"...now have to be sacrficed..."

[johnnycakes]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

Tuff Gong,

You're in the position of a man trying to sell a dead racehorse.

Neo-liberalist economics do not work in Jamaica. They have done nothing but drive Jamaica into debt and a declining economic and social condition.

I will even grant you that the PNP has been incrementally better than the PNP for whatever reasons BUT in the end , Jamaica is where Jamaica is because of the type of economy it has and not because of who is running that economy.

If you bring in the two best riders in the horseracing field and you put them on the same dead horse, they're still going to be just sitting at the gate and things will really start to smell after a while no matter how long you hold your nose and look the other way.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Tuff Gong,

You're in the position of a man trying to sell a dead racehorse.
</div></div>

How so?

I am not trying to sell you anything!
You make all kinds of statements.
You accuse fellow posters of all kinds of things, you are guilty of then when you are called on each one you go to the next crock full of balderdash.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I will even grant you that the PNP has been incrementally better than the PNP for whatever reasons BUT in the end , Jamaica is where Jamaica is because of the type of economy it has and not because of who is running that economy. </div></div>

Shows you how confused you are!
It is very difficult to carry on a discussion with someone as dishonest and/or confused as you are!

[johnnycakes]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

So Tuff Going,

What are the JLP solutions to Jamaica's problems?
What are your solutions (if different from the JLP's solutions) to Jamaica's problems?

It appears you'd rather not present an answer to these questions.
You have the rather peculiar position of acknowledging the problems, blaming them on both parties but then not having any ideas on ways to solve those problems.

Can I take it fairly that you do not see a neo-liberal economic system as the basis for the problems but rather the corrupt political system?

[johnnycakes]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

The following article is a large excerpt from the original which can be found in it's entirety at Znet.

The failed policies enumerated in the article are pretty much what the JLP Manifesto has said the JLP will use to pull Jamaica up.
Wardob, Tuff Going, would you please comment on the similarities and differences YOU perceive?


Bush's Latin American Spring Break
The president's trip south of the border will do little to sway a region that is demanding fairer economic policies.

by Mark Engler
March 09, 2007
The White House continues to champion flawed economic policies for the region and seems only to appreciate democracy when Latin American elections put pro-U.S. cronies into office. This rearguard policymaking has little chance of swaying a region that is growing increasingly independent. A foreign policy that truly values democratic processes and shows genuine concern for the region's poor would be far more likely to win allies than the diplomatic strong-arming and electoral meddling that has so often marked U.S. relations with our southern neighbors. Such a policy, however, remains a distant dream.


Fates Worse Than Neglect

The failure of past U.S. policy is not merely a problem for the current administration; it also presents a challenge for the Democrats. Before gaining a majority of seats in Congress, the Dems claimed that the President had failed to pay enough attention to Latin America. In 2004, John Kerry argued in his campaign that Bush's Latin America policy was marked by "neglect, failure to adequately support democratic institutions, and inept diplomacy." Since then, various Democrats have repeated the charge, using the language of "neglect" whenever Latin America comes up.

Yet now that the Democrats hold more power, this observation no longer suffices as a position on hemispheric affairs. Under President Clinton, Democratic policy toward Latin America focused on promoting an aggressive "free trade" agenda and pushing poor countries to pursue a corporate-friendly path to development. Clinton, after all, was the president who ushered the North American Free Trade Agreement through a Democratic-controlled Congress. Clinton further envisioned spreading NAFTA throughout the hemisphere with a Free Trade Area of the Americas. (Thankfully, the FTAA has been buried in recent years by waves of popular resistance, as well as disinterest from the new generation of progressive presidents that has won office in countries throughout the region.)

Clinton-style economic neoliberalism failed to benefit the majority of Latin Americans, and this failure is at the very root of the region's recent swing to the left. Policies like privatizing public industries, cutting government social spending, and deregulating financial sectors may have paved the way for multinational corporations to spread. However, they produced two decades of abysmal GDP growth in Latin America. While a small elite grew fantastically wealthy, most people in the region saw few, if any, improvements to their standard of living.

The 1990s were supposed to be years of globalizing prosperity. Yet the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported in 2001 that "nearly 36 percent of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean lives below the poverty line-the same proportion as a decade ago." This number greatly understates the number of citizens who are scraping together only meager livelihoods or relying on money sent back from family members who have migrated north. Moreover, the wealth that has been produced in the region has not been shared equally. As a 2003 World Bank report explains, "The richest one-tenth of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean earn 48 percent of total income, while the poorest tenth earn only 1.6 percent."

Of late, economic elitism has been smacking up against the popular vote. Comfortable candidates promising pro-U.S. policies are learning that it's hard to win elections with only that richest one-tenth of the population behind you. The Latin American populace is clearly fed up with neoliberalism's lackluster results, and rightly so.

Democrats who propose a return to Clinton-era policy that values "free markets" above all else have missed this key lesson. They may vow to pay more attention to Latin America, but there's no guarantee that such attention will be a good thing. Given their past relations with the United States, Latin Americans are all too aware that there are worse things than neglect. It is incumbent upon the Democrats to offer a positive vision of America's national interest that can transcend both Bush's Cold-War-minded approach to hemispheric affairs and the flawed corporate globalization still favored by segments of the party.


Beyond Hugo Chávez

One of the key pressures motivating U.S. action to improve its image in Latin America is the rise of Hugo Chávez's Venezuela as a formidable ideological rival. The most outspoken of the left-of-center Latin American presidents, Chávez has cemented his popularity by using the windfall of high oil prices to fund anti-poverty initiatives in Venezuela and beyond. He has sent upwards of $16 billion in aid abroad in recent years, with especially significant infusions of resources going to Bolivia and Argentina. Chávez has gone so far as to send subsidized heating oil to families that might otherwise go cold in poor sections of New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other American cities.

No doubt, there are criticisms to be made of Chávez's style of governing, but the rabid Bush White House and the mainstream newspapers that have followed its lead have lost all sense of proportion in their outrage about Venezuela's "checkbook diplomacy." The denunciations make it sound as if Venezuela could have no humanitarian vision whatsoever about helping those in need, and as if the money that the U.S. sends overseas as foreign aid is offered out of pure, untainted benevolence. Given the Bush administration's well-established ideological preoccupation with shrinking government and its distaste for social safety nets, it has little credibility to speak out about the proper way to deploy the profits from oil resources. As it is, Venezuela's example is a powerful and persuasive one in a region that is ready for more equitable economic policies.

Chávez has charged that the intent of Bush's trip is "to divide Latin America." He's right. A main White House strategy for handling newly progressive governments has been to denounce the vaguely ominous dangers of "populism" and try to separate "good" Latin American leftists from "bad" ones. Bush has selected to visit countries where he thinks he can pull leaders away from a Chávez-led regional bloc.

But the real issues go far beyond Chávez, and those who want to pin our country's image problem in Latin America on a single antagonist ignore a central reality: Being on the U.S.'s good side hasn't been paying off too handsomely. In Brazil, where President Lula da Silva has worked to maintain good relations with the IMF and U.S. Treasury by largely adhering to neoliberal economic mandates, GDP growth over the past four years has averaged only 2.6 percent. This places Brazil alongside Haiti and El Salvador among the hemisphere's slowest growing economies. As Lula continues to structure his government's budgets around massive debt payments to wealthy lenders, he is left with little funding to devote to his flagship anti-hunger program and other social initiatives.

Argentina, by contrast, has seen a 45 percent increase in economic growth since 2002, when it broke with the Washington Consensus, forced creditors to restructure its debt, and began taking a hard line with the IMF, whose recommendations had helped to produce that country's profound economic crisis in 2001.

Latin American governments are well aware of the numbers. They are under pressure from the region's angry and enlivened citizenry to forge a more independent and egalitarian paths to development than what the U.S. is offering. That's what democracy is all about. And it shouldn't be considered a foreign policy failure that we must adapt to it.

-- Mark Engler, an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus, is author of the forthcoming How to Rule the World: The New Politics of Fighting Empire in the Post-Bush Era (Nation Books, Fall 2007). He can be reached via the web site http://www.DemocracyUprising.com. Research assistance for this article provided by Sean Nortz. This article was first published by TomPaine.com and appears with permission of the author.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So Tuff Going,

What are the JLP solutions to Jamaica's problems?
What are your solutions (if different from the JLP's solutions) to Jamaica's problems?</div></div>

I don't know what the JLP solution is at the moment. I await their manifesto.
I knew what it was in the past years because of their manifesto (you now have access to the same information as I have).
I have answered the questions already. I said the JLP need not even bother with a Manifesto the incumbent is so bad.

But of course you either don't read, can't read or are just dishonest.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It appears you'd rather not present an answer to these questions.</div></div>

I don't have to answer any questions you pose.
I choose to do so and I have, just read my comments and stop regurgitating the contents of your spleen.

[qutoe]You have the rather peculiar position of acknowledging the problems, blaming them on both parties but then not having any ideas on ways to solve those problems.[/quote]

Again you are hallucinating!

You are the one both blaming and crediting the PNP in the same sentence. In any case any criticism is an offer of solution, because if you are saying x is not right, therefore it can be inferred that another solution might be the right one.

It is not necessary for any critic to of a solution explicit.
Don't make an [censored] of yourself.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Can I take it fairly that you do not see a neo-liberal economic system as the basis for the problems but rather the corrupt political system? </div></div>

Yaawn, please I am not in your Politics 101 Class. Just post whatever you think you have and leave me personally out of it!

[johnnycakes]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

Thanks Tuff Gong,

You gave clear if grudging answers to my questions.
I think we generally agree that the problems of Jamaica will not be solved by either of the two existing parties. I agree with you that one party or the other is capable of making minor improvements in the problems but I believe that the root cause of Jamaica's problems lie in neo-liberal capitalism which cannot work in a heavily-indebted, resource poor and underdeveloped country.

Socialism has a bad connotation in Jamaica for a number of reasons but democratic socialism is increasing in popularity in the region and, at present, is the only viable alternative to failed neo-liberalism. (FTAA, NAFTA etc).

Top-down politics are no good because of the lack of democracy. The same goes for economic systems. I'd say it was time for more democratic socio-politico-economic systems and not a time to again slap bandages on the failed twin party capitalistic structure.



r

[Tuff Gong]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thanks Tuff Gong,

You gave clear if grudging answers to my questions.</div></div>

I don't care what you think of the manner in which I chose to answer the questions.
I gave my answers time and time again.

Beyond that I don't know what you claim we have agreement on.
I feel that the JLP needs to win the next General Election. That PNP has succeeded in destroying the economy in their 18 years in office.

I am not going to try to get my mouth around any Alphabet Soup of acronyms and what nots. What I do know, is JLP has historically done better than the PNP, even when dealing with a detroyed economy as they had to do between 1980 and 1989.

[johnnycakes]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

Tuff Gong,

Right now, Jamaica is in trouble. Granted that the JLP improved things albeit in a very minor way and in a way that did not lend itself to continuing that improvement.

There are many Third World countries that have problems that are less serious, just as serious and far more serious. Over the past 50 years or so in which many, like Jamaica gained their independence, the colonial underdevelopment and the subsequent unequal terms of trade have driven so many of these into deep debt and into severe social distress.

All manner of solutions almost all of which have been directly tied to neo-liberal economics have been failures and in many cases, disastrous failures as in the sub-Saharan kleptocracies in which people like Mobutu became billionaires and the rest of the country became impoverished and indebted. Many of these countries are so deeply in debt that it is impossible, given their low GDP, to ever pay these debts or build a future for the citizens of those countries.


The number of success stories in the poor post-colonial Third World can be counted on one hand.

How, then in the face of the history of the past 50 years or so can you or anyone hold out hope that the same neo-liberal economic plans that have failed miserably, the same sorts of plans expressed in the (old) JLP manifesto and of the same sort attempted by the PNP in recent years will succeed?

What are you seeing that I don't?

[Tuff Gong]

Re: "...now have to be sacrficed..."

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Tuff Gong,

Right now, Jamaica is in trouble. Granted that the JLP improved things albeit in a very minor way and in a way that did not lend itself to continuing that improvement.</div></div>

Of course it did not lend itself to continuing improvement, because just like the 70s a Government came to power bent on destroying all that was good.

That is the what is important, that it is overstood that had we stay on track (literally) things would have been a whole lot better.