Bruce Golding needs to find an obeah man or a group of the very best of them. The man comes to power on the back of a hurricane, gets hit with the worst recession in a generation, and last week a hostage situation at the island's tourist hub as the whole world watched.

As if that was not bad enough, he is now forced to enforce upon this nation perhaps one of the most horrific tax packages ever faced by the people of this country. Things are about to get dread because we have been having our own recession in this country for many, many years now.

The lack of leadership and, more importantly, vision, has left this country, in the face of the current economic situation, tottering like a punch-drunk boxer on the verge of being knocked out once more. One wonders if Bruce is having second thoughts about being in this job of prime minister.

You couldn't blame him really. I mean, we have had bad situations before but this one is, by far, the worst. Bauxite is gone for maybe two years, tourism is way down, and sugar and bananas - for all intents and purposes - are dead.

Mission impossible

Our other major revenue stream, remittances, is also way down. (I will never understand how a government can come to be depending on remittances.) So, being prime minister right now is tantamount to being the co-pilot on a plane where everything has stopped working at 37,000 feet and the pilot jumps out, leaving you behind to land the damned thing - Mission Impossible - ta ta ta-da ta ta.

Why do we find ourselves in this situation? One reason is that for far too long we have taken the words of our national anthem for granted. 'To our leaders/ great defender/ Grant true wisdom from above ...," says the anthem. 'Strengthen us the weak to cherish/ Give us vision lest we perish/ Knowledge send us Heavenly Father/ Grant true wisdom from above ... .'

We don't even care what those words mean anymore. The only time we want to sing the anthem or even stand for it is when the Reggae Boyz, in their endless quest to get back to the World cup, play at the National Stadium. Football is also a microcosm of just how we've got it all wrong. Of all major sports in this country, the most money is spent on football and it brings us the least returns.

lacking wisdom or vision

I digress. Most people don't even know the anthem has two verses. We have stopped living like people who really believe in what the words of the national anthem mean.

We are not about being a wise people or a people who care about each other. Our leaders lack wisdom or vision and our people get dumber by the minute. We suppress and frustrate people with ideas, so now most of them are ending up living in Canada. There are so many Jamaicans living there they might soon rename it 'Jamada'.

Jamaica's economy should have been diversified years ago. Disneyland could have been in Port Royal and several other multi-billion dollar earning industries could have been here had it not been for our corrupt leaders who lacked vision except for what could be done to line their own pockets. That kind of thinking has eventually filtered its way down to the masses, which is why Cash Plus and Olint and all those other schemes flourished - the fools were being parted from their money.

Now its time to pay the piper and we have no money. You know what? Dog nyam we supper because when you come to think of it, it's not Bruce alone that salt, it's all of us.