15.4%  is the new inflation rate!

Talk ‘bout goat mout. Prime Minister Patrick Manning only last week announced to the nation that the inflation rate will plateau and eventually fall. Of course, that opinion is not worth a block of ice in the arctic (although the value of that commodity there seems to be steadily increasing) It was, however, borne out by what the central bank governor said this very week.

Manning in his “distress” to the nation last evening, suggested that the government could not have divined the cataclysmic events that led to the global economic meltdown . Well I put to you dear readers that his disability lies not with his eyes, but with his ears. Indeed, if you count the Gayelle News (and I most certainly do) there have been stories in the media about the government’s greedy pursuit of the very same path that led us from Boom to Bust in the 70’s since 2006. Inflation has been a pressing concern in the media for at least a year.

Mariano Browne has the temerity to tell the working population that they have to choose between jobs and inflation. That seems not to have been a concern when the teachers used the election to twist the government’s arm for significant salary increases. If my memory serves correctly, the government settled negotiations with at least half the unions before going into the election. This, of course, was to ensure that those muppets would put their thumbprint down for the PNM in the polling booth.

Do you remember what Conrad Enill said?  Now that you have gotten salary increases, we expect improved productivity. No where else in the world would you hear those words assembled in that order.

Everyone in the country admonished the government to pull on the reins, instead Manning was whipping the jackass hide furiously. So now that workers monthly salary will last as long as a one dollar snow cone in the desert, they expect to be paid more to keep abreast of inflation.

Giving the prime minister the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that he does not possess the intellectual depth to grasp that concept, he had been repeatedly told that. Do you think he is now standing in the vestibule (I certainly hope he got a vestibule for all the money we paid) of his monstrous residence, the ode to his reign, reflecting on the wrong turns he made? Not likely.

As my colleague Robert Clarke put it, the prime minister’s adjustments to the budget are akin to turning the titanic around. Where ever he cuts, people will suffer (look to further cuts in the gas subsidy, start looking for a sturdy donkey, they are not very common anymore and will demand a high price). Of course, there will be not cuts to CEPEP, he has committed us all to this egregious waste of tax payers dollars for the rest of our lives.

Touch CEPEP money and you will see town burn faster than a spliff in Sizzla Kolangi mout’. Another big waste of money is GATE. I know for a fact that there are people without first degrees and even questionable high school grades who are enrolled in masters programs. Don’t even get me started on accreditation.

Chicken Little my young padawans is now Kentucky Fried Chicken. The time for the government to pump the brakes has passed. Kiss your loved ones, rest the pillow on you lap, and place your head between you knees, because this …..will be like passing a kidney stone.