Recently John A sent a couple interesting articles to the blogmaster that served as a reminder what a future state will possibly be for the next generation of Barbadian, the so-called millennial.
Despite our rich investment in formal education there is a palpable lack of cognitive awareness by Barbadians to give weight to what is important. A case in point- it required Prime Minister Mia Mottley repeating what had been stated by others for years AND what was explained in NIS actuarial reports since 2013 for the majority of Barbadians to understand the implications for pensioners. For Mottley to tackle the problem of the NIS fund which poses a risk to her government’s popularity was enough to jolt Barbadians from a comatose state.
In 2007/8 the global financial crisis had the effect of decimating incomes and investment portfolios across all strata in our key tourism and international business markets. Local financial talking heads have suggested that the Barbados economy is to fully recover from the hit. Isn’t it ironic 15 years later our key productive sectors have not changed appreciably? In fact the current investment project pipeline is congested with tourism related projects.
Now we have John A’s articles which reveal a worrying trend in the UK and US- generational wealth of millennials in the two countries has stagnated. Although the majority of Barbadians are ignorant to the implications of this developing trend, there is a simple truth, the US and UK are our two significant source markets for tourism, foreign direct investment AND remittances.
The blogmaster challenges you and you to read the two articles to appreciate what a future state may look like.
It is fair to suggest in the absence of similar analysis the same trend applies to Barbados. Barbados is one of the countries the spiral of the economy of the post 2006/7 period is yet to experience a bounce, subsequent catastrophic events have not helped. Recently the government announced that in the face of economic uncertainty Barbados will renew the IMF agreement. We should have time to unpack the implication of the decision, however, discerning BU regulars are fully aware of the root issues.
It does not give the blogmaster pleasure to state what should be obvious. Our current economic path is plotted to arrive at a destination to nowhere fast. We continue to try to induce economic performance from a ‘not fit for purpose’ economic model. One does not have to posses the nous of Nostradamus to predict the outcome.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.