THE MAN WHO WOULD BE PM:

Well Qualified, but Facing Uphill Fight (ELISABETTA POVOLEDO, 11/13/11, NY Times)

Italians can expect Mr. Monti to act in support of market integration, which he believes will make Italy -- and the European Union -- more resilient to crises. "He holds that the monetary union has to be based on market integration, openly competing within the euro single market," Mr. Pisani-Ferry said.

They can also expect Mr. Monti to push for the reform-minded agenda demanded by the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank to make Italy more competitive, and spur the growth that has eluded it in the past decade. Those reforms would include enforcing -- and possibly strengthening -- measures passed by the Italian Parliament on Saturday that aim to eliminate some structural obstacles to Italian competitiveness, like cumbersome red tape or its entrenched professional guilds. [...]

Mr. Monti is also an international adviser to Goldman Sachs, and was president of the Italian Group of the Trilateral Commission, an organization described in his blog by Piergiorgio Odifreddi, an Italian mathematician and writer, as "ultra-liberal American, European and Japanese Masonry inspired by David Rockefeller."

Some in the Italian news media have begun referring this week to the dawn of an era of "Government Sachs." Like Mr. Monti, Mr. Draghi worked for the global investment bank, as did Greece's new prime minister, Lucas Papademos.

"I see Monti and his team knowing what needs to be done," said Mr. Naím of the Carnegie Endowment. "Italy is the most overdiagnosed country in the world."

But if the diagnosis is straightforward, a cure may be less so. "No one wants to bear the costs of the reforms," Mr. Naím said.

Posted by oj at November 15, 2011 3:59 PM
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