Fixed-income financing helped finance much of this expansion, according to the company.
"I think that, even more than for the finances of this country, 20 years of Berlusconi was very bad in terms of culture".
But the state is not set up for financing of this kind, and the Ministry of Culture, charged with maintaining "le patrimoine," concentrates on much older, grander buildings on land.
"We were doing just fine" before the attack, he added, and are "still managing the finances of this company very well".
Because of the Congressional ban on financing of this research, many scientists now find themselves in the awkward position of possibly losing their jobs if they try to use human stem cells to devise new treatments for many common diseases.
"The whole point of the constitution being structured with that executive power is precisely what we are fighting about this year: That someone has to be accountable for the finances of this state," he said.
"The war will wind down here and then people will take a hard look at what's happening to the finances of this country," said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat.
He was then asked: "They were never involved in the financing of this purchase, as far as you were concerned, that is?" Mr Grier replied: "Not at all.
But there will be months of fraught negotiations before it will be clear whether the economy and finances of this recession-battered nation have been put back on a stable footing.
