Even in societies with high unemployment there are vacancies.  So how do you know that those vacancies are filled with suitable people?  If employers want skilled and experienced workers, the unemployed might not have those skills.  You are aware that many of ourskilled workers have fled to the Islands where wages are much higher.

Balgobin, GDP growth is only a part of the economic picture of a country. That growth figure results from upward price movements or declining domestic consumption with accompanying foreign consumption. All that growth could go to the public sector, for instance, and the public sector increases go largely to politicians and not the civil service workers. GDP growth could also be a lot of economic activity in repair and maintenance, and that does not mean increased living standards for the populace.

so the smart question would be about the "transformation" question you asked about which I will attempt to explain in a separate response.

Balgobin, when an economy is transformed the biggest factor is technological change. Have Guyana's leading economic activities moved from primary product to more value-added? Have the means of production taken advantage of technology thus increasing worker productivity? Has the workforce gotten more educated?

These and other measures of transformation lead to a better life. In Trinidad you just have to look at the Arts and Cultural activities, dining out, etc. Ask whether your average cane-cutter uses the same technology, where he does not have to be literate. When your work input is above literate then you would go home and read to your children instead of hanging out at rum shops. You get the idea Balgobin?

Has Guyana's light manufacturing - from PVC pipes, building materials, to confectioneries, clothing, furniture, shrimp and fish processing - benefited from production transformation? Any changes in methods? New equipment which requires higher-educated operators? I'm sure others can add to what constitute transformation when it comes to the economy. Look around Guyana today Balgobin and see if Guyana's productive infrastructure is not the same as it was 20 years ago. Where is our IT free-trader zone? Where are our government-subsidized or in partnership with the private sector (local or foreign) technical institutes for things like software development?

Think back how the PPP's DNA - a dislike of anything private sector in the days following Cheddi's passing - and you'll see why we missed that boat.

To transform the economy, and hence its people, the ruling politicians have to transform its thinking. It did all right - to create an oligopoly where an under-ecducated, lack-of-skills Minister can move from a logie to a mnsion.

Think Billy.....think for the masses of dispossessed Guyanese while their assets are parceled off to an oligarch. Think transformation!

KishanB, I would counter the figures put out by the Government (5.7% GDP growth) not so much by castigating the integrity of the its statistics, but look under the 5.7% statistic. What contributed to it? If all of it is price increases to the two major sector - rice and gold - then this is just a windfall. If hat increase goes to say 5% of the people then what about the other 95%? If this GDP figure is because of an increase in investment and not consumption, then in the short-term it is not an improvement. In the long term it would be an improvement, but only if it were for new opportunities and not to repair and maintain infrastructure like drainage and irrigation. We have to look at a year-on-year comparison of the major contributors to GDP and see where the increases were and their impact. We can look at prima facie evidence and say the number doesn't jive with reality, but we can always make the logical, intellectual, factual argument ot say it's fools' gold.

These fools that blindly follows the Corrupt PPP/C lacks the faculty of thinking, seeing and reasoning, what kind of transformation are they prattling about? Guyana was a poor country twenty something years ago and today they are even poorer now........so where is the transformations? the only transformtion now is that the corrupt PPP/C has now become a Party of bugga batty.

BBP/C

Bannas what you talking about.

Exports (f.o.b.) 2012 (1,415.5 US Million) vs 2013 (1,375.9 US Million)

Bauxite - 2012  (150.8 US Million)  vs 2013 (134.6 US Million) -DECLINED

Sugar - 2012 (132.1 US Million) vs 2013 (114.2 US Million)  - DECLINED

Rice 2012 (196.2 US Million)  vs 2013 (239.8 US Million)

Gold - 2012 (716.9 US Million) vs 2013 (648.5 US Million) - DECLINED

Timber 2012 (39.0 US Million) vs 2013 (38.5 US Million).

Bannas me and know what you talking about gold contribute more to the economy in 2013.

These are ASshni figure bannas.

STOP drinking the PPP SOUP.

Faced with these figures, there is only one thing that he can do, put his tail between his legs and go cowared in some corner like a beaten dog. Dont expect to hear back from this fool.

STOP drinking the PPP SOUP   ????????

You have certainly taken liberties with the English language. Me drinking PPP soup??????? Yuh drunk like Nehru or what?

You don't know your ass from your elbow. Why don't you shut your trap about what I think of this PPP government?! Talk about Ash knee, you should get on your knees as I'm coming for you that should shut your mouth up for a while.

Oi kari I doan see asj cutting you up in that post..is what Iman missed?

Karimullah, my respond was not meant for you, so keep your cool, I was just commenting on Kishan post and the corrupt PPP/C maybe you missed that. I think that there was a post By Billy from page 1 that responded to,

and you do not have to come for me, because I am not in the knee business

Kari

It is no doubt that technological changes or modernization is synonymous with economic development and improvement in the living standards. It also a fact that the economic indicators such as inflation rate, unemployment rate, GDP, GDP per capita, Real Income,  per capita income, infant mortality, and so are still being used to measure the health or performance of an economy. Not much has changed. It is also a fact that there can be an expansion in the GDP without significant benefits to the poor and middle class.  American family farming have become victims of large corporations and thousands of small businesses have been destroyed by Home depots, Walmarts, Lowes, etc. Americans are crying everyday about a small segment of population who have gotten wealthy while the middle have shrunked and the number living in poverty have drastically increased. The free market system or Lassiez faire economics can respond more efficiently to the needs of the consumer and to society better than the planned economies of yesterday's socialist states. However, you and I know that the market system can create wealth at the top and leave nothing for those at the bottom if gov't. does referee the system well. We use taxation as a method of encouraging and discouraging certain behaviors. We use it in ways to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth.

Now for Guyana, you are saying that the gov't neglected the poor and reward the wealthy. You are also saying the gov't is mismanaging the economy. When we scrutinize  the economic data presented by the gov't it is clear that progress are being made. The GDP is expanding and income is growing. 20 years ago the minimum wage was about US$20 per month or a little bit more.  Today, the minimum wage is about US175.  This is a great improvement. Inflation is under control. Thousands of poor Guyanese have become homeowners. They afford cell phones, internet, better healthcare, better fed.

Guyana is a better place today.

So when you movin back?

As you well know Guyana has a sizeable underground economy, with rampant unrecorded economic activity.  The massive money laundering which occurs as a result becomes recorded through a real estate and retail boom.  What that has to do with the economic transformation that Kari and I refer to is beyond me. Just because only a % of the gold production is "official" and the balance is hidden to avoid payment of royalties, taxes and other fees, doesn't mean that the PPP has a sound economic strategy.

Even if the statistics are real they are still problematic.  Expenditures in real estate and retail, not backed by real production is inflationary.  Indeed what has become obvious is that the rampant speculation in the economy is already squeezing out the vast majority of Guyanese, and worsening an already disastrous divide.  As the PPP brays about a "good" economy, and as its support base doesn't see benefit then it becomes harder for them to blame the complaints for the opposition on "dem lazy black man" as they used to.

The PPP brays and rice farmers go chat with David Granger.  I never believed I would have seen the day when this demographic would feel forced to appeal to "black man party" indeed the nemesis of the rice industry in the 70s.

The PPP ought to feel very worried. Come elections its hardly likely that rice farmers will vote PNC. But if they stop seeing it as a threat, the temptation to not vote, while APNU turns out its base, becomes more likely.

And we still await the 2012 basic census data, even though we are now well into 2014.  At least we ought to know how many people lived in Guyana in 2012, what regions, and what there ethnicity is. Basic questions.  Not more detailed issues like whether they own property, use latrines, occupational distribution etc., that might require more detailed compilation before release.

I  would like to see the figures on how much of capital infusion that contributed to a 5.2% growth is equity or loan.

The IMF had Guyana's GDP at US$2.8 billion versus US$4.5 billion for Barbados. With a smaller population the GDP per capita is even wider - Guyana's at just under US$3,600 while Barbados was just over US$16,000.

Look at the richness of Guyana's natural resources and go figure. We should be ashamed at this disparity and ask why.

Bajans chase away Guyanese and show no sympathy when we wail that we "welcomed" them when they were poor.

Well let us set aside the fact that we were both British colonies and in those days there was free movement among its colonies, as well as to England. 

The fact is that Guyana is SUPPOSED to be the country where all, except maybe Trinidad and Suriname, are supposed to migrate to, given our huge resource endowments, and relatively small population.

Yet instead, until recently, Guyanese arrived cap in hand begging for work.  This has ceased only because there is now no work to be had in those places.  Yet Guyanese already living in these islands remain determined to stay.

ASSni claims expansion of credit.  Read that as mortgages ad consumer loans, because there is limited new capital investment in the productive sectors.

All looks like a bubble which will pop if gold drops below $1,000.

Because they just do not have a clue.

Incompetence and tiefin by the PPP Corruptocrats. A combination guaranteed to keep the masses in poverty.