Rick Lowe
Several prominent Bahamians have recently spoken out against the way the Bahamian economy is structured, implying that Bahamians are denied opportunity in favour of the foreign investor. Some people have even gone so far as to suggest that it's a racial thing.
Seems to me, these foreign investors in hotels and property development are also bringing capital that helps create jobs as our comparatively large middle class would indicate.
Of course Bahamians should receive the same "incentives" foreigners obtain, but the issue as I see it is money to make these projects happen.
The projects we complain about often seem out of reach of Bahamian individuals to finance – if not, then we need to ask ourselves why Bahamians are not developing and implementing these ideas.
I'm in my 50's and as our economy has grown from a backwater, where my grandfather had one pair of shoes until he left home to go to work at 15 I believe it was, to where my family can live in a middle class neighbourhood. And countless Bahamians can tell similar stories. Of course that should not prevent us from trying to do better.
There's no issue with discussing ways for Bahamians to advance, but the use of emotive language to describe these issues, without offering any coherent ideas on how the country should implement their ideas is a disservice to all Bahamians.
What I'm sensing is people want the government to give them something to become economically stronger, rather than pooling resources and ideas and going to the government with a logical proposal.
Sure, we can rile each other up that a foreigner or white Bahamian has something we don't have, but in the long run will that help more Bahamians succeed? I sure don't think so.
The question we need to ask is, are we being held back by the economic system or ourselves. Many of those doing the complaining seem to be doing quite well thank you very much.
Oh, I almost forgot. Where's the plan to change the economic system?
By the way, here's a link to an article I wrote sometime back entitled The Big White Bogeyman that you might find interesting.
Rick, I think the answer is yes to your question, we are held back by both our economic system and ourselves. We have a system where we as Bahamians were not given the right to start a cable company because two different groups wanted to but it was decided to award it to either one of them would seem to be showing preference to one race over another, so it was awarded to a foreigner who came used our money and built the company, yes some of us made money then but most of us are only paying now. Another example is whats happening now, it`s widely speculated that the commodity market will see gains in prices we will be affected by it higher food and oil prices but yet we are not allowed to offset these increased cost with the money we could make by investing in these commodities, this is wrong and needs to change. Sadly I think there is no plan to really expand our economy!
Thanks again Mr. Pinder.
I wonder how many of us will start a cable company or phone company when the market is liberalised?
How will buying shares in commodities prevent higher oil prices having an impact on us?
Mind you, we can invest in those commodities, we just have to pay a premium to the Central Bank.
I did not say that it would prevent higher oil prices, I said we should be able to freely buy those commodities and be able to make extra money to offset the increases that surely are coming.
As for starting a phone or cable company we will have to see how much of the infrastructure will be sold and how much the user fees will be, if it takes 400 million plus to start a new phone company I really don`t see anyone starting one.
Hay fellows.. Isn’t this a no brainer when you consider economies of scale..
And therein lies the rub … I don’t know 1/2 dozen people in this country who realise or are willing to face the fact that 350,000 people spread over 35-odd islands without much or anything in terms of sellable resources are somehow capable of doing whatever a nation of 350 Million can do. Come on … as someone once said, the entire population of New Providence can fit in two Detroit Stadiums!
Nyloc
Maybe more can be placed on the emphasis that Bahamians cannot freely invest, not in the Bahamas, but abroad. Exchange controls, have restricted Bahamians from being able to take advantage from benefitting economically from growth in other parts of the world, where the population is greater and the natural resources are more plentiful. For example there are many investment opportunities presently in Brazil, but few Bahamians can take advantage of it, because of our system of exchange controls, instead we will just manage the wealth of the wealthy Brazilians when they decide to move their newly made wealth offshore.
Agreed.
However, we can invest overseas but the Central Bank requirements can be onerous.