Have journalism and politicians been kidding us for a long while? A lady fills almost half the back page of a recent issue of this newspaper to inform us of her doubts about the safety of the nutritional content of ciabatta bread and other commercially-manufactured foods. Her doubts are justified but then she urges us to go for the traditional Maltese loaf which, albeit very tasty, is one of the major contributory factors to the high prevalence of Maltese obesity and type 2 diabetes. How’s that for good wholesome nutritional advice?
If you feel you’ve been taken for a ride for quite some time blame it on your gullibility
Politicians have been reassuring us that our country’s financial situation is very sound. If that is so, why not bring back VAT down to 15 per cent to enhance economic activity and growth and lessen the burden on the poor? VAT may be a relatively easy way for the Government to collect money but it raises practically all prices, slows down the internal market and punishes most the people at bottom of the social pile.
If the country’s finances are so secure, why has our social security system been defrauding about 6,000 mature individuals with occupational and private pensions for decades? Even the European Commission has now smelt a rat in this direction.
If the financial situation has been so positive, why has our national debt been increasing instead of being paid off? We are an ageing population with about 2,000 on waiting lists to be accommodated in government homes for the elderly.
Our national health service struggles to deliver the promised totally free and timely modern medicine for all, irrespective of income, and, therefore, needing more taxpayer’s money to maintain its promise.
Our tertiary education is the envy of the world. It is not only totally free of tuition fees for Maltese and EU students (irrespective of how rich their parents are) but also offers non-means-tested stipends to all students whose parents are resident in Malta. Central Bank Governors have seriously questioned the sustainability of all this welfare bubble but politicians reassure us that our strong finances can afford all this largesse.
Given all this, who do you think is kidding you?
London’s MoneyWeek financial publication recently claimed that Britain is not bankrupt yet only because it’s paying only two per cent interest on its huge public debt. The publication predicts that when interest rates go up to five per cent, as is likely to happen sometime in the future, Britain won’t be able to service its debt without collapse of its welfare system.
According to MoneyWeek, the cause of this huge indebtedness is the welfare state, invented soon after the last war to cater for the poor and destitute but which politicians have blown up into an unmanageable welfare bubble in exchange for votes. The British welfare state was copied all over Europe and has been largely responsible for the now serious economic difficulties in European countries, particularly so in those with poor records of tax collection.
Politicians have been blaming these hard economic times on bankers and financial markets.
They’re at it again; they’re kidding you.
So our national finances are rock solid, are they? Why then are most road surfaces still of circa 19th century standard?
Yes, we definitely have low unemployment but is this mainly due to clever politicians or has it more to do with this location being a low-wage, low-pension economy, blessed with being largely English-speaking, with an added bonus of a big hidden economic sector?
Tourism has done well but is this due to slick politicians or to private money invested in hotels and to low-cost airlines that were initially prevented from operating here but have now confirmed their claimed capability of hauling in millions of tourists?
Politicians endlessly talk about creating jobs. They’re kidding you again. Politicians do not create jobs (except by swelling the public sector). Real economy-boosting jobs are created by entrepreneurs and rich investors. The best that politicians can do is not to scare away entrepreneurs and investors.
Have they been kidding you about energy? They almost certainly have. How about being told they are investing your money in an oil-fired power station because that’s the cheapest option for your electricity rates? How about being reassured the oil-powered power plant could be converted to gas operation when so required? How about being informed that more of your money will have to be invested in a new gas-fired power station because the oil-fired one cannot be converted to gas?
Did any of these experts and politicians tell you what happened to the natural gas found in Kerċem about 10 years when digging for oil? Do we potentially have our own gas supply or don’t we? Did they tell you that the whole of southern England hasn’t got one single power station and that all its electricity is delivered by cables from northern French zero-carbon-emissions nuclear power?
Did they explain whether you might have got a better return on your money had it been invested in cables (some years ago) connecting us to the European grid in Sicily rather than invest your taxed income in two new power stations, one oil and one gas (and ruin Delimara)? Do you believe them when they told you an electricity cable supply would be unreliable? Perhaps you weren’t aware that southern England has had no such cable supply problems these last 40 years.
If you feel you’ve been taken for a ride for quite some time, don’t blame it on politicians, blame it on your gullibility and get back to work to pay your taxes.
Albert Cilia-Vincenti is a former budget-holding management board director of a British Healthcare Trust and chairman of a Maltese NHS department.