Bill v. Silvio

[danalwyn]

"Rich people spend a lot more money on their own problems, like baldness, than they do to fight malaria."

Bill Gates, who has just pledged $10 billion to develop vaccines for the world's poorest countries, speaking about Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, whose numerous public relations fiascoes, including the fallout of his hair transplant problems, have obscured the fact that he helped cut Italy's foreign aid budget in half for 2009.

Comments

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

Berlusconi is a thug, a bigot, a narcissist, and a clown. Then again this choice of leader is not inappropriate for Italy, where the country runs in spite of high government officials. They exist to provide public entertainment, one must conclude. Pity they didn't elect the porn star to leadership instead.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't insult clowns. You have to be both talented and determined to be a clown, and Berlusconi is neither. And Italy runs just fine without him, I hear that their biggest company raised its profits by 8 percent (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/7083660/Italian-mafia-profits-from-downturn.html) last year.

I sometimes suspect that people keep Berlusconi in power because he gives them something to blame everything on. Without that simple explanation, they have to confront the possibility of needing to basically purge and re-design their entire upper government, and that's too daunting a task to face absent calamity.