Vision 2030 Jamaica

Analysis

When the Refineries Went Silent: How Economic Catastrophe Became Jamaica’s Crucible

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Three of Jamaica’s four alumina refineries suspended operations within months of each other. Remittances tumbled. Tourism faltered. A government carrying debt worth more than its entire national economy faced a reckoning it could no longer defer. And in Kingston offices, the people charged with imagining Jamaica’s future were putting the final touches on a plan that, if it worked, might change everything.

Analysis

The Winter of All Winters: Jamaica’s Fourth Quarter of 2008 Brought Barack Obama’s Election, the Deepest Tourism Contraction in Five Years, and a Government Walking Reluctantly Toward the IMF as the Global Financial Crisis Made the Island’s Debt an Emergency It Could No Longer Manage Alone

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The fourth quarter of 2008 was Jamaica’s reckoning: tourism arrivals declined for the first time since 9/11, remittances fell, and the Golding government began formal conversations with the IMF. Barack Obama was elected President on November 4, carrying with him the hopes of a diaspora that Jamaica depended upon to survive the coming year.

Analysis

Nine Point Six Nine: Jamaica’s Summer of 2008 Brought Usain Bolt Three Gold Medals and Three World Records in Beijing, and Lehman Brothers’ Collapse to Wall Street, and the Two Events Together Defined an Island Caught Between Its Greatest Sporting Triumph and Its Most Dangerous Economic Moment

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Usain Bolt ran 9.69 in Beijing on August 16. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15. Jamaica lived both events in the same quarter — its greatest sporting triumph and its most dangerous economic moment arriving within twenty-nine days of each other.

Analysis

The Price of Everything: Jamaica’s Spring 2008 Brought Audley Shaw’s First Full Budget Into a World Where Oil Was Racing Toward Its All-Time Peak, US Consumer Confidence Was in Free Fall, and a 21-Year-Old Sprinter Named Bolt Was Starting to Look Like the Island’s Most Powerful Economic Story

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Audley Shaw delivered his first budget in spring 2008 as oil raced toward $130 and US consumer confidence collapsed. Meanwhile, a 21-year-old from Trelawny ran 100 metres in 9.72 seconds in New York — handing Jamaica a story worth more in global attention than any marketing campaign the island could have bought.

Analysis

Bear Stearns Weekend: Jamaica’s First Quarter of 2008 Watched America’s Fifth-Largest Investment Bank Collapse Into a Fire Sale, While the Island’s Winter Tourism Held On and Audley Shaw Prepared to Face a Budget Year Unlike Any His Government Had Imagined

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On the weekend of March 14–16, 2008, the United States government arranged the emergency sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase at $2 per share. For Jamaica, it was the moment the financial crisis stopped being a mortgage problem and became something far more dangerous to the Caribbean’s most tourism-dependent economies.