It was just a matter of time before the ongoing financial and economic crisis spawned by the coronavirus pandemic morphed into a political intervention to save capital markets from evil short sellers, and sure enough, one day after Italy botched a quarantine of over 15 million people, effectively locking out all of Northern Italy while threatening any quarantine violators with up to 3 months in prison, moments ago Italy's former co-Prime Minister and current MP, Mattel Salvini, called for a short selling ban.

Translated:

In view of the reopening of the financial markets tomorrow, I ask that the "short" sale of transactions be prohibited even with the use of derivatives.

In situations such as these sometimes very few earn huge sums to the detriment of everyone, we remember for example the case of Soros in 1992 who built his fortune with downward speculation against Italy.

It is not tolerable for someone to take advantage of a national emergency by speculating to the detriment of the savings of the Italians. I am confident that Consob will pursue all abuses with the utmost severity.