Berlusconi Is Italy’s Billionaire Buffoon

[Macleans] It wasn’t the notorious “Bunga, Bunga” hooker orgies that did him in. Nor was it any of the 19 criminal and civil charges over 17 years, including allegations of bribing judges, tax fraud and embezzlement. Nor was he felled from within, like Caesar, or rejected by the vox populi. It took a deus ex machina—global financial markets freaked out over the eurozone debt crisis—to unseat Italy’s scandal-saturated prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

Despite being unseated, at 75, he remains the most powerful political and economic force in the country. It remains to be seen whether his ego will allow him to recede quitely into retirement.