Social – Page 42 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Category: Social

Getting Rich Slowly … in the Caribbean

Posted on February 12, 2015 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The old practice was for couples to have a lot of children so that there would be assurances for their old age; the many children would be able to leverage caregiving roles among themselves. With a high infant-mortality rate, there was the need to hedge the risk with a few more children – an “heir and a spare” many times over.

(This writer is the youngest of 6 children).

Then “the road turned”… change came.

After World War II, modern medicine improved (i.e. childhood vaccines), more family planning options were introduced, governments adopted social safety-net strategies (Social Security, National Insurance and other pensions) and a consumer culture took hold. It was no longer necessary, in the First World (North American and Western Europe), to have so many children. Couples in these countries, during the decades of the 1970’s to 1990’s, averaged only 2.1 children; today that figure is down to 1.8.

(This writer has 3 children).

This standard is now universal, even in the Third World Caribbean.

Here is where the “rubber meets the road”; without those old-world family planning strategies, care for aging parents now becomes an issue, a cause and an advocacy.

Not everyone is prepared for change.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean addresses this issue head-on. It first declares that the Caribbean is in crisis, that most Caribbean citizens, residents in the homeland or the Diaspora, are not prepared for retirement and their “golden years”. Then with the propensity for societal abandonment, so many Caribbean citizens live abroad, away from their aging parents, so there is no practicality normally associated with a close proximity; (children cannot just simply cohabitate with their parents). To make matters worse, many Caribbean member-state governments have failing economic structures, so fulfilling their Social Contract responsibilities have been strained; consider currency devaluations, unchecked inflation, dependency on foreign imports and higher taxation with import Customs duties.

Alas, the book also declares that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU is proffered to provide economic, security and economic security solutions for the 30 member Caribbean states and their 42 million people. It is our quest to be prepared for the changed landscape. This mandate is detailed early on in the book’s Declaration of Interdependence with the following statements (Page 11 – 13):

viii.    Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

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 of organ transplantation as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ trade.

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.

While the Caribbean may be in crisis today, conditions would get even worse tomorrow (near future) if left unchecked; if there is no remediation and mitigation for retirement. The Go Lean roadmap posits that retirement is a community issue, and that the mandate for the CU is to manage economic security issues – strong messages and incentives – to encompass retirement planning as well.

It should be duly noted that this issue is not one that the US shows leadership with. Far too many American citizens have not fully developed solutions for their retirement, despite the myriad of financial products available in that advanced economy. This is not a community choice issue; this is a community ethos issue. The Go Lean book (Page 21) defines community ethos as the “fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society”. The ethos associated with retirement planning is that of “deferred gratification”, setting aside immediate benefits for more long-term benefits.

“A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous”. – The Bible; Proverbs 13:22 – New International Version

While Americans need to adopt this ethos – Social Security benefits alone are grossly insufficient to satisfy retirees’ needs – Caribbean citizens need to “double-down” on this spirit all the more so. In either case, there must be supplemental retirement income. With a patient, future-focused attitude, the stage is set for individuals to glean the benefits of the time value of money. This concept is fundamental in finance – it allows for greater future rewards of monies invested today. The very approach for retirement is to glean returns tomorrow (after a person retires) on the investments made today (while the person is still working).

Compliance in this regards, does not require intellectual genius, just financial discipline. Consider here, the example of a simple man, a “blue-collar” worker in the US State of Vermont. He is a role model for us all for “how to get rich slowly”:

Title: Janitor bequeaths millions to library, hospital
(Retrieved from CNBC.com – Consumer News & Business Channel site – http://www.cnbc.com/id/102404530)

Reuters; Friday, 6 Feb 2015 – Perhaps the only clue that Ronald Read, a Vermont gas station attendant and janitor who died last year at age 92, had been quietly amassing an $8 million fortune was his habit of reading the Wall Street Journal, his friends and family say.

It was not until last week that the residents of Brattleboro would discover Read’s little secret. That’s when the local library and hospital received the bulk of his estate, built up over the years with savvy stock picks. “Investing and cutting wood, he was good at both of them,” his lawyer Laurie Rowell said on Wednesday, noting that he read the Journal every day.

Most of those who knew Read, described as a frugal and extremely private person, were aware that he could handle an axe. But next to no one knew how well he was handling his financial portfolio.

Read, the first person in his family to graduate from high school, dressed in worn flannel shirts and spent his free time scavenging for fallen branches for his home wood stove. He drove a second-hand Toyota Yaris.

“You’d never know the man was a millionaire,” Rowell said. “The last time he came here, he parked far away in a spot where there were no meters so he could save the coins.”

Read graduated from Brattleboro High School in 1940 and during World War II served in North Africa, Italy and the Pacific theater. Returning home, he worked at Haviland’s service station and then as a janitor at a JCPenney store, marrying a woman with two children.

Before his death on June 2, 2014, Read’s only indulgence was eating breakfast at the local coffee shop, where he once tried to pay his bill only to find that someone had already covered it under the assumption he did not have the means, Rowell said.

Last week, Brooks Memorial Library and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital each received their largest bequests ever. Read left $1.2 million to the library, founded in 1886, and $4.8 million to the hospital, founded in 1904.

“It was a thunderbolt from the sky,” said the library’s executive director, Jerry Carbone. While a surprise, he said the gift made sense once he learned more about the quiet, shy library patron appropriately named Read.

“Being a self-made man with his investments, he recognized the transformative nature of a library, what it can do for people,” Carbone said.

Read’s stepchildren survive him but were not immediately available for comment.

VIDEO 1: – Investing like Vermont’s secret millionaire stock-picker – http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000353159

VIDEO 2: – Janitor’s $8 million fortune – http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000353167

In a previous blog/commentary, it was reported that the US does not make a good role model for its administration of the elderly. The American standard is to delegate elderly family care to professionals, rather than to family, and that this is not an example we want in our region; the referenced quotation was entitled 10 Things We Do Not Want from the US:

# 7: Family Abandonment – Senior Living Facilities are a big industry in the US. This is due to the family habit of abandoning elderly parents to the care of professional strangers. The Caribbean way traditionally is to house their Senior Citizens with families, whether the economics apply or not.

On the other hand, we do admire the US capital markets, as the Go Lean book reports that Wall Street is the most liquid in the world (Page 200). So among the 10 Things We Want from the US, American capital is prominent:

# 3: Capital – There are many Financial Centers around the world (London, Zurich, Hong Kong, etc.) but none with the liquidity like Wall Street. They have the capital the Caribbean needs for Direct Foreign Investments. After the 2008 Financial Crisis, the US Federal Reserve Banks have maintained a policy of flooding the money supply to keep the cost of capital (borrowing) low.

The roadmap uses the model of Wall Street to structure more robust investment vehicles in the regional Caribbean securities markets – the book identifies 9 exchanges. Imagine this one great US product that a Caribbean Diaspora member, a CPA, Clifton Rodriquez, strongly campaigns for: Dividend Re-Investment Plans or DRIPs. His blog entry is attached in the Appendix with his strong urging.

The Go Lean book describes this heavy-lifting to empower Caribbean society to prepare for change and challenges that confront modern financial management, for the macro (national economy) and the micro (individuals and families). There is no “get rich quick” scheme in the roadmap, but rather a comprehensive plan for all Caribbean stakeholders to “get rich slowly” and ensure economic success at home, “prospering where they are planted”. The book describes the turn-by-turn directions for all the community stakeholders to follow to reach the 3 goals defined as the CU/Go Lean prime directives:

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

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the emergence of the Caribbean Dollar (C$) managed by a regional technocratic Caribbean Central Bank. This structure allows for more liquidity in the existing stock exchanges in the regions. Products like DRIPs can be successfully promoted and regulated under the Go Lean’s vision for a more robust regional capital/securities market using Caribbean Dollars (C$).

The CU also embarks on a mission to encourage repatriation of the Diaspora back to the Caribbean homeland and assuage societal abandonment. The book asserts that, senior citizens should avoid the cold climates of North American and EU, especially in the winter months:

“Come in from the cold” – Song title of Caribbean Music Icon Bob Marley from 1980 Album Uprising.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap portrays the need for public messaging to encourage savings/investments, describing deferred gratification as a community ethos that is required to forge permanent change in the Caribbean homeland. In addition, these additional ethos, strategies, tactics and advocacies are trumpeted in the book to optimize financial/retirement planning:

Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Ways to Control Inflation	Page 153
Lessons from New York City – Wall Street Power	Page 137
Ways to Improve Communications – Messaging	Page 186
Reforms for Banking Regulations – Central Banking	Page 199
Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Ways to Impact Retirement	Page 231
Ways to Improve Elder-Care	Page 225

There are many Go Lean blog commentaries that previously stressed the dynamics of technocratic management of regional finances, at the micro level and at the macro level for the Greater Good of Caribbean communities. See sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2930	‘Too Big To Fail’ – Caribbean Version
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2830	Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=949	Inflation Matters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=665	Great Investment Vehicle – Real Estate Investment Trusts explained
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=510	Canadian Retirees – Florida’s Snowbirds Chilly Welcome
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=467	Barbados Central Bank records $3.7m loss in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=372	Dominica Government raises EC$20 million on regional capital market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=364	Time Value of Money – The basis for retirement planning
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=360	How to Create Money from Thin Air
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US: #3 – American Investment Options

The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that many problems of the region are too big for any one member-state to solve alone, that there is the need for the technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. The purpose of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work, learn and play. This effort is more than academic; this involves many practical mitigations and heavy-lifting. While this charter is not easy, it is worth all effort.

The roadmap posits that to succeed as a society, the Caribbean region must arrange for economic, security and governance solutions. Any failure in this regard results in immediate abandonment – people leave – this undermines any empowerment efforts. We need to keep our people at home: the older retirees and the younger workers; they are all important for pension plans and actuarial tables.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes/empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. We must all be able to prosper where we are planted at home.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

APPENDIX – Successful Retirement Investment in the Caribbean – DRIPs

Title: Drip-a Proven Approach to Wealth Building
(Retrieved from: http://cliftonhrodriquez.hubpages.com/hub/DRIP-A-PROVEN-APPROACH-TO-WEALTH-BUILDING)
By: Clifton H. Rodriquez

What Are DRIPS?
Direct stock and dividend reinvestment plans, or to use the acronym, DRIP’s have been around for some eighty (80) years. As the name suggests, they permit investors to directly invest in any a significant number of public companies without going through a stock broker. Investors are able to buy stocks directly from the companies, or via a transfer agent. In general, the purchase would entail a modest down payment coupled with automatic monthly payments. The term “IRM 72’s” is also used to describe DRIPs. The two names are one in the same and should not be viewed as different investment vehicles.

WEALTH BUILDING OVER TIME
As aforementioned, DRIP’s maybe referred to as IRM 72’s as well. They are an efficient and effective mechanism for building substantial financial nest-eggs over time. They are efficient investment vehicles because they allow investors to pay a small investment fee, usually for administrative purposes, while investing substantially more of their money in a particular stock. In some cases, a number of companies will cover some of the administrative fees, especially ones involving reinvestment of dividends, associated with DRIP investing. It is a fact that even discount brokers cannot match the low costs associated with DRIP investing. Furthermore, greater efficiency is realized with DRIPs due to “dollar cost average” associated with purchasing risk assets (stocks) over time. In a nutshell, investors are able to acquire more of a particular stock when the market price declines, but less when the price increases. However, over the extended period of time, the actual costs averages out.

It is an effective mechanism because unlike investing lump sums of money and taking greater risk, DRIPs allow for gradual investing over time and investors tend not to feel the pain of the volatility that often arises from time to time in the market. Thus, DRIP investors are less likely to panic and pull money out of their DRIP portfolios whenever bad news hits the market and causes chaos and panic (i.e., the root cause of volatility in the stock market). DRIP investors tend to appreciate market dips because they view them as opportunities to pick up their stocks at bargained prices. Picking up the stocks at these bargained prices tend to add to DRIP investors capital appreciation whenever other investors return to the stock market and chase stocks to higher prices. This is merely one way in which DRIP investors make money on their investments, and the other way is in effect “icing on the cake”.

DRIP investors experience icing on their investment cakes from the high dividend yields that they get from their investments. It is not inconceivable for DRIP stocks to give dividend yields as high sixteen (16%) percent. The yield is determined by taking the annual dividend and dividing it by current market price. Of course the higher the annual dividend, and the lower the current stock price, the greater the dividend yield. The opposite also is true. Most DRIP stock pay quarterly dividends, but several also pay monthly dividends which provide a higher effective yield to investors. Even if a DRIP stock does not increase in market price, if it has a high single or double digit yield that maybe enough for investors to maintain their positions in the stocks. Thus, it is a rarity to see many of these stocks decline in value. Investors tend to chase them for their dividend yields.

Investors chase these stocks for their dividend yields because these yields tend to fuel geometric growth in DRIP accounts, especially when an investor re-invests their dividends (i.e., use their dividends to buy additional shares of stocks). The re-investment of the dividends coupled with automatic monthly investment tend to bring about a profound compounding effect in the DRIP accounts. This effect can only be described as geometric in nature, and the value of the account tend to quickly double in most cases over a short period of time. Thus, the dividend yield of any DRIP stock is very important. The higher the yield the less time it takes for the DRIP account to grow geometrically.

DRIPs are the only investment vehicle that can create a greater wealth effect. No other investment (i.e., real estate or anything else) is more effective at creating wealth than investing in stocks. However, only forty nine (49%) of Americans are actively trading stocks (December 2014 Issue of “DRIP Investor”). Thus, 51% of Americans have their money tied up in other investment vehicles like real estate, or in most cases, institutions (i.e., banks or insurance companies). Thus, the wealth gap will continue to widen as long as a minority of Americans is invested in the stock market. Why? Again, the US Stock Market creates more millionaires and billionaires than any other investment institution. The stock market, in effect, provides an effective way in which US and other investors can not only stay abreast of inflation, but soundly beat inflation.

Unfortunately, the majority of Americans will not beat inflation. They will continue to receive negative real returns on their investments because many of them simply do not understand “time value of money”. They are convinced that banks and insurance companies are the safest places for their money, despite the fact that banks in general pay as little as a 1/2 of one percent return on passbook savings, while insurance companies will pay about two point five (2.5) percent on their best financial vehicles (annuities). Treasury bonds yields are somewhere in between what a bank will pay on its passbook savings and certificate of deposit (COD) account. The dividend yield pickings are slight to none whenever investors look at alternative investments to the stock market. According to time value of money (future value of a lump sum and future value of an annuity), money will not grow well whenever simple interest is paid. Thus, banks and insurance companies are simply middlemen which must be cut out of the equation if an investor wants to realize geometric growth (compounding effect).

In most cases, the banks and insurance companies simply take the very dollars that investors entrust to them, and lend them out to other customers (in form of secured loans) at much higher rates. The banks in particular cannot directly invest depositors dollars into the US Stock Market, and they do have to maintain certain reserve balances in accordance with the Feds’ guidelines and regulations. Nevertheless, these banks and insurance companies, collectively known as institutional investors, do move the Markets with the huge amount of dollars that they invest in stocks. They realize tremendous returns, but continue to pay nominal returns on their passbook savings and CODs. They get away with it because 51% of American investors fear investing their money in the stock market. They believe that their money is “safe” in a bank because the banks will claim that they are “FDIC” insured up to $250,000.00 per bank account. This insurance actually comes from the American Taxpayer who ultimately foots the bill for any failed commercial depository, or savings and loans. This was the case in 1989-1991 when the U.S. taxpayers bailed out the savings and loans industry. What the banks do not tell their customers is that they are actually getting negative real returns on their passbook savings and COD accounts. Why is that? If inflation is running at 2.5% in the U.S.,and the banks are merely paying a half (1/2) of one (1) percent, then it stands to reasons that most investors are losing purchasing power by keeping their money in a passbook savings or COD account.

A bank customer will not experience any degree of wealth by simply putting money in a passbook savings or COD account. As a matter of fact, given time value of money concepts, it would be better for a bank customer to keep their money under their mattress, given the negative returns that they experience by putting it in a passbook saving or COD account. The only real way to build any meaningful wealth over time is by investing directly into stocks. Stocks are risk assets, but given the fact that the US Stock Market is down roughly 20% to 25% of the time and up 75% to 80% of the time, it is a “no-brainer” for investors to stay in the stock market, especially if their investment time horizon is long-term (1-30 years). It is a fact that substantial wealth in the stock market can be built over time with consistent investing and reinvesting of dividends and capital gains. Unfortunately for the 51% of Americans who look to bank and insurance companies, the stock market is the only profitable game in town.

Anyone, even workers on minimum wages, can invest in the stock market via DRIP investing. This author started a DRIP portfolio back on November 1, 2012 with four stocks, AGNC, COP, COST, and TM (see below for details). The initial investment over the one year period amounted to $6,500.00. As of October 31, 2013, the DRIP Portfolio grew by five (5) additional stocks and had an accumulated market value of $13,078. The estimated return during the first year of investment was roughly 52.6%, most of the return came from the performance of Toyota Motor Corporation (TM), ConocoPhillips Corporation (COP) and JP Morgan Chase Bank (JPM) Over the next one year period that it grew to 15 stocks (AFLAC is not clearly shown in the depiction). Additional capital investment totaled $15,000, but most of the growth resulted from re-investment of dividends and capital gains. As of the close of the stock market on December 19th, 2014 the value of the author’s DRIP Portfolio is $50,700 plus. By this time next year (i.e., December 20, 2015), the projected value of the Portfolio will be around $80,000 to $85,000, given that the same investment strategy will be maintained, and additional capital investment of $15,000 to 20,000 will be made in American Capital Agency Corporation (AGNC), which has an effective dividend yield of 11.5%, a net book value of $25.25.

Investing in the U.S. Stock Market, or any of the capital markets entails considerable risk. Any potential investor exposing their capital to these markets need to do their homework prior to buying risk assets. This homework may entail in depth consultation with financial and investment advisers prior to any funds being committed to risk assets. An investor should never under any circumstances expose capital to the markets if they cannot afford to lose said capital. A potential investor should never rely solely upon anything that is written in this article, or any other article as the only source of prudent investment advice and basis for any decision making. Again, a proper research and consultation coupled with professional investment advice from reliable source should govern any investment decisions, regardless of the amount of capital involved, or the investment strategy employed.

My DRIP Portfolio

Share this post:

Banks, Retirement, Sales, Security, Seniors, Transform

The African Renaissance Monument

Posted on February 9, 2015 in Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The commentaries of the Go Lean…Caribbean blogs have often addressed the Caribbean Diaspora. But for many people of Caribbean heritage, they are a member of a larger Diaspora, the African Diaspora. Every Caribbean member-state – except for the French Territory Saint Barthélemy and the new Indo-Guyanese immigrant reality – has a majority population of Black or African ethnicity. So most people of the region have been affected by events that took place in Western Africa during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Any symbolism or artistic expression commemorating this historic sacrifice of Africa to the Caribbean genome should be acknowledged, promoted and celebrated.

This prominent statue in Dakar, Senegal, the African Renaissance Monument, is the epitome of such a symbolism.

This monument should be a World Heritage Site.

This subject aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean which details a plan to promote World Heritage Sites (Page 248) in the Caribbean region. The book also asserts that there are good economic returns to be harnessed by communities investing in regional artists and the eco-systems surrounding the business of the arts.

This commentary continues that pattern, established in the book. The following encyclopedic details provides a role model for how the Caribbean can further develop this industry space:

Title: African Renaissance Monument – Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia (Retrieved 02/08/2015 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Renaissance_Monument)

The African Renaissance Monument is a 49m tall bronze statue located on top of one of the twin hills known as Collines des Mamelles, outside of Dakar, Senegal. Built overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the Ouakam suburb, the statue was designed by the Senegalese architect Pierre Goudiaby after an idea presented by president Abdoulaye Wade (in office from year 2000 to 2012) and built by Mansudae Overseas Projects, a company from North Korea.^[1] Site preparation on top of the 100-meter high hill began in 2006, and construction of the bronze statue began 3 April 2008.^[2] Originally scheduled for completion in December 2009, delays stretched into early 2010, and the formal dedication occurred on 4 April 2010, Senegal’s “National Day”, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence from France.^[3] It is the tallest statue in Africa.

Construction

The monument is made of 3-centimetre thick metal sheets and depicts a family group emerging from a mountaintop: a full-length statue of a young woman, a man, and held aloft on the man’s raised left arm, a child resolutely pointing west towards the sea. Construction of the bronze statue group was carried out by the North Korean firm Mansudae Overseas Project Group of Companies.^[4]

The project was launched by then Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade who considered it part of Senegal’s prestige projects, aimed at providing monuments to herald a new era of African Renaissance.

Unveiling

On 3 April 2010, the African Renaissance Monument was unveiled in Dakar in front of 19 African heads of state, including President of Malawi and the African Union Bingu wa Mutharika, Jean Ping of the African Union Commission and the Presidents of Benin, Cape Verde, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania and Zimbabwe, as well as representatives from North Korea, and Jesse Jackson and musician Akon, both from the United States.^[3][5] Everyone was given a tour.^[3][5]

President Wade said “It brings to life our common destiny. Africa has arrived in the 21st century standing tall and more ready than ever to take its destiny into its hands”.^[6] President Bingu said “This monument does not belong to Senegal. It belongs to the African people wherever we are”.^[7]

Criticism

Expense
Thousands of people protested against “all the failures of [President] Wade’s regime, the least of which is this horrible statue” on the city’s streets beforehand, with riot police deployed to maintain control.^[3] Deputy leader of the opposition Ndeye Fatou Toure described the monument as an “economic monster and a financial scandal in the context of the current [economic] crisis”.

The colossal statue has been criticized for its cost at US$ 27 million (£16.6m).^[1] The payment was made in kind, with 30 to 40 hectares of land that will be sponsored by a Senegalese businessman.^[8]

Style
Senegalese opposition leaders have also questioned the style of the project, labelling it “Stalinist“, while art critics have pointed out that the body shapes are cartoon-like, with only vaguely African facial features.^[1] It has also been suggested that the monument is a stark representation of the macho sexism of African authoritarian rulers.^[9] The statue’s design has been derided internationally because of false claims of its Senegalese origin, actually having been designed by a Romanian architect and built by a North Korean sculpting company famous for various projects and large statues throughout Africa since the 1970s.^[10] It was a poorly received piece by art critics around the world after its much-delayed unveiling in 2010, and has been compared by some to the infamous (and now-abandoned) Christopher Columbus statue project that was underway in Cataño, Puerto Rico in the late 1990s and early 2000s.^[11] Local Imams (Islamic Spiritual Leaders) argue that a statue depicting a human figure is idolatrous, and object to the perceived immodesty of the semi-nude male and female figures.^[12]

In December 2009, president Abdoulaye Wade apologised to Senegal’s Christian minority for comparing the statue to Jesus Christ.^[1]

Revenue
The project has also attracted controversy due to Wade’s claim to the intellectual property rights of the statue, and insisting that he is entitled to 35 percent of the profits raised.^[12] Opposition figures have sharply criticized Wade’s plan to claim intellectual property rights, insisting that the president cannot claim copyright over ideas conceived as a function of his public office.^[13][1]

Local artists
Ousmane Sow, a world-renowned Senegalese sculptor, also objected to the use of North Korean builders, saying it was anything but a symbol of African Renaissance and nothing to do with art.^[14]

The book Go Lean…Caribbean is a economic elevation roadmap for the Caribbean, not Africa. But there are many lessons for the Caribbean to glean from this African Renaissance Monument project: good, bad and ugly. Whereas, this monument project does not have the economic impact of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, it has potential.

This discussion of “art in the public domain” is not just academic. Community pride, jobs, and the growth of the regional economy is involved. This point aligns with the objectives of the Go Lean book, in that it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This effort will harness the individual genius abilities (micro) of artists so as to elevate the arts and the economic impact on their related communities (macros). To glean these economic benefits, the charter for the regional “art world” must be bigger than just sculpture; it must also include paintings, fashion, music, film and performing arts (dance & theater). The CU will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives, defined with the following 3 statements:

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

The Go Lean book identified this vision early in the book (Page 13 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

Preamble: As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.
As the colonial history of our region was initiated to create economic expansion opportunities for our previous imperial masters, the structures of government instituted in their wake have not fostered the best systems for prosperity of the indigenous people.

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

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

The foregoing African Renaissance Monument is on the Eastern side of the Atlantic; there is also a monument effort on the Western side of the Atlantic: the “Vicissitudes” and other features in the Moilinere Bay Underwater Sculpture Park in the waters off the Caribbean island of Grenada. The voyage across the Atlantic was referred to as the Middle Passage, a segment in the Slave Trade Triangle. Many victims, African captives designated to be sold in slavery, did not survive the Middle Passage. The Vicissitudes are in honor of the African Ancestors who were thrown overboard during the voyage; (retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molinere_Underwater_Sculpture_Park).

1. “Vicissitudes” – According to the primary professional Artist, British Sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor:

“Vicissitudes depicts a circle of figures, all linked through holding hands. These are life-size casts taken from a group of children of diverse ethnic background. Circular in structure … the work both withstands strong currents and replicates one of the primary geometric shapes, evoking ideas of unity and continuum. … The sculpture proposes growth, chance, and natural transformation. It shows how time and environment impact on and shape the physical body. Children by nature are adaptive to their surroundings. Their use within the work highlights the importance of creating a sustainable and well-managed environment, a space for future generations.”

2. Amateur Projects – Cast student faces in the side of a large underwater stone: Theophilus Albert Marryshow Community College

In March 2007, a project was initiated with Helen Hayward of T.A. Marryshow Community College (Grenada) to produce a series of works for the Molinere sculpture park. Workshops were planned with A-level Art and Design students; (senior exams – General Certificate of Education or GCE – from the University of London). Each student was required to produce a life cast of their face, to form an installation two meters deep around the shoreline of Molinere Bay.

The project aimed to encourage local artists to contribute further works to the site and provide a arena for communities to appreciate and highlight the marine processes evident in their local environment.

The students were taught a range of skills including life-casting, cement casting and sculpting. The final pieces were installed by Jason [de Caires Taylor] on 25th April 2007.

The following news article relates the coverage received at the project’s implementation:

Title: Underwater Sculpture Park off Grenada is stunning and unique
Sub-title: Jason de Caires Taylor is an internationally recognized sculptor with a difference.
(Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/3538787/Underwater-sculpture-park-off-Grenada-is-stunning-and-unique.html)

December 1, 2008 – Instead of bleak urban backdrops for his creations, [artist Jason de Caires Taylor] has crafted a stunning and unique underwater sculpture park in the shallow waters off the West Indies island of Grenada.

His desire to create striking and meaningful art forms and his love of the underwater world led him to explore the intricate relationships between art and the environment.

For Grenada, this has resulted in a series of beautiful marine seascapes that have formed a series of artificial reefs, drawing new life into areas which have been damaged by nature’s raw power and mans intervention.

Jason discusses his work in a video interview with Miranda Krestovnikoff, one of the UK faces of a new global web TV channel, The Underwater Channel.

Miranda, also a BBC One Show / Coast presenter, explores Jason’s motivations and shows footage of his installations demonstrating the beauty of the structures and the way they interact with their environment. In some zones, the shifting sands of the ocean floor can change the whole viewing experience from moment to moment.

The sculptures are sited in clear, shallow waters to allow easy access by divers, snorkellers and those in glass-bottomed boats. Jason is keen to engage local people, particularly children, in his work to build a direct relationship with and understanding of their own precious natural resource.

The physical nature of the underwater world is vastly different from that of dry land. Objects appear 25 per cent larger underwater, and as a consequence they also appear closer. Colours alter as light is absorbed and reflected at different rates, with the depth of the water affecting this further.

The large number of angles and perspectives from which the sculptures can be viewed increase the unique experience of encountering the works.

His first work, Grace Reef, was built in a bay where the coral growth and natural habitat had been decimated by Hurricane Ivan. It comprises 16 statues, each cast from a local Grenadian woman.

Located across an expansive underwater area the work draws marine life to a zone that has suffered substantial and sustained storm damage. The direction and strengths of currents mean that entire sections of the work become covered, hidden and lost. At other times figures emerge and are fully visible.

Another major work is Vicissitudes comprising the extraordinary visual impact of a circle of 26 life-size children of diverse ethnic background, all holding hands and facing outwards.

The cement finish and chemical composition of Vicissitudes actively promotes the colonisation of coral and marine life. This natural process echoes the changes experienced through growing up and shows how time and environment impact on and shape the physical body.

Children by nature are adaptive to their surroundings and their use within the work highlights the importance of creating a sustainable and well-managed environment, a space for future generations.

“This piece took six months to create and weighs about 15 tons” Jason tells Miranda. “Consequently I had to install it in sections and it attracted quite a lot of local attention as parts of it sat outside the front of my house!”.

Un-Still life is a beautiful depiction of the essence of growth and change in the marine environment which mirrors the composition of still life tableaux.

On a table is an arrangement of cement objects; a vase, bowl and fruit. In contrast to established ideas of stasis the work is constantly changing, remaining a work in progress as living coral builds layers onto its surface and marine creatures take up residence in its tiny nooks and crannies.

This colonization becomes a physical equivalent to the conventional development of drawing and painting.

Jason currently has 65 stunning installations in place. The majority of his work is in Grenada, but he also has additional projects in the UK and Europe. Contracts have been agreed for the first phase of a new underwater project in Mexico, placed within the National Marine Park of Cancun, Isla Mujeres and Nisuc. Jason works out of his studio in London.

VIDEO: Grenada Underwater Sculpture Park, Molinere Bay, Marine Protected Area, Grenada, West Indies – http://youtu.be/Zmy0o7Zk4wg

Published by Louis Kahn ^(c) on Apr 1, 2012 – Video shot while scuba diving in Grenada at the Underwater Sculpture
Park.

The African Renaissance Monument in Senegal should be a World Heritage Site.

The stunning and unique Underwater Sculpture Park in Grenada should be a World Heritage Site; and similar expressions should be duplicated throughout the Caribbean region.

Imagine eco-tourism tours, SCUBA divers, glass-bottom boats and sub-marines, to this site and other monuments erected in kind.

Previous Go Lean blog/commentaries related artistic endeavors in the region and how they have impacted the communities; consider this sample as follows:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3999	Sir Sidney Poitier – ‘Breaking New Ground’ in the Film Arts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3641	‘We Built This City …’ on Music and Show-business
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3568	Forging Change: Music Moves People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3292	Art Basel Miami – a Testament to the Spread of Art & Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726	Caribbean Role Model for the Arts/Fashion – Oscar De La Renta: RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2415	How ‘The Lion King’ roared into history
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1909	Music Role Model Berry Gordy – No Town Like Motown
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1037	Humanities Advocate – Maya Angelou: RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Caribbean Music Man: Bob Marley – The legend lives on!

The Slave Trade and Middle Passage victimized millions of innocent people. The world must never forget the travesty and sacrifice of the African people. The Bible makes a related statement at Isaiah 56:5 (NET Bible): “I will set up within my temple and my walls a monument that will be better than sons and daughters. I will set up a permanent monument for them that will remain”.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean to foster remembrances and memorials in the region:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification – African Diaspora Experience	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – High Art Intelligence	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Mission – Preserve Caribbean Ecology	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities (SGE’s)	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Caribbean Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries – Creative Exhibits & Archives	Page 187
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism – Eco-Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds – Art Colonies as SGE’s	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works – Aesthetic & Practical	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources – World Heritage Sites	Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Access to the Arts and Culture	Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Promote World-Heritage-Sites – Petition UNESCO for more…	Page 248
Appendix – Taos (New Mexico) Artist Colony	Page 291
Appendix – List of 21 World Heritage Sites in the Caribbean region	Page 330

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This is a big deal for regional artists and art institutions. This book provides the turn-by-turn directions for how to monetize the arts and foster genius potential. By pursuing the strategies, tactics, and implementations of this roadmap, we do not only impact the artists; we also impact the whole world.

“Artists have a unique power to change minds and attitudes” – President Obama urging to the Grammy’s audience (musical artists) on February 8, 2015.

The Caribbean needs change…and empowerments (jobs, economic growth and brand/image enhancement); plus we need to always remember the great sacrifices of the others that came before us, and those that did not survive.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Share this post:

Art, History, Image, Tourism, WHS

[Top]

Detroit-area Judge to Decide if Kids Need Vaccines

Posted on February 5, 2015 in Government, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

“What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” – Novelist and Poet Sir Walter Scott.

The viral debate regarding some parents refusal to vaccinate their children is not one that can be simply reduced to bad parenting; there are some heavy issues surrounding this topic. This is not 1950, where there were only 3 vaccines; the number has now grown voluminously. Consider the US standards:

Vaccination of 14 diseases by two years of age…
U.S. children receive as many as 24 vaccine injections …

Then in the 1990’s, a new deterrent arose, the sudden rise in the cases of Autism among children; 1 in every 160.

No wonder a growing number of parents apply for exemptions from vaccinating their kids; (see Forbes Magazine article below). It almost seems logical.

Though there is no conclusive evidence that Autism may be linked to vaccinations, the occurrence rate is ungodly, 1 in 160. This alarming Autism rate seemed to exceed any risk of exposure to “wild” pathogens targeted by vaccinations – until the Disneyland outbreak recently. It was hard to ignore these numbers, thusly parents were trying to protect their children from the cure, not the disease, and refusing to vaccinate their children. Consider this story from Metropolitan Detroit:

VIDEO – Oakland County judge to decide if 4 kids need vaccines – http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/oakland-county-judge-to-decide-if-4-kids-need-vaccines/31099632

While this may appear to be an issue of Public Health policy, it can be argued that actually this is an issue of capitalism.

The vaccine, the medicine comes from Pharmaceutical companies. When new drugs are introduced and then compelled for the entire population, it is a boon for the drug company. This is the kinetics of capitalism at full hilt. The below encyclopedic reference (Appendix #1) help us to appreciate the background of the economic dynamics of this issue.

This consideration aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean; this book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This empowerment effort represents a change for the region, calling on all 30 member-state governments in the region to confederate and provide their own solutions – together – in the areas of economics, security and governance. The book directly advocates for a Group Purchasing Organization to facilitate better pricing and delivery options for Public Health medications – the vaccines that must be administered. This issue therefore relates to all three areas (economics, security and governance). The CU/Go Lean roadmap defines these 3 prime directives as follows:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines against “bad actors”.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The purpose of this commentary is to draw reference to the different governing bodies regulating these policies around the world, or at least in countries within scope of a Caribbean focus. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the US, European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Europe and the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) hold sway over this issue.

Just what influence does the Pharmaceutical industry have in lobbying these agencies to steadily increase the vaccination requirements? This industry is pejoratively referred as Big Pharma. Why the negative reference?

More and more parents have not trusted Big Pharma’s assertions, motives and sponsored research into side-effects and repercussions of vaccinations. There is no doubt that this industry would have a profit motive to protect and deflect any criticism of their Public Health policies. The charges of Autism fit this mode. See Autism Reference in the Appendix #2 below.

Is there a conspiracy? While it would only be honorable to give Big Pharma the benefit of any doubt, odds like 1-in-160 is very hard to ignore. Besides, many sources, including this Go Lean book and accompanying blogs have reported on the “bad intent” in the American eco-system associated with crony-capitalism.

But vaccination is an honorable cause. Many of these “now” preventable diseases wreaked havoc on human society until the vaccines were developed and distributed. The sustainability of modern life has actually improved due to immunizations. This fact was re-affirmed with the recent Disneyland measles outbreak. See article here:

Title: Is The Disneyland Measles Outbreak A Turning Point In The Vaccine Wars?
By: Matthew Herper, Forbes Staff – February 4, 2015 Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/02/04/the-disneyland-measles-outbreak-is-a-turning-point-in-the-vaccine-wars/

“In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her.”

Those words were written by Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and James the Giant Peach, about his seven-year-old daughter who died in 1962. In 1986, when he wrote them in an entreaty to his fellow Britons to vaccinate their children so that his little girl would not have died in vain, Dahl followed up with a taunt that played on his readers’ sense of national pride. “In America,” he wrote, “where measles immunization is compulsory, measles like smallpox, has been virtually wiped out.”

I saw Dahl’s 621-word pamphlet shared dozens of times this weekend, on sites like Io9 and DailyKos and by friends on Facebook who are frustrated and upset that Dahl’s statement is no longer true – that America, which led the eradication of smallpox, has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. As a result of the growing number of parents who are applying for exemptions from vaccinating their kids, an outbreak that started in Disneyland in California has now spread. There have been 102 cases of measles reported in 14 states since January 1, more than in all of 2012.

What’s different now – and this is a reason for hope, even celebration – is that people are angry. This was clear Monday when Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor and likely Republican presidential candidate, when he told an MSNBC reporter that he vaccinates his own kids, but that “I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide.” The backlash was so fast and fierce that an hour-and-a-half later Christie’s office was walking the statement back, saying that “with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated.”

Turning Walt Disney’s Happiest Place on Earth into the measles kingdom flipped a switch in our collective brain. The thought that thousands of people could have been exposed to a virus that was declared eliminated in the U.S. a decade-and-a-half-ago is scary. And it drives home the reality that vaccines only fully protect us if almost everyone uses them.

Between CNN’s tale of an infant quarantined due to measles and NPR’s profile of a little boy named Rhett who’d battled leukemia and whose father was angrily campaigning to require schoolmates to be vaccinated, we remembered that even amazingly powerful vaccines aren’t perfect, and that people with measles can spread the disease for four days before symptoms occur, and that at least 5 out of 100 vaccinated people will still catch measles if exposed to it.

Up until now, politicians frequently at least gave lip service to the very small but very vocal group of parents who believe that vaccines are harmful and that they should be able to opt-out. California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, did more than that in 2012, signing a law that loosened vaccine exemptions, allowing parents who claim a religious reason for not vaccinating to leave a doctor’s office without even mandatory counseling. The reaction was subdued.

Now a few Republicans, including Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Wisconsin Representative Sean Duffy, are arguing that vaccines should be voluntary. The nine out of ten of American parents who vaccinate their children should let their elected officials know that this isn’t acceptable – that we want the rules about vaccine exemptions tightened. We don’t need draconian measures (I’ve seen arguments that parents who don’t vaccinate should be jailed or sued, which is impractical and harsh) just the same fair rules we’ve had for years. Want to send your kid to school? Make sure he gets his shots, or have a very, very, very good reason not to have.

Measles is still a small problem. Even if there are 1,000 cases this year, it remains so. The high vaccination rates through most of the country mean it will burn out. But we’re also likely to face 28,000 cases of whooping cough, another vaccine-preventable illness that has been on the rise not so much because of patients who don’t get vaccinated but also because the new vaccine adopted in the 1990s is less effective than the old one. And every year there are between 3,000 to 49,000 deaths due to influenza; even though the flu vaccine is one of the least effective we have, if everyone got it each year it would reduce that number.

In a Roald Dahl story, a big friendly giant could visit people who choose not to vaccinate and give them nightmares of measles encephalitis. But this is the real world. The way for people to keep vaccine rates up is to write their elected representatives, and to be very public about the benefits of vaccines. Mention in conversations the way that vaccines have changed the world. Or get your flu shot, and brag about it as if you just shaved a ten seconds off the time it takes you to run a mile. That’s the way to turn the anger that’s been produced by the news about Disneyland into a happier world for everyone.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the Caribbean Public Health must be strenuously protected. Like Disneyland, the Caribbean economic engines are based on extending hospitality to visitors; so (preventable) infectious diseases undermine the attractiveness of the destination.

So all stakeholders need to employ best-practices. Citizens need to embrace immunizations and Pharmaceutical companies need to “play nice” and not excessively pile on the vaccination formulas. The region must do better; we must not allow the US, or Big Pharma, to take the lead for our own nation-building. In America, capitalistic interest tends to hijack policies intended for the Greater Good. This assessment is logical considering the realities of so many of these Big Corporate Bullies, as follows, where public policy is set to benefit private parties:

Big Oil	While lobbying for continuous tax subsidies, the industry have colluded to artificially keep prices high and garner rocket profits ($38+ Billion every quarter).
Big Box	Retail chains impoverish small merchants on Main Street with Antitrust-like tactics, thusly impacting community jobs.
Big Pharma	Chemo-therapy cost $20,000+/month; and the War against Cancer is imperiled due to industry profit insistence.
Big Tobacco	Cigarettes are not natural tobacco but rather latent with chemicals to spruce addiction.
Big Agra	Agribusiness concerns bully family farmers and crowd out the market; plus fight common sense food labeling efforts.
Big Data	Brokers for internet and demographic data clearly have no regards to privacy confines
Big Media	Hollywood insists on big tax breaks/subsidies for on-location shooting; cable companies conspire to keep rates high; textbook publishers practice price gouging.
Big Banks	Wall Street’s damage to housing and student loans in 2008 are incontrovertible.
Big Weather	Overblown hype of “Weather Forecasts” to dictate commercial transactions.

The Go Lean book, and accompanying blog commentaries, go even deeper and hypothesize that American economic models are not always suitable for long-term Caribbean benefits. The American wheels of commerce stages the Caribbean in a “parasite” role; imperiling regional industrialization even further. The US foreign policy for the Caribbean is to incentivize consumption of American products, and serve as a playground for their leisure.

The book and blogs assert that this disposition of a “parasite” is not the only choice. Other communities have demonstrated how to forge a protégé relationship with the US. Japan and South Korea, despite American pressure and having a small population-size, are examples of countries having trade surpluses for the US. They are protégés, not parasites, and thusly provide a role model for the Caribbean to emulate.

The broken Pharma eco-system in the US does not have to be modeled in the Caribbean. Parents should not have to demand exemptions from mandatory immunizations, nor should corporations be allowed to bully Public Health demands. Change has now come to the region. The Go Lean book posits that the governmental administrations must be open to full disclosure and accountability. Any encroachment into bullying should be easily detected and censured. Plus the ubiquity of the internet allows whistleblowers to expose “shady” practices to the general public; (WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden provide great examples).

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions for forging change to reboot Caribbean societal engines. This roadmap is thusly viewed as more than just planning; this is pronounced early in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11 – 12):

viii. Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

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

The Go Lean book purports that the Caribbean can – and must – do better. The vision of the CU is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean doing the heavy-lifting of optimizing economic-security-governing engines. We can weld more power and influence collaborating and consolidating Public Health acquisitions. The Go Lean book details the policies and other community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to elevate Caribbean society, and make it a better place to live, work, play and heal:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Choices Involve Costs:	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Witness Security & Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations – Group Purchasing Organization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 76
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department – Trade/Antitrust	Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department – Disease Control	Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department – Drug Administration	Page 86
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – GPO Logistic Fees	Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up – Big Data Analysis	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Measure Progress	Page 147
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare – Public Health Extension	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Truth & Reconciliation Commissions	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220

The foregoing article/VIDEO relates to topics that are of serious concern, even for Caribbean communities. While the US is the world’s largest Single Market economy, we want to only model some of the American example. Instead we would rather foster a business climate to benefit the Greater Good, not just some special interest group.

There are many Go Lean blog commentaries that have echoed this point, addressing the subject of the Caribbean avoiding American crony-capitalism consequences. See sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3760	Concerns about ‘Citizenship By Investment Programs’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3397	A Christmas Present for the Banks from the Omnibus Bill
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3326	Detroit’s M-1 Rail – Finally avoiding Plutocratic Auto Industry Solutions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2887	Caribbean must work together to address rum subsidies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2522	The Cost of Cancer Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2465	Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2435	Korea’s Model – A dream for Latin America and the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	How Caribbean can Mitigate the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2259	The Criminalization of American Business
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2183	A Textbook Case of Industry Price-gouging
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1309	5 Steps to a Bubble
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1256	Traditional 4-year Colleges – Terrible Investment for Region and Jobs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	Health-care fraud in America; Criminals take $272 billion a year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=798	Lessons Learned from the American Airlines merger
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=658	Indian Reservation Advocates Push for Junk-Food Tax
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=353	Book Review: ‘Wrong – Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn…’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – American Self-Interest Policies

“Measles” is a serious, painful disease; death can result as well. This disease does not make an inviting call for our guests to visit the Caribbean destination for vacations and festivals. Not just the manifestation of measles but also any unsubstantiated rumors can curtail economic activity in the CU regional area.

What is the connection with vaccinations and Autism? Currently, a connection is not definitive; more research is needed. Autism must be monitored, tracked and catalogued. There is no cure; but the conditions can be managed as an chronic ailment…

The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that many problems of the region are too big for any one member-state to solve alone; there is the need for the technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. The purpose of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is to elevate the Caribbean homeland; and improve the lives for Caribbean citizens. We want our people to prosper where they are planted in the Caribbean.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for integration of the regional member-states drug acquisition and regulatory oversight. Further, the roadmap posits that to succeed as a society, the Caribbean region must not only consume, but also create, produce, and distribute intellectual property products (like medical innovations) to the rest of the world. We need our own Caribbean solutions.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes/empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean.

🙂

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

———–

1. Appendix – Vaccination Schedule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_schedule)

(Click Photo to Enlarge)

A vaccination schedule is a series of vaccinations, including the timing of all doses, which may be either recommended or compulsory, depending on the country of residence.

A vaccine is an antigenic preparation used to produce active immunity to a disease, in order to prevent or reduce the effects of infection by any natural or “wild” pathogen.^[1] Many vaccines require multiple doses for maximum effectiveness, either to produce sufficient initial immune response or to boost response that fades over time. For example, tetanus vaccine boosters are often recommended every 10 years.^[2] Vaccine schedules are developed by governmental agencies or physicians groups to achieve maximum effectiveness using required and recommended vaccines for a locality while minimizing the number of health care system interactions. Over the past two decades, the recommended vaccination schedule has grown rapidly and become more complicated as many new vaccines have been developed.^[3]

Some vaccines are recommended only in certain areas (countries, subnational areas, or at-risk populations) where a disease is common. For instance, yellow fever vaccination is on the routine vaccine schedule of French Guiana, is recommended in certain regions of Brazil but in the United States is only given to travelers heading to countries with a history of the disease.^[4] In developing countries, vaccine recommendations also take into account the level of health care access, the cost of vaccines and issues with vaccine availability and storage. Sample vaccinations schedules discussed by the World Health Organization show a developed country using a schedule which extends over the first five years of a child’s life and uses vaccines which cost over $700 including administration costs while a developing country uses a schedule providing vaccines in the first 9 months of life and costing only $25.^[5] This difference is due to the lower cost of health care, the lower cost of many vaccines provided to developing nations, and that more expensive vaccines, often for less common diseases, are not utilized.

In 1900, the smallpox vaccine was the only one administered to children. By the early 1950s, children routinely received three vaccines, for protection against (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and smallpox), and as many as five shots by two years of age.^[3] Since the mid-1980s, many vaccines have been added to the schedule. As of 2009[update], the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends vaccination against at least fourteen diseases. By two years of age, U.S. children receive as many as 24 vaccine injections, and might receive up to five shots during one visit to the doctor.^[3] The use of combination vaccine products means that, as of 2013[update], the United Kingdom’s immunization program consists of 10 injections by the age of two, rather than 25 if vaccination for each disease was given as a separate injection.^[6]

2. Appendix – Autism Causes (htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism)

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. Parents usually notice signs in the first two years of their child’s life.^[2] The signs typically develop gradually, but some children with autism will reach their developmental milestones at a normal pace and then regress.^[3]

It has long been presumed that the cause of Autism is genetic. But now environmental factors that have been claimed to contribute to or exacerbate autism, or may be important in future research, include certain foods, air pollution, infectious diseases, solvents, diesel exhaust, PCBs, phthalates and phenols used in plastic products, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs, and … vaccines ^[19].

Controversies surround many of these environmental causes;^[6] for example, medical stakeholders posit that the vaccine hypotheses are biologically implausible and have been disproven in scientific studies.

Share this post:

Crony-Capitalism, Detroit, Health, Power, Security

[Top]

New York Times Maledictions on The Bahamas

Posted on February 2, 2015 in Government, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

In this context, the word malediction simply means “bad” or “damning” words. It is not calling down a curse on a subject, but rather the reporting of an unbecoming characteristic. The Bahamas has done “bad” and the New York Times is telling the world.

But this is New York, not the Bahamas; why should this matter?

The New York Times is more than just the newspaper for the Tri-State metropolitan area surrounding New York City (35 million people); nicknamed for years as “The Gray Lady“, the New York Times is long regarded within the industry as a national “newspaper of record“.^[6] The paper’s print version remains the largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States. Its motto is “All the News That’s Fit to Print”, which appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page.

If a student wants to do research on the 1892 American Recession for instance, (the paper has printed continuously since September 18, 1851), this one only has to retrieve the archives of the New York Times for that period.

Over its history, the New York Times has been awarded 114 different Pulitzer Prizes for Excellence in Journalism. Pulitzer Prizes have previously been awarded to journalists reporting on human trafficking and illegal migrations – See VIDEO below – it is an ignoble accomplishment to be put into this focus.

A front-page story, above the fold, about a small 320,000 populated nation in this paper is by all means an earth-shattering occurrence. Bahamas, you have done “bad” to garner this type of coverage, right in the middle of your #1 tourist market during the peak tourist season.

The article print date is Saturday January 31, only a few days after vicious Winter Storm Juno pelted the Northeast United States, (shutting down all of Manhattan), now to be followed by another (Artic Blast) storm currently lambasting the Mid-West (Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.) but heading eastward towards NYC. Drawing attention to a tropical resort destination like the Bahamas in the middle of such uninviting winter weather should be a bonus of free publicity. But alas, the New York Times article is a malediction!

This is also “on the heel” of a demand to “boycott Bahamas tourism” by certain fractions in Miami, Florida.

The purpose of this commentary is more than just newspapers and maledictions, but rather the acknowledgement that perhaps, the boycott-cause is gaining traction. Anyone from this Caribbean country, as is the case of this writer, may be timid with the characterization of supporting a cruel, inhumane – though legal – regime in his homeland. The constitution in the Bahamas do not award citizenship to babies born in the Bahamas to non-national parents. This is the standard – jus solis – in the US and in Canada. This standard obviously shades the American newspaper’s view of the Bahamas domestic policies.

There are so many issues with this New York Times story that aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for elevating Caribbean society and the economic, security and governing engines. The roadmap introduces the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserting that the problems besetting the region are too big for any one Caribbean member-state to tackle alone. That rather, there is a need for a super-national solution. Considering the details of the following article, a number of countries have been struggling with this same issue: Bahamas, Turks & Caicos Island, Dominican Republic, etc. The actual New York Times story about Haitian immigrants is as follows:

Title 1: Immigration Rules in Bahamas Sweep Up Haitians
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/world/haitians-are-swept-up-as-bahamas-tightens-immigration-rules.html?mwrsm=Facebook&fb_ref=Default&_r=0
By: Frances Robles – January 30, 2015

NASSAU, Bahamas — Kenson Timothee was walking down the street when a uniformed officer asked him a question that sends Bahamians of Haitian descent like him into a panic these days: Do you have a passport?

Mr. Timothee, who was born in the Bahamas to illegal Haitian immigrants, wound up jailed in immigration detention for six weeks. He is one of hundreds of people swept up in a fiercely debated new immigration policy in the Bahamas requiring everyone to hold a passport, a rule that human rights groups say unfairly targets people of Haitian descent.

Mr. Timothee had proof that he was born in the Bahamas, but because he had trouble obtaining his absentee father’s birth certificate, his application for Bahamian citizenship was never completed.

“I showed them that I had applied for citizenship, but they said that wasn’t good enough; as far as they are concerned, you are not Bahamian, you are Haitian, and you need to get deported,” Mr. Timothee said. “I don’t know anything about Haiti.”

On Thursday, the Bahamian government announced that the new policy would go a step further: By next Fall, schools will be asked to ensure that every child has a student permit. The annual $125 permit and a passport with a residency stamp will be required even of children born in the Bahamas who do not hold Bahamian citizenship.

The tough new policy echoes similar stances around the region, where new citizenship policies and anti-immigration measures have overwhelmingly affected Haitians, who are fleeing the hemisphere’s poorest country and are the most likely group to migrate illegally in great numbers. The top court in the Dominican Republic ruled in 2013 that the children of illegal immigrants, even if they are born in the country, did not have the right to citizenship.

Facing an international backlash, the Dominican government came up with a plan to prevent tens of thousands of people from becoming stateless, but months later, few people had managed to complete the process. With few successes to tout, in October the Dominican government extended the application period for another three months.

In Turks and Caicos, a top immigration official vowed early in 2013 to hunt down and capture Haitians illegally in the country, promising to make their lives “unbearable.” The country had already changed its immigration policies in 2012, making it harder for children of immigrants to obtain residency. Last year, Turks and Caicos said it would deploy drones to stop Haitian migration.

In Brazil, politicians considered closing a border with Peru last year to stem the tide of Haitians, and last month, Canada announced that it would resume deporting Haitians.

Here in the Bahamas, Mr. Timothee’s arrest coincided with stepped-up immigration raids in predominantly Haitian shantytowns, where people who lacked passports or work permits were apprehended. When illegal immigrants ran from officers, the agents knocked down doors and took their children, and the photos of toddlers being carried away circulated widely on social media.

Since the policy took effect November 1, children born in the Bahamas have been deported with their parents, and others with Haitian-sounding names have been pulled from school classrooms, human rights observers said. The government acknowledges that even Bahamian citizens with French surnames are frequently arrested by mistake. In September alone, 241 Haitians were deported, according to government figures.

Though 85 percent of Bahamians support the new policy according to one poll, it has set off a round of international condemnation. A Florida legislator called for a tourism boycott of the Bahamas and organized a protest at the nation’s Miami consulate. Citing some of the more alarming cases, including that of a pregnant Haitian woman who gave birth on an immigration detention center floor aided only by other detainees, several international groups have asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to intervene.

Immigration officials in the Bahamas say their policies do not target any particular group, provide a better sense of who is living in their country, and could deter thousands of Haitian migrants from taking to the high seas each year in boats that often sink.

“We had situations where 100 people were showing up every day; that’s unsustainable,” said Frederick A. Mitchell, the Bahamian foreign minister. “That situation had spiraled out of control.”

Annette M. Martínez Orabona, director of the Caribbean Institute for Human Rights, said she recently visited the Bahamas to investigate the new policy, arguing that it fit into a broad context of immigration crackdowns in the region.

“It’s all guided by discriminatory practices toward persons of Haitian origin,” she said.

Children like Mr. Timothee’s 5-year-old daughter are in a particularly precarious legal situation, she said. If nationality is passed down by blood and Mr. Timothee has no citizenship, then what passport would his daughter get?

“The third generation is in a black hole,” Ms. Martínez said.

In the Bahamas, the Constitution says that people born there to parents who were not citizens have the right to apply for citizenship between their 18th and 19th birthdays. In a country where one in 10 Bahamians is of Haitian descent, many people never apply, and others face years of administrative delays, leaving an untold number of people in the country without documentation.

The new policy forces them to apply for a passport from their parents’ country of origin. Americans who have children in the Bahamas regularly get United States passports for them, and this is no different, Mr. Mitchell said.

“There’s nothing wrong with being Haitian,” Mr. Mitchell said.

But the people affected by the new policy are leery of obtaining citizenship from Haiti, a country most of them have never visited.

“It’s a trick,” said Fred R. Smith, a civil rights lawyer in the Bahamas who has become the policy’s most vocal critic. “Once you apply for a Haitian passport, you’re already a citizen of another country, and you no longer fit into a category where the Bahamas is under an obligation to give you citizenship. You are no longer stateless.”

He said the government had routinely descended on an area, apprehended a few hundred people, and “hauled off” anyone who could not produce papers on the spot. The majority of detainees are released when their relatives or employers come to the detention center with their paperwork.

Some people have been deported even though they were born in the Bahamas. People like Mr. Timothee, whose citizenship status is pending, wind up in limbo. Others, like Rose St. Fleur, have been sent home with an admonishment to carry their paperwork.

Ms. St. Fleur, a 29-year-old Bahamian citizen, said she had been picked up twice since October. She was 32 weeks pregnant when neighbors watched agents drag her down the street onto a bus, she and her neighbors said.

“When they asked me my name and I told them, they said, ‘That’s a foreign last name,’ ” Ms. St. Fleur said. “I told them, ‘Yes, but I am a Bahamian citizen.’ ” She said they replied, “You still have to come with us.”

Many people have not been able to obtain documents because the paperwork required, including certified copies of both parents’ birth certificates, is difficult to obtain. The Haitian government, itself crippled by political infighting and a halting recovery from the earthquake five years ago, has been unable to speedily produce records for the hundreds of thousands of people in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas who are suddenly in need of decades-old birth records.

Because of delays in obtaining Haitian passports, thousands of Bahamians are now at risk of having no nationality at all.

“The person who may have a delay in getting papers is not stateless,” Dwight L. Beneby, the Bahamas’ assistant director of immigration. “It’s not that we’re trying to get rid of people or trying to get out of giving them citizenship. If you are here, let’s know who you are.”

Francois Guillaume II, who was Haiti’s minister of Haitians living abroad when the policy was announced, said the new policy came without warning.

“It’s troubling when we have cases of people who have never lived in Haiti and are sent to a country that is completely foreign to them,” said Mr. Guillaume, who lost his position in a recent ministerial shuffle. “It must be traumatizing for them.”

Most of the Bahamian-born deportees were children, but one was 18 years old, and it was unclear why she was not given the opportunity to seek legal residency, he said.

“I don’t think there is an anti-Haitian sentiment in the area; I believe there are countries experiencing social pressure and are trying to look for solutions,” Mr. Guillaume said. “Some solutions are rash. Sometimes they are politically motivated. Nonetheless, we hope the solutions respect international norms.”

Though the Bahamas immigration/nationality enforcement is “legal” per the country’s constitution, not everyone in the homeland approves of this policy. Note to the New York Times: “The round-up of Bahamian-born Haitians is not universally concurred in the country”. This is a policy of the current government administration. There are non-government organizations (NGOs) and elected opposition officials that are vocal in their disagreements of this enforcement. (This Go Lean commentary remains apolitical). See a news article (snippet) here in that vein:

Title 2: Call To Bring Immigration Legislation to Parliament –
(Retrieved 01/30/2015 from: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2015/jan/30/call-bring-immigration-legislation/)

ST ANNE’S MP Hubert Chipman yesterday renewed calls for legislation to be brought to Parliament to support the government’s new immigration policy.

Mr. Chipman, shadow minister for foreign affairs and immigration, said the only person who had a clear understanding of the policy was Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell, and questioned how the new policy has affected the department’s backlog of citizenship applications.

He said officials have put the “cart before the horse” by targeting migrant communities before modernizing infrastructure to process individuals.

These articles reflect the heavy-lifting burdens that the Caribbean member-states must address regarding nationality and immigration. Underlying to this issue among all the affected Caribbean member-states is the failing disposition of Haiti. The Go Lean…Caribbean book presents a Marshall Plan to re-boot Haiti. The consequence: a better Haiti to live, work and play. Only then will the citizens of Haiti, and the Caribbean as a whole, be less inclined to flee the homeland.

The Go Lean roadmap provides perhaps the ultimate resolution to this perplexing nationality processing problem, that of a regional entity, the CU, to streamline application processing. This would be an extension of the current CariCom passport process.

A key problem with this nationality issue is the current sensitivities of Jus soli (Latin: right of the soil) versus Jus sanguinis (Latin: right of blood). These points were detailed in a previous blog.

In the middle of the winter, the New York Times should be inciting its readers to flee the bitter cold and enjoy the hospitality of the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos and the Dominican Republic, yet instead the front page article is exposing the human rights shortcomings of these states’ nationality policies.

The Go Lean book and blogs addresses ways to better protect human rights. While this subject is not tried-and-true economics – the usual focus of this roadmap – there is a correlation of satisfactory human rights records and American trade. The roadmap seeks to elevate all the engines of Caribbean society for a better homeland for the 42 million residents and 80 million visitors, across the 30 member-states. The CU, applying best-practices for community empowerment and human rights, has the following 3 prime directives:

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

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s economic landscape:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Integrate region into a Single Market Economy	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Homeland Security	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas … in the Caribbean Region – Haiti & Cuba	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Ways to Model the EU – From Worst to First	Page 130
Planning – Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed – Germany Reconciliation Model	Page 132
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Cuba & Haiti on the List	Page 134
Planning – Lessons from East Germany – European post-war rebuilding	Page 139
Planning – Lessons from the US Constitution	Page 145
Planning – Lessons from Canada’s History	Page 146
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Empowering Immigration – Case Study of Indian Migrants	Page 174
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba	Page 237
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Dominican Republic	Page 237
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti	Page 238

The message to the Caribbean leaders and planners is straight-forward: The US, New York Times and all American media, are watching and judging, based on their own standards. The goal of the Go Lean roadmap is to formulate the Caribbean region to be better American neighbors, a protégé status rather than the current parasite status. There is the need to re-focus on our populations in general – majority, minority, Black, White, French, English, etc.. Countries like the Bahamas, and Haiti for that matter, need “all hands on deck”, not less hands. Economic growth requires a growing population; (a previous report disclosed 70,000 Bahamians living illegally in the US).

We do not want to encourage migration nor facilitate it. Just the opposite, we simply want to encourage and facilitate citizens staying and contributing to their native homelands. We do not want to “fatten frogs for snake”, we want to elevate our own communities to be better places to live, work and play.

Now is the time for all the Caribbean to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for Caribbean economic, security and governance elevation. Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to learn the lessons from other communities, (think Apartheid in South Africa). It is guaranteed: once the human rights issues are resolved, your society/community will soar.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

APPENDIX – VIDEO: Pulitzer Prizes on Human Trafficking

Direct Link: http://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000002825879/reuters-journalist-jason-szep-celebrates-pulitzer-prize.html

Share this post:

Bahamas, Image, Power, Tourism

[Top]

Watch the Super Bowl … Commercials

Posted on January 29, 2015 in Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean encourages you to watch the Big Game on Sunday (February 1, 2015), Super Bowl XLIX from Phoenix –area, Arizona, between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. Pull for your favorite team and enjoy the half-time show (Katy Perry). It’s all free! It’s being paid for by the advertisers.

So as to complete the full economic cycle, be sure to watch the commercials; because this is Big Money; Big Stakes and a Big Deal. The 2014 version, Super Bowl XLVIII on FOX Broadcast Network was the most watched television program in US history with 111.5 million viewers.^[15][16] The Super Bowl half-time show featuring Bruno Mars was the most watched ever with 115.3 million viewers.^[15][16] Now, it’s not just TV, but “second- screen” (computers, tablets & mobile devices) as well; this is now tweet-along-with-us programming; notice the #BestBuds Twitter identifier in the following Ad:

VIDEO – http://youtu.be/EIUSkKTUftU – 2015 Budweiser Clydesdale Beer Run

Published on Jan 23, 2015 – It’s time for your Super Bowl beer run. Don’t disappoint a Clydesdale. Choose Budweiser for you and your #BestBuds on epic Super Bowl weekend!

For $4.5 million per 30 second ad, an advertiser had better get the “maximum bang for the buck”; but 30 seconds is still only 30 seconds. Enter the “second-screen”; now advertisers can stretch the attention of their audience by directing them to internet websites, Twitter followings and even YouTube videos and Facebook videos.

See these related stories, (sourced mostly from Variety.com – Hollywood & Entertainment Business Magazine; (retrieved 01-29-2015):

1. WATCH: Super Bowl 2015 Commercials

Audiences no longer need to wait until the Big Game to watch Super Bowl commercials, with an increasing number of marketers opting to release their spots days before kickoff. This year is no different, with Budweiser, Budweiser, Bud Light, Kia, Mercedes-Benz USA, T-Mobile, Victoria’s Secret, BMW, even Paramount with “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” among those having already posted their ads online [on sites like YouTube].

The reason? The high cost to play the Super Bowl promo blitz is one. At around $4.5 million per 30 second ad, buying time during the match up between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots is at record levels. NBC is airing the game February 1.

2. Super Bowl Ads: NBC Turns to Tumblr to Post Spots After They Air on TV

NBC Sports has launched a new Super Bowl page on Yahoo’s [social media site] Tumblr that the programmer will use to feature Super Bowl XLIX’s TV ads immediately after they air on NBC on Sunday, February 1.

The new NBC Sports Tumblr page, accessible via NBCSports.com/Ads, will be populated with original content ahead of Super Bowl Sunday created by the NBC Sports’ marketing media team, as well as from re-blogging NFL-related Tumblr posts. On game day, the page will convert into a hub for Super Bowl TV ads.

3. NBCU Will Use Super Bowl XLIX Free Live-Stream to Promote Pay-TV Online Services

NBCUniversal will launch an 11-hour free digital video stream — centered around live coverage of this year’s Super Bowl — in a bid to get users to log in to its “TV Everywhere” (TVE) services across its broadcast and cable portfolio the rest of the year.

The Peacock’s “Super Stream Sunday” event will include NBC’s presentation of the Super Bowl, as well as the halftime show toplined by Katy Perry. The live-stream will kick off at 12 p.m. ET on Feb. 1 with NBC’s pregame coverage and concludes with an airing of a new episode of primetime drama “The Blacklist” at approximately 10 p.m. ET.

Ordinarily, access to the NBC Sports Live Extra and NBC.com content requires users to log in using credentials from participating [Pay] TV providers. The free promo is aimed at driving usage of TVE, to ensure those subscribers keep paying for television service.

“We are leveraging the massive digital reach of the Super Bowl to help raise overall awareness of TV Everywhere by allowing consumers to explore our vast TVE offering with this special one-day-only access,” said Alison Moore, GM and Exec VP of TV Everywhere for NBCU.

NBC does not have NFL live-streaming rights on smartphone devices, which the league has granted exclusively to Verizon Wireless. As such, the “Super Stream Sunday” content will be available on tablets and desktop computers.

4. Facebook may be the big winner of this year’s Super Bowl

For retailer Freshpet, a new ad campaign video was released to both YouTube and Facebook this past December. It quickly went viral. That wasn’t that surprising. The surprising part was the disparity between views on YouTube compared to Facebook. On YouTube, the video has racked up around 7.5 million views so far. On Facebook, the figure is 20 million. “It was fairly eye-opening,” he says. “Things are evolving really quickly.”

With stats like that, this might be the first year in which views of Super Bowl ads on Facebook eclipse those of YouTube.

No wonder then that many advertisers in the big game are looking to go Facebook native.

Show-business has changed. Sports has changed. TV has changed…

… there is now time-shifted viewing (DVR) and on-demand platforms offering an alphabetical menu of shows.

These changes are where this commentary relates to the Caribbean. The changing TV landscape affects the Caribbean region as well, or at least it should. This book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The roadmap has 3 prime directives:

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

The roadmap recognizes and fosters more sports business in the region. The genius qualifiers – athletic talent – of many Caribbean men and women are already heightened. The goal now is foster the local eco-system in the homeland so that those with talent would not have to flee the region to garner the business returns on their athletic investments. This Go Lean economic empowerment roadmap strategizes to create a Single Media Market to leverage the value of broadcast rights for the entire region, utilizing all the advantages of cutting edge ICT offerings. The result: an audience of 42 million people across 30 member-states and 4 languages, facilitating television, cable, satellite and internet streaming wherever economically viable.

Early in the book, the benefits of sports and technology empowerment is pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14), with these opening statements:

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

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

xv.      Whereas intellectual property can easily traverse national borders, the rights and privileges of intellectual property must be respected at home and abroad. The Federation must install protections to ensure that no abuse of these rights go with impunity, and to ensure that foreign authorities enforce the rights of the intellectual property registered in our region.

xxxi.      Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The region has the eco-system of free broadcast television, and the infrastructure for internet streaming. So the issues being tracked for this year’s Super Bowl have bearing in the execution of this roadmap.

The Go Lean roadmap was developed with the community ethos in mind to forge change and build up the communities around the sports world, plus the execution of related strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to make the change permanent. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Consolidating the Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities – Fairgrounds	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #5 Four Languages in Unison / #8 Cyber Caribbean	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 Improve Education – Sports Academies to Foster Talent	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology – Intellectual Property Protections	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Empower Women	Page 226
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

This commentary previously featured subjects related to developing the eco-systems of the sports business, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3999	Breaking New Ground in the Changing Show-business Eco-System
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3641	‘We Built This City on ‘ …Show-business
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3414	Levi’s® Stadium: A Team Effort for the Big Business of Sports
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3244	Sports Role Model – Broadcasting / Internet Streaming: espnW.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2222	Sports Role Model – Playing For Pride … And More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2171	Sports Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2152	Sports Role Model – US versus the World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1446	Caribbean Players in the 2014 World Cup
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341	Sports Role Model – College World Series Time
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1092	Aereo – Model for the Future of TV Blending with the Internet
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Sports Revolutionary: Advocate Jeffrey Webb
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US – # 10: Sports Professionalism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

The Go Lean book focuses primarily on economic issues, but it recognizes that sports and its attendant functions can build up a community, nation and region. But the quest to re-build, re-boot and re-tool the Caribbean will be more than just kids-play, it must model the Super Bowl and act like a Big Business.

The Go Lean roadmap describes the heavy-lifting activities for the many people, organizations and governments to accomplish this goal. But the goal is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can make the region a better place to live, work and play.

🙂

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

Share this post:

Events, ICT, Model, New Media, Play, Sports

[Top]

Sir Sidney Poitier – ‘Breaking New Ground’

Posted on January 28, 2015 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Movies are an amazing business model. People give money to spend a couple of hours watching someone else’s creation and then leave the theater with nothing to show for the investment; except perhaps a different perspective. That is all!

But no one wants to live in a world without this art-form, without movies. Those few hours can entertain, engage and transform; sometimes even “break new ground” and change the world. So movies and movie stars can be extremely influential in modern society. This is the power of the arts, and this art-form in particular.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean stresses the arts as equally as it does the sciences, for empowering and transforming Caribbean society. While the Caribbean may not have any Nobel Prize winning scientist, we do have an Academy Award winning artist/actor, Sidney Poitier from the Bahamas. He has been able to capitalize on the influence of this art-form for over 65 years and pursued the Greater Good. So his accomplishments transcend the movie screen and impacts real-life.

For this accomplishment, he has been honored and knighted by British Monarch Queen Elizabeth II as a “Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)”. We thusly refer to him now as Sir Sidney Poitier.

He has also received a similar accolade from the US President, the highest civilian honor: the Presidential Medal of Freedom*.

He has received many more honors and awards; see Appendix A for a sample list of Top Honors.

In focus for this commentary is his 1964 Oscar win for the 1963 movie Lilies of the Field. This was a big deal for Sir Sidney and the entire African Diaspora – people of color. Or as the BBC reported then: “he broke new ground”.

No new ground is being broken in Hollywood this year. The biggest stunner of the 2015 Academy Award nominations for films released in 2014 was that not a single actor of color or female director was included, sparking immediate criticism about Hollywood’s failure to include minorities in its most elite ranks. While this is a valid criticism, Hollywood may actually mirror society in general, where minority participation may be lacking in so many attendant functions – senior positions – of this business eco-system.

(Click on the Photo to Enlarge)

While there may be some catch-up that this industry must still make, there are times when the movie-business will “boldly go where no one has gone before”. The Sir Sidney 1964 break-through was one such moment.

With a date-of-birth of February 20, 1927 (age 88 on his next birthday), what does this screen legend do on his downtime? In addition to serving as patriarch of his family of 6 daughters and 6 granddaughters, he summons world leaders to him for consultation. (Sir Sidney serves as the Bahamas non-residential Ambassador to Japan). See this VIDEO here of his entertaining the Prime Minister of the Bahamas in a recent visit.

VIDEO – Downtime with Sir Sidney Poitier – http://youtu.be/xYv5QUT_zKI

Published on Jan 21, 2015 – In a special interview with ZNS News, legendary actor Sir Sidney Poitier challenged Bahamian political leaders to take the country to the next level.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean recognizes the life contributions of Sir Sidney as an role model for excellence in the arts and also as an advocate of civil rights and social justice. He definitely demonstrates a love for his Caribbean (Bahamas) homeland and seeks to impact its development on the world scene. Though not a direct quotation, he has called for the elevation of Caribbean life and culture. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to help the region become a better place to live, work and play. There is a role for the arts (including film-making) in this empowerment roadmap.

Unlike the current dread of “Black and Brown” among the Oscar nominees, the Go Lean roadmap seeks to put Caribbean people in a place of better command-and-control of their circumstances, to develop the community ethos of assisting each other to advance in our own lives, in our individual communities and in the Caribbean as a whole. The book posits that a unified Caribbean Single Market of 42 million people and a GDP of $800 Billion can foster a “domestic” film industry, much like the formations of Bollywood in India (Page 346) and Nollywood in Nigeria. Deeper exploration of this amazing business model (movies/show-business) can create jobs and garner local returns from the necessary investments.

These previous blog/commentaries drilled deeper on this quest to better foster show-business; below are some examples:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3641	‘We Built This City …’ on Music and Show-business
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3568	Forging Change: Music Moves People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3292	Art Basel Miami – a Testament to the Spread of Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3078	Bill Cosby – Sir Sidney’s Frequent Co-Star – Accusations abound
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726	Caribbean Role Model for the Arts/Fashion – Oscar De La Renta: RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2415	How ‘The Lion King’ roared into history
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1909	Role Model Berry Gordy – No Town Like Motown
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1037	Humanities Advocate – Maya Angelou: RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Caribbean Music Man: Bob Marley – The legend lives on!

The quest is to elevate Caribbean society with many industrial developments, including the arts. This was stressed in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13) with this statement:

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

This impact and overall benefit of this roadmap is pronounced in the CU‘s prime directives, identified with these 3 statements:

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

The roadmap specifically encourages the region, to lean-in and foster the next generation of Sidney Poitier’s with these specific community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 24
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 31
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 – Celebrate the arts, people and culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Tourism and Film Promotion & Administration	Page 78
Implementation – Integration of Region in Single Market of 42 million people	Page 95
Anatomy of Advocacies – Ability to Change the World	Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Caribbean Single Market	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education – Foster Performing Arts	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 222
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 225
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Appendix – A Summary of Bollywood Movies	Page 346

The Go Lean posits that the CU should foster the genius potential in Caribbean artists and incubate the related industries of show-business. The roadmap pronounces that with the participation of many advocates on many different paths for progress, the Caribbean can truly become a better place to live, work and play. We, along with the whole world, owe a debt to Sir Sidney for leading us along this path.

Yes, Hollywood must change and acknowledge more diversity; but this is out-of-scope for this roadmap. The Caribbean must change … to adapt to a changing world. This is within our scope. While no Caribbean member-state may be able to compete and excel alone, together and collaboratively, we can stand up proud and present the world the beautiful contributions of Caribbean people and art. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

APPENDIX A – Sidney Poitier Honors & Awards

1958 British Academy Film Award for Best Foreign Actor for The Defiant Ones
1958 Silver Bear for Best Actor (8^th Berlin Film Festival) for The Defiant Ones^[39]
1963 Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Lilies of the Field
1963 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Lilies of the Field
1963 Silver Bear for Best Actor (13^th Berlin Film Festival) for Lilies of the Field ^[40]
1974 Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)
1982 Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award ^[41]
1992 AFI Life Achievement Award
1995 Kennedy Center Honors
1997 Appointed non-resident Bahamian Ambassador to Japan
1999 SAG Life Achievement Award
2000 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn
2001 NAACP Image Award – Hall of Fame Award
2001 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album – Rick Harris, John Runnette (producers) and Sidney Poitier for The Measure of a Man
2002 Honorary Oscar – “For his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence”
2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom^[42]
2011 Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute^[43] honoring his life and careers

——–

APPENDIX B – * Presidential Medal of Freedom

This award is bestowed by the President of the United States and is — along with the comparable Congressional Gold Medal, bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award of the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors”.^[3] (Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom)

Share this post:

Arts, Bahamas, Play, Transform

[Top]

Success Recipe: Add Bacon to Eggs

Posted on January 25, 2015 in Ethos, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Question: In a bacon-and-egg breakfast, what’s the difference between the Chicken and the Pig?
Answer: The Chicken is involved, but the Pig is committed!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean opens (Page 5) with the acknowledgement that despite having the “greatest address in the world”… the people of the Caribbean have no commitment, shared or National Sacrifice in support of their beautiful homelands.

This term National Sacrifice was introduced in a previous blog, and defined as the willingness to die for a greater cause; think “King/Queen and Country”. The blog/commentary posits that this spirit is currently missing in the recipe for fomenting the Caribbean homeland. This despite the fact that no one is being called on to “die”, but rather to simply live-work-play in their homeland.

The publishers of the Go Lean book wants to forge change in the Caribbean; they want to change the attitude of commitment for the entire community, country and region. This is not a wild fantasy as this has been done before in the US during WW II. But the Caribbean region has an alarmingly high societal abandonment rate, where 70% of college educated population in the English states have left in a brain drain, while the US territories have lost more than 50% of their overall populations.

Surely there is no debate that Caribbean people’s commitment to their homeland is lacking. Consider more fully the Chicken-Pig fable here:

Encyclopedic Referenced Source
Title: The Chicken and the Pig
The fable of The Chicken and the Pig is about commitment to a project or cause. When producing a dish made of ham and eggs, the pig provides the ham which requires his sacrifice and the chicken provides the eggs which are not difficult to produce. Thus the pig is really committed in that dish while the chicken is only involved, yet both are needed to produce the dish.

The fable of the Chicken and the Pig is used to illustrate the differing levels of project stakeholders involved in a project. The basic fable runs:^[1]

A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.
The Chicken says: “Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!”
Pig replies: “Hmmm, maybe, what would we call it?”
The Chicken responds: “How about ‘ham-n-eggs’?”
The Pig thinks for a moment and says: “No thanks. I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved!”

Logically, this story/fable is at times presented as a riddle.

Interpretation and lessons
The fable has been used mostly in contexts where a strong team is needed for success, like in sports or in “Agile Software Development”^*.

Agile Project Management
The fable was^[2] referenced to define two types of project members by the Scrum Agile Management System:^[3] pigs, who are totally committed to the project and accountable for its outcome, and chickens, who consult on the project and are informed of its progress. By extension, a rooster or gamecock, can be defined as a person who struts around offering uninformed, unhelpful opinions. This analogy is based upon the pig being able to provide bacon (a sacrificial offering, for which the pig must die in order to provide) versus a chicken which provides eggs (non-sacrificial).

For a Scrum project the Scrum Master and Team are considered as people who are committed to the project while customers and executive management are considered as involved but not committed to the project.

As of 2011, the fable has been removed from the official Scrum process.^[4]

Sports
The fable also is used as an analogy for levels of commitment to a game, team, etc. For example, variations of this quote have been attributed to football coach Mike Leach who said, on the officials in the 2007 Tech-Texas game in Austin: “It’s a little like breakfast; you eat ham and eggs. As coaches and players, we’re like the ham. You see, the chicken’s involved but the pig’s committed. We’re like the pig, they’re like the chicken. They’re involved, but everything we have rides on this.”^[5]
Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved 01-25-2014 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicken_and_the_Pig

———-

* Agile Software Development (Scrum) – a group of software development methods in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); a confederation to bring change and empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play for all stakeholders (residents, visitors, businesses, and institutions).

This quest relates a commitment so vital to a community that everyone should be willing to sacrifice and lean-in for the desired outcome. This shared sacrifice was previously advocated in Bermuda (one of the 30 member-states) in the following editorial/commentary:

News Article Title: The fallacy of Bermuda’s shared sacrifice
By: Anthony Richardson, Guest Columnist
Bermudians often latch on to catch phrases and before long there is a unique Bermudian variation or the phrase is taken out of context. A recent incarnation is the notion of ‘shared sacrifice’.

To help explain the correct context, I had to search the recesses of my mind and ask several friends. And then I found the answer… the fable of the Chicken and the Pig dating back to 1950.
…
If you think the sacrifice is shared, try asking the pigs after breakfast!!

As a typical Bermudian, I want to add my own variation to the fable:

There was a sick farmer who needed eggs, bacon and milk to survive.
All the farm animals got the chance to decide whether or not the farmer would get his breakfast.
The cows and chickens spoke first — milk and eggs… no problem.
Then some of the other animals spoke – the farmer should try just eggs and milk.
Others — what will happen if he dies? The goats spoke — we will provide milk if needed. The turkeys spoke — are we sure he is sick, did he get a second opinion, has he been sick before, what caused the sickness; provide the bacon so he can get better!!
The donkeys tried to speak but were shouted down.
Next the pigs spoke – we understand that the farmer is sick. How much bacon is needed? We will provide it if absolutely necessary. Our only request is to meet privately to decide how we will provide the bacon!!
Then the farmer spoke. I am getting worse, please hurry up and decide.
He noticed a small group of animals standing aside and asked what they thought. They were speaking quietly. Apparently brain storming, conducting focus groups, talking to the elder animals and doing some online research. After a brief pause, they said we have at least one ‘outside the box’ suggestion. Is turkey bacon an option!!
The turkeys were completely stunned and ran for the barn.

Bermuda’s lessons:

• There is no dispute that the farmer is sick (Bermuda will run out of cash) but not unto death (Bermuda will not go bankrupt). Any new borrowing will be expensive.

• The proposed sacrifice for the pigs, chickens, cows and other animals are not shared equally (public service salaries, government programmes, parliamentary salaries and the private sector).

• Do not shout down the donkeys; listen to the quiet observers and consider all options — genuine shared sacrifices… involve the community in the solution (OBA, PLP, employers, grocers, IB, banks, BELCo etc).

• There are some turkeys amongst us (lots to say until we realize the need for personal sacrifices equal to the pigs).

• The farmer’s good health is critical to the survival of the farm.

What kind of animal are you? Chicken, Cow, Pig, Goat, Donkey, Turkey or general farm animal?

I repeat my recommendation for Premier Cannonier and PLP Leader MP Bean to jointly chair the Tripartite Economic Committee (‘The TEC’) arising from Public Employees’ salary negotiations.

Turkey bacon anyone?!
Bermuda Sun Daily Newspaper – Posted 10-25-2013; Retrieved 01-25-2014 – http://bermudasun.bm/Content/OPINION/Opinion/Article/The-fallacy-of-Bermuda-s-shared-sacrifice/4/135/71440

This Go Lean roadmap is realistic as to reasons why people have left their homeland: the Caribbean is in crisis. The book details that there is something wrong in the homeland, that while it is the greatest address in the world, instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out, this is due mainly to the lack of economic opportunities. The Caribbean nations must expand and optimize their economic landscape to offer more opportunities to their citizens, especially the youth.

So the purpose of the Go Lean book/roadmap is more than just the embedding of new community ethos, but rather the elevation/empowerment of Caribbean society. In total, the Caribbean empowerment roadmap has 3 prime directives:

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

The roadmap details the following community ethos, plus the execution of these strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to forge permanent change of commitment and shared sacrifice for the homelands in the region:

Definition – Lean in Business / Production / Service Delivery	Page 4
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
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers Between CU & Member-States Governments	Page 71
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government Improvement Process	Page 93
Implementation – Assemble – Incorporating all the *existing* regional organizations	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up	Page 103
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
Planning – Lessons Learned from the West Indies Federation – Lack of Popular Support	Page 135
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress and Correct Course – Six Sigma Quality Delivery Process	Page 147
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 Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports – Community Commitment and Oversight	Page 229

Previously Go Lean blog/commentaries have considered repercussions and consequences of good and bad community ethos. The following sample applies:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3915	‘Change the way you see the world; you change the world you see’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3780	National Sacrifice – The Missing Ingredient
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3533	Bad Ethos: No Fear of Failure – Case Study: Bahamasair
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2830	Bad Ethos: Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809	A Lesson in Bad Community Ethos: East Berlin/Germany
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	A Lesson in History: Community Ethos of WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2152	Sports Role Model – Fully Committed US versus the World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1918	Philadelphia Freedom – A Community Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623	Only at the Precipice, Do Communities Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=353	Book Review: ‘Wrong – Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn…’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US – # 10: Sports Professionalism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=228	Egalitarianism versus Anarchism – Community Ethos Debate

The purpose of this subject is more than sacrifice, it also relates to delivery. The Go Lean roadmap details the turn-by-turn deliveries over a 5-year period. The right people and process must be engaged to deliver on time, within budget and with a measurable quality. This area of technocratic delivery – project management – also requires a commitment from stakeholders and not just involvement. This point has been elaborated in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO 1: Commit Like a Pig – https://youtu.be/39O9y9g4CO8

[Edited Dec 6, 2016] Published on Jun 21, 2015 – Commitment and trust are the backbone of all organization. Commitment is like the bacon in an egg and bacon breakfast, the chicken was involved, but the pig was committed!

This commentary therefore also focuses on the art and science of Group Work. The Go Lean roadmap calls for the strategy of a confederation of all 30 Caribbean member-states. The structure allows for a full commitment by all states and communities. There is no re-distribution of the region’s economic pie, but rather the creation of a new pie, that is then shared and promoted for the Greater Good of all regional citizens. The tactical approach calls for 2 pies, a separation-of-powers between this CU Federal agencies – the new pie – and existing member-states. The roles/responsibilities assumed by the CU pose no conflict with the states; for example Air Traffic Control or Meteorological & Geological Administrations. This CU structure will require a commitment, shared and national sacrifice.

The lack of commitment/sacrifice was the flaw in the previous regional integration movement, in particular the West Indies Federation, circa 1958 – 1962. According to the Go Lean book (Page 135) that ill-fated Federation only had luke-warm acquiescence from it’s 10 member-states; no one wanted to sacrifice or dedicate their time, talent or treasuries to the cause of regional integration. As a result the West Indies nation-states carried on alone. Now after 50 years, the learned-lessons and conclusion is that the region could have been much more successful than the current failed or failing dispositions.

Is this too harsh a criticism? Refer back to the societal abandonment rate. Not only are West Indian people not willing to die for their country, they are not even willing to live for their country … or in their country.

Time now for a re-boot and remediation! Let’s try this (regional integration) again. This time, we try “pork-esque” commitments, rather than a “chicken-esque” involvement.

All in all, there is a certain community ethos associated with populations that have endured change. That ethos involves commitment more so than involvement. As for the publishers of the Go Lean…Caribbean book and those inclusive in this movement, here is our declaration: “We are Pigs”! For the chicken in that “bacon and eggs” fable, it only takes some involvement to just lay the eggs; but it takes total committment for the pig to provide bacon as there is no going back!

VIDEO 2: Chicken or Pig? A Self-Empowerment Story – http://youtu.be/O2JAQMahlBc

Published on Jun 4, 2012 – Self-empowerment equals success and to be fully self-empowered, you need to be fully committed to living your purpose. Discover the power of your purpose today and find out if you’re the chicken or the pig in your life story.

Now is the time to lean-in, full commitment and “present some bacon”, to this roadmap for Caribbean change, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. All the mitigations and empowerments in this roadmap require people and institutions to fully commit.

Oink-oink 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Share this post:

Model, Transform

[Top]

National Sacrifice – The Missing Ingredient

Posted on January 15, 2015 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The term National Sacrifice is defined here as the willingness to die for a greater cause; think “King/Queen and Country”. This spirit is currently missing in the recipe for “community” in the Caribbean homeland.

To be willing to die for a cause means that one is willing to live for the cause. Admittedly, “dying” is a bit extreme. The concept of “sacrifice” in general is the focus of this commentary.

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. We have the track record of this type of commitment being exemplified in other communities. (Think: The US during WW II). Now we want to bring a National Sacrifice attitude to the Caribbean, as it is undoubtedly missing. This is evidenced by the fact the every Caribbean member-state suffers from alarming rates of societal abandonment: 70% of college educated population in the English states have left in a brain drain, while the US territories have lost more than 50% of their populations).

The book Go Lean…Caribbean opens with the acknowledgement that despite having the “greatest address in the world… the people of the Caribbean have beat down their doors to get out”, (Page 5).

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); a confederation to bring change, empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play for all stakeholders (residents, visitors, businesses, organizations – NGO’s and governments). This Go Lean roadmap also has initiatives to foster solutions for the Caribbean youth. The Go Lean book posits that permanent change for Caribbean society will only take root as a result of adjustments to the community attitudes, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. This is identified in the book as “community ethos”; and that one such character, National Sacrifice is sorely missing in this region.

Any attempts to change Caribbean society’s community ethos must start with the youth.

At no point should it be construed that this commentary is advocating sacrificing young men (and women) on the altar of the God of War. But rather, this commentary laments the missing ingredients of wholesale commitment to any national cause. Thusly, the recommendation is for conscription/draft (Appendix B) into a National Youth Service (NYS) program for the Caribbean. Take it one step further and make the Youth Service program regional in its scope rather than “national”; with applicable exemptions for:

military/police enrollments
student/research deferments (at regional institutions)
religious/missionary assignments
medical/disability exceptions

This quest relates a commitment so vital to a community that everyone should be willing to sacrifice and lean-in for the desired outcome. This Caribbean effort is not new to the world; it is currently being championed by a Washington-DC-based global Non-Government Organization (NGO) branded the Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP). Much can be learned from analyzing their successes … and failures. See details here:

Innovations in Civic Participation – NGO – Leaders for Youth Civic Engagement (Retrieved 01/15/2015):

Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP) is a global leader in the field of Youth Civic Engagement. ICP envisions a world where young people in every nation are actively engaged in improving their lives and their communities through civic participation. We believe that well-structured youth service programs can provide innovative solutions to social and environmental issues, while helping young people develop skills for future employment and active citizenship.

ICP carries out its mission through four main activities:

Incubating innovative models for youth service programs;

Creating and expanding global networks ;

Conducting research and publicizing information on youth civic engagement, especially national youth service and service-learning; and

Serving as a financial intermediary to support program innovation and policy development.

In addition to these activities, ICP regularly consults with its extensive network of over 2,500 academics, policymakers, program entrepreneurs, and other leaders in the field on program and policy work.

Contact Information:

Innovations in Civic Participation
P.O. Box 39222
Washington, DC 20016
202-775-0290

http://www.icicp.org/about-us/

A quest for a National Youth Service has previously been advocated in Sub-Saharan Africa (see Appendix C). There, the NYS was designed to explore the potential to foster youth employability, entrepreneurship, and sustainable livelihoods. This effort stemmed from an existing tradition of NYS programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, which were originally designed to cultivate a sense of national identity and mobilize skills for development in post-independence nations; (see Appendix A). Today, NYS programs operate in the context of a deepening regional youth unemployment crisis, which averages over 20 percent, according to African Economic Outlook. NYS programs engage hundreds of thousands of young people each year and have the potential to equip them with strong civic skills and prepare them for employment and livelihood opportunities.

Despite its potential as an economic strategy, little is still known about how effective NYS programs are at increasing youth employability in Africa. But there is no doubt for the commitment to community that is forged from these efforts. Young people cry, sweat, and bleed for their community, embedding a desire to sacrifice for the Greater Good.

This corresponds with the Bible precept: “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” – Acts 20:35

There are NYS programs already deployed or proposed for these Caribbean member-states, (though many have been snagged or stalled):

The purpose of the Go Lean book/roadmap is more than just the embedding of new community ethos, but rather the elevation/empowerment of Caribbean society. In total, the Caribbean empowerment 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 protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance and industrial policies to support these engines.

The roadmap details the following community ethos, plus the execution of these strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to forge permanent change in the region:

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
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers Between CU & Member-States Governments	Page 71
Implementation – Assemble – Incorporating all the *existing* regional organizations	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up	Page 103
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
Planning – Lessons Learned from the West Indies Federation – Military Units	Page 135
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 Manage Federal Civil Service	Page 173
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
Appendix – 30,000 Federal Employees	Page 299
Appendix – Previous West Indies Integration – Caribbean Regiment	Page 301

Previously Go Lean blog/commentaries have considered historic references and have also stressed fostering the proper and appropriate community ethos for the Caribbean to prosper; and reported on the repercussions and consequences of bad ethos. The following sample applies:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2830	Bad Ethos: Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809	A Lesson in Bad Community Ethos : East Berlin/Germany
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	A Lesson in History: Community Ethos of WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297	A Lesson in History – Booker T versus Du Bois – to Change a Bad Community Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531	A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago – World War I – Cause and Effect in Community Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841	Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy – Need People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623	Only at the Precipice, Do Communities Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=353	Book Review: ‘Wrong – Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn…’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=228	Egalitarianism versus Anarchism – Community Ethos Debate

All in all, there is a certain community ethos associated with populations that have endured change. It is a National Sacrifice, a deferred gratification and focus on the future. Any losses of privileges are appreciated by the entire community, not just the affected individual or family member. This is the purpose of the US Memorial Day Holiday on the last Monday in May, honoring the military service of all our men and women in uniform, their families at home, and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in dying for their country. A quest to unite the country in remembrance and appreciation of the fallen and to serve those who are grieving is a good way to forge a community ethos of National Sacrifice.

See VIDEO here of a community’s great honor to a slain soldier:

VIDEO: Sky Mote: Community Honors a Fallen Soldier from El Dorado County with a Hero’s Welcome – http://youtu.be/MVQORRQvTpU

Published on Aug 17, 2012 – Starting with a Marine Honor Guard carrying the transfer case containing the body of Staff Sgt. Sky R. Mote of El Dorado, CA, upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base, Del. on Sunday Aug. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana). Then continuing with the great Welcome Home the community gave. His family will never forget!

Though this Fallen Soldier is mourned and missed, his sacrifice is duly acknowledged, appreciated and honored in his hometown. This community spirit creates a value system for public service and National Sacrifice.

The US is not the only country that memorializes their war dead. Those countries that do, experience less societal abandonment. The British Commonwealth of Nations (representative of 18 Caribbean member-states) shows likewise homage to their Fallen Soldiers. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is responsible for maintaining the war graves of 1.7 million service personnel that died in the First and Second World Wars fighting for Commonwealth member states. Founded in 1917 (as the Imperial War Graves Commission), the Commission has constructed 2,500 war cemeteries, and maintains individual graves at another 20,000 sites around the world.^[107] The vast majority of the latter [however] are civilian cemeteries in Great Britain. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_War_Graves_Commission).

The former British colonies did not adopt this National Sacrifice value system. As most Caribbean (notwithstanding the US Territories) member-states do not even have a (work-free) holiday to honor the sacrifices of those that fought, bled and/or died for their country.

No appreciation, no sacrifice; no sacrifice, no victory. It is that simple!

It is the recommendation of this blog/commentary that all Caribbean member-states should mandate a civilian conscription service for their citizens (1 year between ages 18 and 25); it is common for a confederation – the CU for the Caribbean – to marshal a multi-state, allied military force. Then the CU should facilitate a complete eco-system of engaging the conscripted NYS participants to serve and protect the people and resources of the Caribbean. After which, the communities should show proper appreciation and honor to those that make these sacrifices for “King/Queen and Country”, from all conscription services: military service, public and civilian.

(Many times school teachers and administrators are lowly paid; their service to their country is a great sacrifice).

Veteran-style benefits should thusly be considered for all these “national” servants. This commitment from the community would go far in forging deep loyalty within the citizenry, thus mitigating quick abandonment of the homeland.

There is a separation-of-powers between the CU federal agencies and Caribbean member-states, so the CU would have no authority on how member-states manage, appreciate or honor their civil servants; unless some CU grants/funding apply. But for CU personnel, the practice will be institutionalized to recognize the service of long-time civil servants (active or retired) and their sacrifices. So for any human resource that die in the line of duty, the funeral processions will be filled with pomp and circumstance, much like the foregoing VIDEO.

“The [servants] who perform well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard …” – Bible 1 Timothy 5:17

Now is the time to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean change, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. All the mitigations and empowerments in this roadmap require people to remain in the homeland. No people, no hope! A community ethos, a spirit or attitude of sacrifice for the Greater Good is a great start to forge change; no sacrifice, no victory.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——————-

Appendix A – ICP Studies and Results

Overview of the National Youth Service Landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa

National Youth Service Project on Employability, Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa: Synthesis Report

——————

Appendix B – Conscription (or Drafting)
This is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of National Service, most often military service.^[2] Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1–8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force.

Conscription is controversial for a range of reasons, including conscientious objection to military engagements on religious or philosophical grounds; political objection, for example to service for a disliked government or unpopular war; and ideological objection, for example, to a perceived violation of individual rights. Those conscripted may evade service, sometimes by leaving the country.^[4] Some selection systems accommodate these attitudes by providing alternative service outside combat-operations roles or even outside the military, such as civil service in Austria and Switzerland.

As of the early 21st century, many states no longer conscript soldiers, relying instead upon professional militaries with volunteers enlisted to meet the demand for troops. The ability to rely on such an arrangement, however, presupposes some degree of predictability with regard to both war-fighting requirements and the scope of hostilities. Many states that have abolished conscription therefore still reserve the power to resume it during wartime or times of crisis.^[5] (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription)

National Service is a common name for mandatory or volunteer government service programmes. The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes. Compulsory military service typically requires all citizens, or all male citizens, to participate for a period of a year (or more in some countries) during their youth, usually at some point between the age of 18 and their late twenties. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_service)

——————

Appendix C – National Youth Service Corps in Nigeria
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is an organisation set up by the Nigerian government to involve the country’s graduates in the development of the country. There is no military conscription in Nigeria, but since 1973 graduates of universities and later polytechnics have been required to take part in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program for one year.^[1] This is known as national service year.

“Corp” members are posted to cities far from their city of origin. They are expected to mix with people of other tribes, social and family backgrounds, to learn the culture of the indigenes in the place they are posted to. This action is aimed to bring about unity in the country and to help youths appreciate other ethnic groups.

There is an “orientation” period of approximately three weeks spent in a camp away from family and friends. There is also a “passing out ceremony” at the end of the year and primary assignment followed by one month of vacation.

The program has also helped in creating entry-level jobs for many Nigerian youth. An NYSC forum dedicated to the NYSC members was built to bridge the gap amongst members serving across Nigeria and also an avenue for members to share job information and career resources as well as getting loans from the National Directorate Of Employment.

The program has been met with serious criticism by a large portion of the country. The NYSC members have complained of being underpaid, paid late or not paid at all.^[2] Several youths carrying out the NYSC program have been killed in the regions they were sent to due to religious violence, ethnic violence or political violence.^[3]

A series of bomb and other violent attacks, especially in the North, rocked the country’s stability in the period preceding the 2011 gubernatorial and presidential elections. Most common of these attacks was perpetuated by the Islamist extremist terrorist group called Boko Haram. “Boko Haram” means “Western education is a sin” in the local hausa dialect in Nigeria. The group “Boko Haram” is against western education and wants to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria’s northern region.

Worst hit were National Youth Service Corps members, some of whom lost their lives.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Youth_Service_Corps)

Share this post:

Diaspora, Model, Security, Transform

[Top]

‘We Built This City …’

Posted on January 5, 2015 in Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There are 3 kinds of people:

Those who make things happen
Those who watch things happen
Those who wonder “What happened?”

VIDEO # 1 – http://youtu.be/K1b8AhIsSYQ – We Built This City on Rock and Roll

Music video by Starship performing We Built This City. (C) 1985 Sony Music Entertainment.
A Number 1 song in the US, Canada and Australia. In 2011 a Rolling Stone magazine online poll named this as the worst song of the 1980s. – Song facts: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1248

Needless to say the ones who build a city, society or country are from that first group identified above: The “movers and shakers” that make things happen. But reality sets in and teaches us that not all people make up that first group; it may very well only be 10 percent (the Talented Tenth) or maybe even just the One Percent. The majority are constituted in the next 2 groupings. This first group though is the focus of this commentary. Make no mistake, when a community suffers societal abandonment, this “mover-shaker” group is always the first to leave.

This is the Caribbean’s current disposition.

According to the song in the foregoing VIDEO #1, the “city” was built on “Rock-and-Roll”. What city exactly is being referred to? The song describes a metonym of any American city with lyrics describing a city built on rock n’ roll music. The lyrics explicitly mention the Golden Gate Bridge and refer to “the City by the Bay”, a common moniker for the recording artists’ Starship’s hometown of San Francisco, California. However, the lyrics also refer to “the City That Rocks”, a reference to Cleveland, Ohio, and “the City That Never Sleeps”, a reference to New York City. [Lastly, the reference as a destination for “runaways” is iconic for Los Angeles]. Capitalizing on this ambiguity, several radio stations added descriptions of their own local areas when they broadcast the song, or even simply added their own identity in its place. – ‘We Built This City On Rock and Roll’“, OddCulture, Retrieved June 2, 2011.

The “city” reference can apply to any Caribbean city as well.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean champions the cause of building and optimizing Caribbean communities, cities included. The book uses the tagline “a better place to live, work and play”. Building a city involves work – see VIDEO #2 below. Rock-and-Roll is clearly a playtime activity. All of this makes the community a great place to live.

One city is identified in the book is Freeport, the Bahamas 2^nd city (Page 112). This metropolis has a history of fostering great musical artists in “Rock and Roll” and profiting from the investment (T-Connection, Johnny Kemp with the band Foxfire, and others). The city has now endured hard times and needs a renaissance, a rebirth perhaps based on its “Rock and Roll” upbringing. Don’t you remember …

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/ governing engines in the homeland of the region’s 30 member-states. The CU strives to elevate all of Caribbean society and culture. The Go Lean…Caribbean clearly recognizes that Caribbean culture is unique … and exquisite. In addition, to “rock and roll”, the Caribbean features mastery of 169 different musical genres; imagine reggae, calypso, salsa, merengue and the “mambo” featured in the lyrics of the featured song of this commentary (see VIDEO above):

Marconi plays the Mamba, listen to the radio, don’t you remember…

(Marconi refers to the inventor of the radio, Nobel Prize Winner Guglielmo Giovanni Marconi; (1874 – 1937)).

At the outset, the Go Lean roadmap recognizes the value and significance of building communities with the assets and strengths of the Caribbean people and catering to the ‘games people play’. There is no doubt the region excels with music; this intent was pronounced early in the book with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 & 14):

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

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

The Caribbean needs the people who would make things happen. We have lost many of them in the past to the brain drain and societal abandonment. We now declare that we want them back. Failing that, we must keep the next generation at home. This point was also pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13) with this statement:

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

The Go Lean roadmap was constructed with the community ethos in mind to forge change and build up the communities, plus the execution of related strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to make the change permanent. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book related to building up the music eco-system:

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 – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Around	Page 33
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 – Vision – Invite Diaspora to the Caribbean Homeland	Page 46
Strategy – Mission – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art, People and Culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Re-boot Freeport	Page 112
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean	Page 118
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 136
Planning – Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed	Page 137
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Appendix – Copyright Infringement – Catching Music Thieves – Protecting the Music Business	Page 351

This Go Lean commentary previously featured subjects related to developing the eco-systems of the music/show business, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3568	Forging Change: Music Moves People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2415	The Broadway Musical ‘The Lion King’ Roars into History With its Impact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1909	Music Role Model Berry Gordy – No Town Like Motown
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Caribbean Music Man Bob Marley: The legend lives on!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=676	Introduction of Bahamian ‘Carnival’ – The New Quest to Build on Music

This Go Lean roadmap calls for heavy-lifting to build up Caribbean communities, by shepherding important aspects of Caribbean life, beyond music and/or show business. In fact, the development 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 protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book focuses primarily on economic issues, but it recognizes that music, in its many genres can build a city, community and nation. But the quest to re-build, re-boot and re-tool the Caribbean will be more than just song-and-dance. No, the Go Lean roadmap describes the heavy-lifting of many people, organizations and governments. But the goal is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can build our cities on rock-and-roll (music), art, sports, culture, education and heritage. We can make the region a better place to live, work and play; and have fun doing it.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

—————

VIDEO # 2 – http://youtu.be/DTvpikMIs3Q – “We Built This Business” – ITT Commercial, 1990

Published on Aug 21, 2012 – The much-maligned Starship hit single “We Built This City” (described by some as among worst pop songs of all time) is re-interpreted in September 1990 with this commercial for ITT, an amorphous conglomerate then promoting its acquisition of The Hartford Financial Services Group.

Appendix – Song Lyrics:

“We Built This City” was written by Page, Martin George / Taupin, Bernard J.P. / Lambert, Dennis / Wolf, Peter F..

Say, “You don’t know me or recognize my face”
Say, “You don’t care who goes to that kind of place”
Knee deep in the hoopla sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night

Someone always playing corporation games
Who cares they’re always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible, write us off the page

It’s just another Sunday, in a tired old street
Police have got the choke hold, oh, then we just lost the beat

Who counts the money, underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball in two rock guitars
Don’t tell us you need us, ‘cos we’re the ship of fools
Looking for America coming through your schools

Don’t you remember
(‘Member, ‘member)

Marconi plays the Mamba, listen to the radio, don’t you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll

(We built, we built this city)
Built this city
(We built, we built this city)
(We built, we built this city)
Built this city
(We built, we built this city)

Share this post:

Freeport, Music, Play, Transform

[Top]

Forging Change: Music Moves People

Posted on December 30, 2014 in Ethos, Implementation, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“I write the songs that make the whole world sing; I write the songs of love and special things; I write the songs that make the young girls cry; … I am music and I write the songs”. – Barry Manilow (see Appendix A below).

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean want to forge change in the Caribbean. How do we go about doing that?

The book identifies music as one of the viable approaches.

Consider what happened in 2014, with this song (Happy by Pharrell Williams) and related experiences:

Video: “Happy” Makes Pharrell Williams Cry – http://youtu.be/IYFKnXu623s

As the foregoing VIDEO depicts, the song moved us all. In this writer’s opinion, one of the promoters of the Go Lean book and movement, this is the song of the year (2014).

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), an initiative to bring change and empowerment to the Caribbean region, to make the region a better place to live, work and play. From the outset, the book recognized the significance of music in the Caribbean change/empowering plan with these statements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 & 14):

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

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

The purpose of the Go Lean roadmap is not specifically on music, but rather change, and yet there is the acknowledgement that music can help forge change.

This Go Lean roadmap calls for the heavy-lifting in shepherding important aspects of Caribbean life. In fact, the empowerment 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 protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The book describes the CU as a hallmark of a technocracy, a commitment to efficiency and effectiveness, and also includes a commitment to concepts of fun, such as music, arts, sports, film/media (Hollywood-related), heritage and overall happiness. In fact, there are a total of 144 different missions for the CU. While much focus is on “live and work” activities, many others are targeting the areas of “play”‘; music is definitely a play-time activity … for young and old.

As depicted in the foregoing VIDEO, “music” can be used to forge change. The Go Lean book declares that before any real change takes root in the Caribbean that we must reach the heart, that there must be an adoption of new community ethos – the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. We must therefore use effective and efficient drivers to touch the heart and forge this change. How? Here’s one suggestion, (from Appendix A):

Oh, my music makes you dance and gives you spirit to take a chance
And I wrote some rock ‘n roll so you can move
Music fills your heart, well that’s a real fine place to start

The Go Lean roadmap was constructed with the community ethos in mind to forge change, plus the execution of related strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to make the change permanent. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

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 – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Around	Page 33
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 – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art, People and Culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region – Cyber-Caribbean	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 136
Planning – Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed	Page 137
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Beauty Pageants	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

While the roadmap is optimistic; it is realistic too. There is the acknowledgement that the business of music (Show Business in general) has changed in the light of modern dynamics, particularly due to Internet & Communications Technologies. To spur more development in music, the economic engines of the music/show business must be secured. This point was previously detailed in these Go Lean blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2415	How ‘The Lion King’ roared into history
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2291	Forging Change: The Fun Theory
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1909	Music Role Model Berry Gordy – No Town Like Motown
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Music Man Bob Marley: The legend lives on!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=676	Introduction of a Bahamian ‘Carnival’; Big Change for Country

“Do what you have always done, get what you’ve always got” – Old Adage.

The quest to change the Caribbean is more complex than just playing or listening to music. This is serious, this is heavy-lifting; but all the earnest effort will be a waste unless people are moved to change. So we must use all effective tools to forge the required change; music is one of the best.

Even if we fail, at least we would have had fun trying to execute the plan. As depicted in the underlying video (Appendix B): “Because I’m happy”.

This is the mandate of the Go Lean roadmap: making the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play; and having fun while doing it. Everyone is encouraged to lean-in to this roadmap:

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do
Because I’m happy

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————

Appendix A – Song: “I Write The Songs”; written, produced and performed by Barry Manilow:

I’ve been alive forever
And I wrote the very first song
I put the words and the melodies together
I am music
And I write the songs

I write the songs that make the whole world sing
I write the songs of love and special things
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the songs

My home lies deep within you
And I’ve got my own place in your soul
Now when I look out through your eyes
I’m young again, even tho’ I’m very old

I write the songs that make the whole world sing
I write the songs of love and special things
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the songs

Oh, my music makes you dance and gives you spirit to take a chance
And I wrote some rock ‘n roll so you can move
Music fills your heart, well that’s a real fine place to start
It’s from me, it’s for you
It’s from you, it’s for me
It’s a worldwide symphony

I write the songs that make the whole world sing
I write the songs of love and special things
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the songs

I am music and I write the songs

———

Appendix B: Pharrell Williams – Happy (Official Music Video) – http://youtu.be/y6Sxv-sUYtM

Share this post:

Detroit, Music, Play, Transform

[Top]