Mahogany CoConut Blog

One Caribbean Nation. ‘TWO-PRONG ATTACK’ ‘INCREASE IMPORTS, BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH THROUGH STABLE EXCHANGE RATES’ — WORRELL By Emmanuel Joseph In a move that upends decades of thought in economics on managing developing countries like Barbados, the former governor of the Central Bank of Barbados has proposed that the region import more. Dr Delisle Worrell suggested increased imports as part of bold policy reforms focused on currency stability, arguing that only these measures will unlock sustained foreign investment and lift the Caribbean out of decades-long economic stagnation. Economists in the region have long argued against increasing imports, fearing consumer demand would invariably drain foreign reserves and weaken a country's capacity — or will — to grow GDP through domestic industrial development and exports. But in his latest monthly newsletter, Imports Sustain the Quality of Life in the Caribbean, Dr Worrell, who also consulted for the International Monetary Fund and World...

One Caribbean Nation. The new pirates of the Caribbean Today’s Editorial The seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker by US President Donald Trump’s administration and the accompanying threats of ground attacks, are ominous signs of a return to a dark era of the Caribbean and Latin America thought long behind us. This latest act of intimidation and outright piracy revives the heavy hand of the United States’ late 19th- and early 20th-century foreign policy, the age of gunboat diplomacy, military occupations, and the casual violation of sovereignty in the name of hemispheric “stability.” This escalation bears chilling resemblance to the early 20th century’s Caribbean interventions, when Marines landed in Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic under the flimsy banner of protecting US interests. Then as now, high-minded talk of “security” masked simpler motives: the control of trade routes, natural resources (this time, oil and gas in the world’s largest reserve), and regime change. Tod...