Ethos – Page 8 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Category: Ethos

Good Leadership: Next Generation of ‘Agile’ Project Delivery

Posted on May 23, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Implementation, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

Good Project Management = Good Leadership.

The Art & Science of Project Management is just one way of improving leadership. As related in the course of this series on Good Leadership, it is possible to change the habits and practices of the leadership of any society. Start at the top or start with the head and the body will follow.

This is a discussion about “tools and techniques”. As the world advances, not only do our tools – think computer hardware, software and communication systems – become more efficient and effective, but also the techniques …

Technique – Lexico, powered by Oxford
A way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure.

Technological tools and techniques evolve … over time.

Speaking of technological evolution, there used to be a time that people with professional careers didn’t know how to …

Type; (think typewriter).

… lawyers, accountants, managers and other occupations would simply dictate (live or into a “Dictaphone”) or wrote freehand and someone else would do the actual typing.

That is right; the typewriter was only used by secretaries, journalists and/or authors; (think Murder She Wrote opening credits). There were jobs like “Typing Pool”, Key-Punch Operators and Data Entry Clerk. Previously, the professional staffers would simply delegate their typing duties to these clerical specialists. In fact, the job title “Clerk/Typist” still exists in the office hierarchy, popular in many government agencies, even though there may be no more typing in their duties.

Then the world changed; driven mostly by technology advances. The Personal Computer was introduced in 1981; then smartphones in the 2000’s; now everyone knows how to type, and do their own typing. The workplace adapted to the new normal.

More technological advances; more adaptation … this time with project leadership. As related, the Art & Science of Project Management is just one form of leadership; good Project Management is part-and-parcel to Good Leadership. The importance of this Art & Science is related in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean with this quotation (Page 109):

10 Ways to Deliver – # 1: Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market & Economy initiative: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).
… There are many projects that must be delivered on time, within budget and with a measurable satisfaction. These include Public Works, Information Technologies, Industrialization and others. Embracing a technocratic ethos means that these projects cannot be left to chance and hope for the best. They must be delivered. The CU envisions strict project management disciplines in the planning and executions of these regional endeavors.

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The Bottom Line on Project Management Office
A Project Management Office (PMO) is a group or department within a business, agency or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project management within the organization. The PMO strives to standardize and introduce economies of repetition in the execution of projects. The PMO is the source of documentation, guidance and metrics on the practice of project management and execution. In some organizations this is known as the Program Management Office (sometimes abbreviated to PgMO to differentiate); the subtle difference is that program management relates to governing the management of several related projects. The Project Management Institute (PMI) Program Management Office Community of Practice (CoP), describes the PMO as a strategic driver for organizational excellence, which seeks to enhance the practices of execution management, organizational governance, & strategic change leadership.

PMOs may take other functions beyond standards and methodology, and participate in Strategic project management either as facilitator or actively as owner of the Portfolio Management process. Tasks may include monitoring and reporting on active projects and portfolios (following up project until completion), and reporting progress to top management for strategic decisions on what projects to continue or cancel. Traditional PMOs base project management principles on industry-standard methodologies such as Six Sigma, CMM, Agile and PRINCE2 – (an acronym for Projects in Controlled Environments, version 2); it is a project management methodology. It was developed by the UK government agency Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and is used extensively within the UK government as the de facto project management standard for its public projects).

As the tools and techniques evolve, Agile is the new wave in Project Management. This allows for the role of skilled project managers in societal deliveries; (or skilled project delivery even without project managers). See how this actuality was related in the Go Lean book.

10 Ways to Deliver – # 2: Agile – Lean
Agile project management is an iterative and incremental method of managing the design-and-build activities for engineering, information technology, and new product or service development projects in a highly flexible and interactive manner. Agile, linked to lean techniques, (delivering more value with less waste) is best used in small-scale projects.

There are many flavors – methodologies and frameworks – of Agile. These refer to the values and principles espoused in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development (2010).^[5] These underpin a broad range of software development frameworks, including Scrum, Kanban.^[6][7] and SAFe, the most popular subset. See more details on SAFe here; (and related VIDEO’s in the Appendices below):

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a set of organization and workflow patterns intended to guide enterprises in scaling lean and agile practices.^[1][2] Along with large-scale Scrum (LeSS), disciplined agile delivery (DAD), and Nexus, SAFe is one of a growing number of frameworks that seek to address the problems encountered when scaling beyond a single team.^[3][4] SAFe is made freely available by Scaled Agile, Inc., which retains the copyrights and registered trademarks.^[5]

SAFe promotes alignment, collaboration, and delivery across large numbers of agile teams. It was developed by and for practitioners, by leveraging three primary bodies of knowledge: agile software development, lean product development, and systems thinking.^[6]

The primary reference for the scaled agile framework was originally the development of a big picture view of how work flowed from product management (or other stakeholders), through governance, program, and development teams, out to customers.^[7][8] With the collaboration of others in the agile community, this was progressively refined and then first formally described in a 2007 book.^[9] The framework continues to be developed and shared publicly; with an academy and an accreditation scheme supporting those who seek to implement, support, or train others in the adoption of SAFe.

Version 4.5, was released in June 2017^[10] while the latest edition, version 5.0, was released in January 2020.^[11]

While SAFe continues to be recognised as the most common approach to scaling agile practices (at 30 percent and growing),^[12][13][14], it also receive criticism for being too hierarchical and inflexible.^[15]

But the way technology advances and evolves, the only constant to change is change itself. So now even the “new thing” of Agile is being supplanted with an even “newer thing”. See this comment here from a relevant authority, and respected co-worker:

Quotation – Suman Surabi, Scrum Master with Daimler Benz (Mercedes-Benz Financial):

Agile is getting diluted…. SAFe and Kanban methodologies are being projected/becoming more popular these days.

If you looked 10 years back, or earlier, Project Management being very popular; then after from 2011-2016/17, Agile become very popular; now after especially from last 2 years SAFe is being projected by others as the popular methodology; even I agree with this to some extent.

… if you see the trends these days, the PM role has become negligible as many projects are going without PM’s – they may only have Product Owners, Scrum Masters and Product Managers. Where as in pure Agile projects, we used to have PM’s, now we see the trend for projects to be run without PM’s.

This commentary presents some strategies, tactics and implementations for pursuing the goal of reforming and transforming the Caribbean region. This commentary, along with the whole output from the movement behind the Go Lean book, asserts that Good Leadership is within reach for the Caribbean member-states. Just a little effort by the right people in the right positions and boom: Change, elevation and progress for everybody. “We” can do more with less.

Every month, the Go Lean movement presents a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this May 2020, our focus is on Good Leadership, positing that we need Good Leadership now more than ever, as the world battles the Coronavirus pandemic. This is entry 3 of 6 for this series, which details how to employ the tools and techniques of Agile to deliver projects on time, on budget and with a measurable satisfaction. The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

Good Leadership – Inaction could be deadly
Good Leadership – Caring builds trust; trust builds caring
Good Leadership – Agile: Next Generation of leadership and project delivery
Good Leadership – Hypocrisy cancels out Law-and-Order
Good Leadership – Example – “Leader of the Free World”?
Good Leadership – Example – For mitigating crime

There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; we need Good Leadership – among our political, corporate, religious and civic stakeholders – to survive and thrive as a society. We needed this before this COVID-19 pandemic, and we will need it afterwards.

This theme, “effective leadership tools and techniques”, shows the positive consequences of leadership attempting to get better in their deliveries. The points of better deliveries, using lean-agile methodologies in a corporate setting (i.e. CitiGroup) was elaborated in a previous blog-commentary from August 9, 2018:

‘Lean Is’ as ‘Lean Does’ – Good Project Management

“It is good to be lean”.

But lean does not just happen, it takes real effort to be lean.

This is the awakening, right now at the Wall Street Big Bank CitiGroup. They are making an all-out effort to “do more with less” and they are thusly investing in “process and people” or “people and process” to be lean. They have launched an all-encompassing program branded CitiLean – a continuous improvement program with tangible and measurable benefits to Citi and its customers. This features “process and people” in every sphere of Citi’s operations: employees, contractors, suppliers and vendors. In fact, they even present an annual Lean Partner Award to recognize the supplier that most embodies the spirit of CitiLean.

The Go Lean book … asserts that any Caribbean super-national governance must be a lean operation, embracing the best-practices of the Art & Science of lean methodologies. The book opens with this introduction of lean (Page 4):

The CU will also be lean (adjective), in that it will not feature a “fat” bureaucracy. To the contrary, the institutions of the CU Trade Federation will embrace lean, agile, efficient organization structures – more virtual, less physical, more systems, less payroll. This will result in less of a tax burden for the people of the Caribbean.

Also, consider this sample of previous submissions of Good Leadership in corporate settings:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19669	Keep the Change of “Working From Home”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18749	Learning from Another ‘Great Place to Work’: Mercedes-Benz
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16002	Good Governance: Good Corporate Compliance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16000	Good Governance: Facilitating Local Economic Empowerment
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15543	Fostering Caribbean Unity – Learning from the Ross University Saga
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14191	Scheduling and Lean Workforce Management in the ‘Gig Economy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11184	JPMorganChase investing $10 billion in Lean ‘Fintech’ for just 1 year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8966	For-Profit Education Companies – Plenty of Profit; Little Education
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126	Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market

In summary, there is a formula for Good Leadership in organization structures; this could be corporate entities or government agencies. The goal is to deliver on behalf of the stakeholders: shareholders or citizens. We need to double-down on this formula. Agile project management has proven that it can ensure on-time, on-budget deliveries. See the related VIDEO’s in the Appendices below.

There is a pandemic crisis – Coronavirus-COVID-19 – we need effective deliveries right now. The scientific best-practice is to:

Test
Trace
Isolate

A culture of Good Leadership, good administration and good delivery will help our society endure this crisis. Let’s all do more, with less – this is the mantra of agile, lean project management.

Yes, elevating Caribbean leadership will actually elevate Caribbean society.

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders – corporate and government – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. This is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

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.

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.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————-

Appendix VIDEO 1 – What is Agile – https://youtu.be/Z9QbYZh1YXY

Mark Shead
Posted May 31, 2016 – This short cartoon answers the question “What Is Agile?” and will give you the background to understand the Agile principles and values and how they can help you and your team work together more efficiently.

If you’d like a free book on this topic, please see below… https://mailchi.mp/326ba47ba2e8/agile…

I’ve published a book called “Starting Agile” that is designed to help you start your team’s Agile journey outright. You can buy a copy from Amazon, but I’m giving free copies away to my subscribers from YouTube.

You can signup for a copy at the link above.

You can subscribe to my channel with this link: https://www.youtube.com/markshead?sub…

If you’d like to connect with me on LinkedIn you can find me at the link below. Just send me a message saying hello and that you found me from one of my videos: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markshead

Category: Science & Technology
Source videos: View attributions

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Appendix VIDEO 2 – What is Agile Methodology? – https://youtu.be/ZZ_vnqvW4DQ

Mark Shead
Posted Aug 22, 2018 – Agile is a collection of values and principles. So what is this “Agile Methodology” you keep hearing people talk about? If you’d like a free book on this topic, please see below…

You can signup for a copy at this link:

https://mailchi.mp/326ba47ba2e8/agile…

Category: Science & Technology

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Appendix VIDEO 3 – Scrum vs Kanban – Two Agile Teams Go Head-to-Head – https://youtu.be/HNd1_irOL5k

Posted Sep 27, 2017 –
Development That Pays

This is the tale of two Agile teams. It wasn’t just an organisational separation: it was an AGILE separation.

Download your FREE CHEAT SHEET: http://bit.ly/scrum-vs-kanban-cheatsheet

This is a story of Two Agile Teams. More correctly, it’s the tale of one Agile Team that split into two Agile Teams.

What makes the story interesting is that it was more than just an organisational separation.

It was an Agile separation:

– One team continued as before – with *Scrum*

– The other team dropped Scrum in favour of *Kanban*

Will it all end in tears?

→ SUBSCRIBE for a NEW EPISODE every WEDNESDAY: http://www.DevelopmentThatPays.com/-/…

Category: Howto & Style

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Jobs, Model, Transform

Good Leadership: Caring builds trust; trust builds caring

Posted on May 22, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Implementation

Lean Commentary

Do you want greatness?

Of course, every sane person desires to be around great friends, great family and maybe even work for a great company. In fact, then Presidential Candidate Donald Trump got support in the United States in 2015/2016 with the promise of “Making America Great Again”.

One of the most important ingredients for all great entities is great leadership. (Let’s scale it down to just Good Leadership). This is more than just a fantasy; families, companies and even countries can foster Good Leadership. There is a certain quality that makes this goal possible:

Trust.

Trust is very important for forging Good Leadership. Subjects must feel that they can trust their leaders, that the leaders care and would only have their best interest at heart. So actions of caring and trust are inter-related.

In a previous blog-commentary on “Fostering A Great Place to Work”, this main point was summarized:

There is a ‘Great Place to Work’ Institute that spent 25 years researching the best companies to work for around the world; they found that high levels of trust between employees and managers is the main element found in great workplaces.

Caring builds trust; trust builds caring …

While it is near impossible to change all the citizens of a country or all the employees of a company in “one fell swoop”, it is possible to change the habits and practices of its leadership team; (or maybe change the team). Start at the top – start with the head and the body will follow – within the organization structure and all stakeholders will experience the benefits of Good Leadership in due time.

Companies and countries … there are differences; there are similarities. While a company’s prime directive make be to maximize shareholder value, the country will be more concerned with optimally executing the Social Contract between citizens and the State; (where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights).

Accountability is still the same. The need for trust is still the same.

In a previous blog-commentary, this Executive Summary of the book Good to Great was provided, where it depicted the important role of leadership to make a great organization:

Book: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t
By: Jim Collins; one of the most influential management consultants

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1: Good is the Enemy of Great

Chapter 2: Level 5 Leadership

In this chapter, Collins begins the process of identifying and further explicating the unique factors and variables that differentiate good and great companies. One of the most significant differences, he asserts, is the quality and nature of leadership in the firm. Collins goes on to identify “Level 5 leadership” as a common characteristic of the great companies assessed in the study. This type of leadership forms the top level of a 5-level hierarchy that ranges from merely competent supervision to strategic executive decision-making.

By further studying the behaviors and attitudes of so-called Level 5 leaders, Collins found that many of those classified in this group displayed an unusual mix of intense determination and profound humility. These leaders often have a long-term personal sense of investment in the company and its success, often cultivated through a career-spanning climb up the company’s ranks. The personal ego and individual financial gain are not as important as the long-term benefit of the team and the company to true Level 5 leaders. As such, Collins asserts that the much-touted trend of bringing in a celebrity CEO to turn around a flailing firm is usually not conducive to fostering the transition from Good to Great.

Chapter 3: First Who, Then What

Chapter 4: Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)

Chapter 5: The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity Within the Three Circles)

Chapter 6: A Culture of Discipline

Chapter 7: Technology Accelerators

Chapter 8: The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

Chapter 9: From Good to Great to Built to Last

How can Good Leaders build trust with their stakeholders (citizens, employees, etc.)? Quite simply: Care for your subjects; do not just say it, do it; walk the walk not just talk to talk. Caring should be “action”. See a great example in these VIDEO’s here:

VIDEO 1 – [Gravity Payments] CEO Cut Salary To Pay Employees $70k – https://youtu.be/4ygSJwzJ1tM

TYT’s The Conversation
Posted Oct 7, 2019 – Dan Price set a $70k minimum wage for his employees and cut down his own pay. Cenk Uygur, host of The Conversation, breaks it down. MORE TYT: https://tyt.com/trial https://gravitypayments.com/ Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Cast: Cenk Uygur.

***

The Largest Online News Show in the World. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE STREAMING weekdays 6-8pm ET. http://tyt.com/live

Subscribe to The Young Turks on YouTube: http://youtube.com/subscription_cente…
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TYT on Instagram: http://instagram.com/theyoungturks

Merch: http://www.shoptyt.com

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Producer, Senior Producer and Executive Producer membership: http://go.tyt.com/producer

Young Turk (n), 1. Young progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party. 2. A young person who rebels against authority or societal expectations. (American Heritage Dictionary)

#TYT #TheYoungTurks #TheConversation

Category: News & Politics

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VIDEO 2 – Gravity Payments Team Surprises CEO, Dan Price, With A Tesla! – https://youtu.be/kgF9ohgylWY

Gravity Payments

Posted July 15, 2016 – Last April, our CEO, Dan Price, surprised all of us when he decided to raise the minimum wage for the entire team to $70,000 and we recently released the early results related to that minimum wage decision, http://www.thegravityof70k.com. A year later, we turned the tables and give him a taste of his own medicine. We pitched in in some small way and bought Dan his dream car – a Tesla. This is just one small piece of what’s happened in the past year. www.gravitypayments.com/services/

Category: People & Blogs

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There is no doubt that the company CEO in these VIDEO’s reflect caring for his subjects; and in turn the subjects – his employees – trust him. The goal of Good Leadership is fully manifested in this case.

(Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/9897253Z:US)

Don’t get it twisted, a person does not have to give up a million dollar salary to be considered a Good Leader; it was the caring for the needs of his stakeholders that made Dan Price effective. His employees had real concerns affording housing in the expensive city of Seattle, Washington – their headquarters. See the article excerpt in the Appendix below. (Such a topic is also important for Caribbean Public Servants, as they have poverty wages).

Other leaders have had to express similar concern and consideration for their subjects; think workplace safety, health insurance, disaster recovery-response, and today: pandemic threats. But this benevolence is not standard or common. For example, there are hospitals that are on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to Good Leadership; they have:

The presence of Good Leadership is just as obvious as the opposite extreme: the dread of Bad Leadership.

Who would you rather work for?
Or serve under?
Or practice good citizenship towards?

This commentary presents some strategies, tactics and implementations for pursuing the goal of reforming and transforming the Caribbean region. It starts with Good Leadership. But the Art & Science of Leadership is not always something that is taught in school; sometimes it is taught … in Church; remember the Golden Rule … here:

Bible Reference – 6 Bible Verses about the ‘Golden Rule’

Matthew 7:12 – “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Luke 6:31 – Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.

Matthew 22:39-40 – The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Mark 12:31 – The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Romans 13:8-9 – Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Source: Retrieved May 27, 2020 from: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Golden-Rule

Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean presents a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this May 2020, our focus is on Good Leadership. We need Good Leadership now more than ever, as the world battles the Coronavirus pandemic. This is entry 2 of 6 for this series, which details that “caring builds trust”. The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

Good Leadership – Inaction could be deadly
Good Leadership – Caring builds trust; trust builds caring
Good Leadership – Agile: Next Generation of leadership and project delivery
Good Leadership – Hypocrisy cancels out Law-and-Order
Good Leadership – Example – “Leader of the Free World”?
Good Leadership – Example – For mitigating crime

There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; we need Good Leadership – among our political, corporate, religious and civic stakeholders – to survive this COVID-19 pandemic. Over 300,000 people have died; this is not a hoax.

This theme “Caring builds trust and trust builds caring” shows the positive consequences of benevolent leadership. Benevolence in government has many positive benefits, like dissuading people from fleeing the homeland in search of refuge. The points of benevolent governance, management and administration – a subset of Good Leadership – were elaborated in many other blog-commentaries; consider this sample of previous submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17697	Good Administration of Common Pool Resources
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17358	Marshall Plan – A Lesson in History of a Good Solution
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17697	Good Governance: The Kind of Society We Want
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16002	Good Governance: Good Corporate Compliance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996	Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15479	‘Lean Is’ as ‘Lean Does’ – Good Project Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14174	Canada: “Follow My Good Example” on ‘Climate Change’ Action

In summary, there is a formula for Good Leadership; leaders should care for their subjects and the subjects will then naturally trust them. So in effect, trust can be built using this formula. We need the caring; we need the trust; especially now during this Coronavirus-COVID-19 crisis and in everyday life: before, during and after this pandemic disaster.

So Good Leadership , Good Administration and Good Governance is just the expectation of good people in society. Most people do not know how to forge Good Leadership, but they know “it” when they see it. This realization is important for the movement behind the Go Lean book and roadmap. We need to reach and reform the Caribbean leaders and the Caribbean subjects.

Yes, we can elevate Caribbean leadership. We want our leaders to care; we want to trust that they are acting with our best interest in mind.

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders – leaders and followers – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … and subscribe to this vision. We specifically urge all leaders to care about their subjects and we urge all subjects to trust their leaders. While this is easy to say – and hard to do – the manifestation of this vision, is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

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.

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.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————

Appendix – Title: Here’s What Really Happened at That Company That Set a $70,000 Minimum Wage
Sub-title: Dan Price decided to pay all 120 employees at least $70,000. Grown men cried. Profits soared. Then things got really crazy.
By: Paul Keegan, Contributing Editor, INC Monthly Magazine

Before Dan Price caused a media firestorm by establishing a $70,000 minimum wage at his Seattle company, Gravity Payments… before Hollywood agents, reality-show producers, and book publishers began throwing elbows for a piece of the hip, 31-year-old entrepreneur with the shoulder-length hair and Brad Pitt looks… before Rush Limbaugh called him a socialist and Harvard Business School professors asked to study his radical experiment in paying workers… an entry-level Gravity employee named Jason Haley got really pissed off at him.

It was late 2011. Haley was a 32-year-old phone tech earning about $35,000 a year, and he was in a sour mood. Price had noticed it, and when he spotted Haley outside on a smoking break, he approached. “Seems like something’s bothering you,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”
…

Finally, he realized why: Haley was right — not only about being underpaid, but also about Price’s intentions. “I was so scarred by the recession that I was proactively, and proudly, hurting my staff,” he says. Thus began Price’s transformation from classic entrepreneur to crusader against income inequality, set on fundamentally changing the way America does business. For three years after his face-off with Haley, Price handed out 20 percent annual raises. Profit growth continued to substantially outpace wage growth. This spring, he spent two weeks running the numbers and battling insomnia before making a dramatic announcement to his 120-member staff on April 13, inviting NBC News and The New York Times to cover it: Over the next three years, he will phase in a minimum wage of $70,000 at Gravity and immediately cut his own salary from $1.1 million to $70,000 to help fund it.
…

The 20 percent raises Price implemented in 2012 were supposed to be a one-time deal. Then something strange happened: Profits rose just as much as the previous year, fueled by a surprising productivity jump — of 30 to 40 percent. He figured it was a fluke, but he piled on 20 percent raises again the following year. Again, profits rose by a like amount. Baffled, he did the same in 2014 and profits continued to rise, though not quite as much as before, because Gravity had to do more hiring.
…
“I began wondering what my friend would have to make so she wouldn’t have to worry about a $200 rent hike,” says Price. He recalled a 2010 study by Princeton behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman finding that, while people did not feel happier on a daily basis as their income rose above $75,000, they were decidedly unhappier the less they earned below $75,000. At Gravity, new hires made $35,000 a year.

By any measure, Gravity was doing relatively well. Revenue hit $150 million in 2014 and was growing 15 percent per year on $7 billion in customer transactions. Profits hit $2.2 million — actually a so-so 1.46 percent net margin, below the industry average. About 40 percent of the profits went to Dan and Lucas as dividends …
…
Is there a magic number that keeps workers focused while still generating a profit? Price calculated a figure but never imagined the publicity he’s gotten would boost new customer inquiries from 30 per month to 2,000 within two weeks. Customer acquisition costs are typically high, so in that sense, the strategy has paid off. And in this business, customer retention is key. Gravity’s 91 percent retention rate over the past three years — far above the industry average of about 68 percent — has been crucial to its success.
…
Six months after Price’s announcement, Gravity has defied doubters. Revenue is growing at double the previous rate. Profits have also doubled. Gravity did lose a few customers: Some objected to what seemed like a political statement that put pressure on them to raise their own wages; others feared price hikes or service cutbacks. But media reports suggesting that panicked customers were fleeing have proved false. In fact, Gravity’s customer retention rate rose from 91 to 95 percent in the second quarter.
…
Price says establishing a $70,000 minimum wage is a moral imperative, not a business strategy. And yet he must prove the business wisdom behind it, not only to keep Gravity from sinking — and going down with the ship himself–but also to achieve his long-term goal of transforming the business world. “I want the scorecard we have as business leaders to be not about money, but about purpose, impact, and service,” he says. “I want those to be the things that we judge ourselves on.”

See the full article here – Source: INC Monthly Magazine Posted May 2015; retrieved May 27, 2020 from: https://www.inc.com/magazine/201511/paul-keegan/does-more-pay-mean-more-growth.html

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Good Leadership: Inaction is Deadly

Posted on May 21, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

He who does nothing, makes no mistakes. – Old Adage

Inaction is a reality, not a good one, but a real option all the same. Unfortunately, we do not need inaction from our leaders, we can do “nothing” all by ourselves. Remember this idiom/proverb:

We reap what we sow.

Using the agricultural framework, we know if we sow wheat, during the harvest, we will reap wheat, but if we sow nothing, this does not mean that we get nothing in return. No, we get something bad! Back to the agricultural reference, we get weeds and insects. Truthfully in life, if our leaders do nothing, do not do their duty, the end result could be:

Death.

This is due to the implied Social Contract that we are all under. Despite the versions of constitutions or the forms of government, the principles are similar in the expectation of society versus their government. That Social Contract is summarized as follows:

Citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights.

This is not just theoretical! The world is enduring the Coronavirus COVID-19 crisis right now; people are dying and economies are being wrecked. Yet some political leaders are accused of doing nothing … for far too long. It has been assessed that the inaction has led to death. See this assertion in the New York Times news-article and a related AUDIO-Podcast here; (these media productions consider an American example and the European examples of Boris Johnson versus Angela Merkel, the Prime Minster of the UK and the Chancellor of Germany respectively):

Title: Inaction that cost lives

By the final days of February, many public health experts were sounding the alarm about the coronavirus, and some people were listening.

In the San Francisco area, major employers began directing their employees to stay home. Washington State declared a state of emergency. South Korea, Vietnam and other countries ordered aggressive measures.

President Trump did not.

On Feb. 26, he said — incorrectly — that the number of cases was “going very substantially down, not up.” As late as March 10, he promised: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

Some local leaders also continued to urge business as usual. In early March, Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers to “get out on the town despite coronavirus.”

This kind of advice appears to have cost tens of thousands of American lives, according to a new analysis by researchers at Columbia University.If the U.S. had enacted social-distancing measures a week earlier than it did — in early March rather than mid-March — about 36,000 fewer Americans would have died, the study found. That’s more than one third of the current death toll, which is about 100,000.

If the measures had been in place two weeks earlier, on March 1, the death toll would be 54,000 lower.

These are hypothetical estimates, of course, and they’re unavoidably imprecise. But they are consistent with real-world evidence from places that responded to the virus more quickly, including San Francisco, Washington State, South Korea and Vietnam — where per capita deaths have been much lower than the U.S. average.

Jeffrey Shaman, the leader of the Columbia research team, told The Times: “It’s a big, big difference. That small moment in time, catching it in that growth phase, is incredibly critical in reducing the number of deaths.”

Related: Trump and some top White House officials are arguing that the reported virus death toll is overstated, The Times reports. Public health experts overwhelmingly reject this view.

A simple way to understand why experts believe the official count is actually understated: The number of Americans who have died in recent weeks is much higher than normal.

Source: Posted and retrieved May 21, 2020 from: https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200521&instance_id=18657&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=69450329&segment_id=28666&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F8d437750-97d5-41dd-b68b-8fd573bf28c2&user_id=de9db917120d820078919cfacc03d8b3

—————–

AUDIO Podcast – Coronavirus Pandemic Tests Leadership Styles In U.K, Germany – https://www.npr.org/2020/05/21/859991289/coronavirus-pandemic-tests-leadership-styles-in-u-k-germany

Morning Edition
Posted May 21, 2020 – U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel present different visions of leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2013, the book Go Lean…Caribbean was introduced to prepare the stakeholders in the Caribbean for the turn-around and reboot that was vital if there was to be any hope for this society. The book introduced the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and identified the two approaches for formulating change:

Bottoms Up
Top Down

Since then, we have fully engaged the people in the Bottoms Up approach. We have communicated to them and convinced, cajoled and coalesced with them to get a receptive ear to the idea of regional harmony among the 30 member-states. The response has been overwhelming and positive.

See the image to the right depicting the responses we have measured on the community’s Facebook Page, for just the last month; (we also publish on Twitter, Instagram and send out direct emails, which are all shared again and again, thereby extending the reach exponentially).

In addition to the people, we have also messaged to the societal leaders (politicians, religious, civic and business leaders). In fact, there is a petition to the applicable Heads of Government for each member-state, urging them to lean-in to the tenants of this Go Lean roadmap. In fact, of the 1000+ blog-commentaries, the last 700 contain a button to petition the leaders accordingly. These petitions are forwarded directly to the appropriate addresses (i.e. the UK’s Home Office receives the petition every time someone “Click to Balk” … in representation of the British Overseas Territories). In fact, see the destination list of that petition in the image to the right here.

So there it is; we advocate to the “Indians and to the Chiefs”. 🙂

The Go Lean book presented strategies, tactics and implementations to pursue the goal of reforming and transforming the Caribbean region. The “Improve Leadership” mission was stated as follows regarding these narrow objectives (Page 46):

Fix the broken systems of governance in our region and deter against movements towards Failed-States, and any preying upon our people. We must protect the most vulnerable among us and guarantee the human/civil rights of our women and minorities. Basic to any governmental effort is the collection of sufficient revenues; the CU must therefore foster new revenue streams, financing options, and a professional civil service to directly benefit the local governance.
Ensure the fiscal integrity of the region, by providing proper oversight and support for the depository institutions, and insuring deposit accounts up to a competitive limit compared to other western democracies.

Good Leadership is missing in many Caribbean communities – sometimes, elected leaders simply do nothing in solving problems! Don’t get it twisted … Good Leadership is more than just “good people doing good deeds”. No, bad people can also exercise good leadership – think “Organized Crime”. Good people can also do bad leadership – remember the expression: “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”. So Good Leadership doesn’t just happen; it is an Art and a Science.

It is like a muscle that must be exercised; doing nothing is not exercise. For this reason, there is an actual advocacy in the Go Lean book to address the Art, the Science and all the best-practices for good people to do good in terms of leadership.

This is a good purpose; see here some of the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from Page 171, entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Leadership

1	*Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market* Confederation Treaty: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU)** The CU treaty allows for the integration of the Caribbean region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member-states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion (per 2010 figures). The CU maintains a philosophy that the region must prepare for the economic battles of globalization as if it’s a military campaign. As such, the leaders that direct the battles must be skilled in trade strategies and tactical endeavors. The focus of this advocacy therefore is on the individuals, not the organization or institutions, rather the attitudes and influences to achieve victory. There are lessons to learn for the application [from the book, ] the Art of War, [the ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician,] by local, national and federal officials in forging good leadership.
2	Leaders Must Inspire, Not Just Direct There are top leaders and experts within business, politics, art, sports, organized crime, philanthropy and health care that are skilled in the application of the leadership, ethics and visions raised in the 13 chapters of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” ^[133]. The consistent theme is that leaders must inspire, not just direct. Followers should envision the successful destination and their role in the goal, not just follow directions, this way they can work for success at the micro level. “For want of a horseshoe, a horse was lost; for want of a horse a soldier was lost; for want of a soldier a Calvary was lost; for want of a Calvary a battle was lost; for want of a battle, a war was lost”.
3	Genius Qualifier – Interpersonal
4	Project Management and Technocracy The CU’s embrace of a technocratic ethos will allow for projects and services to be optimally delivered, due to strict project management (PM) disciplines. But while PM is for organizational delivery, the CU managers need not just be bureaucrats, rather a technocracy require leadership training so as to align the detail management to the overall vision.
5	Big Data Intelligence The CU organizes the Trade battles under the principles of Trade SHIELD (Strategic, Harvest, Interdiction, Enforcement, Logistic & Delivery). While this is a military icon, the purpose of this principle is to optimize trade within and for the region. The Harvest feature of SHIELD calls for capturing and measuring statistical data and abstracts from all the trade focused activities. The CU’s Commerce Department will spearhead the effort to capture the trade data, thereby measuring and gleaning intelligence on many aspects of Caribbean life (economic, consumption, societal values, etc).
6	Collaboration Culture
7	Remote Management Tools
8	Legislative Review
9	Federal Civil Servants Personnel Development
10	Train the Trainers

Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean presents a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this May 2020, our focus is on Good Leadership. By coincidence, the world is battling the impact and recovery of the Coronavirus pandemic on society. So we have the opportunity to look-listen-and-learn from the supporting evidence of the good, bad and ugly examples of leadership on display today. This is entry 1 of 6 for this series, which details that there is much hard-work and heavy-lifting that our leaders need to do to foster good leadership abilities.

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

Good Leadership – Inaction could be deadly
Good Leadership – Caring builds trust; trust builds caring
Good Leadership – Agile: Next Generation of leadership and project delivery
Good Leadership – Hypocrisy cancels out Law-and-Order
Good Leadership – Example – “Leader of the Free World”?
Good Leadership – Example – For mitigating crime

There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; we need Good Leadership to survive this COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands have died, so this is not just an academic discussion. Even in our Caribbean region, we have experienced losses; see the related chart in the Appendix below.

Everywhere in nature there is leadership; this is a necessary trait for any grouping of mammals. But unfortunately, there is a lot of bad leadership in the world, so Good Leadership is not the default; it must be taught, nurtured and mastered. This is why the coaching and development of Good Leaders have always been a part of this roadmap to reform and transform the Caribbean. The points of fostering Good Leadership were also elaborated upon in many other previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19431	Big Hairy Audacious Goals: Obama vs Trump for Inspiring Leadership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19391	Chef Jose Andrés emerged as a leader of the disaster relief efforts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18770	Christian Journal Urges: ‘Remove Trump’ for Bad Leadership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17992	What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15296	100 Years of Nelson Mandela – Model of Good Leadership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13749	Failure to Launch – Governance: Assembling the Region’s Organizations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12098	Inaction: A Recipe for ‘Failed-State’ Status
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11048	Effectively manage the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Model of Hammurabi
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9428	Forging Change: Good Leadership and the Herd Mentality
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7646	Going from ‘Good to Great’ – Model for Coaching and Leadership

In summary, our Caribbean region needs Good Leadership; we need it now to endure this Coronavirus-COVID-19 crisis and in everyday life: before, during and after this pandemic disaster. While Good Leadership is not automatic, change is. As time passes, the world will always change: move to the left or move to the right. The world does not stand still. So in many ways our society is like a moving vehicle. Like all vehicles, there is only 1 steering wheel, so we need good people with good ability “at the helm”. This is why Good Leadership is not ignored in this Go Lean roadmap to elevate Caribbean society.

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders – leaders and followers – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. We must do the heavy-lifting ourselves to preserve our society and our culture. No one else can do the “Caribbean thing”, but Caribbean people.

Remember the animated television commercials for “Charlie the Tuna”?
The sponsoring company, Starkist, was saying that they do not just want tuna with good taste, but rather tuna that taste good.
We want both: tuna with good taste and tuna that taste good!

Substitute Tuna for Leadership …

We want good people with good leadership. This is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

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.

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.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

——————

Appendix – Confirmed Caribbean Coronavirus cases as of today, May 21:

Dominican Republic- 13,477 cases, 446 deaths, 7,142 recovered
Puerto Rico- 2,913 cases (positive only patients), 126 deaths
Cuba- 1,900 cases, 79 deaths, 1,573 recovered
Haiti- 663 cases, 22 deaths, 21 recovered
Jamaica- 529 cases, 9 deaths, 171 recovered

French Guiana- 237 cases, 1 death, 136 recovered
Martinique-192 cases, 14 deaths, 91 recovered
Guadeloupe-155 cases, 13 deaths, 113 recovered
Bermuda- 125 cases, 9 deaths, 80 recovered
Guyana- 125 cases, 10 deaths, 47 recovered

Trinidad and Tobago- 116 cases, 8 deaths, 107 recovered
Cayman Islands-111 cases, 1 death, 55 recovered
Aruba- 101 cases, 3 deaths, 95 recovered
Bahamas- 97 cases, 11 deaths, 43 recovered
Barbados- 90 cases, 7 deaths, 70 recovered

Sint Maarten- 77 cases, 15 deaths, 54 recovered
US Virgin Islands- 69 cases, 6 deaths, 61 recovered
Saint Martin- 40 cases, 3 deaths, 33 recovered
Antigua and Barbuda- 25 cases, 3 deaths, 19 recovered
Grenada- 22 cases, 17 recovered

Belize- 18 cases, 2 deaths, 16 recovered
Saint Lucia- 18 cases, 18 recovered
St Vincent and the Grenadines- 18 cases, 14 recovered
Curacao-16 cases, 1 death, 14 recovered
Dominica- 16 cases, 16 recovered

Saint Kitts and Nevis- 15 cases, 15 recovered
Turks and Caicos- 12 cases, 1 death, 10 recovered
Montserrat- 11 cases, 1 death, 10 recovered
Suriname – 11 cases, 1 death, 9 recovered
British Virgin Islands- 8 cases, 1 death, 6 recovered

Saint Barthelemy-6 cases, 6 recovered
Anguilla- 3 cases, 3 recovered
Sint Eustatius- 2 cases, 2 recovered
Bonaire- 2 cases, 2 recovered
Saba- 2 cases, 2 recovered

Source: Posted and retrieved March 21, 2020 from: https://www.loopjamaica.com/content/coronavirus-cases-caribbean-date-21222-1

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‘All Take and No Give’ ==> No Loyalty; No Patriotism – Encore

Posted on May 20, 2020 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

The Bahamas Prime Minister, Dr. Hubert Minnis, is asking the citizens in his country to sacrifice for the good of the country so that the whole community can endure the Coronavirus-COVID-19 panndemic:

… the process will require sacrifices from all Bahamians.

This seems so wrong!

This is the same country that systemically suppresses, represses and oppresses one minority group after another. (When you add up all the minority groups, they form the majority).

If you kick your guard dog and abuse him all the time, he will probably not try to defend your house. You would have broken his spirit.

This should be a familiar refrain by now. In September 2019 when Category 5 Hurricane Dorian devastated the Northern Bahamas, some regional stakeholders complained then that they were dis-inclined to help because of the Bahamian track record of abuse.

We learned nothing! The Bahamas has still not developed any “Give and Take”, no symbiosis, no mutualism. Even the Bible presents the Golden Rule as:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

This is just how life works. In nature, it’s called a symbiotic relationship. The encyclopedic definition is as follows:

Symbiosis (from Greek “living together”, from Sym meaning”together” and biosis meaning “living”)^[2] is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic. The organisms, each term a symbiont, may be of the same or of different species. …

Symbiosis can be obligatory, which means that one or more of the symbionts entirely depend on each other for survival, or facultative (optional) when they can generally live independently.

———-

Mutualism; describes the ecological interaction between two or more species where each species has a net benefit.[1]

In a previous Go Lean commentary this argument was presented, against the backdrop of the quotation from Alexandre Dumas’s story of the Three Musketeers. “All for One and One for All” was elaborated upon in that previous blog-commentary.

“One for All” must equally accompany a quest where there is “All for One“. This aligns with the implied Social Contract, defined as:

Citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights.

It is only apropos to Encore that original commentary from June 10, 2016 now:

———————————

Go Lean Commentary – Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’

This subject of “Respect for Minorities” is dominant in the news right now. This commentary is 1 of 3 in this series on lamentations for defective Caribbean social values. The complete series is as follows:

Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate – ‘It Gets Worse Before It Gets Worse’
Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption

There is this impactful quotation from the Bible:

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? – The Bible; Matthew 18:12 – New International Version.

But someone might argue: “the needs of the many out-weight the needs of the few”. This is the principle of the Greater Good. Yes, this is true! This principle is very familiar to the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean; the principle is foremost in the book (Page 37) as a community ethos, the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a society. The region needs to adopt this ethos to forge change in the Caribbean. But it turns out that the Greater Good is not just a priority on the majority, it is very much reflective of minorities.

All For One … and … One For All!

This expression is from literature, the book: The Three Musketeers, by the nineteenth-century French author Alexandre Dumas – it represents “art imitating life” in it’s meaning:

All the members of a group support each of the individual members, and the individual members pledge to support the group. Note: “All for one and one for all” is best known as the motto of the title characters in the book. Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/all-for-one-and-one-for-all

Since everyone is unique, we may all be minorities in some respects. Consider (these previous blogs):

There is the need for the majority to protect the basic rights of minority groups; this is in effect protecting the rights for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness … for all.

What’s more, the minorities should not have to beg the majority for these rights; the rights should be an automatic entitlement.

Let’s consider the example here of the “peanut“.

It’s a great little snack; a lot of people enjoy them. But, for some – a small but growing minority in any society; see VIDEO below – the peanut is deadly, due to their allergic reactions. Should a majority of people be inconvenient due to allergies of just a few people, or sometimes, just one. Consider this model here:

Title: Customers with Disabilities – Peanut Dust Allergies
Source: Southwest Airlines Website – Customer Service Policy; retrieved 06/09/2016 from: https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/unique-travel-needs/customers-with-disabilities-pol.html

Because it is nearly impossible for persons who have an allergy to peanut dust to avoid triggering a reaction if peanut dust is in the air, Southwest Airlines is unable to guarantee a peanut-free or allergen-free flight. We have procedures in place to assist our Customers with severe allergies to peanut dust and will make every attempt not to serve packaged peanuts on the aircraft when our Customers alert us of their allergy to peanut dust.

We ask Customers with peanut dust allergies making reservations over the phone to advise our Customer Representatives of the allergy at the time the reservation is made. If the reservation is made via a travel agent, the Customer should telephone 1-800-I-FLY-SWA (1-800-435-9792) afterward to speak with a Customer Representative. If the reservation is made via southwest.com, the Customer may advise us of the allergy on the “Southwest Airlines Payment and Passenger Information” screen by clicking on the link to “Add/Edit Disability Assistance Options.”

We suggest that Customers with peanut dust allergies book travel on early morning flights as our aircraft undergo a thorough cleaning only at the end of the day.

We ask the Customer with the allergy (or someone speaking on the Customer’s behalf) to check in at the departure gate one hour prior to departure and speak with the Customer Service Agent (CSA) regarding the Customer’s allergy. Please allow enough time to park, check luggage and/or receive your boarding pass, and to pass through the security checkpoint. Our CSA will provide the Customer with a Peanut Dust Allergy Document and ask him/her to present the document to the Flight Attendant upon boarding. If the Customer has a connection, the CSA will provide the Customer with two documents, one of which should be retained to present to the Flight Attendant on the connecting flight.

Our CSA will advise the Operations (Boarding) Agent so that service of packaged peanuts can be suspended for that flight. Our Operations Agent will notify the Provisioning and/or Ramp Supervisor to stock the aircraft with a sufficient supply of pretzels or alternate snacks. The Operations Agent will also notify the Flight Attendants of the Customer’s final destination and advise them that we cannot serve packaged peanuts until the Customer deplanes.

As some of our other snack items may contain peanut particles, peanut oil, or have been packaged in a peanut facility, Customers who have allergic reactions to eating/ingesting peanuts should read the ingredients on any packaged snack before consumption. Of course, all Customers are welcome to bring their own snacks with them.

Southwest cannot prevent other Customers from bringing peanuts or products containing peanuts onboard our flights. In addition, Southwest cannot give assurances that remnants of peanuts and/or peanut dust/oil will not remain on the aircraft floor, seats, or tray tables from the flights earlier in the aircraft’s routing.

In addition, Southwest Airlines cannot guarantee that a flight will be free of other allergens such as perfumes, lotions, cleaning solutions, etc.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean wants to forge change in the Caribbean; we want to change the attitudes for an entire community, country and region. As depicted in the foregoing article, but on a larger scale, we want to ensure that one peanut allergy sufferer can be assured of best efforts to not deprive them of life and health. But this quest is more than just peanuts; it is the attitudes of the people. We need majority populations to sacrifice, however small or large, to allow minority populations every opportunity to participate fully in society.

Besides, how much of a sacrifice is it truly to forego peanuts … for a short period. There are other alternative snacks. This is the full definition of a reasonable accommodation.

The “peanut” is this case is truly a metaphor. The seriousness of the allergy – life-and-death – is representative of the seriousness for the rights of minorities in a community. But at the same time, peanut allergies have increased in western societies. Why? See VIDEO in the Appendix below. So for peanuts and other aspects of societal life, what may only be an inconvenience for the majority may actually be “life-and-death” for the affected minority. This is why the requirements for someone’s quality of life, should never be subject to a popularity contest. This is the Greater Good.

So the community ethos of the Greater Good must be tempered with the ethos of National Sacrifice. The Go Lean movement (book and blog-commentaries) posits that these new community ethos must be adopted by the Caribbean; they are undoubtedly missing. This is evidenced by the fact that every Caribbean member-state suffers from alarming rates of societal abandonment: on average 70% of college educated ones in the population have fled in a brain drain, while the US territories have lost more than 50% of their general populations). Why do people flee?

“Push and pull” reasons! “Push”, as in people fleeing to find refuge from abuses tied to their minority status, and “pull”, as in the perception (though many times false) that life is better on foreign shores.

The term National Sacrifice is defined here as the willingness to sacrifice for a greater cause; think “patriotism or love of country”. This spirit is currently missing, in that many in the community refuse to extend some reasonable accommodations so that others who may be minorities or differently-abled can participate in the out-workings of their community. As it turns out, “All For One and One For All” is also a recipe for forging successful communities.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); a confederation of the 30 member-states to bring change, empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play for all stakeholders (residents, tourists, visiting Diaspora and trading partners). This Go Lean roadmap also has initiatives (strategies) to foster solutions for the Caribbean youth. Any attempts to change Caribbean society’s community ethos (Greater Good and National Sacrifice) must start with the youth in order for the changes to be permanent. We are embarking on the effort to fix our Caribbean culture:

What is it that young people want in their society, so as to map a future for themselves at home: opportunity!

More specifically, equal access to opportunities – despite any minority status – to pursue their passions in life; whichever fields of endeavor they might pursue. This includes the strategies of education, jobs, entrepreneurial options, sports, and aspects of culture (art and music). Young people who cry, sweat, and bleed for their communities – embedding a desire to sacrifice for the Greater Good – are less inclined to flee. While these strategies are important, there is something else even more vital: a culture of inclusiveness; as follows:

Our community’s values, how we treat each other, our citizens, and stakeholders, and a healthy inclusive culture are more important than the elevation strategies executed.

Yes, when we make reasonable accommodations to be a more inclusive society, we invite “more people to the party” and elevate our society.

An African proverb brings a lot of solace to this discussion:

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

This also corresponds with the next verse in the above Bible scripture:

“And if he finds it [the one errand sheep], truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.” – Matthew 18:12 – New International Version.

The purpose of the Go Lean book/roadmap is more than just the embedding of these new community ethos, but rather the elevation of Caribbean society. In total, the Caribbean elevation roadmap has these 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 ensure protection to the economic engines, public safety and justice for all.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these societal engines.

The roadmap details the following community ethos, plus the execution of these strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to expand inclusiveness – to go together – and forge permanent change in Caribbean society:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact a Turn-Around	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Enact a Defense Pact to Defend the Homeland	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Keep the next generation at home	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Implementation – Assemble – Incorporating all the *existing* regional organizations	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean – Confederation Without Sovereignty	Page 127
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 Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities – With Reasonable Accommodations	Page 228

All in all, there are certain successful traits (community ethos) associated with populations that have endured change, like the Greater Good and National Sacrifice. These are focused more on deferred gratification; on the future more so than immediate impact.

No sacrifice; no victory.

Now is the time for all stakeholders – majority and minority – to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean elevation, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. “We need all hands on deck” to make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂

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

——————

Appendix VIDEO – Why Are Peanut Allergies Becoming So Common? – https://youtu.be/Mjr9h_QmdeM

Published on Oct 3, 2014 – Peanut allergies are becoming more and more common, and researchers are trying to find the cause. Trace is here to discuss this unique allergy, and how we might have finally found a cure.

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Keep the Change: Mono-Industrial Economy Exhaustion

Posted on April 26, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

We have all seen-heard the common expressions of exhaustion:

I am sick and tired of being ‘sick and tired’.

Grow up Already, and take care of your own business.

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change; I am changing the things I cannot accept.

From the very beginning we, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, set-out to correct this blatant flaw in our societal design – Page 3, Paragraph 2:

Many people love their homelands and yet still begrudgingly leave; this is due mainly to the lack of economic opportunities. The Caribbean has tried, strenuously, over the decades, to diversify their economy away from the mono-industrial trappings of tourism, and yet tourism is still the primary driver of the economy. Prudence dictates that the Caribbean nations expand and optimize their tourism products, but also look for other opportunities for economic expansion. The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

Enough already! We are exhausted from all this deficiency.

Thanks to the Coronavirus – COVID-19 crisis, the world is re-thinking mono-industrial trappings. It is not good to “put all the eggs in one basket”. See this dramatization in the Appendix VIDEO below.

If you are dependent on tourism, be On Guard, with no COVID-19 vaccine or treatment, travel restrictions and social distancing will be the new normal for a long time still – maybe 18 months. This means 2022 before a return to 2019 levels of economic output.

Those dependent on tourism are hereby being forced to accept changes and make adjustments.

They are being forced to make a change, not just temporarily to get past this crisis, but rather permanent change to fix the “cracks in the foundation”. They want to Keep the Change and complete the diversification pledge.

This is also the narrative for another industry and another country, that of Saudi Arabia. Right now; their society is mono-industrial – oil – but they want to be less vulnerable to the volatility of oil prices and oil revenues. So they want to contemplate other ways to diversify their economy. They want to Keep the Change; see the Appendix below. Their ‘Will to Change’ is strong as they have been Oil Rich for a long time.

Movie Quotes: Trading Places (1983)
“The best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people” – Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy)

The price of oil dropped to $11.26 a barrel (55 ga1lons) earlier this month; this was the absolute lowest in recent history. Oil revenues cratered for all such Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

How about us in the Caribbean?

While we do have some OPEC members in our region – 2 of 30 – the vast majority of the Caribbean depend on a different mono-industrial engine: tourism. Likewise, most of our countries too, have failed to deliver any diversification to the industrial offering.

The problem is the mono-industrial engine.

The solution is diversification.

How do we go about manifesting this change, Keeping this Change?

(Saudi Arabia is out of scope for the movement behind the Go Lean book).

The Go Lean book presented strategies, tactics and implementations to pursue this goal. The diversification mission was stated as follows (Page 45):

Build and foster local economic engines. This will diversify the economy, while still enhancing the tourism product, and create a perpetual eco-system for job creation. Whereas certain provisions are impractical for a small-population-market, once that market is super-sized, there must be local solutions. This is best illustrated with the regions undeniable need for food, clothing and shelter. A market-size of 42 million must foster industries on Main Street to produce and supply these basic needs. By fulfilling this mission, a strategic and defensive stance, other aspects of the economy gets the peripheral benefit: jobs, lower costs of living, control of inflation – fostering middle class prospects.

Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean present a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this April 2020, our focus was on the impact of the Coronavirus on the economic engines in the region. There is now the need to re-focus on the changes this crisis has ushered in and to Keep the Changes that are good and may have always been needed, like industrial diversification. This is entry 5 of 5 for this series, it completes the series and encores the certainty and urgency to flex our economic muscles to “put our eggs in more than one basket”.

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

Keep the Change – Lower Carbon Consumption abating Climate Change
Keep the Change – Working From Home & the Call Center Model
Keep the Change – Schools – Primary to Tertiary – making e-Learning work
Keep the Change – Basic Needs: Cannot just consume; we must produce as well
Keep the Change – Mono-Industrial Economy: ‘All eggs in 1 basket’

Don’t get it twisted, this Coronavirus-COVID-19 threat means death and devastation for many people and it has devastated the economic engines of most countries. There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; we are not immune here in the Caribbean. We must abide by best-practices or suffer the consequences. Crises bring challenges, challenges bring changes. Some good, some bad and some ugly.

Yes, we can … Keep the Changes for the good benefits. We have always needed to pursue a diversification of our industrial footprint, to accomplish this finally would be good. This diversification goal was previously identified, qualified and proposed with different Industrial Reboot solutions, spread across 2 years. See this chronological list of previous submissions:

Industrial Reboots – Ferries 101 – Published June 27, 2017
Industrial Reboots – Prisons 101 – Published October 4, 2017
Industrial Reboots – Pipeline 101 – Published October 5, 2017
Industrial Reboots – Frozen Foods 101 – Published October 6, 2017
Industrial Reboots – Commercial Gigs 101 – Published February 8, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Call Centers 101 – Published July 2, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Prefab Housing 101 – Published July 14, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Trauma 101 – Published July 18, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Auto-making 101 – Published July 19, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Shipbuilding 101 – Published July 20, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Fisheries 101 – Published July 23, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Lottery 101 – Published July 24, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Culture 101 – Published July 25, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Tourism 2.0 – Published July 27, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Cruise Tourism 2.0 – Published July 27, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Reinsurance Sidecars 101 – Published October 2, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Navy Piers 101 – Published October 9, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Payment Cards 101 – Published October 11, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Medical Schools 101 – Published March 1, 2019
Industrial Reboots – Amusements Parks 101 – Published May 8, 2019

In summary, our Caribbean region needs a diversified industrial landscape to improve our economics, security and governance. This is why we must Keep the Change. emanating from this Coronavirus-COVID-19 crisis.

If the only positive thing that comes from this crisis is a diversified economy, then that would be a good benefit from a bad sacrifice, a good return on a huge investment.

The sacrifices would not have been in vain.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to work to reform and transform our homeland. We urge you to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to reboot the industrial landscape. This is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

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.

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.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

——————-

Appendix VIDEO – Idioms – Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – https://youtu.be/EFkSIuNTdXc

Posted December 2, 2016

Sprachenzentrum Hochschule Nordhausen

Category: People & Blogs

——————-

Appendix – A new direction for the Saudi Arabian economy
Sub-title: As Saudi Arabia moves to diversify its economy away from oil, its private sector is beginning to truly thrive

Saudi Arabia finds itself at a significant economic crossroads. Home to the second-largest oil reserves in the world, the kingdom’s economy has been largely defined by the crude industry since drillers first struck oil in Dammam in March 1938. The discovery marked a watershed moment in the nation’s history, sparking an economic boom and propelling Saudi Arabia towards becoming one of the world’s wealthiest countries. Today, the nation is recognised as a global economic powerhouse, sitting among the G20 countries and boasting one of the highest GDPs in the Middle East.

While oil has brought Saudi Arabia great wealth and prosperity, we know one thing for certain – it won’t last forever. Crude is a finite resource and, although there is much debate surrounding the extent of the nation’s vast oil reserves, some estimates predict that supplies will last just 70 more years. This looming time limit – coupled with a global push to create a greener future – has seen Saudi Arabia begin to craft its vision for a post-oil era.

In 2016, Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the ambitious Vision 2030, a far-reaching reform plan that aims to diversify the economy away from oil, bolstering the private sector and improving employment opportunities for young people. The plan seeks to create a thriving economy where non-oil sectors such as tourism, manufacturing and renewable energy can drive growth, and entrepreneurial activities are encouraged. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a main focus for Vision 2030, with the project seeking to increase the contribution of SMEs to the Saudi Arabian GDP from 20 to 35 percent over the next decade. As the government forges ahead with its diversification drive, Saudi businesses must develop in line with these exciting transformations. A new economic ecosystem is emerging in Saudi Arabia and opportunities are plentiful for those businesses that contribute to its creation.

Burgeoning businesses
With Saudi Arabia ramping up its economic transformation plan, the nation’s private sector is truly coming into its own, and non-oil industries are beginning to drive growth. One such industry is the Saudi insurance market, which has shown great promise in recent years, emerging as one of the largest insurance sectors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Since first opening its doors to customers in 1986, the Company for Cooperative Insurance (Tawuniya) has grown into one of the nation’s foremost insurance providers, offering more than 60 insurance products – including medical, motor, fire, property, engineering, casualty, marine, energy and aviation insurance – in order to protect Saudi citizens from all manner of risk.

See the full article here: https://www.worldfinance.com/featured/a-new-direction-for-the-saudi-arabian-economy published October 3, 2019 retrieved April 26, 2020.

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Keep the Change: Being ‘Basic’ about Basic Needs

Posted on April 25, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Industries, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

The strong urging to the Caribbean today is to:

Be more Basic.

What exactly does this mean?

Sometimes the reference is good, sometimes bad, and sometimes ugly.

What does Basic Mean? – www.dictionary.com
In slang, basic characterizes someone or something as unoriginal, unexceptional, and mainstream. A basic girl—or basic bitch as she is often insulted—is said to like pumpkin spice lattes, UGG boots, and taking lots of selfies, for instance.

WHERE DOES BASIC COME FROM?

According to Green’s Dictionary of Slang, basic emerges as slang for someone or something as being “unexciting, unexceptional, or uneventful” in the 1970s. This is an outgrowth of the negative sense of basic as “plain and simple”.

The slang especially stuck to women. In their 1984 song “Meeting in the Ladies Room,” the R&B girl group Klymaxx call a woman basic for making moves on another’s boyfriend. [(See Appendix A below)].

The 2000s saw the rise of the term basic bitch, or a woman who is uninteresting and mainstream in her tastes, interests, style, or personality. Comedian Lil Duval had a 2009 video about the Basic Bitch. [(See Appendix B below)]. The 2011 song “Gucci Gucci” by Kreayshawn features the hook: “And we stunting like / Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada / Basic bitches wear that shit so I don’t even bother.”

Basic has since become associated with unlikeable, predictable, and ordinary things, especially associated with young white women.

WHO USES BASIC?

While basic can describe anyone or anything considered disagreeably mainstream, it especially insults, as noted, young white women. As basic and basic bitch spread in popular culture, some women aren’t oblivious to their supposed basic-ness but ironically embrace it. But men, be very careful about calling a woman basic, let alone basic bitch. We don’t recommend it.

NOTE:
This is not meant to be a formal definition of basic like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of basic that will help our users expand their word mastery.

The take-away from this foregoing “ugly” definition is that “basic is ‘plain and simple’”.

The plain and simple requirement is that the 30 member-states of the political Caribbean need to do a better job of fulfilling its basic needs: food, clothing, shelter and energy. Globalization has failed us – we must do the Basic ourselves. We do not necessarily need – though we might want – all the fancy solutions.

Hungry? Go Fish … or go outside and pluck from a family garden or a family farm. How about plucking eggs or tree-ripen selections from fruit trees (think tomatoes) or a fattened bull for slaughter?
Naked? Pull out the sewing machine and make a garment; sweatshops in low-wage countries are the breeding grounds for this virus. How about Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) garments; i.e. mask, gowns, tunics, jackets?
Homeless? Gather the building materials and construct a house. Zoning and HOA rules must be agile and flexible. How about allowing family gardens and/or community gardens in urban areas? Barn-houses in rural areas?
Stranded? Use the wind to move a turbine and/or move a vehicle (boat) from Point A to Point B. How about generating electricity from alternative sources (wind, sun, thermal and tidal), then powering electric cars?

Thanks to the Coronavirus – COVID-19 crisis, the world is re-thinking the fulfillment of these basic needs. Believe it or not, in every jurisdiction Food Service workers are now regarded as Essential Workers. This is a fundamental change – a shift in values – for jobs that had previously been valued as inconsequential or unworthy for most, except the lowest in society; think the new immigrants (Migrant Workers) toiling in the fields and the packing houses.

Are these ones now “essential” or sacrificial?

Or are they now … simply Basic?

It’s time to acknowledge the change … and Keep the Change to our value systems. It is time to acknowledge that fulfilling our basic needs is a basic requirement for survival as a people and a collective society.

So often, the basic needs for Caribbean survival were just delegated to others, only fulfilled through imports. But now that it is April 2020 and the world is locked-down, sheltering-in-place, the majority of people have had to avoid gathering for all but essential interactions in order to “flatten the curve”. Those who gather and distribute our food are now more valued and more expensive.

Have you noticed the increase in prices for our necessities? We can no longer be “cute”, only desiring the fancy brands. No, we now have to be basic. We need to Keep this Change.

The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean had originally asserted that doubling-down on Basic Needs was the key to reforming and transforming the societal engines in our Caribbean homeland. The book stated that the best way to reboot the economy and recover from the Global Crisis – that time it was the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 – was to double-down on the Basics. There is an actual advocacy of this purpose in the Go Lean book; see here some of the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from Page 152, entitled:

10 Ways to Create Jobs … in the Caribbean Region

1	*Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market* Confederation Treaty: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU)** The CU will allow for the unification of the region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member- states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion. The CU’s mission is to create high-paying jobs for the region, beyond the minimum wage (defined below). Many high-wage industries would be promoted, incentivized and regulated at the federal level, even new industries created. Jobs come from trade; the CU goal is to improve trade. The CU will thus institute Enterprise Zones and Empowerment Zones – SGE’s – with tax benefits: rebates, abatements – as job creation pockets. The CU will capture data, micro and macro economic metrics, to measure the success/failure of these initiatives.
2	Feed Ourselves The industries of agri-business allow structured commercial systems to grow, harvest and trade in food supplies. Many of the Caribbean member states (Lesser Antilles) acquire all their food in trade, the agricultural footprint is very small, though some countries (Greater Antilles, Belize, Guyana & Suriname) have a low opportunity cost for producing food. But with the Trade Federation in force, intra-region trade will be the first priority. When the demand is qualified, quantified and assured, the supply and quality there in, will catch up.
3	Clothe Ourselves With textiles manufacturing; fashion merchandising and logistical industries, jobs can be created in the supply of apparel, shoes and accessories. Today, 90 – 99% of the supply is foreign trade. But once the CU regional demand is qualified, quantified and assured, the local supply will catch up further. 4
4	House Ourselves In the US, it’s a truism of the National Association of Realtors® that “housing creates jobs” ^[239]. With the repatriation of the Caribbean Diaspora, local building supplies and new “housing starts” will emerge in the Caribbean. Plus, the CU will facilitate mortgage secondary market and pre-fabulous construction thereby fostering new housing sub-industries.
5	Update Our Own Infrastructure and the Industries They Spun
6	Help Regional Businesses Find Foreign Markets
7	Steer More People to S.T.E.M. Education and Careers
8	Welcome Home Emigrants [ or Repatriates]
9	Welcome “Empowering” Immigrants
10	Draw More Tourists

Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean present a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this April 2020, our focus is on the impact of the Coronavirus on the Globe, region, each member-state (national), community and each family. There is the need to re-focus on the changes this crisis has ushered in and to Keep the Changes that were always needed for implementation. This is entry 4 of 5 for this series, which details that there is the need to double-down on Basic Needs (food, clothing, shelter and energy.

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

Keep the Change – Lower Carbon Consumption abating Climate Change
Keep the Change – Working From Home & the Call Center Model
Keep the Change – Schools – Primary to Tertiary – making e-Learning work
Keep the Change – Basic Needs: Cannot just consume; we must produce as well
Keep the Change – Mono-Industrial Economy: ‘All eggs in 1 basket’

Don’t get it twisted, this Coronavirus-COVID-19 threat means death and devastation for many people and it has devastated the economic engines of most countries – our Caribbean homelands included. There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; changes are afoot. Some good, some bad and some ugly.

Yes, we can … Keep the Change for the good benefits. We have always needed to do a better job for Food Security. In fact this was the subject of a whole series in December 2019 where we identified these issues, challenges and solutions:

Food Security – Bread Baskets on Land and Sea
Food Security – Temperate Foods in the Tropics
Food Security – Opportunity: 1 County in Iowa raises all the Beef for a Caribbean Cruise Line
Food Security – FTAA: A Lesson in History for servicing Local Foods
Food Security – Big Chicken – Low-hanging fruit for all Poultry needs

The points of reforming and transforming the Caribbean eco-systems for other basic needs – think clothing, housing and energy – were also elaborated upon in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19327	‘Missing Solar’ – Inadequacies Exposed to the World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18287	The Housing Industry can save us – in Good Times and Bad
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17280	Way Forward – For Energy: ‘Trade’ Winds
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13985	EU Assists Barbados in Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14250	Leading with Money Matters – As Goes Housing, Goes the Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11737	Robots Building Houses – More than Fiction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10373	Science of Sustenance: CLT Housing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10371	Science of Sustenance: e-Clothing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/? p=10367	Science of Sustenance: Energy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155	Tesla unveils super-battery to enable Alternative Energy for homes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726	Caribbean People have thrived in Fashion industry – Oscar De La Renta
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=665	Real Estate Investment Trusts – Solution for financing Housing industry

Call us Basic … I dare you.

Rather than an insult, we need to be proud to be more technocratic in the fulfillment of our basic needs. “Plain and simple”, we need to:

Feed Ourselves
Clothe Ourselves
House Ourselves

We should be insulted that we are NOT Basic.

This is why we must Keep the Change.

Coronavirus COVID-19 is not a good happenstance – people are dying.

However, if we can use this crisis to forge change in our society, force changes to our “community ethos” (the Will to Change) and to the societal engines for economics, security and governance, then those sacrifices would not have been in vain.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to work to reform and transform our homeland. How? The strategies, tactics and implementations are all identified, qualified and proposed in the pages of the Go Lean book. It’s a full roadmap for change. A complete roadmap to make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

Who We Are

The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 14):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

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.

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.

xxx. Whereas the effects of globalization can be felt in every aspect of Caribbean life, from the acquisition of food and clothing, to the ubiquity of ICT, the region cannot only consume, it is imperative that our lands also produce and add to the international community, even if doing so requires some sacrifice and subsidy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

——————

Appendix A VIDEO – Klymaxx – Meeting In The Ladies Room (Official Video) – https://youtu.be/_odTlZaoLCA

Klymaxx

Posted Dec 25, 2009 – Best of Klymaxx: https://goo.gl/QEYkmT

Subscribe here: https://goo.gl/2vDd9j

#Klymaxx #MeetingInTheLadiesRoom #Vevo

Category: Music

Music in this video

Learn more

Listen ad-free with YouTube Premium

Song: Meeting In The Ladies Room (Radio Edit)
Artist: Klymaxx
Licensed to YouTube by: UMG (on behalf of Geffen*); ARESA, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA – UBEM, BMG Rights Management (US), LLC, Sony ATV Publishing, CMRRA, Abramus Digital, EMI Music Publishing, LatinAutor – PeerMusic, LatinAutor, Audiam (Publishing), LatinAutor – SonyATV, BMI – Broadcast Music Inc., SOLAR Music Rights Management, and 4 Music Rights Societies

——————

Appendix B VIDEO – @LilDuval BASIC BITCH! – https://youtu.be/PUXt7N_TmdI

[This content of this VIDEO is profane, misogynistic and racist; highly inappropriate, but still considered art.]

Posted Aug 3, 2009

LILDUVAL TV SPOKENREASONS BASIC BITCH CALLING A WOMAN A BITCH YOUR A BITCH NO OFFENSE DRAMA FOR YO MAMA FUNNY COMEDY TWITTER LIL DUVAL NECOLE BITCHIE SKYPE BRAVE JB DA POET FUNNIEST BOY ALIVE FUNNIEST MAN ALIVE FUNNIEST YOUTUBER ALIVE STAND UP COMEDY DEF POETRY JAM BEST POET ALIVE TWITTER ME I LOVE TWITTER

Category: Education

Music in this video

Learn more

Listen ad-free with YouTube Premium

Song: Basic Bitch
Artist: Spoken Reasons
Licensed to YouTube by: TuneCore (on behalf of Spoken Reasons LLC)

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Keep the Change: Working From Home

Posted on April 23, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Keep the Change: Hope for the Environment

Posted on April 22, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Change is unavoidable; the world will change, whether we want to or not.

Some changes will be good; some bad. Some change will be a reaction in response to other actions or events. When good reactionary change emerge to protect from an existential threat, then that is a good change.

We need to Keep that Change.

There is an existential threat today; there is a crisis: Coronavirus – COVID-19; we have reacted accordingly. Our reactions have been positive and beneficial for our environment. Though we needed to make these changes proactively; we should just be happy that the changes have happened anyway.

This highlights a problem we have had all the while with mankind; the problem is … man.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. – The Bible; Genesis 1:26 King James Version (KJV)

Unfortunately, we have not done a good job in exercising this dominion over the earth.

Until 2 months ago, the great existential threat to human existence was Climate Change. Now the greatest threat is Coronavirus – COVID-19.

Hooray for the planet, as COVID-19 is only a threat to mammals (mankind, mostly) and not the fauna nor flora nor any “creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”. While mankind has been dealing with this pandemic, we have done very little damage to the environment – Yippee!!

In fact, we have gotten a chance to see how to abate the existential threat of Climate Change. It is simple:

Less fossil fuel consumption.

While this had previously been theorized, today it is proven valid!

Hooray for science.

See this article-VIDEO here depicting the positive cleaning effect that has manifested as a result of the 2-month reduction in fossil fuel consumption:

Title: Wildlife in streets, less pollution in big cities: Earth looks different on Earth Day 2020
By: Jay Cannon
As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, this year’s event is unlike any other we’ve experienced.

While much of the globe hunkers down at home or in quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic, society looks quite different than it did on April 22, 1970 – or even April 22 of last year, for that matter.

Amid closed restaurants, quiet office buildings and canceled sporting events, the new normal has had its fair share of environmental effects, with some areas in the U.S. reporting significant improvements in air quality.

Animals have taken advantage of the absence of humans in some areas, too. Several lions were caught sunbathing on the road of a closed national park in South Africa. Meanwhile, penguins and dogs roamed through a nearly empty aquarium, leading to some incredible cross-animal interactions.

Here’s a look at some of the unique effects that coronavirus has had on our environment.

Source: Retrieved April 22, 2020 from: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/04/22/earth-day-2020-pollution-down-empty-highways-animals-major-cities/3002480001/

—————

VIDEO – Coronavirus: Wild animals wander through empty, lockdown towns – https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/have-you-seen/2020/04/01/coronavirus-wild-animals-wander-through-empty-lockdown-towns/5102987002/

Posted April 22, 2020 – Wild Animals around the world have been spotted checking out urban spaces as humans lock down to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

What does the Caribbean need to do to Keep the Change:

Promote a greener economy, with jobs in renewable energy.

That’s it; let’s get started, as we reflect on this monumental Earth Day 2020 – the 50th iteration of this recognized and celebrated day.

See how this directive was urged by António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. See the story here:

Title: UN Secretary-General urges Climate Action in Coronavirus Recovery
APRIL 22, 2020 – On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, had a message for the world: We face not one, but two global threats.

“We must act decisively to protect our planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate disruption,” said Guterres …

… in a Video message.

The message, however, wasn’t that of hopelessness — the world has a chance to come together and fight both crises.

“We need to turn the recovery into a real opportunity to do things right for the future,” he said.

Restrictions aimed at reducing the spread of the novel coronavirus have drastically changed our lives and economies, creating a unique opportunity for us to invest in more sustainable societies.

The secretary-general offered some “climate-related actions to shape the recovery and work ahead.”

Guterres suggested directing coronavirus relief money into a greener economy, with jobs in renewable energy. Since taxpayer money helps businesses stay afloat in the economic downturn, the money should go toward more resilient and eco-conscious businesses.

“Public funds should be used to invest in the future, not the past,” said Guterres.

In the U.S., experts predict that the recent stimulus bills will only be temporary fixes, and we’ll need more policy changes by September to help us climb out of this recession. But as Guterres explains, since we’re already in the recession, we must take this opportunity to make our economy and energy systems more sustainable, reduce emissions and slow global warming.

Climate change will have economic consequences. We can expect billions of dollars in natural disaster damages, healthcare for pollution-related illnesses and unstable access to affordable food. But a lot of that cost can be prevented.

If we shift to renewable energy now, we can mitigate climate change and protect jobs in the energy industry when the oil runs out. Renewable energy is even cheaper once the infrastructure is in place.

To kick off a greener economy, Guterres recommends ending fossil fuel subsidies and taxing polluters to hold them accountable for their damage. He also recommends that climate risks be incorporated into economic systems like the stock market.

Above all else, the U.N. asks us to put aside our national affiliations and come together as people of Earth.

“Greenhouse gases, just like viruses, do not respect national boundaries,” said Guterres. “On this Earth Day, please join me in demanding a healthy and resilient future for people and planet alike.”

As the U.N. encourages us to invest in a healthy, resilient and sustainable economy, we can individually speed up the process by voting for leaders who prioritize the planet. Learn more at Earth Day Network’s Vote Earth campaign.

Source: https://www.earthday.org/un-secretary-general-urges-climate-action-in-coronavirus-recovery/

The foregoing refers to the reality and actuality of this Coronavirus crisis. Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean presents a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this April 2020, our focus is on the actuality of the Coronavirus crisis and how some changes have been forced on our society. But being forced to change is not always bad; some good can come from it. This is entry 1-of-5 for this series, which details the kind of changes that we want to keep, not just for the global society but specifically here in the homeland.

Yes, we can … Keep the Change.

All the entries in this month’s series are cataloged as follows:

Keep the Change – Lower Carbon Consumption abating Climate Change
Keep the Change – Working From Home & the Call Center Model
Keep the Change – Schools – Primary to Tertiary – making e-Learning work
Keep the Change – Basic Needs: Cannot just consume; we must produce as well
Keep the Change – Mono-Industrial Economy: ‘All eggs in 1 basket’

There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts …

… we need to do a better job of protecting our environment and optimizing our Carbon Footprint with Greenhouse gases. We needed to do this anyway but involuntarily we have been forced to comply these past months.

Once this crisis has past, is it possible to still consume less carbon? Indeed …

… this was the mandate of 2015 Paris Accord, – to lower global carbon output so as to abate Climate Change. There is now new hope. (Previously, in the 1990’s, the world came together, instituted and effectively complied with an accord to abate “Acid Rain”).

Our plan – strategies, tactics and implementations – must be ready for the Caribbean region … for Green Energy!

The points of reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines for Green Energy have been further elaborated upon in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19351	‘Missing Solar’ – Moral Authority to “Name, blame & shame” big polluters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18228	The Science of Power Restoration after catastrophic natural disasters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17280	Way Forward – For Energy: ‘Trade’ Winds
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16361	5 Years Later – Climate Change: Coming so fast, so furious
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14832	Counter-culture: Manifesting Change – Environmentalism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14174	Canada: “Follow Me” for Model on ‘Climate Change’ Action
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13985	EU Assists Barbados in Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12724	Lessons from Colorado: Water Management Arts & Sciences
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10367	Science of Sustenance – Green Batteries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9455	Fix ‘Climate Change’ – Yes, We Can
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7056	Electric Cars: ‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155	Tesla unveils super-battery to power homes with Green Energy options
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4897	US Backs LNG Distribution Base in Jamaica for cleaner energy options
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4587	Burlington, Vermont: Model city to be powered 100% by renewables
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915	Go Green … Caribbean

Change … proactive or reactive – we will take it.

No one wanted the COVID-19 crisis – people have died and economies are wreaked – but if we are forced to change our carbon-consumption bad habits because of these external factors then we must “take the win”; our environment is a beneficiary.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

This is serendipity – a good consequence from a bad incident. See these textbook definitions here:

Noun – Dictionary.com

an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

good fortune; luck

Noun – Merriam-Webster

the faculty or phenomenonof finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for

This is also true for the advocacy of this Go Lean movement; we have always asserted that only at the precipice will people change; this pandemic is definitely a precipice – so let’s cement these changes. Let’s get the returns on our investments; and recovery from our sacrifices. This is how we can make progress and make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

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.

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.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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BHAG – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics

Posted on April 17, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Industries, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The whole world must act now to remediate this crisis – flatten the curve – of this Coronavirus danger. There are no “ands, ifs or buts”. This is a systemic threat!

If one Caribbean member-state does not comply with the best practices for mitigating this disease, they will have to answer to …

Wait, there is no one to answer to!

This is the problem; there is no accountability entity for the Caribbean to turn to in times of distress.

If only there was …

… this is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal for the Caribbean. We need someone – a Big Brother – to run to for help with our security threats. This was the clarion call for the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. It opened with this acknowledgement and declaration (Page 3):

There is something wrong in the Caribbean. It is the greatest address on the planet, but instead of the world “beating a path” to our doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out. Our societal defects are so acute that our culture is in peril for future prospects.
…
The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state [alone]. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).
…
The economy of the Caribbean is inextricably linked to the security of the region. Therefore the CU treaty includes a security pact to implement the mechanisms to ensure greater homeland security. These efforts will monitor and mitigate against economic crimes, systemic threats and also facilitate natural disaster planning and response agencies.

But can’t we just …

… run to the big Super Power in our region, the United States of America, for answers, solutions and refuge.

The simple answer is No!

The US has gone on record to declare and demonstrate that they are not to be considered the Big Brother for anyone else, other than their people; (many conclude that they even fail in their domestic deliveries). “Blood is thicker than water” and the Caribbean member-states must accept that frankly, we are “not blood” – even true for US Territories like Puerto Rico. Consider the support for this assertion in these examples of news articles here:

VIDEO – Trump address allegations about US blocking multiple Caribbean states from receiving shipments of vital medical supplies – https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article241951191.html

———–

Title # 1: Caribbean nations can’t get U.S. masks, ventilators for COVID-19 under Trump policy
By: Jacqueline Charles and Alex Harris
Caribbean nations struggling to save lives and prevent the deadly spread of the coronavirus in their vulnerable territories should not look to the United States as they seek to acquire scarce but much-needed protective gear to fight the global pandemic

A spokesperson from U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed to the Miami Herald that the agency is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to prevent distributors from diverting personal protective equipment, or PPE, such as face masks and gloves, overseas. Ventilators also are on the prohibited list.

“To accomplish this, CBP will detain shipments of the PPE specified in the President’s Memorandum while FEMA determines whether to return the PPE for use within the United States; to purchase the PPE on behalf of the United States; or, allow it to be exported,” the statement read.

In the past week, three Caribbean nations —the Bahamas, Cayman Islands and Barbados —have all had container loads of personal protective equipment purchased from U.S. vendors blocked from entering their territories by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“We are talking about personal protective equipment; we’re talking about durable medical devices and gloves, gowns, ventilators as well,” Bahamas Health Minister Dr. Duane Sands told the Miami Herald.

On Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection informed a shipping company that its Nassau-bound shipment of medical supplies could not be offloaded in the Bahamas and the containers had to be returned to Miami “for inspection.” But even before that, Sands said the Bahamian government had already been fielding multiple “complaints from freight forwarders and shipping companies that they were having challenges clearing certain items.”

“Over time, that grew to a crescendo with certain persons having the same experience,” he said.

The blockade experienced by Caribbean nations followed President Donald Trump’s April 3 signing of the little-known Defense Production Act. While the order gave the federal government more control over the procurement of coronavirus-related supplies, it also allowed the administration to ban certain exports. Trump invoked the act following a Twitter attack against U.S. manufacturer 3M over the export of its highly sought N95 respiratory face masks.

In a release, the Minnesota-based company said the Trump administration wanted it to cease exports of the masks to Latin America and Caribbean nations. Pushing back on the request, 3M said such a move carried “humanitarian consequences.”

Soon after the president’s order, Caribbean governments and shippers started hearing from Customs and Border Protection, learning that shipments of vital supplies had been blocked.

In the case of Barbados, it was a shipment of 20 ventilators purchased by a philanthropist that were barred, Health Minister Lt. Col Jeffrey Bostic told his nation in a live broadcast on April 5. After accusing the U.S. of seizing the shipment, Bostic walked back the allegation and told a local newspaper the hold up had “to do with export restrictions being placed on certain items.”

For the Cayman Islands, it was eight ventilators and 50,000 masks that were produced and purchased in the U.S. and removed from a Grand Cayman-bound ship in Miami — also on Tuesday. In a Friday afternoon tweet, the British overseas territory’s premier, Alden McLaughlin, said the U.S. had released the shipment with help from the U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica Donald Tapia.

Like Cayman, the Bahamas was also forced to turn to diplomatic channels for help. Following the intervention of the U.S. Embassy in Nassau, Sands said, it appeared they “were fairly close to a resolution.” But on Friday, the shipments were still being held by Customs and Border Protection, said a source familiar with the situation.

Betty K Agencies, a shipping company, was informed about the Trump policy after its ship had left Miami with three containers of medical supplies on Tuesday, hours ahead of its Wednesday arrival in Nassau.

The CBP note sent to Betty K Agencies regarding its Bahamas medical shipment was obtained by the Herald. It reads, “Due to a April 3rd, 2020 Presidential Memorandum regarding the allocation of certain scarce or threatened health and medical resources for domestic use, the items below cannot be exported until further notice.” The list went on to mention various types of single-use, disposable surgical masks, including N95 respirators and medical gloves.

Earlier in the week, the State Department suggested to the Miami Herald that media reports about seized medical exports might not be accurate. Late Friday, the White House issued a different statement after the ministers went public.

“The United States, like many other nations, is currently experiencing a high demand for ventilators, masks, gloves, and respirators that is straining available supplies and production capacity,” a senior administration official told the Herald. “President Trump has made clear that this Administration will prioritize the well-being of American citizens as we continue to take bold, decisive action to help slow the spread of the virus and save lives.”

The official went on to say that the administration “is working to limit the impacts of PPE domestic allocation on other nations. The United States will continue to send equipment and supplies not needed domestically to other countries, and we will do more as we are able.”

During Friday’s Coronavirus Task Force press briefing at the White House, President Trump acknowledged the high demand for the United States’ ventilators and testing kits, which Caribbean health officials have said are also banned from export.

“We’re the envy of the world in terms of ventilators. Germany would like some, France would like some; we’re going to help countries out. Spain needs them desperately. Italy needs them desperately,” he said.

But when asked by a McClatchy reporter about the Caribbean and the accusation that the U.S. was blocking personal protective equipment in certain cases, Trump implied that the shipments were being caught up in drug trafficking and seizures.

“Well, what we’re doing, we have a tremendous force out there, a Naval force, and we’re blocking the shipment of drugs,” he said. “So maybe what they’re doing is stopping ships that they want to look at. We’re not blocking. What we’re doing is we’re making sure; we don’t want drugs in our country, and especially with the over 160 miles of wall, it’s getting very hard to get through the border. They used to drive right through the border like they owned it, and in a certain way, they did.”

The president also invoked the U.S.’s effort to stop human trafficking.

“What we’re doing is we’re being very tough and we’re being tough because of drugs and also human trafficking,” he added. “We have a big Naval force that’s stopping, so maybe when you mentioned that, maybe their ships are getting caught. But we are stopping a lot of ships and we’re finding a lot of drugs.”

The LA Times reported earlier this week that seven states have seen the federal government seize shipments of necessary medical supplies, including thermometers and masks, without saying where or how they planned to reallocate them.

Caribbean health ministers, who have been warned by the Pan American Health Organization to expect a spike in COVID-19 infections in the coming weeks, have tried to assure their citizens that they are not relying solely on vendors in the United States to help their response to the respiratory disease.

They have also placed orders with suppliers in China and South Korea, they have said. McLaughlin, the Cayman premier, recently announced that the territory recently sold thousands of extra coronavirus test kits it had purchased, at cost, to Bermuda and Barbados.

It has been slightly more than 100 days since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus to be a global pandemic, and just over a month since the first cases were registered on March 1 in the Caribbean, beginning with the Dominican Republic and the French overseas territories of St. Martin and St. Barthélemy. The first confirmations of COVID-19 in the English-speaking Caribbean came on March 10 when Jamaica recorded its first case, followed by St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Guyana the next day.

Since then, the number of cases has grown to more than 4,000 across 33 Caribbean countries and territories, with over 185 deaths, according to the latest available statistics compiled by the Caribbean Public Health Agency.

The Bahamas currently has 41 confirmed cases and eight deaths. Sands said the island nation, which is still recovering from last year’s deadly Hurricane Dorian, is “in the middle of our surge.” As a result, he’s trying to build the country’s capacity to handle COVID-19 infections by ensuring that healthcare workers, police and defense force officers are armed with masks, gowns, booties and hazmat suits for the pandemic.

“While we do not have a problem at this point, we do not want to get into a problem,” Sands said. “We have modeled what our burn rate is likely to be so we are just trying to build out our anticipated need to make sure that we stay ahead of the demand. So these shipments, while important, would have been for future needs.”

Sands acknowledges that the United States, which on Saturday surpassed more than half a million coronavirus cases and 20,000 deaths, is in a very difficult position as it becomes the world’s worst coronavirus hot spot and hospitals experience shortages.

“It’s very challenging when you don’t have enough supplies to meet the needs of your own institutions. I am in no way condoning or endorsing anything. I am simply saying as we watch the challenge it is also very, very difficult,” he said. “For all intensive purposes, borders are now shut, and without wanting to be flippant or dismissive, it’s every man for himself and God for us all.”

McClatchy Washington Bureau reporter Michael Wilner contributed to this report.

Source: Posted April 13, 2020; retrieved April 17, 2020 from: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article241922071.html

—————-

Title #2 : U.S. blocks export of ‘tens of thousands’ of COVID-19 medical supplies
By: Ava Turnquest
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Health minister Dr Duane Sands confirmed the country has been significantly hit by U.S. restrictions banning the export of COVID-19 protective gear, noting the procurement of “many, many thousands” of critical supplies has been blocked.

However, Sands told Eyewitness News the government did not put all of its “eggs in one basket” as the country has sourced supplies from various countries.
…
He added: “This was a big deal, this wasn’t no little problem, this is a big deal.”

See the full article here: https://ewnews.com/u-s-blocks-export-of-tens-of-thousands-of-covid-19-medical-supplies posted April 9, 2020; retrieved April 17, 2020.

—————

Title #3: U.S. will send supplies that are ‘not needed domestically’, embassy says
By: Jasper Ward
While defending the United States’ decision to block the export of critical medical supplies, a U.S. embassy official said today that America will continue to send equipment and supplies that are “not needed” domestically to countries like The Bahamas amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and the necessary response measures are challenging governments globally,” the official told The Nassau Guardian.

“The United States is taking action to maintain the commitment of the president to the American people. The United States is continuing to send equipment and supplies not needed domestically to many other countries, including The Bahamas, and we will continue to do more as we are able.”
…
See the full article here: https://thenassauguardian.com/2020/04/09/u-s-will-send-supplies-that-are-not-needed-domestically-embassy-says/ posted April 9, 2020; retrieved April 17, 2020

***************

We just completed a 6-part series on Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG) where we considered these goals, these entries:

BHAG – The Audacity of Hope – Yes, we can!
BHAG – Regional Currency – In God We Trust
BHAG – Infrastructure Spending … finally funding Toll Roads
BHAG – One Voice – Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Stance
BHAG – Outreach to the World – Why Not a Profit Center
BHAG – Netflix, Hulu, CBS, Peacock è Caribbean Media

Now for this continuation, a 7^th entry, we consider the goal of a “region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy for greater production and greater accountability” – our own Caribbean Big Brother.

We obviously cannot rely on the US to be our Big Brother for pandemics – we must do it ourselves. This has been the theme of a number of previous Go Lean commentaries that elaborated on the goal of elevating the Caribbean societal engines for better Homeland Security; consider this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19409	Coronavirus: ‘Clear and Present’ Threat to Economic Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19025	Cursed in Paradise – Disasters upon Disasters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996	Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13999	First Steps for Caribbean Security – Deputize ‘Me’, says the CU
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12996	After Disasters, Failed State Indicators: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10566	Funding the Caribbean Security Pact – Yes, we can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9038	Caribbean Charity Management: Grow Up Already & Be Responsible
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896	The Logistics of Disaster Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’

Yes, a new guard, the CU Homeland Security apparatus has always been the quest of the movement behind the Go Lean book (Page 10), and these previous blog-commentaries. The book presented a Declaration of Interdependence, with these words:

When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

This movement studied previous pandemics and presented the lessons learned to the Caribbean region in a post on March 24, 2015:

A Lesson in History – SARS in Hong Kong
How can a community – the Caribbean region in this case – manage such an epidemiological crisis?

For this, we have a well-documented lesson from Hong Kong in 2003. There is much for us to learn from this lesson in history.

The people, institutions and governance of the Caribbean need to pay more than the usual attention to the lessons of SARS in Hong Kong, not just from the medical perspective (see Appendix B), but also from an economic viewpoint.

During the “heyday” of the SARS crisis, travel and transport to Hong Kong virtually came to a grinding halt! Hong Kong had previously enjoyed up to 14 million visitors annually; they were a gateway to the world. The SARS epidemic became a pandemic because of this status. Within weeks of the outbreak, SARS had spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003.^[3]

Can we afford this disposition in any Caribbean community?
…
Consider how this history may impact the Caribbean region. SARS in Hong Kong was 12 17 years ago. But last year [2014] the world was rocked with an Ebola crisis originating from West Africa. An additional example local to the Caribbean is the Chikungunya virus that emerged in Spring 2014. The presentation of these facts evinces that we cannot allow mis-management of any public health crisis; this disposition would not extend the welcoming hospitality that the tourism product depends on. Our domestic engines cannot sustain an outbreak of a virus like SARS (nor Ebola nor Chikungunya). Less than an outbreak, our tourism economic engines, on the other hand, cannot even withstand a rumor. We must act fast, with inter-state efficiency, against any virus.

This is the goal as detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean as it serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The vision of the CU is to ensure that the Caribbean is a protégé of communities like the US and EU states, not a parasite.
…
The Go Lean book reports that previous Caribbean administrations have failed miserably in managing regional crises. There is no structure for cooperation, collaboration and coordination across borders. This is the charge of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. To effectuate change in the region by convening all 30 Caribbean member-states, despite their historical legacies or governmental hierarchy.

The CU is not designed to just be in some advisory role when it comes to pandemic crises, but rather to possess the authority to act as a Security Apparatus for the region’s Greater Good.
…
Legally, each Caribbean member-state would ratify a Status of Forces Agreement that would authorize this role for the CU agencies (Emergency Management and Disease Control & Management) to serve as a proxy and deputy of the Public Health administrations for each member-state. This would thusly empower these CU agencies to quarantine and detain citizens with probable cause of an infectious disease. The transparency, accountability and chain-of-command would be intact with the appropriate checks-and-balances of the CU’s legislative and judicial oversight. This is a lesson learned from Hong Kong 2003 with China’s belligerence.

SARS was eradicated by January 2004 and no cases have been reported since.^[4]We must have this “happy-ending”, but from the beginning. This is the lesson we can learn and apply in the Caribbean. …

This vision is the BHAG for today’s Caribbean. Yes, we can …

… execute the strategies, tactics and implementations to fulfill this vision.

COVID-19 was not the worst pandemic and may not be the last. So we must put the proper mitigation in place.

This vision, this BHAG, is conceivable, believable and achievable. We urged all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book

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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

Who We Are

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, mental health, obesity and smoking cessation programs. The Federation must proactively anticipate the demand and supply … as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ [medical equipment and provisional] trade.

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. ….

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

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.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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Chef Jose Andres – A Hero … Not Just for the Caribbean Alone – Encore

Posted on March 10, 2020 in Ethos, Implementation, Social

We would like to keep this international hero – Chef José Andrés – just for ourselves, but his whole character, is being an “Angel of Mercy” for all people suffering from natural disasters.

🙂

He is at it again, coordinating feedings for the poor victims of this Coronavirus-affected Cruise Ship – The Grand Princess – in Oakland, California. See the full story and Twitter-VIDEO here:

Title: Chef José Andrés serving Grand Princess cruise ship guests
By: Sandra Gonzalez, CNN

Celebrity chef José Andrés has mobilized his charity World Central Kitchen and set up camp near the Grand Princess cruise ship.

The ship is carrying at least 21 people who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus and is currently at an Oakland port. Some passengers began to disembark on Monday while thousands remain on the ship.

“@WCKitchen team is ready with lunch for guests leaving today & we will be loading meals for dinner onto the ship….Wishing the best for everyone on board! #ChefsForCalifornia,” Andrés tweeted.

The charity shared photos of some salads the team prepared in San Francisco that were due to be dispersed to passengers.

World Central Kitchen also fed those aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

“If you are in a place, a hotel, a cruise ship, where everybody may be infected, it’s logical to say that you want to make sure, in this case, food is prepared outside,” Andrés told CNN last week.

The nonprofit is known for being on the front lines of all sorts of emergency scenarios. The team has served meals to people affected by hurricanes, wildfires and even furloughed workers during a government shutdown.

Source: Retrieved March 10, 2020 from: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/09/entertainment/jose-andres-world-central-kitchen/index.html?utm_content=2020-03-10T07%3A31%3A02&utm_term=link&utm_medium=social&utm_source=fbCNN&fbclid=IwAR1YsAQcEUjJK3e1COr_iow2Era5tVBD_85L3v_shqS7otz3Q-17yVVq5uk

Twitter Message:

We @WCKitchen are up & running in Oakland for the #GrandPrincess! #ChefsForCalifornia pic.twitter.com/UGfDIOcqbt

— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) March 9, 2020

Chef José Andrés is truly an international hero, and role model for the type of person we’d like to foster in the new Caribbean. Thank you Chef.

This is also a good time to Encore a previous blog-commentary on Chef José Andrés from September 4, 2019. See that submission here-now:

——————–

Go Lean Commentary – Chef Jose Andres – Role Model for Hurricane Relief – “One Meal at a Time”

We gotta eat!

Even when a devastating Category 5 Hurricane impacts your homeland, that natural law applies: We gotta eat!

Thank you Chef José Andrés for pulling out all the stops to feed the people of the Bahamas during this, their most desperate hour.

Why does he help? Why does he do “this”? Just because: People gotta eat!

Even though he has help – he brings a team – it is with the full might of his will, reputation and connections that he is able to have this impact. He is proof-positive that one man – or woman – can make a difference in society. See this VIDEO news story here-now:

VIDEO – Chef José Andrés in the Bahamas, helping save lives “one meal at a time” – https://youtu.be/woeweQTXZRg

Posted September 4, 2019 – The renowned chef’s non-profit World Central Kitchen is one of the aid groups spearheading relief efforts in the stricken island nation. CBS Reports.

Chef José Andrés did the same thing in Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria; and in Haiti after the 2010 Earthquake. He has been a great benefactor for all of the Caribbean – and he does not even have a Caribbean heritage.

He is from Spain; see his profile in the Appendix below.

Yes, one man can make a difference! The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that one person – an advocate – can change the world (Page 122). It relates:

An advocacy is an act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending a cause or subject. For this book, it’s a situational analysis, strategy or tactic for dealing with a narrowly defined subject.

Advocacies are not uncommon in modern history. There are many that have defined generations and personalities. Consider these notable examples from the last two centuries in different locales around the world:

Frederick Douglas

Mohandas Gandhi

Martin Luther King

Nelson Mandela

Cesar Chavez

Candice Lightner – (Mothers Against Drunk Driving)

This is a consistent theme from the movement behind the Go Lean book– available to download for free. We have repeatedly presented profiles of “1” persons who have made lasting impacts on their community and the whole world. Consider this sample list, of previous blog-commentaries where advocates and role models have been elaborated upon:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17871	‘Ross Perot’, Political Role Model – He was right on Trade – RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16942	Sallie Krawcheck – Role Model for Women Economic Empowerment
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16926	Viola Desmond – Canadian Role Model for Blacks and Women
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16702	W.E.B. Du Bois – Role Model in Pan-Africana
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16696	Marcus Garvey – An Ancient Role Model Still Relevant Today
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14558	Being the Change in ‘Brown vs Board of Education’ – Role Model Linda Brown, RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14556	“March for Our Lives” Kids – Observing the Change … with Guns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14139	Carter Woodson – One Man Made a Difference … for Black History
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8165	Role Models Muhammad Ali and Kevin Connolly – Their Greatest Fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682	Frederick Douglass: Role Model for Single Cause – Death or Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Bob Marley: The legend of this Role Model lives on!

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to reform and transform Caribbean life and culture. But first we have to make sure our people’s basic needs are covered.

We gotta eat!

So thank you Chef José Andrés for pitching in and feeding our Bahamian and Caribbean people.

The Go Lean roadmap calls on every man, woman and child in the Caribbean to be an advocate, and/or appreciate the efforts of other advocates. Their examples can truly help us today with our passions and purpose.

In summary, we conclude about Chef José Andrés the same as we do about all the other Caribbean advocates; we say (Go Lean book conclusion Page 252):

Thank you for your service, love and commitment to all Caribbean people. We will take it from here.

The movement behind Go Lean book – the planners of a new Caribbean – stresses that a ‘change is going to come’, one way or another. As depicted in the foregoing VIDEO, Chef José Andrés facilitated all the logistics himself for our post-Hurricane Dorian Rescue/Relief – i.e. boats, helicopters and the food – but the new Caribbean should really be matured enough to handle our own Hurricane Response:

Rescue
Relief
Recovery
Rebuild

We must Grow Up, Already!

Haiti, Puerto Rico and now the Bahamas – these were the natural disasters of the past; but there will be more … in the future.

Climate Change guarantees it.

We must copy the patterns and good examples of our role models; Chef José Andrés has provided us a perfect example of how to make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

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.

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.

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls …. On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from [successful] developments/communities.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————

Appendix Reference Title: José Andrés
José Ramón Andrés Puerta (born 13 July 1969) is a Spanish-American^[1] chef often credited with bringing the small plates dining concept to America.^[2] He owns restaurants in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Las Vegas, South Beach, Florida, Orlando, New York City, and Frisco, Texas. Andrés is the founder of World Central Kitchen, a non-profit devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters.^[3] He was awarded a 2015 National Humanities Medal at a 2016 White House ceremony.^[4]

…

Trump Hotel restaurant and lawsuit
Andrés planned to open a restaurant in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, in 2016. After Donald Trump made disparaging comments about Mexicans in June 2015, Andrés withdrew from the contract with the Trump Organization, which then sued him.^[13] Andrés counter-sued, and the parties reached a settlement in April 2017.^[14] Andrés remains an outspoken critic of Trump.^[15][16]

World Central Kitchen
In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Andrés formed World Central Kitchen which provides healthy food to families and individuals touched by disasters.^[17] Since its founding, the NGO has organized meals in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Zambia, Peru, Cuba, Uganda, and in Cambodia.^[3]

In January 2019 Andrés opened a World Central Kitchen on Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC to feed federal workers that were furloughed during the government shutdown.^[18]

Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria response
Andrés emerged as a leader of the disaster relief efforts in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017. His efforts to provide assistance encountered obstacles from FEMAand government bureaucrats, so instead, “we just started cooking.”^[19] He organized a grass-roots movement of chefs and volunteers to establish communications, food supplies, and other resources and started serving meals. Andrés and his organization World Central Kitchen (WCK)^[20] served more than two million meals in the first month after the hurricane.^[21][22][23] WCK received two short term FEMA contracts and served more meals than the Salvation Army or the Red Cross, but its application for longer term support was denied.^[24][25]

For his efforts in Puerto Rico, Andrés was named the 2018 Humanitarian of the Year by the James Beard Foundation.^[26] He wrote a book about the experience called We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time.^[27]

Source: Retrieved September 4, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Andr%C3%A9s

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