After the revelations in the press the last couple days about the skills shortage here… and here… I hope you can pop over to The Nassau Institute site to read this post…
Here's a snippet:
"For faster economic growth to take place the "political directorate
must be mature enough to accept and promote their role as little more
than facilitators for growth and not be directly involved in business
activity."
Once again I am reminded of the words of President Reagan, “Government is not the solution to our problems, it is the problem..” Governments do not create wealth or productive employment as only increased private sector capital spending on plants, equipment and technology increases demand for productive employment.. Governments must be the catalyst for the creation of employment demand by creating an economic climate of lower taxes and fees, reduced regulations and burdensome controls and to provide necessary financial incentives to increase capital formation to stimulate demand for increased employment..
Unfortunately in the Bahamas and the United States just the opposite has been happening.. Higher taxes, fees and charges, increased bureaucratic regulations and controls are retarding capital investment and forcing increased and larger labor force dropout rates.. In the United States, where statistics are available, over nine million in the work force have given up and dropped out.. Some guesstimates for the Bahamas estimate that about fifty percent of the work force is out of work..
Now is time for both governments to change their radical ways and reestablish a climate to encourage capital formation and job creation.. It is a win win situation because as employment increases, government revenues increase as well.. A little Laffer supply-side thinking could make a major difference in the growth rates of both country’s economies.. Again Reagan got it right as the economic growth rates under Reaganomics ushered in one of the most dynamic growth rates approaching full employment in the last half of the twentieth century..