Or, the government will issue bonds to cover that – very long term and low interest.

They will be snapped up in a jiffy – the vast majority not realising the implications that they’re lending money to someone who has already borrowed from them and can’t pay back.

In theory you’re right: increased environmental awareness, propensity for the artisan and fair trade products and being somewhat well read.

The reality is somewhat different: yes, there is free thought, but it is mostly targeted inwards (I can do this, I am entitled to this) instead of outwards (my family can do this, my community is entitled to this).

Being fond of your extended family, your village, your country is still treated as something tragically redneckish (sorry for my abuse of the English language), with the ease with which we can now travel to other countries boosting this effect (they want to be citizens of the world more than they want to be citizens of Malta).

In the end its a bit of an apathetic mess with the ‘educated’, ‘well-read’, ‘hipster’ university students far more concerned about where and how to get shitfaced this weekend (somewhat guilty of this) and which festival to go next than any real concern about their own country (that is, unless it something token, apolitical and very visible which looks good on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr like the whole hunting referendum mess).

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150714/local/gasol-finances-should-not-impact-gas-power-station.576523
Construction of the gas power station should not be affected by the
finances of the project’s lead partner, according to Chris Cardona.

You hipsters are the only hope for this country. I’m not being facetious here. You’re the last bastion of free thought.

So I take up shares in a monopoly with prices guaranteed for many years by the government. I approach the bank for a loan to invest in the project but I shy away at the point that the bank asks me to put up my assets as collateral.

The government then steps in and guarantees my loan. Why? Because the government is desperate to see the power station built otherwise they would look like proper knobs.

I’m all right Jack. If I don’t pay my loan, the government will. If the government does not pay back the loan, the Bank of Valletta shareholders will.

The numbers are too big and the concepts too complex for the good, simple, hard-working, tax-paying Maltese.

88 million euros can go down the drain and there isn’t a fraction of the uproar that should be there.

That’s the tragedy/comedy here: as far as the majority of the electorate is concerned, 88 million euros down the drain is less dramatic than getting only a 58c rise weekly due to the ‘gholi tal-hajja’

Education is the key. The real education, not the knowing sums and poems education, but civic education: being aware and concerned and outraged where need be, exercising your rights in an active, lawful manner and being responsible for your actions.

Had ‘l-irgulija’ (for want of a better word) still existed, these things would not happen.