Where does the expression "it rains, thieving government" come from?
There are various hypotheses about this. My favorite is the one linkedto the Grand Duchy of Tuscany: at a certain point the former Florentinestate, in considerable economic difficulty, decided to tax salt. Being awidely unpopular measure, it was decided to weigh the salt only oncertain occasions, i.e. on rainy days. It's a shame that salt, incontact with water, significantly increases its weight; and thus theGrand Duchy of Tuscany derived greater profits from it. This anecdotecan be applied in an exemplary manner to the Meloni government. Theright in power, in fact, appears terrified: slave to the diktats of theUSA and the European Union, faithful to the role of vassal of thefinancial oligarchies and of the industrial and military apparatus, itintends to apply restrictive and drastic measures starting from the nextlaw of budget, thus continuing in the wake of the last 30 years ofItalian policies. But he doesn't declare it, he can't do it, so as notto admit the substantial continuity with his predecessor Draghi and fuelthe discontent of that segment of the population who, thanks to ademocratic system that is increasingly dictatorial of the minority,voted for him in the last elections. So what does he do? It dusts offthe political jargon, denies the data, distracts attention, overturnsperspectives. Better not to say, better not to let people know: itremains the favorite adage of a petty power. Take for example the cutson the PNRR, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan: in the newformula foreseen at the end of July by Minister Fitto and forwarded tothe European Union, which will be able to approve or not the changeswithin the next three months, to Municipalities and Regions 16 billionless will be allocated. Only the Ministry of Infrastructure andTransport, governed by the ineffable Salvini, has diverted to the North,to build yet another railway works which there is no need for, projectsworth two and a half billion which were intended for the South toinstead carry out, for example 450 community homes and a hundredhospitals. What is this movement of money called? "Remodulation ofresources". Sounds good, right? Better than "snatch" or "rip-off", inreality the most suitable words for what was carried out. If it is truethat the works financed by the PNRR have the obligation to complete theconstruction by 2026, in this way the government declares, at least,that in the South, who knows why, it is not possible to carry out publicworks quickly. And, above all, the "remodulation of resources" does notcurrently exist because alternative funds have not been identified. Evenmore ridiculous, then, is the summer controversy over the cost of fuel.Since August 1st, the prices of petrol and diesel have increased daily,well above two euros per litre. Precisely on the days when millions ofpeople go on holiday and therefore move up and down Italy. What did theMeloni government do? It has imposed on petrol stations the ridiculousobligation to display the national average price of fuel on signspositioned next to the selling price they offer, officially "tocounteract distributors' speculation and increase transparency forcustomers". Obviously the speculations remained and the faketransparency was of no use, in the sense that the price increasesremained because this measure actually encouraged petrol stationattendants not to lower the average prices displayed. A concrete exampleto clarify: in July and August of this year the Amsterdam TTF marketindex, i.e. the virtual market where the price of real gas is decided,remained around 20/30 euros per megawatt/ now, more or less the sameprice it had before the bursting of the speculative bubble that began inSeptember 2021 and raged throughout 2022. In August 2021, a refill ofmethane for the car cost around one euro per liter: now, net of the sameprice of purchase, the distributors resell it for one euro and 50. Thisis a clear case of exogenous inflation, the one generated by companiesthat for more than a year have decided to pass on the increase,sometimes real, sometimes less, to consumers. of raw materials andenergy supplies, even putting the burden on them and speculating on thecrisis. And what does the government do? Put up a sign! On the otherhand, what also contributed to the increase in prices was theelimination of the excise duty cut, decided by the Draghi governmentlast March, of 25 cents per liter for petrol and diesel. It was apalliative, let's be clear - and even the Draghi government, in theusual mania for reconfiguring reality through words, had spoken of a"discount" - but the Meloni government still decided to remove that too,anxious to raise cash on everyone's holidays and all of us. According toan estimate by Assoutenti, over the August 15th weekend alone, with thismeasure the government collected over two billion euros more. Not badfor a prime minister who declared in January that "sooner or later wewill remove excise duties". When? When the Italian economy is healthy.Ah well, then... Rather than admitting that the money is there but wedon't want to take it away from finance, multinationals and the militaryapparatus, Giorgia Meloni is talking these days about "diverting theresources now spent on chapters and measures that we don't agree withpolitically to do what the citizens have asked of us" and "to implementthe interventions that are in our program". These are the legitimatewishes of a democratically elected government, aren't they? Since peoplehave realized that meaningless political formulas such as "cuttingwaste" and "privatization" are now empty, now even the havoc isjustified with identity. It's really true: they piss on our heads andtell us it's raining.https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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