Today a new master is added to the plebiscitary oligarchy of Italy’s slavers: BlackRock.
Giorgia Meloni’s leadership is bringing great joy to Italians: unrestrained immigration, taxes and excise duties appearing like mushrooms after an autumn rainstorm, skyrocketing food prices, denial of the freedom to demonstrate, and even a nice award at the Atlantic Council. A resounding success. To crown it all further, he has seen fit to invite U.S. financial monster BlackRock to shop in Italy.
BlackRock lands in Italy
At the end of July 2024, the giant BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund, posted unprecedented losses, seeing $1.7 trillion go up in smoke within a few months. In August, it was discovered that the U.S. fund’s top executives, such as CEO Larry Fink and Chairman Shapiro, had sold their shares for $54 million. The fund in which the wealth of the world’s most powerful banking families is stored is bleeding away, and the sharks running it seemed to be taking off.
Certain movements should have tipped us off that something was about to happen. It is never easy to predict the point of the matter, because these are financial transactions at very high levels and the hidden regions can be many. What is certain is that a capital flight, or rather a sell-off, always suggests something negative.
And something has indeed happened.
Meloni went to New York on 23 September to receive the Global Citizen Award, an award from the Atlantic Council, NATO’s main think tank. She receives the statuette from Elon Musk and in her speech claims the defense of so-called ‘Western values’ as an answer to the autocracies of the rest of the world. The event, it should be noted, took place in conjunction with the 79th UN General Assembly, just as a reminder of who is in charge of whom.
The Italian Prime Minister’s merits? His support for the European Union, the large amount of money and armaments sent to Ukraine, the presidency of the G7 in 2024 and the work done to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance. A true ‘American girl’.
The next day, delighted with the celebrations, Meloni met face to face with Fink, the head of BlackRock. Which – we learn – could help the government in many ways. Of course, as we know, aid is never ‘free’, but always involves a quid pro quo. What must the two have said to each other?
The first financial movements
Like it or not, in recent days, the Meloni government has authorized BlackRock to exceed the threshold of 3% in Leonardo, the main company in the Italian-flagged defense sector. In fact, the American fund has become the only private shareholder with such a stake. This is a further qualitative leap in the presence in Italy of one of the Big Three investment funds, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, which is now the main foreign investor in companies listed on the Milan Stock Exchange. BlackRock is present literally everywhere: banks like UniCredit, BPM, Mediobanca, Intesa San Paolo, but also companies like Ferrari, in the telecommunications sector with Prysmian, in pharmaceuticals with Stellantis, in energy with Eni and Enel, and in other multi-utilities.
But that’s not all: on the horizon is the issue of the announced privatizations, a very serious business. In order to make the accounts of the Budget Law turn around, the government needs to privatize at least EUR 6 billion, half of which has already been taken through privatizations in Eni. The remainder will apparently be taken from Poste Italiane, a state-owned company that has had excellent growth in 2024. Another attack is planned on Ferrovie dello Stato, already largely privatized for years, which is in the crosshairs of government commissions. We also do not know exactly how much has been promised to Fink in the energy and technology sector, especially with regard to cyber-intelligence and digitization.
These operations represent a very strong political stranglehold by the U.S. on Italy, but on Europe in general. There will probably be big mergers of European companies and capital funds, or perhaps something even bigger. What is already clear is that political sovereignty, not just economic sovereignty, is being further attacked and put in check. Because you know, in the 20th century the economy overtook politics and became its main engine, in the words of Karl Marx.
On the Cotton Road
Playing a central role in this whole operation is the adhesion to the Cotton Road, of which Italy is part as the leading country in the first phase. The PGII, Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which we recently spoke about in connection with the events in Trieste, was created to try to counter the Silky Way desired by the BRICS+, seeking to connect Europe, the Emirates and India in order to transfer gas, oil and goods by land.
Even more interesting is that the State of Israel was also involved in the project, which was to act as a port on the Mediterranean… eventually arriving in Trieste!
Getting rid of Hamas and Hezbollah was perhaps a necessary action to carry out this strategy, which forcefully brings the U.S. and the EU together. Too bad the Axis of Resistance is not as weak as the Western oligarchs thought.
In New York, remember, Netanyahu even showed two maps about the Cotton Road, one titled ‘The Belssing’ showing the Cotton Road and the areas affected, the other titled ‘The Curse’ showing the ‘bad’ countries of the Resistance. You know, when there is a need for some big financial deal, the U.S. is very good at starting wars.
A problem of slavery
It is certainly no mystery that the government of Giorgia Meloni’s neoliberal, Atlanticist Right is oriented towards a major love for international high finance. So many fine things are said in the election campaign, which almost never correspond to what will actually be carried out by the government. Meloni, for example, promised to attack the big banks and tax their profits… and today she finds herself instead selling out the country to an investment fund. Funny, isn’t it?
In reality, this is a modus operandi that now largely characterizes politics in the West at every latitude, right and left. Politics in the West is now entirely commissaries by American banks and big investment groups. It is the rating agencies and the permanent blackmail of the spread that decide on the political lines of governments, and when a government does not comply with orders, it is put into crisis or brought down. A sort of ‘financial coup’ that several countries around the world are now familiar with.
Politicians on the right as on the left appear more and more as mere butlers in the service of big finance capital, the one that sovereignly decides the lines of politics in the name of its own interest. This is how the neoliberal financial plutocracy works.
Italy is in the game, it must accept the full package. If it does not, not only will the government – already very fragile – collapse, but also the whole country, which is already in total ruin.
It is necessary to quote the words of the great poet Ovidio: ‘video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor’, or ‘I see the best and approve it, but I follow the worst’.
Italy is a country under American military occupation since 1945 and under cultural, economic and political colonization since 1946. Today a new master is added to the plebiscitary oligarchy of its slavers: BlackRock.
Source: Strategic Culture Foundation
Photo: Meloni went to New York on 23 September to receive the Global Citizen Award, an award from the Atlantic Council, NATO’s main think tank.
Blackrock eats our Leonardo (Frammenti di Verità, 25.09.2024)