Should the State Buy the Tamarin Salt Pans?

Because Mauritians have a strong emotional connection with them? Maybe. We have to decide how much we want these 40 or so acres to keep on eliciting those special feelings in us. Each time we see them. Maybe 10 acres are enough to keep our souls happy. Maybe not. Just like we have to reflect on the quality of the decision to use so much coal on an island with one of the world's best air quality. Not very smart for the poster child of sustainability, eh? It's like running a central bank like a tabazi. While the owners of the salt pans have every right to find ways of optimising their assets we have to realise that in Mauritius our land use is not exactly world-beating. Maybe we got carried away with the toxic mantra of 'grot' at all costs?

It's never too late to do good though. Let's immediately liberalise the importation of sugar to help make it easier for us as a country to preserve important parts of our souls. We've been there before with La Vallee de Ferney. 10 years ago. Let's do it again!

Catastrophic Week-end Turns 35

Between 21 and 23 December of the International Year of the child a pretty little thing called Claudette visited us. Probably because she got jealous that Pele had kicked a few footballs at our George V Stadium a couple of years before. If I remember correctly we celebrated Xmas without electricity as Mauritian power lines didn't offer any major chewing problem for an intense tropical cyclone.

The upshot is that the 3-day visit helped put our economy into a depression: a 10% contraction. 1979 was also the year of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident which was essentially due to a flawed interface design. And of a major switch of how the US Fed carried out monetary policy.

If you plan of drinking in the next few days, don't drive, take a cab or pick one of your friends as a designated driver. Staying alive can be a lot of fun.

Voting For L'Alliance Du Coeur is Voting For Rupee Depreciation

Of the systematic and unreasonable variety and that for at least a couple of reasons. The first one is that Bheenick will probably be told to leave the Central Bank. We shouldn't underestimate the benefit of having had Manou there for the past three years.

The second reason is they will probably replace him with someone like Basant Roi, Khushiram or some fellow with a strong depreciation bias. They could even have Sithanen as the new Governor because they haven't got over the way he was sidelined, have they?

The Kind of Year 2009 Should Have Been (End)

July: You now know that texting is as bad as drunk driving. And that the great little country ain't dead yet. You should also doubt and discuss and start writing in our sexy language.

August: We should have been quite concerned about the ability of the economic reform to produce results. And paid a bit more attention to search results.

September: Ramgoolam should have shown he's a little bit more serious about MID and we should have adopted an economic constitution. We should not have forgotten how rich we are and why his airness is above the rest. And you should never cross a Nepalese bridge without our free guide.

October: We should have allowed miracles to immediately enter our lives and started to Samba.

November: Ramgoolam should have appointed new board members at the central bank and cancelled the tax on savings.

December: Maybe you should have been less surprised about couples breaking-up. Ramgoolam should have ended MEXA's blackmail and understood that the stimulus package did not save 5,000 jobs. Teachers should not have been inspired by MEXA.

Read the start of the review.

The Kind of Year 2009 Should Have Been

January: Berenger should have allowed Lutchmeenaraidoo to head the MMM. Oil prices should have come down by 25% to give our economy a breather. And our banks should have collapsed because there was a stimulus package ready to save them.

February: Board of MK should have been replaced with prudent persons while MP Dayal should have yelled for fact-finding committees over the STC and MK hedging scandals. Mansoor should have resigned from two more places and Hu should have been asked to stick around for good. Ramgoolam should have allowed his star candidate to run for office.

March: You should have ordered Mallaby's excellent book to get a good grasp on the World Bank. And you now have no excuses about not speaking up.

April: Our island should have sunk with all the terrible weather. No link was established between sporting the ancestor of havaianas and poverty-reduction. The Mauritian people should not have been kicked like that.

May: Island's international standing should not have been damaged. Government should have known better why firms die and get some hostage-negotiation training. Budget should have attracted a 1000 times more interest. We should have been spared those dead bones and external factors should have gotten their act together.

June: Work on fixing our balance of payments problems should have begun. Government should have improved the job dynamics in our economy. The King of Pop should have stayed a little longer.

Read the rest of the review.

Time For A Little Switch

For Ramgoolam. He should appoint Bheenick as Finance Minister if he wins the next general elections and Sithanen as Governor of our Central Bank. Bheenick will then pick a majority of directors on the Bank's board who know enough about the economy to give all the support Sithanen deserves. Here are four such people: Ashok Subron, Filip Fanchette, Samad Ramoly and Kee Chong Li Kwong Wing.

Of course Ramgoolam doesn't have to wait for fresh new elections to operate that switch. He can do that pretty quickly given that he's got so many ministers that are totally useless.

Ex-Governor's Memory Playing Tricks on Him

This is the impression I got on skimming through an interview of Basant Roi that was published in a newsletter earlier this week. In it the guy who was in charge of the Bank of Mauritius for a little over eight years stated that the independence of our central bank had now been thrown out of the window.

Kind of funny to come from the person who was Governor precisely when the independence of the institution he had been entrusted with was murdered during the MCB-NPF saga before being hanged in the second half of 2006 when the rupee was allowed to freefall despite the record FDI.

And the hansard contains interesting replies that will kind of support the view that when it comes to degrading our institutions Berenger has no match. Except maybe Sithanen.

Today of course is a great day to read a few pages of The Great Crash for at least an extra reason: John Kenneth Galbraith would have turned 100.