Link reblogged from Alexander Ryking
So Greece has a new prime minister – Lucas Papademos – and Italy looks about to have a new one, too – Mario Monti. To which not just you and I but damn near every Italian and Greek responds, “Who?”
Neither Papademos nor Monti has ever held elective office, or even run for one. Neither has been a minister, sub-minister or even civil servant in one of their nation’s ministries. Neither has developed, or sought to develop, a public following from their careers as economic technicians, chiefly on the European supra-national level. Yet each is about to lead a major nation.
Papademos and Monti are something new under the sun: national leaders elected by the markets. Imposed, not as pro-consels by foreign occupiers, but by the European banking community, by the finance ministers of the Eurozone powers – chiefly, Germany and France. Each has an impressive resume and a good reputation with the centrist political and economic elites of his own nation, but there’s no reason why the person on the street of Rome or Athens should know who the hell they are.
Source: ryking
