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Britain’s Neglected Diaspora

Posted on August 10, 2014 in Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Oh, how the mighty has fallen!

It is not only the Third World that struggles with brain drain. According to the foregoing news article, Great Britain, one of the world’s richest economies, also has a problem keeping their highly skilled workers as home. Accordingly, the article reports that there are over 5 million British expatriates living abroad.

Title: Message to the British Diaspora: “… and don’t come back”

Sub-title: Some 5 million Britons live abroad. The country could do far more to exploit its high-flying expats

When British politicians talk about winning the “global economic race” (as they often do) they have athletes like Gregor Wilson in mind. Mr. Wilson taught himself to code as a child. He started and built his first company while at university and sold it on graduating. His second venture, a software firm, is booming and will soon be ready to take on more staff. He is also preparing to leave Britain for good.

In the popular imagination, British expats are leathery retirees in the Mediterranean. But from 2006 onwards the weak pound, the bursting of Spain’s property bubble and rising taxes in France made the costas less attractive. The number of old Britons emigrating annually has more than halved since then. Dean Blackburn, head of HSBC Expat, part of the high-street bank, says that a different breed of emigrant is now on the march: the ambitious graduate bound for North America or Asia.

The sharpest rise has been among those moving to the glittering East (see chart). Mr Wilson will build his business in Hong Kong. The web, along with the reach of the English language and the cachet of a British degree, gives young people like him opportunities undreamed-of by their parents’ generation. They are also un-tethered for longer: on average, they buy a house and form a family later in life than did previous generations. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, since the eve of the economic crisis, emigration is down by 19% overall but up by 8% among 15- to 24-year-olds.

High housing costs help to drive young folk abroad. For the monthly rent on a rabbit hutch anywhere near central London, graduates live grandly elsewhere. “We can afford to travel around Australia, rent an apartment with a sea view and save some money,” explains Emma, a publisher and recent Oxford graduate who moved to Melbourne last year. Those with advanced degrees are especially likely to leave for countries where pay and research facilities are better.

This is regrettable. Britain’s productivity rate is puny; firms and factories badly need such skilled employees. But it is also an opportunity—which the country is squandering.

According to the World Bank, the British diaspora (at nearly 5m people, roughly the size of Scotland) is the largest of any rich country and the eighth biggest overall. Britain’s many expats could strengthen its trading links, channel investment into its economy and generally burnish the national brand. But Britain’s government seems to have “no coherent strategy” for engaging with them, says Alan Gamlen of the Oxford Diasporas Programme, a research unit at OxfordUniversity.

Of 193 UN member states, 110 have formal programmes to build links with citizens abroad. Britain is not one of them. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s database of Britons abroad is patchy. Of all the high-flying expats with British passports your correspondent asks, only one—Danny Sriskandarajah, a migration expert based in South Africa—has had any contact with local embassies or with UKTI, Britain’s trade-promotion body. And his Indian friend has received much more attention from his consulate.

Indeed, India is a trailblazer in this field. It has an entire ministry for its emigrants. Mr. Gamlen says it partly has this to thank for the success of its IT industry, built by Indians lured home from Silicon Valley and Europe. Other countries are similarly welcoming. Italy and France even reserve parliamentary seats for their diasporas.

The British government would probably have to work harder than most to sustain ties with the country’s expats. Britons are relatively good at melting into other countries without trace. They are a individualistic bunch, have Commonwealth links and a native language that often makes it easy to integrate.

Kiwi seeds
New Zealand offers a good model for Britain’s hands-off diplomats to emulate. Wellington has spent 30 years encouraging firms and philanthropists to root out Kiwis abroad. Its proudest achievement is the Kiwi Expat Association, a public-private partnership that supports and connects overseas New Zealanders through social media and networking events, and helps them return home if they so wish. Britain might also make it easier to bring spouses into the country. Expats who want to move back with their non-British partners often collide with their home country’s ever-tougher immigration regime.

If Britain does not want its talented globetrotters, others do. Germany actively recruits Britons to take apprenticeships there. Middle Eastern governments tour British universities doling out visas. Mr. Wilson was contacted out of the blue by the Chinese authorities, who invited him to relocate his firm and offered to pay for his flight. “America and China seem really keen to attract us,” he says. “Britain just doesn’t seem that interested.”
The Economist Magazine – (Posted 08/09/2014) –
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21611102-some-5m-britons-live-abroad-country-could-do-far-more-exploit-its-high-flying-expats-and?fsrc=nlw

The analysis is straight forward, this is Globalization 101. In a global economy, the economic rules of supply and demand are magnified globally. Highly skilled individuals are a commodity that is in demand, customers for that commodity emerged from all corners of the earth.

For the Caribbean, the lessons are very pointed, the exacerbated brain drain, estimated at 70%, with one country Guyana registering a 81% ratio, will not go away on its own. There must be a concerted effort of mitigations and solutions to remediate the problem. The book Go Lean…Caribbean is the concerted mitigation effort on behalf of the Caribbean region. The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

This roadmap is for the elevation of Caribbean society, including the Diaspora. There is no laissez-faire attitude toward this population, there are specific missions to impact the Diaspora into the effort to empower the Caribbean. In fact, the prime directives of the CU are presented as the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The book posits that, just like Great Britain in the foregoing article, the Caribbean is in crisis with this brain drain problem. This point is stressed early in the book (Page 13) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

This commentary previously related details of the vibrant Caribbean Diaspora, such as the causes of emigration, efforts to reduce the “push-and-pull” factors and the region’s continuous interaction with the “exile community”, in these earlier Go Lean blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896	American “Pull” Factors – Crisis in Black Homeownership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	American “Pull” Factors – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1683	British public sector workers strike over ‘poverty pay’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1350	PayPal expands payment services to 10 markets
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1296	Remittances to Caribbean Increased By 3 Percent in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1256	Traditional 4-year College Degree are Terrible Investments for the Caribbean Region
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841	Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=740	Trade/Foreign Mission Offices – Why not … a profit center?

Losing a portion of any population is bad for any economy. But losing large portions of a skilled population, is worst still as it creates a debilitating brain drain.

So how do we, in the Caribbean, find success when even John Bull (metonym referring to England) has failed? The foregoing article identifies a best practice: Diaspora outreach. This plan requires capturing a database of all Caribbean Diaspora and their legacies, a natural feature of the myCaribbean.gov social media site.

The Go Lean roadmap spells out the full details of the plan to engage the Diaspora residing, working, and studying in foreign lands. (Many students study abroad and never return “home”). The goal is to expand trade and absolutely-positively encourage a repatriation to their Caribbean homelands.

The CU will surely not abandon their Caribbean expatriates, even though these ones may have abandoned the Caribbean.

In line with the foregoing article, the Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the best practices in Diaspora outreach, thus furthering interaction with far-flung Caribbean stakeholders:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influences Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choice Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate Diaspora	Page 46
Strategy – Customers – Diaspora	Page 47
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of State – Foreign Affairs	Page 80
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase	Page 96
Implementation – Year 4 / Repatriate Phase	Page 98
Implementation – Improve Mail Services – e-Mail for Diaspora	Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Implementation – Trade Mission Objectives	Page 117
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Impact British Territories	Page 245
Appendix – Analysis of Caribbean Diaspora by Country of Residence	Page 267
Appendix – Analysis of Caribbean Remittances	Page 268
Appendix – Analysis of Caribbean Emigration	Page 269
Appendix – Alternative Remittance Modes	Page 270
Appendix – Puerto Rican Diaspora Population in the US	Page 304

This roadmap focuses on the Caribbean, arguably the world’s best address, not Great Britain, a less than tropical, less than paradisiacal land . Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes in this Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap.

This is a big deal for the region. This roadmap is not just a plan, its a prescription for what ails the region; it advocates for the CU to serve as a delivery vehicle to carry the hopes and dreams of generations of Caribbean residents…and Diaspora.

The region needs this delivery; the region needs this cure. The region needs this roadmap to be a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Civil Rights, Diaspora, Foreign Policy, Model, UK

Philadelphia Freedom – Some Restrictions Apply

Posted on August 8, 2014 in Ethos, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

“You have to know your place”

… this was a familiar edict in the US for minority populations. These were more than words; this was indicative of the repression, suppression and oppression of living in the US, and not being White, English-speaking, Protestant, Straight, Male and/or able-bodied.

Anyone with exception to this above list had to endure restrictions.

Philadelphia proved different!

This city became synonymous with a love for freedom and had an infectious impact on the country, and the rest of the world for that matter.

All in all, there is a certain community ethos associated with Philadelphia that aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean. It is a focus on the future, a deferred gratification as investment for future returns. These attributes have been promoted by the Go Lean movement as necessary traits to forge change in the Caribbean region. We need our own Caribbean flavor of Philadelphia Freedom.

“Philadelphia Freedom” is a song released by “The Elton John Band” as a single in 1975. The song was one of Elton John’s seven #1 US hits during the early and mid-1970s, which saw his recordings dominating the charts. In Canada, it was his eighth single to hit the top of the RPM (Records, Promotion, Music Magazine) national singles chart.

The song was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin as a favour to John’s friend, tennis star Billie Jean King. King was part of the Philadelphia Freedoms professional tennis team. The song features an orchestral arrangement by Gene Page, including flutes, horns, and strings.

Background
Recorded in the summer of 1974, during breaks between sessions for Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Elton John’s ninth studio album), the song was at the time the only song Elton John and Bernie Taupin ever consciously wrote as a single, as John told journalist Paul Gambaccini [in a subsequent interview]. John was looking to honour Billie Jean King, and so asked Taupin to write a song called “Philadelphia Freedom” as a homage to her tennis team.

In [the book] His Song: The Musical History of Elton John, [writer] Elizabeth Rosenthal recounts that Taupin said, “I can’t write a song about tennis,” and did not. Taupin maintains that the lyrics bear no relation to tennis, Philly Soul (a style of soul music characterized by funk influences), or even flag-waving patriotism. Nonetheless, the lyrics have been interpreted as patriotic and uplifting, and even though released in 1975, the song’s sentiment, intended or not, meshed perfectly with an American music audience gearing up for the country’s bicentennial celebration in July 1976. In the US, the song was certified Gold in 1975 and Platinum in 1995 by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The song was dedicated in part to the Philadelphia sound: the music of the Delfonics, producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff; and The Spinners, producer Thom Bell, with whom John would work two years later on The Thom Bell Sessions. This song plays in Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute IMAX Theater before every show as a tribute to the city’s love for freedom and its impact on the country. The lyrics are also printed on the walls of the Hard Rock Cafe in Philadelphia.

Song Lyrics
I used to be a rolling stone
You know if the cause was right
I’d leave to find the answer on the road
I used to be a heart beating for someone
But the times have changed
The less I say the more my work gets done

`Cause I live and breathe this Philadelphia freedom
From the day that I was born I’ve waved the flag
Philadelphia freedom took me knee-high to a man
Yeah gave me peace of mind my daddy never had

Oh Philadelphia freedom shine on me, I love you
Shine a light through the eyes of the ones left behind
Shine a light shine a light
Shine a light won’t you shine a light
Philadelphia freedom I love you, yes I do

If you choose to you can live your life alone
Some people choose the city
Some others choose the good old family home
I like living easy without family ties
Till the whippoorwill of freedom zapped me
Right between the eyes

Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia Reference Source (Retrieved 08-07-2014) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Freedom_(song)

“Knowing your place” was never accepted by citizens of this Philadelphia. This revolutionary attitude or ethos dates back to before Colonial America, the Revolution War, 1776 and beyond ^[a]:

Religious Tolerance – King Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter for the Pennsylvania colony. As a member of the religious sect the Quakers, Penn had experienced religious persecution and wanted his colony to be a place where anyone could worship freely. This tolerance, far more than by most other colonies, led to better relations with the local Native American tribes and fostered Philadelphia’s rapid growth into colonial America’s most important city.
American Revolution – Philadelphia’s importance and central location in the colonies made it a natural center for America’s revolutionaries. The city hosted the First Continental Congress before the war; the Second Continental Congress, which signed the United States Declaration of Independence, during the war; and the Constitutional Convention (1787) after the war.
Abolition – Philadelphia was called the “Quaker City” and was recognized as an anti-slavery stronghold. This is where noted runaway-slave-turned-Abolitionist Frederick Douglas sought refuge on his way to New York and later gave one of his most famous speeches: “Speech at National Hall, Philadelphia July 6, 1863 for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments”. Another advocate was Thaddeus Stevens. He hailed from Adams County, a rural suburb of Philadelphia, as one of the leaders of the radical faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. He was a fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against African-Americans. As chairman of the House “Ways and Means” Committee during the Civil War, he played a major part in the war’s financing. He sought to secure emancipated slave’s rights during Reconstruction, even in opposition to the contrarian President, Andrew Johnson.
Civil Rights – Philadelphia emerged as a prime destination for African Americans during the Great Migration and the city surpassed two million occupants by 1950. This set the stage for the impending civil rights movement. One battle saw black activists in Philadelphia (and Harlem, New York) successfully integrating state construction projects in 1963. The city was also front-and-center to race riots in the summer of 1964.
Women’s Rights – Some of the early Abolitionists were interested in human rights not just for Blacks but for women as well. The Philadelphia-area Quakers, were known for their early leadership for women’s rights. One prominent example was Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793 – 1880), as a Quaker, she proved to be an effective leader, orator and advocate for women’s rights, abolition and social reform.
Gay Rights – The Elton John song Philadelphia Freedom was dedicated to tennis star Billie Jean King, noted gay rights activist, social reformer and advocate for sexual equality. The song, see VIDEO above, is recognized as a anthem for the gay (LGBT) community.
Animal Rights (Zoo) – Philadelphia is home to the United States’ first zoo, chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on March 21, 1859, though its opening was delayed by the Civil War until July 1, 1874. The environmental and animal rights movement all stemmed from these origins.
Repatriation – After 400 years of development and progress, ebb-and-flow, Philadelphia must constantly redefine itself. Faced with “white flight” and the abandonment of its tax base, the City had to strategize a repatriation plan – gentrification (a shift toward wealthier residents/businesses and increasing property values in the urban community). Gentrification of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods has emerged into the 21st century and the city has now reversed its decades-long trend of population loss.

The revolutionaries of Philadelphia (past and present) have strived for the same goal as this Caribbean empowerment movement:

Elevation of society.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean strives to accomplish this revolution with the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). In fact, the prime directives of the CU are pronounced in these declarative statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap, initiates with a “Prologue” that identifies many community ethos that must be embraced for a chance of success and permanent change. It should be noted that until recently, Philadelphia was considered on the brink of failure, much like Detroit. But like many revolutionaries, it is only “at the precipice” that they show their true mettle, their revolutionary spirit.

The Go Lean book accepts this premise, that only at a crisis that people act forthrightly to correct institutional wrongs. For this reason the book declares that a ‘crisis is a terrible thing to waste’. Already, this commentary has assessed the Caribbean failing eco-systems and conveyed the merits of this Go Lean movement, with these posts:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1014	All is not well in the sunny Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623	Only at the precipice, do they change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Caribbean island open to radical economic fixes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US and 10 Things We Don’t Want from the US

In the roadmap for the CU, in order to change the Caribbean, the relativity of freedom is prominent in planning and considerations. This point is detailed in the Declaration of Interdependence at the outset of the book, modeling the US movement in Philadelphia in 1776 and pronouncing this need for a sober view of freedom (Page 10):

Therefore we hereby accept a model democracy for our guide. To that end, we recognize and esteem the same initiation as did the United States of America with this declaration that we ourselves cherish, revere and concur:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness

The Go Lean roadmap accepts that change has come to the Caribbean. There is the need for a Philadelphia-style revolution. There is also the need for technocratic facilitations to deliver the functionalities of this federal administration. The book posits that this burden is too big for any one Caribbean member-state, and thus the collaboration efforts of the CU is necessary, as the strategy is to confederate all the 30 member-states of the Caribbean into an integrated “single market”, into a United States of the Caribbean.

The tactical approach for the Go Lean roadmap is a Separation-of-Powers mandate between the CU federal government versus the Caribbean member-states. This model is perfected by the City of Philadelphia with the only consolidated city-county charter ^[b] in the State of Pennsylvania, sharing and dividing a lot of municipal services in the social contract fulfillment.

Change happens! The old adage is that “there is only one constant, change”. Change comes about either evolutionary or revolutionary. Philadelphia is associated, from history and today, with revolutionary change. For the Caribbean we need some revolutionary change. The following list details the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the Philadelphia-style Caribbean revolution:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Caribbean Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate Caribbean Diaspora	Page 46
Strategy – Agents of Change	Page 57
Tactical – Growing the Caribbean Economy to $800 Billion	Page 67
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Federal Departments versus Member-States	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence	Page 120
Anatomy of Advocacies – Role Model Frederick Douglas	Page 122
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from a Thriving City – New York	Page 137
Planning – Lessons Learned from a Failed City – Detroit	Page 140
Planning – Lessons Learned from the US Constitution	Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234

The Go Lean roadmap has a simple motive, to facilitate revolutionary change in the Caribbean, with the end result being a better place to live, work and play. We can glean a powerful lesson from the historicity of Philadelphia in that freedom is not free. The stakeholders of society may prefer that advocates “know their place”, accept restrictions. While freedom may be dependent on others’ cooperation, their acquiescence may take a struggle, a revolution.

Elton John’s song conveys a great inspiration for the Caribbean: Philadelphia freedom shine on me … shine a light through the eyes of the ones left behind!

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

————

Appendices – Cited References:

a. Wikipedia keywords: William Penn, Philadelphia, Frederick Douglass, Thaddeus Stevens, Civil Rights Movement, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Billie Jean King, and Philadelphia Zoo.

b. a City-County Charter is simultaneously a city, a municipal corporation, and a county, an administrative division of the State. It has the powers and responsibilities of both types of entities.

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Civil Rights, History, Model, Power

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Role Model Berry Gordy – No Town Like Motown

Posted on August 6, 2014 in Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

This is a memorable dialogue:

Berry Gordy: You went from singing love songs to now anti-war songs. I understand you want to reflect change in society…

Marvin Gaye (interrupting): I don’t want to reflect change, I want to effect change.

Thus the alignment of the Broadway play Motown, The Musical and the book Go Lean…Caribbean. It is an established fact that any difficult subject can be more easily communicated if backed-up by a catchy melody and rhyming words. An underlying theme of the above-cited play, based on the autobiographical story of Motown founder Berry Gordy, is that music effected change in America and forged integration and elevation of society.

By: Robert Simonson

Title: No Town Like Motown: Navigating the Life, Times and Tunes of Starmaker Berry Gordy

First-time Broadway director Charles Randolph-Wright is at the helm of one of the more pulse-quickening titles of the season, Motown: The Musical, about record producer Berry Gordy’s heyday.

In terms of backstage politics, Charles Randolph-Wright may have the trickiest job of any director working on Broadway this spring. He is staging Motown: The Musical, a musically overflowing new show about the life and career of recording mogul Berry Gordy.

One of his producers is Berry Gordy as well. Gordy completes his hat trick by having written the libretto for the piece.

“Sometimes I’ll forget the person I’m talking to is the same person that is depicted on stage,” said Randolph-Wright.

One imagines such waters are difficult to navigate. What if Producer Gordy tells the director not to interfere with Writer Gordy’s work? “It’s something we talked about from the beginning,” said Randolph-Wright. “He’s very open as to what the story is.”

The show, which is playing at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, is largely based on Gordy’s 1995 memoir “To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown.”

“He wrote the book 20 years ago,” Randolph-Wright explained. “Now he has an even different perspective on that. You have to ask, ‘How do we tell the story of this big character, who is based on this real person, and yet that person is involved with the creation of the show, and is working on it?’ It’s a challenge, but the way we have worked is a very open process.”

Randolph-Wright recalled one particular moment when Gordy confided in him an episode from his past when he was at his most vulnerable. “We were walking around and he told me this story. I couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘You want that on stage?’ I thought it was very brave. But at this point at his life, what does he have to prove?”

Randolph-Wright added that Gordy, now 83, has no trouble juggling his many roles. After all, it is something he’s been doing for decades. “In most cases that would be a challenge,” he said. “But he spent his whole career wearing so many different hats. When I’m with the writer, that’s who I’m with. The producer is a different person. I am always with the person who’s doing all those things, but in each separate instance I’m with who Berry is at that moment.”

Charles Randolph-Wright was one of several directors who interviewed with Gordy. From the start, he thought he was right for the project. “This is in my DNA,” he said. He doesn’t mean that he grew up with Motown’s music (as many of us did) — though that is part of it. His connection to the material is more complex. “I’ve done every angle of this story. I’ve been in a music group. I’ve danced to the music. I’ve sung it. And I’ve lived in all those worlds he did, though not the same way he did.”

When the marquee was hung on the Lunt-Fontanne, Randolph-Wright glanced down the street and noticed he was only yards away from the Imperial Theatre. In the early 1980s he passed through the stage door of that theatre every night as a member of the original cast of Dreamgirls — the fictional account of the rise of The Supremes, a group Gordy helped found. “What’s happened in those years from that show to this show, it’s been an amazing journey,” he mused. “From the Broadway musical version of this story to the real story.”

Motown‘s greatest asset is the iconic songbook the Detroit-based record label produced; and they’ll get ample helpings of that hit parade, including songs made famous by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles (“Shop Around”), Diana Ross and The Supremes (“Stop! In the Name of Love”), Marvin Gaye (“What’s Going On”), Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, and Michael Jackson and The Jackson Five (“I Want You Back”).

Randolph-Wright said it was hard, given the rich catalogue, deciding which songs to keep in the show and which to leave out. “Every song you hear in this show, you want to hear,” he said. “But how do you put this journey into two and a half hours? There’s so much, so many people. They’re all part of this story. But we found out how to take the story and condense what could easily have been a miniseries.” He said he wouldn’t know the exact song count until opening night, but promised the show would contain more numbers than does your average musical.

To sing the classic pop hits, the director has assembled a large cast, including Valisia LeKae as Diana Ross and Charl Brown as Smokey Robinson — both particular Gordy favorites. Brandon Victor Dixon will play Gordy himself.

Randolph-Wright said he didn’t want note-by-note recreations of their numbers, “I want [the actors] to evoke these artists, not copy them, not be an impersonator. But it has to be the Motown sound. The actors have been tremendous in finding those things that make them seem real as those people.”

The tunes will be used in various ways. Some will be presented as straightforward performances; others will be used as narrative tissue, to further along the story. In addition, the score will include three or four new songs, written by Gordy expressly for the musical.

The director has found it a particular delight to see Gordy returning to his songwriting roots. “We forget that he wrote a lot of those early hits. Over the years, as Motown grew, he became less about being an artist, and more about being a businessman. It’s thrilling to see him become completely creative again.”

(This feature appears in the March 2013 issue of Playbill magazine.)
Play Bill Broadway Magazine/Web Site (Posted March 10, 2013; Retrieved 08-06-2014) – http://www.playbill.com/news/article/175778-No-Town-Like-Motown-Navigating-the-Life-Times-and-Tunes-of-Starmaker-Berry-Gordy

Like Berry Gordy, the prime directive of the Go Lean book is also to elevate society, but in the Caribbean, not in America, by integrating a confederated brotherhood. In fact, the declarative statements are as follows:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Berry Gordy accomplished his mission through music/song and entertainment. The book Go Lean…Caribbean strives to accomplish its mission with the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Berry Gordy is hereby recognized as a role model that the Caribbean can emulate. He has provided a successful track record of forging change, overcoming incredible odds, managing crises to successful conclusions and rebooting failing institutions. The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap, initiates with a “Prologue” that identifies community ethos that must be embraced for any chance of success and permanent change. This list of ethos from the book corresponds with the history of Berry Gordy, as portrayed in the Motown, The Musical Broadway play:

Go Lean…Caribbean	Berry Gordy Role Modeling
Job Multipliers	Economic Opportunities
Future Focus	Crossover / Integration
Foster Genius	Producing Artists
Help Entrepreneurship	New Record Labels, Movies
Promote Intellectual Property	Music Business Excellence
Research & Development	New Artists Development
Bridge the Digital Divide	Embrace of New Media
Improve Negotiations	Hollywood Interactions
Impact Turn-Around	Move from Detroit
Manage Reconciliations	Motown Reunions
Improve Sharing	Common Studios/Producers
Promote Happiness	Music Essential to Life
Greater Good	Impact Society

“No town like Motown” is the title of the foregoing article from the PlayBill magazine. But the Berry Gordon legacy is not the town of Detroit, but rather the musical contributions of his movement. It should be noted that Gordy moved the record company, Motown, out of the failed-city of Detroit, early in the 1970’s. So Gordy’s legacy is really how he grew in his management of change!

According to the opening dialogue, Berry Gordy was a reluctant advocate of change; he tried to be a businessman first. In the end, he conducted a lot of business, but he effected change as well. Thank you Marvin Gaye for that inspiration, for impacting Berry Gordy with the lesson that “one man, and his music” can make difference.

The Go Lean book accepts that the business of music can have a major impact on Caribbean society and the world. Already, this commentary has analyzed how a Caribbean music artist has made an impact on the world scene, with this post:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866

Bob Marley: The legend lives on!

In the Go Lean roadmap to elevate the Caribbean, the eco-systems of music get due respect. This point is detailed in the Declaration of Interdependence at the outset of the book, pronouncing this need for regional solutions (Page 14):

xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean roadmap accepts that change has come to the music business. It is no longer the same world that was dominated by Berry Gordy, and his cast of musical geniuses. Now, there is the need for some technocratic facilitations. The book posits that this burden is too big for any one Caribbean member-state, and thus the collaboration efforts of the CU is necessary, as the strategy is to confederate all the 30 member-states of the Caribbean despite their language and legacy, into an integrated “single market”. This will allow for better leverage of the consumer market for the consumption of music. From this eco-system, should emerge our own generations of Berry Gordy’s in the Caribbean to impact the world with their art, music, and contributions.

Today, most music is consumed digitally with a lot of retailing via the world wide web. This changed landscape now requires new tools and protections, like electronic payment systems, digital rights management and Performance Rights Organizations. The Go Lean/CU roadmap details these solutions. With these efforts and investments, the returns will be undeniable. The CU is designed to do the heavy-lifting of organizing Caribbean society, and interacting with the wide-world to better reap the benefits of music and related eco-systems. The following list details the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the next Motown movement, Caribbean style:

Community Ethos – Forging Change	Page 20
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Strategy – Strategy – Caribbean Vision	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Growing the Caribbean Economy to $800 Billion	Page 67
Separation of Powers – Central Bank – Electronic Payment Deployments	Page 73
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patents & Copyrights	Page 78
Separation of Powers – Culture Administration	Page 81
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit	Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Appendix – Caribbean Music Genres	Page 347
Appendix – Protecting Music Copyrights	Page 351

The Go Lean roadmap has simple motives: enable the Caribbean to be a better place to live, work and play. One man, or woman, can make a difference in this quest. We want to foster the next generation of “stars’ in music and other fields of endeavor.

According to his autobiography and the Broadway musical, Berry Gordy was inspired by other role models in his youth, i.e. Joe Louis. Now the world in general, the Caribbean is particular, is being inspired by Berry Gordy.

This is how to reflect and effect change in society. That opening dialogue with Marvin Gaye and Berry Gordy is captured for our inspiration. The end result:

Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today

Father, father
We don’t need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Arts, Detroit, Music, New York, Play, Transform

[Top]

The Crisis in Black Homeownership

Posted on August 5, 2014 in Economics, Social

Go Lean Commentary:

The United States of America has been the best economic manifestation in the history of mankind, (as declared in the book Go Lean…Caribbean Page 67), yet the experience has not been the same for all of its citizens. This definitely applies to the “black and brown” populations. The Caribbean Diaspora fits this classification and their experience fits 100% to the events related in the below news article.

The US is the “land of the free and the home of the brave”, but some restrictions apply. This reality is not new, as racial disparities have long existed in the history of America. But after a major social revolution in the 1960’s, positive change came to American minorities, following by decades of progress.

Then 2008 happened …

That year saw the crisis of the Great Recession where American society lost $11 Trillion in net worth; then later regained $13.5 Trillion; (Go Lean book Page 69). According to the foregoing article, the Great Recession losses were not evenly distributed; nor was the subsequent recovery – those who lost the net worth (Middle Class) were not the ones who recovered (One Percent).

How the recession turned owners into renters and obliterated Black American wealth.

By: Jamelle Bouie

In 2005, three years before the Great Recession, the median black household had a net worth of $12,124. Yes, this was far behind the median white household—which had a net worth of $134,992—but it was a huge improvement from previous decades, in which housing discrimination made wealth accumulation difficult (if not impossible) for the large majority of African-American families.

By the official end of the recession in 2009, median household net worth for blacks had fallen to $5,677—a generation’s worth of hard work and progress wiped out. (The number for whites, by comparison, was $113,149.) Overall, from 2007 to 2010, wealth for blacks declined by an average of 31 percent, home equity by an average of 28 percent, and retirement savings by an average of 35 percent. By contrast, whites lost 11 percent in wealth, lost 24 percent in home equity, and gained 9 percent in retirement savings. According to a 2013 report^[a] by researchers at BrandeisUniversity, “half the collective wealth of African-American families was stripped away during the Great Recession.”

It was a startling retrenchment, creating the largest wealth, income, and employment gaps since the 1990s. And, if a new study^[b] from researchers at CornellUniversity and RiceUniversity is any indication, these gaps are deep, persistent, and difficult to eradicate.

In the study, called “Emerging Forms of Racial Inequality in Homeownership Exit, 1968–2009,” sociologist Gregory Sharp and demographer Matthew Hall examine the relationship between race and risk in homeownership. Simply put, African-Americans are much more likely than whites to switch from owning homes to renting them.

“The 1968 passage of the Fair Housing Act outlawed housing market discrimination based on race,” explained Sharp in a press release. “African-American homeowners who purchased their homes in the late 1960s or 1970s were no more or less likely to become renters than were white owners. However, emerging racial disparities over the next three decades resulted in black owners who bought their homes in the 2000s being 50 percent more likely to lose their homeowner status than similar white owners.”

This wasn’t a matter of personal irresponsibility. Even after adjusting for socio-economic characteristics, debt loads, education, and life-cycle traits like divorce or job loss, blacks were more likely to lose their homes than whites.

If you’re familiar with American history and housing policy, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. The explicit housing discrimination of the mid-20^th century has left a mark—arguably a scar—on the landscape of American homeownership. The combination of red-lining, block-busting, racial covenants, and other discriminatory measures means that, even now, a majority of blacks live in neighborhoods with relatively poor access to capital and mortgage loans. What’s more, this systematic discrimination has left many black households unable to afford down payments or other housing costs, even if loans are available.

And in the event that black households are able to save and afford a home, they aren’t as financially secure as their white counterparts. To wit, middle-class African-Americans are more likely to belong to the lower middle class of civil servants and government workers—professions that, in the last five years, have been slashed as a consequence of mass public-sector downsizing^[c]. All else being equal, a black schoolteacher who loses her job to budget cuts is less likely to have savings—and thus a safety net—than her white counterpart.

But this isn’t just a story of legacies and effects. In addition to showing the consequences of past discrimination, Sharp and Hall argue that African-Americans have been victimized by a new system of market exploitation. Banks like Wells Fargo steered^[d] blacks and other minorities into the worst subprime loans, giving them less favorable terms than whites and foreclosing on countless homes. In a 2012 lawsuit^[e], the ACLU and National Consumer Law Center alleged that the now-defunct New Century Financial, working with Morgan Stanley, pushed thousands of black borrowers into the riskiest loans, leaving many in financial ruin. As early as 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported^[f] that blacks were twice as likely to receive subprime loans. And in a New York University study published last year^[g], researchers found that black and Hispanic families making more than $200,000 a year were more likely to receive subprime loans than white families making less than $30,000.

Together, all of this means that—according to Sharp and Hall—African-Americans are 45 percent more likely than whites to lose their homes. That means they’re more likely to lose their accumulated wealth and to slide down the income ladder, and less likely to pass the advantages of status and mobility to their children.

Apropos of that observation, recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics^[h] shows an incredible level of youth unemployment for blacks and Latinos. More than 21 percent of African-Americans aged 16 to 24 are out of work, compared with a national average of 14.2 percent. For black teenagers in particular, joblessness soars to nearly 40 percent. It’s a catastrophe with serious economic consequences. The Center for American Progress estimates^[i] that the young adults who experienced long-term unemployment during the worst of the recession will lose more than $20 billion in earnings over the next 10 years. And given the slow recovery, odds are good they’ll never recover those lost earnings.

It’s tempting to treat these as subsets of broader problems: poor assistance to homeowners and too much austerity. But they’re not. Even during the boom economy of the 1990s, black employment lagged behind the national average. And the racial wealth gap is a persistent fact of American life.

Likewise, the challenges of black homeownership are a function of discriminatory housing policy^[j], as are a whole host of other problems, from mass incarceration and overly punitive policing to poor air quality^[k] and food access. These challenges are heavily location-dependent, which is another way to say they are heavily racialized and most prevalent in the segregated, working-class or low-income communities that characterize life for most African-Americans^[l], even those with middle-class incomes.

For reasons both political and ideological, it’s nearly verboten in mainstream conversation to argue that racialized problems require race-conscious solutions. Knowing what we know about the demographics of foreclosures, for example, we should ensure any program to help underwater homeowners includes a specific measure to assist black victims of predatory lending, who may need additional help to get on sure footing.

For more than anyone else, this is a message for liberals and progressives, who—for all of their racial sensitivity—are still reluctant to tackle the economic dimensions of racism, even as they represent the vast majority of nonwhite voters and draw critical support from African-American constituencies. It’s how Elizabeth Warren could give “11 Commandments for Progressives” ^[m] —and receive huge applause—without mentioning the deep problems of racial inequality. One of her commandments is “that no one should work full-time and still live in poverty, and that means raising the minimum wage.” But solving this problem for African-Americans and Latinos—who tend to live in areas that are segregated from job opportunities—is very different than solving it for whites.

While conservatives and Republicans can play a role here, it’s Democrats who are committed to reducing income inequality and bringing balance to our lopsided economic system. Success on those fronts requires a return to race-conscious policymaking, from programs to increase the geographic mobility of low-income workers—relocation grants for individuals or transportation grants for communities with a spatial mismatch between jobs and housing—to public works programs aimed at low-income minority communities, to race-based affirmative action as a way to boost a flagging black middle class.

There’s little in American life that escapes the still-powerful pull of past and present racism, and effective policymaking—to say nothing of effective problem-solving—requires a response to that racism. Otherwise, we entrench the same disparities for a new generation.

——–

Jamelle Bouie is a Slate staff writer covering politics, policy, and race.
The Slate – Daily Magazine for the Web – Posted 07-24-2014; retrieved 08-04-2014
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/07/black_homeownership_how_the_recession_turned_owners_into_renters_and_obliterated.html

The points of this foregoing article aligns with the Go Lean book and the collection of blogs/commentaries. The book posits that the crisis persists for the Caribbean and their Diaspora in North America and Europe. What’s more, this movement asserts that this crisis, any crisis, is a terrible thing to waste.

The Caribbean Diaspora have fled their Caribbean homelands over past decades in search of better economic opportunities. It is now the conclusion that many of these “lands of refuge” are rigged in favor of certain ethnic groups; those groups do not include the “black and brown” of the Caribbean. This commentary has relayed, repeatedly, that this Caribbean-bred demographic can do better at home … in the Caribbean. The following are related previous posts:

Unfortunately for the Caribbean, this societal abandonment has continued. Analysis by the Inter-American Development Bank asserts that the Caribbean continues to endure a brain drain of 70% among the college educated population; (https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433).

This blog entry depicted how the Caribbean Diaspora that fled to Great Britain has not fared well; (https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1683)

In addition to economics, there is the concern for security and justice. This blog entry (https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546) related the dual standards of justice in the US, where all men are treated as equals (wink-wink), just some are more equal than others.

Yes, as the old adage relates: “the grass is not greener on the other side”. See this VIDEO here (Part 1 of 2):

(Click on first continuation video for Part 2 of 2 or click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOS3BBmUxvs)

The assertion of the book Go Lean…Caribbean is that once the proposed empowerments are put in place, the Caribbean Diaspora should consider repatriating to their ancestral homelands.

Social Scientists maintain that when animals/mammals are confronted with threats, they have to choose between (stand and) fight or flight. For 50 years, the Caribbean citizens have defaulted to flight. Change has now come to the Caribbean. The book Go Lean…Caribbean serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), hereby presents “stand and fight” options. This roadmap will spearhead the elevation of Caribbean society. The prime directives of the CU are presented as the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy & create 2.2 million new jobs at home.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The book posits that the improved conditions projected over the 5 years of the roadmap will neutralize the impetus for Caribbean citizens to flee, identified as “push and pull” factors. This point is stressed early in the book (Page 13) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

This foregoing article highlights the new realities ushered into the world as a result of the events of the Year 2008. The Go Lean book focuses heavy on this subject, even identifying this as a motivation in the same Declaration of Interdependence early in the book (Page 13):

xxv. 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 and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

The Go Lean roadmap proposes a community ethos in which economic principles are recognized as playing a crucial role in the chain-of-events that led to fight-or-flight decisions for Caribbean Diaspora. (These principles were always the reality, just not professionally managed as such). These principles are identified and qualified (Page 21) as follows:

1. People Choose
2. All Choices Involve Costs
3. People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways
4. Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives
5. Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth
6. The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future

These principles cannot be glossed over or handled lightly; this is why the Go Lean book contains 370 pages of finite details for managing economic change in the region. In addition to the assessments of the region’s standings, the book contains the following sample of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the Caribbean homeland:

Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Strategy – Competition – Remain Home –vs- Emigrate	Page 49
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora	Page 57
Tactical – Growing the Caribbean Economy to $800 Billion	Page 67
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Versus Member-States Governments	Page 71
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Implementation – Trade Mission Objectives	Page 116
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Anecdote – Experiences of a Repatriated Resident	Page 126
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Credit Ratings	Page 155
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing	Page 161
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Anecdote – Experiences of Diaspora Member Living Abroad	Page 216
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class	Page 223
Appendix – Caribbean Emigration Statistics	Page 269
Appendix – Credit Ratings Agencies Role in 2008	Page 276

The Go Lean roadmap has simple motives: fix the problems in the homeland to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. We want to keep Caribbean citizens in the Caribbean. There should be no need to go abroad and try to foster an existence in a foreign land. There is heavy-lifting wherever a person resides. Let’s do the “lifting” here, where at least we are at home and we are treated equitably.

Too many people left, yet have too little to show for it. Now is the time for all of the Diaspora (those in the US, and other countries) to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. We understand your pain, we have been impacted too. (The publishers of the book were entrenched in the Wall Street culture in 2008). This Big Idea now is to use the same energy and innovation to create solutions for Main Street – but not Main Street USA, rather Main Street Caribbean.

This is a dramatic change for the Caribbean, one that is overdue, an invitation to build an elevated society in the Caribbean that many had fled to find elsewhere, yet failed. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. We can succeed here.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———————————————————————————————–

Appendices:

a. Retrieved from https://www.evernote.com/shard/s4/sh/2f378f98-d21b-4f5b-89d4-c3a47419b0ad/479f14e61917697b135246e01d20f85f

b. Retrieved from http://news.rice.edu/2014/07/22/african-american-homeownership-increasingly-less-stable-and-more-risky-2/

c. Retrieved from http://www.epi.org/publication/public-sector-job-losses-unprecedented-drag/

d. Retrieved from http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-07-12/news/bs-md-ci-wells-fargo-20120712_1_mike-heid-wells-fargo-home-mortgage-subprime-mortgages

e. Retrieved from http://www.citylab.com/housing/2012/10/did-big-banks-subprime-mortgage-crisis-violate-civil-rights-law/3598/

f. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB111318092881303093

g. Retrieved from http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/08/blacks-really-were-targeted-bogus-loans-during-housing-boom/6559/

h. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/07/21/329864863/the-youth-unemployment-crisis-hits-african-americans-hardest

i. Retrieved from http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2013/04/05/59428/the-high-cost-of-youth-unemployment/

j. Retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/13/how-we-built-the-ghettos.html

k. Retrieved from http://grist.org/climate-energy/before-repairing-the-climate-well-have-to-repair-the-impacts-of-racism/

l. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/04/desean_jackson_richard_sherman_and_ black_american_economic_mobility_why.html

m. Retrieved from http://www.vox.com/2014/7/21/5918063/elizabeth-warrens-11-commandments-for-progressives-show-democrats

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2008, Banks, Civil Rights, Crony-Capitalism, History, Housing, Power

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Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones

Posted on August 4, 2014 in Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary:

The subject in the foregoing news article just cannot be ignored: Climate Change and personal health.

While this report was published by undisputed technocratic professionals, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), the publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean had engaged a similar analysis methodology: assessments based on hard evidence – number crunching (Big Data) and anecdotes – to reach their conclusions in the book that the Caribbean is in a state of crisis.

Both analyses are now aligned!

This subject of damaging health effects deriving from Climate Change aligns with Go Lean … Caribbean, as it posits that there are agents of change, including Climate Change, that the region is struggling to contend with, and that the negative consequences are already manifesting themselves in everyday Caribbean life, but the region as a whole and individual member-states, are not able, willing or equipped to mitigate the associated risks. The book portrays that the appropriate response requires heavy-lifting, and therefore proposes the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) as a technocratic solution. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the CU. This Go Lean roadmap describes the CU as the best solution for a concerted Caribbean response.

The CHOP research is published as follows:

CHOP-Led Research Finds Link between Hotter Days, Kidney Stones in U.S. Adults and Children
Contact: Ashley Moore, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 267-426-6071 or MooreA1@email.chop.edu

As daily temperatures increase, so does the number of patients seeking treatment for kidney stones. In a study that may both reflect and foretell a warming planet’s impact on human health, a research team found a link between hot days and kidney stones in 60,000 patients in several U.S. cities with varying climates.

“We found that as daily temperatures rise, there is a rapid increase in the probability of patients presenting over the next 20 days with kidney stones,” said study leader Gregory E. Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE, a pediatric urologist and epidemiologist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), who is on the staff of the Hospital’s Kidney Stone Crenter as well as the Hospital’s Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness (CPCE).

Tasian, senior author Ron Keren, MD, MPH, also of CHOP and CPCE, and colleagues from other centers published their results today in Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The Urologic Diseases in America Project, supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, sponsored the study.

The study team analyzed medical records of more than 60,000 adults and children with kidney stones between 2005 and 2011 in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, in connection with weather data. Tasian and colleagues described the risk of stone presentation for the full range of temperatures in each city. As mean daily temperatures rose above 50 F (10 C), the risk of kidney stone presentation increased in all the cities except Los Angeles. The delay between high daily temperatures and kidney stone presentation was short, peaking within three days of exposure to hot days.

Link between kidney stones and high temperatures
“These findings point to potential public health effects associated with global climate change,” said Tasian. “However,” cautions Tasian, “although 11 percent of the U.S. population has had kidney stones, most people have not. It is likely that higher temperatures increase the risk of kidney stones in those people predisposed to stone formation.” Higher temperatures contribute to dehydration, which leads to a higher concentration of calcium and other minerals in the urine that promote the growth of kidney stones.

A painful condition that brings half a million patients a year to U.S. emergency rooms, kidney stones have increased markedly over the world in the past three decades. While stones remain more common in adults, the numbers of children developing kidney stones have climbed at a dramatically high rate over the last 25 years. The factors causing the increase in kidney stones are currently unknown, but may be influenced by changes in diet and fluid intake. When stones do not pass on their own, surgery may be necessary.

The study team also found that very low outdoor temperatures increased the risk of kidney stones in three cities: Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia. The authors suggest that as frigid weather keeps people indoors more, higher indoor temperatures, changes in diet and decreased physical activity may raise their risk of kidney stones.

The researchers argue that the number of hot days in a given year may better predict kidney stone risk than the mean annual temperature. Atlanta and Los Angeles share the same annual temperature (63 F, or 17 C), but Atlanta has far more hot days than Los Angeles, along with nearly twice the prevalence of kidney stones.

Tasian added that while the five U.S. cities have climates representative of those found throughout the world, future studies should explore how generalizable the current findings are. Other studies should analyze how risk patterns vary in different populations, including among children, represented by a small sample size in the current study.

Global warming trend and kidney stone prevalence
The study’s broader context is in patterns of global warming. The authors note that other scientists have reported that overall global temperatures between 2000 and 2009 were higher than 82 percent of temperatures over the past 11,300 years. Furthermore, increases in greenhouse gas emissions are projected to raise earth’s average temperatures by 2 to 8 F (1 to 4.5 C) by 2100. “Kidney stone prevalence has already been on the rise over the last 30 years, and we can expect this trend to continue, both in greater numbers and over a broader geographic area, as daily temperatures increase,” concluded Tasian. “With some experts predicting that extreme temperatures will become the norm in 30 years, children will bear the brunt of climate change.”

More information:
Funds from the National Institutes of Health (grants HD060550 and DK70003), supported this study, along with a research fellowship from the Medical Research Council, U.K. In addition to their CHOP titles, Tasian and Keren are on the faculty of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Co-authors of the study are Christopher Saigal, MD, MPH, of UCLA who is a co-principal investigator of the Urologic Diseases in America Project; Antonio Gasparrini, PhD, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Benjamin Horton, PhD, of Rutgers University; Rodger Madison, MA, of the RAND Corporation; and Jose Pulido, MD, and J. Richard Landis, PhD, both of the University of Pennsylvania.

Taisan GE et al, “Daily Mean Temperature and Clinical Kidney Stone Presentation in Five U.S. Metropolitan Areas: A Time Series Analysis,” Environmental Health Perspectives, published July 10, 2014.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Web Site – Retrieved 07-28-2014
http://www.chop.edu/news/climate-change-may-bring-more-kidney-stones.html

Considering the evidence published in the foregoing article, this is the immediate response that comes to mind:

It is what it is!

While there continues to be deniers and detractors of Climate Change, these first responders treating the ailments in hospitals do not have the luxury of “burying their head in the sand”, especially when a suffering patient (many times a child) is begging for relief. They must simply provide care and count the tally later. The foregoing article is that tally.

Debate over!

The same applies to the Caribbean. The region is arguably the best address on the planet, but there are constant climate-driven threats, especially during the annual hurricane seasons. After each storm’s landfall, there are repercussions and consequences in which commerce systems get disrupted and economic engines are curtailed. The end result, after consistent periods of “famine”, many residents seek to flee because of these challenging economic conditions.

Something is clearly wrong climate-wise and must be addressed. According to the foregoing article, patients (including children) in the United States are not spared from Climate Change. The Caribbean is not spared either. While the Caribbean itself cannot unilaterally fix the problems of Climate Change, we can better prepare for the negative consequences:

Respond
Rebuild
Recover

The Go Lean roadmap specifies where we are as a region (losing 70% brain drain among the college educated; no preparation for spikes in health crises like kidney stones), where we want to go (elevation of Caribbean society in the homeland for all citizens to dissuade migration and provide public health mitigations) and how we plan to get there – confederating as a Single Market entity. While the Go Lean book strategizes a roadmap for economic empowerment, it clearly relates that healthcare and disaster management are germane to the Caribbean quest for health, wealth and happiness. At the outset of the Go Lean book, in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), these points are pronounced:

i. Whereas the earth’s climate has undeniably changed resulting in more severe tropical weather storms, it is necessary to prepare to insure the safety and security of life, property and systems of commerce in our geographical region. As nature recognizes no borders in the target of its destruction, we also must set aside border considerations in the preparation and response to these weather challenges.

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.

The Caribbean Union Trade Federation has the prime directive of optimizing the economic, security and governing engines of the region. The foregoing article/VIDEO depicts the Big Data analysis that needs to be performed on behalf of Caribbean society. The roadmap specifies both a Commerce Department (Econometrics) and a Health Department in the Separation-of-Power dictum.

There is also the priority on Research & Development (R&D) placed in the foregoing article. The roadmap describes this focus as a community ethos. Then it goes on to stress that the CU must promote the community ethos that R&D is valuable and must be incentivized for adoption. The following list details additional ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s health deliveries:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D)	Page 30
Community Ethos – 10 Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Integrate and unify region in a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Commerce Department – Econometrics	Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department	Page 86
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities – R&D	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care	Page 225
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Healthcare	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities	Page 228
Appendix – Emergency Management – Trauma Centers	Page 336

In fact, the foregoing news/VIDEO story depicted analysis administered by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). This institution has undisputed credentials and credibility, being ranked, by US News & World Report magazine, as the #1 Children’s Hospital in the country^[a]. This recognition means that they, CHOP, must be doing things right!

This is a great model for Caribbean society – we too, must do things right.

Technocratic = doing things right!

The Go Lean roadmap posits that more analysis will emerge as a direct result of the CU prioritization on science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM) activities on Caribbean R&D campuses and educational institutions.

This is the heavy-lifting that the CU is designed to bear. Anyone can be afflicted with kidney stones – a painful disorder. Now, obviously, with indisputable Climate Change, these afflictions are becoming more commonplace; the CU, and all Caribbean institutions, must now do things right. This is the Greater Good.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Appendix a – Citation References:

Ranked #1 in the United States – U.S. News & World Report

An important measure of the quality of children’s hospitals in the U.S. is the yearly rankings provided by a magazine called U.S. News & World Report. For the 2014-15 rankings, the magazine surveyed 183 pediatric centers for data about 10 specialties and asked 150 pediatric specialists in each specialty where they would send the sickest children.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) shared the number one spot on the U.S. News Honor Roll, and ranked in the top four in the nation for every pediatric specialty evaluated.

CHOP was recognized for excellence in the following specialties:

Cancer
Cardiology and Heart Surgery
Diabetes and Endocrinology
Gastroenterology
Orthopedics
Neonatology
Nephrology and Kidney Diseases
Neurology and Neurosurgery
Pulmonology
Urology

Source: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia – About Us. Retrieved from http://www.chop.edu/service/international-medicine/international-patient-services/about-chop/home.html

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Disaster, Health, Transform

[Top]

Senate bill targets companies that move overseas

Posted on July 31, 2014 in Ethos, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

“Honor among thieves’ …

… this seems to be the code by which Caribbean society is based. And this is not new! This is the community ethos that dates back almost 500 years.

This ethos seems to “raise its head” again with the below news article as published in a Jamaican newspaper. Even though the US middle class has been devastated by globalization – shipping jobs overseas, many times to Caribbean countries like Jamaica – the motives behind the cited legislation seems wholesome for American self-interest. What is astonishing is the adversarial comments of a Jamaican readers. Consider the original article here and the comment:

By: The Associated Press

Subtitle: The Senate voted Wednesday to advance an election-year bill limiting tax breaks for United States (US) companies that move operations overseas. But big hurdles remain.

The Senate voted 93-7 to begin debating the bill, which would prevent companies from deducting expenses related to moving operations to a foreign country. The bill would offer tax credits to companies that move operations to the US from a foreign country.

Senate Democratic leaders say the bill would end senseless tax breaks for companies that ship jobs abroad.

“It would end the absurd practice of American taxpayers bankrolling the outsourcing of their very own jobs,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

Most Republicans joined Democrats in voting to take up the bill. But Republican senators are unlikely to support final passage of the bill without significant changes.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the bill is an election-year ploy that has no chance of becoming law.

“It’s a bill that’s designed for campaign rhetoric and failure, not to create jobs here in the US,” McConnell said. “But that’s not stopping our friends on the other side from bringing it up again – just as they did right before the last big election, too.”

The bill would cost US companies that move overseas $143 million in additional taxes over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, which analyses tax bills for Congress. Companies moving into the US would see their tax bills drop by $357 million over the same period.

The difference – $214 million – would be added to the budget deficit.
The Jamaica Gleaner Daily Newspaper (Posted 07-25-2014) –
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140724/business/business1.html

——–

Commentator basing the proposed legislation – nervousinvestor • Thursday July 24, 2014:

“Seems like a stupid bill if you ask my opinion”.

——–

Question: Why would Jamaican stakeholders (all of the Caribbean for that matter) lean-in for a contrarian view? Answer: Their own self-interest – a penchant to operate on the shadows of American (and European) economies and pilfer illicit gains.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean examines the varied history of the Caribbean during the colonization and post-colonization eras, and then concludes that the region always operated with an outlaw mentality – always on the dark side. While there is wise business strategy associated with satisfying unfulfilled market needs, the Caribbean experience is decidedly different, one of exploiting loopholes. It is apparent that aspects of Caribbean society still reflect this outside-the-law disposition, it is an institutional trend that appears consistent over the centuries. (The book posits that this approach has been counter-productive for building an industrious society; not everyone wants to, or should operate in the shadows).

Consider the historic evidence as follows:

Privateering^[a] – This was the practice of private ships, authorized by governments or royal decree, to attack foreign vessels during wartime. While Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend treasury resources or commit naval officers, this was a business operation, with the cost being borne by investors hoping to profit from prize money earned from captured cargo and vessels. The proceeds would be distributed among the privateer’s investors, officers, and crew.

Pirates of the Caribbean^[b] – The distinction between a privateer and a pirate has always been vague beyond the licensing Letters of Marque. Without the letters, the parties were considered pirates; of which many frequented the Caribbean region. This industry employed many unemployed seafarers as a way to make ends meet, but became increasingly damaging to the region’s economic and commercial prospects.

Wrecking (Ships)^[c] – This was the practice of taking valuables (cargo) from a shipwreck which has floundered close to shore; this evolved into what is now known as “marine salvage”. While wrecking is no longer economically significant, this practice was in itself an industry as recently as the 19th century in some parts of the world, and a mainstay in many Caribbean economies. The Caribbean islands, waterways and ports have to contend with a lot of hidden water hazards, like reefs. So this industry thrived on the uncertainty of shipping, (before better navigational tools and systems), but also created their own pro-wrecking incidents and threats, like false lighting and sabotage.

Rum-running/Bootlegging^[d] – This refers to the illegal business of smuggling alcoholic beverages (over water) where such transportation is forbidden by law. Most prominently, this activity was done to circumvent the taxation and prohibition laws of the US in the early 20th Century (1920 to 1933). Due to its close proximity, many ships came from the island of Bimini in the western Bahamas to transport cheap Caribbean rum to Florida. But rum’s cheapness made it a low-profit item for the rum-runners, and they soon moved on to smuggling Canadian Whiskey, French Champagne, and English Gin to major cities like New York City and Boston, where prices ran high. (It was said that some ships carried $200,000 in contraband in a single run). Distilleries and breweries in the Caribbean flourished during this period as their products were either consumed by visiting Americans or smuggled into the US illegally. When the US government complained to the British that American law was being undermined by officials in Nassau, Bahamas, the head of the British Colonial Office refused to intervene. The British Caribbean attitude was echoed by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who believed that Prohibition was “an affront to the whole history of mankind”.

Offshore Banking^[e] – This refers to banks located outside the country of residence of the depositor, typically in a low tax jurisdiction (or tax haven) that provides financial and legal advantages- a mainstay in Antigua, Bahamas, Bermuda and Caymans. These advantages typically include: greater privacy, little or no taxation, easy access to deposits, and protection against local, political, or financial instability. These Offshore banks have often been associated with underground (informal) economies and organized crime, via tax evasion and money laundering. Legally, offshore activities do not prevent assets from being subject to personal income taxes on interest income, often times it is the privacy feature that skirts tax computation and collection.

Tax Evasion^[f] – This activity is part of the business model of the Caribbean, though it is commonly associated with the informal economy. There are legal and illegal activities associated with the avoidance of taxes by individuals, corporations and trusts. Tax evasion often entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability and includes dishonest tax reporting, such as declaring less income, profits or gains than the amounts actually earned, or overstating deductions. Tax avoidance employ many tax havens or jurisdictions to facilitate lower tax bills. Caribbean member-states encourage many tax avoidance practices, campaigning to high net worth individuals to do business or establish their residence in the region.

Offshore Gambling – This category refers to more than just casinos operating at Caribbean resorts, but rather the practice of coordinating gambling/gaming operations worldwide that only have a legal footprint in the region. Caribbean jurisdictions have actually emerged as a favorite destination for legally licensing gaming institutions and companies, like sports books and online gambling. “In 1994 the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda passed the Free Trade & Processing act, allowing licenses to be granted to organizations applying to open online casinos. The practice continues, even fighting and winning legal bouts at the WTO against the US. Many of the companies operating out of Antigua are publicly traded on various stock exchanges, specifically the London Stock Exchange. Antigua has met British regulatory standards and has been added to the UK’s “white list”, which allows licensed Antiguan companies to advertise in the UK. By 2001, the estimated number of people who had participated in online gambling rose to 8 million and the growth continued, despite legislation and lawsuit challenges to online gambling. By 2008, estimates for worldwide online gambling revenue were at $21 billion.” – Go Lean…Caribbean; Page 213.

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. The goal is to move business operations “out of the shadows” and “into the light”, mitigating against the threats represented in the historic review above. There are many legitimate business endeavors that the Caribbean can, and must, pursue in order to elevate its society. The Go Lean book details specifics for growing the regional economy to $800 Billion and creating 2.2 million new jobs – all using legitimate, in-the-light activities.

The Caribbean is the “best address in the world” and provides the best of certain products (see previous blog/commentary sample here: https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1847 – ‘Declared “Among the best in the world”’) and is the best at performing certain services. We can compete! There should not be the need to “run for the shadows”. The world should be soliciting us, not us begging for the “crumbs following from the table” of the world economy.

At the outset, the Go Lean roadmap recognizes the significance of best-of-breed industrial developments with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

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.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

The change starts now; say goodbye to the shadows, say hello to the light. The Caribbean is hereby urged to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to re-boot Caribbean industry and society; as detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean, sampled here:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles	Page 21
Community Ethos – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Light Up the Dark Places	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-states in a Union	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries	Page 68
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Commerce Department	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Self Governing Entities	Page 80
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Benefits from the Exclusive Economic Zone	Page 104
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Black Markets	Page 165
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security – Naval Authorities	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Lotteries/Gambling	Page 213
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class	Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the One Percent – Tax Avoidance Options	Page 223

The foregoing news article addresses an important move the US should make to counteract the effects of globalization on its core jobs. The Go Lean book stresses the importance of an empowered middle class. So the Caribbean has the same needs, but our success should not be dependent on breaking the laws of other countries. We can compete head on. This is a subject that impacts economics, security and governing engines. This is heavy-lifting!

The Go Lean roadmap maintains that change is coming to the Caribbean in general and industrial pursuits in particular, so that we may break from the past and have a vibrant future. The Caribbean will be a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Appendices:

a. Retrieved July 29, 2014 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateering

b. Retrieved July 29, 2014 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate#Caribbean

c. Retrieved July 29, 2014 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(shipwreck)

d. Retrieved July 29, 2014 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum-running and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States

e. Retrieved July 29, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_banking

f. Retrieved July 29, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance

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Crony-Capitalism, Foreign Policy, Jobs, Power

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Cuban Cigars – Declared “Among the best in the world”

Posted on July 24, 2014 in Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

This is something good to hear: “your product is considered among the best in the world”.

The product in this case is a cigar…Cuban cigars from local cultivation.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean recognizes and honors the core competence of the Caribbean, the “things that we do best in the world”.

Despite that Cuba has been largely ignored for the last 50 years, due to the 1959 Revolution, expansion of communism, US trade embargo and 50 years of isolation, the legacy of Cuban cigar quality has been preserved. That “best in the world” designation is contemporary. This is evidenced by the adoration being placed on the First Family of Cuban Tobacco as Hirochi Robaina makes his first US visit, as depicted in the foregoing news article. See this article here and the accompanying appendix and VIDEO below:

By: Caribbean News Now Contributor

Title: Cuban cigar legend visits US

OLDE NAPLES, USA — For the first time in history, Hirochi Robaina, head of the legendary Robaina family tobacco plantation, established in 1845 in Cuba, will visit the United States to meet with fellow cigar connoisseurs in Olde Naples, Florida.

Hirochi, grandson of the late Alejandro Robaina^[a], who was known as the most famous Cuban tobacco grower of all time, will be in Olde Naples on Friday and Saturday [July 25 & 26, 2014].

This momentous occasion will give Robaina fans the unique opportunity to spend time with Hirochi to discuss the finer side of cigars, the Robaina family traditions, and his vision for the future.
Caribbean News Now – Online Regional Source (Posted 07-25.2014) –
http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Cuban-cigar-legend-visits-US-22141.html

See VIDEO here of interview with Hirochi Robaina on his early hit-and-miss with Cigar Critic James Suckling. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MxI_2rgChc):

The Caribbean is the “best in the world” in a number of endeavors; (i.e. the current world record-holder for the 100 meter dash – Usain Bolt – is from Jamaica). Thanks to this Cuban (Robaina) family’s legacy, cigars are also recognized as one of those “best” contributions. The United Nations cultural institutions have even recognized the physical region around the Robaina’s plantation – Vinales Valley in Pinar del Río Province – as a World Heritage Site – one of the listed 21 for the Caribbean region. These facts are not ignored in the Go Lean…Caribbean book. In fact, Cuba is not ignored at all. This island is the largest population base in the Caribbean, with 11,236,444 people (as of 2010). This Go Lean empowerment effort for the region contemplates all that Cuba has to offer. There are many positives.

There are negatives too.

Go Lean…Caribbean is not a dream; it does not “white-wash” the region with broad strokes. It acknowledges the historicity of Cuba; there is a current trade embargo with the US and there are US$ 6 Billion of unsettled civil judgments against the Cuban government. The book admits that confederating with Cuba into the rest of the region is a “Big Idea” for the Caribbean. This roadmap therefore does the heavy-lifting in a detailed, turn-by-turn plan for reconciling the 55 year-old rift in US-Cuban relations.

This commentary has previously highlighted topics and dimensions of an eventual Cuban integration into the Caribbean brotherhood, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1609	Cuba mulls economy in Parliament session
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	America’s War on the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=554	Cuban cancer medication registered in 28 countries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=436	Cuba Approves New “Law on Foreign Investment”

At the outset, the Go Lean roadmap recognizes the significance of Cuban reconciliation into any Caribbean integration with this statement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):

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.

A lot of people (their time, talent and treasuries) fled Cuba over the decades because of their political and ideological differences with the Castro government there. But now, the Castro regime is coming to an end – Raul Castro, the current President, and brother of founding revolutionary Fidel Castro, has announced that he will relinquish power in the year 2017.

What will become of Cuba then?
What of its economy?
What of its production of the “world’s finest” cigars?

It is more than just hope to preserve and elevate Cuba’s agriculture production. This book presents a comprehensive roadmap for doing so. The roadmap encourages the fostering of “genius” in the region, as has been the legacy of the Robaina family. If they have survived these past decades despite the oppressive conditions of Cuba’s revolution and US trade sanctions, imagine how much more they will thrive under a new CU regime.

So the planning must start now. The Caribbean is hereby urged to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to re-boot Cuba; as detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean sampled here:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Communimty Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Core Competence – Specialty Agriculture	Page 58
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Federal Courts – Truth & Reconciliation Commissions	Page 90
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Agriculture – Licensing / Inspections	Page 88
Implementation – Assemble & Create Super-Regional Organs to represent all Caribbean	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Cuba	Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba	Page 236
Advocacy – Ways to Promote World-Heritage-Sites	Page 248
Appendix – World Heritage Sites – #21 Cuba’s Vinales Valley & Pinar del Río Province	Page 332

The foregoing article addresses the issue of legacy preservation. This subject impacts economics, security and governance. The Go Lean book focuses heavy on these issues, but also on important non-financial issues – cultural identity and image. The Go Lean roadmap addresses the specific cultural issues such as music, sports, art, education, repatriation and heritage. It is unfortunate that most of Cuba’s history has been neutralized since 1959, because this island nation has so much to offer. They have a vibrant past. According to the foregoing article, they have preserved some of that past, right into the present.

The Go Lean roadmap maintains that change is coming to the Caribbean in general and Cuba in particular, so that they will also have a vibrant future.

Cuba será libre! Cuba can … and will become a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————————————————————————————————————————————

Appendix a: Alejandro Robaina (March 20, 1919 – April 17, 2010)

Robaina, was known as a Cuban tobacco grower; he was born in Alquízar in La Habana Province of Cuba but grew up and lived most of his life in the renowned tobacco-growing Vuelta Abajo district of Pinar del Río Province where his family had been growing tobacco since 1845. He became involved with his family’s tobacco growing business at the age of ten, having smoked his first cigar just shortly before then. He took over the operations of the plantation after the death of his father Maruto Robaina—also an acclaimed tobacco grower—in 1950 and remained an independent grower even after the 1959 Cuban Revolution when plantations were often absorbed into cooperative organizations. In a 2006 interview with Cigar Aficionado magazine, Robaina stated that he spoke with Castro and that he “told Fidel I did not like cooperatives or state farms and that the best way to grow tobacco was through family production. He wanted me to join a cooperative and I told him no.”

The tobacco leaves from Robaina’s plantations are often considered among the best in the world and have been used by high quality cigars brands such as Cohiba and Hoyo de Monterrey. Robaina himself has been dubbed the “Godfather of Cuban tobacco.”

During the 1990s, Robaina was recognized by the Cuban government as the country’s best tobacco grower. In 1997, Vegas Robaina cigar brand was created by the Cuban government-owned company Habanos S.A. to honour Robaina’s accomplishments in the industry, although cigar experts have had a hard time detecting Robaina’s tobacco in the cigar and Robaina himself never provided a definitive answer. Robaina is the only tobacco grower with a Cuban cigar named after himself and has spent several decades travelling the world as Cuba’s unofficial tobacco and cigar ambassador. His travelling subsided as he got older and he received visits at his home and plantation by thousands of cigar enthusiasts and tourists annually.

[Today, a box of 25 of the Vegas Robaina brand cigars can go for between $300 and nearly $500. Hirochi Robaina said his grandfather always said the most important element in growing top tobacco is not the seed or the climate, but the soil. “The land is everything,” he said].

Alejandro Robaina was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 and died on April 17, 2010 in his home on his tobacco plantation near San Luis, Pinar del Río. He handed over the majority of the day-to-day operations of the plantation to his grandson Hirochi several years before his death. – Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia; retrieved July 24, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Robaina

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Cuba, Image, Sales, Trade

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Many drug inmates who get break under new plan to be deported

Posted on July 23, 2014 in Industries, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

A crisis is coming!

Due to changes in US drug policy – 2 States have de-criminalized Marijuana and the new national ethos is that drug users are victims more so than villains (See VIDEO below) – incarcerated drug felons will have their sentences reduced. For those that are non-citizens, the likelihood is that they will be immediately deported to their homelands. Notice the trend, the US federal government will not want to pay billions of dollars to maintain these prisoners in the system or out of the system. So they would rather send them “home” and make them someone else’s problem. For the inmates with Caribbean heritage, that “someone else” would be the Caribbean member-states.

By: Liz Goodwin, Yahoo News

Many drug inmates who get break under new plan to be deported.

Thousands to land back in Mexico after early release.

Thousands of federal prisoners set to be released early thanks to a change in drug rules will most likely be quickly deported to their home countries next year.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, a group that controls advisory sentencing guidelines for federal judges, voted last week to shave an average of two years off the sentences of up to 46,000 inmates jailed for drug crimes. The first ones will be released on Nov. 1, 2015.

The group has begun to reverse older policies that sent people away for decades for nonviolent drug crimes, part of a larger criminal justice reform push that has attracted bipartisan support. In 2007, the group lightened sentences for crack offenders. Inmates will have to apply for the sentence reductions with the help of public defenders, and federal judges will have a year to decide who qualifies for early release.

But many of the people who will benefit from the change in policy will likely be deported as soon as they qualify for the sentence reduction. A quarter of all the qualifying inmates are not U.S. citizens, according to the group’s analysis, complicating the picture many have of drug offenders as gang-affiliated young men in run-down, poor urban neighborhoods. Many of the offenders, in fact, were caught with drugs in their vehicles as they tried to cross the border and were prosecuted in Texas. The Lone Star state has nearly 21 percent of all the prisoners who will benefit from the early release. Of those 10,296 prisoners in Texas, up to a third will be deported once released.

The hefty noncitizen portion of offenders could cut the state a break, since the criminal justice system does not have enough probation officers and halfway homes to handle the influx that’s expected when the first releases begin in November 2015.

“There wouldn’t have been enough facilities to absorb the number of people who would be released,” said Maureen Franco, public defender in the Western District of Texas, which covers much of the state’s border with Mexico.

Giving the judges a year to consider the early release petitions will also allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement time to make sure it has enough beds for the prisoners while they await their deportation.

Franco said her immigrant clients are just as eager for early release as those who are citizens, despite the deportation that awaits them. She’s already heard from some of them who are emailing her and asking when they can get out.

This might be in part because immigrants living illegally in the U.S. are not eligible for many programs in federal prison — they also can’t live in lower-security facilities. “It’s a much harsher sentence,” said Marjorie Meyers, federal public defender in the Southern District of Texas.

Ricardo Hinojosa, a vice chair of the Sentencing Commission and a federal judge in Laredo, brought up concerns before the group’s vote that the offenders who are sent back to Mexico will not be rigorously supervised by that country’s probation system. “Many of them will be tempted to come back, and maybe quicker, because of the fact that many of them have families on this side of the border,” Hinojosa said.

Those who are caught trying to come back over the border face up to 10 years in federal prison. They might fear the violence in Mexico, particularly if they were involved in drugs, more than detention in America, where at least they are safe.

Prisoners who had legal immigration status but were not citizens can try to fight their deportation, but it’s a long shot. “It’s very hard to fight,” Meyers said.
Yahoo News Online Source (Retrieved 07/22/2014) –
http://news.yahoo.com/many-drug-inmates-who-get-break-under-new-plan-to-be-deported-134758280.html
Photo Credit (Above): Andrew Burton – Getty Images

Video Credit (Below): White House National Drug Control Strategy: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/drugpolicyreform

Ready or not, here they come!

For the Caribbean, the answer most likely is “Not Ready”!

This is a crisis that is looming. The book Go Lean…Caribbean declares that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste and that we should not waste this opportunity to elevate our own security engines in the region. If we do it right, we can even profit from the crisis as well. The overriding theme of the foregoing news article is the need for a prison industrial complex – the field of “penology”. With this coming crisis – November 2015 – the publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean see opportunities for commerce.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). With 2 American territories in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico & the US Virgin Islands), an immediate plan to host US federal prisoners is not so radical. Plus, this could mean billions of dollars for the Caribbean.

The Go Lean book goes further and posits that the region must prepare its own security apparatus for its own security needs. But while we are building facilities (prisons, jails, and detention centers) for our own needs, we can employ the strategy of over-building and insourcing for other jurisdictions. Had we been ready now, with this Go Lean roadmap, we would have been able to embrace the opportunities presented by the US Drug Policy Change. These unwanted “inmates” could have been guests in Caribbean facilities now – for a fee; a lower fee than the US federal government currently incurs, but more revenues than the Caribbean currently generates.

So then what happens when these US drug inmates are released?

“Mejor el diablo sabe que el diablo no tiene” – Spanish expression. The English translation is “Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don’t know”.

The Go Lean roadmap asserts that it is better to structure crime intelligence analysis around a population that we know is a “risk” than to watch/monitor everybody. At some point the Caribbean Diaspora in US Federal prisons will be sent home. We want to be prepared for them. If not only to offer them new chances of productive citizenship, then at least to closely guard against their post-incarceration activities. We already know these ones have a preponderance to engage in illicit activities, so it is prudent to “watch” them.

This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

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. The Federation must allow for facilitations of detention for convicted felons of federal crimes, and should over-build prisons to house trustees from other jurisdictions.

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 accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The goal of Go Lean…Caribbean, roadmap is to confederate under a unified entity made up of all 30 Caribbean member-states. Then provide homeland security for our neighborhood, contending with man-made and natural threats. The CU security goal is not for world dominance, or promotion of idealistic concepts. No, it is simply for public safety! The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through a number of missions. The Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This Go Lean roadmap calls for the establishment of professional penology arts and sciences, a Caribbean prison industrial complex. This will include the prison/jail/detention facilities and the rest of the eco-system: bail enforcement, witness protection, probation/parole, anti-recidivism, intelligence gathering, job training/placement and in-prison labor options. There are lots of lessons (from global examples) to learn and apply in perfecting the Caribbean model. For one, we do not want the profit motive – the book speaks of learning from “Peonage Past and Ensuring Corporate Governance” (Page 211); rather we want to be motivated by the Greater Good. The CU security directive should always be in support of growing Caribbean society, not leading the charge – no police state – but rather supporting the lead or “bringing up the rear”.

In recent blog submissions, this commentary highlighted the security provisions that must be enacted to improve homeland security, as soon as possible:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1674	Obama’s Plans for $3.7 Billion Immigration Crisis Funds
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement = Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1386	Marijuana De-criminalization – In Jamaica, a Puff Peace
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1076	References to the Caribbean Regional Security System
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight

Look seriously at the issues in the foregoing news article.

These inmates in Federal prisons are persona non-grata in the US. So they will have no choice but to come home…eventually. Whereas these are not the type of new residents we may want in the Caribbean, ready or not, they are coming. It is better to be prepared. What’s worse, these ones may now have even better-tuned-skills and abilities for operating in the illicit world – many criminals learn how to be better criminals in prison.

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide increased public safety & security in the Caribbean region:

Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Witness Security & Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Light Up the Dark Places	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department	Page 77
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Foreign Policy Initiatives	Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Black Markets	Page 165
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering and Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex	Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Appendix – Prison Industrial Complex Model: Nauru Detention Center	Page 290

We console with the communities that have to deal with this impending crisis – a lot of the inmates are identified as Mexican; while this is not in scope for the CU, there are a lot of lessons that the Caribbean can learn from this country’s dysfunction in dealing with its public safety, especially along the US border. This region is near Failed-State status.

The Go Lean roadmap is the Caribbean’s aspiration to mitigate against Failed-State indices. This is underlying to the prime directive of the CU, to elevate the economics, security and governing engines of the Caribbean. This is not an easy task; this is heavy-lifting, and thus the book features the turn-by-turn directions to implement the appropriate provisions. This is a sensible roadmap to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Diaspora, Security

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Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought

Posted on July 23, 2014 in Implementation, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

As of this moment, there is a tropical storm system that originated off the coast of Africa, building up in the Atlantic Ocean; it may or may not be a threat to the Caribbean. See photo to the right, and/or news feed video here: WFTV Eye on the Tropics.

This is the reality of Caribbean life – we have to contend with disasters, not of our making.

Climate Change is also not of our making, and yet we must contend with it as well. It is what it is!

In the past, our region has not done well managing “agents-of-change”. But we do not have the luxury of “sticking our head in the sand” and pretending that these problems will simply go away. The region has been devastated with this dysfunction and mis-management. Some 70% of Caribbean college-educated citizens have already fled their homelands in an undisputed brain drain. It’s time now to manage change differently than the Caribbean has done as of late. It’s time now to “Go Lean”.

The foregoing news article presents the story that there are new cycles of flooding and drought in the Caribbean. This too, is Climate Change 101. If only, there could be some equalizing between “the feast and the famine” with water. Yes there is. Caribbean stakeholders can proactively consider the benefits of one possible solution: Pipelines.

Since water is only free in our society when it is raining, there are costs associated at all other times, like storage and distribution; so the economic principles of pipelines are sound.

According to the book Go Lean … Caribbean, pipelines can be strategic, tactical and operationally efficient. They can mitigate challenges of Mother Nature, create jobs, secure the homeland and grow the economy at the same time.

The Go Lean book identifies that there are “agents-of-change” that our world have to now contend with. Proactively managing the cause-and-effect of these agents can yield great benefits and alleviate much suffering. The agents-of-change for the Caribbean are identified as follows:

Technology
Aging Diaspora
Globalization
Climate Change

The Go Lean book posits that we can manage all of these agents, but this last one, climate change is outside of our control and wreaking havoc on Caribbean life. Consider this news article here, that aligns this point:

By: Desmond Brown

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Monday July 21, 2014, IPS – As unpredictable weather patterns impact water availability and quality in St. Lucia, the Caribbean island is moving to build resilience to climate-related stresses in its water sector. Dr. Paulette Bynoe, a specialist in community-based disaster risk management, climate change adaptation policy and environmental management, says integrated water resource management is critical.

“We have been making progress…making professionals and other important stakeholders aware of the issue. That is the first step,” she told IPS.

“So in other sectors we can also look at coordination whether we talk about agriculture or tourism. It’s important that we think outside of the box and we stop having turfs and really work together,” she added.

Earlier this month, Bynoe facilitated a three-day workshop on Hydro-Climatic Disasters in Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in St. Lucia. The workshop was held as part of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States-Reducing the Risks to Human and Natural Assets Resulting from Climate Change (OECS-RRACC) project.

Participants were exposed to the key principles of IWRM and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR); the implications of climate change and variability for water resources management; policy legislation and institutional requirements needed at the community level to facilitate DRR in IWRM; the economics of disasters; and emergency response issues.

Rupert Lay, a water resources specialist with the RRACC Project, said the training is consistent with the overall goals of the climate change demonstration project in GIS technology currently being implemented by the OECS Secretariat.

“What we need to do now in the region and even further afield is to directly correlate the effects, the financial impacts of these adverse weather conditions as it relates to water resources,” he told IPS.

“We need to make that link strongly so that all of us can appreciate the extent to which and the importance of building resilience and adapting to these stresses.”

On Jul. 9, the St. Lucia Water and Sewage Company (WASCO) placed the entire island under a water emergency schedule as the drought worsened. The government has described the current situation as a “water crisis”.

The crisis, initially declared for the north of the island, has expanded to the entire country.

Managing director of WASCO Vincent Hippolyte said that there had not been sufficient rainfall to meet the demands of consumers. At the most recent assessment, the dam’s water level was at 322 feet, while normal overflow levels are 333 feet.

“Despite the rains and the greenery, drought conditions exist because the rivers are not moving. They do not have the volume of water that will enable WASCO to extract sufficient water to meet demand,” he said.

“We are in the early stages in the drought situation. It is not as severe as the later stages, but we are still in drought conditions.”

The government said that experts predicted the drought would persist through the month of August.

Bynoe said what’s happening in St. Lucia and elsewhere in the Caribbean is consistent with the projections of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Climate Modeling Group from the University of the West Indies.

She said both bodies had given possible future scenarios of climate change as it relates to the SmallIslandDevelopingStates, and how climate change and climate variability could affect water resources.

“I think generally the issue is that in the region there is a high likelihood that we can have a shortage of water so we can experience droughts; and perhaps at the same time when we do have precipitation it can be very intense,” Bynoe, who is also Director of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Guyana, said.

She noted that the models are saying there can either be too little water or too much water, either of which could create serious problems for the Caribbean.

“With too much water now you can have run off, sedimentation, water pollution and water contamination which means in countries where we depend on surface water the treatment of water become critical and this will then bring cost implications because water treatment is very costly,” Bynoe explained.

“But also, if you are going to treat water you have to use a lot of energy and energy is one of the sectors that contribute to greenhouse gasses. So you can see where the impact of climate change is affecting water but with water treatment you can also contribute to climate change.”

For St. Lucia and its neighbours, Bynoe said lack of financial resources tops the list of challenges when it comes to disaster mitigation and adapting new measures in reference to hydro-climatic disasters.

She also pointed to the importance of human capital, citing the need to have persons trained in specific areas as specialists to help with modeling, “because in preparation we first have to know what’s the issue, we have to know what’s the probability of occurrence, we have to know what are the specific paths that we can take which could bring the best benefits to us.”

She used her home country Guyana, which suffers from a high level of migration, as one example of how sustainable development could be negatively affected by capital flight.

“But you also need human capital because first of all governments must work together within the region and lessons learnt in one country can be translated to other countries so that we can replicate the good experiences so that we don’t fall prey to the same sort of issues,” Bynoe said.

“But also social capital within the country in which we try to ensure that all stakeholders are involved, a very democratic process because it’s not only about policymakers; every person, every household must play a role to the whole issue of adaptation, it starts with the man or woman in the mirror,” she added.

In October 2010, Hurricane Tomas passed very near St. Lucia killing 14 people and leaving millions of dollars in monetary losses. The island was one of three Eastern Caribbean countries on which a slow-moving, low-level trough on Dec 24, 2013 dumped hundreds of millimetres of rain, killing 13 people.
Caribbean360 Online Community (Retrieved 07-21-2014) –
http://www.caribbean360.com/news/caribbean-grapples-intense-new-cycles-flooding-drought

The book, Go Lean…Caribbean, purports that a new technology-enhanced industrial revolution is emerging, in which there is more efficiency gleaned from installing, monitoring and maintaining pipelines. Caribbean society must participate, not just consume the developments in this revolution. This point is pronounced early in the book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11 &14), with the opening and subsequent statements:

i.        Whereas the earth’s climate has undeniably changed resulting in more severe tropical weather storms, it is necessary to prepare to insure the safety and security of life, property and systems of commerce in our geographical region. As nature recognizes no borders in the target of its destruction, we also must set aside border considerations in the preparation and response to these weather challenges.

xxvi.          Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of … pipelines …

xxvii.     Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of a technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate society of the 30 Caribbean member-states. The foregoing news article draws reference to the efforts by the 9 member-states of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, all defined as Small Island Developing States. The CU effort on the other hand, is a confederation that includes coastal states like Guyana, Suriname and Belize. There are more territories and more water resources to leverage solutions for one member-state versus another.

In addition, the CU will assume jurisdiction for the Caribbean Sea, the 1,063,000 square-mile international waters under an UN-approved structure referred to as an Exclusive Economic Zone. This approach allows for cooperation and equalization, so as to mitigate the feast-and-famine water conditions in the region.

With this Go Lean roadmap, pipelines become viable under this administration. This becomes a real solution to a real problem! In fact the CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge solutions, like pipelines, in Caribbean communities. But this is not “your grandfather’s 1920 pipeline solution”, but rather a cutting-edge (circa 2020) solution featuring options like robotics and satellite-monitoring. Consider this list as follows:

Economic Principles – People Choose because Resources are Limited	Page 21
Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Anecdote – Pipeline Transport – Strategies, Tactics & Implementations	Page 43
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-states in a Union	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries	Page 68
Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration	Page 79
Separation of Powers – Interior Department – Exclusive Economic Zone	Page 82
Implementation – Assemble – Pipeline as a Focused Activity	Page 96
Implementation – Benefits from the Exclusive Economic Zone	Page 104
Implementation – Ways to Develop a Pipeline Industry	Page 107
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Pipeline Projects	Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract – Infrastructure	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Ways to Impact Public Works – Ideal for Pipelines	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources – Water Resources	Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Extractions – Pipeline Strategy Alignment	Page 195
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Ways to Improve Monopolies – Foster Cooperatives	Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation – Pipeline Options	Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living – Minimize Irrigation Downsides	Page 235
Appendix – Pipeline Maintenance Robots	Page 283

This commentary previously featured subjects related to counteracting the effects of Climate Change and natural disasters in the region:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1656	Water Conservation Industries – Blue is the New Green
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1516	Floods in Minnesota, Drought in California – Why Not Share?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=926	Conservative heavyweights have “Green”/solar industry in their sights
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915	Go ‘Green’ … Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=87	Earthquakes & Hurricanes Shake Eastern Caribbean Region

This is a new day for the Caribbean! It’s time now for change in our response to (climate) change. The elevations that are identified, qualified and proposed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean are not just reactive, but also proactive. It’s time for the Caribbean to lean-in for these elevations.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Disaster, Transform

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Miami’s Caribbean Marketplace Re-opens

Posted on July 20, 2014 in Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Make no mistake: having a warm welcome in a City of Refuge is not as good as being safe and secure at home. Yet, when conditions mandate that one take flight, a warm welcome is greatly appreciated.

According to the foregoing article, the City of Miami now extends a warm welcome … to the Caribbean Diaspora. While Miami profits from this embrace, the benefits for the Caribbean are not so great.

This is the American Immigrant experience, one of eventual celebration, but only after a “long train of abuses”: rejection, anger, protest, bargaining, toleration and eventual acceptance. The experience in Miami today is one of celebration.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean champions the cause of retaining Caribbean citizens in the Caribbean, even inviting the Diaspora back to their homelands. So the idea of celebrating a cultural contribution at a center in a foreign land is a paradox. Yes, we want the positive image, but no, we do not want to encourage more assimilation in the foreign land.

However, the book declares: It is what it is!

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/ governing engines in the homeland of the region’s 30 member-states. The CU strives to elevate Caribbean image at home and abroad. There are many empowerments in the roadmap for the far-flung Diaspora to improve the interaction with the Caribbean community. So the cultural center in the foregoing article is germane to the Go Lean discussion.

The entire article is listed as follows:

Sub-title: The Caribbean Marketplace has become a cultural icon in the Little Haiti community and re-opens with much fanfare….

By: Fabiola Fleuranvil | Noire Miami

The long awaited re-opening of the Caribbean Marketplace (CMP) is back as a cultural marker in the vibrant Little Haiti community. For years, the venue has been a strong figure along Little Haiti’s main corridor and has been easily identified by its bright colors and vibrant activity of vendors as well as Haitian and Caribbean culture. After undergoing a lengthy renovation to transform this cultural gem into a community staple for unique arts and crafts, Caribbean culture, special events, and community events, the highly anticipated reopening positions the Caribbean Marketplace as a vibrant addition to the Little Haiti Cultural Center next door and the burgeoning arts and culture spirit in Little Haiti.

The re-establishment of this Marketplace is a collaborative effort of the City of Miami in partnership with the Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs, the Little Haiti Cultural Complex (LHCC), the Northeast Second Avenue Partnership (NE2P) and District 5 Commissioner Keon Hardemon.

The 9,500-square-foot space includes a refreshment and concession area, gift shops, arts and crafts, retail vendors and space available for private events. The renovations reflect the beautiful diversity of the Caribbean. Low rates, technical and marketing assistance will be provided to all vendors. It is anticipated that new businesses will be created in this cultural hub, resulting in employment opportunities for the local community.

Physical Address for the Caribbean Marketplace: 5925 NE 2nd Ave, Miami (Besides the Little Haiti Cultural Center) Hours: Thursday – Sunday, 11AM – 11PM
Miami Herald Daily Newspaper (Retrieved 07-16-2014) –
http://www.miami.com/little-haiti039s-caribbean-marketplace-reopens-article

The Miami community is doing even more to embrace the exile populations in its metropolis, (including jurisdictions up to West Palm Beach). They have declared an entire month (June) for celebrating Caribbean communities; the term “month” is a loose definition, it starts in the Spring and forwards deep into the Summer. The following is a sample of events planned for this year (2014).

Caribbean-American Heritage “Month” events around South Florida:

3rd Annual Colors of the Caribbean

Saturday, June 14, 4PM – 11PM – Hollywood Arts Park – Hollywood Blvd & US1

What do you get when you blend the diverse, authentic ingredients of the Caribbean? You get a Caribbean inspired day of food, arts and culture, entertainment and irie vibes. Colors of the Caribbean features: Junkanoo procession, Moko Jumbies (Stilt walkers), Steelpan music, and live performances by Wayne Wonder (Jamaica), Midnite (Virgin Islands), Kevin Lyttle (St Vincent), Harmoniq (Haiti), music by DJ Majestic (DC/Trinidad & Tobago), and more.

AllSpice: Flavors of the Caribbean

Friday, June 20, 6PM – 10PM – Borland Center, 4885PGABlvd,Palm BeachGardens

The Caribbean Democratic Club of Palm Beach County presents a Taste of the Caribbean in celebration of Caribbean American Month.

Caribbean Style Week

June 23-29 – Westfield Mall Broward, 8000 West Broward Blvd, Plantation

The Caribbean American Heritage Foundation hosts a week-long showcase featuring both popular and upcoming Caribbean fashion designers and brands. Fashion pieces will be available for purchase during the fashion expo.

Caribbean Heritage Month Travel Experience/Travel Expo

June 28-29 – Westfield Mall Broward, 8000 West Broward Blvd, Plantation

The Caribbean Travel Expo celebrates and promotes each individual as a destination for your next vacation. The expo experience will also showcase live music, cultural performances, and special surprise giveaways over the weekend.

Caribbean: Crossroads of the World Exhibit

April 18 – Aug 17 – PerezArt MuseumMiami (PAMM), 1103 Biscayne Blvd, Miami

Highlighting over two centuries of rarely seen works — from paintings and sculptures to prints, photographs, installations, films, and videos — dating from the Haitian Revolution to the present, this exhibition advances our understanding of the Caribbean and its artistic heritage and contemporary practices.
http://www.miami.com/caribbean-american-heritage-month-events-around-south-florida-article)

The Go Lean…Caribbean clearly recognizes the historicity of Cuban and Afro-Caribbean (Haitian, Jamaican, Dominican, Bahamian, etc) exiles in Miami. They went through the “long train of abuses”. But today, their communities dominate the culture of South Florida, resulting in a distinctive character that has made Miami unique as a travel/tourist destination; see VIDEO below. The expression “take my talents to South Beach” now resonates in American society.

This commentary previously featured subjects related to the Caribbean Diaspora in South Florida. The following here is a sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=689	eMerge conference aims to jump-start Miami tech hub
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235	Tourism’s changing profile

At the outset, the Go Lean roadmap recognizes the value and significance of Cuban and Haitian exile communities in the pantheon of Caribbean life. Any serious push for Caribbean integration must consider Diaspora communities, like the Cuban/Haitian exiles in Miami. This intent was pronounced early in the book with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 13):

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.

xix.      Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xx.      Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

It was commonly accepted that Cuban exiles and other Caribbean Diaspora were sitting, waiting in Miami for change in their homelands; then they would return to claim their earned positions of respect. Along the way, the Survive-then-Thrive strategy was supplanted with a new Thrive-in-America strategy – credited to the next generation’s assimilation of the American Dream and the long duration of Caribbean dysfunctions, i.e. the Castros still reign after 55 years. Miami subsequently emerged as the trading post for the Caribbean and all of Latin America. The Caribbean is now hereby urged to lean-in to the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to finally re-boot Caribbean society; as detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean sampled here:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocrary	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – State Department – Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Federal Courts – Truth & Reconciliation Commissions	Page 90
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Trade Mission Objectives	Page 117
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Cuba/Haiti	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba	Page 236
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti	Page 238

The foregoing article addresses the story of the Caribbean Marketplace facility to promote Caribbean culture in the South Florida market, and even provide some economic benefits (trade, job, import/export options). The Go Lean book focuses on these economic issues to the N^th degree, and also addresses the important issues regarding Caribbean societal elevation: music, sports, art, education, repatriation and heritage. This cultural center in the foregoing article aligns with the Go Lean roadmap.

Just like Miami grew, and prospered so much over the last 50 years, with help from our people, the Caribbean can also be a better place to live, work and play. This is a new day for the Caribbean!

It’s time now for change; not just change for change sake, but the elevations that were identified, qualified and proposed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. It’s time to lean-in. Then we can move from celebrating the Diaspora in a foreign land to celebrating their return to the Caribbean, the best address in the world.

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

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