Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

[Dyoll_73]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

Wahalla,
While I'm a strong proponent of private enterprise, philosophically, I'm for the public ownership of certain natural resources from which come great wealth - oil/natural gas, bauxite, gold, diamonds, etc. I realize the formidable capital outlay the Jamaican government would require to explore oil, and to produce it. I'm not comfortable at all with a private venture where the government would simply impose a tax to bring in some revenues, somewhat similar to the bauxite levy. The minimum I think Jamaica should settle for is a joint venture - no less than a 51% stake - that would enable the country to maximize as much benefit possible from its own resources. The challenge, I guess, would be to secure the funding for this project.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...


We live in Hope and die in Constant Spring!

[bee_bop]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

There is a strong likelyhood that Jamaica may have deposits of oil, or gas. The Daily Gleaner carried a report on the discovery of certain geological structures that are strongly indicative of the presence of the hydrocarbon. If memory serves correctly, a geologic structure involving a salt cap, is one of those indicators. Along with seepages of gas, we may be hopefully sitting on significant reservoirs of the stuff.
I wish Jamaica all the best in this regard, and that the proceeds from this natural resource will be used for the greater good of all, and that good lessons were learnt from the bauxite experience, from which we can see a brighter future...

[johnnycakes]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

Littleman:"I wish Jamaica all the best in this regard, and that the proceeds from this natural resource will be used for the greater good of all, and that good lessons were learnt from the bauxite experience, from which we can see a brighter future..."

Nice thought.
That any large oil/gas finds will be used for "the greater good of all" is as likely as a snake doing push ups.
Nationalization of valuable and exploitable resources smacks of SOCIALISM and anyone with any historic perspective would understand that Jamaicans would resist any such rational move.
They voted out Manley who merely suggested an increase in the bauxite levies and the Jamaican armed forces joined in with the U.S. in invading socialist leaning Grenada.
"Greater good of all" ? Too much money for a very few to make.
Sharing the wealth = COMMUNISM.

[bee_bop]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

JC, I do hope that some of the proceeds of any hydrocarbon find are used for some welfare purposes. Unlike you, I have hope that the fiasco of the bauxite levy, and the response of the bauxite companies will not repeat, and that the people of Jamaica will benefit from the fruits of their own lands.

<span style="color: #660000">Who knows, some time back, snakes could do push-ups, if you look on their bodies, some species carry markings that suggests that they once had legs.</span>

[Dyoll_73]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Nationalization of valuable and exploitable resources smacks of SOCIALISM ...</div></div>

The world is far more nuanced for such oversimplifications. The policy of public ownership of certain valuable resources can find accomodation under a market-driven economy (obviously, this economy wouldn't be based on purist capitalist ideology), and there is no incompatibility here - theoretical or practical. As I've noted above, this is the policy I would advocate for Jamaica should oil exploration yeild positive results.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">... and anyone with any historic perspective would understand that Jamaicans would resist any such rational move.</div></div>

Please show me, citing historical evidence, when Jamaicans - en masse - were ever opposed to the principle that they should own their mineral and other exploitable resources.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">They voted out Manley who merely suggested an increase in the bauxite levies ... </div></div>

The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy? Are you infering a causal relationship between those two events - that Manley was defeated at the polls <u>because</u> he called for an increase in the bauxite levy? If this is what you're saying, then you don't know what you're talking about.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

Dyoll,
Jamaica is anti-socialist. That is clear in how people vote and historically in their rejection of Michael Manley's philosophical ideas.

The Jamaican people may not be opposed to the PRINCIPLE that they as a people should own the mineral resources but the reality is that they have absolutely no say in whether or not that is possible or will ever happen.
Jamaica, you must remember, is a CAPITALIST country.
You show me when the Jamaican people EVER demanded in any way that they benefit from the country's resources.
They do as they are told and always have.
There is no revolutionary spirit in Jamaica only defeat and despair.

Any oil found will be extracted by foreign companies who will demand and get a huge percentage of the profits and the bauxite industry's past is any future Jamaican oil industry prologue. Whatever money is left over will be lost in the usual ineffective and wasteful sinkholes that are government projects or worse, pocketed by corrupt individuals.

When Manley tried to get more money from the bauxite companies, it was opposed by the foreign companies and looked upon by the U.S. as yet another move toward socialism which would mean severe cuts in profits at the least and possibly future expropriation as was the case in Cuba.

It should be no secret that Manley was attacked by the United States, his government denied loans, his country destabilized by the standard tactics of the Çold War CIA which had the largest contingent in the hemisphere in Kingston during the end of Manley's term in office.

The destabilization mirrored that of Chile a few years earlier and presaged the tactics used in threatening the Nicaraguan people until they voted the way THEY too were supposed to some years later.

It is also quite clear from what Jamaican posters on this forum have written over the years that the anti-socialist spirit is alive and well in Jamaica although nowadays Jamaicans do seem quite happy to deal with Hugo Chavez.

Well, at least until some future U.S. administration orders them to stop doing so.

I know what I'm talking about.
History and today's reality

[Dyoll_73]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

JC:
Reasoning with you is always difficult since you constantly resort to oversimplifications. Nuance, it seems, is an alien concept to you. A poll of Jamaicans, at home and abroad, would easily confirm that the vast majority of us favour public ownership of mineral and other exploitable resources. I believe a poll would also confirm that most Jamaicans also favour free education and healthcare and some reasonable safety net.

What I believe most Jamaicans are opposed to, and this includes a significant portion of the once-leftist PNP, is a 'full-blown' socialist economy - and for good reason: it's a failure. Only fringe elements like you continue to support it. The above policies - public ownership of certain resources, free education and healthcare, a social safety net - are concessions a capitalist society can make to socialist philosophy, but any attempt by any economy to prevent robust private enterprise and individual entrepreneurship will only result in poverty for ALL (except, of course, the political directorate).

[johnnycakes]

Re: Jamaica hopes for commercial oil by 2010...

JC:
Reasoning with you is always difficult since you constantly resort to oversimplifications.

Dyoll,
It is not oversimplifying to say that capitalism does not work in the Third World. Not with half the world living on 1-2 dollars a day. THAT'S not only poverty butslow death through poverty .
It is not oversimplifying to say that in strict socialist Cuba, while the people are poor, NOT ONE dies from lack of food, curable or preventable disease (or few) and all the other capitalist caused deaths from poverty.
That is fact

Dyoll: Nuance, it seems, is an alien concept to you.
A poll of Jamaicans, at home and abroad, would easily confirm that the vast majority of us favour public ownership of mineral and other exploitable resources. I believe a poll would also confirm that most Jamaicans also favour free education and healthcare and some reasonable safety net.

JC: Isn't that nice AND irrelevant.. All the polling data in the world does not get the Jamaican people public ownership/ benefit from the island's resources nor free education, nor adequate healthcare nor anything near a reasonable social safety net.

That would require a democracy and a socialist economy.
There is not enough money nor resources to have both very wealthy people in Jamaica and all those things that Jamaicans want.

Dyoll:" What I believe most Jamaicans are opposed to, and this includes a significant portion of the once-leftist PNP, is a 'full-blown' socialist economy - and for good reason: it's a failure.

JC: Socialism did quite well in the Soviet Union. In 50 years it brought the USSR to the #2 spot in world economies and this after having lost around 50 million people and much of its infrastructure in two World Wars and fighting the Cold War after that. The Soviet Union now cowboy/gangster capitalist is very close to being the Third World for a huge percentage of its people.
You can read a long article on this at 21stCenturysocialism.com for the details.

Cuba's socialist economy under a 45 year attack from the United States today has a growth rate double that of the region and about three times that of Jamaica.
With incomes 2/3 of that of average Jamaican, Cubans enjoy universal and free top flight medical, dental and mental healthcare, universal and free pre-school to grad school educations, guaranteed employment/ social security, guaranteed nutritional sufficiency, a nearly crime and drug free environment and each has the comforting knowledge that come what may in their personal lives, their families will be cared for by a society that cares for one another.

I don't think you can talk about Cuba being a failure in light of the state of Jamaica and so many other CAPITALIST Third World countries.
I do hope that you were not trying to say that based on personal experience that most Jamaicans oppose socialism because Jamaica NEVER had a socialist economy.
They, like most people in the U.S. do not have the vaguest idea what living under socialism is like but have been indoctrinated from birth to think that it is evil.

They want all the things that only can be had in the advanced First World but which are impossible in the capitalist Third World.


Dyoll:" Only fringe elements like you continue to support it. The above policies - public ownership of certain resources, free education and healthcare, a social safety net - are concessions a capitalist society can make to socialist philosophy,

JC: You cannot be serious. Third World capitalist societies do not do that sort of thing. They are not democratic in either the political or economic arenas and democracy (rule by the people is an absolute necessity to achieving public ownership, free education, healthcare, social safety nets etc.



Dyoll: 'but any attempt by any economy to prevent robust private enterprise and individual entrepreneurship will only result in poverty for ALL (except, of course, the political directorate).


JC: Nice try but pure poppycock.
In a poor country under capitalism you do not have universal poverty but in the world today better than half the people in poor Third World countries under capitalism are desperately poor and have NO chance of bettering themselves.
Many more are just poor and live from day to day not knowing if they'll have house, food or a job the next day. Meanwhile about 5% live lives of luxury in these same countries.
Under socialism, as in Cuba, the country may be poor but what there is is distributed according to need. The human needs of the people come first. So while you can say that everyone is poor, they ALL, every man woman and child regardless of who they are, how much money they have, who they know or don't know politically, race, religion, gender, are guaranteed that they will not suffer the ill effects of poverty as they are under capitalism.

Cubans may be poor but their poverty does not kill them.

I would bet that any mother in Sub-Saharan Africa who has had to watch her children and family die from the effects of poverty (malnutrition, disease) and that number is in the hundreds of millions over the years, would gladly give up her "right" to entrepreneurship etc for the guarantees of socialism, a live and healthy baby with a good future.

So easy to talk about the right to make money and entrepreneurship and so easy to disregard the deaths that this philosophy, followed to its end in reality, cause.

To paraphrase: You cannot love both mammon AND mankind.

Early and premature death under capitalism is not oversimplification.
Neither is placing the blame on the obvious cause.
Neither is pointing out the cure.

I just cannot understand your not only being an apologist for a killer system of political and economic totalitarianism but advertising that fact.
I honestly do not intend this to be a personal attack but a sincere admission of my inability to comprehend the thinking that allows such thought.