The  domino theory emerged out of Cold War foreign policy in the 1950s, and centres on the speculation that if the U.S. allowed one country in a region to fall under Communist influence, neighbouring states could also follow suit, falling like a row of dominos standing upright.

Today, right here in Barbados, we are see an economic version of the domino theory play out in dramatic fashion, due to the general rise in oil prices worldwide. But those increases came home with a bang a few weeks ago when Prime Minister David Thompson said the government could no longer support the subsidising of diesel fuel, and almost doubled the retail price overnight.

The main reason given, if I remember correctly, was that the whole point of the original subsidy had been to help farmers who had bought diesel-powered trucks to transport themselves around the farm, but this had been perverted by regular people, non-farmers, who were buying luxury-lined trucks and taking advantage of the cheaper fuel price at government’s expense.

All of a sudden, all hell broke loose.

I had no idea, for example, that it takes diesel to catch a fish, but the fishermen put up the price. Also, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out that it takes diesel to bake bread. But Purity Bakeries put up the price, saying it “faced substantial price increases in its inputs, most notably a 30 percent rise in the price of baker’s flour,  followed a few days later by a 76 percent hike in the price of diesel, which is used for the company’s ovens and in fuelling its fleet of delivery vehicles.”

And who would have guessed in a million years that it takes diesel to brew beer? Well, what will they think of next? Banks Holdings said the diesel hikes will cost the group over four million dollars a year, so up go the milk prices and soon the beer and maybe the soft drinks and juices too. In their report accompanying the half-year financials published April 27, Chairman Sir Allan Fields and CEO Richard Cozier noted that that the fuel price hikes “cannot be absorbed and must be passed on through price increases,” and warned that the second half of the financial year, which began on March 1, would present “serious challenges to local operations”.

Then of course there’s the chicken price, which went up despite some law about giblets, which apparently refer to the “liver, heart, gizzard and neck of a chicken,” according to my computer dictionary, and yet another thing I never knew. Not to mention the fact that that business and all other non-residential electricity customers of the Barbados Light & Power will see a 16% rise in their bills this month as a result of the recent soaring of the price of oil to new heights. And the minute the government says it can no longer subsidise residential electricity rates, they will go up by 28%, according to the BL&P.  The reason is that residential customers are still paying 23.5 cents per kilowatt hour under the company’s “fuel adjustment clause”, which has been frozen at that level since December with government paying the difference to the power company, while non-residential customers are going to see their “clause” rate jump to 36 cents this month, up by 7.5 cents since April.

How much more can we take?

Now, you see, I blame Owen Arthur for all of this. If the former prime minister had not accused the then opposition leader of doing a deal with the Taiwanese during the election campaign, the new PM would not have found it necessary to accept China’s invitation to make a state visit so early in his administration, with an economic tsunami threatening to engulf Barbados. He clearly felt he needed to prove Mr. Arthur wrong by going and visiting the said country with which he was supposed to have been planing to sever diplomatic ties, when he should have been here delivering his first Budget speech in which he would no doubt give urgent relief to the masses, by announcing all sorts of measures to stem the skyrocketing cost of living.

As each day goes by and each new price hike follows yesterday’s, the new government is beginning to resemble King Canute standing on that shore telling the tide to not come in. Let’s hope there aren’t too many more state visits to far-flung countries to be accomplished first, otherwise we might soon be crying to the captain that the ship is sinking.

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Kudos to ‘Lowdown’
Richard “Lowdown” Hoad last week used his natural wit to dismiss one of the most ridiculous public challenges to date emanating from the tents of the Williams Bros. Three-Ring Circus (you know, the show where either Bizzy or Sir Charles say silly things and the crowds oohs and aahs). If I remember it right, Lowdown said he could not take up Bizzy’s kind offer of land to farm in order to show how it’s done, because he would make so many millions of dollars in profits that he would not know what to do with it all.

Of course he said it much cooler than that.

Anyway, it was the perfect riposte, exquisitely aimed at just the right spot to deflate yet another self-serving trial balloon from the clan that thinks it can do no wrong.  We are all immensely grateful to Sir Charles and Bizzy for gracing us with their presence and running a variety of companies which employ lots of people, but they just can’t seem to take any criticism. It must all be accolades. They seem incapable of accepting that they too can get it wrong sometimes or make mistakes, or at least not perform as well as someone else might in a similar situation.  When anyone, including a minister of agriculture or a columnist, dares to lob even the  slightest less than cow-towing comment over the net, the response is always, “Yeah, so you think you can do it better? Well, I challenge you to do this or that, etc.”

Hey, calm down, Williams Bros. You are rich, successful, beloved, you do do it better than most, and you are also not immune from criticism. Even if the critic might never be as successful as you have been.

Following the Williams Bros. standard, I could not criticise a movie unless I could personally direct it better than it was, or act out the lead role better than the star. I could never criticise a Beatles song for being stupid or inane because I am not a songwriter and they are among the best that ever lived. I could never criticise Owen Arthur because I will never, ever be an economist, far less one of such eminence as he has been throughout his career.  I could never attack the Central Bank of Barbados either, because I certainly do not have the qualifications of even their least certified person.

Wait a minute. Somebody must want to put me out of work.