This year we have had an overdose of numerical values being thrown at us relating to business, financial and economic issue. We have been told about the downward trend in economic growth rates (and any revisions have tended to push the further downwards); we have had downgrading in credit ratings; we had a downward trend in investment, employment and production.

Equities have also lost in value and business and consumer sentiment have decreased.

Most analysts have spoken negatively about such trends. However, they have essentially been silent about one other downward trend.

We have not heard anyone complaining about the fall in ethical values in the economic, financial and business activities around the world. I strongly believe that our woes in this sector can be partly attributed to such a fall in values, as evidenced by a number of factors.

We have essentially forgotten that ethics and economics are intertwined with each other and that every economic choice implies an ethical choice as an integral part of it.

We have also forgotten that economic well-being cannot be limited just to the pursuit of maximising profits and consumption but must be directed towards the development of the whole person and to the search of the common good.

Here are some considerations about things that have been happening around us. First, the short-termist approach of governments.

If governments wish to promote the common good, they need to assess the long-term impact of their actions and decisions. They need to ensure that they are not creating problems for future generations while trying to satisfy the current needs of individual lobbies, as seems to have happened in the last years.

In seeking to obtain extra votes to win elections, governments have used more than the resources at their disposal, with the result that they have created unsustainable fiscal deficits leading to a democratic deficit. The supposed custodians of the common good have ended up neglecting it.

The second consideration I wish to make relates to the creation of wealth and the use of that wealth.

Profit and wealth are not something intrinsically wrong. Profit, when earned through licit means, is a just reward for entrepreneurship; and entrepreneurship is a positive value.

Wealth is the accumulation of financial surpluses earned previously; the savings that one has managed to make. Both entrepreneurship and savings are necessary tools for economic development and human development in general. What is wrong is when wealth is left idle and is not used to invest in productive activities.

Profit and wealth need to be invested in activities that lead to further wealth creation which is channelled towards the development of the common good.

The third consideration is directly linked to the aspect of profit and the use of wealth.

One of the most positive developments that we have had in the last decades has been the free movement of capital. This has led investors to develop activities that have created employment where capital was in short supply.

Malta was a beneficiary of this development. However, at a certain point, things got twisted. We started experiencing situations where the possibility to move capital freely was not being used to create productive activities, but as an end in itself.

The actual movement of capital started generating a profit, without the need to produce a good or a service. This profit arose from speculative activities in currencies, equities, bonds and commodities.

These three considerations are evidence of the fall in ethical values that we have experienced. In the various declarations and statements of international meetings such as the G-20 meeting, the assembly of the International Monetary Fund, the summit of EU Heads of Government, one does not find any reference to such considerations.

I sincerely hope that in 2012 they find their way into the agenda of such meetings.

A blessed Christmas to all.