Eight Italian Banks Risk Failing Following Next Weeks ReferendumBy Whitney Webb The December referendum, championed by current Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, seeks to greatly reduce the power of the nations Senate as well as its regional governments, making the executive branch significantly more powerful. Renzi has staked his position on Prime Minister on the referendums outcome, vowing to resign if the referendum fails. However, Renzi is not the only one who could suffer if the referendum fails. Not one, but eight of Italys largest banks may fail if Italians vote against the measure, according to senior bankers who spoke to the Financial Times. Many of Italys largest banks have been in crisis for quite some time and largely considered to be completely insolvent as Italian banks, overall, hold 360 billion in bad debt yet only have 225 billion of equity. Renzis hands have been tied regarding how to address the crisis thanks to new EU banking regulations and has since championed a free market solution, which unfortunately has proven near impossible due to the magnitude and prevalence of bad debt among Italian banks. The only solution available to Italy under the EUs new rules is a bail-in. A bail-in is different than a bail-out in the sense that the money of bank account holders (i.e. regular people) bear the burden of financially supporting collapsing banks, whereas this financial support comes from governments or international institutions such as the IMF in the case of a bail-out. If the Italian referendum next week fails, a bail-in will be the only solution available if Renzi is forced to step down. With 80% of all of its bail-inable money held by savers and pensioners, a bail-in will lead to massive social unrest throughout Italy as a majority of citizens wake up to find their savings and bank accounts drained in order to prop up the nations big banks. As a result, fear has shot through the Italian banking sector, causing Italian bond risk to spike. However, the uncertainty of Italian banks is not a localized phenomenon, European banking stocks have now erased of all their gains following a jump in stock prices after the US presidential election. Investors are also pulling their money out of Italy in record numbers, which is also a bad sign. As the many other European banks are already in crisis, particularly the massive Deutsche bank, Italian banks could be the first domino to fall with potentially global consequences. Though the economic doom and gloom that preceded a successful Brexit and a Trump victory never materialized, Italy is already in a massive banking crisis only one shock to the system, no matter how small, could bring eight or more of its banks crashing down. With polls showing that a no vote is the most likely outcome, the next few weeks could ignite a crisis felt throughout the Eurozone and, perhaps, the world. What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news! This article (Eight Italian Banks Risk Failing Following Next Weeks Referendum) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and Trueselfnews.com Photo Credit: today.it The Italian Bank Failure is a mere ploy to scare the Italians into a suicide vote of a Yes on the referendum! The loss of Renzi and his conspirators of the New World Order would be an extremely positive aspect for Italy as a nation and the Italian population! The banks, if they shut-down? Would give a FRESH NEW START for the Italian people and believe me the euro is not necessary to rebuild on SOLID ECONOMICAL GROUND! Time to takje back-over the Italian Peoples Lives! Obviously all assets of the failing banks must be returned to the people, this to include the owners, directors, and management personnel, as well as the stockholders; and, I mean ALL ASSETS TO INCLUDE PERSONAL! Let the banks fail. 