Dawn Ritch, Contributor
THAT TURN-BACK socialist in exile, Professor Don Robotham, wrote in his column last Sunday, "It is perfectly obvious to thinking people in the JLP leadership that the economic model being pursued by Dr. Davies is the only viable one."
He writes, "The JLP leadership knows this and that is why it concentrates on the corruption issue and is silent about the much more fundamental question of the economic model behind budget details."
The JLP leadership knows better than to engage in such an argument. But Robotham is not satisfied. He continues, "They need to say plainly that the current economic model is the right one."
There is no debate going on in Jamaica about the economic model being used. It is the capitalist model. But it is being used badly by people who don't understand it, including other turn-back socialists like Robotham.
BEHAVING LIKE A TWO-YEAR-OLD
For his entire tenure, Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies has behaved like a two-year-old in a playpen, flinging out all the toys and screaming with joy. Any adult knows that behaviour like this always ends in tears.
First he threw out the domestic financial sector and vilified the owners. Then he threw out the commanding heights of the economy like power generation and cement manufacture to foreigners who don't know what they're doing. Having ensured that jobs and production declined, Dr. Davies then spent the NIS and future generations of tax payments on speculative ventures without a dime of income or economic benefit to the people of Jamaica. We, in the meantime, face horrendous light bills, the gas pump is burning a hole in our pockets, and people are slaughtering each other over drug turf and in domestic disputes on a daily basis.
DROWNING IN THE DEEP END
This is not capitalism. This is the result of a person who doesn't understand capitalism having his hand on the wheel, the gears, and the brake. The current Finance Minister, by his own admission, releases the brake for expediency. He runs with it. This remarkable orientation is not communism either, and slavery was abolished long ago, even for taxpayers. It is, and has always been utter lunacy masquerading as public policy.
It is nonsensical to try to propose Dr. Davies' methods as any kind of economic model at all. He's just drowning in the deep end, and somebody needs to fish him out before the next general election. Anybody with only 300 votes from his peers in his own party should retire.
When people run a system who don't understand it, this creates infinite opportunities for robber barons, carpet baggers, drug barons, con artists and 'ginnals' to have a field day. They have, under Dr. Davies' regime as Finance Minister, grown rich in the process.
They know that in all his years at the tiller, he's never changed course once. As a consequence every genetically-connected contractor realises that in the end Dr. Davies will approve for payment all cost overruns. He'll run with it.
Under our Constitution, not even the Prime Minister can tell the Finance Minister what to do. Is it that Mr. Patterson never tried, or that Dr. Davies never learnt the meaning of the word 'No' and how to say it?
YET ANOTHER BUDGET
Last week he tabled yet another Budget, hopefully his last. At least real expenditure has reportedly been reduced for the next fiscal year. But if Dr. Davies is still in charge of the Supplementaries, it will be another record year of profligacy and debt. I doubt, however, that that is what Professor Robotham had in mind when he mentioned "Budget details".
He's thinking about what he described last week as "the exchange rate dispute which has been raging in Jamaica." There's no raging dispute going on over Jamaica's exchange rate. Former Prime Minister Edward Seaga wrote that it should be fixed, but the only person who has taken him up on it is Don Robotham. And he doesn't count because he doesn't live here and he isn't in Government.
Robotham has had no takers either, but every week he pursues the exchange rate argument. Here is a rate, which all it does is decline steadily, and Robotham wants to argue about whether or not it should be fixed. This is as foolish an argument as the one about God. God will always exist for those who believe, and Jamaica's exchange rate will continue to decline as long as there's no production, high inflation, and mad fiscal policies resulting in debt.
There's no stable exchange rate without fixing these fundamentals. To suggest otherwise is an astonishing oversimplification. Dr. Robotham wants somebody to bite his bait, so that he can disappear down any of three holes, so afraid is he to catch a fish. Somebody like that should stay ashore in New York where they pay people to confuse them.
RULED OUT IN MY BOOKS
Belief in God, and a good prime minister, can work wonders. Especially if she gets a proper Finance Minister, one who is transparent, does not abuse warrants and public guarantees, approve every public pipe dream placed before him, violate the Constitution of Jamaica virtually on a daily basis. That rather rules out Dr. Davies in my books.
What about Madame Prime Minister's books? Robotham has repeatedly described her as a populist. He doesn't even know the meaning of the word. Does he think that because Mrs. Simpson Miller hugs and kisses people and cares about the poor, she's a populist? Is that what university has taught our so-called scholars?
It should be noted that in the teeth of opposition from Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, Mrs. Simpson Miller brought back the European market in both flights and cruises. Her waywardness got her moved from Tourism, but not before also leaving them with a library of images of the island of a calibre not seen since the 1960s. On her watch, 9/11 occurred. She successfully steered the local tourism industry through the crisis period.
For her pains she was moved to Local Government. Before Tourism, she was Minister of Labour where she built showers for departing overseas farm workers and refused to have the Finance Minister plunder the NIS for trophy public projects. For that she was moved to Tourism so Omar and P.J. could have their way with the NIS. The former prime minister never asked Omar to resign at any point. But Mrs. Simpson Miller was shunted about as soon as she made a piece of difference in any ministry.
OMAR A POPULIST
Their ministerial records clearly demonstrate that Omar was the populist and not she. Robotham ought to review them. He may find it instructive. When 10 new fire engines arrive later this year, this will not be populism, but a commitment to addressing a long overdue and pressing need to save lives and properties.
In fact, as a I keep saying, either hop on a plane and live here or keep quiet. These people are missing half their lives and don't know it.
