Mr Imbert's mid-year budget presentation suffered from not having enough empathy for the adjustment it will impose on the population and from not pointing to scenarios that would signal an end to the need for adjustment.
On the issue of empathy, this column agrees with the last Sunday Guardian editorial that "if fault can be found with Mr Imbert, it is that he used too much pepper and not enough channa in his presentation. In other words, having taken so much from the population in the form of higher taxes, he should have offered the people a dinner mint–some small token, a morsel of relief, a sliver of improved benefits or even some crumbs of empathy."
That editorial also used the metaphor of dry season/wet season and Carnival/Lent to suggest to the Minister of Finance that there is going to be an end to this period of absolutely necessary adjustment in the standard of living of T&T.
Put another way, the country is not going to suffer through a seven or 20-year period of higher taxes, reduced government spending and the resulting reduction in living standards.
According to the editorial: "He (Mr Imbert) must know that it is in the nature of modern global capitalism that lower commodity prices lead to lower production, which will lead to higher prices at some point. He must know that today's incentives will lead to higher production of oil and gas in the future and that this period of energy tax drought ends in September 2017."
I don't subscribe to the view that the US production of shale oil and gas has changed the global energy matrix forever and that the world is in for a protracted period of low energy prices.
It is far more likely, in my view, that US production of shale oil and gas will deconstruct because of the pressure from Saudi Arabia in maintaining high OPEC production and that that deconstruction will take out some of the large money-centre banks that are holding the paper of, or have extended direct loans to, US shale producers. The impairment of US shale producers' bonds will contribute to, if not cause, the next global financial crisis.
The way this column sees the future is that it is most likely that T&T will need to undergo a period of adjustment of between 18 months and two years.
This means that sometime between October 2017 and April 2018, the "unprecedented three-canal" (to quote the editorial's locally descriptive language) of lower oil and gas prices, lower oil and gas production, and the enhanced capital incentives to the energy sector that have debilitated this year's energy revenues would have ended.
Oil and gas prices are likely to be higher because of the shake-out in US shale mentioned previously. T&T's oil and gas production will increase because of the impact of the incentives to the energy companies and those incentives have a grandfather clause that previous finance minister Larry Howai insisted on, I am told.
This is not to imply, infer or suggest that T&T's policymakers should be giving the country false hope of some new dawn of an energy revival.
But, clearly, the country's future is neither Lent nor dry season.
What the Minister of Finance should be doing now is ensuring that the country does not allow this period of economic downturn to go to waste by not ensuring that all of the bad habits that were inculcated during the long period of plenty are abolished and that there is a fundamental change in the population's mindset.
In other words, Mr Imbert needs to eliminate the sense of entitlement that many T&T nationals have to subsidised gas, subsidised electricity, subsidised water, subsidised housing, subsidised tertiary education and the other subsidies too numerous to mention.
He needs to drive through his reform agenda, with empathy, but with a clear eye to the future by convincing the private sector, broadly defined, that this dry season WILL end.
If not, we are not going to have a Duprey buying a huge stake in Republic Bank and investing in methanol or an Anthony Sabga buying McEnearney. Both Duprey and Sabga–taking subtle cues from Robinson and Manning and seizing on once-in-a-lifetime buying opportunities–were convinced that the reforms of the period 1987 to 1993 would have led to rainy season.
And if the private sector, broadly defined, is not given some hope that an end is in sight to this period of economic adjustment, they are going to continue hoarding US dollars, looking to update their American and Canadian visas and making plans for life outside of T&T.
In my view, it is not "only uncertainty about the exchange rate that is fuelling demand and giving rise to speculation and some degree of hoarding," as Mr Imbert put it on Friday.
What's also giving rise to the foreign exchange hoarding is the lack of positive cues on the country's future as well as the unavailability of foreign exchange in the commercial banks to meet foreign commitments as and when they come due.
If you love Cheddar cheese and you know it is going to be in short supply, the natural instinct of a human being is to go out and buy up as much of the cheese as possible. And it is as simple as if the demand for cheese far outstrips the supply of cheese, you would expect the price of the commodity to be adjusted upwards.
Most of the smart people in T&T–those who read the Business Guardian of course–are also aware of the relationship between sharply lower oil and gas prices and production and the reduction in foreign exchange inflows.
And they are aware that many energy producers in the last 18 months have opted to make adjustments to their exchange rates instead of rationing foreign exchange or seeking to limit demand by imposing higher taxes.
In fact, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)–which invited over a dozen journalists, including me, to spend a week in Washington DC covering their spring meetings–dedicated an entire chapter in its April 2016 World Economic Outlook to the issue of "Understanding the slowdown in capital flows to the emerging markets."
In that chapter, the IMF makes the point: "Flexible exchange rates cushion the required amount of adjustment in capital flows. The main reason is that an immediate currency depreciation following an adverse shock raises the cost of selling domestic assets and purchasing foreign currencies.
"Put another way, immediate depreciations following negative shocks help hold capital in, while fears of future depreciations can drive capital out." In a footnote, the IMF also points out that immediate appreciations in response to positive shocks deter inflows as domestic assets become more expensive.
Mr Imbert hopes that bringing certainty to T&T's exchange rate, by limiting its depreciation to $6.83 to US$1, will ensure that "persons who are holding foreign exchange in overseas accounts feel comfortable enough to repatriate their foreign exchange."
This is not reflective of the vast experience and long history of the IMF in dealing with exchange rate regimes.
The fact that T&T has a large stock of foreign reserves and very low foreign currency debt, of course, makes the comparison between the impact of currency depreciation here quite different to the impact in Jamaica, Guyana and even Barbados.
In conclusion, I would argue that communicating realistic hope in an economic recovery and doing so with a measure of empathy for the population's adjustment are both crucial, as those of us above a certain age have first-hand memories of the reasons why the NAR dream unravelled in July 1990.
I do hope Mr Imbert is not repeating the mistakes that Mr Robinson made.