“Baddest” global GDP meaning for lowly Guyanese

Jul 13, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

The one thing I know for sure is that we have oil, Middle Eastern quantities of it. Relatively speaking, of course. After that, things start to fall apart, the mysteries deepen, and the way forward takes on a Milky Way endeavour and appearance.

I hear with jaw dropping (yawning) regularity that we are the best GDP, or the next best, per capita in the world. It always helps to impress the poor dumb slobs toiling in the trenches of Guyana to throw in a Latin word or two. It has to have substance, possess some Rosetta Stone significance, after all, it is originating from men in Armani suits. Though hidden currently, it is sure to come to light and translate to something meaningful before people drop dead from starvation in this country. I am delighted to hear, read, have it pounded into my hard head that there is this fabulous GDP calculation, projection, conclusion for Guyana. I am sorry to discover that it is an equation with one side only, a formula with the bitter medicine, fear factor, considerately left out. It is not political correctness, but a tribute to the slyness, better subtitled as lies, damn lies, from the lying liars around here who tell them. Because I am still to determine what difference this spectacular GDP means to hourly wages, or the minimum wage (notwithstanding the new $60,000 threshold) workers, renters, pensioners, and shoppers.

For those gifted by the PPP political gods of Guyana with a morsel of charity, more officially marketed as relief or aid packages, including minimum wage beneficiaries, the relentless spiral of prices did more than obliterate those temporary handouts, it dug a deeper hole for the local working stiffs. I call it negative advancement. In other words, despite presidential and vice-presidential imitations of Alan Greenspan with their rescue runs, there was no soft landing for bottom feeding Guyanese. In fact, they found themselves in the position of furiously bailing themselves out from the inside of a deepening crater; they were always losing ground in the struggle catch up and breakeven (another verbal gimmick enjoying fad status). The bad guys were not one or two, but a virtual rogues gallery of the strangest quintet of villains in Guyana’s history. There was COVID-19, then global supply chain management crisis, then the great Guyanese flood, next that all-purpose bogeyman cost of living, and, of course, that perennial favourite whipping horse, the PNC. Both the President and the Vice President (who partially made good on his official title) fancied themselves as Santa Claus but in a Goldilocks setting, where everything they touched were either hot or cold. The reviews of the boo birds-more energetically described as naysayers, detractors and traitors-were unsurprisingly muted, misted.

The hot aspect was this PPP Government emphasis on taking public wealth and giving it to the upper brackets in what was slick political leadership rackets. Privately, it was whispered to be payback for campaign donations. Publicly, and academically, it was the biggest reverse redistribution of wealth to date in this country. In this governmental racket, the poor people’s money was given to the rich, under the umbrella of corporate (private sector) welfare. This was while the real welfare needy, pensioners, peasants, and that undying beast called the proletariat, engage in daily battles to lift themselves by their bootstraps. The problem was that their boots were already pawned. But we do have the biggest and “baddest” GDP in all creation, I remind anyone listening. Didn’t somebody tell me there is a God? He must have gone shopping; or sleeping on the job.

The cold aspect was that the Santa Claus President and Vice President gave Guyanese monetary toys that didn’t, couldn’t, last them beyond the Christmas Day giveaways, they faded or fell apart. I chalk that up to hobnobbing too frequently, and too closely, with their incorruptible Communist Chinese comrades, whose products and gifts also succumb quickly to the demands of time and touch.

It is why I love to love (like Tina Charles) this country and its caring, compassionate leaders, and their local GDP Wheel of Fortune. Jeopardy, it is not; more like family feud if you asked me. Nobody did.

Sincerely,

GHK Lall

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