Trinidad and Tobago foreign exchnage woes – the real reason for the shortage

People and economist are saying that Trinidad and Tobago is living beyond its means and that is contributing to the drain on foreign exchange in the country. This was no doubt made worse in the short term by the flood of back-pay to public servants. Also, our spending habits such as buying too many cars and flooding “skyboxes” with goodies all year round is no doubt a big drain but I can say from observation that the forex drain from buying imported cars far outweigh the purchases via individuals’ skyboxes.

But the real cause of this drain is too much disposal income due to heavily subsidized basic needs such as water, electricity, prescription medicine, gasoline, laptops, GATE and canned foods. If we were to pay a less subsidized portion of  these items then there would be less money to make the unimaginative big time importers of everything even less imaginative and innovative. The motto of these companies seems to be “just bring it down and it will sell.”

Everyday you see oil prices sliding downhill worse than Jack Warner’s reputation. Everyday you see countless ads urging us to buy in order to be happy. Banks, a big beneficiary of the big disposable incomes due to big government subsidies, are all too willing to make it happen with a loan of your choice.  The Minister of Finance hinted that they are concerned with how the reduction in government subsidies will affect the most vulnerable. The most vulnerable has always been the politicians’ pet and best friend so it is always in political parties interest to have as many most-vulnerable as they can create as democracy is one man one vote.

I am anxious for the elections to be over with and I do not envy the next party in power as something drastic will have to be done quickly to prevent our thin-walled economic bubble from bursting. Sink or swim, Kamla or Rowley, I want this thing called General Elections to be over so we can pay attention to the more serious things in life like the economy and how much de Government goe give we.

The Latest Cigarette Advertisement in Trinidad and Tobago

Cigarette Advertising in Trinidad and Tobago

According to the Ministry of Health’s website:

17. Does the Tobacco Control Act really prohibit advertising? Under which circumstances is advertising of tobacco products allowed?

Indeed, the Tobacco Control Act has placed prohibitions against advertising.

There are, however, some limitations to the prohibitions:

A person may advertise a tobacco product by information advertising or brand preference advertising by way of:

a. A publication that is provided by mail and addressed to an adult smoker who is identified by name.

b. A publication that has an adult readership of not less than eighty –five per cent (85%)

c. Signs in a place where children (under 18 years) are not permitted by law.

Please note that these allowances do not apply to lifestyle advertising* or advertising that could be construed on reasonable grounds to be appealing to children.

The loophole which the eager-for-revenue local newspaper people might use in carrying this cigarette ad is that children don’t read much anymore and children see newspapers as a legacy product waiting to become extinct.

I, an adult by age, was drawn to this ad and my initial reaction was “so cheap.” No doubt this latest salvo by a clever company had more than the bland informational effect it was supposed to theoretically have. I almost had the urge to run down to the nearest dealer and start my addiction while I still had a few extra dollars. Though cigarettes are at the top of the list of addictions that will quite likely kill you in several ways, so to does alcohol, fried chicken, corn curls, cell phones, fast cars, promiscuous shapely women and political parties.

I don’t think this cigarette newspaper ad was necessary and it was in very poor taste. All that was needed was the dealers carry a pamphlet with the new prices which informs the addicted why they are paying more for their own tragic demise. Why should the nonsmoker also  have to know about the latest price increase while being tempted to look cool with minty breath? Greed for increased profits at the expense of human life is usually the answer.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

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Shanghai Construction takes in front

Shanghai Construction Group takes in front and welcomes the new Prime Minister

Shanghai Construction, builders of the Guanapo Church, has taken the lead by placing nothing less than a full-page ad in the Trinidad Guardian to congratulate, or is it welcome, the new Prime Minister. It stresses, with as much tact as a supposedly guilty company could muster, that it is a Chinese Government State Company and wants to maintain good relationships with the people of this beautiful country and not necessarily only the beautiful people of this country. I suppose they, the Chinese Government, want to make it known that they want to be left alone and in peace or else. It is a classic case of my Government is bigger that your Government and richer too. We will see how this plays out because there are few hundred thousand people in the country who want to know the truth and nothing but the truth about the past. It is not about vengeance but about setting the right example for citizens of this beautiful country.

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Icelandic Volcano batters the Caribbean and the World

An aerial photo shows smoke rising from the volcano under a glacier in the Eyjafjallajokull region of Iceland, on Wednesday, April 14, 2010. European air traffic from Scotland to Scandinavia and the Netherlands was disrupted by volcanic ash spreading from Iceland, shutting airports and prompting British Airways Plc to suspend all domestic flights. Photographer: Arni Saeberg /Bloomberg

Just imagine, one volcanic eruption in an island country as unnoticeable as Iceland has the potential to send the economies of European countries in a tailspin and by extension the World. Nearly all air traffic over Europe has been at a standstill since last Friday with its predictable resumption days, weeks, or even months away. This one volcanic eruption, spewing supposedly aircraft-unfriendly ash, has changed the world temporarily or even permanently. Some may doubt it but the effects of this uncertain flight disruption, now and in the future, will not only bankrupt many airlines but people. Even if flights were to resume in a day or two the European tourist market will shrink due to the unpredictability of traveling to and from Europe, rendering penniless many small businesses that depend on air cargo and travelers.

The economies of many tourism-dependant Caribbean nations will be devastated even more than it already is if travel to and from Europe declines, and it will. I think these Caribbean countries should start to market more in North America, South America, and even China, Japan, Australia, Malaysia and forget Europe for now. The economies of scale has prevented the people of these Caribbean islands from being anything more than a people who have to wait on others to make ends meet and have their tiny island dreams come true.

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Trinidad and Tobago – Running on Empty

I yawned last night when the news on all local TV stations reported that the police, famous for being loyal to our incorruptible leader, raided UDeCOTT offices, Sunway International’s offices and the home of Calder Hart, possibly looking for remnants of The Treasury. They did this after months of intense investigations – the AG claimed the investigations started since September last year but it appears nothing was done until the suspect fled the country maybe on a tipoff from one in the know. From what I saw on TV, the investigators wore shirt jack suits and detained some Dell and Lenovo PCs, a few external hard drives and laptops probably sporting quad and dual core processors. The police will probably find nothing but some local and foreign pornographic photos, a few good Malaysian jokes, family photos of long lost relatives and very little about churches or bank accounts. Even I don’t leave that kind of thing lying around my hard drive.

This raid was very entertaining and caused the press and print media to squeeze as much mileage from the recent government orchestrated stage show featuring loyal supporters of the God of the Government. The media however missed the most important piece of news to affect Trinidad and Tobago now and way into the future and that news is the money done. This report was pushed to page 10 of the Trinidad Express which says “BPTT Head: Natural Gas boom over.” Now, if a man like BPTT’s current head can face reality for a change and tell the public there will be no more easy money and we in Trinidad and Tobago must start to actually produce things the world wants  besides gas, oil and Chubby sweet drink, then things must be really bad. The Government knows this and many sensible people also know that the chances of getting their money from any failed insurance companies are getting dimmer by the second despite a bankrupt Government’s guarantee.

All these non-productive Port of Spain cosmetic projects, including the billion-dollar-fiasco-summits, have finally taken its toll on the country and all the money ain’t even done pass yet. The freeloaders appointed to cabinet are shaking in their shoes trying to justify their existence to the Prime Minister by nodding after every sentence the man utters, even when he is in a heightened state of delusion. I guess they must be suffering from his delusion as well.  A snap election is inevitable as more news of suspected financial wrongdoings is leaked to the public. Those contractors who had the foresight to milk the country dry before the downturn must be commended for their clear vision of the future. Hopefully they were smart enough to change their money into US dollars and bank it in Miami before our TT dollar floats away. I also hope they found the time and took those well-deserved European vacations. Hopefully, Citizens finally realize that God is not a Trini and he is extending the drought,  and WASA’s and UDeCOTT’s officials tenure just to prove this point.

Hurricane Season Predictions 2010

An active Atlantic hurricane season is predicted for 2010 but this might not translate into productive rainfall for Trinidad and Tobago which will cause WASA, a proactive organization, to prepare a future press release claiming that though the country is constantly under flood water, the dams are still dangerously low so the country will have to invest billions on energy-hungry, corruption-resistant desalination plants which will feed those water leaks that will be maintained for  both cultural and financial reasons.

On the bright side, the drought of 2010 has Trinidad looking more and more like the Prime Minister – destroyed via stupidity. As part of the country’s 2020 vision for the Hurricane Season, more of Trinidad and Tobago will be under mud when it rains because citizens have been comforting themselves with soft drinks in plastic bottles and replaced those third world foam mattresses with developed nation status mattresses from Serta, Restonic and King Koil.  Though we have parts of Port of Spain looking almost first world with the Waterfront Project, garbage bins, and that other national pride, the analogue-ready NAPA, these building are like some beautiful women, good to look at but suck the treasury dry.

Trinidad and Tobago – Even Worse Than UDECOTT

The first thing people must understand is that despite the bad press the UDECOTT fiasco is generating and even if big, big, unsmiling, arrogant men in Government were implicated it won’t change the outcome of an election. What would change the outcome is if this current economic situation and mismanagement by the government affects people’s pockets.

“Who thief” was always a form of vile entertainment for the population but not a reason to change die-hard political allegiance. However, despite the middle-class expressing annoyance with the Property Tax’s bigger ball and shorter chain, the inevitable slide of the TT dollar will be the blow that cracked everybody’s gold-plated egg. The currency slide will take away any gains people thought they made over the last few years. Big screen TVs and even big hard drives will once again become long-term dreams of the population just like winning the lotto. This currency slide will turn the manna from heaven our PM promised into anger and rage. That is why the self-righteous but corrupt trade union leaders are now vocal – they too need bigger TVs at good prices and vacations to Disney World.

Everybody knows the PM isn’t as stupid as he looks and sounds and that the PM loves power as much as he loves his million-dollar drapes, thus he is likely to call an election early in the New Year to protect the two things he loves the most. He will call the election months before all hell breaks loose and after he regains power the crime rate of today will seem like the good old days. The PM will get the majority in Parliament he longed for because the Opposition, having big, unaccounted for foreign bank accounts, has become an arm of the Government – surprise, surprise.

Producing Productivity in Trinidad and Tobago

Productivity – A country’s productivity is usually measured by the country’s GDP per hours worked.

GDP – Measuring GDP is complicated (which is why we leave it to the economists), but at its most basic, the calculation can be done in one of two ways: either by adding up what everyone earned in a year (income approach), or by adding up what everyone spent (expenditure method). Logically, both measures should arrive at roughly the same total. ~ Investopedia

Productivity isn’t everything but in the end it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker. ~ Paul Krugman

Short skirts in the workplace has been shown to boost productivity by boosting attendance. ~ aka_lol

Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the country’s productivity has been falling for the last five years and though I didn’t have the figures to prove it I had a gut feeling it was so since everybody I knew was either stuck in traffic or flood during productive times.  The Prime Minister is saying we citizens were being paid more and more over those five years but we produced less and less. I feel a sense of shame because of this. What The Prime Minister didn’t say was people were being paid more and more for one of several reasons –  to avoid starvation due to inflation, to go apartment shopping in Miami or to help win elections. The Prime Minister also said in his speech to launch the Productivity Council that citizens must work harder and come to work on time – the answers are always so simple.

So we need to produce more corn curls, Crix and painted stones (aka GDP) per man per hour.  How we in Trinidad and Tobago achieve more productivity will not be easy since UDECOTT is already spending efficiently and the new helicopters will produce more than just dust in we face. The Parliamentarians are taking the lead and agreed to a much deserved wage freeze but will produce more hot air in return. All these efforts must be commended but I am mostly hoping the 15-man Productivity Council has enough productive members to produce a productive report worth producing at a competitive price.

Obama – New US Policy on Engineers and Scientist

“One of the changes that I would like to see — and I’m going to be talking about in this in weeks to come — is seeing our best and our brightest commit themselves to making things — engineers, scientists, innovators. For so long, we have placed at the top of our pinnacle folks who can manipulate numbers and engage in complex financial calculations. And — and that’s good. We need some of that. But you know what we can really use is some more scientists and some more engineers who are building and making things that we can export to other countries.” President Barack Obama – 14th April 2009

In Trinidad and Tobago engineers and scientist are not encouraged to build and innovate. In fact, the Government despises innovation and engineering initiative . As proof of this unwritten Government policy you only have to look at how much money the Government has budgeted to research and development in Trinidad and Tobago – almost the same amount it takes to fund one stone painting crew. I think the Government thinks this way because kick-backs from innovators have never been tested. The traditional corruption sector is now too well established to thinker with.

Government after Government made sure to promised foreign concerns they would have cheap  local engineers to operate and maintain their plants. But Trinidad and Tobago has a very small population and a very small fraction of that population have graduated with a real (UWI) engineering degree (UTT is currently a joke). Out of those graduate engineers very few have any passion for engineering and ended up in the profession because they didn’t like Spanish or blood.  So, it’s not surprising that we have not produced many commercial innovations since there was never any funding and thus the people for that.People always take the path of least effort with the quickest rewards and young people are no different.

Commercial innovations has never been part of our culture and it was always national policy to go foreign for technology since foreign was always considered better.  With the last boom it was get-rich-quick and foreign technology offered a quick way of disposing of money.  Not only were Government people, foreign contractors and local contractors who wanted to get rich quick to buy houses in Miami, but new graduates as well. Most new graduates are only concerned about money in the bank and  Zen, not innovation and their profession.  To them engineering is a “wuck” and not a profession. The so-called brightest graduates usually try for US dollars but thankfully the brightest are seldom the best and seldom return. It’s an attitude thing.

Thankfully, that bubble has burst and the sky is about to fall big time.  The good thing about the sky is that in Trinidad and Tobago, to fall down the Cabinet has to approve it first. But two words that will soon be on the lipservice of every government Minister are innovation and diversification. By Our Stones You will Know Us.

The Summits of Trinidad and Tobago

Citizens of The Island were excited as The Great Summits approached. Thought the economy of The Island was in a tailspin and pensioners were being shortchanged, no expense was being spared to give the World Leaders the impression the Island had money to burn. All the major energy and biscuit industries on The Island were either at a standstill or shutting up shop but the Great Rulers of The Island said to the people, don’t worry be happy, we strong, we strong, a sentiment that comforted some people and all ostriches.

The Island was being  spruced up for The Great Summits so that the foreign press would get the wrong impression. Though the price of oil and gas was at an all-time low and the murder rate was at an all-time high the Grand Leader of The Island said The Island had much to boast about. The Island indeed had much to boast about and it boasted a high crime rate, unbearable traffic, and unbelievable floods. The Island also boasted countless pig-mannered drivers and frustration with all Government services. But The Island’s biggest boasts were having a Minister of Works who was never wrong, a Minister of Finance who was never right, and a Prime Minister who healed in a time that was nothing short of disappointingly miraculous. Though the country had its problems with no solution in sight like how to pay for the Great Stadium down South, no water in the pipelines, and masses of illiterate school children, the people were happy and that is why they drank and sped and bought the latest burglarproofing for their houses.

Despite the ill-advised negativity by some over The Great Summits most of the people on The Island were eagerly awaiting it and made plans to show off their skills and talents. Some said they would play pan and tassa while others said they would sing Soca, Calypso and Chutney. Nobody said they could read music. Others were planning to wine down de place to Chutney and Soca rhythms along with those foreign journalists who can’t even keep a beat. Some citizens said they would show off the more technologically advanced side of the country which amounted to tire burning, mud shoveling, and the world-famous CEPEP Missile Shield ^TM. One Government Minister had planned to show off his Mega Cucumber while The Car Thieving and Corrupt Licensing Officers Association planned to put on a demonstration highlighting how fast a car can be stolen from the Mall then reregistered and sent back on the road with a new owner. The Police and Thief Association planned to demonstrate how The Police took bribes from The Thief and some Police Officers even planned to raid houses without search warrants while The CoP planned to say and do nothing in approval. The Coast Guard intended only to show how to weigh the drugs seized in raids. Some motorists were eager to show why amber is just another color and why shoulders are more than something to cry on. The PM, never to be outdone, planned to measure the height of every building in the Capital with an aluminum tape made in China.