Robot taxis: more grey than checkered life

Tags

Jamaica, Urban transport

Jamaica has a poor record in providing facilities for those with disabilities. For that reason, I am wondering how we can help those who have vision problems to see better.

Jamaica has a form of unauthorized taxis, called ‘robots’, locally. Their discerning feature is that they carry fare-paying passengers, without the requisite registrations, including a highly visible red license plate. They are also often easy to see (if you are not visually impaired) as their drivers often hang a hand out of the window with a wad of bills (fares taken) or pointing in the general direction they are headed. At various points along roads, usually at well-known stopping points for passengers, i.e. at a corner, these cars can be seen waiting or loading passengers and their wares. But, clearly, they are not as visible as I think. The police do not seem to notice them, so they are rarely stopped from doing their business. That’s, actually, not a bad thing for the Jamaican travelling public. It’s clear that the demand for public transport is excessive. In the Kingston corporate area, where there is a government-owned bus service, buses are often jammed packed, especially during rush hours. Registered taxis are also often full, and they operate as ride sharing vehicles, not for single riders. Robots fill a gap in terms of the overall demand, but also in tailoring rides to those who do not want to share. Jamaica does not have Uber, but we have some ‘on demand’ taxi services. Robots also eat into that business, but that too is to the benefit of the traveler. Example.

My car has a leaking transmission and is ‘on vacation’ at the service station. (In somewhat typical Jamaican fashion, I had been asked if I was going to take it home, even though the service provider did not advise that I drive the car 🙂 ) Fortunately, my transport needs are not many–I’m a ‘taxi service’ for my teenager during the weekday afternoons, mainly. I love it! I also have some needs to visit my father mid-island, and I need to get to golf courses to practise and play. With my car in dock, I was fortunate that my daughter had just started her spring break, so my ‘taxi’ duties were done. But, my other needs remained.

At the weekend, my wife had told me to “take a taxi” when I needed to make a 6.30 start time in a golf tournament. I got the number of a registered taxi and he picked me up at 5.30 and I was at the golf course in plenty of time. I thought the fare a bit steep, but beggars can’t be choosers. Yesterday, I needed to make another appointment. I called the Saturday taxi man again; no reply, after 3 attempts and some voice messages. My housekeeper gave me another number and I called it; within seconds I had arranged my ride for 1.15. At 1.10 a car arrived at my house and I went to get in. It had no taxi markings and no red plates. “Oh, you’re a robot?” I asked. Not really, the driver told me: “I don’t run up and down looking for passengers; I give people rides from the supermarket and such.” I thought about the distinctions. He got a call as I got in; it was his daughter: “Mummy’s pressure’s high and I just took her to the doctor. I’ll reach you soon.” He explained that his wife was both diabetic and suffering from high blood pressure; she’d had problems at the weekend needed medicine, and maybe a reaction to that her pressure had shot up. He said he’d get his daughter from the university, once he’d dropped me at my destination. We chatted on the way there. He was from a district close to my father’s original area. I got to my destination in good time, and took the driver’s phone number in case I needed a ride home and he was free. I wished him and his family well.

As it was, I got a ride home with one of the people with whom I had had to work. On the way home, she needed gas and was searching for cash. I offered to pay. She refused. I pondered the difference between my paying for gas, for a ride offered by a friend, and the fare charged by the taxi driver who’d taken me earlier. I could easily categorize each driver as someone ‘doing a favour’ to an acquaintance of a ride in their vehicle. It looked more grey than black and white. The whole realm of ride sharing is that way, if money gets involved. I didn’t make any judgements.

One man, eking out a living. Wife sick. Daughter at university. Life to live. Futures to protect.

Running a taxi service comes with obligations and usually has insurance and other features to protect riders, such as verification of drivers and their records. Registration of the activity should be with those features in place…but are they always? If a friend passes me on the road and offers me a ride, do I stop to check that his/her insurance is fully in order or that he/she has no traffic violations outstanding? Never, is quite likely. Take a risk? We do it all the time.

The Transport Minister is going to expand taxi routes, I read this morning, and open up another 2500 licences.

The taxi industry in Jamaica is not pure. It’s known to have many owners who are police officers. That partly explains some of the ‘blindness’.

If we had Uber or its equivalent, we’d have legitimized our ‘robots’. Many people (other than registered taxi businesses) think ride-sharing services like Uber are the best thing since sliced Easter bun. Funny place, the world.

Jamaica diving headlong again to the bottom? Offshore oil? What for?

Tags

Energy issues, Governance, Oil exploration, Political issues, Renewable energy

Some days all I do all day is think; it’s extremely taxing, and occasionally not at all fruitful. It leads to some quite startling and disturbing insights. One such came to me today–not for the first time: education does not stop you doing foolish things. The motive forces that govern actions are much stronger than the sense to avoid trouble.

So, much of this week one piece of news had me bothered…really bothered. I read that Jamaica was intensifying research to discover offshore oil–Authorities step up search for oil offshore Jamaica. Now, this is not a piece of news that was unearthed from the archives of the 1960s or 1970s; it was fresh, this week. Now, age has made me a little sleepier than I used to be, and though my father turned 88 this week, his brain cells are still working well, and so are mine. So, in words that my father would relate to, ‘What the f**t di peeple dem a t’ink?’

So, I  am not even going to wonder if the assurances that the fishing grounds where exploration will occur will be damaged. I wont wonder what the payoff will be from this research and if it suggests exploitable reserves exist. I wont think if that exploitation will lead to jobs, for whom and for how long. I wont think about from where the substantial pool of investment funds will come. I wont think about controlling the revenues from such exploitation and how countries have struggled to manage revenue sources that are known to be finite, and thus unsustainable. Historically, we are closer in governance practices to Nigeria than to Norway. Got the point!

All I will do is ask ‘Isn’t the future in exploiting renewable energy sources’? Economic progress efforts that seek to exploit assets with limited life are doomed to encounter problems. How many centuries of experience and evidence do we need to understand that?

I will mention three words: sun, wind, water. These basic life elements will sustain us for longer than most of us can even romantically estimate.

As one of many countries that have had a serial aversion to exploiting simple solutions to deep-seated problems, Jamaica, once again, seems to be heading to the podium of medal contenders in this ‘race’ to the bottom. 

Facing challenges: CaPRI goes out of the box to explain Budget 2017-18

Tags

Budget 2017/18, Communications, Jamaica, Public policy

I was in the pleasant company, over dinner midweek, of a varied groups of mainly Jamaicans, both old and young (my daughter was there), and some living locally and some living mainly abroad. We got into talking about ‘having it’ and what that meant and if it had been achieved. I said I ‘had it all’ and went on to explain that it was partly a question of money that I had accumulated during my life–though this was by no means mega millions–but did have the benefit of not really having to think about a budget every day, something that I had to do for many years. That’s not to say that I am not frugal: I am ‘mean’ like star apple! It also goes to the nature of personal contentment, and over time, I have tried to stop striving. It helps that I retired on a good pension. My wife still has a paid job and between the two of us our daily needs are well covered, financially. But, I get contentment from being able to use my time to satisfy my needs, and most of those are simple: Can I go walking when I want? Can I travel if I want? Is my life free of deadline? Can I say no to requests? Can I choose to help when I want to? And so on. I prize my liberty and am loath to give it up. For that reason, I am leery of nice-sounding attempts to get me to ‘do things’. Again, don’t get me wrong. I love to volunteer, but that means I decide, not someone else, when and where I send my energies, because I want to give fully when I give. Done!

I also mentioned that, for me, the greatest challenge in life now is to help people do things that they say the cannot. For some people that’s a simple nudge or helping hand to get started with something, often a clearly expressed desire that somehow has stalled. For others, it means breaking down a many-layered wall of resistance that has been built over time and reinforced, often by things that are not that rational–so fear has taken hold.

Simple example: the friend who hosted the dinner wanted to get back into golf. She had played a little, with lessons, etc, but an injury set her back badly. Coming back was both a physical and mental problem because the fear of a flare-up of the injury was there and the origin of the injury had deeper health risks. So, I offered to get her started again, gently, by having a session with a few clubs in my back yard. She did great and we spent about 90 minutes swinging gently. As I coach, I explained that I always like to end a session on a positive note, so when she took a good swing, connected well, and the ball pinged off one of the avocado pears on the tree in front of her, I said “Time to stop!” However, some of her previous health issues recurred and she’s not come back. But, she’s promised to do so, and needs to upgrade her equipment to remove their state of ‘disrepair’ as a cause of not resuming. Watch this space!

Another example is a high schooler who swims for the same club as my daughter who is ‘learning’ French. I put him under pressure by insisting on speaking French whenever we meet. My basic point is that he needs to free his vocal chords and get French words flowing naturally, without concern about correctness–that latter part we can fix. In other words, he needs to be like a toddler learning and babbling and not necessarily being coherent. It’s working, to a degree, and he’s less intimidated by the process now, but is still thinking too much. I speak at normal speed, first. Then, if he’s struggling, I slow it down to help him hear the words better as separate sets of sounds; fluent speakers elide a lot of words, so ‘la plume de ma tante’ can sound like ‘laplumdemataunt’ and it’s not obvious what are the separate words.

But, a bigger challenge is getting people to understand basic things about the world they live in. I am not a paid teacher, but I am someone who has often been a giver of instructions.

One of the huge challenges is just a language barrier–like with the French student. So, many people do not have the vocabulary for subjects, let alone the ability to understand what the words could mean. So, many attempts at teaching pass from teacher above head of student. In the class room that happens often at the start of a topic, but gets less as the topic is explored. However, in life, that lack of understanding can be near permanent. Add to that the fact that we do not speak alike. That is a huge problem in places like Jamaica, where the language of many ordinary people is not the language of many of those with so-called ‘high levels of knowledge’. People rale about Patois not being a language because one cannot automatically discuss all topics in that ‘tongue’. But, for things like a lot of economics, it can be done.

So, I was fascinated to see last night how an attempt to bring such knowledge out of the dark realm of ‘mystery’ into the light would work. Our national budget is about what we try to do with what we have (a variation on ‘having it’) and shifting around the resources is one of our big challenges, which honestly we often don’t do that well.

CaPRI, The Caribbean Policy Research Institute, put on a public forum, ‘Money Talks’ What does the new budget really tell you? in the open air of Mandela Park, in the heart of Kingston, Half Way Tree (HWT), at 6pm, plumb in the middle of evening rush hour. The topic was the recent Budget, and what it meant for the nation. Heady stuff. Well, no surprise, HWT was its usual hopping self, with taxis fighting to grab people and space, and street vendors trying to deny space and take people’s money, all at the same time and mostly in the same space. Let’s call that the hustle and bustle of Kingston. In the midst of that was a set up for the live event. In typical Jamaican fashion, the event was being animated by music. Nice vibes.

The event began a little late, but mainly because the MC wanted people to come closer, as ‘they do in church’. But, it was a forlorn attempt: it’s a thoroughfare and if people are reluctant to move from the outer edges by the walls, so be it–the need was for listening, not closeness 🙂

If this could be any prettier…

The event got underway with some pleasant words from a European Union official, as the EU is a major funder for CaPRI. He was followed by the main presenter, Dr. Damien King, was is a co-director and also head of the department of economics at UWI, Mona. One of Damien’s great traits is that he speaks clearly about economics and uses terms that are usually easy to grasp. So, he began talking about esoteric things such as the debt/GDP ratio, but had it illustration as a large mountain of money, and explained that its being 147% in 2012 meant that every Jamaican needed to work for no pay for a year and a half. Clear as a bell! So, it went on as he covered the broad set of measures of the budget, which I wont repeat here. The crowd, about 70 people seated and others around the edges, was absorbed and attentive. He simplified things and made some clear statements about the important matter of how does the budget affect each of us–a matter of personal circumstances and lifestyle.

Nice, simple graphics: a picture says a 1000 words

So, Dr. King has grappled with the challenge of making the budget more accessible to the public.

Now, getting the eyes and ears of fewer than a hundred people is obviously not the same as getting that attention from tens of thousands or even a million or more, but it’s a start, especially if everyone reaches one more, and like the multiplier in economics, gets the word spread by word of mouth.

So, I applaud CaPRI for this venture and hope that others in the domain of public policy see the need to get out from the contented position of ‘doing it the old way’ to doing it a way that is effective. I also like that it fits with my recent suggestion on this blog of a need for a non-partisan debate on the budget–it’s too important to leave to baying politicians. The CaPRI team did well to give people many of the building blocks to understand what the budget means overall, and to each of us, personally.

One of the ways that public policy is being better explained is through the use of social media, and I also applaud the Government and in part the Opposition for grasping this and using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and Instagram to get out messages, but there’s a place still for live, in your face interaction, I must admit. Let’s hope to see more things like this. Some will see the similarity with ‘TED talks’ and if that helps then so be it. Take this approach to the clubs, to the beach, to the National Stadium…to the world!

Jamaica needs a non-partisan national budget debate

Tags

Fiscal policy, Governance, Jamaica, Political issues

Jamaica is in the midst of an annual ritual, with its politicians arguing about the national budget presented to the country by the finance minister, then initially criticised by the Opposition spokesman on finance. Others then join in the debate. Outside of Parliament, some ‘experts’ discuss what has been presented openly–on television or radio, or in the pages of national newspapers, or in the social media spaces that now exist. It’s possible to get an idea of all of that discussion, but you’d be somewhat superhuman if you managed to do that. Outside Parliament, we also know that many people argue over the measures and the things that have not been done, and some will do their own calculations of how they will be affected. Some, will wonder what has been done, but not have much capability to make sense of it all, either nationally or even in their personal circumstances. Some also have no interest in any of this, and just wish the ‘noise’ would stop so that they could get on with life: they live with the measures and suffer or gain in silence.

But, one of the things that happens a lot in Jamaica is that much of the discussion that goes on happens with the tinge of political bias deeply ingrained in the views expressed. We need to stop that!

Over the weekend, I had an article published with my brief views on the latest budget. But, I also spent some time thinking about measures that could have been made. Some people react to those who criticise the budget presentation by saying ‘Show us your plans!’. I commented that this is empty rhetoric: national budgets reflect national priorities, so if say the Opposition were to present its plan, it would reflect its priorities. Those need not intersect with the priorities of the government of the day, so we may not have anything that is truly comparable. But, what I think would be useful would be to have a better idea of what certain well-defined options could mean for the country. Let me explain.

Governments often try to get tax revenue from what we may see as ‘low-hanging fruit’, often ‘sin’ taxes–adding levies on things such as alcohol and tobacco products. In other words, the government acts a bit like a nanny and says that it knows we do some bad things and will raise the cost of doing them. But, another approach would be for the government to adopt the view that certain common behaviour is not good for the health of the nation and suggest taxing them. Because many believe that leaving people to choose for themselves, governments may be reluctant to ban things, but will raise the cost of doing them. So, if the government has a belief that it should be helping to improve the nation’s health and, say, that it wants to reduce the occurrence of things like non-communicable diseases (NCDs), it could reasonably look at taxing things that contribute to those. Last October, the World Health Organization called for worldwide action on the consumption of sugary drinks. Its main message was:

‘Taxing sugary drinks can lower consumption and reduce obesity, type 2 diabetes and tooth decay, says a new WHO report…Fiscal policies that lead to at least a 20% increase in the retail price of sugary drinks would result in proportional reductions in consumption of such products.’

Many jurisdictions have already tried to do this with taxes on sugary drinks: Denmark has had such a tax in place since the 1930s. But, it’s now on the radar for many countries and regions. So, why should Jamaica’s finance ministry not make a calculation of what a 20 percent increase would yield, assuming that we got a proportionate reduction in consumption? We could then see what economists would call the ‘opportunity cost’ of the measure, because we could then see what we have decided to give up in potential tax revenue.

My experience in economic policy making informs me that such options are often assessed, but behind the closed doors of political discussion, some options never get out of the room. The personal preferences of ministers or the political calculations of parties may block some ideas from coming to the light. But, the nation needs to know these options. I may be a serial optimist to think that a political party would show such calculations. But, in a mature democracy, what would be better? When we hear that J$2 billion will come from a particular tax, it would be good to know that this amount could perhaps have come from another tax. Doing this would also force the government and the nation to understand or discuss why a tax was imposed and another option ignored. It would also force us to try to understand who will be affected by tax measures.

This last point is a gaping hole in the way that budgets are done in Jamaica: we do a poor job of pointing out who are the gainers and losers of budget measures. Doing that analysis is not easy, and is subject to lots of criticism, but we could live with that and try our best to refine our understanding in this area.

I taught a seminar on income inequality at the University of the West Indies, Mona, this week, and one of the things I asked the students to think about was who gained and who lost from the budget and what has it done for income inequality.

But, it’s not just a range of tax measures that need to be assessed this way. Jamaica should always have at its fingertips figures for those people and organizations who do not make a contribution when they should–tax avoiders and evaders. The cost of tax delinquency should always be in the budget discussion. At the start of FY 2015/16, Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) estimated the stock of arrears at J$350 bn. During the year, arrears amounts deemed to be uncollectible for the Years of Assessment 2009/10 and earlier, were written-off, as outlined in TAJ’s Debt Write-Off Policy, so that greater focus could be placed on pursuing more recent liabilities. As a result, the stock of arrears was reduced to J$125 bn at the close of the fiscal year. That’s a significant reduction. While TAJ may be doing its compliance work better, with its National Compliance Plan 2016/17, the nation needs to understand what it’s doing and what it hopes to gain. I’m for ‘naming and shaming’ tax delinquents–I’ve seen it work in other countries to great effect–but our laws and regulations on that are somewhat restrictive. Moreover, the finance ministry should at least tell us why going after more arrears is not one of the measures that it wants to see pursued more vigorously. If, say, we could get back 25 percent of the existing arrears during the fiscal year, then a J$30 bn tax package may not seem necessary.

In the same way that I suggested that we could see coherence in government policies, with health objectives being underpinned by fiscal measures, we could get coherence in matters like energy policy. As I tweeted over the weekend, policies should direct us towards energy efficiency and better use of renewable energy, such as through solar power and hybrid vehicles.

Tax policy shd vigorously encourage energyefficiency, cuttingduties on renewableenergy sources, duties on hybrid/electrics. #JaBudget2017 7/

— Dennis Jones (@dennisgjones) March 12, 2017

Neighbour country, Barbados, saw decades ago the sense of promoting the use of solar energy and its use has been compulsory in all new buildings for years. Why has Jamaica, with its similarly abundant sunlight, been so reluctant? Another debate.

We also need to be open and clear about why certain bodies of the nation continue to gets special treatment in terms of tax obligations. In that conversation, we need to ask and have answered why religious institutions are treated the way they are. Let me not be prescriptive for the moment, but suggest that the nation could do worse than to get a better understanding of what the current situation is deemed acceptable, and why in an era when the finance minister is urging us to be ‘responsible’, that burden only falls on certain shoulders.

There are other specific topics that could be brought into the conversation, but we would go far by having a more neutral discussion and facts on the topics touched on above. The finance minister has talked about the status of a range of public bodies and how they could contribute to government finances. This is a wonderful topic. Personally, I would have preferred to have seen us have that conversation first before deciding to dip hands into the surplus of the National Housing Trust to the tune of some J$11.4 bn. Call me old-fashioned for wanting to put the horse before the cart.

So, Jamaica, how mature are we? Can we have such conversations?

Sunday Observer Budget 2017/18 Commentary: The government still in the jaws of a dilemma

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Budget 2017/18, Jamaica

Below, is commentary requested by The Jamaica Observer, immediately after this week’s presentation by the Finance Minister, Audley Shaw, in the debate on Budget 2017/18. It’s broadly in lines with comments I made on Nationwide Radio 90, the day after the Budget presentation.

****************************

Business

The government still in the jaws of a dilemma

BY DENNIS JONES Economist

Sunday, March 12, 2017

JONES — How is the tax ‘give away’ going to be financed?

The government remains clearly committed to the idea of moving from direct to indirect taxation. This has merits, especially making it more likely that revenues will flow as expected — revenues in FY 2016/17 are already overperforming significantly.

However, it is my impression that this move is still taking more of a toll on those less able to afford this shift — the poor — in some sense or other. It’s also clear that where direct taxes remain, they are a heavier burden on those towards the top end of the income ladder.

The Budget leaves the government still in the jaws of a dilemma: it does not convincingly push the needle towards the much vaunted growth target of 5 per cent growth within 4 years, the so-called ‘#5in4’. (In that vein, it’s worth noting that the accelerated growth in 2016 has largely been driven by agriculture rebounding from previous drought, and is not reflective of the effect of policy measures.)

The tax measures — pulling $13.25 billion to cover the commitment to move the personal income tax threshold to $1.5 million — are revenue neutral: that is, income tax relief is offset by higher indirect taxes on ‘sin’ (alcohol and tobacco), but also on near-essentials such as electricity, fuel, and vehicle licence fees.

The passing through of these higher indirect taxes will impact the living costs of a wide range of people. In essence, the income tax gains of a few has been replaced by the tax-induced pain of many, and we see more give but even more take-back.

Benefits from income tax relief are diluted by higher spending by households on a range of basics and ‘luxuries’. This seems to be less growth-inducing than the opposite.

Key industry partners have already expressed various levels of dissatisfaction with some of the indirect taxes: Red Stripe argue that may have to curb their US$20 million investment since consumption of alcohol will be affected, in a market already near the regional bottom in its consumption per head of alcohol. The insurance industry sees a negative outlook from making group health insurance more expensive.

We are already seeing push-back from taxi operators to the increase in fuel taxes and vehicle licensing fees.

The reshaping of Property Tax is interesting, moving to more current valuations (2013, compared to the 2002 values, at present) but also reducing the rates that will apply. The following question needs to be answered, however: Will it really be the start of using regular valuations? We need to see how the revenues flow in the various parishes and whether the local councils will have the revenues badly needed to improve some roads and lights, etc.

Social safety net measures announced sound good, but more people other than those who qualify for PATH will need financial support.

The drawing down of $11.4 billion from the National Housing Trust (NHT) is not good, in principle or in practice. The surplus of this and other special funds is there to serve specific purposes, not for general financing of government activities. In that regard, it is not a prudent fiscal measure and is ultimately unsustainable.

To sum up, the budget looks set to hit both consumption and investment negatively, emphasising that it is not growth-positive. But it also looks at risk from offering help it sees as needed to only some of those who really need it.

What the UK deportations tell us about Jamaicans and their expectations–it’s called ‘anarchy’

Tags

Accountability, Anarchy, Caribbean migration, Deportation, Governance, Human relationships, Jamaica, Social issues

I don’t want to make light of the real plight of some of the ‘Jamaicans’ who find themselves put on a plane of deportees from the UK headed back to Jamaica, but they display something quite common about Jamaica and Jamaicans, which is now coming to bite each of them (and has implications for the rest of us). Jamaicans have become used to living in a world where rules and regulation do not apply. I’ve argued many times that, it’s not that Jamaicans don’t abide by rules, but they are prompted to follow rules that they know will bite. The UK deportations stories are interesting, as many of them revolve around people who knew they were not compliant with regulations, but tended to leave that status uncorrected. They were then faced with a system that did not appear to impose heavy or quick sanctions for that, which tended to encourage people to ‘just take their time’ to get things right. Then, almost suddenly, with little warning, the UK screws get tightened, and all the people ‘in transition’ of just doing nothing, get caught.

Of course, as with many things in life, we have sad stories, which make us ponder whether compassion should trump other things, such as the mother of a sick son, who had lived in the UK for over 25 years, but is listed to be deported, while the son can stay in the UK. Many see the need for compassion; others see a case where someone did not do what was required to regularize a situation and now has other life complications, that are unrelated, and need not have any compensatory bearing. We also have the common case of what to do with people who knowingly break a country’s laws and whether that removes certain rights to remain in a country, if you are a non-national or not a citizen.

Sadly, because Jamaicans (and their offspring) are so used to ‘getting a bly’, they react with shock and horror when that option isn’t there. Many territories do not apply an ‘anything goes’ attitude to their affairs–it’s one reason why they are not in some state of chaos. There are systems and they work, and if you decide to not follow what the system requires, there are consequences. That’s not something that applies consistently in Jamaica, or in the life of Jamaicans, who often transport that ‘bly’ expectation abroad, alongside its cousin ‘I know someone’.

One of the things that will start to indicate where Jamaica goes in the next five years–during the current government’s term, loosely–is how the series of risk: reward equations in life start to change, so that the incentives go more strongly in the direction of being law-abiding. Accountability needs to be more than a catchy phrase.

I know from personal observation that the way things are done in Jamaica, and by Jamaicans, affects how ‘non-Jamaicans’ behave. Take for example something I’ve cited before–how people (this group may include Jamaicans who have lived abroad and now live in Jamaica) from countries that have strict laws against driving without seat belts behave in Jamaica: you find they tend to be much looser with that rule because they see the sanctions barely ever applied. So, years of being accustomed to ‘order’ suddenly drops away. You may get the reserve, however, with people from overseas trying to hold on to ‘good ways’. One instance concerns recycling and conservation: those accustomed to separation of garbage may try to still do that, even when the options for making that work are few and far between. They tend to find personal solutions and may manage to spread that to small community groups, even though there is little or no national support for the practices. [I put my household into that category: we separate plastics and have several outlets for them, other than into the garbage; we take food waste and save that for ‘dog food’ to be given to those who have animals to eat it; we compost vegetable matter. That means our garbage is much less than it would be otherwise, though more than it was when in US, because we cannot find outlets to take glass, aluminium or paper waste. But, I keep searching.]

People wonder why Jamaica hasn’t made more progress. It’s at least a two-sided problem. On one side, we need to stop accommodating ‘unruly’ behaviour (and it’s often more widespread that we admit, because we are often in that practice, though criticising others). But, remember, such behaviour is often not criminal, but about personal convenience. On the other side, we need to stop expecting our unruly behaviour to be without much consequence (and that is often harder than it needs to be, because the incentive is strong to keep doing it–for instance, people are shocked that I will not ‘call my friend’ to get the things sorted out, preferring to ‘suffer’ with the system and try to get it to work the same way for all). Just look at how former Cabinet Minister, Dwight Nelson, has behaved and you get an idea of how warped we’ve become: “I did not attend any disciplinary hearing because I did not think I breached any regulation. Can you imagine suspending a former minister?…This is gross disrespect. I think they were out of order. I believe I tore up the letter because I was so angry.” (Nelson told The Sunday Gleaner).

If everyone thinks they are so privileged that rules don’t apply to them, you can imagine what that means. It’s called ANARCHY.

Time keeps on slipping into the future

Tags

Accountability, Economic issues, Human relationships, Jamaica, Social issues, Time, Timeliness

Time is a fascinating variable. It’s personal use is often regarded as highly valuable by its ‘owner’, yet strangely regarded as unimportant by many others. Jamaicans, for example, see few problems in being late or not making appointments, which is both disrespectful and costly. They are often shocked when people arrange things and stick to the stated times. Nothing funnier than meeting people on your way out of somewhere, as they traipse in 15, 30, 60 minutes late, and you are headed to your next appointment 🙂

Time is a continuum that is often fraught with conflict over its use. Its use comes at a price, often implicit (when it’s lost the costs often become explicit), sometime explicit (lawyers and consultants have billable hours).

People hold contradictory views about time, simultaneously: ‘I love to just sit and do nothing’ can be uttered by the same person who says ‘How can you spend 3 hours playing golf?’

Economists have a lot of fun with time: it’s often a key variable in understanding many phenomena because they really only make sense when seen over an historical period, either looking backwards or trying to look forward. Economists don’t often put too much store in things that are evident now, or at a single point in time.

In economics, time preference (or time discounting) is the relative valuation placed on a good or service at an earlier date compared with its valuation at a later date. Someone with a high time preference is focused substantially on his well-being in the present and the immediate future relative to the average person, while someone with low time preference places more emphasis than average on their well-being in the further future.

Time preferences are captured mathematically in the discount function. The higher the time preference, the higher the discount placed on returns receivable or costs payable in the future.

People often confuse themselves about time, which is a construct in the way we measure it, but is an absolute (assuming we cannot do inter-temporal travel). The same amount of time is always available, but what matters is how people decide to prioritize actions in blocks of time. Having more time for x, usually means less time for y: even with so-called multi-tasking, one is giving less time to something than could be the case if it were being done alone.

Myths and reality: waiting to retire to play golf

Tags

Golf, Income inequality, Retirement, Urban myths

I spend a lot of time trying to explain to people that they have views that are contrary to facts. In the current world of the US administration, it’s timely, perhaps, to state that facts matter. One area where I bridle is when people say things like ‘I want to be like you when I retire, and can have time to play golf.’ I point out that, if one waits until retirement, it will be far too late. So, let me state this as clearly as I can, and if I’m not clear enough just look at the data for yourself.

Most golfers (based on US data)–nearly 60 percent–are people in the prime of their working lives (i.e. >30 and under 60/65); just under 40 percent are in the category that covers most ages when people are eligible for retirement (>60 years old). The demographics suggest that, if the bulk of golfers continue, many will have played golf through their working lives into the period when they are likely to be no longer working.

Most golfers are men, married, well-educated, likely to be professionals, and higher-income earners and have high net worth. So, golf tends to be for those who are financially better off in society. Earlier in my life it was accepting that notion that kept me away from the sport: I did not fit the profile 🙂

Anecdotally, in Jamaica, most amateur golfers work in the private sector and are in their own businesses. Few are civil servants. A small handful are doctors. Tourists (mainly from North America) whom I have met in Jamaica who are playing golf fit fully into this profile. I’ve not played much in Europe, but my limited exposure to golfers there gave me the same impression.

These sets of attributes cements golf as a sport for those who have more disposable income. 

What’s often clear, to golfers, at least, is that playing a full round of golf may take time (say 3-5 hours), but that is something that those who are in control of their time can manage better. So, when someone reaches retirement, such control over time is more evident, but it’s clear that to have had the chance to play much golf before retirement: golfers needed to be able to play when (and where) they wanted to. More likely, the typical golfer is a business person who can decide when he plays. Classic examples are the executive or business owner who toggles golf with business activities (and networking may be part of that). I have a friend whose boss is a golf fanatic and he tells her to pack her clubs whenever they have to travel for business; he (and her) play golf as soon as as often as he can on the trips and make trips as often as he can. Anecdotally, golf courses in Jamaica have many local golfers playing regularly on a couple of midweek afternoons (after 1pm)  and at weekends. The vast majority of these golfers are not retired, but still at work. 

So, seeing golf as a sport for retired people is a myth. Next time you see me and wish that you could be retired like me to get your golf game on, accept that you keep missing the bus. Get started on your golf game well before you retire!

Jamaica’s dunderhead economy? Flow has problems the EGC must address

Tags

Corporate culture, Economic inefficiency, Flow Jamaica, Telecommunications

I’ve written before about a persistent feature of Jamaican life that is dragging our growth and progress downward. It’s a set of simple inefficiencies that affect everyday lives and waste time and effort. They reduce productivity because of some simple little things. Sadly, their existence can continue and leave us with the illusion of progress when in fact we are standing still, or worse, regressing.

I pointed out previously how our regular ‘patch and mend’ approach to road repairs is literally the old style ‘dig a hole and fill it’ kind of economic activity. In our case, the weather and some usage dig the holes, men and machines fill them; weather and usage dig them again in less than three months; the repairs are repeated. So it goes on. The data record income, spending, and use of materials and labour and we will see higher numbers for national income, aka GDP. But, the economy hasn’t grown in any meaningful way. Traffic delays and damage to vehicles are eased for a while, then reoccur. The repairs make no fundamental changes: the road base is still weak and prone to deterioration.

So, a year on we may see a so-called upturn in GDP but it’s a fiction.

One of my concerns about the government and the Economic Growth Council is that the growth ‘strategy’ talks about not repeating past mistakes but leaves them enshrined in the country. You don’t need to be a brilliant person to see how this status quo suits lots of people. It’s money for old rope–a kind of great swindle.

One can take a certain view when such things are set in the affairs of public sector agencies. But what to do when they’re cemented into private sector activity, too?

Flow is not my favourite corporation for a simple reason: it enshrines inefficient practices that are easy to fix but are left untouched and customers just have to live with them. Competition hasn’t forced Flow to be more efficient. Here’s another strike against them.

Early yesterday, I noticed that I had no wifi service at home. Everything seemed fine with the devices, but the essential connection to the Internet was missing. The TV was working fine, so it appeared that all was well in Cableland.

I contacted Flow via ‘chat’ and then via Twitter.

Chat generates an email exchange with a promise of attention within 24-48 hours. So, it’s not a chat at all. Fix that!

Talking the talk, but walking the what?

My Twitter exchange had more immediate results and highlighted that no technical problems showed up in my area but the matter was passed on another department who would get back to me once the problem had been identified. 

Up to 9pm last night, nothing had changed. I used my data plan all day. I tried to help my daughter to get internet service to do her homework. No joy.

Early this morning nothing had changed after the usual solutions had been tried and all devices shut down overnight and restarted this morning. So I tried to call Flow. My house phone told me service had been suspended. I called them from my mobile. After some checking on the account, I was informed the problem was due to a bill being overdue. The first step, apparently, is usually to call or advise the customer and then suspend service. Not all services, though. Interesting.

I’d never been informed. No one I contacted yesterday had any flag on the account that showed it had been suspended. If that had been the case both I and Flow employees would not have spent time searching for technical solutions to a financial problem.

The agent apologized for the inconvenience and said she’d pass on the point about ensuring customers are advised.

With all the powers of telecommunications at their disposal a way must be there for the simple message to go to the customer. A banner on the TV screen? A text message? An email? A call to the line associated with the service? They know how to find us. 

But it’s part of the corporate MO to not do such simple things. Why? Time wasted is an economic good, now?

The company would rather have its customers and some staff running around aimlessly. Why?

That’s a lot of wasted effort on a regular basis that doesn’t show up as retarding economic activity.

If I had 20 employees dependent on Internet connection who were stymied because of a bill but thought we had technical problems, I’d be fuming. I’m fuming.

For all its PR the EGC doesn’t look geared up to solve problems of Jamaican corporate inertia, such as this episode shows. (I presume that the region suffers as Flow likely has the same practices throughout.)

United we stand, divided we fall. Jamaica is divided, so how can it prosper?

Tags

Jamaica, National unity, Progress, Prosperity, Social relationships

Imagine a group of people each given a rope connected to a horse that is stuck in a ditch. The idea is for all of them to pull at the same time, in the same direction to make getting the horse out more easily. If any one of the people pulls in a direction other than the rest, then the horse may still come out, but it wont happen as easily as if all pull in the same direction and at the same time. Depending on who pulls in a contrary fashion, in which direction, and for how long, we could get a situation where the horse stays stuck rather than moving out of the ditch. 

This image strikes me as fitting what I think is going on in Jamaica, at present, and has probably been going on for some time. The horse is Jamaica (in its many guises, as economy and society). The people are all of us citizens (and for the sake of simplicity, I will call ‘citizen’ anyone interested in the future of the country). Note, that I did not say the future well-being of the country, and I will make clear why, shortly. The ropes are anything that can literally take the country from where it is now to another state, and a better one than currently exists. 

As a country, it’s clear that we have several competing groups who want to tug the country in different directions. I’m not going to try to identify all of these groups–which is probably an impossible task because the groups could be as small as one person wanting to do his or her own thing. Think (with no slight intended) of a typical Jamaican country person wanting to live in the bush or the hills, far away from anyone else and content to farm his/her own piece of land, and feeling or actually being self-sufficient. In that sense, such people are not pulling against the rest of the country, but are not necessarily concerned to join in any ‘national’ efforts. 

The obvious competing forces that I can identify are:

• Political factions. We can accept the division between the main political parties as sufficiently contentious in almost everything that each says and does. There is little meeting half way for partisans. The idea of consensus has not been accepted by any significant number of supporters on each side. So, for simplicity, we can say that each party wants to the take the country in a different direction–not necessarily opposite, but certainly not getting to any destination by essentially the same routes. Jamaica isnt unique in such divisions, and it’s ironic perhaps that the former colonial masters, the British, had a country long accustomed to such divisiveness, and it manifested itself in economic policies termed ‘stop-go’: whenever, national political control changed the direction of policies was almost reversed, looking to undo what the previous administration had done. Britain’s economy stalled badly as a result of such tensions.
• Law-abiding vs law-breaking groups. I’ve written a few times, recently, about the fact that Jamaica is in a form of civil war in its struggle against some criminals. Some do not find this notion comfortable, but I think that it’s undeniable. Last week Prof. Herbert Gayle hit the civil war nail on the head, citing numbers, in his piece ‘Light On Violence | ‘We Are Killing Ourselves In Undeclared Civil War‘. Whether one accepts the civil war point or not, it’s clear that those who want to break laws are against those who want to follow the laws of the land. So, the issue is much broader than those surrounding the terrible levels of violent crimes in Jamaica, but extends to all the petty forms of rules violation that are a common part of Jamaican life. That is not to equate the gangland killer with the vendor who operates illegally, but there is an equvalence in the way that our society has been ready to turn a blind eye to many things that people will accept as wrong, yet continue to do. 

Those two groups alone cover a lot of what happens in Jamaica. They are very clearly part of many daily struggles, whether you are the gainer or loser in a bid for a government contract, or you are someone who has to choose between riding in a registered taxi or taking a ‘robot’ to school, work or play.

The problem with this divisiveness is clear from the image I first painted. We have a Jamaica tussling with itself on a daily basis. We cannot fix most of our problems because we have a bigger mass of people willing to pull against their solution. If one assesses comments about things that need to change in Jamaica, many go to how the ‘little man’ needs to be protected. That ‘little man’ is often doing something illegal, whether it’s stealing electricity, living on land illegally, operating a business that is unregistered and not willing to come into the formal economic structure, or a range of other things that are common in this little island. 

We have a deep-seated culture of silence, so few are prepared to ‘call out’ those who are wrong doers, yet are ready to suggest that they don’t approve of wrongdoing. We are also a society that has many layers of close connections, so ‘calling out’ someone often means choosing to support a wider social need over a personal bond. We see that played out often, including recently in the case of a pastor accused of sexual abuse/rape of a minor, and how the principal of a girl’s school could publicly come to his aid and the support of her dear “friend”, his wife, yet not see how she compromised her position as the head of that girl’s school. We have not heard the end of that aspect of the story, but we have seen that duplicity is apparent in many elements of what took place and what people say took place. 

What has been dubbed the ‘fight against crime’ is hampered by this culture of silence–on both sides of the fight. We can understand the fear that exists in those living in areas controlled by criminals, who are known to be violent. We can understand, too, the sense of ‘brotherhood’ that may govern the illegal activities of police officers seeking to ‘solve’ crime problems with a little bit of ‘jungle justice’. 

Economic progress is hampered, too, by this tussle. The struggle between building an economy that is more highly formalized instead of one that has a large informal element is real. So many Jamaicans thrive on the informal–the fruit seller at the traffic lights who provides the daily healthy snacks; the crab sellers at Heroes Circle; the seller of fruit and vegetables from the back of a vehicle; the ‘friend’ who eases the way through a problem (bureaucratic or technical). Many would not use the word ‘corrpution’, but most of us have hands supporting corrupt practices. Our major problem is that these practices keep the cost of living lower than it would otherwise be, so to overturn it means a heavier burden across many lives, and a burden that many may not be able to support. That’s a tough Gordian knot. There’s no easy solution. One of the things I have pointed to is how we can seem to make progress by increasing inefficiency: filling holes in road, which quickly reopen and get refilled, shows up as ‘growth'(equivalent to ‘better life’ and ‘richness’), while our lives have been made poorer by the persistence of fundamentally poor road conditions. Real corrpution may be behind the contracting of such work, but it’s also corrupt thinking that this style of working should continue. 

I know how some of these problems can be solved, and I know that many others in decision-making positions also know how to address the problems. But, I am not surprised that the necessary actions dont get taken. Again, connectedness explains much inaction. But, we have to either accept that we may inch ahead instead of moving in leaps and bound, or agree that leaping head may involve some serious national ‘pain’, if we are to make the necessary changes. I am not bold enough to say glibly ‘Take the pain!’

What I know from experience with countries that make dramatic shifts is that it doesn’t happen without that ‘national consensus’, which we do not have.