Peeping Tom’s jumbie economics

Jun 05, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The term voodoo economics was coined by President Bush, Senior. During the Republic primary in 1980 when he first entered the presidential race, he used the term to derogate the economic policy of his opponent, Ronald Reagan.
I applied the term to politics during the days when the Mash Day escapees were held up in Buxton; they declared they were freedom fighters.
I called their “activism” voodoo politics. Eusi Kwayana castigated me for the flippant use of the term, pointing out that voodoo is a cultural form of the people of Haiti.
I don’t know how Brother Kwayana felt last month when Clive Thomas reproduced the term, “voodoo economic” in his Stabroek News Sunday column.
In yesterday’s Peeping Tom, readers were treated to an exercise in jumbie economics that was mediocre, childish and unworthy of anyone who did CXC economics.

It was PPP propaganda that in the end made the PPP Government looked foolish. If that Peeping Tom is a supporter of the government, he/she should stick to writing about politics and not on economics.
The Peeping Tom page is read by the citizens of this country. For this reason, people like Clarence Ellis, Clive Thomas, Christopher Ram, Peter Ramsaroop, Winston Murray, Khemraj Ramjattan and others should devastate the Peeper’s argument just in case some young mind falls for that exercise in jumbie economics.
Commentators and editors should join them because this type of economic theorizing is absolute nonsense.
Let us tell you what the Peeper tried to do. The writer makes the point that the people who are fleeing Guyana to Barbados are doing so because the PNC tore down Guyana’s economy.
You cannot expect Guyana to be compared to the rest of the Caribbean, given the head start those countries had while our economy was destroyed.
Uncle Tom went on to argue that Guyanese will find other Caribbean countries attractive prospects because it is going to take a long time for us to reach the stage of Trinidad where Guyana’s economy will allow its people to stay.

Uncle Tom then goes on to conclude that Guyanese are in fact going to continue to leave because what the PPP inherited in 1992 will leave us with a long period to effect the recovery.
Now brace yourself for the worst writing in economics that even a high school graduate would better. Let me quote at length, Uncle Tom; “In 1992 when the PPP assumed office, the per capita income of Trinidad was ten times that of Guyana. It was calculated that even if Guyana enjoyed economic growth at an astronomical rate, it would take in excess of fifteen years for our country to catch up with the per capita of Trinidad and this was based on the assumption that Trinidad would not enjoy any growth.

“Therefore, so long as growth in the twin island Republic is on par or close to that enjoyed by Guyana, then Guyana could never achieve the per capita of Trinidad. There is no way that Guyana could ever within the next twenty years be able to catch up with certain countries in the Caribbean.”
This is not only jumbie economics but elephant dung economics! This is donkey dung economics. All that Peeper had to do was to go on the Internet and check on the economic growth of Ireland and Argentina. In 1990, Ireland was listed as the poorest country in Europe. In 1994, GNP growth rate began to climb miraculously so that in 2000, it reached 11 percent, the highest in Europe and one of the highest in the world. By 2003, Ireland became one of the richest countries in Europe with a problem finding space for its countless returnees.

In 2000, riots gripped the total territory of Argentina. It couldn’t pay its loans. The IMF declared it bankrupt. Our television sets showed people looking in bins for food. The banks refused to let people draw their savings. In 2000, Argentina had reached its weakest point. There was no growth for years.
In 2003, growth rates returned. Its foreign reserve stood at $28 billion. By 2005, Argentina was the fastest growing Latin American country. The Irish took less than five years to come from poor to rich. The Argentines took less than five years to top its neighbours.
The PPP has been in power 17 years. What is the answer? In Ireland and Argentina, people who were nationalist set down to rule their countries and put development first.
In Guyana, men obsessed with power and political incestuousness administer the nation.
They know nothing about economic theory and don’t want to know. Where did you learn your economics from, Uncle Peeper? In the cemetery?

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