KINGSTON, Jamaica – MR Delano Franklyn may well be right. Perhaps the Chicago Tribune was unfair in its adverse characterisation of the Jamaican economy, using Greece as a sort of measuring stick.
What is not in question, though, is that our economy is in an awful state — badly in need of restructuring. This, as a result of a downward spiral of goods production, in per capita terms, matched by an insatiable appetite for a lifestyle well above our means, over many, many years.
To service that lifestyle Jamaica has, over those years, resorted to borrowing to the extent where, as the Chicago Tribune says, we are in a debt trap — needing more than half our earnings to service debt, and unable to adequately pay for essential social programmes and the maintenance of infrastructure.
