Joseph Muscat, interviewed by The Sunday Times yesterday
Here’s a telling excerpt. The man who says the prime minister doesn’t understand the fundamentals of the economy (ghax hu jifhem hafna, eh) doesn’t even know the difference between capital and running expenditure.
We shouldn’t spend on capital projects, he says, so that we can use the money for even more social services. I’m guessing he learned nothing from Greece.
Q: Last Sunday you said Lawrence Gonzi was not technically capable of running the economy. What did you mean?
A: I don’t think he understands the fundamentals of the economy…
Q: …Despite several reports claiming the economy isn’t doing badly at all.
A: If this is the case, we are faring in this manner despite the government, not because of government.
Q: If you were Prime Minister or Finance Minister what’s the first measure you’d introduce in next week’s budget?
A: We need to reduce water and electricity rates in a sustainable, realistic and credible way.
Q: Don’t you think such a measure could wreak havoc in the country’s finances?
A: Not at all. I believe it’s a way of giving some breathing space to families and businesses.
Q: Where will you get the money from?
A: We have clear plans. There are realistic alternatives. This government ignores (EU Commissioner) John Dalli, who suggested investing in technology that would slash water and electricity rates by half. It’s one of the alternatives. If the government ignores Mr Dalli is it going to take note of what I have to say?
Q: You’re also ignoring an EU report published last week that said electricity rates all over Europe have to increase over the next 20 years if they’re to meet environmental targets.
A: You’re only quoting part of the report which deals mainly with fossil fuels. And that’s why we need different technologies. Our government decided to extend our power station to run on heavy fuels. We have serious, technical preparations and when the time is right we will present our proposals, we will explain the cost of the cuts to water and electricity and we will say where we will get the money from.
Q: It’s easy to say you will cut the rates. Something’s got to give…
A: …When I go to the people with our proposals I’m equipped with the latest calculations.
Q: You’re making it sound so easy. You also say you guarantee free health care, stipends, social services… These cost millions. Where are you going to get the money from?
A: If this government found the money to build a new Parliament, don’t you think I can find money to help families?
Q: But you’re not giving an indication where you’re getting the money from.
A: Is this government indicating where it’s getting this money (for the Parliament) from?
Q: How can you refuse to even give an indication?
A: One of the solutions is being offered from somebody nominated by this government – John Dalli. The government didn’t even react to his proposal. The difference between the two parties in Malta is priority. If I had an extra €80 million I wouldn’t have squandered it on a new Parliament. I would make sure care workers are paid better, reduce waiting lists, and give the disabled more assistance.
Q: You’ve been Labour leader for a while and very soon you could be Prime Minister and yet nobody can extract an answer from you on how you intend to get the funding.
A: Our Prime Minister went into the last election with a massive promise – that he’d substantially reduce the top income tax rate. He promised it 28 days before the election and nobody asked him where he’d be getting the money from. When he was eventually asked, he had a blank face before the Finance Minister replied. We will explain.
Q: When?
A: When the general election approaches we will be spreading out our plans. In a changing world, considering the eurozone and the fiscal situation, I can’t bind myself to certain details today. I can’t change my position in 10 months’ time.
Q: What if oil prices remain unchanged?
A: I think with the current outlook it’s sustainable to keep promising a cut in water and electricity rates.
Q: Even if oil prices keep climbing?
A: In the current situation, I’m still positive it can be carried out.
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“When the general election approaches we will be spreading out our plans”
Wucking fanker.
“When the general election approaches we will be spreading out our plans.”
‘I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT AN ELECTORAL PROGRAMME’
– it tastes just like one.
“Markets listen when Goldman Sachs speaks, especially when it’s commodities.” Is Joseph listening?
Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1658364/Oil-price-predictions-What-oil.html#ixzz1d0mx3Jcg
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011-09/15/c_131141033.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/oilprices/8533188/Oil-price-jumps-as-Goldman-Sachs-raises-forecasts.html
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1658364/Oil-price-predictions-What-oil.html
Now The Times did not ask Joseph an important question. WHEN will you reduce the water and electricity tariffs?
Alternative energies need investment. If money is needed for that investment, where will he get that money from?
Alternative energies need investment. If money is needed for that investment, where will [Joseph] get that money from?
Effin’ obvious, innit. In the time honoured socialist way,,,from the money government will save by ‘slashing the water and electricity bills’.
@ Bus Driver
I hope you are not serious…
Government will not save any money from slashed W&E bills! These are simply not considered as part of its revenue. It is WSC’s and Enemalta’s revenue. Why do we still find it so difficult to think of these entities as separate from government?
[Daphne – MADONNA! GESU HANIN! That comment was IRONIC. Malta – Land of the Doggedly Literal.]
Should the government find a way to slash water and electricity bills, it is us the consumers who would be saving money and not the government itself. Please remember that we have higher tariffs because government cannot subsidise (and rightly so) our bills anymore. People need to get it into their empty echoing heads that nothing comes for free in this world.
Unless WSC and Enemalta invest in more efficient means of producing water and electricity (besides reducing their payroll by, first of all, making redundant all those employees of theirs who are on the social security payroll in all but in name – you know the ones given a job overnight in 1987!) we cannot have lower tariffs. With lower tariffs, actually, there is an increased possibility that WSC and Enemalta will have even less funds to invest in new and more efficient technology.
I remember quite clearly Michael Briguglio on Xarabank (in the programme where Dr Gavin Gulia was also on the panel – besides the Prime Minister) stating that his bill had actually gone down following the revision of the tariffs. I was glad to hear that because even mine had gone down and I could not understand all this screaming, shouting, whining and stamping of little feet. I just thought I was living in a bubble or that my meters were stuck.
This is just a mantra being repeated ad nauseam by the PL simply to create a feeling that the tariffs are a problem for the economy.
Subsidies are.
Hiding the real costs is.
Expecting the government to pay for what you consume is.
Having a party in opposition with an “economic policy” taken right out of the Seventies (ours anyway) is.
It’s unfortunate that these people can’t think, but can vote.
Do these proposals form part of the fifteen year plan he said he made when he was elected leader?
Dimwit.
The much vaunted ROAD MAP I guess……
Yes, one full of U-turns, Cul de Sac and Slippery Road Ahead signs…
And a pothole or two thrown in for good measure.
I stopped at the word “cul”.
Col. H.P. Baxxter (formerly 6/9 Bty, RMA, popped in from next door’s post)
“We have serious, technical preparations……”
‘Serious’? As opposed to what exactly?
Oh, jokey ones, I imagine. You know how they like jokes, especially ones involving giving rides to old ladies.
And the one about the three pigs and the other one about golf and lobster.
‘ When the general election approaches we will be spreading out our plans. In a changing world, considering the eurozone and the fiscal situation, I can’t bind myself to certain details today. I can’t change my position in 10 months’ time.’
Is he saying his secret plans don’t carry a general direction? Details change but the principled intentions behind a plan remain.
For heaven’s sake, there is such a thing as intellectual honesty. Investors don’t wait and see, they go somewhere else.
Jeffrey et al had better read through this garbled blurb for what it is, nothing.
And another thing, does he intend to dismantle the powerplant to convert it to generic biomass? He already made a fool of himself multiplying the number of containers required to transport fuel ash, all we need is another Mater Dei redesign.
I hate it when politicians start playing engineers, they remind me of those nosy pensioners inspecting roadworks with their ‘kieku minnek hekk naghmel……’
If Muscat is unwilling to disclose his plans now, because he fears that they will be torn to pieces by the media, then he has no trust that his plans are serious.
And how are we supposed to believe his claim that they are serious if we do not see them and if they are not subjected to the rigour of public scrutiny and discussion?
His predecessor had published volumes of his plans of Bidu Gdid. It turns out that Joseph is a regression not a progression for Labour.
Besides, I have noticed more than one case of serious inconsistencies with positions expressed by his Shadow Finane Minister on Dissett – such as that about tax cuts.
This economic simpleton has just exposed the nation to the danger of electing a know-nothing to run the economic affairs of the country.
It amazes me how the opposition, not just Joseph, has not yet figured out how the parliament building is being financed.
In the monthly government accounts, published in The Government Gazette, there is a line item which screams the answer with a big clue.
Call it creative accounting or a three-letter abbreviation. I am no accountant but I noticed it, and Dr Joseph Muscat and his team have not yet figured it out. The Partit tal-Vizjoni can’t read some accounts.
He is asking us to abandon someone who, in his opinion, didn’t deliver on his promises and embrace HIS promises when we don’t even know what they are..
Great.
Dimwit.
Now more than ever am I convinced that Joseph Muscat is truly a representation of superficial politicians, a class of politicians that has been alarmingly surfacing all over Europe these last years.
At least Sant was concerned about the deficit and tried to cut a few luxuries which our welfare state offers, such as stipends and a minimum charge on free medicine. He got it all wrong of course, especially when he decided to get rid of VAT.
Muscat is committed to keep these ‘rights’, yet he’s promising tax-cuts and cheaper utility bills even in the current financial scenario.
No tax cuts can ever be delivered if the government is not committed to slashing its expenditure drastically.
And I’m not mentioning waste in government departments, corruption and national projects, but cuts in current expenditure on social services, which this year alone reached the sum of nearly 1 billion euros.
” If I had an extra €80 million I wouldn’t have squandered it on a new Parliament. I would make sure care workers are paid better, reduce waiting lists, and give the disabled more assistance.”
What will Joseph Muscat do when after a few months the eighty million are spent on these ‘hand-outs’? He certainly won’t be generating new jobs. Very progressive indeed.
“If I had an extra €80 million I wouldn’t have squandered it on a new Parliament.”
You bet. He would have spent it on himself.
This is Joseph Muscat
In a changing world, considering the eurozone and the fiscal situation, I can’t bind myself to certain details today. I can’t change my position in 10 months’ time.
“We shouldn’t spend on capital projects, he says, so that we can use the money for even more social services. I’m guessing he learned nothing from Greece.”
I often say that we Maltese are excellent at learning other country’s mistakes. That is learning to make those mistakes.
Joseph looks very promising in that respect.
Perhaps at some point in history someone mis-translated “Learning from others’ mistakes” into “nitghallmu l-izbalji ta haddiehor”
Squandered or not, Joseph Muscat will still have to foot the 80 million euro parliament bill as well as keep the deficit within the accepted limits.
The money invested in the Piano project is a capital investment which will start giving a return on completion.
Subsidising the water and electricity bills indiscriminately is literally throwing money down the drain.
Selective aid to industry, in the manner so effectively engineered by the government, is the only subsidy that makes sense.
Gonzi is not and does not aspire to be a financial wizard. His job, which he does so well, is to weigh up the options and decide.
If only the brilliant economist Alfred Sant, of CET notoriety, was that humble.
Muscat is Sant’s clone, only with an inferior IQ and a greater propensity to screw up.
Someone must have put a hex on the Labour Party.
With so many economists on board, they cannot come up with an answer to a simple question such as: If they plan to reduce taxes, reduce water and electricity tariffs, keep free health and education, fix ARRIVA, how do they plan to reduce the deficit while at the same time have less revenue and reintroduce subsidies?
Can their ‘economists’ please explain? Maybe with some leftover Gaddafi US dollars?