Textile manufacturer’s wife is happy with her Eur110 hand-out cheque and thinks that it is better than a punch
This is what progressive socialism has come to: the government sending a Eur110 cheque to a high-earning lawyer married to the owner of Bortex, who then takes to Facebook to behave as though she was waiting for her Lm47 in old money to pay for her weekly grocery shopping, failing which her child would starve.
As for the crowd of comments beneath her post, there is a salutary lesson to be learned about the psychological make-up of a large number of people, who fail to see the bigger picture and who concentrate instead on the small potatoes.
It’s a small-potatoes mindset.
This is a lesson Muscat learned well from Mintoff: if you give people a cheque, however small, they will ignore the fact that you are screwing up the bigger picture. I used to think the devotion to Mintoff engendered by children’s allowance cheques funded by Muammar Gaddafi in the 1970s – which still survives today – was the result of widespread, deep ignorance (which was really bad then) and mass illiteracy. Now I realise that’s only a part of it.
Muscat gave a newspaper interview fairly recently in which he explained how his paternal grandmother would hand him a Lm1 coin as pocket-money and say ‘Din minghand Mintoff‘.
By the time he grew up, he would have worked out that it wasn’t from Mintoff at all, but his grandmother’s contextual message will have taught him important lessons about how the elector-psyche works in backward societies like Malta’s, even among otherwise intelligent people.
Purely as a side-note, when reading that my first observation was how sad it is to have had that kind of utilitarian childhood, and how it must affect one’s personal development. Whereas people in more highly evolved families which understood the significance of childhood had the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas, Joseph Muscat had the Poison Dwarf.
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Skond il-labour “hawn il-faqar”. Din wahda minnhom ghandu jkun.
What a banal woman.
She remained a Zejtunija.
U tar-rahal t’isfel.
What is wrong with being a Zejtunija? I am very very proud of being a Zejtunija. Not all the people from the south are the same as not all the people from the North are the same. I do not think that you would be pleased when someone offends someone from your same village with a comment that is generic.
There are a lot of intelligent and well educated people in Zejtun so please stop this taboo about Zejtun.
No matter how many countries and places I will live in in my live and wherever my job takes me I will always be a proud Zejtunija.
[Daphne – Anthony Charles, who wrote that comment is from Zejtun himself.]
I am Malti pur and I think the Maltese are stupid. There.
Let’s stop it with this village pride thing. It’s getting tiring.
Marie Benoit is waiting for her cheque as well. She will phone and demand payment if it doesn’t arrive. But then Labour is working, she said.
Joseph Muscat uses the psychology of a dictator to manipulate the masses and the tool is very basic: give the people some cejca (to use one of Duminku’s favourite words) to keep them entertained and then you can do what the f*ck you want because they will not give a damn.
And as one of the greatest dictators once said “It is the great fortune of politicians that people are ignorant” and I cannot agree more on this with him.
[Daphne – Juvenal’s bread and circuses: handing out cheques while paying consultants to the National Festivities Foundation to provide the circuses.]
It was Adolf Hitler who said that ‘it is the good fortune of politicians that people do not think.’
And speaking of poison dwarves – is Marie Benoit hoping for an iced bun too?
‘Tieghi wasal ukoll’ – what is this? Menstruating teenagers?
Malta has always been a land of pirates built for pirates by pirates.
Maltese electors have no ideological leaning. They only have the beggar-and-alms mentality.
They will grovel where they need to in order to hoard things they don’t need.
This is typical of subsistence-islanders and those living in harsh environments. I see it in so many people around me. It is really quite sad.
It is etched in their DNA.
There is now evidence that shows that the experiences of one’s ancestors actually persists in genetic memory. Perhaps this could be why so many Maltese are so very pitiful. It is in our genetic code.
This is better expressed in Italian: Mi fa proprio pena sta gente.
The Malta Independent is miles ahead of Times of Malta, more up to date and also has a table showing all counts and the transfer of votes to other candidates – a picture of the counting process at a glance.
Times of Malta seems to be working normal hours, up to 7pm.
By the way, one of the comments on Ramona Frendo’s Facebook post is by Marie Benoit – is her maiden name Said? I remember a Marie Said who worked at The Evan Laboratories (then the Junior College) in the early Sixties and who resembles her.
[Daphne – Yes.]
I am really, really, really happy for the GWU. Raking in half a million per annum is so socialist. So pseudo-Mintoffian.
The snag is that this cash will not be distributed among the GWU’s faithful. It will remain for the hbied tal-hbieb. At least this is a slight improvement on Mintoffianism where the millions stashed – at the expense of his adulators and the Maltese nation as a whole – only ended up in the pockets of his daughters, pseudo socialists, extreme capitalists.
But good luck to them if this nation is one made of fools gagging for a 100-euro handout when they are hardly on the breadline themselves.
She got a cheque for €110 on car VAT from the government which then took very many times that amount from Bortex in the form of vastly increased road tax on its commercial vehicles. What a twit.
Shhh, Giovanni! Don’t spell it out. We know, she knows and her husband knows that she, personally, stands to lose more than the €110 she’s talking about. But she also knows that those stupid goats out there don’t get it at all.
For all her name-dropping and supposed hobnobbing with ambassadors and the like, it seems Marie Benoit is no better than the small-minded cheque-wavers.
She hasn’t got hers yet but will call about it if it doesn’t arrive.
Yet she fails to see the scandalous ‘liberal’ dishing out of taxpayer money to the Taghna Lkoll qalba. Pathetic.
When in 2009 I got a refund of EUR 4,050 from the Department of Inland Revenue I didn’t make such a fuss about it. Ara vera hawn nies imgewwhin, mejjtin bil-guh.
Id-daqqiet ta ponn jaslu wara, Ramona. Izda mhux ghalik ghax inti u r-ragel tieghek tifilhu ghalihom, imma ghaz-zghar.
Nispera li meta jaslu d-daqqiet ta’ ponn tiftakar f’dan id-diskors u tahseb ftit fiz-zghar. Jew tac-cirku fic-cirku biss jahsbu?
“Also, whoever is not perceived to be a Labour-hater is subjected to attack in one form or another.” (The Times of Malta, Editorial 26/05/2014).
Ladies and gentlemen, let us use our intelligence to rebuild the PN, not try to destroy the PL. If the PL is mainly made up of stupid, semi-literate people as some (not I) say, it should be an easy job unless we are simply content to be arm chair critics.
[Daphne – I think you really need to take a long, hard look at the print, broadcast and internet media owned by the Labour Party and the General Workers Union, Matthew, and ask yourself why the Labour Party chose to put the face of a lone journalist (me) on one of its campaign billboards. Presumably because it was being liberal and progressive, positive not negative, and not subjecting to attack those individuals who Labour hates for failing to buy into the Labour project? Do grow up and stop repeating Labour propaganda. As for Times of Malta, had it done its job properly, much of this would not have happened, so forgive me for not being too impressed.]
With all due respect, I do not need lessons about growing up from you, or anyone else. I believe that it is time to stop blaming the electorate, the media, and everything and everyone, and admit that maybe we are in the wrong, and be humble enough to adapt. To me, that is “growing up”.
[Daphne – We are in the wrong? Speak for yourself. I am not a political party, and I suspect neither are you. The rightness or wrongness of my political views is intrinsic. Neither rightness nor wrongness depends on popularity of choice. If others make choices that are intrinsically wrong and harmful, then of course they are to be blamed. This reluctance to bring others face to face with the consequences of their bad choices is ultimately destructive and yes, childish. Let’s test the logic of your argument by taking it to the extreme, shall we? Who is to be blamed for Adolf Hitler’s rise to power if not the people who supported him? Yes, you most certainly do need to grow up. Very many adults in Malta do: this is Peter Pan territory, where adults behave and think like adolescents.]
Well said, Daphne.
This reluctance to bring others face to face with the consequences of WHAT ONE THINKS ARE their bad choices…..Indeed, I am trying to do just that, because in my opinion, which I believe to be right, the approach being adopted is leading nowhere.
I rest my case.
Labour is working, one of them said.
Yes, busy dishing out other people’s money.
I have never harboured any doubt whatsoever that the majority of my fellow Maltese are petty-minded.
I have always blamed the ridiculously small size of the so-called country for this. Consequently Malta was under the rule of a foreign (and obviously far wealthier) power practically throughout its entire history.
The hakem throwing coins at the kneeling popolin from his carriage.
We still, as a nation, feel we are owed a living.
Mintoff, the begging-bowl of Europe, pretended he was fighting il-Barrani only after the latter refused to cough up more money.
You still hear people gleefully saying “il-Libjani ser ituna z-zejt bl-irhis”.
Very few Maltese people can understand that “there ain’t no such thing like a free lunch”.
It takes centuries to change an ingrained servile and submissive mentality.
Joseph set me on fire.
Then he pissed on me to put out that fire.
Thank you, mighty one.
Labour always dished out fish. When its fish ran out, it stole yours, bit half of it and then dished out what was left to those who voted for it.
The PN gives you the fishing rod to fish for as many fish as you please and it came fishing with you so that those who could not fish were taught to fish so as not to burden the others who could fish already.
But many of those who caught a lot of fish were envious of PN joining the sport as they could no longer patronise the less fortunate fishermen.
So they brought to power a fish-disher again as they could control the number of fish being dished out, keeping the recipients forever grateful for the fish dished out and totally oblivious of the fact that had they a rod to catch some of their own.
And I used to think that to be a lawyer, you have to be intelligent. But when I see the likes of Ramona ‘Meritocracy’ Frendo, Luciano ‘Kohl Rabi’ Busuttil and Franco ‘The Cock’ Debono to mention just a few, I found out that I was wrong.
Then there’s Anglu ‘Cum Louder’ Farrugia.
and Pawlu ‘Jason Micallef’ Borg Olivier
@Augutus. There are lawyers and there are lawyers. Like there are Prime Ministers and there are Prime Miniters
Dumbo, I agree with you, maybe I generalised, but what I meant is that if the persons I mentioned in my previous comment did it, then anybody can do it.
I feel that we are all making a huge mistake and ignoring the forces of ignorance which is basic nature in Malta.
I don’t wish for things to go wrong, but if things go on like this I do not expect more sunshine from the Labour Party. Labour is living off the fat of the previous government.
When all this starts to fade away, which is typical of Labour’s learning from the past, then we will start hearing another song. Labour can’t survive for long, unless a miracle happens and it starts to rain money.
Marie Benoit has always been a rabid anti-Nationalist and an Alfred Sant worshipper. Hope he carries her with him off to Brussels, to sit in his secretariat. The Borgs of Bortex are the original die-hard Mintoffians.
Lino Spiteri is still on their payroll, and so were Leo Brincat, Ronnie Pellegrini and Karm ‘Ekonomista’ Farrugia. Ramona Frendo herself was a Zejtun Labour Party councillor and is the daughter of a woman who ran the Zejtun Labour Party club. Her manner and diction are all false and acquired quite late in life.
A woman who makes 100 euro an hour and who is married to a man who sells thousands of suits every week is happy about receiving a 100 euro cheque from the government. What a weasel chase.
Jifierhu bil loqqom.
Seems to me as if the cheque is to Ramona Frendo as the checked shirt, wide belt and huge buckle were to Mintoff; just a part of the illusion to hoodwink those who do not have two brain cells to knock together.
Paint a picture that someone is one of the masses, a worker happy to get a hundred euros and lo and behold the screaming crowds ignore the business, the contracts, the law practice just as they ignored Mintoff’s wealth and insist he was the champion of the poor.
This government does not suffer from a theory-practice gap. What it suffers from is a theory-practice abyss.
They have, however, a phenomenal marketing machine which enables them to sell ice to the Eskimos – and 110-euro cheques to women married to men with millions.
Wow. A cheque for 110 euros will help keep Dr Ramona in lacy M&S tangas until the next general election.
On the other hand if there was no divorce and separations, she’d die of hunger.
@augustus
What makes you think they made it? Just because they manipulate and exploit a gullible few and strut the street like peppered peacocks, I do not believe any honorable person would want to emulate them.
The problem is that today we even have language problems. For example the synonym for honour – in Malta mind you – is meritocracy. Educated, rich. Intelligent, streetwise. Chic, labour. Fashionable, Michelle. Business, money.
Dumbo, what you is very true but by hook or by crook they made it. Like you I don’t agree with these things but that’s Malta.
I think you’re missing an important psychological point here. Muscat highlights the fact that the PN government took away something from the people and that he is giving it back to them.
In the same way prior to the election the message was conveyed that the PN cabinet was taking Eur500 from the country and giving peanuts in budget rise.
Same with Tonio Fenech. His message then was you, the people, were paying high energy bills while Tonio Fenech was receiving gifts.
Always comparing to ‘the people’. That’s his tactic, to create a sense of jealousy in the minds of the people. That childish jealousy eventually becomes hate with a passion and you can feel it is still very vivid in the minds of the people.
I find this whole vehicle VAT refund thing quite mind-boggling.
It is clear that these cheques are being funded primarily and directly by those who either bought their cars before Malta joined the Union or by those who bought them after the Government changed the registration regime after the first court applications were being filed. In both cases, these vehicles were bought at the same prices that those waving the cheques had bought them.
It stands to reason that there are far more car owners who are subsidising this refund than there are owners benefiting from it. Yet, you hear no one complaining of the unfairness of it all, and it was certainly not reflected in the European elections result.
Well, the ‘cejca’ is not an infinite resource. So if he is able to generate ‘cejca’ within the good and restrictive EU budgetary restraints, to distribute at strategic points in time, then it is to his merit. If at all, the one before him should have done the same.
Secondly, it is not true that Maltese vote just on the smaller picture. If at all, they vote on a mixture of both pictures. As all the electorates in the world. In the run-up to the post-EU referendum election, Sant offered a 3 months tax free holiday. No one minded. What holds for 2003, also holds for 2014 and further.
Today there is no clear bigger picture, other than that which will serve the betterment of our economic interests. It can mean different things to different people. Can you elaborate what it means to you, such that then at the end of the term we will measure how screwed it is, in terms of the quality of life of the Maltese people. You may then be right, or wrong.
All in all, compared to other bigger countries, the Maltese remain a ‘happy’ people. And this thanks to all the governments they have chosen along the way, indeed. You should have seen Italian TV yesterday, with people whining on how they struggle to make ends meet. They will surely not lose any sleep on their governments’ shady dealings with Russia and the bigger picture.
In Malta OPM does not mean Office of the Prime Minister, but it means Other People’s Money.
My God! Of all people Ramona Frendo. She’s officially gone from gold-digger to cheque-digger.
As to those above commenting on the manners she acquired late in life, it is exactly like make-up. Sleep a couple of nights with it and it will soon disappear.
Once a Zejtunija, always a Zejtunija. You can spot (and hear) them from miles away.
Qas il-Malti ma taf. ‘ghid li trid…’. U din tad-daqqa ta’ ponn ma nistax ghaliha.
Ramona, serrahtli rasi li tieghek wasal ukoll
It may appear immoral. but most people vote with their pocket. As someone had said, its the economy stupid.
It is the bread and butter issues which in reality matter. The PN in the late 80s and 90s fuelled the feel good factor and liberalised the economy.
This made people richer and therefore they voted PN. When VAT was introduced, Labour won. The people felt EU membership would be beneficial and they voted accordingly. The present government is again working on the feel good factor and decreasing rates.
On the other hand the last PN government increased electricity rates while spending millions of euros on a new Parliament and a botched public transport reform.
The ‘botched’ public transport system is worse off now, David, or hadn’t you noticed? The difference is tha tKurt Sansone et al are no longer reporting every non-event involving the buses.
Government today is still spending lots of money on the new parliament building, only now it’s because it’s messed up and is obliged to pay a daily penalty.
Utility rates are not decreasing. The cost and means of production hasn’t changed. The cost is simp,y being transferred elsewhere so people like you can delude themselves that they’re not paying.
I think the issue here is more of ignorance and hand-outs than money. People don’t seem to appreciate where their money really comes from.
Decreasing rates are not really decreasing. Money is being transferred from somewhere else, which is, ultimately, still tax payers’ money. The previous increases were more due to a reduction in subsidies on utilities. We haven’t really been paying enough to cover the cost of production for these, which is why so many people waste both electricity and water.
The real way to give wealth to the people is to attract foreign direct investment. What has Labour done in that regard? Our reputation has been tarnished, there is less investment overall and our exports are falling. Unemployment is increasing and there seems to be no real job creation. Increasing the size of the civil service only to absorb the unemployed and Muscat’s favourites will just increase the burden on public finances.
China’s ‘investment’ in Enemalta will come back to bite us in the backside once it uses its leverage to make us work against European interests as be seen as a pariah within the EU. Even less investment would be sure to follow.
Simply put, nothing Labour has done is sustainable and the economy, and thus people’s wealth and spending power, will suffer.
It is indeed the economy, stupid. Too bad so many are apparently too stupid to realise just what the economy is.
I was happy of course with the 110 Euro which was stolen from me. I did not vote Labour because of it but I appreciated the gesture.
Let me please remind you (one example) about the arrogance of the previous government and why people are starting to abandon them. After the E.U said that a tax should not be imposed on an other tax the government of the day still said that they will not refund them…..just like robbing…this while they secretly got 500 euro a week.
It just was not right…full stop.
Mr Farrugia, are you serious? Are you blind to all that’s been going on these past 14 months? How can you go on about the 500 Euro (which Labour conveniently forget was stopped) when we now have a Cabinet that practically doubled the cost of the previous government’s, a civil service payroll bloated by an extra 3 million Euro a year and numerous cushy job payouts to the party faithful not least of which is the 13,000 Euro a month to Mrs Sai Mizzi, for God knows what. Do you live on the same island I do?
Time to introduce means-tested benefits