Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Legends of the Lounge – Silvio Berlusconi


Born: September 29, 1936
Died: -
Club: Associazione Calcio Milan, Italy
Making a living:
A classic entrepreneur, he started early selling all kinds of stuff while studying law. He then got into, you guessed it, construction. He eventually built a monster estate on the fringe of Milan consisting of some 4,000 residences. He then started a cable television company to service the estate, and then bought another station and another then print and other media outlets.

Assets have come and gone in industries such as Insurance and Finance, but he is smart enough to always have held a major stake in Media. He still has Mediaset that owns the 3 private national stations.


Politics?
Hell yeah. Once you build your fortune it is time to go into politics to protect it.

The guy is one of the longest serving Italian Prime Ministers of all time. Considering the usual turnover in Italy his time in charge has been very impressive. His success is very much built on his populist right wing, commie hating views and his own loud personality, as it has been achieved across different political parties and coalitions.

He admitted to, at least for a time, being a card carrying member of Propaganda Due, which had some very coulourful members.

Chairmanship:
Berlusconi bought AC Milan in 1986 and a big club went truly global in it’s appeal. The spending was on and the brilliant Dutch players Van Basten, Gullit & Rijkaard drove the team. Milan owned Seria A in the early nineties and Seria A was the place to be.

In recent times however the spending has dried up. The most significant example was the allowing of Kaka to leave this northern summer.

Maybe he is thinking of the very expensive divorce that seems to be on its way after his wife’s complaining about too much partying with teenage girlies.


Chutzpah:
Why be in politics if you can’t help yourself?

Silvio has fought many allegations regarding fraud and bribery etc. Nothing really seemed to stick, either he simply won, it was thrown out on appeal or the statute of limitations passed.

To make things les complicated he simply passed a law that that gave him and other top public post-holders immunity from prosecution while in office. Though the constitutional court threw it out.

He has also shortened the statute of limitations for most crimes and watered down white collar fraud sentences.

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