Orville Taylor
There is no pink-eye outbreak around! True, hundreds of persons have bloody eyes with unending streams of tears. Eyes are puffy and yellow stuff is oozing from the corners. However, the politicians say, "It does not 'matter.'" Perhaps it is because Jamaicans are told to avoid being 'red eye' over other persons' affairs and their possessions and pretend not to notice how their finances are going. But Lord man! Closing our eyes will not prevent us catching the viral conjunctivitis that is spreading faster than a rumour or blue-tooth pornographic video.
Something is happening and we should have been alert and responsive from the get-go. We would like to see our 'blue-eyed boy', Barack Obama, walk straight into the House and change it to the Beige, if not Black House. However, there is indeed a 'red-eyed' Republican who wants the popularity that he has and is fighting tooth and nail to have it.
Red is the colour of the Republican Party. It also signifies danger and tells you to stop and not cross the street. In finance, 'being in the red' means that one's accounts are in bad shape. In contrast, an account being in good standing is one that is in the black. This might be the only reference to black in the English language where it has a positive connotation.
The American Congress, 'red' for more than a decade and until last year, allowed excessive latitude in the American financial sector, was instructed by a laissez-faire economic philosophy that says government should interfere as little as possible in the economy. This led to people getting lines of credit and loans that they could not afford to service. With the fallout, there was the need for a bailout, because, as it was in Jamaica 15 years or so ago, millions of innocent savers, who trusted the financial system, were on the verge of financial ruin.
Economic tsunami
Nevertheless, as the American economy teetered and wobbled with the largest number of persons in the red in eons, we never turned the black of our eyes as the red tide threatened to sweep us away as it flowed.
Our local financial institutions, almost all of which have some stake in the crisis facing the American economy, jumped to reassure us that nothing untoward would occur. But then again, that was also the case with Cash Plus and other unregulated financial organisations.
Still, most of the mainstream money brokers reported that they were well capitalised and that on the average, less than 10 per cent of their portfolios were held in the USA. Therefore, the earthquake in America would produce no tsunami here, but maybe a few ripples.
Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned but 'fine ants' are creatures that can easily be underrated, but if ignored, they can totally ruin your stocks of clothes and food and destroy the fine wiring of your appliances. Because I failed to notice my nests of fine ants, it became impossible to access the Internet because they ate the insides of my modem. It might seem flippant, but the fine ants also devoured all the termites that had begun to nest in my head board and closet. The Government should 'tickya'.
In recent times, comparisons between Prime Minister Bruce Golding and former socialist prime minister, the late Michael Manley, have been made. His speeches only seem to lack the occasional "fundamentally!" but he is fluent and speaks without a prompter and often without a script. He has incorporated a policy of universal health care, free education and is in the process of giving the police power to detain suspects indefinitely. The latter is not unlike those that Manley used to detain Golding's brother-in-law, labour minister Pearnel Charles, in the mid-1970s.
Golding has visited Cuba and has opposed the USA on its isolationist policy towards that nation state. To top it all, with his blessing, the head of the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) has been dismissed for reasons apparently unknown, as both the Ministry of Information and the aggrieved, have completely different stated reasons. Somewhere in the middle of the belief there is a 'lie'. What is true though is that as it was in the 1970s, the JIS was brought more firmly under the direction of the Government. Maybe the name will also be changed to the Agency for Public Information.
Hard lesson
Still, the green must tell us more about the red. Governmental statements made in the early days of the crisis are reminiscent of the 1970s. Michael Manley pushed a socialist almost anti-American doctrine, preaching non-alignment and self-reliance. There was no crisis in America, but we learned a hard lesson as the USA decreased aid and dropped its imports from us by some 10 per cent. The impact of this decline in trade was too much for the administration to fight and though Manley fought, his efforts were as wind.
Today, America is our single largest trading partner and our biggest market. Any reduction of the purchasing power of corporate and ordinary Americans must ring early alarms, including the Jamaica Labour Party's bell.
At present, the single largest contributor to our national income is remittances. Some 65 per cent of this amount comes from the land of 'farrin,' Uncle Sam. Tourism is a major earner and the 'farm work' programmes stop a large gap. As Americans and 'Jamericans' lose income, the flow will shift from a black stream to a red and the green will trickle in more slowly.
Now Golding has appointed a panel of sages to read the tide. Good! But they should have been there earlier to help them make the first statements.
Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at UWI, Mona. Feedback may be sent to orville.taylor@uwimona.edu.jm.
