Submitted by the People’s Democratic Congress

As the cost of use of money theory would have it to be, the cost of use of money (in this case – Barbados money) invariably relates to the total amount of nominal costs –  expressed as a percentage of the Barbados dollar – that  individuals, businesses and others would find themselves contractually paying for from out of those nominal  incomes, payments or transfers that they would possess at the time; or would find themselves contractually passing on as further nominal costs to be borne by other individuals, businesses and other entities, in each and every case where they and others go and  USE – at the same time at innumerable points across the country – the Barbadian people’s money (value) on a daily basis.

In line with that theory, is the reality that whenever the cost of use of money theory is applied in the Barbadian setting, it naturally relates to the total amount of nominal costs – expressed as a percentage of the Barbados dollar – that individuals, businesses and others did find themselves contractually paying  for from out of those nominal  incomes, payments and transfers that they possessed at the time; or did find themselves contractually passing on as further nominal costs that were borne by other individuals, businesses and other entities, in each and every case where they and others went and USED – at the same time at innumerable points across Barbados – the Barbadian people’s money (value) on a daily basis.

Therefore, any variations or inconsistencies between what is theorized and what is actualized in terms of the cost of use of money in Barbados must be contextualized by the PDC in such a way as to manifestly underscore the very negative, deepening and ruinous political commercial financial trends that are currently taking place within the political economy and services industry sectors in the country.

Indeed, such trends are by and large the interconnected material financial effects of an alarmingly high cost of living and doing business in the country. Those three variables (the trends, cost of living, cost of doing business) are in turn therefore a direct and partial consequence of an already constantly rising, very exceedingly high cost of use of money dispensation in Barbados.

Hence, after the years 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, the THEORETICAL COSTS of use of money now stands, in 2012, in the region of an egregious 82% – 87% – in a country that is fairly quickly becoming a second rate Third World developing country.

So, what this particular statistic illustrates is how each point within the 82% – 87 % range of the dollar would represent the extent to which every Barbados dollar that would now be being transacted in ALL spheres of Barbadian dollar-denominated business activity in the country  would be being used for purely unproductive, under-used, atrocious money merchant tourism peddling purposes across all political economy and services industry sectors of the country;  whereas every point within the remaining 13% to 18% cohort would essentially represent the extent to which this same Barbados dollar would now  in respect of ALL spheres of Barbadian dollar-denominated business activity in the country   be being used to denote the precious little incomes that would be  generated from local productive activity conducted now.

Now, after 4 years straight of significant material production and exchange decline, the ACTUAL COST of use of money in this beloved country stands in the region of a staggeringly pernicious 84% – 87.5 % – a sign of the spiking of this phenomenon. Now, what each point within this 84 % – 87.5% range of this dollar represents is the extent to which every Barbadian dollar that is now being transacted in ALL spheres of dollar denominated business activity in the country is being used for purely unproductive, underused, abhorrent money merchant tourism peddling activity; whereas each point within this 12.5% – 16 % range  (a deepening of the phenomenon) represents the extent to which this same Barbados dollar is now in respect of ALL spheres of dollar denominated business activity in the country being used to denote whatever comparatively little incomes that are being generated from productive activity in Barbados.

For the year 2009 alone, the THEORETICAL COST of use of money would have been in the range of an appallingly destructive 80% – 85 %. What each and every point within that range would have represented was the extent to which every Barbados dollar would – in the same manner and in the same times described above – have been used for very redundant purposes; whereas each point in the remaining 15% – 20% cohort would have represented the coming about of less and less local productive activity. But, in the same 2009, the ACTUAL COST of use of money was in the range of another destructively high and growing 82.5% – 86.5 %. Such redundancy of use of money was also despairing. As for the remaining insubstantial 13.5 – 17.5 % range, each and every point within that range represented the actual coming about of overwhelming less and less productive activity in the country.

So, the above information – relative to the post 2008 to 2011 period – will show any person with a fundamental interest in the political economy service industry affairs of this country how commercial times have truly got more dramatically devastating since 2009!!!

Anyhow, some explanations of the variations between the THEORETICAL COST of use of money statistics and the ACTUAL COST of use of money statistics are:

1. Over-borrowing (THEORETICAL COSTS) on the part of DLP and BLP governments over the last 15 years, and then very astronomical repayment costs (ACTUAL COSTS) seriously adversely affecting the money circulation and material production exchange processes of the country – it has been reported in the 2012 – 2013 so-called Estimates that this government is planning to provide a walloping $ 500 million plus in debt servicing in this fiscal year.
2. That the political economy sectors (Manufacturing, Agriculture, Agro-processing, Construction, etc – where ACTUAL COSTS are mainly absorbed, sectorally speaking) being the main sources DETERMINING PRODUCTIVE INCOME generation and degeneration in the country are more terribly affected by a perniciously high cost of use of money variable than the services industry sectors (Tourism, Government, Financial Services, Retail, Wholesale and Distribution, Public Transportation – where such THEORETICAL COSTS are mainly passed on) are adversely affected by it – the latter being the main sources DETERMINING PURE COMMERCIAL MONEY peddling expansionary and contractionary activity in the country.
3. That in all the recent political economic depressions in Barbados, including the current localized political economic depression, a greater proportion of income, payments and transfers go to providing ACTUAL COSTS for the maintenance of mortgage, rent, insurance, vehicular maintenance, communication bills, more than that proportion that provides the THEORETICAL COSTS for producing food and beverages garments furniture buildings and factories (thus deepening the recession).

What can also be gleaned from all the above analyses on the theoretical and actual costs of use of money is that actual costs can in the long term become expected costs of use of money when looked against the backdrop of a hardening of the theoretical costs of use of money.

The hardening of the theoretical costs of use of money comes about when greater and greater PROPORTIONS of the cost to national nominal  incomes, payments and transfers would, and in very concentrated and intensified ways, be concomitantly agreed at different levels to be given up and  passed on to multifarious other levels of business and commercial activity, in order for many other people in Barbados to simply USE the Barbadian people’s money, notwithstanding the already very scandalously high actual cost of use of money.

The hardening of the theoretical cost process also takes place when there would be NO reversals in the alarmingly high theoretical and actual costs of use of money trends in the country, primarily because there would  NOT have  been the Abolition of Interest Rates yet; there would NOT have been the Abolition of Institutional Repayable Productive Loans as yet too; the Abolition of Exchange Rates Parities with the Barbados yet; there would NOT have been the Abolition of Motor Vehicle Insurance and other unproductive insurance arrangements as yet; and  NO significant Debt forgiveness programs, etc. – things which constitute the component structures of the COST OF USE OF MONEY IN BARBADOS. But, so far there would have been so much more of these same very inane disarrangements, that there will certain to be continued greater aggravated contagion effects brought about in the actual incurring of very astronomically high costs for the  use of money in this country.

With regard to the cost of use of money statistics rendered above, there is every bit of evidence of the realization of the very toxic, ruinous, calamitous stage that the political economy and service industry sectors of Barbados have reached. And the evidence is there that this hardening of such theoretical costs, and that, also, this calcification of the non-redemption of such actual costs (the drying up of the means of repayment costs) have helped to tremendously cause: the CLICO Mess, the Al Barrack scandal, the Red Jet crash, Almond Beach Resorts Debacle, the Four Seasons cum Four Seasons/NIS affair, the demise of Speightstown as a commercial town centre, the critical state of private and public sector indebtedness, and the state of prolonged political economic depression in Barbados, with many more businesses to close and many hundreds more to become unemployed.

These present long term declines in national nominal incomes, payments and transfers – which have however significantly come about through increases in the theoretical and actual costs of use of money in Barbados (as well as TAXATION), can ONLY in the medium term be slightly attenuated by the favourable impact on those variables of NET sufficient political material productive growth and expansion, through the investment of significant monies allocated for such purposes.

But because the theoretical and actual costs of use of money are so staggeringly scandalously high in Barbados, and because the systemic and conditional causes of such are still pervasive throughout the country, there is NOT going to be – from where the country is positioned right now politically materially financially, being so lowly backwardly positioned – any such investments so collectively substantial and so sustained, so big and so well organized that they can be altogether help produce the many necessary cost-efficient spin offs to help bring about such acceptable levels in the national growth and expansion rates in the political economy and service industry sectors in the long term, in the face of patent material production and exchange decline and ruin.

Finally, while it is true that many Barbadians are realizing the stagnation, decline and ruin that are taking place all around them in the political economy and services industry sectors of the country, it is really a pity that so-called economists seem not capable of diagnosing what are the real and underlying causes of these very horrible political material financial problems. Moreover, many economists are using old, outdated ineffective tools of analysis and research in attempting to diagnose some of these causes, and are therefore seen by the PDC to be tremendously failing at coming up with effective partial policy solutions to the problems associated with such stagnation, decline and ruin. They are therefore unfazed by what they cannot see but that which is there!!

People like Mr. Clyde Mascoll, Mr. Ryan Straughn, Dr. Winston Moore, etc.,  are therefore failing to realize that the very astronomically high costs of use of money in Barbados are one of the big and  fundamental problems causing such considerable decline, stagnation and ruin in the material production and distribution exchange structures and processes of the country.