‘Government Sachs,' Italian Style - Michael Hirsh

``In the late 1990s and early 2000s, as Italy was seeking to reduce its debt to qualify as a member of the eurozone, it engaged in a number of derivatives deals with Wall Street to disguise the depth of its fiscal hole, according to "Derivatives and Public Debt Management," a groundbreaking 2001 study by Italian economist Gustavo Piga published by the Council on Foreign Relations. Who was director general of the Italian Treasury at the time of these deals? Mario Draghi, who is now perhaps the most powerful man on the continent as the new head of the European Central Bank. ''