The people I most admire in our society are those who mobilize against poverty. The cause arouses sympathy but leaves many of us cool, even as we agree about the need to roll poverty back.

Meanwhile those who harp on the subject, go against the grain. The mood at present is to focus on success and the quest for even greater successes. There is nothing wrong with this. Since the beginning of the millenium, in order to make some progress, we needed all the time to patch over inadequacies. Today, real growth is happening at rates that have not happened for practically a wholelifetime. That is hardly a matter which should be left unnoticed and unsignalled.

Yet the problem of real poverty persists. (Not just in Malta – in the whole of Europe.)

Prime Minister Muscat did well to highlight the matter, instead of sweeping it under the carpet. On Sunday, he took the line of anti-poverty NGOs and placed the matter at the front of the current political agenda.

It was a brave move. Which will keep us clicked on for its follow ups.

***

Canada Dry

The EU agreement with Canada on trade and investments, CETA, seems likely to survive – at least as we now can see. Wallonia’s regional parliament in Belgium along with that of Brussels agreed on an additional document further clarifying how CETA would apply. They then voted in favour of the Belgian government endorsing the agreement.

It was a pity that disagreement should have arisen regarding arrangements with of all places, Canada, a most agreeable land (though the way by which a segment of the international media have been sanctifying the country borders on the ridiculuous – vide for instance this week’s The Economist).

Still the fundamental dilemma remains.

Who will really benefit from the agreements on trade and investment that are being structured between continental blocs? Jobs, economic growth etc etc are all the time being touted, but...

The more this goes on, the more I find myself in agreement with those who claim that it will be the big transnational countries who will benefit most.

***

Spleen

By coincidence as I trawled Google, items from 2008 came up as posted by PN stalwarts regarding the Mistra scandal I had flagged during the electoral campaign of that year. It was the first time I saw these postings. Even so, I was amazed by the concentration of spleen they carried, not least coming from a source about which there is little need to discuss.

Yet, going through this vindictive prose made for comic reading. And for two reasons. After it was published, the whole truth emerged regarding matters about which I supposedly had been splashing dirt all over, just for the sake of it. Then, in subsequent years, those who had defended the protagonist of that scandal with no holds barred, turned on him without any restraint, as he did on them.

As Keynes noted, in the long run we’re all dead. No matter, the Maltese dictum which holds that time will make matters clear is spot on. Spleen might give you victory. Eventually, it chokes you.