Over the last months and years, market conditions for the sale of newspapers have not changed at all. Sales have continued to dip. Shops that previously used to sell big quantities of newspapers have either shut down or they have changed the nature of their business. If this just depended on the sale of newsprint, they obviously understood there was nothing to look forward to.

This happened in Malta and wherever one visited.

Meanwhile, newspaper publishers and the journalists they employ have been striving heroically to change the product they sell. Instead of buying at a stationery their output as a printed sheet, one pays a fee that allows one to download the paper on laptop or mobile. Probably, the subscription comes cheaper than the printed newspaper one purchased in the past.

Readers are switching over to this way of doing things, or they already have done so. It actually gives one much more extensive access to commentaries and in a more immediate mode than would newsprint. Still there is something in the internet option which feels less exciting and authentic than the printed stuff.   

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TATTOOS

I remember when among many families, tattoos were considered as something sailors used to “wear” in remembrance of the various ports they had visited, while “vulgar” people would then get themselves tattooed in imitation of sailors.

A friend has informed me that tattoos are no longer fashionable among seamen. But they have become the fashion among people at large. And, it has to be said, among all peoples. Not only are they not considered vulgar but they have become part of an artistic ethos among young and not so young people; a way by which they give expression to their personality.

To be clear, this has happened before in the human experience. In many distant societies and tribes tattoos were and still are considered as a decorative adjunct to life. Beyond fashion, they also feature in ritual ceremonies that mark the leading stages of a person’s development.

One conclusion is clear: tattoos were never as popular as they have become today.

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INTEREST

At the insistence of the European Central Bank which is doing its utmost to roll inflation back, interest rates in Europe are rising. This is leading banks and related financial institutions to increase the interest they charge on their lendings.

So after these “long” years during which interest rates stood at practically zero, banks are getting into better shape as income from their on-lending has improved greatly. Governments are less cheerful, especially those with significant borrowings. The interest burdens on their debt have again become worrying.

Meanwhile questions remain about the deposits held in banks by ordinary citizens. They too in recent years, were getting practically no income by way of interest on the money thay had deposited with the banks.

Now that the scenario has changed so much, banks have begun to again pay interest. But do these payments reflect in a fair manner the rise in interest rates that the European Central Bank has been guiding forward?