The commenters have gotten bold and demanded an update on my life. Who knew I was so interesting? lol let's get started. On Thursday I apparently left a large window open in my apartment and when I came home from work there was ash everywhere. I looked outside to see if I could identify the fire but there was none, it was a bit puzzling. After sweeping and vacuuming I closed up all the windows and left for work on Friday and yet still ash(a lot less this time) found its way back into my place by the time I reached home. The Friday night news cleared it all up, there was a large bush fire in Jacks Hill that I was totally oblivious to. Yup it is fire season once again for the hills of St. Andrew, every year around this time Jacks hill and its surroundings blaze up.
I didn't walk with my camera today but if I did you would have seen this same hill naked with a layer of black. These pictures were actually taken back in '07 after hurricane Dean I think, if you look closely you can see the twigs(or trees) on the hill are all broken, well now they are burnt off. I am amazed by the size of the fire and how it completely missed me, normally when there are fires in the hills I can spot them at night but over the past couple of days most of this hill went and I didn't have a clue.
The pictures above were actually taken from my (only) favorite and most hated walking(or climbing) hill. It is soooo steep but us Kingstonians seem to love to park our cars at the bottom and make the 20-30 minute walk up. I have it in my to do list to walk with my new camera to get better pics of the trek up.
Boring eh? on to other topics.. how are y'all surviving the economic downturn, recession, depression, ...? I see a lot of other Jamaican bloggers writing about the jobs being slashed.. *sigh* I am no stranger to this, my company has been slashing since I've joined a couple years back and I am glad I have survived thus far.
The last time I checked interest rates were dropping on the world markets but some how Jamaica is busy hiking their rates, good for local investors bad for borrowers. I had the deposit for my house invested[legitimately] before they raised the interest rates and the monthly interest could cover all my expenses(rent, food,car,...) easily. I would be living on easy street now if I didn't take all that money and give to my attorney as payment for my condo and moved myself to the other side of the fence to a world of debt.
I have a theory on how the Jamaican economy reached this state. Bear with me, this isn't really my subject.
- 1. mortgage crisis causes credit lines to tighten. the movers and shakers on the world markets drop interest rates to stimulate the economies.
- 2. Jamaican investment houses make a run USD currency to pay off their investments to avoid margin calls.
- 3. The value of the Jamaican dollar drops fast due to item 2.
- 4. The BOJ tries to stem the devaluation by raising interest rates to mop up liquidity and encourage the people to keep their JMD investments. really who can turn down 20+% rates?
- 5. Borrowers get the shaft. I hear my coworkers and friends cussing about their loan payments increasing due to item 4.
Who knows whats going on? I hope I was close. Anyway my stock portfolio lol sucks. It has lost more than 1/2 its value. I have written it off for now, I am in no immediate need for the cash so I guess they can sit there and lets hope they will revalue eventually. Under my mattress is looking attractive now.
