Wipe out our national debt
DO YOU love Jamaica? It’s close to the United States and Canada, and has a wonderful relationship with Europe, particularly England. I ask that you give us a Christmas gift. I ask that your financial agencies give us a Christmas gift. Wipe out our national debt of US$34 billion.
It is impossible to pay back that debt. In the past, it required 60 per cent of our budget. I believe it requires today 40 per cent of our national debt. We will decline as a nation materially and spiritually if we have to face this horrible debt annually; we are a small nation still trying to get on our feet.
We, in turn, as Jamaicans, must be more controlled with our discipline and our spending, and we must produce. We must live moral lives, control ourselves, and restrain our desires for more and more consumer goods and pleasure. We must work harder, be more honest, live family values, study and respect the opportunities given to us, and, most of all, honour the commandments of God.
It is believed and it is expected that human interdependence is increasing and gradually spreading throughout the world. This has called for an organisation of the community of nations so as to provide for the different needs of humanity. This involves the essential aspects of social life, for example, food, hygiene, education. Then there are other matters such as natural disasters, refugees, and wars.
What we have emerging out of these needs are the United Nations, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, InterAmerican Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc. These are all meant to be for the good of the world.
But what have we got here? If these agencies have billions and billions of US dollars, as is their case, and their purpose is to relieve debts, why are they not doing so by cancellation of debts or offering very soft loans? Where is the goodwill between nations being fostered? Where is the one world? Where is the just global economy? Is this unity all just rhetoric?
DEBT OWED TO US
I know that there has been recruiting of Jamaican nurses, doctors, teachers, rich people, and even labourers in Jamaica, all to the betterment of other, richer nations. Isn’t there a debt that is owed to us? Why is there such a brain drain, and the exportation of the professionals along with their material assets? Maybe these agencies should look at the debt owed to the poor countries for taking the best of our people to serve their people.
In this age of one world, we must realise that some countries have a great advantage because of their history, their technology, their natural resources, and financial advantages. Is it not a time in this one-world atmosphere when all resources, especially finances, should be shared? Is this one-world alliance merely a joke?
In trade agreements, the richer countries and the highest producing countries also have the greatest advantage. Is our world going to be business as usual?
With this power of money having such authority in our world, rich countries and money agencies must be careful of crushing the moral principles of other poorer nations such as the Judaic Christian life of peoples. It must not be a case whereby countries are forced into legalising all kinds of evil such as abortions, suicide, euthanasia, deregulation of Sundays as a day of worship and holiness, and sexual mores.
If you wish to give, give
generously, if you wish to loan, loan kindly.
We pray for an age of kindness, gentleness, brotherhood, and sisterhood. It is a time for one world and a global concern for one another.
There will be honour and respect for one another if there is true giving. The call of our times is for the lion to lay down with the lamb, and a leopard with the kid.
For the rich countries and agencies, money must not become a source of slavery, but kindness and love and the willingness to forgive the debts of those who are indebted to us.
May Christ come into your hearts. Happy and holy Christmas!