Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1419860
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 OCTOBER 2021 OPINION Raphael Vassallo The 'baddest' billboard in decades OK, let's start with the obvious. There are bad electoral campaign billboards; there are bad elector- al campaign billboards; and then there are… um… bad electoral campaign billboards. And under no circumstances should those three (entirely dif- ferent) categories ever be con- fused. But just in case that last word also describes your precise state of mind right now: allow me to elaborate. The first category includes po- litical billboards which are 'bad', because they are 'childish', 'pet- ty', 'immature', or…. let's be kind, and just say: 'retarded'. (Needless to add, this is the biggest category by far). Examples might include the recent 'tit-for-tat' billboard ex- change over Edward Zammit Lewis's notorious 'Ġaħan' gaffe… in which the two parties played a brief (and spectacularly puerile) game of: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall: who's the biggest 'village id- iot' of us all…?" Or the PN's infamous last bill- board before the 2013 election: which presented us with a choice between images of Joseph Muscat and Lawrence Gonzi … … with their faces painted bright red, and bright blue, respectively. I kid you not: they actually used 'blue-face' and 'red-face'…. on a billboard! Now: as for myself, I'm still surprised they never got actually got sued by any blue- or red-skinned racial minorities that may happen to exist out there (though as I recall, when the Ma- noel Theatre tried pulling off a similar stunt for 'Othello'… all wokedom broke loose...) Seriously, though: did it not oc- cur to anyone at the PN – or at least, anyone who actually saw (and approved) that monstrosi- ty, before it was presented pub- lic – that, by painting Lawrence Gonzi's face a bright shade of Na- vy Blue… all you're going to really achieve, is make him look like a goddamn SMURF?!? Jeeze: and to think that some people actually get paid – any- where up to 65K a year, too – to come up with 'Puffati' like that… But let's not digress. Secondly, there are those billboards which are 'bad', because their original message simply hasn't aged very well. Like, for instance… pretty much any pre-2013 Labour Par- ty billboard with Konrad Miz- zi's face on it (actually, now that I think about it: pretty much any pre-2013 Labour Party bill- board… AT ALL.) Lastly, however, there are those political billboards that are so ut- terly execrable, that their precise level of 'badness' cannot even be measured by the universally-rec- ognized Michael Jackson scale. (And you can probably guess why, too. Because they're "really, really bad.") And it seems we now have a whole new contender for 'baddest billboard of them all'…. only this time, it's 'bad' for very, very dif- ferent reasons. You may have already seen it on roadsides – though I myself on- ly saw it on a news report – but it's the one that proclaims: "The Worst (sorry, 'Baddest') Reces- sion in the Last 40 Years…" Erm… really? Is that what Mal- ta is actually going through right now? Reason I ask is that: well, some us do actually have mem- ories that stretch back 40 years, you know (even if only just)... and those people may also remember all the economic hardships that have always been associated with the worst (sorry, 'baddest') of those times. You know: empty restaurants; empty supermarket shelves; sky- rocketing unemployment; Pink Floyd's 'The Wall', always pump- ing out on a stereo in the back- ground somewhere…. Make no mistake: we old fogeys know a good old-fashioned reces- sion, when we see one. And, tell you the truth: I ain't actually see- ing any sign of one, right now… Ah, but let's not be too hasty. For one thing, the word 'reces- sion' has a rather specific mean- ing – and, surprisingly, it doesn't actually refer to any form of eco- nomic hardship at all. I believe the text-book defini- tion is 'two successive quarters of negative economic growth'; and, applied meticulously to Malta's current economic predicament… who knows, really? The economy has indeed contracted since 2019 – and I reckon we also all know precisely why, too – but… to what extent, in practical terms? As far as I can see, there is no obvious way of telling. So it could very well be that Malta IS under- going a 'strictly textbook' reces- sion at the moment… but that the effects have not been felt so far, because the economy has been artificially kept afloat by all those State-subsidized wage sup- plements. And certainly, an argument could be made that COVID-19 – in and of itself – is not the only cause of the 2020 slump: perhaps Malta had already started tasting the bitter fruits of all the issues that would eventually lead to its grey-listing by the FTAF… Above all, however: Malta cer- tainly WAS in a recession, at this time last year – and yes: after a record drop of 7.75% in GDP, the IMF did indeed describe it as 'the worst recession in decades'. All the same, however: is that what the billboard's actually try- ing to tell us? That we're still in that recession today? And if so… can this hypothetical "second (or even third) quarter of negative economic growth" realistically be described as "the worst recession in 40 years"… when it doesn't seem to be having any visible ef- fects on any of the usual indica- tors: employment, consumption, and so on? The answer would, of course, depend on the exact figures for Malta's current GDP – data which is probably not even pos- sible to just 'pull out of a hat', so to speak – and, more specifical- ly, how they compare to the last fiscal quarter (negative growth of 7.75%, remember?) Without direct access to the raw figures, however, we shall have to rely on economists' projections. And what better place to start, than the IMF itself? This brings us to the first in- stance of pure 'badness' in that billboard. For while it is perfectly true that last year's IMF projec- tions – published in April 2020 – were of a 7.75% drop in GDP… and while those projections did go on to be fully confirmed, by the end of the year… Well, that was last year… not this one. The IMF's most recent Malta report actually came out on 17 September, 2021 – that's exactly a month ago, folks – and it is from this report (or, alterna- tively, a certain opinion column, published in the Shift, which took its headline from the same source) that the 'worst recession in decades' part was originally borrowed. This, however, is the actual quote, as it appears in the IMF's 2021 Malta report: "The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the Maltese economy hard. […] As a result, real GDP con- tracted by 7¾ percent in 2020, the worst recession in decades. None- theless, the authorities' swift and bold policy response helped miti- gate the impact, preventing large- scale layoffs, bankruptcies, and credit disintermediation…" Hmm. Now, I think you'll all have noticed a couple of things there. First, the use of the past tense: i.e., "real GDP contracted"… NOT "is