Hurricane Sandy !

I do hope hope that all those out there who follows this blog and their families managed to make it through Hurricane Sandy without too much losses to either property or life.

To those who have been affected  in the Caribbean and the large Caribbean population in the hard hit areas of New York and New Jersey, I say I condolences to those who may have lost a loved one and for those losing their possessions  I do hope you all have a speedy recovery.

The impact of this Hurricane, will be devastating considering the perilous state of the economy at this time, but in the true Jamaican spirit, we need to work with each other to ensure that country recovers in the shortest possible time. This is a time to reach out to our neighbours and the less fortunate and offer them whatever help we can, to ensure they can put their lives back together again.

 

One love Jamaica and all Jamaica out there and God Bless.

What is the value of a higher education ?

What’s the value of Bsc, BA, and Mba, Msc, MA or PhD?

Jamaica probably has more persons today, with the above degree’s than at any other point in our 50 yrs history, so why are we in the situation we have found ourselves. We have a bunch of parliamentarians, many who have higher-level degrees than those who preceded them in the 1960’s and 1970’s, yet the perform so poorly and and not held accountable for anything.

Today, its very difficult to get a “decent” job without one of the above degrees, with many company’s now asking for a second degree as minimum to obtain a white collar job. One would therefore want to make a correlation between a degree and productivity, economic development, crime mitigation and reduction, debt etc.

As I sat down to write this piece it struck me like a freight train. There is almost no empirical data to show a link between increase operational efficiencies in operations of the public and/or the private sector and high-level degrees.

The financial sector, in particular the banks. do appear to making improvement in their operational efficiency and making huge profits in the process, but is this really the case, or its just based on the predatory tactics being used and an unengaged set on consumers, who gets taken for a ride.

When one look at the state of manufacturing, mining and energy, services and agriculture, the data clearly shows that our productivity rates has declined consistently over the last 40 yrs or so. During that same time our economy has hardly grown and our per capitia income is less than it was 40 yrs ago. How is that possible when we have many more “higher-level” educated persons that 40 yrs ago, how has that higher-level learning translated itself into a better Jamaica?

As far as I can tell, we have way too many persons doing white-collar jobs. We have way to many persons with Bachelor, Master and Doctorates, sitting in air-conditioned offices, wasting precious energy pushing paper around.

We have way too many “higher” educated persons driving gas-guzzlers around under heavy tint, with ac at max, wasting precious fuel whose contribution to national development and cost reduction is next to nothing. If you ask me, these are the very persons who consume the most electricity, water and fuel and imports the most from outside of Jamaica, thus pushing our bills sky-high.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting there is no value in higher learning, no that is not what I am saying. Instead I am saying there should be a meaningful improvement in the various Key Performance Indicators of this country by virtue of the employment of these persons.

Now having figured out that we are not seeing this strong correlation, between the two, what really is the problem.Well as far as I am concerned, we need more technical competent individuals if we are to ever get Jamaica moving forward. What I mean here, is we need more persons who not only knows the “theory” of how its supposed to work, we need more persons who can actually get it to work.

We must get more persons out there, who are highly skilled craftsmen, technicians etc, who can make things happen.  If we are to move forward we have to make a shift from spending so much money on educating persons to go sit in an air conditioned office and use vast amounts of energy. We need instead to direct more of those funds to train and turn out highly skilled (blue collar) workers, who can build and install wind turbines, solar voltaic system, which will not only save expenditures on fuel, but also create a new industry and jobs.

We must get more of these persons into the manufacturing plants, who can implement changes on the shop floor to improve number of pieces per sqft of building used as well as more pieces per kwh of energy consumed and finally more pieces per persons used in the manufacturing process.

We need a paradigm shift, we need a move away from white collar jobs and move instead to highly skilled jobs that will make an indelible mark on the Jamaican landscape. It cost a whole lot less to train these folks, but their output and contribution, will be way above most of those with “higher” level education.

• We have more lawyers than every before and more murders and crime than ever before.
• We have more political representative that ever before, but less representation.
• We have more doctors than ever before, but more unhealthy and mentally unstable persons.
• We have more hospitals than ever before, but more sick persons.
• We have more higher-level educated persons, but more dumb policies.
• We have more workers, but less products and lower levels of productivity.
• We have more educated managers, but less management and accountability.
• We have more smartphones, but more dumb people.
• We have more teachers but more illiterates than ever before.
• More police but less crimes being solved.
• More IT trained persons but more online fraud.
• More BSc. BA. MA,MBA, PHd’s but way more corruption.

What is wrong with the above picture and do you believe the changes I have suggested can make an impact?

Who is with me on this shift (I guess its crazy Jay again, with one of his usual rants)?

Hurricane/Disaster Correlation Coefficient ( By special request)

Ok Test I created a thread just for you.

Test Disaster Correlation Coefficient

Pay close attention to the impact of Hurricane Omar and compare that to all the other hurricanes/natural disasters  combined. 🙂 🙂

Of course I had to inject the Omar Data point per your special request.

Data

EVENT	Year	Category	Cost($JB)	Impact ( % GDP)
Hurricane Omar	1990	5	120	40
HurricaneMichelle	2001	4	2.52	0.8
May/JuneFloodRains	2002	–	2.47	0.7
Hurricane Charley	2004	4	0.44	0.02
Hurricane Ivan	2004	3	36.9	8
Hurricanes Dennis&Emily	2005	4	5.98	1.2
HurricaneWilma	2005	5	3.6	0.7
HurricaneDean	2007	4	23.8	3.4
TropicalStormGustav	2008	–	15.5	2
TropicalStormNicole	2010	–	20.6	1.9
Hurricane Sandy	2012	1	5.0>	0.37
Total Cost with Omar			236.81

 

EVENT	Year	Category	Cost($JB)	( % GDP)
H/Michelle	2001	4	2.52	0.8
M/JuneFloodS	2002	–	2.47	0.7
H/Charley	2004	4	0.44	0.02
H/Ivan	2004	3	36.9	8
H/ Dennis&Emily	2005	4	5.98	1.2
H/Wilma	2005	5	3.6	0.7
H/Dean	2007	4	23.8	3.4
T/SGustav	2008	–	15.5	2
T/SNicole	2010	–	20.6	1.9
Hurricane Sandy	2012	1	5.0>	0.37
Total Cost without Omar			116.81

Prime Minister appeals for unity and speaks on IMF deal 10/24/2012

In a rare local event, veteran journalist Cliff Hughes was able to get an interview with our Prime Minister, Portia Simpson -Miller. Unfortunately I was unable to record all the interview but in the first part of the interview she spoke on the following issues.

1. Express sorrow at the news of the loss of life of one person in East Rural St Andrew.
2. Appealed for persons to stay off the road, she spoke specifically about the Roselle main rd in St Thomas as well and Micheal Manley blvd as well and the road in Rockfort in the vicinity of the cement company.
3. She spoke about the new challenge that Jamaica will now face, given the bad economic situation that existed before and now , this hurricane has made that bad situation worse. She said she hoped that the IMF and the international lender , will look at this recent event and offer Jamaica some much needed help.

The rest of the interview really focused on the IMF deal, here are comments.

http://tindeck.com/listen/ttvo

Time to dust off Vision 2030

http://www.vision2030.gov.jm/Portals/0/NDP/Vision%202030%20Jamaica%20NDP%20Full%20No%20Cover%20%28web%29.pdf

Civil Society and the Private Sector lashes out at the Government

It  appears that Civil society and the Private Sector have finally developed the courage to say, what this blog has been saying now for months, [as] it relates to the government mismanagement of the country.

This afternoon the Private Sector of Jamaica, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce as well as the Jamaica Civil Society Coalition  took turns lashing the PNP administration for its lack of direction following a “non-statement” from the PM after a third cabinet retreat.  The groups are upset about what appears to be virtually no new development on the status of the current negotiations and conflicting reports from the PM and her Finance Minister.

Listen to what each group had to say about the government and its lack of direction, which is exactly what I have been saying now for months.

http://tindeck.com/listen/jlnz

In this clip you will hear from the following :

1. IMF speaks about wage freeze, says ” its NOT the answer, it only buys you some time. ( Meaning we must act Now)
2. PSOJ
3. Jamaica Chamber of Commerce
4. Jamaica Civil Society Coalition

Portia Simpson-Miller speaks in Canada

Excerpts of what our PM had to say in Canada on her current trip.

http://tindeck.com/listen/iczi

 

Sunday Gleaner asks” Where is the government ?

I say , which government?

The PM is off on another trip this time to Canada, oh what a wonderful time she is having as the country sinks further into a cesspool. I knew the PNP with PSM as leader would have been a collosal failure, I have been saying this now for over a year, well it seems the Gleaner is finally catching up with this blog.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20121021/cleisure/cleisure1.html

 

One blogger wrote:

What a sumpthing! My grandmother always said, you mek u bed so you will have to lie in it.” Jamaican people were warned about this Government but because most of whom vote for them are lazy and wanted to get by too easily opted to return them to power.
They were fooled because they never had any plans from the beginning and the people could not wait to get back to the golden days of “man haffi eat a food” mentality but they were in for a rude awakening because the kitty empty!

 

Why did I think I am the only one who had the EAF mentality thought, tsk tsk.

Test , Acar and the crew is going to have a fit, soon the Gleaner will be called pro-JLP . 🙂

 

PNP and the 7 plagues hitting Jamaica !

1. Increased murders
2. Increased rape, including buggery
3. A rapidly declining dollar
4. A rapidly declining economy
5. Increased in poverty
6. Increased rodent population
7. Mosquitoes ( Dengue)

Why is the banking practice in Jamaica so different?

The international banks in Jamaica are far from customer friendly, but is this due to the fact that as consumers, we demand very little from our banks. I say this against the bank ground of a recent experience with a bank that operates in Jamaica as well as the wider Caribbean region.

So I took out a loan with one of the prominent Canadian Bank, which operates in the Eastern Caribbean region as well as in Jamaica. During the interview and application process I was asked, “ how do you wish make your payments Jay”?

I know in Jamaica (with the same bank) I can only make monthly payments. If I opt to pay weekly it would be accrued and only applied on a monthly basis. So I asked, “ What are my options”?

I was told, whatever I want, I can pay weekly,  bi-weekly or monthly. I was also advised that if paid weekly, the interest accrued would be less and I would pay of the loan faster while saying money in the process. I of course opted for the weekly payment.

I then asked, what if I want to pay periodic payments beyond the weekly payments, which would be applied towards the principal. I was told, that is no problem, simply approach the teller, tell him/her what you want and the process would be executed. So I said, “ what about the notice period”? The loan officer said, sir there is no need for any sort of notice to make any such payments.

Now, I decided to go a bit further and asked “ What if I want to pay up the loan early, with a lump sum payment, how much notice would I need to give”?

The response was “ once again, you just go to the teller, provide the loan account number and the source of funds and the transaction would be complete on the spot”.

 

“ So what about, those early payment penalty”?   I was told there are no such penalties, just make your payment and your are done.

I took the loan for three years, even though I had no intention of taking that long to pay off this loan. I actually paid off the loan in 6 months, simply by making periodic lump sum payments and then finally using funds from a compulsory savings account I had to set up in order to acquire the loan.

 

Now the very bank operating in Jamaica, would not allow me to do weekly payments and would not accept lump sum payments unless I had first written to the bank and provided them with 3 months (90 days) notice of my stated intentions. In addition if I choose to go pay off the entire loan early, I would have to provide 3 months notice, but no early payment penalty would be applicable.

So to my question above, are the policies in Jamaica different because we demand very little from these banks, or is it that the framework around, which these banks operate, offer very little protection to us.

I am using this medium to say to Jamaicans, its time we force these banks to change either by force or by pushing the GOJ via the Bank Of Jamaica, to insist that the rules are changed and Banks must offer the client varying payments options including weekly or bi-weekly payments as well as removal of that notice period required to pay off a loan.

 

“ Things will remain the same until collectively we the people decide that change is required and dictate the change we desire”.

 

I do hope those who read this would have found it informative.