Jean and Dinah Economics

"Jean and Dinah, Rosita and Clementina, round de corner posin, bet your life is someting dey sellin, and if yuh ketch dem broken you can get dem all for nutten...." Those are just a few lines of one of the most popular calypsoes of all time and I am sure when The Birdie was singing this tune the average person on the street didn't realize that he was explaining the laws of supply and demand. Lately we have been hearing alot of talk about inflation and unemployment rate, but do we really understand what these terms mean and how they affect each and everyone of us?


The government is particularly proud of the fact that the unemployment rate is 5.9%, and they should be. This means that only 5.9% of the population who are capable of working is currently out of a job, this is a small percentage and this means that more families and individuals are bringing home a salary. From this, one can infer that there is more production, that is more employers are creating goods and services for consumers. Individuals would have more money to spend and depend less on the government, which can then focus their spending on other things, like building a new house for the PM or buying a new jet for CARICOM leaders. This seems like a good thing, no? Hence the big hoorah that was made by the government on this accomplishment. As with everything in life, there is a catch.

With all this apparent prosperity, high oil prices, low unemployment rate the prices of goods and services are increasing. One would think that the opposite should happen, but as many economists have shown when there is low unemployment there is high inflation and vice versa. But what is inflation? Inflation is defined as the loss of purchasing power of the dollar. Basically, the cost of goods and services have increased while the amount of money that you have stays the same. There are many, many causes of inflation and it is beyond the scope of this article to go into detail about all of them but I would like to outline some general concepts. As Sparrow noted in his classic, when there is low demand the prices of goods and services drop (hence the reason Jean and Dinah could be had for nothing), however, when there is high demand for goods and services the prices increase forcing you, the consumer, to pay more. Now, usually the salary that one works for stays the same, however, the cost of goods go up so the money that you have can now buy less.

What causes the prices of goods to go up if we are enjoying high oil prices? Well, the first question is are we really enjoying the benefits of high oil prices or is the government the only ones getting the benefits? Let's see if we can examine why you would pay more for, say, bread. First, the baker needs flour. Where is that flour coming from? The baker would get the flour from the supermarket, who gets it from the flour mills. The flour mills get the wheat from overseas. Now, with the increased cost of oil, the shipping companies would charge more for delivering the wheat because they have to pay more for diesel to bring the wheat to Trinidad. The flour mills in turn would pay more for natural gas to process the wheat into flour. The cost for both of these things would be passed on to the supermarket who would need to raise the price of the flour to cover its cost and this would cause the baker to charge more. Hence, you would need to pay more for the bread! Make sense? The same would apply to everything else. Another cause of inflation is more money being circulated when there isn't more production to justify the new money. Remember that money is just a piece of paper that represents some commodity.

This is all very confusing but in the end we, all of us, need to understand money and learn about it. Money is not just something you work for but something that you need to make work for you. Understanding where your money comes from and what it is worth is very important and if we understand it we can make better choices and force the leaders to employ better policies to benefit us all.

Compass Confusion

I fully support the hosting of Panorama in San Fernando. I also fully support the decentralisation of Carnival as a whole to other parts of Trinidad & Tobago, to other towns and cities of our beautiful country, our island for too long divided by obscure compass points, an ‘east man’ ostensibly coming from Arima or ‘Grande, and not from, more accurately Manzanilla or Radix, both Arima and Grande being in the north. Of course that is not to ignore the obvious point of reference, Port of Spain, an ‘east man’ only being labelled such as he resides east of Port of Spain.

So what if Port of Spain is the capital city? Port of Spain is a dishevelled embarrassment to any Trinbagonian who understands the true essence of our patria, most notably not Movie Towne, TGIF or 6am ‘spinners’ at Ellerslie Plaza’s gym. Please. Port of Spain, like most other capital cities is an attraction, I hesitate to say tourist attraction, for I have not met a tourist yet, (I reside in London and work within the travel industry) who has told me the beauty of my country is in its capital city – au contraire, the beauty, they say, is everywhere but Port of Spain, more like Toco, Nariva, Caroni, Mayaro, St Joseph hills, some even venturing to that quaint village of Lopinot upon the behest of other seasoned travellers.

There has been a decision to give the Queen’s Park Savannah a facelift, for environmental, commercial or commercially motivated, political reasons. I think it is absolutely commendable on the part of Mr Regrello, and hopefully the rest of Pan Trinbago’s staff for recommending Skinner Park as an alternative venue, and possibly one that can be alternated, year in year out, to host the wider carnival celebrations, to give the country a more balanced feel, to ‘ease up’ the Savannah ‘lil bit’, to widen the geographical knowledge of our deprived ‘western’ kindred, whose world, as the old joke goes, ends at the lighthouse.

Living abroad gives one perspective. I was born in Diego Martin, but I grew up in Arima. I am an ‘east man’. London, funny enough, is just as compartmentalised as Trinidad, the capital city being home to people from the ‘west’, ‘north’, ‘south west’, ‘east’, each area’s ideology different to that of the other, specific cultural traits heralded as ‘local’ to the area, most probably inherited by the diverse immigrant population, but we’ll save that for another time. One thing that London succeeds in is the efficient management of its very limited space. The Olympics will be hosted in east London, in the borough of Hackney, (the borough with the highest crime rate in the city), however, Christina Aguillera will perform at Wembley Arena this week, in north London, Guns and Roses in west London. Trinidad has the space, the visionaries and the political will to develop the country, and maximise our tierra to the benefit of the entire population, yet, the stigma of Port of Spain persists.

The development of the off–Churchill Roosevelt Highway (isn’t it time for a name change? I propose the Aldwyn Roberts Highway) neighbourhoods, mainly Trincity, are proof that with a little forethought, the land can be developed profitably for the populace and share holders alike.

I fully support and entire re-shuffle of carnival events on a whole, and I leave the planning and logistics to the masters of their fields, waving my flag in north or south, central and Tobago! Are there ‘east men’ in Tobago?

CM 61

So this is what Trinidad & Tobago has come to. All I am waiting to hear now is about the wireless broadband service accessible from Block J, Cell 5 Golden Grove Prison, Arouca, where CellMate 23561 was reprimanded by Prison Officers after a package arrived at the towering gates of our Maximum Security Prison, bearing a cheque book, a pack of ‘red box’, six unmarked bullets, one 9mm, a tightly packed ten-piece and a ‘get out of jail slap-on-the-back-note’ purchased online with a credit card issued to a Red House regular tenant. The laptop used was apparently not discovered by security detail, as “CM 61” successfully retrieved it from a gâteau baked by his granny.

Imagine it is public knowledge that inmates are in possession of cell phones. I find this incredulous, even more so that it is treated as such a blasé issue by our “homeland security” (to contribute to the already illicit amercanisation). Moreover, it takes a detailed plan of action by the Prison Authorities, injuring several, possibly not reporting the countless others who were not taken to POS General and thus not logged on the official records, to weed out these phones. How are they recharging these phones anyway? Honestly, what does this say about the accepted lack of responsible prison security, the obvious racketeering going on and the absolutely appalling snail’s pace of a response by Mr Rougier and his team of ‘law enforcers’. What checks and balances were carried out on his own staff to ensure that the ones dealin’ the blows weren’t the same ones dealin’ the prison contraband? Is it not necessary for the already petrified public to be duly informed of the processes involved in this most monumental of ‘prison purges’? How are we to know how to rate your performance, Mr Rougier, if you keep all the juicy secrets to yourself? I’ll tell you what, the fact that it has actually come to this embarrassing, farcical performance by yourself and the men you involve with their rubber bullets shows that you are ready to be ushered out of your seat.

How is it, that we have reporters receiving calls from inmates and not immediately reporting these unlawful acts to responsible authorities? Whose freedoms are they protecting, press or public? Or is that these phone calls are reported but again, somewhere along the workflow chain, the information gets lost so as to conceal any wrong-doing in the first place? Journalists have a responsibility to uphold the simple freedom of accessible information and opinion, but I think in the public’s best interest and given the delinquent nature of our ‘wardens’, WE, from editor to carpenter, should all be working hand in hand to secure our backyards, our neighbours’ backyards and the sanctity of our sinking island.

Whilst we sit idly by and let the politicians ramble on, scuffle like cats in their parliamentary cages, denounce each other, insult the integrity of our Motherland by churning out desultory propaganda, in this day and age where Trinbagonians just want respect, some peace of mind, to relax in their porch listening to some Scrunter begging for some ‘pork’, the country’s infrastructure is crumbling beneath us, hastened by the neglect of the elected guardians, all those untrustworthy talkers milking our coffers, whilst the kids don’t have access to pipe borne water after all the floods, the latest is that “CM 61” received another online-purchase delivery, this time a scroll of pardon by Uncle Max for agreeing to be a state witness in the case against those prison perpetrators. Sad.