One to watch
This is a television show from 1999, which has just been uploaded on YouTube by its producer. Those of my generation will not need to have the ‘Catch’ television advert explained.
The rest might wish to know that it was one of two or three ‘fake chocolates’ available on the Maltese market, in which all real/imported chocolates were prohibited.
So why was it advertised so heavily on television, you might ask, given that its market was pretty much captive?
Simple: it was a trade-off. The manufacturers ‘gave’ money to Xandir Malta through advertising fees for advertising they didn’t really need, while the state maintained the company’s virtual monopoly status in the protected economy.
Ah, life behind Mintoff’s Iron Curtain…
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In my opinion those who suffered in the 80’s from the lack of choice of goods on the market were the “well-off” citizens. Those who didn’t have much to spend didn’t suffer at all. There was nothing to buy and they had nothing to spend.
In the 80’s I was still a child and I used to visit my friend at her parents’ grocery shop. Would you believe that there were people who found Catch (the chocolate we saw in the feature) expensive at that time? I remember this very clearly.
It was in 2002 when the rates of levies got lower that the Maltese started opting for the foreign products to the full. Imported goods were still more expensive compared to the local products even though the difference in the price was minimal but they still opted for the cheapest no matter the foreign quality was better.
A proof of this is the pasta factory in Qormi that closed down its’ doors as soon as the pasta prices went down.
What about LIDL? Nowadays the Maltese could by foreign but unbranded items of a good quality and cheap prices. What about the importers of the big brands?
Going by what many Laburisti say, your comments contain some contradictions.
According to Laburisti, the 70s and 80s were the ‘golden years’ and Mintoff had eradicated poverty, created social services and when else failed employed the masses in various corps and with the civil service, en masse.
In such an affluent time, when Mintoffjani boast that the Socialists left millions in the treasury, you say that people could not afford a bar of cheap chocolate? Then how do you account for many who crossed over to Sicily and smuggled back what they could?
Income taxes went down steadily during George Dupuis time, before 2002 leaving more in the pockets of the workers. Since 1987, foreign investment started to pour in, new factories opened and wages started going up – again well before 2002. Tourism quadrupled and unemployment started to be tackled in a serious way.
The pasta factory in Qormi closed down because it never modernised, was inefficient and in all probability produced an inferior product. In other words, the free market influence started to work in the consumer’s favour.
Today wages are better, jobs are better, selection is vast, people have money, but all Laburisti say is that “Gonzi qatilna bil-guh”!
Today our exports are open to half a billion Europeans but we still have to compete, we still have to become efficient and quality control a must, otherwise we will go back to the ‘golden years’ of no water in the taps, intermittent electricity and a crumbling infrastructure.
While governments have a direct impact on the quality of life, it is up to each and every one of us to pull in the same direction because the ultimate winners will be all of us, whether red, blue or green
Xejn gdid, reajtuhom lin-nies jghidu kemm hi tajba is-sistema tal-bulk-buying, rajtu xi haga different minn intervista lil xi Laburist fuq l-partnership, jew fuq l-EU jew fuq l-arriva. Kont tara l-istess risposti stupidi.
L-aqwa li l-gvern jiddecidi meta nieklu l-banana! Kelli ziju li kien jhobb isiefer Londra ghall-bjtajel tieghu u meta jigi lura kien jgibilna borza Mars jew Bounty. Qisu gabilna id-deheb, kull cikkulata naqsmuha fi tlieta u nifthu wahda kuljum.
Bl-argumenti ta’ Julian Manduca daqt jghidli li konna ahjar ghax Mintoff kienu jihdilna hsieb il-figura. Hafna nseb li biex tixtri zokkor kont trid coupon u biex taghmel kejk trid tfaddal iz-zokkor coupons. Te ditta wahda biss, toilet paper wahda biss, gallettini ta barra xejn, kollox made in Malta tal-qamel kien hawn ghazla xejn. Viva l-Labour.
If the three ‘journalists’ think materialism is limited to the consumption of goods, it’s their loss.
Trying to portray Mintoff as someone who sought a balance only to have the Nationalists spoil it, is a lie. Malta had, before he came along, a number of entrepreneurs who weren’t afraid of the challenges they lament. One of them, just to give an example, had even managed to set up an automobile assembly plant.
Mintoff’s vision of disrupting and blocking private initiative created the lack of skills and allergy to style we see today.
A bit ironic how one of them proposes the moral question, to then exploit the situation, albeit dressed in green.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34GPawd-Hu0&feature=share
Mintoff – “we have a mixed economy – a bigger public sector than the private sector.”
Is this Joe Muscat’s idea of going back to the Golden years?
Greece within a year.
What socialist rubbish!
After watching this video clip, I felt like a Jew looking at a Nazi propaganda film.
Listening to Herr Mintoff made me shiver – would that his stay on earth is prolonged in as dreadful a way as possible..
” … dominated by the working class … ” MY FOOT!
The climax of this distorted sense of identity imposed by the MLP as if the regime and the people were one and the same thing (very similar to the People’s Republic of China, Korea, and the rest of totalitarian regimes) was crystallized on a notice hanging along the fence of the then newly built runway extension at the Hal Far end. This notice was warned,
“TIDĦOLX – PROPRJETA TAL-POPLU MALTI”
Watching this gives one the shivers and it’s not just the weather.
Thanks for uploading this video. The vox pop at the end was very telling. I have just realized how Malta’s state TV was manipulated at the time. It is real pity that those reporters who formed part of the propoganda machine are still around.
Today we feel sorry for the people of North Korea, but while I waching this video, I understood that only 24 years ago we were subject to the same treatment and stage-managed propoganda.
I must admit that this propoganda was effective. Joe Debono Grech was right at the time – the state TV was the perfect tool to create generations of socialists.
“the trade unions are part of the government setup!”
How is this a good thing?
Watching this video I just realised how many tuppence programmes TVM has dished out during the years to the Maltese. This programme is one of them too, with those pseudo journalists and that sort of hippy Manduca who were trying to “preach” something. I was already away from Malta when this was screened and again, notice the bias in this programme: one reason why I never liked nor trusted TVM. When I was a child even my parents used to say “kemm konna aħjar qabel” but they referred to the 60s when the economy was booming and life was decent. Surely they weren’t referring to the 70s, so once more, Briguglio and the rest of you, get your damn facts right.
I couldn’t help but relive the horror of those years again. Ignorant people talking to the interviewer, real dummies who parrot like kowtowed to anything Mintoff and the MLP implemented against everybody else’s will. Mintoff already had failed as an architect, he was no genius in economics either.
The bulk buying system could have been tagged “the government knows what you’re eating: Big Brother is watching you!” It led to abuse as always happens with prohibitive methods. I recall how a few laburisti would go to the UK (later the masses started flooding Sicily buying all the shit much the same way as Libyans used to buy anything in Malta in the 70s) and come back with chocolates selling them at 50 Malta cents and toothpaste tubes which they sold at one Maltese Lira. Yes, there was an underground black market. When I went to the UK for my studies, I used to receive numerous requests for chocolate, toothpaste, tea and biscuits. At the customs they used to search my luggage and insist on asking whether I had any of these articles. It was almost a crime if you had some. Customs officers also were guilty for they blackmailed and harassed people. You had to give them some of your wares and you’d still pay those damn customs fees. I shudder at such memories.
I cannot forget Guido de Marco’s memorable speech in one of the budget debates where he, fearless and upfront as ever, looked Mintoff in the eye and — “Belt il-Ħażna u m’hawnx zokkor? Belt il-Ħażna u m’hawnx dqiq? Belt il-Ħazna…?” We were all behind Guido then, urging him on. It was as if each and every syllable he uttered was our own.
Seriously, do we want to go back to that kind of life, if one could call it a life? It was hell, a very rotten hell indeed, the one the Mintoff Yana and McKenna whatever never experienced and which their “generous” father so kindly dumped on us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ8pt22_WC8&feature=related