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They're just jealous; each one wants Silvio all to herself.

Glad to see these women not being afraid to look angry and ugly.

Burlusconi is a juvenile himself. "It is better to be passionate about beautiful women than to be gay."

Any man who doesn't have the courage to be a good, emotionally available father, leader and supporter of women's economic autonomy is not worth a moment of a woman's attention, much less worth sleeping with.

I guess that's why he has to pay for it.

Would have been nice if the Economist could have provided more details concerning the topic of the header.

The Telegraph certainly didn't hold back: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8272438/The-Calig...

Judging from quotes from the wire taps, these bimbos were simply money grubbing:

"women compete to be at the parties because Mr Berlusconi is viewed, according to one newspaper, as a “cash machine for which you need no PIN”."

"Another woman confided that if the prime minister reduced the frequency of his parties “we’d better start stealing stuff from the house”."

If the Economist wants to hike up web traffic, maybe they could do a photographic line up of the women, cum bios, without sans photographic representations of Silvio, a seemingly aging Tiberius (or Sulla or Claudius).

Michael Dunne

"these bimbos were simply money grubbing"

No duh. It never ceases to amaze me how lazy and stupid men are about reading women's motives. If you seek to acquire the woman through power & money, she'll treat you for that right back.

There is another way, but you don't get there without supporting women's equality.

If you don't support women's equality, do you really expect to be treated as anything other than an ATM and exploited in return?

It's payback time for Berlusconi. He has to redeem his wretched soul toward his italian fellas. Stop the "bunga-bunga" parties at his posh villa and welcome to the court. You are such an unworthy and coward politician ! Don't you feel terribly ashamed of squandering Italy's hard-earned money into under age escorts ? Don't you feel ashamed of shunning the charges against you altogether whereas you perfectly know that you lie to your own character ? Instead of fudging the allegations cowardly and deceitfully, cope courageously with the corollary of your misbehavior, admit your fault publicly and strive to repent in order to recover the flimsy honor you lost after years of cheat, corruption and naughtiness. You've been the worst incarnatin of european politics and you remain a stinking and festering rubbish which Italian people ought to have dumped since you tarnished the Italian flag.
A leader without moral code and ethic duty he's not a leader ... he's a villain

The Economist is obsessed with Berlusconi. He should, of course, be criticized and ridiculed but one gets the feeling that Berlusconi's feud with the Economist is one of the main reasons the coverage of his personal failings is so intense in this publication.

Poor guy! It just started because a pool of villainous judges began conspiring with the bad guys from the Left, he could no longer pursue the policy he wished for Italians' good(gerrymandering and in any way turn everything in favor of "persecuted" politicians or businessmen). What was so wrong? He just wished not to be disturbed by judges, by tax officials... His parties ? Come on, it's conspiracy, it's a purported plot..even a worldwide one, at which even other countries take part, you know? Even The Economist is their tool... Every day we hear this foolish propaganda against Italy as a state - ruled by him in a way which is thus intimidatory and even terroristic. The Economist is always free thinkers' haven - an Italian newspaper never could really be, try to think to Mr Boffo's de facto-forced resignation or that foolish propaganda last summer against Mr Fini - I dare suggest not to rent or even borrow a home from a friend, least a brother in law, it can be dangerous... Anyhow we go on this way, how long yet?

In this period the situation in my country (Italy) is really difficult. The main problem is that all the country speaks about Silvio's "games"....and nothing more. Meanwhile the world goes on and it doesn't matter to our politicians.
I'm young and curios, so i try to keep me informed using foreign medias, but the older italians just watch tv (and on 6 main tv channels, Berlusoni owns 3 of them) and are persuaded that this story is only a conspiracy from the left (as Berlusconi says).
I really hope that my compatriots may see the true: an old man (74 years old!!) that pays for having sex with young girls (often less than 18 years old) and tries to create laws to prevent him from beeing trialed.
I suppose that most of the world laughs, but many italians are crying due to embarrassment and are trying to rebel.

Here's what the United States' Department of State had to say about Mr. Berlusconi back in 2009:

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2010/12/wikileaks-prime-minister-be...

Apparently, his lifestyle caught up to him and he was forced to have a power nap during a meeting with the United States Ambassador.

This obsession with this aging guy's alleged antics with women is absurd and a waste of column inches in the Economist and this web site.

Why does the Economist not obsess about Hugh Hefner? There is a fellow who also has had boatloads of females in his life, his bed, and certainly encounters which would qualify as "bunga bunga" parties. He's 84 years old and just got "engaged" to a 24 year old.

Why not crucify Hugh Hefner, whose business has apparently not been doing so well either?

As written previously on this topic, I take the Chinese view on government bribery, if he committed it: it deserves the firing squad.

As for moralizing over this aging fellow's likely pre-senile silliness, what is the point?

Someone posted some unfounded slam on the fellow's alleged failures as a father, being allegedly "not emotionally available", and trouncing this fellow with the further comment: "that's why he has to pay for it". How rude.

That poster might to well to survey a few hundred men and ask them about all the different ways in their respective lives they have found themselves paying for "it". Ridiculous.

It might be interesting to the readers of the Economist, assuming the Economist wishes to keep spending its time reviewing the "scandalous" personal lives of accused others, to name all the editors and writers at the Economist, so that they may each have their own personal lives looked into, despite how, with respect to most, reporting on same might risk liability to this journal for boring its readers to a death. However in opposition to such boredom, surely one might find some Oxbridgers who do or have done such shocking things as taking a wide range of very illegal drugs at a uni parties (or still)? Consorted with the occasional prostitute? Other odd behaviors? Probably a good bet considering the recruiting field for this journal. It has so often been the same group who have had access to Britain's top schools -- and coveted posts at the Economist -- who also have the best economic access to life's various illegal vices.

Maybe the editor of the Economist should take a poll among the staff there on the questions of lifetime drug use and prostitute use. Could make quite a fun little article.

Perhaps that is why almost all who write for this increasingly adrift magazine get their identities completely protected from publication.

Curious practice that.

But why should the Economist's writers get to trash others, while having their names hidden from those they trash?

Seems like a rather unfair asymmetry, not to mention a clear lack of transparency.

In response to commenters who think this rally is not worth coverage by the Economist, I would like to say that it is highly relevant.

The protest has involved thousands of women in Italy and countless others in cities around the globe. It has been covered by nearly every other major media outlet.

And women's objectification and prostitution in contrast to women's political and economic equality is highly relevant to a magazine focused on political economy. And not just because many readers are women, or men who care about women's equality, but because it has economic significance.

As this chart shows, nations where women have status nearer to or equal to men are much wealthier and healthier. This is also true of the US states depicted. Notice where Italy, with it's woman-demeaning prime minister Berlusconi, is? http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/human_development

Will Berlusconi sue Economist again after this comic??

J. Kemp - The Economist coverage of Berlusconi is not just because he has extra-marital affairs. Plenty of leaders have extra-marital affairs. What makes Berlusconi "special" is that up till now he has been using his office to prevent prosecutors from putting him on trial for "traditional" corruption. Now, he is using that power to protect himself from being tried for prostitution and sex for an underage girl. In other words, there's a big difference between a leader having an affair with a 30 year old woman and not using his office improperly, versus a Prime Minister using his office to shield himself from prostitution charges, in addition to corruption charges that have dogged him for over a decade.

In other words: The Economist isn't that interested in Berlusconi's morality as a husband. The newspaper is highlighting this case because it continues the narrative of Berlusconi breaking laws and avoiding punishment both in the judicial system and electorally.

I can't believe the sex police didn't nab this guy a long time ago. Thank Diana they're finally on the job. Imagine! An eighty-eight year old man still having sex!

@KANSAS REFUGEE.Oh sure this rally deserves the ECONOMIST's attention!The SAM doesn't care about these women,but needs to defame Berlusconi in the name of foreign politics.That of Berlusconi is a little bit too fastidiouis for some establishments here in Europe.Too much and oil gas contract,this is the points.The boot kicking Il cavaliere is the dream of someone,sure not Italy,of wrecking the guts that Belussconi gets in abudance,and showing it

Berlusconi is a genius. Any other polititian in any other european country would have been burned at the stake for one tenth of Berlusconi´s "indiscretions".

The only bad thing about Berlusconi is that he is the president of Italy.

Had he fully remained in show business he could have had fun privately, but he aimed for a grander stage on which to enjoy himself.

@ Kansas refugee: I know how to prevent Berlusconi from taking a nap in his next audience to the US embassador: the State Department should send him Britney Spears.

@WAYNE BERNARD.Nap after nap,Silvio Berlusconi sent a little less than 4000 men and women to Iraq,helped the Iraqi coalition while French and GErmans were well awake and absent,and watching in deep anger.ENI inherithed an enormous oil well in Zubair,covering almost all the import of oil of Italy.He is sending 4213 troops in Afghanistan,and without caveats and other excuses,signed big oil treaties with Russia(in the feamework of strategic partnership that is bearing other important consequences)Uganda and Libya that are driving crazy of wrath a couple of diplomacies and some oil company.I just wander what he would have done if he didn't sleep.

Earl Long supposedly said: Politics is theater for ugly people.

Silvio aside, you have probably attractive girls, scandal, plus a morally dubious leader of a country exposing himself possibly to all sorts of embarrassments, and generally making a jack-ass of himself.

So, it is newsworthy. And if a crime has been committed, like paying for certain services with an underage person, then he should face the law.

So, overall agree with kansasrefugee.

If he had an octogenerian crisis and wanted to get a marathon freak on (a la Charlie Sheen) he should have remained in private life. Goes to show the Economist was right in some ways for years in saying the man was unfit for office.

kansasefuge:

Excuse me, but above you wrote:

"And women's objectification and prostitution in contrast to women's political and economic equality is highly relevant to a magazine focused on political economy. And not just because many readers are women, or men who care about women's equality, but because it has economic significance.

As this chart shows, nations where women have status nearer to or equal to men are much wealthier and healthier. This is also true of the US states depicted. Notice where Italy, with it's woman-demeaning prime minister Berlusconi, is? http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/human_development"

Did you notice in the chart which you cite above, that the several geographic regions ranking just above Italy, but very much at the bottom of the scale are:

Britain
Israel
Mississippi

Are you saying that these states are so low on the scale, and in proximal company to Italy, due to being "woman-demeaning"? It is amazing that you would attribute Italy's status as a "Human Development" peer of Britain, Italy and Mississippi to Burlusconi's alleged woman-demeaning behavior. Are you aware of #2 ranking Germany's apparently highly developed and completely legal domestic prostitution industry?

ALSO, I would request that you apply your intellect to this proposition, which might shock you:

Prostitution, in the vast majority of cases in the Western world, consists of women deliberately and knowingly tantalizing and exploiting a hard-wired and anciently existing male sex drive in order to extract the man's money from him.

I will offer you a prior post of my own for more detail, and a good field observation in support of that view, which you may find below, beginning with "Dear Sir".

How is it that women exploiting males' biologic wiring so as to extract from them as much of their money as the woman can get is not "objectification" of the male as an ATM machine?

Really kansasrefuge. So, is it also true that when

1. a drug dealer pushes narcotics, he is exploiting the users;
2. when a liquor company advertises alcohol, painting drinking as a great time for all, it is manipulating and exploiting the masses; and
3. when a cigarette company promotes "Joe Camel" it is exploiting young potential smokers; but
4. when women tantalize men and trade sex for money with men, it is the men exploiting the women?

Are you mad?

Your feminist vocabulary and mantra are, one fears, clouding your thinking. You utilize great amounts of special-baked terminology which does not stand up to an examination of the facts:

"Objectification of women" -- as if women don't do this to men and then some. (Or should we call it "Monification" or "Monetization" as in Money)

"Lack of emotional availability" -- incredible - you are implicitly defining emotional people (women?) as good and less emotional people (men?) as bad -- I hope you never have to suffer with an highly emotional heart surgeon on a very emotional day for said surgeon when you need some very non-emotion-clouded surgery to save your life.

The type of pronouncements you are making do much to undermine the causes and reputations of women as a class. In my experience, most women are far more clear-headed in their understandings of the issues in this post than is reflected by your comments. It is unfortunate that a small minority of women were permitted to hijack and cloak themselves in the root words female and woman, as in "Feminists" and other organizations taking on the word "woman" in their titles. Did these groups get the approval of the majority of women for using their name? Are you sure that they agree with you? Really?

The first several paragraphs of my prior post on prostitution, as promised above, appears below in quotes:

"Dear Sir,

It is interesting to see the comment by Ms. Farley that "[i]n prostitution, men remove women’s humanity. Buying a woman in prostitution gives men the power to..."

I am reminded of the last time I had occasion to take a short-cut back to my hotel in Amsterdam, and observed this scene:

A group of young males who between them were trying to gather enough money together so that one or more of their group could spend a brief interlude with a call-girl who had been "on display" in a window in Amsterdam's red light district.

Clearly, it was the woman who had the power in that equation, and the men who were being lured in via their biologically, hard-wired need for sex, and who would surely have their pockets emptied in the exchange.

It is wrong to equate prostitution with men having power over women. If there is any exploitation in prostitution, it is women tantalizing, activating and exploiting a male biological weakness, in doing it in order to get the man's money.

Exploitation of women by men would be the men raping the women, which does not appear to be what prostitution is. It is in fact the opposite: women raping men's wallets.
..."