A business forum that’s on the wrong track already
I'm reading for a DPhil and I have a plate with my face on it.
Marlene Mizzi has said that her Labour Business Forum is now visiting business people and asking them about their needs and complaints.
In this, she says, she is aided by her colleague on the forum, the criminal lawyer Emmanuel Mallia.
He tells us that he has lots of business clients now, and that’s why he’s in a position to advise Labour about business.
From criminal law and high profile jury trials to commercial law: that’s an interesting switch to make so late in one’s career.
But let’s not get into that, or I might have a large red sweatshirt with a funky motif thrown at me.
Dr Mallia featured on Facebook wearing one of those, at some kind of consciousness-raising shindig with Mrs Mizzi. Perhaps he bought it from her shop in Rabat, where I found rather a pretty skirt the other week.
Labour has got the wrong end of the stick as usual.
And as usual, too, it is wholly unable to distinguish between the micro and the macro. If you’re making policy based on tackling the complaints, however justified, of people whose businesses are in trouble (for those are the ones who call in the politicians of the Opposition party) then the end result is going to create more problems than it solves.
Overarching business-friendly policies are built on long-term considerations and with an eye to increasing the country’s gross domestic product. They do not start off from the point of tackling difficulties on an ad hoc basis, with tunnel vision blocking access to the big picture and to what the result of those ad hoc measures will be.
It is as though Labour refuses to learn from its past mistakes. More to the point, Labour refuses to learn from the Nationalist Party’s considerable successes.
I don’t expect Marlene Mizzi to understand where Labour went wrong. It takes more than an MBA or MPhil and ongoing research for a DBA or DPhil to have insight into what makes money for a country and what does not.
Alfred Sant the Harvard DBA most amply demonstrated this, as did the lawyer Eddie Fenech Adami.
Suffice it to say that while lots of business people voted for Sant in 1996 for reasons best known to them, nobody with an ounce of business nous voted for him in 1998. But Mrs Mizzi did. That speaks volumes about how much she really does know about business, industry and commerce.
The Movement of Progressives continues to labour under the delusion that business persons don’t support it because they see it as a workers’ party. Joseph Muscat trotted out this stupid old chestnut yet again the other day.
They just don’t get it, do they?
People in business are hostile to Labour for one reason only, and that reason is sufficient: Labour in government has always been bad for business – not just bad, but really, really bad, to the point of disaster. This is not my opinion. It is fact.
In 1995, Malta’s gross domestic product increased by around 14.5% over the previous year. In 1997, the ‘growth’ figure over the previous year was minus 2.8%, and it was minus 2.8% again in 1998.
I don’t need to tell you with what this plummeting annual GDP ‘growth’ – from 14.5% in 1995 to minus 2.8% in 1997 – coincided. But Mrs Mizzi certainly knows because she was one of Prime Minister Sant’s public office appointees, to the chairmanship of Sea Malta, when he was on a progressive roll and bringing in The Wimmin.
There were those who questioned this appointment at the time, asking how one could possibly go from running two or three small shops selling toys and clothes to running the state merchant shipping organisation.
I will not comment on the results of Prime Minister Sant’s decision, except to say that Mrs Mizzi is suing the cabinet minister Austin Gatt for expressing his extreme dissatisfaction with them.
The astonishing thing is that Mrs Mizzi, despite noting the severe plunge in GDP growth during Prime Minister Sant’s tenure – at least I hope she did – voted for him again, presumably because she thought it was an excellent idea to have GDP shrink on an annual basis due to self-inflicted measures like stalling the economy through CET, rather than external recessionary pressures about which little could be done.
So when it comes to business, I am not going to trust Mrs Mizzi’s judgement. She may be a bit of an extrovert and jolly nice to talk to at parties, but that has nothing to do with the price of eggs.
She helped give us Alfred Sant and she tried to give him to us again.
This much she has admitted, though she still won’t tell us whether she voted Yes or No in the EU membership referendum, presumably because she would be damned either way.
Oh sorry, she did claim, after rather a lot of pressure from the media and the terse and hostile response that her vote is private even though she is standing for election, to have voted Yes and then voted Labour. She did this, she said, because she is morally convinced that Sant (who has never been known to change his mind about anything) would change his mind about EU membership.
That’s another reason I doubt her judgement, but anyway. Let’s not get into that.
I think the real problem Marlene Mizzi and her Labour Business Forum are going to face is this: sitting round a boardroom table with captains of industry and with that unspoken question hovering between them, the elephant (not Anglu Farrugia’s) in the room: “Ah, so you’re the one who voted for Alfred Sant even after he had just (blankety-blank) the country over. So right, let’s tell you what we think is wrong with the way things are now.”
The trouble with some people is that they mistake overwhelming self-confidence and self-belief for true ability. The two are completely different. Often, the most able are also the least showy about it. Often, too, the brains are in the backroom and not out on the hustings.
Labour remains inherently unable to understand how the country makes money and how it loses it.
If Marlene Mizzi wishes to delve even further back into Labour’s amazing success at building GDP, she could examine the reasons why GDP per capita in Malta dropped from an already dirt-poor US$5105 in 1980 to US$3684 in 1985. What is that – 40%? But I might have got my calculator in a twiddle, because I’m not the one with the MBA.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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It always comes back to you, doesn’t it? You appear jealous of this lady’s achievements and her MBA by the way you write. Perhaps, you are just unable to make a point without disparaging someone. It’s always personal with you and it always comes back to your perceived superiority to everyone else. And you wonder why everyone is being turned off in droves: worrying just how many votes you will lose us. But so intelligently done…..
[Daphne – Where I come from, people are not jealous of university degrees. There is clearly a socio-cultural gulf here, so I will not bother trying to explain why. As for this being a ‘personal’ issue, perhaps you don’t get the fact that Marlene Mizzi’s entire political effort is geared towards having my life governed by the Labour Party in three years’ time. That makes it political, not personal. She is not going to impose a Labour government on my life without some very stiff opposition from me. A personal matter would be, for example, if Marlene and I were both housewives fighting over a parking space outside our front door.]
An MBA is no achievement, Susan. I’m sure you could get one if you put your mind to it.
It’s not possible to be ‘jealous’ of Marlene Mizzi’s MBA and she would agree with that. She does not hold an MBA. She said so herself.
I don’t think you can so easily dismiss this legitimate criticism of your writing style that suggests you are constantly motivated by a need to exhibit your self- appointed superiority to others and their achievements. This is nothing to do with a socio-cultural gulf as you suggest. It is an honest response to your inability to honestly address issues without trying to demean and personally attack your target for abuse. You moan that the Maltese are easily shocked and that this is a commentary style adopted in the international newspapers. Not so. Your style is not a sphere like theirs because you lack any humour or warmth in your observations. You write loftily from on high without any self-knowledge or humility. At least, that is how you come across to me.
[Daphne – Is this Marlene Mizzi? I’m beginning to think so. If you think my style lacks humour, then it’s probably because your mindset is literal, like that of many Maltese. What was that I said to you earlier about a cultural gulf? This is another example. You come from someplace where people are jealous of university degrees, read words literally and think humour is about slapstick comedy. And I don’t.]
Your risible comment H.P. Baxter betrays a level of ignorance that is probably supported by a good amount of hubris. The fact that I have no interest in reading for an MBA is perhaps a cogent point to make at this juncture; but thanks for your patronising contribution anyway.
If you all read my posting you will note that I didn’t say anyone was jealous of Marlene’s MBA. Pff, pay attention. Start with reading more carefully and not just parroting Daphne.
[Daphne – Yes, this sounds suspiciously like Mrs Mizzi.]
“You appear jealous of this lady’s achievements and her MBA …”
detto, Susan Galea,Thursday, 18 February at 1800hrs, http://www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com
I agree Daphne, that condescending tone with big words like “hubris” and “cogent”.
I hold an MBA and a first class honours degree. Lots of people have an MBA today – but an MPhil? Come on.
I hold a Ph.D. so you can all suck my balls. Especially ‘susan galea’. And it’s not hubris that I’ve got, but a great fucking realisation that my life is a total failure. Call it “disillusionment” if you like. Which is why you happy shiny lot piss me off so much.
[Daphne – I’m not running an X-rated blog here, so tone it down. Drink hemlock, what can I say.]
Well, he’s not Socrates now, is he?
You can try to dismiss me as Mrs Mizzi but I am Susan Galea and have never met nor care to meet Mrs Mizzi. I think it is your literalist paranoia here that would lead you to conclude that.
[Daphne – No, it’s experience.]
Anyway, I tried to communicate civilly with you, but you have not made that possible.
[Daphne – If that’s civil, how do Labour people define rude and antagonistic? Sieheb ta’ oht Sharon, bl-I’ll tell you nicely, kiss my ass.]
You can’t even edit your own blog properly. Now I know what everyone is going on about. You can’t appreciate that your nastiness alienates people who might agree with some of your points but loathe the way you make them and the way you try to diminish everyone who disagrees with you by bullying and deliberately misconstruing their point of view.
[Daphne – You’re wrong there, Susan Galea. People with fragile egos are teed off. Others don’t give a damn and the rest have a lovely time. That’s the reason this blog has screeched all the way up to no. 85 on Malta’s web charts, beating even some hot porn sites – and that’s saying something, I’ll tell you.]
I never said you were jealous of Mrs Mizzi’s degree. But you persist. Pig-headedness is not intelligence by another name. It is just a refusal to communicate honestly in this instance. You are only succeeding in alienating more people and wrecking what should be a reasonable appeal to reason and a constructive way for Malta’s future. It is very telling that you would deprive someone of their true identity, freely given because you won’t address the critique offered. I give up. With a tired nod to G. Vidal: in my opinion, the most dispiriting three words spoken in Malta today are Daphne Caruana Galizia.
[Daphne – Sweetheart, don’t try to teach me how to communicate with my audience. What alienates people is this: boredom. People come here because they’re getting too much of that elsewhere. Now buzz off and tell everyone what an antipatika I am.]
Dear Susan, or whatever your name is, please don’t ‘give up’. Your intellect, verbosity and excellent English certainly add to our Daphne’s blog. I await your next salvo with anticipation. Where have you been all my life? Please don’t say, ‘avoiding it’.
Mhux biex inkun fiswa… but:
“I never said you were jealous of Mrs Mizzi’s degree.”
I quote again:
“You appear jealous of this lady’s achievements and her MBA by the way you write.”
Confused, Susan?
The cake she is holding is such a joke – embarrassing to say the least!
What people tend to do for the sake of politics.
Nice cake… I wonder for how long she had to sit on it to get that effect.
If Susan Galea doesn’t ike what she’s reading there’s a very easy solution for that – don’t visit the site anymore.
When I think of all these people getting upset I have an image in my mind. It’s kind of like when a group of people are next to you speaking a foreign language and you don’t know what they are saying but you kind of know it’s not that good and that it’s about you.
That’s how I feel about all these people upset with your blog. They don’t have the brains to get most of the humour but they kind of know they should be upset by it.
They then rant on and on with not much thought to what they are saying. This just opens them up to more criticism. Keep up the good work, Daphne.
Hi Daphne
I always had a similar opinion on degrees and academic qualifications.
I think that being academically qualified is an important factor to build a career, however, there are many other factors that are of equal importance such as experience, being practical, and above all an eager to learn.
From experience at different places of work, you find many people who think that since they are qualified they can be very successful and I’m glad that you mentioned this subject as it is really annoying for people making such a fuss about their qualifications.
In the financial services industry, for example, there are industry specific qualifications ranging from certificates obtained with a couple of multiple choice exams that once you pass, you can put titles such as Cert CII, Dip CII etc.
I did obtain one of these certificates, but I never wanted to use it on my business card as I believe that any subject that you study is for increasing your knowledge and not to show off the titles. And to be frank, having a certificate title after my name in my view looks as if you want to say “look I obtained a certificate”. But some told me that I’m sort of “stramb”.
I have always noted the misuse of certain appellations, with lots of people calling themselves economists, for example. Strictly speaking, not even people majoring in economics can call themselves economists – and here in Malta whoever obtains a bachelors degree in commerce is an economist.
I’m reading for a degree in economics with the London School of Economics, but I will not call myself an economist even if I obtain a first class degree from what is one of the best universities in the world.
Even if you graduate in economics, you are not an economist. Economist do ongoing work in research, modelling, econometrics and so on.