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SmartNote: FINSAC - Jamaica's Economic Earthquake
SmartNote: FINSAC - Jamaica's Economic Earthquake
SmartNote: FINSAC - Jamaica's Economic Earthquake
The economic implication of the failure of Jamaica’s financial sector was mitigated through the formation of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC). However, FINSAC wasn’t a simple bailout. It was the end result and encapsulation of systemic failure involving:
- Unsustainable interest rates
- Weak regulatory oversight
- Excessive loan exposure
- Institutional fragility
- Dangerous financial engineering practices
- Contagion effects through the banking system
Estimates place the intervention at up to 40% of GDP — a scale comparable to a once-in-a-century natural disaster. Yet FINSAC cost more than most hurricanes we have ever experienced.
In contrast, Hurricane Melissa, while not a man-made disaster like FINSAC, poses a risk of becoming its own form of national debt burden if we proceed without awareness. This highlights the importance of drawing on our FINSAC civic memory in navigating natural disasters.
SmartNote: Why FINSAC Matters Post-Melissa
SmartNote: FINSAC - Jamaica's Economic Earthquake
SmartNote: FINSAC - Jamaica's Economic Earthquake
- "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots." - Marcus Garvey
Hurricane Melissa presents a new kind of shock — physical, infrastructural, and human. But whether we are "like a tree without roots" depends on how we utilize our civic memory to apply the lessons of Jamaica's economic history to our current disaster.
The economic shock waiting on the other side of Melissa is real:
- Insurance losses
- non-performing loans (NPL)
- fiscal debt
- liquidity stressors, and
- foreign exchange pressure.
If we do not learn from the repository of our civic memory, including insights from FINSAC analysis, we risk repeating:
- Policy mistakes
- Oversight gaps
- Silent institutional failures
- Fragmented decision-making
Why Analysis of FINSAC Matters Today
Jamaica has always understood natural disasters. We have protocols, cultural memory, and shared stories for every storm - Gilbert, Beryl, and now Melissa.
But when it comes to financial disasters, we tend to bury them. FINSAC was not merely a weather event; it was an economic hurricane that devastated families, businesses, homes, and trust itself. Yet, we have almost no civic memory of it, no shared story, and no national lesson. This article is the first in a series aimed at changing that.
Through FINSAC analysis, AI-assisted research, government archives, and insights into Jamaica's economic history, we can uncover what FINSAC really cost us — and why this silence poses a danger today, especially in the aftermath of Melissa.
FINSAC Jamaica Civic Memory GPT
Scan the QR code to open the GPT (Requires a ChatGPT login.)