Economics – Page 34 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Category: Economics

Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurism in Junk

Posted on November 11, 2014 in Economics, Ethos, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

The dominant employment engine for the Caribbean involves tourism, but the regional tourism business models are being strained. The primary target market, American middle class have suffered crises and now harsh realities have come to fruition. The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that there is a need to re-focus, re-boot, and optimize the engines of commerce so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play for all.

Where are the jobs … that the Caribbean people need today and will need even more so in the future?

A key answer is in the quotation: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.

This is the underlying principle of the recycling-scrap-metal industry. This industry is a “destruction services” business model, a subset of the “turn-around” community ethos. Jobs can be created in the art and science of destruction (demolition, recycling and junkyards). But this industry does not “play well with others”, it makes a bad neighbor. It is dirty, wet, Blue-Collar and noisy. But, if done right, this model could be successful, and can impact a “turn-around” for many stakeholders.

This new focus on the “turn-around” community ethos, and the accompanying jobs, appears on the surface to be a win-win for all involved, but a more careful examination highlights some serious economic, security and governing obstacles/issues.

The Go Lean book calls for the optimization of these economic, security and governing engines for the Caribbean region:

Economics – Jobs, business models, industrial neighborhoods constitute the economic dimensions of this industry. Overall the roadmap calls for the optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP and create 2.2 million new jobs. There is another economic element to this recycling-scrap-metal industry sphere of activity, that of an entrepreneurial hustle – Scrapping. A person can generate self-employment income by gathering scrap-metal, recycled commodities, re-manufactured raw materials and transport them to junkyards. While this may be an occasional chore for some people, for others, this can be a daily hustle, their source of steady income. See photo examples here and VIDEO below:
Security – The above trash-versus-treasure quotation introduces the security dimension of the commentary. The entire eco-system of recycling assumes that the “trash” holder of a commodity surrenders possession. If/when the commodity changes hands prematurely, the events are often associated with a crime: burglary, robbery, theft, vandalism, house-stripping, etc. For this reason, the Go Lean roadmap commandeers jurisdiction of salvage/recycling/scrap-metal functions for federal regulation/promotion. This stipulates that activities within the “turn-around” sphere will be marshaled by regional police authorities, with the application of best-practices: Verified Identification, Closed Circuit Surveillance Camera, Serial Number registration/tracking, etc.
Governance – In line with the Go Lean roadmap, many junkyards are identified as ideal for the structure of Self-Governing Entities (SGE), the bordered/fenced controlled campuses/compounds. This approach allows for initiation, cooperation and coordination of SGE’s to effectuate change in the region.

The alignment of strained economic-security-governance engines against the recycling-scrap-metal “turn-around” community ethos have been successfully championed before, particularly in the US during World War II. There is much to learn from this example and lesson in history.

Consider a modern example of this Los Angeles company, and imagine similar installations throughout the Caribbean region:

C & M Metals is a provider of Scrap-Metal Recycling and Metal Trading Services

1709 E. 24th St., Los Angeles, CA90058 | Phone: 323-234-4662 | Fax: 323-234-5844 | sales@cmmetals.net

C&M Metals Inc. is a corporation dedicated to the, “Green Movement.” We have showed this by being one of the pioneers in the recycling of secondary metals and scrap metal waste for over 50 years. Our experience comes second to none and our long history speaks for itself. Call us today to inquire about how we could be of service to you.

Industries Served:

Metal Fabricators Demolitions Electricians

Machine Shops Networking Contractors

Electronic Manufactures Auto Repair Centers Auto Wrecking

Plumbers Contractors Yards

Maintenance Contractors Radiator Repair Shops

Medical Industries Wheel and Tire Centers

Installers Auto Dealerships

C & M Metals, Inc. – Los Angeles Premier Salvage Services – Retrieved 11-09-2014 –
http://www.cmmetals.net/index.html

The book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) with the charter to facilitate jobs in the region. Early in the Go Lean book, the responsibility to create jobs was identified as an important function for the CU with this pronouncement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 14):

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries … impacting the region with more jobs.

The Go Lean book also details the principle of job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down-the-line for each direct job on a company’s payroll. The recycling-scrap-metal “turn-around” industries have impressive indirect job multiplier rates, hereby estimated at 5.0. This is important, as the Go Lean… Caribbean book details the creation of 2.2 million direct/indirect jobs in the region during the 5-year roadmap, including income-generation from entrepreneurial hustles.

The subject of SGE’s has been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750	Disney World – Example of SGE
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	Using SGE’s to Welcome the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – Ship-breaking under SGE Structure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Fairgrounds as SGE and Landlords for Sports Leagues
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=286	Puerto Rico’s Comprehensive Cancer Center Project Breaks Ground – Model of Medical SGE

In addition, the subjects of self-employment opportunities and entrepreneurial hustle have been explored in previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1325	Puerto Rico Governor Signs Bill on Small-Medium-Enterprises
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Puerto Rico open to radical economic fixes – with focus on Informal Economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=398	Self-employment on the rise in the Caribbean – World Bank
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=214	LCD versus an Entrepreneurial Ethos

The adoption of new community ethos, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies will foster the returns on the “turn-around” investments:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
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 Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D)	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Around: Recycling and Demolition Industries	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Foster Local Economic Engines.	Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Self-Governing Entities	Page 80
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – SGE Licenses	Page 101
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Self-Governing Entities	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management Processes and Systems	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Appendix – Job Multipliers	Page 259

The CU will foster industrial developments in support of turn-around industries. While these industrial developments may feature physical-grounds like high-tech R&D campuses, medical parks, and technology bases, they will also include low-tech scrap-metal junkyards. So the Go Lean roadmap covers clean-and-dirty, wet-and-dry activities.

While STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) attributes maybe the target activity for future-focused genius qualifiers, not all Caribbean stakeholders will be included among this grouping. In fact, STEM candidates are projected to only be a small minority in any community. Not everyone can be in the “Geek Squad”, or White Collar classes for that matter. So the Blue Collar classes must be accommodated as well in the Go Lean roadmap. This entrepreneurial hustle is an example of that total inclusion. As such, community investments must be made to facilitate the needs of Blue Collar workers. See below for Appendix – Cooperatives in Salvage.

The Caribbean is arguably the best address on the planet, but there are a lot of missing ingredients so as to be the best address for everyone. Some of the missing ingredients are jobs. The plan identified in the Go Lean book and blog/ commentaries is a good start to create employment opportunities for the region. This, the Go Lean roadmap, is where the jobs are! There are other benefits too; in general, the end result of this roadmap is a clearly defined destination: a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – VIDEO: How to make money scrapping – http://youtu.be/6eggQxy4Tdk

Mike the Scrapper Introduction to Scrapping: “We all have to live and make money so this is for my new fellow scrappers and the one’s that have been already scrapping”.

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Appendix – Cooperatives in Salvage:

The CU will structure cooperative endeavors to marshal the economic and homeland security interest of the region. As such, the creation of “Worker” cooperatives will be incentivized for enterprises to assist the population to find gainful employment, even through entrepreneurial “hustles”.

Recycling-Scrap-Metal Industries are ideal for Worker cooperatives. But to facilitate these endeavors, large investments are needed to be made for industrial equipment, sampled as follows (from http://grindercrusherscreen.com/):

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Foreign Policy, Image, Jobs, Security, Trade

Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded

Posted on November 10, 2014 in Economics, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

“Stealing from Peter to pay Paul” – Old Adage.

This above statement does not need to be explained; every reader fully understands and appreciates the meaning of this expression. It reflects a practice in financial management when revenue resources are out-paced by financial obligations. This is when reorganization becomes necessary. In fact, the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, SFE Foundation, is well suited to comment on these practices, as their charter is portfolio reorganizations for individuals, families and institutions.

On Page 8 of the book, the detailed profile of the foundation features influences from a noted American Economist Paul Romer by listing two of his famous quotations:

1. “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste”
2. “Economic growth occurs whenever people take resources and re-arrange them in ways that are more valuable”

The foregoing article relates a need in Jamaica to reorganize the pension program for retired civil servants. The system is broken! This subject of retirement is therefore important for retired people (old) and active workers (young), as every civil servant is either retired or want to be … someday:

Title: Public pension reform programme won’t work – Unfunded obligations at J$680B and growing
Sub-Title: Public-sector employees now enjoy very generous pension benefits that Government pays from current revenue.
By: A.C. Countz, Guest Columnist

The Jamaican Government does not put aside the necessary funds to finance pension obligations as they are incurred, as would be done in a private-sector scheme. It has a planned ‘reform’ that will further increase the pension fund deficit. This is irresponsible.

If past pension benefits were funded, as in most private-sector firms, that is, in a special segregated fund with an adequate balance to pay for the pension obligations relating to past service, then the Government (taxpayers) would have to find, right now, about J$680 billion to put into this fund.

Additionally, Government would have to put in 5.0 percent of pensionable annual salary for the public service in years going forward.

Currently, there are many members of the public sector, those of pensionable age, who receive pensions totaling J$23 billion per annum, while employee contributions amount to J$4.4 billion per annum.

In other words, Government is paying out annually almost J$19 billion more in pensions than incoming employee contributions.

Government now plans to reform the pension plan by April Fool’s Day 2016.

CURRENT PROPOSALS
The reform hopes to achieve:

1. Unification of all the different legislations that deal with these pensions and, as far as possible, standardise pensions terms across the whole public sector;

2. A defined benefit scheme would continue, though moderated;

3. An increase in retirement age to 65, gradually for existing employees – apparently lower retirement age for soldiers, policemen and maybe national and local politicians;

4. Calculate pensions based on average last five year’s service (calculation now based on final salary);

5. Calculate pensions based on 1.8 percent of average last five year’s service for every year served. There would be transitional arrangements whereby persons over 54 years old at the start of reform would get a higher percentage of between 2.0 per cent and 2.2 percent.

6. Pensions would not be indexed although the Government might increase pensions if a ‘surplus’ in the scheme is produced – as there is no segregated fund, one cannot imagine how this surplus is to be calculated; and

7. A lump sum of 25 percent of pension benefits payable on retirement and ongoing pension reduced – presumably the reduction will be actuarially calculated.

The Government proposals in the White Paper are faulty and, if implemented, will not make the public-sector pension plan affordable in the future. It is a Band-Aid when strong reform is needed.

The finances of the country are in a disastrous, although possibly better managed, condition.

RIGHT WAY FOR REFORM
Here are some suggestions for pension reform that are more appropriate than those in the White Paper:

1. Terminate the existing defined benefit scheme. Honour past service with existing benefits;

2. Commence a defined contribution scheme at once for ALL public servants, including statutory bodies and executive agencies. All future service for existing employees and all new employees to go into the defined contribution scheme. All employees to start paying a basic contribution of 5.0 per cent of pensionable salaries – these should be defined to exclude non-salary benefits. Employees should be encouraged to make further voluntary contributions to become entitled to a larger pension on retirement. Government to seek a waiver from IMF to allow them to fund the employer’s contribution of 5.0 per cent per annum from now;

3. Defined Contribution (DC) scheme to be operated in a properly managed and transparent segregated fund;

4. Government should face the issue squarely and acknowledge that they have debts, not accounted for in the national debt, of say J$700 billion representing the present day value of unfunded obligations. This amount should be properly accounted for in the national debt and arrangements made to fund it;

5. It is irresponsible for Government to reform the public sector pension scheme in a way that is certain to continue to increase the size of its unfunded obligations. Proper reform will be difficult to deal with, especially coinciding with the end of the pay freeze, but to do otherwise is once again not to face reality.

The basis of any reform must be to halt the growth of the unfunded obligation of the scheme in respect of past service and to fund on a current basis future service obligations.

Jamaica is badly served if EPOC, civil society and private sector organisations – to say nothing about the IMF – allow this pusillanimous approach to be followed.

Government reform must at a minimum stop the growth in the unfunded obligations of the scheme and include a plan to fund what is due for past service over a committed period of time.

A defined contribution scheme should be introduced for all future service.

This will be impossible for government to do unless there is public pressure on them to counterbalance the civil service lobby.

This column reviews the audited and in-house accounts and reports of companies and entities owned or influenced by Government.
Jamaica Gleaner Newspaper Online Site (Posted 08/20/2014; retrieved 03/06/2014) –
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140820/business/business6.html

The book Go Lean … Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The technocratic CU is proffered to provide economic, security and economic security solutions for the 30 Caribbean member-states, including Jamaica. This mandate is important for retirement planning for current and future generations. This is detailed early on in the book’s Declaration of Interdependence, as follows on 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.

The roadmap posits that retirement is a community issue, and that the mandate for the CU to manage economic security issues must encompass retirement planning as well. Applying lessons from the US and other western democracies, the key to technocratic retirement planning is the time-value-of-money; the ability to invest small amounts when young so that compounded returns can grow exponentially to benefit the saver when they are old; this is depicted in the VIDEO below. This is based on one assumption, that there is a capital/security market to facilitate the investment. This is where the Caribbean status quo is most lacking.

Without question, the role model for Caribbean capital/security markets would be New York City’s Wall Street. This ‘metonym’ refers to more than just the ‘street’, but rather the entire eco-system for financial investing in the US. While, the Caribbean region cannot rival Wall Street (for liquidity), we can reorganize and optimize the existing financial markets – the current 9 Stock Exchanges – with the introduction of the Caribbean Dollar, managed by a technocratic Caribbean Central Bank.

Liquidity refers to the availability of money, therefore the Go Lean roadmap portrays the need for public messaging to encourage more savings/investments. This messaging pronounces the need for Caribbean stakeholders to “steal from Peter to pay Paul”, where “Paul” is their future selves; see VIDEO below. The book describes this “deferred gratification” as a community ethos that is required to forge permanent change; this is advantageous for the entire Caribbean, and individual member-states like Jamaica.

There are some realities for Jamaica that must not be ignored. This country has experienced numerous currency devaluations and hyper-inflation episodes that has undermined the good habit of savings. These realities were detailed in the Go Lean book (Pages 239 & 297), depicting the “misery index” that Jamaicans had to endure. No wonder the societal abandonment rate in Jamaica is among the highest in the region. A previous Go Lean blog/commentary listed an abandonment rate of 85% among the college educated population.

The Go Lean roadmap addresses pension reorganization by first rebooting the region’s currency, economic and governing engines.

Related subjects on currency, economic, and governing dysfunction in the region that may affect the management of pensions have been previously blogged by the Go Lean promoters, as sampled here:

Inflation Matters – A factor in ‘Pensions’

Canadian Retirees – Florida’s Snowbirds Chilly Welcome

US Federal Reserve releases transcripts from 2008 meetings regarding mitigations of the financial crisis

Dominica demonstrates Caribbean liquidity by raising EC$20 million on regional securities market

Time Value of Money – basis for retirement planning

Book Review: ‘Wrong – Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn…’

What’s Holding Back Jamaica’s Reforms

The purpose of the Go Lean roadmap is to turn-around the downward trends in the Caribbean today, to reverse course and elevate Caribbean society. The Go Lean roadmap, applying lessons from the currency, economic and governing dysfunction of past years, has envisioned the CU with the following prime directives:

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

The Go Lean book details a series of assessments, community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize financial/retirement planning and performance:

Assessment – Caribbean Single Market & Economy – need for integration	Page 15
Assessment – The Greece of the Caribbean – dysfunctional debt policies	Page 18
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Money Multiplier – Control of Local/Regional Currency	Page 22
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Planning – Lessons from 2008	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Control Inflation	Page 153
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Foreign Exchange	Page 154
Advocacy – Ways to Manage Federal Civil Service – Pension -vs- 401K	Page 173
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care	Page 225
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Retirement	Page 231
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Jamaica	Page 239
Appendix – Jamaica’s International Perception	Page 297
Appendix – Lessons Learned – Floating a Currency	Page 316
Appendix – Controlling Inflation – Technical Details	Page 318

In most Caribbean countries, the largest employer is the government. Therefore public-sector employees are the largest group of workers. The foregoing news article was written as an audit-analysis to an audience of two, the Responsible Government Ministers for the Jamaican public-sector employees’ pension. The article specifically identified them as:

Dr. Peter Phillips – Ministry of Finance and Planning
Derrick Kellier – Ministry of Labour and Social Security

The Go Lean roadmap, on the other hand, was written for a different audience, all Caribbean stakeholders: citizens, Diaspora, government officials, civil servants, retirees and the youth. This is an empowerment plan for most aspects of Caribbean life, in fact there are 144 different advocacies in the Go Lean book. This is heavy-lifting; an investment in the people of the Caribbean for the elevation of the Caribbean.

The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal to elevate society may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in “greater” production and greater accountability. Retirement planning and pensions are not optional, they need “greater” production and “greater” accountability; they need a “greater” return on investment – see VIDEO below on the slow-but-steady basics of “compound” investing.

Retirement planning for the Caribbean needs to “Go Lean“.

All Caribbean stakeholders are hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap to make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work, and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Video: Retirement Basics: The Power of Compounding – http://youtu.be/immQX0RKFY0

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Jamaica, Jobs, Model, Power, Seniors, Transform

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DR President Medina on the economy: ‘God will provide’

Posted on November 8, 2014 in Economics, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The Caribbean is in crisis!

For many, “success is measured by the successful exodus from their Caribbean homeland”. So declares the foreword of the book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 3).

The Dominican Republic is in crisis! According to the foregoing news article, the island nation have lots of issues, stemming primarily from economic dysfunctions, and the solution, according to the President of the Republic is only “Faith, Hope and Prayer”:

Santo Domingo – President Danilo Medina says that the Dominican state has a very high level of debt, because it is dragging a vital execution deficit with the income it receives and has to spend, which has prevented the economy from recovery over the past few years.

“When a country does not receive enough resources to fund its spending, the only way of financing it is to use state money. In all these years the country’s average fiscal deficit since 2000 to date has been 4.5% of the annual Gross Domestic Product,” said Medina

He said that the state will have to pay US$11 billion in debt between 2013 and 2015, and for the deficit to be reduced an effort must be made to reduce its essence, in order to take it to 2.8% of GDP.

The President warned that this reduction is behind the importance of building coal-fired plants to supply the country with energy, and that he does not understand why “there is a conspiracy against these plants that should be defended by the whole country, if we want sustainability in public finances.” He said that these plants, which will come into operation in 2017, would mean the state would save 1.7% of the GDP, by paying the Dominican Corporation of State Electricity Companies (CDEEE) debt, thus putting the national economy on a good path within a few years.

When he was asked where he would obtain the resources for governing over the next years, Medina answered, “God will provide.” He said that the budgetary spending restructuring meant the government was investing where people needed it and that this was being reflected in economic development.
Dominican Today – Online Community – Posted 08-20-2014; Retrieved 11-08-2014:
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/economy/2014/8/20/52502/President-Medina-on-the-economy-God-will-provide

The publishers of the Go Lean book recognize and respect religious faith and devotion. In fact, the book examines the Bible’s record on economic empowerment, listing 10 Lessons from the Bible (Page 144). For the consideration of this commentary and the President’s “easy” secession in the foregoing article, a fitting lesson is derived from the Bible Book of James Chapter 2:14 – 26; (see Appendix*):

James 2:26 – “Faith without works is dead”.

The required “works” is described in the Go Lean book as heavy-lifting.

The publishers of the Go Lean book humbly submit a plan for heavy-lifting, one so comprehensive that it is considered a roadmap, turn-by-turn directions to move the Dominican Republic from Point A (status quo), to Point B (destination of societal elevation). This roadmap is set to re-boot the island’s economy, security and governing engines, highlighting 144 different advocacies designed to impact society. The book asserts that the problems of the Dominican Republic (and by extension, the entire Caribbean) are too big for any one member-state to solve alone. Rather, the focus of the roadmap is the region-wide professionally-managed, deputized technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

The Dominican Republic needs the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies of the CU.

The CU needs the Dominican Republic!

The CU requires the full participation of all 30 member-states in the region, including all 4 language groups (Dutch, English, French and Spanish). With this approach, the CU benefits from the economies-of-scale of 42 million people.

The CU expects NO MONEY from the Dominican Republic. This is good as the country’s treasuries are strained, maintaining the national debt of US$11 billion, plus a budget deficit reflecting 4.5% of GDP. To cure a deficit a government needs combinations of two things: more revenues and/or fewer expenses.

The Go Lean roadmap features both. The roadmap is a complete re-boot: new revenue streams and a separation-of-powers, thereby delegating some governance to CU agencies.

The Go Lean … Caribbean book introduces the CU to take oversight of’ much of the Caribbean economic, security and governing functionality. In summary, this plan’s execution makes the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean, a better place to live, work and play.

This Go Lean roadmap assesses the Dominican Republic human flight/brain drain crisis, where large percentages of the island’s populations have fled to American shores, with estimates of up to 1.3 million in the Diaspora as of 2006 (Page 237 & 306). This plight makes the task of building a functioning society difficult, as often the brightest and best talents are the ones that flee; plus entitlement programs simply need populace retention.

The CU will fix the Dominican Republic! Look here at the solutions; (sorted by Economic/Security/Governance). The book Go Lean … Caribbean details these specific curative measures (advocacies, strategies, tactics, and implementations):

Economic:

Community Ethos – Money Multiplier	Page 22
Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Impact Turn-Around Strategies/Tactics	Page 33
Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy	Page 67
New Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Improve Energy Usage	Page 113
Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Foster International Aid	Page 115
Improve Trade	Page 128
Improve Interstate Commerce	Page 129
New Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Create Jobs	Page 152
Control Inflation	Page 153
Improve Credit Ratings	Page 155
Improve Education	Page 159
Mitigate Black Markets	Page 165
Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Impact Wall Street	Page 200

Security:

Separation of Powers – Homeland Security	Page 75
Security Initiatives [stemming from the Start-up]	Page 103
Impact Justice	Page 177
Mitigate & Reduce Crime	Page 178
Improve Intelligence [Gathering & Analysis]	Page 182
Impact the Prison-Industrial Complex	Page 211

Governance:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactics to Foster a Technocracy	Page 64
Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Strong Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Promote Independence	Page 120
Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Impact Entitlements	Page 158
New [Governmental] Revenue Sources	Page 172
Impact Public Works	Page 175
Better Manage Natural Resources	Page 183
Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Improve Emergency Management	Page 196

The people of the Dominican Republic are calling for change, for help, for some mitigations. They need prayer, yes, but they need workable solutions too. See the VIDEO below, produced by young students in line with a “poverty” theme; this assessment is “from the mouth of babes” – Bible Quote (Matthew 21:16).

With the Go Lean roadmap, change has come to the Caribbean. The people and institutions of the Dominican Republic are all urged to “lean-in” to this roadmap.

In fact, now is the time for the whole Caribbean region to lean-in for this change, described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The benefits of this roadmap are too alluring to ignore: emergence of an $800 Billion regional economy, 2.2 million new jobs and an end to the economic dysfunction. This will result in Dominicans repatriating from the US, not fleeing to the US. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – Bible Reading – James Chapter 2:14 – 26 (New International Version)

*Faith and Deeds

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless ? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

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Appendix – Video: Why the Dominican Republic is poor? http://youtu.be/pCVR-kdc0ss

Published on May 15, 2013 By YouTube Contributor: “camilalovescupcakes” (Sharen Sosa)
The prologue included this verbiage: “In my school, as final exam in English classes, told us to do a video of ‘Why the Dominican Republic is poor?’ We had to make groups and make a video, talking about it, and also focus on the cause, which was the “Corruption”, we made a documentary and here is the whole video, hope you love it”.

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The Geography of Joblessness

Posted on November 7, 2014 in Economics, Social

Go Lean Commentary

“A better place to live, work and play” – this is the tagline for the book Go Lean…Caribbean, thereby placing emphasis on the verb “work”. To work, there must be jobs, so the entire eco-system of jobs is a constant focus of the book’s publishers.

The foregoing news article relates to this mission. The underlying issue in this consideration relates to jobs and joblessness. There is the need for more jobs – in urban communities in OECD – Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development – countries (like US, Canada, Europe) and also in the Caribbean – see VIDEO in the Appendix below. But there are many issues that underlie the availability of jobs, such as geography, transportation and racial discrimination. To effect change in the job creation quest, there must be some consideration of these issues:

Subtitle: The difficulty people have in getting to jobs makes unemployment unnecessarily high

IN THE OECD, a club mostly of rich countries, nearly 45 million people are unemployed. Of these, 16 million have been seeking work for over a year. Many put this apparently intractable scourge down to workers’ inadequate skills or overgenerous welfare states. But might geography also play a role?

In a paper* published in 1965, John Kain, an economist at Harvard University, proposed what came to be known as the “spatial-mismatch hypothesis”. Kain had noticed that while the unemployment rate in America as a whole was below 5%, it was 40% in many black, inner-city communities. He suggested that high and persistent urban joblessness was due to a movement of jobs away from the inner city, coupled with the inability of those living there to move closer to the places where jobs had gone, due to racial discrimination in housing. Employers might also discriminate against those that came from “bad” neighbourhoods. As a result, finding work was tough for many inner-city types, especially if public transport was poor and they did not own a car.

For the past 50 years, urban economists have argued over Kain’s theory. Some, like William Julius Wilson, then of University of Chicago, pointed to the decline of inner-city manufacturing to explain the sharp spike in poverty in black inner-city neighbourhoods between 1970 and 1980—in keeping with Kain’s logic. Others, like Edward Glaeser, another Harvard economist, suggest that spatial mismatch is overblown. There may indeed be a correlation between where people live and their chances of finding a job. But the connection may not be causal: people may live in bad areas because they have been shunned by employers, either for lack of skills or because of racial discrimination.

Until recently economists did not have adequate data to back up their opinions. Studies used cross-sectional data—a snapshot of an economy at a single point in time—which made it hard to disentangle cause and effect. Did someone live in a bad area because they could not find a job, or was it more difficult to find a job because they lived in a bad area? It was also hard to know quite how inaccessible a particular job was. Researchers could calculate the distance between homes and job opportunities but struggled to estimate how much time it would take to get from one to the other by car or public transport. And the research was marred by small samples, often all from a single city.

A new paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, avoids these pitfalls. It looks at the job searches of nearly 250,000 poor Americans living in nine cities in the Midwest. These places contain pockets of penury: unemployment in inner Chicago, for instance, is twice the average for the remainder of the city. Even more impressive than the size of the sample is the richness of the data. They are longitudinal, not cross-sectional: the authors have repeated observations over a number of years (in this case, six). That helps them to separate cause and effect. Most importantly, the paper looks only at workers who lost their jobs during “mass lay-offs”, in which at least 30% of a company’s workforce was let go. That means the sample is less likely to include people who may live in a certain area, and be looking for work, for reasons other than plain bad luck.

For each worker the authors build an index of accessibility, which measures how far a jobseeker is from the available jobs, adjusted for how many other people are likely to be competing for them. The authors use rush-hour travel times to estimate how long a jobseeker would need to get to a particular job.

If a spatial mismatch exists, then accessibility should influence how long it takes to find a job. That is indeed what the authors find: jobs are often located where poorer people cannot afford to live. Those at the 25th percentile of the authors’ index take 7% longer to find a job that replaces at least 90% of their previous earnings than those at the 75th percentile. Those who commuted a long way to their old job find a new one faster, possibly because they are used to a long trek.

The annihilation of space with time

Other papers suggest that workers may be in the wrong place. A study from the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, finds that poverty in America has become more concentrated over the past decade. During the 2000s the number of neighbourhoods with poverty rates of 40% or more climbed by three-quarters. Unlike Kain’s day, though, poverty is growing fastest in the suburbs, not the inner cities. Pockets of concentrated poverty also tend to suffer from bad schools and crime, making them even more difficult to escape.

Spatial mismatch is not just an American problem. A paper by Laurent Gobillon of the French National Institute for Demographic Studies and Harris Selod of the Paris School of Economics finds that neighbourhood segregation prevents unemployed Parisians from finding work. Another study, conducted in England, concludes that those who live far from jobs spend less time looking for work than those who live nearby, presumably because they think they have little hope of finding one.

All this has big policy implications. Some suggest that governments should encourage companies to set up shop in areas with high unemployment. That is a tall order: firms that hire unskilled workers often need to be near customers or suppliers. A better approach would be to help workers either to move to areas with lots of jobs, or at least to commute to them. That would involve scrapping zoning laws that discourage cheaper housing, and improving public transport. The typical American city dweller can reach just 30% of jobs in their city within 90 minutes on public transport. That is a recipe for unemployment.
The Economist Magazine (Posted October 25, 2014; Retrieved November 7, 2014) –
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21627628-difficulty-people-have-getting-jobs-makes-unemployment-unnecessarily

References – *Studies cited in this article

“Job displacement and the duration of joblessness: The role of spatial mismatch”, by F. Andersson et al, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2014

“The effect of segregation and spatial mismatch on unemployment: evidence from France”, by L. Gobillon & H. Selod, Centre for Economic Policy Research, 2007

“The spatial mismatch hypothesis: three decades later”, by J.F. Kain, Housing Policy Debate, 3(2), 371-460, 1992

“Spatial mismatch, transport mode and search decisions in England”, by E. Patacchini, & Y. Zenou, Journal of Urban Economics, 58(1), 62-90, 2005.

“The Growth and Spread of Concentrated Poverty, 2000 to 2008-2012“, by E. Kneebone, Brookings Institution

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society, starting with economic empowerment. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

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

The Go Lean roadmap calls for many changes and empowerments. One such example is the infrastructure of Self-Governing Entities (SGE), to allow for industrial developments in a controlled (bordered) environment. There is so much that can be accomplished with the right climate, entrepreneurial spirit, access to capital and willing work force. But location is significant with this model, workers must physically get to the bordered campuses/compounds, to get to the jobs. So transportation solutions are paramount to this roadmap.

The CU will foster the installation of SGE’s, and the infrastructure to transport workers to the jobs. The roadmap identifies electrified streetcars, light-rail, natural gas buses and other transit options.

Another compelling mission of the Go Lean book is to lower the “push and pull” factors that lead many to abandon their Caribbean homeland for foreign shores. The book posits that the region must create jobs, the roadmap calls for 2.2 million new jobs over a 5-year period, so that its citizens do not have to leave to become aliens in a foreign land, to be discriminated against as victims of joblessness due to the compelling factors depicted in the foregoing article. The CU does not aim to change North American or European societies, beyond impacting the Diaspora – our scope is the Caribbean. So the public messaging of the societal defects in those countries, as depicted in the foregoing article, should have the effect of dissuading Caribbean emigration. This affects the “pull” factors for Caribbean citizens wanting to leave.

That’s the “pull”; we must still deal with the “push” factors …

There are so many other defects of Caribbean life that need to be addressed to lower the “push” factors. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14) with many statements that demonstrate the need to remediate Caribbean communities:

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

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

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.

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

The purpose of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap is to compose, communicate and compel economic, security and governing solutions for the Caribbean homeland. We want a better society than the past, and perhaps even better than our OECD counterparts. (A CU mission is to repatriate the Diaspora back to the homeland).

How, what, when?

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact jobs in the region, member-states, cities and communities. Below is a sample:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Facilitate Job-Creating Industries	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Self-Governing Entities	Page 80
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean	Page 118
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Self Governing Entities as Job Creating Engines	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – OECD-style Big Data Analysis	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation	Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Battles in the War on Poverty	Page 222
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Trinidad & Tobago – Bottom Line: OECD Case Study	Page 240
Appendix – Job Multipliers	Page 259

Other subjects related to job empowerments (and joblessness) for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2769	DC Streetcars to Facilitate Easier Urban Transportation Options
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750	Disney World’s example of Self Governing Entities and Economic Impacts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2602	Jobless Rural Guyana Wrestles With High Rate of Suicides
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126	Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Where the Jobs Are – Attitudes & Images of the Caribbean Diaspora in US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – Ship-breaking under the SGE Structure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	Where the Jobs Are – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1683	Where the Jobs Were – British public sector now strike over ‘poverty pay’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Where the Jobs Are – Fairgrounds as SGE & Landlords for Sports Leagues
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – Job Discrimination of Immigrations

The purpose of this roadmap is to elevate Caribbean society. To succeed we must apply lessons from the advanced economy countries (OECD) like the US, Canada and Western Europe; lessons from their good, bad and ugly experiences of the past.

The Go Lean book embraces economic principles. One basic tenet is “supply and demand”. The assumption would be that if there are job openings and unemployed people, that “suppliers and demanders” would align. Unfortunately that is not the reality; the foregoing article relates the other issues in OECD countries of racism and geography.

Life in the OECD countries is not fair. It is a struggle; perhaps even more so than necessary.

The Go Lean movement (book and blog commentaries) posits that there is less effort to remediate the Caribbean homeland, than to thrive in an alien land. So it thusly advocates to “prosper where planted”. With some effort, as defined in the Go Lean book, the Caribbean can truly become a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

————

Appendix – Video: OECD – For A Better World Economy – http://youtu.be/B5XGiihBfaU

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A Lesson in History – Rockefeller’s Pipeline

Posted on October 19, 2014 in Economics, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

This book Go Lean…Caribbean was written in 2013 in Omaha, Nebraska, in the shadow of one of the world’s richest men, Warren Buffett. The book posits that location is very important for the proper perspective when developing an empowerment plan. The book quotes the Bible scripture at Proverbs 22:29: “Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself”. (Page 137). If this was the time of the Roman Empire, an empowerment roadmap like Go Lean would have to be written in Rome.

On the other hand, if this roadmap was written in 1885, at the start of the American Industrial domination, the author would have to be in the shadow of Industrialist John D. Rockefeller in New York City. See VIDEO below.

The Go Lean book posits that one person can make a difference and positively impact their society; so the book advocates for a community ethos of investment in the “gifts” that individuals “bring to table”. The book identifies the quality of geniuses and relates worthwhile returns from their investments. This mode of study allows us to consider this example of contributions from the industrial role model of Mr. Rockefeller and his prudent implementation of pipelines:

John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He was a co-founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry, and along with other key contemporary industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie, defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he co-founded Standard Oil Company and actively ran it until he officially retired in 1897.^[3]

Rockefeller founded Standard Oil as an Ohio partnership with his brother William along with Henry Flagler, Jabez A. Bostwick, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner, Stephen V. Harkness. As Kerosene and Gasoline grew in importance, Rockefeller’s wealth soared and he became the world’s richest man and the first American worth more than a billion dollars.^[a] Adjusting for inflation, he is often regarded as the richest person in history.^[4][5][6][7]

His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy. He was able to do this through the creation of foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education and scientific research.^[8] His foundations pioneered the development of medical research and were instrumental in the eradication of hookworm and yellow fever.

Rockefeller was also the founder of both the University of Chicago and RockefellerUniversity and funded the establishment of Central Philippine University in the Philippines. He was a devoted Northern Baptist and supported many church-based institutions. Rockefeller adhered to total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco throughout his life.^[9] He was a faithful congregant of the Erie Street Baptist Mission Church, where he taught Sunday school, and served as a trustee, clerk, and occasional janitor.^[10][11] Religion was a guiding force throughout his life, and Rockefeller believed it to be the source of his success. Rockefeller was also considered a supporter of capitalism based in a perspective of social Darwinism, and is often quoted saying “The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest”.^[12][13]Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia (Retrieved October 18, 2014) –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller

Living for almost 98 years and accumulating vast wealth, Mr. Rockefeller was highly accomplished. He was an early adoptor of Kerosene oil and earned his initial fortune by fostering entrepreneurship and Research & Development (R&D) around the then-cutting-edge product; see VIDEO below. One accomplishment that aligns with this Go Lean roadmap is Mr. Rockefeller’s strategic, tactical and operational applications of pipelines; see Appendix below. He used pipelines to spur his production, acquire raw materials, deliver finished goods to customers, mitigate against threats, and neutralize competition and opposition.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean also asserts that pipelines can be strategic, tactical and operationally efficient for building community wealth in the Caribbean region. They can mitigate challenges from Mother Nature, create jobs and grow the economy at the same time. The book purports that a new technology-enhanced industrial revolution is emerging, in which there is more efficiency for installing-monitoring-maintaining pipelines. Caribbean society must participate in these developments, in order to “survive with the fittest”. This point is pronounced early in the book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), with these statements:

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

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

This book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the 30 Caribbean member-states. This Federation will assume jurisdiction for the 1,063,000 square-mile Caribbean Sea, in an Exclusive Economic Zone. This approach allows for cooperation and coordination for pipelines among the member-states; this will thusly effectuate change in the region by allowing these 3 prime directives:

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

The subject of pipelines has been addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817	Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1516	Floods in Minnesota, Drought in California – Why Not Share?

The Go Lean book itself details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge pipelines, Research & Development and industrial growth in the Caribbean:

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 – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	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 – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
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
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries	Page 68
Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration	Page 79
Separation of Powers – Interior Department – Exclusive Economic Zone	Page 82
Implementation – Assemble – Pipeline as a Focused Activity	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Benefits from the Exclusive Economic Zone	Page 104
Implementation – Ways to Develop a Pipeline Industry	Page 107
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Pipeline Projects	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce	Page 129
Planning – Lessons from New York City	Page 137
Planning – Lessons from Omaha	Page 138
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract – Infrastructure	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Ways to Impact Public Works – Ideal for Pipelines	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources – Water Resources	Page 183
Anecdote – Caribbean Industrialist & Entrepreneur Role Model	Page 189
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Extractions – Pipeline Strategy Alignment	Page 195
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Adopt Advanced Financial Products	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Monopolies – Foster Cooperatives	Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation – Pipeline Options	Page 205
Appendix – Interstate Compacts	Page 278
Appendix – Pipeline Maintenance Robots	Page 283

The economic principles of pipelines are sound. Pipelines can be used to bring resources from a source to a destination in a steady consistency, fulfilling the economic supply-demand conundrum. The Go Lean roadmap envisions pipelines solutions for resources like water, natural gas, electricity cables, and telecommunication cables – above ground and underwater.

We have the pipeline example of the prudence and success of one of the world’s richest men (ever) as a model, that of John D. Rockefeller. He also provides a role model for us in the Caribbean in other endeavors of life:

Research & Development (Kerosene & Gasoline)
Cooperatives & Trusts
Creative Financing & Securities Oversight
Fostering Genius
Philanthropic Foundations
Educational Empowerments
Spiritual Guidance

The contributions of a committed person can be impactful indeed in this vision for the elevation and empowerment of the Caribbean homeland. The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap invites these contributions; (the roadmap mitigates the threats of corporate abuse of a plutocracy). Like Mr. Rockefeller’s model describes, we also invite pipelines, with their strategic, tactical and operational implementations. With the right applications from people, tools and techniques any movement can have an impact in a changing society.

Change has come to the Caribbean. Everyone is hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

———

Video: Rockefeller’s Standard Oil

John D. Rockefeller built an oil empire by guaranteeing a uniform quality for his Standard Oil Kerosene – History Channel.

http://www.history.com/topics/john-d-rockefeller/videos/rockefellers-standard-oil

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APPENDIX – Rockefeller and his Pipeline Reality

In 1877, Standard Oil clashed with the Pennsylvania Railroad, its chief hauler. Rockefeller had envisioned the use of pipelines as an alternative transport system for oil and began a campaign to build and acquire them.^[40]

At this stage the company did not actually drill for oil; it merely refined it. In 1879 an association of producers completed the Tidewater Pipeline, running from oil fields in Bradford to the Reading Railroad at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. This innovation demonstrated that crude oil could be shipped cheaply over long distances by pipeline – much more cheaply than by rail, in fact. Standard Oil quickly responded by beginning construction of its own network of pipelines, [installing over 4,000 miles]. Before Tidewater, Standard Oil had made good profits refining oil in Cleveland and other points and shipping it by rail. But the cost-efficiency of pipeline transport made it imperative to ship crude oil to shipping points and refine it there.^[39]

The railroads, seeing Standard’s incursion into the transportation and pipeline fields, struck back and formed a subsidiary to buy and build oil refineries and pipelines.^[41] Standard countered and held back its shipments and, with the help of other railroads, started a price war that dramatically reduced freight payments and caused labor unrest as well. Rockefeller eventually prevailed and the railroad sold all its oil interests to Standard. But in the aftermath of that battle, in 1879 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania indicted Rockefeller on charges of monopolizing the oil trade, starting an avalanche of similar court proceedings in other states and making a national issue of Standard Oil’s business practices.^[42]

Monopoly – Cause and Effect

Standard Oil gradually gained almost complete control of oil refining and marketing in the United States through horizontal integration. In the Kerosene industry, Standard Oil replaced the old distribution systems with its own vertical system. It supplied Kerosene by tank cars that brought the fuel to local markets, and tank wagons then delivered to retail customers, thus bypassing the existing network of wholesale jobbers.^[43] Despite improving the quality and availability of Kerosene products while greatly reducing their cost to the public (the price of Kerosene dropped by nearly 80% over the life of the company), Standard Oil’s business practices created intense controversy; [this is typical plutocratic behavior]. Standard’s most potent weapons against competitors were underselling, differential pricing, and secret transportation rebates.^[44] The firm was attacked by journalists and politicians throughout its existence, in part for these monopolistic methods, giving momentum to the antitrust movement. By 1880, according to the New York World newspaper, Standard Oil was “the most cruel, impudent, pitiless, and grasping monopoly that ever fastened upon a country.”^[45] To the critics Rockefeller replied, “In a business so large as ours….. some things are likely to be done which we cannot approve. We correct them as soon as they come to our knowledge.”^[45]

At that time, many legislatures had made it difficult to incorporate in one state and operate in another. As a result, Rockefeller and his associates owned dozens of separate corporations, each of which operated in just one state; the management of the whole enterprise was rather unwieldy. In 1882, Rockefeller’s lawyers created an innovative form of corporation to centralize their holdings, giving birth to the Standard Oil Trust.^[46] The “trust” was a corporation of corporations, and the entity’s size and wealth drew much attention. Nine trustees, including Rockefeller, ran the 41 companies in the trust.^[46] The public and the press were immediately suspicious of this new legal entity, but other businesses seized upon the idea and emulated it, further inflaming public sentiment. Standard Oil had gained an aura of invincibility, always prevailing against competitors, critics, and political enemies. It had become the richest, biggest, most feared business in the world, seemingly immune to the boom and bust of the business cycle, consistently racking up profits year after year.^[47]

Standard Oil’s vast American empire included 20,000 domestic wells, 4,000 miles of pipeline, 5,000 tank cars, and over 100,000 employees.^[47] Its share of world oil refining topped out above 90% but slowly dropped to about 80% for the rest of the century.^[48] In spite of the formation of the trust and its perceived immunity from all competition, by the 1880s Standard Oil had passed its peak of power over the world oil market. Rockefeller finally gave up his dream of controlling all the world’s oil refining, he admitted later, “We realized that public sentiment would be against us if we actually refined all the oil.”^[48] Over time foreign competition and new finds abroad eroded his dominance. In the early 1880s, Rockefeller created one of his most important innovations. Rather than try to influence the price of crude oil directly, Standard Oil had been exercising indirect control by altering oil storage charges to suit market conditions. Rockefeller then decided to order the issuance of certificates against oil stored in its pipelines. These certificates became traded by speculators, thus creating the first oil-futures market which effectively set spot market prices from then on. The National Petroleum Exchange opened in Manhattan in late 1882 to facilitate the oil futures trading.^[49]

The invention of the light bulb gradually began to erode the dominance of Kerosene for illumination. But Standard Oil adapted, developing its own European presence, expanding into natural gas production [and distribution] in the U.S., then into Gasoline for automobiles, which until then had [only] been considered a waste product.^[52]

In 1887, Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission which was tasked with enforcing equal rates for all railroad freight, but by then Standard Oil depended more on pipeline transport.^[54]

– (Retrieved October 18, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller)

Cited References:
a.      Fortune Magazine lists the richest Americans not by the changing value of the dollar but by percentage of GDP: Rockefeller is credited with a Wealth/GDP of 1/65.
———–
3.             “John D. and Standard Oil”. Bowling GreenStateUniversity. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
4.             “The Richest Americans”. Fortune (CNN). Retrieved May 6, 2010.
5.             “Top 10 Richest Men of All Time”. AskMen.com. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
6.             “The Rockefellers”. PBS. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
7.             “The Wealthiest Americans Ever”. The New York Times. July 15, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-17.
8.             Fosdick, Raymond Blaine (1989). The story of the Rockefeller Foundation. Transaction Publishers.
9.             Martin, Albro (1999), “John D. Rockefeller”, Encyclopedia Americana Page 23
10.         Chernow, Ron (1998). Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Random House, Page 52.
11.         “The 9 most amazing facts about John D. Rockefeller”. Oil Patch Asia.
12.         Richard Hofstadter et al. Sep 1, p. 45.
13.         Schultz, Duane P; Schultz, Sydney Ellen, A History of Modern Psychology, p. 128
———–
39.         Enclycopedia.com Online Resource. “Standard Oil Company – Pipelines“. Retrieved October 19, 2014 from: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Standard_Oil_Company.aspx
40.         Chernow 1998, p. 171.
41.         Segall, Grant (2001). John D. Rockefeller: Anointed With Oil. OxfordUniversity Press., p. 57.
42.         Segall 2001, p. 58.
43.         Chernow 1998, p. 253.
44.         Chernow 1998, p. 258.
45.         Segall 2001, p. 60.
46.         Segall 2001, p. 61.
47.         Chernow 1998, p. 249.
48.         Segall 2001, p. 67.
49.         Chernow 1998, p. 259.
50.         Chernow 1998, p. 242.
51.         Chernow 1998, p. 246.
52.         Segall 2001, p. 68.
53.         Segall 2001, pp. 62–63.
54.         Rockefeller, John D (1984) [1909]. Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. New York: Sleepy Hollow Press and Rockefeller Archive Center, Page 48.

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Crony-Capitalism, History, Model, Power, Transform

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The Cost of Cancer Drugs

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

Go Lean Commentary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————————-

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

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

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

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

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

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

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, obesity and smoking cessation programs.

The Go Lean serves as a roadmap for the implementation and introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU‘s prime directives are identified with the following 3 statements:

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

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

Antibiotics Misuse Linked to Obesity in the US

CHOP Research: Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones

Big Pharma & Criminalization of American Business

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

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

New Cuban Cancer medication registered in 28 countries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

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Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’

Posted on September 29, 2014 in Economics, Government

Go Lean Commentary

The biggest threat to the Caribbean’s future maybe the biggest threat to the planet: Climate Change. How is it possible that anyone would deny this?

Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” may help us to understand the dissenters viewpoint. The Maslow Hierarchy identifies these 8 levels of needs:

Level 1 – Biological and Physiological needs
Level 2 – Security/Safety needs
Level 3 – Belongingness and Love needs
Level 4 – Esteem needs
Level 5 – Cognitive needs
Level 6 – Aesthetic needs
Level 7 – Self-Actualization needs
Level 8 – Transcendence needs

In addition to the abundance of published materials on Maslow, the book Go Lean…Caribbean qualifies the same 8 levels of needs (Page 231). This definition of needs also applies to the subject of Climate Change and the foregoing Book Review of the new publication by author Naomi Klein entitled This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. This source book relates that the systems of capitalism run conflict with the ideals of fighting Climate Change. This commentary asserts that those who dissent are limiting their advent of Maslow’s Hierarchy to Level 1 and/or 2, while advocates to cure/mitigate Climate Change are navigating above Level 3, all the way to Level 8.

The profit motive is powerful; according to the foregoing article/book review, the practice of capitalism dictates seeking the shortest path to profit. Many are spellbound by profit, to make millions or simply to maintain jobs, to the point that they will sacrifice the higher level needs to only ensure Basic (Level 1) and Security/Safety (Level 2) needs.

This short-sighted view “cuts off the nose to spite the face”; it sacrifices the long-term for the sake of the short-term.

The book review follows:

Book Review: Heather Mallick, Columnist
Title: Naomi Klein has written the book of the modern era
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate – gives the reader the tools to discuss the coming disaster intelligently.

The planet is headed for a climate catastrophe, and soon. Make that now. Your reaction will be either a quick calculation as to whether you’ll be able to die in time to skip the whole thing, or an appalled realization that your children are in for pain and your grandchildren for a terrible fate.

But your starter task should be reading Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Meticulously researched and briskly rational in tone, her just-published book is one of the basic texts of the modern era, by which I mean since the Scotsman James Watt invented the coal-fired steam engine in 1776. Hasn’t perdition come quickly on its wee cloven hooves?

Until then power came from water wheels. With Watt’s device, owners could build factories near the urban poor, hire cheaply, cut prices and stabilize production that used to depend on the whims of weather. Ironically it’s weather that will finish us off now. Capitalism is magical until it isn’t. Skip ahead 240 years and here we are, basically doomed by its profit formula.

Klein’s book is an essential purchase in that it tells you precisely what you need to know to discuss the climate dilemma intelligently: it covers historical context, environmental science, fossil fuel finance, our current version of capitalism, political history, climate change denial, environmentalism’s failures, suggested quack-scientific remedies that will “block” the sun, green energy and how people are working locally to blockade carbon extraction because nothing else is being done. It is factual rather than emotive.

Fascinatingly, it portrays fossil fuel corporations as victims of their own nature. Programmed like computers, they could not reverse themselves even if they wished to. Only governments can do it. Even then, international free-trade agreements allow corporations to sue nations to stop this, the very reason smart Germany has just objected to Canada’s new European trade deal. Stephen Harper knuckled under to corporations but the Germans are smarter than that.

This magnificent textbook has already been attacked by people who didn’t read it, apparently for the high school reason that Klein is too famous, or that the book is too hard on the West. But science has spoken. There are 2,795 gigatons (a gigaton is 1 billion metric tons) of fossil fuel reserves already claimed by industry that will be extracted and burned. “We know how much more carbon can be burned between now and 2050 and still leave us a solid chance (roughly 80 per cent) of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius,” writes Klein. “That amount is 565 gigatons.”

That’s 2,795 vs. 565, not even faintly close, and humans haven’t agreed even in principle to slow down. “2 degrees now looks like a utopian dream,” Klein writes, and 4 degrees is reliably said to be “incompatible with any reasonable characterization of an organized, equitable and civilized global community,” a.k.a. life as we sort of know it. Many experts say we’ll go far beyond 4 degrees.

The joy and genius of capitalism is how it takes the shortest path to profit, but it is as bad as communism at trashing earth, water and air. Something has to reshape capitalism or we are fried. Humans want to fob the problem off on other humans, which is not how it works on this pretty blue ball spinning through the sky. We may not suffer equally but we’ll all suffer.

A big wheel is already rolling. There is produce we can’t buy as drought crisps farmland in California, a state that hasn’t even banned private swimming pools. We are seeing the hottest summers on record and abnormally harsh winters, violent storms, more smog alerts, nations like the U.K. and cities like New York hit by flooding, Brazil hit by drought.

Author: Naomi Klein

We may blame China and India, accusing them of blithely polluting as we claim to virtuously filter North American effluent. But we outsourced our pollution to Asia. As Klein reports, “The rise in emissions from goods produced in developing countries but consumed in industrialized ones was six times greater than the emissions savings of industrialized countries.” China will stop polluting when we stop buying their cheap stuff. Are you going to stop? Are you?

Klein’s question is this: do you go along to get along or do you fight back? This Changes Everything is basic reading and no one will take you seriously until you’ve read every single page.

Heather Mallick’s column appears Monday and Wednesday on the op-ed page and Saturday in News. hmallick@thestar.ca
The Star – Toronto’s Daily Newspaper – Book Review – Sunday September 28, 2014 –
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/09/28/naomi_klein_has_written_the_book_of_the_modern_era_mallick.html

Video: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate – Book Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPQI1Lui42c

The Go Lean book also details the impending crisis of Climate Change and then declares that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”, calling for the establishment of a regional administration to monitor, mitigate and manage the threats of Climate Change. The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean region is at the frontline of the battleground of Climate Change, and that there is the need to save life-and-limb due to increased occurrences of devastating hurricanes, flooding, forest fires, droughts, rising sea levels, and alterations in fish stock.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The prime directives of this agency are described as:

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

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to serve as the regional administration to optimize economy, homeland security and governance engines for the Caribbean, especially in the fight of Climate Change battleground frontline status. But the needs of the economy, capitalistic principles and Climate Change mitigations do not have to clash/conflict; they can co-exist.

This is the first pronouncement (Page 11) of the opening Declaration of Interdependence that bears a direct reference to this foregoing article and source book:

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 source book also relates to the concepts of capitalism. Though it is the surviving system from the 20th Century debate versus Communism, it is far from being a perfect commerce system. But it can be managed and manipulated for the Greater Good. This point was also pronounced on Page 13 of the Declaration of Interdependence in the Go Lean book:

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.

The Go Lean roadmap is designed to deliver many empowerment activities to elevate Caribbean society. These activities will carefully balance the needs of the Caribbean and the needs of the planet: we need jobs, yes, but we do not need to increase our carbon footprint.

The issues of Climate Change have been repeatedly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2276	Climate Change May Affect Food Supply Within a Decade
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2119	Cooling Effect – Oceans and the Climate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1883	Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817	Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1516	Floods in Minnesota, Drought in California – Why Not Share?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=926	Conservative heavyweights have solar industry in their sights
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915	Go ‘Green’ … Caribbean

The Go Lean book declares that we must adopt a community ethos, the appropriate attitude/spirit, to forge change in our region; then details the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to better impact the region’s resources and eco-systems, especially in considering the preparations and consequences of Climate Change:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices / Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-States into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Vision – Foster Local Economic Engines for Basic Needs	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Prepare for Natural Disasters	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 76
Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration	Page 79
Separation of Powers – Meteorological & Geological Service	Page 79
Separation of Powers – Fisheries and Agriculture Department	Page 88
Implementation – Assemble Regional Organs into a Single Market Economy	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up – Unified Command & Control	Page 103
Implementation – Industrial Policy for CU Self Governing Entities	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 – Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries	Page 210
Appendix – History of Puerto Rican Migration to US & Effects of Hurricanes	Page 303
Appendix – US Virgin Islands Economic Timeline with Hurricane Impacts	Page 305

The foregoing book review and the source book discusses the threats of Climate Change on the planet. We have no option to ignore these debates. We are involved whether we want to be or not – we are on the frontlines of this battle. Apathy is not an option!

Change has come to our region; more devastating change is imminent. There is the need for a permanent union to provide efficient stewardship for Caribbean economy, security and governing engines. There must be that constant balancing act between capitalism and the planet. The Go Lean…Caribbean posits that these problems, these agents of change, are too big for just any one member-state to tackle alone, there must be a regional solution. This multi-state technocratic administration of the CU may be our best option.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to embrace the mitigations for the impending changes to the planet due to Climate Change. We can still make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

Video: Bill Maher Interviews Naomi Klein on Climate Change Issues (Posted 09-26-14) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI1DoZBohyE

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Book Review, Crony-Capitalism, Disaster

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‘Consumer Reports’ Survey Finds the American Consumer is Back

Posted on September 28, 2014 in Economics, Ethos

Go Lean Commentary

There are more lessons to learn from the Great Recession of 2007-2008. The lingering effects continue, right up to this day. According to the foregoing news article, only now, 7 years later, are Americans willing to start spending again… on big purchases. Too bad! Many aspects of the US economy depend on regular spending*.

According to the foregoing article, there is value to processing, defining and analyzing economic data associated with the Great Recession; this is the merit of Big Data Analysis. This point aligns with the book Go Lean… Caribbean in that a plan is envisioned to capture raw data, measuring many aspects of Caribbean society, including economic, trade, consumption, macro performance, and societal values. Much can be gleaned from this art and science, mastery of which allows for better stewardship of the Caribbean elevation effort. The news story follows:

SOURCE: Consumer Reports
Seven years after the Great Recession, consumers are finally opening their wallets, making long-delayed purchases and undertaking postponed life decisions

YONKERS, N.Y., Sept. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Great Recession of 2007[/2008] caused the once-prolific American shopper to go into a prolonged scrimp mode. Now, some seven years later – and more than 5 years after the recession officially ended — the tide has turned, according to a groundbreaking Consumer Reports study. A nationally representative survey of 1,006 adult Americans conducted by the ConsumerReportsNationalResearchCenter revealed that people are now in the market for major purchases like homes, cars, and appliances – and that they plan to spend even more money in the coming year.

The full report, “How America Shops Now,” is the cover story for the November 2014 issue of Consumer Reports magazine and is available on newsstands now and at ConsumerReports.org.

So traumatizing was the Great Recession that many Americans put off purchases and personal decisions such as marriage and divorce. Seven out of 10 people told Consumer Reports that they finally feel fiscally stable enough to make up for lost time. Other findings from the survey that point to shoppers’ improved outlook:

64 percent said that they’d dropped big bucks on a major purchase in the past year

46 percent said they bought a new or used vehicle in the past year or intend to buy one in the coming year

12 percent said they’d bought a residence in the past year or intend to do so in the coming year

34 percent said they recently completed or are ready to do a major home-remodeling project

31 percent are holding fewer garage sales

30 percent are taking fewer odd jobs

26 percent of young Americans (aged 18-34) said they were ready to buy a new home; 32 percent believe they can buy a car

“Shoppers may be back, but they’re far from the profligate spenders they used to be. The harsh lessons of the prolonged downturn have had a major impact, perhaps a permanent one,” said Tod Marks, Senior Projects Editor for Consumer Reports. “Our survey shows that Americans are spending their money very pragmatically, and even though the employment picture has improved, many are working scared – scared about their future job stability and earnings outlook.”

The report also features testimonials from real consumers about their new spending habits. Additional data from CR’s nationally representative survey includes what Americans are most reluctant to cut back on – regardless of the economy, and the pricier items many people feel are still out of reach. The full report is available in the November issue of Consumer Reports magazine, and online at ConsumerReports.org.

Consumer Reports is the world’s largest independent product-testing organization. Using its more than 50 labs, auto test center, and survey research center, the nonprofit rates thousands of products and services annually. Founded in 1936, Consumer Reports has over 8 million subscribers to its magazine, website and other publications. Its advocacy division, Consumers Union, works for health reform, food and product safety, financial reform, and other consumer issues in Washington, D.C., the states, and in the marketplace.

September 2014
The material above is intended for legitimate news entities only; it may not be used for advertising or promotional purposes. Consumer Reports^® is an expert, independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers and to empower consumers to protect themselves. We accept no advertising and pay for all the products we test. We are not beholden to any commercial interest. Our income is derived from the sale of Consumer Reports^®, ConsumerReports.org^®and our other publications and information products, services, fees, and noncommercial contributions and grants. Our Ratings and reports are intended solely for the use of our readers. Neither the Ratings nor the reports may be used in advertising or for any other commercial purpose without our permission.
CBS News Reporting on Consumer Reports – Thursday, September 25, 2014 – http://www.cbs19.tv/story/26623848/consumer-reports-survey-finds-the-american-consumer-is-back-and-ready-to-spend

VIDEO – CBS This Morning: Back to buying: Americans’ spending habits change after recession

(VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).

This book Go Lean… Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), the regime to empower Caribbean society. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

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

These prime directives recognize that the changes the region needs, new economic engines, will start first with the adoption of new community ethos and controls. Early in the book, the need for this shift is pronounced, (Declaration of Interdependence – Page 13) with these statements:

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.

The Go Lean book, and previous blog/commentaries stress that Big Data Analysis will be key, among the societal controls, in the roadmap for Caribbean elevation. The book references to this analysis are as follows:

Community Ethos – Impact Research and Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Strategy – CU Stakeholders – NGO’s need for Big Data	Page 56
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Impact Elections	Page 116
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress	Page 147
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Black Markets	Page 165
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Gun Control	Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Contact Centers	Page 212
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Appendix – Application of a Chapter, the Book Art of War	Page 325
Appendix – Electronic Benefits Transfer / e-Payments	Page 353

The points of Big Data Analysis for Command-and-Control were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2105	Recessions and Public Health – Lessons from the 2008 Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126	Analyzing the Data – Where Are the Jobs Now: Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Analyzing the Data – Where Are the Jobs Now – One Scenario: Ship-breaking
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1763	Analyzing the Data – The World as 100 People – Showing the Gaps
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1715	Analyzing the Data – Lebronomy: Economic Impact of the Return of the NBA Great to his Home City
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Analyzing the Data – Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1296	Analyzing the Data – Remittances to Caribbean Increased By 3 Percent in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841	Analyzing the Data – Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=782	Open/Review the Time Capsule: The Great Recession of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Analyzing the Data – Student debt holds back home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=518	Analyzing the Data – What Banks learn about financial risks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=493	Analyzing the Data – Nigeria’s economy grew by 89% overnight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=356	Book Review: ‘How Numbers Rule the World: The Use & Abuse of Statistics in Politics’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242	Analyzing the Data – The Erosion of the Middle Class
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235	Analyzing the Data – Tourism’s changing profile

The 2007/2008 Great Recession brought major upheaval to American society. Unfortunately, due to economic inter-connections, this upheaval extended to the Caribbean as well, our economy is structured as individual parasites on the US economy. According to the foregoing news article, the US is now finally returning to their spending habits of old, and yet the Caribbean continues to linger in economic upheaval. There is a need for a change in the Caribbean, from these individual parasite economies to a regional-unified interdependent protégé economy.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap is designed to drive change among the economic, security and governing engines of the region. The change requires new community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates; this effort requires Command-and-Control because despite the best efforts and best-practices, success will not come on the first attempt, or second, or third. In fact it will take a continuous effort, again and again, combined with the measurement of the progress, course adjustment and more continuous effort to finally bring the desired result: a better homeland to live, work and play. This result is worth all this effort, all this heavy-lifting.

The foregoing article which discusses the role of of the Consumers Report organizational structure, depicts how technocratic stewardship can greatly impact a community. This is a fitting role model for the CU/Go Lean roadmap in a new Caribbean.

Big Data Analysis is not just for academic consumption, rather it must be for the stewardship, Command-and-Control, of regional economic, security and governing engines. The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to fulfill the vision of making the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

* The Go Lean book details the economic impact of the housing (Pages 161, 207) and automotive (Page 206) industries; these are traditionally “big purchase” items.

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2008, Jobs, Sales, Transform

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Latin America’s Korean dream

Posted on September 27, 2014 in Economics, Ethos

Go Lean Commentary

“Trade and Marketplaces” are great strategies. So says the below news story and VIDEO.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean calls for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). With that branding “Trade Federation”, obviously there is an emphasis on Trade activities. Why?

The book explained that the proper management of trade can increase wealth. The book relates the following on Page 21:

Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth: People specialize in the production of certain goods and services because they expect to gain from it. People trade what they produce with other people when they think they can gain something from the exchange. Some benefits of voluntary trade include higher standards of living and broader choices of goods and services.

The foregoing article stresses that there is a role model for modern industrial policy in the country/region for Latin America as a whole (and the Caribbean specifically): the East Asian Tigers, or South Korea more specifically.

Sub-title: The case for a modern industrial policy
ONCE again, Latin America has a growth problem. After a dozen golden years of economic expansion and falling poverty, the region is likely to grow by only around 1.5% this year. Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela are suffering recessions of varying severity. Even high-flyers like Peru and Chile have slowed to a crawl; growth in Mexico, where reforms promise much, has yet to take off.

The immediate reasons are not hard to divine. The commodity boom has waned and, in some places, years of fiscal populism are coming home to roost. Low unemployment and a population that is starting to age mean that growth can no longer come from adding workers. If the region is to return to faster expansion, it must raise productivity.

Yet here the region has a lamentable record (see chart) – and for familiar reasons: red tape and the informal economy, poor education and infrastructure, and a lack of competition and credit. But according to a new study* by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), there is another factor. Unlike many East Asian countries, Latin America has eschewed state action to stimulate the development of higher-productivity sectors and businesses.

Industrial policy, as it used to be called, went out of fashion in the region in the 1980s, and for good reason. In Latin America it was mainly deployed in the cause of import substitution. All too often, it sheltered favoured low-productivity firms from the foreign competition that would have made them more efficient. In South Korea, by contrast, industrial policy was more ruthless: state help for businesses was temporary and linked to performance in exports and innovation.

Because of this dismal history, the IDB rebrands “industrial policy” as “productive development policies”. That signals not only that such policies should apply to services and farming as well as manufacturing, but also that they should avoid past mistakes. They are justified, the authors caution, only when they aim to develop a latent or potential comparative advantage and when market forces have failed to do this. And the remedy should directly address the market failure.

There is much to do. Latin America is poor at innovation. Spending on research and development in the region, as a share of GDP, is less than half that in developed countries, which have seven times as many researchers per 1,000 workers. Tax breaks can stimulate innovation, especially when they reward the hiring of researchers and collaboration between universities and firms in competitive industries.

State intervention may also be justified in order to overcome “co-ordination failures”—where several firms would potentially benefit but no one will organise a scheme to pay for, say, setting up a temperature-controlled “cold chain” for the export of fruit and vegetables. Costa Rica’s investment agency helped to develop a surgical-devices industry by persuading an American firm to set up a sterilising service in the country. Argentina’s INTA, a public agricultural-technology institute, worked with local farmers to develop more productive strains of rice.

The biggest challenge is for the state to incubate new higher-value industries—without falling prey to special pleading. There are several such success stories in Latin America. The origins of Embraer, a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, lie in a public aeronautical-technology institute. Fundación Chile, a private development agency with a public-policy remit, created a salmon-farming industry. But such initiatives will work only if governments have the technical and institutional capacity to carry them out, the IDB warns. It thinks projects should be subject to external evaluation. South Korea’s example suggests that sunset clauses in state support and subjecting firms to the discipline of foreign competition is crucial.

Some chapters of the IDB study are indigestible, written for economists rather than politicians. It pulls some punches: although it criticises the protection of rice farmers in small Costa Rica, it is silent about the recent use of subsidies and protection in Brazil and Argentina to cosset declining or established industries.

But its argument for a modern industrial policy is timely. Indeed, it is already being applied. This year Peru’s production minister, Piero Ghezzi, unveiled a “productive diversification plan”, the first step of which is the opening of ten technological-innovation centres. Peruvian man cannot live by mining alone. Sensible government policies can help.
The Economist Magazine (Retrieved 09/20/2014) – http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21618785-case-modern-industrial-policy-latin-americas-korean-dream

——

* ^{“Rethinking Productive Development: Sound Policies and Institutions for Economic Transformation”, edited by Gustavo Crespi, Eduardo Fernández-Arias and Ernesto Stein, IDB}

The foregoing article indicates that Latin America countries can do better in managing their industrial policy and macro-economics. This point is stressed in the Go Lean book, pronounced 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.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for confederating 30 member-states of the Caribbean, despite their language and legacy, into an integrated “single market. The resulting entity will increase trade within the region and with the rest of the world, increasing the economy (GDP) from $378 Billion (per 2010) to $800 Billion. This growth is based on new jobs, industrial output and lean operational efficiency.

The Go Lean book posits that this growth is only possible with the integrated economy, not with individual member-states growing on their own, “the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts“. But economic issues alone do not complete the solution, in fact the CU roadmap cites these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines so as to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus (with prosecutorial powers for economic crimes) so as to mitigate the eventual emergence of “bad actors”.
Improve Caribbean governance.

Growth in the Caribbean is a strong theme for the Go Lean… Caribbean book and a frequent topic for these Go Lean blogs. These points of economy, security and governance have also been detailed in previous Go Lean blogs/commentaries. The following is a sample:

The following is a sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2372	Corporate Tax Dodging – Transfer Policing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	Welcoming New Business from the Dreaded Plutocracy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126	Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario: Ship-breaking
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1869	US Senate bill targets companies that move overseas
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1731	Role Model Warren Buffet – An Ode to Omaha
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1609	Cuba mulls economy in Parliament session
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement = The Caribbean Approach for a Regional Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416	Amazon, a model of a Trade Marketplace, and its new FIRE Smartphone
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=949	Inflation Matters – The CU‘s Approach for Macro-Economic Efficiency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=888	Book Review: ‘Citizenville – Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=833	CU Strategy: One currency, divergent economies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=689	eMerge Conference Aims to Jump-start Miami Tech Hub in Exploiting Latin America Trade
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=476	Grenada PM Urges CARICOM on ICT to Grow Economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=360	How the CU/CCB will Create Money from Thin Air
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308	CARCIP Urges Greater Innovation to Grow Economy

Now the foregoing news article points that there is value in analyzing the transformation of the East Asian nation-states. These countries provide great lessons, samples and examples of convergence, in which under-developed countries apply the catch-up principle to grow their economies to “developed” status. The Go Lean book details this progress (Page 69) for the sample countries of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

The CU roadmap likewise drives change among economic, security and governing engines to guide the Caribbean member-states to the destination of elevated societies – a better place to live, work and place. This change is based on new community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates; sampled as follows:

Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequence of Choice Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Money Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Security Principles	Page 22
Community Ethos – Governing Principles	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations – GPO’s	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research and Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Close the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-arounds	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Growing the Economy to $800 Billion – Convergence of East Asian Tigers	Page 67
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – GPO’s	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Start-up Initiatives	Page 102
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Optimize Mail Service & myCaribbean.gov Marketplace	Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Improve Energy Usage	Page 113
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade – GPO’s	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce	Page 129
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress	Page 147
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Control Inflation	Page 153
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Black Markets	Page 165
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Anecdote – Caribbean Industrialist	Page 189
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology – Incubators Strategy	Page 197
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Develop / Foster <specific> Industries	Page 206

The foregoing news article identifies new industrial policies for Latin America. But the focus of the book Go Lean…Caribbean and accompanying blogs is the Caribbean alone, a sub-set of Latin America. Trade is very much critical to the strategies to grow the regional economy. Increased trade will undoubtedly mean increased job opportunities. The CU/Go Lean plan is to foster and incubate key industries for this goal, incorporating suggestions, recommendations and best-practices as related in the foregoing article. This too was pronounced early in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), as follows:

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

Despite many previous efforts to expand Caribbean trade, this new Go Lean effort takes a novel approach, that of the Trade Federation. This entity would do the heavy-lifting of elevating the Caribbean economy, security and governing engines. This roadmap would include a “marketplace”, with all the dimensions highlighted in the following VIDEO:

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUp3Q6O8IYg

For the Caribbean, the status quo cannot continue. It is time for the region, the people and institutions, to lean in to this roadmap for change, to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. It is worth the effort and investment. 🙂

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

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Foreign Policy, Model, Transform

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How ‘The Lion King’ roared into history

Posted on September 25, 2014 in Economics, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

There is money in the ‘Arts’.

One “Broadway” musical play, The Lion King has made $6.21 billion. That is significant. In fact that is a record, according to the foregoing news article:

By: Alison Boshoff

Title: How The Lion King roared into history: As show is crowned biggest box office earner ever, the secrets of its success emerge

Hakuna Matata!

Sir Elton John has long observed that The Lion King musical ‘is a law unto itself’ — and how so.

After more than a decade of performances in cities all over the world, it was confirmed this week that the stage show is the biggest beast in the jungle.

The Lion King — based on the 1994 Disney film of the same name — has taken more money at the box office than any other production in history.

Since its first night on Broadway in 1997, the show has made more than £3.8 billion ($6.21 billion) in ticket sales alone.

Not only has it conquered the stage, it has massively out-earned every cinema release — including blockbusters such as James Cameron’s Avatar, which took a mere £1.7 billion ($2.78 billion) globally after its 2009 release.

A further fortune has been made in souvenir T-shirts, posters and the rest. At the last count, there were eight different cast recordings of the show’s songs on sale.

Featuring music by Sir Elton John and lyrics by Sir Tim Rice, The Lion King opened in Minneapolis in July 1997 before moving to Broadway in November that year.

It arrived at the Lyceum Theatre in London’s West End in October 1999 and currently takes more than £30 million ($49 million) a year in the UK.

A STORY WITH BITE

The musical tells the story of Simba, a lion cub born on the Serengeti who runs away from his pride when his father Mufasa dies.

Aided by his friends, he must defeat his evil uncle Scar, who engineers Mufasa’s death in a stampede and convinces Simba he was to blame, to reclaim his rightful position as king.

THE MAGIC FORMULA

According to music historian Cary Ginell, the musical is a ‘spectacle that satisfies’ on many different levels.

‘For the kids, it’s the visual elements, the colours, the costumes and the puppetry,’ he says. ‘For the adults, it’s Hamlet.’

Many have noted the parallels between Disney’s and Shakespeare’s plots, which both feature a murdered king avenged by his rightful heir.

GOING GLOBAL

Disney says that the 22 Lion King productions around the world have been seen by an estimated 75 million people. That’s the entire population of the United Kingdom, plus the population of Belgium.

Last year, it was the highest-grossing musical on the New York stage, and it retains its number-one position so far in 2014. It has always been a sell-out in London.

MONEY MATTERS

Disney dipped its toe in the water with a Broadway version of its Oscar-winning Beauty And The Beast before pouring an estimated £6.5 million ($10.62 million) into staging The Lion King — the most expensive show ever staged.

THE STAGE GURU

In a colossal creative gamble, Disney hired Julie Taymor, an avant garde director who had trained in mime in Paris and spent years studying Japanese and Indonesian theatre.

Taymor thought the film ‘superficial’. She said: ‘I had to make The Lion King my own. Otherwise it’s a Disney product and I don’t like the way Disney looks.’

WE NEED A HEROINE!

Taymor’s great visual innovation was using puppetry, masks and mechanical headpieces to portray the animals. When the lions cry, they pull rolls of white silk from their masks’ eye holes; the actors playing giraffes walk on stilts.

The drought that ravages the savannah is illustrated by a dwindling waterhole — a circle of silvery material that shrinks as it is pulled across the stage.

There were other changes, too: the stage production has more songs than the film; and Rafiki, the baboon with mystic powers, became a ‘she’, as Taymor felt that the film lacked a leading female character.

A STAMPEDE FOR SEATS

In the immediate aftermath of its Broadway debut, there were reports of pushy New York parents putting their children’s names down for theatre tickets years in advance.

At one point seats were reselling for up to ten times their face value. Things have since calmed down, but a ticket to the London production costs at least £27.50 ($44.92) a seat.

THE CRITICS’ VERDICT

‘Visually breathtaking,’ said the New York Times. ‘Pure, exhilarating theatre, unlike anything ever seen on Broadway,’ cheered USA Today.

But not everyone was convinced. One critic who saw the show open in London’s West End wrote that once the last Zulu drum had fallen silent, a tiny part of him was left whispering: ‘So what?’

Catch it immediately, he said, thinking it was not destined to run and run. Oops.

And the late, great Sheridan Morley opined: ‘A lot of people say, “This is not real theatre. It’s theatre by way of the movies, or by way of the theme park.” It’s Disneyfication, if you like.’

STARS IN THEIR AISLES

Celebrities including Dame Judi Dench, Dame Shirley Bassey, model Claudia Schiffer and former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell attended the opening night in London.

All said that they had been moved to tears and ovations. Dame Judi said afterwards: ‘I don’t want to be in any play in the future where an elephant doesn’t walk down the aisle.’

But the show has not brought in big-name stars to fill seats, instead relying on talented ensemble casts.

SPOOKING THE PHANTOM

Even though twice as many paying punters have seen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running The Phantom Of The Opera, The Lion King’s steeper ticket prices and larger theatres mean its earnings are greater.

THAT’S ENOUGH, ZAZU

Zazu the hornbill’s big musical number, The Morning Report, was cut from the show in 2010, making the show nine minutes shorter.

ELTON’S CASH COW

No one will say how much Sir Elton was paid for licensing his melodies for The Lion King film — such as the hit Can You Feel The Love Tonight — to be used in the stage version.

What can be noted is that pre-Lion King his annual income was said to stand at around £12 million ($19.6 million) a year. More recently, Forbes magazine put it at £48 million ($78.4 million) a year.

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING

Buoyed by The Lion King’s success, Sir Elton was then involved in two musicals: Aida, which had minor success, and Lestat, based on Anne Rice’s gothic novels about an 18th-century nobleman turned vampire. That was a thumping disaster and closed after 39 performances in 2005.

He stepped back into the world of musical theatre that year with the hugely popular Billy Elliot — though he did tell an interviewer in 2011: ‘Just between you, me and the gatepost, I’m not really a lover of musicals.’

MAN BEHIND THE MUSIC

The show is completed by the music of South African composer Lebo M, who was exiled to America in 1979 after student riots in Soweto.

He told the South Bank Show: ‘The Lion King is not necessarily political, but I could relate to the life of Simba, a young cub who grows up in exile and goes back to fight for his country.’
The Daily Mail – London’s Daily Newspaper (Posted September 23, 2014) – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2767423/How-Lion-King-roared-history-As-crowned-biggest-box-office-earner-secrets-success.html

This news story aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean in stressing the economic impact of artistic and entertainment endeavors. The book asserts that Caribbean society can be elevated by improving the eco-system to live, work and play. Broadway-style theatrical productions come under the category of “play”.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean strives to accomplish this elevation vision by serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). There is a lot involved in this vision; the prime directives are stated as follows:

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

“Art imitates Life and Life imitates Art” – Literary expression.

There is another message from this commentary/blog, that one person, a role model, can make a difference in transforming society. The Go Lean roadmap stresses the mission of creating jobs in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (STEM), but it also recognizes that many people show ‘genius qualifiers’ in unrelated areas: music, visual arts, performing arts, sports and theatrical endeavors. This point is pronounced early in the following statements in the book’s Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14):

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

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

There are economic and image considerations with this subject. The Go Lean book accepts that “show business” can have an impact on society and the world, as also depicted in the foregoing article. Already, this commentary has analyzed the Broadway play “Motown, The Musical” and contributions of role model Berry Gordy.

The Go Lean roadmap accepts that change has come to “show business” (Music, Film, Visual Art and Theater). This is due mostly to the convergence of technology (the internet to be exact). The book posits that [market] “size no longer matters”, that content can be created in any location in the world and then distributed to an appreciative audience anywhere. The first requirement is the community ethos of valuing Intellectual Property. This ethos would be new, a change, for the Caribbean.

Today, most Intellectual Property is consumed digitally with a lot of retailing via the World-Wide-Web. This changed landscape now requires new tools and protections, like electronic payment systems, digital rights management and Performance Rights Organizations. The Go Lean/CU roadmap details these solutions. With these efforts and investments, the returns will be undeniable.

To harvest these investment returns, there is the need for some technocratic facilitations. The book posits that this burden is too big for any one Caribbean member-state, and thus the collaboration efforts of the CU is necessary, as the strategy is to confederate all the 30 member-states of the Caribbean despite their language and legacy, into an integrated “single market”. This will allow for better leverage of the consumer market for the consumption of media.

The CU is designed to do the heavy-lifting of organizing Caribbean society. The following list details the ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster a similar successful path like The Lion King on the world stage:

Community Ethos – Forging Change	Page 20
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Anecdote – Valedictorian Experience	Page 38
Strategy – Strategy – Caribbean Vision	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Separation of Powers – Central Bank – Electronic Payment Deployments	Page 73
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patents & Copyrights Office	Page 78
Separation of Powers – Culture Administration	Page 81
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from New York City	Page 137
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Education – Performing Arts Schools	Page 159
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Advocacy – Impact Urban Living – Art & Theaters	Page 234
Appendix – New York / Broadway / Theater Jobs	Page 277
Appendix – Caribbean Music Genres	Page 347
Appendix – Protecting Music Copyrights	Page 351

Considering the experience of Julie Taymor in the foregoing article, the Go Lean roadmap asserts that one man, or woman, can make a difference in the quest to elevate Caribbean society. We want to foster any ‘genius qualifiers’ found within the region. This refers to “on stage/on camera” talent and behind-the-scenes talent, like Ms. Taymor.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap represents the change that has come to the Caribbean. The people, institutions and governance of the region are all urged to “lean-in” to this roadmap for change. We know there is a “new” Julie Taymor somewhere in the Caribbean member-states, waiting to be fostered.

This will not be the first time a Caribbean artist has impacted the world with his/her artistic contributions. We have the proud legacy of Bob Marley and his musical genius. His songs are sung and hummed around the world:

i.e. Song: One Love – “Let’s get together and feel alright”

He is so recognizable that he is considered an icon.

The movie and Broadway play, The Lion King, is also iconic… and impactful. Consider the experience of this “Cast” flash-mob / song-and-dance depicted in this video:

THE LION KING Australia: Cast Sings Circle of Life on Flight Home from Brisbane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgSLxl1oAwA

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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