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Can The Economy Really Meet Demands

Submitted by Looking Glass The comments of some of those ‘experts’ positioned to know leaves one to wonder just how much they really know and understand about our history and the economy. It leaves one to wonder if their comments were designed to support the government. According to the Central Bank Governor “the economy is…

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Submitted by Looking Glass
Staying afloat in the global economy
Staying afloat in the global economy

The comments of some of those ‘experts’ positioned to know leaves one to wonder just how much they really know and understand about our history and the economy. It leaves one to wonder if their comments were designed to support the government.

According to the Central Bank Governor “the economy is well placed to meet the economic challenges the country faces’” [Advocate 7/18/2013] This in an economy that produces only sugar and imports everything, is falling apart and going down the drain. Citizens are said to enjoy a good quality of life and a high standard of living of living based on the investments made by past generations. This is true for some but not for the Black Majority, especially those inclined to live beyond their means.

The Fiscal Deficit increased in January, later Job loss was set at 21%. Today our National Debt is about $72bn and rising, stores are closing; unemployment is up in the air and will increase as kids leave school. Black personal indebtedness is at its highest-level historically. Over 1000 homes including chattel houses are listed for sale. Why are people selling homes especially chattel houses? I suppose to pay off debt. It is unlikely that most of the chattel owners have become sufficiently prosperous to afford a better home.

The country’s social network partnership is said to be the envy of countries worldwide. Really? Do provide the proof. We are told the country has an active and knowledgeable media and economic issues are openly discussed and debated. True, but all too often the discussions and debates reveal how little we know and understand about our history and economics.

The framework for economic policy is said to be robust. Exactly what does he mean by robust. All we have is some land, sea, sun and people. And we continue to miss-educate the kids. We seldom grow anything apart from Sugar and import everything which increases the cost of living and will continue to do so.

The real value of national savings is said to be protected and there is a stable currency for investment protected by adequate foreign exchange reserves. Really? Sugar and tourism are the main sources of foreign currency generation. The fact that we import everything and produce nothing apart from sugar limits both the national savings and the foreign exchange generation. Soon the USA dollar will cost Four Bajan dollars. Consider the implications. Population increase and health decline will increase social welfare cost. The growth and eating of food products like yams, eddoes, potatoes, breadfruit etc will significantly reduce the health cost bill.

The aging population will increase state pension and social welfare cost. This has negative implications for the national savings. Maybe we will have to borrow and or increase taxation in order to increase the value of the national savings.

97 responses to “Can The Economy Really Meet Demands”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    @Alvin

    You are engaging in semantics. It is because EWB saw the benefit of education to enfranchise Barbadians that he implemented his vision. Life is a journey and decisions made in the present must always be interwoven with a vision for the future. See BU’s motto which was recommended by Miller and accepted.

  2. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller and old Onion. If people havechange their lifestyles9as many had to during the 8%era then they will have to. Nobody forces anyone to lilive above their means. If they find they cannot continue supporting two cars take the bus support the transport system and thus cut down on necesssary subsidies. If someone develops diabetes and loses a limb that person should not expect continue the lifestyle they once had. The desire and will to change is in the head of the individual and the decision is that individual’s.

  3. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    Alvin Cummins | August 4, 2013 at 1:03 PM |
    “They can shop in the markets and support the small man. The dread picture you paint will not occur I can bet you a tin of sardines that will not happen.”

    That piece of advice is indeed sound and there is no need to bet since you are always right even about the same imported sardines being paid for in Bajan dollars to the overseas suppliers, right Alvin?

    But Alvin our man of sound judgment and working in the interest of the country and the poor small man why don’t you give similar advice to your black conscious DLP administration.
    How come this DLP pro-black administration have the ‘blackened’ habit of giving nearly all the housing construction projects to Jada and Preconco both owned by white people?

    What do you have to say to that Alvin, other than telling us we are being racist since they too are Bajans as if we don’t already know?

  4. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @David,
    I read your motto with interest because it is the motto of the old Barbados Advocate, except thaat you made a slight change,it should be ” for the cause that needs assistance {gainst] the wrong that needs resistance” How come Miller recommended this when he dose not seem to be an adherent to it, based on his riting. the only”good” he seems to see is the reelection of the BLP as the goeverning party.

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @Alvin

    The quote is taken in its original form and we have attributed credit. If the Advocate has plagiarized it is not our concern.

  6. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller,
    Don’t come to me again with this payment business. Are you still trying to convince me that if I bought godds from the united kingdom, or Germany, rather than paying them in the currency of the realm I have to pay them in U.S. dollars? You my think in your small myopic brain that I am an idiot. tEvery day there are changes in the currency value for different currencies, so that when something is boutht from a country it is paid for in the currency of the country; bought from banks of money exchanges. Going back to biblical times, why do you think there wer money changers in the temple at passover? It was so that the many pilgrims from other countries could change their own coins for the temple coins to purchase the sacrificial offerings. There is NOTHING to prevent a purchaser paying trinidad dollars for trinidad goods.If you sant to continu believing otherwise you are welcome. One of the problems with the Middle East…Gadaffi, Saddam Hussein etc was their refusal to accept U.S. money as payment for their oil.They demanded (or at least were demanding) payment in Euros among other things.

  7. David Avatar
    David

    @Alvin

    You keep making yourself ignorant on the matter of trading in Barbados dollars. Because Barbados is a net importer of goods even if Barbados importers were to get their bankers to trade in the currency of origin, the Barbados Central Bank would still have to give recourse to the importer’s currency who will want to redeem the Barbados dollars. And because Barbados will always be in deficit it means we will have to settle in some other currency because we will never have enough of the exporters currency. As a consequence most trades between Barbados and other currencies are settled in US dollars. Why don’t you call a bank and clarify Instead of arguing nonsense?

  8. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Alvin Cummins | August 4, 2013 at 1:31 PM |
    Don’t come to me again with this payment business. Are you still trying to convince me that if I bought godds from the united kingdom, or Germany, rather than paying them in the currency of the realm I have to pay them in U.S. dollars? You my think in your small myopic brain that I am an idiot.

    But to think the way you are arrogantly and wrongly arguing then you are not only an idiot but a blasted big one at that.
    What do you think Foreign Reserves mean? Bajan dollars kept in a foreign owned bank or credit union or under the imported mattress?
    If payment is not made in US dollars then some other hard currency like Pound Sterling, Euros, Can $ or even Yens must be found either by earning or borrowing in order to make the payments for the imported goods. But certainly NOT Barbadian dollars. You get, it now fool!

  9. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller,
    Did Jada and Preconoco TENDER, for the construction jobs? I am not privy to the tender documents, so you would have to determine whether their tenders conformed to the requirements and thus determine why the TENDERS COMMITTEE accepted their tenders. Do you know who else tendered? I am sure that the tender documents do not have a racial category listed on them. Do all the employees at these firms presnt a “white” face? don’t black people work there? If all the employees are white then the BLP government should have put a stop to this when Port St. Charles, and all the other big jobs that had the signs on their hoardings should never have been allowed to become established. Or was the DLP expected to stop giving them work when they won the election. Come on “person” be realistic.Beside, wasn’t the Villages, a private sector led deveelopment? if that is what you are talking aout.

  10. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @David and Miller.
    “If payment is not made in US dollars then some other hard currency like Pound Sterling, Euros, Can $ or even
    Yens must be found either by earning or borrowing in
    order to make the payments for the imported goods.
    even if Barbados importers were to get their bankers to trade in the currency of origin, the Barbados Central Bank would still have to give recourse to the importer’s currency who will want to redeem the Barbados dollars

  11. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    I am not going to get into any more arguments on this subject except that I know I am right that we do not have to pay for Trinidad goods with U.S dollars. this decision is the one reached by the importer and exporter. I know from personal experience that if I bought something from the U.S. while in Canada I would give them a draft for U.
    S. dollars and if someone in the U.S. bought something from me in Caanada they would send a draft for x dollars Can. You are mixing up trading in currency with payment for imports. Anyhow enough of that I will hold to my opinion and you will hold to yours. That is why there is alw forbidding locals from having U.S. dollars in their possession, so that that”foreign” currency can be “stored” (note the inverted commas} with the Central Bank to pay for the goods imported from countriesusing foreign currency (Dollars, Euros, Etc.Anyhow nuff said.

  12. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @Alvin Cummins | August 4, 2013 at 1:31 PM |
    “Going back to biblical times, why do you think there wer money changers in the temple at passover? It was so that the many pilgrims from other countries could change their own coins for the temple coins to purchase the sacrificial offerings.”

    There you g o again making yourself look like a real old silly fool. There is no one more stupid than an old fool.
    It would do you a world of good to stay away from such topics since you are making yourself look even worse than ac.

    What do you think those coins were made of? Do you understand the power of gold and silver even in today’s world?
    Unlike paper that relies on fools like you to trust in, coins were made of tradable or exchangeable precious metals and backed by the superpower of the day Rome; just like the USA today that issues greenbacks with the certification of false authenticity “In God We trust”.
    Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar in whom every body of those economic times trusted.

    Barbados can print a zillion paper dollars but unless that paper is backed by gold or foreign reserves denominated in the currency of some super economic power then those pieces of pretty paper aren’t worth sea crab shit(e) in the international monetary system.

  13. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @David
    It is because there is a need to have the hard currency on hand to reimburse the EXPORTERS (read BMW manufacturers etc) that there is a law against having hard currency in your possession, so that all hard currency can be accounted for by the Central Bank. I am not going to prolong this any more, but I still maintain my point and will follow your advice and discuss this at length with others, more knowledgeable than me.You WILL hear from me again.

  14. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    For your information

    As Cost of Importing Food Soars, Jamaica Turns to the Earth
    by lisaparavisini

    The scent of coconut oil and fiery jerk spice blows through kitchens across this green island, but as the country’s food imports have become a billion-dollar threat to finances and health, Jamaica has taken on a bold new strategy: make farming patriotic and ubiquitous, behind homes, hospitals, schools, even prisons—as Damien Cave reports in this article for The New York Times.

    Across the Caribbean, food imports have become a budget-busting problem, prompting one of the world’s most fertile regions to reclaim its agricultural past. But instead of turning to big agribusinesses, officials are recruiting everyone they can to combat the cost of imports, which have roughly doubled in price over the past decade. In Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas and elsewhere, local farm-to-table production is not a restaurant sales pitch; it is a government motto.

    “We’re in a food crisis,” said Hilson Baptiste, the agriculture minister of Antigua and Barbuda. “Every country is concerned about it. How can we produce our own? How can we feed our own?”

    In a region where farming is still often seen as a reminder of plantations and slavery, the challenge runs deep, yet at regional meetings for years, Caribbean officials have emphasized that “food security,” primarily availability and access, is a top priority. Many countries are now responding, branding foreign food like meats and high-calorie snacks a threat, and locally grown food responsible and smart.

    Jamaica started earlier than most. A decade ago, the government unveiled a national food security campaign with the slogan “grow what we eat, eat what we grow.” Grocery stores now identify local produce with large stickers and prominent displays.

    Members of rival political parties have also been mostly unified in support of expanding agriculture by experimental means; Jamaica is now one of several countries that have given out thousands of seed kits to encourage backyard farming.

    Schools are heavily involved in the effort: 400 in Jamaica now feature gardens maintained by students and teachers. In Antigua and Barbuda, students are now sent out regularly on planting missions, adding thousands of avocado, orange, breadfruit and mango trees to the islands, but in Jamaica, gardening and cooking are often part of every school day.

    Teachers like Jacqueline Lewis, the acting director of a small school in east Kingston with a thriving farm, are on the front lines of what is considered a battle. That is how Ms. Lewis, 53, treats food and farming, as issues of national and local security.

    A grinning disciplinarian who is quick to pull a lollipop from a second grader’s mouth, or to shout “Why ya late?” to dawdling students, she studied food and agriculture after growing up poor and walking barefoot with a grumbling belly as a child to the school where she now teaches. In 1998, she planted her first garden on a craggy strip of dirt in front of the school.

    It stayed small, mostly peppers and cabbage, until a few years ago when a European development agency helped pay for a chicken coop and an expansion. Now her garden includes a second, larger plot. The government has yet to give her a cent (the agriculture minister said rural schools were the first priority), but officials have often praised her work, and so have her students.

    On one recent morning, a dozen boys wandered toward her an hour before classes. Following quick directions, one group gave water to the chickens. Another, alongside Ms. Lewis, gingerly stepped into the garden to water Scotch bonnet peppers, and check if the callaloo — spinach, kind of, but earthier — was ready to harvest.

    When Ms. Lewis grabbed a machete to show one shy 14-year-old how to loosen a carrot stalk, all the boys watched. When he pulled out a thick bunch, with stalks as bright as a sugary orange soda, they all cheered. “You will not go to town and find carrots like this,” Ms. Lewis said.

    She later noted that many of the children came from troubled backgrounds and struggled in class. Farming, she said, gave them a reason to come: attendance and achievement have soared since the school, Rennock Lodge All-Age School, started offering free breakfast for students, usually stews made with ingredients they grew themselves.

    “You can’t think when you’re hungry,” Ms. Lewis said.

    Jamaica has always farmed — sugar and bananas, mostly — and imports have been part of the mix since at least the colonial era because grains are hard to grow in the region. But the balance tipped more significantly toward foreign food in the 1990s. From 1991 to 2001, Jamaica’s total food and beverage imports increased by two-and-a-half times, to $503 million before doubling after that.

    Much of the initial growth coincided with agriculture surpluses around the world and changing tastes, as more Jamaicans favored meat and processed food. Many of the country’s 200,000 farmers cut production in the ’90s and early 2000s because they found it hard to compete.

    Then came the food shortages of 2008. Storms in the Caribbean and drought elsewhere drove food prices to new heights. Jamaica found that exporting countries were holding on to food for their own populations.

    With concerns that climate change will make future bad years even worse, an intensified regional focus on “food security” followed. Results have varied.

    Mr. Baptiste said that Antigua and Barbuda was on track to produce half its food this year, up from only 20 percent in 2009, but most of the Caribbean has seen less astounding improvement. Jamaica’s progress, even after so many years, is subtle. Its food import bill has held steady around a billion dollars a year and though some production has grown — 79 percent of the country’s potato consumption now comes from Jamaican sources — there are still challenges of taste. “We import a lot of French fries,” said the country’s agriculture minister, Roger Clarke.

    The transformation that Caribbean officials seek faces other obstacles as well. Mr. Clarke said many Jamaicans who received free seeds gave up on farming once they saw an increase in their water bills, or when thieves plundered their fields or stole their chickens.

    Still, officials across the region say more young people are getting involved, partly because food prices have soared, but also because governments have promised that agriculture means steady work, and not just in the fields.

    The Bahamas is building a gleaming food science university to emphasize agricultural best practices.

    Haiti, which experienced food riots in 2008, recently broke ground on a series of silos for a “strategic food reserve,” while Jamaica is considering investments in juicing and food preservation start-ups.

    “We have idle hands and arable land,” Mr. Clarke said. “We are trying to see how we can bring those two together.”

    For the original report go to http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/world/americas/as-cost-of-importing-food-soars-jamaica-turns-to-the-earth.html?pagewanted=all
    lisaparavisini | August 3, 2013 at 10:30 pm | Tags

  15. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller,
    Even this “fool” knows that the “gold standard” was dropped years ago. sorry you did not know.
    Pilgrims to Passover came from many countries not controlled by Rome, Sorry you did not know that either.

  16. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller
    For your further information “The gold standard was abolished in Great Britain and Japan in 1931, in the USA in 1933,
    For your further information and edification:
    The United States abandoned the Gold Standard Act in 1933. President Franklin D. Roosevelt outlawed the ownership of gold to any person except for the use of jewelry. At the end of World War I, the United States had lent money to Germany so that they could pay France and France in turn, was to pay the United States. The lack of money led to hyperinflation. This inflation caused many efforts to lower prices back to pre-war levels. This caused the United States Federal Reserve to “sterilize” gold intake. This had a ripple effect and caused other countries to lower the value of gold. This series of events started the Great Depression. “On one hand it seemed that suspension of the gold system would lead to paper money and either high inflation or hyper-inflation, and on the other hand, the mechanisms for maintaining the gold standard-government austerity, higher taxes, monetary contraction and higher interest rates, led directly to severe economic collapse, unsustainably high unemployment, and agitation for communist or other radical forms of government” (Wikipedia, 2006).

    The gold standard at the time was very successful however in today’s society it seems unrealistic
    …
    When one country trades with another they may have to trade their currency for the currency of the country they want to trade with uses. The demand created for the goods and services from one country to another is the merchandise trade balance between two countries.

  17. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Alvin Cummins | August 4, 2013 at 3:05 PM |

    What can we say to you Alvin?
    Just this: Why not ask your friend Dr. Delisle Worrell or even Dr. Frank Alleyne whom you claim to hobnob with why does Barbados hold some of its foreign reserves in gold (bullion)?

    We are not talking about a standard for measuring the value of one currency against another as currently done by the US dollar but as a store of real wealth.
    Why do you think (if that is possible) Fort Knox an old military base from the Civil war days still exist next to a vault to protect the gold reserves of the USA?
    Can you explain the hike in the price of gold in recent years?

    Look Alvin the issue is not about Jews assembling to do pilgrimage to the city of David like the allegorical three wise men but about spending real money denominated in gold and silver coins with the weight of each coin determining the value and spending worth (how much goods and services can be acquired).

    Today many Muslims from around the planet take the hajj to Mecca with credit cards and US$ dollars in their pockets but backed with gold, silver and most of all oil or black gold traded in US$ backed by gold and trust in America’s (formerly like Rome’s) supremacy and military might of god-like proportions.

  18. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller,
    I don’t have to ask. Gold is a tradable commodity that is traded on stock markets around the world, I remember when gold was trading at $35.00 per ounce, it is now over a thousand dollars an ounce. so the government is wise to hold some of its reserves in a tradable commodity, not necessarily to back the currency. I attended university with Sir Frank Alleyne, we studied together and when I was doing post graduate work at Cave Hill of course we hob-nobbed. Anything wrong with that? for your further information…the coins used to purchase animals etc for the sacrifice at passover were the Temple coins, Sacrificial objects had to be purchased with these Temple coins. go and read about the function of these Temple coins and their importance to the Saccucees. In fact go and read about them and maybe you will understand a lot more.

  19. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller typographical error it is Sadducees. That is why here was a riot at the Temple when the tables of the money changers were overturned. this is where the Sadducees got their power and influence from.

  20. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Alvin Cummins | August 4, 2013 at 4:18 PM |

    Alvin, What in hell or heaven are you trying to tell us?
    That the con men of old in the temples are no different from the prosperity gospel preachers in the modern churches?

    In those Bible days you paid the priest in gold and silver or some other tradable item (even sex) in exchange for a temple token of blessings (sacrifices) just as today idiots like you pay into the collection box or by tithing by Direct Debit to your account for similar blessings or seats in heaven in exchange for financing the preachers’ BMW, Mercedes and lavish houses, business suits and big up lifestyles like Holmes Williams, David Durant and the baird(y) woman for a crook called “lucille why are you going to town and leave poor Kenny Rogers at home with the kids”.

    BTW, don’t you find animal killing and burnt offerings to appease some temperamental god called Yahweh to him from sending the plague a bit gruesome and a type of obeah in nature with the turtle doves and grain and all that?

    Why not do like the Aztecs and kill some human gays to appease God Bushie and Lord Caswell?

  21. Well Well. Avatar
    Well Well.

    Alvin…………all the other islands understood a decade ago that food security is so important that they cut down on imports and their ballooning food import bill and now rely more on local foods………..as you know, i am in Europe, from what i heard the Barbados government has not yet made a move to cut down and regulate food imports and are still not doing enough to encourage local food production but the food import bill is still headed toward the billion dollar mark, have you been advising them that their lack of positive actions toward reducing that food bill will bankrupt the island even faster?

  22. The People's Democratic Congress Avatar
    The People’s Democratic Congress

    A certain future coalitional government of Barbados – and of which the PDC shall be a part of – shall ABOLISH ALL ‘Exchange Rate Parities’ with the Barbados Dollar.

    Such a strategic policy initiative shall, among other things, make sure that the cost to the nominal incomes, payments and transfers of the final individuals/consumers/users of resources, goods and services in domestic commercial markets, are – in association with other progressive policy approaches, for instance, the ABOLITION of Interest Rates – substantially reduced.

    PDC

  23. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @well well, My mother had an expression she used to use when we were stubborn or obstinate’ she called such people “Hard mouth cows.” That describes Bajans. They are not prepared to change or accept change. No less than four years ago I had arguments with members of my cricket club. they laughed me to scorn when I postulated the growth of large acreages in crops like sweet potatos and the danger in relying on too many foods imported. When I suggested getting into sweet potato chips and fries I was laughed at. But only two weeks ago I saw sweet potato “fries” in Sky Mall (formerly Julie N.) When I went to Cuba last year I found out that they don’t use anything but sweet potato for their ‘fries”. When I suggested years ago that we could look at alternative products for export I was told how stupid I am, and yet jamaica exports golden Apples, Breadfruit, Yams etc. I only hope the government slashes the items available for import by at least two thirds. We can grow our own onions, why do we have to import? Why do we import sweet peppers when they can be grown here? I don’t buy the twaddle that the importers try to push down our throats.What can I ssay? They intend to bankrupt the country and then blame the government for not aking appropriate action by getting rid of staff. Cut the food import bill in half, the vehicle import bill by half, and the fuel import bill by half insist that people grow more of their own food and use local produce and the island will survive.Great to hear from you/

  24. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller; read your Bible..Leviticus and Deuteronomy and learn that animal sacrifice was part of the burnt offerings sacrificed in the temple. Was’nt Abraham preepared to sacrifice his own son on th altar in place of the lamb which he originally intended to sacrifice, because he was sure thatit was what God wanted.Read up your history again. If you don’t want to go to the Bible, go to Google or Yahoo and read up on the history of the Temple priests.etc.Believe me man today is no different from man from the begining of time. Why was Abel killed by CAin?Were they not the offspring of the first parents “created” by God? Go back to school (Biblical) and read with understanding.

  25. Well Well. Avatar
    Well Well.

    Alvin……………ten years ago i experienced being cussed by people on the island for telling them they may want to consider growing their own food, at that time the US was in the grip of recession, some others also suggested to members of the government the same warning and were ignored, guess they will all have to learn…….good to hear you as well.

  26. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Alvin Cummins | August 4, 2013 at 6:27 PM |

    Sorry to disappoint you Alvin, but I am a Hindu quite at home with Indian myths and legends as told in their holy books such as the Bhagavad Gita.

    I prefer reading those than about a man whose wife was created from a rib in his side and whose built-in disobedience caused her to be “screwed” by a snake and had two sons one your god preferred over the other; one of whom killed the other with your god forgiving him by placing a mark on his forehead. The forgiven murderer then had sex with his unknown sister.

    And the vileness goes on even to Lot (the relative of your mate Abraham the one who nearly committed infanticide if not for the change in the ages to the symbolic ram Aries) whose wife turned into to pillar of salt by the nuclear explosion of an asteroid and whose two daughters raped him in order to have the seed of evil perpetuated even unto you.

    Get my drift, Alvin? Just not accepting as “gospel” that shit for an entertaining bedtime children story.

    But if you can explain to me how Chinese Whites, Indians and Blacks came about from a man name Cain having sex with his sister I might just be tempted to listen to you about the real Noah and the Ark fairy tale.

  27. David Avatar
    David

    Listen with rapt attention to Prime Minister warning LIAT management tonight on the night news that it is not business as usual after investing a lot of money to make the island efficient.

  28. Bag Juice Avatar
    Bag Juice

    Could this warning from Stuart to LIAT be a signal that the airline might be included in the 400 million cut? Time will tell.

  29. David Avatar
    David

    Actually BU associates the LIAT buzz with the push finally to equip the Civil Aviation Authority and acquire Cat 1 jurisdiction certification.

  30. Bag Juice Avatar
    Bag Juice

    Oh yes BU, you might be on to something. Minister Seal made reference to such last week in what I thought was a disdainful dismissal of St. Vincent and the Grenadines having such certificate before Barbados. But what is surprising from Sealy. Look at how he recently dismissed St. Lucia and their tourism product as 30 years behind Barbados.

  31. Sid Boyce Avatar
    Sid Boyce

    Human stupidity is infinite and eternal. Gullibility is built in to most of the human race. Thinking, especially for oneself, is deemed a sin or worse.

    I grew up listening to total air heads parroting the words they read or what another parrot, the pastor/priest/elder said.

    When I was 16 I was passing through Shop Hill, St. Thomas one Sunday afternoon to see a large gathering listening intently to a preacher bellowing out “And they ate and they drank their bellies full” at which point I asked “Didn’t you want them to then?” The people fell about laughing and the preacher waited until I got a fair distance away before he started again.

    Believe they tell you, but look at who is telling you.
    It’s a legacy thing, a different slaver and the words and sentiments would have been different — it’s a communicable disease.

    Right now on a frequent basis I see most older folk turning to religion — “the last stop on the road to senility (Tm)” I call it.

    Most of them never had an instrument to think with and they have hopes that being conversant with that nonsense will book them a seat in paradise so they cling on to it as a sort of insurance policy when they are about to have their last big shit and die.

    I tell my kids that the day I turn to religion to have me certified or be most kind and shoot me.

  32. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Miller…to each his own. Too bad you don’t know me and can only guess. @ well well. You owe me some comment, or critique and an opinion. Waiting with bated breath.

  33. ac Avatar
    ac

    somebody got to say something to them clowns at liat. because the management is piss poor, I meaning delays time and time ;all kind of nonsense.it is time that management get the job done to be considered a reputable organization… too many self made errors,

  34. David Avatar
    David

    Baffy this news must worry the hell out of YOU:

    Venezuela to increase interest on PetroCaribe payments

  35. PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926-2013 AND SEE MASSIVE FRAUD ,LAND TAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS Avatar
    PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926-2013 AND SEE MASSIVE FRAUD ,LAND TAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS

    http://bajan.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/governance-for-the-people-facing-the-nation/#comment-151991

  36. Well Well. Avatar
    Well Well.

    Alvin………….this should give you another perspective.

    Someone asked me to kindly pass on this letter from William (Willie) Lynch dated 1772, a very evil, demonic and very dead slave owner of that era, the person believe it would help the majority blacks on the island to reposition themselves in organizing and building on the island’s wealth for themselves instead of allowing the minorities to continually treat them like they are chattel and beasts of burden to enrich the minorities on the island only, while th politicians, coddle, enable and encourage the minorities to perpetrate this fraud
    ____________________________________________

    I thought this was the most appropriate time for ALL OF US to re-read, remember and NEVER FORGET, the speech given by Willie Lynch a slave owner who over 300 years ago devised a plan to help keep Black people divided…

    Gentlemen:

    I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our lord, one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First , I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the of the colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me in my modest plantation in the West Indies where I have experimented with some of the newest and still the oldest method for control of slaves. Ancient Rome would envy us if my program is implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious KING JAMES, whose BIBLE we CHERISH, I saw enough to know that our problem is not unique. While Rome used cords or wood as crosses for standing human bodies along the old highways in great numbers, you are here using the tree and the rope on occasion.

    I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree a couple of miles back. You are losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed, Gentleman,…You know what your problems are; I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them.

    In my bag, I have a fool proof method for controlling your slaves. I guarantee everyone of you that if installed it will control the slaves for at least three hundred years. My method is simple, any member of your family or any OVERSEER can use it.

    I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves, and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use FEAR, DISTRUST, and ENVY for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies, and it will work throughout the SOUTH. Take this simple little list of differences and think about them. On the top of my list is “AGE” but it is only there because it starts with an “A”; The second is”COLOR” or shade; there is INTELLIGENCE, SIZE, SEX, SIZE OF PLANTATION, ATTITUDE of owner, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, east or west, north, south, have fine or coarse hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action- but before that, I shall assure you that DISTRUST IS STRONGER THAN TRUST, AND ENVY IS STRONGER THAN ADULATION, RESPECT OR ADMIRATION.

    The black slave, after receiving this indoctrination, shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.

    Don’t forget you must pitch the old black VS. the young black males, and the young black male against the old black male. You must use the dark skinned slaves VS. the light skin slaves. You must use the female VS the male, and the male VS, the female. You must always have your servants and OVERSEERS distrust all blacks, but it is necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us.

    Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control, use them. Never miss an opportunity. My plan is guaranteed, and the good thing about this plan is that if used intensely for one year the slave will remain perpetually distrustful.

    -WILLIAM LYNCH-1772

    The letter above is one of the major problems of the African-American race today. And with this knowledge we as a race can and will over come. So with this letter still in your mind I ask that you enlighten someone else and send this letter to as many brothers and sisters. We as a race must start somewhere in learning our problems what better place than the document that started the destruction of our MOST POWERFUL RACE!!!

  37. Well Well. Avatar
    Well Well.

    Alvin……….if we can identify the root of the problem ( the tap root) we can solve the problem, obviously all the other stuff is not working, i have a problem with the DLP who is the ruling party, not governing, governance will include them laying down stringent restrictions to those who import garbage to sell to bajans who currently have no money to purchase such garbage. Restrictions on all the garbage food they import, restrictions on cars, there are already too many, restrictions on all other garbage that are not necessities for survival, let the merchants of garbage find other markets outside of Barbados. The DLP begged, bought and fought to gain the mandate to be re-elected, it’s time for them to show some balls against the greedy merchants (don’t care what they promised them or how much campaign money they took in the form of bribes to be re-elected) AND GOVERN the island.

  38. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ David BU:

    Are you in possession of information regarding the MoF’s stated commitment to meeting Barbados’ funding obligations to the UWI.
    Surely this is not a matter for the coming Budget.

    BTW, are you aware of any similar delays in meeting Barbados’ funding obligations to other regional institutions like the Caricom Secretariat and CXC?

  39. David Avatar
    David

    @Miller

    Besides the reference in the Ellis interview we may have to wait until the Budget.

  40. Yagga Rowe Avatar
    Yagga Rowe

    BARBADIANS TOOK THEIR eyes off productivity in the last decade and this has led to the current economic woes, says CARICOM ambassador Robert “Bobby” Morris.

    Stating that Government started “pelting money at problems” once it got past the difficulties of the 1990s, Morris said such a system could never have been sustainable once salaries and wages exceeded the level of productivity in a country.

    Can you believe this crap
    from Bobby Mooris
    blame
    blame
    blame
    blame
    blame
    blame
    blame
    blame it on the boogie
    dont blame it on me
    ————————————–
    Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaggga

  41. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ David | August 6, 2013 at 3:05 PM |

    It’s a sad period in the country’s history of public finance management when a budget is used like a political party platform during an election. The commitment to the UWI is a legal obligation already negotiated with settlement deadlines agreed months ago.
    What is required is execution; not budgetary announcements already made in the previous budget and at Estimates time.

    The same thing applies to the policies and programmes to advance the RE revolution as heard in last year’s budget speech with the raft of very attractive incentives announced as budgetary measures that have not seen the light of day but as usual suffering from an acute case of implementation deficit disorder (IDD).

    Only last week the same MoF was regurgitating the same (announced in the June 2012 budget) measures at some RE workshop instead of highlighting their ‘implementation’ status as the wonderful work his administration is doing to restructure the economy and certainly deserving of kudos.

    These same announcements would again be included as revolutionary measures in the upcoming budget as a major plank of his administration’s strategies to restructure the country by creating an eco-friendly and green economy making it much less dependent on imported fossil fuels which represent a tremendous drain on the country’s scarce foreign reserves.

    Another round of Caricom-type NATO (no Action, Talk Only) meetings next week!

  42. David Avatar
    David

    Interesting to hear Innotech advertising on radio today (Brasstacks).

  43. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    It seems as if the real ‘professore’ Sir Hilary Beckles is beginning to raise his big gun in the direction of the DLP administration.

    From what is being said the DLP might just be reneging on its pre-election promise of maintaining free access to the UWI to keep Beckles paper qualification factory in production.

    W shall soon see if the Education god is bigger and more powerful than the Money god.

    If PM Stuart inveigles his way out of this one he would put Houdini to shame.
    But there is always that fall guy called the international recession to rely on.
    Bajans are easy suckers for such bullshit.

    The days of free university education were long past before the recession came about. It’s time to face the music which has been playing in the background for a long time now.

    Why should taxpayers continue to pay for a university for people to attend who see nothing wrong with buying other people’s dead hair for $1,000.00 per hair hat called Remi and see it as an investment?

    Be Christ man, the game is over now invest in your own head not other people manufactured hair, real or false.

  44. David Avatar
    David

    @Miller

    PROFESSOR Howard warned the government that the education monkey was getting too heavy as the financial woes of the government became protracted BUT education seems to be the sacred cow.

  45. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ David | August 7, 2013 at 2:35 PM |

    One thing about Prof. Michael Howard, he calls it as he sees it.
    One wonders if Sir Frank shares similar views on funding university education.
    If there is alignment of this position across the “academic profession” and a convergent of political realities from both side of the Parliamentary divide then we could actually be witnessing the preparation of the altar on which this sacred cow would be sacrificed to the go(o)d of Fiscal Starvation.

    Its apogee would come about in the coming weeks when the fiscal god like the Aztec sun god is asked to choose between the continuation of free University education and further cuts in government expenditure on social services with a possible threat of an externally imposed monetary haircut.

    The BLP would be mad to oppose the slow dismantling of this DLP promoted icon that defines them as electorally “superior” to the BLP.
    It has to be done (as was done in the UK years ago) and who better to carry out the deconstruction than its acclaimed architect.
    That would be one column of the burdensome welfare state the BLP would like to see the back of to create fiscal elbow room in the future.

    One must admit that PM Stuart has a ‘Classic’ way with Words. His prophetic reference to ‘sucking at the fiscal nipples until they have become sore’ was meant Not only for the greedy mouths of the parasites in the business sector but also for the wider social drones to suckle on.

    Look out for Minister Jones to be sent out as political cannon fodder to take the first sustained barrage of fire from the crying parasitic pseudo middle class many of them DLP weaned baby boomers of the 60’s &70’s welfare cradle.

    The Sacred Cow is about to lose its udders!

  46. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ David | August 7, 2013 at 2:35 PM |

    So the Scotia Bank has backed out of the bond deal to bail out the Cave Hill Campus?
    The Barbados government is adamant it still has a deal on to fund the UWI.
    Could you tell us who is telling the truth here?

    If things continue as they are the long-term plan of restructuring the Regional University might just be brought forward. The UWI long-term sustainability is based on a two-campus model.
    Pick sense from that.

  47. IQ derma cosmetics wrinkle Avatar
    IQ derma cosmetics wrinkle

    Thaat iis a really good tip especially to those new to the blogosphere.
    Smple but very precise info… Thanks ffor sharing this one.
    A must read post!

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