While Life & Debt is an excellent historical documentary explaining how the old IMF and World Bank operations worked at the time and did leave Jamaica in worse shape than when it began, it needs to be put in its historical perspective. The World Trade Center buildings were both still standing when that documentary was released and the world has undergone significant changes since then.Originally Posted by jsteil
Michael Manley was interviewed for the documentary and he died back in 1997. Released in April of 2001, the IMF under went restructuring with less "draconian" rules in 2005 and then again last year. I am in no way defending the IMF (frankly, they dont care about what I say anyway - grin), but facts being what they are, they have eased up a bit on their old dictatorial way of micro-managing the economy's of their loaner countries.
Since that movie was released Jamaica has gotten out of "partnership" with the IMF under the PNP and then back into "partnership" with the IMF under the JLP. When the PNP came back into the government as the ruling party, they have renegotiated the terms of the loans from the IMF, which was unthinkable back in 2001 when the movie was released.
The free trade zone rules have changed substantially as well since 2001, with the current free trade zone rules bearing little resemblance to the rules in effect 13 years ago.
Thank you for your explanation. What you said would make perfect sense if this was 2001 when the documentary was released. But the times have changed and so has those trade zone laws.
