Joseph Muscat illuminates us as to Labour's planned economic policies
Maltastar has labelled this photograph 'josephmuscatgoodpic3'
Maltastar (what else?) has the hot news:
OUR COUNTRY NEEDS SOUND ECONOMIC POLICY, SAYS JOSEPH MUSCAT
In a telephone interview on One Radio Labour leader Joseph Muscat spoke on the need to have a sound economic policy. “We, the Labour Party are ready to implement a sound economic policy much needed for this country; we have a vision for Malta that can offer direction”.
Joseph Muscat said that conservative European leaders are failing to take concrete steps to address financial issues despite one emergency summit after the other. “it is now time to act, take decision which will positively influence markets”.
In Malta, the government is not taking the right approach to the situation, while the Prime Minister and Finance Minister have lost touch with reality by imposing more burdens on families.
“This is not a solution” said Muscat. He insisted that burdens must be shouldered justly.
——–
You will notice that, despite Maltastar being the Labour Party’s very own news site and so with privileged access to the Great Leader, there is no mention of where he thinks the present government is going so very wrong with managing the economy that we are all out of work and having our homes repossessed.
Nor, more crucially, is there any word about how Muscat plans to solve these grave problems with his magic wand (no, not THAT one – we’ve moved on from the discussion of Liberal Topics). Can he describe the sound economic policy he has in mind?
If he’s asking us to vote for it, rather than merely for him because he’s so young and fresh and thrilling and it will be fun to have him as a prime minister just for a change, you know, then he should give us a few hints as to what he plans to do.
But he can’t, because he doesn’t know yet.
And we’re only 18 months from a general election. The situation is getting desperate. But surely he knows that.
For a start, he should tell his people at the Labour communications office to stop labelling photographs of him which they imagine are good (when they are merely ridiculous) as ‘goodpic1/2/3/4’. Click on this one, for instance, and you will see what I mean. I have taken it straight from the Maltastar site and left the file name intact.
All it does is raise a laugh.
72 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Voting in the next election should be a no-brainer.
I am however, willing to wait and see if this magical plan of his will (ever ?) be revealed.
I just can’t get over that kuxxenzja farce the PM pulled off recently in the vote for divorce in parliament.
And what should one prefer – a political party that has one of the worse PR departments ever seen, that results in a kuxxenzja farce that affected no one, or an economical black hole that is impossible to escape from?
This is the basic question that we have to ask ourselves come 2013.
And that economic vision and that economic policy are….?
“In Malta, the government is not taking the right approach to the situation, while the Prime Minister and Finance Minister have lost touch with reality by imposing more burdens on families.”
Is Joseph Muscat proposing to shift the burden on gays, to whom he will deny a family unless Mr. Cyrus Engerer convinces him otherwise?
I’m still waiting for goodpic3’s economic policies. A brief summary would suffice for now.
The Ginger Magician and his Magic Wand
Look away now, children.
The Leader of the Opposition should tell us what his plan is and also tell us what the government did wrong. Watch RAI news and you will see the same with the Opposition in Italy; they do not say what is wrong.
So there are some bad photos as well! Interesting. Is he in for the top political job or a candidate for Mr Malta?
Not fit for either purpose.
I know exactly which are the economic policies Joseph wants to push to save our economy:
1) introduction of the family wage
2) increase in company tax
3) decrease in restaurant tax
4) obligatory maternity leave
5) reduction of water and elecricity tariffs
6) scrapping the Delimara power station and installing one which runs on natural gas
7) paying back the ‘double tax’ to car owners who bought second hand cars
8) subsidising Air Malta
9) selling fuel at non-profit prices
10) scrapping the Sant’Antnin project
When all these measures fail, blame it on Gonzi.
No no, I have been reliably informed they are going to give everyone a million euros.
IB, Mela din id-darba ser nisimghu lil Michael Falzon (PL) jghajjat:
“Hawn huma il-MiLjuni tal-Bidla.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FbXJW3hKBc&feature=related
I guess they were instructed to label the images ‘Godpic’ but got the spelling wrong.
If the people at Maltastar label the photos of Joseph as ‘good’ and (I presume) ‘bad’, it makes one wonder about the reason why they save the ‘bad’ photos.
Maybe they think a time will come when Joseph will be discredited ‘Mintoff style’ by the leader who will follow him.
I can just imagine someone wading through tonnes of photos and making that decision: ‘This one is good. This one, not so much.’
I’ve just had some fun checking out the file names on Maltastar’s photos.
http://maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=16277
The file name of the Minfoff photo is:
t_440x0_20091016malta_mintofflead
If they have labelled the pic as goodpic, does this mean they have a bad pic?
Maltastar reflects the IQ of the people behind it.
As you said many time, Daphne, they cannot run a website and yet they want to run the country.
I recently read Tony Blair’s autobiography. Did you read it? I think Joseph Muscat has.
Thinking that he could be the next prime minister, perhaps we should cry not laugh.
Tonio Fenech was probably refering to him when he coined the now famous ‘Cuc Malti’ .
He would do very well delivering a sermon during the Christmas midnight mass.
Well, at least it was not labelled “josephmuscatwithhairpic1”
Joseph Muscat:
“Sound Economic Policies …Sound Economic Policies..SEP…SEP…SEP…SEP…SEP…Somebody Else’s Problem…SEP…”
Dr. Joseph ‘Gallarija’ Muscat
It was only last year that he said that Malta should take Cyprus as an economic model. Great foresight! Fitch is predicting Cyprus will need an EU bailout. I’m already dreading election day.
It’s always the same story where policies are concerned.
Michael Falzon (Labour), for example, recently said that the judicial system needs an overhaul but did not suggest any actual changes and Coleiro Preca promised “free healthcare” (as if we didn’t have it already) without going into details.
Whenever Joseph Muscat tried to make more or less concrete proposals he fell flat on his face (remember his 20 points on immigration?) so he must think it’s safer to utter hazy platitudes and not bother with specifics.
Antoine,
“Michael Falzon (Labour), for example, recently said that the judicial system needs an overhaul but did not suggest any actual changes ”
It must be that, AS EXPECTED, the Bench is talking to Jose A. Herrera about the necessary changes. And we have now learned that the top priority in the overhaul is a salary increase.
To be fair, Joseph Muscat is justified in saying that European leaders are failing to take concrete steps to address financial issues.
I’m not sure if he realises that these “concrete steps” could well result in full fiscal union in the Eurozone in an attempt, vain or otherwise, to save the tottering single currency.
By early 2013 we could well have a situation where the rates of Malta’s income tax, corporation tax, VAT etc. will be set by committees in the real capitals of Europe i.e. Berlin and Frankfurt.
Es tut mir leid, meine Damen und Herren, by the time Muscat takes the oath of office he may find himself enjoying the status of district governor whose main duty will consist of sending in quarterly reports on revenue, spending and the public deficit for approval by the ECB before new funds are released.
Your highlighting of Muscat’s failure so far to put meat on his slender economic skeleton may become irrelevant as Malta, distracted as it is by Arriva mai, divorce, pederast priests and Engerer’s bizarre antics has (perhaps) failed to see the true consequences of the dark financial clouds already gathered on the horizon.
I’m certain Muscat will be more photogenic when he poses in purple robes, wearing a laurel wreath and standing under an SPQR banner.
“To be fair Joseph Muscat is justified in saying…”
The only reason anyone anywhere needs to care what Joseph Muscat says is when he talks about policy. So whether he’s justified in saying this or that is neither here nor there unless he tells us what he’s going to do about it.
There’s nothing unfair about pointing out (yet again) that he has yet to make any sort of policy proposal, other than his back-of-an-envelope sketches to get himself into power.
Doesn’t that pose remind you of the GonziPN final billboard?
And the magic bullet is?
I saw a birthday card with the words ‘Ageing is inevitable’ and on the inside ‘Maturity is optional’.
When is the Great Leader’s birthday?
WIkipedia tells me that he was born on January 22. It also says that he’s currently 37 years old. Judging by his receding heRlAjn, I thought he was approaching his fifties.
My door bell just rang – a guy over the intercom: ‘Mil-Partit Laburista biex inkellmek naqra’. As if.
Qed iduru bieb bieb…bhal Gaddafi.
If that’s a “JOSEPHMUSCATGOODPIC3” I dread to think what “JOSEPHMUSCATBADPIC3” looks like.
Please compare:
Nikita Alamango: Global markets – a ‘toxic’ cocktail, Times of Malta
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110810/blogs/global-markets-a-toxic-cocktail.379648
Euro Zone Crisis Resembles US Turmoil in 2008, Financial Times via CNBC.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44029584/Euro_Zone_Crisis_Resembles_US_Turmoil_in_2008
The Times has just pulled Ms. Alamango’s plagiarised blog from their website.
However the shortcut to it still works. The article is unavailable from the website and removed from the blog’s roll.
What do expect, Daphne?
Even Saviour Balzan thinks people alight ON buses and believes that buses are our biggest problem (if they are, we’re lucky):
“The picture of a Maltese who cannot speak Maltese alighting on an Arriva bus and being asked to pay the extra tariff for tourists is something that persists in my mind.”
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/blogs/saviour-balzan/how-about-introducing-a-caste-system
Take a look at Manu Maltes (Emanuel Cini’s) profile photo on Facebook today. I think he’s off kiwis and on bananas now.
banana u tamal.
As far as we can see, it is the Socialist-run states that are in deepest sh-t.
With Muscat at the helm, we can join in.
It is pretty obvious he does not have a clue on what he is talking about.
He is manifestly out of his depth on financial issues and most other issues for that matter.
Maybe he can just illuminate us on who is going to shoulder the burden when he is PM if it will not be families.
I very much doubt he has an answer for this either.
He strikes me as being shallow and verging on the moronic.
But for heaven’s sake, the people who go to morning bingo and to the “xalata” after the festa do not even know what the great leader is talking about – but be sure he gets their vote
And they are all experts on ‘id-dejn tal-pajjiz’. Anything he says is gospel to them.
And according to his profile his profession is that of an economist! Will there be a decent place for us to go, come 2013?
I met our little Joey for the first time in the mid 1990swhen doing some economic consulting for the MSU (Management Systems Unit). He was sniffing around for a job.
Talked to him for a few minutes before I realized he didn’t know his GDP from his a**hole.
Now he’s pontificating on economic policy?
He made a good choice recently in appointing the former Tourism Minister in Sant’s ill-fated 1996 debacle as shadow minister for finance.
Woe is us.
He had his own hair then.
But the same small brain.
Harry, is this goodpic4?
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/stories/s3027019.htm
Excellent liikeness.
Harry: “I realized he didn’t know his GDP from his a**hole.”
Just returned from that AMAZING Edinburgh Fringe and this would have been “una perla” of a statement about “un pirla” that is Joey.
He’s done a PhD since then.
To be or not to be.
As if.
The situation is getting desperate – yes – only 18 months to go for the PN to retreat to the opposition benches.
I can not imagine what sound economic policy Labour intends to come up with, Daphne.
It will probably be more socialist in its content than the one adopted now.
I am certain Joseph Muscat won’t cut back on the over-burdened welfare state, benefits to unmarried mothers with babies from unkown fathers.
Neither will Labour cut back on indefinite uneployment benefits for the convieniantly idle. Housing subsidies will not be cut back either and the new rent law which was meant to be just, will not be doctored to suit the long discriminated landlord either.
We will be leaping from one socialist party to another. We will only witness more political smokescreens as we have done under the PN administration such as the issue of divorce to alinenate the electorate from the power station scandal and the astronomic parliamentary salary increases.
This country needs firm leadership, politicians who can make decisions not cower behind our neutrality in situations like the Libyan resolution.
We need to dilute the welfare state, reform our education budget, incentivate hard-work and entrpreneurship as opposed to taxing them into extinction, reduce the mountain of bureaucracy in the numerous authorities whose only objective was to create jobs for the blue-eyed boys making life impossible for everyone and allow businesses to flourish instead of suffocating them with utility bills driving them out of competition.
We need a reduction in maternal leave and in public holidays to drive up productivity and have our civil service give a fill day’s work in the summer months. This country is riddled with benefits which do not hold water in this decade and where it has become popular perception to earn money for doing nothing.
Getting people to work while they’re actually on the job has to be the biggest challenge facing employers, as is finding people to do certain jobs the way they should be done. Maternity leave? I have reservations about that but it’s not the main problem.
Just which side are you on – why not introduce slavery = no wages and no holidays?
Extreme right is just as lousy as extreme left whilst the in between just never gets it right. This is balanced out a bit by having alternate political parties ruling the roost for a set period, but sadly our socialists have leadership issues.
A still from Friday 13th.
This is awful work.
They’re not even good at photoshopping a pic, let alone handling the huge economic challenges we live in.
Joseph Muscat has no clue of what he is talking about. All he is capable of doing is picking a topic, going around it using a few sentences with ‘big’ words, which are completely empty of substance, and stopping there. The sheep are impressed.
Suffice it to say that his advisor on finance is Perit Vella – just imagine him at an Ecofin meeting.
But still – it is indeed “tal biki” because the “I couldn’t care less” bracket is getting bigger.
Keep in mind that it only takes a handful of floaters to choose Joey over Gonzi and it’s game over.
Does he know what he’s saying or doing or how to do what he’s saying?
http://www.maltarants.com/component/k2/item/4-short-sightedness-leading-to-inconsistency.html
With the general election a mere 18 months away, should not Dr Joe Muscat inform us lesser mortals as to who his economic gurus are?
http://www.akkuza.com/2011/08/12/nikita-scissorhands/…….
The great leader will put hand on heart in front of thousands of Bulebel-bred Laburisti come next election win. The only thing I just cant understand is how do we tolerate the prospect of having an interior minister who in his heyday was part of that brutal and corrupt police force?
And people like Karmenu Vella, Debono Grech, etc.? Progressive indeed.
Is this a sequel to Dr. Joseph’s sound economic policy statement?
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=16319
Please note: “Merchants in Government’s propaganda farm…” Whoever phrased this must have been very pleased because he repeated it twice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7vooIY8Yxs&feature=player_embedded
He will probably entrust the task to the Fondazzjoni Ideat to illuminate us.
There’s less substance in that interview than in Peter Sellers’s classic “Party Political Speech”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxBtGuu9BVE