The economy, by Muscat’s own admission, is doing well. So vote him in to ruin it. GOVERNMENT BY SUPER ONE REPORTER.
Joseph Muscat met members of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry a couple of days ago. And he told them that this was the second most important meeting of the day, the first being the PN executive meeting to discuss the expulsion of Richard Cachia Caruana.
Can you imagine being so stupid and crass as to say that to an audience of people who are perhaps Cachia Caruana’s greatest admirers for the work he has done in terms of the European Union? The trouble with these Super One reporters is that they live in a hole populated by others like themselves, and so believe that their opinion is reality.
It’s the mistake that the Labour Party makes every time: believing its own lies and propaganda.
He was stupid and crass in terms of basic good manners, too. You don’t drag people out for a meeting and then tell them that you think it’s the SECOND most important meeting of the day.
Kemm hu bniedem baxx, miskin. Imbasta bil-North Face jacket u l-ohra bil-Gucci print ‘bwiez’.
So business leaders go out to meet an ex Super One reporter who knows nothing about business and sit there listening while he tells them that he will let business work – as opposed to creating a stimulating and competitive environment. Marvellous.
As proof of his fitness to hector them about business, he told them that his family are self-employed. Indeed. So if your father is a carpenter that makes you an expert in carpentry. And if your father is a fireworks merchant, that makes you a greater leader who will let business work.
Several of the portraits of deceased presidents of the Chamber of Commerce (il-Borsa), in the room where Muscat sat and hectored, are of members of my family, including my grandfather, his grandfather, and my uncle. Using the fireworks’ merchant’s son’s analogy, this qualifies me to sit in his place and hector businessmen about what they need.
U mur ‘l hemm.
Labour would ‘let businesses work’
by John Cordina
The Malta Independent, 18 July 2012
A Labour government would ensure that businesses would be allowed to develop unhindered, believing this to be key to economic growth, leader Joseph Muscat argued yesterday.
In a dialogue session yesterday evening, Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry members sought guarantees that the Labour Party, if elected to government, would help the business sector to thrive. In turn, Dr Muscat sought to assure them that this would be so.
(..)
Dr Muscat left many of these questions unanswered in his opening speech, perhaps preferring to address possible disagreements with the Chamber outside media scrutiny.
He started out by stating that the event may have been the second-most prominent meeting of the day – the first being the Nationalist Party executive meeting discussing Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s call to expel Richard Cachia Caruana from the party – but added that it was certainly the most relevant one.
(..)
“In short, our policy is to let you work,” Dr Muscat told the Chamber members present, adding that this applied as long as businesses did not seek to benefit at the expense of the common good.
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“In short, our policy is to let you work,” Dr Muscat told the Chamber members present, adding that this applied as long as businesses did not seek to benefit at the expense of the common good.
I find that particular statement the most worrying of all.
Who will be the judge of what is the “common good”? Is he also reserving the right of not letting them work?
How exactly will he stop them from working?
“believing its own lies and propaganda”
This has been (and remains) in my limited two decades of personal experience of the PL(MLP) the fundamental rationale (which is decades longer) for my intrinsic (almost innate) and necessary (logical) rejection of the PL: good governance could never be derived from an irrational belief system. [It’s even worse when moral values are absent or “pragmatically” put aside.]
You don’t have to prove this point by electing the PL; the point already is proven for the PL as an opposition Party (or is that Movement?) Along with UFOs, alien abductions, and Cold Fusion, the PL require rejection because they threaten to mess with the lives and futures of the 420,000 on “The Rock” and to make waves beyond this shores (when the EU and the world have more than their hands full with the threat of international economies coming apart at the seams).
The problem with a political Party (or Movement) which is so unbalanced by its system of beliefs and lies is that it leaves no firm reality or system of rational and logical principles to make predictions of its behavior under the variety of real-world circumstances.
Blind faith and trust in a system of lies and compounded historical distortions is not a sufficient predictor for anything except for disaster. Love ’em or hate ’em, the PN are the only rational choice, unless one wants to gamble one’s life and the lives of others on illusion.
‘… as long as businesses did not seek to benefit at the expense of the common good.’
What is the ‘common good’ in the eyes of the Labour Party? And then what happens?
Perhaps Joseph Muscat should have worn a condom to show that crowd that Joseph and the Moviment Bla Isem are really safe for business.
In short, they don’t have any policies whatsoever.
It is very clear that the problem number 1 with business is that they cannot trust a Labour government.
They know exactly what they had been through in the Golden Years, with bulk buying, import substitution, quotas, tariffs, duties, a general culture of anti-business and, above all, the opposition to the EU, in which Joseph Muscat had a major role.
Back in the 70’s and 80’s:
The choice of cars was reduced to some cheap and unreliable East European cars produced in Communist states – remember the Yugo and the Lada?
To buy a colour TV, you had to write to the “Dear Philip.”
If you liked chocolate, the only real choice you had was between Deserta banana-flavour and Deserta nuts. Oh, and there was Deserta lemon-flavour too.
Japanese products, known to be at the forefront of technology, were banned because of a trade war with Japan.
Corned beef was sold to you under the counter, and you had to settle for 1 or 2 cans, because the State controlled its price.
The importation of computers was banned because they were believed to create unemployment. As if we did not have enough of that under Mintoff. Remember Mintoff saying “Il-kompjuter ittih il-kakka u kakka jtik”?
Mobile telephony and cable services were non-existent, and the Labour government did not invest in the technology.
All major services were monopolised and state owned: from telephony to banking. The only choice in banking was between two state-owned and run banks (which by the way had been stolen from prominent businessmen).
Tax was collected by getting the Inland Revenue to issue ex-ufficio assessments galore.
Development land was expropriated without compensation.
The list is endless.
Muscat could not say how really things would be under his premiership and he would be forced to lie.
And saying lies implies two things.
1. You have to keep remembering what you said or you will get caught easily.
2. You might have to lie again to cover up the first lie; making it imperative to remember more that one version of the “truth as I made it up”.
So not lying is not just a virtue for the honest but sometime it becomes a must for those who have the habit of lying because there would be too many lies to be remembered.
“In short,our policy is to let you work “. Famous last words.
Those present must have been relieved to hear those words, knowing that finally after Joseph walks up those steps to Castille, they can start working after 25 years of stagnation. Mur saqqi il-hass ta’ Burmarrad.
“A Labour government would ensure that businesses would be allowed to develop unhindered ..”
You added “.. as opposed to creating a stimulating and competitive environment.”
Or did he mean “.. as opposed to interfering and creating obstacles, as most of you would have experienced at the hands of past Labour governments.”?
Assuming the quoted text is accurate, then I think you misread this.
Joseph said that the meeting was the ‘second most prominent’ not the ‘second most important’.
Very different things. He also went on to tell his audience that in spite of its being the second most prominent, it was the most relevant.
No matter how bad labour is, the PN needs a term in opposition to rid itself of internal strife, it also needs to rid itself from the egoistic approach of a section of its heirarchy, it badly needs to filter better its candidates, both for general election and local council levels. I have always voted PN with conviction since 1987, this time, most probably I will vote PN again, only because I do not trust Labour, therefore I have no choice.
There are times when everyone is required to contribute to the removal of internal strife.
Why did Jeffrey present a request to have Richard Cachia Caruana expelled from the party after he had voted for his removal with the opposition in parliament?
It’s better at this point to draw the line where the PN is.
It gives definition, everything else becomes background noise. Francis Zammit Dimech was correct in including Jeffrey as a Nationalist MP, if however, certain individuals keep harping on their ‘Nationalist with conditions attached’, loyalty to the party becomes subjective.
The risk is that the PN becomes another Moviment.
All I see is each and everyone of these beating about the bush when all they’d like to do is blurt out their misgivings to the PM’s style.
Michael Falzon, the ex-minister was on Super One yesterday, having to put in the disclaimer before every argument that he’s a Nationalist with a but. Give us a break.
I mention Falzon because he’s one to insist on outdated thinking in planning and the building industry. Then there’s Musumeci with his pained garbled legalese and not a clue to aesthetics, Falzon’s partner Chetcuti who expects abuse to be pardoned now Joseph’s prize ex-Nationalist, Jeffrey with his amoral incoherence to ODZ, need I go on?
Go to any other sector of society and the same pattern follows. The type who, a few years back, would joke during parties to how VAT can be a pain, or where to get the number of some contractor who could drill an illegal borehole.
They should know better than putting on their blinkers to the disciplined no-nonsense approach of this PM. So Lawrence Gonzi, doesn’t listen to their wishes, make that endorse their mentality, guess what, that’s why he’s there.
Blaming the PM allows them to shirk any responsibility to subscribe to the evolution he acknowledged necessary. So what if he’s understated?
I genuinely get a lump in my throat.
The (M)LP policy is to let businesses “work”? As opposed to what? Hindering business?
Encouraging and motivating business and investment. And they have the gall to call the PN “stagnat”?
Ma nafx, but every day that passes I feel a little more confident that the PN might not lose the next election after all.
Guess who thinks democratic representation is being delegated the right to force legislation kept under wraps.
CET anyone?
“In short, our policy is to let you work,” Dr Muscat told the Chamber members present, adding that this applied as long as businesses did not seek to benefit at the expense of the common good.@
Now I truly despair – it’s out in the open and nobody seems to care.
In spite of the Moviment Gdid trying to bury its socialist and totalitarian roots, our Pratikkament Prim Ministru tells us that businesses will only be allowed to work if they fit his regime’s idea of “the common good”.
Note that he did not say “as long as they observe the law” or even a generic “as long as they carry out their business with honesty and integrity”.
Quoting the “common good” and using it to justify state intervention has always been the hallmark of the world’s worst regimes.
I hope he was misquoted.
He wasn’t misquoted. He said that and he means it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShWrg2dpMg&feature=plcp
Actually, what he said was ‘my family are self-employed’ which is a great, whopping lie.
He is employed by the taxpayer to serve as Leader of the Opposition.
I really hope people take the time to truly work out who Joseph Muscat actually is.
As time goes on I just can’t see how Labour believes this guy can be good for them or the country.
I just can’t see how he is appealing or reassuring at any level.
I can only imagine what these businessmen must have thought about Muscat. Most of them probably remember him as a Super One reporter telling them to vote No to Europe and heckling Prime Minister Fenech Adami.
I would have been sat there terrified that this guy might actually get in and that everything I had worked for could be in jeopardy.
I have this sinking feeling that I am sat at Southampton docks watching the Titanic leave with red and white bunting.
Off to the Promised Land with our dear leader as captain.
Let us de-construct the last sentence in this article, shall we?
“Our Policy is to let you work” – as opposed to what? If the PL didn’t have this policy would businesses not be allowed to work?
And don’t forget the conditions added at the end. What exactly is the “common good”, and to whom is it common?
There are certainly more employees than employers in our society. So would I be correct in assuming that the common good would most likely be what the employees define it as?
“Under communist systems, however, the common good was more important than the rights of individuals. Thus, communist governments were willing to take away from people individual rights, such as the right to own property or freedom of speech, if the regime believed it would be for the grater good of society.” – Communism, Tom Lansford, 2007.
If your father is a fireworks merchant, jifhem fil-giggifogu it-tifel.
Donnu suffarell jdahhan u jwerzaq. Nisperaw sal-elezzjoni jilhaq jispicca wahdu u jintesa. Forsi xi darba minn Boffa ‘l hawn il-Labour ikollhom mexxej sura.
Tghid Marlene KetSjut dawritu l-post qabel il-laqgha? Tafhom sew il-kmamar tal-borza kienet.
Businessmen behaved politely and attended the meeting but they are all scared seeing their investments and hard work vanish with Muscat as the next prime minister.
Businessmen are really worried.
Business practice can rest on the simplest of principles: better the devil you know and to whom you’ve grown accustomed.
The Labour Business Forum and Karmenu Vella have done exactly what everyone suspected they would, create a parallel fabric. The question is to what extent the existing one will have to subscribe, imagine joint ventures where partners could feel pressured into others.
Sending Joseph over to reassure businesses they won’t be affected sent the opposite signal, there’s now talk of a new unknown. It is disheartening not knowing where the buck will stop.
“In short, our policy is to let you work,” Dr Muscat told the Chamber members present,”
Great news and what a great relief! I presume that he will also let the others work.
Labour will let business work when you have their candidates singling out individual entrepreneurs who lean twards the PN, and engage in mud slinging, referring to them by name AND nickname?
And this an entrepreneur who since time immemorial has been involved in scrap dealing, invested millions in his enterprise, and had to wait aeons in order to be relocated to a more industry-friedly place out of Birzebbugia? Is that how Labour lets business work?
How can Joseph state that “businesses would be allowed to develop unhindered, believing this to be key to economic growth” when he is presenting candidates who are former Socialist ministers from the 70s and 80s and who did the exact opposite?
How can he say that, when his party controlled business so tightly that some preferred to call it a day because they were not allowed to import consumer goods?
Of course he barely remembers those days and probably because his grandma had a picture of Mintoff in her living room which made her family ‘tal-qalba’, certain restrictions did not apply to them.
People vote Labour out of spite and envy but are too thick to realize that if Joey becomes ‘Malta’s youngest prime minister’ and screws up, they too will be caught in the vise.