| Feb 10 , 2006 Note: This piece of satire , circulating widely online in its Italian original, satirizes the letters - and even glossy magazines! - that Berlusconi has sent out to the Italian electorate from time to time throughout his political career. I have translated it pretty much as it stands, and have not (yet) verified the facts for myself - but I suspect they are largely accurate. When I have time to find verifying information online, I will link to it. I have left in Italian a couple of terms that I don't yet know how to translate.
My personal wealth:
2003: 5.9 billion dollars
2004: 10 billion dollars
2005: 12 billion dollars
(Forbes, November 2005)
Friend voter,
Thanks to your vote, I have been able to reach the concrete objective of doubling my wealth in only two years.
Here's how:
- Thanks to the Gasparri law, in 2004 alone the advertising revenues of Mediaset [the Berlusconi family's media empire] increased by 3.8% (about 1.2 billion euros per year).
- The bid-free contract granted by the government to Banca Mediolanum allowing the use of 14,000 post office windows has earned me 1 billion euros per year.
- In 2001, the Cabinet (under [the previous] Prodi government) commissioned only 1.75 million euros in TV advertising from Mediaset. In 2002, Berlusconi's cabinet commissioned 9.25 million, which increased annually to 10 million euros last year (The Economist).
- As an insurer, I will gain a billion euros from a new law on previdenza assicurativa. This follows a series of rules already in my favor which have enabled me to earn some hundreds of millions of euros more per year.
- From tax cuts, I have saved some millions of euros (as have my wife, my brother, and my children - all of them owners of various slices of my empire).
- One of the Italian manufacturers of digital terrestrial TV receivers is a company controlled, via the holding company Pbf srl, by my brother Paolo Berlusconi, which benefits from state subsidies for the adoption of this technology.
- The "save soccer" law saved me 240 million euros, and the reduction of the plusvalenze (Tremonti 2002) saved Mediaset 340 million euros.
Dear elector,
Everyone says there's a crisis but, thanks to this government, I am the 25th richest man in the world. Just think, in 2001 I was only 48th! The crisis is clearly a Communist lie. I ask for your vote for another five years, so that our country can boast that there's an Italian among the ten richest men in the world.
Forza Italia! The power of a dream!
Silvio Berlusconi |
