The Bible suggests that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Well that explains a lot, does it not? First, it seems to provide an answer as to why the rich look for theirs right here on earth and not in some mythical realm called heaven. Heaven, after all, doesn't want them.

It also positions the poor, powerless and increasingly hopeless on earth as having no other choice but to bring reality to the myth of heaven. Heaven must be real for the poor woman whose miserable existence on earth must, in her mind, have some cosmic balance. So, when the poor man dies, or God comes -- whichever happens first - the poor man will be transported to the myth made real, at which time he will gaze down at the rich suffering in Satan's inferno and say, "Where did all your money get you? Look at me. I'm up here drinking milk and honey, having only slight diarrhoea and you are suffering in an eternal flame. Ha!"

In heaven the poor will finally get the chance to stick it to the rich.

Biblical myth and religious dogma aside, there was recently a letter in one of our newspapers in which the writer, fully armed with a PhD and JD, suggested that the Government should ask the rich to fix the country's problems. The letter, dated December 31, 2009 was titled, "Why don't the rich fix it?", and was written by one Basil Waine Kong. If the theme was meant to convey sarcasm then I missed it, especially where Kong refers to the rich as the Piranhas of Society.

Dr Kong, who doesn't live in Jamaica, set out his assessment of Jamaica and the roles that the rich could play in rescuing Jamaica, if only they could be persuaded to do so by the present administration.

"While Jamaica is on the precipice of economic and social collapse, sufferers are looking to our 'rich man' Government to take us forward. As Mr Golding and Mr Shaw have ready access to the 'big men' of Jamaica, who are reaping record profits even in hard times and not paying their share of the taxes, can I suggest that our leaders use their access to persuade them to save the country? What a wonderful statement it would make!"

I have no problem in agreeing that Jamaica is sitting on a powder keg, and that economic and social collapse is the perception held by many, especially those of us who live here and have access to more reality than perception. Dr Kong reminds us of our perception of the rich, but even if he skirted sarcasm in one part of his letter he failed to tell us what his own perception was. Kong noted, "Our perception of the rich is that they are callous people who are only looking to exploit every opportunity to make more money. As we speak, they are lurking in the shadows and waiting for the opportunity to pounce on good deals when the Government unloads the people's prized assets to cover our bills."

After a highly unpopular tax package was announced most commentators began to focus on those institutions which had made super profits in a time when small people at street level were sucking salt. Many of these institutions had invested in government paper, that is, they provided ready-made loans to the Government at high rates of interest which they could not earn anywhere else in the world.

In large measure this has been seen as a form of extortion where these cash-rich institutions know that they have the Government over a barrel because it is the easiest source of funding for administrations whose fiscal policies have trapped them into pursuing development by borrowing more than the country's ability to pay back those loans.

It is known that if, say, NCB and Scotia Bank invest heavily in government paper, the money invested is that of the shareholders of the bank. Now, no matter how one cuts it, the profile of the typical shareholder of these institutions will never look like Miss Mattie or Tata Puss who both live off the little they earn in scratch farming.

Because of this, government paper equates to rich man and big man.

Is was quite reasonable to suggest that the JLP administration should either levy a special and additional tax on interest on these instruments, if only because we have never been at this juncture before where a brutal global economic recession was poured on top of our life-long, home-grown crippled social and economic state.

If the administration could not do this, then the next best thing was to use extraordinary leadership to convince the holders of these instruments to accept a lowering of the rates - not an easy task as money does not respond well to even the most disguised of fiats. Kong says of those he refers to as piranhas, "We readily admit that 50 of you can hurt our economy, but we are also hopeful that you will be mindful of your legacy."

At this stage he launches into his coup de grace and, by its content, forces us to question the quality of his academic credentials. Incredibly he suggests, "Messrs Golding and Shaw, you can rise to the occasion, not by trying to squeeze blood from our turnips, yam and callaloo, but demonstrating the transformational and exceptional leadership needed to inspire the rich in Jamaica to stand up and be counted. Call 50 of them and ask for a billion dollars each. Poor people vex."

Wow! There we have it. Of course if this happened, that is, if 50 of the super-rich could be convinced to part with $1 billion each and hand it over to the Government, the poor would no longer be in a vexed state. But would the poor be any better off?

Rubbish, says Doug Halsall

Doug Halsall is the head of Advanced Integrated Systems, a company long in the business of computer sales and peripherals, and software and systems in Jamaica. Halsall has been a proponent of the belief that in a country like Jamaica too many of us talk the talk but can't quite bring ourselves to walk the talk.

Halsall, who has done well professionally and privately, is more than a good corporate citizen. But rather than blowing his own horn he believes that it is always better to say 'well done' than 'well said'. On seeing Kong's letter, he suggested that, "Your article, 'Why don't the rich fix it?', in today's Gleaner, makes for great reading, but let me ask you: how fast would the $50 billion from the 50 rich business people leak out of the system as indeed the billions now trillion, which represent our current debt, has?"

Halsall doesn't have a PhD but I bet that he earns much more than the best of our PhDs because he is the sort to see opportunity in every crisis. He schools Dr Kong by pointing out much of the obvious which has floated over the PhD/JD's head.

"Lest you forget, the Government can be regarded as a 33 per cent partner in most, if not all, privately owned businesses in Jamaica, and the irony is that it has no liability if these businesses lose money, but demands prepaid taxes on the basis that one will make at least the profit of the previous year."

In other words, Government is the cushiest business of all, especially if there is no philosophical imperative in the core tenet of government driving actual development of a nation and its human capital. And one need not go far to see the perfect example of that in Jamaica's destructive ride with politics over the last 40-plus years.

Government as hindrance to business

Continuing his explanation of government as a no-liability partner in most, if not all, privately owned businesses in Jamaica, Halsall says, "Yes, 33 per cent profit tax; and if we employ staff, approximately 20 per cent of their pay. When we import, 16.5 per cent of that too, plus tax on our freehold property, rolling stock, etc. If as owners or employees we manage to invest thereafter, 25 per cent withholding tax on the interest, plus departure tax if we can afford a vacation to where you seem to reside.

"Yes sir, Dr Wayne Kong, can you imagine how rich a good business person could be if he/she had this business called Jamaica to operate? Perhaps as much as a quarter of our staff, the best available for the purpose, would be out there in your neck of the woods, and here, running down and genuflecting to potential investors willing to risk their capital to start businesses AND with our red carpets in hand, not staff who are tying up potential investors and existing businesses in red tape at every opportunity; not realising that they are in fact potential and existing partners."

A few days ago while I was having a working lunch with a former senior minister in the last PNP administration, he said to me, "Getting anything done in Government is extremely difficult." If he can say that and his administration had 18-plus years in which the engine could have been better oiled, it leaves me to believe that the present JLP administration must be meeting hell, especially after allowing two years to elapse before seeking to regain a political capital that may be extremely difficult to recapture.

The ex-PNP minister said, "The system seems geared to slow you down. Those ministers who achieved much in their ministries like Peter Phillips had to challenge the system head-on and demand results." A non-ministerial colleague who also attended the meeting said, "From my experience, if a minister does not challenge himself to learn everything he can about his particular ministry, he remains in the safe zone of aloofness because he cannot afford to stick out his neck, knowing little about what's going on. He becomes afraid of embarrassing himself. I believe a lot of that is happening in the JLP administration right now."

Halsall expands on government as a non-liability partner: "The rest of the staff in the business called Jamaica would be keeping our end of the bargain/partnership - Law and Order with Justice as its hallmark, Health, Education and Infrastructure (not one s@#t else). They would be the best that money can buy; knowing full well that if we execute these few imperatives properly, these businesses, in which we are 33 per cent partners (take it or leave it), will grow exponentially and crime will soon be tamed to be more that of passion, rather than born of anger, depravity and deviance.

"Our consequent surpluses could more than adequately take care of the few who could conceivably still fall through the cracks, and would guarantee them a programme of true poverty alleviation - again through providing them with the best appropriate education that money can buy, with the same urgency and aggressiveness that attended the campaign against polio.

"Government in Jamaica extracts its taxes and convinces itself that the amount collected will never meet the demands of the country. So year after year it subtracts much of the booty in corruption, for its cronies, the fronting companies for its senior members and like what happened recently in a certain ministry, on trips abroad, one cousin became a secretary/assistant, another became videographer and yet another cousin found a position as police security.

"After years of this game, the country is now at a point, in fact has been so for more than 10 years, that what we collect as taxes cannot meet our living expenses. Yet still there is always room for more corruption because the camel's back can always hold another straw."

Halsall drives home the point that there has never been development through taxation. "A society imposes taxes because of the fact that we are all partners in society and, as a consequence, we need common roads, police stations, public hospitals, schools, services, utilities and other such amenities. But without business development there will be no one to pay those very taxes.

"For you see, Dr Kong, it is growth in economic activities that will see us right, not excessive tax on the few rich, for they, like you, can seek other shores; and as we all know, public sector employment is no substitute for the jobs we would lose, as such jobs represent a burden on the same purse that is now deficient, thereby demanding higher taxes.

"This ideal, however, cannot be achieved through class rich vs poor prejudice (poverty is not a consequence of wealth; it's not a zero sum), nor garrisons, nor an underpaid, unmotivated, inefficient, unmanaged bureaucracy lacking in direction and a sense of purpose, nor a political directorate and opposition unbalanced by those wishing to get their snouts into the trough and to enjoy the trappings of officialdom thereby tainting those whose intentions are honourable."

Halsall is dead right on that point. If we tax the rich, take a billion dollars from each of the super-rich, appropriate their holdings, then all we will end up with is a country filled with hungry bellies with many no longer believing that it will get any better.

We are at a point now where an accumulation of governmental misdirections and open skullduggery have sucked the lifeblood out of our people. Many are still striving against all odds, opening small businesses and hustling, but increasingly we are moving to that spot where we believe it is the best that we as a country will ever achieve. And it is quite close to the bottom.

Long, fat snouts in the trough

Many years from now, this country will be talking about Contractor General Greg Christie, a beacon of integrity, professionalism, hard work and determination.

In a sea of parasites, he has been the injection, the anti-bacterial making a monumental effort to drive them out. This people of this nation and civil society and indeed Government must rise up and support him. Now, not tomorrow.

Many of us know of good, decent people who enter politics, but once they attain power, something sickly magical happens. Even before the system sucks them in, haughtiness makes first claim on their petty, parochial personalities. In his critique of Kong's letter, Halsall tracks the demise of the soul of the politician and suggests that it happens almost instantly.

People become injected with the serum of arrogance in a process called swearing-in held at King's House from time to time. They immediately transition from reasonable and reasoned individuals, through this epiphany, to converts and indeed defenders of the status quo - devoid of all traces of political will and memories of their respective manifestos or other platform commitments.

After this change, the politician figuratively locks the door on representation. He then decides to represent the new Frankenstein monster that he has become.

Halsall states, "They become far more comfortable in the company of the boardroom types, whom they now outdo with their designer suits, entourage of driver, security details and SUVs which, like fine wine, is left running while parked, to maintain the ideal temperature, than in the company of constituents whose votes put them there to represent their interests."

He then dismisses Dr Kong's $50-billion idea and says, "Believe me, Dr Kong, $50 billion would not cover the bottom of our trough for long."

The hard fact, as stated by Halsall, is "Interest cost will exceed $175 billion this fiscal year, $480 million per day; on a debt for which the commensurate benefits/assets cannot be identified."

Therein lies the problem!

As one of the ways forward, successful businessman Douglas Halsall suggests to Dr Kong that, "Where you see us at today, Dr Kong, is but the symptom of a complex problem. The problem is simply expressed as systemic, but the solution is far more complex, as the cancer of corruption, incompetence and ineptitude has penetrated all of the vital organs, and the surgeon/oncologist team that could cauterise it, not to mention getting it to the remission stage, is not yet assembled.

"Unfortunately for us, until then, we will just have to keep running down with it. Let's in the meantime, however, strive to create and attract more rich Jamaicans to invest more, so that we can get the aggregate tax base up, not a higher percentage on the same few. In this regard we seek your help if you are indeed one of us, come home."

observemark@gmail.com

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