Audley 1/3rd Shaw making good with his promise

[Don1]

Bauxite collapsed in the early to mid 1980s and that was then the mainstay of the Jam down economy. Seaga also never got as much as promised (cant truss Babylon fully) and finally even what was his to get was held up for years as he fought with Rollins whose best buddy was Chairman of the House ways and means committee!

Ah keep telling yuh thatOmar was skilled at keeping things off the books!

Finally, none ah dem was no genius... we all know dat, but man betta dan man.

Willi mi nuh too bizniz wid ah head to head matchup of fine ants ministers.... but
if dat ah di argument...

Omar ah eediat..strait
Seaga im.....not saying that he did no good in the portfolio but mi nuh rate dat atall overall...im borrow money like wata an afta 9 year ah dat..whey wi haffi show fi it? Not much.

One thing I have come to realize about Jamaica is it's useless to use mainly standard economic theory or financial technocracy to move the country forward.

Since the socio-economics is so blighted...those orthodox tools get blighted as well..and have limited impact on the ground.

We need more visionary approaches than the orthodox WTO/IMF/Washington consensus doctrines

[Willi]

Fair enuff..

However, I give DayWalker a small pass here as he did try summen different. Was not enuff and much did not work as well as hoped, but it should have been contiinued and Claude Clake, based on his writings, seemed to be of a similar ilk in terms of going outside the box.

[Don1]

Not fullly true Don.

First off, Seaga had to borrow when the alum WW prices collapsed. That is why the uneasy association with one Marc Rich. The cupboard was bare then. And he was in power for just over 8 years. Election was Feb 1989.

He did try to adjust the economy away from Alum and achieved some success. Him did salt with the Winter vegiies, but Nature messed him up with floods and drought. I guess he tempted fate by getting in bed with Eli Tisona who we now hear was a money launderer. God dont like ugly, as the yanks say.

We did have transient manufacturing back then with 807 program etc. In the late 1980, Jamaica was the number 1 underwear supplier to the USA, with a 14% market share. We had drip technology in agriculture, with temeprate weather STRAWBERRIES being grown in Jamaica. There were many small businesses formed that at the start were productive, plus a few ventures in computing and engineering. I met some of these people. Nascent exporting was also taking off small time to places like Cayman that had to import everything. Even the higglers were trading goods abroad to offset their need for hard currency to buy their imported goods. It was exciting times for small time entrepreneurs.

Two things killed the budding paradigm. One, our own propensity fi kill any golden goose. Unions killed the freezone thing and Pallicy killed the rest. Omar and his ilk used monetary "pallici" in such a way that it did not pay to take real business risk. Far better to trade paper and people caught on rather quick. Everybody was soon trying to ketch a "mover" pon the stacked market and after dat crash, it was govt paper. Agriculture had its usual nemeses, praedial larceny and short sightedness (I have stories). Engineering and manufact. never stood a chance with dem deh interest rates! All a Twickenham Park manufacturing now inna Trinidad...Carreras and Ricketts are 2 notable examples. Thanks Omar!

Omar was not faced with the same dire circumstances and we can attribute his decision more to licky-licky than necessity. Indeed, the whole FINSAC thing was quite avoidable and people were warning for a long time about the bubble being formed. Thanks again Omar.

Well all Govts have their challenges in external shocks, weather shocks...and have the same dysfunctional local environment to deal with. Seaga's term is nothing special in that regard.

Yes, Reagan created CBI for the guy and for a few years it was successful...until China & WTO market access rules emerged and wiped out that on pricing & scale. No amount of union busting can overturn that...we just did not have a competitive advantage absent a protected market...so we needed to move up the value chain to design of garments/fashion etc... we did not because there was no investment in that.

Incidentally the same thing may happen to us in this call center type "IT" business we're in...new, cheaper players will emerge and we will be uncompetitive after a while. So we must plan to move up that value chain to actually creating products...or face the said 807 situation.

To me Jamaica's problem is not really economics..it's the corrupt, tribal leadership which has created a dysfunctional, ignorant (but talented) population.... the bad economics now is a result of that

Seaga and his Tivoli Model is a HUGE part of that failed equation..imho

[Willi]

Not all true here Don.

We had IT custom software firms in Jamaica in the late 1980s to early 1990s staffed with locals and Indians. Writing stuff in INGRES when Ingres did betta dan ORACLE! What killed that, given that it was already up the value chain.

Union busting is not a slap at the PNP alone. Mi personally know BITU man dem who was just as, if not MORE egregious against the freezone. Is a Jakan thing.

Not just WTO/Nafta rules neida. Jakan workers were among the MOST efficient when they performed tasks, just like in the call centres. In the garment sector though, nuff nuff "shrinkage" occurred and this margin erosion was part of the exiting decision by the likes of Sara Lee.

Finally, how many Jakan Govts took over after a virtual civil war that exhausted the coffers of the State and then less than 2 years later the LARGEST sector of the economy collapsed??

I am not taking away from your many valid points but we have to give the DayWalker his due. He had the worst set of circumstances facing him on his entrance.

Did you know that David Rockerfeller (the authentic DayWalker) was on the Jamaica restoration committee right after 1980 elections. Notice how we never hear of him doing anything for us in that period. Promise is a comfort to whom?

[Muadib]

What about that Gilbert fellow ?

[Don1]

We had IT custom software firms in Jamaica in the late 1980s to early 1990s staffed with locals and Indians. Writing stuff in INGRES when Ingres did betta dan ORACLE! What killed that, given that it was already up the value chain.

Mi nah dispute dat ...but those efforts had no scale..what was the annual output? Don't know the history of that so you'd have to tell me who killed it.

What I do know is that such things need a big investment in technical ed...and an integrated public-private-academic approach to make it succeed...and I never heard of any such funded plan under Seaga...or anyone else for that matter.

Union busting is not a slap at the PNP alone. Mi personally know BITU man dem who was just as, if not MORE egregious against the freezone. Is a Jakan thing.

mi nuh bizniz wid PNP..dem fi get slap up...strait

Not just WTO/Nafta rules neida. Jakan workers were among the MOST efficient when they performed tasks, just like in the call centres. In the garment sector though, nuff nuff "shrinkage" occurred and this margin erosion was part of the exiting decision by the likes of Sara Lee.

I agree..talent on the job is definitely NOT our problem..we have the skillz and the ability to learn quickly.

Agree also that some tiefin ting did ah gwaan wid dem garment factory deh...seems to be a part of our skill set.

But I believe that Jamaica just cannot compete on cost...driven by the scale element & the wage element...places like Haiti & Vietnam wipe yuh out..dem werk fi dirt an nuh ave nuh safety, hygiene or employee benefit standard ...saving the operators mucho $$$

Finally, how many Jakan Govts took over after a virtual civil war that exhausted the coffers of the State and then less than 2 years later the LARGEST sector of the economy collapsed??

One?

But how many Jakan govts had the US using it as a showpiece and creating entire programs just for it.... and allowing access to huge loans without having to show the ability to repay thru production?

Then after 8-9 years...what do we have on the ground? ...not much.

I am not taking away from your many valid points but we have to give the DayWalker his due. He had the worst set of circumstances facing him on his entrance.

Since he had a big hand in the creation of the mess....i am disinclined to cut the DayWalker much slack

Did you know that David Rockerfeller (the authentic DayWalker) was on the Jamaica restoration committee right after 1980 elections. Notice how we never hear of him doing anything for us in that period. Promise is a comfort to whom?

A fool??

[Muadib]

Seaga had a big hand in creation of the mess ??

Hmm.. I thought that would have been Manley..



Lemme mek it simple for you.. since 1972 Jamaica has been blindsided by the policies developed under the rule of 2 Men..

I do not need to name them.. yuh eiddah know or yuh don't know.. any long debate outside of this is meaningless and quixotic.

[Don1]

yuh fi back aff wen big man ah chat... yuh ah come infect di nicenice discussion wid yuh tribal fooliniss

back to di trough fi yuh... yuh govament wuk ah spwile

[Muadib]

You are right.. serious work to be done... I will leave you to the quixotic musings..

[Don1]

thanks a mil! LoL!