A nation of idiots

The Malta Independent

A nation of idiots

Taking a leaf from the Prime Minister disgusting performance on May 1st at Ta` Qali, the Minister of Finance has used his precious Sunday time and our more precious `tax money to tell us that we are idiots and that he is a lone shining star in this firmament of economic darkness.

It was a crescendo which had started a week earlier when he accompanied the Prime Minister to` witness` the worst` share trading performance in 2 years` at the new Exchange building.

Whilst we lesser mortals down here are feeling the scorching heat of Rome as it burns, our leaders from their safe place on the hills re-assure that we are mistaking the warmth of their benign sun for destructive arson.

So we have been re-assured that prices on the Exchange have fallen because only now they are reflecting their true value after manipulating minds like yours truly engineered an artificial increase in their stock prices to politically embarrass the government. Who cares that my criticism was focussed at the ridiculous price at which the Minister sold a controlling interest over Mid-Med Bank to HSBC` Who cares that even at current depressed prices the HSBC market price is still 65% more than the price negotiated by the Minister`

What matters is that the Minister is pleased that the price of Bank of Valletta and Maltacom shares have now fallen to their true value so that when this country privatises its remaining holding in these companies we will repeat the Mid-Med Bank fiasco all over again!

And we are all stupid` and imbecile to think that the government is embarking on a crisis privatisation programme, when countries from China to Australia have postponed their privatisation to better times, purely to fund recurrent expenditure which it is unable to control.` The Minister authoritatively asserts that privatisation is necessary to save government the need to borrow much further. What matters that the underlying need to borrow further is firmly underpinned by the government`s incompetence to control its expenditure` Who cares that tax revenues increases at a rate far superior to economic growth and thus causing a stifling shift of resources from the private to the public sector are simply financing more expenditure rather that controlling the real deficit And who cares that the deficit is not simply that which is window dressed in the Consolidated Account but has to include the dead expenditure irresponsibly funded through the Treasury Clearance Fund`

We are all stupid and imbecile to think that this country is sliding to a recession. What matters that exports, imports and investments are falling, GDP growth has effectively turned negative, tourism is at best not growing and the Central Bank is worried about the country living beyond its means` We are all stupid to be worried that whilst other countries are re-discovering Keynes to stimulate economic growth, our cash-strapped government has no room for similar manoeuvring having irresponsibly engineered` a horrendous budget deficit under the dextrous fingers of the present Minister of Finance.

What matters is that we are re-assured by this sole shining light in this firmament of` economic darkness that all is well and working and that we are stupid to feel the pain.