Come on, Edward – cut the crap
Edward Scicluna thinks we've never had it so bad
Here’s Edward Scicluna in Malta Today:
“We have never had the economy so badly mismanaged as in the last 10 years.”
I think he forgot he was talking to Raphael Vassallo, who was born – if my reckoning is right – in 1971 and not in 1987.
It’s sort of amusing that jumping on the Labour bandwagon affects the judgement even of people like Edward Scicluna, and they end up doing what the rest of the Labour band do: failing to distinguish between one audience and another.
My only reaction on reading that line was: “Bollocks, Edward. We’re not at the Horseshoe Hall, here. Have you completely lost your mind?”
Never has the economy been so badly mismanaged, indeed – what, is it more badly managed (not mismanaged: it’s either mismanaged or it’s badly managed) than it was in the years 1971 to 1987, particularly the supremely dreadful years 1981 to 1987?
Sorry, sugar, but economist or not, you’re way off the mark here.
Ask anyone whether they’ll swap today’s economy for that of 1981 to 1987, with its pijunieri, its korpijiet tax-xoghol, its Kapra Ltd, its armies of minimum-wage-earners, its empty shops and its import substitution products, and 90 per cent of the population will run around the room screaming “NO! PLEASE NO! NOT THAT, WHATEVER YOU DO! SEND ME TO GUANTANAMO BAY BUT NOT TO MALTA, 1981!’
The other 10 per cent are quite clearly bonkers.
Like many economists, Scicluna looks at graphs and numbers and fails to see people’s lives. We may not have had a deficit in 1981 (and for all I know, we did, but it’s Sunday and everyone’s at the beach), but that’s because we didn’t have much of anything else, either.
Of course, it would be great if we didn’t have such a big deficit now, but for Edward Scicluna to say that Mintoff and Karmenu managed the economy better in 1981 to 1987 than Fenech Adami and Gonzi did in the last decade is just so……pathetic.
That kind of thing may go down a storm at the Horseshoe Hall, but I just want to crown him with a green box of Tower Tea and a borza ross tal-balkbajink.
This is the man who advised Alfred Sant that devaluing the lira would be an amazing idea and that joining the Eurozone was a bad one.
The trouble with people like him is that they’re brilliant at working things out on paper. His predictions of election results are spot on. But running the country involves people, hopes, dreams, aspirations and fears. Mintoff and Sant treated Malta like an experimental model because both of them are sociopathic and believe that people have to moulded to fit circumstances, rather than circumstances moulded to fit people.
That’s not the way to run a country. It’s not as though we didn’t know this through direct experience.
As for Scicluna – forget it. There’s not much to be said of somebody who thinks that Sant and Mintoff managed the economy better than the prime ministers who lifted this country out of the quasi-Iron Curtain wreckage of 1987 and into the Eurozone.
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Surely, if Edward Scicluna is saying the economy has been mismanaged in the last 10 years, he is not comparing with the Sant and Mintoff eras. Rather, I would say, he is comparing with the previous Nationalist years (1987-1999) when Fenech Adami and John Dalli did miracles in taking us out of the shambles of the Mintoff/KMB era. One has to admit that, of late, the government does sometimes tend to miss the wood for the trees.
In the Malta Today interview, Edward made a number of other valid points, but you only picked on one.
[Daphne – I will quote him precisely: “We have never had the economy so badly mismanaged as the last 10 years.” The word ‘never’ cannot by any stretch of the imagination or the English language be construed to mean ‘since 1987’.]
I was not around in the 1980s so I don’t give a hoot but I can tell you it’s not easy being young today either. I was always in favour of the EU but this does not mean that we are living in a rosy world. Opportunities exist today but they are somewhat limited. Living in a small state means that you have to maintain main stream professions like becoming an accountant, doctor, architect etc…..Once you specialise or venture into a different path then jobs become difficult and you will have to adapt into something you never wanted or dreamed of. Living in a small state isn’t always a dream. Our political landscape of two states in one nation (as is clearly visible from this website) makes matters even worse. Maybe we ought to change our political system forever and adopt something similar to what goes on in the Channel Islands. In this micro English island political parties exist but once elected in parliament everyone has the right to act independently. Since all MP have the right to think without the constraints and shackles of political parties, laws are reached through consensus. No matter they are one of the richest islands in the world! They make things happen for the best of all citizens. Here we fight every inch to gain what?
Brink bek di mamris: faqa xorts u tenk-tops from the days when the economy was managed better than it is now. Aw, lajf! Naqa buzz! God, the 1980s were SO creepy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXy7Wk3DYNE
Wow! Thanks for those clips, Daph! You have reminded me of times that my brain (for some reason…) has selectively chosen to forget.
And to maybe set your mind at rest, some (but not all) of the characters shown in those vids have turned out to be decent men and women in their 40s (minkejja dak l-ismoke kollhu…)
“We have never had the economy so badly mismanaged as in the last 10 years.”
Is Scicluna trying to make out that he wasn’t living in Malta pre-1987?
Cheer up. On today’s timesofmalta.com some airhead was carping about the country being “almost impoverished”. Have I been missing something?
What you’re missing is what most of the self-styled poor are missing. Most of the truly poor living here don’t have a vote and are corralled in camps. They’re not carping and whingeing on timesofmalta.com because they’re too busy trying to scrape together some sort of living.
Perhaps Dr Scicluna remembers the Maltese going to Sicily to buy Pepsodent and Mars bars. Today it seems they are buying holiday homes.
It’s the latest “Mrs Bucket” thing – one up from the property in Gozo
GALLIZZA !!!!….. SOUNDS LIKE AN EMPTY VESSELS
Prof. Scicluna JUDGEMENTS ARE CORRECT irrespective of how DEAF KNEE looks at them. Some reactions to his writings made reference to the Malta Labour Party era. All the writings about the previous Labour Governments should be looked at with a professional and realistic eye. When the Labour Party was elected to Govern Malta in 1971 the Maltese Nation was drowning in poverty and the so-called Independence of Malta was a mere illusion. At that time the Independence of Malta was synonymous with a tale scribbled on a tissue paper and celebrated yearly just as some people celebrate Halloween year in, year out.
In the year 1987 things were exceedingly different. The Labour Party Government gave MALTA the shape of a REAL COUNTRY. The Maltese ran their own BANKS; their own AIRPORT; their own CIVIL AIRCRAFTS, their own SHIPS; their own UNIVERSITY; their own PORTS, their own FOREIGN POLICY; their own FREE-HEALTH SCHEMES AND VARIOUS OTHER FREE SOCIAL SCHEMES.
During the 1960’s our prosperity rested in GOD’S HANDS. When ever crisis struck Malta, we used to be told to pray to God and keep in mind the fact THAT EVEN A WORM TRAPPED INSIDE A ROCK SURVIVES.
We have two economists running for the EP. One, as you say, looks at graphs and numbers and fails to look at people’s lives, and mutter inanities. The other gets involved with people’s lives, their businesses, is hands on, and uses graphs and figures sparingly, preferring to listen to what people say. Yet you took pleasure in denigrating him so much, when in fact he has managed to prove himself as a worthy candidate, and getting in more “hopeless” votes than I care to count. Listening to him is sometimes akin to seeing your writing on this blog.
He deserves better than snide remarks about wigs.
Mela ma tafx li se tivvutalu after all?
Don’t keep on harping on it Mario, or Daphne will change her mind once again. Oqghod kwiet.
Daphne you are just a waste of time. Your hatred towards anything labour just go through your thin slimy body. Just give it a break. You just cannot dent Prof. Edward Scicluna’s integrity no matter how hard you try. So go hide somewhere will you.
Vincent