In a visit to Jamaica and CariCom leaders in April 2015, US President Barack Obama concluded that 55 years of indifference towards Cuba was long-enough and that as of December 17, 2014 he had “set the machinery in motion” to normalize relations with Cuba. This descriptor paints the picture of a journey, a marathon and not just a “100-yard dash”.
What is the status of that journey now?
Where are we in the process? How are the issues being addressed?
It turns out this is a weighty task (heavy-lifting), and while many of the issues are minor (i.e. Postal Mail), some are life-and-death (i.e. Human Trafficking).
Firstly, the current restoration of Cuban and American relations is strictly an act of Executive Orders – directives by the US President (currently of the Democratic Party) and not supported by his Republican legislature, the Congress. There is a definitive divide among these Democrats and Republicans in this regard. Here are some updates of those Executive Orders, since the December 2014 baseline:
The book Go Lean…Caribbean was designed with the intent of the eventual integration of Cuba in a Caribbean Single Market. This would allow for technocratic stewardship and oversight of the region’s economic, security and governing engines for all 30 Caribbean member-states. The book therefore serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).
There is no minimizing of the risks and responsibility of Cuba in the Go Lean book. It is clearly recognized that integrating and restoring Cuba is a BIG deal; with heavy-lifting; and other reconciliation descriptors used to depict this monumental effort. See the relevant statement here from the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):
xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states (for example: Haiti and Cuba) will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.
Though World War II was not directly waged in the Caribbean, the Go Lean/CU roadmap still prescribes a Marshall Plan strategy – a reference to the post-WWII European Rebuilding Plan – for re-building Cuba (and Haiti).
In truth, Cuba is the biggest market in the Caribbean. This one island has the largest landmass among the islands; (notwithstanding the landmasses of South America-situated CU member-states of Guyana and Suriname). They also have the largest population of 11,236,444 people (circa 2010) and the most agricultural output. Cuba needs the Caribbean; and the Caribbean needs Cuba. The entire region needs to act in unison as the challenges the region face are too big for any one country to tackle alone.
All in all, the book and accompanying blogs declare despite an absence of trade embargo in the other Caribbean member-states, that these countries have still failed to deliver to their citizens the standards assumed in any Social Contract. Some member-states are even flirting with Failed-State statuses. People in each Caribbean country are prone to flee the region, at every opportunity. The people of the region deserve better!
There is the need to re-boot … the entire region. This re-boot roadmap commences with the recognition that all the Caribbean is in crisis, and in the “same boat” despite the colonial heritage or language. All 30 geographical member-states need to confederate, collaborate, and convene for solutions. This is the purpose of the Go Lean/CU roadmap, as featured in this declaration of the Go Lean/CU 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.
Consider the start of the ill-fated Cuban-Communism Revolution in 1959, Cuba has lost 57 years in its maturation process. The Go Lean book’s opening Declaration of Interdependence(Page 11) also included this pronouncement that it is beyond time now for Caribbean success stories, rather than the continued Caribbean Failed-State stories:
While our rights to exercise good governance and promote a more perfect society are the natural assumptions among the powers of the earth, no one other than ourselves can be held accountable for our failure to succeed if we do not try to promote the opportunities that a democratic society fosters.
The Go Lean book therefore details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to facilitate a re-boot in the region and to final manifest a quality delivery of a regional Social Contract:
Anecdote – Caribbean Single Market & Economy
Page 15
Community Ethos – new Economic Principles
Page 21
Community Ethos – new Security Principles
Page 22
Community Ethos – new Governing Principles
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations – TRC Cuba
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrated Region in a Single Market
Tactical – Growing to $800 Billion Regional Economy – Marshall Plan Models
Page 67
Tactical – Separation of Powers
Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change
Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up
Page 102
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up
Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver
Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate
Page 118
Planning – Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region – Marshall Plan for Cuba
Page 127
Planning – Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed – Lessons from Unifying Germany
Page 132
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices
Page 134
Planning – Lessons from East Germany – Post-Communism Integration
Page 139
Planning – Ways to Model the EU – Immediate Integration after WWII Crisis
Page 130
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance
Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba
Page 236
The issue of Cuba’s eventual integration into the Caribbean brotherhood has previously been addressed in the following Go Lean commentary-blog entries:
For a long time people have hoped for a restored Cuba. This hope was shared by Cuban people on the island and in the Diaspora abroad. The hope is also shared by neighbors, tourists, trading-partners, and international stakeholders, alike. Maybe, just maybe with President Barack Obama’s Executive Orders, the journey down this road to restoration will be irreversible. (A new President of the US will be sworn-in on January 20, 2017; this one can reverse Obama’s Executive Orders).
The Go Lean roadmap for the CU strives to put the Command-and-Control of Caribbean affairs in the hands of Caribbean people. The book and accompanying blogs declare the desire for the Caribbean to no longer be a parasite of the US, but rather a protégé. This parasite status stems all the way back to the year 1898 – to the start of the Spanish – American War for Cuban Independence.
Enough already! Surely we have grown since 1898 or even since 1959.
The Go Lean…Caribbean movement turns the corner, and instead of an American dependence, or a nationalistic independence, it leads the region in a new direction: neighborly interdependence. The Go Lean…Caribbean book is a turn-by-turn guide(370 pages) for the region to dive deeper in an integrated Single Market.
Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people – residents and Diaspora – and governing institutions, to lean-in for this Caribbean and Cuban re-boot. Now is the time to make this region – all 30 countries – a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
Posted Dec 12, 2015 – Cuba and the United States are to resume direct postal services after half a century of having to send mail via a third country. Paul Chapman reports.
————
Appendix B – News Article: As MLB seeks legal entry to Cuba, Obama considers playing ball
By: Daniel Trotta, Reuters
HAVANA (Reuters) – Major League Baseball is asking the U.S. government for special permission to sign players in Cuba, handing the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama the opportunity to try some baseball diplomacy while dealing a setback to human traffickers.
The U.S. trade embargo generally bars MLB from any agreement directing money to the Cuban government, but the White House says baseball is one area where it can advance U.S. goals and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has authority to allow a deal.
MLB and Cuba are closer than at any time since the 1959 revolution, as evidenced by a goodwill tour last week in which big leaguers, including Cuban defectors, gave clinics to Cuban youth.
“Indeed, baseball has a unique cultural significance to both the United States and Cuba. It is therefore an area where we can further our goals of charting a new course in our relations with Cuba and further engaging and empowering the Cuban people,” a senior administration official told Reuters.
Since Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro broke with Cold War history and announced detente a year ago, Obama has asked Congress to repeal the embargo, but the Republican majority has resisted. Instead the administration has used other means to promote exchanges.
If MLB were able to sign players in Cuba, where baseball is the most popular sport, it could end a wave of defections in which Cuban ballplayers put themselves in the hands of human traffickers and risk their lives on illegal journeys at sea.
Some 130 ballplayers have defected this past year, according to Cuban journalists.
But the best players on the island remain off limits, and the Cuban government stops them from leaving without permission, leading those with big-league dreams to turn to smugglers. In some cases, organized crime rackets force players to sign over huge cuts of future earnings, threatening players and their families.
“It’s not an uncommon story,” said Paul Minoff, a lawyer who represents Leonys Martin, an outfielder now with the Seattle Mariners who earned $15.5 million over the past five seasons with the Texas Rangers.
After defecting, Martin was held by armed men in Mexico for months, and under duress agreed to pay his captors 35 percent of his salary, Minoff said. When Martin reached America, he fought back. The smugglers sued Martin but the suit was dismissed after U.S. prosecutors brought criminal charges against them.
Cuban players have mostly stuck to a code of silence about their defections, but some details emerge through court cases.
When Yasiel Puig of the Los Angeles Dodgers left Cuba in 2012, he soon found himself entangled with Mexico’s notorious Zetas crime organization, which threatened to chop off his arm if it failed to receive a promised $250,000 fee.
While Puig signed a $42 million contract, others are abandoned in foreign countries, never to hit paydirt.
SOLUTION SOUGHT
To normalize the transfer of players, Major League Baseball has asked the Treasury’s OFAC for a specific license. The office has wide latitude to grant such licenses and can issue regulations to approve activity otherwise proscribed by the embargo.
OFAC Acting Director John E. Smith said he could not comment on the baseball case, but in general his office “acts in consultation with the State Department and other relevant U.S. government agencies in determining whether (authorizing transactions) would be consistent with current policy.”
MLB applied for its OFAC license in early June, MLB Chief Legal Officer Dan Halem told Reuters. Halem declined to detail the request except to say it included signing players in Cuba, stressing that baseball’s priority was to provide a safe and legal path for Cuban players.
“There’s a willingness on the part of our government to end the trafficking. The White House has been very sympathetic to helping us end some of the abusive practices,” Halem said.
Legally, experts say, there is no impediment to granting MLB’s request. Politically, it may be tricky to explain a deal that provides revenue for the Cuban government while favoring MLB, a $10 billion industry. The administration’s stated preference is to support Cuba’s private sector.
RETURN OF THE DEFECTORS
Cuba made a significant gesture when it permitted once-shunned defectors to return for the goodwill tour, including Puig and Jose Abreu, who has a $68 million contract with the Chicago White Sox.
When they left Cuba, Puig and Abreu had little hope of returning soon. The trip allowed Abreu to reunite with his 5-year-old son and Puig with a half-brother.
“This demonstrates that Cuba is open to the world, that we are not closed, not even with our players who are playing in MLB,” Higinio Velez, president of the Cuban Baseball Federation, told Reuters.
Attempting to slow the defections, Cuba has increased pay and allowed more players to sign in Japan, Mexico and elsewhere. Those leagues pay Cuba a fee equivalent to 10 percent of the player’s salary, but Cuba is believed to want more from MLB.
“This is a vulnerable time. It’s a reality that the exodus has harmed the level of our baseball,” Heriberto Suarez, Cuba’s National Baseball Commissioner, told Reuters.
With an MLB deal, Cuba could regulate the egress of players and protect its professional league, the country’s greatest sporting attraction. Sixteen teams are the pride of each province, the games infused with a conga beat celebration.
Should legally emigrated stars begin playing in the United States, they would pay taxes to Cuba, which is also likely to seek compensation for player rights. Both measures would require OFAC permission and help preserve the Cuban league.
Howell, Michigan@ – Tuesday, February 2, 2016: Woody The Woodchuck dominates these parts while Punxsutawney Phil reigns supreme in Pennsylvania to the south. Different locales, different animals; same result: Media Fantasy! For 2016, Woody predicts a longer winter while Phil predicts a shortened winter.
LOL … These prognosticating rodents only boast a 39% success rate.
This ENCORE is re-distributed on the occasion of Groundhog Day 2016. Despite all the news of relevance and significance regarding the societal engines of economics, security and governance, the media outlets continue to prioritize their Breaking News declaring “Early Spring” and “Later Spring”. But we’ll see …
Go Lean Commentary
Dateline Monday, February 2, 2015: It’s Groundhog Day again…and again…and again…*
The media swarms around this hibernating animal for prognosticating signs of what to expect for the rest of the winter weather season. This is a fantasy; an American media fantasy. On the other hand, there are many effective meteorological models that do an effective job of forecasting the weather, but many people think these are ignored in place of media hype; case in point: a Groundhog.
VIDEO – Punxsutawney Phil See His Shadow and Predicts 6 More Weeks of Winter – http://wapo.st/1BU7s23
A Groundhog?
Groundhogs, whistlepigs, woodchucks, all names for the same animal. Depending on where you live, you might have heard all three of these names; however, woodchuck is the scientifically accepted common name for the species, Marmota monax. As the first word suggests, the woodchuck is a marmot, a genus comprised of 15 species of medium-sized, ground-dwelling squirrels. Although woodchucks are generally solitary and live in lowland areas, most marmot species live in social groups in mountainous parts of Europe, Asia, and North America. (Source: http://blog.oup.com/2015/02/groundhog-day-urban-wildlife-institute/#sthash.c41AKDvb.dpuf)
The concept of weather forecasting requires hardware and software, not rodent animals. The Europeans have provided a good example for the Caribbean to model. Their hardware: satellites, are collaborative efforts to deploy, maintain and support, referred to as the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites or EUMETSAT; see Appendix below.
The software for weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. These forecasts are made by collecting quantitative data about the current state of the atmosphere at a given place and using scientific understanding of atmospheric processes to project how the atmosphere will change. The chaotic nature of the atmosphere, the massive computational power required to solve the equations that describe the atmosphere, error involved in measuring the initial conditions, and an incomplete understanding of atmospheric processes mean that forecasts become less accurate as the time range of the forecast increases. The use of ensembles and model consensus help narrow the error and pick the most likely outcome.
A major part of modern weather forecasting is the severe weather alerts and advisories which a governmental weather service may issue when severe or hazardous weather is expected. This is done to protect life and property.[75] Some of the most commonly known severe weather advisories are the severe thunderstorm, tornado warnings, as well as the severe tornado watches. Other forms of these advisories include those for winter weather, high wind, flood, tropical hurricanes, and fog.[76] Severe weather advisories and alerts are broadcasted through the media, including radio, using emergency systems as the Emergency Alert System which break into regular TV and radio programming.[77]
Among the notable models for Caribbean consideration are:
American Model: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
European Model: European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMRWF).
The scope of the American Model is weather affecting the American mainland and aligned territories. The European Model, on the other hand, has a similar scope for Europe, but starts their focus earlier with weather patterns in the Americas and Caribbean. (The “Jet Stream” brings weather from West to East across the US and then continues across the Atlantic on to the European continent).
The American and European models assume different strategies. The American model runs a short, mid and long range forecast. The European model considers mid-range only, running out only 10 to 15 days into the future.
This consideration aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean; this book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This empowerment effort represents a change for the region, calling on all 30 member-states in the region to confederate and provide their own solutions in the areas of economics, security and governance. Weather, as depicted in the foregoing VIDEOS, relates to all three areas. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 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 against “bad actors” and natural disasters.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, with a separation-of-powers between federal and state agencies.
The purpose of this commentary is to draw reference to the European Model, ECMWF, at a time when the American eco-system appears to be dysfunctional and filled with bad intent.
ECMRWF is renowned worldwide as providing the most accurate medium-range global weather forecasts to 15 days and seasonal forecasts to 12 months.[2] Its products are provided to the European National Weather Services, as a complement to the national short-range and climatological activities. The National Meteorological Services of member-states use ECMWF’s products for their own national duties, in particular to give early warning of potentially damaging severe weather.
While many things the US do are good, there is also “bad intent” in the American eco-system, often associated with crony-capitalism. Many believe that media hype over weather forecasts spurs retail spending (surplus food, gasoline, generators, and firewood) to benefit the same companies that contract media purchases (advertising) with the media outlets. Consider the “blown out of proportion” sense in the following article:
January 27, 2015 – Those Lehigh Valley commuters dusting the powder off their windshields Tuesday morning undoubtedly cast their thoughts back a day and concluded something had gone amiss in all the weather laboratories.
Wasn’t it supposed to snow 14 inches? Or was it six? Or two to four? They said something about a European model…
Well, off to work.
The storm that might have been is now the storm that wasn’t and no one will mention it again, at least until the next big miss by the weather services.
“Mother nature humbled us,” the Eastern PA Weather Authority wrote in a mea culpa Facebook post after its final call of 9 to 14 inches fell roughly 9 to 14 inches short.
What happened? As always, forecasters looked at a variety of models — the European model, famed for its precise forecasting of Superstorm Sandy, and many domestic models — and made predictions based on the data.
Mitchell Gaines, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, N.J., said there are about 10 commonly used models that make use of weather observations gathered around the world from satellites, balloons, ground stations and ships. … “We blew the call, and everyone blew it,” the Eastern PA Weather Authority post said. “(A)mending or lowering your original call is not nailing it either. No one got this right, plain and simple.”
Not quite no one. Adam Joseph, a meteorologist at the ABC station in Philadelphia, had predicted an underwhelming storm for the Philadelphia# region from early on, saying on Sunday it had “high bust potential.”
… New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio spent a couple of days making pronouncements so foreboding that he was parodied as an end-times prophet by [humor magazine] The Onion.
But instead of three feet of snow and blizzard winds, the city got about 8 inches of snow in Central Park. “Snore-easter,” the Daily News called it.
“This is an imprecise science,” New York# Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a news briefing early Tuesday when asked about the forecast. He noted that last November, a storm that officials had not expected to be severe dropped seven feet of snow on Buffalo, in the western part of the state.
In New Jersey#, Governor Chris Christie said it was better to err on the side of caution: “I was being told as late as 9 o’clock (Monday) night that we were looking at 20-inch accumulations in parts of New Jersey,” he said. “We were acting based on what we were being told.”
… There was, too, something of a New York-centric slant in the media coverage. The storm was declared a “dud” because it largely spared Manhattan. But it slammed New England as advertised, with wind gusts approaching hurricane strength and smothering snow.
VIDEO –MONSTER BLIZZARD OF 2015 | New York Snow Storm Juno Forecast was an EPIC FAIL – https://youtu.be/Je6zr_K966A
Published on Jan 28, 2015 – Jan. 27, 2015 will go down in the annals of history as the day New Jersey came to a standstill for a blizzard in another state. Blizzard warnings have been lifted in the Garden State, projected snow totals more than cut in half and forecasters have apologized for what they’re describing as “big forecast miss.” …
Conspiracy, anyone?
The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the Caribbean region must not allow the US to take the lead for our own nation-building, that American Crony-Capitalistic interest tends to hijack policies intended for the Greater Good. This assessment is logical considering that despite the reality of the 2008 Great Recession and the Wall Street complexity, no one has gone to jail! This despite the blatant “lying, cheating and stealing”, the millions of victims and $11 Trillion in economic setbacks.
Be kind, rewind …
In the fall of 2012, Super Storm Sandy devastated the Northeast American coast despite warnings and accurate forecasts from the European Model.
When forecasters from the National Weather Service track a hurricane, they use models from several different supercomputers located around the world to create their predictions.
Some of those models are more accurate than others. During Hurricane Sandy last October, for instance, the model from the EuropeanCenter for Medium-range Weather Forecasting in the United Kingdom predicted eight days before landfall that the large storm would hit the East Coast, while the American supercomputer model showed Sandy drifting out to sea.
The American model eventually predicted Sandy’s landfall four days before the storm hit — plenty of time for preparation — but revealed a potential weakness in the American computer compared to the European system. It left some meteorologists fuming.
“Let me be blunt: the state of operational U.S. numerical weather prediction is an embarrassment to the nation and it does not have to be this way,” wrote Cliff Maas, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. … Experts also say the quality of a nation’s computer capability [for modeling] is emblematic of its underlying commitment to research, science and innovation.
Many felt that “the powers that be” did not want to overly alarm American citizens and affect the turnout for the Presidential Elections days later.
The foregoing articles/VIDEOs look at the repetition of Weather Forecast Dysfunction in 2012 with Super Storm Sandy and again, just last week with Winter Storm Juno. Compare this to the over-blown media hype of a Groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania…for weather prognostication.
Something is wrong with this portrayal. This is American crony-capitalism all over again. Like the Groundhog Day movie, the same patterns are repeating again, and again …
The Caribbean must do better!
This issue on weather is not the first instance of a “Big Bad American Bully” in the business world. This is just another reflection of American Crony Capitalism – where public policy is set to benefit private parties. Consider this chart from a previous blog:
Big Oil
While lobbying for continuous tax subsidies, the industry have colluded to artificially keep prices high and garner rocket profits ($38+ Billion every quarter).
Big Box
Retail chains impoverish small merchants on Main Street with Antitrust-like tactics, thusly impacting community jobs.
Big Pharma
Chemo-therapy cost $20,000+/month; and the War against Cancer is imperiled due to industry profit insistence.
Big Tobacco
Cigarettes are not natural tobacco but rather latent with chemicals to spruce addiction.
Big Agra
Agribusiness concerns bully family farmers and crowd out the market; plus fight common sense food labeling efforts.
Big Data
Brokers for internet and demographic data clearly have no regards to privacy confines
Big Media
Hollywood insists on big tax breaks/ subsidies for on-location shooting; cable companies conspire to keep rates high; textbook publishers practice price gouging.
Big Banks
Wall Street’s damage to housing and student loans are incontrovertible.
NEW ENTRY
Big Weather
Overblown hype of “Weather Forecasts” to dictate commercial transactions.
The Go Lean book, and accompanying blog commentaries, go even deeper and hypothesize that beyond weather alerts, the American economic models are dysfunctional for the Caribbean perspective. The American wheels of commerce portray the Caribbean in a “parasite” role; imperiling regional industrialization even further. The US foreign policy for the Caribbean is to incentivize consumption of American products and media, and to ensure that no other European powers exert undue influence in the region – Monroe Doctrine and Pax Americana (Page 180).
The disposition of a “parasite” is not the only choice, for despite American pressure, countries like Japan and South Korea, despite being small population-size, have trade surpluses with the US. They are protégés, not parasites, and thusly provide a model for the Caribbean to emulate.
This broken system in America does not have to be modeled in the Caribbean. Change has now come. The driver of this change is technology and globalization. The Go Lean book posits that the governmental administrations must be open to full disclosure and accountability. The ubiquity of the internet has allowed whistleblowers to expose “shady” practices to the general public; think WikiLeaks.
The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to forge this change in the region for a reboot of these Caribbean societal systems, including justice institutions. This roadmap is thusly viewed as more than just a planning tool, pronouncing this point early in the Declaration of Interdependence(Page 13) with these statements:
xvi. Whereas security [(Emergency/Disaster Management)] of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes…can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
The Go Lean book purports that the Caribbean can – and must – do better than our American counterparts. The vision of the CU is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to do the heavy-lifting of optimizing economic-security-governing engines. The book thusly details the policies and other community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to protect Caribbean society with prudent weather forecasting:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification
Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering
Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology
Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization
Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management
Page 76
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Meteorological and Geological Services
Page 79
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up
Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization
Page 119
Planning – Big Ideas – Integrating to a Single Market
Page 127
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008
Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance
Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security
Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis
Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters
Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management
Page 196
The foregoing article/VIDEO relates to topics that are of serious concern for Caribbean planners. While the US is the world’s largest Single Market economy, we want to only model some of the American example. We would rather foster a business climate to benefit the Greater Good, not just some special interest group.
The world is not fooled! “Tamarind, Sour Sap and Green Dilly, you musse think we silly” – Bahamian Folk Song
There are many Go Lean blog commentaries that have echoed this point, addressing the subject of the Caribbean avoiding American consequences. See sample here:
10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – #1: American Self-Interest Policies
The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that many problems of the region are too big for any one member-state to solve alone, that there is the need for the technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. The purpose of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work, learn and play. This effort is more than academic; this involves many practical mitigations and heavy-lifting. While this charter is not easy, it is worth all effort.
Climate change is a reality … for the Caribbean; (despite many in denial, especially in the US).
In the Caribbean we need accurate weather forecasting and alerts. We need the public to respect these alerts and not question some commercial-profit ulterior motive. We need the European Model more so than the American one.
The Go Lean roadmap calls for some integration of the regional member-states, a strategy of confederation with a tactic of separating powers between CU federal agencies and member-states’ governments. The roadmap calls for the regional integration of all meteorological and geological professional services. The separation-of-powers tactic also calls for assumption of Emergency Management Agencies for the member-states. There is the need for weather and disaster preparation/response under the same umbrella, with a direct line of reporting. The roadmap posits that to succeed as a society, the Caribbean region must not only consume, (in this case weather forecasts), but also create, produce, and distribute intellectual products and services (property) to the rest of the world. We need our own Caribbean weather/forecast models, algorithms, calculations and formulas!
Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes and empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean.
Appendix – EUMETSAT: European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites
EUMETSAT is an intergovernmental organization created through an international convention agreed by a current total of 30 European Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. These States fund the EUMETSAT programs and are the principal users of the systems. The convention establishing EUMETSAT was opened for signature in 1983 and entered into force in 19 June 1986.
EUMETSAT’s primary objective is to establish, maintain and exploit European systems of operational meteorological satellites. EUMETSAT is responsible for the launch and operation of the satellites and for delivering satellite data to end-users as well as contributing to the operational monitoring of climate and the detection of global climate changes.
The activities of EUMETSAT contribute to a global meteorological satellite observing system coordinated with other space-faring nations.
Satellite observations are an essential input to numerical weather prediction systems and also assist the human forecaster in the diagnosis of potentially hazardous weather developments. Of growing importance is the capacity of weather satellites to gather long-term measurements from space in support of climate change studies.
Blizzard 2015 !!! Winter Storm Juno Forecast “Northeast Snowstorm Ramping Up ” !!! Amazing Video
Published on Jan 27, 2015 – More than 35 million people along the Philadelphia-to-Boston corridor rushed to get home and settle in Monday as a fearsome storm swirled in with the potential for hurricane-force winds and 1 to 3 feet of snow that could paralyze the Northeast for days.
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Appendix – * Movie Reference:1993 Movie Groundhog Day
Howell is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 9,489. The city is 55 miles northwest of Detroit, at Exit 137 on Interstate 96.
Howell is home to many festivals celebrated through the year. Most notable for Februry, the Winter – Spring Forecast from “Woody The Woodchuck”.
If it isn’t one thing – pandemic wise – it’s another. Since the recent days of promoting the book Go Lean … Caribbean, and the accompanying blog-commentaries, there has been the issue of the Chikungunya virus and the Ebola virus. Now comes the Zika virus.
This virus is proving to be a “4-Letter” word. See VIDEO here:
January 27, 2016, 6:47pm – The Zika virus is continuing to spread and U.S. doctors are bracing for its arrival. Airlines are giving refunds to passengers who booked flights to infected countries where travel warning have now been issued. CBS Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook breaks down the dangers — and precautions that can be taken. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).
The below article in the New York Times is demonstrating that the Zika virus is becoming a threat for all of the Americas. But some people are in a worst disposition than others:
Welcome to the Caribbean!
The Go Lean movement seeks to reform and transform the Caribbean societal engines:
Economics
Security
Governance
All of these engines come under attack with this virus:
Economics – Visitors who may be pregnant or considering pregnancy are advised to stay away from the affected states: including 11 Caribbean member-states. For tourism, our primary economic driver, expect a “hit”, as honeymooners and newly-weds will be dissuaded to vacation in our region.
Security – Viruses and other epidemiological episodes are among the “bad actors” that can endanger a community. Any proactive or re-active security apparatus is required to be “on guard” against these threats.
Governance – The governance in the affected countries are now urging citizens to delay pregnancies. This disruption in the natural cycle of human procreation is a violation of the assumed Social Contract between governments (the State) and the citizens. The citizens are expecting the State to protect them … and stay out of their bedrooms (family-planning decisions).
This Zika issue is a major issue that has now come under the attention of major “alphabet” stakeholders, like the WHO (World Health Organization) and the CDC (America’s Center for Disease Control). See the heightened threat as conveyed by the New York Times in this news article here and in the Appendix-VIDEO below:
Title: Zika Virus ‘Spreading Explosively’ in Americas, W.H.O. Says By:Sabrina Tavernise, NY Times
Officials from the World Health Organization said on Thursday that the Zika virus was “spreading explosively” in the Americas and announced that they would convene an emergency meeting on Monday to decide whether to declare a public health emergency.
“The level of alarm is extremely high,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O., in a speech in Geneva.
As many as three to four million people in the Americas could be exposed to the virus in the next 12 months, said Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri, a unit chief for the Pan American Health Organization.
“As I told you, we have big gaps in terms of confirmation of the real situation,” he said. “These are estimates. These are mathematical estimations.”
Of particular concern, Dr. Chan said, are the cases of microcephaly, a rare condition in which infants are born with abnormally small heads that has been rising dramatically in Brazil as Zika spreads. Experts say it is too early to tell whether Zika is the cause of the condition, but there are some indications that the two are linked.
The health authorities in Brazil said on Wednesday that reported cases of microcephaly had climbed to 4,180 since October, a 7 percent increase from the previous tally last week. Before the epidemic, Brazil recorded only about 150 cases of microcephaly a year.
That has caused widespread alarm because researchers say the virus arrived in Brazil only recently, with the huge jump in microcephaly cases reported by doctors, hospitals and other medical officials following closely in its wake.
But proving that Zika is the cause has been elusive.
“It’s really important to understand the difference between associations and causations,” said Dr. Bruce Aylward, a W.H.O. assistant director general, noting that there are still many questions about whether the Zika virus and microcephaly are linked.
The Brazilian health ministry said Wednesday that it had examined more than 700 reported cases of microcephaly and found Zika in only six of the infants — though what that means exactly is unclear. Infectious disease specialists caution that Brazil’s testing methods are outdated and may miss many Zika cases. They also say that in some cases, the mother may have had Zika, causing microcephaly in her baby, even if the virus is never detected in the infant.
The virus has spread to more than 20 countries and territories in the region. Dr. Chan said she was “deeply concerned about this rapidly evolving situation.” She also raised an alarm about the potential for further international spread of the virus, given how ubiquitous the mosquitoes that carry it are and how few people have developed immunity to it. The virus, which first surfaced in Uganda in the 1940s, had rarely been seen in the Americas.
“The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty,” she said. “Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly.”
Dr. Chan struck a tone of deep concern, but Dr. Aylward appeared to play down some of the most dire predictions about the disease.
“‘Concerned’ is certainly the right language to be used,” he said. “ ‘Alarmed’ would definitely not be the right language.”
Asked whether the W.H.O. would advise people not to travel to Brazil for the Olympics, he replied, “I would think that would be very, very unlikely when you look at areas affected and the scope of this.”
Some experts had criticized Dr. Chan for not immediately convening a committee to advise on whether to declare Zika a public health emergency. On Wednesday in the journal JAMA, two experts called for an immediate meeting, saying the hesitation on the part of the W.H.O. echoed the agency’s slow reaction at the outset of the Ebola epidemic in 2014.
“The very process of convening the committee would catalyze international attention, funding and research,” they wrote.
On Thursday morning, one of the authors, Dr. Daniel Lucey, an expert on global viral outbreaks at Georgetown University School of Medicine, said of the announcement, “I’m very, very happy.”
Dr. Chan said she would be asking the committee for advice on the “the appropriate level of international concern” and for what measures the W.H.O. should advise affected countries to take. She said she would also ask the committee to identify research priorities
One worry, Dr. Chan noted, is that there is no vaccine against the virus or a rapid diagnostic test to determine whether someone has been infected. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview this week that scientists at the National Institutes of Health were working on both.
“We are already on our way on the first steps to developing a vaccine,” he said. “And we have started to work on a diagnostic to tell if someone’s been infected.”
About two dozen destinations mostly in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
The Pan American Health Organization believes that the virus will spread locally in every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. Here is the C.D.C.’s current list of countries and territories in which Zika virus is circulating. (Caribbean countries in RED italics)
The Caribbean United States Virgin Islands
Barbados
Dominican Republic
Guadeloupe
Haiti
Martinique
Saint Martin
South America
Bolivia
Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador French Guiana
Guyana
Paraguay Suriname
Venezuela
Is there a responsible party who would champion this issue for the Caribbean region?
No.
But there is the need to fill this void in the region; there is the need for Caribbean leadership to address the needs of the whole Caribbean economic, security and governing eco-system. While there is no current solution, other than the WHO’s address and that of individual member-states, there is now a plan – better still, a roadmap to address the deficiencies.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as that roadmap; it posits that the Caribbean region must promote its own interest and protect its own citizens. We should not look to the WHO to micro-manage our day-to-day details; they have no concern for our touristic industry implications. It is not within their charter. Further, we should not count on the US to pursue the Greater Good for our Caribbean local, as their (CDC) travel advisory already endangers our economies, with no consultation with our tourism planners. (This is also not in the CDC’s charter). Assuredly, we must have our own preparation and response vehicle.
This is the charter of the Go Lean…Caribbean book.
The book urges the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), as a regional sentinel in the Caribbean, for the Caribbean. The complete prime directives of the CU is as follows:
Optimize the economic engines of the Caribbean to elevate the regional economy.
Establish a security apparatus for public safety assurances and to protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
With issues like this, ugly elements of society always emerge: nationalistic self-interest, finger-pointing and bad politics. Talking-heads start to talk.
But this is a time for action, not talk. The biggest and best remediation is also a simple one: kill the affected mosquitoes.
This Go Lean/CU roadmap declares that “Crap happens” (Page 23). This 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 more than natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding, forest fires, and droughts), they include the man-made variety (industrial accidents, oil spills, factory accidents, chemical spills, explosions, terroristic attacks, prison riots) and epidemic threats. Of course, this type of emergency, the Zika virus, described in the foregoing VIDEO/article, requires professional expertise, a medical discipline. Stopping Zika therefore would require a hybrid response of the Emergency Management agency and the CU’s Department of Health Disease Control & Management agency. This agency of Medical experts would help contend with systemic threats of epidemic illness and infectious diseases.
These stakeholders would be expected to kill mosquitoes. (A coordinated Rapid Response Team, seeking out mosquitoes breading grounds – still waters – and deploying appropriate pesticides).
The Go Lean roadmap immediately calls for the coordination of security monitoring and mitigation in the Caribbean; this point is declared early in the Go Lean book with a pronouncement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12), as follows:
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. …[to ensure] the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
The Go Lean roadmap calls for the integration of the viral sentinel responsibility of the 30 Caribbean member-states, despite the 4 different languages and 5 colonial legacies (American, British, Dutch, French, Spanish) – notice the foregoing list of countries – into the CU Trade Federation with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit one and all member-states. This includes the monitoring and epidemiology defense of common and emerging viruses. This empowered CU agency will liaison with foreign entities with the same scope, like the WHO, and the CDC.
Most importantly, the CU would coordinate the Caribbean brand and image promotion. The rest of the world need to know that we can kill mosquitoes, and cajoled our communities into action to mitigate all known threats; (i.e there is no travel advisory for Florida).
Since the CU roadmap leads with economic reforms, the primary economic driver of the region (tourism) would be a constant concern. The realization, or even the unsubstantiated rumor, of viral outbreaks can imperil the tourism product. We must therefore take proactive steps to protect our economic engines. So there are heavy responsibilities for the stewardship of the Caribbean economy, security and governing engines. The goal is to impact the Greater Good of the entire Caribbean region. The CU invites this role and promote it as a community ethos.
There should be no need for a travel advisory, or to ban pregnant women, or honeymooners or general vacationers.
We’ve got this!
The Go Lean book details the community ethos, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the region’s public health security in protection of the economy:
Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection
Separation of Powers – Disease Control & Management
Page 86
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 Foster International Aid
Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization
Page 119
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image
Page 133
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices
Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare
Page 156
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 Improve Emergency Management
Page 196
Previous Go Lean blog-commentaries have detailed the reality of viral management around the world, at different times in different locales. There is much for us to learn in the Caribbean. (As reported in the foregoing VIDEO, there are many similarities of Dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile to this new Zika virus). See sample list here of previous blogs:
Painful and rapid spread of new virus – Chikungunya – in Caribbean
There have also been previous Go Lean blog-commentaries that have addressed the economic and governance deficiencies in the Caribbean region, as related to this Zika issue. See here for a sample list of these types of blogs:
An underlying goal of the Go Lean movement is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. While this roadmap includes a heavy focus on economics, the other areas for societal harmony – security and governance – must get due attention. Accepting the premise of “bad actors” inevitability means preparing counter-measures in earnest. We need a technocratic security apparatus for public safety and epidemiological crises. This is necessary to elevate our Caribbean homeland.
The entire region is hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap – the countries included on the above Travel Advisory list and the rest of the Caribbean – to fulfill the vision of securing our homeland. We can, and must do better.
We are bigger than mosquitoes, literally and figuratively. 🙂
Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean Now!
———-
Appendix – What is the Zika virus?
A tropical infection new to the Western Hemisphere.
The Zika virus is a mosquito-transmitted infection related to Dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile virus. Although it was discovered in the Zika forest in Uganda in 1947 and is common in Africa and Asia, it did not begin spreading widely in the Western Hemisphere until last May, when an outbreak occurred in Brazil.
Until now, almost no one on this side of the world had been infected. Few of us have immune defenses against the virus, so it is spreading rapidly. Millions of people in tropical regions of the Americas may have had it.
Published January 28, 2016 – Officials from the World Health Organization warned that the Zika virus was spreading “explosively” and called for an emergency meeting to address it. – REUTERS.
… then we strongly caution – anyone and everyone – against the practice of taking on debt. Many bad things happen when people depend on debt. A “slippery slope” can ensue … from dependence, to reliance, to requirement, to vital, … to debt slavery. The further one stays away from debt, the better.
Even the Bible admonishes:
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another…”. Romans 13:8 New International Version
The Fist – Detroit’s Tribute to Boxing Legend Joe Louis
The problem with debt is that it trades the future for the past! It gives the ‘worst shot’, not the ‘best shot’. To continue the boxing analogy, debt burdens the boxer down with additional pounds and pressure; bad formula for success.
This is truly the experience in Detroit today. The City’s well-documented Failed-City status (and Bankruptcy) not only impacts its past, but apparently also it’s future – as in the education of its children. The schools in Detroit are below standard, below quality and below acceptability. This applies to their physical structure, budgets, teacher appreciation, student experience and student preparation.
Why?
Detroit, both the “City” and “School District” had been too indebted, so that the first priority of all revenues/funding has to go to debt servicing. This means other vital functioanlities (physical structure, teachers and students) must be de-prioritized or many times outright ignored.
The relevant stakeholders for Detroit Public Schools are truly giving the ‘worst shot’, not the ‘best shot’.
(For Detroit, the municipal City and the School District are separate legal entities. While the City of Detroit filed for Bankruptcy protection and re-organization in 2013, the School District has not).
This dire disposition is not exclusive to Detroit. Unfortunately, this applies to many other communities around the world (think Greece); and even in the Caribbean.
See the news article here conveying the harsh realities that many in the Detroit Public Schools are now faced with:
Title: Detroit school system wants judge to end teacher sickouts
An attorney for the Detroit Public Schools has asked a judge to issue a restraining order and preliminary injunction to force teachers to stop sickouts and return to work, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
The motion names the Detroit Federation of Teachers, interim teachers union president Ivy Bailey and 23 Detroit Public Schools teachers.
“DPS has requested the court’s intervention in addressing the ongoing teacher sickouts that are plaguing the district,” Michelle Zdrodowski, the spokeswoman for the Detroit Public Schools said in a statement.
The teachers union responded to the filing, noting “Detroit deserves better.”
“It is regrettable that the Detroit Public Schools seeks to punish those who speak out about the deplorable conditions in our schools,” Bailey said. “It would be so much more productive to actually do something to fix Detroit schools rather than file restraining orders against those who expose the miserable conditions.”
Nearly all Detroit’s public schools were closed Wednesday as many protesting teachers called in sick, turning what was supposed to be a day to celebrate into one shining a harsh spotlight on one of Michigan’s struggling cities.
But those inside the city tell a sharply different story, one illustrated in leaflets showing pictures of dead rats found at public schools, mildew taking over ceilings and walls and damage to school buildings.
Detroit teachers have pressed their case against what they call deplorable conditions and inadequate funding. They’ve also decried decisions made by the school system’s emergency manager, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder — criticism that echoes complaints in Flint, a Michigan city mired in a water crisis after state officials largely took over because of budget troubles, just as they did in Detroit.
Bailey estimated the doors of “over 30 schools” ultimately would be affected.
Zdrodowski said there would be no class Wednesday in 88 schools, about 90% of those in the system.
But as of Wednesday night, the Detroit Public Schools’ Facebook page indicated all schools will be open Thursday. The announcement included a request for students and parents to check the page again for updates.
The speaker of the House in Michigan called for absentee teachers to be dismissed.
“These teachers deserve to be fired for turning their backs on the children in their care,” said Kevin Cotter, a Republican from Mount Pleasant. “Their actions also go against any possible resolution on potential (Detroit Public Schools) reforms, because any long-term agreement on Detroit schools has to put the kids first.”
Cotter said more than 700,000 instructional hours have been lost.
The timing — on the day of Obama’s visit to the Detroit auto show, with the national media attention that it brought — was no coincidence.
The Detroit Federation of Teachers indicated as much on its website, saying now is the time to “fight for Detroit kids (who) are struggling in schools with hazardous environmental and safety issues (and) educators have made significant sacrifices for the good of students.”
“As the city celebrates this ‘ultra-luxury’ automobile event,” the teachers union said, “Detroit’s public schools are in a state of crisis.”
Protesters planned to hand out fliers to car show attendees and urge them to sign a petition — which had over 11,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning — entitled “Our Kids Deserve Better.”
“Enough is enough!” the petition states. “… We demand real answers and fully funded schools.”
Obama had lunch with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. Before the meeting the White House said they would likely discuss the mass school closures as well as larger funding problems plaguing the city.
Duggan has “met with several teachers and understands what they’re going through,” his spokesman John Roach told CNN. But he doesn’t think that calling in sick is the right approach.
“(The mayor feels) the best thing for them to do is go back to school and teach,” Roach said.
Governor: ‘Time to act is now’
This isn’t just Detroit’s problem. It’s one for all of Michigan, which took control over much of the city’s government due to its well-documented financial woes.
Michigan Senate Democrats took a swipe at him in a tweet: “Crumbling #DPS schools are a direct result of damage that can be done by unelected emergency managers.”
Bailey, the teachers union chief, piled on, saying, “If the goal was to destroy DPS, emergency management has done an excellent job.”
Before going to Detroit, Earley served as the emergency manager in Flint. He was in that position in April 2014 when Flint’s water supply switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River, a decision reversed more than a year later after reports of corroded pipes and elevated blood lead levels.
Earley has said he was not responsible for the decision, only for implementing it after it was approved. Whoever was to blame, Flint still faces a serious health crisis and the costly, complicated task of cleaning up its water and possibly replacing damaged water pipes across the city.
Another person Detroit and Flint have in common is Snyder, the governor who sent Earley to both cities and who is officially in charge.
In his State of the State address Tuesday night, the governor called for money spent on debt service, close to $1,200 per student, to be shifted into classroom funding to give teachers what they need to do their jobs.
“(The) time to act is now,” he told lawmakers. “The Detroit schools are in need of a transformational change.
“The state needs to ensure that a complete failure to educate schoolchildren never again happens to this extent in one of Michigan’s districts.”
A proposal introduced last week in the state Legislature would appear to find a way of doing that while handling the school system’s massive $515 million debt.
It would create a second school district within the city that assumes control over all of its schools and students, while leaving the current Detroit Public Schools system with only the district’s debt, said Republican state Sen. Goeff Hansen, author of the proposal.
“It’s a high priority. It’s an emergency situation,” Hansen said.
About $7,400 of school funding is allocated per student each year. But close to $1,200 of that goes to pay down debt and other costs, Hansen said.
Under the proposal, tax revenue would continue to pay off the debt isolated in the DPS system, but the state would gain room to inject additional funding into the new school system.
It has left many teachers worried that Detroit Public Schools will go out of existence, said Bailey, the teachers union leader. Under the current system, funding could run out by April.
Teachers feel pushed over the edge to protest against a litany of resulting troubles. There have been recent concessions. The school district agreed to demands on staff meetings, sick leave accrual and a labor-management committee on curriculum, the teachers union said.
And last week, Duggan ordered inspections of all the city’s public schools.
Duggan hopes to have the first 20 school buildings fully inspected by month’s end and all of them wrapped up in about three months, according to Roach, his spokesman.
Yet Bailey says a lot more still needs to be done.
“It’s because of the lack of respect that has been displayed toward teachers in this district, the hazardous working conditions, oversize classes, lost preparation periods, decrease in pay, increase in health care cost, uncertainty of their future,” she said.
“I could go on and on. Teachers are fed up and have had enough.”
Published on Jan 20, 2016 – Teachers in Detroit have been protesting about their working conditions by taking to the internet. After a mass “sick out,” they’re now going on social media to share the daily difficulties they and their students face in schools.
Good! Do not just “swipe these issues under the rug”. Deal with them!
A “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Detroit needs to use this crisis to re-boot its school eco-system.
First, the School District – see Appendix – needs to petition for its own Chapter 9 Bankruptcy. There is the need to write-off much of that previous debt; “pay pennies on the dollar”. That debt – from the past – is shortchanging the future for Detroit’s children. And since the City is smaller today, population-wise compared to decades ago, many more schools can be closed – sold to creditors – and consolidated to a smaller number (from the 97 today).
Jesus answered … you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only few things are needed… prepare the good part, and it will not be taken away. – Bible Luke 10:41-42 World English Bible paraphrase.
This strong prescription for Detroit Public Schools is a lesson learned from another crisis, the Great Recession of 2008. The events of September 15, 2008 parallel Detroit Public Schools today; this is when the American Investment Bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. This action brought the US (and the world’s economy) to the brink of disaster. The ultimate solution for Lehman in 2008 was dissolution and a wind-down of those assets and excessive debt.
Death can sometimes bring peace!
The economy eventually re-bounded. The old debts are only in the past, no future considerations.
This 2008 consideration is part-and-parcel of the book Go Lean…Caribbean which serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide new oversight for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing engines. The book was conceived as a result of this 2008 crisis, by stakeholders intimate with the anatomy of the 2008 crisis – worked for Lehman Brothers – and composed a prescription for Caribbean turn-around.
The pretext of the Go Lean roadmap is simple, and applies equally to the Caribbean, and any other community:
The lessons learned, and codified, in the pages of the Go Lean book can now be enhanced with the examination of the realities of Detroit’s Public Schools. This examination considers the reality of the economic, security and governing aspects of this distressed community.
The publishers of the Go Lean book are here in Detroit to “observe and report” the turn-around and rebirth of the once-great-but-now-distressed City of Detroit and its metropolitan areas, including the even more dysfunctional community of Flint. There are so many lessons to learn from Michigan: good, bad and ugly.
Lessons learned from Michigan communities have been frequently conveyed in previous blogs/commentaries. Consider this sample here:
JP Morgan Chase $100 million Detroit investment not just for Press
The CU is designed to do the heavy-lifting of organizing Caribbean society to benefit from the lessons from Detroit and other Michigan communities. The Go Lean book details the community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the rebirths, reboots and turn-around of Caribbean communities:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification
Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives
Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens
Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship
Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact a Turn-Around
Page 33
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Integrate a Single Market for more Financial Leverage
Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Modeling Post WW II Recovery: Germany – Marshall Plan
Page 68
Tactical – Modeling Post WW II Recovery: Japan – with no Marshall Plan
Page 69
Separation of Powers – Public Works & Infrastructure
Page 82
Separation of Powers – Housing and Urban Authority
Page 83
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change
Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Re-boot Freeport – A Sample Caribbean city needing turn-around
Page 112
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt
Page 114
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices
Page 132
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008
Page 136
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit
Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education
Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government
Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living
Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba
Page 236
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti
Page 238
Appendix – American Student Debt Crisis “Ripping Off Young America”
Page 286
The Go Lean roadmap posits that change is coming to Detroit, (many Go Lean blog-commentaries have even reported on the change that is now afoot) and also that changes need to come to the Caribbean. Though Detroit is out-of-scope for the Go Lean movement, we can observe-and-report; we can apply the lessons – the good, bad and ugly – for optimization in our Caribbean homeland under the scheme of a Single Market. With the integration of 42 million people in the 30 member-states we will be able to do so much more – effect more turn-around – than anyone member-state can accomplish alone.
The Go Lean book declares: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – quoting noted Economist Paul Romer. The opportunity exists now to forge change in the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean, as this cautionary guidance is gleaned from the Detroit crisis.
The roadmap calls for a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean into a Single Market of 42 million people; thereby allow an adequate size to absorb economic shocks and downward trends. The Go Lean roadmap provides the details for the creation of 2.2 million new jobs and GDP growth to accumulate to $800 Billion. This vision is at the root of the Go Lean roadmap, embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13):
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
xxv. Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.
xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … Detroit …
Detroit Public Schools should recover…eventually! Their status will go from “bad-to-clean-to-better” but then they would have a reboot, much like many communities around the country and around the world – consider Iceland. This is an established best-practice; paralleling a forest fire in many ways; except these are human lives being impacted, not trees.
The Caribbean also has Failed-State issues to contend with. There are real-and-perceived Failed-States now (Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Puerto Rico) and many more that are almost there, so we have to master the art-and-science of turn-around strategies for our region.
The Go Lean roadmap declares that the responsibility for fixing the Caribbean though must fall first-and-foremost on the Caribbean, its people and institutions.
The Caribbean must also reboot and “bounce back”; to “step back from the precipice”. The effort is not easy; the Go Lean book describes it as heavy-lifting. We need to burn-off old debris and build new eco-systems. The returns – new Caribbean structures – will be worth the investments and sacrifices. This is true for Detroit … and the Caribbean.
This is the goal of the Go Lean roadmap: set aside the past, catalog the lessons, then forge the future. This is the only way to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
Detroit Public Schools (DPS) is a school district that covers all of the city of Detroit, Michigan, United States and high school students in the insular city of Highland Park. The district has its headquarters in the Fisher Building of the New Center area of Detroit.[6][7]
Besides DPS, the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) operates 15 of the district’s schools totalling 6,556 students as of the 2014-15 school year.
Emergency Financial Manager
The district is currently under a state of a financial emergency and is currently run by an emergency manager instead of the school board and superintendent.
Currently all matters are under the control of Emergency Manager Darnell Earley was appointed as the new emergency manager for the school district by Snyder, appointed by Governor Rick Snyder in January 2013.[4]
From 2009–2011, DPS finances were managed by Robert Bobb who was appointed by former Governor Jennifer Granholm[33] and from 2011 to January 2015, Roy Roberts who was appointed by Governor Snyder.
In a previous commentary ranking American State governing engines, the overall scores were listed from Good-to-Bad-to-Worse-to-Detroit (Michigan). The State of Michigan, in which Detroit is its principal city and economic center, was ranked “dead last” among the 50 states. This was not an assessment of city governments but rather of state governments. But is it fair to label the entire State of Michigan based on the dysfunction of just the one city of Detroit?
Flint is the seventh largest city in Michigan, while its Genesee County comprises the entirety of Flint’s metropolitan area and constitutes the fourth largest metropolitan area in Michigan with a population of 425,790 in 2010.[11]. Located along the Flint River, 66 miles (106 km) northwest of Detroit.
The community was founded as a village by fur traders in the early 1800’s and became a major lumbering area on the historic Saginaw Trail during the 19th century; it incorporated as a city in 1855. It later became a leading manufacturer of carriages and other vehicles earning it the nickname “Vehicle City”.
In 1908, William Crapo Durant formed General Motors in Flint. After World War II, Flint became an automobile manufacturing powerhouse for GM’s Buick and Chevrolet divisions, both of which were founded in Flint. However, by the late 1980s the city sank into a deep economic depression after GM closed and demolished several factories in the area, the effects of which remain today.
In the mid-2000s, it became known for its high crime rates.[12] Since this time, Flint has been ranked among the “Most Dangerous Cities in the United States”, with a per capita violent crime rate seven times higher than the national average.[13] The city was under a state of financial emergency from 2011 to 2015, the second in a decade.[14][15] It is currently in a public health state of emergency due to lead poisoning (and possibly Legionella) in the local water supply. [16]
On November 3, 2015, Flint residents elected Dr. Karen Weaver as their first female mayor.[17]
[This move is on the heels of the exit of the last State-appointed Emergency Manager].
Flint serves as a “cautionary tale” for other communities near “Failed City/Failed State” status. From this perspective, this community may be a valuable asset to the rest of the world and especially to the Caribbean.
The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean are here in Detroit to “observe and report” the turn-around and rebirth of the once-great-but-now-distressed City of Detroit and its metropolitan areas, including Flint. (Previous commentaries featured the positive role model of the City of Ann Arbor).
What happened here?
According to the Timeline in theAppendix, Flint, MI suffered this fate as a chain reaction to its Failed-State status. Outside stakeholders – Emergency Managers – came into the equation to execute a recovery plan with focus only on the Bottom-Line. The consideration for people – the Greater Good – came second, if at all. They switched water sources, unwisely!
The assertion of the Go Lean book is that the Caribbean region can benefit from lessons learned from Good, Bad and Ugly governance. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The Go Lean book and related commentaries call on citizens of the Caribbean member-states to lean-in to the empowerments described in the roadmap for elevation. This will require a constant vigil to ensure the Greater Good as opposed to personal gains.
The City of Flint is desperately in need of governing “best practice”. The Financial Emergency Status that just ended, 2011 to April 2015, was the 2nd one in a decade; (the first was from 2002 to 2005). Every time the city is penalized with the advent of a state-appointed Emergency Manager (EM), they lose out on a local stakeholder pursuing the city’s best-interest, rather the EM’s serve as a Receiver (without the formal Bankruptcy proceedings, which is a Federal not State action).
This is highlighted by the current Health Emergency due to the City’s switch of their water source to the Flint River – a contaminated source – and now endangering the health and wellness of many of its citizens; with the most damaging effects being on young children. That decision was made by the Emergency Manager to save money, as opposed to the community’s best interest. There is no checks-and-balances on the EM, other than the appointing Governor (and courts), as the EM has both Executive (Mayor) and legislative authority (City Council).
Absolute power …
… see example here:
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed Michael Brown as the city’s Emergency Manager on November 29, effective December 1.[37] On December 2, Brown dismissed a number of top administrators including City Administrator Gregory Eason, Human Resources Director Donna Poplar, Citizen Services Director Rhoda Woods, Green City Coordinator Steve Montle and independent officials including Ombudswoman Brenda Purifoy and Civil Service Commission Director Ed Parker. Pay and benefits from Flint’s elected officials were automatically removed.[38] On December 8, the office of Obudsman and the Civil Service Commission were eliminated by Brown.[36] Brown resigned in September 2013 and was replaced by Darnell Earley, who served in that post until January 2015 – Retrieved January 18, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan#First_financial_emergency:_2002.E2.80.932004
Now, the report is that this one EM role-player has effectively sacrificed the children of Flint on the altar of financial expedience. This is a bad example of absolute power exhibited abusively. See details here:
In April 2014, Flint switched its water supply from Lake Huron (via Detroit) to the Flint River. [51] After two independent studies, lead poisoning caused by the water was found in the area’s population. [52][53] This has lead to a federal lawsuit, the resignation of several officials, and a public health state of emergency for all of Genesee County. [54][55][56]
See VIDEO here of the story in the national media and the Timeline in theAppendix below.
Surprise, surprise! Most city officials involved in this debacle had been dismissed or resigned. And there is national outcry for Governor Rick Snyder to resign. (At one point his stock in national politics was so highly rated that he was considered viable for the Vice-Presidency for the eventual 2016 Republican nominee for President).
This tragic story – cautionary tale of Flint – is an analysis of failure in the societal engines of economics, security and governance. These 3 facets are presented in the book Go Lean … Caribbean as the three-fold cord for societal harmony; for any society anywhere. The Caribbean wants societal harmony; we must therefore work to optimize all these three engines. As exhibited by Flint, this is easier said than done. This heavy-lifting is described in the book as both an art and a science.
The focus in this commentary is a continuation in the study of the societal engine of governance; previously, there was a series on economics and one on security. This commentary though, focuses on the bad eventually of Social Contract failures. The Social Contract refers to the unspoken expectations between citizens and the State. In many cases, State laws limit ownership of all mineral rights to the State; so citizens will be dependent on State systems to supply water. In the case of Flint, the City’s Water and Sewage Department has a monopoly; this supply is the only option for residents!
The Go Lean book describes “bad actors” wreaking havoc on the peace and security of the community. The book relates though that “bad actors” are not always human; they include bad events like natural disasters and industrial spills. Plus, actual “bad actors” may have started out with altruistic motives, good intentions. This is why the book and accompanying blogs design the organization structures for the new Caribbean with checks-and-balances, mandating a collaborative process, because sometimes even a well-intentioned individual may not have all the insight, hindsight and foresight necessary to pursue the Greater Good. This the defect of the Michigan Emergency Manager structure; it assigns too much power to just one person, bypassing the benefits of a collaborative process. This is one reason why this review is important: power corrupts…everyone … everywhere.
The Go Lean book asserts that Caribbean people deserve the best-of-the-best for governmental processes, and that Caribbean society – the 30 member-states – can be elevated with the prudent application of these best-practices for economics, security and governance. The roadmap features 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 – with oversight over economic crimes – to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including ranking and ratings of Social Contract effectiveness.
The City of Flint, Michigan is a cautionary tale for the Caribbean. We can glean lessons from their dysfunction and apply mitigations in our Caribbean effort, the CU/Go Lean roadmap. This point was strongly urged in the Go Lean book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 & 12) with these pronouncements:
Preamble: And while our rights to exercise good governance and promote a more perfect society are the natural assumptions among the powers of the earth, no one other than ourselves can be held accountable for our failure to succeed if we do not try to promote the opportunities that a democratic society fosters … and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.
xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … Detroit …
The Go Lean book details all the community ethos to ensure the right attitudes and practices among the government stakeholders and leaders of the community. Plus the book identifies the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to promote collaboration in the governing process:
Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Privacy –vs- Public Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Whistleblower Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Witness Security & Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Intelligence Gathering
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Light Up the Dark Places – Openness
Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principle – Minority Equalization
Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principle – Cooperatives Among Member-States
Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – Interpersonal; Leadership
Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing
Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union
Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department – Jurisdiction for Public Integrity cases.
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Federal Courts – Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
Page 90
Implementation – Assemble “Organs” – including Regional Courts and Justice Institutions
Page 96
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives
Page 103
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Accountability of Governing Officials
Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the US Constitution – Checks and Balances
Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance
Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership
Page 171
Appendix – Lessons Learned in Open/Collaborative Government – Floating the Trinidad Dollar
Page 316
Other subjects related to collaboration, whistle-blowing and public integrity have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentary, as sampled here:
The goal of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. Many of the Caribbean member-state governments feature the Westminster-style Parliamentary system with a Prime Minister. These structures lend to the tendency of autocratic leadership, as a Prime Minister leads his party, the Legislature, Executive branch and appoint the judges of the Judiciary. As demonstrated in Flint Michigan, this is not the best practice in leadership, as there are many subject matters that may be outside the core competence of an autocratic leader.
We must do better, than Flint! (Flint must do better; too many lives are involved).
We know that “bad actors and bad incidences” will always occur, even in government institutions, so we must be “on guard” against abusive influences and encroachments to Failed-State status. The Go Lean roadmap calls for engagement and participation from everyone, the people (citizens), institutions and government officials alike. We encouraged all with benevolent motives to lean-in to this roadmap, to get involved to effect a turnaround for the Caribbean Failed-States.
Our Caribbean stakeholders deserve the best … from their leaders. 🙂
Appendix – Timeline of the Water Crisis in Flint, Michigan By: Associated Press – Jan 16, 2016, 3:18 PM ET
A look at some of the key events in the development of the Flint water crisis:
———
APRIL 2014: In an effort to save money, Flint begins drawing its water from the Flint River instead of relying on water from Detroit. The move is considered temporary while the city waits to connect to a new regional water system. Residents immediately complain about the smell, taste and appearance of the water. They also raise health concerns, reporting rashes, hair loss and other problems.
SUMMER 2014: Three boil-water advisories are issued in 22 days after positive tests for coliform bacteria.
OCTOBER 2014: A General Motors engine plant stops using Flint water, saying it rusts parts.
JANUARY 2015: Flint seeks an evaluation of its efforts to improve the water amid concerns that it contains potentially harmful levels of a disinfection byproduct. Detroit offers to reconnect Flint to its water system. Flint insists its water is safe.
JAN. 28: Flint residents snap up 200 cases of bottled water in 30 minutes in a giveaway program. More giveaways will follow in ensuing months.
FEB. 3: State officials pledge $2 million for Flint’s troubled water system.
FEBRUARY: A 40-member advisory committee is formed to address concerns over Flint’s water. Mayor Dayne Walling says the committee will ensure the community is involved in the issue.
MARCH 19: Flint promises to spend $2.24 million on immediate improvements to its water supply.
MARCH 27: Flint officials say the quality of its water has improved and that testing finds the water meets all state and federal standards for safety.
SEPT. 24: A group of doctors led by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of HurleyMedicalCenter urges Flint to stop using the Flint River for water after finding high levels of lead in the blood of children. State regulators insist the water is safe.
SEPT. 29: Gov. Rick Snyder pledges to take action in response to the lead levels. It’s the first acknowledgment by the state that lead is a problem.
OCT. 2: Snyder announces that the state will spend $1 million to buy water filters and test water in Flint public schools.
OCT. 8: Snyder calls for Flint to go back to using water from Detroit’s system again.
OCT. 15: The Michigan Legislature and Snyder approve nearly $9.4 million in aid to Flint, including $6 million to help switch its drinking water back to Detroit. The legislation also includes money for water filters, inspections and lab testing.
NOV. 3: Voters elect newcomer Karen Weaver over incumbent Mayor Dayne Walling amid fallout over the drinking water.
DEC. 29: Snyder accepts the resignation of Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant and apologizes for what occurred in Flint.
JAN. 5: Snyder declares a state of emergency in Flint, the same day federal officials confirm that they are investigating.
JAN. 12: Snyder activates the Michigan National Guard to help distribute bottled water and filters in Flint and asks the federal government for help.
JAN. 13: Michigan health officials report an increase in Legionnaires’ disease cases during periods over the past two years in the county that includes Flint.
JAN. 14: Snyder asks the Obama administration for major disaster declaration and more federal aid.
JAN. 16: President Barack Obama signs emergency declaration and orders federal aid for Flint, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate relief efforts.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean calls for the elevation of Caribbean society, to re-focus, re-boot, and optimize all the engines of society so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. The activities of “play” are of serious concern; they are Art and Science.
All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy. All play and no work, makes Jack a dumb boy.
There is the need for balance.
Tourism activities and/or vacations, the primary economic driver in the Caribbean region, are grouped as a “play” activity.
The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap, posits that tourism will continue to be the primary economic driver in the region for the foreseeable future. Considering the “bread and butter” of the region, it is obvious our “bread is buttered” with “play”. Understanding the science of “play” activities can therefore be critical in the roadmap to grow the region’s GDP and create jobs (2.2 million new jobs projected). There are many other activities considered “play”: sports, parks & recreation, art & culture, media (film, TV, online social networking, etc.) and also … animal companions. People love their pets and even treat them as part of the family. So to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play means considering the needs of the 42-million population and their animal companions.
A study of economics must consider the systems of survival, the quest for food, clothing and shelter. This is a science. Research by Behavioral Scientist & Psychologist Abraham Maslow with his Hierarchy of Needs[a], identifies needs as a pyramid, where at the bottom, or base level, are basic, survival elements (food, water, shelter and security/safety). As these are obtained, then there are natural urges for emotional stability (belongingness, self-esteem, social acceptance); accordingly, the top level of the pyramid was defined as complex understanding (beauty, justice, realizing one’s full potential). Where does “play” fit into this hierarchy? Other research now indicates that the need to play nullifies the hierarchy, people and animals seek play at all times and all circumstances, despite whether the other needs are fulfilled. See the example here …
… this VIDEO shows hungry polar bears in the Arctic region and what they do with dogs, despite a potential food source. See here:
Title: He Watched Helplessly As A Starving Bear Approached His Dogs. Then Something Amazing Happened.
Polar bears and dogs are natural enemies, and bears usually behave quite aggressively toward dogs. Polar bears are the largest land carnivore and are many times larger than even the largest of dogs, so when a hungry polar bear spots a dog, it usually ends very badly for the dog.
This, however, is truly unbelievable. Take a look at the photos and videos here.
Renowned nature photographer Norbert Rosing, whose work has appeared in National Geographic, visited Brian and his dogs on several occasions. Here are some of the incredible photos he took.
Here is some incredible footage of these unlikely friends playing together:
Mother nature never ceases to amaze. There’s so much we can learn from these unusual friends about tolerance.
Share this awesome friendship with others. They’ll never expect to see this!
… there is a lot that can be learned from the science of “play” by just examining dogs and other animals.
Everyone needs and wants to play … at all levels of the socio-economic ladder: rich, middle-class and poor. So “play” options should be provided in society so that everyone can partake. Since tourism is categorized as “play”. The Go Lean book posits that the region can experience even more growth in tourism than the estimated 80 million people that visit our shores annually, by facilitating more “play” options for all levels of society. (Cruise vacations are known for being more affordable to those with smaller budgets). The book proposes growth strategies/options, such as:
Inter-Island Ferries (Page 280)
Cruises options that can start/stop at different Caribbean ports (Page 193)
Features of the Sharing Economy (Car and Residence) for Cheaper Vacations (Page 35)
Sports eco-system for amateur, professional and inter-collegiate participation (Page 229)
Expansion of Parks Eco-system (Page 83)
Urban Bicycle Assimilation and Expansions of Bike Paths (Page 352)
The Go Lean book asserts that the requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for these societal elevation goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone. So the Go Lean book campaigns to shift the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy, the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the CU.
The subject of animals and animal companionship is also pivotal in the roadmap for elevating Caribbean society, especially for the security engines. The Go Lean book posits (Page 185) that better command of Animal Husbandry can facilitate better security around the region’s economic engines. Dogs feel a lot less intrusive and less intimidating than formal security screening, or personnel patrolling with AK47 automatic rifles. Imagine a beautiful Caribbean beach scene with a plain clothes “officer” walking along with specialty dogs, or more exactly:
Drug Sniffing Dogs
Bomb Sniffing Dogs
Service/Therapy Dogs
The Go Lean book considers the Agent of Change (Page 57) of the “Aging Diaspora” and its effect on the Caribbean’s biggest economic driver: “tourism”. Many former Caribbean citizens left these shores for greater opportunities abroad, but now they are approaching retirement. These ones can be induced to return to the Caribbean … and bring their economic resources with them … provided that their needs are covered.
This includes the needs of their animal companions. (Currently, the requirements for transporting pets to “foreign” countries are exhaustive; they entail many standards and veterinarian assessments).
The goal of the CU is to bring the proper tools and techniques to the Caribbean region to optimize the stewardship of the economic, security and governing engines. The book posits that the economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, with technocratic management and stewardship of a Single Market. As conveyed here in this commentary, and in previous commentaries, this would be better than the status quo.
Change has come to the region. This book Go Lean… Caribbean provides the needed details on how to better manage the challenge of a changing world. Early in the book, the optimization and best-practices was highlighted as a reason the Caribbean region needed to unite, integrate and confederate to a Single Market. These pronouncements were included in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 14):
iv. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass is in a tropical region, the flora and fauna allows for an inherent beauty that is enviable to peoples near and far. The structures must be strenuously guarded to protect and promote sustainable systems of commerce paramount to this reality.
vi. Whereas the finite nature of the landmass of our lands limits the populations and markets of commerce, by extending the bonds of brotherhood to our geographic neighbors allows for extended opportunities and better execution of the kinetics of our economies through trade. This regional focus must foster and promote diverse economic stimuli.
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.
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.
The Go Lean… Caribbean book wisely details the community ethos to adopt to proactively facilitate digital campaigns for the changed landscape; plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices & Incentives
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – Athletics, Literary, Art and Music in “Play” activities
Page 27
Community Ethos – Impact Research & Development – Including Animal Husbandry
Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing – Viable forService Animals
Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Integrate Region in a Single Market
Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Enhancing the Tourism Product
Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora
Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy to $800 Billion – Trade and Globalization
Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Tourism Promotions and Administration
Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration
Page 83
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Health – Veterinarian Standards
Page 86
Implementation – Assembling Regional Organs
Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Deliver
Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market
Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better – “Play” activities for Rich, Middle Class, and the Poor
Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs – Many from “Play” activities
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives – Ideal for Animal Husbandry
Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources – Parks Administration
Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters – Animal Partners & First Responders
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism – Expanding Solutions for “Snowbirds”
Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events – Sharing Economy
Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds – Venues for “Play” activities
Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Cruise Tourism – Appealing for Budget Vacations
Page 193
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation – Bicycle-Friendly Culture
Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care – Planning for Storm Shelters
Page 225
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports – For Amateur and Professionals
Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music – A significant role despite the level of need
Page 231
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Storm Shelters for Pets
Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Promote World Heritage Sites – Low-cost Touristic Activities
Page 248
Appendix – Sample Inter-Island Ferry Scheme
Page 280
Appendix – Sample Urban Bicycle Sharing Scheme
Page 352
The CU seeks to foster play options to aid-and-abet tourism and other economic activities. This includes all supporting functions before, during and after visitors come to our shores. Consider the example of Hurricane preparation; there is the need to prepare storm shelters for residents in unsafe areas; these solutions MUST consider pet shelters as well; (Page 234).
In previous Go Lean blogs, related points of the innovative tourism marketing, Aging Diaspora and the need for efficient Animal Husbandry have been detailed; see sample here:
This commentary focuses on the core competence of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation, which is Trade. This refers to the ability to accentuate the economic activities of the region to make the homeland a better place to live, work and play. But this commentary also addresses a passion project: the love of dogs. See the related VIDEO in the Appendix below.
But the integration of core competence and passion can elevate a society. Dogs can definitely have that impact for the Caribbean.
The people and institutions of the Caribbean are urged to lean-in to these new business models to incentivize more tourism and “play” activities for all segments of society. The region is also urged to full employ working canines, as in embedding them with Military & Police units. This is win-win!
Let’s do it! This is the quest of the Go Lean roadmap: elevate the societal engines for all people … and their pet companions & helpers. With the empowerments and elevations portrayed in the roadmap we can succeed in making Caribbean region a better place for citizens and tourists alike to live, work and play. 🙂
Published on Aug 18, 2014 – “So God Made a Dog” a takeoff on the Paul Harvey “God made a Farmer”. They are, our friends and part of the family and often with us for to short a time …
Economics, security and governance is presented in the book Go Lean … Caribbean as the “three-fold cord” for societal harmony; for any society anywhere. The Caribbean wants that societal harmony; we must therefore work to optimize all these three engines. But this is easier said than done. This heavy-lifting is described in the book as both an art and a science.
The focus in this commentary is on the societal engine of governance; previously, there was a series on economics and one on security lessons. This commentary focuses on assuaging the “abuse of power”. The Go Lean book posits that verily, bad actors will always emerge to exploit successful engines (in economics and governance). Therefore the checks-and-balances must be proactively embedded in any organizational structure so as to minimize the actuality of abuses by authority figures.
The American experience is important for this consideration. There is a lesson in governance here in examining the US; more exactly, examining the output from the Center for Public Integrity (CPI); see Appendix A below. This Non-Governmental Organization specifically evaluates/measures government misbehavior, structures and systems of oversight. It is an American NGO with an American focus; but we now need to focus on the Caribbean, measuring “best-practices” with this same American yardstick.
Warning!!! This is a LONG commentary … with the Appendices. Considering the grave subject matter; this length is unavoidable.
The work of the CPI is relevant in our consideration of the Caribbean. For the 30 Caribbean member-states, two are American territories (Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands), and a few member-states use the US Dollar as their official currency (British Virgin Islands, the Turks & Caicos Islands and the Dutch Caribbean Territories of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba). This is one reason why this review is important; the other, and most important reason is that our Caribbean people deserve the best-of-the-best of governmental processes. Power corrupts … everyone … everywhere.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the economic, security and governance engines of the region’s 30 member-states. The roadmap features 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 – with oversight over economic crimes and prosecutorial power for public officials – to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including ranking and ratings of the mechanics of oversight.
The roadmap covers a 5 year period in which the societal engines will be optimized. The region’s GDP should increase from $278 Billion to $800 Billion. With this success, there will be a lot of opportunities for government administrators to acquire and wield power. The roadmap fully expects these corrupting effects of power to emerge in the Caribbean, as they have emerged in the US, according to the featured news article below (Appendix D):
Secret Deal-making – (S)
Corruption – (C)
Conflicts of Interest – (I)
Thusly, the CU/Go Lean roadmap embeds the required checks-and-balances from the outset to assuage these threats. This commentary considers the in-depth examination of the member-state governments in the US – by the Center for Public Integrity – and then proceeds with a rating/ranking of those 50 states using these 13 categories:
Public Access to Information (S)
Political Financing (I)
Electoral Oversight (C)
Executive Accountability (I)
Legislative Accountability (I)
Judicial Accountability (I)
State Budget Processes (S)
State Civil Service Management (I)
Procurement (C)
Internal Auditing (S)
Lobbying Disclosure (I)
Ethics Enforcement Agencies (C)
State Pension Fund Management (C)
Consider here, the actual VIDEO and news article (in Appendix D below) as reported in the national daily newspaper USA Today, published on November 9, 2015:
An investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity ranked all 50 states based on how ‘corrupt’ they were. The investigation looked at data in 13 different categories. USA TODAY
Well done, CPI. This assessment of the integrity status of the 50 American state governments is a great check-and-balance on those governmental powers.
See the overall rank of the 50 US states in Appendix B below and the separate ranking for each of the 13 criteria at this web address http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/09/center-integrity-corruption-grades-interactive/75033060/. The grade of “C” is the highest grade – not good – but it is a benchmark; all the other states did even worse. The state that ranks the highest on the list is Alaska; in contrast, the state with the lowest score/rank is Michigan. (The principal city and economic engine in Michigan is Detroit. The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean are here in Detroit to “observe and report” the turn-around and rebirth of the once-great-but-now-distressed City of Detroit and its metropolitan area).
The assertion of the Go Lean book is that the Caribbean region can benefit from this Good Governance objective in the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) mission. The Caribbean region can do the same as the CPI does for the US. The states are not accountable to the CPI; but they do have to answer to “the people”. Underlying to the CPI mission, is the tactic of “Freedom of Information” embedded in State and Federal laws. They are first and foremost a journalistic organization; they are an NGO, they do not possess any sovereignty or prosecutorial powers.
The model of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) is similar, in that the CU will not possess sovereignty over its member-states. (The CU treaty does vest prosecutorial and accountability powers to CU entities for corruption matters related to CU federal funds). In general, the CU is limited to the same “ratings and ranking” tools as the CPI. So we must proactively and reactively address public corruption. But doing so judiciously and with proper regard for personal sacrifice and volunteerism.
The Go Lean roadmap calls on citizens of the Caribbean member-states to lean-in to the empowerments of this elevation plan. This will require whole-souled commitments and sacrifice on the part of the people; a determination to pursue the needs of the public over the needs of just one person; many times at great sacrifice. This is good! To reach the goals of the community, or an entire nation, there must be a willingness to sacrifice – blood, sweat and tears. This is the community ethos – spirit that drives the people – that is necessary for the pursuit of the Greater Good as opposed to personal gains.
But … there is a need for balance here.
We want to invite public participation, but we do not want people to come to public service looking to profit themselves. On the one hand, we do not want to discourage volunteerism and National Sacrifice with excessive disclosures (see Bahamian satirical song in Appendix C lambasting the resistance when introducing a financial disclosure law), while on the other hand, we want to check and double-check the integrity in the governing process. We must ensure Good Governance.
That perfect balance is possible! The Center for Public Integrity provides its own roadmap for doing so in the US. For this, they are a role model for the Caribbean effort, the CU/Go Lean roadmap. This point was strongly urged in the Go Lean book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 & 12) with these pronouncements:
Preamble: … While our rights to exercise good governance and promote a more perfect society are the natural assumptions among the powers of the earth, no one other than ourselves can be held accountable for our failure to succeed if we do not try to promote the opportunities that a democratic society fosters.
As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption,
nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.
The Go Lean book details all the community ethos to ensure the right attitudes and practices among those that submit to serve and protect Caribbean communities. Plus the book identifies the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to ensure public integrity for the Caribbean region governing process:
Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Privacy –vs- Public Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Whistleblower Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Witness Security & Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Intelligence Gathering
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Light Up the Dark Places – Openness
Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principle – Minority Equalization
Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principle – Cooperatives and NGO’s
Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations – Case Study of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing – Intelligence Gathering
Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union
Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department – District Attorneys with Jurisdiction for Public Integrity cases.
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department – CariPol – Policing the Police
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Federal Courts – Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
Page 90
Implementation – Assemble “Organs” – including Regional Courts and Justice Institutions
Page 96
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives
Page 103
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Accountability of Governing Officials
Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the US Constitution – Checks and Balances
Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance – Right to Good Governance
Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – including White Collar & Government Integrity
Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering/Analysis
Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications – Long Form Journalism and Public Broadcasting
Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Ensure Corporate Governance
Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex – Learn from Past & Ensure Corporate Governance
Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights – Justice Focus and Good Governance
Page 220
Appendix – Lessons Learned in Open Government – Floating the Trinidad & Tobago Dollar (1993)
Page 316
Other subjects related to public integrity in the region (or the perception of deficient integrity) have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:
The goal of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. We must lower the “push” factors that cause our citizens to flee their homeland for foreign (North American and European) shores. Among the many reasons people emigrate is the ineffectiveness of their homeland’s local government. We must therefore improve the governing process.
We must do better!
We know that “bad actors” will emerge, even in government institutions, so we must be “on guard” against corruptive threats, from internal (i.e. audits) and external (i.e. lobbyists) origins. We must maintain transparency, accountability, and constant commitments to due-process and the rule-of-law.
The Go Lean roadmap calls for the engagement and participation of everyone, the people (citizens), institutions and government officials alike. We encouraged all with benevolent motives to lean-in to this roadmap, to get involved, get busy and get going. But we caution all with malevolent motives – we will be watching, listening, checking and double-checking.
Our Caribbean subjects deserve only the best … for a change. 🙂
TheCPI is an American nonprofit investigative journalism organization whose stated mission is “to reveal abuses of power, corruption and dereliction of duty by powerful public and private institutions in order to cause them to operate with honesty, integrity, accountability and to put the public interest first.”[1] With over 50 staff members, CPI is one of the largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative centers in America.[2] It won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.[3]
CPI describes itself as an organization that is “nonpartisan and does no advocacy work.”[4] CPI has been characterized as “progressive”[5] “nonpartisan,”[6] “independent,”[7] and a “liberal group.”[8][9]
CPI releases its reports via its web site to media outlets throughout the U.S. and around the globe. In 2004, CPI’s The Buying of the President book was on the New York Times bestseller list for three months.[10]
In state after state, legislators and agency officials engage in [secrecy, corruption and] conflicts of interest. Here is the list of overall scores in ranking Good-to-Bad-to-Worse-to-Detroit (Michigan):
State
Score
Rank
Alaska
C
1
California
C-
2
Connecticut
C-
3
Hawaii
D+
4
Rhode Island
D+
5
Ohio
D+
6
Alabama
D+
7
Kentucky
D+
8
Nebraska
D+
9
Indiana
D-
10
Iowa
D+
10
Massachusetts
D+
11
Washington
D+
12
Colorado
D+
13
Illinois
D+
14
Tennessee
D
15
Virginia
D
16
West Virginia
D
17
North Carolina
D
18
New Jersey
D
19
Wisconsin
D
20
Montana
D
21
Arizona
D
22
Maryland
D
23
Georgia
D-
24
Utah
D-
25
Idaho
D-
26
Missouri
D-
27
Minnesota
D-
28
Florida
D-
30
New York
D-
31
Arkansas
D-
32
Mississippi
D-
33
New Hampshire
D-
34
New Mexico
D-
35
South Carolina
D-
36
North Dakota
D-
37
Texas
D-
38
Vermont
D-
39
Oklahoma
F
40
Louisiana
F
41
Kansas
F
42
Maine
F
43
Oregon
F
44
Pennsylvania
F
45
Nevada
F
46
South Dakota
F
47
Delaware
F
48
Wyoming
F
49
Michigan
F
50
———-
Appendix C VIDEO-AUDIO – Eddie Minnis – Show and Tell – https://youtu.be/9ERov4w7l78
Uploaded on Jun 16, 2011 – Artist: Eddie Minnis Song: Show & Tell Album: Greatest Hits!
In November 2014, Arkansas voters approved a ballot measure that, among other changes, barred the state’s elected officials from accepting lobbyists’ gifts. That hasn’t stopped influence peddlers from continuing to provide meals to lawmakers at the luxurious Capital Hotel or in top Little Rock eateries such as the Brave New Restaurant; the prohibition does not apply to “food or drink available at a planned activity to which a specific governmental body is invited,” so lobbyists can buy meals as long as they invite an entire legislative committee.
Such loopholes are a common part of statehouse culture nationwide, according to the 2015 State Integrity Investigation, a data-driven assessment of state government by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity. The comprehensive probe found that in state after state, open records laws are laced with exemptions, and part-time legislators and agency officials engage in glaring conflicts of interests and cozy relationships with lobbyists while feckless, understaffed watchdogs struggle to enforce laws as porous as honeycombs.
Take the Missouri lawmaker who introduced a bill this year — which passed despite a veto by the governor — to prohibit cities from banning plastic bags at grocery stores. The state representative cited concern for shoppers, but he also happens to be state director of the Missouri Grocers Association and is one of several lawmakers in the state who pushed bills that synced with their private interests.
Or the lobbyist who, despite a $50 cap on gifts to Idaho state lawmakers, spent $2,250 in 2013 to host a state senator and his wife at the annual Governors Cup charity golf tournament in Sun Valley; the prohibition does not apply to such lobbying largess as long as the money is not spent “in return for action” on a particular bill.
In Delaware, the Public Integrity Commission, which oversees lobbying and ethics laws for the executive branch there, has just two full-time employees. A 2013 report by a special state prosecutor found that the agency was unable “to undertake any serious inquiry or investigation into potential wrongdoing.”
And in New Mexico, lawmakers passed a resolution in 2013 declaring that their emails are exempt from public records laws — a rule change that did not require the governor’s signature.
These are among the practices illuminated by the State Integrity Investigation, which measured hundreds of variables to compile transparency and accountability grades for all 50 states. The best grade in the nation, which went to Alaska, is just a C. Only two others earned better than a D+; 11 states received failing grades. The results may be deflating to the two-thirds of Americans who, according to a recent poll, look to the states for policy solutions as gridlock and partisanship has overtaken Washington.
The top of the pack includes bastions of liberal government, including California (ranked 2nd with a C), and states notorious for corrupt pasts (Connecticut, 3rd with a C-, and Rhode Island, 5th with a D+). In those New England states, scandals led to significant changes and relatively robust ethics laws, even if dubious dealings linger in the halls of government. The bottom includes many Western states that champion limited government, such as Nevada, South Dakota and Wyoming, but also others, such as Maine, Delaware and dead-last Michigan, that have not adopted the types of ethics and open records laws common in many other states.
The results are “disappointing but not surprising,” said Paula A. Franzese, an expert in state and local government ethics at Seton Hall University School of Law and former chairwoman of the New Jersey State Ethics Commission. Franzese said that as many states struggle financially, ethics oversight is among the last issues to receive funding. “It’s not the sort of issue that commands voters,” she said.
Aside from a few exceptions, there has been little progress on these issues since the State Integrity Investigation was first carried out in 2012. In fact, most scores have dropped since then, though some of that is attributable to changes made to improve and update the project and its methodology.
Since State Integrity’s first go-round, at least 12 states have seen their legislative leaders or top Cabinet-level officials charged, convicted or resign as a result of ethics or corruption-related scandal. Five House or Assembly leaders have fallen. No state has outdone New York, where 14 lawmakers have left office since the beginning of 2012 because of ethical or criminal issues, according to a count by Citizens Union, an advocacy group. That does not include the former leaders of both the Assembly and the Senate, who were charged in unrelated corruption schemes this year but remain in office while they await trial.
New York is not remarkable, however, in at least one regard: Only one of those 14 lawmakers has been sanctioned by the state’s ethics commission.
GRADING THE STATES
When first conducted in 2011-2012, the State Integrity Investigation was an unprecedented look at the systems that state governments use to prevent corruption and expose it when it does occur. Unlike many other examinations of the issue, the project does not attempt to measure corruption itself. The 2015 grades are based on 245 questions that ask about key indicators of transparency and accountability, looking not only at what the laws say, but also how well they’re enforced or implemented. The “indicators” are divided into 13 categories: public access to information, political financing, electoral oversight, executive accountability, legislative accountability, judicial accountability, state budget processes, state civil service management, procurement, internal auditing, lobbying disclosure, state pension fund management and ethics enforcement agencies.
Experienced journalists in each state undertook exhaustive research and reporting to score each of the questions, which ask, for example, whether lawmakers are required to file financial interest disclosures and whether they are complete and detailed. The results are both intuitive — an F for New York’s “three men in a room” budget process — and surprising — Illinois earned the best grade in the nation for its procurement practices. Altogether, the project presents a comprehensive look at transparency, accountability and ethics in state government. It’s not a pretty picture.
DOWNWARD TREND, BLIPS OF DAYLIGHT
Overall, states scored notably worse in this second round. Some of that decline is because of changes to the project, such as the addition of questions asking about “open data” policies, which call on governments to publish information online in formats that are easy to download and analyze. The drop also reflects moves toward greater secrecy in some states.
“Across the board, accessing government has always been, but is increasingly, a barrier to people from every reform angle,” said Jenny Rose Flanagan, vice president for state operations at Common Cause, a national advocacy group with chapters in most states.
No state saw its score fall further than New Jersey, which earned a B+, the best score in the nation, in 2012 — shocking just about anyone familiar with the state’s politics — thanks to tough ethics and anti-corruption laws that had been passed over the previous decade in response to a series of scandals.
None of that has changed. But journalists, advocates and academics have accused the Christie administration of fighting and delaying potentially damaging public records requests and meddling in the affairs of the State Ethics Commission. That’s on top of Bridgegate, the sprawling scandal that began as a traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge but has led to the indictments of one of the governor’s aides and two of his appointees — one of whom pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges — and even to the resignations of top executives at United Airlines.
Admittedly, it’s not all doom and gloom. Iowa created an independent board with authority to mediate disputes when agencies reject public records requests. Gov. Terry Branstad cited the state’s previous grade from the center when he signed the bill, and the move helped catapult Iowa to first in the nation in the category for access to information, with a C- grade (Iowa’s overall score actually dropped modestly).
In Georgia, good government groups latched on to the state’s worst-in-the-nation rank in 2012 to amplify their ongoing push for changes. The result was a modest law the following year that created a $75 cap on the value of lobbyists’ gifts to public officials. The change helped boost the state’s score in the category of legislative accountability to a C-, sixth-best in the nation.
Perhaps the most dramatic changes came in Virginia, where scandal engulfed the administration of outgoing Gov. Robert McDonnell in 2013 after it emerged that he and his family had accepted more than $170,000 in loans and gifts, much of it undisclosed, from a Virginia businessman. McDonnell and his wife were later convicted on federal corruption charges, but the case underscored the state’s woefully lax ethics laws and oversight regime; Virginia received an overall F grade in 2012. At the time, there was no limit on the value of gifts that public officials could accept, and they were not required to disclose gifts to their immediate family, a clause that McDonnell grasped at to argue that he had complied with state laws. (Appeals of the McDonnells’ convictions are pending.)
Over the next two years, newly elected Gov. Terry McAuliffe and lawmakers passed a series of executive actions and laws that led in 2015 to a $100 cap on gifts to public officials from lobbyists and people seeking state business. They created an ethics council that will advise lawmakers but will not have the power to issue sanctions. Advocates for ethics reform have said the changes, though significant, fall far short of what’s needed, particularly the creation of an ethics commission with enforcement powers.
States continued to score relatively well in the categories for auditing practices — 29 earned B- or better — and for budget transparency — 16 got a B- or above. (The category measures whether the budget process is transparent, with sufficient checks and balances, not whether it’s well-managed).
In Idaho, for example, which earned an A and the second best score for its budget process, the public is free to watch the Legislature’s joint budget committee meetings. Those not able to make it to Boise can watch by streaming video. Citizens can provide input during hearings and can view the full budget bill online.
New York earned the top score for its auditing practices — a B+ — because of its robustly funded state comptroller’s office, which is headed by an elected official who is largely protected from interference by the governor or Legislature. The office issues an annual report, which is publicly available, and has shown little hesitation to go after state agencies, such as in a recent audit that identified $500 million in waste in the state’s Medicaid program.
Unfortunately, such bright spots are the exceptions.
ACCESS DENIED
In 2013, George LeVines submitted a request for records to the Massachusetts State Police, asking for controlled substance seizure reports at state prisons dating back seven years. LeVines, who at the time was assistant editor at Muckrock, a news website and records-request repository, soon received a response from the agency saying he could have copies of the reports, but they would cost him $130,000. Though LeVines is quick to admit that his request was extremely broad, the figure shocked him nonetheless.
“I wouldn’t have ever expected getting that just scot-free, that does cost money,” he said. But $130,000? “It’s insane.”
The cost was prohibitive, and LeVines withdrew his request. Massachusetts State Police have become a notorious steel trap of information — they’ve charged tens of thousands of dollars or even, in one case, $2.7 million to produce documents — and were awarded this year with the tongue-in-cheek Golden Padlock award by a national journalism organization, which each year “honors” an agency or public official for their “abiding commitment to secrecy and impressive skill in information suppression.”
Dave Procopio, a spokesman for the State Police, said in an email that the department is committed to transparency but that its records are laced with sensitive information that’s exempt from disclosure and that reviewing the material is time-consuming and expensive. “While we most certainly agree that the public has a right to information not legally exempt from disclosure,” he wrote, “we will not cut corners for the purpose of expediency or economy if doing so means that private personal, medi[c]al, or criminal history information is inappropriately released.”
It’s not just the police. Both the Legislature and the judicial branch are at least partly exempt from Massachusetts’ public records law. Governors have cited a state Supreme Court ruling to argue that they, too, are exempt, though chief executives often comply with requests anyway. A review by The Boston Globe found that the secretary of State’s office, the first line of appeal for rejected requests, had ruled in favor of those seeking records in only one in five cases. Massachusetts earned an F in the category for public access to information. So did 43 other states, making this the worst-performing category in the State Integrity Investigation.
Though every state in the nation has open records and meetings laws, they’re typically shot through with holes and exemptions and usually have essentially no enforcement mechanisms, beyond the court system, when agencies refuse to comply. In most states, at least one entire branch of government or agency claims exemptions from the laws. Many agencies routinely fail to explain why they they’ve denied requests. Public officials charge excessive fees to discourage requestors. In the vast majority of states, citizens are unable to quickly and affordably resolve appeals when their records are denied. Only one state — Missouri — received a perfect score on a question asking whether citizens actually receive responses to their requests swiftly and at reasonable cost.
“We’re seeing increased secrecy throughout the country at the state and federal level,” said David Cuillier, director of the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism and an expert on open records laws. He said substantial research shows that the nation’s open records laws have been poked and prodded to include a sprawling list of exemptions and impediments and that public officials increasingly use those statutes to deny access to records. “It’s getting worse every year,” he said.
After a series of shootings by police officers in New Mexico, the Santa Fe New Mexican published a report about controversial changes made to the state-run training academy. When a reporter requested copies of the new curriculum, the program’s director refused, saying, “I’ll burn them before you get them.”
In January, The Wichita Eagle reported that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget director had used his private email address to send details of a proposed budget to the private email accounts of fellow staff members and to a pair of lobbyists. He later said he did so only because he and the rest of the staff were home for the holidays. In May, Brownback acknowledged that he, too, used a private email account to communicate with staff, meaning his correspondence was not subject to the state’s public records laws. A state council is studying how to close the loophole. Court cases in California are examining a similar question.
Cuillier said that in most states, courts or others have determined that discussions of public business are subject to disclosure, no matter whether the email or phone used was public or private. But the debate is indicative of a larger problem, and it reveals public records laws as the crazy old uncle of government statutes: toothless, antiquated appendages of a bygone era.
WEAK ETHICS OVERSIGHT
Governments write ethics laws for a reason, presumably. Public officials can’t always be trusted to do the right thing; we need laws to make sure they do. The trouble is, a law is only as good as its enforcement, and the entities responsible for overseeing ethics are often impotent and ineffective.
In many states, a complex mix of legislative committees, stand-alone commissions and law enforcement agencies police the ethics laws. More often than not, the State Integrity Investigation shows, those entities are underfunded, subject to political interference or are simply unable or unwilling to initiate investigations and issue sanctions when rules are broken. Or at least that’s as far as the public can tell: Many of these bodies operate largely in secret.
The Tennessee Ethics Commission, for example, rose in 2006 out of the ashes of an FBI bribery probe that had burned four state lawmakers. In its decade of operation, the commission has never issued a penalty as a result of an ethics complaint against a public official (it did issue one to a lobbyist). That may seem surprising, but the dearth of actions is impossible to assess because the complaints become public only if four of six commissioners decide they warrant investigation. Of 17 complaints received in 2013 and 2014, only two are public.
“There just haven’t been that many valid complaints alleging wrongdoing,” said Drew Rawlins, executive director of the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, which includes the commission.
In 2013, in a case that did become public, the commission decided against issuing a fine to a powerful lobbyist and former adviser to Gov. Bill Haslam who had failed to disclose that he’d lobbied on behalf of a mining company seeking a state contract. The lobbyist maintained that his failure was simply an oversight, and only one commissioner voted to issue a penalty.
In Kansas, staff shortages mean the state’s Governmental Ethics Commission is unable to fully audit lawmakers’ financial disclosures, according to Executive Director Carol Williams. “We would love to be able to do more comprehensive audits,” Williams told the investigation’s Kansas reporter. Instead, she said, all her staff can do is make sure officials are filling out the forms. “Whether they are correct or not, we don’t know.” Only two states initiate comprehensive, independent audits of lawmakers’ asset disclosures on an annual basis.
The State Integrity Investigation found that in two-thirds of all states, ethics agencies or committees routinely fail to initiate investigations or impose sanctions when necessary, often because they’re unable to do so without first receiving a complaint.
“Many of these laws are out of date. They need to be revised,” said Robert Stern, who spent decades as president of the Center for Governmental Studies, which worked with local and state governments to improve ethics, campaign-finance and lobbying laws until it shut in 2011. Stern, who is helping to write a ballot initiative that would update California’s ethics statutes, said that although he thinks the State Integrity Investigation grades are unrealistically harsh, they do reflect the fact that state lawmakers have neglected their responsibilities when it comes to ethics and transparency. “It’s very, very difficult for legislatures to focus on these things and improve them because they don’t want these laws, they don’t want to enforce them, and they don’t want to fund the people enforcing them.”
In three in five states, the project found, ethics entities are inadequately funded, causing staff to be overloaded with work and occasionally forcing them to delay investigations.
The Oklahoma Ethics Commission is charged with overseeing ethics laws for the executive and legislative branches, lobbying activity and campaign finance. This year, the commission operated on a budget of $1 million. In 2014, the non-profit news site Oklahoma Watch reported that the commission had collected only 40% of all the late-filing penalties it had assessed to candidates, committees and other groups since it was created in 1990. Part of that failure was the result of a challenge to the commission’s rules, but Executive Director Lee Slater said much of it was simply due to a lack of resources.
“Until about a month ago, we had five employees in this office,” Slater said. “We’ve now got six. Try to do it with six employees.” Slater said the commission this year began collecting all fees it is owed, thanks to the sixth employee — whose salary is financed with fees — and new rules that clarify its authority. He said the agency simply does not have enough money to do what it ought to. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we do everything we should,” he said. “But I will tell you that we do the best that we can, whatever that is.”
Slater said he’s been told to expect a cut of 5% to 20% to the commission’s appropriations next year ($775,000 of the commission’s budget comes from appropriations.)
Oklahoma is hardly an outlier. “They don’t have the resources,” Stern said, speaking of similar agencies across the country. “That’s the problem.”
NEW FRONTIER POINTS TO OLD PROBLEM
Not long ago, journalists and citizen watchdogs were thrilled to get access to any type of information online. Standards have changed quickly, and many have come to expect government to not just publish data online but to do so in “open data” formats that allow users to download and analyze the information.
“The great benefit you get from making data available digitally is that it can then be very easily reused,” said Emily Shaw, deputy policy director at the Sunlight Foundation, an advocacy group. (Global Integrity consulted with the Sunlight Foundation when writing the open data questions for this project.)
Shaw said local governments are moving more aggressively than states toward putting data online in malleable formats. Only nine states have adopted open data measures, according to the Sunlight Foundation, some of which do little more than create an advisory panel to study the issue.
The 2015 State Integrity Investigation included questions in each category asking whether governments are meeting open data principles. The answer was almost always no. More than anything, these scores were responsible for dragging down the grades since the first round of the project.
Though open data principles are relatively new, the poor performance on these questions is indicative of the project’s findings as a whole. “If we really wanted to do it right, we’d just scrap it all and start from scratch,” said Cuillier of the University of Arizona, speaking of the broken state of open records and accessibility laws. That clearly is not going to happen, he said, so “we’re going to continue to have laws that are archaic and tinkered with, and usually in the wrong direction.”
This article draws on reporting from State Integrity Investigation reporters in all 50 states.
… or the merchants will suffer the resultant risks.
The world has already moved forward from the standard of magnetic stripe cards. The present is now smart cards…or no card at all; (payment apps on Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone devices proliferate). The future of the credit, debit and payment card is more than a card, it’s a “computer science laboratory” in a pocket or purse!
Yes, payment systems in the Caribbean region must be ready for this new world of electronic commerce.
Getting the region ready was the mission of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the Caribbean Central Bank (CCB). This Go Lean roadmap depicts these entities as hallmarks of technocratic efficiency; agile to not just keep pace of technology and market changes but also to drive change as well. This ability is necessary for new payment systems, new cards and new settlement schemes. The Go Lean roadmap calls for a regional currency for the Caribbean Single Market, the Caribbean Dollar (C$), to be used primarily as an electronic currency. These schemes will impact the growth of the regional economy in both the domestic and tourist markets. Consider this one CU scheme to incentivize more spending among cruise line passengers:
The cruise industry needs the Caribbean more than the Caribbean needs the industry. But the cruise lines have embedded rules/regulations designed to maximize their revenues at the expense of the port-side establishments. The CU solution is to deploy a scheme for smartcards (or smart-phone applications) that function on the ships and at the port cities. This scheme will also employ NFC technology – (Near Field Communications; defined fully at Page 192 – so as to glean the additional security benefits of shielding private financial data of the guest and passengers.
This is an example of an electronic payment system facilitating more commerce (e-Commerce). So the CCB will settle all C$ electronic transactions – cashless or accounting currency – in a MasterCard-Visa-style interchange / clearinghouse system.
As of October 1, 2015 bankcards must possess a smartchip, or assume the risk of fraud transactions; see VIDEO below. The CU/CCB roadmap anticipated smartchips from the outset of the Go Lean book, as this covers more than just commerce, but addresses security as well. Commerce, security and (bank) governance – these are all societal engines that must be optimized for societal progress. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.
So the electronic payments schemes being considered by the rest of the world in the following article, are already envisioned for deployment in the Caribbean region:
Posted September 28, 2015 – New law required each card to be outfitted with a credit card chip that makes it harder to steal personal information.
The benefits of these technologies, as related in the foregoing VIDEO, cannot be ignored for their security features. Previously this commentary explored the issues associate with cyber-security and data breaches. With tourism as the primary economic driver, the Caribbean region cannot invite millions of visitors to our homeland and then ignore their need for protection; the kind of protection that has become standard in this new world of heightened information security.
The Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to regulate the region’s Communications and Media affairs – federal Department of Commerce – under a separation-of-power mandate with the member-states. This authority must be super-national and have purview for cross-border environments.
With the CCB taking the lead for this deployment, the effort is not meant to be technical, but rather economic. The greatest benefit of deploying these electronic payment scheme is the acceleration of M1 in the regional economy; this is the measurement of currency/money in circulation (M0) plus overnight bank deposits. As depicted in the Go Lean book, and subsequent blog-commentaries, M1 increases allow central banks to create money “from thin-air”; referring to the money multiplier.
The Caribbean region needs this benefit. The more money in the system, the more liquidity for investment and industrial expansion opportunities. Plus, the nullifying effects on Black Market spurns more benefits.
The Go Lean book posits that to adapt and thrive in the new global marketplace there must be more strenuous management and technocratic oversight of the region’s currencies, guests-tourists-ship-passenger payment cards and cyber security. This is the charge – economics, security and governance – of the Go Lean roadmap, opening with these pronouncements; Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 and 14):
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
xxv. Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.
xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.
The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the proper controls for electronic/mobile payments in the Caribbean region:
Community Ethos – Economic Principles
Page 21
Community Ethos – Money Multiplier Principle
Page 22
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Privacy versus Public Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives
Page 25
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property
Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide
Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing
Page 25
Strategy – Mission – Fortify the monetary needs through a Currency Union
Page 45
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Central Banking
Page 73
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Commerce – Communications and Media Authority
Page 79
Implementation – Assemble Central Bank Cooperative
Page 96
Implementation – Assemble Caribbean Regional Regulatory Organs – like CTU
Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Deliver
Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #2: Currency Union / Single Currency
Page 127
Anecdote – Caribbean Currencies
Page 149
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Black Markets
Page 165
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives
Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism
Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Cruise Tourism – Smartcard scheme
Page 193
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology
Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce
Page 198
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations – Central Banking Efficiencies
Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street – Facilitating e-Commerce
Page 201
Appendix – Assembling the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU)
Page 256
The points of effective, technocratic banking/currency stewardship and dynamic change in the mobile communications space were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:
The Caribbean need to not play catch-up with this new smartchip/smartcard requirement. We need to adjust and adapt to the changing world.
This is no longer the future. This is here and now.
This is good! The benefits of this new requirements are too enticing to resist this change: incentivizing more cruise-tourism spending, fostering more e-Commerce, enhancing security, increasing regional M1, mitigating Black Markets, regional oversight of this technology, growing the economy, creating jobs and optimizing governance.
Now is the time for all stakeholders of the Caribbean, (residents, visitors, merchants, vendors, bankers, and governing institutions), to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This change can help to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
As of this moment (August 28 – 29, 2015), there is a Tropical Storm – Erika – barreling through the Caribbean. So far, it has been deadly, with reports of fatalities in the islands of Dominica and Puerto Rico. See story/VIDEO here:
VIDEO 1:Tropical storm Erika nears US, destruction in its wake
The effects of tropical storm Erika are already being felt in Puerto Rico, after the storm left four people dead and more missing on the Caribbean island of Dominica. Janet Shamlian reports and TODAY’s Al Roker takes us through the storm’s projected path.
This storm is not done yet, more damage to persons and property is expected – it is expected to elevate to hurricane status by Sunday.
Welcome to the Caribbean 2015 …
… the greatest address on the planet?!?!
Why would anyone campaign to assume the stewardship of this archipelago of islands?
This is the “siren song” of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The publishers and underlying Foundation are petitioning for a leadership role in the economic, security and governing engines of the region. Why?
There is no insanity! This is an expression of love for the homeland. The 30 member-states of the Caribbean are home to 42 million people, and a Diaspora of 10 million; plus 80 million visitors annually.
This is the greatest address on the planet!
Plus, everywhere has natural disasters to contend with. This fact relates to rich countries and poor alike. For example, take the United States; they are the richest Single Market economy in the world and yet their coastal city of New Orleans Louisiana (NOLA) was devastated by Hurricane Katrina 10 years ago … to the day (August 29, 2005). Their riches did not spare their devastation, nor did the riches facilitate best-practices in terms of response, relief and rebuilding. New Orleans is marking the anniversary of Katrina’s devastation and the lessons learned from the aftermath. See story/VIDEO here:
VIDEO 2: Both Progress and Stumbling Blocks Linger a Decade After Katrina
Ten years later, after Hurricane Katrina many of those who left have returned and while tourist sections of the city have been rebuilt, recovery in areas like the Lower Ninth ward is slow.
There is a lesson for the Caribbean in considering the history of ‘Katrina’: There is a parallel cause-and-effect to Tropical Storm Erika and all subsequent storms: Climate Change.
In the last few decades, major devastating storms have proliferated every year … somewhere … in the Northern Hemisphere. This commentary has detailed other cases; see sample here:
Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought
These commentaries, and the Go Lean book, all assert that Climate Change cannot be ignored. Even though there be deniers of any man-made causes, the reality of these storms challenge the realities of Caribbean life.
It is what it is!
The region has been warned: Prepare!
The book Go Lean … Caribbean delved into details of the Katrina lessons in application to the Caribbean. This is an excerpt from Page 184:
The Bottom Line on Hurricane Katrina Katrina was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the US. At least 1,833 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods; total property damage was estimated at $81 billion. The hurricane strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane over the warm Gulf water, but weakened before making its landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most significant number of deaths occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, 53 different breaches, in the hours after the storm had moved inland. Eventually 80% of the city and large tracts of neighboring parishes became flooded, and the floodwaters lingered for weeks.
The economic effects of the storm were far-reaching. The Administration of President George W. Bush sought $105 billion for repairs and reconstruction in the region, which did not account for damage to the economy caused by interruption of the oil & natural gas supply, destruction of the GulfCoast’s highway infrastructure, and exports of commodities such as forestry and grain. Plus, hundreds of thousands of local residents were left unemployed, Before the hurricane, the region supported over one million non-farm jobs, with 600,000 of them in New Orleans. It is estimated that the total economic impact in Louisiana and Mississippi exceeded $150 billion, as Katrina redistributed over one million people from the central Gulf coast elsewhere across the United States, which became the largest Diaspora in the history of the US.
Within days of Katrina’s August 29, 2005 landfall, public debate arose about the local, state and federal governments’ role in the preparations for and response to the hurricane. Criticism was initially prompted by televised images of visibly shaken and frustrated political leaders, and of residents who remained stranded by flood waters without water, food or shelter. Deaths from thirst, exhaustion, and violence, days after the storm had passed, fueled the criticism, as did the dilemma of the evacuees at ill-prepared shelter facilities (i.e. the Super Dome, LouisArmstrongInternationalAirport). Some alleged that race, class, and other factors could have contributed to delays in response. President Bush later called the criticism, directed towards him, (particularly by Hip-Hop recording artist Kanye West), the worst moment in his presidency, being unjustly accused of racism.
The Super Dome in New Orleans – The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
This is the purpose of the Go Lean roadmap. It introduces the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to prepare Caribbean society for the eventual devastation of these Climate-Change-induced weather systems, such as Katrina was for New Orleans, Louisiana. We do not have the luxury of “sticking our head in the sand” and pretending that these problems will simply go away – the conclusion of many observers of the Katrina Crisis on NOLA. 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.
The CU will implement optimized Emergency Management schemes to provide better stewardship for the region’s preparation and response to natural disasters; (in addition to hurricanes, there is the need to monitor earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and droughts in the regions). In addition, the CU will assume jurisdiction for the Caribbean Sea, the 1,063,000 square-mile international waters, as an Exclusive Economic Zone. These preparations and mitigations will allow for better cooperation, collaboration and equalization in the region. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines, including the Emergency Management apparatus.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.
The Go Lean book details the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to impact the homeland in this age of Climate Change. Consider the list as follows:
Profile – Who We Are: SFE Foundation
Page 8
Economic Principles – People Choose because Resources are Limited
Page 21
Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs
Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives
Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier
Page 22
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens
Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing
Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Anecdote – Pipeline Transport – Strategies, Tactics & Implementations
Page 43
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-states in a Union
Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology
Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization
Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change
Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – Quicker Recoveries; Less Economic Bubbles
Page 69
Separation of Powers – Homeland Security Department – Emergency Management Agency
Page 76
Separation of Powers – Interior Department – Exclusive Economic Zone
Advocacy – Ways to Ways to Improve Monopolies – Foster Cooperatives for Better Recoveries
Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation – Pipeline Options
Page 205
It is time for change in the Caribbean! It is time to change our preparations and our responses to these natural disasters. The strategies, tactics and implementations proposed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean are conceivable, believable and achievable. We must do these! We must do better.
Everyone in the Caribbean are hereby urged to lean-in for this Go Lean roadmap. 🙂
The Bible says “to honor your father and mother so that your days may be long” – Exodus 20:12. This is presented in one of the 10 Commandments as a law and a promise. This is best explained at Ephesians 6: 1-3 (New International Version or NIV):
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH …
So caring for aging parents brings honor to them and to us. Some places do a better job of this than others. One such example is Japan.
There are around 55,000 centenarians in Japan
This purpose of this commentary is to highlight the currency of this serious issue. The book Go Lean … Caribbean calls for the elevation of the economic, security and governing engines in the Caribbean region. The end-result is not just on societal engines, but also on people; in this case, the elderly. This Go Lean book is not a public health guide for gerontology, to enjoy optimum treatment towards our seniors, but rather a roadmap for impacting change in our community. This news article on the experiences in Japan is presented here; also consider a related story in the AUDIO podcast below:
Title:Japan is home to the world’s oldest population — and the world’s oldest man By: Daniel Gross, Audrey Adam
The world’s oldest man lives in the country with the world’s oldest population. Yasutaro Koide is 112 years old and was just recognized by Guiness World Records as oldest man on Earth.
Japan’s remarkable longevity is cause for celebration. But it’s also creating challenges for a government dealing with a population that keeps getting older.
According to Naoko Muramatsu, a scientist who studies Japan’s aging population at the University of Illinois, Chicago, one-quarter of the country’s residents are already above 65.
There are many costs associated with an aging population, starting with the familiar challenges of social security and health care. But there’s also the cost of an odd Japanese tradition: giving a silver sake dish to centenarians, or people who reach 100 years of age.
Thanks to a new decision by the Japanese government, that practice — which is currently government-funded — may end soon. They say the total cost of the dishes, which are about $60 each, is simply too high. There are around 55,000 centenarians in Japan, according to 2013 statistics.
Muramatsu says there are several reasons that help explain the age of Japan’s population. “Life expectancy in Japan is the highest in the world,” she points out. “People try to eat well, try to do exercise well.”
Another reason is that ever since a brief postwar baby boom, Japan’s birth rate has remained extremely low. A aging baby from that baby boom will turn 65 soon, and many haven’t had very many children, or any at all — leaving more seniors living alone or in nursing homes.
Japan has started to respond to the challenge. In 2000, Japan started long-term care insurance. “You start paying into the system at the age of 40,” says Muramatsu. “And at the age of 65, you’re entitled to receive long-term care, homecare or nursing home care.”
Muramatsu has a personal connection to the study of aging. She remembers that during her childhood, her mother looked after both the older and younger generations. But the tradition of caregiving has been transformed by Japan’s new demographics.
When Muramatsu’s father died a few years ago, she saw first-hand some of the challenges of growing old in Japan. “In Japan, cremation is the custom,” she explains. But cremation has become difficult in cities whose populations spiked in the postwar years. Many elderly people haven’t left urban areas, which means the death rate has risen. “I couldn’t reserve a cremation facility for my father, in the city that we live in.”
Those sorts of challenges may take decades to overcome. But with them come the fact that in Japan, women can expect to live almost 90 years. And Men live well past 80, on average.
And if they’re like Yasutaro Koide, they might even live to 112.
AUDIO – “The Challenges Posed by an Aging Global Population” – http://n.pr/1IqdCHV
Uploaded on June 22, 2015 – One-fifth of the U.S. population will be 65 or older in 15 years. NPR’s Ina Jaffe talks with NPR’s Scott Simon about the aging of the population worldwide and the challenges it presents.
The book and previous blog/commentaries posit that socio- economic factors must be accounted for in the roadmap to optimize and improve this society. In fact, the book lists 144 missions for the imminent Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); one of them is an advocacy for improved Elder-Care. This is identified on Page 225 under the title:
10 Ways to Improve Elder-Care … in the Caribbean Region
The Go Lean book posits that there is a deficiency in the regional institutions for caring, supporting and planning for the elderly. How do we go about improving on the Social Contract for the senior citizens in our community? What happens if/when we are successful for elevating life for our seniors?
The Go Lean book answers the “how”; it serves as a roadmap for introducing and implementing the CU. In its scope, it features the curative measures for the exact societal deficiencies, highlighted by the CU’s prime directives, as follows:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate challenges/threats to ensure public safety for the region’s stakeholders, including the elderly.
Improvement of Caribbean governance, including a separation-of-powers with member-states, to support these economic/security engines.
Where as the book addresses the “how”, this commentary features the “when” for succeeding in the improvement of the lives and longevity of the elderly population of the Caribbean. When people live longer, there is a dramatic effect on the socio-economics of a community. This is the lesson from Japan.
In Japan, the improvements in the societal engines (economics, security and governance) have resulted in improved livelihood and longevity for their people. This has resulted in demographic shifts: there are more senior citizens, more centenarians, compared to the rest of the population.
The problem:
Seniors do not work; nor contribute to the public “pools”; they only draw from it. Too many “takers”, compared to the “givers” is bad economics. So while we love our elderly, we must also prepare for the reality of their longevity.
From the Caribbean perspective there is another reality: societal abandonment of the younger generations – this Go Lean movement has fully defined the excessive abandonment rates in the 70% to 90% range for the college-educated populations in the region. This has the same negative effects on the public “pools”: the numbers of the “givers” shrink, while the proportion of the “takers” remains static, or worse, increase.
It is what it is!
This is a matter of heavy-lifting. Serious solutions must be sought to mitigate the risks of communities getting this challenge wrong. In a previous commentary, the socio-economic issues associated with the rising number of seniors in society were fully explored; the dread of elderly suicides was detailed.
The Go Lean roadmap does not ignore the needs of the elderly, nor the actuarial realities being contended in the region. Rather, the roadmap calls for mitigations to dissuade further emigration and also the inducements for the Caribbean Diaspora to return – back to the homeland – and bring their hard-earned entitlements with them. The CU organization structure features the establishment of regional sentinels and advocacy groups to intervene on behalf of local seniors to optimize their benefits from any foreign programs they may have previously participated in. These SME’s will work for the CU’s Special Liaison Group at the CU’s Headquarters or in Trade Mission Offices.
This Win-Win scenario is a prominent feature in the US, with lawyers advocating for Social Security benefits for their clients, for a fee; see this sample Advertisement from a Detroit-area law firm. For stakeholders of the CU, there is no need to pay this fee – normally extracted from future benefits – as the CU Subject Matter Experts (SME) will advocate for the Aging Diaspora returning to the Caribbean. (The Go Lean roadmap calls for funding law degrees for students but binding their services for a few years to impact their communities, as in working for this advocacy).
This is a classic example of the field of socio-economics. The goal of any socio-economic study is generally to bring about socio-economic development, usually by improvements in metrics such as GDP, life expectancy, literacy, levels of employment, etc. In many cases, socio-economists focus on the social impact of some sort of economic change. But this is about more than just numbers, this is about people.
The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap constitutes a change for the region, a plan to consolidate 30 member-states into a Trade Federation with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit many stakeholders. The book details the community ethos that must be adopted plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to prepare for an aging society … in the Caribbean; see a sample list here:
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Lessons from Japan
Page 69
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of State – Special Liaison Groups
Page 80
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Health
Page 86
Implementation – Assemble all Member-States
Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change
Page 101
Implementation – Trade Mission Office Objectives
Page 117
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate
Page 118
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008
Page 136
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare
Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Entitlements
Page 158
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education – Brain Drain Case
Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Student Loans – Forgive-able
Page 160
Advocacy – Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives
Page 176
Advocacy – Impact the Diaspora
Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage
Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Retirement
Page 221
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class
Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care
Page 225
Appendix – Disease Management – Healthways Model
Page 300
This Go Lean book asserts that there is a direct correlation of population growth/contraction with the economy. This viewpoint has been previously detailed in Go Lean blog/commentaries, as sampled here:
As this commentary opened with a Biblical quotation, it is even more fitting to conclude with one, a Proverb, as follows:
The glory of young men is their strength, [but] gray hair [is] the splendor of the old. – Proverbs 20:29 NIV.
Without a doubt, there is value to keeping senior citizens around in our communities; their “grey hair” – poetic for wisdom – is greatly valued … and needed. As a society, we have made too many mistakes, that with some far-sighted wisdom and best-practice adherence, we could have done better and been better.
We must turn-around, reboot and prepare!
We must listen to the wisdom of the experienced/wise ones. They can help us to make our homelands better places to live, work, and play – for all: young and old. 🙂
In a visit to Jamaica and CariCom leaders in April 2015, US President Barack Obama concluded that 55 years of indifference towards Cuba was long-enough and that as of December 17, 2014 he had “set the machinery in motion” to normalize relations with Cuba. This descriptor paints the picture of a journey, a marathon and not just a “100-yard dash”.
