MARK WIGNALL COLUMN: The poor are being savaged by the dollar slippage....In 1989, J$100 could purchase basic food and grocery items for a family of five for a week....In 2014 that same J$100 can only purchase four minuscule packets of black pepper. In 2014 the Jamaican dollar is worth, at today’s rate, US$0.0089, less than a cent.

In the last year of his prime ministerial run from the violence riddled latter part of 1980 to early 1989 the much unloved, highly autocratic and hands-on Eddie Seaga presided over an economy that saw the Jamaican dollar valued at US$0.18.

In 2014, food items that the poor could always
 fall back on in 1989 are totally out of their reach.

In 1989, J$100 could purchase basic food and grocery items for a family of five for a week.

In 2014 with the still loved and admired Portia Simpson Miller in charge but seemingly disconnected from active governance, that same J$100 can only purchase four minuscule packets of black pepper. In 2014 the Jamaican dollar is worth, at today’s rate, US$0.0089, less than a cent.

Only very few of us will admit that the slippage in matters of governance and the spiral into systemic governmental corruption was given its birth during the disastrous run of the PNP’s Michael Manley from 1972 to 1980. No leader was more loved than Michael, and as hands-on as he appeared to be, he was mostly led by his oratorical skills, his gross misreading of the US, and his appeal to Third World causes on the global stages.

One writer, Donald Howell, captured it in poetic tones when he wrote in early June as part of a continuing series of Facebook, “The introduction of Democratic Socialism in 1974 made the period 1974 to 1980 the age of foolishness, the epoch of incredulity, the season of darkness and the winter of despair.”

MANLEY… was mostly led by his
 oratorical skills, gross misreading of
the US, and his appeal to Third
 World causes on the global stages

Today, the poorest among us would need $200 to purchase a pound of chicken meat. They would need to find $160 to buy a pound of turkey neck and although they would get back $10 change after buying a tin of mackerel, that same $10 cannot purchase a small packet of black pepper.

Chicken back, at $80 per pound, would give back $20, but again that $20 cannot buy a little packet of black pepper.

Last week I purchased from a little corner shop a small tin of ‘bully beef’ and a tin of condensed milk. In general I must confess that, unlike Chupski, I do not know the price of many items. I was, however, bowled over when the lady in the shop said, ‘Five hundred dollars.’ In 1989 the same purchase, which in 2014 can only get me two items, could feed a family of five for five weeks! more