If the politicians don't get rid of Silvio Berlusconi, the bond market will. The Wall Street Journal reports that Italy is now on the edge because bond yields have reached the limit, the sign that investors believe the Italian government which borrowied money off them is about to go bust.
Why is that important? Think back to the events of more than a decade ago when the bond market crashed, Indonesia defaulted and the Suharto regime in Indonesia was tossed out. The bond market did what tanks and student protests couldn't achieve.
Now Berlusconi is a survivor. As reported here, he has survived no fewer than 51 confidence votes. But then, he wasn't up against Mr Bond.
As former Clinton honcho James Carville famously said: "I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."
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