Steady hands, helping hands
• Ja not immune to European economic woes • Good Samaritans from BB Coke High
WHO best can sustain the crucial economic and related gains Jamaica has achieved especially in the last 8 years? That, to me, is one of the most critical questions all well-thinking Jamaicans need to ask as we head towards national elections.
In answering that question, ideology, generational political party loyalties, and basal emotions must be flung way in the background of our decision-making process. Objective analysis rooted in verifiable facts must be the root of dispassionate measurement.
I believe a reasoned answer to the mentioned question is extremely important in light of the recession now affecting the biggest economies in Europe. I previously discussed the reasons here. I previously discussed here, too, the lingering weight of supply chain problems on the world economy, the massive jumps in especially global grain prices caused by Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, and the big aftershocks of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Jamaica needs extremely steady hands in these times.
Consider this scenario: A man sets his house on fire. When the fire brigade comes, he who started the fire joins in extinguishing the blaze, following the strict direction of the brigade. The fire is put out and the house is saved. The man congratulates himself. Discerning neighbours stare in disbelief
NOT JUST EUROPE
Some might say, “Cho, it’s just European countries which are meeting hard times, caught in recession, and are at risk of recession.” They are wrong!
Consider this: ‘Asia faces one of worst economic outlooks in half a century, World Bank warns... Sluggish post-pandemic recovery, China’s prosperity crisis and US Trade policies expected to hinder growth next year’.
The Financial Times article of October 1, 2023 said, among other things: “The World Bank has cut its forecast for China’s growth next year and warned that East Asia’s developing economies are set to expand at one of the lowest rates in five decades, as US protectionism and rising levels of debt pose an economic drag.
“The gloomier 2024 forecasts from the bank underline the mounting concern over China’s slowdown and how it will spill into Asia. China’s policymakers have already set one of the lowest growth targets in decades for 2023, of about 5 per cent.
“Citing a string of weak indicators for the world’s second-biggest economy, the World Bank said it now expected China’s economic output would grow 4.4 per cent in 2024, down from the 4.8 per cent it expected in April.
“It also downgraded its 2024 forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) growth for developing economies in East Asia and the Pacific, which includes China, to 4.5 per cent, from a prediction in April of 4.8 per cent and trailing the 5 per cent rate expected this year.
“The projections show that the region, one of the world’s main growth engines, is set for its slowest pace of growth since the late 1960s, excluding extraordinary events such as the coronavirus pandemic, the Asian financial crisis and the global oil shock in the 1970s.”
With verifiable facts, I said here previously that things are also rough, very rough in America and Canada, two of our biggest trading partners. Things are tough in many parts of Africa too. Here, in the Caribbean, economic downturn is plenty; one only needs to look at what is happening to our neighbours. Serious challenges abound!
Jamaica’s economy, at present, is in a much better shape than most of our sister islands in the region. This is not because of some lucky accident, it is because of very prudent management by the present Andrew Holness-led Administration.
WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
Those who brought Jamaica close, very close, to economic ruin, not so long ago, are now telling us that they are now committed to fiscal discipline. Some among their numbers quite brazenly are also telling us that Jamaica’s economic recovery is due to their interventions and careful stewardship.
Consider this scenario: A man sets his house on fire. When the fire brigade comes, he who started the fire joins in extinguishing the blaze, following the strict direction of the brigade. The fire is put out and the house is saved. The man congratulates himself. Discerning neighbours stare in disbelief.
There are no ifs, buts or maybes; rank mismanagement by the People’s National Party (PNP) in Government caused the Jamaican economy to crash in the 1970s and 90s. I have presented incontrovertible evidence previously.
A fact that cannot be cancelled with the repeating of inaccuracies is this: In 2010 former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, along with Audley Shaw, the then minister of finance and the public service, began decisive actions, including two domestic debt exchanges, to bring Jamaica’s debt trajectory on a more sustainable path. That was the genesis of Jamaica’s economic recovery programme after the PNP set the house ablaze.
One of the worst things a country can do is to trust socialists with the implementation of capitalist policies. The objective evidence cannot be challenged, the PNP and economic growth are antithetical. Jamaica must ‘walk wide’ of backsliding.
I have noted here before, and I stand by it, albeit that Dr Peter Phillips, former minister of finance and the public service, acted with the imprimatur of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — the fire brigade — I believe he still deserves credit for meticulously following their directives. He could have messed it all up. He did not!
As I see it, the new ambition for Jamaica, where we continue to focus on reducing the national debt as we simultaneously reduce long-standing inequalities by continuing to rapidly increase opportunity creation and distribution, increased personal and national production, improved social justice, and bolstering of the rule of law is the best way forward.
Extremely steady hands are needed to continue this advance.
Given the dark clouds on the global horizons, shaky and inexperienced hands at the wheel will hurt, not help, Jamaica.
GOOD SAMARITANS STILL EXIST
On the subject of steady hands and helping hands, in September 2017 I said, among other things, in my The Agenda piece: “The rot of unenlightened self-interest is a threat to Jamaica’s prosperity. There are those who laugh vociferously when an old lady slips on a ripe banana peel and seriously injures herself. There are those who use their