How's that compare to the Wall Street and the Bank bailouts here in the U.S. under Bush/OreO, both? nominal9
On Oct 12, 7:03 pm, dick <[email protected]> wrote: > *Pork Barrel Spending In Sicily: *If this article > <http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/356171-sicily-gobbler-eu-...> > is correct, Sicilian politicians could give much of the world lessons in > wasteful spending. > > Can we spend money? And how, the Sicilian authorities tell the EU > inspectors who've come from Strasbourg. And not just peanuts. > Because we do things big here or we don't them at all: after all, > we're spiritual heirs to the munificent, magnificent (Holy Roman > Emperor) Frederick II, the Stupor Mundi (Wonder of the World), whose > palace of velvet and gold is now the seat of the island's > parliament. So there's nothing left of the EUR8.5 billion that > Europe lavished on the area from 2000 to 2007 to stop the > development gap, not even the crumbs, as the regional authorities > insist on pointing out. > > Pity that in the same report that concludes Agenda 2000 --- the rain > of gold from Brussels that nurtured the island in those bumper years > --- the administration candidly admits that the money served no > purpose at all. EUR700 million to improve the water supply? In > 2000, the water supply was "stop-and-flow" for 33% of Sicilian > households, now 38.7% have water worries. Incentives to entice > off-season tourists? Cost EUR400 million, enough to buy up an > airline. And yet the ranks of those thankless tourists haven't > swelled, but petered out: from 1.2% in 2000 to 1.1% in 2007. And as > to the EUR300 million invested in alternative energy projects great > and small: it's true, there isn't a single hillock without its > windmill now, but Sicilian output is stuck at 5% of total > consumption, as against an average 9.1% for Southern Italy as a whole. > > Not that many of us want them to give those lessons, of course. But we > should recognize that a few politicians will see this example as > something to emulate, not avoid, and will see all those projects as good > ways to buy the votes they need. > > And we should recognize that the best money of all to waste --- from the > point of view of a pork-barrel politician --- is someone else's money. > There would have been less wasted in Sicily if the money had come from > Italy, rather than the whole European Union, and even less wasted if the > money had come from the places where it was spent. > > (Not so incidentally --- and we Americans should pay attention to this > --- wind and solar projects have been plagued by fraud in much of > Europe. The enormous subsidies attracted crooks, and we should expect > the same thing to happen here. > > Sicily has about five million people, so those EU subsidies would be > roughly $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the island.) > - 10:11 AM, 12 October 2010 [link] > <http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/October2010_2.html#jrm9236> > > From Jim Miller on Politics -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
