The Digger

Yellow Vests, Italian Budget  Battles & Silent Labor Unions   "While organized labor restrains itself, both right- and left-wing populists take the helm on EU on economic issues, many claiming they are not anti-European as such, but merely determined to stop the austerity policies that have done so much harm to the population." Excerpts: " Since mid-September, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, has been battling with Italy over its budget.  The populist government in Rome—led by the  Five-Star Movement , orM5S, and the  League —have decided to stimulate the economy by giving money to the poor, lowering taxes and increasing public investment. With an assist from financial markets that are penalizing Italian government bonds, the Commission has been threatening an “excessive deficit procedure” if Italy doesn’t reduce spending and resume measures to balance its budget. In theory this austerity policy will make the country more sta...

" The whole focus of classical economics is to tax wealth not income, and obviously, the tax burden was going to fall on the wealthy, on the landlords first and foremost, then on the bankers and then on the monopolists. That was what socialism was, the idea of creating an economy with a circular flow that the taxes would be paid by the wealthy and the government would use this tax revenue to spend on infrastructure, schools, productive credit to help the economy and to make economies more competitive. It seems that in that sense socialism was going to be the most efficient capitalist economy." Two interviews with Bonnie Faulkner of Guns and Butter: "You can’t bail out the banks, leave the debts in place, and rescue the economy. It’s a zero-sum game. Somebody has to lose. That’s what happened in 2009 when President Obama came in. He invited the bankers to the White House and he said, “ I’m the only guy standing between you and the mob with pitchforks,” by whic...

Link:   Eventually This Had to Happen: France Investigates Russia over Yellow Vest Riots - Global Research