let that ever happen again." The words of President Trump's UN Ambassador Nikki Haley interviewed by "Politico". Haley commenting on President Trump's campaign against election fraud following last year's presidential election... The impeachment trial today and President Trump's defense lawyers making their case that the Democrat-led impeachment of Trump is based on hatred of him and purely political... In Washington DC federal prosecutors piling on the charges against Klete Keller, Olympic gold medalist swimmer, who was inside the US Capitol on the...

The strict lockdown in Israel easing today with home confinement ending for millions of people... "So for your health I ask you-do not come tomorrow" Those words in a video from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking his supporters to stay away from the court hearing tomorrow as his corruption trial moves into its key phase... Iran and the United States staking out positions on the nuclear issue... More than 100 people missing and at least seven dead in the wake of a torrent of water unleashed by the bursting of a glacier... The pipe-laying for the Nord Stream 2...

German industry is in the deepest slump since the global financial crisis and threatens to push Europe’s powerhouse economy into full-blown recession. The darkening outlook is forcing the European Central Bank to contemplate ever more perilous measures. The influential Ifo Institute in Munich said its business climate indicator for manufacturing went into “free fall” in July as the delayed damage from global trade conflict takes its toll and confidence wilts. It goes far beyond the woes of the car industry. More than 80pc of Germany’s factories are in outright contraction.

Large parts of the eurozone are slipping deeper into a deflationary trap despite negative interest rates and one trillion euros of quantitative easing by the European Central Bank, leaving the currency bloc with no safety buffer when the next global recession hits. The ECB is close to exhausting its ammunition and appears increasingly powerless to do more under the legal constraints of its mandate. It has downgraded its growth forecast for the next two years, citing the uncertainties of Brexit, and admitted that it has little chance of meeting its 2pc inflation target this decade, insisting that it is now...

As Draghi said in a speech to Asian government officials and business leaders on Monday, there’s still a great deal more that can be done to punish Europe’s hordes of savers, the central banker’s scapegoat du jour for all that ails Europe’s debt-laden economy. The low or negative interest rates plaguing Europe are a symptom of a much bigger problem, he said: the compression of investment returns due to a massive global savings glut. To our great amazement, it’s this purported glut — and not his monetary policies — that lies behind the historic decline in interest rates. Inevitably, whenever...

Mario Draghi has said the European Central Bank would intensify efforts to support the eurozone economy and boost inflation toward its 2pc goal if necessary. Speaking a day after the ECB's moves to expand stimulus fell short of market expectations, the central bank president said that he was confident of returning to that level of inflation "without undue delay". "But there is no doubt that if we had to intensify the use of our instruments to ensure that we achieve our price stability mandate, we would," he said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York. "There cannot...

Rumor has it that Draghi is so fed up with German opposition to everything he wants to do with stimulus and sovereign debt bond buying that he is about to leave the ECB. The Fiscal Times asks Why the Hell Does Mario Draghi Want to Leave the ECB Now!? What would happen to EuropeÂ’s prospects for recovery if Mario Draghi left his job as president of the European Central Bank? Would DraghiÂ’s plans to implement an ambitious policy of monetary stimulus get bulldozed by German inflation hawks and others favoring continued austerity across the Continent? Even a week ago there...

DRAGHI: Inflation Must Rise Without Delay Mike Bird   European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi is speaking today at a banking conference in Frankfurt, and he has one central message: we have to bring inflation back up, now. It’s one of Draghi’s most forthright speeches, with one exceptional snippet: “It is essential to bring back inflation to target and without delay.” Draghi added: “We have to be very watchful that low inflation does not start percolating through the economy in ways that further worsen the economic situation.” You can take a look at the full text of the speech...

"What's it all about Alphie" is a sing-along that most have heard. Take out the word "Alphie" and substitute "Draghi" and the answer is "Assuage Investors" in yet another can-kicking exercise. ECB president Mario Draghi hopes that if he continues with his kick-the-can tactics long enough, that something good will eventually happen. Hope is really all the ECB has.

Deutsche Skatbank, a division of VR-Bank Altenburger Land, which was founded in 1859, is not the biggest bank in Germany, but it’s the first bank to confirm what German savers have been dreading for a while: the wrath of Draghi. Retail and business customers with over €500,000 on deposit as of November 1 will earn a “negative interest rate” of 0.25%. In less euphemistic terms, they have to pay 0.25% per annum to the bank for the privilege of handing the bank their hard-earned money or their business cash. Inflation has had a similar effect in the zero-interest-rate environment that...

The spread of illiberal ideology is threatening the euro, but it is an illusion that leaving it would offer an easier path, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Saturday. Warning that a half-finished monetary union could be at risk in the next crisis, Draghi made the case for sweeping changes in how the currency bloc operates and spreads around financial risk. “The fascination with illiberal prescriptions and regimes is spreading; we are seeing little steps back in history,” Draghi said in Pisa, Italy. “Only by continuing to make progress, freeing up individual energies but also fostering social equity,...

The European Central Bank left its stimulus measures on hold Thursday and warned governments in the 19 country euro currency union that they need to do more to help the economy grow and push up inflation to healthier levels. The bank kept its key interest rates unchanged and decided against extending the duration of its existing bond-buying stimulus program. Bank President Mario Draghi seemed relatively confident about the economy and less inclined to hint at more stimulus than some analysts had expected. Instead, he used his news conference to urge governments to do their part. He said that implementation of...

The European Central Bank is ready to give the eurozone economy a bigger dose of stimulus if turmoil in China and weaker global growth hurt its modest recovery, President Mario Draghi said Thursday. Market volatility, concern over the effects of a looming interest rate increase in the U.S. and a drop oil prices have spawned uncertainty over the global economy, leading the ECB to cut its inflation and growth forecasts for the eurozone. Draghi said the ECB can add to its €1.1 trillion ($1.2 trillion) program if needed to raise inflation or support growth. […] The stimulus is intended to...

Just what the market had hoped would not happen... *ECB SAYS IT LIFTS WAIVER ON GREEK GOVERNMENT DEBT AS COLLATERAL *ECB SAYS IT CAN'T ASSUME SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION OF GREECE REVIEW What this means simply is that since Greek banks are now unable to pledge Greek bonds as collateral and fund themselves, and liquidity is about to evaporate, the ECB has just given a green light for Greek bank runs... and all the worst parts of the bible (or merely a negotiating move to let Greece see just what kind of chaos this will create). And now finally, after many years...

The eurozone experienced negative inflation for the second month in a row, according to a flash estimate published today (30 January) by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office. Inflation is expected to be at −0.6%, with consumer prices falling further than economists had forecast. The fall represents the biggest decline in prices in the history of the euro. […] The drop was driven by the fall in energy prices (−8.9%, compared with −6.3% in December). […] The deflationary spiral comes as Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), is trying to tackle deflation with a policy of...

The European Central Bank will plough €1.1 trillion into the eurozone economy in a last-ditch attempt to breathe life into the European economy. At its monthly governing council on Thursday (January 22), the bank’s governing council agreed to start buying up to €60 billion of government bonds from March in an unprecedented quantitative easing program. The program is open-ended, and will run until September 2016 at the earliest. Speaking at a press conference following the governing council meeting, ECB president Mario Draghi said that the bond-buying program would remain in place “until we see a sustained adjustment in the path...