…beef??
A very popular idiom entered the English language via a very unusual source in the 80s: a competition between the top American Burger chains!! The top dogs were McDonalds (“Home of the Big Mac”) and Burger King (“Home of the Whopper”). The new kid on the block, Wendy’s, broke into their monopoly by an ad that mocked their claims: A bunch of nice old ladies are trying out a burger, and lift the top of a giant bun to examine the exaggeratedly small beef patty. “Where’s the beef?” they complain plaintively!!
The restaurant was derisively dubbed “Home of the Big Bun”!! It hit a chord in the national consciousness! Folks understood all too well the cynicism in hyping the hype!! In the 1984 Presidential primaries, the Democratic leading candidate stopped the surge of his rival – who’d based his campaign on “new ideas” – dead in its tracks when, on national TV, he asked “Ok…Ok…but where’s the beef?!” And that’s what your Eyewitness would like to ask the various and sundry candidates duking it out in the Opposition camp to become the Top Gun!! If they feel Norton ain’t good enough to carry the PNC’s spear in the upcoming 2025 elections, they can’t be all BUN and no beef!!
Ironically, Norton himself has proven to be seriously deficient in the meat department – even though he’s been in the political arena long enough to know the PNC base can’t live on BUN alone!!
In the meantime, the PPP have been targeting the PNC base with chunks of beef on their shoulders!! No need for the question to be even RAISED with them!! The bottom line in politics is that folks are concerned about getting their needs satisfied. And while, in our ethnically-polarised politics, one of those needs is to be represented by folks looking like themselves; in real life, that’s the bun!! It’s necessary, but not sufficient!! The “beef” is to put food on the table, clothes on people’s backs, and roofs over people’s heads!! Hadn’t the Founder Leader promised to “Feed, clothe and house” the nation??
So, if the PNC are gonna replace the PPP in 2025, they gotta show they’d be able to do a better job than the PPP are doing right now!! It’s all well and good to be criticising the Government for being “biased” and all that. But calling for the army to back a coup against an “emerging apartheid regime”?? Jeez, even the fella over on Monkey Mountain’s gonna be asking whether the international community – who certified them – is gonna go along with that!! It’s not like back in the day, when the PPP cussed out the “capitalist running dogs” at the drop of a hat!!
Heck!! Right now the PPP’s outrunning them!!!
…Greenbacks??
And here your Eyewitness thought that, since every official in the land – from the President down to the office help! – weighed in when the first complaints of foreign currency shortages were raised a few months ago, that matter was now behind us!! Even the fella who should know about these things – the Bank of Guyana Governor – had assured us that the system as a whole had enough greenbacks to cover our needs. One suggestion was that the Cambios were being used to funnel foreign currency into T&T – where there’s an endemic shortage. The Cambios were told they had to report their transactions DAILY.
But here we’re being told by the former head of the GCCI that the shortage is still there – for some businesses! So has the Cambio “T&T leak” Theory been debunked?? We gotta know – and quick. Now that we’re playing in the big leagues, we gotta realise this is hardball rather than bumper ball!!
We gotta have the capital markets – or capital controls!
…checkmate??
It’s been reported that a UG academic recommended: “Guyana would be better off providing an oil block to Brazil, rather than making good on promises to India and the United Kingdom (UK)”. So, we’re to hedge our US bets with Brazil’s involvement??
