From my article in The Sunday Times:
“Have you considered opening a restaurant? You only need Mizzi as your customer. Mizzi will promise to eat whatever you cook for him, good or bad. He promises to pay for it at a rate that makes you a profit, irrespective of whether next door someone is selling better food cheaper.
“But there’s more. Mizzi will put up his neighbour’s house as security for your bank so you can do up your restaurant. And Mizzi will provide his other neighbour’s house as collateral so you can get the bank to give you an overdraft to pay for the ingredients. If the analogy of the restaurant is going to be complete, we should specify that Mizzi also happens to be the government and, in addition to securing your loans, advancing you a credit line to purchase the ingredients, and promising to buy all you can sell without ever having tasted your food, he also relieves you of any obligation to pay taxes on your, for want of a better word, investment.
“That’s what Mizzi did with Electrogas.”