One respected senator asked: “Why don’t we have a social partnership which engages this issue ($8 billion in the banks) on how to get that money invested?” You are on the wrong track.
Like Abou Ben Adhem, I “woke up one night from a deep dream of peace and saw within the moonlight of my room, an angel writing in a book of gold”, and I said: “What writest thou?”
The vision raised its head and replied: “The names of those whose pension will find in 2017 sweet accord.”
“And is mine one?” I gently asked.
“Nay not so, you get your pittance already.”
“Tell me then, whose name you write?” said I to the presence of the night.
“I tell you not, less you divulge to your peers the recipients and the quantum, but, the information we will deny.”
I was so vex that I banned the angel from my room. However, the next night the angel came with a wakening light and showed the names of all the people money had blessed, and lo, the Wild Coot’s name led all the rest.
Sorry, it was only a dream. Calderón de la Barca had his Segismundo warn us that “todo la vida es sueño, y los sueños sueños son” (all life is a dream and dreams are only dreams).
Then my thoughts turned to reality. I should never have broached the subject in my article Apatropaic Balls, where I likened the intestinal fortitude of the Cyprus government to “balls of fire”. I should never have planted the idea in people’s head. I should never have hinted that it could be done in Barbados, but only in a surreptitious way; that Bajans would be called upon to back the mounting debt that our Government accumulated and continues to accumulate even now. What are we going to tell the International Monetary Fund inspectors dem, come November, having sailed to the Inchcape Rock and cut the bell?
Oh no, you are running the country with people’s savings. How so, Wild Coot?
Every time you have to pay a bill, cover salaries or make good interest and payment on new bonds or rolled over bonds, you are now going to resort to Treasury Bills (printed money) – four billion. This printed money is, in fact, mainly supported by savings in the banks, by National Insurance and by private citizens rather than by taxation and income from investment and investors – the usual source of Government’s spending money.
Warning! This is no different from what was done in Cyprus. There, those whose savings were “blessed” with a haircut experienced a diminution in their savings that was tantamount to a devaluation of their asset (not the currency).
The previous Abbots of Aberbrothok in Barbados were wise leaders. They placed the Bell (limit) on the Rock to warn us of impending danger. Sir Ralph The Rover, with “the cheering power of spring”, has cut the float.
“It made him whistle, it made him sing, his heart was mirthful in excess . . . .”
Well, we may see the vultures gathering like crows sensing the putrid smell of a dead carcass (ridiculous concessions granted), perched on a vantage point limb awaiting the feast.
Just check Jamaica’s second debt swap when the debt to gross domestic product was 140 per cent (ours is almost there). Investors, whether local or foreign, had to make sacrifices on their investment; banks almost went bankrupt. Such sacrifices must reflect the source of the investment – the banks, individuals and National Insurance, that made the investment. A potential risk in Government restructuring.
The Wild Coot is reminded of Psalm 109: “Our heads are wounded within us. We are gone like the shadow when it declineth. We are tossed up and down as the locust.”
The hope of the Government is that it can hobble together sufficient capital projects in two years’ time to employ those laid off. It will depend largely on the concessions (vulture concessions) that it will be forced to make. The situation is ripe for what Trinidadians call “football”.
• Harry Russell is a banker.