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@Artax
D body I would like she to point fingers at is D current Speaker…..she doan say a word…Tekk it light Artax…..D day the bottom fall out the bucket, all like she so gine brekk first fa Couva Junction and reunite wid doubles and shark n bake all a sudden.
onions,
Hear the Trini woman and dont hear her.
We do not have short memories…….we could well remember the OSA years when sheand the taximan lambasted the BLP on every programme. She went so far one day as to ask David Ellis how long Bajans are going to sit down and take OSA. Now we are preaching doom and gloom.
Get use to it, Miss Trini………we are going to be on your party backs day in and day out. This lackey still had the nerve to talk about cost over runs and that this is why the DLP had so many problems. The idiot is still peddling the dead king’s lies………that was one of Thompson’s lies he preached at Haggatt Hall and these a..holes still believe that to this day. Talk about giving a lie headway…..to this day, the truth has not caught up. But thanks be to God, the grim reaper caught up with the dead liar.
Miss Trini, you are one who has a seat at the table feasting on the fatted calf, so you are free to continue to defend this bunch of morons!
David Ellis surprised me when he reminded her how she used to preach doom and gloom during OSA time.
Mis Trini, can you tell us how much that road down by Cost you less is costing the taxpayers. This construction has been going on since 2008 and is not yet finished. Are there any cost overruns? Is the project still within budget?
In today’s Nation three of our leading economists suggest the Central Bank latest report is questionable.
Jeremy Stephen, Michael Howard, Clyde Mascoll
“In today’s Nation three of our leading economists suggest the Central Bank latest report is questionable. Jeremy Stephen, Michael Howard, Clyde Mascoll……”
I may be accused of preaching “doom and gloom” as well, but, [as I was trying to explain in my previous contributions] when Barbados has a high fiscal deficit [with accompanying high interest rates], unemployment and taxation, all of which adversely affects investment, disposable income, demand and consumption and subsequently, economic growth…….. I must agree the Central Bank’s lastest report is questionable.
@ Artax
Wait did you hear the gentleman’s point to David E on Brass Tack…..about the different figs. Central bnk. 485,0000 .v. 508,000 Govt. Satis. Dept for tourist arrivals in 2103? His point was.. based on CB reporting a lower fig.in 2013……come 2014 figs…..there will be some growth rather than a negative one if correct fig. used….. dey cooking figures now to record growth……by any means necessary,.. must be the call.
onions,
I heard the guy and could not believe my ears. No wonder De Liar cannot hold press conferences…..he would not be able to explain the discrepancies in his figures.
Maybe with the election out of the way, they could then let 2013 be the bad year, no wonder when the truth came to light, they could not explain the 300 million dollars which were allegedly missing.
Can you imagine any economist could be so dishonest to his profession by distorting figures just to please his political masters? I guess after being governor, he does not need to work again so he does not have to care about legacy.
Onions, I said earlier on this thread that somehow, some where, DeLiar was going to show growth for 2014. Is anyone surprised that when Standard and Poors and Moodys look at the very same figures, we end up at junk status?
Onions
485,000 vs 508,00 is no small margin of error.
Cooking the books, or fudging the figures?
Whose numbers can you trust.
Is it any wonder that no major international hotel chain will invest its own money to buy the Sam Lords property and build a hotel; so GOB has to borrow BD$ 400 million from China Exim Bank to pay Chinese workers and suppliers to restore he nine-bedroom castle and build a 450-room hotel to be operated by international hotel chain Wyndham.
Prodigal
Good one – DeLiar vs Sinkliar
@Prodigal Son January 15, 2015 at 3:05 PM
“Onions, I said earlier on this thread that somehow, some where, DeLiar was going to show growth for 2014. Is anyone surprised that when Standard and Poors and Moodys look at the very same figures, we end up at junk status?”
Can’t we see that Dr. DeLiar has transmogrified from a jokey garden gnome to a serious stony-faced financial magician?
Last year he pulled magical wool over Bajan eyes when he hypnotized them with the “now you see me, now you don’t” stunt of “fly away $300 million foreign reserves, where have you gone; come $300 million, here you are safe and sound and the end of 2014”.
What about this trick he pulled out of the bag late last year? Government needs to reduce its fiscal deficit gap by $174 million for the year 2014-2015 if the IMF agreed fiscal deficit reduction target of 5% of GDP has as much chance as a snow ball in hell.
All of a sudden the gap has been closed. Every thorn is now a rose in the fiscal dream garden.
No need to do anything until April, of course!
Even Parris and Thornhill would do a better job of managing the financial affairs of the sinking State SS Barbados.
@ miller
Can’t we see that Dr. DeLiar has transmogrified from a jokey garden gnome to a serious stony-faced financial magician?
Classic…..LOL !!!
@ Prodigal Son January 15, 2015 at 3:05 PM #
“Can you imagine any economist could be so dishonest to his profession by distorting figures just to please his political masters?”
Prodigal, it would not be fair to Dr. Delisle to say he has been “distorting the figures, “manipulating the figures” is a better term.
A perfect example is the ministerial statement delivered by Chris Sinckler on December 14, 2014, in which he mentioned the following:
“The successful execution of such a major fiscal adjustment programme, and moving from a PRIMARY DEFICIT from -5.6% of GDP in 2013/2014 to a PRIMARY SURPLUS of 0.2% of GDP in a single financial year is by any measure a major achievement for the country, and greater than that achieved in a number of IMF programmes.”
A “FISCAL DEFICIT” occurs when government’s expenditure exceeds its revenue. The fiscal deficit has been expressed in terms of the island’s current account.
A “PRIMARY DEFICIT” is the amount by which total government expenditure exceeds revenue, EXCLUDING INTEREST PAYMENTS ON DEBT. Thus, the fiscal deficit increases significantly as a result of high interest payments on debt.
Essentially, in his statement, Sinckler is suggesting that the fiscal deficit has been reduced. However, if interest payments are excluded from the calculation, and quoting the primary deficit figure, the fiscal deficit would appear as though it has been reduced.
Sheer manipulation of figures.
@ Prodigal Son January 15, 2015 at 3:05 PM #
So prodigal you understand how these guys manipulate the figures?
When Barbadians hear the term FISCAL DEFICIT, they immediately associate the term with expenditure exceeding revenue. On the other hand, when they hear the country has moved to a FISCAL SURPLUS, they will obviously assume that the deficit has been reduced.
As I alluded to previously, the high debt and credit rating downgrades attracts high interest rates. Hence, a fiscal deficit occurs when government expenditure [including interest rates] exceeds revenue earned [excluding loans].
However, a fiscal surplus would occur if the interest payments are subtracted from expenditure.
@Artax
Is there not a standard way Economists agree to express on this issue whether to include/exclude interest?
On Thursday, 15 January 2015, Barbados Underground wrote:
>
Remember the quote, ‘Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics’…
@ David January 15, 2015 at 5:31 PM #
“Is there not a standard way Economists agree to express on this issue whether to include/exclude interest?”
That’s theoretical bullshit to be relegated to the discussion toilet of academia.
How any competent manager of public finance can ever exclude from any exercise in planning and control a real recurring cost representing almost 30% of any expenditure budget?
It’s like a person or household having a very ‘young’ mortgage but excluding the interest portion of that debt in the annual household budget in planning for their annual overseas vacation.
Interest payments are NOT discretionary costs but contractual obligations that cannot be avoided under any scenario, real or imagined.
For sure neither the credit rating agencies nor the IMF officials would entertain such diversions in financial gymnastics and hopscotch evasions of reality.
Why would you, David?
@Miller
This discussion is reminiscent of the one the DLP and BLP engaged over the VECO built prison and amortization.
old onion bags January 15, 2015 at 3:58 PM #
@ miller
Can’t we see that Dr. DeLiar has transmogrified from a jokey garden gnome to a serious stony-faced financial magician?
Thanks for expanding my vocabulary. You sent me running (well surfing) to Merriam-Webster, which says
s
Definition of TRANSMOGRIFY
The Guv’ transmogrification must fall under grotesque.
Miller, Artaxerxes
It is plain to see how Standard and Poors look at these same figures, they have to downgrade Barbados. Why does Dr Deliar and Stinkliar think that they can fool educated people.
Look how you and Artaxerxes have simplified this info for us on BU. I wondered why we did not hear anything else about the 174 million dollar gap they had to plug but alas………they did in true Deliar and Stinkliar style!
Yet we have an idiot for a PM who does not have a clue what these two are up to and he stupidly said that the S&P report should be regarded as garbage!
My goodness, how low are we going to go before these morons leave the place?
No matter what the current Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados did, along with what some officials from the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Barbados, some officials from CARTAC and some other did also, in 2009/2010, to ‘recalibrate’ the so-called size of the political economy and services industry sectors of this country, primarily to convey the false impression to many gullible persons, that the so-called size of these sectors were bigger than what these said officials were thinking before, and smack after the start of this very prolonged, protracted, serious and severe political depression, it is events like the imminent closure of the Massy Stores branch in Cave Shepherd on Broad Street, that do indicate the extent of the breadth and depth of this said depression in this country.
PDC
Nothing the BLP yardfowls say or do is gonna help wunna win the next election these were my words in the run up to the last election, “people hate when people lick mout on their own ” check wunna self yuh here,
@ David January 15, 2015 at 5:31 PM #
“Is there not a standard way Economists agree to express on this issue whether to include/exclude interest?”
No, there is not… it’s just theatrics by the government. They manipulated the data to make it seem as though they have been able to achieve some objective. And how many people would actually review the data in the Central Bank reports to reconcile it with the data in Sinckler’s ministerial statement to determine fact from fiction?
When economists disagree, the reason can be often explained by the difference between positive economics and normative economics. Whereas positive economics deals with facts [statements that can be proven true or false], normative economics attempts to determine “what should be” [based on value judgments]
Essentially, many economists associate themselves with a political position and will use normative arguments for or against some economic policy. For example, the government’s economists have a duty to defend government’s policies and would interpret and explain economic data based on their value judgment and not fact.
Federal budget delayed due to ‘market instability,’ Finance Minister says
And more bad news.
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