Bimmers or businesses?

I recently took a glance at Jamaica's newest hit television drama: the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips commission of enquiry. While watching the parade of hapless politicians and a particularly arrogant attorney, it dawned on me that we face a potentially perilous future. In the midst of scandal, recession and depression, our Government, businesses and next-door neighbours are fighting for survival. This begs the question: who's fighting for revival?

In a special Sunday Gleaner analysis of the epidemic of youth unemployment, Professor Don Robotham noted that nearly 400,000 youth in the 15-29 age group - 59 per cent of the total population of that cohort - are either unemployed or have completely dropped out of the labour force. Nearly 88 per cent of youngsters between 15 and 19 - 220,000 young Jamaicans - are neither employed nor enrolled in school.

As if these numbers aren't sufficiently alarming, it is widely believed that most of the jobs lost to this devastating recession are - like a good girl gone bad - gone forever. We don't have enough street corners, dirty windscreens or local demand for ganja to sustain the wave of young, urban entrepreneurs who will, out of necessity and desperation, soon bring their 'hustles' to a corner near you. We need jobs - fast.

Our Priorities

Speaking of fast, the new Subaru Impreza WRX STI is here. The car is a monster. It features a turbocharged, 2.5-litre, 330-horsepower engine that propels it to a top speed of 260kph (although a visit to KPH would probably be in order for anyone actually reaching that speed on our roads). If I polled all the high-school boys in Jamaica, I imagine more than half of them would rather spend their nights zipping around town in this car than with Beyoncé or Rihanna. I don't know if these ladies have a price, but the car weighs in at a monstrous J$7.5 million (US$85,000), largely because of a ridiculous motor vehicle customs regime that assesses 63 to 177 per cent duty on imported vehicles (presumably to protect our booming auto-manufacturing industry).

I've outgrown the fast-car obsession, so I'd gladly choose the ladies. Were I to be offered a BMW X6, though, my decision would be different. For the X6 - the perfect combination of luxury and utility - I'd willingly trade Beyoncé and Rihanna (and instead go local - Alaine, perhaps). Judging from two X6s I saw, minutes apart, while writing this column, I'm not alone. At a whopping J$15 million (US$170,000) each, many things must have been sacrificed to purchase these vehicles. Most of us will never know these sacrifices, as we'll sooner be washing the windshield of an X6 than owning one. And since neither Rihanna, Beyoncé nor Alaine go for windshield washers, we'd be out of luck there too. We can always dream, though.

Misplaced priorities

Dreaming is a skill Jamaicans have mastered. This is not so terrible, as dreams are essential ingredients in the recipe for entrepreneurial success. So is money. And there lies our problem: Jamaicans would rather shell out millions on a BMW or a Subaru death machine than invest in the well-reasoned, well-researched dreams of our budding entrepreneurs.

We were quick to throw tens of billions of dollars at investment schemes promising 10 per cent returns per month (including one run by a man who pronounced 'New York' as if there was an 'a' somewhere in the name), yet we baulk when bright, ambitious entrepreneurs quote annual rates of return of 20 per cent. What do we want with 20 per cent? We would rather see our X6 depreciate at that very rate.

I've watched as friends spectacularly blew millions on trips and celebrations, yet another friend can't source less than that for a venture that would generate jobs and foreign currency for Jamaica. Within our very shores, another entrepreneur has developed technology that converts algae into biofuel, yet he can't tap the funding to take this innovation to the next stage of development. More simply, my barber and his young bride, a hairdresser, can't find the paltry sum needed to launch a salon.

But right on cue - another J$15-million X6 passes me on the streets of Kingston. And three young hustlers battle to wash its windscreen. Let's hope the squeegees in their hands don't someday become guns.

We need jobs - fast!

Din Duggan is an attorney who now works as a consultant with a global legal search firm. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and dinduggan@gmail.com or follow him at facebook.com/dinduggan or twitter.com/YoungDuggan.