By Stephen Kangal
October 01, 2008
On what basis can PM Manning justify spending an astronomical $503m (one percent of the 2009 budget that is equivalent to the sum for the construction of the Tobago power plant) to host the Summits of the Americas and the Commonwealth in 2009 if not to boost his already inflated ego? What diplomatic goodwill and political and economic benefits will accrue to the pauperized people of T&T from hosting these Conferences when we are burdened with a poverty rate of 27%? The poverty gap is widening and pensioners on fixed incomes are ketching their “nennen”.
Continue reading Taxing The Middle Class to Fund Conferences
OVER the six decades I’ve been on this here Earth, more so during the latter four, I have learned to be wary of the very wealthy. Not all, mark you, but most. Some decent people earned their millions through sheer hard work and wise choices. Others educated themselves and used their professions to become rich. Among the aforementioned, you usually encounter nice men and women who just happen to be rich, and who see their wealth as a means to live comfortably, even to help the less fortunate in their communities and countries.
It’s the kind of story that would get a cat vex or make a donkey want to commit murder. Imagine a young, imaginative entrepreneur, someone who does not possess a “gimme-gimme” mentality, comes into town and tells the world that he will build an empire that would make anything Sat Maharaj ever dreamed of doing look like a doll’s house. He starts a credit union and offers interest rates unlike anything the nation has ever heard; at least, not since the days of International Trust when my mother got burned because of her greed. People began to invest in this credit union and before you could say Pan-Dey it was the hottest thing in town.
EDITOR: The dismantling of the fuel subsidy has begun, as was predicted by the Food and Fuel Forum, which for the past couple of weeks has been distributing a bulletin linking the dismantling to the upcoming signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
Reasonable citizens and commentators are fast coming to the conclusion that PM Manning has pre-empted the yet-to-determined verdict of the people of T&T. He has now taken T&T, at enormous public expense, diplomatic hype and great bravado beyond the political point of no return on his proposed union with at least three other Caricom States. He justifies this cart-before-the -horse modus operandi on the basis that a private club of which he is the jefe, that is to say the PNM, some fifty two years ago invoked political integration as one of its bye-laws.
Last week’s article drew some interesting comments. I asserted that in spite of the bump in the polls the Republican Party received because of Governor Sarah Palin’s presence on the ticket, ultimately “the performance of the US economy is likely to remain the key to the election’s outcome.”
EDITOR: I sometimes wonder if my information sources of media, internet etc. are defective. My information suggests that most of the developed economies in the world are in deep crisis, major US corporations e.g. Bears and Sterns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros. etc had to be bailed out by the Federal Authorities. (They are baulking at bailing out Lehman Bros.). The housing market is at its lowest point in decades and unemployment is at its highest in many years. The UK and Canada are awaiting statistical confirmation that their economies are in recession but their populations know full well.