He can't help putting his foot in concrete

Dear Deputy Leader Dr. Simon Busuttil has done it again.   See what he told us in this morning press conference:

Busuttil Press Conference 04 03 2013 - The Times

If they truly have the
country's interest at heart
they should preserve long standing
consensus on financial services

He is reported as follows:

Dr Busuttil cited Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and France as examples, arguing that economic growth and unemployment figures had risen since leftist Francois Hollande took over from conservative Nicolas Sarkozy almost one year ago in France

If unemployment has risen in France since President Hollande took over last summer much worse happened in Spain since Rajoy from the right took over from socialist Zapatero.   And in Italy unemployment is exploding and I don't think that Simon would consider Monti or Berlusconi from the left.

It is obvious that Simon has lost it and he is lost for arguments to scare off PN voters from switching to Labour.

It is despicable that Simon continues to argue that under a PL government Malta would crash into a financial wall and would be forced to seek a bailout from the EU.   Even if this were remotely true, as a prospective Leader of the Opposition he should be careful not to say anything that could destroy people's confidence in their government  which is indispensable for the successful management of the public debt profile.

But Simon ought to know this is not true.  Simon ought to know that the PN government has practically doubled our national debt in the last 10 years and that they are leaving a legacy of Public Debt close to 90% of GDP, Enemalta's debt included.

Yet because the private sector in Malta is over-liquid and the government has never had the need to depend on foreign investors to raise whatever it needed to borrow, we have not experienced what other countries with even lower debt to GDP ratio ( e.g Spain) have experienced.

Credit goes to the people and to our banks who always operated conservative lending policies avoiding speculative asset bubbles.  It should not go to the government that borrowed so much that it has debt going out of its nose and ears.

We have survived well and enjoy macro-economic stability only because the thrift culture of our private sector and households is bigger than the fiscal irresponsibility of the government.   We did fairly well in spite of not because of government.

As I have been repeating:

"Poplu bil-ghaqal jixraqlu gvern bil-ghaqal".