Individuals, when confronted with serious debt obligations, first compare their income-generating capacity to the size of the debt obligation. When that analysis indicates that the size of the debt far outstrips the income so that it would take several lifetimes of income to satisfy, then the individual has to find ways to enhance his income-earning capability to meet his obligations. He retools, he upgrades his qualifications and competencies, and repositions himself at a higher-level income bracket and earns himself out of debt.

Nations are fundamentally no different from individuals. Our Jamaican nation faces this dilemma of how to unsaddle our future generations from this monstrous debt which we have incurred. We must now devise strategies to enhance our national income-earning capability and grow ourselves out of the debt.

Examine the major areas of economic activity that generate the bulk of our national income, and I, em-barrassingly, include remittances, which, while not qualifying as a domestic economic activity, provides signi-ficant income. All these areas of eco-nomic activity operate close to or at the very base of the global value chain in their various industries/sectors, whether it be the production of basic commodities of sugar, banana, cocoa or even bauxite, albeit with some value added of local alumina processing. Even tourism still revolves around basic hotel, beach, sun, fun and support services.

These sectors, operating at the lower links on the global value chain, will never be able to provide Jamaica with the higher-level income-generating capacity we so desperately need.

Paving the road forward

The pavement has four special components necessary to create the durable and robustly reliable road surface we need to negotiate this global knowledge/information economy and society to which we belong. They are: