Admittedly I arrived at the The Financial Voice town meeting on Wednesday night late, so I didn’t hear all the presentations but we are still getting the same worn out phrases like we need government to diversify the economy, or we need government to encourage agriculture, or we need government to implement a national plan, or we need government to… I think you get my drift?

There were a couple bits of interesting information though.

1. Mr,. Lynden Nairn that said the budget for National Security was increased by 3%. Of course a 3% increase is no more than the status quo,

2. Mr. Rupert Pinder reminded us about a study by the Chinese in the 1980’s that determined we did not have soil quality to sustain major farming enterprises,

3. Mr. Pat Rahming, when asking a question, wondered aloud why government is spending so much to attract cruise visitors, like dredging the harbour etc, instead of focusing their effort on attracting stop over visitors, and…

4. Anthony Ferguson pointed out that if the government really wanted to promote the move to more fuel efficient vehicles, they would raise the duty to 100% on large gas guzzlers and lower the duty on more economical vehicles.

Other than that, there was very little that piqued my interest.

There was nothing about how to improve education or alternative ways to reduce government spending and the debt or the like.

With regard to a national plan, an idea that is in itself, foreboding enough, I wondered to myself how we could expect government to plan our lives for us when the greatest failures in the country today are found in government ministries or agencies?

The three main things that come to mind are:

1. A Fiscal policy of printing money and growing the debt to unsustainable levels,
2. An educational system that is failing future generations, and
3. A Judicial system that is said to have collapsed.

Now I’m sorry I went.