JAMAICA`S ECONOMIC PROBLEMS, WHO IS TO BE BLAMED?

THE current economic situation in Jamaica is one that nobody is happy with, other than those political aligned to the governing  party and is benefiting via the corruption route. None existent growth and a structural reform program that is solely geared towards passing IMF test without accompanying growth initiatives to stimulate the economy cannot be the way forward for this country. The blind can see that. In the Senate
on Friday last, the Opposition JLP,Chairman, Bobby Montague, making his contribution to the state of the Nation, rightly compare the Government economic(are lack thereof) policy to man "high" on cocaine. He rightly pointed out that the present economic program with the IMF is destroying the country, as things like social services and infrastructure development are been neglected to the point where it is endangering public safety.

One wonders if the Government is "high" on something why they continue to pursue a policy that is contractionary in every way possible. Tax returns are under performing as is expected, because of this simple fact: their is a taxable limit in an economy whereby their is no growth and taxes and cost of living is going up. Jamaica has reached that taxable limit. Shrinking incomes cannot sustain a government tax program as we currently have, because the Government is sucking out money out of the Economy that otherwise would have gone to the buying of goods and services, and is not been replaced or supplemented by another means. Remittances isnt what it use to be, from the global recession hit some years ago sending the global economy into a tizzy, and for the large part hasn't recovered sufficiently, to create jobs for Jamaicans overseas who have traditionally supported their love ones here by sending money home regularly,that lost their jobs in the recession

 And to drive home that point, from in the 1990`s, the only form of monetary activity that has brought money into this economy-other than tourism, has been remittances. That has prop up a government economic model, of stifling economic growth in favor of borrowing. This is what has cause our present crisis.

the 1980`s, the Jamaican economy recovered from the devastation brought on by the communist lap dance, instituted by a man that either was smoking cocaine, or suffering from some form of degenerative disease, and was producing impressive growth rates. But what must be noted, is that those growth rates was not brought about by the waving of a magic wand, but by simply doing the basics right:producing things other countries are willing to buy. We had a thriving clothes manufacturing sector, comming out of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), and other forms of Manufacturing. Those industries alongside bauxite to a lesser extent, produce those impressive growth rates of 5 or more per cent per annum. After the JLP was voted out of office, we saw those growth rates dipped precipitously and hasn't recovered since. The question now that has to be asked is why in Gods name did Mr. Patterson and Omar Davies deviated from the economic policyin  that was enriching the Nation? That question may not be answered for the rest of our life time. But to make it even more astonishing, is that in 1996, the same Government came up with what became known the National Industrial Policy(NIP)-yes i know alot of you reading this have never heard of such a policy before now-that was geared towards and i quote from the foreword:

 the goal of achieving a per capita income of $4,000 by the year 2010.

How will this be acheived? I quote again:"

This requires an average annual growth in GDP of six percent. (p. iii) … At the same time, the government is committed to developing an integrated and structured approach to economic policy. … Accordingly, policies for stabilization of the macro economy must be integrated with policies for promoting growth and diversification of production.

Wonderful aint it? Oh yes. Growth rates of 6% was needed to allow Jamaicans to enjoy per capita income of $4000 US dollars by 2010. But why was there such a need for growth rates of that magnitude? Simple. The PNP abandoned  a growth policy that was export oriented, and substituted in its place, a debt accumulation policy, and not only that, but the systematic, and well thought out destruction of the financial sector, wiping out yet again a substantial part of the Jamaican economy. It wasn't just the banks that went under but alot of other businesses that just couldn't manage the ridiculous interest rates that was been charged to barrow money. But even then, the PNP understood the need to get Jamaica back on the growth track. So the obvious question is why didnt they do it? They didnt do it for two reasons: (a) they place a larger emphasis on winning elections rather than governing well and (B) they didnt know how to do it. They still dont know how to do it decades after. While the NIP called for such impressive growth rates, the government then didnt see it fit to do what was necessary to produce such growth rates. What they did was started on the policy of deficit spending. Not only was money wasted on ill concieved projects like NETSERV, but alot of it was siphoned off to win elections. In the runup to the 2002 general election, state resources was mobilized in such away as to secure a win at the polls even though the Government knew it was ruinous economically! Talk about wicked! Then Omar by some providence of God or just sheer contempt for Jamaicans made it know in his now infamous "run wid it" speech. Not to mention, the many millions that went into the pockets of many persons in the form of cost overruns on projects such as Sandals Whitehouse.

So its pretty plain to me that the Government deviated from the NIP not by coincidence but by design. They knew that if they were to produce such economic prosperity, their is no way under heaven certain people who is essential to winning elections, could get rich, without working.You see the PNP understands economics this way: If i cant make the money fast enough am going to barrow until i have enough. Now the cost of all those bad policies, destroying the economic foundation left by Mr.Seaga, the dumping in file 13 of the NIP, is what we are seeing now-a failing state. In some sectors a failed state. The current IMF policy is only postponing the inevitable-a total collapse of the economic base of the country and a decent into taotal anarchy. That only can be averted by a removal of them from office, or a total re-thinking of the present economic strategy.For mei prefer a total removal.

WHERE DOES LIBERAL THINKING STOP?

THE World has undergone dramatic changes over the past fifty years, and so have a lot of what is loosely termed Conservative thinking on almost every facet of life. What was once outlandish to do, is now acceptable, and encouraged as a new way of thinking or doing things. This undoubtedly have given the world a fresh look at many things and has led to many innovations that have been quite beneficial to our way of life. In what historians have labelled the dark ages, little was known about anything other than religion, (which in many cases deviated from the clear teachings of God declared in the bible, to something coming from the devil) and many persons suffered from what was then incurable diseases.

Once what we now know to be the age of enlightenment (which to me is not so much about enlightenment per se but an improvement upon certain things that was already known in some shape or form) took hold in Europe with guys like Rousseau and Voltaire among others, thinking began a radical realignment. Things that was frowned upon started to be inquired into, and science started to play a much bigger role in human affairs. One consequence of that was an erosion into what was considered religion in that time. Wrongly or rightly. But for me one of the greatest legacy of the enlightenment period, is the effect it had on liberalization of the thought processes of human beings. Things that was once condemned as ungodly or blasphemous came into mainstream life with positive results and grave negative results also.

For one women started to see their share of influence rise in areas once dominated by men. It’s out of this sort of liberalized thinking, that in my view the modern feminist movement grew out of. Women were namely housekeepers before the revolution and realignment of the sexes started. Women were given the right to vote and so forth. They could go and have an education without having to be a part of the aristocracy. They could now go out and work too, thereby in some ways freeing themselves from the strangle hold of men. While I am not saying that the enlightenment period gave women a lot of rights or freedoms, straight away, but what it did was to give the proponents of greater freedom for women the opportunity to formulate the thoughts that would allow for such things to come later.

Sex also saw its fortune undergo a dramatic change. People started looking at their bodies in a different way. Previously, sex was the purview of married people, for recreation purposes. And that is understandable because so many people died young, so it became necessary that sex should produce children. However as cures for diseases was discovered and people started living longer, the need for another use for sex became important. Sex now became more of a recreation activity, and that led to the Kama Sutra become more widely used and improved upon. We now have seen the continuation of the liberalizing of sexual thought and practice in ways the enlightening could never have imagined. And the list goes on.

However, the liberalizing of thoughts from Conservatism in many cases has have disastrous consequences on the human family. While women could now leave the home go to work in greater numbers for instance, the family as a unit became fractured and dysfunctional, as both parents are now working and the children are no longer the only focus of the mother. Children started to learn things on their own and most times it was the wrong things. The morality that use to be taught from an early age became lost in the sea of competing demands, and its end result has been a set of kids brought up without a moral center and a cold interior that has led to the further destruction of society at large. With the advent of science scoring greater and greater successes and more gadgets becoming available to persons now that have the economic means to buy such things, these things took the place of shared family values and time, as parents and children become preoccupied with them-especially Television. As things got more advanced, society began to suffer. Unspeakable evil started to gain in popularity. Murder, rape, prostitution etc., took off, and human beings started to devalue each other. Not even animals were spared, as cosmetics became the in thing and women crave them, to make them more beautiful. That again started the age old question of what constitutes beauty, and which race was the most beautiful. We have seen the consequences of the bleaching phenomenon that took hold among black people.

Disrespect for parents and authority thrived as the old structures of discipline was swept away and the new liberal thinking took hold. Hollywood started been father and mother to children, and KFC and MacDonald’s replaced proper home nutrition. Obesity became entrenched. Sex started getting so liberalized that nothing is out of bounds anymore. The lust for the flesh became so great that it transcended the boundary of the other sex to same sex, much more than before. That again continued the destruction of the society and all that is good and wholesome. Abortion became the new mass murder weapon of choice, as the experimentation with sex started producing unwanted children. Then came the advent of the AIDS epidemic that has wiped out thousands upon thousands of women, children and men and up until now, there isn’t any cure for it. Religion wasn’t spared either. The value placed on life became nothing as the marched of science gave men the power to destroy themselves in ways unimaginable before. Guns that can fire hundreds of rounds per minute, replaced swords and bayonets, and that led to deaths right across the world, only surpassed by the first and second world wars. Society began its slow descent to anarchy that is still continuing in different degrees in societies around the globe today.

I could go on pointing out the destructive effects of the liberalized nature of thinking, and still couldn’t find an end point. The question now is: where does liberalized thinking stop? When will society realize that their needs to be a re ordering of the human family to much more conservative thinking to halt the destruction of the moral center of every society? The Americanization of the entire globe through globalization-that is predicated upon-you guessed it-the liberalization of trade-has caused untold sufferings to societies that traditionally have been organized around traditional values like the respect for the aged, parents and authority, the love for life, dressing in appropriate ways, and hard work, etc. These values need to be brought back into modern society if we hope to have anything resembling a bright future. At the rate that we are currently going as a human family there is absolutely no way we can dream of a new world that we all are in peace and prosperity and realize it. Too much liberalization of thought has contributed to too many social and spiritual ills that we as a human family cannot continue to be the recipient of. Time for a change back to conservative values.

STOP BEHAVING LIKE HITLER AND YOU WONT BE LIKEN TO HIM

Recently the PNP saw it fit to release a statement condemning a photograph that is circulating on social media of a swastika imposed on the PNP emblem. The condemnation that the PNP gave to matter is by all means stupid. While it continues to dodge questions on matters of tremendous importance to this country, like the wasting of public funds by the NHT to buy a failing entity and the lies that were and are been told to justify the purchase, it found time to condemn what cannot be considered as more than a stupid matter. It goes to show what is of importance to this hapless group of people.

It is not by any means surprising however, as we see time and again members of the PNP especially the incompetent Prime Minister, taking issue with political satire in the official media, very personally as if she is above been laughed at. And the way how she goes about hitting out at any form of criticism is tantamount to how the Nazi dealt with dissenting views, with one exception, the critics aren’t shot dead. And at the rate they are going it may be just a matter of time before that starts happening.

The picture that has caused so much problems for the PNP shows Minister Faulkner in a Nazi uniform, and we must bare in mind that the photo came out after the media briefing where the Minister sought to bully journalist in toeing the party line, to the extent that a journalist mike was physically taken away from him and one was turned off, to the threatening of Head of Nationwide News Network Cliff Hughes by the media Director in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) to pull the station off air. In a democratic and free society such behavior is intolerable and have to be condemned in the most forceful manner. When the PNP seeks to do things reminiscent of how the Nazi`s behaved in the 1930`s, and then get satired for it they should not be complaining one bit. While many persons associate Nazism with the Holocaust, we must remember that the Holocaust came later in the Reign of Hitler-not at first. What they started out in the early days doing was controlling the media through the feared SS and intimidating and jailing their opponents. Not to mention the night of the long knives. The pattern of the PNP since taking office has been confrontational, dictatorial and disrespectful to Jamaicans in general. Look at how they treat with scant regard the Office of the Opposition leader, and the how the JLP Senators are bullied by the Senate President, the arrogant, pompous and out of order Floyd  Morrison, to the point where recently, Senator Tom Tavares Finson had was to angrily complain about the treatment meted out to them by the President.

Yet those instances pale in comparison to how the Prime Minister and her information spokesperson deals with sensitive issues of National importance. The Prime Minister comes to Parliament and refuse to answer questions about NHT, mislead the Parliament and the Jamaican people and have not apologize for it among many others. Time and time again the Prime Minister has acted in ways contrary to the Democratic principles that underpin a Democratic State and have behaved in dictatorial manner reminiscent of Adolf Hitler. The PNP needs to understand, that it is not what they think people will think about their actions, but actually what people thinks about what they do. Ministers in this government has behaved on many occasion just like how the Ministers in the Third Reich behaved then. Take for instance the Richard Azan matter and how he behaved and how the Councilors in his constituency behaved, one even made the point that it was nothing more than a nine day wonder. What we have witness is a pattern of behavior that is anti-democratic and dictatorial in nature. Furthermore we have in the past seen what the PNP is capable of when it puts the machinery of the state to fulfill an ideology-we saw it in the 1970`s.

What the PNP must understand is that Democratic principles are the foundation on what all Free states are built. All truly democratic societies are built on the freedom of the press, freedom of speech and sound governance. While we may not have officially sanctioned press censorship, but the manner in which the PNP is behaving towards the Press will send a chilling effect on the few unbiased media houses in this country. The recent attack on those of us on social media is designed to have the same effect. What the PNP is after, is to cause social media proponents of good Governance like myself to go into hiding behind fake profiles or to stop criticizing the Government. While official media have to respect the PNP or some archaic law that protects certain people from close scrutiny, social media carries no such restriction. That’s what the PNP is afraid of. They can’t control social media. Recently another photo about vote buying in the last election in Central Westmoreland that was published by a known social media activist, drew from Minister Hanna a thinly veiled threat of court action against the lady. These are all designed to create the feeling of unease and fear for social media critics like us. But we must fight back, and fight back in a strong, determined, and forceful way, criticizing even more the policies of the PNP that is ruinous to this country. Criticizing the social media group SYMJ over the picture of Faulkner, and trying to tie it to the Jamaica Labour Party, smacks of how Hitler tried to pin everything bad on the Communist Party at that time in Germany. It’s not only dangerous to draw such comparisons that doesn’t exist, but in our climate of politics, that can be a death sentenced to us on social media and the JLP, as the PNP is loaded with idiots that is itching to do anything that comes to their mind in defense of their party. The reason been some of us like me who criticizes the PNP on a daily basis do not hide behind fake profiles.

The Group SYMJ while it’s loaded with supporters of the JLP, it doesn’t means that they are affiliated with the JLP. They do have high ranking members of the PNP that are members of the group. Should we then assume that that they are supporters of the JLP? One must understand that in this day and age, social media is a critical part of the democratic process and groups will be set up that contain people of like political persuasions. That doesn’t mean that these groups are directly linked or supported by the JLP. The PNP should be very careful it doesn’t open a Pandora`s box, and cause a social media fight back that can bring the party to its knees. We on social media do have ways of getting information that can really hurt people.