If you check it out, we live a precarious existence on this island enuh. Check it out.

Our #1 f/x earner is tourism, a very fragile industry. We’ve seen tourism get licks from things ranging from ‘70’s violence, US recession, global recession, volcanic ash, 9/11, now this, the granddaddy of them all.

Then there’s remittances, where we’re tethered to the economic fortunes of the remitters who are the first to feel any economic downturn.

And we have commodities, whose prices depend on factors over which we have no input. Bauxite/alumina sector’s health depends on world oil/fuel prices, price of caustic, demand for aluminum etc. Sugar, cocoa, coffee....etc.

Agriculture...well, apart from being a commodity and thus risky, is subject to one rahtid claat from a hurricane. Or drought. Or garden variety pestilence. Or competition from substitutes or lower cost producers.

We don’t have any real control over the main drivers on the revenue side of our economy. So any day, the bottom could fall out of any of the buckets we carry to the well. How are we supposed to plan in that scenario? How many of us remain conscious of the fragility of it all?

It’s easy to get comfortable when things are clicking & to forget the inherent fragility of it all. But now...we’re being forced to think of solutions because we’re largely on our own. We really need to design an economy with greater resilience. Self-reliance.

This sound 70’s-ish, but when we see folks like the #CitizensResponseJa team, that’s the potential we have to make our own reality. No idea how this translates on a larger scale but we can’t continue lurching from one externally imposed shock to another.

And we’re not inclined to trust that the worst WILL happen & set aside a big enough buffer to help us get by. Most of us as individuals don’t have the capacity to build that buffer. Living in this country is like walking on glass. Any day it can shatter. Then wah? Idk.