Thursday, August 23, 2012

No Proposal on the Table

Posted by at

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You th8ink this is UWP. Waitayla thinking SlP go give you all a large offer.

August 24, 2012 at 8:03 AM
Anonymous said...

One would hope that the labour movement will act responsibly in having their proposals match PRODUCTIVITY gains, or have them backed by agreed productivity measures. There is a looming US recession on the horizon in 2013 at least a mild one in the first quarter.

When the US economy sneezes, we in Saint Lucia always catch the cold.

It would be better to have shorter term agreements and later renegotiate any COLA in a subsequent round, than to have one that would sink the economy into a deeper hole than where this SLP administration found it after gaining the government.

This would be so especially if all that the unions would be doing would be to pacify their constituents or the base yet fan an inflationary spiral while growing the government deficit. The VAT level might be increased or a cess imposed to close the spending gap or deficit.

Truth to tell, I have yet to see any real and consistent ... even a convincing display of social responsibility by any of our major unions in Saint Lucia ... with respect to wage and salary negotiations and agreements.

August 24, 2012 at 7:17 PM
Anonymous said...

The recession started in 2007. Where were idiots to preach patience due to the crisis. Yall made people believe you can turn water into wine now the US economy is on the recovery path you still crowing recession. Kenny better not make the same mistake and off anything below what the previous administration gave because i smell SYRIA

August 25, 2012 at 9:57 AM
Anonymous said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The recession started in 2007. Where were idiots to preach patience due to the crisis. Yall made people believe you can turn water into wine now the US economy is on the recovery path you still crowing recession. Kenny better not make the same mistake and off anything below what the previous administration gave because i smell SYRIA

August 25, 2012 9:57 AM
-------------------------

@August 25:
The above sentiments are quite instructive. They reflect the half-truths and thinly-disguised ignorance that passes for informed comment in this country.

Saint Lucia's economy is structured completely differently from the US economy and US government. Perhaps, only idiots and the completely uniformed or misinformed would dismiss the critical conditions facing our economy at this point in time.

We have to borrow responsibly in order to provide certain government services or raise taxes to close the budget deficits created. However, the recklessness of the past borrowings does NOT justify yet another round of irresponsible borrowing and wage-generated inflation.

A fundament law about borrowing is that it should be done for the purpose of an investment, meaning, the creation or the purchase of an income generating asset.

It is the patriotic duty of ALL Saint Lucians, if we are going to be on a path of sustainable development ... no matter which party is in government ... that wage and salary increases that match productivity increases. That is unless we want to face a VAT rate increase to 17.5 percent or higher. The money must come from somewhere.

This last point is supported by the experience of Greece today with its low rate of tax collection based on an individual culture of tax evasion, and the underlying reality that Saint Lucia (like Greece) cannot print its own money yet, so as to use inflated currency to bail it out of debt repayments.

Our revered talk-show hosts have shown little knowledge or familiarity with the latter issues and their implications for the economy. They are so way behind the curve.

Our print media and radio personalities are happy to indulge themselves in other areas. And they publish it.

The trouble is that we cannot even today provide reliable GDP figures (already ineffectively reported as they are on an annual basis) far less manage monetary policy.

Moreover, Saint Lucia's is NOT an integral part of the US economy.

Even the slight improvement in housing stats is insufficient to drive the US economy into meaningful growth or GDP.

The recovery in the US is too weak and home-owners are still underwater. This means that their house loans are much higher than the resale values of those houses. This means too, that consumer discretionary spending on holiday travel and 'barrels' from relatives as a form of remittances will remain depressed.

The idiotic statement linking Saint Lucia with Syria is both irresponsible and pathetic, if Saint Lucians should destabilize the country simply because they are too dumb and unaware of the economic issues facing all governments worldwide and the impact of those issues on the local economy.

The question facing all responsible Saint Lucians is this. It is not reasonably past the time for our abysmally stupid talk show hosts to get meaningful knowledge and something useful to educate their listeners on our economy for a change?

Why must we keep dumbing down the population?

August 26, 2012 at 10:40 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)