Social – Page 44 – Go Lean…Caribbean

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Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure

Posted on October 11, 2014 in Locations, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The Greater Miami Metropolitan Area has provided refuge to many of the Caribbean Diaspora.

Thank you Miami.

But make no mistake: Miami has benefited as well.

This fact is based on a proven economic principle that growth in population means growth in the economy. In parallel, declines in populations could lead to declines in economic growth. This point was vividly depicted in this previous blog commentary: Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy; with this quoted reference:

We tend to think economic growth comes from working harder and smarter. But economists attribute up to a third of it to more people joining the workforce each year than leaving it. The result is more producing, earning and spending. – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/birth-rate-economy_n_5281597.html

According to the below article (Appendix and VIDEOS below), the Miami Metropolitan Area has benefited greatly from the infusion of Caribbean refugees into its population. The benefits to the metropolitan area have been economic, cultural and also in governing leadership. This brings to the fore a compelling mission of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, to elevate Caribbean society so as to encourage the repatriation of the Diaspora back to their homelands.

Title: South Florida Caribbean’s – November 2006
The Caribbean Island Nations, has an overall population of over 40 million.
…
In the US, they number over 25 million (Strategy Research Corporation). The Caribbean population in the U.S. Diaspora has grown by over 6.4 million in the last decade.

SOUTH FLORIDA CARIBBEANS – November 2006
• An estimated 400,000 Caribbean nationals live in South Florida.

• More than 92,000 Jamaicans live in BrowardCounty and more than 32,000 Jamaicans live in Miami-Dade.

• Haitians make up the second-largest ethnic group in Miami-DadeCounty —109,817 — after Cubans, and are second to Jamaicans in Broward with 88,121.

North Miami, Dade County, Florida according to the 2000 census, has a population of 60,036 and is home to 18,656 Haitians, the most of any city in the county.

As at May 4, 2007 there are 10 Haitian elected officials now serving in the Florida Legislature and Miami-Dade municipalities. Another Haitian politician, North Miami Beach Councilman John Patrick Julien, won the primary but faces a runoff May 15, 2007 with developer Gary Goldman.
…
• Broward County added more new black residents (92,378) than any other county between 2000 and 2005, while Miami-Dade County added about 10,528, The surge is driven by Caribbeans.
• Broward’s black population grew 22 percent from 2000 to 2005; 34 percent among Caribbeans.
• Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties are home to about one-fifth of the 785,771 Jamaicans living in the United States.
…
Just as we argue that Cubans go to Miami and Mexicans to Texas for geographic and cultural blending in, we can make the same argument for West Indians in South Florida. It’s a natural habitat.”
…
SOURCE: U.S. Census
Editors note: The above figures are very conservative
Caribbean Business Community (North America) Inc. (Retrieved 10-10-2014) –
http://www.caribbeanbusinesscommunity.com/newsletters/caribbeans_abroad.html

The book Go Lean…Caribbean champions the causes of retaining Caribbean citizens in the Caribbean, and inviting the Diaspora back to their homelands. These intentions were pronounced early in the book with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13):

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

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

Looking at this quest from the point-of-view of Miami introduces a paradox: Miami’s success versus Caribbean failure.

According to Miami’s history, the metropolitan area has benefited, population-wise, with every Failed-State episode in the Caribbean. This is describing a win-lose scenario, where the Caribbean losses resulted in Miami’s gains. The following list describes the Caribbean countries that experienced near-Failed-State status, detailed in the Go Lean book, that effected change (growth) in Miami:

Cuba (Page 236)
Dominican Republic (Pages 237, 306)
Haiti (Page 238)
Jamaica (Page 239)
Trinidad (Page 240)
US Territories – Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands (Page 244)
British Caribbean Territories (Page 245)
Dutch Caribbean Territories (Page 246)
French Caribbean Territories (Page 247)

With Miami’s location at the bottom of the Florida peninsula, it protrudes into the tropics – 50 miles West from the Bahamas and 90 miles North from Cuba. For the local community, this Caribbean proximity was perceived as a disadvantage, a misfortune, but the Caribbean infusion instead has proven to be an asset, a win for Miami. As many Caribbean member-states flirted with failure, Miami succeeded, despite being on the frontlines and having to absorb many incoming refugees.

But now, change has now come to the Caribbean … as detailed in the Go Lean book.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to bring positive change. The CU‘s prime directives are identified 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.

Will these changes reverse the patterns of success for Miami? Will more for Caribbean member-states mean less for Miami? Will Cuba’s return to democracy cause a crash for the Cuban-American investments in Miami? Will a stabilization of Haiti finally shift the successes of Haitian-Americans back to their homeland? Will an end of Caribbean Sclerosis (economic dysfunction) finally mean the English-speaking Caribbean will abandon Miami as their destination of hopes-and-dreams (see Appendix and VIDEOS below)? Will a successful execution of the Go Lean roadmap reverse the patterns of success for Miami? These ill-fated scenarios do not have to be the conclusion. The Go Lean roadmap for an elevated Caribbean, can be a win-win for Miami and the Caribbean.

The Go Lean book defines “luck” as the intersection of preparation and opportunity (Page 3). With the execution of the Go Lean roadmap, the change that comes to the Caribbean, and accompanying success should not mean failure for Miami. No, Miami can get “lucky” … purposely, with these impending changes. With Miami’s physical location it can continue to facilitate a lot of trade and logistics for the Latin America and Caribbean region.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for elevating the Caribbean’s GDP from $378 Billion (2010) to $800 Billion. The Miami community can benefit from this regional growth, with some shrewd strategies on their part. (The Go Lean roadmap includes shrewd strategies for elevating the Caribbean, not Miami).

Caribbean stakeholders are hereby urged to lean-in to the community ethos, shrewd strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to finally re-boot Caribbean society; as detailed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean, sampled here:

Assessment – Anecdote – Caribbean Single Market & Economy	Page 15
Assessment – Anecdote – Dutch Caribbean – Integration & Secessions	Page 16
Assessment – Anecdote – French Caribbean – Organization & Discord	Page 17
Assessment – Anecdote – Puerto Rico – The Greece of the Caribbean	Page 18
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – $800 Billion Economy – How and When	Page 67
Tactical – Separation of Powers – State Department – Culture Administration	Page 81
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Trade Mission Objectives	Page 117
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Cuba/Haiti	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

This commentary previously featured subjects related to the Caribbean Diaspora in the Greater Miami Metropolitan Area. The following is a sample:

‘Raul Castro reforms not enough’, Cuba’s bishops say

Continued Discrimination for Latins/Caribbeans in Job Markets

Miami’s Caribbean Marketplace Re-opens

Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain

Miami Sports – Franchise Values and Sports Bubbles in Basketball

eMerge conference aims to jump-start Miami tech hub

Today, Miami is a better place to live, work and play … due in many ways to the contributions of the Caribbean Diaspora. The Cuban, Dominican and Afro-Caribbean (Haitian, Jamaican, Bahamian) communities dominate the culture of South Florida, resulting in a distinctive character that has made Miami unique as a travel/tourist destination; see VIDEOS below that vividly describe the positive input of the Caribbean culture on Miami:

Video Title: The Miami Sound Machine – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZkjeJKBI0M:

This is now a new day for the Caribbean; with the empowerments identified, qualified and proposed in the Go Lean book, the region will also be a better place to live, work and play. We urge all to lean-in to this roadmap, those residing in the region and the Diaspora, especially those in Miami.

The Caribbean and Miami. This can be a win-win!

Video Title: Miami-Broward Carnival – https://youtu.be/aT4hU85-lOk:

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

—————

APPENDIX – Miami Demographic Analysis – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_metropolitan_area

Demographics

*Miami* *Metropolitan Area* Historical population
Census	Pop.	%±
1900	4,955	—
1910	17,510	253.4%
1920	66,542	280.0%
1930	214,830	222.8%
1940	387,522	80.4%
1950	693,705	79.0%
1960	1,497,099	115.8%
1970	2,236,645	49.4%
1980	3,220,844	44.0%
1990	4,056,100	25.9%
2000	5,007,564	23.5%
2010	5,564,635	11.1%

Ethnicity:
The racial makeup of population of the Miami Area [5,334,685] as of 2010 ^[43]:

White: 70.3% [3,914,239]
- White Non-Hispanic: 34.8% [1,937,939]
- White Hispanic: 35.2% [1,976,300]
Black or African American (many from the Caribbean): 21% [1,075,174]
Native American: 0.3% [16,108]
Asian: 2.3% [125,564]; (0.7% Indian, 0.5% Chinese, 0.3% Filipino, 0.2% Vietnamese, 0.1% Korean, 0.1% Japanese, 0.4% Other Asian)
Pacific Islander: 0.0% [2,356]
Other races: 3.5% [197,183]
Two or more races: 2.5% [140,000]
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 41.6% [2,312,929] of the population

The city proper is home to less than one-thirteenth of the population of South Florida. Miami is the 42nd most populous city in the United States. [But] the Miami Metropolitan Area, which includes Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, had a combined population of more than 5.5 million people, ranked seventh largest in the United States,^[44] and is the largest metropolitan area in the Southeastern United States. As of 2008, the United Nations estimates that the Miami Urban Agglomeration is the 44th-largest in the world.^[45]

The 2010 US Census file for “Hispanic or Latino Origin” reports^[46] that: 34.4% of the population had Cuban origin, 8.7% South American ( 3.2% Colombian), 7.2% Nicaraguan, 5.8% Honduran, and 2.4% Dominican origin. In 2004, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reported that Miami had the highest proportion of foreign-born residents of any major city worldwide (59%), followed by Toronto (50%).

As of 2010, there were 183,994 households of which 14.0% were vacant.^[47] As of 2000, 26.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.6% were married couples living together, 18.7% have a female head of household with no husband present, and 37.9% were non-families. 30.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.61 and the average family size was 3.25. The age distribution was 21.7% under the age of 18, 8.8% from 18 to 24, 30.3% from 25 to 44, 22.1% from 45 to 64, and 17.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 98.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.3 males.

In 2009, the median income for a household in the city was $29,812, and the median income for a family was $33,814. The per capita income for the city was $19,846. About 21.7% of families and 26.3% of the population were below the poverty line.

In 1960, non-Hispanic whites represented 80% of Miami-Dade county’s population.^[48] In 1970, the Census Bureau reported Miami’s population as 45.3% Hispanic, 32.9% non-Hispanic White, and 22.7% Black.^[49] Miami’s explosive population growth has been driven by internal migration from other parts of the country, primarily up until the 1980s, as well as by immigration, primarily from the 1960s to the 1990s. Today, immigration to Miami has slowed significantly and Miami’s growth today is attributed greatly to its fast urbanization and high-rise construction, which has increased its inner city neighborhood population densities, such as in Downtown, Brickell, and Edgewater, where one area in Downtown alone saw a 2,069% increase in population in the 2010 Census. Miami is regarded as more of a multicultural mosaic, than it is a melting pot, with residents still maintaining much of, or some of their cultural traits. The overall culture of Miami is heavily influenced by its large population of Hispanics and blacks mainly from the Caribbean islands.

Source References:
43. American FactFinder, United States Census Bureau and Housing Narrative Profile: 2005. Factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved November 8, 2011.

44. “Annual Estimates of the Population of Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009” (XLS). 2009 Population Estimates. United States Census Bureau, Population Division. March 19, 2010. Retrieved October 18, 2010.

45. “Table A.12. Population of urban agglomerations with 750,000 inhabitants or more in 2005, by country, 1950–2015” (PDF). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division. Retrieved January 1, 2008.

46. “Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin: 2010 more information 2010 Census Summary File 1”. American FactFinder. US Census Bureau. Retrieved 2014-08-18.

47. American FactFinder, United States Census Bureau. “Miami city, Florida – Census 2010:Florida – USATODAY.com –”. USA Today. Retrieved January 12, 2012.

48. “Demographic Profile, Miami-Dade County, Florida 1960–2000 ” (PDF). Miamidade.gov.

49. “Florida – Race and Hispanic Origin for Selected Cities and Other Places: Earliest Census to 1990”. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved April 21, 2012.

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Cuba, Diaspora, Haiti, History, Image, Miami, Transform

The Cost of Cancer Drugs

Posted on October 7, 2014 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary:

1. Even a broken clock is right … twice a day.
2. Greed is good … for incentivizing innovation.

According to the transcript in the below VIDEO, “Cancer is so pervasive that it touches virtually every family in this country. More than one out of three Americans will be diagnosed with some form of it in their lifetime. And as anyone who’s been through it knows, the shock and anxiety of the diagnosis is followed by a second jolt: the high price of cancer drugs.”

“If 1-in-3 Americans are at risk for cancer, Caribbean citizens cannot be far behind”. So declares the book Go Lean…Caribbean (Page 157). This is not speculative, this is real … life and death. The principal author for the Go Lean book dedicated the book to his sister who had recently died after losing her battle with cancer. 42 years earlier, their mother died of the same cause.

The opening quotations relate the underlying theme of this commentary, that the cost of cancer drugs is a distortion of the “free market”; reflective of American “crony” capitalism. Also, that despite an obvious broken eco-system, failed-state status in Cuba, this Caribbean country “does cancer drugs right”. This point is related in the following article:

Title #1: Medimpex to sell Cuban ‘scorpion’ cancer drug here [in Jamaica]
By: HG Helps, Editor-at-Large
helpsh@jamaicaobserver.com

HUNGARIAN drug distribution company Medimpex has been granted exclusive rights to import and sell to retailers the Cuban cancer-fighting drug Vidatox.

The drug, produced by protein peptides from the venom of the blue or Rhopalrus Junceus scorpion — endemic to Cuba — will be available in Jamaican pharmacies before the end of October, an official of Medimpex told the Jamaica Observer.

“On September 18, we signed a contract with Cuban company Labiofam, which distributes Vidatox and we are awaiting the first shipment in another four weeks,” Medimpex’s Managing Director Laszlo Bakon said.

“We see a huge potential for the drug in Jamaica, because cancer is one of the leading causes of death in Jamaica and other countries of the world.

“The demand is definitely there. We have held meetings with oncologists in Jamaica and the feedback from them and the rest of the market is good. It is a unique cancer treatment,” Bakon said.

Jamaica’s Ministry of Health approved the introduction of Vidatox to the shelves of local pharmacies, following its registration on June 18, when a team of technocrats from the socialist country visited.

Early indications are that the cost of the oral drug could be in the region of US$150 for a 30ml bottle, which normally represents two months’ usage.

Vidatox is already being used in Asia, Europe, North, South and Central America.

The drug has been used to treat cancer-related ailments among the Cuban population for over 200 years. This followed 15 years of clinical research spearheaded by Cuban biologist Misael Bordier and tests involving more than 10,000 people — 3,500 of them foreigners — which yielded positive results in improving quality of life, retarding tumour growth and boosting the immune system in cancer patients.

The drug is said to be safe, with no side effects, and is principally used along with conventional medicines.

“The Cubans have done their job and from now on it will be our job to put it on the market. There is a lot of scepticism from the western world about the drug, but the truth always triumphs. When they see what happens to patients, then they will believe. We have clinical proof that Vidatox works,” said Bakon, who is also Hungary’s honorary consul in Jamaica.

Cuba’s Ambassador to Jamaica, Yuri Gala Lopez, hailed the new business alliances.

“I hope that doctors in Jamaica will take advantage of this partnership, as steps like this will strengthen the already close relationship between Jamaica and Cuba,” Gala Lopez said.

Bakon said that there would be sharp monitoring of the use of the drug and meetings have been held with the National Health Fund and the Jamaica Cancer Society, but no direct communication has been established with the management of public hospitals yet.
Jamaica Observer Daily Newspaper = Posted 09-24-2012; Retrieved 10-07-2014
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Medimpex-to-sell-Cuban–scorpion–cancer-drug-here_12606863

—————————-

VIDEO Title: The Cost of Cancer Drugs in the US
CBS News Magazine 60 Minutes – Posted 10-05-2014. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer). http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-cancer-drugs/

Why is the cost of cancer drugs so high in the US?

One theory was posited in a recent Go Lean blog, that related that Big Pharma, the Pharmaceutical industry, dictates standards of care in the field of medicine, more so than may be a best-practice. The blog painted a picture of a familiar scene where pharmaceutical salesmen slip in the backdoor to visit doctors to showcase latest product lines; the foregoing VIDEO relates that there are commission kick-backs in these arrangements. The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean must take its own lead in the battle of health, wellness and cancer. The US eco-system is mostly motivated by profit.

Cuba is right, on this matter. As they demonstrate, we can do better in the Caribbean homeland, and still glean economic benefits.

The Go Lean book strategizes a roadmap for economic empowerment in the region, clearly relating that healthcare, and pharmaceutical (cancer drug) acquisitions are important in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. At the outset of the Go Lean book, in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), these points are pronounced:

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, obesity and smoking cessation programs.

The Go Lean serves as a roadmap for the implementation and introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU‘s prime directives are identified 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.

Previous blog/commentaries addressed issues of capitalistic conflicts in American medical practices, compared to other countries, and the Caribbean. The following sample applies:

Antibiotics Misuse Linked to Obesity in the US

CHOP Research: Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones

Big Pharma & Criminalization of American Business

New Research and New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease

Health-care fraud in America; criminals take $272 billion a year

New Cuban Cancer medication registered in 28 countries

The foregoing news article and VIDEO provides an inside glimpse in the retailing of cancer groups bred from a research discipline. Obviously, the innovators and developers of drugs have the right to glean the economic returns of their research. The two foregoing articles (#1-Print and #2-VIDEO) show two paths, one altruistic and one bent on greed. In the Caribbean, Cuba currently performs a lot of R&D into cancer, diabetes and other ailments. The Go Lean roadmap posits that more innovations will emerge in the region as a direct result of the CU prioritization on science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM) activities on Caribbean R&D campuses and educational institutions.

The Caribbean Union Trade Federation has the prime directive of optimizing the economic, security and governing engines of the region. The foregoing article and VIDEO depicts that research is very important to identify and qualify best-practices in health management for the public. This is the manifestation and benefit of Research & Development (R&D). The roadmap describes this focus as a community ethos and promote R&D as valuable for the region. The following list details additional ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s health deliveries and R&D investments:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations – Group Purchasing	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D)	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Integrate and unify region in a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department	Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Drug Administration	Page 87
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities – R&D Campuses	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities	Page 228
Appendix – Emergency Management – Medical Trauma Centers	Page 336

The Go Lean roadmap does not purport to be an authority on medical or cancer research best-practices. The CU economic-security-governance empowerment plan should not direct the course of direction for cancer research and/or treatment. But something is wrong here. The pharmaceutical companies cannot claim any adherence to any “better nature” in their practices. Their motive is strictly profit …

The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, released a song with the title: “They don’t [really] care about us”; he very well could have been talking about Big Pharma; (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNJL6nfu__Q). The foregoing CBS 60 Minutes VIDEO relates one drug, Gleevec, as a top selling option for industry giant Novartis, “bringing in more than $4 billion a year in sales. $35 billion since the drug came to market. There are now several other drugs like it. So, you’d think with the competition, the price of Gleevec would have come down. Yet, the price of the drug tripled from $28,000 a year in 2001 to $92,000 a year in 2012”.

This is not economics, which extols principles like the “law of diminishing returns”, or “competition breathes lower prices and higher quality”. No, the cancer drug industry is just a “pure evil” version of American Crony Capitalism.

This is not the role model upon which we want to build Caribbean society.

We can do better in the Caribbean – thanks to Cuba, we have done better. We can use this ethos to impact the Greater Good; this means life-or-death. This is the heavy-lifting of the CU. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Cancer, Crony-Capitalism, Cuba, Health, Power, Sales

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Antibiotics Use Associated With Obesity Risk

Posted on October 6, 2014 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary:

The below news article relates to our most vulnerable victims in society, our children under age 2. The article helps us to appreciate that they need to be protected.

This report was published by a recognized technocratic institution, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), a previously referenced source for the publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. Many of the research of CHOP have relevance for Caribbean life and the Go Lean elevation effort.

The CHOP research is published as follows:

Title: Antibiotic Use by Age 2 Associated With Obesity Risk

Repeated exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics in the first two years of life is associated with early childhood obesity, say researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in a retrospective study based on data from electronic health records from the extensive CHOP Care Network.

Studying early life events that may affect how the body regulates weight

The researchers found that children with four or more exposures to broad spectrum antibiotics during infancy were particularly more likely to be at risk for obesity. The study, published online September 29, 2014 in JAMA Pediatrics, did not directly examine cause and effect, said Charles Bailey, MD, PhD, (See Photo) lead author of the study, but he added, “as pediatricians, we’re interested in whether events that happen early in life might reset the baseline and have a long-term effect on how the body regulates weight.”

The researchers were intrigued by the emerging idea that the microbial population that begins to colonize in infants’ intestines shortly after birth, known as the microbiome, plays an important role in establishing energy metabolism. Previous studies have shown that antibiotic exposure influences the microbiome’s diversity and composition. “The thought is that the microbiome may be critically dependent on what is going on during infancy,” Bailey added.

The study team analyzed electronic health records from 2001 to 2013 of 64,580 children with annual visits at ages 0 to 23 months, as well as one or more visits at ages 24 to 59 months within the CHOP Care Network. They assessed the relationships between antibiotic prescription and related diagnoses before age 24 months and the development of obesity in the following three years.

Broad-spectrum drugs associated with obesity but not narrow-spectrum drugs

The investigators saw the association with broad-spectrum drugs, but they reported no significant association between obesity and narrow-spectrum drugs. For this study, they classified first-line therapy for common pediatric infections, such as penicillin and amoxicillin, as narrow-spectrum. They considered broad-spectrum antibiotics to include those recommended in current guidelines as second-line therapy.

“Treating obesity is going to be a matter of finding the collection of things that together have a major effect, even though each alone has only a small effect,” said Patricia DeRusso, MD, director of the Healthy Weight Program and vice president of Medical Staff Affairs at Children’s Hospital who was the senior author of the study. “Part of what we are exploring in this study is one of those factors that we can possibly modify in the way we take care of kids and make it better.”

Future investigations are needed involving multiple large pediatric health systems that will take a broader look at several populations and how adopting guidelines that accentuate the use of narrow-spectrum antibiotics might affect patients’ risk of obesity, Dr. Bailey said. In addition to supporting this type of research locally, CHOP is also a key contributor to networks such as PEDSnet that link many children’s hospitals to make more effective clinical research possible. Researchers also are looking at ways the microbial communities living in infants’ intestines are swayed by dietary and environmental factors.

Early intervention is key

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children over the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many will remain obese into adulthood and be susceptible to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. Medical researchers at CHOP want to identify ways to intervene as early as possible, in order to avert the lifetime of medical, developmental, and social problems associated with obesity.

More information

“Association of Antibiotics in Infancy With Early Childhood Obesity” JAMA Pediatrics, published online on September 29, 2014 doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.1539

Dr. Bailey’s coauthors were Christopher Forrest, MD, PhD; Peixin Zhang, PhD; Thomas M. Richards, MS; Alice Livshits, BS; and Patricia A. DeRusso, MD, MS.

This research project was funded by an unrestricted donation to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Healthy Weight Program from the American Beverage Foundation for a Healthy America.

Contact: Joey McCool, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 267-426-6070 or McCool@email.chop.edu
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Web Site – Posted 9-30-2014
http://www.chop.edu/news/antibiotic-use-by-age-2-associated-with-obesity-risk.html

Referenced Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF3zTp5YQSg

Why is antibiotics misuse so high in American society*?

One theory is that Big Pharma, the Pharmaceutical industry, dictates standards of care in the field of medicine, more so than may be a best-practice. (Picture the scene of a Pharmaceutical Salesperson slipping in the backdoor to visit a doctor and showcase latest product lines).

This subject of damaging health effects deriving from capitalistic practices in medicine aligns with Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 157), as it posits that Cancer treatment (in the US) has been driven by the profit motive, more so than a quest for wellness and/or a cure.

This is not the model we want to effect the well-being of our young children.

The Go Lean roadmap specifies where we are as a region (minimal advanced medicine options), where we want to go (elevation of Caribbean society in the homeland for all citizens to optimize wellness) and how we plan to get there – confederating as a Single Market entity. While the Go Lean book strategizes a roadmap for economic empowerment, it clearly relates that healthcare, and pharmaceutical acquisitions are important in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. At the outset of the Go Lean book, in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), these points are pronounced:

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, obesity and smoking cessation programs.

The Go Lean book is not a medical reference or science book, but it does touch on medical issues, especially as they relate to community economics. The publishers of the book are not trying to dictate policies for medical practice; that would be out-of-scope for Go Lean, which serves as a roadmap for the implementation and introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU‘s prime directives are identified 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.

Previous blog/commentaries addressed similar issues as the foregoing article. The following sample applies:

CHOP Research: Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones

Big Pharma & Criminalization of American Business

New Research and New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease

New Cuban Cancer medication registered in 28 countries

The Caribbean Union Trade Federation has the prime directive of optimizing the economic, security and governing engines of the region. The foregoing article/VIDEO depicts that research is very important to identify and qualify best-practices in health management for the public. Obviously the scourge of obesity is unwelcomed. Nutrition education is a key mitigation, but the foregoing article/VIDEO proclaims another driver that is outside of the control of the afflicted, or their families. This is the manifestation and benefits of Research & Development (R&D). The roadmap describes this focus as a community ethos. Then it goes on to stress that the CU must promote the community ethos that R&D is valuable and must be incentivized for adoption. The following list details additional ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s health deliveries:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D)	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Integrate and unify region in a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department	Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Drug Administration	Page 87
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities – R&D Campuses	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Healthcare	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities	Page 228
Appendix – Emergency Management – Medical Trauma Centers	Page 336

The foregoing news/VIDEO story depicted analysis administered by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a teaching and research facility for the care of children. There is a need for more such R&D on obesity causes and drivers. In the Caribbean, Cuba currently performs a lot of R&D into cancer, diabetes and other ailments. The Go Lean roadmap posits that more innovations will emerge in the region as a direct result of the CU prioritization on science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM) activities on Caribbean R&D campuses and educational institutions.

The Go Lean roadmap does not purport to be an authority on medical best-practices. The CU economic-security-governance empowerment plan should not direct the course of direction for obesity research and treatment. Neither should pharmaceutical salesmen. Their motive is strictly profit …

The CU motive, to impact the Greater Good, mandates monitoring progress in obesity research, the causes and effects. The hope is to minimize the affliction. This is the heavy-lifting the Caribbean region needs. This means life-or-death for some. All of the Caribbean is hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean elevation.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————–

* Appendix – Antibiotics Misuse – (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotics)

“The first rule of antibiotics is try not to use them, and the second rule is try not to use too many of them.” – The ICU Book ^[70]

Inappropriate antibiotic treatment and overuse of antibiotics have contributed to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Self prescription of antibiotics is an example of misuse.^[71] Many antibiotics are frequently prescribed to treat symptoms or diseases that do not respond to antibiotics or that are likely to resolve without treatment. Also incorrect or suboptimal antibiotics are prescribed for certain bacterial infections.^[41][71] The overuse of antibiotics, like penicillin and erythromycin, have been associated with emerging antibiotic resistance since the 1950s.^[56][72] Widespread usage of antibiotics in hospitals has also been associated with increases in bacterial strains and species that no longer respond to treatment with the most common antibiotics.^[72]

Common forms of antibiotic misuse include excessive use of prophylactic antibiotics in travelers and failure of medical professionals to prescribe the correct dosage of antibiotics on the basis of the patient’s weight and history of prior use. Other forms of misuse include failure to take the entire prescribed course of the antibiotic, incorrect dosage and administration, or failure to rest for sufficient recovery. Inappropriate antibiotic treatment, for example, is their prescription to treat viral infections such as the common cold. One study on respiratory tract infections found “physicians were more likely to prescribe antibiotics to patients who appeared to expect them”.^[73] Multifactorial interventions aimed at both physicians and patients can reduce inappropriate prescription of antibiotics.^[74]

Referenced Sources:

41. Slama TG, Amin A, Brunton SA, et al. (July 2005). “A clinician’s guide to the appropriate and accurate use of antibiotics: the Council for Appropriate and Rational Antibiotic Therapy (CARAT) criteria”. Am. J. Med. 118 Suppl 7A (7): 1S–6S. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2005.05.007

56. Pearson, Carol (28 February 2007). “Antibiotic Resistance Fast-Growing Problem Worldwide”. Voice Of America. Archived from the original on 2 December 2008. Retrieved 29 December 2008.

70. Marino PL (2007). “Antimicrobial therapy”. The ICU book. Hagerstown, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. p. 817. ISBN 978-0-7817-4802-5.

71. Larson E (2007). “Community factors in the development of antibiotic resistance”. Annu Rev Public Health 28: 435–447. doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.28.021406.144020. PMID 17094768.

72. Hawkey PM (September 2008). “The growing burden of antimicrobial resistance”. J. Antimicrob. Chemother. 62 Suppl 1: i1–9. doi:10.1093/jac/dkn241. PMID 18684701.

73. Ong S, Nakase J, Moran GJ, Karras DJ, Kuehnert MJ, Talan DA (2007). “Antibiotic use for emergency department patients with upper respiratory infections: prescribing practices, patient expectations, and patient satisfaction”. Annals of Emergency Medicine 50 (3): 213–20. doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2007.03.026. PMID 17467120.

74. Metlay JP, Camargo CA, MacKenzie T, et al. (2007). “Cluster-randomized trial to improve antibiotic use for adults with acute respiratory infections treated in emergency departments”. Annals of Emergency Medicine 50 (3): 221–30. doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2007.03.022. PMID 17509729

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Crony-Capitalism, Health, Power, Security

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A Lesson in History – Community Ethos of WW II

Posted on October 1, 2014 in Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean want to forge change in the Caribbean. Is it possible to change the attitudes of an entire community, country or region? Has that ever been done before for an entire community? When?

Yes, and yes. 1942…

The book relates a great case study, that of the history of the United States during World War II, where the entire country postponed immediate gratification, endured hard sacrifices, and became convinced that their future (after the war) would be better than their past (before the war).

The foregoing article is a scholarly work on that subject, the events of 1942, and the subsequent years of World War II.

Title: The Auto Industry Goes to War

Did the U.S. manufacture of automobiles come to a halt during World War II?

Yes, it halted completely. No cars, commercial trucks, or auto parts were made from February 1942 to October 1945.

On January 1, 1942, all sales of cars, as well as the delivery of cars to customers who had previously contracted for them, were frozen by the government’s Office of Production Management. As a temporary measure, local rationing boards could issue permits allowing persons who had contracted for cars before January 1st to secure delivery.

President Roosevelt established the War Production Board on January 16, 1942. It superseded the Office of Production Management. The WPB regulated the industrial production and allocation of war materiel and fuel. That included coordinating heavy manufacturing, and the rationing of vital materials, such as metals, rubber, and oil. It also established wage and price controls.

All manufacturers ended their production of automobiles on February 22, 1942. The January 1942 production quota had been a little over 100,000 automobiles and light trucks. The units manufactured at the beginning of February would bring up the total number of vehicles in a newly established car stockpile to 520,000. These would be available during the duration of the war for rationed sales by auto dealers to purchasers deemed “essential drivers.”

Representatives from the auto industry formed the Automotive Council for War Production in April 1942, to facilitate the sharing of resources, expertise, and manpower in defense production contracting.

The auto industry retooled to manufacture tanks, trucks, jeeps, airplanes, bombs, torpedoes, steel helmets, and ammunition under massive contracts issued by the government. Beginning immediately after the production of automobiles ceased, entire factories were upended almost overnight. Huge manufacturing machines were jack hammered out of their foundations and new ones brought in to replace them. Conveyors were stripped away and rebuilt, electrical wires were bundled together and stored in the vast factory ceilings, half-finished parts were sent to steel mills to be re-melted, and even many of the dies that had been used in the fabrication of auto parts were sent to salvage.

The government’s Office of Price Administration imposed rationing of gasoline and tires and set a national speed limit of 35 mph.

By April 1944, only 30,000 new cars out of the initial stockpile were left. Almost all were 1942 models and customers required a permit to make the purchase. The Office of Price Administration set the price. The government contemplated rationing used car sales as well, but that was finally deemed unnecessary. The government estimated that about a million cars had been taken off the road by their owners, to reserve for their own use after the war.

In the autumn of 1944, looking then toward the end of the war, Ford, Chrysler, Nash, and Fisher Body of General Motors received authorization from the War Production Board to do preliminary work on experimental models of civilian passenger cars, on condition that it not interfere with war work and that employees so used be limited to planning engineers and technicians. Limits were also set on the amount of labor and materials the companies could divert to this.

During the war, the automobile and oil companies continued to advertise heavily to insure that the public did not forget their brand names. Companies also were proud to proclaim their patriotic role in war production, and their advertisements displayed the trucks, aircraft, and munitions that they were making to do their part in combat.

In addition, auto advertisements encouraged the public to patronize local auto dealers’ service departments so that car repairs could help extend the lives of the cars their customers had bought before the war. In the last couple of years of the war, the auto companies also used their advertisements to heighten public anticipation of the end of the war and the resumption of car and truck manufacturing, with advertising copy such as Ford’s “There’s a Ford in Your Future.”

About the Author

Historian John Buescher is an author and professor who formerly headed Tibetan language broadcasts at Voice of America. His Ph.D. is from the University of Virginia and he has published extensively on the history of Tibetan and Indian Buddhism and on the history of 19th-century American spiritualism.

Bibliography
a. John Alfred Heitmann, The Automobile and American Life. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. pp. 119-130.
b. James J. Flink, The Automobile Age. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988. pp. 275-76.
c. Automobile Manufacturers Association, Freedom’s Arsenal: The Story of the Automotive Council for War Production. Detroit: Automobile Manufacturers Association, 1950.
Teaching History.org – National History Education Clearinghouse (Retrieved 09/29/2014) –
http://www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24088

This relates a commitment so vital to a community that everyone was willing to sacrifice and lean-in for the desired outcome. This requires effective messaging.

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, empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play. This Go Lean roadmap also has initiatives to foster a domestic (region-wide) automotive industry. So there are a lot of benefits to glean by studying the American track record, even the periods of halted production. 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”.

The purpose of the book/roadmap though is not just the ethos changes, 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 the identified 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 Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds	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 – Foster New Industries	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
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed	Page 132
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Develop Auto Industry	Page 206
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218

Previously Go Lean blog/commentaries have considered historic references and stressed fostering the proper and appropriate community ethos for the Caribbean to prosper. The following sample applies:

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=2201	Changing Bad Community Ethos – Students Developing Nail Polish to Detect Date Rape Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1918	Philadelphia Freedom – Some Restrictions Apply – One Community’s Constant Quest to Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531	A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago Today – World War I – Cause and Effect in Community Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841	Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy?
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 crises. It is a focus on the future, a deferred gratification as investment for future returns. These attributes have been promoted by the Go Lean book as necessary traits to forge change in the Caribbean region. We need our own Caribbean flavor of this community ethos, in our manifestation of industrial policy.

The world was at the precipice, near implosion, in 1942 (World War II) … (and again in 2008 during the Great Recession). In order to endure the crises, many people had to endure sacrifice; but the entire community had to adopt the community ethos of deferred gratification. The industrial policy adjusted accordingly, with little objection from the public in general. A lot of good came from these sacrifices.

There are lessons for the Caribbean today to consider from the development of industrial policy in US history during World War II:

• Priorities can change in times of crisis. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

• Having a domestic manufacturing industry gives control of domestic production capability.

• Efficiency and effectiveness in one industry can be transferred to other industries; it is disciplined competence that is the real asset.

• Lowest cost is not the only criteria for providing out-sourced contracts.

• Limited raw materials are valuable, even as recycled materials.

• Effective Command-and-Control accentuates front-line effectiveness – Lean operational principles.

• Interdependence with partners can avoid crisis in the first place, and mitigate the damage from realized threats.

Now the Caribbean is in crisis, still reeling from 2008; we must endure, we must sacrifice and we must defer gratification. Now is the time to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean change, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. We cannot afford to standby and watch our world implode. This was the case in 1942 and again in 2008. We must have a hand in our own destiny; an integrated (Single) market of 42 million people is large enough to be consequential in world negotiations.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders (residents, Diaspora, governmental leaders, visitors, investors, etc.) to lean-in to this roadmap for change. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Detroit, History, Model, Sales, Transform

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What’s In A Name…

Posted on September 4, 2014 in Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Joe versus Jose; Emily versus Lakisha^[a] – race still matters very much in the US labor market. So says the following VIDEO from NBC News The Today Show and the research in the appendix below.

Title: What’s in a name when you apply for a job?
By: NBC News – The Today Show

A man named Jose spent six fruitless months looking for work online. But when he dropped the “s” from his name and applied as “Joe,” the job offers started coming in.
NBC News – The Today Show – September 4, 2014 –
http://www.today.com/video/today/55986337#55986337

One would think that such a racially-charged society was only representative of the America of old; that now America has transformed, to the point that the President is of African-American descent. But it must be concluded that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

The issue in the foregoing news article/VIDEO relates to the lure of America as a destination for Caribbean immigrants. This is the labor market that new arrivals would have to navigate. Perhaps the shining light of that Welcome Sign should be dulled a little.

The story in the VIDEO, and the research in the Appendix, is being brought into focus in a consideration of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the economic optimization in the region. One mission of the roadmap is to minimize the “push-and-pull” factors that contribute to the alarmingly high societal abandonment rate of Caribbean citizens – one report reflects a 70% brain drain rate.

This blog/commentary also infers one additional issue, that of job creation. The Go Lean book posits that when the economic engines are not sufficient that people will flee, abandon their homelands, despite the love of family, friends and culture and endure all obstacles to secure a better livelihood. This has been the reality for all of the Caribbean, even the American member-states (Puerto Rico & Virgin Islands). If only, there would be a better option for the Caribbean?

Go Lean…Caribbean presents that option!

This CU/Go Lean roadmap provides the turn-by-turn details with 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 to support these engines.

The roadmap posits that the United States of America should not be viewed as the panacea for Caribbean ailments; that when the choices of a challenge is “fight or flight” that Caribbean society must now consider the “fight” options. (No violent conflict is being advocated, but rather a strenuous effort, heavy-lifting, to compete and win economic battles).

As related in the foregoing article/VIDEO, America is not so welcoming a society for the “Black and Brown” populations from the Caribbean – and yet they come, there are in the USA and their numbers cannot be ignored. Here is the need for the heavy-lifting, to effect change to dissuade further brain drain and in reverse to incentivize repatriation. While not ignoring the “push” reasons that cause people to flee, the book stresses (early at Page 13) the need to be on-guard for this fight in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

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

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

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.

xxvi.      Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

This commentary previously related details of the Caribbean Diaspora experience, the “push-and-pull” factors in the US, and our region’s own job-creation efforts. Here is a sample of earlier Go Lean blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Caribbean Jobs – Attitudes & Images of the Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896	American “Pull” Factors – Crisis in Black Homeownership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	American “Pull” Factors – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: “Prosper Where You Are Planted”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1296	Remittances to Caribbean Increased By 3 Percent in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1256	Traditional 4-year College Degree are Terrible Investments for the Caribbean Region
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Puerto Rico Open to Radical Economic Fixes To Keep Citizens At Home
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623	Book Review: “The Divide – American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – Discrimination of Immigrations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=209	Muhammad Ali and Role Model/Advocate Kevin Connolly – Demanding Equal Rights in America’s Supreme Court

For the Caribbean Diaspora, fleeing from their homelands to reside in the US is akin to “jumping from the frying pan into the fire”. While we may not be able to change American society, we can – no, we must – impact our own society. How? What? When? Why? All of these questions are valid, because the answers are difficult. The Go Lean book describes the solution as heavy-lifting.

This is the charge of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap: to do the heavy-lifting, to implement the organizational dynamics to impact Caribbean society here and now. The following are the community ethos, strategies, tactics and operational advocacies to effectuate this goal:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influences Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choice Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Make the Caribbean the Best Address on Planet	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate Diaspora	Page 46
Strategy – Mission – Dissuade Human Flight/“Brain Drain”	Page 46
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Labor – Equal Opportunities	Page 89
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 133
Planning – Lessons from the US Constitution	Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Labor Unions	Page 164
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244
Appendix – Analysis of Caribbean Diaspora by Country of Residence	Page 267
Appendix – Analysis of Caribbean Emigration	Page 269
Appendix – Puerto Rican Population in the US	Page 304

The scope of this roadmap is to focus on the changes we have to make in the Caribbean, not the changes for American society. Our success is conceivable, believable and achievable. The Caribbean can be the world’s best address. Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in to this Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap.

This is a big deal for the region. This roadmap is not just a plan, its a prescription. We want the current Jose’s and Lakisha’s to fully “be all they can be”, here at home in the Caribbean. Let’s show America, and the world in general, that our homeland, is the best place to live, work and play, no matter our name.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———————–

Appendix a: Emily versus Lakisha

The following is the summary/introduction of a landmark study conducted by academicians in 2004:

We study race in the labor market by sending fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perceived race, resumes are randomly assigned African-American or White-sounding names. White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks are also more responsive to resume quality for White names than for African-American ones. The racial gap is uniform across occupation, industry, and employer size. We also find little evidence that employers are inferring social class from the names. Differential treatment by race still appears to be prominent in the U.S. labor market.

Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan (2004). “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination”; The American Economic Review. Published September 2004. Retrieved September 4, 2014 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592802?origin=JSTOR-pdf

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Diaspora, Image, Jobs

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Sports Role Model – Playing For Pride … And More

Posted on September 2, 2014 in Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

These blog/commentaries started in March 2014. But this source article was published on November 15, 2013. It never seemed appropriate to reach back and feature this article – until now. This marks the occasion of a Black College Football Game (Classic) being staged in Nassau, Bahamas on September 13, 2014 in the new Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium.

The foregoing article was adapted from the book by Samuel G. Freedman, Breaking the Line: The Season in Black College Football That Transformed the Sport and Changed the Course of Civil Rights. (It is available at www.samuelfreedman.com and at bookstores nationwide).

Title: Playing for Pride
By: Samuel G. Freedman

The yearly gridiron matchup known as the ORANGE BLOSSOM CLASSIC helped to even the playing field for black players, coaches and fans. But it was about so much more than football.

The calendar of Black America includes several specific holidays. Juneteenth, celebrated every June 19, honors the day the Union Army liberated slaves in Texas following the end of the Civil War. Kwanzaa, beginning on Dec. 26, is a seven-day festival of African heritage. On Dec. 31, which is called watch night, churches hold worship services to commemorate the way their forebears had stayed up all night awaiting the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.

And for a 30-year heyday beginning in the late 1940s, the Orange Blossom Classic football game and festival in Miami was the most important annual sporting event and the largest annual gathering of any kind for black Americans. For most of those years, more than 40,000 spectators attended the game in the Orange Bowl stadium, while tens of thousands more thronged to marching-band parades. Black tourists flocked to the hotels, restaurants and clubs of Miami’s Overtown and Liberty City neighborhoods. Pro-football scouts with binoculars, Ray-Bans and stingy-brim hats elbowed their way along the sidelines to scout prospects.

While the Orange Blossom Classic lives only in memory now — it served as the de facto black college championship until 1978 and was still played sporadically until 2004; it was ultimately the unexpected casualty of racial integration in sports and in society — its spirit persists in the dozens of “Classics” played between football teams from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). There are 37 on the schedule this season, and several of the most famous are coming up. Florida A&M University plays Bethune-Cookman University on Nov. 23 (2013) in the Florida Classic in Orlando, Fla., and Grambling State University faces Southern University and A&M College in the Bayou Classic on Nov. 30 (2013) in New Orleans. [2014 games are scheduled for the same corresponding weekends].

Football, though, is only part of a Classic. Marching bands, step shows, networking, gospel concerts and shopping excursions are all parts of the experience. These Classics continue to draw crowds as large as 70,000 for the on-field rivalry and a broader sense of affirmation.

“Historically speaking, there were not always so many opportunities for African-Americans to socialize in public,” says Todd Boyd, a University of Southern California professor who specializes in race and popular culture. “So the opportunities that did exist often took on added significance. Yet over time, the events became part of a larger tradition. I think the games now have a nostalgic feel. So it’s all about tradition and ritual once again.”

As sporting event and communal celebration, the Orange Blossom Classic rose as an answer to invisibility, the kind Ralph Ellison famously rendered in his novel, Invisible Man. In 1937, when Miami opened the Orange Bowl stadium, a public facility built with public funds, it excluded blacks from all but one section of the eastern end zone. No integrated football team was permitted onto the gridiron until the Nebraska Cornhuskers played Duke in the 1955 Orange Bowl. Blacks were barred from participating in any of the pageants and events related to the bowl game, much as they were barred from patronizing the resort hotels in Miami Beach. The black maids and janitors and cooks and bellhops who comprised the human infrastructure of those establishments had to obtain identification cards from the police. Even the black performers who drew the crowds — Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald — were forbidden from staying in the hotels where they entertained.

During the 1930s, Miami blacks began their own competitor to the Orange Bowl festivities, which they called the Coconut Festival. It had its own beauty queen, its own parade and its own football game, played in Dorsey Park, a segregated square block named for Miami’s first black millionaire. The Coconut Festival game, though, lacked much football pizzazz. That’s where J.R.E. Lee Jr., the son of Florida A&M University’s president, came in.

Even before Lee, black colleges had sought to create their own version of season-ending bowl games. In the 1920s, Lincoln University and Howard University began playing annually in the self-proclaimed Football Classic of the Year, and Tuskegee University met Wilberforce University yearly at Soldier Field in the Midwest Chicago Football Classic. Inspired by these examples, Lee conceived a “Black Rose Bowl,” naming it the Orange Blossom Classic. In the first game, in 1933, Florida A&M beat Howard by a score of 9-6 before 2,000 spectators at a blacks-only ballpark in Jacksonville, Fla. For the next 13 years, the contest migrated among the Florida cities of Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa, becoming an itinerant attraction that gradually built its audience and reputation.

Then, in 1947, Lee linked the game’s fortunes to the Coconut Festival’s and settled it in Miami. Miami had the largest stadium in Florida. Miami also had the greatest concentration of media anywhere in the state. And Miami, as it entered the postwar boom, was beginning to shake off its rigid segregation, largely owing to the influx of Jews from the North, most of them either tacitly or actively supportive of civil rights.

The very first Classic game in Miami made racial history. For the first time, black fans were permitted to sit in the main stands of the Orange Bowl. And when a Florida A&M Rattler receiver named Nathaniel “Traz” Powell caught a 45-yard pass to break a 0-0 tie with Hampton Institute, he became the first black man to score a touchdown on the Orange Bowl’s previously whites-only gridiron. Powell had grown up in Miami as the son of a laundress and a laborer at the city’s incinerator. For years to come, blacks around the state would speak about his touchdown as if he’d been Rosa Parks refusing to surrender her seat.

The civil rights analogy was apt. Black colleges and their football teams operated in a kind of parallel universe during the segregation era. Even as they sent hundreds of players into the pros, the mainstream media rarely covered the schools. The proliferation of sports-focused talk radio and cable TV was decades away. So Jake Gaither, Florida A&M’s legendary coach, set about raising the Orange Blossom Classic to the status of a de facto black championship. Year in and year out, his Rattlers ranked near the top. And because Florida A&M hosted the Orange Blossom Classic, Gaither invited the strongest possible opponent.

As a result, the Orange Blossom Classic far outdrew the University of Miami’s football games and, later, those of the new National Football League (NFL) franchise, the Miami Dolphins. In Black America, it supplanted the Negro League All-Star game as the biggest single event. Florida A&M’s renowned “Marching 100” band pranced in two parades, one through the black neighborhoods and the other downtown, each drawing thousands upon thousands of spectators.

One year, comedian Nipsey Russell joined the Rattlers on their sideline; another time it was Sammy Davis Jr. All week long, the streets of Overtown and LibertyCity were “crowded like the state fair, music pouring out of doorways,” as one participant remembers. At the Zebra Lounge and the Hampton House, in the Harlem Square Club and the Rockland Palace and all along the stretch of Northwest Second Street called the Great Black Way, stars of jazz, soul and rhythm and blues headlined. Women spent a year’s savings on their Orange Blossom dresses, and beauty salons stayed open all night to handle the demand. When the parties ended near daybreak, people went their ways for breakfast before a sunrise snooze.

“The Classic was bigger than the Fourth of July,” says Marvin Dunn, author of the history book Black Miami in the Twentieth Century. “It was a black thing, and it was well done, and it added to the sense of pride. Even if you didn’t go to the game, you’d have all these people massed along the parade route. And the clothes — you had to get a new suit, a new dress for the Classic. There was not a seat to be had in a barber shop.”

No game brought more luster and historical significance than the 1967 matchup between Florida A&M and Grambling. They were the two greatest black college teams with the two greatest black college coaches (Jake Gaither and Eddie Robinson, respectively) and the two finest quarterbacks to play at each school (Ken Riley and James Harris, respectively). Robinson very deliberately was developing Harris to break the quarterback color line in the pros, to forever lay to rest the canard that no black man was smart enough to play that most intellectual of positions. As Leon Armbrister, the sports columnist of The Miami Times, the city’s weekly black newspaper, exalted, “The selection of Grambling adds Super Bowl status to the Classic.”

In many ways, the Orange Blossom Classic in 1967 also embodied the recent progress in race relations. The Grambling and Florida A&M teams both stayed in integrated hotels on Miami Beach. The P. Ballantine & Sons Brewing Company sponsored a tape-delayed broadcast of the game on television stations in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York. Buddy Young, the first black executive in the NFL’s front office, provided the on-air commentary. The local publicity for the game was handled by Julian Cole, a transplanted Jew who counted the ritziest Miami Beach hotels among his clients.

The Orange Blossom Classic’s souvenir program featured advertisements from major national companies, including Humble Oil, Prudential Insurance and RC Cola. Coca-Cola sponsored a float carrying the Grambling College queen and her court in the pregame parade. The celebrities in attendance included the first wave of black executives hired by corporations in search of black consumers. Pepsi-Cola, the leader in the field, dispatched its vice president for special markets, Charles Dryden, a bona fide war hero as one of the Tuskegee Airmen. Greyhound sent Joe Black, the former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher, who recently had been appointed the bus company’s vice president of special markets. F.W. Woolworth, a company trying to repair a reputation damaged by its segregated lunch counters in Southern cities, dispatched Aubrey Lewis, a former Notre Dame football star and FBI agent it recently had hired as an executive recruiter.

The competitive tension built as the game approached. As Grambling ran through its practice session at a junior college, two busloads of Florida A&M players arrived. They jogged around the field, chanting, “It’s so hard to be a Rattler,” before haughtily driving off. Grambling’s Eddie Robinson, incensed, told his team, “The peace dove flies out the window tomorrow!” At a pregame banquet, he had to remind his players not to start jawing at the Florida A&M team, saying, “Take it out on the field.”

On the night of Dec. 2, 1967, before more than 40,000 spectators, Grambling and Florida A&M produced a classic for the Classic. The game went down to the final play, with the Tigers holding off a final drive by the Rattlers to win 28-25. Florida A&M compiled 396 yards of total offense, slightly more than Grambling’s 382. James Harris threw for 174 yards, and Ken Riley nearly matched him, with 110 yards passing and 62 more rushing.

The scouts certainly noticed. Harris, then a junior, would be drafted by the NFL’s Buffalo Bills in January 1969. He went on to become the first black quarterback to regularly start in the NFL, leading the Los Angeles Rams to the conference title game twice in the mid-1970s. Every black quarterback to follow, from Doug Williams and Warren Moon to Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III, came through the door that James Harris opened. As for Ken Riley, he was moved to cornerback in the NFL and had an illustrious 15-year career with the Cincinnati Bengals. Even now, 30 years after retiring, he ranks fifth in NFL history in career interceptions.

In the aftermath of the 1967 Orange Blossom Classic, Grambling was able to bring black college football to the nation as a whole. The following September, the Tigers played Morgan State before a sold-out crowd in Yankee Stadium in a fundraising game for the National Urban League, a prominent civil-rights organization. That example inspired the dozens of black-college classics being played today, keeping a precious thread of prideful history unbroken.
——
SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN is a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a New York Times columnist.

The foregoing article depicts reality for the Black American population for much of the 20th Century. Despite the differences in population, cultural heritage and language, much of the historical experiences were parallel in the Caribbean until majority rule and/or de-colonization came to fruition in these tropical homelands.

This foregoing article therefore relates to more than just sports, but history, culture and civil rights cause-and-effect. The foregoing therefore harmonizes with the book Go Lean…Caribbean which also stresses the need to Transform Sports and Change the Course of Civil Rights but this time for the Caribbean region. The Go Lean book studies the assessment of the 30 Caribbean member-states and posits that the region is in crisis, with the societal engines at the precipice due the an unsustainable rate of human flight. The African-American experience in the US has thusly improved over the last century, the current US President Barack Obama is of African-American descent; the dreaded co-existence (segregation) of Blacks along side Whites is no longer the status quo; their community is more color-blind. This creates strong motivation for Caribbean residents to consider an American migration. In fact 70% of the Caribbean college-educated population, some from American HBCU’s as depicted in the foregoing article, have abandoned their homeland and live abroad, mostly in the US.

The City of Miami, prominently featured in the foregoing article is largely comprised of the Caribbean Diaspora. (In the interest of full disclosure, this Go Lean blogger attended one of the schools prominently featured in this foregoing article, Florida A&M University, and separately lived in Miami for 17 years).

The underlying issue in this consideration is sports and the game of (American) football. A compelling mission of the Go Lean book is to foster the eco-systems for sports enterprises in the region. The book posits that sports, collegiate sports included, can impact a community’s economics and surely its pride.

An important mission of this Go Lean message is to simply lower the “push and pull” factors that lead many to abandon their Caribbean homeland for American shores. The “pull” factors were miniscule in the mid-20^th Century; Caribbean citizens of Black and Brown heritage may not have found the (southern) US so welcoming. But times have changed, and the minority experience in America is different; more enticing and appealing to Caribbean citizens seeking to relocate.

While the Caribbean may not have the sports business eco-system, we do have the underlying assets: athletes. The Caribbean supplies the world, including American colleges (NCAA), with the best-of-the-best in the sports genres of basketball, track-and-field, FIFA-soccer and a few football players (NCAA & NFL). The Go Lean book recognizes and fosters the genius qualifiers of many Caribbean athletes.

The Go Lean goal now is to foster the local eco-system in the homeland so that those with talent would not have to flee the region to garner successful returns on their athletic investments.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/ governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. At the outset, the roadmap recognizes our crisis and the value of sports in the roadmap, with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

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

xxvi. 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.

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 Go Lean roadmap calls for the market organizations to better garner the economic benefits of sports. One of the biggest contributions the CU will make is the facilitation of sports venues: arenas and stadia. Sports can be big business! But even when money is not involved, other benefits abound: educational scholarships, fitness/wellness, disciplined activities for the youth, image, and pride. No doubt an intangible yet important benefits is depicted in this Go Lean roadmap, that of less societal abandonment. A mission of the CU is to reduce the brain drain and incentivize repatriation of the Diaspora.

Another area of the Go Lean economic empowerment roadmap that relates to the foregoing article is the strategy is to create a Single (Media) Market to leverage the value of broadcast rights for the region, the resultant consolidated market would cover 30 member-states, 4 languages and 42 million people. The successful execution of this strategy will elevate the art, science and genius of sport enterprises in the region. 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 re-boot the delivery of the regional solutions to elevate the Caribbean region through sports:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Make Caribbean The Best Place to Live, Work and Play	Page 46
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 – 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 Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229

With some measure of success, we should be able to reduce the “push and pull” factors that lead many to abandon the Caribbean region in the first place. We want our athletes to transform their sports and change our society, not some distant land.

Other subjects related to the sports world and it’s impact on society have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

Date Published	Blog Subject / Link
August 24	Sports Role Model – The SEC Network for College Sports Broadcasting
June 23	Caribbean Players Impact on the 2014 World Cup
June 22	Caribbean Crisis: More than 70 Percent of Tertiary- Educated Abandon Region
May 27	Sports Revolution for Advocate Jeffrey Webb
March 24	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
March 24	10 Things We Want from the US – #10 Sports Professionalism
March 21	Muhammad Ali and Advocate Kevin Connolly – Changing Society

The Caribbean has the capacity to be the best address on the planet, but there are certain missing features, such as intercollegiate athletics… and jobs. Why else would citizens choose to abandon their beloved homeland if not for the greater economic opportunities abroad. The foregoing article reminds us of the evolutionary nature of change, thereby aligning with this Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap. This effort is bigger than college sports; this is about Caribbean life; we must elevate our own society. The CU is the vehicle for this change, detailed here with 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 to support these engines.

With the Go Lean roadmap, the people and institutions of the Caribbean can easily envision major sporting events like the Orange Blossom Classic of bygone days, having similar impact on society beyond the playing field. Sports can have that effect; we must therefore not ignore its significance and contributions.

The purpose of this roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. Sports falls under the “games people play” category. With the CU oversight on the economy, security and governing engines, our community can take time to play. As the Bible book of Ecclesiastes (Chapter 3 verses 1 – 8 of Young’s Literal Translation) relates, there is a right time, a season for “everything under the sun”:

To everything — a season, and a time to every delight under the heavens:
A time to bring forth, And a time to die. A time to plant, And a time to eradicate the planted.
A time to slay, And a time to heal, A time to break down, And a time to build up.
A time to weep, And a time to laugh. A time to mourn, And a time to skip [about].
A time to cast away stones, And a time to heap up stones. A time to embrace, And a time to be far from embracing.
A time to seek, And a time to destroy. A time to keep, And a time to cast away.
A time to rend, And a time to sew. A time to be silent, And a time to speak.
A time to love, And a time to hate. A time of war, And a time of peace.

There was a time for the Orange Blossom Classic, for its impact on American society; there was also a time for the Classic to pass on, where it would no longer be required to showcase African-American athletic talent. The same applies for the Caribbean. Now is the time for all the Caribbean to lean-in for this roadmap to transform sports and changed the course of Caribbean society. Now is the season to Go Lean.

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

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Students developing nail polish to detect date rape drugs

Posted on August 27, 2014 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

It’s back to school time! For K-12 and colleges. At the tertiary level, it’s time again for all the good, bad and ugly of the college experience.

The issue in the foregoing news article/VIDEO relates more to the ugly side of the college experience, especially for young girls on and near college campuses – sexual violence. But this issue is bigger than just college, date-rape, and university mitigations, this is about human rights.

By: NBC News – The Today Show
A group of male students at North Carolina State University is taking on a problem on campus, developing a nail polish that changes color to indicate the presence of date-rape drugs. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports, as follows:

NBC News – The Today Show – August 26, 2014 –
http://www.today.com/video/today/55935260#55935260

This story is being brought into focus in a consideration of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the economic optimization in the region. How does this story relate?

Education
College Campuses
Justice Systems – Bad Actors
Women Rights
The Greater Good

This CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

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

The roadmap posits that the economy of the Caribbean is inextricably linked to the security of the Caribbean. The security scope of the CU is mostly focused on the “bad actors” that might emerge to exploit the new Caribbean economic engines. The book also focuses on traditional crime-and-punishment issues. The subject of date rape and sexual violence falls on the member-state side of the separation-of-powers divide, the CU does retain jurisdiction on Self-Governing Entities (SGE’s). A growth strategy of the roadmap is to invite, foster and incubate academic institutions to the region under the SGE scheme. The CU will also feature a jurisdiction of monitoring and metering (ratings, rankings, service levels, etc) the delivery of local governments in their execution of the Social Contract. For these reason, 3-prong focus of the CU prime directive is apropos: economic, security and governing engines.

Change has come to the Caribbean, but as the roadmap depicts, the problem of sexual violence (a human rights abuse) had persisted long before, so there is the need to mitigate recidivism in the region. Who are those most at risk for this behavior, and their victims? What efforts can be implemented to mitigate and protect our citizens, especially young innocent girls, venturing into the brave new world to foster their education and impact their communites.

Remember Natalee Holloway? (See the consideration on Page 190 of the Go Lean book).

“Serve and protect”. This is the new lean Caribbean!

The Go Lean roadmap posits that every woman has a right to a violence-free existence, on campus, in the family and in society; it is reprehensible that in so many Caribbean/Latin countries women are still viewed as lesser beings that can be abused at the whim of men.

What should be done to mitigate these bad practices? How does the Go Lean roadmap address this issue?

The solution in the foregoing VIDEO is “a good start”.

We made this issue personal, and interviewed a College Counselor for Freshman Women in one tertiary school in the Bahamas. (See Appendix).

There needs to be more research and development of more solutions.

This is the charge of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap: embrace R&D as a community ethos so as not to accept the status quo – keep moving forward. There are more ethos, strategies, tactics and operational advocacies presented in the Go Lean roadmap as well, so as to ensure that those vulnerable are protected and perpetrators are held accountable for their actions. The following are samples (with page numbers) from the book:

Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Witness Security	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti Bullying & Mitigations	Page 23
Community Ethos – Light Up the Dark Places	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalizations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Impacting the Greater Good	Page 34
Strategy – Rule of Law –vs- Vigilantism	Page 49
Separation of Powers – CariPol	Page 77
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Steps to Implement SGE’s	Page 105
Ways to Improve Education	Page 159
Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime	Page 178
Ways to Improve Gun Control	Page 179
Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering	Page 182
Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Ways to Enhance Tourism – Mitigate Economic Crimes	Page 190
Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex – Recidivism	Page 211
Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Ways to Empower Women	Page 226
Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities	Page 228

In addition, many related issues/points were elaborated in previous blogs, sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1634	Book Review: ‘Chasing Youth Culture and Getting It Right’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=809	Muslim officials condemn abductions of Nigerian girls
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=695	Brazil’s abused wives find help by going to ‘Dona Carmen’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight

For the CU’s deployment of SGE’s, we are front-and center in monitoring, managing and mitigating the issues in this foregoing article/VIDEO. For the Caribbean member-states in general, while the CU does not have sovereignty (its a deputized agency only), it can still provide support services to ensure compliance, accountability and service-level assurances. Yes, in addition to monitoring and metering, the CU can also provide ratings, funding, training, intelligence gathering, and cross border (fugitive) law enforcement.

The goal is simply to make the Caribbean a better place to live work, learn and play; with justice for all, regardless of gender. Simple goal, but heavy-lifting in the execution.

To the Caribbean communities, we say: “Bring it!”

This is not politics or feminism; this is law-and-order. This is just right!

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——————————————————————

Appendix – Interview

Camille Russell-Smith (CRS) is employed at the College of the Bahamas as a Counselor in the Counseling and Health Services Department. She pays it forward. One task among her duties that grabbed our attention is the “Violence in Interpersonal Relationships” workshops she conducts each semester for incoming freshmen.

Here is the interview with the Go Lean…Caribbean publishers (GLC):

GLC: In this day and age, do you find that it is difficult to reach young men and young women on proper behavior with regards to date-acquaintance-rape threats and risks?

CRS: Definitely a challenge exists in getting young people to realize proper attitudes they must have towards each other in order to foster healthy relationships It is important to raise their awareness of how they can easily abuse the rights of others. Further it is important to remind all students, particularly women, of the need to be ever vigilant, not to assume that a friend-date-acquaintance will respect their rights and not take advantage of any vulnerabilities.

GLC: Is there an ongoing problem on your campus with date- acquaintance rape?

CRS: There have been some related incidents between students of the College, though not necessarily on campus. However, I continue to counsel young women on the fallout and consequences of what happens when they go out at night. What I worry about the most is the fact that so many women believe that the rape may be their fault, for example if they went to a bar, but told their family/friends that they were going somewhere benign, like the library. However, the penalty for lying is definitely not being raped.

GLC: How do you hope to mitigate these threats?

CRS: Education, awareness, advocacies. But it is hard. I am going against a “tidal wave” in the other direction. The music, videos, images in the media, makes many young men feel as if they have some sense of entitlement. Then many women feel as if they can only be accepted if they allow, tolerate sexually abusive behavior without “making waves”.

GLC: How do you feel about the innovations in this foregoing VIDEO?

CRS: This innovation of a chemical that can detect the presence of a date-rape drug is a good start. We need more such innovations. The special glass, as mentioned in the foregoing article, sounds like another good innovation. I can imagine that other such developments will come soon.

GLC: What hope do you see for the future in our communities regarding these kinds of attitudes that can lead to unhealthy relationships?

CRS: We need to get our communities to the point that it is commonly accepted that “no means no”. Also, that those prosecuted for sex crimes would not be cuddled or excused and most importantly that women that report crimes would not be shunned. We can be successful. The acceptance in the community has changed regarding domestic violence and I believe that acceptance of date-acquaintance-rape will change also.

GLC: Thank you for your insights. Any final words?

CRS: We must do this. We must try to change our country and the Caribbean region as a whole. There are far too many “old views, old habits, and old philosophies” in our communities where some men think they can ignore the rights of women. Let’s please fix this…once and for all.

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Sports Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network

Posted on August 24, 2014 in Economics, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

There is a new religion in the South (United States). It is SEC football. For many in the South, football is life, “everything else is details”. Now, (starting August 28) the SEC adherents can worship 7-24-365 on the SEC Network cable channel. This is a melding of sports, television, southern culture and economics – this is big business – and a religious-like devotion.

The SEC (South East Conference) is the Number 1 (American) football conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Their revenues, attendance, championships, NFL draft picks and TV ratings are the best-of-the-best of all other conferences. This last subject is the focus of this commentary: TV ratings and broadcast rights.

Title: Turn On the SEC
By: Jon Saraceno

In a melding of two powerful sports brands, cable-television behemoth ESPN and the football-crazed Southeastern Conference have joined forces to form the SEC Network, debuting August 14. ESPN Radio host Paul Finebaum, a veteran observer of all things SEC, believes audience response will be rabid. That view seems particularly valid given that college football is the unquestioned autumnal king of the South.

“SEC fans are an interesting bunch,” Finebaum observes. “They don’t like being subjected to other leagues [that have TV networks], like the Big Ten or the Pac-12. Now they can say, ‘Nothing else exists but us — the rest of the world can vaporize, for all we care.’ It is as irritating to non-SEC fans as it is pleasing to a son of the South.”

Finebaum understands the parochialism. The Memphis, Tenn., native worked for three decades in Birmingham, Ala., before relocating to Charlotte, N.C., as the SEC Network’s first on-air hire when ESPN announced the formation of the network last year. The network launches with a well-timed countdown to the start of the 2014 football season. Blastoff is Aug. 28, when Texas A&M travels to South Carolina. Brent Musburger, one of several marquee on-air hires, will call the game. But the SEC Network’s most popular personality might be former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow.

Programming for the 24/7 multiplatform channel will be highlighted by 45 SEC football games. The network also will showcase men’s basketball (an estimated 100 games), women’s basketball (60 games) and baseball (75 games), along with select coverage from the league’s 21 sports. In all, more than 1,000 events will be aired across the network’s digital platform.

Following ESPN’s time-tested formula of bracketing programming and analysis around live events, the SEC Network will televise studio shows and live-event days such as spring football games and national signing day for college-football recruits.

Beyond content, the marriage between ESPN and the conference should be a match made in financial heaven. Disney-owned ESPN expects to reap untold hundreds of millions in advertising revenue during the 20-year deal. Increased exposure and lucrative media rights bode well for all 14 SEC schools.
American Way August 2014 – American Airlines Inflight Magazine –
http://hub.aa.com/en/aw/turn-on-the-sec

The Caribbean does not currently have an eco-system for intercollegiate athletics. The book Go Lean…Caribbean, and aligning blog commentaries, asserts that the region can be a better place to live, work and play; that the economy can be grown methodically by embracing progressive strategies in sports at all levels: professional, amateur and intercollegiate.

While the Caribbean may not have the sports business eco-system, we do have the underlying assets: the athletes. The Caribbean supply the world, including the NCAA, with the best-of-the-best in the sports genres of basketball, track-and-field, soccer-FIFA-football and other endeavors. The Go Lean book recognizes and fosters the genius qualifiers of many Caribbean athletes.

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.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/ governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. At the outset, the roadmap recognizes the value of sports in the roadmap with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

xxvi. 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.

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 Go Lean roadmap calls for the market organizations to better garner the economic benefits of sports. One of the biggest contribution the CU will make is the facilitation of sports venues: arenas and stadia. Sports can be big business! But even when money is not involved, other benefits abound: educational scholarships, image, national pride, and something more, something non-tangible yet of utmost importance for the Go Lean roadmap: less societal abandonment. A mission of the CU is to reduce the brain drain and incentivize repatriation of the Diaspora.

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 – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
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 – 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 – Reduce Brain Drain	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 Expositions	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

The Caribbean is the best-of-the-best address on the planet, but there are certain missing features, such as intercollegiate athletics… and jobs. The foregoing article aligns with this Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap to fill these voids. This effort is bigger than sports; this is about Caribbean life; we must elevate our own society. The CU is the vehicle for this goal, this is detailed by 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 to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap anticipates 21,000 direct jobs at fairgrounds and sport venues throughout the region; plus 40,000 new jobs by re-optimizing the region’s educational engines, including colleges & universities.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. Now is the time to make this region a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

APPENDIX – SEC Conference Schools/Teams

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Cooling Effect – Oceans and the Climate

Posted on August 23, 2014 in Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Are you smarter than a 5th Grader?

The following is an analysis based on some basic elementary school science. For starters, salt (salinity) has an effect on the absorption of heat – it freezes at a colder temperature (28.4 degrees Fahrenheit) than the 32 degrees for water – salt is thusly the #1 tool for managing snow removal during the winter months in the colder climates. (This dynamic may be unfamiliar to many residents in the Caribbean). When salt is scattered/applied on sidewalks or roads, affected snow would melt … on its own.

Another principle in consideration of this discussion is that Climate Change is mostly associated with Global Warming, and yet, this year (this summer especially in the Northeast US) has been cooler than usual.

So do we have Global Warming or not? Is this a fluke that this summer is cooler than usual? Do we need to prepare for more devastating effects of Climate Change?

Yes, yes and yes!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean calls for the establishment of a regional sentinel to monitor, mitigate and manage the effects of Climate Change on the region’s economic, security and governing engines. This subject is more than just academic for the Caribbean, this affects our life and livelihood. When we get this stewardship wrong, and for 50 years this has been the assessment, we lose out. We have a long track record of losses associated with the perils of Climate Change; consider this sample: Hurricane Andrew (1992 – Bahamas), Hurricane Marilyn (1995 – Virgin Islands), Hurricane Wilma (2005 – Bahamas) and Hurricane Dean (2007 – Belize).

Caribbean losses have not only been property damage and the disruption of commerce. Inevitably, each storm episode created “push” factors for societal abandonment. Then as a community, we lost out on even more economic opportunities associated with the time, talent and treasuries of the Caribbean residents who left – we experienced a brain drain. Today, our “sorry state of affairs” find some regional member-states with an abandonment rate of more than 50% (Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands) and the absence of more than 70% of college-educated citizens.

While 5th Grade Science is important for this empowerment effort, the book Go Lean … Caribbean is not a book of science; it gleans from scientific concepts in communicating the plan to elevate Caribbean society. The book focuses on economics, and relates that the resultant societal engines can be seriously impacted by climate change-led natural disasters: threats and actual impact. The book thusly serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The prime directives of this agency are described as:

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

The Go Lean roadmap immediately calls for the establishment of a Homeland Security Department, with an agency to practice the arts and sciences of Emergency Management. The emergencies include natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding, forest fires, and droughts – all now of more frequent occurrences. These types of emergencies should be impacted even further based on the dynamics described in the foregoing article. Emergency Management is not just reactive, it must be proactive as well. This direct correlation of warmer seas and cooling temperatures with the economy, thusly depicts the need for this CU charter and mission:

Title: Davy Jones’s heat locker
Subtitle: The mystery of the pause in global warming may have been solved. The answer seems to lie at the bottom of the sea

Over the past few years one of the biggest questions in climate science has been why, since the turn of the century, average surface-air temperatures on Earth have not risen, even though the concentration in the atmosphere of heat-trapping carbon dioxide has continued to go up. This “pause” in global warming has been seized on by those skeptical that humanity needs to act to curb greenhouse-gas emissions or even (in the case of some extreme skeptics) who think that man-made global warming itself is a fantasy. People with a grasp of the law of conservation of energy are, however, skeptical in their turn of these positions and doubt that the pause is such good news. They would rather understand where the missing heat has gone, and why – and thus whether the pause can be expected to continue.

The most likely explanation is that it is hiding in the oceans, which store nine times as much of the sun’s heat as do the atmosphere and land combined. But until this week, descriptions of how the sea might do this have largely come from computer models. Now, thanks to a study published in Science by Chen Xianyao of the Ocean University of China, Qingdao, and Ka-Kit Tung of the University of Washington, Seattle, there are data.

Dr Chen and Dr Tung have shown where exactly in the sea the missing heat is lurking. As the left-hand chart below shows, over the past decade and a bit the ocean depths have been warming faster than the surface. This period corresponds perfectly with the pause, and contrasts with the last two decades of the 20th century, when the surface was warming faster than the deep. The authors calculate that, between 1999 and 2012, 69 zettajoules of heat (that is, 69 x 10¹¹ joules—a huge amount of energy) have been sequestered in the oceans between 300 metres and 1,500 metres down. If it had not been so sequestered, they think, there would have been no pause in warming at the surface.

Hidden depths
The two researchers draw this conclusion from observations collected by 3,000 floats launched by Argo, an international scientific collaboration. These measure the temperature and salinity of the top 2,000 metres of the world’s oceans. In general, their readings match the models’ predictions. But one of the specifics is weird.

Most workers in the field have assumed the Pacific Ocean would be the biggest heat sink, since it is the largest body of water. A study published in Nature in 2013 by Yu Kosaka and Shang-Ping Xie of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in San Diego, argued that cooling in the eastern Pacific explained most of the difference between actual temperatures and models of the climate that predict continuous warming. Dr Chen’s and Dr Tung’s research, though, suggests it is the Atlantic (see middle chart) and the Southern Ocean that are doing the sequestering. The Pacific (right-hand chart), and also the Indian Ocean, contribute nothing this way—for surface and deepwater temperatures in both have risen in parallel since 1999.

This has an intriguing implication. Because the Pacific has previously been thought of as the world’s main heat sink, fluctuations affecting it are considered among the most important influences upon the climate. During episodes called El Niño, for example, warm water from its west sloshes eastward over the cooler surface layer there, warming the atmosphere. Kevin Trenberth of America’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research has suggested that a strong Niño could produce a jump in surface-air temperatures and herald the end of the pause. Earlier this summer, a strong Niño was indeed forecast, though the chances of this happening seem to have receded recently.

But if Dr Chen and Dr Tung are right, then the fluctuations in the Atlantic may be more important. In this ocean, saltier tropical water tends to move towards the poles (surface water at the tropics is especially saline because of greater evaporation). As it travels it cools and sinks, carrying its heat into the depths—but not before melting polar ice, which makes the surface water less dense, fresh water being lighter than brine. This fresher water has the effect of slowing the poleward movement of tropical water, moderating heat sequestration. It is not clear precisely how this mechanism is changing so as to send heat farther into the depths. But changing it presumably is.

Understanding that variation is the next task. The process of sequestration must reverse itself at some point, since otherwise the ocean depths would end up hotter than the surface—an unsustainable outcome. And when it does, global warming will resume.

A lot is at stake with this consideration. Our economic drivers in the region – tourism and fisheries – depend on the strength of the Caribbean climate compared to other parts of the world. If change is coming to our climate, then we must be front-and-center in the planning of the mitigations and responses.

The Go Lean book posits that Climate Change is wreaking havoc on Caribbean life now, for the potential for even more harm in the future. This point is pronounced early in the book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), with this opening statement:

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

To counteract the changes in nature, the Go Lean book advocates the immediate confederation of the 30 member-states into a Trade Federation with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit one and all member-states. This includes the monitoring/studying of the dynamics of Climate Change. The region’s total population is only 42 million, compared to the whole world’s 6 Billion. We may not be able to change the world’s habits and practices that may exacerbate Climate Change – we must still try – but we can better prepare our homeland for nature’s onslaughts. The empowered CU agencies must therefore liaise with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and foreign entities with the similar scope to monitor, mitigate and manage the causes-and-effects of oceans warming/cooling trends.

The book details that we must first adopt a community ethos, the appropriate attitude/spirit, to forge change in our region. Go Lean details this and other ethos; plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to better impact the region’s response (& preparation) for Climate Change:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Single Market & Economy	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Prepare for Natural Disasters	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 76
Separation of Powers – Meteorological & Geological Service	Page 79
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress	Page 148
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Ways to Enhance Tourism in the Region	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries	Page 210
Appendix – History of Puerto Rican Migration to US	Page 303
Appendix – US Virgin Islands Economic Timeline	Page 305

Change has come to the Caribbean.

The foregoing news article discusses the threats of warming oceans and cooler temperatures. This is today’s issue. New issues will emerge tomorrow and the days after. This establishes that there is a need for a permanent union – a sentinel – to provide efficient stewardship for Caribbean economy, security and governing engines.

The Go Lean…Caribbean posits that the problems of the region are too big for just any one member-state to tackle, there is the need for a regional solution, a regional sentinel. The Caribbean Union Trade Federation submits for this job to be the Caribbean sentinel for the issues, conditions and threats of Climate Change. The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to embrace these changes to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

At the time of this writing, it is 76 degrees in the peak of a mid-summer day in Philadelphia. It should be 96 degrees. The weather forecast for parts of Montana is a winter weather advisory during the next 24 hours, usually it would be 90 degrees. Despite the detractors and naysayers to Climate Change, something is wrong! Even a 5th Grader can discern this.

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Sports Role Model – US versus the World

Posted on August 23, 2014 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

This is a big weekend in the world of sports, its the US versus the World … again. This time, its the Little League World Series, the baseball tournament in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Even though baseball is played in many countries around the world, the expectation is that it takes an All-Star team from the rest of the world to compete against one American team.

This is the tournament’s Final Four teams, (see Appendix-Bracket below):

US: Chicago* -vs- Las Vegas
World: South Korea* -vs- Japan
* = Winner

The attitude of the US versus the World is the attitude in many other sports endeavors as well; sampled as follows:

The NCAA College Baseball Championship Tournament is called the College World Series.
The NBA Playoff Champion is referred to as World Champions.
Major League Baseball Championship Best-of-Seven Match-up is branded the World Series.
National Hockey League All-Star Game is a Match-up of North America (US and Canada) versus the World.

It is evident that the sports eco-system is bigger in the US, than anywhere else in the world. Needless to say, the Caribbean region pales in comparison in accentuating the business of sports. Deficient would not even be a fitting adjective, as there is NO arrangement for intercollegiate sports in the region, despite having 42 million people in 30 different countries. The Caribbean misses out on many opportunities associated with the games people play – especially economic ones: jobs, event bookings, media coverage.

This is the assertion of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that the Caribbean can be a better place to live, work and play; that the economy can be grown methodically by embracing progressive strategies in recognizing and fostering the genius qualifiers of many Caribbean athletes. So many times, those with talent have had to flee the region to garner the business returns on their athletic investments.

It does not have to be.

The following news article indicates that even amateur Little League baseball is big business:

Title: Little League means big business as revenues soar
By: Josh Peter, USA Today

The images remain quaint — kids sprinting around the base-paths, fans watching from grass hills, Norman Rockwell-like scenes abound at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., which culminates Sunday with the championship game. But make no mistake, Little League is big business.

Little League Inc. reported revenue of almost $25 million and assets of more than $85 million in 2012, according to the most recent publicly available tax return it must file to maintain tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Over a five-year period, compensation for Little League Inc.’s CEO, Steve Keener, nearly doubled to $430,000 a year. And in 2012, the 100-person full-time staff made almost $7.5 million in salaries — a year before ESPN agreed to more than double broadcast fees as part of an eight-year, $76 million contract to televise the games during the two-week tournament.

“That’s a lot of money when all the grunt work is volunteer,” said Randy Stevens, president of the Little League in Nashville, Tenn., whose all-star team qualified for the World Series each of the past two years. “Now I’m wondering where it’s all going.”

Keener, elected as CEO in 1996, said revenue has grown at a steady pace and said new money is going back into the program.

“I’m not going to apologize for generating revenue to support the programming issues of this organization,” he told USA TODAY Sports. “But I would apologize if I felt we were not using it to the best of our ability in a prudent manner and getting the most out of the money to benefit this program.”

Keener said the majority of the organization’s costs stem from maintaining the national headquarters in Williamsport, five regional centers — in Connectcut, Georgia, Texas, California, Indiana — a full-time facility in Poland and offices in Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and Canada.

When Little League signed its contract with ESPN in 2007, Keener said, it lowered affiliation fees for the local leagues. He also said Little League pays for 125 criminal background checks for each local league and provides training program for coaches.

“Those are ways we try direct the funds right back to the local programs,” he said.

Little League also pays for travel, lodging and food costs for 16 teams, each of which include 13 players and three coaches. But Stevens, affiliated with the Nashville-based league, said families of the players should receive financial help for travel costs.

He estimated the parents of his players needed up to $35,000 to cover those expenses. A father with the team from Chicago said parents were unsure how they would pay for the trip until five Major League Baseball players offered to cover all travel expenses for the parents.

Keener said the idea of travel assistance is not under consideration.

“I’ve learned never to say never, but it’s unlikely at this point,” he said. “Our responsibility is to provide the travel, the accommodations and all the expenses related to participating in the World Series for the players and the coaches and the umpires who are here working the World Series.”

Keener said giving the players money that could be used for scholarships is not under consideration.

“Anything we would do for one group of kids, we would do for all of the kids. And it’s just not feasible to think that they’re all going to head off to college when they’re getting out of high school, particularly with the kids from the international region,” he said. “It’s just not something we feel is necessary for us to be thinking about when they’re 12 or 13 years old.”

Little League does not charge admission for games at the World Series, but officials do solicit donations while passing around cans during games.

“Whatever money they’re getting, they’re looking for more,” said Ellen Siegel, affiliated with the team from Philadelphia.

But Keener said the $25 million a year pales in comparison to organizations such as the Boys Scouts of America, which reported revenue of $240 million in 2012. He said Little League could not operate without the support of about 1,250,000 volunteers in 7,500 communities.

As far as his salary is concerned, he declined to comment other than to say his compensation is set by a committee of Little League Inc. board members.

Davie Jane Gilmour, Little League International Board of Directors Chairman, said Keener’s salary — and that of the other senior staff members, who in 2012 earned between $100,000 and $250,000 apiece — are in line with salaries at comparable non-profits.

“To be perfectly honest with you, there are many board members on that (compensation) committee who think that our senior staff, and in particular Steve, are underpaid at this point in time,” Gilmour said. “There’s a a pretty strong feeling on the compensation committee that they are highly marketable based on their success here in their work here at Little League.”

The claim of the book Go Lean … Caribbean is that excellence in sports requires a genius qualifier and that genius ability can be found in abundance in the Caribbean. Further that there is something bigger than sports alone at play here, that this is the full effect of globalization in which the Caribbean can export products and services to benefit the homeland.

This commentary has previously promoted the monetary benefits of the sports eco-systems and how Caribbean progeny participate on the world stage:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1508	St Croix’s Tim Duncan to Return to Spurs For Another Season
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1446	Caribbean Players in the 2014 World Cup
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341	Sports Landlord Model of the College World Series Time
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Sports Landlord Model – The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Caribbean Sports Revolutionary & Advocate: FIFA’s Jeffrey Webb
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498	Sports Nature -vs- Nurture: Book Review of ‘The Sports Gene’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=334	Bahamians Basketballers Make Presence Felt In Libyan League
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	The Need for Collegiate Sports Eco-System in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/ governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. At the outset, the roadmap recognizes the value of sports in the roadmap with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

xxvi. 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.

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 Go Lean roadmap calls for the market organizations to better explore the economic opportunities for sports. Sports can be big business! But even when money is not involved, other benefits abound. As such the CU will enhance the engines to elevate sports at all levels: amateur, intercollegiate and professional.

The Go Lean book’s economic empowerment roadmap features huge benefits for the region related to sports. The strategy is create leverage for a viable sports landscape by consolidate the region’s 30 member-states / 4 languages into a Single Market of 42 million people. The CU facilitation of applicable venues (stadia, arenas, fields, temporary structures) on CU-owned fairgrounds plus the negotiations for broadcast/streaming rights/licenses will elevate the art, science and genius of sports as an enterprise in the region. As depicted in the foregoing article/VIDEO, even young children, Little League, will participate/benefit in the sports eco-system.

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 re-boot the delivery of the regional solutions to elevate the Caribbean region through sports:

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 – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Strategic – Vision – Integrating 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 – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
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 Expositions	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

The foregoing VIDEO features many sub-stories associated with this year’s Little League World Series (LLWS) tournament, the compelling stories of the rise from the despair of the Chicago inner-city, and Philadelphia’s Mo’ne Davis, the only girl in the tournament. The drama of sports is a microcosm for the drama in life.

Despite the presence of a Caribbean team in this LLWS tournament, no compelling Caribbean stories have emerged. This is an American drama: the United States versus the World. This is not just an attitude in sports, but in many other endeavors as well. The drama and challenges in the Caribbean are of no consequence in the US, we are just a playground for their world.

We need our own tournament to foster Caribbean sports drama and economic benefits.

We need to lean-in to the Go Lean roadmap to build the sports eco-systems to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. We must elevate our own society.

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

———–

APPENDIX – LLWS BRACKETS (Double-Click for a legible Viewer)

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