Tag Archives: economy

What do the 1937 riots, the 1970 Black Power revolution, the 1990 attempted coup, and the current crime wave have in common? They are all eruptions of dissatisfaction over the distribution of the national income earned from our energy sector. We will continue to have these episodes until we reset …

In the mid-60s, there was a proposal to move people out of what was then called Shanty Town to Morvant. Lord Blakie (1965) summed up the resistance among the people there: How they want them to move/ They say they eh going nowhere/Build big house in Morvant/ But if they …

“The real problem is that oil dollars have reduced us all to ‘petro-jumbies’, a people who have never explored our creativity, our talents, our potential. “For generations, we have been lazy slobs, knowing that the oil dollar, down today but up tomorrow, will rescue us from ruin, cushion fuel prices, …

“Grave fiscal irresponsibility!” was former Central Bank governor Jwala Rambarran’s characterization of the announcement of a US$900 million loss by the Heritage Stabilisation Fund (HSF). Invoking a dog whistle, he continued by saying that this spoke to the “incompetence of the Board”. Roodal Moonilal reminded us of Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissesar’s …

More than half our population did not experience the ravages of the 1988 International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) intervention. This group likely does not pay attention to the news reports on the Article IV consultations. They do not know that the Public Services Association’s 1988 membership was savaged and subsidies were …

Straight out of the gates, on 2 January 2023, the news hit like a bucket of cold water. As though we did not know enough about the new year’s challenges, Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF managing director, predicted: “[…] 2023 will be ‘tougher’ than last year… We expect one-third of the …

“[…] Some people may feel justified in seeing our existence only through the prism of the negative lenses, and believe that runaway criminality is the hallmark and highlight of our efforts. “[…] As a people, we have been resilient, over these recent difficult years. It has been my honour and …

We are at the end of 2022. What will 2023 bring us? The recent past has worn us down, making us more apprehensive about the future. The pervasive uncertainty drains our optimism, making us more guarded in our expectations. What lies ahead? What lessons should we take with us into …

The immutable law of nature is: what we sow, we will reap. We will not get mangoes if we sow pigeon peas. We always reap later. Sometimes, we sow ochro and have a crop in six weeks. But the crop takes years at other times, as it does when we …

“The Minister of Tourism, Randall Mitchell, has said that increasing the minimum wage will cause inflation… This is a ton load of gobar. “We are presently suffering from the highest inflation rate since the turn of the century. Is it caused by increasing the money supply? Or is it because …

“[…] Many [health care workers] are working under short term contracts—some as short as three months—[and] have been subjected to continual rollovers of their short term contracts and who have been employed continuously for 15 years and more. “[…] Instead of abolishing the short term-rollover contract system, coming up with …

“Words are the clothes thoughts wear” — Samuel Beckett, Irish writer. The Budget debate and its fallout sent me scurrying to recall Beckett’s writings. He is the author of “Waiting for Godot”—a play the late James Lee Wah introduced to me in the early 70s.  The state of play on …