this is lame. It is not that the gentleman is not competent for his time. He is of another era and  older than his birthday so his mind is not as nimble as it was and one cannot afford the lag time of his reasoning. He has not been a practicing economist for awhile and economics is not like physics there paradigms endure for eons. Best practices in management have a shelf life about a few months to a year these days if one is to be about  optimizing outcomes and keeping ahead of the game.

These days everything is technology centered and  management strategies relies heavily on the thinness or thickness of the network effect of information exchange. Successful economies need nimble minds and physically strong bodies and a work ethic that is outside the domain of olf fellows like Dr Thomas. He should be a member of a the team headed by grads of the elite schools who actually worked in upper level management in institutions  in the first world.

For example, Guyana is embracing a macroeconomic  strategy that relies on  practices with respect to structural and distributional impacts of climate change and contingent mitigation strategies that encourages investment from the US, the EU and its member states. This has relevance in our embrace of technologies and strategies that meets green house gas reduction standards and the fostering a green economy while keeping costs down and enhancing sustainable policies in our environment. 

Appoint Mr Thomas chair of a the forensic audit department etc since sleuthing for fraud could rely heavily on historical knowledge of our institutions and how they function. He be effective help help here Place the younger minds in advisory positions to craft our future

I thought this was TK's job. 

Thomas was Jordan's instructor at UG. Thomas had hired Jordan to be an instructor in a program started by Thomas's Institute of Development Studies back in 1983.

Thomas, as a WPA leader, played a crucial role in the anti-Burnham struggles.

I believe Jagan offered Thomas a position as Min. of Economic Development in 1992 and he turned it down.  Others here might remember the specific details. Wonder why Thomas did not want to serve in a PPP Govt.

He is a smart man who never became a Minister, or VC of UG.

Thomas's work is more of an academic nature.  I don't remember him actually shaping any policy at a practical level to help the country.  Others might remember if he did.

Dr Clive Thomas turned down the ministerial offer in 1992 on a matter of principle and in solidarity with the WPA of which he was a senior member. Before the election Dr Jagan was preaching "winner will not take all" politics and inclusivity. Having secured a comfortable majority, however,  the PPP did not invite the WPA to join the government. Instead, Dr Jagan singled out Clive Thomas and offered him the position in his personal capacity. Clive discussed it with the WPA and they decided against.

Personally, I am pleased that President Granger has appointed Clive Thomas as his adviser on sustainable development. Dr Thomas is a specialist in develoment economics. His party, the WPA, is already a part of APNU, so as of now there are at least two WPA leaders [Thomas & Roopnarain] holding key positions in the coalition.

Nice except that WPA had been a party on paper just like the others that make up APNU.

The WPA made an error in tactics in refusing Jagan's offer, and so a bright person like Thomas, close to 3 scores and 10 or more was never a Minister of the Govt.  What a waste of talent.

Two good picks from the WPA.  These two (Thomas and Roopnaraine)  can hold their own against anyone.  Very good.

But them PPP Crab Louse

will try tell us

Ramotar, Rohee & Ramsammy

better.

Yea...dem PPP bais always said that. Like uncle DG the engineer who does not use models and theories in his wuk. Or Pavi who thinks pissing in the wind the way of the future. Or Baseman who thinks all it takes is a good hustle. You obviously have not observed the profile of the US President's Council of Economic Advisors or the people working at Congressional Budget Office. Anyhow J.M. Keynes said it best:

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood.  Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.   Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."

I am glad they employ Clive as adviser. I hope he can find that $500 bill KN has been reporting which he never clarified.

Gates, Jobs, Branson and a host of others are innovators. Guyana has lots of those-practical people who knows to build things. Money and those who believe in them are lacking. Granger needs to make the money available and provide a consultancy for those individuals.

I am not too keen on theories-it is important. But not for small small people-99% of the time is the gut feelings. 

I guess Branson made that plane that crash from space recently.

Money to burn.

This is a wonderful move.

Professor Clive Thomas appointed presidential advisor

By Staff Editor On June 21, 2015 @ 4:17 pm In Local News

Economist,  Dr Clive Thomas has been appointed Presidential Adviser on sustainable development, GINA said today.

The professor will assume responsibility for economic matters and the State Asset Recovery Programme. Thomas recently wrote on the recovery of state assets in his column in the Sunday Stabroek.

Dr Clive Thomas

 

But for the APNU led coalition, the AFC would have also become another small paper party.

http://gtmosquito.com/explaine...-deliver-in-berbice/

Really?

1.  In Indo areas the vast majority of the crowds showing up for coalition events were African.  This was obviously the APNU machinery at work.  The excuse was that Indo supporters were too scared to show up.  Well we now know that it was because the vast majority of Indos had no intention in voting for the coalition.

2.  The PPP INCREASED its vote in all of its strongholds.  Given that Africans and mixed populations account for 30% of the population in most PPP strongholds, and would have increased their turn out by 10-20%, it is noted that the coalition didn't perform that well in these areas, clearly due to loss of some of the 2011 Nagamootoo voters.

So where would the AFC have been without being embedded in an APNU dominated coalition.  This having lost a significant part of its African/mixed vote in 2011, a trend that might well have continued in 2015, and also losing some of the 11k votes which Moses delivered in 2011.  I don't think that an AFC with 5% of the votes would have lasted much longer.

I find it interesting that this argument is always made as if the AFC didn't benefit tremendously from being part of the coalition.  Now wielding way more power than it ever would have on its own.

Wow! TKbhai,  You seemed to perturbed by the appointment of Dr. Thomas.

Coalition needs to move away from the dinosaurs.

TK would have been a better choice.  He is a Renaissance man with the latest knowledge.

Thomas is a good man but mostly an armchair paper producer economist.

TK, pending details I think part of that $300-500 billion was generated by the unofficial/underground/parellel/narco economy. That parallel economy is not recorded in the government accounts.

Regarding Dr Clive Thomas' appointment, I hope President Granger is providing him with adequate personal security.

As the Asset Recovery czar, Dr Thomas will be most disliked by those PPP crooks whose assets he will identify for recovery. An arranged "death by accident" is not improbable. Remember Jagdeo-Gajraj phantom squad?

Don't worry about that.

Don't worry about Dr. Thomas, a nice, decent guy. Dr. Thomas will write a paper on how to recover assets.

He actually won't be recovering anything.

Most of the UG people are "paper" people who have done very little to apply their research to actual Guyanese problems.  They go off on 1-year sabbaticals and produce nothing, and that's OK.

Have you read Dr Thomas' recent economic writings, Jay? Have you seen younger men publishing comparable stuff? It's unfair to call the man a dinosaur.

[Let's overlook TK for a while; TK has pointed out repeatedly in this forum that he is happy with his current jobs.]

Look how many people they pulled out of retirement for ministerial, speaker and advisory appointments.

Is that good for 21st century systems?

How many of those guys can use email?

Are you joking? You really underestimate dem folks in Guyana. Don't you know that canecutters walk with Blackberry to the cane fields?

School kids got free laptops from the PPP regime. E-mail/Internet capable. Primary school teachers have smartphones and PCs.

Why shouldn't seasoned professionals be computer literate?

Come on, man. Think straight.

You would be surprised.

There was one UG Professor who was asking for tens of thousands to pay a typist to type a book, and they asked him if he was crazy that he should type it himself.

He terrorized his boss for not giving him the $$$.

Another good observation. High Profile positions are being filled by 90 Percent Afros.

AFC appears to be silent and impotent at this stage.

I'm not surprised, Jay.

A lot of men balked at using a typewriter in the past, but were eager to type on a PC keyboard having the same alpha-numeric arrangement.

GT Mosquito selected three Indo dominated villages. You have to expand the analysis to all the Indian dominated villages. Port Mourant, Prashad Nagar, etc. The voters list increased by 95000 voters. Obviously PPP should get more votes overall. What matters in the end is the coalition got a bigger share of that 95000 increase, hence finishing ahead. There is a dangerous misconception coming from some quarters, possibly to belittle the Prime Minister. My thesis: if you do a careful village by village analysis you deduce that about 10-12% of Indos voted against PPP. This is consistent with the 2014 LAPOP poll, the best polling being done in Guyana these days.  The Indo votes going to AFC this time was much more dispersed than 2011.

That is correct! KN reporters have been conflating the estimate of underground economy with the assumed theft of PPP. What it does it diminishes the credibility of the argument that PPP had some good tiefman in its midst. Academics ought to clarify these things when incompetent journalists misquote their work, deliberately or mistakenly. In any case, APNU-AFC is misusing the giant of a professor. They are sending him on a wild goose chase. Do you believe kick-backs are recorded on the books? Scholars publishing in accounting journals have also noted how difficult it is to prove theft in forensic audits.

Uncle Rama how de sanka and XM white brew dis marnin?

We are talking about 2015, so of what relevance is 2014.  Two factors occurred.

1.  Moses aligned himself with the much dreaded PNC.  What Nagamootoo voters wanted was to teach the PPP a lesion.  NOT to create a PNC dominated government.

2.  As if this wasn't enough, the PPP then mounted a racially divisive campaign claiming that Moses is a self hating Indian who would sell Indians out to an African dictatorship.

The result was that the PPP increased its turn out in its strongholds by 30k, adding a further 6k in the interior where a similar tactic of racial panic, and patronage allowed it to do well among Amerindians, INCREASING its performance in this bloc.

Given this, where is there evidence that the coalition increased its Indian support? The few more Indo votes picked up in places like G/town were offset by the massive PPP Indo vote.

BUT FOR THE MASSIVE INCREASE BY THE PNC BASE THE INDO AFC VOTE WOULD HAVE BEEN INSUFFICIENT TO OFFSET THE MASSIVE INCREASE IN THE INDO PPP VOTE!

Region 6 PPP increased its votes by 7,000.  The coalition LOST 200 votes, despite the fact that there would have been higher turn out in PNC strongholds like New Amsterdam.  Clearly many of the 2011 Nagamootoo voters fled back to the PPP.

BOTTOM LINE.  Nagamootoo did NOT turn out sufficient votes to offset the higher PPP turn out.  He won a smaller % of the Indian vote than he did in 2011.

Accept this fact.  Two factors led to a coalition victory, the MOST important being the massive PNC turn out, especially in places like South G/town and Linden, where turn out has been declining for years. 

There was MASSIVE turn out by young grass roots black men, who had all but stopped.  Reports are that many of these poor young black men, who previously sucked their teeth about voting, not only voted, but went knocking on doors to ensure that others did.

Yes an AFC Indo vote did help, but given the fact that it was small, but for the massive increase in the PNC base, it would NOT have been enough to assure victory. 

You know one thing I note that the AFC and the PPP Indians have in common, is their TOTAL disregard for Afro Guyanese. You for an example make NO mention of African/mixed voting patterns.  Their role in showing up in LARGE numbers at campaign events, EVEN IN PPP STRONGHOLDS.  And the RECORD turn out which offset the massive increase in the PPP Indian vote.

Again...this is all SUBJECTIVE/NARRATIVE/OPINION/NORMATIVE information you've given us. When you or GT Mosquito do a detailed QUANTITATIVE analysis to disprove my thesis that 10 to 12% Indos voted AFC...Let's talk.

This is just you refusing to accept the fact that the PPP mounted a highly SUCCESFUL racist campaign, aiming at scaring East Indians and Amerindians about the prospect of an African dominated government. 

I note with interest your refusal to take into account Afro (including mixed) Guyanese political behavior and the role that this played in the coalition victory.  No credit to Afro Guyanese for the role that the played, which included organizing very dynamic campaign events (albeit after a slow start), turning out in large numbers to these events, mobilizing massive numbers of youth (especially males) to vote when they usually don't.  And on election day, mounting a very aggressive get out to vote strategy.  No credit what so ever.  ONLY the AFC Indo vote, fewer than 20k votes mattered.

But tell me.  With the PPP adding 30,000 Indian votes, and maintaining or INCREASING its share of the votes in its strongholds, despite the massive PNC turn out in black rural villages and places like New Amsterdam, where did this 12% Indian vote come from? 

Even if the AFC held on to its 2011 Indo vote, the massive increase in PPP Indo votes swamped this.  And we do know that the AFC LOST Indo support in Regions 5 and 6!

Nah...you're the one imagining things. I am almost certain I was the first person to call PPP on the race-baiting. If not the first...one of the first. But oh my...that 30K Indos PPP got. You are quite precise. Not a margin of error. Which survey you pulled that one from again?

TK we know who lives where and where each party gets votes from.  Are you now imagining that a highly discredited PPP, running an angry campaign, painting blacks as savages would have won more support from blacks? 

They won 30k more votes on the coast.  They held, or increased their margins, in their strongholds, so we can pretty much deduce that this 30k increase of PPP votes in coastal Guyana came from Indians.

You have never acknowledged;

1.  The role of the African/mixed population and the PNC itself, both in the campaign, where high energy and very dynamic events created excitement.  And where a sophisticated social media campaign attracted more youth than before, especially poor black males, who had virtually stopped voting.

2.  You also refuse to admit the fact that the PPPs campaign at race baiting was so successful that it gained them 30k INDIAN votes, at a time when their popularity among this group had plummeted to an all time LOW.

The fact is that the highly successful PPP race baiting NEUTRALIZED Nagamootoo's attempts to increase the Indian votes for the coalition, and in fact he LOST many of his 2011 votes in Berbice.

What ever plots that certain AFC Indians had to convert the coalition into an Indo dominated plantation, with blacks relegated to being tokens, and Granger to being a figure head didn't work.  So go and deal with Jay and the other AFC Indians who are now crying about how racist Granger is.

Oh my you know with certainty PPP don't get mixed race voters. Hmmm. That 30K is all Indos. Wow! You're even better than Nate Silver.

.OK so a racist campaign aimed at getting Indians to vote PPP because it is a "coolie party" and demonized blacks as savage brutes will attract more mixed votes.  More mixed votes than the PPP won in 2011 when it was pretending that it was a diverse party.

Why don't you ask racist Indians whether they care that douglas are part Indian?  Look at how cobra had a heart attack when his daughter married a dougla.  I will remind you of the frequent laments by many Indians here, some now PRETENDING to be AFC supporters, that douglarization=Indian Holocaust. 

And yet now you are fooling yourself that a PPP campaign, which you admitted to be very racist, would have attracted MORE mixed voters than they got in 2011.

The PPP ran a campaign which told Indians that a vote for Moses was a vote for Forbes Burnham.  GUESS WHAT?  Many believed that!