Perhaps it all goes back to our Catholic traditions, but this country has always been run on the basis of indulgences. In the past, they used to be granted by the Church because one would have prayed in a certain way or submitted to some “sacrifice”. But in reality most times one would have benefitted from good connnections, through family relationships, or friends of friends. Indulgences gave one the right to get access to spiritual and material goods.

I was always disgusted by this way of doing things. Instead of jobs, appointments and contracts being allocated on the basis of endeavour and merit, they are dished out to the awardees of indulgences. That depends on who one is related to, whom one knows, and whom one has helped well in the past, either openly or undercover.

When I was young, I used to believe it would be possible to somehow destroy this culture of indulgences. Today I admit that it’s a much more difficult task than I used to comprehend. Almost nothing has changed.                     

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BANKS

Reports I read about the state of European banks present rather conflicting accounts. Those which focus on how the glass is half full  highlight the fact that since the 2008-2012 financial crisis, measures adopted to strengthen banks and to keep them under surveillance have given results. The management structures of banks have been tightened. The volume of non-performing loans has been cut down. During past years, despite the Covid 19 crisis, no leading bank went bankrupt or came close to bankruptcy.

Others reports which concentrate on how the glass is half empty remark that the next financial crisis will not resemble that of forteen years ago. There is no single banking market in Europe which would be underpinned by a deposit guarantee system applying throughout the continent for all banks. There is still no agreement on this issue. Sometimes too one can distinguish murmurs about the reliability or otherwise of the stress tests that banks need to undergo every year.

In this sector, it makes sense to disallow completely all over-confidence.

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WORRIES OVER COVID

Some people are worrying that we have become too complacent about Covid-19. It seems like the infection rate all over Europe, Malta included, has picked up. From what has been stated publicly, one understands that there has been an increase too in the patients referred to hospitals. It is not clear whether there has been as well a rise in the death rate.

Meanwhile, governments maintain a calm and confident attitude: the situation is under control. Even the Chinese government which has shown the toughest resolve to keep precautionary measures in place, appears to have recently toned them down. The frustrations generated worldwide by the restrictions that such measures enforce on people’s behaviour have become too strong to contain.  The problems which resulted from the sanitary regimes (and from the pandemic itself after all) pose now too big a threat to the world economy, especially after the Russian President ordered the invasion of the Ukraine. The sanitary regimes had to be scaled down and out.

However the news about the rise in the infection rates inevitably makes for worry, not least in the middle of a summer during which travel and human gatherings are the order of the day. And we cannot be certain that the pandemic has really been overcome.