Economics – Page 4 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Category: Economics

Coronavirus: ‘Clear and Present’ Threat to Economic Security

Posted on March 11, 2020 in Economics, Government, Planning, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There is a Clear and Present Danger threatening the world’s economic establishments – Coronavirus. Everyone will be affected! If you catch this flu, you are affected. If you do not catch this flu, you are still affected!

Travel, transport and systems of commerce are preparing for the worst-case scenario. This is the …

Sum of All Our Fears.

Things will get worse before it gets worst. Expect a global recession!

For the 30 Caribbean member-states, the dangers are starting to materialize in this region and among the Diaspora:

Travel alerts are going up; with restrictions to/from countries like: China, Italy, South Korea, Singapore, Iran, Spain, France and Germany – Consider this instance in the Bahamas:
Updated Border Control and Quarantine Measures for Persons Coming from Selected Countries
https://bahamaschronicle.com/updated-border-control-and-qu…/
Jamaica has Coronavirus incidents:
BREAKING: 2nd case of COVID-19 confirmed in Jamaica
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latestnews/BREAKING:_2nd_case_of_COVID-19_confirmed
Cruises are being cancelled: https://www.nbcmiami.com/on-air/as-seen-on/coronavirus-impact-on-the-tourism-industry/2202976/
See Appendix VIDEO below.
Events are being cancelled: https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/coronavirus-concerns-in-south-florida-a-guide-to-which-events-are-cancelled-which-arent/2201679/

All in all, there is impact on the Caribbean region, and the whole world for that matter. These are not our words alone; these are the words of the cover story of this week’s edition of the globally iconic journal The Economist Magazine (March 7, 2020). This story looked at how governments should prepare for the spread of this virus, COVID-19. In truth, the pandemic threatens an economic crisis as well as a health crisis and both will need fixing. So far, as of this publication date, the disease is in 85 countries and territories, up from 50 a week earlier. More than 95,000 cases and 3,200 deaths have been recorded. See the full “The Economist” article here and a related VIDEO:

Title: COVID-19 – The right medicine for the world economy
Sub-Title: Coping with the pandemic involves all of government, not just the health system

It is not a fair fight, but it is a fight that many countries will face all the same. Left to itself, the COVID-19 pandemic doubles every five to six days. When you get your next issue of The Economist the outbreak could in theory have infected twice as many people as today. Governments can slow that ferocious pace, but bureaucratic time is not the same as virus time. And at the moment governments across the world are being left flat-footed.

The disease is in 85 countries and territories, up from 50 a week earlier. Over 95,000 cases and 3,200 deaths have been recorded. Yet our own analysis, based on patterns of travel to and from China, suggests that many countries which have spotted tens of cases have hundreds more circulating undetected (see Graphic detail). Iran, South Korea and Italy are exporting the virus. America has registered 159 cases in 14 states but as of March 1st it had, indefensibly, tested just 472 people when South Korea was testing 10,000 a day. Now that America is looking, it is sure to find scores of infections—and possibly unearth a runaway epidemic.

Wherever the virus takes hold, containing it and mitigating its effects will involve more than doctors and paramedics. The World Health Organisation has distilled lessons from China for how health-care systems should cope (see Briefing). The same thinking is needed across the government, especially over how to protect people and companies as supply chains fracture and the worried and the ill shut themselves away.

The first task is to get manpower and money to hospitals. China drafted in 40,000 health workers to Hubei province. Britain may bring medics out of retirement. This week the World Bank made $12bn and the IMF $50bn available for COVID-19. The Global Fund, which fights diseases like malaria and tb, said countries can switch grants. In America Congress is allocating $8.3bn of funding. The country has some of the world’s most advanced hospitals, but its fragmented health system has little spare capacity. Much more money will be needed.

Just as important is to slow the spread of the disease by getting patients to come forward for testing when outbreaks are small and possible to contain. They may be deterred in many countries, including much of America, where 28 [million] people are without health coverage and many more have to pay for a large slug of their own treatment. People also need to isolate themselves if they have mild symptoms, as about 80% of them will. Here sick pay matters, because many people cannot afford to miss work. In America a quarter of employees have no access to paid sick leave and only scattered states and cities offer sickness benefits. Often the self-employed, a fifth of Italy’s workforce, do not qualify. One study found that, in epidemics, guaranteed sick pay cuts the spread of flu in America by 40%.

Sick pay also helps soften the blow to demand which, along with a supply shock and a general panic, is hitting economies. These three factors, as China shows, can have a dramatic effect on output. Manufacturing activity there sank in February to its lowest level since managers were first surveyed in 2004. In the quarter to March the economy as a whole could shrink for the first time since the death of Mao Zedong. The OECD expects global growth this year to be its slowest since 2009. Modelling by academics at the Australian National University suggests that GDP in America and Europe would be 2% lower than it would have been in the absence of a pandemic and perhaps as much as 8% lower if the rate of deaths is many times higher than expected. Financial markets are pricing in fear. The S&P 500 has fallen by 8% from its peak on February 19th. Issuance of corporate debt on Wall Street has more or less stopped. The yield on ten-year Treasuries dipped below 1% for the first time ever.

In rich countries, most of the economic effort has been directed towards calming financial markets. On March 3rd America’s Federal Reserve cut rates a fortnight before its monetary-policy meeting, and by an unusually large half-a-percentage point (see article). The central banks of Australia, Canada and Indonesia have also acted. The Bank of England and the European Central Bank are both expected to loosen policy, too.

Yet this slowdown is not a textbook downturn. Lower rates will ease borrowing costs and shore up sentiment, but no amount of cheap credit can stop people falling ill. Monetary policy cannot repair broken supply chains or tempt anxious people into venturing out. These obvious limitations help explain why stockmarkets failed to revive after the Fed’s cut.

Better to support the economy directly, by helping affected people and firms pay bills and borrow money if they need it. For individuals, the priority should be paying for health care and providing paid sick leave. The Trump administration is considering paying some hospital bills for those with the virus. Japan’s government will cover the wages of parents who stay at home to care for children or sick relatives; Singapore’s will help cab drivers and bosses whose employees are struck down. More such ideas will be needed.

For companies the big challenge will be liquidity. And although this shock is unlike the financial crisis, when the poison spread from within, that period did show how to cope with a liquidity crunch. Firms that lose revenues will still face tax, wage and interest bills. Easing that burden, for as long as the epidemic lasts, can avoid needless bankruptcies and lay-offs. Temporary relief on tax and wage costs can help. Employers can be encouraged to choose shorter hours for all their staff over lay-offs for some of them. Authorities could fund banks to lend to firms that are suffering, as they did during the financial crisis and as China is doing today. China is also ordering banks to go easy on delinquent borrowers. Western governments cannot do that, but it is in the interest of lenders everywhere to show forbearance towards borrowers facing a cash squeeze, much as banks did to public-sector employees during America’s government shutdown in 2018-19.

There is a tension. Health policy aims to spare hospitals by lowering the epidemic’s peak so that it is less intense, if longer-lasting. Economic policy, by contrast, aims to minimise how long factories are shut and staff absent. Eventually governments will have to strike a balance. Today, however, they are so far behind the epidemic that the priority must be to slow its spread. ■

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “The right medicine for the world economy”

Source: Retrieved March 5, 2020 from: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/05/the-right-medicine-for-the-world-economy?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2020/03/5n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/420030/n

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VIDEO – Coronavirus | Plunging stocks on Wall Street over COVID-19 outbreak anxiety – https://youtu.be/Boof8NfPQRI

SABC Digital News
Mar 10, 2020 – A chaotic trading day on Wall Street ended with plunging stocks coupled with collapsing crude oil prices as the global anxiety from the Coronavirus continues to take hold. The Dow Jones industrial average ended over 2000 points lower while other indexes also followed suit. The stock deluge was intensified after a dispute between OPEC members and Saudi Arabia’s decision to slash its oil prices while boosting output in an angry response to Russia’s refusal to reduce production due to a fall in Chinese demand. For more news, visit sabcnews.com and also #SABCNews on Social Media.

Category: News & Politics

The present Caribbean region is short-handed for the kind of cross-border coordination that is needed to manage this pandemic – and others like it. This is truly the Sum of All Our Fears. This is a crisis …

… alas, according to the noted Nobel-prized winning Economist Paul Romer, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Now, more than ever, we need a super-national organizational structure, a technocracy, to shepherd the protection for the people and trading partners in the region.

Economists …
Economist Magazine

You see the trend, right? The Coronavirus is appearing on the radar screens for the world’s community of Economists. The world in general, and the Caribbean in particular, is about to “get hammered with the surge and tides of an economic tsunami”. Be afraid; be very afraid. (See the related experiences in the Appendix VIDEO below).

We have been here before …

This is very similar to the events of 2008, the exigency of the Great Recession and International Financial Crisis. This actuality inspired the composition of the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book traced that crisis, and availed the opportunity to propose strategies, tactics and implementations to mitigate against future crises. The premise was that the Caribbean status quo was not equipped to contend with trans-border crises alone; that not one of the 30 member-states that constituted the political Caribbean is fortified for any serious economic upheavals or threats to homeland security.

This is our actuality today!

We need those mitigations, those strategies, tactics and implementations. We need “them” now!

The book presents a roadmap to introduce the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to empower the economic, security and governing engines of the region for when there is a “Clear and Present Danger”. We are there now!

We must not delay in confederating this regional technocracy.

This will not be the last. We must prepare for global, regional and national crises as the New Normal.

This was the assertion in many previous Go Lean blog/commentaries, that highlighted the theme of a “Clear and Present Danger”; see this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18195	Disaster Planning – Rinse and Repeat
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16836	Crypto-currency: Here comes ‘Trouble’ – Clear and Present Danger?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15796	Lessons Learned from 2008: Righting The Wrong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12348	Caribbean Economists: ‘Region is in Trauma’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8132	Venezuela: Watching a ‘Train Wreck in Slow Motion’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7345	The Urgency of ISIS reached the Caribbean Region
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	The Exigency of Zika – Lessons Learned on Threat Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7119	The Need for a Standby Force for Threats to the Homeland
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6531	A Lesson in History – ‘Exigency of 2008’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Stopping the Clear and Present Danger from ‘Ebola’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003	Painful and rapid spread of Chikungunya virus in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623	Harsh Reality: ‘Only at the precipice, do they change’

This Coronavirus threat will not subside anytime soon. We must prepare!

We are not the only entities around the world with this concern; States and governments everywhere have the same urgency. This is the whole premise of the standard Social Contract:

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

The Caribbean member-states are not equipped on the national level; they need a super-national solution. The CU ascension creates another layer of government hierarchy for the region. This is the long awaited Way Forward for Caribbean survival.

Let’s get to work.

This is very much so the theme of the 1970 song “Lean On Me” by Singer-Songwriter Bill Withers; this became the clarion call for the Go Lean moment. Be reminded of these lyrics, as quoted in the Go Lean book (Page 5):

Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there’s always tomorrow

Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on

Please swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you won’t let show
You just call on me brother, when you need a hand

(Chorus)

We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you’d understand
We all need somebody to lean on

Second Verse

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me

Today’s reality is the manifestation of this song (lyrics). It is time for the Caribbean neighborhood to “lean on” each other, for the mitigation of this Coronavirus. This is how we make our regional homeland a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. …

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

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

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

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Appendix VIDEO – The Impact of Coronavirus on Tourism Industry – https://www.nbcmiami.com/on-air/as-seen-on/coronavirus-impact-on-the-tourism-industry/2202976/

March 10, 2020 – NBC 6 Investigator Tony Pipitone reports on the Coronavirus’ impact on the cruise industry.

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Disaster, Health, Tourism

‘Missing Solar’ – Inadequacies Exposed to the World – Encore

Posted on March 2, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Locations, Tactical

The Bahamas has inadequate infrastructure to contend with the realities of modern life. This is all too familiar to the people in the Bahamas.

This is also familiar to the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. On August 15, 2019, this commentary scolded the stakeholders in the Bahamas for their inexcusable inefficiency and ineffectiveness with their infrastructure and Public Works. Now last night, the US-based media-television-network company CBS exposed these inadequacies for all the world to see in their titular news magazine show 60 Minutes.

Eat Crow Bahamas!

What’s more, the actuality of Hurricane Dorian came along and made the bad Bahamas energy delivery even worse. See the VIDEO here of the 60 Minutes report:

VIDEO – Bahamas installing solar power after storms – https://www.cbsnews.com/video/bahamas-hurricanes-power-grid-solar-60-minutes-2020-03-01/

60 Minutes
Posted March 1, 2020 – A tiny country in “Hurricane Alley” is trying to be an example to the world after Category 5 storms demolished parts of its electrical grid. Bill Whitaker reports on the Bahamas’ adoption of solar energy.
Click on PLAY Button to watch; expect commercial advertising before and during.

That report revealed that:

The Bahamian Government pays $400 million dollars on diesel fuel to keep its power plants operating and pass that cost on to the consumers.
“They pay 3 to 4 times the rate that people pay in the mainland US”.

In addition, in another Go Lean commentary, it was reported that the World Bank revealed that 61 percent of college-educated citizens of the Bahamas have fled this homeland for foreign destinations. Is there any surprise? This failure to deliver basic services in an efficient and effective manner is a contributing Push factor why people leave.

There is no mystery! Now the Bahamas is trying to “play catch-up” and deploy Solar Micro-Grids. Yippee!!

This is an appropriate time to Encore that previous blog-commentary from August 15, 2019 – during the ‘Dog Days of Summer‘; (remember this was 2 weeks before Category 5 Hurricane Dorian made landfall). Now that this is March 2020, there is the opportunity to look back with 20/20 Perfect Hindsight Vision at the issues raised by the 60 Minutes story – there are many. This entry is 1-of-3 in that “Look Back“. The other entries are cataloged as follows:

60 Minutes Story – Bahamas Self-Made Energy Crisis
60 Minutes Story – Go Green … finally
60 Minutes Story – Moral Authority to “Name, Blame & Shame” the Big Polluters

See the first Encore here-now:

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Go Lean Commentary – Nassau’s 2019 Self-Made Energy Crisis

It is seriously Hot-Hot-Hot out there …

So there is no intent here to be “cold and callous” … (callous = ‘feeling no emotion’).

But the Bahamas’s capital city – Nassau – is having an energy crisis right now:

The local power generation utility (Bahamas Power & Light or BPL) is not producing enough electricity to meet the needs of the community, so they have to load-share and force black-outs/brown-outs around the island to try and facilitate some delivery some time to all their customer base. They do not want to show favoritism to one group over another, so they are leveraging the load-sharing tactic on everybody. So now instead of some people being happy and some being angry, they have obtained universality …

… everybody is angry!

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VIDEO – B.P.L. Load Shedding Update – https://youtu.be/fW8JGGnlvzQ

ZNSNetwork
Published on May 15, 2019

Category: People & Blogs

Additionally, see this portrayal in this news article here (and the Appendix VIDEO below):

Title: BPL causing ‘chaos’
By: Jasper Ward, The Nassau Guardian Staff Reporter

Super Value food stores are taking a significant hit as a result of protracted power cuts, according to its owner Rupert Roberts.

Roberts said about six Super Value locations are impacted by outages daily and the company has spent around $100,000 recently on replacing equipment damaged by the outages.

He described the outages as “a nuisance” and said they create “chaos”.

“This BEC (Bahamas Electricity Corporation) crisis is more than a crisis, it’s chaos,” Roberts said at the Nassau Street store.

“It’s costing us $250,000 a year from burning up our equipment.”

He said, “I suppose our biggest concern is burning up equipment.

“…[We] burn up a $10,000 or $20,000 air conditioning [unit and] we’re always burning up compressors. We’re using up spares so fast and we’re doing emergency imports.

“Fortunately, we’re able to get them in within three or four days without flying them in. But I noticed on Saturday we had a diary case down because we’re waiting on the compressor that burned out. That’s the biggest problem.”

Roberts said it will cost about $10,000 to replace a compressor in the dairy case at the Nassau Street location. He said it is unlikely that case will be operational before Saturday.

Roberts said dairy sales were up 14 percent before the case was damaged.

Since it was damaged, sales have gone down 17 percent, he said.

Roberts said the company has twice the amount of equipment needed “because of the serious problem” of the outages.

Although the food store chain is facing challenges with the outages, Roberts said the company is “managing quite well”.

“We’ve been in this business over 50 years and we’ve had power problems for the last 50 years,” he said.

“So, we learned how to cope. We don’t run out of fuel. Years ago, when I first started in the industry, we had generators because of hurricanes but for the past 25 years we’ve had to have generators because of power outages.”

For nearly two months, communities on New Providence have experienced hours-long blackouts as part of Bahamas Power and Light’s (BPL) load shedding exercise.

Over the last few weeks, BPL has conducted nearly four-hour-long load shedding.

On Sunday, BPL Chief Executive Officer Whitney Heastie said he could not guarantee an end to load shedding exercises in the immediate future, describing BPL as being “on a cliff”.

Heastie said BPL needs 250 megawatts of generation in order to meet the summer demand.

However, it is currently running on 210 megawatts, including 105 megawatts of rental generation.

Heastie said the 40-megawatt shortfall has led to load shedding across New Providence.

Source: Posted by The Nassau Guardian daily newspaper on August 13, 2019; retrieved August 14, 2019 from: https://thenassauguardian.com/2019/08/13/bpl-causing-chaos/

The need to explain that our statement is not “cold and callous” is due to the fact that the appearance is that “we” are ‘kicking the people when they are down’ when we make this assertion:

This energy crisis for Nassau is Self-Made!!

Wait, what?!

This is a matter of infrastructure and Nassau has had an inadequate infrastructure for a while. In fact, since the 1970’s residents on this island of New Providence (NP) have been encouraged to buy bottled-water and not consume the ‘tap’ water.

All of this is evident of the lacking municipal infrastructure. In fact, this is reminiscent of the US City of Flint, Michigan. Their infrastructure has become defective and the people there has to resort to bottled water. In Flint, that problem has now persisted for 4 years. In Nassau, it has been 40 years. (See an excerpt of our 2016 blog-commentary on the Flint crisis in the Appendix below).

Yep, self-made!

This is a BIGGER issue than water or electricity; this is an issue of the Social Contract.

The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean (Page 170) defines the Social Contract as the informal arrangement where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. This is why the State, in this case, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is allowed to operate monopolies for the water and power utilities. But any failures in these Social Contract deliveries causes repercussions and consequences. For example people leave and abandon their homeland. This relevance was detailed in a previous Go Lean commentary from July 28, 2015:

The issue of Caribbean citizens abandoning their homelands is one of the more dire threats to societal life in the region. Why do they do it?

“Push and Pull” reasons!

Push
Conditions at home drive Caribbean citizens to take flight and find refuge elsewhere. Many times these conditions are economic (jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities), security and governance related, but there are other reasons too; consider discriminations due to ethnic diversity or other lifestyle choices.

Lastly, there is the new threat of Climate Change. While this is a threat for the whole world, the Caribbean is on the frontline. Though there is some debate as to the causes of climate change, there is no question as to its outcome: temperatures are rising, droughts prevail, and most devastating, hurricanes are now more threatening. A Caribbean elevation plan must address the causes of climate change and most assuredly its consequences. …

Now, the anecdotal experience is that there is a need to mitigate excessive heat in the region for an even longer season. How do we mitigate excessive heat?

Air conditioning!

But this cure may at times be worse than the disease.

Air conditioning requires even greater energy consumption, (the Caribbean has among the highest energy costs in the Western Hemisphere); the Go Lean book posits that the average costs of energy can be decreased from an average of US$0.35/kWh to US$0.088/kWh in the course of the 5-year term of this roadmap; (Page 100).

In addition, the release of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) in the air-conditioning process is a contributor of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The status quo needs remediation!

The Bahamas should have remediated these infrastructural problems years ago – the price is too high to allow it to linger. In addition to the societal abandonment threat; there are life-and-death issues associated with convalescing citizens needing continuous power supply – see photo here:

That’s the problem, now what is the solution?

In addition to the voluminous number of blog-commentaries on infrastructure – see this recent submission from July 26, 2019 – the Go Lean book presented strategies, tactics and implementations that must be pursued, not just for the Bahamas, but for the whole Caribbean region – all 30 member-states. In fact, the book presents one advocacy (Page 176) specifically focused on Public Works, entitled: “10 Ways to Impact Public Works“. These “10 Ways” include the following highlights, headlines and excerpts:

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is chartered to unify the Caribbean region into one Single Market of 42 million people across 30 member-states, thereby re-engineering the economic engines in and on behalf of the region, including a currency & monetary union. This new eco-system allows for the design, funding and construction of Public Works and Infrastructural projects. The federal agency within the CU’s Department of the Interior has the scope for the Caribbean much like the Corps of Engineers has for the US. (Plus the CU will collaborate with the US Corps for projects related to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands). There are a number of inter-state projects that must be coordinated on the federal level. There will also be projects that are “Too Big for One State” that will be facilitated by the CU. In addition, all CU efforts must comply with the Art in Public Places mandate, so sculptures and statutes will be embedded in projects or the project itself can be a work of art (bridges, water towers, building architecture). For existing projects that fail due to financial shortfalls, the CU will accommodate dissolution or reorganization in the federal courts, bringing balance to the process to all stakeholders.
2	Union Atlantic Turnpike
3	Pipelines and PCP (Pneumatic Capsule Pipeline)
4	Regional Power Grid The CU will facilitate the installation of a regional power grid, and power sharing between member-states, with underwater and above-ground high-intensity wiring to alternate energy plants: wind/tidal turbines, solar panel & natural gas.
5	Self-Governing Entities (SGE)
6	Enterprise Zones
7	Empowerment Zones
8	Monopolies The UN grants the CU the monopoly rights for an Exclusive Economic Zone, so the focus must be on quality delivery. The CU plan is to liberalize management of monopolies, with tools like ratings/rankings against best practices. Plus technological accommodations for ICT allows for cross-competition from different modes (satellite, cable, phone).
9	Cooperatives The CU will task utility cooperatives with the delivery of some public utilities such as Air Chillers; Refrigerated Warehouses to its members. This strategy shares the cost of the “Works” installation across the full co-op membership.
10	Capital Markets A single market and currency union will allow for the emergence of viable capital markets for stocks and bonds (public and private), thereby creating the economic engine to fuel growth and development. This forges financial products for “pre” disaster project funding (drainage, levies, dykes, sea walls) and post disaster recovery (reinsurance sidecars).

The Go Lean book doubles-down on the concept of leveraging across a larger population base so that BIGGER infrastructure projects can be facilitated in the region – on land or in the waters – see Photo here. Imagine large arrays of solar panels, wind turbines, tidal generators, geo-thermal energy captured at the volcanic hot zones, and even Natural Gas as a cleaner-cheaper fossil fuel. These energy options are realistic and should be available to us now in the Caribbean, so they should be explored and deployed. This, a regional power grid, is the energy prime directive for this Go Lean movement.

This theme – exploiting alternative options for the economic, security and governing empowerments in the region – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17925	‘We’ have repeatedly failed the lessons from ‘Infrastructure 101’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17280	Way Forward – For Energy: ‘Trade’ Winds
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13985	EU Assists Barbados in Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12994	The Science of ‘Power Restoration’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12466	12 Caribbean Member-states have ‘Volcanic Energy’ to Exploit
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10367	The Science of Sustenance – Green Batteries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155	Green Energy Solution: Tesla unveils super-battery to power homes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4897	US Backs LNG Distribution for Caribbean Energy Solutions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915	Go ‘Green’ … Caribbean

Make no mistake, energy is a basic need!

The failure for a community to have continuous supply of energy is an energy crisis. (This means you Bahamas).

Enough already!

Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders to prepare for the empowerments of Green-Energy solutions. It is past-time for a regional power grid:

generation – Green options (solar, wind turbines, tidal, geo-thermal and natural gas)
distribution – Underwater cables to connect individual islands
consumption – efficient battery back-ups for home deployments.

These changes are coming … one way or another.

For you government revenue institutions who may be overly dependent of fuel taxes and surcharges – you are hereby put on notice:

Changes are afoot. We will succeed; we will make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.

🙂

About the Book

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

——————–

Appendix VIDEO – Another B.P.L. Blackout – https://youtu.be/fOT0gfvSchM

ZNSNetwork
Published on Jul 2, 2019

Category: People & Blogs

——————–

Appendix – Excerpts from previous Commentary: Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale – January 19, 2016

[The City of] Flint serves as a “cautionary tale” for other communities near “Failed City/Failed State” status. From this perspective, this community may be a valuable asset to the rest of the world and especially to the Caribbean.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean are here in Detroit to “observe and report” the turn-around and rebirth of the once-great-but-now-distressed City of Detroit and its metropolitan areas, including Flint. (Previous commentaries featured the positive role model of the City of Ann Arbor).

What happened here?

According to the Timeline in the Appendix, Flint, MI suffered this fate as a chain reaction to its Failed-State status. Outside stakeholders – Emergency Managers – came into the equation to execute a recovery plan with focus only on the Bottom-Line. The consideration for people – the Greater Good – came second, if at all. They switched water sources, unwisely!

The assertion of the Go Lean book is that the Caribbean region can benefit from lessons learned from Good, Bad and Ugly governance. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The Go Lean book and related commentaries call on citizens of the Caribbean member-states to lean-in to the empowerments described in the roadmap for elevation. This will require a constant vigil to ensure the Greater Good as opposed to personal gains.

…

See VIDEO here of the story in the national media …

VIDEO – Citizens’ Anger Continues Over Toxic Water in Flint, Michigan – http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/citizens-anger-continues-toxic-water-flint-michigan-36348795 –

…

This tragic story – cautionary tale of Flint – is an analysis of failure in the societal engines of economics, security and governance. These 3 facets are presented in the book Go Lean … Caribbean as the three-fold cord for societal harmony; for any society anywhere. The Caribbean wants societal harmony; we must therefore work to optimize all these three engines. As exhibited by Flint, this is easier said than done. This heavy-lifting is described in the book as both an art and a science.

The focus in this commentary is a continuation in the study of the societal engine of governance; previously, there was a series on economics and one on security. This commentary though, focuses on the bad eventually of Social Contract failures. The Social Contract refers to the unspoken expectations between citizens and the State. In many cases, State laws limit ownership of all mineral rights to the State; so citizens will be dependent on State systems to supply water. In the case of Flint, the City’s Water and Sewage Department has a monopoly; this supply is the only option for residents!

The Go Lean book describes “bad actors” wreaking havoc on the peace and security of the community. The book relates though that “bad actors” are not always human; they include bad events like natural disasters and industrial spills. Plus, actual “bad actors” may have started out with altruistic motives, good intentions. This is why the book and accompanying blogs design the organization structures for the new Caribbean with checks-and-balances, mandating a collaborative process, because sometimes even a well-intentioned individual may not have all the insight, hindsight and foresight necessary to pursue the Greater Good. This the defect of the Michigan Emergency Manager structure; it assigns too much power to just one person, bypassing the benefits of a collaborative process. This is one reason why this review is important: power corrupts…everyone … everywhere.

…

We must do better, than Flint! (Flint must do better; too many lives are involved).

We know that “bad actors and bad incidences” will always occur, even in government institutions, so we must be “on guard” against abusive influences and encroachments to Failed-State status. The Go Lean roadmap calls for engagement and participation from everyone, the people (citizens), institutions and government officials alike. We encouraged all with benevolent motives to lean-in to this roadmap, to get involved to effect a turnaround for the Caribbean Failed-States.

Our Caribbean stakeholders deserve the best … from their leaders. 🙂

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Bahamas, Disaster, Green Energy, Model, Power

[Top]

Brain Drain – ‘Live and Let Live’: Introducing Localism

Posted on February 29, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

So Brain Drains … are bad!
Brain Gains … are good.
Nerds, Geeks and Freaks often emerge as high achievers and can propel society forward … or exact revenge.
We can foster high achievement in our children by modeling best-practices in parenting, like Tiger Moms.

That is the summary … of this February 2020 Teaching Series on Brain Drains by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. This entry, 5-of-5, urges Caribbean people to “live and let live”, positing that we need to retain and attract good people, not judge and condemn them. This concludes the considerations of this Brain Drain series; see the full catalog here:

1. Brain Drain – Where the Brains Are
2. Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can!
3. Brain Drain – Geeks and Freaks: Ultimate Revenge
4. Brain Drain – ‘Tiger Moms’ – Is that so bad?
5. Brain Drain – Live and Let Live – Introducing ‘Localism’

“Do what you’ve always done; get what you’ve always got”.

Is this still a ‘bridge too far’ for the Caribbean?
You are not in this photo! You do not have to be, just ‘live and let live‘.

It is now time to do somethings different, so that we can get different results.

As related in a previous entry in this series, there are 2 dynamics associated with why people abandon their homeland: Push and Pull.

“Push” – people leave, to seek refuge elsewhere. Social defects result in narrow-mindedness of attitudes and values towards anyone that looks, talks, thinks or loves differently that those in the community. This includes those identified as LGBT, Disabled, Domestic-abused, Medically-challenged.

“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life elsewhere; many times people are leaving based on a mirage of “greener pastures”, though the “better prospect” may be elusive … especially for the first generation.

So if you don’t want the Brain Drain, there is something you can do to abate the Push factors:

Live and let live …

Would you want to be responsible for pushing people out? Would you want to be guilty of bullying someone to the extent that they just want to take their leave of your presence and proximity?

Would you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem? (This is not just theoretical; think of the recent Transgender Murder in Puerto Rico; yes, “this is on us”, we are the community that failed “Alexa Negrón Luciano”. See Appendix VIDEO.)

The way to forge change in our society is to promote a spirit of liberalism:

Political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law.

What is shocking: We do this already – think of the reality at our “All-Inclusive” Hotel Resorts:

Do you really care what religion a resort guest practices on Sunday while on vacation? How about what he/she eats (vegetarian or carnivorous)? Would it matter who he/she shares the room with?

So we are already doing what is needed to reform and transform our societies; we are simply only liberal when the activities are wrapped around an economic engine, like a hotel resort.

This is the manifestation of localism – do what you want, just “over there” away from me. In the previous entry of this series on Brain Gains, localism was presented as follows:

One strategy that is emerging from the mitigation of Brain Drains , and for enabling Brain Gain, is that of localism.

Localism describes a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and local identity. – Source: Wikipedia

All-Inclusive Hotel Resorts – with their fenced-in/walled-off boundaries – are iterations of localism and/or Self-Governing Entities. See this manifestation in this news article here, showing how some Caribbean destinations roll out the welcome-mat for same-sex couples, while others have a reputation for homophobia:

Title: Gay and Lesbian Friendly Destinations in the Caribbean
By: Robert Curley

With its fun-in-the-sun destinations, carefree attitude, and myriad couples-oriented resorts, the Caribbean seems an ideal vacation spot for gay and lesbian couples. But not all Caribbean islands are created equal: some (notably the French, Dutch, and U.S. islands) roll out the welcome mat for same-sex couples, while others, like Jamaica, Barbados, and the Cayman Islands, have a reputation for homophobia. With the help of the travel experts at LGBT News, here are our picks for the top Caribbean destinations for gay travelers:

1 of 10 – Saba
The tiny island of Saba is known mostly for its diving, hiking, and other outdoor activities, but is quickly gaining a reputation as a bastion of tolerance in the Caribbean, too. Saba was the first place in the Caribbean where same-sex couples could legally wed, has a significant gay and lesbian population of its own, and several dive operators on the island run special outings for gay and lesbian travelers.

————-

2 of 10 – St. Barts
With its laissez-faire French culture and a myriad of private villas to choose from, St. Barts is has been called the most gay-friendly island in the Caribbean. This is the place to get lost in the Caribbean for a few days, far from the cruise-ship crowds. By any measure, with its mix of celebrities, yachties, high-end shopping, and vibrant nightlife, St. Barts is fabulous.

————-

3 of 10 – St. Martin/St. Maarten
Both Dutch St. Maarten and French St. Martin have long had a gay-friendly reputation, with many private villas for rent and beaches and bars where gay and straight couples peacefully coexist. St. Maarten’s reputation was sullied somewhat by a 2004 incident where a gay couple was assaulted near a popular beach bar, but island tourism officials were quick to apologize, and the island remains near the top of the list for many gay Caribbean travelers. Clothing-optional beaches and resorts on the French side of the island earn bonus points. Same-sex marriage is legal here.

————-

4 of 10 – Puerto Rico
Gay travelers in Puerto Rico will find the Caribbean’s only real gay nightlife scene: San Juan highlights include the Atlantic Beach Hotel and Bar (set on a gay beach and with a weekly drag show) and clubs like Eros. On both the mainland and the island of Vieques you can find gay-friendly resorts, and gay travelers in Puerto Rico have the benefit of protection by U.S. antidiscrimination laws, including the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.

————-

5 of 10 – U.S. Virgin Islands
The U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Croix, in particular, has become a mecca for gay travelers, many of whom wind up at the welcoming Sand Castle on the Beach Resort in Frederiksted. Gay travelers can expect a friendly and tolerant attitude throughout the U.S.V.I., and if public displays of affection are not exactly embraced, the reaction is not likely to be more than a second glance. As with Puerto Rico, U.S. law makes same-sex marriages legal here.

————-

6 of 10 – Curacao
While some Caribbean island privately welcome gay travelers, Curacao has been the most public in its embrace: “With exceptional gay friendly hotels and attractions, [Curacao] encourages gay and lesbian travelers to visit the island and experience its ‘live and let live’ atmosphere for themselves,” says the Curacao Tourist Board, which has a marketing campaign aimed at gays and lesbians and includes information on gay-friendly hotels and clubs on its website. Same-sex couples can get married here, too!

————-

7 of 10 – Aruba
Like its Dutch Caribbean neighbors, Curacao and Saba, the oh-so-popular tourist destination of Aruba is one of the gay-friendliest places to travel in the islands. The Bucuti and Tara Beach Resorts are among several hotels and resorts that bill themselves as welcoming to LGBT visitors; the gay-ownedLittle David Guesthouse is another option. District 7 in Oranjestad is the island’s premier gay bar. All in all, this is a destination that celebrates its diversity openly and fully.

————-

8 of 10 – The Mexican Caribbean
The Mexican state of Quintana Roo, which includes Cancun, Cozumel, Tulum, and the Mexican Caribbean coastline (a.k.a. the Riviera Maya) recognizes same-sex marriages performed in Mexico City, and Cancun has been building a reputation as a gay-friendly destination. The city has gay nightclubs downtown and an unofficial gay beach in the Hotel Zone (Playa Delfines), and hosts the annual Cancún International Gay Festival in May and the Cancún Riviera Maya Gay Fall Festival.

————-

9 of 10 – Cuba
Cuba’s gay community has increasingly stepped out of the closet and into the limelight as the island nation has increased its interaction with the world, Fidel Castro’s daughter, Mariela, heads the Cuban National Center for Sex Education and has advocated for LGBT rights. Vedado is Havana’s de facto gay neighborhood, Mi Cayito the unofficial gay beach, and many of the island’s casas particulares (B&Bs) are gay-friendly. Discrimination still lingers, but Cuba has come a long way since the days where gays were imprisoned and officially persecuted.

————-

10 of 10 – Unfriendly Islands
Ten formerly British West Indies nations still have “buggery” laws on the books and have displayed various levels of intolerance (ranging from mild disdain to outright hostility and criminal prosecution) toward gay and lesbian residents and travelers.

These include Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Source: Posted June 4, 2019; retrieved February 29, 2020 from: https://www.tripsavvy.com/gay-and-lesbian-friendly-caribbean-destinations-1488131

Notice the trending …

… the Dutch, French and American Caribbean territories are progressive, liberal and inclusive in their official and unofficial accommodations for the LGBT community – they have learned to “live and let live”. (Do you see how that works? No surprise these countries – France, Netherlands, USA – are very prosperous economically and their colonies represent their colonial masters adherence to Human Rights principles).

While All-Inclusive Resorts are mainstays in today’s Caribbean, the Go Lean book presents a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of formal Self-Governing Entities (SGE) under the administration of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The roadmap calls for legal and regulatory compliance by the local government to mandate a laissez-faire allowance of SGE’s. Consider this excerpt from the book (Page 80) for a full definition of the concept.

Tactical – Separation of Powers – State Department – E2: Self Governing Entities (SGE)
The agencies of the [CU’s] State Department will promote and administer all Self-Governing Entities throughout the region. This refers to foreign military bases, scientific labs and industrial/commercial campuses. SGE campuses are presented as economic engines for the region. They will have to contract with their neighboring communities for utilities and services. Many times, these campuses may only be work-sites, and all human needs are dependent on the neighboring communities.

These facilities will not be subject to the laws of the local states of their address, rather CU, international, foreign sovereignty, or maritime laws will apply. This structure will not usher in some anarchist movement with “wild, wild west” guidelines. Rather, at the time of incorporation, by-laws (or constitutions) must be presented to the [CU’s} State Department for acceptance. In addition, the “due process” to apply changes to by-laws must also be submitted. This ensures that the SGE administration is in an orderly manner and does not undermine the original charter. For ongoing governance, the SGE must submit reporting (including board meeting minutes) to the State Department, quarterly.

The SGE will have controlled access for their boundaries (walls, fences, canals/waterways, etc) and their focus will be limited to the scope of their charter. A medical campus, for example, can conduct experimental therapies only on their designated grounds. Yet SGE’s must engage the neighboring localities for transport, and infrastructural needs. In the event of emergencies, (though the SGE will define proactively the responsible parties that can call 911), the CU institutions will have the right to intrude on the secured grounds to protect life, limb and/or property.

There is a Good Neighbor mandate for SGE’s to co-exist with their neighbors. So the administration of SGE’s will require careful collaboration with other CU departments, municipal authorities, national governments and foreign entities. The State Department therefore serves as 1st point of contact, a liaison office.

All the while, we have been proselytizing about SGE’s; now we see that this strategy can even be successful for mitigating the Brain Drain in the Caribbean. SGE’s can help to furnish the “Live and Let Live” mentality. The movement behind the Go Lean book have always championed this cause – this is a paramount strategy for reforming and transforming Caribbean society. See how SGE’s have been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries – consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17686	SGE’s allow Enterprise Zones & Industrial Parks despite Communism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15907	Industrial Reboot: Creating Naval Piers as SGE’s – Many benefits flow
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13677	Learning Lessons from the Economics of ‘South Beach’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13138	Prisons Industry – Can bring economic gains despite negatives
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12146	SGE’s for Shipbuilding – Facilitating ‘Commerce of the Seas’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822	Cancer: Doing More with SGE Research Parks and Treatment Centers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4037	“Training Our Dragons” – SGE’s mitigate the risks of Foreign Investors.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750	Disney World – Role Model for Self-Governing Entities

Forging change in society is an Art and a Science.

All in all, it is not easy. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap describes the effort to forge change in the Caribbean as heavy-lifting. Alas, the roadmap has also identified “Soft Power” as an opening for the change to take root. A previous blog-commentary relating Soft Power of Amazon recruiting viable cities for their HQ2 identified:

Wow, what an expensive price to pay. People in cities like Atlanta actually have to clean-up their societal engines; they have to try and get along or Amazon will not consider them. Plus, Amazon is only considering 1 city, so if a community double-downs on the effort to forge a pluralistic democracy – fair treatment to all despite diverse backgrounds and lifestyles – and they are not selected by Amazon, then they would have loved their neighbors … for nothing.

How sad! This satirical comment is the height of sarcasm, but true!

So “can’t we all just get along” is no longer a question, it is now a ‘formula for success’. This is what we must do if we want our communities to survive and thrive, rather than suffer from one “societal abandonment” episode after another – Brain Drains. Even if you – the Public – cannot stomach the idea of people being different, just let them be in their own little corner or campus, in some SGE.

If this is still too much to ask, for any stakeholders in society, then the goal must be to disqualify that person, group, organization or institution. They must be named, blamed and shamed! We must abandon the bad orthodoxies of the past if we want to have a future; “Ghost Towns” do happen and we’d be on the way to such a disposition.

There is no guarantee for the survival of Caribbean communities. If we want to have a future, any future, we must reboot and turn-around. Yes, we can … it is only at the precipice that people change. See this poetic reference here from a previous blog-commentary:

“Well that’s where we are. You say we’re on the brink of destruction and you’re right. But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve. This is our moment. Don’t take it from us. We are close to an answer”.

We are there now!

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap to reboot the societal engines of the region. Everyone is involved. We must all live and let live. This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

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.

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..

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

———————
Appendix VIDEO – For transgender women, going to the bathroom can turn traumatic or even deadly – https://youtu.be/PFaf2A7wUCo

Bianca Graulau
Posted Feb 27, 2020 – When she used the men’s bathroom, she was sexually harassed. When she used the women’s bathroom, she was humiliated by a female customer, and then fired. Kristy Ramirez’s story is all too relevant after a transgender woman was killed in Puerto Rico hours after being seen in the women’s bathroom.

Bianca’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/biancagraulau/

Video credit: https://www.facebook.com/nandy.torres…

Category: News & Politics

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Civil Rights, Diaspora, Model, SGE, Tourism

[Top]

Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can!

Posted on February 26, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Locations, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Wait, what?!
Rather than the subtraction of a “drain”, there is a way to get the addition of a “gain”?
Then bring it on!

This is the change that is being promoted, projected and proposed for Caribbean people and Caribbean communities:

Yes, we can have a Brain Gain.

This simply means we have to do the heavy-lifting to retain our people and invite others to come join us. What a challenge?!

Challenge accepted!

This was the quest of the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean, it presented a roadmap for elevating the economic, security and governing engines of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region. It focuses on the 42 million people in the homeland and the 20 million (plus or minus) in the Diaspora. Perhaps some of that Brain Gain will be those of the Diaspora repatriating, or just simply some empowering immigrants from foreign abodes.

“Make happy those who are near and those who are far will come” – Ancient Chinese proverb.

This is the continuation, entry 2-of-5, of this February Teaching Series from the movement behind the Go Lean book. The topic this month is on Brain Drains; we present the full width-and-breadth of the subject. Other Brain Drain considerations are presented in this series; see the full catalog here:

Brain Drain – Where the Brains Are
Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can!
Brain Drain – Geeks and Freaks: Ultimate Revenge
Brain Drain – ‘Tiger Moms’ – Is that so bad?
Brain Drain – Live and Let Live – Introducing ‘Localism’

As related in the first entry in this series, even advanced democracy countries, like the United States, have challenges with Brain Drains. As related in the AUDIO-PODCAST below, 60 percent of the US population live in urban-suburban areas, as more and more people abandon the rural areas and seek refuge near cities.

Why do they leave? For the same reasons the Caribbean suffers from such an atrocious Brain Drain rate:

“Push” – people leave, to seek refuge elsewhere. Social defects result in narrow-mindedness of attitudes and values towards anyone that looks, talks, thinks or loves differently that those in the community. This includes those identified as LGBT, Disabled, Domestic-abused, Medically-challenged.

“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life elsewhere; many times people are leaving based on a mirage of “greener pastures”, though the “better prospect” may be elusive … especially for the first generation.

While there are more jobs in the Big Cities, the American pastoral lands – fly-over country – have always featured great agricultural opportunities – a popular expression of entrepreneurship. But this is not just an issue of economics. Those who live in the rural areas and small town have always had the privilege of ignoring the locks on their doors – so there is less of a security threat (crime and organized gangs).

So what’s the Push dynamics that threaten the viability of rural citizens, especially young ones:

The cultural differences between Urban Progressives and Rural Conservatives is stark and must be reconciled.

This fact was related in the aforementioned AUDIO-PODCAST; let’s consider that now and see how some rural areas have found success in attracting empowering New Comers:

AUDIO-VIDEO – Reversing the ‘Brain Drain’ in Rural America? – https://the1a.org/segments/2019-10-09-migrating-to-the-midwest/

Posted October 9, 2019 – Rural America has never been only one place, one type of person or one type of job. And new data points to the growing complexity and diversity of those parts of the country. Author and podcast host Sarah Smarsh wrote in The New York Times recently about so-called “brain gain” instead of “brain drain.”

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported a prairie trend of young people, drawn by family ties and affordable entrepreneurship, returning to rural and small-town homes around college graduation. They’re opening restaurants or starting small, unconventional farming operations. One college senior founded a direct-to-consumer beef company in Otoe County, Neb., and sold $52,000 worth of meat in the past nine months.

This return — or refusal to leave — is good news for Americans who will happily remain in cities. The future of rural is intertwined with suburban and urban outcomes by way of food production, natural resources, the economy, political movements and beyond.

What makes for success in some spots? And what’s driving people away from others?

We expand on our previous conversation about how to report on rural America with Smarsh, data journalist Dante Chinni of the American Communities Project at George Washington University and Monica Potts, who moved back home to Clinton, Arkansas, to write about low-income women in her hometown.

Produced by Stacia Brown.

Guests:

Dante Chinni – Director of the American Communities Project at the George Washington University; data journalist for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal; author of “Our Patchwork Nation”.
Sarah Smarsh – Journalist; host, “The Homecomers” podcast.
Monica Potts – Journalist based in rural Arkansas.

One strategy that is emerging from the mitigation of Brain Drains , and for enabling Brain Gain, is that of localism.

Localism describes a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and local identity. – Source: Wikipedia

This localism is clearly gleaned from the foregoing PODCAST; it provides a model for other rural communities to emulate and for the Caribbean as well. The featured local communities began to realize that they had to be tolerant of visitors, strangers and foreigners. So localism in this case brought a certain amount of pragmatism:

The town must survive – “we must put aside our differences and work together”.

Ditto for the Caribbean region and 30 member-states. This is why the movement behind the Go Lean book has always championed the need to reform and transform community values. See how this has been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries – consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18410	Refuse to Lose – Remediating ‘Columbus Day’ & Reforming History
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18321	Unequal Justice: Reforming Sheriffs with ‘soft’ Tyrannicide
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17820	Reforming LGBT Policies – “Can’t we all just get along”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408	Reforming Bad Ethos on Home Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15998	Reforming Our Governance: The Kind of Society We Want
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996	Reforming Our Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15886	Reforming Reinsurance to Reform Disaster Response
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9766	Rwanda’s Catholics Apologize for Genocide and Seeks to Reform
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=313	What’s Holding Back Jamaica’s Reforms

The opening theme in this commentary related the need to do the “heavy-lifting to retain our people and invite others to come join us”. This means being more willing to embrace empowering immigrants. Wow! This means overcoming the natural tendency to be xenophobic and expressing some disdain for strangers. But “the world is flat”, so to compete in this world will mean overcoming any dogma and orthodoxy. So rather than strangers, the advocacy is to think of outsiders as potential trading partners and new friends.

Can we consider this? Can we consider this … in regards to immigration and our view of new immigrants?

Yes, we can must … if we want to survive. Immigration policy has been a “lightning rod” issue in many communities. The American example is duplicitous: their President wants to “build a wall” to keep immigrants out, while the country’s economists tabulate the positive effects of immigration on their economy. Consider the lessons-learned in the Appendix VIDEO below.

Also consider how the Go Lean movement addressed the need to invite Empowering Immigrants in a previous commentary. This Case Study is presented regarding the once rural town of Huntsville, Alabama. They got over their reticence and disdain towards Germans – after World War II – and invited the Rocket Scientist Wernher von Braun, and his team of other German engineers, scientists and technologists. The end result was the fostering of an advanced Scientific Climate for building rockets for NASA for the space expeditions in the 1960’s … and continuing until today. See a summary of that Case Study and related references here:

Much of America’s leadership in the Space Race during the Cold War years of 1950 to 1991 was due to the contributions of one empowering immigrant: Rocket Scientist Wernher von Braun; see … more details …below.

…

Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was a German and later American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States and is considered one of the “Fathers of Rocket Science”. He was also a member of the Nazi party and the Schutzstaffel (SS), and was suspected of perpetrating war crimes during World War II.

In his twenties and early thirties, Braun was already the central figure in the Nazis’ rocket development program, responsible for the design and realization of the V-2 rocket during World War II. After the war, he and selected members of his rocket team were taken to the United States as part of the secret Operation Paperclip. Braun worked on the United States Army’s intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) program before his group was assimilated by NASA. Under NASA, he served as director of the newly formed Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the super-booster that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.^[1] According to one NASA source, he is “without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history”.^[2] In 1975 he received the National Medal of Science.
…
In 1950, at the start of the Korean War, von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, his home for the next 20 years. Between 1952 and 1956,^[63] von Braun led the Army’s rocket development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile tests conducted by the United States. He personally witnessed this historic launch and detonation.^[64] Work on the Redstone led to development of the first high-precision inertial guidance system on the Redstone rocket.^[65]
…
NASA was established by law on July 29, 1958. One day later, the 50th Redstone rocket was successfully launched from Johnston Atoll in the south Pacific as part of Operation Hardtack I. Two years later, NASA opened the Marshall Space Flight Center at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) development team led by von Braun was transferred to NASA.

Source: Retrieved February 26, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

Huntsville, Alabama
The city is nicknamed “The Rocket City” for its close association with U.S. space missions.^[41] On January 31, 1958, ABMA placed America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit using a Jupiter-C launch vehicle, a descendant of the Redstone. This brought national attention to Redstone Arsenal and Huntsville, with widespread recognition of this being a major center for high technology.

On July 1, 1960, 4,670 civilian employees, associated buildings and equipment, and 1,840 acres (7.4 km²) of land, transferred from ABMA to form NASA‘s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Wernher von Braun was MSFC’s initial director. On September 8, President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicated the MSFC.^[42]

During the 1960s, the major mission of MSFC was in developing the Saturn boosters used by NASA in the Apollo Lunar Landing Program. For this, MSFC greatly increased its employees, and many new companies joined the Huntsville industrial community. The Cummings Research Park was developed just north of Redstone Arsenal to partially accommodate this industrial growth, and has now became the second-largest research park of this type in America.

Huntsville’s economy was nearly crippled and growth almost came to a standstill in the 1970s following the closure of the Apollo program. However, the emergence of the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and a wide variety of advanced research in space sciences led to a resurgence in NASA-related activities that has continued into the 21st century. In addition, new Army organizations have emerged at Redstone Arsenal, particularly in the ever-expanding field of missile defense.^[43]

Now in the 2000s, Huntsville has the second-largest technology and research park in the nation,^[44] and ranks among the top 25 most educated cities in the nation.^[45][46][47] It is considered in the top of the nation’s high-tech hotspots,^[48][49] and one of the best Southern cities for defense jobs,^[50] It is the number one United States location for engineers most satisfied with the recognition they receive,^[51] with high average salary and low median gross rent.^[52]

Source: Wikipedia retrieved February 26, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsville,_Alabama#Missile_development

Go to Huntsville! Go visit! Tour and Engage!

This is the 5 L’s at work: Look, Listen, Learn, Lend-a-hand, then Lead!

This goal is among the missions and motivations of the Go Lean book, as related on Page 46:

Invite empowering immigrants to help us move our society and our economy to destinations where we have never been before.

We must reboot the 3 vital societal engines (economics, security, governance) by employing best practices in labor strategies. The Go Lean book provides 370 pages of details on how to spur such a reboot. First, it identified that new community ethos (attitudes and values) have to be adopted; then we must execute new strategies, tactics and implementations to elevate the societal engines. In fact, there is an actual advocacy for this purpose in the book; see here for some of the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from Page 174, entitled:

10 Ways to Foster Empowering Immigration

1	*Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market* Confederation Treaty: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU)** This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member-states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion. The Single Market structure allows for the controlled movement of labor from state to state, and the opportunity to correct actuarial imbalances. The CU is a re-boot of the economic engines, the same way indentured servitude rebooted the labor pool in 19th century Guyana. The skills needed for today’s global economy may not be plentiful in the Caribbean and thus the need to invite empowering immigrants. In general, this group of immigrants should give more than they take; they should not be looking for jobs, rather they should create jobs.
2	DFI Time, Talent, Treasuries The CU will incentivize/promote direct foreign investments (DFI). The CU protections minimize the risk of failure, while extending greater reward because of the dynamics of this market. Members of the One Percent look for enterprising opportunities. The CU will therefore invite this Special Interest Group to immigrate to the region, along with their assets.
3	SGE Labor Rules
4	STEM Immigrants The same as there is now priority for educational ventures for Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, there is also the need for professionals (practitioners and teachers) in these fields. The CU will incentivize these immigrants.
5	Retirees and Tax Refugee – Long Term Tourists
6	Artistic Immigrants
7	Carnies – Event Staff
8	Refugees
9	Movie Making
10	Virtual Employees

Brain Gain, instead of Brain Drain – Yes, we can …

That opening quotation, originally published in a previous blog-commentary, is so apropos that it should be encored here:

“Make happy those who are near and those who are far will come”.

That previous blog-commentary identified tourists-visitors and repatriates (Re-patriots) as the target audience to “come from afar”. Now we are also applying this mantra to Empowering Immigrants.

Let’s get started and convert our atrocious Brain Drain to a Brain Gain. This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

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.

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..

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

————

Appendix VIDEO – How does immigration impact the economy? | CNBC Explains – https://youtu.b e/f0dVfDiSrFo

CNBC International
Posted Dec 21, 2018 – It’s an incredibly complicated topic, with political disagreement about how immigration affects a nation’s economy. CNBC’s Uptin Saiidi explains the data behind the debate.
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Category: News & Politics

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Brain Drain – Where the Brains Are

Posted on February 25, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Caribbean people are being urged to Stay Home, to remain in their homelands, or at least ‘in the region’. There are dire consequences when our people leave. So if one loves their homeland, they should Stay.

Abandoning the homeland, on the other hand, is not love. It could even be viewed as a serious offense to the country. In fact, in some ancient cultures, though this is the extreme, it was considered a capital offense – traitorous – and the penalty was death. See here:

Title: Overseas Chinese – History
When China was under the imperial rule of the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911), subjects who left the Qing Empire without the Administrator’s consent were considered to be traitors and were executed. Their family members faced consequences as well. However, the establishment of the Lanfang Republic in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, as a tributary state of Qing China, attests that it was possible to attain permission. The republic lasted until 1884, when it fell under Dutch occupation as Qing influence waned.

Under the administration of the Republic of China from 1911 to 1949, these rules were abolished and many migrated outside the Republic of China …
Source: Retrieved February 24, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese

Why would there have ever been the extreme consideration of death to migrants and punishment to their families? Because abandonment takes such a toll on the society left behind. This actuality is the painful truth – remember East Berlin. Plus, who are the first to leave? Never the least wanted in society; but rather, the ones to leave are really the ones society can least afford to lose: the smartest, strongest, most potential and most gifted citizens – a Brain Drain.

There is a lesson for us in this history: No doubt, migration – human flight or Brain Drain – is a serious problem; (a possible problem for the US too – see Appendix A below).

Don’t get it twisted, no one is asking Caribbean people to die for their country. Just the opposite … the quest is to live for it; and to “live in the country”. The dire consequence of the Brain Drain has been our disposition in the Caribbean and now it is a crisis. The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean identified the actuality of the Brain Drain or societal abandonment, with these opening words (Page 3):

There is something wrong in the Caribbean. It is the greatest address in the world for its 4 language groups, but instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out. For some Caribbean countries, their population has declined or been flat for the last 3 decades. This is only possible if despite new births and the absence of war, people are fleeing. This scenario, human flight, is a constant threat to prosperity for all the Caribbean despite their colonial legacies. Our youth, the next generation, may not be inspired to participate in the future workings of their country; they may measure success only by their exodus from their Caribbean homeland.

For us in the Caribbean, it is important for us to understand the full width-and-breadth of Brain Drains. Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book present a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this February 2020, our focus is on the machinations that lead to Brain Drain. This is entry 1 of 5 for this series, which details that every community everywhere has people with brains – or those with genius qualifiers – it is just the opportunities that is missing in many communities. So there is the need to analyze the “Push and Pull“ factors that causes our genius-qualified-people to abandon this homeland and then identify the strategies, tactics and implementations that we must consider in order to abate this bad trend.

Firstly, the “Push and Pull” reasons are identified in the Go Lean book as follows:

“Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating based on a mirage of “greener pastures”; but many times, the “better prospect” is elusive for the first generation.

Other Brain Drain considerations are presented in this series; see the full catalog here:

Brain Drain – Where the Brains Are
Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can!
Brain Drain – Geeks and Freaks: Ultimate Revenge
Brain Drain – ‘Tiger Moms’ – Is that so bad?
Brain Drain – Live and Let Live – Introducing ‘Localism’

As alluded above, there are brains everywhere – every community have some degree of genius qualifiers. These ones simply have to be in the right market to be fully actualized … and appreciated.

This sounds eerily familiar … with the issue of foreign accents. In a classic “art imitating life” scenario, this was depicted in a favorite movie from the 2003 film Love Actually; imagine an average guy in England who is only perceived as average in every respect; but “take his talents to South Beach” – a metonym for any US City – and he is a Superstar. See this in the following VIDEO excerpt:

VIDEO – Colin goes to Wisconsin – https://youtu.be/pHqhAnguYJ0

Posted Dec 20, 2011 – Funny if you ever have been there with a foreign accent.

Category: Music

Movie: Love Actually

Those with genius-qualifiers only need to go somewhere else, where their “genius” is better appreciated and in demand – thus our Caribbean Brain Drain. These ones are lulled to these alternate markets and we push them away; thusly the identified Push and Pull factors are at play. (Where are the destinations for the Caribbean Brain Drain? See the answers in Appendix C below).

Consider the contrast at the beginning of this commentary, where ancient cultures dissuaded their people to leave because they were needed at home. But now, our Caribbean people are “pushed and pulled” out of our homeland so they can avail themselves with better opportunities; (i.e Barbados has a long list of “stars” that have left and thrived in their foreign abodes).

It’s time for a change; to do better … right here at home, to better appreciate and better utilize these brains – yes, we can.

This was the original motivation of the Go Lean book: to reboot the 3 vital societal engines (economics, security, governance) so that our young geniuses could find opportunities right here. The book provides 370 pages of details on how to spur such a turnaround, a reboot. First, it identified that new community ethos (attitudes and values) have to be adopted; then we must execute new strategies, tactics and implementations to elevate the societal engines. In fact, there is an actual advocacy for this purpose in the Go Lean book; see here some of the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from Page 27, entitled:

10 Ways to Foster Genius

1	*Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market* Confederation Treaty: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) The CU treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member-states 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion. The CU assumes a mission of working with educational and youth agencies to identify and foster “genius” in our society, as early as possible. Geniuses are different from everyone else, although they maybe fairly easy to spot, defining exactly what makes one person a genius is a little trickier. Some researchers & theorists argue that the concept of genius is too limiting and doesn’t really give a full view of intelligence; they feel that intelligence is a combination of many factors; thereby concluding that genius can be found in many different abilities and endeavors. The CU posits that any one** person can make a difference and positively impact their society; so the community ethos of investment in this specially identified group, geniuses, would always be a worthwhile endeavor.
2	Starting Early – “HeadStart” One researcher that tried to provide a more complete view of intelligence is Psychologist Howard Gardner; his theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) [6], identified eight types of intelligence or abilities: musical – rhythmic, visual – spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical – mathematical, bodily – kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic. He later suggested that “existential or moral” intelligence may also be worthy of inclusion (not in this book). Many parents and educators feel that these categories more accurately express the strengths of different children, for which the CU will implement HeadStart-like programs (academies, camps, e-Learning schemes and mentorships) to foster the early development of participants.
3	Anti-Bullying Campaign – “Revenge of the Nerds” As is usually the case with young children, genius abilities usually stand-out from peer groups and can therefore render one child to ridicule from others. At times, this behavior leads to extreme bullying. The series of movies “Revenge of the Nerds” have become classic in depicting the adolescent struggles of this reality; (some researchers credit the first movie – 1984 – for a drop in US girls pursuing technical careers) ^[^18]. The CU classifies “bullying” as domestic terrorism; while no adult-style interdiction is intended, the community ethos of “saying NO to bullies”, goes far in fostering future innovators.
4	Genius Definition 1: Linguistic
5	Genius Definition 2: Logical-Mathematics
6	Genius Definition 3: Musical, Sound, Rhythm
7	Genius Definition 4: Bodily-Kinesthetic-Body Movement Control
8	Genius Definition 5: Spatial – Shapes/Figures Aptitude
9	Genius Definition 6: Interpersonal – Other People’s Feelings – Leadership
10	Genius Definition 7: Intrapersonal and Naturalistic – Self-Awareness

So where are the Brains? Unfortunately, not right here at home! Even though the Good Lord blessed these Caribbean lands – islands and coastal states – with equality in the proportion of genius people and passion – just like other lands.

There are simply not enough opportunities here. Alas, this is now a crisis and a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – so here comes change!

The points of effective, technocratic stewardship to foster geniuses and genius expressions in our communities have been further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19180	Katherine Johnson – RIP – Mathematics Genius & Role Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17992	What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17561	Hip-Hop Genius – Grand Master Flash
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16698	The Genius, Legend and Legacy of Bob Marley
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11787	Caribbean Roots of Bruno Mars – Genius with the Power of Endurance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10609	The Caribbean Roots of the Cast of ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9948	The Caribbean Roots of a Classic Hollywood Star: Sammy Davis, Jr.

“Take my talents to South Beach” – Famous exhortation from Basketball Great Lebron James in Summer 2010.

This declaration should not be necessary anymore. We must foster the proper environment right here to develop genius abilities – like in Sports – and to monetize it – thusly creating local/regional opportunities. Yes, we can …

Let’s get started! Let’s examine the full catalog of this series on Brain Drains and see what more we can do.

We must make this examination; we much take stock of what we have and who we have; we must make the effort to better develop our most valuable assets, our people. This is how we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

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.

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..

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

—————-

Appendix A – Could a ‘brain drain’ hit the U.S.?

Sub-title: When a country’s educated or entrepreneurial citizens leave all at once, the phenomenon is called “human capital flight” or “brain drain”.

By: Scotty Hendricks

Brain drain is a terrible phenomenon with a long and ignoble history.
Recently, it has occurred in several countries that were doing well even a few years ago.
Can it happen here?

Many of us who have ever dared to complain about the place we live in have heard the juvenile rebuttal “If you don’t like it, why don’t you leave?” As it turns out, sometimes people take that advice. When a country’s educated, intelligent, or entrepreneurial citizens take the advice all at once, the phenomenon is called “human capital flight” or “brain drain”.

Brain drain is pretty bad, and governments will go to great lengths to prevent it. Despite this, it can happen for many reasons almost anywhere.

How does it start?
As with all cases of emigration, there are push factors causing people to want to leave their countries, such as instability, political oppression, or lack of economic opportunity, and pull factors drawing them towards another country, such as better job opportunities, freedom, or political stability.

Often, the idea that the promise of lower taxes elsewhere is pulling all the talent out of one country and into another is proposed as the cause of brain drain by political leaders. The jury is still out on whether this is a significant factor for most people who do leave one country for another. Some papers say it is an important issue; others argue it isn’t.

What effects does it have on an economy?
That question is surprisingly difficult. It stands to reason that losing all your skilled workers at once would be devastating to an economy and a there is evidence to support that idea. It has been shown, however, that not all the effects are negative and that some countries benefit from sending their skilled workers elsewhere then hoping for remittances.

In any case, nobody likes to read headlines about all the educated people leaving the country in a hurry, and most societies consider brain drain to be dangerous.

Where have brain drains happened?
Turkey is currently suffering a bout of human capital flight as the wealthy, talented, and educated rush for the exits. This has been caused by many factors, not the least of which is the increasing authoritarianism of President Erdogan and the mismanagement of the economy under his ever increasing control. This is particularly interesting because, until recently, the Turkish economy had been doing well. It shows how a country’s fortunes can turn around in a hurry given the right events.

Venezuela offers a similar case, with the well documented ‘Bolivarian diaspora’. This exodus, initially limited to the wealthy and well educated but now including members of the lower and middle classes, was at first driven by the revolutionary administration of Hugo Chavez and its heavy-handed, socialistic tendencies. After his death and the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, the number of people leaving skyrocketed as living conditions deteriorated.

Sometimes the causes and results of brain drain are even written into history. As right-wing political movements came to power in 1930s Europe, many famous intellectuals got out as fast as they could. Thinkers like Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and Niles Bohr all took their brilliance to the United States where they could safely live and work. Later, East Berlin had such a bad brain drain problem that they built a wall to stop it. You might have heard of it.

What about America? Can it happen here?
Technically, America has brain drain already, but between different regions rather than to other countries.

Rural flight, the tendency for people living in rural areas to move to the cities, has been going on for a century now. The Great Plains region is particularly hit by this, with a long history of population declines and the exodus of young people.

Not to be outdone, the Rust Belt is also suffering from a loss of people and talent. This flight has been caused by many things including poor governance, a lack of economic opportunities, and the pull factor of other regions that are experiencing much faster growth.

However, on the national scale, the United States is still seeing a net influx of talented, well-educated individuals. There is a recognized problem in holding onto the students who come to the US for an education and then return to their home countries rather than stay and work here, but that is another issue. Some scientists and innovators have left the US as a result of recent policies, but these emigrants are still few in number.

However, as the examples of how quickly human capital flight can start show us, the risk is always there, and some problems could start driving the talented to greener pastures if they are aggravated. The American middle class is poorer than that of several other countries, including Canada and Australia. The poor in Europe are better off than the American poor. Our healthcare costs more and delivers less. Politically, well, things aren’t great when a third of the population thinks a civil war is imminent.
Is the U.S. at risk for a brain drain? Not right now, but the risk is always there. As the cases of Turkey, Germany, and Venezuela show us, it can take as little as a few difficult years to start the process. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, and migration between different continents becomes ever more practical, the ability for anybody to pack up and move to greener pastures is enhanced. While things are going well right now, history shows us how quickly things can change.

See the related VIDEO below.

Source: Posted January 10, 2019; retrieved February 26, 2020 from: https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/american-brain-drain

———-

Appendix B VIDEO – How immigrants and their children affect the US economy | Robert Kaplan – https://youtu.be/ZL7MOpMpjRQ

Big Think
Posted Jul 26, 2018 – Slowing workforce growth can affect American GDP growth unless we focus on skills training and immigration reform, says Robert Steven Kaplan, the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Without immigrants, our workforce would not expand, he argues, based on the fact that immigrants have made up more than half of the workforce growth in the United States in the last 20 years.

———————————————————————————-

New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge

———————————————————————————-

Robert Steven Kaplan
Robert S. Kaplan is president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Previously, he was the Senior Associate Dean for External Relations and Martin Marshall Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is also co-chairman of Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, a global venture philanthropy firm, as well as chairman and a founding partner of Indaba Capital Management. Before joining Harvard in 2005, Kaplan was vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group with responsibilities for Global Investment Banking and Investment Management.

He has written several books on leadership and goal development, including ‘What You’re Really Meant To Do: A Road Map For Reaching Your Unique Potential’ published by Harvard Business Review Press. You can read his most recent essay here.

Category: Education

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Appendix C – Where the Brains Are … literally

A large number of Caribbean people live abroad. They live in places like the US, Canada, the UK and Europe. We have previously published blog-commentaries that examined the destinations of the Caribbean Diaspora. The full series is as follows:

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[Top]

Coronavirus – Facts and Fictions

Posted on February 21, 2020 in Economics, Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There is a serious threat in the world … one that is imperiling life and systems of commerce: Coronavirus; see this news story-highlights, and related VIDEO here:

Title: Coronavirus is deadlier than flu, study finds
The fatality rate of the new coronavirus is far higher than that of the seasonal flu, according to a new analysis from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study found a fatality rate of 2.3 percent in China as of last week, though later figures suggest the rate has increased. In the U.S., flu fatality rates hover around 0.1 percent. Here are the latest updates and maps of where the virus has spread.

Yesterday: Americans flown home from a contaminated cruise ship in Japan said they were unaware until late that some evacuees were infected. “I didn’t know until we were in the air,” said Carol Montgomery. “I saw an area of plastic sheeting and tape.”

Closer look: Cambodia’s decision to let hundreds of passengers leave another cruise ship on which a person was infected could dramatically complicate the effort to contain the virus.

Another angle: HSBC, one of Hong Kong’s most important banks, said today that it would cut 35,000 jobs over the next three years, in part because of disruptions caused by the outbreak. On Monday, Apple cut its quarterly sales expectations and warned that the virus threatened global supply chains.

Related: The Tokyo Marathon, which planned to accept about 38,000 runners, will be restricted to about 200 elite participants. The race is scheduled for March 1.

Source: New York Times – Retrieved February 18, 2020 from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/briefing/coronavirus-michael-bloomberg-boy-scouts.html

———–

VIDEO – China Coronavirus Death Toll Rises to 2,118 – https://youtu.be/a_WeUpwJNVA

Bloomberg Markets and Finance
Feb.19 — China is saying the death toll from the coronavirus has climbed to 2,118, with the total amount of cases reaching 74,576. Bloomberg’s Tom Mackenzie and Yvonne Man report on “Bloomberg Markets: Asia.”

Category: News & Politics

As with many threats in society, there abounds a lot of misinformation, half-truths and outright lies. Consider:

This new Coronavirus started in Wuhan Province, China. But not all Chinese are affected. In fact with a population of 1.4 billion, the near 75,000 afflicted people worldwide is less than 1/10 of 1 percent.
There have been previous Coronavirus strains. (Older cans of Lysol spray declare that they kill “coronavirus”; see photo below).
The disease is not automatically fatal – only 2,118 people have died so far – mostly those advanced in age and/or with depressed immune systems. Many more die every year with the “normal” seasonal flu.
Not all Chinese people are from China – Sinophone people amount to 1.5 Billion. Few Chinese Diaspora have had any exposure to the ailment.
The disease does not live away from mammals. Chinese made products pose no threats.
Communist China does not allow people to freely leave China, even under normal circumstances, unless there is some special reason to do so. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative region, governed like a separate country. The freedoms of movement there are not equated on the mainland.
Flu Season has a limited shelf-life; it is expected to naturally end in the northern hemisphere by late Spring 2020.
No Caribbean area cruise ships or passengers have been affected – the potential risk is not abated.

This disease poses a danger; there is the need for remediation and mitigation. There is the need for a hero … we need a hero. This sounds so much like a song from my formative years.

I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life
(Song by Bonnie Tyler 1984; see VIDEO & Lyrics at https://youtu.be/OBwS66EBUcY; see Appendix)

Alas, there is no hero … for this peril. There is no Superman, no Wonder Woman, no Avengers nor Captain Marvel. The remediation and mitigation that we need will not be miraculous; it must simply come from … us. Yes, we can … do the heavy-lifting ourselves to protect our society.

This was the quest as related in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book surveyed the world scene and saw the need for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region to confederate, collaborate, consolidate its efforts to be able to deal with an actuality like this Coronavirus Epidemic.

We need that vision now!

The book related that a roadmap must be put in place to introduce and implement a deputized agency, a federal technocracy to act on behalf of all these countries and to do the heavy-lifting of Homeland Security, to remediate and mitigate all threats, foreign and domestic; this would naturally include Disease Control and Management. That roadmap called for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), with a Cabinet-level Department of Health. The functionalities of this “Security Apparatus” is described as follows:

Strategies – Comparing Strategies – Healthcare –vs- Bush Medicine (Page 50)
The CU plans calls for some health care reform, under the guise of homeland and economic security, emergency management and cross border initiatives (disease management and organ transplantation).

Tactical – Separation of Powers – I2: Department of Health – Disease Control & Management (Page 86)
Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the CU level. This agency will manage the detailed inventory needs of pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) so that the Group Purchasing Organization can negotiate for volume-wholesale pricing/discounts and delivery schedules on the regional level.
The data associated with Flu Shots, Vaccinations, STDs should be mined and published by the CU.
This agency will also sponsor Disease Management schemes to identify, educate, treat patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, heart, COPD, and other ailments that tend to have no cure, but the affected could prosper with proper management.

Advocacy – 10 Ways to Improve Healthcare – Public Health Extension (Page 156)
Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the federal level. Also, the acquisition of public-bound pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) can be negotiated at the regional level, using the Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO) envisioned in this roadmap. This will lead to a better supply and pricing dynamics. …

Advocacy – 10 Ways to Impact Cancer – Public Health Administration (Page 157)
Not all [disease] cancer is hereditary or tied to lifestyle (smoking, obesity, diet), sometimes there are environmental agents. The CU treaty grants jurisdiction for systemic threats, epidemic response and/or disease control. Despite the pro-business ethos, the CU will assuage any threat of new/existing industrial endeavors with thorough environmental impact studies.

We have been here before …

This is turning out to be a very dangerous disease outbreak – an epidemic. However, this is not the first one … for the world or even to originate from China. In fact, Coronavirus is being compared sharply to the 2003 crisis with the SARS epidemic that imperiled Hong Kong. See this excerpt from a previous blog-commentary on SARS:

A Lesson in History – SARS in Hong Kong
Sadly, we report – though it is only a reminder – that there is no cure for the common cold; nor its more debilitating “Big Brother”, influenza or “the flu”.

Sometimes the flu is just the flu. Symptoms may include cough, sore throat, fever, myalgia (muscle pain), and lethargy (fatigue or drowsiness, or prolonged sleep patterns). Unfortunately this normal start for influenza may morph into more serious concerns. For example, consider the SARS epidemic of 2003; see Appendix A. The same symptoms, above, were the applicable descriptors at the start of the SARS outbreak.

Why would anyone think of anything more than the common/annual flu? How can a community – the Caribbean region in this case – manage such an epidemiological crisis?

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

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

During the “heyday” of the SARS crisis, travel and transport to Hong Kong virtually came to a grinding halt! Hong Kong had previously enjoyed up to 14 million visitors annually; they were a gateway to the world. The SARS epidemic became a pandemic because of this status. Within weeks of the outbreak, SARS had spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003.
…
Prior to this SARS outbreak, the WHO [(World Health Organization)] had developed a Pandemic War Plan, reserved for the worst situations; see this link here, [which was presented then as Appendix C]. This features strategies and tasks to identify, isolate and eradicate a major virus outbreak … at the start. But the War Plan presents a cautionary warning: should the disease ever escape the isolation attempts, the result could be socio-economic disaster, with millions dead.

The possibility of this warning is the motivation of this commentary and the Go Lean movement.

In general, the CU will employ its own “War Plan”; its strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives. …

The issue in this commentary relates to economics, security and economic security; in effect this is a governance issue. This is an issue of business continuity for the region. …

The Go Lean movement posits that wisdom, prudence and best practices can be adopted by careful study of complex matters. This is defined … as a hallmark of a technocracy.

The Coronavirus is a serious threat; this is not the first and may not be the last! This is why the Go Lean movement urges the Caribbean to prepare now, with the implementation of the technocratic CU Trade Federation and its related agencies. How? Well, the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – provides 370 pages of step-by step directions.

The points of effective, technocratic medical stewardship, gleaned from facts in medical and economic history, were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15310	Industrial Reboot – Trauma 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943	Zika’s Drug Breakthrough
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822	Doing More in the Fight Against Cancer
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7430	Brazilian Shrunken Head Babies: Zika or Tdap?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	Zika – A 4-Letter Word
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Stopping Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003	Painful and rapid spread of Chikungunya virus in the Caribbean

Let’s hope this new Coronavirus threat subsides … soon.

The Go Lean movement (book and subsequent blog-commentaries) stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit; no one member-states has the prowess to tackle these potential pandemics – like Coronavirus – alone. Therefore, we must heed the warnings in advance and prepare our economic, security and governing eco-system.

Tongue-in-cheek reference to Caribbean Cruises amidst the Coronavirus Outbreak

We must learn from China.

“There but for the Grace of God go I” – Old Expression

The Caribbean is very dependent on tourism. Our way of life would not endure so well if we were at the epicenter of Coronavirus, or some similar pandemic; so we empathize and sympathize with China.

Heavy-lifting indeed …

This is why the Go Lean book (Page 10) advocates for the people and governing entities of the Caribbean member-states …

… “to provide new guards for their future security” …

… by deputizing the authority and responsibility to the CU Trade Federation to do the heavy-lifting of protecting the member-states during pandemics. As related in a previous blog-commentary:

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me

This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. …

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

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

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

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Forging Change – Labor’s Cautionary Tale

Posted on January 31, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Forging Change by doubling-down on the Labor Movement – that sounds so 1930’s, 1940’s, 1950’s or maybe even 1960’s. This cannot be how the stewards of the Caribbean plan to Forge Change in 2020’s.

Those times – 50 years ago and beyond – have past; now we must be concerned with Best Practices. The full history of the Labor Movement gives us lessons in the Art and Science of Forging Change … and also the Cautionary Tale of the backlash of Going too Far, Too Fast.

Yet still, there have been many social revolutions that have spurned from Labor Movements, around the world and here in the Caribbean. This has always been a model for Forging Change. In fact, the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean highlighted how the Labor Movement Forged Change in 2009 in the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. See the highlights from the book here (Page 17):

In January/February 2009, an umbrella group of approximately fifty labor unions and other associations called for a €200 ($260 USD) monthly pay increase for Guadeloupe and Martinique’s low income workers. The protesters had proposed that authorities “lower business taxes as a top up to company finances” to pay for the €200 pay raises. Employers and business leaders in Guadeloupe had said that they could not afford the salary increase. The strike lasted 44 days, during the high season, and escalated to “the verge of revolt”, finally ending with an accord in March 2009 in which the French government agreed to raise the salaries of the lowest paid by the requested €200 and granted the petitioners top 20 demands. Tourism suffered greatly during this time and affected the 2010 tourist season as well; the islands were believed to have lost millions of dollars in tourism revenues due to cancelled vacations and closed hotels. The strikes exposed deep ethnic, racial, and class tensions and disparities – discord – within the French Caribbean territories.

This was not the only time that the Labor Movement Forged Change in the Caribbean; though not mentioned in the Go Lean book, these incidences are of high notoriety:

British West Indian labour unrest of 1934–39 – Various starting points for the cycle of disturbances have been proposed: the February 1934 labour agitation in British Honduras [today’s Belize] (which ended in a riot in September)^[1] the May–July 1934 sugar estate disturbance on Trinidad (which broke out on several estates in the central sugar belt, involving over 15,000 Indian estate labourers)^[2] and the January 1935 Saint Kitts sugar strike.^[3]
In any event, after St Kitts (which turned into a general strike of agricultural labourers) came a March strike in Trinidad’s oilfields and a hunger march to Port of Spain.
In Jamaica labour protests broke out in May on the island’s north coast. Rioting among banana workers in the town of Oracabessa was succeeded by a strike of dockworkers in Falmouth which ended in violence.
In September and October there were riots on various sugar estates in British Guiana [today’s Guyana]; there had been strikes the previous September on five sugar estates on the west coast of Demerara.
In October rioting also took place on St Vincent in Kingstown and Camden Park. The year ended with a November strike of coal workers in St Lucia.
After a relatively tranquil year in 1936, there was widespread unrest in Trinidad (extraordinary because blacks and Indians cooperated in working-class activities)^[4] and Barbados in June 1937 and in Jamaica in May–June 1938.
The 1937-38 disturbances were of greater magnitude than the 1934-35 ones, which had been more localized. In Trinidad, for example, the protest began in the oilfields but eventually spread to the sugar belt and the towns. In Barbados the disorders which started in Bridgetown spread to the rural areas. In Jamaica most areas of the island experienced serious strikes and disturbances. At least two ending points have also been suggested: the Jamaican cane-cutters’ strike of 1938^[5] or the major February 1939 strike at the Plantation Leonora in British Guiana, which led to further disturbances.^[6]
Bahamas: Burma Road Labor Riots – June 1^st, 1942, the Burma Road Riots was a short-lived impulsive outburst by a group of disgruntled laborers. “In those days it was illegal for workers to ‘combine’ or unionize against their employer”. So this riot was the first sign of a popular movement in the Bahamas that led to long overdue reforms, and eventually, Majority Rule.

Civil Disobedience was effective then and can be effective again … now. The key has always been: Collective Bargaining.

The workers ‘combined’ or unionized and as a result “set-off the dominoes for change”. This aligns to the Art and Science of Forging Change.

This is the conclusion of this series of ‘teaching commentaries’ by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. This January 2020 focus is about more than just the Art and Science of Forging Change in society, but also on how to ensure the change is permanent by neutralizing the resultant backlash. This is entry 4 of 4 for this series, which details the Community Ethos that is first needed to ensure that the societal change is palatable. Otherwise there is the pejorative declaration:

Keep the Change!

The first submission in this series stressed that change must Build-up to a Momentum; this allows for evolutionary change and not just revolutionary change. This means affecting the heart … or as the Go Lean book states (Page 20) affecting the Community Ethos:

The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.

Other Forging Change considerations are presented in this series; see the full series catalog here:

Forging Change – By Building Momentum
Forging Change – Opposition Research: Special Interest
Forging Change – Public Private Partnerships (PPP)
Forging Change – Labor Movement Cautionary Tale – Backlash: Going too far

Beyond these, we see that the thought of Forging Change had been a common theme for the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean for more than 5 years. See the full catalog here of the previous 13 blog-commentaries – before this series – that detailed approaches for Forging Change (in reverse chronological order):

Forging Change – ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ (July 9, 2019)
Forging Change – Corporate Vigilantism (March 29, 2018)
Forging Change – Soft Power (February 21, 2018)
Forging Change – Collective Bargaining (April 27, 2017)
Forging Change – Addicted to Home (April 14, 2017)
Forging Change – Arts & Artists (December 1, 2016)
Forging Change – Panem et Circenses (November 15, 2016)
Forging Change – Herd Mentality (October 11, 2016)
Forging Change – ‘Something To Lose’ (November 18, 2015)
Forging Change – ‘Food’ for Thought (April 29, 2015)
Forging Change – Music Moves People (December 30, 2014)
Forging Change – The Sales Process (December 22, 2014)
Forging Change – The Fun Theory (September 9, 2014)

As related in the foregoing, what was so powerful for Labor Movements is the strategy of Collective Bargaining…or else! No doubt, there is the need for more Collective Bargaining today and always, as related in a previous blog-commentary from April 28, 2017:

There is the need to Forge Change in the Caribbean; the same as there was the need to Forge Change in 1960’s America. Consuming cruises is just one of the challenges that we have to contend with in our region. This is reflective of the disrespect that exists in our society. We have dysfunctions in our economics, security and governing engines. We are 2nd class citizens on the world stage! We have the greatest address on the planet – demonstrated in that 80 million tourists consume our marketplace every year, 10 million via cruises – and yet our own people have to break down the doors to get out to find the respectful life that they need, want and deserve in foreign countries.

What is the Cautionary Tale that we must all learn from the historicity of Labor Unions? “Going Too Far Too Fast”; this why evolutionary change is preferred. The Cautionary Tale of Unions is depicted here, in this Economics Journal, as the final consequence:

Title: What’s the point of unions [anymore]?

Unions are associations that allow workers to approach their employers not as individuals, but as a more powerful collective. This power makes unions pretty controversial; some people think they’re necessary for keeping employers in check, but others think they’re too powerful and hurt the economy.

While some economists think that wages are mostly determined by how productive a worker will be in a given job, others think it has more to do with the bargaining power of each side. Workers generally want higher wages and better working conditions. Employers on the other hand usually want to keep costs down. Wages, and working conditions in this theory are determined by how much power each side has to make the other give in to their demands.

Employers are in a pretty powerful position because they can hire and fire people. When there are tons of jobs to go around this is less of an advantage, because fired workers can just get jobs somewhere else. But when there’s high unemployment, being fired can be a really serious problem for workers. Unemployment gives employers some leeway in deciding how much to pay workers; if one person won’t accept a lower wage, someone else probably will.

One way workers limit this power is by organizing into unions which allow workers to speak out together and bargain collectively with employers. Within a union workers can vote to stop working in order to put economic pressure on the business (called going on strike). The idea is that it would be very costly for a business to fire or discipline all the workers at the same time, so they’ll hopefully agree to compromise and raise wages instead.

Historically unions have been really important for creating a lot of things we see as basic working rights in rich countries, like safe workplaces, 8 hour workdays, weekends, and the end of child labor. Unions and collective bargaining have played a big role in the creation of middle class jobs in most well-off countries.

But unions also draw a lot of criticism. A lot of people agree with the basic premise of unions, but think in practice that they have gone too far. In many rich countries, the decline of manufacturing has been blamed on unions that wanted to keep wages high, even when competition increased from overseas. Some people say that unions make it harder to fire bad workers, which hurts employers, customers and other employees. Public sector unions create even more debate, as wage increases for government workers can mean higher taxes for everyone else.

Some economists also argue that when unions win wage increases, they actually create bigger problems for unemployed people, who are willing to work for lower wages than the high wages negotiated by the union. That’s called the insider outsider problem, because the insiders (workers with jobs) create a bigger problem for outsiders (people who want jobs). Other economists don’t think this effect is actually that big in practice, and is outweighed by the extra economic activity created by giving workers more money to spend in the local economy.

Source: Economy – Ecnmy.org – Making economics less confusing – retrieved January 31, 2020 from; https://www.ecnmy.org/learn/your-livelihood/wages/whats-point-of-unions/

As related in this foregoing article, when Labor Unions win wage increases, they actually create bigger problems in society, so there is the need to be aware and be On Guard for the negative consequences of “Going Too Far Too Fast”. The employer must never be viewed as the enemy, but rather a partner in the stewardship of the region’s economic engines. However, there are enemies, adversaries and organized opposition – think Globalization, Technology, Crony-Capitalists or Plutocrats – for the progress our Caribbean general society must make. We must all be aware of these pressures.

See a related VIDEO here … from an American perspective, yet still relevant for the Caribbean:

VIDEO – Robert Reich: Why Unions Matter to You – https://youtu.be/402m57yFjTM

Robert Reich
Robert Reich [(former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton)] explains why labor unions impact the middle class and raise wages.

Watch More: Why Right to Work is Wrong ►► https://youtu.be/WqjdsfMPl_A

Category: News & Politics

The Go Lean book addressed this! In fact, within the 370 pages of the Go Lean book, many details are provided on how to reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society with the cooperation and partnership of Labor Unions and other stakeholders advocating for workers. The book features the new community ethos (attitudes and values) that must be adopted; plus the executions of new strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to Forge Change among workers (Blue Collar and skilled professionals) to work in harmony with market demands to elevate the Caribbean homeland. In fact, this actual advocacy on Page 164, in the Go Lean book, contains specific plans, excerpts and headlines; it is hereby entitled:

10 Ways to Impact Labor Unions

1	*Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market* initiative: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).** This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, expanding to an economy of 30 member-states of 42 million people. The CU is a reboot of the economic engines of the region resulting in the creation of 2.2 million new jobs after 5 years of accedence. Jobs mean labor unions must be part of the discussion and part of the equation. The labor unions in the region have the potential of being part of the solution, as the CU advocates a “meritocracy” rather than seniority. For unemployment, the CU envisions the Ghent System with “Union” management powered by CU systems.
2	Labor Unions and e-Government Under the CU plan, trade/labor unions will have access to e-Government services and functionalities, (same as Foundations). Therefore, the Unions will be able to access online account management and transaction processing systems to review, request CU services on behalf of their members. They will have the tools to service their charters.
3	Expertise Certification
4	Community Ethos – Automation & Partnership The CU’s mission is to level the playing field for global competition by fostering and deploying technology to the fullest extent possible. Technology and Labor do not also align in objectives (think: The Legend of John Henry). But there are case studies of successful adoption of Internet & Communications Technology (ICT) embedded in the quality processes to maximize the outputs of the labor force. The ethos for Caribbean labor must be partnership with management.
5	QA Adoption
6	Work-At-Home Promotion
7	Federal Civil Service.
8	Self-Governing Entities (SGE)
9	Volunteers / Foundation
10	Emergencies – Martial Law – Union Suspension

This advocacy projects that Labor Union stakeholders can be partners in the stewardship of Caribbean society. They care about the workers; there is external pressure on those workers and the whole economic system; we are “all in this together”; we need “all hands on deck”. This is the attitude and value system that will foster societal progress.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … to allow us all – workers and employers – to work together as partners. This is one more way to Forge Change and make our Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

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.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

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Happy Chinese New Year

Posted on January 25, 2020 in Economics, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Happy New Year …

No, not the January 1^st thing, but rather the January 25^th thing – the Chinese New Year.

This is a Big Deal in China and among the Chinese Diaspora – Sinophone – throughout the world. There is great importance to this observation. See this VIDEO and encyclopedic reference here:

VIDEO – Everything you need to know about the Chinese New Year – https://youtu.be/3I-R5S3czyw

TRT World
Posted January 24, 2020 – Here’s everything you need to know about the Chinese New Year – how it’s celebrated, it’s history, and what the animals represent.

#Chinese New Year #Spring Festival #metalrat

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Category: News & Politics

————————————

Title: Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year^[a], also referred to as Lunar New Year, is the Chinese festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional Chinese calendar. The festival is usually referred to as the Spring Festival in mainland China,^[b] and is one of several Lunar New Years in Asia. Observances traditionally take place from the evening preceding the first day of the year to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February.^[2] In 2020, the first day of the Chinese New Year will be on Saturday, 25 January, initiating the Year of the Rat.

Chinese New Year is a major holiday in China, and has strongly influenced Lunar new year celebrations of China’s neighbouring cultures, including the Korean New Year (seol), the Tết of Vietnam, and the Losar of Tibet.^[3] It is also celebrated worldwide in regions and countries with significant Overseas Chinese or Sinophone populations, including Singapore,^[4]Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar,^[5]Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines,^[6] and Mauritius,^[7] as well as many in North America and Europe.^[8][9][10]

Chinese New Year is associated with several myths and customs. The festival was traditionally a time to honour deities as well as ancestors.^[11] Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the New Year vary widely,^[12] and the evening preceding Chinese New Year’s Day is frequently regarded as an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean their house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for incoming good luck. Another custom is the decoration of windows and doors with red paper-cuts and couplets. Popular themes among these paper-cuts and couplets include that of good fortune or happiness, wealth, and longevity. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes. For the northern regions of China, dumplings are featured prominently in meals celebrating the festival. It often serves as the first meal of the year either at midnight or as breakfast of the first day.
…
Festivities
New Year’s Eve
The biggest event of any Chinese New Year’s Eve is the annual reunion dinner. Dishes consisting of special meats are served at the tables, as a main course for the dinner and offering for the New Year. This meal is comparable to Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. and remotely similar to Christmas dinner in other countries with a high percentage of Christians.

In northern China, it is customary to make jiaozi, or dumplings, after dinner to eat around midnight. Dumplings symbolize wealth because their shape resembles a Chinese sycee. In contrast, in the South, it is customary to make a glutinous new year cake (niangao) and send pieces of it as gifts to relatives and friends in the coming days. Niángāo [Pinyin] literally means “new year cake” with a homophonous meaning of “increasingly prosperous year in year out”.^[44]

After dinner, some families go to local temples hours before the new year begins to pray for a prosperous new year by lighting the first incense of the year; however in modern practice, many households hold parties and even hold a countdown to the new year. Traditionally, firecrackers were lit to scare away evil spirits with the household doors sealed, not to be reopened until the new morning in a ritual called “opening the door of fortune” (开财门; 開財門; kāicáimén).^[45]

Beginning in 1982, the CCTV New Year’s Gala is broadcast in China four hours before the start of the New Year and lasts until the succeeding early morning. Watching it has gradually become a tradition in China. A tradition of going to bed late on New Year’s Eve, or even keeping awake the whole night and morning, known as shousui (守岁), is still practised as it is thought to add on to one’s parents’ longevity.

First day
The first day is for the welcoming of the deities of the heavens and earth, officially beginning at midnight. It is a traditional practice to light fireworks, burn bamboo sticks and firecrackers and to make as much of a din as possible to chase off the evil spirits as encapsulated by nian of which the term Guo Nian was derived. Many Buddhists abstain from meat consumption on the first day because it is believed to ensure longevity for them. Some consider lighting fires and using knives to be bad luck on New Year’s Day, so all food to be consumed is cooked the days before. On this day, it is considered bad luck to use the broom, as good fortune is not to be “swept away” symbolically.

Most importantly, the first day of Chinese New Year is a time to honor one’s elders and families visit the oldest and most senior members of their extended families, usually their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

For Buddhists, the first day is also the designated holy day of Maitreya Bodhisattva (better known as the more familiar Budai Luohan), the Buddha-to-be. People also abstain from killing animals.

Some families may invite a lion dance troupe as a symbolic ritual to usher in the Chinese New Year as well as to evict bad spirits from the premises. Members of the family who are married also give red envelopes containing cash known as lai see (Cantonese dialect) or angpow (Hokkien, Chaozhou, and Fujian dialects), or hongbao (Mandarin), a form of blessings and to suppress the aging and challenges associated with the coming year, to junior members of the family, mostly children and teenagers. Business managers also give bonuses through red packets to employees for good luck, smooth-sailing, good health and wealth.

While fireworks and firecrackers are traditionally very popular, some regions have banned them due to concerns over fire hazards. For this reason, various city governments (e.g., Kowloon, Beijing, Shanghai for a number of years) issued bans over fireworks and firecrackers in certain precincts of the city. As a substitute, large-scale fireworks display have been launched by governments in such city-states as Hong Kong and Singapore. However, it is a tradition that the indigenous peoples of the walled villages of New Territories, Hong Kong are permitted to light firecrackers and launch fireworks in a limited scale.

Source: Retrieved January 25, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

What’s the Big Deal? Well, for starters, this relates to the 1.4 Billion people in China. That’s a market size that is bigger than North America and the European Union … combined. Consider the encyclopedic details in the Appendix below.

You see it, right? You do see why this is important; 1.5 Billion people (out of 7.7 Billion) in a world where Size Matters (as related in this previous blog-commentary from August 26, 2016):

For Hollywood – a metonym for the film-television-video industry – any access to large markets is a win-win.

Enter China…

… this country has 1.3 billion people. That’s a lot of “eye-balls”. This country, considering its history, used to be closed to western commerce and movie distributions. Now, its open … and advancing. Those 1.3 billion pairs of eye-balls are presenting a lot of opportunities and now starting to wield power.

For the Caribbean, this is a necessary discussion for the planners and stewards of a new Caribbean; this requires a consideration of the economic engines for our communities. This is the assertion of the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean – that size matters when it comes to marketing your “Export Products & Services”. For us in the Caribbean, our primary export is tourism – we sell travel experiences to consumers around the world. – we must consider the 20-percent of the population that features Sinophone culture.

We must curry their favor!

So Happy New Year to our Sinophone friends and family.

Yes, we have Sinophone family members in the Caribbean. In a previous blog-commentary, it was detailed how Chinese immigrants were “recruited” to come and impact the Caribbean eco-system. Consider this excerpt:

10 Things We Want from China and 10 Things We Do Not Want
Like it or not, the Caribbean is in competition with the rest of the world – and we are losing! …

Now we must consider other countries … that compete with us and are doing MUCH BETTER jobs of contending in this competitive environment. We must consider China and India:

China … went from “zero to hero”, emerging as an economic Super Power in short order. We can look, listen and learn from the Chinese eco-system; their mainland (the Peoples Republic of China), the special territories of Hong Kong and Taiwan (the Republic of China). We can lend-a-hand in reforming and transforming our own Caribbean region – as China has had to do – and we can eventually lead a reboot and turn-around of Caribbean society; again as China has done. …

While Caribbean people are not fleeing their homeland to relocate to China. there is a Diaspora issue associated with Caribbean-China relations: Indentured Servitude. At the end of the era of Caribbean slavery (1830’s to 1840’s), the plantation system required a replacement labor source; many Chinese nationals were thusly “recruited” as Indentured Servants to the region – British, French and Spanish lands – see here:

There were two main waves of Chinese migration to the Caribbean region. The first wave of Chinese consisted of indentured labourers who were brought to the Caribbean predominantly Trinidad, British Guiana and Cuba, to work on sugar plantations during the post-Emancipation period. The second wave was comprised of free voluntary migrants, consisting of either small groups (usually relatives) to British Guiana, Jamaica and Trinidad from the 1890’s to the 1940’s. In fact the most modern Caribbean Chinese are descended from this second group. – Caribbean-Atlas.com

Derivatives of the 18,000-plus Chinese immigrants are still here in the Caribbean today. These descendants have grown in numbers and power (economic and political) in the region. They are part of the fabric of our society. They are home in the Caribbean; and we are at home with them

So we need to embrace the Sinophone world, here and abroad – we must “curry their favor”. The liberal view is to value what they value and honor what they honor, while the conservative view is to NOT disrespect this people-culture and allow them to co-exist, survive and thrive. Doing so extends hospitality to these people and incentivizes them to trade with us – come visit as tourists – and impact our economic prospects.

This is the same thing we said about India and the Indophone Diaspora, in a previous blog-commentary from October 2017:

Making a ‘Pluralistic Democracy’ – Respecting Diwali
A “Pluralistic Democracy” … means a society where the many different ethnic groups (and religions) have respect, equal rights, equal privileges and equal protections under the law; where there are no superior rights to any majority and no special deprivations to any minority. The expectation is for anyone person to be treated like everyone else. …

We fail so miserably in respecting non-standard traditions. The truth of the matter is that while religious toleration appears to be high in the Caribbean, this is really only true of European-styled Christian faiths. Other non-White religious traditions (let’s consider Hindu) are often ignored or even ridiculed in open Caribbean society, despite the large number of adherents. Of the 30 member-states to comprise the Caribbean Single Market, 3 of them have a large Indian-Hindu ethnicity. As a result, in these communities, though lowly promoted, one of the biggest annual celebrations for those communities is Diwali or Divali

… While Diwali is a religious celebration, many aspects of this culture spills-over to general society; see the detailed plans of a previous year (2009) in Appendix A below. This celebration, in many ways, is similar to Christmas spilling-over to non-Christian people in Christian countries. So the festivities carry a heavy civic-cultural “feel” as opposed to religious Hindu adherence. Plus, these values here are positive community ethos that any stewards in any society would want to promote: “the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair”.

What about the argument that this Chinese (and Indian) toleration – like celebrating the Chinese New Year – is not Christian?

Don’t get it twisted!

Christmas – the western equivalent to the Chinese New Year tradition – is not Christian either, consider – Four reasons Christmas is not Christian:

1. Dec. 25 is the wrong day, and it’s celebrated for the wrong god. Dec. 25 is associated with many pagan birth myths—not Christ’s birth.
2. Most Christmas traditions come from pagan religions, not the Bible.
3. There is no Santa Claus. Parents shouldn’t lie to their children.
4. Christians should keep the holy days that Jesus kept, not holidays that originated in paganism.

. Source: January 25, 2020 from: https://lifehopeandtruth.com/god/blog/four-reasons-christmas-is-not-christian/

The movement behind the Go Lean book have always advocated this community ethos:

Live and let live.

Plus, we need to embrace China right now. They are one of the few groups of Direct Foreign Investors that have been showing interest in the Caribbean communities. We need all the help we can get to reform and transform our society. The heavy-lifting gets a little easier with a little help from our friends. Consider these previous blog-commentaries related to China’s investments in our region:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18301	After Hurricane Dorian, Rebuilding Partners: China Versus America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16192	In Defense of Trade – China Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8799	History of China Trade: Too Big to Ignore
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8813	Why China will soon be Hollywood’s largest market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8815	China’s Organ Transplantation: Facts and Fiction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8817	Chinese Mobile Games Apps: The new Playground
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8819	South China Seas: Exclusive Economic Zones??
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8823	China’s WeChat: Model for Caribbean Social Media
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6231	China’s Caribbean Playbook: America’s Script

What about the argument that China is a Communist state and advocates for communism?

We have addressed this issue before – June 20, 2019:

‘Free Market’ Versus … China – Two Systems at Play
China is on the verge of overtaking the US as the Number 1 Single Market economy in the world…

Wait, isn’t China a communist state?

Hasn’t communism failed to deliver on its promises to elevate societies that abide by its principles?

Yes, and yes …

But China demonstrates that there is a difference between principles and practices. China abides by communist principles, but their practice is more aligned with Free Market concepts, especially with their doubling-down in trade, World Trade.

Do we truly consider Hong Kong as a communist state? Far from it; yet it is China; it is part of the “One country, two systems” practice.

All in all, we have nothing to fear from China – not their culture, religion, politics nor their military power. We should simply embrace them for trade in a give-and-take relationship. We must export to China as well; we need Chinese tourism.

We have to make changes, on our end, to make this Chinese tourism viable. We have to work harder to “live and let live”:

“Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come”.

This is the charter of the Go Lean roadmap; we urge all stakeholders to lean-in to the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to elevate our society. This is worth all the effort for us to do. This is how we make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

—————

Appendix – Reference: Sinophone

Chinese-speaking world or Sinophone or sinophone is a neologism that fundamentally means “Chinese-speaking”, typically referring to a person who speaks at least one variety of Chinese. Academic writers use Sinophone “Chinese-speaking regions” in two ambiguous meanings: either specifically “Chinese-speaking areas where it is a minority language, excluding China and Taiwan” or generally “Chinese-speaking areas, including where it is an official language”. Many authors use the collocation Sinophone world to mean the regions of Chinese diaspora outside of Greater China, and some for the entire Chinese-speaking world. Mandarin Chinese is the most commonly spoken language today, with over one billion people, approximately 20% of the world population, speaking it. …

Statistics (for populations outside of China and Taiwan)

Region	Speakers	Percentage	Year	Reference
Anguilla	7	0.06%	2001	^[1]
Australia	877,654	3.8%	2016	^{[1][note 1]}
Austria	9,960	0.1%	2001	^[1]
Belize	2,600	0.8%	2010	^[1]
Cambodia	6,530	0.05%	2008	^[1]
Canada	1,290,095	3.7%	2016	^[1]
Cyprus	1,218	0.1%	2011	^[1]
Falkland Islands	1	0.03%	2006	^[1]
Finland	12,407	0.23%	2018	^[1]
Hong Kong	6,264,700	88.9%	2016	^{[1][note 2]}
Lithuania	64	0.002%	2011	^[1]
Macao	411,482	97.0%	2001	^[1]
Marshall Islands	79	0.2%	1999	^[1]
Mauritius	2,258	0.2%	2011	^[1]
Nepal	242	0.0009%	2011	^[1]
Northern Mariana Islands	14,862	23.4%	2000	^[1]
Palau	331	1.8%	2005	^[1]
Philippines	6,032	0.4%	2000	^[1]
Romania	2,039	0.01%	2011	^[1]
Russia	70,722	0.05%	2010	^[1]
Singapore	1,791,216	57.7%	2010	^{[1][note 3]}
South Africa	8,533	0.02%	1996	^[1]
Thailand	111,866	0.2%	2010	^[1]
Timor Leste	511	0.07%	2004	^[1]
United Kingdom	162,698	0.3%	2011	^[1]
United States	3,268,546	1.0%	2017	^[2]

Source: Retrieved January 25, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinophone

———————

In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living, and was estimated to have reached 7.7 billion people as of April 2019.^[2]

Source: Retrieved January 25, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

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Profiting from ‘Climate Change’

Posted on January 22, 2020 in Economics, Implementation, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

Bad things happen to good people.

There is an actuality of Caribbean life; we are at the frontline of hurricanes. Every season, a number of storms brew and cause damage somewhere in the region. It may not be the same island or country, but at least one destination gets hit. This is a known threat confronting our region, under normal circumstances.

Now comes Climate Change; this is identified as the single most dangerous existential threat to modern life … for the whole planet. But, on the Caribbean frontlines, we are exposed to even more danger.

If only we can predict what will happen and then profit from it.

This is possible, probable and in practice now.

See this reference article from the Motley Fool Stock Advisory service:

Title: 3 Climate Change Stocks to Consider in 2020
Sub-Title: While an ever-warming world searches for solutions to wilder weather, we’ve found three stocks likely to make make the best of a bad situation.
By: Nathan Alderman, Stock Up Editor

The science is in: The world’s getting way too warm, way too fast, and it’s all but certain that we humans are to blame. Things are already getting bad — in Australia, six months of wildfires have scorched a chunk of land roughly the size of Oklahoma, killing an estimated 1 billion animals — and they’ll either get somewhat worse (if we act quickly and decisively) or a whole lot worse (if we keep doing next to nothing).

The three companies we’ve found:

A water utility as fresh water becomes scarcer

A pool provider as summers get hotter

A generator maker as fires and disasters cause more power outages

… can’t fix these problems. But they’re well-positioned to benefit, at least in the near term, from our changing climate.

For more on these three companies — and the very real, very urgent situation that could drive their shares higher — read the rest [of the stock advisory here].

Source: Retrieved January 22, 2020 from Motley Fool Stock Recommendation service at: https://bi-acq.motleyfool.com/track?t=v&enid=ZWFzPTEmbXNpZD0xJmF1aWQ9MjA1MjUzMjcmbWlkPTMzMDgyOCZtc2dpZD0xNDc4MTkmZGlkPTM4NDEzJmVkaWQ9Mzg0MTMmc249MTY4MDA4NTkmZWlkPXJvc2F3eWVyQGdtYWlsLmNvbSZlZWlkPXJvc2F3eWVyQGdtYWlsLmNvbSZ1aWQ9ODk0Njc5NjI5JnRhcmdldGlkPSZtbj0zNjQ3NjAmcmlkPTM0MTM4JmVyaWQ9MzQxMzgmZmw9Jm12aWQ9JnRnaWQ9JmV4dHJhPQ==&&&2141&eu=1&&&#

—————-

Excerpt – Title: 3 Climate Change Stocks to Consider Buying in 2020
Sub-title: These three diverse stocks are poised to rise as heat waves, droughts, and power shutoffs increase in frequency and/or severity.
By: Beth McKenna
One of the biggest trends of the 2020s decade will likely be an unfortunate one: climate change. Indeed, this topic tops the agenda at this week’s annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland, commonly called Davos, after the Alpine ski resort town in which the gathering of world leaders is held.

Evidence that the earth is warming is “unequivocal,” according to scientists around the world. Increasing average global temperatures and the rising frequency and severity of droughts in some areas, however, aren’t the only manifestations of climate change.

In 2018, while California was in the last official full year of its epic seven-year drought, dozens of cities across the East and Midwest set records for the wettest year on record, with most records dating back to the late 1800s. And last fall’s unprecedented widespread and days-long power shutoffs in Northern California can largely be attributed to climate change, as we’ll discuss further in a moment.

NASA weighs in as follows on the debate as to whether the climate change we’re experiencing is mainly a cyclical phenomenon or largely due to human activities:

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.

Even if the world acts relatively rapidly, it will likely take decades to halt or significantly slow down climate change. Moreover, our climate has already changed, and some of those changes are probably irreversible. Three stocks that should get a long-term tailwind from the changing climate are water utility giant American Water Works (NYSE:AWK), leading wholesaler of swimming pool supplies Pool Corp. (NASDAQ:POOL), and backup power generator maker Generac Holdings (NYSE:GNRC).

See the full article: Posted and retrieved Jan 22, 2020 from: https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/01/22/3-climate-change-stocks-to-consider-buying-in-2020.aspx

So an individual investor can profit from the perceived threats of Climate Change by investing (Stock Market) in one or all three companies:

A Water Treatment/Management Company
A Recreational Swimming Pools Company
A Stand-by Generator Company

These investments seem practical and pragmatic; there will be a greater demand, so profit can be realized by supplying the needed products and services.

However, not just individuals, but also institutions and public entities can profit. How? In a previous blog-commentary – from June 6, 2018 – this business model was presented:

“Profiting” from Hurricanes
… there was [is] a way to make money on the hurricane season … its called reinsurance sidecars – where investors buy-in to the risks and returns of insurance premiums.

Hurricanes are bad! Yet still, profits can be made in these eventualities. In truth, profits can be made in the stock market even when companies are experiencing decline – one can “Make Money even When Stocks Go Down”; see this investing strategy portrayed in the following VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Make Money When Stocks Go Down: Beginner’s Guide to Short Selling Stocks! – https://youtu.be/bcbEypoYRGM

UKspreadbetting
A Beginner’s Guide to Short Selling Stocks. http://www.financial-spread-betting.c… PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE THIS VIDEO SO WE CAN DO MORE! Short selling is the secret to make money when stocks go down in price. But what is Short Selling? And how does one make money short selling? You are selling something you don’t own and buying it back later – but how does that work? How to Short a Stock: To go short I need to sell stock in the market and then buy it back at a later time. Theoretically what happens when you go short is that an institution will lend you the stock for a yearly percentage fee; you can then sell it on the market (pretending that you own it) hoping that the stock will decrease in value in time and thereby pocketing the difference. The fund isn’t too bothered about the stock movements in the short-term as typically they have very long term objectives unlike traders.

Shorters borrow shares from Pension Funds and Investment Houses, sell them onto the market and hope to buy them back later for a lower price, pocketing the difference. By borrowing a large number of shares and then selling them into the market the Hedge Funds usually manage to push the share price down. They will then buy them back in dribs and drabs so as not to push the price back up too much. The fact that any company is being heavily shorted alarms investors, which can also force down the share price, as they get frightened and sell up.

Related Videos on Short Selling and Going Short

Make Money When Stocks Go Down: Beginner’s Guide to Short Selling Stocks! 🚩 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcbEy…

Why is Short Selling Stocks Dangerous?⚠️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJzVq…

How To Find The Best Entry Points For Short Selling Stocks 👇 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I2Kg…

Rules and Strategies For Profitable Short Selling: Quantifying Risk When Selling New Lows 🚩
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs5OF…

Market Too OverSold to Press the Short Side? How to Avoid Shorting into the Hole! ⛳ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m_Zh…
Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund Strategy – 130/30 Strategy Explained Part 2 🙋
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElGNb…

Related Videos (Lucian Miers and Simon Cawkwell):
Is shorting unethical or immoral? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-lCb…
Is there anything morally dubious about short selling? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx-iH…
The Argument: Short Selling ruins Markets and Lives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_ReO…
What is the difference between short selling and naked short selling? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rpan…
Shorting Shares at a Support Level / after a Major Downward Spike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvipY…

If you’re into short selling those interviews will likely be interesting for you:
Interview with Lucian Miers, known as East London’s most feared short seller https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list… Interview with Simon Cawkwell (aka as Evil Knievil) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

Category: Education

In general, and in specifics, the actuality of profiting from perilous situations has been conveyed in many previous blog-commentaries from the movement behind the Go Lean book; see sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18301	After Dorian, Rebuilding Partners: China Versus America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17878	Profiting from the Migration Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13251	Funding Caribbean Risk
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13138	Industrial Reboot – Prisons 101 – Allowing Profits from Necessities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12959	After Irma, America Should Scrap the ‘Jones Act’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5559	Economic Principle: Profit-Seeking – When ‘Greed is Good’

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), identifies Climate Change as an Agent of Change; a dimension of external factors outside of our control that bring undeniable impact to the region. The book states (Page 57):

This issue is a major concern for the whole world, but particularly impactful on the Caribbean. There is some debate as to the causes of Climate Change, but no question as to its outcome: temperatures are rising, droughts prevail, and most devastating, hurricanes are more threatening. The CU roadmap must address the causes of Climate Change and most assuredly its consequences. The CU federal government must therefore advocate systems and schemes for a lower carbon footprint. Notwithstanding, the CU must implement recovery measures to respond, react and rebuild from the ever-more-devastating hurricanes.

Climate Change brings forth a lot of demand for cutting-edge products and services; supplying that demand will mean profits. Let’s keep those profits here in our region. Let’s allow for Caribbean investors in Caribbean companies.

Yes, we can …

Frankly, individuals and institutions investing in companies that supply cutting-edge Climate Change mitigating products is only an American actuality, now. But we must not be limited to this reality. The Go Lean/CU roadmap calls for promoting and elevating the 9 existing Stock Exchanges that are already in the region. The book identified these institutions (Page 200):

Bahamas (BISX)
Barbados (BSE)
Bermuda (BSX)
Cayman Islands (CSX)
Eastern Caribbean (ECSE)
Guyana (GASCI)
Haiti (HSE)
Jamaica (JSE)
Trinidad (TTSE)

So this is the How …

… throughout the 370 pages of the Go Lean book, the details are provided as turn-by-turn directions on how to reform and transform the economic, security and governing engines for the Caribbean region and their member-states. This roadmap includes the new community ethos (attitudes and values) that must be adopted; plus the executions of new strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to elevate the region’s existing Stock Exchanges – our versions of Wall Street. In fact, this actual advocacy in the Go Lean book contains specific plans, excerpts and headlines here from Page 200, entitled:

10 Ways to Impact Wall Street

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market Confederation Treaty This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby expanding to an economy of 30 countries, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion. The CU’s Single Market and Currency Union will allow for the emergence of viable capital markets for stocks, public/private bonds, and securities to create the economic engines needed to fuel growth, expansion and development. The CU will fill in the missing piece of the equation for successful international financial centers by providing the “whole institutional infrastructure of laws, regulations, contracts, trust and disclosure”.
2	Ensure Corporate Governance
3	Protect Public Financing Vehicles The CU is a reboot of the regional governance for the Caribbean region. As such, “new guards” are implemented to ensure governmental financing. All public institutions (local authorities, municipal, national, and CU/federal) can avail the securities markets to sell municipal bonds and tax liens – this strategy ensure revenue collection. The CU will ensure a vertical industry of credit information and risk assessments to ensure the collectability of public debt.
4	Adopt Advanced Products The regional securities markets will be encouraged to adopt advanced financial products like mutual funds, ETF, REITs, commodities futures and options. These products attract more people to avail themselves of investment opportunities.
5	Apply Common Sense – Derivatives – Lessons Learned
6	Ensure Quality and Limits on Electronic Trading systems
7	Downplay Lawless Impressions – Offshore Banking Offshore banks have a place in the modern financial landscape without being viewed as “pirate” enterprises. When firms incorporate in CU financial centers to avail lower tax burden, this is a legal, opportunistic and a prudent business move. The CU will promote the vibrancy of this industry with better controls, oversight and image promotion.
8	Protect Against Foreign Currency Manipulators
9	Protect Against Insider Trading and Securities Fraud Economic crimes involving the securities industry can have far reaching consequences beyond normal felonies. As such, the CU will maintain jurisdiction and marshal the investigations, prosecutions and sentencing of these crimes.
10	Learn from Occupy Wall Street Protest Movement

This advocacy projects that there is hope that the Caribbean region can foster the needed Capital Markets and Securities Exchanges to allow the funding vehicles for societal progress: stocks, bonds, options, reinsurance sidecars, warrants, and other financial products.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … to allow us to invest in ourselves … finally. This is how we can make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

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

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

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Food Security – Big Chicken 101

Posted on December 30, 2019 in Economics, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

We gotta eat!
So we should always have access to foods that are “delicious, nutritious and taste like Chicken”.

So many exotic foods taste like chicken: sea turtle, alligator, rattlesnake, frog legs, iguana, etc. These foods are viable sources of protein, and commonplace here in the New World (Western Hemisphere). Still, for the un-initiated, they may frown on the exotic nature of these foods – they would rather just “Eat Chicken”.

Everybody eats chicken or poultry; it is the staple protein of the Western global diet.

The chickens are simple and straight forward to cultivate; they are the most docile of domesticated animals:

The females – hens – give eggs every day.
It takes 8 to 12 weeks from hatching to slaughter.
In some Third World countries, there is the iconic imagery of chickens on buses, trains, and boats; people take their chickens with them alive for their journey, but they might slaughter and eat them during the course of the expedition.

Poultry varieties – chicken, turkey, Cornish hens, pheasant, quail, etc. – are universally prominent in diets around the globe. Plus, there tend to be few religious restrictions amongst meat-eaters:

i.e. compared to Muslims who do not eat pork; or Hindus who do not eat beef.

This is not new; chickens played a prominent role in ancient life, medieval iife and the recent colonial life. But “something” happened in the 20^th Century and now chickens are omnipresent – 9 billion are raised in the US alone – in modern life. What was the “something” that happened?

Big Pharma: Antibiotics or Steroids … in the 1940’s.

This is the science:

Too many fowls (chicken, turkey, etc.) together almost always causes sickness, disease and death. Something more is needed to bolster the fowl’s immune system to allow them to thrive despite the closed quarters, surrounded by thousands of other birds, and with minimal exercise/movement.

This pharmaceutical product offering – antibiotics – which emerged in the late 1940’s, allows for more chicken production at lower costs. Since the late 1940’s – early 1950’s – poultry (eggs and chicken meat) became plentiful for breakfast, lunch and dinner; daily if that is the desire.

Now, anybody, anywhere can deploy Chicken Farms, endure the 8 to 12 weeks growth stage, slaughter and eat chicken. (It is best suited for rural areas). See the “How To” in the Appendix VIDEO below.

“Anybody, anywhere”? This sounds like a business model for rural agri-business, so that a community can “Feed Itself”.

“The Caribbean must be able to Feed Ourselves” – this is the theme of the teaching series for December 2019 from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This submission is the conclusion of the series; this is commentary 5 of 5 considering the Food Security and Bread Baskets for the Caribbean. The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) posits that regional stakeholders must have the priority for us to Feed Ourselves, rather than depending solely on trade. Other Food Supply considerations are presented in this series; see the full series catalog here:

Food Security – Bread Baskets on Land and Sea
Food Security – Temperate Foods in the Tropics
Food Security – Opportunity: 1 American County in Iowa raises all Beef for a Cruise Line
Food Security – FTAA: A Lesson in History
Food Security – Big Chicken

The Go Lean movement presents a roadmap for an Industrial Reboot of our agricultural footprint. This relates to the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and how we can ensure Food Security for all 30 member-states by collaborating, integrating and leveraging – one community can service another. This way we can Feed Ourselves by creating our own bread baskets. This strategy allows for consideration among the 30 participating member-states as to who is more suited to ramp-up an agri-business eco-system. While we should be deploying Chicken Farms everywhere – in every community, in truth this is not always possible locally. However, there is the opportunity for a regional solution – one community can be deputized for another community.

All in all, our society must be able to Feed Ourselves and antibiotics-steroids help. But don’t get it twisted, antibiotics and steroids are not the heroes in this story; in fact they could be villains. See their historicity depicted in the book Big Chicken – consider the Book Review in the Appendix below and the interview with the Author in this AUDIO-PODCAST here:

AUDIO-PODCAST – How Antibiotics Changed The Way The World Eats – https://the1a.org/audio/#/shows/2017-09-26/how-antibiotics-changed-the-way-the-world-eats/112128/@00:00

Posted September 26, 2017 – The Poultry industry taught us to want chicken more. Before the 1940’s, chicken was rarely seen on the dinner table.

Chickens play a prominent role in domestic life – they are omnipresent – but there are dire consequences from the excessive use of antibiotics. This is the peril of Big Pharma. This is not new! In fact, this is typical in modern life, “we” tend to go “2 steps forward, 1 step backwards” or worse yet: “1 step forward, 2 steps backwards”. We have addressed the dangers of antibiotics before; consider this excerpt from a previous blog-commentary from October 2014:

Antibiotics Use Associated With Obesity Risk
Big Pharma, the Pharmaceutical industry, dictates standards of care in the field of medicine, more so than may be a best-practice. (Picture the scene of a Pharmaceutical Salesperson slipping in the backdoor to visit a doctor and showcase latest product lines).
This subject of damaging health effects deriving from capitalistic practices in medicine aligns with Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 157), as it posits that Cancer treatment (in the US) has been driven by the profit motive, more so than a quest for wellness and/or a cure.

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

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

We need more food production – this includes Chicken – in our Caribbean homelands. We import too much. Apparently, chickens can be hatched, raised, slaughtered and processed with little effort. Ideal for rural areas, there should be few “barriers to entry” for community stewards to launch this aspect of agri-business.

What could possibly be the problem?

There is one:

Agricultural pollution/odors – Normally limited to rural areas, have the potential of disturbing the natural beauty of the area or detract from the tourism/resort look, feel and smell. See the Appendix AUDIO-PODCAST below.

In addition, when considering any changes, there are always the “powers that be” that provide opposition; they profit from the Status Quo. Caribbean communities are consuming chicken – imported chicken, acquired through trade. To reboot the agri-business eco-system and foster a local industry will entail empowering new people-processes, at the expense of the old people-processes. This is the reality of Crony-Capitalism – Special Interests that defy the Greater Good for personal gain.

Come what may, we must reboot. Change will come … anyway. We need to regulate, modulate and stipulate positive changes that society makes to ensure the Greater Good. This commitment might mean ignoring the Classical Economists and their Theory of Comparative Advantage – where greater benefits are derived to the trading partners by allowing the partner with the most value to execute the functionality – for a while. This Theory has caused globalization to run amok.

We may need subsidies to compensate and prop up the local agri-business establishments. The reasoning is simple: we must promote farmers and protect the independence of our Food Supply. We must unconditionally be able to Feed Ourselves … finally.

We must always be On Guard for the corruption of Crony-Capitalism. In fact, the issues in reforming and transforming our society to mitigate Crony-Capitalism have been addressed in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this list of sample entries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14087	Opioids and the FDA – ‘Fox guarding the Henhouse’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12645	Back to the Future: Textbooks or Tablets in School?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11520	Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Lower Ed.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11269	Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – An American Sickness
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11057	Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Book Review: Sold-Out!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7430	Brazilian Shrunken Head Babies: Zika or Tdap (Vaccine Abuse)?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6819	The Downside & Crony-Capitalism of ‘Western’ Diets
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6580	Crony-Capitalism of Drug Patents
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5993	Carnival Cruise Onboard Monopoly – Ban carry-on bottled beverages
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4673	Book Review: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ Documentary
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2522	The Cost of Cancer Drugs – Pure Crony-Capitalism

As related in every submission of this Food Supply series, our intent – as communicated in the outset of the Go Lean book – is simple yet providential (Page 4):

The CU should better provide for the region’s basic needs (food, clothing, energy and shelter), and then be in position to help supply the rest of the world.

We gotta eat! Chicken is good! It would be a good business model – government policy – to provide subsidies to grow, harvest and distribute locally raised chickens – all foods for that matter – for the people of our communities. We would save on the “Foreign Currency” and minimize “Trade Deficits”. This would be a win-win all around.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … to Feed Ourselves … finally. This is how we can make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

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

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

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Book Review – Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats
By: McKenna, Maryn
In this eye-opening exposé, acclaimed health journalist and National Geographic contributor Maryn McKenna documents how antibiotics transformed chicken from local delicacy to industrial commodity—and human health threat—uncovering the ways we can make America’s favorite meat safer again.

What you eat matters—for your health, for the environment, and for future generations. In this riveting investigative narrative, McKenna dives deep into the world of modern agriculture by way of chicken: from the farm where it’s raised directly to your dinner table. Consumed more than any other meat in the United States, chicken is emblematic of today’s mass food-processing practices and their profound influence on our lives and health. Tracing its meteoric rise from scarce treat to ubiquitous global commodity, McKenna reveals the astounding role of antibiotics in industrial farming, documenting how and why “wonder drugs” revolutionized the way the world eats—and not necessarily for the better. Rich with scientific, historical, and cultural insights, this spellbinding cautionary tale shines a light on one of America’s favorite foods—and shows us the way to safer, healthier eating for ourselves and our children.

In August 2019 this book will be published in paperback with the title Plucked: Chicken, Antibiotics, and How Big Business Changed the Way the World Eats.

Source: Retrieved December 29, 2019 from: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Chicken-Incredible-Antibiotics-Agriculture/dp/1426217668

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Appendix VIDEO – How to Start Chicken Farm Business – Organic Broiler Poultry Farming of Chickens & Goats – https://youtu.be/t8OGruo7DJs

Young Entrepreneurs Forum
Posted December 5, 2016 – Full Process of How to Start Chicken Farm Business. Start Organic Broiler Poultry Farming of Chickens & Goats.

Chicken farming business is a very profitable business idea in 2016 & 2017. So, if you want to start chicken farm business then, must watch this video for starting organic broiler poultry farming business in your country. Start Chicken farming in India.

[Need 15 pieces of] Equipment of Organic Broiler Poultry Farming Business – Chicken Farm Business Equipment.

Feeders
Heaters or Brooders
Incubator
Chick box
Fly Tray
Poultry Plucker Rubber Finger
Egg Tray
Poultry Incubator Controller
Ventilation Fan
Laying Nest
Egg Scale
Egg Washer
Water Pots and Drinkers
Cages and Coops
Dressing Machine

If you’ve any questions related to How to Start Chicken Farm Business – Organic Broiler Poultry Farming of Chickens & Goats then, feel free to leave it in comment box. Thanks for watching chicken farm business – organic broiler farming video.

Category: Howto & Style

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Appendix AUDIO-PODCAST – When A Chicken Farm Moves Next Door, Odor May Not Be The Only Problem – https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/24/463976110/when-a-chicken-farm-moves-next-door-odor-may-not-be-the-only-problem

All Things Considered
Posted January 24, 2016 – As farms move closer to residential areas, neighbors are complaining that the waste generated is a potential health hazard.

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