Commentary: ...before we are too late

The Jamaica Observer published an editorial on June 10th, 2009 entitled "Mr Shaw give us the facts, all the facts" which I invite all of you to read here. It is a well written article addressing this government's and previous administration's reluctance to present all the facts to the Jamaican people. In addition to selective information policy, the author points out that our leaders grown accustom to mediocre economic progress. He cites consecutive administrations acceptance of the embarrassing double digit inflation rate as proof.
I am currently reading "The Challenges of Change" by Delano Franklyn which is a collection of PJ Patterson budget presentations from 1992-2002. It is an informative book and I invite anyone who is interested in finding out how the PNP government approached liberalization and JA's economic crises in the late 90s. The book also highlights the high levels stagnation that has plagued our country for some time. Many of the issues, such as Caricom integration, foreign exchange reserves and dollar de/valuation, are still issues we are dealing with today. The usual criticism of incompetence comes to mind, but I prefer not to draw that simplified conclusion. Needless to say, as a nation I think we need to understand that we cannot continue to move along on this slow and complacent path. For a country with as low a population growth rate as ours (.47% according to Statin) we should be taking better care of our population. If we--and by extension Caricom-- keep failing to come to terms with this new global economy soon the damage caused will be irrepairable. The market is moving away from preferential trade agreements, such as the Lome, that have propped up struggling banana industry. Since the height of Western interest during the Cold War the Caribbean has been effectively forgotten and our small regional market of ~4 million people is hardly anything to draw the interest of big business. We must find a few to reinvent ourselves and reengage the global market or we will be left even further behind. We must do this sooner, rather than later as it is possible to be too late.

"We are now faced with the face that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late."
Martin Luther King Jr.