Today we discovered that Manuel Mallia doesn’t know what a billion is, presumably because he hasn’t got one at home.
He thought he was on his way to becoming a billionaire, but now the goal-posts have been moved by 900 million euros.
That Manuel Mallia can count millions we know for a fact. If he can count half a million, then he can count a whole million and a few other millions on top of that.
But we know that he hasn’t yet got to be a billionaire, and it’s not from his parliamentary declaration of assets. It’s from the fact that he doesn’t know that a billion is a thousand million, and thinks it is just a hundred million.
Times of Malta reports him as saying in parliament this evening:
The Government, Dr Mallia said, did not want to be solely dependent on the people’s taxes for income and if just 145 people applied, Malta would get a capital injection of more than €1 billion. This was what worried the Opposition
Mamma mia, x’disastru ta’ bniedem: 145 x Eur650,000 is Eur94,250,000, which is not even 100 million, but let’s forgive him for rounding it off.
What we can’t forgive him for is thinking that a hundred million is a billion. This is a cabinet minister, for heaven’s sake. He’s running the country and he can’t count beyond his bank balance and his stash of cash.
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Imagine Manwel Mallia instead of Gonzi, negotiating the EU Budget settling for 100 million thinking he managed he got a billion for Malta.
2X2=3
It could just be another lie and he knows full well what a billion is.
Besides the gross error in thinking that 100 million is a billion, Manuel Mallia forgets something VERY important: how much would each citizen cost us (in terms of free health care services, free education, etc etc) over the span of his or her lifespan?
In Parliament on Friday, Jabba the Hutt made more than one reference to the ‘bloggers’, and they were not complementary references.
Shades of China.
Sometimes I wonder why he is referred to as a top criminal lawyer but then on thinking further I…
With this IQ he should be back in a courtroom contesting parking tickets.
Why did he say 145 people and not 150? When giving examples it’s more usual to use round figures (no, not the minister himself. I mean numbers).
The round number in this case is the amount Mallia expects to rake in – for the country, I hasten to add, as he would never dream of pocketing a slice for himself.
You are right, Antoine. Who is to say that, in fact, the figure of euro 500,000 of cash at home was not just a round number?
So now Muscat & Partners have appointed a civil servant as regulator of the Buy-a-Passport scheme. Bluff and playing with mirrors.
The real problem is that nobody can supervise the enormous flow of dubious cash from buyers to Henley & Partners, and then where that cash ultimately ends up.
The ironclad gift of exclusivity to Henley & partners and the irrational exclusion of all others can only support one conclusion.
Whether that will happen or not, this scheme is just MADE for cuts and kickbacks.
What’s the use of having a Regulator who draws up reports when ultimately the final decision rests with the Bullfrog? And we will not know what this final decision is.
The appointment of a regulator and a committee are just a smokescreen for propaganda purposes.
Godwin Grima will make a mistake if he accepts the position when he knows that it is such a divisive issue. Un unworthy end to an otherwise excellent career.
If Labour had no qualms to compromise the Maltese identity and reputation, Labour will find no problem in compromising Mr. Grima’s reputation.
If I were in Mr. Grima’s shoes, I would not accept this position.
And the opposition should not have anything to do with the regulator. It is not a role of the opposition to regulate the citizenship.
Perhaps he’s planning to sell 1450 passports at Eur650,000.
If you think in terms of families, 1 billion would mean over 5000 new Maltese citizens a year.
Suddenly 36,000 has taken on a different meaning.
I would think this is the aim.
———-
Remember that when George Bush Junior was contesting his first elections he downplayed his interest in Foreign Policy so as not to alarm voters that he would walk the same path as his father before him.
U dan kif qed jintefah kull sekonda? Dalwaqt jisplodi.
U nghiduha kif inhi – mhux hu biss qed jehxien imma kwazi l-kabinett Laburista kollu.
It is possible that he had 1450 people in mind over a period of five years. So he got the first figure wrong.
These is no one exact definition of what a billion is, some say a million million, others a thousand million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion
[Daphne – Oh, do go and bury your head in a pot of soup, David. You are SO tedious. A billion is universally acknowledged to be a thousand million. In British English, it used to be a million million, but that is now archaic. A billion, in British English as in American English, is a thousand million. In any case, if you are trying to defend Manuel Mallia here, you are about as smart as he is: a million million puts him even further off the mark of what he means as a hundred million. A word to the wise: when looking up the meanings of words, don’t use Wikipedia; use a dictionary.]
Well, David is a future lawyer, so it figures. Carry on, David.
Erm, that would really mess up the global economy and financial trading would it?
Fancy that, multiplying your investment by a thousand using Wikipedia. Poor Lehman, why didn’t they think of that?
Dr Mallia, a billion and bit on top of that, is what Gonzi got from the EU and which your party now finds on a plate to spend and squander on your party’s friends and friends of friends (or their wives).
The Malta budget has an income of about Eur 3 billion. So Dr Mallia must be thinking that this bit of magic will generate a bonus of one-third of the annual budget.
U iwa Def. Issa disgha mitt miljun l-hawn, u disgha mitt miljun l-hemm, mhux xorta?
Gives “iudex non calculat” a new meaning…
If they are going to generate so much money, we will be heading back to the days of
“Money no problem””
I’m not sure who said it,
Can anyone tell me.
Sur Loporto, probabbli meta qalha kien ghadek iccapcaplu dak iz-zmien, le?
This morning in parliament, when speaking about the due diligence to be undertaken instead of saying double checking, he twice used the phrase double standard.
Freudian slip perhaps? After all Shiv Nair was welcomed with open arms, surely not due to his ethical business record and upstanding allegiances. So ‘double standard’ makes sense.
Let’s help him out with the arithmetic using metaphors he can understand.
1,000,000 (1 million) = 2 mattresses
1,000,000,000 (1 billion) = 2,000 mattresses