Sensemaking in an online community after financial loss: Enterprising Jamaican investors and the fall of a financial messiah

Online communities are popular sites for collective sensemaking. This study explores sensemaking in one such community following the closure of Olint Corp, a highly successful Jamaican investment club. After Olint’s disbanding, Jamaicans reconnected through online communities to make sense of their financial losses, to make sense of Olint – seen variously as an altruistic endeavour, a global currency trader, or Ponzi scheme – and to make sense of themselves as enterprising investors. This narrative inquiry unveils their rich, multi-voiced, fragmented storying of Olint and its founder, once praised as a ‘financial messiah’

Taking responsibility : Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI); the Jamaican leg, business plan

The table of contents for this item can be shared with the requester. The requester may then choose one chapter, up to 10% of the item, as per the Fair Dealing provision of the Canadian Copyright ActThe mission of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) is to create the first, regional think tank in the Caribbean, which avows an evidence-based philosophy. The ultimate goal is to change the various national policy-making environments in the Caribbean to one based on research (comparative and otherwise) from one based on partisanship and polemic. CaPRI is currently in the launch phase, involving research network clarification and expansion; product development; fundraising for both administrative and research costs; formal institutional registration; and clarification of its space within the University of the West Indies. This report describes research frameworks, strategies, and partnerships

Background brief : Jamaican lottery scam

Due to copyright restrictions, this item cannot be sharedAdvance payment scams are common across the world and are facilitated through access to communication technology. The frequency of reports (2011) suggests that the main focus of the scams is located in the east coast of the US, especially in areas where there are large populations of Jamaicans. This paper provides background and investigation of the Jamaican lottery scam. Key agencies guard information regarding this issue and, in other cases, the information does not exist or is not recorded in a useful manner

Narrative report no. 1 : background brief on the Jamaican lottery scam

The bulletin outlines activities of a public forum regarding Jamaica’s role as a haven for advance fee scammers, with the introduction of the brief at the forum event. This featured in-depth discussions on the security, banking, regulatory and diplomatic issues associated with the scam. Over seventy participants attended, including sixteen senior members of the Jamaican Government, private sector and diplomatic community. Scammers are thought to be primarily concentrated in Jamaica’s second city, Montego Bay

CaPRI economic indicator : a composite coincident indicator for economic activity in Jamaica

The statistical results demonstrate reasonable performance of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) Economic Indicator for Jamaica in tracking changes in the state of the Jamaican economy. This report documents the development of a composite coincident indicator (composite index) from a subset of available indicators. It was necessary to construct a reference series that would provide information about the business cycle at an appropriate frequency. This was accomplished by taking quarterly GDP at constant (2007) basic prices and interpolating monthly values using quadratic-match averaging