Rick Lowe
This post… on June 18, 2010 has encouraged some good discussion.
One of our frequent visitors noted that the PLP have built institutions and people.
Pushed a little further he responded:
"As far as institutions and people goes, I'll show you what I mean."
-The NIB
-The Bahamas Mortgage Corporation
-The College of the Bahamas
-The Archives Department
-The Bahamas Development Bank
-The Bahamas Tourism College
-The Industrial Training College (BTVI)
-The RBDF
-Bahamasair
-The Bank of the Bahamas
-ZNS etc."
He also advised that the PLP created many millionaires and a middle class that now own businesses etc.
I certainly take no issue with the fact that when the PLP were in power the middle class expanded at a substantial pace, other than the drug trade during the 1970's and 1980's.
There was also significant expansion of the middle class during the 1990's when the country growth rate was exceptional.
With regard to the "institutions" created let's quickly go through them one at a time.
The NIB – While it served the needs of many initially, it is becoming an albatross around the necks of taxpayers.
The Bahamas Mortgage Corporation – Served as a cash cash cow for many unpaid loans I understand. Maybe our reader can confirm the uncollected loans?
The College of the Bahamas – Lots of potential here.
The Archives Department – No complaints from me here.
The Bahamas Development Bank – Like the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation no?
The Bahamas Tourism College – Not sure the effects this has had.
The Industrial Training College (BTVI) – A failure.
The RBDF – Pluses and minuses here.
Bahamasair – A failure.
The Bank of the Bahamas – So far so good.
ZNS – A failure.
If all these "institutions" had been roaring successes and had returned the borrowed funds to establish them and they were profitable and self sustaining, you'd get little argument from me.
The problem is most of them are adding to the country's debt and deficits every year.
The debt levels and out of control government spending that brought about the Budget on May 26, 2010, is now bringing the country to its knees and reducing the middle class that the PLP supposedly "created". (I think the industrious people that have become wealthy or middle class deserve the credit for their hard work?)
The big question that is always left unanswered is how the country will face these challenges going forward.
More government borrowing and spending does not seem to be the answer.
Ever expanding government does not seem to be the answer.
Dwelling on the past will not be the answer.
Improving education is certainly a key starting point, and reducing the size and scope of government is another.
More ideas can be found in a wonderful little book published by The Independent Institute titled Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development, edited by Benjamin Powell with a foreward by Deepak Lal. Get your copy here…
Highlights of the book include:
• Economists have often grappled with the question of how to help impoverished countries prosper, but they frequently overlook the central driver of economic growth: the entrepreneur. A close examination of entrepreneurship is especially timely, since the effectiveness of traditional development aid is increasingly being debated. Government-instituted economic reforms intended to stimulate economic growth often succeed or fail due to the extent that they help or hinder entrepreneurship. An international and historical comparison of policies and institutions that affect the productivity of entrepreneurs is invaluable for understanding how to make poor nations rich. (Introduction, ch. 1-4)
• After more than a decade of research, the empirical evidence is clear: economic freedom fosters economic growth. Countries that have climbed the Economic Freedom Index (e.g., China, India, Ireland, and Botswana) have brought more prosperity to their people, whereas countries that have reduced economic freedom (e.g., Venezuela, Zimbabwe) are poorer than they were a generation ago. (ch. 5)
Read more here…
The difference between the FNM and PLP are little more than colours and personalities. The free market generally ignores politics as they are transactions between individuals who decide what they each prefer. No government intrusion is necessary there.
As a people we must set hero worship aside and not lose sight of the burdens we are placing on future generations.
All of these failures & FNM,PLP, continue to feed them funds at we the peoples expense, I for one am sick & tired of being taxed to death to support something that is a total failure.Are the PLP,FNM, so blind, or do they just take pleasure in this crap ? If we could just get one person to stand up & say, lets do the right thing, maybe then we could get somewhere.Are they all so stupid that they have learned nothing from forty years of just pissing our money away to these failures, or maybe they just love spending someone else’ s money ? They tell us all to clamp down, go easy on spending while they do the opposite, with our money !The only thing any of them have created lately is a hell of a lot of debt,mostly for nonsense.We do not need ZNS,we do not need Bahamasair etc.etc.etc.
One has to question the nom de plumes used by many commentators on Webblog Bahamas.. I for one use the pen name, Tradewinds, which probably refers to a lot of hot air blowing in from tropics.. Our fellow blogger, Objective Thought, is another case in point.. From an intellectual perspective he or she has not expressed a thought or statement that was not biased by his political judgment and perspective..
Lets hope that we all can learn the importance of meaningful objective reasoning and analysis.. I include myself as well in this comment.. For it is only through objective thought that truth will prevail.. Without truth, we are all lost.. Blog on Bahamas..
I find it fascinating that we as Bahamians continue to – pardon the pun, Tradewinds – ventilate on these same issues again and again without approaching what might well be considered the “blood and guts” of the matter. On the subject of the PLP’s supposed engineering of the tools that allowed the creation of the modern Bahamas – the national institutions PLPs always point to as markers of their party’s vision, and that FNMs always point to as monuments of so-called PLP mismanagement – the question, it appears to me, ought not to be whether they are succeeding or failing from a business or economic point of view, or even whether they succeed at what they were set up to do. Is the question not first one of necessity? Purpose?
Consider this: these institutions were all based on the assumption that a fully-realized and modern society needs to have certain institutions to perpetuate the forward impulse that drives progress. That, and that alone, ought to be the criteria on which these institutions are judged. Institutional success is a question of management and accountability – two areas in which I suspect ALL are agreed that governments fail repeatedly to measure up. I submit that it is not so much a question of the success of the venture that is important, but a matter of examining the depth and accuracy of the vision that led to the creation of these institutions.
And more importantly, an examination of the progress these institutions are intended to engender. Did COB make us smarter? Did the RBDF secure our maritime borders? If so, how? If not, why not? Do Bahamians benefit from the Mortgage Corporation?
These questions – questions of vision and sagacity – are the questions that are not being examined in detail. And it is the answers to these questions that will truly inform our forward path. In the coming years, what does it matter whether the PLP did or did not build institutions and people in The Bahamas? What matters is what the people of The Bahamas are doing NOW to move THEMSELVES forward. If we continue to leave it to the so-called leaders of the political, socio-economic and religious strata, we will forever be arguing about whose “massa” is a better “massa.”
Well for sure the RBDF have NOT secured our borders, they can’t seem to stop 3 MPH sailing vessels coming from Haiti, they sure do know how to pull my family & I over on the way to the beach for no apparent reason though.Its all a scam in my opinion, one big scam.
Thank you Mr. Parker:
I agree.
That is what I attempt to do, hence my closing sentence: “As a people we must set hero worship aside and not lose sight of the burdens we are placing on future generations.”
The country cannot afford institutions that are designed to help people who allegedly borrow money and do not pay it.
The country cannot afford student loans that are never repaid.
The list goes on and on.
Government is about more than PR and making people feel good.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Rick, Those insitutions that I quoted were taken from Hubert Ingraham’s speech at Sir Lynden Pindling’s funeral service…
Actually, I didn’t even know about those things until I heard HI’s speech that day…
On another note, I, unlike many others that I have had conversations with, think that persons who are not afraid to say who or which party they support and are still able to agree or disagree with those persons, get more respect from me. I hate when persons are pretending to be non-partisan when they know that that’s a LIE!!
To me, everything that goes on in any country has something to do with politics.. That’s why I waste no time in saying who or which party I support.. But that does not cause me to forget the principles that were taught to me by my parents… I am a PLP supporter because that’s the party that I feel has the best interest of Bahamians at heart.. That does not mean that there are no heartless people in the PLP though…
Every issue I deal with, I deal with it on a case by case basis.. I don’t just support an issue because the PLP supports it! I am no “blind follower”…
My name is Mr. Sam Pennerman and I ain’t afraid to use my name!!
I don’t have a govt. job and I am not really affected by any businesses down sizing because I am privately employed… Actually, self-employed!! I don’t need anything from the govt…
Thanks again OT:
The point I’m trying to make is that we should not get lost in the PR about these institutions. Let’s examine the results and their net impact on Bahamian taxpayers.
Political rhetoric, from either party, is just that and should be discarded as such.
If I advertise the company I work for is perfect and never makes mistakes it is obvious that is impossible. Why do we believe government is any different, particularly when we see the results all around us? Yet we buy into their advertising?
These people run the post office for heaven sakes!
They should at least be held to the same standard as the private sector no?
If the PLP had made a counter budget that would just have been “political rhetoric”. There is hardly enough time for the govt’s budget to be debated so the PLP would just have wasted their time producing such a document…
Also, the govt has already made it clear that the Opposition cannot amend or lay on the table any FINANCIAL bills!!! That’s against the rules of parliament!!
Thanks OT:
It is irrelevant “that the Opposition cannot amend or lay on the table any FINANCIAL bills!!! That’s against the rules of parliament!!”
The point I am making, or rather the question is, what would the PLP do differently than the FNM are doing? Surely they can do more than say this is bad? What would you do if you were leading a country in the pickle we’re in?
As I have said before, when you visit a politician they always suggest you must do more than complain, you must bring potential solutions.
So let’s hear the PLP’s. No more. No less.
They do not have to present a thing to Parliament. But they need to present it to the court of public opinion if people are to believe that they will be any different than they were in 2002 to 2007.
Rick, while I follow your logic, I don’t understand why you are saying that they should produce potential solutions as if they didn’t!! I watched a lot of the budget and I heard speaker after speaker from the opposition side give alternatives after alternatives compared to what the govt is doing…
Now, if you are saying that they didn’t say enough, I could understand that but you keep talking as if they just critized but produced no alternatives or give any suggestions…
As far as producing a document for public opinion, I really don’t see the sense in it because very few persons would take the time to go through it… In most cases, persons don’t vote for incoming govts. but they actually vote against the present govt.!!!
I am pleased with the alternatives put forward by the opposition… Besides, the PLP did not have a problem of moving this country forward as far as investments and perspective investments between 2002 to 2007.. What the PLP was beaten on was on moral issues and PC lack of control issues and outright LIES put forward by the FNM especially HI on issues like perspective investments because PC took too long to get them started.. HI managed to convince the people that those perspective investments were all “Pie in the sky dreams” and that they were all just in PC’s head!!
The PLP does not have to prove anything to me or the youths of this nation because they know that it is far worse today than it was 3+ years ago!!! They can feel it in their pockets!!
Fair enough OT:
Now list ten of those proposals that would improve the country’s economic situation in light of the economic woes of most countries in the world today.
Look at the decision the G8 just made.
Austerity is the order of the day because they know they cannot go on the way they have been borrowing and spending for the past 20 years or more.
Presumably Obama should be booted out in the US as well as things have gotten worse under his “reign”?
Just as it is in the Bahamas today, it’s no different in the US… If elections were to be called in either country, the governing party will be removed from office without a doubt!!!
One thing that I can say about Sir LOP is that he did an excellent job managing our economy compared to the two other leaders that succeeded him! Pindling borrowed/spent $1.2 billion in 25 years, HI spent $1 billion in 10 years (2 terms)and PC borrowed almost $800 million in just 5 years but in the past 3 years this govt has borrowed almost $1 billion!!
It sure sounds like the last 2 leaders are the ones who have sunk this country into massive debt!!
Thanks OT:
When you consider our GDP was half or less than it is today I’m not so sure Sir Lynden was an angel when it came to borrowing either.
I think the single largest problem facing the country going forward is government spending/the size of government.
I never considered what our GDP was back then so maybe you are right!! I’ll look into it… We need the Freedom of information Act now!! Do you think we will ever see it???
I think that the biggest problem is growing our economy!! Instead of bringing in new investments to grow our economy, this govt has decided to kill the small man by over taxing them…
This is one LAZY government!!
Do you have any idea what this country is paying every year just on INTEREST on the many loans we have gotten??
If the government was growing the economy fast enough, the amount of spending would not matter but they are sleeping at the wheel!! We need more DIVERSIFICATION of our economy as well as New Developments to offset our spending!!
More new developments like the Container Port in GB brought in by the FNM between 1992- 2002, are needed…. We simply can’t keep spending $1.20 when we are only making $100…
Better mamagement of our resources is needed by our leaders!!
Now we’re getting somewhere OT:
There’s bad public policy and not so bad public policy.
Our successive governments have run us up the drink with bad public policy.
This is what The Nassau Institute ( http://www.nassauinstitute.org ) has been driving at for over 15 years now.
While people are entitled to support the political party of their choice, as citizens we have a huge responsibility to keep them “honest” so to speak.
Oh, A Freedom of Information Act? It’s badly needed. Will our leaders have the political will? I hope so. But they didn’t show it with the non-legalisation of numbers did they?
You’re right as well about diversification. Where I part ways is we believe the government must do it. Why can’t we? All the government needs to do is approve it and get out of the way.
Thanks,
Rick
Rick, I agree with you when you say that “WE” should diversify our economy and not only the govt but we all know that Bahamians prefer to invest in areas where they feel comfortable. Bahamians don’t like trying new things.. They like to invest in areas where they see Bahamians are already flourishing in the Bahamas!!
That’s why Bahamians prefer the govt to go out and find “Foreign Investors” to take the risk into new areas…. Bahamians don’t like taking risks!! Only after they see the foreigner profiting/progressing, they will enter/invest in that area!!
The government is failing when it comes to bringing in new diversed investments!! Instead they are crushing existing businesses by continuing to bringing in the same type of investments continuously which is why Kerzner continues to take that $4 million from the govt. to keep its edge!!