Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Think Tank and watchdog Group
Caricom Heads
It should now be obvious to all and sundry, that the year 2014 will mean nothing more than depressingly minimal growth for most if not all Caribbean states. We are being directed by the International Monetary (Mercenary) Fund; relying on the cooked up statistics of agencies such as Standard and Poor and Moodys. Almost daily we are being “rated” by foreigners, who still see us as fun-loving natives who spend our time in lazy repose on our beaches. As far as they are concerned, we are non –productive and incapable of managing our own affairs. Imagine they come out of the United States, a country that is saddled with its own debt and whose economy and corporate corruption are directly responsible for much of the world’s current economic crisis, which was fuelled by the greed of the Wall Street titans, and brazenly try to project themselves as our saviours. Why do we subject ourselves to such humiliation is beyond the imagination but there is nothing more pathetic, than witnessing foreign economists come into our countries ,and treat us like some abandoned outpost, as obtained during the days of the wild west.
Certainly those workers who built these economies by the sweat of their brows would not have imagined that almost fifty years after independence and in some cases more, we have reached the sorry stage, where it is believed that we cannot manage our own affairs and resources. The victories over slavery, colonialism, and rampant racism should have better prepared us to be masters of our own fate but somewhere along the way, we lost focus of the journey that started in the 1930’s when the labour movement started to show serious signs of becoming the driving force of a truly democratic Caribbean region.
Today, that same labour force is under constant attack. Throughout the region both public and private sector jobs are disappearing and unemployment figures in many island states exceed or are approaching twenty per cent of the labour force. The often referenced service industry is under pressure and competition from external sources. In the mean time, efforts to rebuild and reform the agriculture sector, are meeting road blocks ,such as lack of capital and ideas and an absence of progressive land use policies. As we approach the half year mark, it is more than fair to say that our Caribbean region is on the brink of total economic collapse and we join those who are calling on the citizens to save themselves because throughout the region most of our leaders, both public and private sector, are out to sea drifting in leaking, rudderless boats. However, we at the Mahogany Coconut Group fear that while we attempt to plug the leaks and use make shift rudders; the simple truth is that we are also without the essential compass. We are drifting but even more dangerous is the fact that we don’t even know where we are. How do we get back to shore? Region overboard!
http://www.rense.com/general60/whatthedollarscollapse.htm
http://theweek.com/article/index/259542/is-the-international-monetary-system-nearing-collapse
@ Mahogany Coconut Think Tank
You said and i quote “We are being directed by the International Monetary (Mercenary) Fund; relying on the cooked up statistics of agencies such as Standard and Poor and Moodys.”
I would be the first to join with many a patriotic Bajan in the litany about us importing external expertise to manage our affairs for several other sound reasons.
However I cannot, in the face of the Auditor General’s Report(s), accept this perspective when one take’s a look through the microscope of our resident expertise regarding suspect fiduciary practices perpetrated by our own peoples aided and abetted by our representatives of the HoA
We are a lazy set of people, incapable of managing our own affairs fullstop and if you or me think we have the answer to these problems why is it that we are not out there in the firing line, instead of here in the comfort of our homes typing on the computer thingy?
It ain’t so bad in BBD at macro level (not micro due to wealth inequality)
Income level High income: nonOECD
GDP (current US$) $4.225 billion 2012
Population (Total) 283,200 2012
http://data.worldbank.org/country/barbados
@ pieceuhderockyeahright
Thanks for you comment. The Auditor General’s (Barbados) report may very well be more a reflection of bad governance than widespread corruption. We do believe that Caribbean people are quite capable of managing their own affairs; we do not believe that we are lazy because if we were the region could not be where it is today. The entire Caribbean is in a deep leadership crisis. As for being more involved, change cannot come overnight. We at MCG, recognise that it must be a collective effort. We however are forced and honest enough to admit that at this time even those , including us, who really are canvassing for change, recognise it is not an easy easy. All we ask is that you and others continue to play their part.
above should read: “not an easy task.” Our apologies
@ David,
I find it ironic that in a country that professes to have a near 100 percent literacy rate consistently produces a semi-illiterate political and business class. These two groups sadly lack creativity and are more inclined to promote their own self- interests over the good of their citizens.
I have to be blunt. Viewed from the outside Barbados is obsolete: it is irrelevant. If it was to sink in the ocean today it would not make international news. Sadly this is the reality; could the same be said of one of our more animated neighbours -Jamaica? I don’t think so.
David the picture you paint of a modern Barbados (the poodle dog) waiting for a pat on the head from her/his master (the IMF, Standard and Poor, Moodys, etc) is truly pathetic. This has all the hallmarks of a Greek tragedy.
David we have to look to Africa for inspiration. Ethiopia is the rising black African star. This is a country which has set out clear objectives and is blessed with dynamic leadership. You may not be aware that Ethiopia is in the middle of producing an ambitious but controversial dam on the River Nile in order to produce electricity. Egypt has threated Ethiopia as it (Egypt) is a beneficiary of the River Nile. Over the years Egypt has lobbied against the creation of this dam. Ethiopia tried to raise loans to build this project without any success. How did they overcome this hurdle? They generated and are still generating their own funds through the Ethiopian diaspora and through politicising the importance of this dam within Ethiopia as being a milestone in the political and social development of a new Ethiopia.
The You Tube clip highlights the ambition of this giant of a country. Sadly Barbados looks pathetic in comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvrJiH5Uk4I
@Exclaimer
Interesting!
There is a view that BU and commenters portray too negative a view about Barbados when all we want is to participate in our system of government with a view to protect build our quality of living. Only yesterday we listened to David Ellis expressing frustration at the discordant way Barbados is being projected by some. The majority of Barbadians still don’t understand the world has shifted in how it operates and Barbados has not. This diaspora business has been touted by this government it must be said but the effort lacks follow through, no execution, no coherent plan.
Mahoney
I do not know where you have gotten your information on Ethiopia from? But the last time I read, Ethiopia was under dictatorship. Now if you want to look for rising starts in Africa: you should look to the West African country of Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and the Republic of Cameroon. And tell me what you think!
Mahogany
Listen to this fact about your rising star in Africa: the Ethiopia constitution defines the right to own land as belonging to ” the state and the people” , but citizens may lease land ( up to 99 years) and are unable to mortgage or sell. I don’t’ know about you but I interpreted the above practices of the Ethiopia government as being totalitarian?
i hate when some so -called intellectuals try to speak for the majority and subjecting others to rhetoric of days gone by while vilifying a populace as misinformed or lazy,,,,,,, in any society one would find lazy shiftless people,,these kind of terminology does no good but are reminders of those in the upper class of society who used the paint and brush effectively to gain superiority .. those days are long gone,,,,,we are now living in a global world people are now well informed,,,the stakes are high,,,,,,and the choices people make or a country makes will determined which path to take,,,,,,barbadians could not be all that lazy ..given a small island with limited resources which still has been able to make significant strides in education and health,, that other small islands are stilll dreaming of,,,,,,yes we still have a long way to go ….but as close to the bottom we have been in the past ,barbadians have stilll been able to fight against all the negative and head for the top again……and that is not lazy,,,,,,,but hard work and determination.
signed
sick and tired
@ AC
It is not so much that one wished to vilify ALL of the bajans as being shiftless and lazy it is rather the realization that the net position is such morass and mediocrity that most people become sick and tired to use your words, of the fact that, like excited atoms in a lava flow, the solid lava, moves to being liquid and then to gaseous and we in Bulbados reamin in that moho layer of existence never breaking free to collectively become anything but predominantly solid.
I know the analogy of the states of lava might be somewhat “left side” for some but what we need is an “excited” economy with some geysers bursting through the sluggishness and mire.
When you are in the trenches with the common man and woman, you do encounter so much talent, raw skills and some more advanced, that are being frustrated by the inveterate incompetence of the private/public sector led by the incompetent BLP and the DLP (otherwise called the Whuloss party)
For example, tell me what the innovation fund run by Enterprise Growth Fund has funded for the 10 years that it has been in existence?
Give me the name of anything that that nitwit Timothy Simmonds and the successive committees, under either the BLP or DLP administrations, would have endorsed and funded that have excelled?
So you see why one is so ready to use those words AC, not because we delight in them but because the reality of our experiences have made this such a unacceptable bile in our throats and the only thing that one is wont to do is vomit it out under the inadequacy of our language
Piece
You like you read some Plato before that post.
Exclaimer:
I am enjoying the fulsome nature of your rhetoric; however, you are a bit over board. If Barbados sank today. The whole world shall be sailing and prodding and doing all kinds of things in the waters here. Because, all of them would be trembling and wondering if they are next to sink. ! This why they have to find that plane MH370, or the question could which other plane shall disappear next!
@ Dompey,
If we could find an alternative platform to the Punch and Judy political system in Barbados I would be happy. For the record Ethiopia is making giant strides in all areas; unlike Barbados which is going backwards. You are right Ethiopia has a political system which one could loosely describe as been “totalitarian”. However it is a country which is dynamic, young in outlook, hungry for change and ambitious.
The political system as it stands has failed its Afro-Bajan citizens. What we require is strong leadership which can offer concrete long-term hope for the masses.
@ Lemeul,
Overboard? Perhaps you’re right. However I am a black patriot. I fear for the future of my fellow Afro-Bajan brothers and sisters.
@Vincent Hayes
Keep in mind that it was not so long ago that one pound sterling got you about 4 US$. Now it gets you about $1.65. Over the longer period there has been a massive decline in the value of the GBP compared to the US$. The Euro trades in almost a fixed parity range to the GBP so one can assume that on average the countries using the Euro have had a massive currency decline against the US$ as well.
Like PM said if ten proposals are complete the one not pass the grade is the most talked about..nothing wrong with being crtical however extreme does no good. Talking about corrective measurrs to benefit all is most important.however in these circumstance iis generally the few who is critical out of selfishness and not for the best interest of the country
Exclaimer,
In most parts, a brilliant assessment and contribution at 4.43 am, 23 April, 2014.
Many, many countries are making serious developmental strides, whereas Barbados is dedeveloping at a rapid rate under these two jack o lantern DLP and BLP disorganizations, which must be totally got the rid of, if the national development process must be reengaged on another national political trajectory.
PDC
Exclaimer said:
“The political system as it stands has failed its Afro-Bajan citizens. What we require is strong leadership which can offer concrete long-term hope for the masses.”
Maybe the problem now lies in the leaders in the Caribbean blindly trying to make a failing system, not of their creation, work….it’s more than likely time to gradually phase out a system foisted on the people and phase in one that would actually work to the benefit of the masses, one that is not as easily manipulated, but then, the leaders would need very powerful strength of character and even more powerful independent brains for such an endeavor.
Most of the Caribbean is at a strategic dead end! We know well that there are some here and even with the MCG who like to speak nostalgically about the Caribbean. But on balance, we see very little to encourage even the mindless amongst us. When we look at Caribbean people we see the collective or proverbial deer in the headlights of Washington-Consensus, ‘free-market’,economics. This nightmarish sojourn over this cultural abyss cannot be prevented, was not intended to be navigated.
Therefore there are a few questions to be asked. These may include, the timing for the erection of the guillotines in each town centre. Preventative measures to ensure persons of interests do not escape popular justice.Especially the elites who continue to exact resources from the treasury under the false promise of development, but have produced the reverse, and to this day continue with this Faustian bargain..
Barbados erects guillotines to execute the smartest bajans…..big problem….Canada wont extradite them
Lawson…….if you are saying this in jest, you have actually stumbled onto someting.
@ Well Well and Exclaimer
Both good comments! How do we take them to the next level?
Race……..it’s not impossible, they have to start seeing themselves not as the products of or children of someone’s system, which they erroneously believes is theirs, but capable of creating that which would be beneficial to the masses, the politician’s problem as i see it is their love for enormous volumes of paper (money) for personal use, status, titles, they are blinded and distracted by the myth that these things are wealth, they are measuring wealth by how many houses, cars, land etc they can cheat each other out of so they can pose, when they can get over that, they will finally see reality..
These types of realities are life lessons in how easy it is for history to repeat itself.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152299657412976&set=a.378473232975.160482.318668727975&type=1
Excellent piece David, simply excellent!
If there were more critical thinkers like yourself who can cut through the chaff and see the current and impending situation for what it is, and then those very people could ascend to leadership roles in public and private sector organizations with the ability to evangelize that same type of thinking, we would have progress in half a decade.
@ racehrse | April 23, 2014 at 5:26 PM |
Your question is succinct but deep in meaning. I will try to be brief.
For starters Barbados should ditch the colonial system that it inherited from the British and should wave goodbye to the Queen of England. The two party political system that exists in Barbados is a monstrous fraud. There is nothing democratic when political parties sell their country’s assets, place obscene debts on the masses and allows hostile foreigners who loathe black people to obtain not only citizenship; but also to purchase land and property in Barbados.
We should have at our head a strong President who can drive through radical change unimpeded by an irrelevant and a squabbling parliament. Underneath the President should be a counsel of twelve wise men and women.
There would be no room for political parties. Barbadians should aspire to serve with loyalty their sovereign country. There will be no place for nepotism and corruption. The constitution should have in place measures which prevent those at the top from becoming despots.
Barbados should form close social, economic and political relationships with appropriate African countries. It should realign itself with Africa and the African diaspora wherever it resides.
We should select with care which non-African countries we form relationships with. One group of countries which we should never have anything to do with are those which are populated by Arabs. Forgive me for saying this, they are an abomination. With regard to European nations or nations with a high number from the European diaspora they should be treated with caution and at a distance. I would put South-East Asian countries in the same category as European countries. As for India I would reluctantly put them in the first group with the Arabs. However I certainly do not think that they are an abomination. With regard to China we should embrace them.
@ David,
Good article!
Credit for the article is stated at the top of the blog.
@ Exclaimer
What other countries?
Piece
You speak kindly of Timothy … Do you know that the board that sits over the Innovation Fund (which btw is the poorest of all of the funds) is comprised of five public servants, one legacy operator (solar heaters) and one other person (who is actually an asset ..)?
The Enterprise Growth Fund is basically a debt collector. I would like to suggest that Pacha also sets up a guillotine in Barbarees Hill, but leave it out in the rain so that it becomes dull and rusty …
Exclaimer
You should have words with Bush Tea before he moves on to a higher calling … 🙂
Whats wrong with blue collar, working class people, Most of us don’t have a credit rating ….because we don’t have to borrow. Maybe that’s a lesson that old bajans and us council flat people can teach the young.
Exclaimer:
You were doing so well. In your last thread, there seems to be the suggestion that systems work (a mistake the PDC continues to hold on to for dear life) and only if we could get the right system in Barbados. Systems are run by people; the socialists, communists and all of the various forms did not factor in the human element. This is why China has a problem with the children of the leaders of the revolution. In short, people who do the ruling ensure that they and their children and friends are st up in power for ever and ever. This has been the failings of all systems. There is simply no room for their fellow men. At least the capitalist are up front with their intent, but they too are human with all the criminal intent.
Mahogany:
I thought you would have said a bit more about the changing nature of work. Researchers who study “work’ as a process and “jobs’ agree that jobs shall become extinct. For example, it projected that bank tellers are a dying breed. The automated teller shall replace them. It is only in Barbados we go to the gas station and worker pump gas; in other places, it is self service. It is only in Barbados we continue to produce bulk sugar from our factories. In the US, the sugar cane goes in but comes out in a bag which packed for transport. The projection is that a lot of jobs that we hold dear in the Caribbean are already extinct and shall never return. The intent seems to be if it can be automated it shall be. Not even the UWI and I mean the entire UWI have spoken to this and the need to retool, but we have some economic jokers around the Caribbean speaking in halted voices expecting to be deified for their theoretical brilliance.
We are in a fast changing technological age, but we continue to hold on to backward technologies and processes and expect some wonderful result.
The US Government Has Been Printing Money Without Limit, The BRICS Countries Are Setting Up Their Own IMF
The US dollar is losing its dominance on global trade amid spiraling tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine, says an analyst.
In his Friday column for Press TV website, F. William Engdahl said Russia and leading trading countries are developing “alternatives to using the US dollar for their bilateral trade.”
The analyst said the US government has been printing “money without limit, in order to rescue the bankrupt Wall Street banks with what the Federal Reserve calls Quantitative Easing.”
SNIP
Very soon, the IMF will cease to be the world’s only organization capable of rendering international financial assistance. The BRICS countries are setting up alternative institutions, including a currency reserve pool & a development bank.
The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have made significant progress in setting up structures that would serve as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which are dominated by the U.S. and the EU. A currency reserve pool, as a replacement for the IMF, and a BRICS development bank, as a replacement for the World Bank, will begin operating as soon as in 2015, Russian Ambassador at Large Vadim Lukov has said.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-us-government-has-been-printing-money-without-limit-the-brics-countries-are-setting-up-their-own-imf/
Max Romeo: Socialism is Love
Ethiopians: Socialism Train
DILLINGER – Natty Socialist
@ Lemuel,
From the time we started almost eleven years ago, we at Mahogany Coconut have maintained that the current education system is one of the biggest obstacles to reform. MCG has repeatedly stated that there can be no real reform of the economy without radical reform of the educational system. The Caribbean almost missed the Information Highway and is still playing catch up.Our visionless leadership believe it is possible to produce a 2014 car on a 1960 production line. Your point therefore is well taken.
I have to laugh , I remember when a friend of mine was running for an appointment and he would use the phrase on his posters the committee to elect so and so, it made it look so important even though it was only him , I get the same feeling from monogamy group but I bet at least one of you has
phucked around
‘With regard to China we should embrace them.”
China that most racist of repressive but fast moving towards capitalism of all imperialist countries. HA, HA, HA.
@ Baffy
You said and I quote “I would like to suggest that Pacha also sets up a guillotine in Barbarees Hill, but leave it out in the rain so that it becomes dull and rusty…”
I see that you are indeed either a deep thinker or a sadist and I will err to the side of the former.
For indeed either you have had experience with seeing death delivered by a rusty machete to understand how the dying suffer as well the EGFL and their tired leader Timothy should in this case, for delivering such poor service to the peoples of Barbados for so long.
You may remember these words delivered by Owen Seethru Arthur when he set up EGFL, and others of the poor performing institutions and I will quote him here
#1 ” To fill the void generated by the closure of the Barbados Development Bank i.e. small businesses could NOT access appropriate credit facilities;”
#2. “To be responsive to the New Entrepreneurial Class, the funding entities should (a) take reasonable risks, (b) allow enterprises to make reasonable returns on their investments and (c) stop persons from “falling through the cracks”
#3. “To address “disjuncture between the policy intentions of the Government and the actual implementation of said policies by the lending agencies”
#4. “To integrate the policy initiatives being introduced by the Government to improve competitiveness and transform the economy.”
#5. “To be mindful of “the impact of the Free Trade Area of the Americas and The World Trade Organisation as far as issues such as reciprocity and the reduction of international barriers to trade will be fully felt on our economy in the post-2005 period.”
It is as if, for every one of the action statements Timothy Simmonds, otherwise known as Lord Magork had rephrased them, in his own image, demigork that he is “to be the void….to be unresponsive to the needs…to become the disjuncture between the policy….to disintegrate the policy initiatives…to ignore the impact of the FTAA….”
I give him full points for restating the policy and programming that was designed for the entrepreneurial class that is being touted by Pornville Inniss as being one of the backbones of the changing landscape of Barbados for if one could say that Timothy’s party was in power, the BLP-(sh)ites for the 14 years he has single handedly phvcked up the mandate of the EGFL, what excuse do you present now that his party is out and the Fatted Calf Crew are about?
But hold your horses there a bit Baffy!! You say that he answes to a committee? No siree you mean that there are actually people on a board that orchestrate(d) this national incompetence? You lie!! that cant be so!!
Mek sure that that guillotine rusty as hell so that all these bastards and enemies of the Bajan people can suffer like shite during our purge of these indolent phvckers
@ Lemuel | April 23, 2014 at 9:00 PM
You are correct in your summation that all man made systems are imperfect due to their reliance on humans. We expect our political leaders and our fellow citizens to carry out their duties ethically. We know that they do not. However I disagree with you when you stated: ” At least the capitalist are up front with their intent…” That is like a slave stating that he preferred Slave Master Jones over Slave Master Smith simply because he fed his slaves chicken meat rather than dog meat. We should never be complacent or accept those political systems that have been handed down to us from our old colonial masters or from other parts of the world. I believe that we as Africans should develop our own systems.
@ balance | April 24, 2014 at 3:03 AM
Would you rather move forward with a growing and potent “racist” China or backwards with a declining and impotent “racist” Europe/ USA?
@ Socialism Train
I enjoyed your musical selection. Sadly I’m not a Socialist.
Pachamama | April 23, 2014 at 2:21 PM |
You’ve proposed introducing the guillotine. Will the removed heads be placed on a spike for public display?
Reality check people, we have to agitate for change and be pragmatic all the same.
@ Pachamama
Forgive the old man accrediting BAFFY with the excellent guillotine idea, he however did append the idea of letting them get rusty and Exclaimer suggests leaving their heads on display
Rotted bodies bring disease as is evidenced by the endemic that these walking dead continue to spread throughout our society as at April 2014
The putting the zombies out of their somnambulistic state by detaching their heads would suffice less food to import to feed these walking corpses.
Maybe then we will be able to employ a limited scope version of that idiot We Jonesing’s family planning idiocy i.e. foop and breed selected immigrants and increase the population to replace our “undead” a euphemism for the indolent and unproductive in Bulbados, 90% of the BLP and DLP politicians and about 30% of the public servants.
But Lemuel
Technology can make and is making lawyers, architects, accountants (and soon doctors) unnecessary … but laws are being and will be passed to ensure the protection their practices …
@ Exclaimer
We should have at our head a strong President who can drive through radical change unimpeded by an irrelevant and a squabbling parliament. Underneath the President should be a counsel of twelve wise men and women
+++++++++++++++++
What happens when that president dies from some strange cancer like Arafat or Chevez?
….and what if he can’t resist a US $20M bribe? ….and even if he can…What happens when the brass bowl crooks find another way to blackmail him?
Name three wise man or women (far less twelve) who also have the balls for political life.
It ain’t easy!
Piece
Timothy Simmonds is one of about four public servants (and yes, though these people are paid out of revenues that their conservative operations generate or through transfers and subsidies, they are still public servants) that has been inadvertently granted significant power in influencing policy implementation. Though Simmons and the others are in theory supposed to pass decision making onto a number of boards, they stand in the way and block the projects after their field staff have qualified them. There are four of them and they carry titles like CEO, Director and Clerk …
But now look to the make up of these boards … and you would see a proliferation of accountants and insurance executives, with the position of Chairman more than likely being filled with a lawyer, retired civil servant or insurance executive… 🙁
@ Bush Tea | April 24, 2014 at 7:27 AM |
“ ….and what if (The President) he can’t resist a US $20M bribe? ….and even if he can…What happens when the brass bowl crooks find another way to blackmail him….”
Simple: “HANG HIM FROM THE NECK!”
BT…
You seem to have very little in faith in “WE”…the descendants of Slave sellers,Slave owners and Slaves and seem to suggest that”WE” the sum total are worse than any individual part…….serious indictment
@ Baffy
“….has been inadvertently granted significant power in influencing policy implementation……”
A system that has been designed to fail tell me something Baffy, what de france does a lawyer, retired civil servant (like Ralph Boyce @ MESA) an insurance executive or an ole fart like me who retired 20 nuff years ago know about or can inform on innovation?
Man you could as well hire the gardener to run EGFL man.
Jes suppose dat you did had an idea bout how to mex a new form of energy from dogshite (and we got alot of that in the House of Assembly, Ronald Jones, Richard Sealy and de res uh dem fellows wid a monopoly pun turds) tell me sumting Baffy whu is de mechanism dat dem does use to evaluate the idea?
You too young to know dis Baffy but during de war we used to run down by Braffwit (not Adriel Brafwit de Attorney General) but de man who did own cows and look for dry manure to bring home and put it in de fire fuh coal substitute or heat up de iron to iron de clothes dem.
But back to de point, which one uh dem officers gots de mental capacity to evaluate my hypothetical idea? Dem ent even gots nuhbody from de University wid de technical capacity like William Hinds pun dem board man!! Jes bodies! and fuh dat dem is get millions of dollars to donate to charities and de res uh applicants jes to deliver nuffing every single year!!
Leh me axe you a question Baffy causing you know bout dese tings dem, does EGFL go through any type of portfolio evaluation? Like does any body anywhere examine whu money it get and den review whu it produce and den do a cost/benefit analysis uh whu it worth is?
Man Baffy it seem like dem is a real waste foop man, the sin of Onan personified, seed pun de ground en ting
I know dat dat fellow Trotman doing an excellent job at de Auditor General regarding the generally accepted Accounting principles ting but is dere an equivalent tuh he dat does evaluate the efficacy of de funding dem does get, and waste??
LOL @ Exclaimer
Who going hang him boZie? …. After you give him so much power?
…and suppose he only took $700,000…? or suppose his friend in no leper? ..still hang he ???
See why in the BU Ten point plan we does have a PRE-SIGNED letter of resignation BEFORE he get the pick?
….any shiite from he – and Caswell accepting that resignation fast fast…
So the Crooks won’t even bother to waste their money or time bribing him cause they KNOW he will be history the next day….
…and um ain’t no sense trying to bribe Caswell cause he mouth ain’t got no cover… LOL Ha Ha
@ Vincent
That may be true….but Bushie wrong?
Piece
I have to admit that I do have a very soft spot for the UWI academics .. the Don Marshalls, William Hinds, Justine Robinson and so many others. These men are forward thinking. But again, the four public servants that I referred to earlier carry a terrific amount of power. Most Barbadians do NOT even know who these people are … The Ministers of Finance have always been shy in demonstrating what little influence they have over them. The Chief Civil Servant has no authority over them. When Hard Wood became a public issue, SImmons merely retreated into the shadows until it blew over.
I am trying to find more video on Ali Mansoor, Mauritius Fin Secretary, but I can’t so far. David introduced this guy with the video presentation on the Macroeconomics Options thread (at about 1:40). Listen to him and recognize what development is all about …
Start the video at 1:14 (1 hour 14 mins) …
@Baffy
This guy is comfortable challenging Worrell because it is not theory or gut, this is strategy implemented and it works. A model which feeds itself and removes the artificial issue how many people a country can support as one example.
@BAFBFP some lawyers have decided to be “innovative” lol
http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/2014/04/21/walmart_shoppers_can_now_get_99_wills.html
You know David it can be construed by what Mansoor said, that the Worrells in Barbados are paid twice as much as their counterparts in Mauritius … and that is the reason why it is working so well for “them”. The fixed exchange rate (with no true minimum wage) favours the high priced executive class. Barbados is merely a collective of administrators and consultants who thrive on the fixed exchange rate.
If I have stepped on your toe David, I do it without malice.
@Baffy
Good one 🙂
We need all class of workers, it is all about how resources are allocated employed.
David wrote “We need all class of workers,”
operative words being class and workers.
All of you agitators and prognosticators tend to forget that the majority of Bajans are low income hard working people.
All a wunna can eat bacon and eggs fuh brekfuss an eat at Cheffette or Brown Shuga fuh lunch.
Any restructuring of the Barbados economy must improve the lives of those hard working people who can’t afford Cheffette.
BAFBFP how your cropova preparations going. lol.
Exclaimer said:
“That is like a slave stating that he preferred Slave Master Jones over Slave Master Smith simply because he fed his slaves chicken meat rather than dog meat. ”
AND, that’s part of the problem that’s keeping the Caribbean from understanding they are ONE, I met a Jamaican female years ago at a corporation, she kept boasting to me how Jamaican slaves were treated better by their British/Spanish slave masters than Bajan slaves, my query to her was how?, were the whippings better, was the starvings better, were the rapes better, were the lynchings better, of course she did not know what the hell i was talking about, her mind was made up.
Took a trip to Barbados a couple years later and low and behold after talking to some Bajans, they were totally convinced that Bajan slaves were treated better by the british than other Caribbean slaves , I certainly was not going to waste my energy asking them the same questions i asked that dumb as ass Jamaican New Yorker……..so……yall see the problem, that’s what we are dealing with.
David
I would like to modify your last comment. Barbados needs all classes of “Producers” …
To Hants, there is a gland that only seems to appear when you’ve past a certain age that restricts your ability to pee. The ” cropova preparations” will proceed but with a contingency … 🙂
If some one works 40 hours a week , he/she need not worry about housing,
If he/she works 40 house a week , they need not worry about health care.
Tourist Help drive up the prices for food on different parts of the Island. The tourist dont now work for Bajan DOLLAR ,
We need 100% Bajan or Caribbean stores or shops so we know we can get the best prices for locals,We think that will be a real COST U LESSthat will kill us 20% sooner than Nature . Its greed FRAUD ,driving Barbados , Behold the pale horse
Before there were the IMF, Moodys, S&P there were PLANTATIONS AND NOW WE HAVE PLANTATION DEEDS, We will for sell Gold and Silver and then we buy what we want, let them keep their so-called Papers,
@ Baffy
I followed your advice to start the video at 1.14 ( i started and 1.11 to get a feel of it all)
I noted that Fred ? whoever had to give some economics prompters for Delisle from time to time is that way that only they can.
But then Delisle started to speak of the social partnerships and I was spellbound until the end of the video Baffy!
How did you get that do Baffy?
How you get Delisle while he mout did moving to talk bout perfect social partnerships and ting? Man de man mouf was moving and he did talking bout a nex cuntry altogether!!
Dat is good video editing Baffy, ventriloquism at its best, de man did speaking bout a next Bulbados where de social partnerships was “all pun de same page en ting” and everybody did chanting from the same Prayer Book and even de Fred fellow start saying how he went all over de island even up by de University and even de academics was singing de same song….
I gine hafta get David[BU] to ban you Baffy cause you got dis video editing and splicing voice overs ting downpack to a “t” causing when dat video did dun, I did sure dat I was truly insane causing dat cuntry dat Worrell sing such praises bout did not de Barbados we suffering thru evey day
Baffy:
I have to apologize; I thought this man Mansoor was someone you met at the Obeah Man. He is good.
Lemuel | April 23, 2014 at 9:34 PM
|http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/is-this-the-death-of-the-traditional-employee-9279083.html
Angola’s new import tariffs putting the squeeze on the poorest residents in one of the world’s most expensive cities:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/angolas-new-import-tariffs-putting-the-squeeze-on-the-poorest-residents-in-one-of-the-worlds-most-expensive-cities-9278530.html
Lemuel | April 23, 2014 at 9:34 PM |
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/is-this-the-death-of-the-traditional-employee-9279083.html
Excalimer:
I glad you put that post about economic times in Africa. Somebody bout this blog, I do not remember who, was extolling the virtues of us following some african model for development. You need to send this clipping to AC and let her send it to Chris Sinker so he could see where he may be going with this country and these taxes.
About jobs, we too shall have an explosion of the self employed, but without some innovation many of us shall selling or making the same product.
10 years in Jail to go along with 10% cut in salaries for Ministers
Did a Minister trick Corey Layne last week that the 10% cut to Ministers pay was processed long time ago? Now we are learning it was effective from February 2014.
Pingback: Time to Right Ship Caribbean! | Black In Barbados
I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO POST A LINK TO THIS ARTICLE BUT COULD NOT SO FOR A UPDATED PERSPECTIVE ON MANUFACUTURING COSTS AROUND THE WORLD I COPY AND PASTED THE WHOLE ARITICLE, NOTE THAN NONE OF THE BRIC COUNTRIES ARE ON THE TOP 10 COMPETIVNESS LIST. THE REPORT WAS PUBLISHED IN THE LAST FEW DAYS.
New report calls U.S. a ‘rising star’ of global manufacturing
9 hours ago – Reuters
New report calls U.S. a ‘rising star’ of global manufacturing
By James B. Kelleher
(Reuters) – Call it the comeback kid.
A new ranking of the competitiveness of the world’s top 25 exporting countries says the United States is once again a “rising star” of global manufacturing thanks to falling domestic natural gas prices, rising worker productivity and a lack of upward wage pressure.
The report, released on Friday by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG,) found that while China remains the world’s No. 1 country in terms of manufacturing competitiveness, its position is “under pressure” as a result of rising labor and transportation costs and lagging productivity growth.
The United States, meanwhile, which has lost nearly 7.5 million industrial jobs since employment in the sector peaked in 1979 as manufacturers shipped production to low-cost countries, is now No. 2 in terms of overall competitiveness, BCG said.
The biggest factor driving the U.S. rebound, according to BCG: cheap natural gas prices, which have tumbled 50 percent over the last decade as a result of the shale gas revolution.
Also contributing to the country’s attractiveness, according to BCG, is “stable wage growth” – a euphemism for the fact that, in inflation-adjusted terms, industrial wages here are lower today than they were in the 1960s even though worker productivity has doubled over the same period of time.
“Overall costs in the U.S.,” the report’s authors write, “are 10 to 25 percent lower than those of the world’s ten leading goods-exporting nations other than China” and on par with Eastern Europe.
Another standout in the rankings is Mexico, which BCG categorizes as a “rising star” with lower average manufacturing costs than China. But the country failed to make BCG’s list of Top 10 manufacturers because of other factors, including rampant crime and corruption.
BCG arrived at the rankings using a proprietary index that focuses on four major factors: wages, productivity growth, energy costs and exchange rates.
In addition to China, four other countries with reputations as low-cost production centers – Brazil, the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia – are classified as being “under pressure” in terms of their manufacturing costs.
Here is BCG’s ranking of the world’s Top 10 countries in terms of manufacturing competitiveness:
United States
South Korea
United Kingdom
Japan
Netherlands
Germany
Italy
Belgium
France
(Reporting by James B. Kelleher in Detroit; Editing by Nick Zieminski
all Caribbean countries are tiny except for Jamaica, and Cuba,
what is it you all expect from such small, minute, places to export or make all this money you all want.
you are dreamers.
so stupid to have paradise but want new york and lots of money.and materialism.
people in cold countries would trade with you and be happy with what they
have.
warmth and the ocean.
sick people.
tiny islands can not become big countries.
do you follow?
look man if i was a african and could trace my roots back to africa and get back there and get back my culture and now a days open a buisness and make good money that is what i would do.
but you africans sit in barbados and watch the whites and want what they have. total stupidity. whites and blacks are not the same.
may have the same blood and so on but not the same mentality.
back to your roots. before barbados get so overpopulated you got to live in the sea.
man
what is wrong with you all.?
Barbados Outperforms Emerging-Market Debt After Investor ‘Panic’
By Isabella Cota Apr 30, 2014 6:25 PM GMT
Barbados bonds are heading for the second-best performance in emerging markets this month as investors gain confidence in the government’s plan to narrow a budget deficit that prompted the firing of 3,000 public workers.
The yield on the Caribbean island’s dollar-denominated bonds due 2022 have tumbled 79 basis points, or 0.79 percentage point, this month to 8.33 percent at 1:41 p.m. New York time. The country’s debt has returned 5.8 percent, outperforming the 1.4 percent average for emerging markets, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. indexes. Venezuelan debt led emerging markets with a 9.7 percent return.
The International Monetary Fund last year called on Barbados to make “urgent adjustments” to contain a debt burden that climbed to 94 percent of gross domestic product, higher than the level that prompted a European Union-led bailout of Cyprus. Bond yields rose in December, when the government announced the firings and said it would freeze public-sector wages in a country famous for its beaches and rum.
“Once people got over the panic we had earlier this year, they’re looking for some kind of yield,” said John Welch, a market strategist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Toronto. The bonds “are still discounting a pretty high probability of default for Barbados, which we don’t think is there if they continue with their current plan,” he said.
Calls to the Barbados Finance Ministry and Central Bank weren’t returned.
‘Significant Risks’
In February, after the IMF issued a report saying the island’s $3.7 billion economy faced “significant risks,” Trade Minister Donville Inniss said the government was confident that the fired public sector workers would find employment in the private sector.
Signs of growth in Barbados’s top market, the U.K., are positive for the island, Welch said. Cruise ship arrivals climbed 4.1 percent in February from a year earlier. The first-quarter GDP report is expected May 6.
“The government has put in a very large effort, and we’re still waiting for the first-quarter data,” Welch said. “But for sure they’ve been putting into place a strong policy.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Isabella Cota in San Jose, Costa Rica at icota@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net; Brendan Walsh at bwalsh8@bloomberg.net Lester Pimentel
@ Trip Advisor
You are throwing pearls to swine – who resemble brass bowls… OK?
What did Bob Marley say….?
+++++++++++
“In the abundance of water, the brass bowl is thirsty….”
Trip advisor:
What wonderful advice for all of us. I know that you belong somewhere; I do hope it is not in Delhi at the bottom of the hill where the untouchables reside. For we all know that you SHALL not go back there. If it is Europe, the unemployment is way up and given your mentality, I am very sure you are incapable of little. Do not waste the African thing on me; I am a half breed. You go and figure half breed what!
Le mule- as you are a fool i will overlook your total nonsense,
truth is Africa is opening up and had possibly more to offer to you
than barbados.
of course you take it wrong! as you are a ass.when you are born a idiot it is hard to stop being one for life.
i hope you do not end up anywhere as you must be a foolish idiot with no
possibility of outside the box thinking..sad little person. mongrel you say.!
wow!