The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. — Milton Friedman

WHEN the People’s National Party (PNP) announced last Monday, on the third anniversary of their election victory of December 29, 2011, not for the first, second or third, but for the umpteenth time that they were going to grow the Jamaican economy, no one with a modicum of sense, as country people say, need ‘pay them even bad mind’.

Below I list a number of reasons their latest promise of growth should be scoffed at with utter disdain, taken with not a pinch of but a pound of salt, if not totally dismissed as further evidence of their Pinocchio penchant.

Mutual Life [a company that operated locally for over 100 years], Goodyear Tyre Company, West Indies Glass, Homelectrix, Workers’ Bank, Raymars Furniture, Charley’s Windsor House, Thermo Plastics, Berec Batteries, Century National Bank, Crown Eagle Insurance, Crown Eagle Insurance Commercial Bank, Island Life Insurance Company, American Life Insurance Company [ALICO], Eagle Merchant Bank, and Ecotrends: These are just some of the major companies that migrated or went under during PNP regimes of stale vintage. Add to those another 45,000 small- and medium-sized businesses that folded during P J Patterson and Omar Davies’ scorched-earth economic epoch and little more evidence is needed to conclude that the PNP and economic growth are antithetical. The present Administration, which is populated with recycled socialists and innate reluctant capitalists, have an uncorrectable learning disability in the matter of economic growth.

The Minister of Industry and Commerce Anthony Hylton — a political Pachycephalosaurus [a strange breed of dinosaur that evolved two million years before extinction, it possessed an unusually thick skull, like the Stegoceras and Colepiocephale, Greek for “knucklehead”] — has been boasting that Forbes Magazine has listed Jamaica as the best country to do business in the Caribbean. Forbes, a leading international business magazine, determined the best countries for business by grading 146 nations on different factors: property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape, investor protection, and stock market performance. Forbes said each category was equally weighted. The report was compiled using published reports, including the World Bank’s Doing Business Report and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.

Well, Pan Caribbean [the Chinese firm which, in 2011, took control of Jamaica’s main sugar factories at Frome, Monymusk and Bernard Lodge Estates] seems not to have received the memo — since 217 [inclusive of clerical, maintenance and field hands] of its workers were made redundant just days ago. This was first reported in the Jamaica Observer by ace reporter Balford Henry. Hanif Brown, assistant island supervisor, apparently does not share the confidence of Minister Hylton, and Forbes either.

In a statement to RJR News, he noted that “down the road the company might try to do the same thing at Frome and Monymusk”. The consequences of 217 workers out of a job on top of the thousands upon thousands of Jamaicans already on the unemployment heap means that an additional nearly 2,000 direct kinfolk, and their near relations, will have to be guessing and spelling where they will secure economic sustenance and support at the start of this a new year. Will they have a happy new year?

Minister Hylton needs to understand that these rankings, while of some material use, do not amount to much in and of themselves unless other crucial factors, such as a reliable justice system, cost-effective energy, a highly educated workforce, low crime rates, and trust of government apparatuses, among others, are simultaneously present and more importantly work consistently for all — not just the privileged one per cent and those of the establishment. Minister Hylton should know that the London Telegraph, a paper which is respected as much as Forbes, has listed Grenada as one of the 10 best countries in the world to do business. Their conclusions were meticulously arrived at — as those of Forbes. I could provide him with several other rankings from numerous other reputable publications — but space does not permit.

Nestle, the makers of Milo and an international company, started production of what could be called Jamaica’s favourite food drink locally in 1965. It announced late in the Yuletide season that it will be making 30 positions redundant in a few days. Nestle came to Jamaica during what could be termed Jamaica’s Golden Age of Pericles — a time when the economy was growing by six per cent on average, and university graduates could pick and choose which company they wanted to work with, a time when Jamaica was seen as a model by countries like Singapore, and companies from all over the world were flocking our shores because there was an economic climate of stability and a government which understood the business of political economy.

Those days come to a crashing end during the reckless abandonment of Michael Manley, soon to be national hero, who promised to ‘control the commanding heights of the economy’. Those who did not like his experiment with socialism were told to hop one of the five daily flights out of Jamaica. Well, hundreds did, and they took their money and competencies. Today we are still reeling from the whirlwind.

Lee Kuan Yew, after his 1975 visit to Jamaica for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference, related his impressions in his insightful book: From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965 – 2000.

“Prime Minister Michael Manley, a light-skinned West Indian, presided with panache and spoke with great eloquence. But I found his views quixotic. He advocated a ‘redistribution of the world’s wealth’. His country was a well-endowed island of 2,000 square miles, with several mountains in the centre, where coffee and other sub-tropical crops were grown. They had beautiful holiday resorts built by Americans as winter homes. Theirs was a relaxed culture. The people were full of song and dance, spoke eloquently, danced vigorously, and drank copiously. Hard work they had left behind with slavery,” he wrote.

Lee tells of a Sunday afternoon walk “out of the barbed-wired enclosure around the hotels used for the conference to see the city on foot”.

He was stopped by a “Chinese Jamaican, speaking Caribbean English”. He was a real estate agent, having a tough time.

“Chinese, Indians, and even black Jamaican professionals felt that there was no future under the left-wing socialist Government of Michael Manley. The policies of the Government were ruinous.”

Lee wished him luck, but not before noticing “the black Jamaican security officers covering me turning aggressive in their body language”.

Today, Singapore [about the size of St James in terms of area, and a population in excess of three million] has an average per capita income of US$30,000 [Jamaica’s is under US$6,000] ‘compulsory voting, a highly educated citizenry and its people enjoy First-World standards of life. A so-called ‘resource poor malarial island’, that was poorer than Jamaica 40 years ago, is now a First-World country. I anticipate that some will say, ‘Well, you could not write this article in Singapore’. My response to that is simple: I would have no need since Singapore does not have an incompetent Administration such as ours with chronic underdevelopment.

Why is Nestle leaving Jamaica, Minister Hylton? Well, as reported in the Jamaica Observer on Christmas Eve, Nestle identified the following among other reasons:

“High unsustainable maintenance and production costs, along with limited growth potential and declining export possibilities, have led to the decision to reduce the scope of Milo operations in Bybrook. This will result in an import and repackaging operation in an effort to continue employment for as many employees as possible.”

Do you understand what that means, Minister Hylton? Just in case you don’t, the Observer story elaborated inter alia, “Jamaica’s high energy costs and poor infrastructure ranked the island 97th globally or worse than civil war-torn Syria, according to the Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2015 published this month by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Accenture Strategy”

“It’s the economy, stupid”, to borrow words coined by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s former campaign strategist. The PNP cannot grow [appreciable/sustainable growth] the economy because they simply do not know how; Michael Manley, Patterson, and now Simpson Miller at the wicket have proved that beyond question. We do not need Sherlock Holmes or Einstein to figure it. It’s axiomatic.

The NHT scandal must not be swept under the carpet in 2015

On August 19,2014, the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PlOJ) reported declines in the number of housing starts, down 46.6 per cent; housing completions, down 42.5 per cent; and mortgage volume down 55.4 per cent. The value of mortgages was also down 24 per cent, from $9.9 billion in June 2013 to $7.46 billion in the current period.

For the June 2014 quarter, there were only 2,821 mortgages issued, compared to 6,330 for the similar period last year.

With 45 per cent of Jamaicans living as squatters and only 25 per cent of contributors benefiting from contributions to the NHT, all Jamaicans must remember not to forget the names of the board members who helped wash away Lenny Little-White’s troubles. We must never forget this watershed of a disgrace and the shameless verdict of this spineless Government. Even now, if the board has an ounce of shame left, its members would resign.

Another great Jamaican: A J Thomas

Another great Jamaican who has not been given due recognition because of our overconcentration on ‘godifying’ politicians and those with significant political antecedents is A J Thomas.

A self-educated scientist and international consultant, Austin James Thomas was born in 1909 in Westmoreland. A lifelong environmentalist, careful angler and long-time secretary of the Jamaica Angling Association, Thomas’s love of fish led him to revitalise and mechanise Jamaica’s fishing industry.

He first came to prominence in 1945, not for his scientific work, but because he created a new world record by catching the largest white marlin ever seen in Jamaica. It weighed 80 kilos — seven kilos more than the previous record holder. In 1949, his fishing skills catapulted him further — a fish he caught on the north coast was determined to be of a new species, as yet unknown to science. It was named Gobiosoma Thomasi after him.

In that same year, Thomas was employed as the government fisheries officer. At that time, there was significant concern that, given that fish is a staple of the Jamaican diet, more focus should be given to developing fish for local use, reducing reliance on imported fish. Thomas dreamed of a new breed of fish. When he was sent to Africa to study fish that thrived in that climate he was determined to find a fish that would adapt well to Jamaica. He returned with perch (tilapia mossambica) and carefully built ponds in which he measured their growth. Most of the fish did not develop and as a result were named “ticky-ticky.” Yet, Thomas noted that the male perch, when reared together, grew larger. So began a period of monosex culture, or selection of fish of the same sex — an approach used on perch for the first time ever. It was immensely successful, allowing perch to reach a weight of half a pound in five months — the best of any commercial species. This discovery spawned successful industries in many countries including America, Africa (where he returned as a consultant to work on fishing cooperatives in the 1960s) and Israel.

As a fisherman himself, Thomas was also interested in boats. He is credited with being the first to introduce outboard motors on local canoes in the 1950s. This allowed fishermen to cover greater distances and catch larger amounts of fish. A J Thomas died in 1988 at the age of 79.

While I do not propose that A J Thomas be crowned a national hero, his work needs to be given greater recognition.

NB: Full credit to research done by Dr Rebecca Tortello for the information on A J Thomas.

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men. –Plato

Garfield Higgins in an educator and journalist. Comments to higgins160@yahoo.com