There is panic on the streets and people are really worried.

The cumulative impact of the demonstrations on the streets, the political arguments at all levels of society, the promised but not yet effective resignation of Prime Minister Muscat (another complication that) have together delivered the worst Christmas in memory.

Not even the Gonzi administration on its last legs was this bad.

Retailers in Valletta (as we describe in this issue) and elsewhere worry about the Christmas sales. They usually worry about the weather and the Maltese climate usually is not that bad.

Christmas, as everywhere but more so in Malta, is a big season. Good sales at Christmas outweigh a dull year and make the difference. Hence, not only for this reason, there is a greater emphasis on Christmas as being a jolly time, a time for parties, purchases and gifts. A greater emphasis on decoration and lights. Most streets end up like Christmas trees (and gloom settles as soon as the lights are switched off in January).

But that's because this is an ersatz economy. The dictionary describes ersatz as usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation. Webster's has it as: Ersatz can be traced back in English to 1875, but it really came into prominence during World War I. Borrowed from German, where Ersatz is a noun meaning "substitute," the word was frequently applied as an adjective in English to items like coffee (from acorns) and flour (from potatoes) - ersatz products resulting from the privations of war. By the time World War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of the word along with more substitute products, ersatz was wholly entrenched in the language. Today, ersatz can be applied to almost anything that seems like an artificial imitation: "Even when those marketplaces did succeed, the fun always felt a little ersatz." (Malcolm Jones Jr., Newsweek, April 22, 1996)

We have a high proportion of our workers employed by the government in one way or another. The elderly and the pensioners live on meagre pensions which have been indeed improved but which in no way suffice to ensure a decent living. Take away those who work in retail and who depend on imports and you are left with a very small and narrow productive base without which no country can stand on its own two feet.

So when the Christmas joy is threatened, when the prime minister who promised to raise pensions is hounded from office, people get scared. And angry. And when the EU institutions, formerly so positive about Malta at the time of the Maltese Presidency, turn against Malta and even threaten sanctions, it feels like the carpet being dragged from under our feet.

But that's because we are - that word again - an ersatz economy. Other economies are more robust. Britain, for instance, kept going after the Brexit election. In Malta we all stop everything while we hold an election. That's how weak and fragile we are.

If there is a way forward, we must begin by becoming less ersatz, less prone to spend and spend and more eager to work and to produce.

Our institutions must become less ersatz. We are reading, these days, how our institutions have become hollowed-out, how little accountability is to be found, how in the President's words, we have allowed a 'gang' to do this to our credibility as a nation, how the country has been allowed to become a pyramid which is now toppling over.

It is a pity, a great pity, this is happening. We all, big or small, share the responsibility of correcting and healing our country.