|
I wish to ask the author of the opinion bearing the above title, which was dated the 16 May, if he, for all his show of superior wisdom, has ever experienced or mulled over the devastating effect of unemployment caused by loss of competitiveness?
I have witnessed convoys of lorries from Bangladesh, arriving in Leicester to strip down one textile factory after another, and pay for scrap metal.
They would later be re-assembled and operated very successfully in their own countries.
What brought this about was the disparity between the award expectation of employees in the respective countries.
An unskilled labourer in Leicester, was earning the equivalent or more of two engineering graduates in Bangladesh.
The same fate was experienced by the Welsh and Yorkshire miners when unlimited coal from Poland was available at a price well below that of the locally produced product.
In a globalised world, survival means being competitive.
I hope your eminent economist is not going to suggest that we carry on the road to abject bankruptcy. Having gone over the 1.3 billion mark, and increasing by the hour, how much more can we go before we admit to a crisis? I suggest that servicing the huge debt we have incurred under the previous finance minister, is going to translate into more taxes, further eroding competitivity, and resulting in ever more unemployment.
It is hardly the hallmark of sane economic management.
We are happily importing salt from Spain, because it is cheaper than producing it in Malta, and importing every other cheap consumerable of no utility, simply because it is cheap, thanks to our artificially valued Lira, while tourists are deserting us in droves, textile manufacturing grinds to a stop, our dockyards and shipbuilding industries have become gross liabilities, we actually lose more money when they have work than when they are idle.
My conclusion that devaluation is necessary, is based on my close observation of the economic fortunes of the UK, before and after a measure of competition was restored.
We have built a sand castles economically, no doubt thanks to Mr Dalli and his prowess in macro economics. We are now living a massive unsustainable lie, and in my humble opinion if we do not come to our senses pretty soon, we will have to pay the price of our folly.
In the politically charged situation we live in, I fear serious civil unrest if the number of unemployed carries on rising while economists like the author of this opinion carries on with more twiddling of fingers and suggest nothing concrete.
Nero at least played the fiddle while Rome burnt.
Eventually we will have to resort to drastic measures to contain a situation which should have never arisen if all the signs that have been there and staring us in the face, all along, were heeded in good time.
I conclude by asking what other option have we got if not devaluation, to safeguard jobs and bring about a measure of realism instead of the overblown expectation which we have been used to and now take for granted?
Victor Spiteri
Attard
|
