No ‘bang belly economy’ ‘round here, Clovis
According to an old French motto, Noblesse oblige — One must live up to one’s name. The Rothschilds’ condition of life has imposed on them a second motto: Richesse oblige — One must live up to one’s fortune. — Guy de Rothschild
Like most people, I have a few hobbies. Mine are collecting old Jamaican currency notes, seeing the beautiful outdoors of this physically majestic paradise nicknamed land of wood and water, which I have not done for several months now, due to what Dr Peter Phillips, minister of finance, would doubtless term “tight fiscal space”. As well, in the last two years I have been collecting Clovis toons. Yes, collecting cartoons done by Jamaica Observer’s Clovis. I do not readily remember what big name you give to the hobby of collecting a cartoonist’s work. Recently, I journeyed through my Clovis collection — I do so from time to time to help keep my sanity, since Jamaica is becoming, with each passing day, an increasingly difficult place to live, do business and raise a family. I was amazed at how many cartoons Clovis drew dealing with the present prime minister’s travels abroad. Maybe there is a multi-syllabic word for a cartoonist’s preoccupation with a prime minister’s travels.
What’s more, in going through my stock of Clovis creations I was also amazed at the frequency of what has become a staple in his daily cartoons — a malnourished-looking child with the words ‘bang belly economy’ written on his stomach. If you do not believe me, see the Observer of Monday and Tuesday last, most recent evidence. Then it dawned on me. Why on earth is Clovis so obsessed with the state of the Jamaican economy? We are a wealthy country.
Naysayers like Clovis who would want to see the prime minister travel in economy class, instead of first class, must realise that their ‘betters’ are just that, their betters. Those ungrateful inhabitants of the proletariat, like Clovis, should be genuflecting in deference to ‘Sista P’ instead of throwing wild and senseless barbs at a leader who has sacrificed 40 years in selfless service to her country. Like the character Oliver Twist, people like Clovis always want more. Ungrateful wretches! A $150-million travel bill, in less than two years, is ‘chicken feed’.
‘Badminded’ and envious political opponents do not seem to realise that the oil wells out at Folly in Portland will never run dry. They are producing so much sweet crude that our wealth is guaranteed in perpetuity. I wonder if Clovis is aware that some years ago ground was broken for a US$2-billion oil refinery and petrochemical facility in Luana on the St Elizabeth/Westmoreland border. I wonder if that facility might not be among the most efficient in the world. Did that project actually start? I need to scratch my head and then some more.
So what if our beloved prime minister spends a couple millions here and a few millions there, in our interest? Let’s not lose sight of the fact that millions of dollars in undersea treasures have yet to be excavated from the azure-coloured waters that flank this island. Burchell Whiteman, a most urbane and affable gentleman, some years ago signed an agreement on behalf of the Government for underwater exploration for shipwreck treasure off the Pedro Bank. For whatever reasons, excavation has yet to start, but those treasures, I am convinced, must be just waiting to be found.
So, fly on, Madam Prime Minister, the world is your oyster. I join those who thank the prime minister for the billions of dollars and more she got in grants from the Chinese. I don’t know why this gift reminds me of the 30 pieces of silver that were given to Judas as payment for the betrayal of Jesus. In any event, this money, I am sure, will be used to further strengthen our democratic institutions. Our courts system, Office of the Contractor General, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Independent Commission of Investigations, and the Office of the Public Defender will surely benefit. Complaints have no place in reference to our esteemed prime minister. Who then can legitimately contest the benefits that will inevitably flow, not trickle, to our people?
Clovis, your incessant and putrid cartoons about ‘bang belly economy’ are empty barrels. I want to remind you, Clovis, and those like you, that Jamaica sits on the cusp of greatness. In a few months — depending on which calendar, Gregorian, Julian or Solar you accept — we will have a logistics hub that will rival Panama and Dubai. Dr the Honourable Omar Davies, the minister of transport, works and housing, a man of great learning, has promised major benefits to Jamaica. Did I hear talk about 10,000 jobs? That’s just the tip of the iceberg, I am sure. I wonder if that will come before or after Dr Davies gets rid of the ‘two likkle lizad’ on Goat Islands? For his sake I hope they are more like ‘polly’ and less like the nocturnal ‘croaker’, which country people say is known to herald rain or strong wind. I suspect that Jamaica will have to import labour to assist with the construction of the hub. With 100 per cent employment locally, the Chinese will be hard-pressed to find local workers. How then can any right-thinking Jamaican talk about ‘bang belly economy’? Such ungraciousness is unbecoming, even for you, Clovis.
The poison-mouthed complainers like Clovis have been bitten by the green-eyed monster. They are upset because we have a leader who is revered by the world. Many of them, I believe, are suffering from RUE, Reverse Unlettered Envy. They simply would wish to be Portia. Those denizens of the ‘dungle’, like Clovis, will never stop the “progress and solid achievements”. The numerous development projects that are flooding to Jamaica are about to bust open like fountains in the Vatican. They will make cheap the gripe about ‘bang belly economy’. Their criticisms fall nicely into the category of what Dr Peter Phillips has dubbed “cheap political gimmicks”.
Clovis, just ask yourself, how would we market the inexhaustible deposits of diamonds from the mines out at Fat Hog Quarter in Clarendon and Laughing Waters in St Ann if our leaders did not travel to the farthest corners of the globe to sign communiques and bilateral agreements? It’s ludicrous to believe that the prime minister and others in the Government could talk with the great leaders of the world via Skype or send email to important business gurus. That kind of pre-Noah’s Ark approach to intergovernmental exchanges is the preserve of underdeveloped countries — not Jamaica. So, to all those who would wish to see our prime minister become a hermit in Jamaica House, you need to ‘Forget it, she is not in dat’. Pardon my indelicate application of words by former Prime Minister Percival James Patterson.
As to the size of the PM’s Cabinet, please detach your grubby pen 10,000 miles away from it, Clovis. Unlike Britain, with a population of just over 60 million, which has a 22-member Cabinet, plus Prime Minister David Cameron; and the United States with a population of 300 something million with 15 members, plus VP Joe Biden, Jamaica can afford its 20-member Cabinet. What the heck? Our population is all of nearly three million; the USA and Britain are peripheries of poverty.
And, just in case you have not got it, Clovis, please understand that one shipment of gold bullion from our mines out at Corn Puss Gap in St Thomas can more than adequately pay for 40 times the number of trips that the prime minister has taken. The detractors of Portia, like Clovis, seem not to know that we are one of the top two producers of copper, zinc, asphalt, plutonium, and cobalt at mines out at I-No-Call-You-Come in St Elizabeth. And please, Clovis, please don’t forget that we have an estimated 10 billion tons of the world’s best bauxite out at Tan an’ See in Trelawny. Talk about ‘bang belly economy’? How rude, crude, and lewd! Clovis, please remember not to forget also the uranium deposits that are yet untouched out at ‘Brok Neck Cana’ near Moneague, St Ann. These industries earn and will earn billions of dollars each year for the local economy. What ‘bang belly economy’?
The ‘Nattering Nabobs of Negativity’, like Clovis, to borrow words of former United States Vice-President Spiro Agnew, will always thumb their noses at the healthy state of the Jamaican economy. The indicators — if one were to really examine them — are showing that our currency is strong. Last time I checked it was $112.74 to US$1 and worth less than half of a US cent. Our foreign debt is a measly US$2 trillion and we have one of the best education systems in the world — 100 per cent literacy matched by only a few countries in the world. So what are the political neophytes complaining about? The country is on the right track, according to the minister of finance. The objectionable complainers, I have concluded, only want to relegate our beloved land to peasant levels of underdevelopment with their ‘bitter medicine’ formula and ‘bite the bullet’ incantations.
While the minority bourgeoisie talk, the agro-parks are bearing fruits. Yes, Sir, developments abound. In a few months, there will be number portability and a massive rare earth project that will send billions of dollars into the formal economy. I forgot that project is being recalibrated — maybe that is the word, recalibrated, I am sure.
So, Clovis, remember the golden rule of money management: It’s not how much you spend, it’s how much you save. The net international reserves are the best ever, and our local money lenders — direct descendants of Shylock — charge the lowest fees in the world. Our tourism numbers are up through the stratosphere. Indeed, we have never had it so good.
Let’s live up and enjoy the prosperity and peace while our Government works and puts us to work.
We must always remember, Richesse oblige — one must live up to one’s fortune. Even Clovis must recognise that.
Capital in the 21st century
There are only five ministers in this Administration who are producing any noticeable results that are assisting the lives of the masses. These are: Dr Peter Phillips, Dr Fenton Ferguson, Ronald Thwaites, Dr Omar Davies and, of course, the late Roger Clarke, the top performer.
After 50 years of political independence, the social and economic disparities are still far too wide between the classes, although that many of us try to pretend otherwise. There are two Jamaicas, as Edward Seaga, former prime minister, put it. First-World-type quality education for every Jamaican is the only answer to closing the gap. It is against that background that I encourage all in government and government-in-waiting to read Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
This French economist makes the point that inequality is rapidly increasing in the world, and that capitalism is becoming an inter-generational sport. He argues that, if this trend is not arrested, the world will soon see the dawn of an era in which there are those who are permanently poor and permanently rich, minus a middle class. At least that is how I understand his 700-page thesis which draws on 300 years of capitalist history in 30 countries. Piketty’s solution is not a redistribution of income from the rich to the poor, as attempted by Michael Manley in the 1970s, but a revolutionary diffusion of cutting-edge knowledge and high-level skills to especially the poor.
Piketty says: “The principal force for the convergence [of wealth] — the diffusion of knowledge — is only partly natural and spontaneous. It also depends in large part on educational policies.”
Piketty also favours a global wealth tax [unrealistic in my view] and 80 per cent income tax for those on the highest salaries; not to facilitate handouts and pork barrel schemes like the Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme, but to establish structured institutions to ensure the transfer of world-class learning to the poorest of the poor. He does not argue, and I agree for the abandonment of capitalism for a replacement with socialism. This must be music to the ears of capitalists, since Piketty might well win the next Nobel Prize for economics.
I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed. — Samuel Johnson
Garfield Higgins is an educator and journalist. Comments to higgins160@yahoo.com