That current economic growth rates have consequences which are not all positive is a point that should be generally agreed. Some of these consequences reach out beyond the economic domain for they have a strong impact on the country’s natural, social and cultural environment.
It is probably difficult to totally eliminate these adverse effects. But clearly, they should be foreseen and “managed” so as to restrain and control them as much as possible. True, there are limits to how far this process can be carried. The time is long past when one could believe that the state or the private sector between them might clear all arising problems. If acute, such problems will continue to evolve and to trouble successive generations.
What I dislike is the attitude adopted by some who claim that one needs to let events rip and follow their own course, given that overall, the economic roll is increasingly generating wealth. Optimism in life is extremely praiseworthy, so long as it does not become irrational.
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The judiciary and the European Parliament
MEPs Gomez and Giegold are determined to give us lessons in public governance (possibly to thus get greater press coverage); MEP Casa is determined to scrape back into the next European Parliament. It is the same parliament which has denied them the funds to bring an official delegation to Malta to investigate what went on here since they last gave us a peep. Anyway, they said, they still came on their own (financial) steam.
So far, so good – there is no problem with this. It has become part of the European political game for people who find that by braying accusations they get into the publicity spotlight. The political parties in the Maltese Parliament did well to meet Gomez and Giegold, though the meeting did not change anything in the sombre way these two consider the Maltese situation.
What jarred as far as I’m concerned was that members of the Maltese judiciary had a meeting with this “delegation” which was anything but. Since when is the Maltese judiciary subject to investigation by MPs...? – and indeed by MEPs who had no formal investigative mandate.
The neocolonialism that prevailed in Malta when I was young has truly made a comeback.
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We never learn
Believe it or don’t, it’s up to you. I was driving from Balluta Bay towards the Exiles along the promenade which leads to Sliema. Just in front, there was a Valletta Waterfront tourist double decker.
On its upper level at the back, there were two young women, foreign tourists one would guess. When the traffic lights changed, the bus moved forward under a tree, one of whose lighter branches hangs over the road. It brushed against one of the young women...
When shall we learn? Not so long ago, a terrible tragedy occurred where tree branches hung over a road through which double deckers were being driven.
What should be done is obvious: either trim the trees, or ban double deckers on the roads. It does not make sense to neither do one nor the other.