Comment of the day
Published:
August 4, 2012 at 3:27pm
Posted by Nighthawk, beneath my piece about the Labour Party’s ‘Smart City’ billboard:
At the ICT company where I work, often people just don’t bother turning up for a second interview. If we don’t move fast, they’re gone.
I hear the situation is the same in accounts.
Waiters, not so much.
It would be great if Smart City had 7000 jobs to offer, but then the billboard would be complaining about all the foreigners working here.
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There’s a very valid reason though isn’t there. Decent wages in line with one’s experience are rarely offered and not everyone can leave their family behind for the UK.
All’s well until igaming is still flourishing but what happens when that’s gone is everyone’s guess.
[Daphne – Well then, don’t vote Labour.]
If the EU decides to regulate the sector and declares Malta’s attractive taxation arrangements illegal, there’s very little Tonio Fenech, RCC or anyone can do to stand in its way. If the shit is to hit the proverbial fan, it doesn’t really matter whether the blades are red or blue.
[Daphne – It matters a great deal. I would rather have competent people in charge if and when that happens than a former Crystal Finance clerk and Super One reporter and Karmenu Vella from 1979. If we’re talking about putting Muscat in charge of running the country, then we might as well pluck any old HSBC clerk from behind his desk and say, here, run the show. You’ll do just as well.]
I’m in total agreement with you.
Just see what happened to the country’s finances by “plucking”a junior accountant from a local company and entrusting him with running the ministry of finance.
The Nationalists in government have always been resilient and quick to recover.
We have full employment in Malta because of the foresight of the wise Nationalist strategies in government.
Labour has on the contrary always been inward looking introducing failed central economies concepts typical of lurid socialist regimes.
Their governments are characterized by hard and rigid economic policies synonymous with the communist era. Should a particular sector encounter difficulties then the Nationalists in government have amply shown that they are capable of bouncing back.
Typical examples are the closing down of all the parastatal lame ducks and the quick and feasible absorbtion of a significant labour force in a healthy economy which is vibrant and flexible. The Nationalist party has the business knack and acumen to lead Malta. Labour simply don’t.
It was the PN which brought to Malta a thriving tertiary education sector. Labour was stuck to importing 5-ton steel plates, sticking them to a ship’s hull and reselling the finished product at a loss to a dubious customer.
Now if the EU tries to disturb our economy with a one-size-fits-all law on igaming, we would need the same people who argued intelligently and ‘won’, against France’s shipping registration attack against Malta.
In such circumstances, the ex-Crystal Finance clerk would use Malta’s veto in the EU like a wild card, which is frowned upon and considered not to be a statesmanly attitude.
This kind of behaviour would not attract new business ventures to Malta. It will tarnish our good (fair) reputation.
Where would igaming go, if it goes? Some thirty years ago we thought that ST was going and it’s still here. PharmaMed (now Actavis) is still here. Baxter split in two and Cardinal Health was formed. Nylon Knitting was going to close down but instead expanded.
Do you know why, GP?
I will tell you. It’s because after considering the commitment and experience of their employees, the investors wisely decided that staying in Malta was feasible after all.
Keep abreast with the sector you’re working in and leave the rest to the ones who gave you the opportunity to find a decent productive job and believed in you.
In the Sixties when tourism was given a major boost by Borg Olivier’s PN government, the Labour Party led by Muscat’s idol, Dom Mintoff, used to say that the PN wanted us to be servants of the foreigners.
Will they ever change this negative attitude towards new concepts?
John, I assure you that six months (latest) after the tax on gaming operators is raised half of them will be in Gibraltar, Costa Rica or any other safe haven outside the EU. Within a year just a few will be left.
Granted, it was the PN who gave Maltese this opportunity, got us in the EU and changed our way of thinking and gave us better education and opportunities, but I am left wondering at what cost?
How can we have trust in our politicians at the national level and also higher up in the EU when the rotten heads let Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland’s debt spiral out of control when their job was to ensure that this was not supposed to happen? I feel cheated when my tax contributions are channelled into the eurozone’s economic woes and you certainly can’t blame me as it will take years to recover.
I wish you would all stop talking about Labour in the 70s, it’s getting kind of childish. I would not like a Labour government but if it serves to change heads ‘as a lesson’ then so be it.
GP, if you want to teach a lesson to someone, see to it that you won’t end up worse than you were.
I am a forward-looking person , but I have a good memory of the people who f*cked up my life big time.
If you just look at PL’s leadership line-up it automatically carries you down memory lane to the Seventies. They’re still there, the same Joe Grima, Joe Debono Grech, George Vella, Leo and Karmenu Vella with the return of Alex Sceberras Trigona.
If you want to teach a lesson to someone do it to him personally by voting in someone like Ms Comodini Cachia.
But don’t cut your nose to spite your (our) face, I beg you.
“I wish you would all stop talking about Labour in the 70s” – well, GP, so would most of us. However, since the Labour electoral programme is entrusted to dinosaurs from the 70s, and furthermore Dom Mintoff is openly the Labour prime minister-in-waiting’s political guide, we have no ‘effin choice – do we?!
The only sane choice is to back new faces in the PN and otherwise to suffer to back the old ones; voting Labour is just plain stupid.
Hopefully, this will not only prevent the current incarnation of Labour from getting into power, but will also “serve to change heads as a lesson” within Labour. Perhaps they’d start by replacing the labour Party delegates who have an awful track record of selecting party leaders.
We cannot all wait until some sector is no longer flourishing.
We take the chance and move ahead with the times. Factories in the textiles sector closed down but other new sectors took their place.
It is just a matter of moving ahead and trying out new areas of work.
If there is not much chance of getting a job when one has a degree in say ‘theatre arts’ then simply go on to another sector. It happens most times with students who change their line of study half way because they do not feel that it is their preferred choice after all.
GP, the government managed to replace high added value manufacturing and a hemorrhaging dock with financial services, e gaming and other low added value enterprises. You can always rely on a Nationalist government to be proactive and to respond to adverse situations with elasticity.
Actually the PN changed from low added value industry to high value, low footprint industry (Pharma, ICT and now Life Sciences).
Has Nighthawk got any answers to how the situation would be tackled by the PL if the were in government themselves and the international situation would be conducive to a mass exodus from Malta by the Igaming industry?
Apart from not knowing anything about the PL cos they stand for nothing, I seriously doubt they would be able to tackle the situation successfully. Not with the GWU in cahoots with them and their record of the Phoenicia Hotel closure, the Marsa Diamond Factory, various lockouts and so many others etc !
Actually, if one looks at Malta’s investment scene, it is highly diversified.
If igaming had to close down, the same IT specialist could take up positions in the life science industry (bioinformatics) – that is the next item on the government’s agenda – BioMalta.
Not only that, but people of the likes of Prof Sir Christopher Adams and Per Wold-Olsen, have recognized this opportunity and, together with a group of highly qualified Maltese scientists, are actively working through the BioMalta Foundation to see that it is a success.