Submitted by Looking Glass
“As the good book warned, “do not listen to the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless: they make you speak a vision of their own heart.” (Jeremiah: 23)
Arthur’s presentation is a reminder of vested interests tacking with the wind hoping to recover a piece of the remaining pie. Presenting as objective and without blemish he ply his wares in an arena of hypocrisy, deceit and trifling wisdom. For those transfixed with fear the crisis could be of value if they are given higher understanding of the cause and aftermath. However, some mainstream critics appear as lacking the broad understanding needed to manage the recovery.
Nations gain advantage because of differences not similarities. The role of government in creating and sustaining national advantage is both important and significant. Here the government’s policy toward the economy is to deploy resources– labour and capital– with high and rising levels of productivity, which requires ongoing improvement and innovation not unsustainable indebtedness.
Arthur cannot claim to have laid the foundation for national advantage in anything beyond disaster. His tenure, a sombre catalogue of achievements, was largely one of simplistic half-truths, misrepresentation, mismanagement and reliance on debt. There was no clear strategy to involve non-traditional exports as a basis for restoring and sustaining income levels and growth, and no far reaching agenda for restructuring. No ‘industrial’ accomplishment from which to form a base for take-off and or powerful additions to fuel economic development. That was left to the vagaries of tourism. The lack of an appropriate macro-policy mix led to increase liability, balance of payment problems and greater dependence on external loans which hid the ongoing structural stagnation. The result was a stagnant almost moribund economy the very complexity of which created obstacles to simplistic change, and a widened chasm between poverty and wealth.
Throw in the sale of our four most profitable assets, lamentable infrastructural investment, and deterioration in physical plant education to the point where scholars have been “rusticated.” Re the restoration of the West Wing he acknowledged “that national deficiency is being rectified.” Ask who financed the restoration. Rather than upgrade the Rock to diamond status he delivered it to death row. Given the Arthur three term economic configuration: over reliance on debt, anaemic growth, and the long term challenges, the next five or more years will likely be a period of ongoing austerity rather than growth.
The significant debt he accrued is all ‘reflected in assets that would serve generations for a long time.” Does he mean those whose pockets he fattened and their offspring? Borrowing to shore up reserves, tasking from reserves to service debt and borrowing again presaged neither recovery, stability nor growth. Looking back the practice suggests failure of the structural adjustment programme, orchestrated growth and an ongoing malignant condition.
Wishful thinking apart, we are and have been ill-positioned to take advantage of a global economic recovery. And as previously stated the garden can’t be watered with an empty bucket. Rising interest debt payments mean less will be available to service schools, hospitals, pensions, salaries etc. Deficit cutting will longer and more expensive.
The top10-20% of population shoulder 75% or more of debt compared to the bottom 80%, and will likely to shoulder the bulk of the debt burden as the bottom half lapse into poverty. The true beneficiaries of the debt are outsiders not Bajans. The socio-cultural implications are anything but stellar.
“Arthur says we need “viable economic policies that properly integrate trade and fiscal sustainability,” and describes the new policies as “not being proportionate to the circumstances surrounding the crisis.” (Nation: 2/26/2010). More rum talk or another fantasy of a deranged mind? Exactly what does he mean? Only he knows.
When leaders stake their credibility and success on external credit (debt) little leverage is left once their deficiencies become known. Having failed to provide a moral compass for the country he can’t even claim moral high ground unless stricken with intellectual incontinence. For all the profligate economic behaviour, pillage and plunder there is no cheap ticket to immortality.
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