When I came back to Jamaica from school in Canada in 1989, the $JA:US rate was 5.75. By 1994 it was over 33, a 583% increase in 5 years. It is now 141, meaning a 2,452% increase over 30 years. Given this historical context, the five to ten percent fluctuations of recent years are hardly worth panicking about.

In most cases, the problem is not that governments are weak; it is that they are complicit, deliberately supporting criminal groups for the sake of both power and enrichment. In Bangladesh, Jamaica, and Nigeria, for example, political parties hire criminal gangs to herd their voters to the polls during elections and scare away the opposition, then protect the gangs between campaigns. — www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2019-04-16/real-killer

Dear Sirs  

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls.  Who steals my purse steals trash...  But he that filches from me my good name , Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.

Jamaica’s homicide numbers are horrifying. World’s second most murderous country in 2017. Earth’s highest violent death rate for women. Almost ten times as murderous as the world average. 20,642 murders in the 15 years 2014-2018, a rate of 51 per 100,000. Probably no country not officially at war has seen such a high sustained murder rate.

The Jamaican Dollar has recently reached its lowest ever level against its US counterpart, slipping below the $134 mark for the first time ever. Is this a cause for concern?

In 2016 Jamaica had the world’s highest violent death rate for females, and the sixth highest in total. www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/U-Reports/SAS-Report-GVD2017.pdf Our paradise island ranked overall below Syria, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Afghanistan, and above Iraq, Libya, Somalia. But we were easily number one for slaughtering women, and remain so.

Time sure flies. It's hard to believe almost 8 years have passed since our parliamentarians conspired to vote down the State of Emergency renewal and extension to St James and St Catherine requested by the security forces in July 2010. This was my opinion then.

"The police need your help. Information is probably the greatest weapon against criminals." Andrew Holness. Mr. Holness is right. And most Jamaicans genuinely want to help the police. But we cannot give the police useful information if they do not provide us with accurate information. Garbage in, garbage out.

"Let us walk hand in hand and help break down the barriers in those zones of exclusion that create havens for criminality." These inspiring words from the 2011 prime ministerial inauguration speech seem to have been forgotten by everyone, even the speaker.

Like most Jamaicans I have been very puzzled at the lack of correlation between the fluctuation of the price of oil on international markets and the price we Jamaicans pay for petrol at gas stations.