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Over Jamaica’s 46 years – both pride and shame |
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Saturday, 02 August 2008 |
Congratulations to Jamaica and Jamaicans on the island’s 46th
anniversary of independence from Britain. Forty-six years have
certainly gone by quickly, and the memories are still strong of all
that has happened to the Jamaican nation and its people over these
years. Certainly, a lot has been accomplished by this tiny nation,
which despite many hardships has persevered to be one of the strongest
democracies in the Western Hemisphere.
Since 1962, Jamaica has regularly and democratically changed
governments, although one would have preferred that all the elections
were violent free. There have been experiments with different
ideologies, notably Democratic Socialism, which although proven to be a
poor experiment, the country was able to bounce back from it and embark
on the road of free enterprise and relative stability.
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Obama looks effective on foreign policy |
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Friday, 25 July 2008 |
Barack Obama has been criticized by his political opponents, in
particular his Republican presidential opponent, John McCain, for being
weak on foreign policy. It is therefore quite ironic that the current
Republican administration appears to be converging on some of Obama’s
foreign policy proposals.
Last week, for instance, the administration made a significant policy
shift when it agreed to send a senior member of the State Department,
Under Secretary of State William Burns, to attend diplomatic talks with
Iran’s top nuclear official in Geneva, Switzerland. Burns met with the
Iranian representative along with members of the “P5 + 1 partners”
(consisting of representatives from the permanent members of the
Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, China, and
Russia - and Germany, that have been negotiating over Iran's
controversial nuclear program).
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Artificially created housing market |
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Thursday, 17 July 2008 |
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The more one reads commentaries and opinions from some of the
nation’s economists, the more one discerns a sense of confusion as they
try to explain the current U.S. economic crisis – a situation brought
about by the fallout in the home-mortgage market and its creeping
effect on the global capitalist economy.
It is astounding that
as the standard of living of millions of Americans is threatened with
the escalating crisis, and the American Dream wanes, top economists
appear to be lost. But, the reason for the current economic problem
seems rather clear.
Simply put, economics is a cause and
effect system led by the economic law of supply and demand. Economics
101 shows that as the demand for a product rises, so does its price.
Where that demand is inelastic, like the demand for bread, then
regardless of how much the price for that product rises, the demand
will remain constant. However, where the demand for the product is
elastic, or fluctuates easily, prices also fall, or alternately, if
prices rise too high, demand will fall.
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Friday, 11 July 2008 |
Last week’s celebration of the USA’s 232nd year of independence, and
the pending independent anniversaries of several Caribbean nations like
Jamaica and Trinidad, give rise to the subject of patriotism.
On July 4th, the evidence of America’s patriotism is everywhere in red,
white and blue garlands, flags flying from residences, and, of course,
fireworks exploding in resplendent shapes and colors. Plus, in this
election year, the subject of patriotism got added attention as the
presidential candidates gave account of their own patriotism.
Patriotism should be interpreted not merely as pride in one’s country
of birth, or one’s adopted country, but the commitment to serve in
one’s birth and/or adopted country. However, for migrants like those
from the Caribbean, a unique situation exists, because many have ‘dual
patriotism’, being patriotic to the adopted country – the U.S. - and
the respective county of birth.
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Mugabe must put Zimbabwe first |
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Saturday, 05 July 2008 |
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Just 10 years ago Zimbabwe was the fastest-growing African country,
possessing some of the richest farmlands. Today the country has
deteriorated into chaos. Inflation is over 165,000 percent, among the
highest in the world, its GDP has shrunk by over 45 percent since 1998
and 80 percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed.
Once, Zimbabwe
was a strong exporter of maize, cotton, tobacco, roses and sugar cane.
Now, it hardly has anything to export and the population of
approximately 13 million needs international assistance to stave off
starvation, as the country has increasingly been unable to produce food
to feed itself. Life expectancy has fallen to a serious low of 37 years
for men and 34 for women, down from 61 for both genders in 1990.
While
national malaise has set in, President Robert Mugabe, 84, has grown
increasingly despotic and delusional. Meanwhile, his people who once
revered him grow weary and want a change from his 28 years leadership –
from 1980 when he led Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) to Black majority
rule and independence from Britain. As Zimbabwe sinks into despair,
Mugabe becomes more intolerant of opposition, ultimately blaming his
failures on his former Western colonial and imperialist masters. But,
the evidence indicates that Zimbabwe’s problems in recent years are
largely Mugabe’s and have little to do with White neo-colonialists or
imperialists.
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