Barbados Central Bank records $3.7m loss in 2013

Posted on April 4, 2014 in Economics, Planning, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Barbados MoneyHow does a Central Bank lose money? This seems plausibly impossible.

Without detailing the anatomy of the banking system, here are a few facts that make this foregoing news article so inconceivable. A Central Bank compels a reserve requirement from all commercial banks within its jurisdiction. So for every $100 in deposits, a commercial bank would have to leave a secured amount, say $12 on hand at the Central Bank. The commercial bank can thusly only loan the residual $88 in this example. Control (raising/lowering) that reserve requirement percentage rate is how Central Banks control the money supply, interest rates and inflation – the economy.

So with no effort, a Central Bank gets a slice of every deposit in its jurisdiction, a country. This role/responsibility is so important that many view the Chairman of the US Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, as the most powerful man in the country; even more so than the President.

So despite all this power, how can a Central Bank possibly lose money?

A Central Bank also has the ability to create “money from thin air”, by buying and selling treasury bonds on the securities markets. This too is a method for Central Banks to control the money supply. An accounting entry on the ledger creates the liquidity to buy bonds (increase money supply) or sell bonds (contract the money supply).

With this system in place, a Central Bank prints and issues the hard currency for a country. For them to lose money gives the impression that their currency has no/little value.

Imagine, the Governors/Directors of the Central Bank of Barbados are to be considered the stewards of Barbados’s economy…and they posted a loss for fiscal 2013! (The Bible analogy of “the blind leading the blind” comes to mind!)

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Thursday April 3, 2014, CMC – The Central Bank of Barbados (CBB) says it recorded a loss of BDS$3.7 million (One BDS dollar = US$0.50 cents) last year as it focused on restoring macroeconomic stability to the domestic economy.

The CBB in its 2013 annual report submitted to the govern-ment on Monday said that while its operating costs were largely unchanged, “the continuing weak investment climate for the low-risk securities that the Bank is permitted to hold continued to depress income.

“The Bank is reviewing options to contain expenditure over the medium term,” it added.

In its report, the CBB said that it focused on restoring macro-economic stability to the domestic economy as a weak performance of the key export sectors together with significantly lower foreign capital inflows constrained economic growth prospects.

“These developments placed pressure on foreign reserves, triggering a major policy adjustment to contain the erosion of the reserves, sustain the exchange rate anchor, reduce the fiscal deficit and slow the growth of Government debt.”

The CBB said the primary tool of policy was fiscal consolidation, reflected in increased taxation and expenditure-reducing measures.

“At the same time, the Bank continued to encourage the revitalisation of economic activity through growth in the tourism, agro-processing, international business and financial services, and alternative energy industries. “

It said that given the challenges facing the economy, the CBB stepped up its engagement with its stakeholders through a number of initiatives including presentations by internationally renowned speakers.

The CBB said in 2013 it introduced a new interest rate policy framework, designed to rationalise the process for adjustment of domestic interest rates.

“The policy permits virtual liberalisation of the minimum deposit rate, apart from ordinary savings accounts of individuals and non-profit organisations. This allows financial institutions to now set other deposit rates, while continuing to set lending rates.

“The policy also provides for intervention of the Bank in the Treasury Bill market, with the Treasury Bill rate now being used as a basis for determining rates for long term securities, along a notional yield curve which the Central Bank publishes.“

The Central Bank of Barbados said that the financial system remained stable during 2013 with banks profitable and well- capitalised.

It said the Financial Services Commission, which oversees the regulation of non- bank financial institutions, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Central Bank aimed at strengthening the monitoring of the financial system.

The CBB said for the first time in its 40-year history it has completely overhauled the design of the Barbados’ bank notes.

“In the past, only minor modifications had been made to the original series. The new series issued on June 4, 2013 replaced old and worn-out notes and there are enhanced security features that will make the new notes difficult to counterfeit and easier for the public to authenticate.”

The foregoing news article aligns with the prime directive of the book Go Lean … Caribbean to re-boot the economic engines of the Caribbean. The book narrates, thru anecdotes and statistical abstracts, the pain and suffering of previous mis-management of Caribbean currencies. The book then asserts that any regional effort to optimize the economy must be partnered with technocratic management of monetary affairs. As such, the book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of both the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the independent, Caribbean Central Bank (CCB).

Before addressing the technical issues, the CU assumes a sentinel position to cautiously protect and promote image and branding of Caribbean people, culture and systems of commerce. The foregoing headline is a “call to arms” for this mission.

Monetary and currency issues are intertwined with any discussion of elevating the Caribbean’s economy. This issue is explored in full details in the book, commencing with the roadmap focus of the Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the need for astute management of the money supply with these statements (Page 13 & 14) respectively:

xxi. Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary & fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated … [to] address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and member-states.

xxix. Whereas all Caribbean democracies depend of the free flow of capital for municipal, public and private financing, the institutions of capital markets can be better organized around a regional monetary union. The Federation must institute the controls to insure transparency, accounting integrity and analysis independence of the securities markets, thereby shifting the primary source of capital away from foreign lenders to domestic investors, comprising institutions and individuals.

The roadmap is to confederate all the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, despite their language and legacy, into an integrated “single market”, with a unified currency, Caribbean Dollar (C$). This follows the model of the European Union and the European Central Bank with the world’s strongest currency, the Euro.

The book maintains that the security of the Caribbean is inextricably linked to the economy of the Caribbean; as such there is the need for federal oversight, monitoring and mitigations of threats, risks and casualties for the integrated market and the related systems of commerce.

These above comments address the “coulda-woulda-shoulda” aspects of the foregoing news article. The Go Lean roadmap also brings a sense of reality to the focus of economic empowerment in the Caribbean. This means that “it is what it is”. So why did the Central Bank of Barbados post a $3.7 Million loss for 2013?

This requires a sober assessment; the managers for the bank are duly qualified. Dr. DeLisle Worrell was appointed as Governor of the Central Bank on November 1, 2009. He is an acclaimed Economist, author and professor; he is a subject-matter-expert (SME) for small island economics, having authored a book entitled SMALL ISLAND ECONOMIES; he is a technocrat!

The foregoing article alludes that the loss was due to the volatility of foreign exchange (Fx) management. It is these kinds of issues that the Go Lean roadmap targets for mitigation and better management. The book posits that the problems of Caribbean currencies are too big for any one member-state to resolve, that the best solution is to confederate the 30 member-states, and their Central Banks, into a “single market” Central Bank for the unified C$ currency – a cooperative of banks. Since the Barbados dollar alone cannot garner the volumes for respect and participation in the international Fx markets, this SMALL ISLAND ECONOMY must “fend for its life” as best it can, buying and selling US dollars in the open market to control the amount/value of the Barbadian dollar. This process is “hit-and-miss”. For 2013, it was a “miss”!

The strategies, tactics, implementations for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation & Caribbean Central Bank management of the economy are detailed in the Go Lean roadmap. Here are sample selections from the book:

Separation-of-Powers: Central Bank – Currency Printing/Engraving Page 73
Separation-of-Powers: Depository Insurance & Regulatory Authority Page 73
Separation-of-Powers: Securities Exchange Regulatory Agency Page 74
Separation-of-Powers: Emergency Management Page 76
10 Ways to Better Manage Debt Page 114
10 Ways to Promote Independence Page 120
10 Ways to Model the EU Page 129
10 Lessons Learned from 2008 Page 135
10 Ways to Control Inflation Page 153
10 Ways to Better Manage Foreign Exchange Page 154
10 Ways to Mitigate Black Markets Page 165
10 Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
10 Reforms for Banking Regulations Page 199
10 Ways to Impact Wall Street Page 200

Download the Book- Go Lean…Caribbean Now!!!

 

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CXC and UK publisher hosting CCSLC workshops in Barbados

Posted on April 4, 2014 in Implementation, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

images“Fattening frogs for snakes” – Jamaican expression.

As a region the Caribbean have invested much time, talents and treasuries for the education of our youth. Hooray for our efforts! This is an honorable commitment and those laboring in this profession, as depicted in the foregoing news article, should be duly recognized and applauded.

But…

… “do what we’ve always done, and we get what we always got” – Old Adage.

For far too often, the Caribbean has been grooming and preparing their young people to contribute and enhance the society… of other countries. And thus the intersection of the two expressions above, and this imagery: “sacrificing our babies on the altar of global trade”. See a related news story here:

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — Over 50 secondary school teachers in Barbados stand to benefit from a series of workshops to be hosted by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) and UK-based publisher Nelson Thornes on 7 and 8 April 2014 in Barbados.

The four workshops will be hosted over the two days and will focus on English and mathematics for the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC).

The workshops will be facilitated by Novelette McLean-Francis, senior education officer responsible for linguistics in the ministry of education, Jamaica, and a published author; and Grace Smith, a Barbadian educator and one of the authors of the CCSLC mathematics text.

Two workshops will be hosted each day and teachers from the 22 public secondary schools in Barbados are expected to attend.

Registrar Dr. Didacus Jules stated, “These CCSLC workshops are very timely as over the next four weeks CXC is working with the United Kingdom National Academic Recognition Information Centre (UK NARIC) to benchmark CCSLC with similar qualifications internationally.”

“Ensuring that teachers are well equipped to deliver the CCSLC programme effectively will impact positively on students’ performance and on the benchmarking exercise,” Jules noted.

“Nelson Thornes, part of Oxford University Press, is delighted to be running the workshops for teachers across Barbados for the CCSLC qualification,” Sarah Townsend, Caribbean marketing campaign manager with Oxford University Press Education Division said. “Our aim is to provide a full understanding of the syllabus and what is expected in classrooms. Alongside this, teachers will gain valuable knowledge of how the texts came together and the authors’ experience of being involved in the teaching of CCSLC.”

“Working in conjunction with CXC and the ministry of education, we have invited teachers to attend one of the sessions for either mathematics or English, and we hope to be able to fully support them in their on-going quest of teaching CCSLC English and mathematics,” Townsend explained.

The Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence was introduced to schools in Barbados in September 2013.
Source: Caribbean News Now Online News Site; posted April 3, 2014; retrieved April 4, 2014 from: http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/barbados.php?news_id=20558&start=0&category_id=26

CU Blog - CXC and UK publisher hosting CCSLC workshops in Barbados - Photo 2This subject matter aligns with the prime directive of the book Go Lean … Caribbean to re-boot the economic engines of the Caribbean to assuage the human flight problem that has afflicted so many Caribbean communities, for more than 50 years. The book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) posits that education has been a failure for this region. Almost everywhere else education dynamics elevate a society, raising GDP by 1 percent for every additional (aggregate) year of schooling. But this is not true for the Caribbean; even though the educated population have fostered their abilities there, they have “taken their talents to South Beach”; and South Bronx; and South Toronto; and South London; and the South Paris, etc.

So education and economics must be intertwined. This is explored in full details in the book. This roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions for escalating educational resources (and results) in the region. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing regional integration (Page 12) as the approach to elevate educational opportunities:

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

This optimization will apply to all levels of instructions: primary, secondary and tertiary.

The strategy is to confederate all the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, despite their language and legacy, into an integrated “single market”. Tactically, this will allow a separation-of-powers between the member-states governments (including their education proxies) and federal agencies, allowing the type of third party regional oversight as identified in the foregoing article, with entities like the United Kingdom National Academic Recognition Information Centre and Oxford University Press. Notice the leanings of those organizations: British. Instead, the Go Lean roadmap advocates the multi-lingual educational guidance for English, Dutch, French and Spanish all under CU federal administration.

Under this roadmap, the CariCom-backed Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) would be integrated into a CU Cabinet Department of Education; this is detailed in the book (Page 85). Most importantly the roadmap recognizes that there are the costs dynamics for education, so the funding mechanisms are fully explored in 10 Ways to Pay for Change (Page 101).

Why is the expectation for education success so different in Go Lean…Caribbean compared to the status quo? Why haven’t the strategies and tactics described in this roadmap been employed by the member-states already?

Quite simply, the book posits that the problems for the Caribbean are too big for any one member-state to solve alone; there must be a regional solution! The problem of human flight/brain drain is described as resulting from “push-and-pull” factors. So the required solution is more than just a few bright ideas, taught in a workshop; there is the need for a new eco-system.

Go Lean … Caribbean introduces that eco-system, as a roadmap to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, learn and play.

No more “fattening frogs for snakes”!

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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CARICOM Chairman to deliver address on reparations

Posted on April 3, 2014 in Implementation, Planning, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Slave ShipThe book Go Lean … Caribbean aligns with one objective depicted in the below news article: to reconcile the flawed economic policies of the past and lean-in for the optimization of the Caribbean future. Beyond this stance, the book deviates from these advocates calling for reparations from the colonial powers that participated in the slave trade, slavery or colonial suppression of the indigenous people.

Reparations stress at its root, a sense of entitlement to other people’s resources. The book, on the other hand, serves as a roadmap for the regional integration of the 42 million people and 30 member states of the Caribbean with the implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap advocates the reconciliation of the economic and security engines to grow the region’s economy from $378 Billion (2010) to $800 Billion in a 5 year time span.

NEW YORK, United States, Friday March 28, 2014, CMC – Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines will address an international forum in reparations in the United States next month.

Gonsalves will deliver the feature address at the April 19 forum titled “Revitalizing the Reparations Movement,” organized by the New York-based Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW).

IBW described Gonsalves as “one of the leading voices in the Americas demanding that the former European colonial powers pay reparations to Caribbean and South American countries for centuries of African enslavement, native genocide and colonial exploitation”.

The forum will be held in collaboration with the Center for Inner City Studies and the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference.

IBW said among the specially invited guests will be Detroit’s congressman John Conyers, Sr., dean of the US Congressional Black Caucus, and sponsor of HR-40, the Reparations Study Bill and Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam.

“A primary goal of the forum is to revitalize the reparations movement in the USA by revisiting the Durban Resolution on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, presenting an update on HR-40 and examining the status of CARICOM’s reparations initiative,” IBW said.

“We are delighted and honored to have Prime Minister Gonsalves keynote this critical forum on reparations, a subject of fundamental historical justice that is near and dear to the hearts of Black people around the world,” said IBW’s president Dr. Ron Daniels.

Director of Chicago’s Inner City Studies, Dr. Conrad Worrill, said “our ancestors will be pleased that the reparations movement is being re-energized from the Caribbean islands”.

“In demanding reparations, CARICOM is vindicating the vestiges of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade,” he added.

CARICOM leaders at their inter-sessional summit in St, Vincent and the Grenadines earlier this month discussed the reparation issue and hope to have a meeting with European leaders in June.

The leaders unanimously adopted a 10-point plan that would seek a formal apology for slavery; debt cancellation from former colonizers, such as Britain,

France, Spain and the Netherlands; and reparation payments to repair the persisting “psychological trauma” from the days of plantation slavery.

The Go Lean roadmap commences with this ideal embedded in the Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing as follows, (Page 10):

As the colonial history of our region was initiated to create economic expansion opportunities for our previous imperial masters, the structures of government instituted in their wake have not fostered the best systems for prosperity of the indigenous people. Despite this past, we thrust our energies only to the future, in adapting the best practices and successes of the societies of these previous imperial masters and recognizing the positive spirit of their intent and vow to learn from their past accomplishments and mistakes so as to optimize the opportunities for our own citizenry to create a more perfect bond of union.

The subject matter of reparation is polarizing, based on assumptions that the Caribbean is comprised of mostly African or Ameri-Indian peoples. While many CARICOM states do possess a majority Black population, this is not so within the larger Caribbean, of whom the CU confederates. There are also large populations of European (White) ethnicities, Indian, and Chinese descendants that should also unite.

— UPDATE (Sep 30, 2015) – See VIDEO in the Appendix regarding the UK Prime Minister’s recent visit to Jamaica —

There is a benefit, however, that can be garnered from compensatory talks with European nations, that of making “Aid” more empowering. The roadmap details an advocacy on the roles and responsibilities of fostering International Aid (Page 115). So while the political leaders of the CARICOM may be exerting energies to “guilt” these Europeans leaders to “pay up”, the CU Trade Federation will instead work to improve trade and re-boot the economic engines of the region.

It is a known fact that most of the resources of the European powers are tied to the strength of their economies, not the reserves gathered up from centuries of exploiting African slaves and their descendants. The country with the largest reserves is the USA; but their gold in Fort Knox is only estimated at $800 Billion, while their economy is $16 Trillion of GDP output … annually. So reparation is not a winning formula; it assumes some abundant stockpile of savings. This is a flawed logic and strategy. On the other hand, the Caribbean needs to create 2.2 million new jobs; this is only possible with the turn-around strategies as detailed in the roadmap of Go Lean … Caribbean.

So as a policy decision for the economic strategies of the region, the Go Lean book and movement recommends:

    Re-boot – Yes!
    Reparations – No!

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

Appendix VIDEO – Slavery Reparations Dominate David Cameron’s Jamaica Visit – https://youtu.be/al453a8rLy8

Published on Sep 30, 2015 – UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to Jamaica was overshadowed by slavery reparation calls, which he rejected. The legacy of slavery is still ever-present for 14 Caribbean countries calling on their former colonial masters to pay billions in reparations.
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Cuba Approves New “Law on Foreign Investment”

Posted on April 2, 2014 in Economics, Government

Go Lean Commentary

Cuba FlagCuba sera libre!

This has been the “war chant” for many lovers of Cuban heritage, culture and homeland. It’s a reminder that Cuba currently lacks many of the same freedoms so many of its neighbors enjoy. It is a mission of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, to bring change to the Caribbean in general and Cuba in particular, with the implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). See the relevance in the following news article here:

Title: Cuba Approves New “Law on Foreign Investment”
By: Caribbean Journal Online Magazine

Cuba’s National Assembly has approved a new “Law on Foreign Investment,” the government said Saturday.
In a statement, the government said it would be an “essential instrument in the interest of Cuba to consolidate its economic model and build a prosperous and sustainable socialism.”

The law included a mix of mostly tax incentives, and it could be the latest move in what has been a gradual shift toward liberalizing the country’s economy, although it has come at a decidedly slow pace.

That nominal push kicked off last year, when Raul Castro, announcing plans to retire from politics in 2018, said Cuba needed to update its economic model to achieve a “sustainable and prosperous socialist society, a society less egalitarian, but more fair.”

The vote came at a special meeting convened by Cuba’s state council to discuss regulation; the meeting focused on “the need to attract foreign capital to the sectors of interest to the country,” according to a statement.

Marino Murillo Jorge, vice president of Cuba’s Council of Ministers, said that well-done foreign investment “does not mean giving away the country.”

He said the new model would focus on ensuring not just economic growth but development, with a target growth rate of between five and seven percent.

Retrieved 04/01/2014 from: http://www.caribjournal.com/2014/03/30/cubas-national-assembly-approves-new-law-on-foreign-investment/

Cuba Blog GDPThe Go Lean roadmap recognizes that Cuba is very significant in the geographic and cultural anatomy of the Caribbean. As of 2010, Cuba possessed 26% of the region’s population (11.2 million out of 42.2 million) and 29% of the gross GDP, with their assumed $111 Billion output. But this is a far cry from where Cuba was 60 years ago, with one study placing Cuba as the #3 economy in Latin America and the Caribbean[a]. Though the “mighty has fallen”, this book posits that the “sleeping giant”, that is the Cuban economy, will awaken. The Go Loan roadmap is the preparation of Cuba’s re-emergence to the world’s economic consciousness. The realities and possibilities of Cuba’s past and future are identified early in the book, embedded in the Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing a need for reconciliation efforts (Page 11):

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states (for example: Haiti and Cuba) will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

The foregoing article confirms that change is on the way! The Cuban Communist regime recognizes that they need foreign investment, a “rightward” shift towards socialism; less egalitarianism and more free market accomplishments. The CU will expedite this process even more for/with Cuba. Where they declare “open arms” for foreign investments, we declare a regional embrace of Caribbean participation (Page 13):

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

To the population of Cubans living on the island, we embrace you; “Help” is on the way! We entreat you to lean-in to this plan for confederation with your Caribbean neighbors.

To the Cuban Diaspora living abroad, we embrace you. There is a role for your inclusion in the future of Cuba. We entreat you to also lean-in to this roadmap for change and economic optimization for your beloved Cuba.

To the Cuban legacies, those descendants of Cuba’s past, we encourage you to tune-in and observe how the passions of your heritage will succeed in this new world.

Cuba sera libre!

Download the Book- Go Lean…Caribbean Now!!!

———–

Appendix – Reference:

a. United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report, Various issues, 1990, 1992, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, 1993.

 

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Low-cost Dominican surgeries spark warnings by US

Posted on April 1, 2014 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Strategy, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

CU Blog - Low-cost Dominican surgeries spark warnings by US - PhotoTo the family of Beverly Brignoni, according to the foregoing news article, the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, SFE Foundation, extend condolences for the loss of their dearly departed loved one. This article – as follows – shows the down-side of medical tourism, an accidental death from an apparent lax oversight in a cosmetic surgery clinic.

By: Ben Fox and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez
Beverly Brignoni was a young New Yorker seeking a less expensive way to enhance her appearance and she did what many other people are now doing: travel to the Dominican Republic for cosmetic surgery; (see undated “selfie” photo posted to her Instagram account, courtesy of the Brignoni family).

It went horribly wrong. The 28-year-old died Feb. 20 from what the doctor told her family was a massive pulmonary embolism while getting a tummy tuck and liposuction at a clinic in the Dominican capital recommended by friends. Family members want local authorities to investigate.

“We want to know exactly what happened,” said Bernadette Lamboy, Brignoni’s godmother. “We want to know if there was negligence.”

The district attorney’s office for Santo Domingo says it has not yet begun an investigation because it has not received a formal complaint from Brignoni’s relatives. Family members say they plan to make one.

Shortly after Brignoni’s death, the Health Ministry inspected the Vista del Jardin Medical Center where she was treated and ordered the operating room temporarily closed, citing the presence of bacteria and violations of bio-sanitary regulations. The doctor who performed the procedure and the clinic have not responded to requests for comment.

Brignoni’s death is unusual, but it is not isolated. Concerns about the booming cosmetic surgery business in the Dominican Republic are enough of an issue that the State Department has posted a warning on its page for travel to that country, noting that in several cases U.S. citizens have suffered serious complications or died.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued an alert March 7 after health authorities in the United States reported that at least 19 women in five states had developed serious mycobacterial wound infections over the previous 12 months following cosmetic procedures in the Dominican Republic such as liposuction, tummy tucks and breast implants.

There were no reported deaths in those cases, but treatment for these types of infections, which have been caused in the past by contaminated medical equipment, tend to involve long courses of antibiotics and can require new surgery to remove infected tissue and drain fluid, said Dr. Douglas Esposito, a CDC medical officer.

“Some of these patients end up going through one or more surgeries and various travels through the medical system,” Esposito said. “They take a long time typically to get better.”

The Dominican Republic, like countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica and Thailand, has promoted itself as a destination for medical tourism, so-called because people will often tack on a few days at a resort after undergoing surgery. The main allure is much lower costs along with the promise that conditions will be on par with what a patient

would encounter at home.

In 2013, there were more than 1,000 cosmetic procedures performed in the Dominican Republic, 60 percent of them on foreigners, according to the country’s Plastic Surgery Society.

The Internet is flooded with advertisements and testimonials from people who say they have had successful procedures in the Dominican Republic, and an industry of “recovery houses” has sprung up to serve clients, along with promoters who canvass for clients in the United States. The price is often about a third of the cost in the United States.

Dr. Braun Graham, a plastic surgeon in Sarasota, Florida, says he done corrective surgery on people for what he says were inferior procedures abroad. He warns that even if a foreign doctor is talented, nurses and support staff may lack adequate training.

“Clearly, the cost savings is certainly not worth the increased risk of a fatal complication,” said Graham, past president for Florida Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Brignoni was referred to the Vista del Jardin Medical Center by several acquaintances in the New York borough of the Bronx where she lived, said Lamboy and Lenny Ulloa, the father of the 4-year-old daughter she left behind.

“Supposedly, it was a high-end clinic, one of the best in the city,” Ulloa said.

The doctor who performed Brignoni’s procedure, Guillermo Lorenzo, is certified by the Plastic Surgery Society, but there

are at least 300 surgeons performing cosmetic procedures who are not, said Dr. Severo Mercedes, the organization’s director. He said the government knows about the problem but has not taken any action. “We complain but we can’t go after anyone because we’re not law enforcement,” Mercedes said.

The number of people pursuing treatment in the Dominican Republic doesn’t seem to have been affected by negative reports, including a previous CDC warning about a cluster of 12 infections in 2003-04.

In one recent case, the Dominican government in February closed a widely advertised clinic known as “Efecto Brush,” for operating without a license. Prosecutors opened a criminal case after at least six women accused the clinic of fraud and negligence. The director, Franklin Polanco, is free while awaiting trial. He denies wrongdoing.

There was also the case of Dr. Hector Cabral. New York prosecutors accused him of conducting examinations of women in health spas and beauty parlors in that state in 2006-09 without a license, then operating on them in the Dominican Republic, leaving some disfigured. Cabral pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized practice of medicine in October 2011 and returned to the Dominican Republic, where he still practices.

In 2009, Dominican authorities charged Dr. Johan Tapia Bueno with illegally practicing plastic surgery at his apartment after several women, including a local television personality, accused him of malpractice that left them with infections. Awaiting trial, he has pleaded innocent to charges that include fraud.

Juan Linares, a lawyer hired by Brignoni’s boyfriend, said he is still awaiting an autopsy report.

Because she arrived in the country late at night on a delayed flight and was on the operating table early the next morning, a main concern is whether she received an adequate medical evaluation before the procedure. Graham, the Florida surgeon, said sitting on a plane for several hours can cause blood to stagnate in the legs and increase the risk of an embolism.

Brignoni paid the Dominican clinic $6,300 for a combination of liposuction, tummy tuck and breast surgery. Lamboy said she had decided not to have the work done on her breasts and was expecting a partial refund. The woman, who worked as a property manager, had lost about 80 pounds about a year earlier after gastric bypass surgery.

Brignoni was clearly excited about the procedure. Her final post on Facebook was a photo she took of her hands holding her passport and boarding pass for the flight from New York to Santo Domingo.

“She wanted it so bad,” her godmother said. “It felt like she was going to have a better outlook on life, getting this done.”

Associated Press writer Ben Fox reported this story from Miami and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez reported in Santo Domingo.

Source: Associated Press (AP); retrieved 03/31/2014 from: http://news.yahoo.com/low-cost-dominican-surgeries-spark-warnings-us-042418398.html

This is a very important issue for the planning and execution of the new inter-governmental agency: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). First of all, someone died – life is too precious to skim over this issue with indifference. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap to introduce and implement the CU, so as to re-boot the region’s economic engines, including avenues of medical tourism.

There are also peripheral issues associated with this news story, many of which are examined, as missions, in great details in the Go Lean book. The issues/missions are:

  • Image: Confidence in the competence of service providers is sometimes based on reputation and branding. This is para-mount in medical fields. While the Caribbean is home to many excellent medical schools, facilities and practitioners, there is no regional “sentinel” role-player. The CU mandate is to zealously protect and promote the image and branding for industrial developments. So now when the media portrays “negative” depiction of Caribbean life, culture and people, there is no formal response mechanism. But with the CU’s implementation, there will be an entity to effectuate an anti-defamation response and better manage the region’s image.
  • Health Administration: The Go Lean roadmap recognizes healthcare as a basic need for the people of the Caribbean. As such, there is the acknowledgement that health delivery systems generate excessive costs and risks for a community. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing regional integration (Page 11) as the strategy for optimized benefits:
      IX.   Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, obesity and smoking cessation programs. The Federation must proactively anticipate the demand and supply of organ transplantation as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ trade.
  • Self-Government Entities: The foregoing news story involves a clinic regulated by a Caribbean member-state, the Dominican Republic. The Go Lean roadmap institutes an arrangement for medical/research campuses as SGE’s (Self-Governing Entities) that are only regulated by the CU federal authorities. Had this tragedy occurred on such a facility, the response would have been immediate and comprehensive, employing best-practices of trauma medicine arts and sciences, thusly requiring a post-mortem lessons-learned process that would be fully transparent and accountable.
  • Lean Government: The Go Lean roadmap also extends optimizations to the member-states governments, requiring a separation-of-powers dictum to transfer oversight and administration of certain state functions to federal authorities. This includes standards, licensing and administration of healthcare facilities. The application of best-practices would most assuredly minimize the risk of medical negligence.
  • US Exceptionalism: The Go Lean roadmap maintains that other countries have their own version of the American Dream. The quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not exclusively American. Whereas there are millions of negligent deaths in the US hospitals/clinics every year, one American dying in a Caribbean facility does not constitute an exceptional event; bad things do happen to good people … everywhere, in the US, in the Caribbean and in the Dominican Republic. Having a tourism-based regional economy means we always want to extend hospitality to our American guests, but embarking on medical tourism, also means assuming some degree of risks, for the facilities, the doctors and most importantly the patients.

The foregoing article crystalizes the need for the CU Trade Federation, a super-national administration to regulate, protect, promote and foster quality delivery of the most vital public services. The publishers of the Go Lean roadmap will hereby “sit back”, observe-and-report on the manifestations of this case, hoping for the quest for justice and accountability to be fulfilled. And remembering the unconscionable loss of the beautiful 28-year-old woman, Beverly Brignoni; RIP.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Self-employment on the rise in the Caribbean – World Bank

Posted on March 26, 2014 in Economics, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

Photo - Caribbean Commercial FishermenThere is the desire to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. At the root, any serious attempt at this objective must start with the creation of new jobs. The book Go Lean … Caribbean is one such attempt. It presents the roadmap to implement the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), and with this effort, create 2.2 million new jobs over a 5 year period. That is the summary of the roadmap. But the “devil is in the details”. How to create so many jobs in such a short interval?

In considering the lessons from other societies, it can be seen that one key is entrepreneurship.

The experiences of North America and Europe indicate that small firms are primary sources for new employment. While entrepreneurship is not new for the Caribbean, the CU strategy of focused incubators is new. This requires support services to ignite and spur start-up companies. The exact details of the commission to help entrepreneurship are spelled out on Page 28 of the book. The book relates that successful entrepreneurship requires a new community ethos; the most crucial help coming from government authorities in protecting property rights.

MIAMI, United States – The World Bank says while self-employment is on the rise in the Caribbean, quality jobs remain elusive.

The Washington-based financial institution, which launched a new report here, said almost 70 per cent of employees in the Caribbean work for businesses with five or fewer employees, compared to 60 per cent in Latin America.

But while entrepreneurship is often considered to be a driver of development, the World Bank said the resulting companies grow at a much slower rate than in other middle-income regions.

Furthermore, the high percentage of small businesses reflects a lack of quality jobs in the region’s larger or multinational businesses, the bank said.

Declaring that “this should ring warning bells,” the report notes that, in the Caribbean, almost 70 per cent of business owners have opened a business out of fear of losing their job or because jobs were not available.

The report notes that, in the past 10 years, Latin America and the Caribbean have “benefited significantly from favourable economic tailwinds”.

But it said, as these tailwinds die “growth has to come from within” adding that innovation was “key if the Caribbean is to build upon the social gains of recent years”.

The report notes that Caribbean firms develop new products less frequently than their counterparts in other developing regions.

It said in Jamaica, for example, the rate of product development is less than half than that of Thailand or Macedonia, adding that while Grenada topped the region for new product development, six of the “worst offenders” also hailed from the Caribbean.

The report did not identify these “worst offenders” but cites four possible reasons for the less frequent development of new products in the Caribbean – Human capital, intellectual property, risk taking and logistics.

It said while science, technology and engineering graduates are at a premium, it’s a scarcity that has a direct effect on innovation.

Closely related to the quality of education the report recognises this will be a major challenge for the region.

The report notes that with separate laws govern-ing copyright in every country “the complicated panorama lends less protection to the product creators, deterring much-needed investment for new product research and development”.

It said a “deep cultural shame of failure is hindering innovation by dissuading entrepreneurs from taking risks”.

The report states that this was evident as much in “individual reticence at a business level as in the low levels of investment in research and development, especially from the private sector” and that modernising ports, transport and customs can add a competitive edge to products from the region.

Currently, it said poor public services, communication links and transport infrastructure are hindering efforts to boost production capacity in the region.

The report states younger firms “far outshone” more established ones in terms of job creation.

“The key is identifying and supporting those startups, which have the most potential through start up programmes, subsidies or policy.”

Patricia Ferreira from getAbstract, a company which provides training to those looking to start their own business, told the World Bank that “everyone has identified that innovation is definitely the way to move forward. Now, how to take this concept of innovation, break it down into microlearning moments so they can move this innovation train forward”.

It pointed to a young Barbadian entrepreneur Justin Quinlan, who is the chief executive officer of a successful start-up, “but that wasn’t always the case”.

Encouraged to focus on an existing career path like law or medicine, the World Bank said he “frequently came up against obstacles to his entrepreneurial dream”.

Quinlan said he remembered pitching to one of the bigger lending firms in Barbados, which was geared to finding innovation for youth.

“So I walk into this boardroom, and everyone there is about 50 bordering on 60 plus. When people don’t understand ideas or comprehend ideas, they are afraid.

“Investment is all about leveraging risk, so why would you try and invest in something that you don’t know or understand,” he added.

Source: Caribbean360.com – Caribbean Online Magazine (Retrieved 03/25/2014) –http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/news/1090246.html#ixzz2x0N1aQii

DMSThe Go Lean roadmap asserts that entrepreneurship needs stimuli to be successful. That in addition to incubators, the book further calls for help to entrepreneurs with venture capital funds, angel investors, small business loans, Self-Governing Entities, cloud computing, and coaching.

Though “necessity is the mother of invention”, the Go Lean roadmap does not limit its job creation functionality to the realm of the small business. There are stimuli and growth strategies for large multi-national corporations and even government civil services. But perhaps the greatest impetus for growth will be in the fostering of intellectual property, as the book describes Internet Communications Technologies (ICT) as the great equalizer between big economy states (US, Japan, Germany, etc.) and small states, like in the Caribbean – See 10 Ways to Promote Intellectual Property (Page 29).

Considering the mathematics for creating 2.2 million new jobs, there needs to be the focus on additions and subtractions. Human flight or brain drains have depleted a lot of the Caribbean workforce in the past. So the effort to grow the number of new jobs must keep an eye on expatriation rates among the Caribbean youth. In this vein, education options would prioritize local institutions and online “e-Learning” as opposed to the previous model of studying abroad – where far too often the students never returned. This directive is embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence at the start of the book (Page 13) as:

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

All in all, the roadmap Go Lean … Caribbean proposes rebooting the entire economic eco-system of the region. This is the only way to usher in the change the Caribbean desperately needs. The book posits that the problems of the Caribbean homeland are too big for any one state to solve, but rather a regional solution, the Caribbean Union Trade Federation, is the most viable option to fulfill the hope for a vibrant future for the 30 member-states and 42 million people of the region.

Download the Book- Go Lean Caribbean Now!!!

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Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight

Posted on March 26, 2014 in Economics, Government, Implementation, Social, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

images-Caribbean-jamaica_police_498560223The publisher of the book Go Lean … Caribbean commends the Government of Jamaica and the Washington DC-based World Bank institution for their diligent effort to forge solutions to some of the crucial challenges of Jamaica. Crime has proceeded to cast such a “dark cloud” on Jamaica that the country is near the assessment of a “Failed-State”. The societal problems in Jamaica are so bad that many different advocacies from the Go Lean book can be applied to bring much needed improvements to the island. The book thusly serves as a roadmap for the implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a regional entity projected to also forge solutions for the Caribbean region as a whole and Jamaica in particular.

WASHINGTON D.C. – The World Bank says more than 80,000 Jamaican citizens will benefit from improved services, basic infrastructure and targeted crime and violence interventions in 18 vulnerable inner-city communities as a result of a US$42 million project for integrated community development.

The Washington-based financial institution said the new project is a continuation of the partnership between the Jamaica government and the World Bank on upgrading some of the country’s most vulnerable and volatile communities.

It said the project builds on the success of the “Inner City Basic Services for the Poor Project” to address accelerating urban decay and declining citizen security.

“The project aims to foster a more inclusive society in Jamaica by improving the quality of life of marginalized city dwellers,” said Sophie Sirtaine, World Bank country director for the Caribbean.

“It also aims to prevent crime and violence by engaging youth in public safety initiatives and providing them with job skills training,” she added.

As a result of the funding, Sirtaine said more than 50,000 people will benefit from improved solid waste management services, street lighting, paved roads and drainage.

She said residents in the 18 communities would “feel safer” and that 1200 families will have their piped water connection repaired and 4,500 residents receiving educational and skills training.

“As we strive to advance the targets of the Vision 2030, where access to reliable services and adequate infrastructure is the norm, enhancing community safety and security is a priority,” said Scarlette Gillings, managing director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund.

“And these communities are places of choice to live, work, raise families and do business,” she added.

In the Kingston Metropolitan Area, the World Bank said poverty has doubled in two years from seven per cent in 2008 to more than 14 per cent in 2010.

It also said youth unemployment is on the rise, with more than 50 per cent of young people unemployed, adding that homicides and other violent crimes rates are among “the highest in the Latin America and Caribbean region”.

Source: Caribbean360.com – Caribbean Online Magazine (Retrieved 03/20/2014) http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/business/1107320.html#ixzz2wvpxCnMA

While the foregoing article identifies these 3 objectives of the announced project: improved services, basic infrastructure and targeted crime & violence interventions, the Go Lean roadmap depicts 144 missions for the CU to engage, and provides the turn-by-turn directions on how to implement and ensure their success. At the outset of the book (Page 12), public safeguards are identified as prime directives in the Declaration of Interdependence:

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the antecedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdiction.

In addition to crime, the roadmap targets delivery of government services, identifying best practices in agile methodologies to guarantee fewer defects and more efficiency; (Pages 109 & 147). In fact, the name Go Lean refers to the commitment to lean project management methodologies in the structure of the CU; this is defined in the book’s Preface (Page 4).

Lastly, the book also details investments and the impact of pipelines in the region, recognizing that this field is an “art and a science”. These investments are identified as strategic, tactical and operational in their Caribbean deliveries (Page 43). This synchronizes with the World Bank and Jamaica’s initiatives to help the municipalities to better provide quality services with their Vision 2030 plan.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean is an economic empowerment plan for the Caribbean first and foremost. This means addressing the underlying issues that mitigate poverty: jobs, education and economic growth; (Page 222). The CU projects the creation of 2.2 million new jobs regionally while growing the economy to $800 Billion. This roadmap, once executed, should help Jamaica (and equally all 30 Caribbean member-states) shed this “Failed-State” eventuality.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Bahamas Debate: Was Prime Minister Behind On Tax?

Posted on March 26, 2014 in Economics, Government, Implementation, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

Photo - Perry Christie in ParliamentThe news article below is from The Tribune, a daily newspaper that covers the Bahamas. The story touches on a critical mission and motivation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU):

To re-boot the revenue systems that the region’s member-state governments depend on.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean, which serves as a roadmap for implementing the Caribbean Union Trade Federation, commences with an opening Declaration of Interdependence. In Verse XIV (Page 12) it pronounces:

Whereas government services cannot be delivered without the appropriate funding mechanisms, “new guards” must be incorporated to assess, accrue, calculate and collect revenues, fees and other income sources for the Federation and member-states. The Federation can spur government revenues directly through cross-border services and indirectly by fostering industries and economic activities not possible without the Union.

The below article crystalizes a debate. The country is mid-stream in implementing a new eco-system for assessing – collecting a Value-Added Tax (VAT). The proponents of the VAT are convinced that this is the panacea for the failure of real property tax collection, where even prominent politicians admit to not complying with the current taxing requirement. The foregoing debate is that maybe even the Prime Minister, Perry G. Christie, is delinquent, or may have been in the past. See the article here:

By: Khrisna Virgil, Tribune Staff Reporter (kvirgil@tribunemedia.net)

FNM (Bahamian Opposition Party) Deputy leader Loretta Butler-Turner is calling on Prime Minister Perry Christie to fully disclose whether he at some point fell behind in paying his real property taxes, and, if so, the years involved.

Branding him as the worst Prime Minister the Bahamas has seen to date, Mrs Butler-Turner criticised Mr Christie following his admission that he was unaware of which PLP parliamentarians, if any, were in arrears with their taxes.

The comments came amid a wave of backlash sparked following VAT advisor Ishmael Lightbourne’s confession that he had not paid real property taxes over the last decade. He owe’s the government more than $7,000.

The Christie administration has been heavily criticised since news of Mr Lightbourne’s delinquent account went public, especially as the government struggles to make its case that VAT is a suitable revenue-generating system.

It was Mrs Butler-Turner’s opinion that Mr Christie was “the most incompetent and irresponsible Prime Minister and Minister of Finance since the advent of Cabinet government in the Bahamas. He is very good at pleading ignorance and very poor at accepting responsibility.

“For the sake of accountability and responsibility might Mr. Christie advise if there were years when he did not pay his real property taxes in a timely manner and how many years this involved?

“If Mr Christie failed to ask (PLP parliamentarians), he is even more incompetent and slacker as Prime Minister than previously thought.

“He now says, ‘I will in fact review that with a view to seeing those of us who are in arrears of the various requirements in terms of taxes and with a view to advising them to meet the payments.’

“Why is he just doing this now, nearly two years after returning to office and on the eve of introducing legislation on VAT, legislation that has been postponed on three occasions by an incompetent government?

“He wants the Bahamian people to pay taxes and wants to raise taxes on law-abiding citizens, including the poor, but doesn’t know who in his own ranks are paying taxes? Is there one standard for the Bahamian people and another standard for PLP parliamentarians?”

Mrs Butler-Turner accused the Christie administration of being one of double standards, made clear, she said, by the actions of some PLPs. She added that seemingly it does not matter if taxes are raised or lowered because there are members of the government who simply do not pay.
Source: The Tribune – Daily newspaper online site (Retrieved 02/26/2014) –http://www.tribune242.com/news/2014/feb/26/fnm-deputy-was-prime-minister-behind-tax/

There are countless anecdotes in the Bahamas, and other countries with similar tax schemes and regimes, where property taxes had not been paid for decades, and only when there is a need for property title transfer (sale or inheritance), does the issue of tax collection become relevant. Does that anecdote also apply to the current Bahamian Prime Minister? This is not known here and now! Nor is it considered in the Go Lean book. The charge in the foregoing article seems to be more of a sensational political volley, rather than a statement of fact.

The CU, on the other hand, takes an apolitical, non-partisan stance. Further the Go Lean book asserts  that even the originator of Christianity, Jesus Christ, advised his followers to “pay Caesar’s things to Caesar”. This is found in a Chapter entitled:

10 Lessons from the Bible (Page 144).

(Note: the Bahamas claims to be a Christian nation).

The CU mission is to implement the complete eco-system for property tax assessment, registration and collections. The roadmap advocates an optimized tactic where the CU operates as a technocratic deputized agency and acquires “Receivables” for a country’s property taxes, in advance, and then subsequently facilitates collections and servicing. Imagine the Bahamas, and other similar member-states, under this new regime, receiving a warrant (securitized payment) of 80% of the amount of tax revenues that should be collected in a “perfect scenario” – 10 Ways to Pay For Change (Page 101). It then becomes the job of the CU’s technocratic professionals to complete the collection cycle – removing any political prejudices from the process – 10 Ways to Improve Credit Ratings (Page 155).

Without a doubt, this approach is far better than the status quo.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

 

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Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Maarten Join the ACS

Posted on March 26, 2014 in Implementation, Locations, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

French Caribbean MapThe SFE Foundation, publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean welcomes these French Caribbean states into this brotherhood of Caribbean states. We embrace the idea of regional integration, as described in the below article, and push for an even “deeper dive into waters” of confederation, collaboration and convention.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean serves as a roadmap to navigate the integration and consolidation of all 30 member-states into the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU will equally represent these French-speaking Caribbean member-states along with their Dutch, English and Spanish counterparts. The Go Lean roadmap posits that the region is ill-prepared to compete on the world’s stage without this proposed integration. The book declares interdependence among these member-states to form a single market & economy of 42 million people and the potential for an $800 Billion GDP. The end-result will furnish a Caribbean Union that our young people can saddle their dreams to for a consequential future.

For this movement we welcome Guadeloupe, Martinique & St Maarten, and encourage this embrace by other French territories. See news article here:

By the Caribbean Journal staff:
Guadeloupe, Martinique and St Maarten have all joined the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) as associate members.

The three Caribbean territories acceded to the ACS during the regional group’s Ministerial Council meeting in Trinidad last week.

“It is important that we remain a player in the region and that we strengthen the bonds between us and the Nations of the Caribbean,” St Maarten Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Wiliams said following the move. “One of the things I have been stressing is regarding our responsibilities and roles that we have to take on as a country. One of those is participation in regional and international organizations. Now we have the capacity to meet with the ACS which [gives] us a voice in the region.”

Serge Letchimy, President of Martinique’s Regional Council, said regional integration had been a priority of his tenure, with a view toward “anchoring Martinique in its geographical environment.”

The territories’ accession to the ACS was first announced [at the outset of this 19th Ordinary Meeting of the Ministerial Council].

Martinique and Guadeloupe’s relationship with the sovereign territories of the Caribbean, and how it should develop, continues to be a question for the region.

Last year, a report recommended that Martinique and Guadeloupe integrate economically with the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States – (www.caribjournal.com/2013/04/08/report-urges-oecs-economic-integration-for-martinique-guadeloupe/).

Source:  Caribbean Journal Online News Source; retrieved 02/21/2014 from: http://www.caribjournal.com/2014/02/21/guadeloupe-martinique-st-maarten-join-association-of-caribbean-states/

The Caribbean needs all hands on deck for the region’s societal elevation goals. Consider these organizational dynamics of the ACS and the OECS:

ACS

The Association of Caribbean States (ACS) is a union of nations centered on the Caribbean Basin. It was formed with the aim of promoting consultation, cooperation, and concerted action among all the countries of the Caribbean. The primary purpose of the ACS is to develop greater trade between the nations, enhance transportation, develop sustainable tourism, and facilitate greater and more effective responses to local natural disasters – Wikipedia.com.

It comprises twenty-five member states and four associate members. The convention establishing the ACS was signed on July 24, 1994 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. The secretariat of the organization is located in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Antigua & Barbuda Cuba Guyana Panama Venezuela
Bahamas Dominica Haiti St. Kitts & Nevis Aruba
Barbados Dominican Republic Honduras St. Lucia Curaçao
Belize El Salvador Jamaica St. Vincent & Grenadines France
Colombia Grenada Mexico Suriname Turks & Caicos Islands
Costa Rica Guatemala Nicaragua Trinidad and Tobago

Caribbean Sea Agenda
One agenda adopted by the ACS has been an attempt to secure the designation of the Caribbean Sea as a special zone in the context of sustainable development; it is pushing for the UN to consider the Caribbean Sea as an invaluable asset that is worth protecting and treasuring. The organization has sought to form a coalition among member states to devise a United Nations General Assembly resolution to ban the transshipment of nuclear materials through the Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal.

OECS

The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), created in 1981, is an inter-governmental organization dedicated to economic harmonization and integration, protection of human and legal rights, and the encouragement of good governance between the countries/dependencies of the Eastern Caribbean states of Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent & Grenadines. Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands are associate member states.
Source: Wikipedia.com.

The Go Lean roadmap aligns with the ACS and OECS agenda – all hands on deck – with the implementation plan of an Exclusive Economic Zone for the Caribbean Sea. This plan is therefore conceivable,believable and achievable. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Fed Releases Transcripts from 2008 Meetings

Posted on March 26, 2014 in Economics, Government, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

Photo - US Federal reserve Bank Building (1)This foregoing article is part of the process of post-mortem analysis, sometimes referred as “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” or “Armchair Quarterbacking”. This can be a helpful process as it allows for lessons-learned of previous episodes and the mitigation of future risk. This is the premise of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This book, serving as a roadmap for change in the Caribbean region, posits that the effects of the 2008 Great Recession continue to linger. Therefore the book advocates lessons from 2008 and the implementation of reforms, re-boots and turn-arounds to steer the region to a better outcome.

The book is inspired by the words of famed American Economist Paul Romer, who coined the phrase: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. The above article shows that this philosophy was also incorporated in the undertakings of many of the stakeholders battling the challenges of 2008 – they did not waste the crisis. Many things that were blatantly wrong in the macro economy before 2008 were corrected by this crisis. The “easy money” policies and NINJA (No Income No Job or Assets) loans of the 2000’s decade were abated. The financial industries have now moved back to more sound, fundamental lending principles.

By Dunstan Prial:

Transcripts from 2008 Fed meetings divulge publicly, for the first time, details of decisions made by the central bank during the height of the financial crisis. [US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben] Bernanke proposed two options: an emergency term securities lending facility and to expand and extend the currency swap lines with struggling European banks.

By late October, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the fire sales of several other large banks on the brink of collapse, the Fed had dropped interest rates to about 1% and introduced a host of other emergency measures. And Fed policy members were apparently quarreling over whether those measures and how they were communicated to the public were helping or harming.

At the Fed’s Oct. 28-29 meetings, Timothy Geithner, then president of the New York Fed, scolded some colleagues for suggesting the Fed’s bold moves were hurting broader confidence in the economy: “Now, a lot of things happened over the last three months and the last year, and a lot of things happened in terms of policy over the last six weeks. There is no doubt that communication about policy by all the arms of the U.S. government and the uncertainty created by the actions by all the arms of the U.S. government contributed in ways to uncertainty about the policy response going forward,” Geithner said.

“There is also no doubt that inevitably in a crisis like this, when policy moves forcefully, it is scary because a lot of people are not yet at the point of assessing or understanding the forces driving our decisions. But I think it’s just unfair to suggest that the actions by the Chairman and this Committee were a substantial contributor to the erosion in confidence and to uncertainty about further policy actions, even though it’s true that when we move with force and drama it has the risk of adding to uncertainty.”

Geithner was a key supporter of the activist measures taken by the Fed before being named Treasury Secretary after Barack Obama was elected in November 2008. The transcripts, which run into the hundreds of pages, reveal that this was the beginning a series of unprecedented measures taken by the Fed in an effort to stave off another Depression.

The 14 transcripts are from eight scheduled meetings and six emergency meetings of the policy setting Federal Open Market Committee, which sets the central bank’s monetary policy, including the level of short-term rates.

The transcripts do not include other meetings at which smaller groups of Fed officials, working with the Treasury Department, arranged the bailouts of bankrupt Bear Stearns, the American International Group (NYSE: AIG), and housing service entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Nor do the transcripts include notes from the meetings at which policy makers decided to let investment bank Lehman Brothers fall, which occurred in September 2008 and proved a key event at the outset of the crisis.

Fox Business News Online (Retrieved 02/21/2014) –http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2014/02/21/fed-releases-transcripts-from-2008-meetings/

How about the Caribbean? Has the lessons been learned in and for this region? Have the blatantly wrong policies been abated? Has the markets returned to fundamentally sound policies?

Unfortunately, with the ever-expanding brain drain/human flight crisis in the Caribbean, the economic problems persist. Is it fair to conclude that when people move from the Caribbean to the US mainland, Canada or EU member-states, that there is some failure on behalf of Caribbean society? The Go Lean roadmap so declares, identifying “push-and-pull” underlying factors.

What qualifies the writers of this book to make these assessments?

Simple! They have lived the issues depicted in this foregoing news article and the Go Lean roadmap. The book is published by the SFE Foundation, a Community Development Corporation constituted by members of the Caribbean Diaspora. These are people who love their homeland, and would rather live, work and play there, but instead, find themselves toiling as alien residents in foreign lands. Principals of this foundation were also there in 2008, engaged with major stakeholders of the Global Financial crisis: Lehman Brothers, BearStearns. JPMorganChase, CitiGroup, etc. They were on the inside looking out, not the outside looking in. They were movers-and-shakers of the macro economy, not just armchair quarterbacks.

 

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