Letter of the Day | Cost of living will decide the election result
Published:Tuesday | November 12, 2024 | 12:06 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
One of the takeaways that Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his Cabinet could and should embrace, learn from and focus on – in so far as the recently held US presidential election is concerned – is the rising cost of living. This will determine which party wins and which party loses a general election.
A booming construction industry, where numerous highways and hotels that have been and are being built, a robust stock market, corporate tax cuts, a reasonable minimum wage and a reduction in Jamaica’s debt-to-GDP ratio are all well and good and necessary to benefit, enhance and grow Jamaica’s economy. The Holness-led administration has made strides in those regards.
However, as long as the cost of goods on supermarket shelves remain at their current levels – and they have been too high, for too long – then the incumbent party will suffer the consequences, at the polls, to a significant degree. The prices of corn beef, coffee, cow’s milk, almond milk, oats milk, fresh fruit, vegetables, toiletries, coconut water, etc, need to be significantly reduced, whenever and however possible. If that goal is made the number one goal of the Government, and if it is achieved and sustained, then everyone benefits.
If the price of patties is used to gauge the trajectory of the Jamaican economy, then one may see and reflect on how the local cost of living has climbed over the decades. In the eighties, the cost of a beef patty used to be $5 (if I recall, correctly). Today, a beef patty is $290.00 – that’s an increase of 5,800 per cent .
The late Wilmot ‘Mutty’ Perkins often used to remark that if the grassroots man could afford the same wine that the uptown man buys, then the sellers and the economy would benefit immensely.
The cost of living in a society and, in particular, the cost of nutritious food items on supermarket shelves and in the markets – and people being impacted by those food costs – is like breathing, because without food to sustain our physical and mental health we die.
Ceteris paribus (‘all other things being equal’) , the higher the cost of living in a society, the lower the lifespans will be in that society. That rule can be applied to the governments, too.
PATRICK GALLIMORE