Time
August 31, 2011
If you’re a small-town mayor unhappy with your national government, there’s one thing you can do: declare independence and start issuing currency with your face on it. Just ask the mayor (or should we say, prince?) of Filettino, Italy.
Italy is right in the middle of the larger sovereign debt crisis going on in Europe, which is shaking the confidence of markets across the globe. The Italian government has issued a number of austerity measures to get its books in order, including plans to merge the governments of towns with less than 1,000 people to cut costs. That’s 1,963 towns total.
But Luca Sellari, the mayor of Filettino, Italy, is fighting back. Rather than give into the national government’s demands, Sellari wants his central Italian town of 598 to become an independent state under a monarch. Who would be the monarch, you ask? Well, Sellari, of course.
“It’s everyone’s dream to be a prince,” he told The New York Times.
2 Responses to “Italian Town Prints Its Own Currency to Fight Austerity Measures”
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A lesson many of the US towns could use…in concert, all at once… otherwise the Fed counterfeiters will suppress them one by one.
“However, Sellari envisions Filettino will some day be like the republic of San Marino, which is surrounded by Italy but not officially part of it. It’s the oldest surviving state and constitutional republic in the world. And, it has no national debt. In debt-ridden Europe, who even knew that was possible?”
San Marino is a republic and Sellari wants a monarchy, that makes San Marino much more interesting than Sellari’s plan. The article should be about how San Marino avoids the debt, not about Sellari dreaming of being king.