The graph that JosephMuscat.com doesn’t want you to see. It’s the reason voting for him for change is MADNESS.
Published:
January 28, 2013 at 7:52am
This graph shows unemployment levels in Europe over the last few years.
Look at Malta right down there, sailing along nicely and evenly at the bottom, maintaining the same extremely low level of unemployment even right through the worst financial crisis the world has seen since the Wall Street crash and ensuing Great Depression of the 1930s.
We actually have a lower level of unemployment now than we did before the crisis hit in 2008.
And then Labour says we need a change of direction. Of course – because what Labour loves and does best is a good recession and escalating levels of unemployment.
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Why change a winning horse? Eddy Privitera, tghid miet b’deni ta’ ziemel il-perit?
This graph explodes Muscat’s bubble that it is not true that the PN government created 20,000 jobs in this legislature and saved another 5,000 with direct intervention in 2009/2010.
The gullible will not understand this graph but believe the corruption charges Muscat is making regarding the oil procurement.
Muscat has realized that his energy proposal has become like ‘gobon tat-toqba’ and Mizzi’s sudden silence is evidence of this. Muscat is in a panic and is resorting to corruption allegations, similar to Mintoff in 71, KMB in 92 and Sant in 96.
Labour never change.
How did you arrive at the figure of 20,000? How is this graph supposed to confirm the figure of 20,000?
Please explain to me. My critically undeveloped brain cannot interpret the graph the same way.
Bizzejjed tikkonsidra illi kull sena jiggradwaw 4000 student. Jekk lil dawn ma tahsbilhomx ghal post fejn jahdmu (bhal ma ghamlu Spanja u il-Grecja) dik il-graph tispara il-fuq.
U kollha jibqgħu Malta, hux hekk?
U kemm jirtiraw nies (bil-penzjoni) fis-sena?
Mintoff, KMB, Sant, and il-ginger – birds of a feather. Practically fed on – and feeding their followers – the same mish-mash of putrified socialism, no matter by what name one calls it. That’s why they will never change.
Back in the first years of Mintoff’s tyranny, in 1971/72, a simple soul – no longer residing on this earth – used to call it “socjalizmu Frangiskan”. That WAS a spin!
Come on, let’s not be gullible ourselves. The graph says nothing about how many jobs were created. It just shows that the unemployment rate remained more or less constant.
In any case, there are many question marks in connection with the ‘20,000 new jobs’ claim. How many are productive jobs as opposed to direct/indirect government jobs? Does the figure take into account the approx. 5,000 who retired during these past five years (many baby boomers)? How come the GDP did not see a proportional increase? Just saying.
[Daphne – You’re not ‘just saying’. This is not a graph about job creation. It says clearly, right there, that it is a graph showing unemployment levels. If you are unable to understand what it means when unemployment actually DECREASES in the world’s worst financial crisis since the 1930s, then you need to go back to school or quit posting your elve comments here, where they will almost certainly be challenged.]
Julian, You should do some desk research before blurting the standard Labour response.
A quick search takes you here:
http://www.nso.gov.mt/statdoc/document_file.aspx?id=3507.
On a two year period, there was an increase in 5000 people who were gainfully employed.
At the same time, the number of people registering for work fell. And, all this was during the time of an economic crisis that has shaken the entire world with Europe being the most hard hit. Keep in mind that the first signs of economic crisis started showing when the dotcom bubble burst in the early 2000s.
These are net figures which means that they include positive and negative changes in the labour force.
An increase in employment does not necessarily result in an increase in GDP.
Anyway, here’s GDP for you: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:MLT&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp%20malta. The data is from World Bank and, if I am not mistaken, there appears to be a growth trend.
Now if that is not job creation or wealth generation then Labour mean something completely different and we’re doomed.
It’s half way through the election campaign, Labour have not yet published their electoral programme, and when asked about job creation, Joe Muscat’s standard response is: “we’ll tell you in due time”.
The ‘elve’ remark is uncalled for. I merely pointed out to Anthony Briffa that the graph shows unemployment levels – you seem to concur – and that one cannot extrapolate from it anything regarding the actual number of gainfully employed, which are the data required to verify the ‘20,000 new jobs’ claim.
Incidentally, according to the same source (Eurostat) Malta’s unemployment rate and the number of unemployed rose slightly between 2008 and 2012 by 0.7% and 3,000 respectively. Again, this does not mean that the number of gainfully employed did not increase. Yet the 20,000 figure does not tally.
Please, aJS and others – stop assuming that if one doesn’t take whatever the PN claims as sacrosant then hs/she must be supporting the PL and their policies or whatever (I certainly am not). Isn’t this supposed to be a forum for the critically minded?
GDP figures are merely indicators of the wealth produced in a particular year. Taken in isolation they say very little about an economy’s fundamentals. The US’s GDP figures were grand just before the dot com and housing bubbles exposed that economy for what it really was. Will the same happen to us when, say, EU funds dry up or when the government is forced to cut back on spending?
That’s it, Anthony Briffa: “the gullible will not understand this graph” but if Joseph Muscat dares to explain it to them and they in their turn manage to understand it, the latter would say “thanks Joe and addio Joe”.
Are you sure this is the ‘unemployment graph ‘ in Europe and not ‘ id-deni ta ziemel li ghandek int bhalissa’?
Do you know why there is unemployment in Malta? Because there are very many people who just do not want to work.
Some people can’t understand figures, let alone “pictures” made from figures.
And anyway, who’s to say you didn’t make this up?
No person is more blind than he who won’t see.
[Daphne – It’s a Eurostat graph, Reuben. Aside from the fact that I take serious objection to being accused of fraud, I would have to be either insane or stupid (and I am neither) to fake a Eurostat graph that can be double-checked easily precisely because it’s a Eurostat graph. And on a slightly more pertinent note, it is exceedingly rich that somebody who is a self-professed Jesus freak and True Believer in a Faith Creed needs to touch the wounds, so to speak, of a Eurostat graph in case it’s “made up”. But I’m guessing here that you just don’t get the irony of that. I really don’t mind how you believe in, say, the Virgin Birth (I respect religion) but please don’t tell me that you believe in the Virgin Birth but doubt the authenticity of Eurostat statistics.]
I never said I doubted the authenticity of the thing. My point is that if one doesn’t want to see, one won’t see – despite all the graphs you can dig out.
Truth hurts.
So, after three weeks of campaigning, we can see that:
PL started with a bang but is quickly fizzling to a pop;
PN started slowly and is quickly ramping up.
With all the half-baked powerpoint ideas about energy and tablets and what not the PL are quickly becoming a what-could-have-been party; the PN are like a steamroller – slow to start but when on a run, unstoppable.
Hopefully by week 9 the messages will have been understood clearly and those with some brains can choose.
Now, any bets?
[Daphne – Unfortunately, allamana, the nature of representative democracy is such that it’s not only those with some brains who can choose who gets to represent them. If there are more people without brains than people with some brains, then we will get a prime minister who represents their choice.]
Ara int fiex tifhem fil-great depression. First and foremost it was a financial recession and not an economic one, that is why Malta kept its momentum, because as I already explained to you we had no expertise to be involved in toxic derivatives. I assure you that if we had the expertise we would have involved ourselves. I hope you read when the General Theory before you came up with the Great Depression dalghodu.
The Prime Minister is wrong to say that he created 20,000 jobs because every year 4000 students graduated.
1. He is including those who graduated, got a scholarship and left the island.
2. Who read a postgraduate in Malta, graduated twice
3. Those that retired, where replaced by new graduates
4. Those willing and able to work decreased, because they gave up to find a good job (discouraged worker effect)
5. The employment in the Public sector increased
Besides that, all the financial companies that opened in Malta all they do is back office work. It is the antithesis of a successful career in Finance. Jahasra kemm huma stupidi jikkuntentaw back office work.
Yes we need a change in direction. Isn’t it too obvious.
[Daphne – People like you make me desperate. Quite frankly, you’re not even fit for the jobs you claim here to despise, and yet you want something better. In true Labour fashion, you don’t seem to realise that brilliant jobs are generally for brilliant people, good jobs for good people and smart jobs for smart people. The only exception to this rule appears to be the post of Labour leader/Labour prime minister.]
Who the hell wants to work in a back office after reading a postgraduate degree in finance. No wonder they stay in the UK. The jobs I despise which I have every right to do are not self fulfilling. They are only self fulfilling for those graduates who want to stay on this island. That’s why they are happy because they don’t know better.
When you leave the island and study Finance in a British University, come back and find back office work then you say ah these are the 20,000 jobs that Dr. Gonzi boasts about.
If I make you despair you drive me nuts.
[Daphne – Oh, so that’s why there are so many economists fighting for space in JosephMuscat.com. It’s because they don’t want jobs in back-office work.]
Luigi is right on the facts, but wrong on the interpretation.
True, good jobs are hard to find, because there are many more applicants than there are posts.
But the job situation in Malta is precisely the same as the rest of Europe. Good jobs are hard to find the world over. Because, in the end, how many graduate positions can you create for seven and a half billion mewling cabbages?
The point, Luigi, is that you cannot decide who to vote for on the basis of this fact.
Joseph Muscat won’t make a blind bit of difference to the job situation. Believe me, because I’ve been there and I’ve seen it all. Right or left, Labour or Conservative, what counts is intelligent leadership.
Merkel’s, for instance, or Putin’s (yes, Daphne, Putin). Joseph Muscat strikes me as being unintelligent. Quite apart from never having done a blind bit of real work in his life.
Unlike you, he’s never had to struggle to find a job. Or money. Or a wife. So why should you vote for him?
[Daphne – Re the wife bit, H P. No man struggles to find a wife, only to find a woman he actually wants to marry. Hence Muscat, but I’ll be kind.]
That’s what I meant.
Mur gibek tghix taht is-socjalisti ta Mintoff. Kemm kont tibki kuljum.
Meanwhile, in Cuckoo-land, Yana Mintoff writes:
“Many others are earning the minimum wage, or like the care worker I just met who earns only €4 an hour. Many others cannot find work. Their strife is papable.”
“Papable”. Typo or Freudian slip? It’s a typical Papa Mintoff manouevre she’s trying to pull on us all.
Read the rest here:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130127/opinion/Poverty-in-Maltese-society-justice-equality-and-peace.454952
But now JosephMuscat.com wants us to like his Facebook page:
“If our campaign manages to get 25,000 ‘likes’, we will set a new record for Maltese politics! Will you browse to our Facebook page and help us get over the line today…?”
Are you FLIPPING KIDDING ME? What is this waste of time and spam? What does Facebook have to do with running a country? What is this MALTA TAGHNA ILKOLL gimmick?
Front page headline from the English Newspaper “Sur in English”, the main English newspaper in the Costa del Sol, Spain, dated Friday 25 January 2013
SUR IN ENGLISH
Unemployment up to 35% in the province of Malaga
The latest active population survey takes the national jobless figure close to six million
At the end of 2012 there were 275,400 unemployed in the province of Malaga (35.29% of the active population) and as many as 5,965,400 in Spain as a whole (26.6%).
These are the results of the latest Economically Active Population Survey (EPA) carried out by the National Statistics Institute every three months. The figure for Malaga is 12,500 higher than in the third quarter of 2012 and 23,700 more than at the end of 2011.
The survey also revealed that in ten per cent of households in Spain all of the members are out of work and unemployment among the under-25s has shot up to 55% nationally.
Andalucía is the Spanish region with the highest unemployment rate, 35.86%.
There are different phrases that one can use with regards needing a ‘change of government’ or not.
All of them in the English (or American) language :”better the devil you know” “better safe than sorry”and ” if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.
Nowadays the PL or the MLP or the members of IL-MUVIMENT PROGRESSIV, whatever they are calling themselves right now, seem to be very fond of passing remarks in English – maybe not of these particular ones though.
I am sure Malta would have massaged the unemployment figures to make them look better.
Look at Italy, the trend seems stable since the late eighties, this can’t be possible, many Italians are leaving Italy for jobs abroad.
The Guardian also has an interesting tool when it comes to measuring growth despite the economic woes. Click on explore mode and see how Malta has fared (pretty well btw). http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/interactive/2012/dec/19/booming-world-growth-thailand-turkey-interactive?intcmp=122
The decision by Malta Today to release the ‘scoop’ on alleged corruption in Enemalta, right now on the eve of the general election, when this was probably in their hands months ago, has given Labour the opportunity to crawl back to their favourite corner, built on ‘lanzit’, jealousy and general hatred for anybody better than them.
I moreover stand to be convinced that commission paying is actual corruption – I have just paid an estate agent thousands of euros as commission for brokering a property sale – is the agent corrupt?
In three international recessions, two minor (1991 Gulf War, 2000 dot.com bubble) and the latest, longest and deepest one since the Great Depression, a Nationalist government kept the economy growing, creating jobs and reducing unemployment.
In contrast, Labour in the 1980s kept Malta in deep recession long after the international recession had ended in 1983. Labour managed to reduce unemployment from a persistently high 10% (registered unemployed; that’s 4% now in Malta) only in the last few weeks before the 1987 election employing upwards of 8,000 people in government departments and companies.
In good international times too, Labour manages to ruin our economy. In the 1970s, Labour hid high unemployment in labour corps and military corps. And in 1997-98, in benign economic times and with oil at just 12 dollars a barrel, they managed to increase unemployment.
Vote Labour, get no labour.
.
Il-hbieb tal-hbieb, barunijiet, korruzzjoni. All back to 1996 with Alfred Sant and Joseph Muscat helping him out in that campaign. La storia si ripete.
THIS is billboard material.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130128/local/anglu-farrugia-angered-by-alfred-mifsud-declaration.455087
There may be trouble ahead.
This graph certainly gives the dinosaurs and their keeper the creeps.
When the rest of Europe was thriving and flourishing in the seventies and eighties our local record was :
Il korp tal-pijunieri (various editions)
Dirghajn il-Maltin
Izra u Rabbi
Bahhar u Sewwi
Id-Dejma
Kalaxlokk
Exchange control
Wage freeze
Issikar tac-cinturin
No water, electricity or telephone lines.
No computers.
No cordless telephones.
No colour television.
Bulk buying of filth.
Student Haddiem
No ‘rea’l doctors in state hospitals.
No ………..nothing.
If those were golden years I just cannot think of a suitable adjective for the past ten years or so.
The tables have been turned.
Thanks to everyone knows who.
One of Labour’s proposals is directed at students doing part-time work.
He called it a new stream of revenue.
Madness, you say?
What’s really batshit crazy is the PN’s latest proposal to offer €500 to all 21 year olds for a flight to a European destination of their own choice.
[Daphne – It’s actually to study a foreign language. Don’t do the Labour thing and twist it to make it sound like a holiday. Also, there’s already quite a good scholarship scheme going for overseas study, and I don’t see you making fun of that by saying that young people are being given EU/Malta government funds to ‘go abroad’.]
What are they calling this scheme? Il-Korp tal-Vjaġġaturi? Siefer u Skopri?
And yet here we are, counting our pennies and running online petitions because eligible voters living abroad are flown in on flights subsidised with taxpayer money.
[Daphne – That’s NOT why the petition’s going. It has nothing to do with the cost of the flights (dear God, must you be so utilitarian?). It’s about the PRINCIPLE INVOLVED. If you have the right to elect your government, you should not be forced to return to your country to do it when you can just as easily do it by other means.]
“[Daphne – It’s actually to study a foreign language.]”
No, not necessarily.
It’s €500 to go abroad (no other requirements) and €1,000 if you go there with the intent of following a language course, as you can easily confirm here: https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/558361_467145923348299_989628413_n.jpg
Don’t twist the facts.
Qeghdin Sew just doesn’t see realise to what extent Alternattiva have become utterly dodgy.
They will blast an incentive to our human capital, whereas 600 million handed through a direct order to the gas lobby requires further study.
Cassola and Cacopardo have so much to answer to.
If held upside down this graph would come in very useful to the LP and its dirty tricks propaganda department to the great comfort of its gullible victims.
The power station that exploded in Cyprus generated electricity for a portion of the island, but yet it had a negative ripple effect on the economy and is estimated to cost EUR 400 – 600 to rebuilt. However, Cyprus was ‘lucky’ that this particular power station was not the sole provider of energy.
In our case, the inept Joey and his entourage of amateurs, want to locate 3 LNG tankers and the berthing docks for the new massive ships close to the power station. This is sheer madness. Even storing the tankers a few kms away is crazy, let alone next to the power station. The situation is a freaking time bomb.
If something horrible had to happen Malta will experience a blackout, not only for a few hours, but for entire years since a new power station will not be built overnight. Some people might think that this is an exaggeration, the mindset is somehow limited.
The madness of the whole situation is not only that Malta is giving a private company the monopolistic power to supply energy and hold Malta to ransom in the future, but also putting the entire nation at risk of a long=term blackout
The video below can be considered fiction in other countries where they have multiple sources of energy, but can become reality in Malta where we will depend on one power station located next to a timebomb.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEvFX3tzHl4
Astrid has come out really forcefully against the two LNG tanks, hasn’t she?
The last time I saw her she was collecting indigenous creatures where Konrad’s tanks are going to be placed.
As absurd as her voice and comments.
‘Missoni’s bag taught to washed ashore in Curacao’
Maltastar headline news posted at 13.29
The argument is lost on people who do not understand how an economy works, much less the importance of the trust factor.
It is no coincidence that such people tend to vote Labour.
This looks interesting. It’s like foreseeing Malta’s future under Muscat and his Cheap Dozen
http://it.finance.yahoo.com/notizie/slovenia-crisi-politica-ed-economica-intervento-ue-132909947.html
Not my words. ‘Forgive them father, for they know not what they do’.
When people talk about change, what they mean is a change of personnel, not a change of policy.
They want to remove the current incumbents, and bring in fresh blood. Therein lies the delusion.
A few posts ago, Jozef or Ciccio (or maybe it was Troy) jokingly urged me to vote Labour so I could boost my career with a meteoric rise through the ranks.
It won’t happen.
Everyone that could have been promoted, be they PN or Labour, has been. Those of us who’ve been passed over by a PN administration will still be passed over under Labour.
Anyone who is currently a nobody, or whose career is floundering, who thinks they’ll be catapulted to power under Labour is severely deluded.
Look at those faces. Yes, them: the directors, CEOs, chairmen and women, committee and board members, esperti and advisors and the rest. That list won’t change by one jot under Labour.
Labour isn’t change. Labour is just like PN with the good bits left out.
Baxxter, I do not think it was me who made that suggestion. The only change Labour can bring to anyone like us is misery.
This is exactly the graph I was referring to a few days back when I wrote that this is the kind of information I would like to see on PN posters and advertising billboards – hard irrefutable and unbiased facts.
The graph says it all – for those literate enough to understand what it means.
Make the comparison:
a) Joe tells the taxpayer to invest Eur 600 million over the next two years and forget about EU funding for his energy projects, impact and security assessments, tender process, shipping problems – why? Because Joe promises you 25% reduction in a year from now.
b) Lorry tells the taxpayer to invest in an interconnector (co- funded by the EU) to be ready in a years time and get an immediate night tariff regime which will allow everyone (home and commercial) to use their brains to reduce their bills (timers that go into a wall bracket cost about 10 bucks) and to then invest in a gas pipeline so that in five years (co- funded by the EU) we are on a mix of clean electricity generated on the EU grid and gas piped into the BWSC plant conversion.
What Joe does not tell you is that he can only reduce 25% for the stratum of small consumers and that he will raise the actual per unit price across the board for higher and commercial consumers by 30% plus and then reduce it by 25%. This is the only way this promise can go and his secret studies and commercially sensitive workings confirm this.
What Lorry tells you is that I’m not going give bullshit guarantees that he can find energy market prices that are fixed for ten years. Only Konrad can do this and now even Joe admitted on Xarabank that there is always a “mechanism” which allows for fluctuations. And yes, Konrad Its a Fact has been tossed over the rail.
So far Joe’s dream energy plan has already taken out two of his buddies – in time, it will take us all out. That’s metaphorical – when it comes to living around Delimara, it ain’t completely so.
And if you listen carefully, Joe is already making space for himself to actually drop his proposal immediately after the election and to go for the Lorry option. He says he is “not against” the interconnector or the pipeline. Joe knows that being tied up to a 25 year contract with one multinational predator is a recipe for economic and political dependence. But what does he care?
Please don’t call our PM Lorry. His name is Lawrence.
Joseph Muscat made it a habit to ridicule the GonziPN slogan but it would appear he was secretly envious and is now trying to copy the idea (so, what’s new?) by presenting Labour as josephmuscatdotcom. In fact he has gone beyond GonziPN because the party acronym is not even part of the new name.
It’s just him: josephmuscat. And of course it has to have dotcom attached so we don’t forget how cool and hip he is.
To add to this:
1. http://www.pl.org.mt and http://www.mlp.org.mt no longer exist (although still registered).
2. http://www.partitlaburista.org redirects to http://www.josephmuscat.com.
3. PL, Partit Laburista and the rest do not feature anywhere in the josephmuscat.com site.
Unfortunately for them, as Joseph’s surname is Muscat, I refuse to call the Party With No Name anything but the Muscat Labour Party, or MLP.
That keeps things all nice and tidy.
No evidence of the 20,000 jobs
The evidence is there for all those who want to see it.
Also for those who have the brains to see it.
The evidence is :
NO korpijiet tal-pijunieri.
NO dejma.
NO bahhar u sewwi.
NO izra u rabbi.
NO dirghajn il-Maltin.
NO kalaxlokk.
NO wage freeze.
350,000 cars on the roads and myriads of schoolchildren with smartphones.
The evidence is in the ‘Gainfully Occupied Population’ figures as published by the NSO which shows an increase of almost 19 thousand jobs between 2008 and 2012.
If you add the new jobs which replaced the ones that were lost you’ll see that well over 20 thousand were created.
Labour ministers feel good not when there is high employment, but when they have queues of people seeking ‘gopps’ at their door. It makes them feel needed, important and powerful.
Exactly. “The minister gave me a colour TV (against a donation)”; or “the minister let me have a telephone line. He loves me. How kind of him.”
That was the litany of many a Maltese in Socialist times and the minister felt like a god.
Labour says PN’s projections are ‘incredible and unbelievable’.
Wow. Praise indeed.
Next they will be saying they are ‘very ambitious’.
Edward Scicluna was in a panic yesterday. He had to restrain himself from sounding like the realsocialist he really is.
Malta is just a consistent straight line along the 5% on that chart.
Joseph prefers the Spanish, or the Greek curves.
Remember he promised the most feminist government. It’s got to have some curves.
if they all had our salaries and wages their unemployment will be less then ours. ! They usually get their unemployment benefit as much as our wage AND the cost of living is the same OR less .
[Daphne – You are confusing issues, Silvio.]
But we have known this for years now and we have not convinced Joseph, let alone the illiterate masses. Trying now is yet another exercise in futility. Joseph knows it (or should) but he will not shoot his own cunning plan to smithereens.
So now we have it from the horse’s mouth, translate to Alfred Mifsud.
Joseph Muscat has reduced the political game to a football game, and therefore, a leader of a political party equates to a soccer coach.
But Joseph Muscat should realize that there exists a very wide divide.
Whereas a soccer game lasts, at least 90 minutes (bar extra time) and should the result be a negative one, the coach has the benefit of changing his side and tactics so as to achieve a positive result within seven days.
In contrast, the political game lasts a full 5 years and, more important, the result could affect in a very negative manner the lives of individuals and that of the country as a whole.
Daphne, I’m watching Tonio Fenech, Chris Cardona and Arnold Cassola on TVM.
Am I wrong in noticing that over the last week or so the PL’s spokesmen have been making it a point to interrupt and drown out their opponent?
Yes, the Labour canditates have been given a course on how to interrupt during debates.
Notice that they are ALL doing it, even those who normally behaved like civilized humans. The order of the day from Joseph is interrupt or you go.
Cardona put himself between a rock and a hard place yesterday. Cassola, Fenech and Portelli couldn’t believe their ears.
He actually engaged Tonio a good minute that Labour’s NOT building a new power station.
The Malta graph can change dramatically when Joseph Muscat takes over in a few weeks time.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152369264720727&set=a.10150673476180727.700268.774420726&type=1&theater
Go to this Facebook page and see as to how nostalgic some people are for Desserta. These people need help.
Ghax issa Joseph Muscat irrikonoxxa li anke l-poplu li ghandu mohhu fuq oghnqu qed jinduna li l-progett tal-power station ma’ jaghmilx sens, u anke li ma’ jista’ jmaqdar xejn dwar il-progetti li ghamel il-gvern Nazzjonalista ghax il-poplu mhux bahnan u dak li akkwista bil-ghaqal ta’ min dejjem mexxieh il-quddiem ma’ jridx jitilfu f’hakka t’ ghajn, jew ihallas ghal xi progett li ma’ jaghmilx sens minn butu a skapitu ta’ gennata ta’ Joseph Muscat biex jaghmel xi erba’ tal-klikka miljunarji kif dejjem sar fi zmien gvernijiet Laburisti.
Allura, ergajna dorna ghal ghal istess diska tal-korruzzjoni li s’issa hadd qatt ma’ kien kapaci igib ebda prova imma allegazzjonijiet u stejjer fantazmi biss.
Il- korruzzjoni issir zgur meta jsiru progetti minghajr ma’ tinhareg tender jew li tara x’tivinta’ biex tiskapola l’Awtoritajiet bhal MEPA u ohrajn ghal gwadan personali ta’ xi erba’ tal-klikka.
Jekk Joseph irid ikun jaf kif issir il-korruzzjoni jista’ jistaqsi lil Perit Vella, lil Joe Grima, Alex Sciberras Trigona, Leo Brincat u hafna ohrajn, ghax dawk ghadhom mimmlijin bil-ghomor u jiftakru sew x’tip ta’ korruzzjoni kien hawn fi zmien il-Labour meta huma kienu Ministri.
Izda Joseph Muscat dak iz-zmien irid inessieh lil Maltin ta’ rieda tajba li Alla biss jaf x’imrar rajna f’dak iz-zmien taht dawn il-Ministri li diversi minnhom bil-wicc tost kollu qed jippretendu li jergghu ikunu Ministri.
Imma l-poplu Malti m’ghadux gifa ghax bil-Partit Nazzjonalista fil-gvern eduka ruhu u taghllem sew sabiex jaghraf mit-tajjeb ghal hazin u mill-gideb ghal verita.
Not sure if this is the right place to say this, but did anyone watch Chris Cardona on Close up just now?
Did I hear correctly? Did he say that Labour are not building a power station?
Ara bonsua. Practicing the night washes jew tirkupra from a migrane. In any case have a good night.
[Daphne – It is only ladies of leisure who have the luxury of faffing around with a washing-machine during the day, Luigi. And since I have never been one, my laundry has always been done at night. And in households that are more progressive than ours, it is not only done at night, but done at night by – please draw breath here – MEN. Clearly, it is news to you that washing-machines do not need daylight to operate, or women to operate them.]
Ah imagine a block of flats timing the washing machines at 10pm, at midnight, at 2am, at 4am. Tiehu gost bihom. How progressive.
[Daphne – Please don’t be pathetic. Why on earth would anyone want to time a washing-machine to start a load at 2am? Normal people (like me) just do a load before going to bed. And if you go to bed at 9pm, you’ll still be up in time to get a load in before the 6am cut-off. These are not novel concepts, Luigi. Don’t act like a Stonge Age islander who’s just seen his first car.]
The only pathetic man in this charade is Dr. Gonzi. How low, eh imagine EFA jghid il-mara (u mhux ir-ragel ukoll) taghmel il- hasla bil-lejl. U le!
[Daphne – So unbelievably atavistic. What sort of social background do you come from exactly, where men ‘jghidu lill-mara biex taghmel il-hasla’. It is completely outside my experience, and I thought your lot were meant to be the progressive ones.]
Dr. Gonzi said that. For your information I live on my own thus I do my own washings and exactly with a timer at 5 am so by6.30 I just hang the clothes. But can you imagine explaining this procedure to a housewife. The answe is no.
[Daphne – Dak li ghandek, you live on your own and do your laundry. That’s why you think a normal cycle takes 90 minutes. What do you do to those clothes of yours – roll them about in mud before chucking them in the machine?]
White clothes take 90mins especially shirts.
[Daphne – My, my, my. Now you’re going to teach a WOMAN (because in your world it’s the women who are the laundry specialists) who’s run a household for almost 30 years – a household which included three babies, three toddlers and three teenage boys at different periods – how to do laundry. Tsk tsk tsk. These Labour voters… Listen to me carefully, Luigi: the cycle has nothing to do with the colour of the clothes but with the amount of dirt those clothes contain. If you need to wash your shirts for 90 minutes to get them clean, the solution is to scrub your neck every morning before putting them on. And if you still get a brown line along your collars, the solution to that is not a 90-minute hot cycle but to put concentrated detergent along the mark, leave it for a while, then scrub it off with good soap and an old toothbrush. And a good antiperspirant will avoid those annoying yellow patches under the arms. Then all you need is a 30-minute cycle at 40C. Now run along please and leave me in peace.]
It always baffles me when someone remarks that he has been “reduced to switching off lights and tv sets after the kids are done with them” and this remark is met with resounding applause.
When is waste ever a good thing? Such a seemingly trivial thing shows the chasm in mentality.
Laburisti want to switch on every light and appliance, regardless of whether they are required or not, as if there is no tomorrow, while on the other hand, the PN encourages you to consume precious resources in an intelligent manner.
K
I had one of those once, grumbling away at his desk in the drawing office. He would go on forever about bills, when I asked him what his consumption patterns were, it turned out he had AC in every room of the house.
The idiot hadn’t even bothered considering a centralised system, oversized split units all over the place.
I would walk into the room at 4.30pm, piles of paper in hand, just to see his face drop.
You know, Luigi, since the conversation is now scraping the scrote of imbecility, let me just say this: I would never ask my Ritienne to use electrical devices at night. Our household believes in good old hand-cranking.
But really. Are you voting on the basis of a few cents’ worth of savings, when the future of European civilisation is at stake? Wake up and grab that Grecian urn, caress those terracottaed curves and hear the call of an anguished continent.
I make no apologies for the melodrama, for this is 2003 all over again.
And do you think you can convince a housewife to wash her clothes with a timer. Anzi taf sew int kif jahsbuha because you have been writing about them and that they consume a lot of detergents for years now.
[Daphne – I admit that it will probably be really difficult with those progressive ones who habitually vote Labour, but fortunately, it’s not my problem. I’m not married to them, nor do I have to pay their electricity bill. I suppose, to use your method, their husbands can “tell” them.]
“when unemployment actually DECREASES in the world’s worst financial crisis since the 1930s”
Ajma, everyone getting excited about a few insignificant spikes or dips lasting a few months.
If you had to smoothen Malta’s line to get the long-term trend (something anyone with basic knowledge of forecasting techniques will tell you), you’ll see it remained fairly constant. When there were short runs of fluctuation, the variation was minimal (compare that with how unemployment exploded in Greece).
It’s technically correct to say that in the 12 years data was collected for Malta, the situation neither improved nor worsened. That’s what the bloody graph is saying.
I have just returned from Athens. This graph puts what I saw into perspective.
My client’s team (the company is a major corporation) are now working three days per week in order to keep their job but at a lower salary.
Some volunteer extra days to get the job done and the company moving. Most working mums have taken their toddlers out of childcare, because it’s not free, and have formed a group babysitting at home.
Outside you feel guilty spending money, even at takeouts. Even the tourist centre felt dreary.
When I mentioned Malta, I was faced with: Aah but you’re rich and have a good government, free university and hospitals. Many want to come and live/work in Malta as so many Spaniards have done already.
And we Maltese are squabbling about the political party that has done all this.
Luigi, it’s not all about the washing machine, the fridge, freezer, air conditioner, geyser. While I’m writing this, it’s 00.45am, and I’m still watching TV. Many people work an afternoon shift, and it’s easy for them to put a load on before they go to bed.
In England, Canada, Australia they all have this cheap rate. Luigi,please stop complaining, we had it so good under this government, and we have bad experience of Labour.
Do you have an employment rate graph?
@ HP
It’s not really Dr. Gonzi’s policies that irritate me but his confessional stands towards basic civil rights. Apart from that I find the man lacking leadership. He ended up with three of his own MPs voting against his party line.
[Daphne – Groan.]
Me too. Which is why I’ll vote PN, so Lawrence Gonzi can resign, and we’ll have Simon Busuttil as Malta’s secular, sensible, articulate, intelligent, urbane, cosmopolitan, liberal, progressive prime minister.
I want Busuttil in Castille, not on the opposition benches. That’s the bottom line.
WOW Baxter,sounds like you are in Love.
It’s time to face Ritienne,and the cat,and tell them
:Goodbye,I must follow my heart”
Good Luck and I wish you happiness and with some effort lots of little fairies.
Of all the imbecilities you’ve written, this must rank as the most idiotic. Let’s have it out, shall we? You’re convinced I’m gay and attracted to Simon Busuttil, who you say is gay too.
Wouldn’t that sort of voting choice by sexual attraction be a Labour thing, rather than mine? Just look at the way you people – women AND especially men – get all tingly at the sight of the man-child you call “Joseph”.
If I described Busuttil in those terms it’s because of the contrast with our current political leadership, including the PM. He is everything they should be. Yes, he can spell and punctuate. That, to me, is the basis of everything else. His sentences make sense, unlike the slime spluttered by Labour’s wonderboys.
Do peep outside your Maltese cage from time to time, Silvio. You may even meet decision-maker and leaders from other countries. I have. It’s my line of work. Those among them who know Simon Busuttil hold him in high regard, and I’m talking about people who work on the dossiers that count, not members of the International Guild For Saving The Foetus, or Chinese civil servants. Ask around, and you’ll find that your clown Muscat is a complete nobody in the corridors of power.
You know jack shit. You yap and bray on the outside, getting the occasional glimpse at things on Net TV or One News, or on our “local” papers. And you think you can pass judgement. I’m inside that goddamn citadel. Every single one of my targets on this blog, I’ve seen at close quarters.
So don’t start getting all sarcastic with me. Just shut up and learn.
As for Ritienne, her vast bulk and Babylonian visage revolts me, but it’s the best I can do. You see, Silvio, I have no illusions about the beauty of life. It’s one hard fucking slog. And no sunshine policy can ever change that.
Hi.Baxter, Was it the part of “the little fairies” that set you on fire?
What a barrage, that’s the way I like your comments.
Now that I seem to have hit the right button,More to come.
Wonder whether you’ve seen Joseph’s proposal to incentivise female participation in the workforce.
It’s a tax credit of 2000 euros for the first year, open to women over 35 and who’ve never worked.
He explained this would encourage, his words, ‘dawn in-nisa jidhlu lura fid-dinja tax-xoghol.’
Then there’s the other one related to students doing part time work, increase the15% ceiling to 10K.
Fine, and for how long does he expect students to work part time? remain students ie.
Funny how all he’s concerned with is part time work.
When Tonio Fenech pointed out the fallacy in proposing to build a power station in two years, Chris Cardona interrupted him saying it won’t be a power station.
This on today’s Close Up.
Based on the latest available NSO published figures for the population in Malta, in 2008 there were 413,609 persons while in 2010 there were 417,617. This means that the population rose by 4,008 over two years; in other words an average of 2,004 giving an average of only slightly less than 5.5 per day.
There have been only a daily average of 5.5 births per day (note the deliberate interchange of words from population growth to number of births)! Extending the same logic it was sheer madness to have such a large maternity wing in Mater Dei for there were no more than 6 births daily. Extending it further, as the population is growing and not declining, there was no need to build a mortuary.
The logical conclusion would be that the MP’s on the Government’s side should be lynched for wasting so much funds to finance the building of the Maternity Wing and more so, the mortuary.
This is the same logic being applied by the Labour Party to question the number of jobs that have been created over the last 5 years by subtracting the gainfully employed figures for 2008 from what we have today.
In reality that percentage might be lower. We should take into the account the people that work and register.