Thursday, October 13, 2011

The Italian 10% Solution


standard stock market trader regulated controlled lines of coke
Carlo Giovanardi, a junior minister with responsibility for the family, said that the economic world was ‘polluted by the use of narcotic substances, particularly cocaine, which makes you lose a sense of reality’
An Italian minister has blamed cocaine for stock market fluctuations. Photograph: Paul Bock / Alamy/Alamy
First it was the hedge funds, then the ratings agencies. Now, a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s government has pointed to a different reason for the world financial turmoil. The problem — or one of them — is cocaine. And to tackle it, Carlo Giovanardi, a junior minister with responsibility for the family, said he intended introducing drug tests for securities traders on the Milan Borsa. Speaking in a YouTube interview, he said the drug is one of the causes of fluctuations on the stock exchange and “an alarm that needs to be listened to”. The minister said testing traders to see if they had been snorting the odd line was part of a wider project for checks on pilots, professional drivers, public officials, surgeons and police officers. “The idea of giving drug tests to people with great responsibility is absolutely acceptable,” he said. “I rather doubt that an investor would entrust his or her savings to an alcoholic. And the same thing holds good for cocaine.”

2 comments:

Squatlo said...

I'd say a lot more powerful drug can be found than cocaine at the heart of Wall Street's problem... greed and the lust for money and power spring to mind.

microdot said...

Well...the fire is greed, but you could say that cocaine is the gasoline....
I'm not posting very much until Monday night because I have a very good old friend visiting from NYC...actually from Perugia...and we are having a good time. PLus he's living in my computer room....
Great Dordogne Indian Summer perfect weather....