'Horse dead and crow fat'

[Karl]

'Horse dead and crow fat'


Wednesday, August 17, 2011


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...#ixzz1VM0AQvTj



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THE oft misquoted Jamaican saying 'Horse dead and crow fat' means that one man's misfortune is another man's fortune. This truism holds good for the global economy as well as individual and national circumstances.
For example, Chinese exports of apparel are beneficial to China where it creates employment, but it displaces jobs in the United States and in Mexico which used to supply the US market.

Often when a country is experiencing economic distress, unemployment increases to the point that many seek relief by migrating to other countries. This is beneficial in two respects as it relieves the social and economic pressure in the country from which people are leaving, and it often supplies the receiving countries with labour and in many circumstances urgently needed skills.

Many of the so called "new world" countries benefited from the migration of unemployed labour. The unemployed Irish and English were integral to the development of the United States of America, Canada and Australia.

The Jamaican economy has failed to produce enough jobs over the last 150 years and therefore its main export has been labour. Gall's Newsletter, in early 1884, described the scene at the docks where workers were being recruited to work in building the Panama Canal as: "A stampede hardly possible to describe."

This haemorrhage of human capital continues today and is not larger in numbers only because the US and Canada will not allow entry to all who would emigrate.

This migration has been a desperate act of economic survival by the Jamaican people and that is why, despite the relatively small size and population of our island, there are Jamaicans in every part of the world today.

The economic austerity of the government in Great Britain requires that several thousand public sector workers will be laid off. This is most unfortunate for those losing their jobs, but they have skills and experience which allow them to find good jobs abroad. There are opportunities for Jamaica to recruit suitably qualified civil servants to strengthen various sections of the public sector. The police, the public health service and the Ministry of Finance come to mind immediately as areas where there are shortages of skills, eg. nurses; the teaching of certain subjects including English; conducting autopsies and where some experience could help, the police.

Skill and experience must be the critical determining criteria for selection. The priority in recruitment must be the persons of Jamaican origin or descendents of Jamaicans. Even if those recruited are British with no connection to Jamaica they have the advantage of language which is an impediment to many Indians and Cubans working in Jamaica.

In addition, many public sector systems and laws of Jamaica are modelled after their British counterparts. Other benefit could be the injection of civility and politeness into social contact and reinforcing those who are struggling to speak English.

All of this is an opportunity to reverse the "brain drain" and recapture our human capital. The ironies of this change in the direction of migration are numerous, eg. GOJ recruiting nurses in Britain, remittances from British people working in Jamaica to their families in Britain and Jamaicans complaining about their jobs being taken by migrants including returning Jamaicans.


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...#ixzz1VM0FpU5N

[MdmeX]

I always thought it was "horse dead and COW fat"

[Willi]

I know Cow as well.

[Rockman]

Me too,but then I never before read it ,onlu heard it.I like it with crow because horse and cow compete for grass,and eaters "deadas" will benefit from thr cow getting fat.
Privatization inherently is solely about making profits,it is made worse when the company is foreign.Only those avaricious vultures benefit.
Can't eat a crow,and a hungry crow looks for its next meal,thereby reducing the spread of desease .

[Assasin]

Privatization in Jamaica means making profit while public asset in Jamaica means "A fi wi, government tax dollar fi bail we out". Pick your poison.

name the efficently run state agency in Ja. Only since Walker go a customs them a make money.

[Islandman]

Makes perfect sense! I knew it as cow too but perhaps the real meaning got lost somewhere along the line.

[Rockman]

That is not demanding better from Govt .
A business needs perpetual life , so profit is desired but how much is the question.
Think Chavez.

[Assasin]

How so?

[Historian]

Good Points, Assasin

Privatization in Jamaica means making profit while public asset in Jamaica means "A fi wi, government tax dollar fi bail we out". Pick your poison.

name the efficently run state agency in Ja. Only since Walker go a customs them a make money.

Good economic points as usual, Assasin .

With reference to Rockman’s post, I am not sure if Hugo Chavez should be held as a shining light for anyone to admire or emulate. (Have we not learnt anything from the failures of the Cuban model, the Soviet model, the earlier Chinese models, the North Korean model, etc.?)

By the way, here is another (albeit rather simple) way of looking at this matter of private vs. state ownership.

Privatization generally includes the following:
Increased efficiency (in order for the investor to maximize profits);
The implementation of new technology;
A higher standard of living, generally, for those fortunate in retaining their jobs;
Lower prices to consumers (in competitive environments).

Government ownership generally involves the following:
Over-employment in many cases (retaining those votes for general election time);
Marked inefficiency in service and products;
“A wi own it, so…” and its accompanying “don’t care” attitude, slackness;
A tendency to cater to those faithful to the party.

[MdmeX]

Good economic points as usual, Assasin .

With reference to Rockman’s post, I am not sure if Hugo Chavez should be held as a shining light for anyone to admire or emulate. (Have we not learnt anything from the failures of the Cuban model, the Soviet model, the earlier Chinese models, the North Korean model, etc.?)

By the way, here is another (albeit rather simple) way of looking at this matter of private vs. state ownership.

Privatization generally includes the following:
Increased efficiency (in order for the investor to maximize profits);
The implementation of new technology;
A higher standard of living, generally, for those fortunate in retaining their jobs;
Lower prices to consumers (in competitive environments).

Government ownership generally involves the following:
Over-employment in many cases (retaining those votes for general election time);
Marked inefficiency in service and products;
“A wi own it, so…” and its accompanying “don’t care” attitude, slackness;
A tendency to cater to those faithful to the party.

Same so it goes.

Under government ownership - just fire the best person for the job and hire a party affiliate/croony

[Sickko]

Always heard COW and when i saw this I was wondering if it was a mistake

[Assasin]

Only thing I wonder if we shouldn't sell is JPS due to the nature of electricity and the role it plays in production. Power will always be a monopoly, maybe we could have contracted the management. Every other thing should one should have been or at least government have a minority stake. It is better for government to have 10% of a profitable company than 100% of these lost generating companies.

If we couldn't make a profit off NCB, Telephone company, Air Jamaica etc. what are they going to run?

As for Chavez I give it 10 more years at most when these companies run down and are overemployed, they are going to beg private companies to come back in.

[Rockman]

Well I argued against the JPS being privatized from the get go only to hear the typical capitalist mantra of how good privatization is.Water is another key commodity,hence it is not only the JPS;it is emblematic. ...
Do not hold your breath regarding Chavez's demise,it is not going to happen.
Hondura's economic situation is far better than most and its people stand to benefit.

[Assasin]

I will bet you, we will be around 10 years from now. They neither have trained management or entrepeneurs in their public sector. If they partnered with private firms I could understand and use the Chinese model.

[Sir X]

All those models China,Cuba & Venezueala , seems like a bonafide alternative given the other models we have followed since independence.

I would rather a broke educated nation , than a broke uneducated one (which we currently have ) or educated for the haves.

Chavez socialism isnt going away anywhere too fast or too soon , it will be voted out for a capitalist party in the future that listen attentively and address the needs of its poor out of fear from another Bolivarian socialist right wing revolution, who ever replaces chavez will be center or left wing but they will be socialist capitalist like communist capitalist china!

South America is already on that pathway.A classic example is Brazil, the 5 in some estimates biggest economy in the world.