Dear Editor,

Well, what a sorry state we have come to.

The examiners at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, who have set all these tests that Jamaica continues to pass, do not know the answer to the final exam question they themselves set: Why no economic growth?

The local elites of the Economic Growth Council, the university professors, captains of industry and commerce, ever ready to bombard the uninitiated with esoteric, arcane, economic reasoning which only the late Ian Boyne seemed able or willing to rip apart, they don’t seem to know the answer either.

We are told that crime and an inadequately trained workforce may be among the reasons.

As a first-day economics student, may I raise a trembling hand and, in a quivering voice, ask a naive question: Professor, can there be significant economic growth — like five per cent in four years — when there is weak consumer demand?

And, before you answer, Professor, how can there not be weak consumer demand, I believe you call it “aggregate demand”, when large swathes of the Jamaican workforce are earning minimum wage?

And, even before you answer that, Professor, when 50 per cent of that $7,000 minimum wage is consumed by mandatory transportation costs to get to work and children to school, what disposable income is left over from the remaining $3,500?

And, correct me if I am wrong, Opposition Leader Peter Phillips, but didn’t the governing Jamaica Labour Party not promise, as part of their ‘Prosperity Agenda’ to raise the National Minimum Wage? Why are you not breathing fire and brimstone about this, instead of the ridiculous comments you and your spokesperson and other Members of Parliament make every time you open your mouths on just about every other subject?

There seems to be a conspiracy of silence between the International Monetary Fund, the experts, the captains of industry and commerce, the Government, the Opposition, not to even mention those four indecent words “raise the minimum wage” in the conversation about why there is no economic growth, despite passing all the International Monetary Fund tests.

Errol W A Townshend

Ontario, Canada

ewat@rogers.com