Prime Minister Bruce Golding in his address to the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday delivered what was of the stature of an address to the nation or Parliament on the current global crisis and its impact on Jamaica; only it was more incisive, more forthright and more intellectually challenging than any of his addresses to the nation so far.

No one who has heard or read this speech can say that the prime minister has not fully faced the music to which Jamaica now has to dance, as it were. "It is now crunch time," the prime minister said bluntly as he came to the close of his speech which, unusually, he had a text for and which was sent to all the media the day of delivery, underscoring its importance.

In the speech, the prime minister carefully outlined what had taken place globally with the financial meltdown, giving critical information on how the world's economies have already been badly ravaged by its effects. More than US$30 trillion in asset value had been lost in just a few months, the prime minister noted glumly, nearly half of the world's gross domestic product of US$65 trillion.

In this speech, Golding was not sugar-coating anything or dispensing Pollyannaish assurances. Things were dire and would not be getting better globally anytime soon.

"One part of our reality is that our fortunes are inextricably linked to those of the US, which is at the centre of the global meltdown and which accounts for 37 per cent of our total exports, 65 per cent of our stopover arrivals and 54 per cent of our remittance flows.

"Taken together this accounts for more than two-thirds of our foreign currency. That is why it is said that whenever the US catches a cold we develop pneumonia. You can, therefore, imagine what happens when the US develops pneumonia."

And though he commended Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett, who is always cheery about Jamaica's performance and prospects in tourism, the PM himself conceded that tourism earnings in January were down five per cent compared to last year, and that exports and remittance earnings are down 13 and 10 per cent. He then outlined the crisis in the bauxite sector, saying that current projections are for a 37 per cent decline in the mining sector this year.

Intellectual exchange

Everybody who has any opinion on what is taking place in Jamaica ought to read this Golding speech, and certainly no journalist or commentator in media should be without the full text. It forms the basis of a really serious intellectual exchange on what should be Jamaica's response to the global crisis.

I love a good debate. I am excited by intellectual sparring. In this speech the prime minister has provided us with enough to go into a full-blown national dialogue about Jamaica's prospects, post-September 15. I would love to see people like Omar Davies and Peter Phillips interacting with this Golding speech.

The prime minister has put some serious issues on the table and he has done so with a candour and depth of analysis which is both refreshing and stimulating. I am happy, for example, that he has put some serious questions to those who have been bellowing about high interest rates and calling for the head of the central bank governor, without showing serious appreciation for the complexity of the issues. Rather than firing the governor, as has been demanded by powerful voices in the private sector, the prime minister has, in effect, fired some defence on his behalf. He has done so in an irenic way and using the Socratic method, but not before delivering this salvo:

"Some of the conversation about the exchange rate is tantamount to wanting to ride the horse in opposite directions." Ouch! He went on with flawless logic: "In the face of declining inflows and relatively high demand, we demand lower interest rates and a stable exchange rate. It is possible but depends not only on the actions of the monetary authorities but on the actions of those in the market who make their foreign exchange earnings available to the market, who limit their demand to what they need and who are prepared to accept moderate interest rates when they borrow."

The embattled BOJ governor said essentially the same thing in his calm response to the powerful business class, always accustomed to getting its way in Jamaica. The Gleaner captured it well in a news story titled 'Show me your interest and I'll show you mine' in Monday's edition. Latibeaudiere essentially reminded the business people that we are in a market-driven economy where real interest rates are really market-determined, not artificially set by the central bank. He challenged the business class through the next Treasury Bill auction that if they were prepared to accept lower interest rates then he would follow their signal.

Wishful thinking

They can't be demanding lower interest rates and yet not be prepared to accept them on the market. The call for the unloading of cash reserves on the market for manufacturers was utter nonsense, as the BOJ governor indelicately but accurately told them. We have an Alice-in-Wonderland mentality in this country, to which our business class is not immune. We simplistically want to have our cake and eat it too.

A lot of our discussions on economics and finance in this country are mired in ignorance, wishful thinking and fantasy. It's distressing. No nuance, little evidence of serious reflection. The prime minister reminded his immediate business audience and the nation in general in that first-rate address on Tuesday that "we have choices".

Said he: "Our foreign exchange market is a free market which is influenced by the behaviour of players in the market. If those who earn foreign currency withhold it from the market in the hope that the rate will go up, the rate will go up."

The prime minister put the issue squarely before us: "The choices open to the monetary authorities are well known: Do we allow the rate to find its own level or do we use interest rates to increase the cost of money to discourage unnecessary purchases of foreign exchange? Brazil, for example, has chosen to maintain low interest rates and let the exchange rate find its own level. Their currency has devalued by 43 per cent since September. They made a choice. Everything in life is about choices we make and choices we must be prepared to make."

This, in essence, is the gravamen of the argument put forward by one of our fine minds in the region, former Caricom Secretary General Roderick Rainford, who wrote the best piece yet on this interest rate issue in Thursday's editorial section of The Gleaner. (The Gleaner must be highly commended, too, for its well-reasoned editorial 'No real discord', blowing the whistle on those who were naively making out that Shaw and Latibeaudiere were at odds on interest rates).

We need a serious debate on economic issues in this country. I long for the day when, say, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica and the Media Association of Jamaica can organise some national electronic media debates between the heavyweights of the PNP and the Government. Let the PNP state clearly what they would do differently; how the JLP Government is mismanaging this crisis; what better alternatives the Government is missing; what it would do differently were we to throw out the JLP out of office.

Let us hear from the Government why its set of policies is best. Let the debates begin, not the kind of sterile debates we have at elections!

I want to see that debate. Don't leave out Peter Phillips. He has too much to offer. Let participants present for at least 40 minutes and then have interaction. There is sufficient public interest in the issues.

This is the season for propaganda and mischief-making. This is a time when spin-meisters are out in full force with their three-card tricks. There are partisans in both the PNP and the JLP who have no respect for serious intellectual discourse, only empty propaganda, grandstanding, hearsay and blame-placing. One of the things I continue to appreciate about Bruce Golding is that he has stubbornly refused to bow to pressure from tribalists within his party to simply focus on 'PNP mismanagement and corruption'.

In the Tuesday speech he had an opportunity to go there but simply and uncontroversially said, "Part of our reality is that even before the onset of the crisis the Jamaican economy was not in good shape. We have lived for almost a generation with prolonged periods of low growth, huge debts, large fiscal deficits, high unemployment and weak export performance." PNP can't quarrel with that - that was true under its watch, but note Golding said "almost a generation", which is 30 years.

If the PNP policies under Omar Davies must be blamed, then so be it; let's debate that but not in partisan, visceral spirit, but one of respectful intellectual give-and-take.

The prime minister has set the right tone with this first-class exposition on Tuesday. This is the way I want to see discourse conducted in Jamaica. I would love to hear reasoned responses from Omar Davies, who is quite capable and is of the temperament to do so. Omar respects facts and reason and is intellectually and technically competent, whatever his naysayers want to say. Portia is a champion of the poor and oppressed and her voice is significant at this time.

The most worrying aspect of the PM's speech on Tuesday were the implications of the crisis for workers and the poor. He talked about "tough decisions" and "relieving the Government and, by extension, the taxpayer of burdens" - uncomfortable code words which usually mean cutbacks, layoffs, stagnation for the underclasses. These things must be discussed, and here progressives must make their voices heard.

The business and professional classes are vocal and powerful. Who is standing up for workers and the non-unionised poor? Make your voices heard but in a rational, not sentimental, way. The prime minister has initiated a serious dialogue with us. Let us engage him - and I hope he continues to speak straight to us and to engage us more.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.