The report confirms that Italian deputies are grossly overpaid in relation to comparable parliamentarians in France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria.

Yet the Chamber of Deputies press office has put out a press release claiming, in essence, that Italian deputies have to pay lots of taxes, poor things, and that the total “cost per deputy” is lower than in other countries. The first claim is disingenuous unless taxation in other countries is also taken into account, and the second claim seems to me to be wrong.

Can anyone help me understand this?

That’s a long time for a technocratic government. Assume that elections in 2013 take place exactly five years after those of 2008, on the 13th and 14th. By that time, Monti would have been in office for 514 days.

That’s a month longer than Dini who, IMHO, had a firmer parliamentary base than Monti. And it’s longer than any technocratic government I can find except the Berov government that led Bulgaria between late 1992 and 1994.

Is Italy as a polity really as badly-off as Bulgaria in the early nineties?

Technical details:

To get a decent list off technocratic governments, download the Parlgov data-file, view_cabinet.csv. Then, in R, do the following

cabs<-read.csv("view_cabinet.csv",header=T)
caretakers<-cabs[cabs$cabinet_id %in% names(which(sapply(by(cabs$cabinet_party,cabs$cabinet_id,unique),length)==1)),]
caretakers<-caretakers[caretakers$cabinet_party==0,]
caretakers$end_date<-NA
for (i in 1:nrow(caretakers)) {
the.date<-cabs$start_date[which(cabs$previous_cabinet_id==caretakers$cabinet_id[i])]
caretakers$end_date[i]<-unique(as.character(the.date))
}
caretakers$durat<-as.Date(caretakers$end_date)-as.Date(caretakers$start_date)
caretakers2<-unique(caretakers[,c("country_name_short","election_date","start_date","end_date","durat","cabinet_name")])


I don’t agree with the Economist on everything. But they have been consistently on target in their coverage of Berlusconi.

• Lei replaces Mauro Masi, who had an unhappy and brief (two-year) tenure.
• Lei was appointed by unanimity — a contrast to Masi, who received three abstentions.
• Lei’s an internal. It’s relatively rare for internals to lead Rai, and those who have — Iseppi, Cappon (kind of), Meocci — have thought relatively carefully about the company (with perhaps an exception for Meocci).
• She’s female. Note that we in the UK are still waiting for a female director-general of the BBC. Italy doesn’t have a great record for female boardroom participation — Emma Marcegaglia’s a real exception

Many of the essays in “Italy Today” describe situations that tend to support Graziano’s gloomier analysis. One focusses on an aging political élite that “is indecisive and creates obstacles,” and “hides itself cynically in nepotistic protection.” Another argues that “Italian media owners have always pursued politics, not profit,” so that newspapers recruit journalists on the basis of political affiliation rather than talent. It is common for the media to deny that objectivity is possible, a cynicism that was reinforced by the decision, in the nineteen-eighties, to allow the three major political parties to control one each of the three public TV channels.

One might wonder whether Italian campanilismo makes these inferred QoL estimates problematic…

le dichiarazioni testimoniali… fanno ritenere che Minetti Nicole, in concorso con Fede Emilio e Mora Dario ['Lele'], nonché in concorso con ulteriori soggetti, abbia continuativamente svolto un’attività di induzione e favoreggiamento della prostituzione di soggetti maggiorenni, e della minore EL MAHROUG KARIMA, individuando, selezionando, accompagnando un rilevante numero di giovani donne, che si sono prostitute con Silvio Berlusconi, presso le sue residenze, dietro pagamento corrispettivo in denaro da parte di quest’ultimo.

The testimony given… suggest that Nicole Minetti, in conjunction with Emilio Fede and Lele Mora, as well as in conjunction with further individuals, did continuously induce and lead adults and the minor Karima El Mahroug in to prostitution, identifying, selecting, and accompanying a number of young women who prostituted themselves with Silvio Berlusconi, at his residencies, for a corresponding payment from the aforementioned [Minetti, et al]