All sec­tors of our econ­o­my need to take a hair cut in the style of Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Gov­ern­ment, trade unions and con­trac­tors must all tight­en their belts. Every­body needs to look at Greece, which is try­ing to stay afloat with its cuts in pen­sions, salaries, jobs, sale of gov­ern­ment as­sets and tax hikes. Are we im­mune from the volatil­i­ty of the glob­al eco­nom­ic cli­mate?

One area of gov­ern­ment spend­ing that needs ur­gent at­ten­tion is the ex­pen­di­ture on Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL). Amer­i­can Air­lines (AA) trans­ports 200,000 pas­sen­gers dai­ly on 3,800 flights world­wide, yet it is in the red; and has filed for bank­rupt­cy. What does CAL know that AA does not? The lat­est at­tempt to squan­der tax­pay­ers' mon­ey to the tune of mil­lions a month is to try to re­open the Lon­don route, an area of low trav­el de­mand. Pay at­ten­tion, George Nicholas III, AA is in bank­rupt­cy for three rea­sons: ris­ing labour costs, high jet fu­el costs and damp­ened trav­el de­mand. CAL is not im­mune to those con­tribut­ing fac­tors of AA's demise.

The Gov­ern­ment spends reck­less­ly be­cause it be­lieves that a debt to gross do­mes­tic prod­uct ra­tio of 40 per cent is good be­cause the US and some oth­er G20 coun­tries are in the re­gion of 100 per cent.

The US can main­tain its deficit of US$15 tril­lion backed by all the gold at Fort Knox. We can­not con­tin­ue to keep a deficit in ex­cess of $8 bil­lion on our books. We need to cut back. Trade unions, on the oth­er hand, must be pre­pared to take a close shave. The of­fer on the ta­ble of five per cent should be ac­cept­ed on con­di­tion that the Gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to cut back on its spend­ing.

No one wants to be in the po­si­tion of Greece with cuts in pen­sions, salaries, jobs and sale of as­sets to meet cer­tain oblig­a­tions. Our Gov­ern­ment can­not main­tain the high ex­pen­di­ture by keep­ing so many state boards and fol­low the PNM tem­plate of ac­cel­er­at­ed pre­ma­ture growth, which could threat­en sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. Fi­nal­ly, the con­trac­tors in our coun­try need to re­mem­ber the old peo­ple say­ing, "eat lit­tle and live long." What does it cost to repave one mile of road? My re­search sug­gests that once there is a good foun­da­tion, the cost is about $624,000. How much is the Gov­ern­ment pay­ing to repave a mile of road-$10,000,000 or $20,000,000? At this rate, our bub­ble would burst very soon.

John Jes­samy

Fyz­abad