If you didn’t know better, you’d think the exchange rate of the Jamaican dollar (J$) to the US dollar (US$) was part of the navel string of many Jamaicans. Every time it depreciates, there’s a tug on the collective umbilical cord and a collective wince.

Well, it’s not connected to my navel.

I’ve no idea what the last rate quoted was as the closing rate of the J$ to the US$, but I saw 147 the other day. I only noticed because someone had written ‘another record…sigh’.

I’ve given up trying to explain that the J$ isn’t running away. But, like their visceral fear of lizards, Jamaicans seem terrified of a depreciating dollar. Not for them the calm that should come from knowing that the price has been largely bouncing around a range of about 125-140 for a long time.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/the-jamaican-dollar-isn-t-running-away_194723