This week's contribution has nothing to do with the values of stocks and shares or property or other forms of investment. There shall be no suggestions on how to enhance the values of such things. It is rather a reflection of the thoughts that have passed through my mind as I read that a GRTU survey shows that sales this Christmas have been slower than expected by retailers and the statement made by President Eddie Fenech Adami that the price that the country had to pay for the economic progress it has achieved in the past years could have been too great as it was achieved at the cost of a weakening of values in society in general.

The values I refer to in the heading of this week's contribution are the values referred to by the President.

I would also like to state up front that I am not being apologetic for the government and trying to find some sort of excuse for the drop in Christmas sales.

However, is it not very odd that we gauge the success or otherwise of Christmas by the amount of money that people spend during the Christmas season? Is it not odd that a lowering of prices for New Year's Eve parties, dinners and do's is judged to be a crisis? Is it not odd that retailers get angry because there was delay by the Treasury to pay the bonus to public service employees (or so it was reported) as this was affecting their sales?

Has Christmas become an economic issue?

From what has been reported in the media, it seems to be the case. This is indeed an unhappy situation as no economy can ever hope to achieve sustainable economic growth that is fairly distributed among the population on the basis of an expenditure binge.

The drop in sales in the Christmas season registered locally is very much a reflection of what has happened in other countries. I visited Italy and the United Kingdom in the last two weeks and the headlines of newspapers were taken up by the reduction in consumer spending during this period.

Do we really hope for an increase of consumer expenditure similar to that which occurred in the United States and the United Kingdom where consumers spent more just because the value of the property they owned or the shares they owned went up? Thus, the increased spending did not arise from a real increase in income but from the market effect on the value of their investments. When the property bubble and the shares bubble burst, the shock on the respective economies was great.

I would not like to ignore the importance to the economy of a drop in consumption expenditure or of a drop in the purchasing power of the people or of an increase in the cost of living and how these are impacting on the well-being of the population in general. However, there are other perspectives from which one can look at this issue.

The shrinking purchasing power makes us look at things differently. It gives us new points of reference and forces us to establish priorities. It forces us to distinguish between what is necessary, what is desirable and what is superfluous and to choose between real and perceived needs.

It used to be embarrassing to tell colleagues that one had to choose between one expense and another because it was expected that there would always be enough money to buy whatever one wanted (rather than needed) to buy. Our purchases had to reflect a lifestyle that each and every one of us aspired to attain. This embarrassment was then passed on to the children through strong peer pressure.

Nowadays the language of choice has become more common and words like sobriety, a sense of balance and sacrifice seem to have become more palatable. But does it really matter? One can go one step better. Is such a development not a positive sign?

I believe it is because it helps us to appreciate that, for our economy to thrive, we cannot look at the well-being of just one segment of the population but at everyone's well-being. Too much widening of the gap between the well-being of those that earn more and those that earn less will benefit no one and will represent a cost to everyone. We either make it together or we fail together.

This strengthens the paradigm that we should be seeking the common good in our economic strategy and not the good of specific segments of the population. Failure to seek the common good would undermine social cohesion, which in turn would undermine the strength of our economy.

The key message of Christmas is "peace to all men of good will". The complaint that this is not a good Christmas insofar as consumption expenditure is concerned may be justified but the good will of Christmas requires us to strengthen our value of solidarity and to pull up our socks and get to work to grow the economy for the benefit of everyone.