UTC International Suite of funds

UTC has launched their international suite of funds.
They are targeting mass, small investors with a minimum of US$100.

Since they are the only ones with Latin American exposure I thought I would try a little diversification. See if the $20 climbs to $25 in a year. It could also decrease to $15 if their international partner does badly.

Never gamble more than you can afford to lose.

Anyway I called and they confirmed they will change the money into US for me, but no longer open on Saturday. So I went down to Independence Square.

The place was so packed it was unbelievable. Then the person four ahead of me said that they had been waiting an hour.

Now GAM called me back and arranged on a Saturday appointment for me to come and sign up all the forms.

Even SavInvest (Bourse Securities) made opening the account quick and painless.

I really must withdraw my money and leave UTC for the plebs.

Guardian has the highest rate anyway at 7% on TT

Bourse, CMMB and GAM will meet US at 6%.

CMMB's way of calculation make them technically the highest yield.

UTC is d worse

The Oh die moment

There is usually a certain degree of banter expected of any good Trini.

And I usually give as good as I get.

Unfortunately, I didn't realise that the picong had gone too far until the other person walked out.

So much for Holiday cheer.

No Paolo No

This week on Skews, Paolo asked if we are willing to give up civil liberties for security.

My answer is No Paolo No.

Even as the helicopters hover overhead.

I am cynical, but as you said yourself Paolo, who else can organise "crime" on this scale. Then come with a simple solution

"They offered such a simple deal; give up control and we will restore order."

V for Vendetta

No one else has more to gain to create a situation that will give them the excuse to grant unlimited power.

I for one believe the rumours

Five Gifts I wish I could give

1. A book or list of entries by Guyana Gyal (willing to pay up to US$30 - same as TGIF by BC Pires, must have I wanna be a red suv)
2. A gift basket from Munerah's
   (I did try to get this but they didn't have any, They are better than Earthscents)
3. A photo coffee table book compiled by Bookmann (around US$30)
4. A discount card for a Movie Towne. (Will pay up to TT$125)
5. A water detection device
   (I know three people who got flooded this year, not available in TT as yet)

Education is about learning to think for yourself

I have finally reached Lexicon's sale.

There where many books, down to $1 that's TT.

An so the Manning administration has snuffed the life out of yet another thriving private enterprise.

In a country where 30% of the population is functionally illiterate. It is difficult to sustain a book business on pleasure readers alone.

So for Lexicon had the distributor rights for Longman international and their textbook range.

Then they introduced the textbook scheme to provide free textbooks to all school children both public and private.

On the face of this it may seem a good thing. The government is providing for its people. But they also standardised the textbooks to be used.

So teachers and schools are not allowed to choose their own textbooks.
You have to use what the government gives you.

So we have one sanctioned textbook, by an author who writes what they want children to be told, printed and published by their own private contractors.

And now that the businesses that provided an alternative learning and teaching resources, where will we go.

I applaud all those mothers who have decided to forego income and set up our own home schooling network.

Updates

Firstly congratulations to the Venezuelans.
You've got guts.

Secondly I watched RENT again over the weekend.
And the WYP people are just stupid.

Getting an HIV test does not tell me anything I do not already know.

One day I will die.

I may get sick or maybe it may explain why I get sick so often.

But it's really hard looking in the mirror and having no one else to hate for your disease but what you see.

And it's really hard to cope with your body betraying you in little ways.

So I don't want to know.

I have had a good life. If I make it to 40, it will surpass my wildest dreams.

Still what I really need is critical care tied to a pension fund and nobody offers such a plan, not for HIV.

Heck they won't even let me get life insurance,cuz I won't take the test, so I can't buy a house, not that I could afford a house at these prices, but hey it doesn't hurt to dream.

You see that's the thing about HIV. I am the best salesperson, or researcher. I mean I manage twenty three people. It's hard and I've had my bruises. But once you know and someone else finds out that this is fact. They don't see all that. They just see the disease.

525,600 minutes! 525,000 journeys to plan. 525,600 minutes -
how can you measure the life of a woman or man?

In truths that she learned, or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned, or the way that she died.

Season's of love, RENT.

That's all HIV is a way you die.

Let's talk about the way we live.

Thought on Lumumba

Africans deserve to develop a natural resistance to AIDS that is not effective on White people strains

Guardian BRIC Fund

14.6% in 3 months.

Unrealised capital gain, but never the less I am quite pleased at that.

He may stay despite Trinidad Jurisdiction.

Cabybara Consultants

are tiring.

My pension plan

Seeing as I don't have confidence in this Maniac de la PNM I need a vehicle to move my money out of this doomed economy and attempt to preserve some wealth.

Anyone who thinks the UTC and it's Energy fund is anything but a mechanism for Maniac to get more of your money to do tief, is deluded.

So how do you do it.

Simple decided how much you are willing to risk in this crap currency- my personal limit is three times my monthly income and nada mas.

The rest I will be syphoning off to a foreign currency denominated but locally domiciled product. In my case SavInvest US Income and Bourse Euro Money Market. These are the two highest yielding products for instant access on the market at present. at 5.75 and 3.7 respectively.

From there on accumulation of the minimum to deposit lumpsums into my offshore pension fund (Skandia), hopefully every six months.

And that will be my pension fund.

Not one of the crappy annuity products offered by Tatil, Guardian, Clico & co denominated in TT Dollars which will lose value as I breathe.

David Attenbough is loony

I just watch Climate Change on BBC.

Yeah right, in a country that is numero cinco on the list of CO emission per capita I think not.

May as well drive my car and waste all I want.

I have cheap gas for at least the next year, too bad I can't drink petrol. Cheapest food.... Actually that might be an idea.

Policia Nos Matan

I really did intend Policia Nos Matan as a joke. No really, whatever my grouses with the still current administration, in the time honoured Trini style of picong, I set up Policia Nos Matan.

The sad thing is the police have killed two people in the three days I started the lista de asesinados.

Now I have heard the rumours just like everyone else that the police are also responsible for the kidnapping. Indeed I remember it being confirmed somewhere that people are in fact being kidnapped in police cars, never to be heard of again.

That is the difference between a secuestro y un desaparecido, a desaparecido is when the government makes you disappear.

I am reading Imagining Argentina, I fail to comprehend how an entire society can decide to become blind "Debe ser por algo", even as I am witnessing it with my own eyes.

It's not just Cabybara that cross the Gulf.

Memoria

I got the idea from watching the videos from Argentina memoria on my other blog .

That and Mango and Mosquito dubbing the PNM - Pretty Nasty Members.

I have a better one Policia Nos Matan . It means Police are killing us.

Strangely enough I did not think that on the first day that I would be able to link to a news article for which the statement is true.

I think about the $4 Billion in the military budget for 2007.

Yo nací aquí y aquí voy a morir

Las resultas

Ahora me necesito escribir en español por que en español me necesito pensar sin emotivo.

Las resultas no me suprime en realidad. Una encendida de espera he muerdo.

Veinte Diez nos llegáramos!

Malaysian Scholarship for Trinidadians

Deadline is 31 Dec 2007.

http://www.mohe.gov.my/biasiswa_antarabangsa.php

He he he

http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/trinidad_must_be_stopped/

I see someone noticed where we are.

And no smelters as yet.

Patricks present to our childen

'

Tear Gas you Citizens

As I watch students in Caracas, I think of Barrackpore and Fyzabad last October

A woman ran out of her home after inhaling tear gas, youths were beaten and threatened at gunpoint, piles of burning debris blocked roadways and traffic piled up for miles in Fyzabad, yesterday, when residents staged a fiery protest over road conditions, but were tear-gassed by riot squad police officers.

I take courage from the Venezuelans, what will we face in order to protest constitutional reform?

From across the Gulf

And yet, the government seems to like this awkward situation where it finds itself with a country paralyzed with fear. No serious politics to face delinquency and the most incredible theories to justify the killings we see everyday.

This is a quote from The End of Venezuela as I know it.

Similarly this blog could be titled The End of Trinidad as I know it.

Twin destinies fourteen miles apart.

So now David St Clair, COP Candidate for Laventille West,

- Knows who attacked him but will not talk for fear of death threats
- Was beaten up over a non-paid gambling death

Or the official story has suffered brain damage due to the severity of the beaten.

Anyone who deludes themselves that this act of violence was not politically motivated is ... well deluded.

Like Julia 1984, people in Trinidad have been constructing some far fetched rumours about the reasons for the violence we are seeing.

Even tonight, I was asked "Do you really think that any government would really want the type of violence we have now?"

My answer is yes. Patrick Manning and Hugo Chavez are BOTH want their countries paralysed with fear.

Yet both have their supporters.

The truth is also that civil wars are rarely declared.

And there are never any winners.

I suppose I must

I have been feeling rather apathetic about the upcoming elections and am half a mind to divorce myself from the process entirely, ie not vote.

But today's headline has changed my mind.

Although Democracy is undoubtedly a very flawed process, this will be the last ditch attempt to divert our course from going further into the dark chasm of state sponsored violence.

And just like on that Thursday morning in January, I am wonder how much more Trinis will take before we take to the streets to ask where are have all these people gone.

FDAT Rally

The fact that an FDAT rally exists really typifies the Trini psyche.

A rally for a non-existent political party.

Ah still going to see.

Trini's annoy me

More specifically Trini Bloggers annoy me.

They are not making the link between what happens here and happens with our neighbours.

Venezuela - Is it a coincidence that on a per capita basis we have matched the escalation of homicides?.

Barbados - Increased militarism

Anguilla - Foreign immigrants and dubiously awarded government contracts

And these are just a few...

I see it as essentially we are pawns in a much bigger game.
Our piece (ie pawn) will not change irrespective of who forms the next government.

Would any government turn down the PSIP funds offered by the IDB?

Is it the IDB's fault that the PSIP structure has been used as a vehicle to facilitate corruption?

Well if I was a Bank I wouldn't lend more money to someone with this type of performance (See Table 16).

But let me digress. Everytime I go searching for supports on the IDB website I keep getting the Citizen Security Programme - This actually freaks me out more.

I remember standing on the pier by the Bocas in Argentina and a nice Argentinian telling me about how people used to get thrown out of helicopters during the dirty war.

The August Budget allocated the highest every spending to the Military under National Security TT$4.4 billion. It tops, Health and Work and Transport (page 44).

A wise friend (Guatemalan) told me, when I used to be gun ho for a state of emergency; Have you ever considered that they (TTDF in this case) might like those powers? May be creating a situation to warrant getting the power to act with impunity (legally) and may not give them back.

Chavez is a general, trained and breed military man.

Hablaremos español pronto!

Unreasonable Expectations

My response to Jumbie's gripes

* A slow march in implementing technology, moving ahead only when forced to.

Nothing is wrong with slow. Actually I think slow is better. Despite what "technology" can do, computers only spit out what is put into them. Humans have life stages. Can you make an eight year old into an adult in two years with special training?
No, we need the gift of time.


* A recalcitrant approach to innovation, especially in the various arms of the public service.

We will never have the resources to fund true innovation, as such we will continue to adopt.

The question we must ask ourselves is adopt from whom?

* A lazy and impolite customer care attitude.

Whilst this is true, it is also part of Trini culture to engage in banter. Did you never end up spending an entire afternoon ole talking at the shop, when you just went for a bread.

I would like to continue to live in a place where time is elastic.


* Rude and power-craven public servants (the majority, there are some who genuinely try).

Take you best novel and sit and wait or better make paper cranes for every child and put on a puppet show.

I did the latter last time I had to get my driving license renewed.

* Fellow citizens mulishly stuck in traditions and not willing to see the world as needing change.

Some people chose to live here. To return. Because we like it.

* A traffic situation on par with any in world, and regressively worse than many First World countries.

This I will give you and I walk to work and I chose jobs within walking distance of my home. Also I take taxis, even though I have a car. It will only change if we change the car culture.

I will grant living in England for five years for having changed me in this respect.

* Crime and kidnapping higher than the majority of countries in the world.

Concede Trinidad is part of Latin America. And note the direct correlation with escalation of violence in Venezuela. Will not comment further.

* Police considerably more stupid than most in the world.

The possibility is more sinister, that they are one in the same and a state of emergency is what they want- extraordinary powers which they will never give back.

We need to teach more Latin American history.

* A legal fraternity more concerned with obtaining fat contracts and briefs than to protect the society.

Most lawyers are not in the protect society business. This is not a reasonable expectation.

* A medical fraternity concerned with milking the meagre pockets of the population by ransoming healthcare.

I think this is unfair.

* A dwindling supply of intellectuals and increasing supply of intellectually challenged.

You must chose to live here. It is an individual choice.

* A parasitic oligarchy intent on self preservation.

Name me a country without this.

No more spanish

Well not at the Venezuelan Embassy at any rate.

You see I simply cannot in good conscience write anything that supports the closure of RCTV in Venezuela. I'm not overly pro integration with Latin America area ie MECROSUR and all that.

I do not want to live in Latin America.

I think the whole RCTV thing especially irks me because of what they did to Inshan Ismael and Sidewalk radio.

The current government blocked then seized sidewalk radio because they spoke out against the government initiative to build an aluminium smelter.

I do not want to live in the buffer zone for an aluminium smelter.

Trinidad is only 100km long and wide.

They used the American Anti-terrorism Law which was passed unconstitutionally with a simple majority to detain Inshan Ismael and shut down his TV programme, because he exposed the poor construction and corruption in government contracts. Government contracts which were financed by an IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) to the tune of $300 Million US dollars.

Meanwhile Gladiator - a very racist, offensive pro-government radio host is allowed to incite racially based retribution every day.

"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it"

Nation State Party Government

Being a State does not mean we are a Nation.

Being a public servant does not mean you are supporter of the incumbent Political Party.

I don't feel as though Trinidad is a Nation.

Moreover I do not think most Trinis know the difference.

UNC Headquarters

So today I decided to pass into headquarters to see if they happened to have any manifestos.

So the lady is like. No watch the newspapers for when they announce it nah.

Then I am like, who is the candidate for Port of Spain North and she is like, I doh know all dem candidates nah, check de papers I think they did announce it.

Now I teach at ALTA. According to ALTA's survey 33% of the population CAN NOT read the papers.

Clearly the UNC has not a clue about customer service.

Surely you would give the receptionist in your HEAD OFFICE a list of candidates.

Dese people so busy looking ahead they cannot see what is at their feet and will not pick up the SH$^&@ the DOG left.

Soldiers of Salamis

I bought Soldiers of Salamis in RIK for $19.95. I thought the book was OK, but not great. Actually I was surprised they made a movie out of it.

One of the strange things is that in the movie the protagonist changes gender from male to female, but the movie works quite nicely.

The journalist goes after the story of Sanchez Mazas, one of the PR writers for Franco. But in the end s/he comes to the conclusion that the really story is all the dead young men and women who have not been recorded in history.

Vista

I really really hate Windows.

My Choices

are (Port of Spain North/St Ann's West)

Gary Hunte

Daniel Solomon - No hits on google

Not much of a choice.

I want LGAP

Legalise

Ganga

Abortion

Prostitution

I am scared - and I really really don't want to live in Latin America.

This scares me

But I am even more afraid that there does not seem to be anyone in Trinidad, who is willing to do the type of investigative reporting and public disclosure that Barbados Free Press is doing.

We have the same water woes. The lack of information.
No one wants to say what the reservoir levels are given that there have been six weeks of no rain in the East.

We have the same dodgy companies springing out of no where.

But there is no Avatar here.

Farmers Direct

I wish someone would help farmers link directly with consumers.

$2.50 for a litre of milk from Nestle, then resold for $12.

What a crock.

On voting day

I will remember Inshan Ishmael getting arrested under the Terror Act.

I will remember Sharaz Mohammed being murdered.

I will remember Ellis Clarke saying that these are all the powers that the President of Chile.

I will not allow Manning to become Pinochet.

Guy Fawkes Day

Elections have been scheduled for November 5.

I do not mind saying, I voted for Elizabeth Solomon in the last election.

I voted for her because she has been working for years to try to get abortion legalised in Trinidad.

I would vote for her again.

Things I want.

1. A water management project that involves the community.
Do not bring people from outside to clear our drains, it is our responsibility to clear our drains.

It is the government's job to replace and maintain the water pipes, that will ensure that one day I may have hope that I may stop having to drink shit before I die from it.

2. I want less military spending.
I do not want 4Billion spent on guns for the next fiscal.
This is how you are going to finance the water project.

3. I want an immigration crack down.
Not just the colombian prostitutes, I want my sengalese security guard, chinese construction workers all out of MY country.

4. I want abortion legalised.

5. I want the school meals programme to only serve local fruits.
Thus creating demand for local fruits ie sugar apple, mama sepo, pewah.
Making sure that our culinary heritage does not die.

Trini's not smart

So in the wonderful budget, the allowance for contributions to an annuity (Individual pension plan) were increase to $25,000 for tax deduction benefits.

So I decided to take a look around.

All the insurance companies are front end charging.
i.e. on average they are taking 40% of contributions made in the first year.

So what does this mean. Well if you were thinking of taking out a new annuity in order to take advantage of the increase tax deduction like me, it is worth your while to start from now and only take the $12000 for the first year still, collect your tax return for 2007. Then increase your contribution to $25000 in October 2008 so that you will only pay 25% in charges.

As it is it is pretty disgusting that in the first instance you are actually paying the insurance companies more than the tax benefit in the first year.

Also the returns are not that great. You can get better returns on some of the mutual funds being offered.

A Winter's Tale

I saw A Winter's Tale at the premier in Trinidad on Sunday.
It is absolutely fantastic. I was lost for words at the end.

All kudos to Frances Anne Solomon for lugging her baby all the way down.

Kudos also to Bruce Paddington for organising the whole festival.

Come on Trinis come out and support the people who give we voices

Antagonising the contender

I posted this on the wall of COP's facebook group for a laugh.

I haven't actually decided if I am going to vote COP as yet.

I have a few questions. I trust they will get passed on.

How exactly is COP going to get the PNMite public servants to implement these grand plans of theirs?

This is going to go the way of the NAR.

ie PNM public servants will not give change a chance, because they do not want change.
COP will be left toothless and if we have a repeat of the Prevatt scandal - Valley will take the Heritage Fund with him.

W D will end up like ANR with a gun to his head and his knee caps blown out.
But the perpetrator will not be Abu Bakr. It will be someone from the TTDF.
Who will have gone to one of those military academies either School of Americas or Sandhurst.
He will be backed by either USA or Chavez.

Now I am actually willing to vote COP.
But I want WD to say that he is willing to become a cripple. ie. he knows this is a possibility.

I will not condemn a naive man.

Running...........

"If you leave for a better life, you will have to fight for that life where ever you arrive. You need to fight the life you want, you can only choose your battleground."

I have tried life in the north. I don't really care for it.
Trinidad has lots of problems.
A third of our population is illiterate. When I used to work at the Ministry of Education we had a big celebration when we achieved a pass rate in Maths of 43%. It was the highest in a decade!
Our water supply is erratic and gets contaminated with the sewage run off.

But everyday I get to see the hills and the sea. I get to speak in our comic bantering language, a dialect of English, and I get to eat food I love.

So problems aside, I will stay in my dinky little third world country with the civil unrest and bad water.

Things I love about living in Trinidad

I love the way Trinis talk.

Trinis does speak with dey hands, dey feet, every bit of dey body.

I love we green, green hills and de sea.

I does laugh at the bad service and inefficiency.

I prefer it to the cold northern skies.

I feel alive as I smell the rotting garbage in the streets, I get my exercise trying to dodge de canal water.

I remember in dem cold winters missing de cat calls of a real trini man.

It is here I want to be

Ignorance

"Ask no questions
Be told no lies"

I'll never forget the first time I actually got told that from a supervisor at work.
It was indirectly related to the article that comes up when you google " Trinidad water failure to thrive".

The other study also says that "... degree of contamination of drinking water in households poses a health hazard to consumers."

And still some insist our first priority is to put computers into primary schools.

Computers get stolen and the children are still drinking shit.

Independence Day

I hate to say this but I don't think we really want independence.
As a people I mean. With real independence would come responsibility.
And nobody really wants to take responsibility. We want to be taken care of like children.

The COP radio add is annoying me... "Moving on .....Never look back."

The truth is

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
And we already have serious memory problems.

What I want is a day to stop and mourn, mourn for the ten thousand dead and the four years decrease in life expectancy during the PNM administration since 2002.

I suppose I should be grateful I now only have to endure 67 years of misery rather than 71.

COP on Education

Education

There will be trained Guidance Counsellors in every school within the first year of office.

The Teaching Service Commission will be comprehensively reviewed with a view to increasing its composition and capacity. This will speed up the processing of applications for Teaching positions, speed up the appointments and transfers of Teachers and Principals and ensure the backlog of vacancies of Teachers and Administrators for both primary and secondary are addressed completely, in the shortest possible time.

For schools which have not yet been de-shifted and converted, the process will have a timeframe and a site selection process for the construction of new schools will take into consideration the location of all the new housing settlements.

We will revisit those schools which have been de-shifted or converted by announcement to ensure no continuance of the second class status they have inherited.

Character Education will include all forms of value-based, religious and cultural instruction, experiences and activities that contribute to the development of individual character and will be given a higher level of importance in the school curriculum.

We will revisit Teacher preparation programmes to ensure that appropriate modules of character education are included to allow fuller professional development of our Teachers.

PNM has already gotten money from the IADB for this. It was included in the SEMP and what have we gotten for US$150Million.

Public Debt was explained to me as borrowing from the future. Your children's future.

My suggestion is rather than studying all that is wrong, I'm not disputing there is a lot of %&* in the system. How about studying what is right. And I am not talking about that inane propaganda with St. Andrews. Those kids have access to a sanitary, reliable water supply and parents who can read.

Lets start off with the best fifteen (roughly 10%) schools you can find, go to the principals and give them whatever they want to take on another school.

The first year they train their successor.

The second year they move and identify a second.

Third year they stay, to embed the changes they have made.

Fourth year they move on again.

Yes, that's right I am only advocating trying to embed change in fifteen schools in a five year term. Fifteen schools are around 10,000 students per year.

But by slowing down and allowing for that omnipotent factor called time you might just manage to institutionalise change just enough to create a legacy.

- I am but a dwarf, if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants

Lanuguage

I have actually started reading Dogeaters, whilst I agree with James Marlon

The novel is a virtual traffic jam of languages, something that citizens of any Diaspora cannot help. For years we were taught this was a weakness, but Hagedorn convinced me that this was strength.

I have to say it has been pretty hard going since unlike Sapodilla, Tagalog is not a dialect I share.
and there is no reference in the book.

Shall have to stop by NALIS and pick up one of the six copies of Teach yourself Tagalog.

And here I thought they were a waste of money.

4 Dogeaters

Whilst vie ke vie I may be, Dogeaters seems to be a better address to me.

I haven't managed to put my hands on a copy of Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn as yet.
Am going to have to get it flown in special.

But James Marlon comment reflects what blogging and bloggers have done for me, that is by reading about other people's crappy lives, I know that the grass on that bigger island in the middle of the pacific ocean is exactly the same texture of green as de one in de Queen's Park Savannah.

It might have a little different colour, shade etc but iz still grass and if you leave for a better life.
.... And I have seriously considered leaving.

You will have to fight for that life wherever you go.

So I chose to stay and fight here.