Dear Editor,
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to express the reason I was willing to accept the bitter medicine offered to be dispensed by then Prime Minister Andrew Holness with a view to righting the economy during the height of the worldwide economic recession.
According to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 2011 report, a litany of bitter medicine (otherwise known as economic stimulation action plans) has been dispensed in other countries. Therefore, Jamaica would have been in the company of those other countries.
Before we go forward, let me define the term bitter medicine. According to the Oxford Dictionary, it is "a situation that is unpleasant, but must be accepted".
At the time of Mr Holness' speech on dispensing the bitter medicine, I personally did not believe it would have been that awful, for there are ways to mitigate the bitter taste. One can squeeze one's nose in order to shut off the air flow while gulping the medicine down. This action reduces the potency of the bitterness.
Once ingested, one would eventually start to feel the medicine's curative effects. Eventually, you would have felt elated that you had chosen to accept the bitter medicine, no matter how much it tasted like your grandmother's cerasee tea.
You see, this economic bitter medicine would not have been hard to swallow, but based on the outcome of the general election held on December 29, 2011, you can't tell that to the majority of the Jamaican populace. At that time, most Jamaicans believed that there would not be a need to accept the bitter medicine because they were promised by the present government that an IMF deal would be reached within two weeks of negotiation. Thereafter, we would all be eating "oxtail and curry mutton".
However, the people did not know that by not accepting the bitter medicine, they would instead be accepting a scalpel for an open cavity economic surgery, which is now being performed by Dr Peter Phillips. This surgery entails broad-based tax increases, major cuts in government spending, drawing-down of more than $45 billion over four years from the National Housing Trust and the introduction of the National Debt Exchange (NDX) in order to plug the fiscal shortfall.
We all can agree that most Jamaicans are having their worst nightmare because many chose the scalpel over the bitter medicine. It is therefore safe to conclude that Jamaicans are greedy for punishment.
Patrick Callum
patrickcallum@yahoo.com
J'cans chose scalpel over bitter medicine
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Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to express the reason I was willing to accept the bitter medicine offered to be dispensed by then Prime Minister Andrew Holness with a view to righting the economy during the height of the worldwide economic recession.
According to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 2011 report, a litany of bitter medicine (otherwise known as economic stimulation action plans) has been dispensed in other countries. Therefore, Jamaica would have been in the company of those other countries.
Before we go forward, let me define the term bitter medicine. According to the Oxford Dictionary, it is "a situation that is unpleasant, but must be accepted".
At the time of Mr Holness' speech on dispensing the bitter medicine, I personally did not believe it would have been that awful, for there are ways to mitigate the bitter taste. One can squeeze one's nose in order to shut off the air flow while gulping the medicine down. This action reduces the potency of the bitterness.
Once ingested, one would eventually start to feel the medicine's curative effects. Eventually, you would have felt elated that you had chosen to accept the bitter medicine, no matter how much it tasted like your grandmother's cerasee tea.
You see, this economic bitter medicine would not have been hard to swallow, but based on the outcome of the general election held on December 29, 2011, you can't tell that to the majority of the Jamaican populace. At that time, most Jamaicans believed that there would not be a need to accept the bitter medicine because they were promised by the present government that an IMF deal would be reached within two weeks of negotiation. Thereafter, we would all be eating "oxtail and curry mutton".
However, the people did not know that by not accepting the bitter medicine, they would instead be accepting a scalpel for an open cavity economic surgery, which is now being performed by Dr Peter Phillips. This surgery entails broad-based tax increases, major cuts in government spending, drawing-down of more than $45 billion over four years from the National Housing Trust and the introduction of the National Debt Exchange (NDX) in order to plug the fiscal shortfall.
We all can agree that most Jamaicans are having their worst nightmare because many chose the scalpel over the bitter medicine. It is therefore safe to conclude that Jamaicans are greedy for punishment.
Patrick Callum
patrickcallum@yahoo.com
J'cans chose scalpel over bitter medicine
-->