Economics – Page 5 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Category: Economics

Food Security – A Lesson in History: Free Trade Agreement of the Americas

Posted on December 29, 2019 in Economics, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

Free Trade agreements are highly controversial:

Economists love them while workers hate them.

The Economists claim that trade pacts – i.e. NAFTA, MERCURSOR, and the now-defunct FTAA – result in increased economic output: See this excerpt from the 2013 Go Lean … Caribbean book (Page 21):

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

On the other hand, workers complain that in Free Trade pacts low-skilled jobs flee to the participating countries with the lowest wages. See the American drama depicted in this excerpt from a previous blog-commentary from March 2016:

An Ode to Detroit – Good Luck on Trade!
There is a strong current against free trade deals in big industrial cities in the American north. … But chances are, these trade agreements will not disappear… These free trade agreements are ratified treaties with other countries that are not so easily dismantled. Plus, the US business interest has proven to be formidable in their obstructionism to radical changes to their status quo.

The Go Lean movement asserts that there is a Crony-Capitalistic influence in the US that creates a societal defect for forging change. In this case, trade deals like NAFTA allow big corporations to shift labor costs to alternate locales with lower payroll costs. This commentary has related that the money motivation with this strategy may be too much to overcome in the America of 2016.

So when the ascension of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) stalled in 2005 – see the historicity of FTAA in Appendix A below – this outcome taught an important lesson about something even more important than “Free Trade”:

The art and science of the Food Supply.

The United States of America has the highest level of wages among the 34 countries in this hemispheric economic plan; they would have benefited from cost savings of using cheaper labor in poorer countries to grow certain agricultural products – think lemons-limes in Mexico. This is referred to as the 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. See the formal policy here:

Theory of Comparative Advantage
The law of comparative advantage describes how, under free trade, an agent will produce more of and consume less of a good for which they have a comparative advantage.^[1] In an economic model, agents have a comparative advantage over others in producing a particular good if they can produce that good at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade.^[2] Comparative advantage describes the economic reality of the work gains from trade for individuals, firms, or nations, which arise from differences in their factor endowments or technological progress.^[3] – Source: Wikipedia

True adherence to this economic concept would have demanded that the US ended their agricultural subsidies for their farmers. (See the definitions of ‘subsidies’ in Appendix B below.). FTAA failed because the US refused to comply with the mandate from the Economists. They reasoned that they must protect their bread baskets (farmers), because in so doing they would protect the independence of their Food Supply.

A society must be able to feed itself …
… despite whether it is cheaper to do so, compared to cross-border trade.

This is the Lesson in History for us in the Caribbean from the FTAA drama.

This is the continuation of this teaching series for December 2019 from the movement behind the Go Lean book. This entry is commentary 4 of 5 considering Food Security for the Caribbean. The first priority should be for us to Feed Ourselves ; rather than depending so heavily on trade. This is a good example from the American-FTAA drama. 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 book presents a roadmap for an Industrial Reboot of our agricultural footprint. It introduces a regional solution – the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – to ensure Food Security for all 30 member-states. The book posits that we must be prepared to Feed Ourselves with intra-regional solutions – we must have our own bread baskets. Among the 30 participating member-states, there are some that are better suited – lower opportunity costs in the Competitive Analysis exercise – to ramp-up an agri-business eco-system.

As a boy growing up in the Caribbean – more exactly, in the Bahamas – we would go to the citrus trees in the backyard and pick fruit for household consumption: seasoning foods and making limeade-lemonade. Now today, the grocery stores only sell imported lemons – see Photo here.

The same issues are prevalent with Caribbean fisheries.

Today in the Caribbean, the prevalence is for “Fish Fingers” on restaurant menus to be American exported, farm-raised tilapia or catfish; despite the 1,063,000 square miles of the Caribbean Sea.

We must do better; we must be able to Feed Ourselves … finally. The Theory of Competitive Analysis has caused globalization to run amok.

The issues in reforming and transforming our interactions with global trade have been addressed in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this list of sample entries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16341	New Post Office Eco-system – Globalization issues ‘loud and clear’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16208	In Defense of Trade – Bilateral Tariffs: No one wins
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15875	Amazon Model: ‘What I want to be when I grow up’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13233	Caribbean proposes new US-Caribbean trade initiative
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6231	China’s Caribbean Playbook: America’s Script
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=994	Bahamas rejects US trade demand

As related in every submission of this Food Supply series, our intention is simple yet providential – as communicated in the outset of the Go Lean book (Page 3):

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! So it is a great business model – maybe after some government subsidies – to grow, harvest and distribute local foods for the people of our communities. It creates foreign exchange as well. The Go Lean movement presents a business model of fostering packaged foods to sell to the world – imagine our Diaspora scattered in foreign lands; see this portrayal of a Caribbean food service company – GraceKennedy – in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Grace Kennedy Belize Ltd – https://youtu.be/kVDhoaa2yWI

globaldirectories
Published Sep 4, 2015 – GraceKennedy (Belize) Ltd was established and commenced operations January, 1982 as a subsidiary of GraceKennedy Ltd. of Kingston, Jamaica. Presently, GraceKennedy (Belize) Ltd. is one of Belize’s major food & beverage distributors. GraceKennedy (Belize) Ltd. is involved in the importation and distribution of a wide range of food and non-food grocery items throughout the country of Belize. The company is the exclusive distributor of Grace and Grace-owned branded products. Over the many years, the company’s ability to Brand-build and engage consumers has attracted any other brands such as Malher, Colgate-Polmive, PA Benjamins, Suretox, Roses Toilet Tissues, Mackeson Stout, Carib Beer, Stag Beer and El Dorado Rum.

Join us in our campaign for 2015, Grace We Care .

This is an extension of the ever popular Pass On The Love. Every month GraceKennedy (Belize) Ltd. staff members donate a portion of their salary to the Grace We Care Club. This Club then finds ways to give back to the community. Show you care by preparing a meal with your family, invite someone less fortunate to a dinner or to enjoy a family game. Teach the youths to give to those who don’t have as much as they do by donating toys, usable clothing that is not being worn or books that they have read. There is a lot we can all do to help one another.

Category: Travel & Events

This plan – fostering regional bread baskets with the help of government subsidies – would be a win-win all around.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … to Feed Ourselves and our trading partners. This is how we 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 & 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!

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 – 14):

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.

—————

Appendix A – Reference: Free Trade Area of the Americas

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce the trade barriers among all countries in the Americas, excluding Cuba.

History In the latest round of negotiations, trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami, Florida, in the United States, in November 2003 to discuss the proposal.^[1] The proposed agreement was an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Opposing the proposal were Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Dominica, and Nicaragua (all of which entered the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas in response), and Mercosur member states. Discussions have faltered over similar points as the Doha Development Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks; developed nations seek expanded trade in services and increased intellectual property rights, while less developed nations seek an end to agricultural subsidies and free trade in agricultural goods. Similar to the WTO talks, Brazil has taken a leadership role among the less developed nations, while the United States has taken a similar role for the developed nations.

Beginning Free Trade Area of the Americas began with the Summit of the Americas in Miami, Florida, on December 11, 1994, but the FTAA came to public attention during the Quebec City Summit of the Americas, held in Canada in 2001, a meeting targeted by massive anti-corporatization and anti-globalization protests. The Miami negotiations in 2003 met similar protests, though perhaps not as large.

Disagreements In previous negotiations, the United States had pushed for a single comprehensive agreement to reduce trade barriers for goods, while increasing intellectual property protection. Specific intellectual property protections could include DMC Digital Millennium Copyright Act style copyright protections similar to the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Another protection would likely restrict the importation or cross importation of pharmaceuticals, similar to the proposed agreement between the United States and Canada. Brazil posed a three-track approach that calls for a series of bilateral agreements to reduce specific tariffs on goods, a hemispheric pact on rules of origin, and a dispute resolution process Brazil proposed to omit the more controversial issues from the FTA, leaving them to the WTO.

The location of the FTA Secretariat was to have been determined in 2005. The contending cities were: Atlanta, Chicago, Galveston, Houston, San Juan, and Miami in the United States; Cancún and Puebla in Mexico; Panama City, Panama; and Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The U.S. city of Colorado Springs also submitted its candidacy in the early days but subsequently withdrew.^[2] Miami, Panama City and Puebla served successively an interim secretariat headquarters during the negotiation process.

The last summit was held at Mar del Plata, Argentina, in November 2005, but no agreement on FTA was reached. Of the 39 countries present at the negotiations, 20 pledged to meet again in 2006 to resume negotiations, but no meeting took place. The failure of the Mar del Plata summit to establish a comprehensive FTA agenda augured poorly.

Current status The FTAA missed the targeted deadline of 2005, which followed the stalling of useful negotiations of the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 2005.^[3] Over the next few years, some governments, most notably the United States, not wanting to lose any chance of hemispheric trade expansion moved in the direction of establishing a series of bilateral trade deals. The leaders however, planned further discussions at the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Cartagen, Colombia, in 2012.^[4][5] …

Source: Retrieved December 29, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Trade_Area_of_the_Americas

————–

Appendix B – Reference: Subsidy

A subsidy or government incentive is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy.^[1] Although commonly extended from government, the term subsidy can relate to any type of support – for example from NGOs or as implicit subsidies. Subsidies come in various forms including: direct (cash grants, interest-free loans) and indirect (tax breaks, insurance, low-interest loans, accelerated depreciation, rent rebates).^[2][3]

Furthermore, they can be broad or narrow, legal or illegal, ethical or unethical. The most common forms of subsidies are those to the producer or the consumer. Producer/production subsidies ensure producers are better off by either supplying market price support, direct support, or payments to factors of production.^[1] Consumer/consumption subsidies commonly reduce the price of goods and services to the consumer. For example, in the US at one time it was cheaper to buy gasoline than bottled water.^[4] …

Examples
Agricultural subsidies – Support for agriculture dates back to the 19th century. It was developed extensively in the EU and USA across the two World Wars and the Great Depression to protect domestic food production, but remains important across the world today.^[26][29] In 2005, US farmers received $14 billion and EU farmers $47 billion in agricultural subsidies.^[18] Today, agricultural subsidies are defended on the grounds of helping farmers to maintain their livelihoods. The majority of payments are based on outputs and inputs and thus favour the larger producing agribusinesses over the small-scale farmers.^[1][33] In the USA nearly 30% of payments go to the top 2% of farmers.^[26][34][35]

By subsidising inputs and outputs through such schemes as ‘yield based subsidisation’, farmers are encouraged to over-produce using intensive methods, including using more fertilizers and pesticides; grow high-yielding monocultures; reduce crop rotation; shorten fallow periods; and promote exploitative land use change from forests, rainforests and wetlands to agricultural land.^[26] These all lead to severe environmental degradation, including adverse effects on soil quality and productivity including erosion, nutrient supply and salinity which in turn affects carbon storage and cycling, water retention and drought resistance; water quality including pollution, nutrient deposition and eutrophication of waterways, and lowering of water tables; diversity of flora and fauna including indigenous species both directly and indirectly through the destruction of habitats, resulting in a genetic wipe-out.^{[1][26][36][37]}

Cotton growers in the US reportedly receive half their income from the government under the Farm Bill of 2002. The subsidy payments stimulated overproduction and resulted in a record cotton harvest in 2002, much of which had to be sold at very reduced prices in the global market.^[18] For foreign producers, the depressed cotton price lowered their prices far below the break-even price. In fact, African farmers received 35 to 40 cents per pound for cotton, while US cotton growers, backed by government agricultural payments, received 75 cents per pound. Developing countries and trade organizations argue that poorer countries should be able to export their principal commodities to survive, but protectionist laws and payments in the United States and Europe prevent these countries from engaging in international trade opportunities.

Fisheries – Today, much of the world’s major fisheries are overexploited; in 2002, the WWF estimate this at approximately 75%. Fishing subsidies include “direct assistance to fishers; loan support programs; tax preferences and insurance support; capital and infrastructure programs; marketing and price support programs; and fisheries management, research, and conservation programs.”^[38] They promote the expansion of fishing fleets, the supply of larger and longer nets, larger yields and indiscriminate catch, as well as mitigating risks which encourages further investment into large-scale operations to the disfavour of the already struggling small-scale industry.^[26][39] Collectively, these result in the continued overcapitalization and overfishing of marine fisheries.

There are four categories of fisheries subsidies. First are direct financial transfers, second are indirect financial transfers and services. Third, certain forms of intervention and fourth, not intervening. The first category regards direct payments from the government received by the fisheries industry. These typically affect profits of the industry in the short term and can be negative or positive. Category two pertains to government intervention, not involving those under the first category. These subsidies also affect the profits in the short term but typically are not negative. Category three includes intervention that results in a negative short-term economic impact, but economic benefits in the long term. These benefits are usually more general societal benefits such as the environment. The final category pertains to inaction by the government, allowing producers to impose certain production costs on others. These subsidies tend to lead to positive benefits in the short term but negative in the long term.^[40]

Others – The US National Football League’s (NFL) profits have topped records at $11 billion, the highest of all sports. The NFL had tax-exempt status until voluntarily relinquishing it in 2015, and new stadiums have been built with public subsidies.^[41][42]

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI), published by the Center for Global Development, measures the effect that subsidies and trade barriers actually have on the undeveloped world. It uses trade, along with six other components such as aid or investment, to rank and evaluate developed countries on policies that affect the undeveloped world. It finds that the richest countries spend $106 billion per year subsidizing their own farmers – almost exactly as much as they spend on foreign aid.^[43]

Source: Retrieved December 29, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy

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Model, Trade, Transform

Food Security – Opportunity: “1 Iowa County Supplies all the Beef for a Cruise Line”

Posted on December 28, 2019 in Economics, Implementation, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

Supply and Demand …

These are the bedrock principles of economic decision-making. Or should be …

… but when it comes to Caribbean economics, the rules seem to be different … 🙁

There is demand for food supplies for Caribbean foreign visitors
The supply to feed foreign visitors are also sourced from foreign originators.

In fact, as reported in this one article in November 2010, there is a sophisticated supply chain eco-system for just Carnival Cruise Lines – responsible for 8 to 9 million annual unique Caribbean visitors, per 2012. See the details of that article here:

Title: Amazing Cruise Food Facts
Ever wondered just how much food and drink is consumed on an average cruise? … Here are some amazing cruise food facts, according to the UK-based industry trade journal Cruise International.

Every day 2,550 fresh eggs are consumed by Holland America’s Eurodam, 2,100 guests and 900 crew.

A whole county in Iowa raises all its cattle for sale to Carnival Cruise Lines.

On board Carnival Dream, passengers eat of 28,730 shrimp every week.

6,200 cocktails and 15,000 coffees are drunk on Costa ships every week.

On board MSC Fantasia class ships, 2,000 different recipes are used on a seven-day cruise.

280 bottles of free champagne, 10lbs of caviar and 120lbs of lobster are devoured on Seabourn ships (Legend/Pride/Spirit) over seven nights.

On an average P&O Ventura 14-day cruise, 3,096 passengers and 1,200 crew will eat some 171,840 main meals.

During an eight-night cruise on board Fred. Olsen’s Boudicca, 630 litres of ice cream will be eaten.

On a typical 10-day cruise, the shopping list for Crystal Symphony includes over 60 tonnes of food-stuffs to be purchased and delivered to dock in the few hours on turnaround day.

It is not known exactly how much Spam was consumed by passengers on the stranded Carnival Splendor in November 2010; [it had to be towed to its San Diego-California home base after engines caught fire off the Mexican Rivera coast].

A whole county in Iowa? (This was reported back in 2010 reflecting activity for the years leading up to 2010, but it does give some insights as to scope of the operation). Iowa is part of the American Midwest region – the bread basket of America:

Iowa 101

There are 99 counties in the U.S. state of Iowa.

Iowa Population: 3,156,145 (2,018)

Iowa’s main conventional agricultural commodities are hogs, corn, soybeans, oats, cattle, eggs, and dairy products. Iowa is the nation’s largest producer of ethanol and corn and some years is the largest grower of soybeans. In 2008, the 92,600 farms in Iowa produced 19% of the nation’s corn, 17% of the soybeans, 30% of the hogs, and 14% of the eggs.^[131]

Midwest 101
Sometimes called “the breadbasket of America” the [American] Midwest serves as a center for grain production, particularly wheat, corn and soybeans.^[3] …

In 1839 the Northeastern state of New York became the country’s leading dairy producer, a position it held until overtaken by Iowa in 1890. It wasn’t long after that Wisconsin emerged as the leading dairy producer.^[5]

Beef and pork processing have long been important Midwestern industries. Chicago and Kansas City served as stockyards and processing centers of the beef trade and Cincinnati, nicknamed ‘Porkopolis’, was once the largest pork-producing city in the world.^[6] Iowa is the center of pork production in the U.S.^{[citation needed]} Meats were preserved by curing as in corned beef, sugar-cured ham and bacon, or smoked. – Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_the_Midwestern_United_States#Background retrieved December 28, 2019.

That was 2010; what is the status quo now? How does Carnival provision their beef needs today, as we approach 2020?

Posted September 18, 2010
… I understand that Carnival has cut a deal with an new meat supplier. I read that last April [2010], Carnival began using J&B Foods of Albertville, Minnesota as their meat supplier.

I didn’t know this until a couple of weeks ago A friend told me he is a Senior Butcher for the company and was he said that Carnival contract had increased their production over 30%. It’s a good company and they do a good job with meat. – Source: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/1218077-what-was-your-experience-with-carnival-meat-in-the-mdr/

J&B Group
Even though sourcing all the beef from an entire county was impressive, enacting a supply contract with J&B Foods is even more so. See the corporate profile in the Appendix below and the VIDEO here:

VIDEO – J&B Group – Discover our capabilities – https://youtu.be/6Xkng_4MTQI

J&B Foods
From food service and retail to wholesale and third party logistics, discover what J&B Group can do for you!

Category: People & Blogs

Do you see the opportunity here, in supplying the demand for beef for the cruise ships traversing the Caribbean?

If one cruise line is willing to enact supply agreements that engage a whole region (Iowa), surely Caribbean stakeholders can deploy the necessary cattle operations (ranching, slaughter, butchering, warehousing and distribution) to satisfy the existing demand for a Caribbean cruise eco-system. We have one primary advantage that cannot be ignored:

Location, location and location.

Raising cattle is not “Rocket Science” – we can do it here! With the ability to transform one or more BIG member-states – Belize, Cuba, Guyana, and/or Suriname – into the region’s bread baskets, we can scale-up beef productions with minimal time, talent and treasures to supply the cruise industry’s demand; (and our own demand-supply needs).

If we cannot “have all of the pie, then maybe just some slices”.

This is how Industrial Reboots work!

This is the continuation of this teaching series for December 2019 from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. As we present a series every month, this entry is commentary 3 of 5 considering Food Security for the Caribbean. The goal is first to Feed Ourselves after which we should foster Trade to an export market. Servicing the cruise industry is within this Trade strategy. 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 2013 Go Lean book presents a roadmap – an economic plan – to introduce and implement a regional solution – the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – to ensure Food Security. The book posits that we can satisfy the “supply and demand” dynamics. On the Supply-side, we can put the implementations in place to have our own bread baskets … finally. Among the 30 participating member-states there are some that are more suited – lower opportunity costs – to ramp-up an agri-business eco-system. The strategy is to make the regional investments there, in one or several of those states.

On the Demand-side, there is the tactic of collective bargaining. This activity is already planned in the quest to reform and transform the cruise tourism industry. This was related in a previous Go Lean blog-commentary; see an excerpt here:

Some of the most popular cruise destinations include the Bahamas, Jamaica, Cayman Islands and Saint Martin. Alone, these port cities/member states cannot effect change on this cruise line industry. But together, as one unified front, the chances for success improves exponentially. The unified front is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The term Union is more than a coincidence; it was branded as such by design. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the CU.

The vision of this integration movement is for the region to function as a Single Market. The quotation from the Go Lean book continues in advocating that the Caribbean member-states (independent & dependent) lean-in to this plan for confederacy, convention and collaboration. This is Collective Bargaining 101.

This is a wise yet simple plan: Make the Caribbean Cruise industry an offer they cannot refuse …

… the same or better quality for beef at a lower price (with minimal transport or logistical expenses).

As related in the first commentary in this series, the following organizational deployments make this business plan possible:

Organizational deployments are among the 370 pages of the roadmap, the turn-by-turn directions in the Go Lean book, 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 that must be adopted; plus the executions of new strategies, tactics, and implementations to deliver on this quest to reboot our industrial landscape and Feed Ourselves. In fact, this is the actual title of one advocacy in the Go Lean book. Consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines here from Page 193, entitled:

10 Ways to Impact Cruise Tourism

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market Confederation Treaty The unification of the region into one market will allow for collective bargaining with the cruise industry. No one single island nation-state would have the clout of a unified market – the industry needs the Caribbean more than the Caribbean needs the industry. The ports-of-calls need to be able to generate more revenue from the visiting passengers, but the cruise line have embedded rules/regulations designed to maximize their revenues at the expense of the port-side establishments, like on-board duty free shops, prohibitions against buying island alcohol and tobacco products. Such actions would often violate anti-trust rules/laws in most modern democracies.
2	Quality Assurance Programs The CU will regulate and enforce high standards among the port-side establishments, therefore eliminating the need for cruise lines to “curry favor” with merchants. A Charge-back eco-system and quality assurance programs like surveys for passenger feedback will be used and the results published extensively.
3	e-Purse Settlement with Central Bank in Caribbean Dollars
4	Port-side Risk Mitigations
5	Disabled Passengers Accommodations
6	Emergency Management Proactive and Reactive Services
7	Medical Escalated Response
8	Co-Marketing with National Tourism Departments, Excess Inventory and One-Way Travel
9	Domestic Market The CU market of 42 million people also has vacation needs. Cruises should be able to start/end locally in the region, for example a passenger should be able to join a cruise in the Bahamas and complete the circuit back in the Bahamas. The Caribbean represents different cultures, languages, urban and rural destinations, therefore many taste can be accommodated. An alignment with tender boats can also accommodate eco-tourism hand-off to/from cruise ships. These are among the service offerings for collective bargaining negotiations.
10	Shipbuilding Support Services

Raising cattle is not “Rocket Science” – we can do it here! What an opportunity? We can reform and transform our agricultural deliveries so as to better Feed Ourselves with lower costs and greater variety in our Food Supply. Then, we get to also improve our pocketbooks by trading foodstuffs with our Cruise Line business partners.

The issues in reforming and transforming our interactions with our Cruise Line business partners have been addressed in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this list of sample entries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17072	One Case Study: Caribbean Cruise Port ‘Held Hostage’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15380	Industrial Reboot – Cruise Tourism 2.0
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12126	America’s Maritime Laws – Stupidity of the ‘Jones Act’ on Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11544	Forging Change: Collective Bargaining
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5210	Cruise Ship Commerce – Getting Ready for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3889	Merchant Banks e-Payments – Ready for Cruise Industry Changes

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.

Tourism is a great business model; we get to generate a lot of foreign currency. But then, we “stupidly” turn around to give it away for products and commodities that we can/should really fulfill ourselves.

Not wise!

Let’s wisen up. Let’s lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … and Feed Ourselves and our guest. 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.

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.

—————-

Appendix – J&B Group: Foodservice Offerings

Quality starts at the center of your plate and J&B Group is the premier cold chain provider that can bring you the quality protein solutions you need, along with unparalleled customer service.

Serving up the best in protein solutions
In today’s hyper-complex foodservice world, you need a protein partner that can maximize your competitive advantages – from your kitchen to your menu to your bottom line. Turn to J&B Foodservice and our “5S Guarantee” to help solve your critical business challenges.

Buying Power
Our expert protein industry purchasing team understands the markets and successfully navigates fluctuations to bring you the highest value at the most competitive cost possible. They leverage over one hundred years of J&B buying experience to ensure a supply chain that brings excellent value and service to every one of our valued customers. Collaborating with our customers to understand their needs, our team provides recommendations and solutions to an ever changing global protein supply chain.

Manufacturing
J&B has a mission to be an innovative leader in protein produced goods, providing exceptional value in quality, cost, and service.

Cold Storage
J&B’s warehouse capabilities include blast freezing, order picking, speed tempering and re-stacking/re-palletizing. We guarantee temperature consistency, proper product handling with detailed documentation and reporting with superior cleanliness and secure facility.

Our Products
J&B Foodservice sells an extensive portfolio of foodservice proteins throughout the United States to both large restaurant chains as well as independent operators. We produce a wide variety of proteins, such as portion cut steaks, fresh and frozen portioned and bulk ground beef, injected sub-primals, and Thin Sliced Meats. We also offer a wide variety of raw material grades and brands to meet our customer’s quality and pricing needs.

Our Facilities

Source: Retrieved December 28, 2019 from: https://www.jbgroup.com/business-unit/foodservice/

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Food Security – Temperate Foods in the Tropics – Encore

Posted on December 27, 2019 in Economics, Industries, Strategy

So we want our own bread baskets to better Feed Ourselves here in the Caribbean.

This is normal and natural! According to this Bible scripture …

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. – The Bible – Genesis 1:28 KJV

… having dominion over the earth should mean being able to employ the arts and sciences of agriculture to harvest the food that we need, want and deserve.

While this is true, we still must contend with the reality of the seasons and weather. Or we do?

If it doesn’t rain, we can still water our crops through irrigation and plumbing.
If it is too cold, we can warm up the crops – greenhouses – to guarantee a warmer temperature.

Surely, if its too warm, then we can cool our crops to dictate a colder climate.

Surely?! This reflects “dominion” over the earth.

This is the continuation of the teaching series for December 2019, from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. This is entry 2 of 5 in this series considering Food Security and Bread Baskets for the Caribbean. Again, the goal here is not to just list the problems, but rather to focus on solutions for a better Food Supply for our region. The full catalog of this series is as follows:

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

This talk of bread baskets reminds us of the thought and thesis presented in a previous blog-commentary on February 8, 2017, from the movement behind this book Go Lean book. It is only apropos to Encore that previous submission here-now:

————-

Go Lean Commentary – Science of Sustenance – Temperate Foods

The “bread basket” of _________ …

You can fill in the blanks with difbferent regions around the world:

“Central Valley”, the bread basket of California
“Kansas”, the bread basket of America
“Alberta”, the bread basket of Canada
“Ukraine”, the bread basket of Eastern Europe

So who or where is the bread basket of the Caribbean?

Do we have an answer? Do we have a bread basket? Do we even have an organized region so as to collaborate on the responsibility of feeding our people?

No, No, and No!

This commentary is important for the Caribbean to contemplate. Every human in every land must arrange for the delivery of basic needs – “we gotta eat” and so food supply is paramount. Scientific developments have always been a major consideration for food supply, ever since the days of hunting-and gathering. Modern society is built on the premise that we would employ scientific best practices to harvest our food, or trade with people who employ these best practices.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean declares “enough already” with the trade; it is time to produce our own.

This was the original motivation for the publishing of this Go Lean book: to optimize the 30 Caribbean member-states into a Single Market so that we can be structured to do better in providing our basic needs. That structure would be the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The opening pages of the book feature this quotation (Page 3):

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. Previous Caribbean societies lived off the land and the sea; but today, the region depends extensively on imports, even acquiring large quantities of seafood, despite the 1,063,000 square miles of the Caribbean Sea.

The CU Trade Federation is a technocracy, empowered to reboot the economic engines of the member-states, by fostering new industries (new “purse”) across the entire region and deploying solutions to better exploit the opportunities of the global trade market.

The Caribbean is in crisis for their dysfunctions in delivering their own basic needs. This is the focus of this commentary; it is 2 of 4 in a series on the modern advances in science for delivering basic needs: energy, food, clothing and shelter. It is possible to deliver all these basic needs without science. But for our modern world, the advances of science make a positive impact on daily life. So the full series for our consideration follows this pattern:

The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. We must use our inadequate disposition to motivate stakeholders to forge change on our society; to implement the food supply solutions to do better at facilitating our own needs.

We are in the tropics…

… but science and technology allows us to deliver agricultural solutions for temperate produce (fruit and vegetables). Think:

Strawberries
Peaches
Apples
Spinach
Greens (Mustard, Collard, Kale, etc.)

Temperate produce need cooler temperatures to thrive. So the key is utilization of greenhouses, climate-controlled greenhouses. These allow for consistent temperatures of 20 to 30 degrees lower than the outside atmosphere. See a reference article on this subject here:

ARTICLE Grower 101: Using Evaporative Cooling, Part I
By John W. Bartok, Jr.
Find out what to use to keep your greenhouse ventilated and cool in the hot, humid summer.

On a bright, sunny summer day, a 30- x 100-foot greenhouse will gather about 32 million British Thermal Units (Btus) of heat. This is equivalent to burning 32 gallons of fuel oil or 320 therms of natural gas. If the greenhouse is full of plants, about one-half of this heat is used for transpiration and evaporation. The remainder of the cooling has to be conducted through ventilation. If the greenhouse is empty and closed, the temperature can exceed 150° F.

Understanding the basics
Shade on the outside of the greenhouse will keep some of the heat out. Shade on the inside, if it contains aluminum foil, will reflect some of the heat back out. Ventilation, either natural or fan, will remove a considerable amount of the heat that is collected. Still, on summer days, the temperature may exceed the desired level that promotes good plant growth by 10-20ºF. Excessive temperature results in delayed flowering and internode stretching. Evaporative cooling may be the best choice under these conditions.

Evaporative cooling, which uses the heat in the air to evaporate water from leaves and other wetted surfaces, can cool the greenhouse to 10-20° F below outside temperature. It takes one Btu of heat to raise the temperature of one pound of water 1° F, but it takes 1,060 Btus of heat to change the same amount of water to a vapor.

With an evaporated cooling system, humid air containing the heat that it picked up within the greenhouse is exhausted out through the vents or fans, and cooler, drier air is brought in. Evaporative cooling works best when the humidity of the outside air is low. For example, in Reno, Nev., the average summer dry bulb temperature is 96º F and the wet bulb is 61ºF. With an evaporative cooler having an efficiency of 80 percent, the temperature would be cooled to about 68° F. These conditions are most common in the dry Southwest, but even in the more humid sections of the United States, significant evaporative cooling can occur most days in the summer. In humid New Orleans, where the average summer dry bulb temperature is 93° F and the wet bulb is 78° F, the cooled air would be about 81° F, acceptable for the production of most plants.

Fan and pad system
Several evaporative cooling systems work well in commercial greenhouses. The most common is the fan and pad system. It contains a cellulose pad, overhead water supply pipe, gutter to collect excess water, a sump tank, pump, piping and control.

The 4- or 6-inch-thick pad is treated with anti-rot salts and stiffening and wetting agents. Pads are normally installed continuously along the side or end of the wall opposite the fans. The amount of pad area needed is calcuis the utillated by multiplying the floor area by 8 feet and dividing by 250 for a 4-inch pad or 400 for a 6-inch pad. For example, a 30- x 100-foot greenhouse with a 4-inch pad would require 96 sq. ft. of pads (30 x 100 x 8÷ 250 = 96 sq. ft.)

The overhead water supply pipe should distribute the water so the pad is wet uniformly. The minimum water flow rate is 0.5 gpm per sq. ft. for a 4-inch pad and 0.8 gpm per sq. ft. for a 6-inch pad.

Excess water is collected below the pad in a gutter and piped to a sump tank. Tank capacity needs to be 0.8 gallon per sq. ft. of pad for 4-inch pads and 1.0 gallon per sq. ft. for 6-inch pads. Water returning to the sump should be filtered to remove any debris. A make-up water supply and float valve keep the water level constant. In areas having water with a high mineral content, it is advisable to bleed 3-5 percent of the water to minimize salt buildup. Algae growth in the re-circulated water can be controlled with abiocide.

Modular pad systems of 5 and 6 feet are now available. These are self-contained and come completely assembled and ready to bolt to the wall. Installation time is reduced considerably. Only water and electrical connections have to be attached.

Next month, find out about swamp coolers, mist and fog systems and fan-generated fog and how they can work for you.

Source: Posted March 2003 from trade journal Greenhouse Product News; retrieved February 8, 2017 from: http://www.gpnmag.com/article/grower-101-using-evaporative-cooling-part-i/

————-

VIDEO – # 1 Best Thermal Cooled Greenhouse – https://youtu.be/HWXJ1ukEXa0

His Thermal Cooled Greenhouse in 1985 ran for 7 years, cooled itself day and night with 3 small Aquarium pumps, no fans or blowers; 14′ X 36′ ran on pennies a day – this worked!!! Now building a larger 24′ X 54′ Thermal Cooled Greenhouse. This works DAY OR NIGHT. Watch VIDEO !!!

Category – Science & Technology

License – Standard YouTube License

The science of greenhouses allows for temperate foods (fruit and vegetables) to be grown in a tropical zone – cold adds sweetness. This is what we want, what we need to fulfill our own basic needs. Other communities are doing this and we can as well. We have the role model of countries with colder climates supplying tropical fruit. Surely the reverse can be deployed as well, with strategic and tactical greenhouses.

Greenhouses allow for greater control over the growing environment of plants. Depending upon the technical specification of a greenhouse, key factors which may be controlled include temperature, levels of light and shade, irrigation, fertilizer application, and atmospheric humidity. Greenhouses may be used to overcome shortcomings in the growing qualities of a piece of land, such as a short growing season or poor light levels, and they can thereby improve food production in marginal environments. Greenhouses in hot, dry climates used specifically to provide shade are sometimes called “shadehouses”.^[42][43]

As they may enable certain crops to be grown throughout the year, greenhouses are increasingly important in the food supply of high-latitude countries. One of the largest complexes in the world is in Almería, Andalucía, Spain, where greenhouses cover almost 49,000 acres.
Source: Retrieved February 8, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse

The Caribbean is in crisis … we are not able to feed ourselves from the current food supply systems. We therefore have to expend foreign reserves to acquire food from foreign locations. This applies to food that, with the proper empowerments, can be grown locally in the Caribbean region.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The goal is that the CU would adopt these food supply best practices to better delivery this basic need for the region. In fact, the prime directives of the CU are described as:

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

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the immediate adoption of best practices in food supply science (agriculture) and infrastructure. We do not have to re-invent the wheel in this quest; other communities are doing it already. Consider the photos here of giant greenhouses in The Netherlands:

This vision of temperature controlled greenhouses in the Caribbean assumes a supply of energy for cooling and ventilation. See more here on ventilation:

Ventilation is one of the most important components in a successful greenhouse, specially in hot and humid tropical climate condition.^[18] If there is no proper ventilation, greenhouses and their growing plants can become prone to problems. The main purposes of ventilation are to regulate the temperature, humidity and vapor pressure deficit ^[19] to the optimal level, and to ensure movement of air and thus prevent build-up of plant pathogens (such as Botrytis cinerea) that prefer still air conditions. Ventilation also ensures a supply of fresh air for photosynthesis and plant respiration, and may enable important pollinators to access the greenhouse crop.

Ventilation can be achieved via use of vents – often controlled automatically via a computer – and recirculation fans.
Source: Retrieved February 8, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse

All in all, the Go Lean book declares that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. This siren call is for the establishment of a regional technocracy to facilitate the delivery of the region’s basic needs. According to the foregoing articles/references, we can grow temperate foods in the tropical zone without exhausting foreign currency.

The vision here of climate-controlled greenhouses requires heavy-lifting on the part of Caribbean stakeholders (governments and business communities). We need this heavy-lifting. A lot is at stake: our ability to feed our populations. The Go Lean roadmap calls for a separation-of-powers between CU federal agencies and the member-state governments. The CU presents Cabinet departments for Agriculture, Fisheries and Health (Food/Nutrition). These departments will have to collaborate with parallel departments at the member-state level.

This was the original motivation of the Go Lean roadmap, an interdependence of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to offset the effects of globalization. This was pronounced early in the book in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), with this statement:

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.

The roadmap also calls for the installations of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) and Self-Governing Entities (SGE) that operate in controlled bordered territories like campuses, industrial parks, research labs and industrial plants. These can be a target for the climate-controlled greenhouses.

The Go Lean book declares that we must adopt a community ethos, the appropriate attitude/spirit to forge change in our region; then details the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to better impact the region’s preparation for food resources. See this sample here:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices / Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-States into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Vision – Foster Local Economic Engines Food, Clothing & Shelter	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Prepare for Natural Disasters	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Exploit the Benefits and Opportunities of Globalization	Page 46
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Separation of Powers – Food & Nutritional Administration	Page 87
Separation of Powers – Agriculture and Fisheries Department	Page 88
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Benefits from the EEZ	Page 104
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Food	Page 162
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries	Page 210
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living – Agricultural eco-systems	Page 235

There are a lot of models of agricultural and infrastructural delivery that the Caribbean can learn from foreign shores. Previous Go Lean blog-commentaries have cited these models, samples and examples:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8982	GraceKennedy: A Caribbean Transnational tackles Food Supply
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6867	How to address high consumer prices
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6819	Supplying Foods for ‘Western’ Diets – We can do better!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6016	Hotter than July – An Appeal for Cooperative Refrigeration
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5098	Forging Change in Society Through Food
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3594	Lessons Learned from Queen Conch – A Caribbean Food
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2276	Climate Change May Affect Food Supply Within a Decade

Who or where will be the bread basket of the Caribbean? With the empowerments in this commentary, it could be all 30 member-states.

Change has come to the world of agricultural systems and sciences and change must come to the Caribbean region; we must be able to feed ourselves. We need to convene, collaborate and cooperate to satisfy our most basic needs. Yes, we can …

… come together to make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to embrace the empowerments to reboot and turn-around our region. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Food Security – Bread Basket 101

Posted on December 26, 2019 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

We gotta eat!

In fact, we probably ate 3 times yesterday; we will need to eat today; and our bellies will grumble if we do not eat tomorrow. Every culture around the world have to plan and deliver some solution for food. The art and science of this delivery is called:

Food Security
[This] is defined as the availability of food and one’s access to it. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Stages of food insecurity range from food secure situations to full-scale famine. The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. – Source: https://www.disabled-world.com/fitness/nutrition/foodsecurity/

This is Christmas-time 2019; this season is known for its feasting, especially here in the Caribbean where all 30 member-states – that constitute the political Caribbean – boasts a Judeo-Christian heritage.

What did you have on your dinner table for Christmas?
Turkey, Ham, Roast Pork, Goat, Fish, Chicken, etc.?

I hope you enjoyed your festivities. Nevertheless, truth be told, we have some serious issues in the regional eco-system for our food supply. In summary:

We do NOT have Food Security.

In fact, for most of the 30 Caribbean member-states, that Christmas dinner you enjoyed was mostly imported food. So if the transportation networks are ever interrupted, the flow of the needed food stuff would be impeded.

If … ever?

We have the constant threat of hurricanes and earthquakes in our region, so yes, this worrisome threat is not just theoretical; it has happened is happening in our homeland. (i.e. the NGO World Central Kitchen is feeding Hurricane Dorian survivors in the Northern Bahamas even now, 4 months after the devastation).

But wait?! We’ve got water: oceans and seas. Surely those resources will preserve our ability to provide a Food Supply to our people; surely we can feed ourselves from our fisheries? Sorry, No! Again in summary:

Our fish-stocks are in crisis. We are now importing more of our seafood, rather than locally sourcing for ourselves and others (minimal exports).

This is the subject of December 2019 teaching series for the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. (Every month we present a series). This commentary is 1 of 5 in a series considering Food Security for the Caribbean; the goal here is not to inventory the problems, but rather to define, discover, design and develop better Food Supply solutions for our region. The full series is as follows:

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

The 2013 Go Lean book presents a roadmap to introduce and implement a regional solution to ensure Food Security. It is a wise yet simple plan, to leverage the 42 million people in the 30 member-states to optimize the delivery systems for the region’s basic needs: food, clothing shelter and energy. The strategy of regional leverage is to confederate the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This would be a supra-national government entity to optimize the sourcing and provisioning of much of the agriculture and fishery needs for the people. The book posits that the challenge is too big for any one member-state alone to tackle and succeed. Therefore, there is the urgent need to formulate a Single Market to integrate all of these countries and territories in the geographical region, including the 1,063,000 square miles of the Caribbean Sea in an Exclusive Economic Zone. Imagine …

Food Cooperatives
Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO)
Refrigerated Warehouse Condominiums

These are just glimpses of the regional vision to grow the economy for all member-states. This was the urging of professional Economists when ask the question: “How do we, as the Caribbean, grow our economy? The answer: Feed Ourselves. See this excerpt from the Go Lean book (Page 153):

The industries of agri-business allow structured commercial systems to grow, harvest and trade in food supplies. Many of the Caribbean member states (Lesser Antilles) acquire all their food in trade, the agricultural footprint is very small, though some countries (Greater Antilles, Belize, Guyana & Suriname) have a low opportunity cost for producing food. But with the Trade Federation in force, intra-region trade will be the first priority. When the demand is qualified, quantified and assured, the supply and quality there in, will catch up.

As related here, “the industries of agri-business …” is where our focus need to be. As prescribed as good economic policy, we need our own bread basket so as to Feed Ourselves.

Bread basket = a part of a region that produces cereals for the rest of it.

Recent examples of Breadbasket Economic discussions:

Zimbabwe once was a bright spot in southern Africa and a regional breadbasket but the economy has collapsed in recent years, and foreign currency is hard to come by.— BostonGlobe.com, “Zimbabwe’s capital runs dry as taps cut off for 2 million people – The Boston Globe,” 25 Sep. 2019

Could they be transformed by intensive farming, just as the thickets of the cerrado have given way to fields of soya that transformed Brazil from a food importer to one of the world’s great breadbaskets?— The Economist, “Brazil and Japan plotted a farming revolution in Mozambique,” 14 Nov. 2019

See a sample bread basket reference (Nigeria) in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Benue State – Nigeria’s Food Basket – https://youtu.be/GhyOAF1eo1k

The234project
Published Feb 1, 2017 – Enjoy an overview of this wonderful middle belt state in Nigeria. It was created in 1976.

Category: People & Blogs

According to a previous Go Lean commentary:

Who or where is the bread basket of the Caribbean?

Do we have an answer? Do we have a bread basket? Do we even have an organized region so as to collaborate on the responsibility of feeding our people?

No, No, and No!

This commentary is important for the Caribbean to contemplate. Every human in every land must arrange for the delivery of basic needs – “we gotta eat” and so food supply is paramount. Scientific developments have always been a major consideration for food supply, ever since the days of hunting-and gathering. Modern society is built on the premise that we would employ scientific best practices to harvest our food, or trade with people who employ these best practices.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean declares “enough already” with the trade; it is time to produce our own.

Truth be told, the limestone islands of the Caribbean – think: Bahamas, Cayman, Turks & Caicos Islands, etc. – cannot be used to implement sustainable agricultural system. We need to deputize the larger landmasses – Belize, Cuba, Guyana, Suriname, etc. – to serve the bread basket role for the rest of the region.

This is the plan … deploy the agricultural installations and developments to make all the appropriate member-states our bread basket.

This plan is presented throughout the 370 pages of the Go Lean book, 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 deliver on the basic responsibility of Feeding Ourselves. In fact, this is the actual title of one advocacy in the Go Lean book. Consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines here from Page 162, entitled:

10 Ways to Better Manage Food Consumption

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market Confederation Treaty The CU will allow 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 will take the lead in facilitating the food supply and distribution systems to ensure the region can feed itself, more from local production and less from trade. Though the cost savings of imports should never be ignored, some CU countries (Greater Antilles, Belize, Guyana & Suriname) have a low opportunity cost for increasing food production for the regional market. Thus a mission of the CU is to streamline the systems, processes, logistics, funding, training, and market promotions so that the Caribbean can fulfill this basic need.
2	Public Health Dynamics – Produce Deserts & Farmers Market
3	“Nouvelle” Caribbean Cuisine
4	Agri-Business Many of the member-states get 90% (or more) of their food supplies from imports; even fish is imported from Alaska, despite the 1,063,000 square miles of harvestable waters of the Caribbean Sea. The CU will implement agri-business (and aqua-culture) investments to generate more regional options for food production: cooperatives (co-ops), farm credit, common grazing lands, fisheries oversight, canaries, aqua-culture endeavors, etc.
5	Logistics for the Food Supply [*Quick Service Restaurants* or] QSRs are so popular and growing in demand because they have mastered the “art and science” of logistics, to get their food to the consumer; and thus the low cost. When speed is not the goal, preservative strategies must be implemented. The technology of canning, “200 year old science”, will be advocated more for native products. (Most canned coconut water comes from Thailand). The CU will sponsor co-ops to manage canneries for different foods.
6	Fresh Frozen Delivery of food products must be carefully managed. Meats and produce are perishable and have a limited time to get to their final markets. An additional logistical strategy is “flash freezing”. This 100-year old technology holds a lot of promise for the region. The CU will sponsor cooperatives and condominium associations to construct and maintain refrigerated warehouses, with power alternatives, to facilitate the logistics of frozen products – for trading partners.
7	Food Labeling
8	Export – Help Regional Businesses Find Foreign Markets
9	Media Industrial Complex
10	Food Tourism

This advocacy projects that there is hope that we can reform and transform our agricultural deliveries. That’s the land, what about the seas?

In a previous blog-commentary – Lessons in Economic History: Commerce of the Seas – Book Review: ‘Sea Power’ – we learned how the oceans/seas can give a competitive advantage that can be exploited:

Around the world, countries that had access to the “Sea” have a distinct advantage economically versus countries that were land-locked; i.e. England versus Austria.

To help us Feed Ourselves, the Go Lean roadmap also advocates that we exploit the valuable resources of the seas, by reforming and transforming the fishery eco-system. In fact, this is the actual title of one advocacy in the Go Lean book. Consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines here from Page 210, entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Fisheries

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU will allow 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 (2010). One mission of the CU is to facilitate the food supply so that the region can feed itself, more from local production and less from trade; this includes yields from fisheries. The Caribbean Sea generates a large fishing industry for the surrounding countries, accounting for half a million metric tons (1.1 billion pounds) of fish per year. And yet, the region still imports fish from Alaska. (Alaska imports none from the Caribbean).
2	UN Petition – Effort initiated by the ACS [(Association of Caribbean States)]
3	*Common Pool Resources (Lobster, Conch, Grouper, Flying Fish)* Though the waters between the islands may be uninhabited, their resources can still be depleted. The CU will govern the common pool resources to promote the sustainability of fish stock. Fishing for lobster, conch, grouper, “flying fish” and other species. [These] must be controlled, with limited harvesting seasons, otherwise there will be none for future generations.
4	Cooperatives Fishery cooperatives allow fishermen and industry players to pool their resources in certain (non-competitive) areas of activity. This strategy is vital for sharing the cost and expense of installing piers/docks, locating systems (Loran-C & GPS), canaries, refrigerated warehouses and transportation solutions.
5	Aqua-culture and Mari-culture The CU will foster the industry (and cooperatives) for aqua-culture, the controlled harvesting of fish, crustaceans, mollusks and aquatic plants using farm-like conditions and practices. While commercial fishing can be likened to hunting-and-gathering, aquaculture is more akin to agriculture. Mari-culture, on the other hand, refers to aquaculture practiced in marine environments and underwater habitats. The CU will plant aquatic plants as needed to protect fish beds and reefs.
6	Fishing Tourism and Yachting Enthusiasts
7	Marine Financing
8	Coast Guard hand-off to CU Naval Authority
9	ICE Cooperation
10	Maritime Emergency Management

This Caribbean roadmap to improve our Surf & Turf Food Supply should be welcomed and greatly appreciated. The end result will be less imports – this means we get to Feed Ourselves with lower costs and greater variety in our Food Supply.

The issues in reforming and transforming our agriculture and fishery eco-systems have been a frequent subject for previous blog-commentaries; consider this list of sample entries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17697	Using Common Pool Resources to Better Source Our Food
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15359	Industrial Reboot – Fisheries 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13184	Industrial Reboot – Frozen Foods 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10369	Science of Sustenance – Temperate Foods
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3594	Better Fisheries Management for Queen Conch
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2276	Climate Change May Affect Food Supply Within a Decade

All Caribbean member-states are urged to “eat, drink and be merry”, but let’s do it with local food that we source ourselves – harvested from our own bread basket. This was an original intent of the Go Lean book; see this except from the opening Page 3:

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. Previous Caribbean societies lived off the land and the sea; but today, the region depends extensively on imports, even acquiring large quantities of seafood, despite the 1,063,000 square miles of the Caribbean Sea.

“Living off the land; living off the Seas” – considering our historicity, it would be stupid for us to NOT try this effort. This is why this roadmap is conceivable, believable and achievable. We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap to empower our regional Food Supply – we must feed ourselves … and make the Caribbean homeland and home-seas better places 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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Learning from Another ‘Great Place to Work’: Mercedes-Benz – Encore

Posted on December 19, 2019 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Planning

A lot of companies formed 133 years ago are no longer around.

Time takes its toll
Business models change
Technology improves
Values are reformed

For the companies that have survived the “Win or Go Home” tournaments, it is important to study them and learn lessons of their successes … and failures.

One such company is the international automotive conglomerate Mercedes-Benz or DaimlerBenz:

Mercedes-Benz is a German global automobile marque and a division of Daimler AG. Mercedes-Benz is known for luxury vehicles, buses, coaches, ambulances and trucks. The headquarters is in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. The name first appeared in 1926 under Daimler-Benz. In 2018, Mercedes-Benz was the biggest selling premium vehicle brand in the world, having sold 2.31 million passenger cars.^[4]

Mercedes-Benz traces its origins to Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft‘s 1901 Mercedes and Karl Benz‘s 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen, which is widely regarded as the first gasoline-powered automobile. – Source: Wikipedia.

This “Old Dog” has learned a lot of “New Tricks”.

They are considered one of the Great Places to Work, by the formal Great Place to Work® Institute; they are in the Top Ten on the 2018 List.

VIDEO – World’s Best Workplaces 2018 | Daimler Financial Services – https://youtu.be/HG2nGLaEj9w

Published on Oct 17, 2018

Category – News & Politics

One such Value Reformation that Mercedes-Benz has completed that other companies, institutions and regions – this mean YOU Caribbean stakeholders – can learn from is the emphasis on Diversity and Inclusion. See this ethos featured in the internal company newsletter here from December 9, 2019:

Title: How we shape Diversity & Inclusion
Daimler employs more than 298,000 people from around 160 nations. And that is just one aspect of our company’s diversity. We shape Diversity & Inclusion with appropriate offers and measures for our employees in five dimensions.

We work in international teams: Our workforce from around 160 nations offers us first-hand insights into our different markets and customer groups. Daimler employs people from different countries and cultures to combine their different perspectives in projects and produce the most optimal results.

We bring people from different generations together: Daimler employs people from five generations. Experience is combined with fresh ideas in intergenerational teams in order to create new approaches. Our employees can develop further and unfold, regardless of age. For this we offer a great variety of learning possibilities.

We promote equal opportunity for all genders: A balanced relationship between women and men benefits companies and society equally. Be it as developers, location managers, assembly workers or members of the Board of Management: Women work at all levels at Daimler. The share of women in senior management positions is to increase to at least 20 percent by 2020.

We defend the rights of the LGBTI+ Community: We would like our employees to feel that they can speak openly about their sexual orientation and identity. This applies to gays, lesbians and bisexuals as well as to trans* persons or intersexual people. And we also take to the streets for this: With the Daimler Pride Tour [Link] we are sending a clear signal for diversity, respect and appreciation – worldwide.

We include people with disabilities on an equal footing: The participation of severely disabled people in working life is more than an obligation for us. On the basis of our inclusion agreement, we create jobs for people with disabilities and promote their further qualification. Our action plan for severely disabled trainees opens up a wide range of commercial and technical professions for young people.

Source: Posted December 9, 2019; retrieved December 19, 2019 from https://www.daimler.com/sustainability/basics/employees/how-we-shape-diversity-inclusion.html

For the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – the movement to reform and transform the Caribbean – this is not our first time focusing on the classification of Great Places to Work. In fact, we published a previous blog-commentary on December 2, 2014; it is only apropos to Encore that submission here-now:

—————–
Go Lean Commentary – Making a Great Place to Work®

The book Go Lean…Caribbean represents a quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. The focus on this commentary is on work. There is actually a formula to making an organization a Great Place to Work®; that formula is so regimented that it is copyrighted and patented, and thus the ® symbol. This effort is pursued by the Great Place to Work® Institute. Below is their corporate information and accompanying VIDEO:

Video: The Great Place to Work Institute Model – http://youtu.be/IneDx950xRA

Great Place to Work Institute co-founder Robert Levering discusses the history of the Institute and how after 25 years of researching the best companies to work for around the world, that high levels of trust between employees and managers is the main element found in great workplaces. – Uploaded on Nov 7, 2011

————————

For over 25 years we’ve studied and identified great workplaces around the world.

Your company can be a great workplace, and you have the power to make it happen. It begins with an investment in building trust throughout your organization. The return will be a more vibrant enterprise, more innovative products and more satisfying relationships. Employees who trust their managers give their best work freely, and their extra effort goes right to the company’s bottom line. Managers who trust their employees allow innovative ideas to bubble up from all levels of the company. Employees who trust each other report a sense of camaraderie and even the feeling of being part of a family. Together they deliver far more than the sum of their individual efforts.

We’ve built the Great Place to Work® Model on 25 years of research and surveys of millions of employees.

Many of the best performing companies have followed this insight and seen tremendous results. At the Great Place to Work® Institute, we’ve spent 25 years tracking these leaders and learning from their successes. By surveying millions of employees and studying thousands of businesses, we’ve created a model for building performance based on trust. It’s our contribution to a global shift in businesses that is changing the way the world works.

We know that trust is the single most important ingredient in making a workplace great.

Our data show that building workplace trust is the best investment your company can make, leading to better recruitment, lower turnover, greater innovation, higher productivity, more loyal customers and higher profits. Our model provides specific, actionable steps to get you there. While you’ll be the one to lead your company on this journey, we can provide steady guidance from one of our 40 offices around the world.

We know that great workplaces are better financial performers.

Companies of all sizes look to us for our assessment tools, trainings, advisory services, conferences and workshops. The world looks to us to identify the best workplaces through our renowned lists. It’s all part of our passion to create a better world by helping you create a great workplace. Wherever you are on your journey, we invite you to join us and create yours.

Our clients are those companies and organizations that wish to maintain Best Company environments, those that are ready to dramatically improve the culture within their workplaces, and those in between the two. We know that organizations that build trust and create a rewarding cycle of personal contribution and appreciation create workplace cultures that deliver outstanding business performance.
Great Place to Work® – Corporate Website (Retrieved 12/01/2014)http://www.greatplacetowork.com/about-us

The Go Lean book stresses the need to create great work places. It serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation for the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). As a federation or federal government, there will be the need to employ (and empower) a Civil Service workforce; this labor pool is projected to be only 30,000 people, thusly embracing lean (or agile) delivery methodologies.

Lean relates to management, the Great Place to Work® concept, on the other hand, relates more to character and organizational culture. In fact the foregoing source material highlights one attribute more so than any other: Trust. They relate that from the employee’s perspective, a great workplace is one where they:

TRUST the people they work for;
Have PRIDE in what they do; and
ENJOY the people they work with.

So “Trust” is the defining principle of great workplaces. Consider the example of one company, in the Detroit Metro area, Credit Acceptance Corporation in the Appendix below.

While federal employees, civil servants, are among the stakeholders for Caribbean empowerment, they are not the only stakeholders the CU must cater to; there are other stakeholders that cover other aspects of Caribbean life. In fact, the prime directives of the CU covers these 3 focus areas:

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

The roadmap identifies, qualifies and proposes the establishment of a technocratic civil service throughout the region (Page 173). The book posits that an empowered, effective labor force, coupled with advanced technology tools and processes can adequately meet the needs of the region’s super-national government. Imagine kiosks, websites, call centers and mobile applications (Page 197) as opposed to big-bulky edifices with bureaucratic staffers working a queue (think “permits/licensing” in any typical US state – see Page 93 for the example of Nebraska’s “lean” conversion with the Department of Environmental Quality). This technology-led vision is fully detailed in the book (Page 168), encompassing the tactical approach of a “separation-of-powers” with the member-states for specific governmental functionality that will be assumed under CU jurisdiction (Page 71).

In addition to these public sector employees, the Go Lean roadmap also focuses on private enterprises. While there is no plan to micro-manage private companies in the free market, there is the plan to rate/rank companies that are effective and efficient. Imagine: 10 Great Places to Work – Bahamas, 10 Great Places to Work – Dominican Republic, 10 Great Places to Work – Jamaica, so on and so on.

Previously, Go Lean blogs commented on job developments, in the public sector and also with industrial and entrepreneurial endeavors. These points were depicted in the following sample:

Funding Caribbean Entrepreneurs – The ‘Crowdfunding’ Way

Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurial Jobs

Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded

The Criminalization of American Business – Bad Examples

STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly

British public sector workers strike over ‘poverty pay’

Puerto Rico Governor Signs Bill on Small-Medium-Enterprises

Self-employment on the rise in the Caribbean – World Bank

Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders, employees in the public and private sectors, to lean-in to this regional solution for Caribbean empowerment. The end result, a better workplace and a better homeland; in total, a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————

APPENDIX: Culture Without Compromise – One Case / One Company:

http://www.greatplacetowork.com/publications-and-events/blogs-and-news/2435-culture-without-compromise

This year, Credit Acceptance, a Michigan-based indirect finance company, secured one of the coveted spots on the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list for the first time—a goal the company has actively been working toward since 2001 under the leadership of CEO Brett Roberts. While related efforts were numerous and spanned a 13-year period, there are 3 key takeaways to be learned from Credit Acceptance’s journey to greatness from our case study: Culture Without Compromise.

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One Step Closer: e-Money Solutions

Posted on October 29, 2019 in Economics, Government, Implementation, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

Old: A penny saved … is a penny earned!
New: A penny saved … is a penny!

Don’t get it twisted! While the discipline of savings is a positive ethos, the end result of saving a penny is still just a penny. The goal must be to match the good ethos with some real financial resources:

A $Million saved, is a $Million earned
A $Billion saved, is a $Billion earned
A $Trillion saved, is a $Trillion earned

The assessment of the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean is that we need to foster the positive community ethos to save and invest – we need to be more Future Focused. At the same time, we also need to avail ourselves of the leverage of a regional Single Market economy for the 30 Caribbean member-states, rather than just one (1) little country by itself.

This commentary is advocating that the ethos that needs to be fostered is the adoption of Electronic Money schemes.

As related in a previous blog-commentary about Payment Cards…

…”there is now the opportunity to transform the industrial landscape of Caribbean communities; we can install controls so as to better manage our economy and industrial landscape. Among the many strategies and tactics discussed by this Go Lean movement, there is this one irresistible prospect of introducing electronic money (e-Money) or Payment Cards through out the region. So, instead of cash, industrial stakeholders will do most transactions … electronically.

This changes everything!

With an e-Money/Payment Cards deployment, there would be so many benefits; consider these possibilities:

Functional – Payroll and Government Benefits can be easily loaded; credit programs can also be added.

Universality – whether its e-Money or Payment Cards, all financial transactions can be executed.

Portability – e-Money can be used in Cyberspace and in the real world transactions (merchant POS, ATMs).

Security – Smartchips and PIN options can ensure against unauthorized use.

Resilience – card-to-card transactions can be conducted even with no online connection – think Block-chain.

Risk-aversion – The informal economy and Black Markets are mitigated, thereby fostering tax revenues.

Far-reaching – Benefits outside of the payment transaction; the scheme increases the money supply (M1), which increases available bank capital for community investments.

The Bahamas is now embarking on this journey …

… this is a great First Step. See the full story here:

Title: Island Pay Licensed to Provide Electronic Money Solution in The Bahamas
NASSAU (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – Island Pay, an electronic money mobile payment service provider has been granted a license by the Central Bank of The Bahamas. The Payment Service Provider license was issued after Island Pay met the qualifications of the Regulations and Guidelines of the Central Bank’s mandatory requirements set out in the “Payment Instruments (Oversight) Regulations, 2017” that came into force on July 21^th, 2017.

Island Pay has been granted the first license under these new Regulations.

Frank Svatousek, Island Pay CEO said, “the Central Bank regulates domestic payment service providers including retail banks, credit unions and money transmission businesses, but saw the need to establish a new class of provider, the payments institution. In a recent paper titled Digital Currency – Extending the Payments System Modernisation Initiative the Central Bank recognized that the shrinking footprint of the retail banks coupled with the increased shift in payments towards electronic modes necessitated regulatory review and the creation of the Payment Service Provider.”

“Among the benefits of this new class of service provider,” Mr. Svatousek said, “is that our Bahamian customers will have cost effective and easy to use bill payment, person to person transfers, mobile top-up and merchant solutions. As a tokenized service, it is as secure as existing mobile payment services and all of our customers’ data is securely held in The Bahamas. The smartphone application, available for Android and iOS, allows users to manage the service with security and control from any island in The Bahamas.”

About Island Pay
Island Pay was founded in 2016. The company recognizes the strong business case for mobile electronic money providers seeking to re-do the way consumers interact with payments, authentication and identity, especially in underserved areas of the globe. Before Island Pay, management co-founded Carta Worldwide and Mint Technology. More information can be found on the Island Pay website.

For further Information contact:

Frank Svatousek, CEO
Island Pay
media@islandpay.com

Source: Ltd posted October 9, 2018; retrieved October 28, 2019 from: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/09/1618817/0/en/Island-Pay-Licensed-to-Provide-Electronic-Money-Solution-in-The-Bahamas.html

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VIDEO – Introducing the Island Pay Digital Wallet – https://youtu.be/NHP7tzTEW4M

Island Pay
Posted May 27, 2019 – Island Pay is the first Payment Service Provider licensed by the Central Bank of the Bahamas. The Island Pay Digital Wallet will allow users to load and withdraw cash at Island Pay locations, transfer money between friends, pay bills and purchase mobile minutes for friends at home and abroad. Island Pay Customers will be able pay in-store and online at participating merchants.

Category: People & Blogs

This First Step – regulatory framework – is just One Step closer to the vision of a regional e-Money currency for the full Caribbean. Yes, we can …

Conceive, Believe, Achieve
We have conceived this e-Money plan, and now we see the regulatory framework being put in place. This was the intent of the Go Lean book, to serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the aligning Caribbean Central Bank (CCB), the issuer of Caribbean Dollar (C$). This Go Lean/CU/CCB roadmap depicts e-Money and Payment Cards as a hallmark of technocratic efficiency, with the agility to manage this deployment. This will affect all aspects of Caribbean society – economics, security and governance.

This reality of e-Money fits in with the quest of the Go Lean roadmap, to optimize all these societal engines. Notice how that aforementioned previous Go Lean blog-commentary identified vital areas in society that would be affected:

e-Government – The CU is prescribed as the regional administrator for ICT for the Single Market of 30 states and 42-million people. While the Caribbean Central Bank (CCB) will manage the region’s M1, they will embrace the e-Government mandate, calling for card-based, electronic payment options for all federal transactions and encouraging this mode for state/municipal/private facilitations as well. This means that the Caribbean dollar (C$) will be mostly cashless, an accounting currency much like the first years of the Euro. The CCB will settle all C$ electronic transactions (MasterCard-Visa style or ACH style) and charge interchange/clearance fees. – This scheme is fully defined on Page 198.
Cruise line passengers using smart-chips – The cruise industry needs the Caribbean more than the Caribbean needs the industry. But the cruise lines have embedded rules/regulations designed to maximize their revenues at the expense of the port-side establishments. The CU solution is to deploy a scheme for smartcards (or smart-phone applications) that function on the ships and at the port cities. This scheme will also employ NFC technology – see Appendix VIDEO below; (Near Field Communications; defined fully at Page 193 – so as to glean the additional security benefits of shielding private financial data of the guest and passengers. [This scheme will incentivize more spending among cruise line passengers.]
Electronic Commerce
This holds the promise of “leveling the playing field” so that small merchants can compete against larger merchants. To facilitate e-Commerce, purchased merchandise must get to their destinations as efficiently as possible. The CU’s implementation of the Caribbean Postal Union allows for better logistics for package delivery. – Defined fully on Page 201.
Internet Marketplace / Social Media – The CU‘s web portal, www.myCaribbean.gov, will grant free access, email, IM, and profile pages for CU stakeholders, even normalizing communications thru social media sites. This will facilitate internet commerce activities in the region, as the CU will have hot data on profiles, habits and previous activities, thereby creating opportunities for measured marketing. – Defined fully on Page 198.
Government Benefits / Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) – This sub-system allows State welfare departments to issue benefits via magnetically encoded payment cards, used in the United States and the United Kingdom. Common benefits provided (in the United States) via EBT are typically of two general categories: food and cash benefits. – Defined fully on Page 353.
Unemployment Benefits – The CU‘s mandate for e-Delivery and e-Payment will make the unemployment benefits process more effective and more efficient. Claimants will be able to apply online or on the phone, and payments will be disbursed to debit/payment cards, as opposed to paper checks. (Payments will be in Caribbean dollars, even in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands)- Defined fully on Page 89.
Remittance Solutions for Diaspora – By pursuing the e-Government / e-Payment strategy, the Caribbean Diaspora will be able to remit transfers back home by just loading values onto C$ payment cards [for free]. This simplified system will minimize transfer fees and furnish [Foreign Currency] (Fx) controls. – Defined fully on Page 154.

Having these many instances of electronic money solutions means that there must be a technocratic settlement / clearing entity. Enter the Central Bank of the Bahamas for the Bahamian offering. But for a regional deployment, Go Lean roadmap, we would need a regional Central Bank, enter the CCB.

Within its 370-pages, the Go Lean book provides details of the community ethos to adopt, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies that are necessary to execute in order to deliver e-Money solutions to the Caribbean region. The book re-affirms the mantra that Internet & Communication Technologies (ICT) can be used as a great equalizer so that small nation-states can compete against large nation-states.

Update
Now a 2nd player – Kanoo – has entered the Bahamas Market – see samples (photos) of their Mobile App here:

————–

The points of effective, technocratic e-Money stewardship were further elaborated upon in many previous blog/commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17515	Changing the Culture & Currency of Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16836	Crypto-currency: Here comes ‘Trouble’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15923	Industrial Reboot – Payment Cards 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14248	Leading with Money Matters – Almighty Dollar
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10513	Transforming Money Countrywide – The Model of India
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7034	The Future of Money
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6635	New Security Chip in Credit Cards Unveiled
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5668	Move over Mastercard/Visa, Time for Local Settlement
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5210	Cruise Ship Commerce – Getting Ready for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4425	Cash, Credit or iPhone …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3889	RBC EZPay – Ready for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2074	MetroCard – Model for the Caribbean Dollar
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1350	PayPal expands payment services to 10 markets
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=906	Bitcoin virtual currency needs regulatory framework to change image
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=528	Facebook plans to provide Fintech – Mobile payment services

One Step closer, is good progress, and is better than going in the wrong direction. An e-Money transformation will transform the economic landscape for the Caribbean region. This is good; our region needs a reboot!

In general, rebooting the region’s economics is not a new subject for this Go Lean movement; both the book and previous blog-commentaries have stressed rebooting. While every societal engine needs to be rebooted – including security and governance – all changes will stem from our economic initiatives. This was related in the opening of the Go Lean book as follows (Page 3):

The CU Trade Federation is a technocracy, empowered to reboot the economic engines of the member-states, by fostering new industries (new “purse”) across the entire region and deploying solutions to better exploit the opportunities of the global trade market.

Deploying e-Money solutions will be heavy-lifting; but it is worth all the hard work. Let’s lean-in to the Go Lean roadmap to reboot our economic-fiscal-monetary engines. Let’s build on this First Step; one country down, 29 more to go. (See the Appendix below, entitled “Island Pay Launches its first Caribbean Mobile Payment Solution in The Bahamas using Samsung technology”). This is how we can make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimize the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establish a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines ; where there is economic successes, “bad actors” always emerge, so there must be a solution for predictive and reactive mitigations and interdictions.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these above engines. This include a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies, including the independent administration of the Caribbean Central Bank.

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.

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

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

—————–

Appendix – Island Pay Launches its first Caribbean Mobile Payment Solution in The Bahamas using Samsung technology

NASSAU (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Island Pay, an electronic money mobile payment provider, will roll out the Contactless Companion Platform (CCP) – a digital cash service allowing consumers to load money onto cards, fobs and a range of wearable items. The new service will allow Bahamians and visitors alike to make contactless payments between themselves or with Island Pay merchants across the whole of the island archipelago. CCP is running on secure chip technology from Samsung Semiconductor, the software application platform is provided by Smartlink, a Swiss fintech specializing in mobile and alternative payment solutions.

Frank Svatousek, Island Pay CEO said, “By adding Smartlink to the Island Pay platform we bring immediate, critical benefits to our Bahamian customers including easy bill payment, mobile top-up and merchant solutions. The launch of the Island Pay cashless payment system, licensed by the Central Bank of The Bahamas, comes at a time when bricks and mortar banks are reducing their footprint allowing us to serve the under-banked as well as the un-banked.”

The Smartlink CCP solution brings contactless digital cash to everyone in all levels of society,” says Eric La Marca, CEO and founder of Smartlink. “With CCP in place, you can make contactless payments via any enabled device of your choice, whether it’s a dedicated smart card, wristband, key fob, or even your smart watch or ring. As long as it’s able to accommodate the secure chip technology from Samsung, there’s hardly any shape or size limit.”

Among the benefits of Island Pay Mr. Svatousek explained that, “It’s a tokenized service, making it as secure as existing mobile payments services. It gives parents the ability to safely transfer money to their children and ensure they can only spend it on what the parents want and with its Web-based or smartphone app interface, available for iOS and Android, it allows users to manage the service and deactivate the chip in the card, fob or wearable item if it is lost. We are thrilled to be working with Samsung and Smartlink as it brings together a powerful combination of security, control and utility for our consumers throughout The Bahamas.”

About Island Pay
Island Pay was founded in 2016. The company recognizes the strong business case for mobile electronic money providers seeking to re-do the way consumers interact with payments, authentication and identity, especially in underserved areas of the globe. Before Island Pay, management co-founded Carta Worldwide and Mint Technology. More information can be found on the Island Pay website.

About Smartlink SA
Smartlink SA, a fintech company based in Switzerland, is a pioneer in the payment industry. Smartlink offers an award-winning platform to banks and card issuers seeking a first-class mobile wallet application. Its innovation team has recently developed the disruptive Contactless Companion Platform which will be deployed worldwide, to facilitate cashless societies using Digital Cash. For more information, please visit www.smartlink.ch

For further Information contact:

Frank Svatousek, CEO
Island Pay
media@islandpay.com

Sébastien Piolat
Smartlink SA
sebastien.piolat@smartlink.ch

Source: Island Pay Ltd posted September 11, 2018; retrieved October 28, 2019 from: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/09/11/1568977/0/en/Island-Pay-Launches-its-first-Caribbean-Mobile-Payment-Solution-in-The-Bahamas-using-Samsung-technology.html

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Appendix VIDEO – Island Pay discusses Samsung NFC technology – https://youtu.be/aBcBtcHE7Hs

Category: People & Blogs

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Banks, e-Commerce, ICT, Transform. Bahamas

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Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

Posted on September 30, 2019 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Education is all the rage for elevating individuals in society … to be more prosperous, to earn more and have a better life. This is why we send children to school starting at Age 5; and encourage them to work hard and do their homework …

… and why we invest in Student Loans so that they can get a college education.

But there is Unequal Justice in this eco-system.

Quick: Do you see the injustice in this situation?

You get a $30,000 Student Loan to go to college … for 2 years … for an Associates Degree. Afterwards, you have no job, a worthless degree and $30,000 in debt. – See the narrative in the Appendix VIDEO.

That is an economic injustice – welcome to the dispositions of Millennials in America in 2019; (actually the last 20 years). But America is not the only community experiencing dysfunction and economic injustice due to Student Loans. We have a lot of dysfunctions in the Caribbean too. See the details here, as this issue of Student Loans in the economic fabric of society have been deliberated in previous blog-commentaries; see here:

Title #1: Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers – April 30, 2014

“Of the many factors holding back young home buyers … none looms larger than the recent explosion of college debt”.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the economic optimization in the region. If the target of the book is the Caribbean, why does this article about American student loans weigh so heavy in a consideration of Caribbean economics?

There are lessons to be learned here! Not just for student loans, but also regarding education policy. This issue is pivotal to the economics of the Caribbean region.

…

Classic economic policy promotes that education has a direct effect on a community’s economy and the standard-of-living, quantified as each increased-grade-level, raises GDP by 3 percent (Appendix C2 – Page 258). But, the Go Lean roadmap posits that this rule is not true for the Caribbean, because of the debilitating emigration rate, the brain drain in which our educated population flees for foreign shores, or worse, students that do not return after matriculating – despite using funding from their Caribbean homeland. These are all investments with no return. In short, the economy of the Caribbean can be impacted by the activity of this recent-student population, when they repatriate; but when they emigrate, they hurt the economy.

… education funding policies adversely affect major areas of the economy, in this case home-buying. The cause-and-effect paradigm is direct, within 5 to 10 years after graduation; a former student should be planning to buy a house. Apparently the [American] macro economy is dependent on this relationship. According to the foregoing [an embedded] article, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) identified student debt as a key factor in soft demand for home-buying this spring (2014).

————

Title #2: A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Student Loans As Investments – July 9, 2016

The Bahamas Education Loan Authority (ELA) is owed over $155 million in outstanding loan payments for its student loan scheme, with a default rate of 75 percent.

This Caribbean community should now be saying: “Give me my money!”

However, this commentary extends the criticism further: The money being demanded is the principal and maybe even some interest amounts due. But student loans are supposed to be investments in the young people of the community. This commentary trumpets the reality of Caribbean student loans as a fallacy: Where is the return on these investments?

This commentary asserts that those who advocate to remediate Caribbean economics needs to avoid a series of Economic Fallacies.

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean have addressed Income Inequality and the contribution of Student Loans to this plight. It is our position here that the eco-system of Student Loans can be a “weather vane” of justice in society; one that reflects the direction of society and can possibly effect the direction.

Weather vane
A weather vane, wind vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the “direction of the wind“. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word “vane” comes from the Old English word “fana” meaning “flag”.

Although partly functional, weather vanes are generally decorative, often featuring the traditional cockerel design with letters indicating the points of the compass.

Student Loans can indicate the “direction of the winds” of society.

Loans are debt, paying for past activities for a government service that used to only be a marginal expense (and free in some countries). See this point from that previous Go Lean commentary:
It’s not the cost of the loan ([interest)] that’s the problem; it’s the principal – the appallingly high tuition costs that have been soaring at two to three times the rate of inflation, an irrational upward trajectory eerily reminiscent of skyrocketing housing prices in the years before 2008. – Ripping Off Young America: The College – Loan Scandal By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stones Magazine; August 15, 2013. (Appendix IH of Go Lean book – Page 286).
Student Loans are investments, preparing for the future. Those who pursue higher education always enjoy a higher pay-rate than without. The prospects of this Return on Investment motivates people and incentivizes them to follow prescribed courses of action; social justice and development advocacies can be urged. The member-states of the Caribbean region are urged to follow the model of the US Federal Perkins Loans – defined here:
.
The Bottom Line on Perkins Loans
A Federal Perkins Loan is a need-based student loan offered by the US Department of Education to assist American college students in funding their post-secondary education. Perkins Loans carry a fixed interest rate of 5% for the duration of the ten year repayment period. The Perkins Loan Program has a nine-month grace period, so that borrowers begin repayment in the tenth month upon graduating, falling below half-time status, or withdrawing from their college or university. Because the Perkins Loan is subsidized by the government, interest does not begin to accrue until the borrower begins to repay the loan.
As of the 2009-2010 academic year, the loan limits for undergraduates are $5,500 per year with a lifetime maximum loan of $27,500. For graduate students, the limit is $8,000 per year with a lifetime limit of $60,000 (including undergraduate loans).
Perkins Loans are eligible for Federal Loan Cancellation for teachers in designated low-income schools, as well as for teachers in designated teacher shortage areas such as math, science, and bilingual education. This cancellation also applies to Peace Corps Volunteers. Cancellation typically occurs on a graduating scale: 15% for year 1, 15% for year 2, 20% for year 3, 20% for year 4, 30% for year 5. These percentages are based on the original debt amount. Thus after 3 years of service, one would have 50% of their original debt cancelled.

Student Loans can also dictate justice, by the priority that society places on them and the incentives and mandates provisioned for participating students (deferments, cancellations and postponements). This is how Student Loans can dictate the “direction of the winds” of society.

This blog-commentary submission, entry 4-of-4, completes this series on Unequal Justice. The first 2 submissions traced bad history of tyrants here in our New World and how that tyranny imperiled whole populations. These last 2 submissions address matters of economics. The full series on Unequal Justice is cataloged here as follows:

Unequal Justice: Soft Tyrannicide to Eliminate Bottlenecks
Unequal Justice: Economic Crimes Against Tourists and Bullying
Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins
Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

In this series, reference is made to the fact that Bad Actors can always disrupt the peace and prosperity in society; sometimes the Bad Actor is a person, a group or an institution. So there is always the need to be On Guard to ensure justice is optimized in the region; for all people: young and old. Yes, the need for justice in the Caribbean societal engines transcends borders, politics, class and race. We need to make sure the “game is not rigged”, and we can abate and mitigate unequal economic structures.

The best counter-strategy for Income Inequality is a thriving Middle Class. The best way to get to the Middle Class is through educational empowerments; (see Appendix below). The subject of educational empowerments has been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17992	What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16882	Exploring Medical School Opportunities … as Economic Engines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13472	Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9751	Where the Jobs Are – Teaching for Animation and Game Design
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8669	Detroit makes Community College free … as part of their Turn-around
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6269	Education & Economics: Welcome Mr. President
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5482	Bad Model: For-Profit Education: Plenty of Profit; Little Education

We must be On Guard and ever vigilant in our battle against inequality and unequal justice.

There will always be villainy – Bad Actors…

… sometimes the villainy is just one character, a tyrant or a bully, sometimes its an organized criminal organization and sometimes still, its a broken eco-system. We must be prepared to abate, mitigate and remediate all tyranny.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in for the empowerments described here-in and in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Our quest is the full elevation of the economic, security and governing engines of our society. We can do better. It is conceivable, believable and achievable to elevate all 30 Caribbean communities – individually and collectively. We can succeed in making our homelands better places 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 VIDEO – How college loans exploit students for profit | Sajay Samuel – https://youtu.be/YXWKuK-Qsu4

TED
“Once upon a time in America,” says professor Sajay Samuel, “going to college did not mean graduating with debt.” Today, higher education has become a consumer product — costs have skyrocketed, saddling students with a combined debt of over $1 trillion, while universities and loan companies make massive profits. Samuel proposes a radical solution: link tuition costs to a degree’s expected earnings, so that students can make informed decisions about their future, restore their love of learning and contribute to the world in a meaningful way.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Follow TED news on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tednews

Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksD…

Category: Education

—————

Appendix – Education and Economic Growth

The relationship between economic growth and education has been one of the central threads of economic analysis. Both Adam Smith in the 18th century and Alfred Marshall in the 19th century, two important figures for the economics profession, addressed the question of how individual investments in “education” influence the wealth of nations. Throughout the 20th century, as Krueger and Lindahl (2001) point out in their survey of these issues, modern professional economists have been attempting to develop empirical estimates of the relationship between education and economic growth. Some of the most famous names in late 20th century economics made their reputations studying the question of individual returns to investment in education. Jacob Mincer (1974), Gary Becker (1964) and a long list of researchers inspired by their work have produced hundreds of books and papers.

Much of this literature is highly technical in the sense that it uses formal econometric models to test hypotheses using empirical data. The bottom line of this impressive work is that the economic evidence supports the view that both public and private returns to investment in education are positive—at both the individual and economy-wide levels. The vast technical literature on this subject can be subdivided into two general areas:

The micro-economic literature looks at the relationship between different ways of measuring a person’s educational achievement and what they earn. Most studies show consistent results for what can be called the private or personal payoff from education. For individuals this means that for every additional year of schooling they increase their earnings by about 10%. This is a very impressive rate of return.
The macro-economic literature examines the relationship between different measures of the aggregate level of educational attainment for a country as a whole and, in most cases, the standard measure of economic growth in terms of GDP. Once again, most studies find evidence of higher GDP growth in countries where the population has, on average, completed more years of schooling or attains higher scores on tests of cognitive achievement. However, as will be explained in somewhat greater detail below, given the diversity of national experiences, particularly over time, it is hard to settle on one figure for the rate of return at a social level.

(Based on established and historic Economic Theories – By Riel Miller, www.rielmiller.com; commissioned by Cisco Systems, Inc.)

Source: Go Lean…Caribbean Appendix C2 – Page 258

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Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins

Posted on September 29, 2019 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Unequal = Inequality; Inequality = Unequal …

All the talk of economic inequality – the rich getting richer; the poor getting poorer; the middle-class shrinking – is really a discussion on justice & injustice.

After thousands of years of human history, we have come to an indisputable conclusion:

Inequality is never tolerated for long. Eventually the “Have-Nots” demand what the “Have’s” have!

People do protest; revolutions do happen. People do get fed-up and demand change. Here in the Caribbean region, we have the well documented case of our American neighbors and their Revolutionary War Against the British (1776). These demands were embedded in their Declaration of Independence over Just Causes:

… when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

The Catholic Church warned about the long toleration of inequality as well. It described Envy – a feeling of discontent or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck – as one of the 7 Deadly (Cardinal) Sins and prepared its followers that these practices will only lead to discord, disagreement and death. Here is one religious reference:

The Bible’s answer
The Bible does not specifically describe a set of “seven deadly sins.” However, it does teach that practicing serious sins will prevent a person from gaining salvation. For example, the Bible refers to such serious sins as sexual immorality, idolatry, spiritism, fits of anger, and drunkenness as “the works of the flesh.” It then states: “Those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.”—Galatians 5:19-21. *

Where did the list of seven deadly sins come from?
The “seven deadly sins” were originally based on a list of eight principal vices. The list was developed in the fourth century C.E. by the mystic Evagrius Ponticus, whose work inspired the writings of monk and ascetic John Cassian. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I changed Cassian’s list of eight vices into the list of seven deadly, or cardinal, sins of Roman Catholic theology: envy, pride, greed, lust, gluttony, anger, and sloth.

Source: Retrieved September 29, 2019 from: https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/seven-deadly-sins/

See-listen to the thesis – that Envy is unavoidable as an enemy of inequality – in the embedded AUDIO-Podcast and VIDEO here:

AUDIO-PODCast – The Seven Deadly Sins: Envy – https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1420205

Heard on Talk of the Nation
Posted September 4, 2003 – Joseph Epstein *Author, Envy, the first in a series of The Seven Deadly Sins (Oxford University Press) *Author, Snobbery: The American Version
———-
VIDEO – Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming | Nick Hanauer – https://youtu.be/q2gO4DKVpa8

TED
Nick Hanauer is a rich guy, an unrepentant capitalist — and he has something to say to his fellow plutocrats: Wake up! Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France. Hear his argument about why a dramatic increase in minimum wage could grow the middle class, deliver economic prosperity … and prevent a revolution.

Watch more TED Talks on inequality: http://www.ted.com/topics/inequality

TED Talks is a daily podcast of talks and performances from TED events, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Follow TED Talks on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tedtalks Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

Category: News & Politics

So the Cardinal Sin of Envy forces the hand of the stakeholders in society to conform with programs that abate and mitigate income inequality.

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean have addressed Income Inequality on many occasions; the book introduced the roadmap for the implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU strives to reboot the economic engines in the region so as to create more opportunities (job-and-entrepreneurial) for everybody in the Caribbean region – men, woman, Black-Brown-and-White in all 30 member-states. This quest is designed to grow the Middle Class.

The Go Lean roadmap recognizes that a prerequisite for advancing society is a change in the Caribbean community ethos – “underlying sentiment that informed the beliefs, customs, or practices” – from Bad to Good. All of the 7 Deadly Sins actually reflect a “Bad Ethos”. Getting the Caribbean region to adopt Good Community Ethos is actually the practice that will promote justice and equality. Consider here, some of the Good Community Ethos that are promoted in the Go Lean book:

Deferred Gratification
Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
Minority Equalization
Return on Investment
Divergent Genius Designation
Research & Development
Negotiation … as Partners
Reconciliation
Sharing
Greater Good

This is entry 3-of-4 in this series on Unequal Justice. The previous submissions traced bad history of tyrants here in our New World and how that tyranny imperiled whole populations of people. The previous 2 submissions address matters of Public Safety, while this one focuses on economics. The full series on Unequal Justice is cataloged here as follows:

Unequal Justice: Soft Tyrannicide to Eliminate Bottlenecks
Unequal Justice: Economic Crimes Against Tourists and Bullying
Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins
Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

In this series, reference is made to the fact that the “arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice“. There have been times in the past where income inequality have been acute in society; almost always, the end result is revolution and/or violent upheavals – think France in the 1700’s. Inequality indices are among the metrics and drivers for Failed-States.

DP – Mounting Demographic Pressures
REF – Massive Movement of Refugees or IDPs
GG – Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Paranoia
HF – Chronic and Sustained Human Flight and Brain Drain
UED – Uneven Economic Development Along Group Lines

So there is always the need to ensure justice institutions are optimized in society and that the “game is not rigged” so that income opportunities do not only go to a top-select few. The opposite of unequal economic structure would be a thriving Middle Class. So the need for justice in the Caribbean transcends borders, politics, class and race.

The subject of Income Inequality has been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13826	Taking from the Poor to Give to the Rich
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11057	Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Book Review: Sold-Out!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6399	Book Review on ‘Mitigating Income Inequality’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6089	Where the Jobs Are – Futility of Minimum Wage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5597	Economic Principle: Market Forces -vs- Collective Bargaining
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	Welcoming the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242	The Erosion of the Middle Class

Overall, now is the time for all stakeholders – citizens, governments, businesses, employers and employees, etc. – in the Caribbean to lean-in for the empowerments described here-in and in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Income Inequality is the Number One challenge for many societies; especially in the Western World. We must be technocratic in our mitigations and work to help those in our communities explore greater opportunities to make our homelands better places 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.

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Unequal Justice: Bullying Magnified to Disrupt Commerce

Posted on September 28, 2019 in Economics, Government, Industries, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

“You had better get control of that boy or we will for you” – typical admonition of a Peace Officer to the parents of a young bully!

There is a certain reality that we all have had to contend with:

Bullies are inevitable!

We have all been to Grade/Elementary/Primary School; we have all played on the playground. We can simply look at our own lives, cite examples of bullying and glean this Truth and Consequence:

Slippery slope …
Snowballing …
From an acorn comes a Mighty Oak …

Analogies abound … as to why it is important to “nip bullying in the bud”. If we do nothing – or not enough – then conditions of Unequal Justice go from “bad to worse”. The bad actor can emerge from terrorizing a family, to a neighborhood, to a community, to a nation, to a region, to a hemisphere, to the whole world. Think: Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Soviet Russia, British Empire, Napoleonic France, Spanish Inquisition, and more …

Unchecked, bad actors in the community become tyrants – they can even affect the local economic engine. This is where the opening statement of a typical Police Officer to a “parent of a bully” become relevant. Either that parent mitigates that situation, or the legitimate authorities will have to get engaged. It is easier to remediate a local bully; beyond that, the bad actions can escalate to gang activity, organized crime and/or domestic terrorism. An escalated villainy would require an escalated response. There is a plan for regional mitigations of gangs, organized crime and/or terroristic activities..

This is the focus of this commentary. This is entry 2-of-4 in this series on Unequal Justice. The previous submission traced that bad history of the County Sheriff in the American South and how that person’s tyranny imperiled the entire Black American population. That previous blog-commentary related how the Sheriff served as a bottleneck in the execution of justice , and the only way to eliminate that tyranny was with legal “soft” tyrannicide. The full series on Unequal Justice is cataloged here as follows:

Unequal Justice: Soft Tyrannicide to Eliminate Bottlenecks
Unequal Justice: Economic Crimes Against Tourists and Bullying
Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins
Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

In this series, reference is made to the fact that Tourism, as the Number 1 economic driver in the region, is vulnerable to Bad Actors disrupting peaceful hospitality trade – we must protect our societal engines from tyrants, bullies and terrorists. So there is always the need to ensure justice institutions are optimized in the region; visitors will refuse to come and enjoy our hospitality if there are active threats or perceived instabilities. (At the same time, residents flee to foreign shores in search of refuge). So the need for justice in the Caribbean tourism deliveries transcends borders, politics, class and race.

Consider this actuated consequence in the Dominican Republic, due to some recent incidents regarding public safety for tourists; (there are some suspicions that Bad Actors persist):

VIDEO – Is travelling to the Dominican Republic dangerous – https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/tourist-deaths-dominican-republic-safe

——–

Title: Tourism to the Dominican Republic Has Dropped 74 Percent, According to New Study

By: Stacey Leasca

In the past year, 10 American citizens have died in the Dominican Republic, some as tourists others as long-term visitors. While the deaths have been attributed to natural causes, would-be visitors are reconsidering their plans to visit the island.

Is traveling to the Dominican dangerous for Americans? Here’s what travelers need to know.

Many travelers are re-booking their flights to new destinations

According to a report by ForwardKeys, which analyses more than 17 million flight bookings a day, bookings for July and August from the United States to the Dominican Republic have fallen by 74.3 percent compared to the same period in 2018.

“My deepest sympathies go out to the families of the American tourists who have passed away. Their recent and tragic deaths appear to have had a dramatic impact on travel to the Dominican Republic,” Olivier Ponti, vice president of insights at ForwardKeys, said. “Our analysis of leisure travel shows a striking correlation.”

…

See the full article here: Travel and Leisure Magazine – posted June 27, 2019; retrieved September 28, 2019 from: https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/tourist-deaths-dominican-republic-safe

Allowing bullies or tyrants (real or perceived) in the community to disrupt economic engines – crimes against tourists, etc. – is just plain wrong and a failure of the unwritten Social Contract. This refers to the arrangement where citizens (and visitors) surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. So unchecked bullying, street gangs and organized crime require an escalated response, [“soft”] tyrannicide.

Tyrannicide is even presented in the Holy Bible with the drama of the woman “Jael” in the Book of Judges Chapter 4 & 5 where she killed the villainous Sisera in order to save the people in her village. That account relates:

The Canaanites were defeated [by Judge Barak] and [the Army Commander] Sisera fled the scene.^[1]

Sisera arrived on foot at the tent of Heber on the plain of Zaanaim. Heber and his household were at peace with Jabin, the king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor.^[4] Jael, however, sympathized with the Israelites because of the twenty-year period of harsh oppression inflicted on them by Jabin, his commander Sisera, and his nine hundred iron chariots. Jael (whose tent would have been separate from Heber’s) ^[5] welcomed Sisera into her tent and covered him with a blanket. As he was thirsty, she gave him a jug of milk. Exhausted, Sisera lay down and soon fell asleep. While he was sleeping, Jael took a mallet and drove a tent peg into his temple, killing him instantly.^[1]

This is an example of “hard” tyrannicide.

Tyrannicide – hard and soft – is a reality in the modern world. Just today September 28, 2019, the former President of Zimbabwe was laid to rest, only in a private ceremony; no State Funeral. He was finally deposed 2 years ago by a military coup that ended his tyrannical rule of 37 years.

Also in the Bahamas in 2017, the parliamentary government in power was overwhelmingly defeated due to the people’s desire to just get rid of what they perceived as an ineffectual and “bottlenecking” Prime Minister. See this quotation from a previous blog-commentary from May 11, 2017:

Title: UPDATE: Understand the Market, Plan the …
“The Prime Minister bet his administration on the prospect of Carnival and now, its election time.”

It’s official, that bet has failed! The Prime Minister (PM) of the Bahamas and leader of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) – Perry G. Christie – has been defeated. …

This commentary has observed-and-reported on the Bahamas for the last 5 years and the “bet” that the PM made was related to more than just Carnival; he also bet on:

Music Festival-Event – The Fyre Festival event was a fiasco; it went up in flames on April 28, 2017 after getting government permissions and support beforehand. The mass population of Bahamian stakeholders – other than the government – knew nothing of this event until it was an international embarrassment – a “Black-eye”.

Value-Added Tax – New 7.5% Sales & Use tax implementation increased the tax burden on the poor more than the rich.

Baha Mar Resort & Casino – $2 Billion Resort & Casino stalled due to government meddling in the Developer-Banker conflict.

Grand Bahama (Freeport) – 2^nd City economic progress stalled; decisions on extending Investment Tax Credits were inexplicably stalled and extended for 6-month intervals, until it was finally granted for a reasonable period.

So when the outgoing PM dissolved Parliament on April 11, 2017 and called elections for May 10, it was the only chance for the people to vocalize their displeasure. They shouted an almost unanimous veto of Christie’s policies and administration, giving the Opposition Party (Free National Movement) 35 of the 39 seats in the House of Assembly.

The near “unanimous veto” in the Bahamas in May 2017 was an example of a “soft” tyrannicide. (Many of the candidates for Parliament were political novices with no track record, experience or reputation; they were believed to be embraced by the voting public just because they represented a dissenting Party).

The need for economic justice can never be undermined, undervalued or questioned. This was related in many previous Go Lean commentaries; consider this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17267	Way Forward – For Justice: Special Prosecutors
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16668	Justice and Economics – Both needed to forge change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408	Bad Ethos on Home Violence – Spilled into Tourist Resorts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14424	Repairing the Breach: Crime – Need, Greed, Justice & Honor
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14211	Urging to “Enjoy Carnival”, but Be Safe!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11054	Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Bullying in Schools
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5307	8th Violent Crime Warning to Bahamas Tourists – Bad Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	The World Bank gives Jamaica Economic Help to Mitigate Crime

For the foregoing, the situation in the Dominican Republic is a Cautionary Tale. There must be an adequate response and escalation when there is a threat to the public safety of tourists and trading partners. The subjects must be able to “Dial 911“.

The community institutions themselves must also be able to “Dial 911” and call for additional help:

We must protect the economic engines.
We must optimize our regional justice institutions.

Both of these missions are in parallel. This is the quest of the Go Lean movement.

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments, citizens, visitors and trading partners alike – to lean-in to this comprehensive Go Lean roadmap to elevate Caribbean society. We must make our 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 & 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!

iv. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass is in a tropical region, the flora and fauna allows for an inherent beauty that is enviable to peoples near and far. The structures must be strenuously guarded to protect and promote sustainable systems of commerce paramount to this reality.

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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After Dorian, Housing Needs: Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda – Encore

Posted on September 24, 2019 in Economics, Government, Industries

“We cannot wait for it to rain to buy an umbrella.” – Old Adage

There is the need for housing … in rain and shine. This is why we put sound roofs on our homes. We fortify them to withstand unsavory conditions.

In everyone’s life, a little rain must fall.

So everyone needs to anticipate the delivery of basic needs despite the presence of inclement weather. This is doubly true for the Caribbean … during hurricane season.

Category 5 Hurricane Dorian just devastated the Northern Bahama Islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama; some 70,000 people have directly been impacted; many of them are now homeless. What are they to do … now?

What are we to do? (The Bahamas is a “common”-wealth, so everyone is responsible for everyone – this is Democratic Socialism personified). It seems like the Bahamas is only now scrambling with this question, looking for answers. They are currently considering the housing solutions of:

Tents

Say, it ain’t so!

This solution is far from being welcomed. The people are responding. The best imagery of this experience is being conveyed to the watching world with a religious analogy. While the impact of Hurricane Dorian is being described as “Hell on Earth“, the prospect of the survivors now living in tents is being described as “Purgatory“; see the news story here:

Title: Purgatory in paradise: Bahamas tent cities to house Dorian survivors
By: Zachary Fagenson
NASSAU, Bahamas (Reuters) – For some Bahamians who escaped death but lost their homes in Hurricane Dorian’s hellish rampage over the islands of Freeport and Great Abaco, life in the tent shelters erected this week seems like purgatory.

“We feel like we’re caged right now,” said Dana Lafrance, a 35-year-old mother of five, who is one of hundreds of people living in a massive tent set up to extend the capacity of a gymnasium housing storm evacuees in central Nassau, the capital of the former British colony.

As evacuees from the devastated islands continue to flow in, the Bahamas Gaming Operators Association said on Tuesday it had built more than 15,000 square feet (1,394 square meters) of air-conditioned, tent housing for more than 800 people. Some 295 people were staying in those tents on Wednesday, Bahamian officials said.

More will come, with officials planning to erect two “tent city” relief centers capable of housing around 4,000 people around hard-hit Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island, John Michael-Clark, co-chairman of the Bahamas’ disaster relief and reconstruction committee, told reporters this week.
…
See the full article here: Reuters News Source – Posted September 11, 2019; retrieved September 23, 2019 from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-dorian-tent-cities/purgatory-in-paradise-bahamas-tent-cities-to-house-dorian-survivors-idUSKCN1VW2BY

So looking at the issue of emergency housing for hurricane refugees in the Bahamas, clearly there is a “Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda” exercise now as to what to do. We needed to have a plan … in advance. We didn’t need “to wait until it rains to acquire an umbrella”.

This we did!

This was the quest of the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book presented the challenges and solutions – such as Prefab Housing (Page 207) – for the new reality of Climate Change in the Caribbean. The movement presented many strategies, tactics and implementations to address housing needs in the region, before, during and after hurricanes. See here, this previous Go Lean blog-commentary from July 14, 2018 that addressed the landscape of pre-fabricated housing.. It is only apropos to Encore that previous blog-commentary here-now:

———————-

Go Lean Commentary – Industrial Reboot – Prefab Housing 101

Is housing just a commodity, available to the highest bidder, or a basic right that everyone is entitled to?

The answer to this question should be obvious: no matter the income level, there is the need for housing – basic needs are cataloged as food, clothing and shelter – so there must be housing solutions for all in society, the rich, middle class and the poor.

Here’s the disclosure: All housing types can benefit from pre-fabricated housing methods – see Photos below.

Prefabricated buildings consist of several factory-built components or units that are assembled on-site to complete the unit. The economic beauty of this method is the requirement for labor in the fabrication site and the assembly site. Fostering that labor means jobs and allows for an Industrial Reboot based on familiar techniques. Already, a popular prefabrication technique is utilized widely in the construction industry with Roof Trusses.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean – available to download for free – focuses on fostering Industrial Reboots for the Caribbean region. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). It identifies the strategic and tactical genius of Roof Trusses (Page 207):

The Bottom Line on Roof Trusses
In architecture a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. Simple trusses are composed entirely of triangles because of the stability of this shape and the methods of analysis used to calculate the forces within them. The planar truss, pitched truss, or common truss is used primarily for roofs.

Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site. Roof trusses are most commonly prefabricated. A prefabricated roof truss system is an engineered shop fabricated wood frame system that is installed on the building at the job site. It is installed on the typical timber or concrete belt beam and typically spans from one load bearing wall to another load bearing wall. Prefabricated roofs are used on almost any type of roof and are preferred when resistance to high wind speed is required because it can be quickly engineered, or when rapid site installation is required.This is the winning formula for acceptance of prefab homes. Despite objections to prefabrication strategies/concepts, no one objects to prefabricated roof trusses; the market acceptance for homes should “build-up” from this “juncture”.

The Go Lean book opened with a focus on basic needs. At the very beginning – Page 3 – the role for the CU was defined:

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. Previous Caribbean societies lived off the land and the sea; but today, the region depends extensively on imports …

For industries that depend on providing basic needs, there is an opportunity to reboot the industrial landscape and business model. There is the opportunity to launch a Prefab Housing industry.

Jobs are at stake.

According to the book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 257) , there could be this many jobs:

Direct jobs in the design, fabrication and logistics for new pre-fab homes: 8,000

The Go Lean book prepares the business model of Prefab Housing for consumption in the Caribbean. Yes, business model refers to jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, trade transactions, etc. In addition to these industry jobs; there is also the reality of indirect jobs – unrelated service and attendant functions – at a 3.75 multiplier rate would add another 30,000 jobs.

This constitutes an Industrial Reboot.

There is the need to supplement the housing deliveries in the Caribbean region; so factory-built homes should have a place. But, we are not talking manufactured homes, as in mobile homes or trailers. No, we are talking previously-made and fabulous, or pre-fab. Thus these homes can supply the demand for rich and middle class residents. See the samples from Appendix K; of the Go Lean book on Page 289. In addition, there are vast options for prefab homes from recycled shipping containers. These are ideal for affordable housing solutions, or even replacements for “Shanty Towns”; see Appendix Commentary.

Providing quality housing for “pennies on the dollar” is an ideal objective for the Go Lean movement, or those pursuing the Greater Good. This Industrial Reboot pursues the Greater Good mandate; it is wise to try to please residents, advocates, entrepreneurs, bankers and governmental officials. This is in addition to the roadmap’s prime directive, defined as follows:

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

This Industrial Reboot is badly needed in the Caribbean region as our current economic landscape – based on Tourism – is in shambles!

Tourism is under assault in every Caribbean member-state due to the fact that many visitors shift from stay-overs to cruise arrivals. This means less economic impact to the local markets. So as a region, we must reboot our industrial landscape so as to create more jobs … from alternate sources. What options do we have?

This commentary has previously identified a number of different industries that can be rebooted under this Go Lean roadmap. See this list of previous submissions under the title Industrial Reboots:

Industrial Reboots – Ferries 101 – Published June 27, 2017
Industrial Reboots – Prisons 101 – Published October 4, 2017
Industrial Reboots – Pipeline 101 – Published October 6, 2017
Industrial Reboots – Frozen Foods 101 – Published October 6, 2017
Industrial Reboots – Call Centers 101 – Published July 2, 2018
Industrial Reboots – Prefab Housing 101 – Published Today – July 14, 2018

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean economic 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):

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.

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

Accordingly, the CU will facilitate the eco-system for Self-Governing Entities (SGE), an ideal concept for Prefab Housing with its exclusive federal regulation/promotion activities. Imagine bordered campuses – with backup power generations, extra wide roads, railroad lines and shipping docks. The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) details the principles of SGE’s and job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line (or off-campus) for each direct job on the SGE’s payroll.

This is the vision of an industrial reboot! This transformation is where and how the jobs are to be created.

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. One advocacy in rebooting the industrial landscape is to foster a Prefab Housing industry; consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 207 entitled:

10 Ways to Develop a Prefab Housing Industry

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby expanding to an economy of 30 countries, 42 million people and GDP of over $800 Billion (circa 2010). One mission of the CU is to enable the region to facilitate its own shelter (plus food & clothing). A successful campaign to repatriate the Diaspora, and attract Retirement/Medical Tourists creates a new demand level for housing. The supply of housing will be met with different solutions, including Prefabricated options. In terms of demand, Pre-Fab homes are becoming popular in the EU and North America as they are cheaper compared to many existing homes on the market. The 2007-2009 Global Financial crisis, however, deflated the cost of regular houses in North America and Europe, so the “cheaper” benefits was not so valued during/after this crisis period. But the CU is a different market than the North America or Europe, resembling the Third World more so than the developed world, so a lot of the current housing is sub-standard and need to be replaced anyway.
2	Fashionable Design
3	Energy Optimizations To minimize the cost of energy, the CU will encourage design inclusions of solar panels, solar-water-heater, Energy-Star appliance in the Pre-fab-ulous homes. The CU region is also ideal for home “wind” turbines. The design of well air circulated ceilings, so that ceiling fans and the trade-winds alone, can satisfy artificial cooling needs (most of the times).
4	Raw Materials
5	Assembly Plants
6	Supply Chain Solutions (Contractors)
7	Transport/Logistics
8	Showrooms and Marketing
9	Mortgages – Retail and Secondary Markets Traditionally, manufactured homes do not qualify for mortgages; they are treated as auto loans, not home mortgages. The CU will provide a secondary industry as an inducement for the retail mortgage firms to supply the direct demand.
10	Homeowners Casualty Insurance Pre-Fab-ulous houses will be built with the structural integrity to withstand typical tropical storms/hurricanes. The CU will facilitate the Property Casualty insurance industry by offering Reinsurance sidecar options on the capital markets.

The subject of housing needs and deliveries is not new for this Go Lean roadmap; there have been a number of previous blog-commentaries by the Go Lean movement that referenced economic opportunities embedded in the housing industry. See a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14250	Leading with Money Matters – As Goes Housing, Goes the Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11737	Robots Building Houses – More than Fiction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11638	Righting a Wrong: The 2008 Housing Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10373	Science of Sustenance – CLT Housing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7659	Pre-Fab Housing and Elder-Care Conjunction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896	The Crisis in Black Homeownership

Prefab housing is a subset of the general housing industry; but there is a different kind of art and science for this economic endeavor! See the best practice and prospects for prefab manufacturing described in the Appendix VIDEO below.

The Caribbean has a lot of dysfunction when it comes to housing; this is indicative of our near-Failed-State status. We need all the help we can get! We have a constant risk of natural disasters (think: hurricanes and earthquakes) that consistently impact the homes in the region. There is always a need to build and rebuild. This creates the demand for Prefab Housing.

Even successful communities need creative housing solutions. Consider the sad experience of the working class in Silicon Valley, in Northern California (San Francisco Bay Area). People there cannot afford local homes on minimum wage jobs, even two or three jobs. So imagine some of the Prefab homes, discussed here-in, being offered in the Silicon Valley area. While this seems viable, the scope of the Go Lean movement is limited to the Caribbean, not San Francisco. This is just a lesson-learned for us. See more on the Silicon Valley problem in this Youtube VIDEO here: https://youtu.be/6dLo8ES4Bac.

The demand is there. We now need to be a part of the supply solution.

In summary, our Caribbean region need a better job-creation ability than is reflected in the regional status quo. If we are successful in creating more jobs, then boom, just like that, our homeland is a better place to live, work and play. With this success, we should be able to retain more of our Caribbean citizens, as one of the reasons why so many Caribbean citizens have emigrated away from the homeland is the job-creation dysfunction. Prefab Housing can also be a part of the housing solution for inviting the Diaspora to repatriate to the Caribbean homeland.

So rebooting the industrial landscape is necessary and wise; we can contribute to a reality where we can prosper where planted in the Caribbean homeland.

Yes, we can … do this: reboot our industrial landscape, and create new jobs – and provide better housing solutions, for our people, the rich, the poor and all classes in between.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap for economic empowerment. 🙂

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

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

—————-

APPENDIX Commentary – Bahamas Blogger Monte A. Pratt

AN ALTERNATE SOLUTION TO SHANTYTOWN HOUSING DILEMMA – Part 1

The Government has issued a July 31st deadline for all Shantytown persons to vacate their illegally built homes. However, there seems to be no planned relocation program to assist these persons. They are pretty much on their own.

These Shantytowns are a disaster just waiting to happen… they have been very lucky so far that many persons have not been killed in any of these Shantytown fires. Not to mention the health hazard these places are to the many surrounding residences.

Considering all of the above ‘negative’ factors, as a solution to this unwanted ‘vexing problem’, Government should seriously consider allowing the development ‘Container Home Parks’ to relocate and properly re-house these persons.

Container Homes (pictured below) are built from discarded (old) shipping containers is fast becoming a housing solution around the world… even in America. Not only as a clear solution to this problem, they can be a ‘quick solution that is ‘cost-effective’. These houses will be highly fire rated and they can withstand hurricanes.

In fact, once they are properly cleared, the government can give the same Shantytown ‘landowners’ to properly plan, install proper utility infrastructure and erect such ‘low cost’ container homes on these same site locations. Renting the same.

In fact, once they are properly cleared, the government can give the same Shantytown ‘landowners’ (and others) permission to properly plan, install proper utility infrastructure and erect such ‘low cost’ container homes on these same site locations. Renting the same.

This offered solution is by far better than the current situation. This move by Government is the first attempt by any administration to deal with this ‘decades’ old plaguing Shantytown problem throughout the country. (Click on photo to enlarge).

Source: Posted July 7, 2018; retrieved July 13, 2018 from: https://www.facebook.com/monte.a.pratt/posts/10156627694904059:27 )

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AN ALTERNATE SOLUTION TO SHANTYTOWN HOUSING DILEMMA – Part 2

It is interesting to see the many ‘negative responses’ from so many Bahamians to my Part-1 proposition for the building of Container Home Parks to replace Haitian Shantytowns. We, Bahamians are too ’emotional’ and that is why we are so easily ‘politically manipulated’. We are not analytic in our thoughts.

That being said, we should also look at the BIG PICTURE of the immigration dilemma that we are now confronted with. That is the ECONOMIC IMPACT of this ‘vexing’ immigration situation. The old saying: ‘When life gives a ‘lemon’ make lemonade. Can we turn this problem ‘lemon’ into ‘lemonade’?

The fact is, many of these (illegal or not) persons are essential to the development of our economy. Don’t be fooled, the fact is, our already fragile construction and agricultural industries will collapse without these KEY WORKERS … that’s because they are more reliable and are also willing to work hard.

Many of these persons are taking the jobs that Bahamians are NOT prepared to do – working in the ‘hot sun’ – especially in construction, agriculture and the landscaping business. Some are making more money than many Bahamians.

By taking on these jobs, they too are making money and many can afford to pay the rents charged. Many live in Shantytowns for economic reasons. That is to SAVE their money to send it home. Estimates are, Haitians send annually some $15 million dollars back home to Haiti from The Bahamas.

Haitian Shantytowns are a ‘fixture housing lifestyle’ that they are accustom to! Shantytowns will not change unless these persons, the residents are forced to change this LIFESTYLE… and/or they are educated about the dangers (fire and health hazard conditions – see pictures below) that they are now living in these clustered and poorly built ‘housing shacks’.

These folks ain’t going nowhere, the Government December 31st deadline has come and gone, and no one has left the country… Since government[s] seem not to have the inability to get them to leave the country, then we should regularize them and properly integrate them into civil society. As there are properly integrated into civic society – make them adhere to the ‘LAW’ of the land.

As most of these folks are already working, once regularized, they can now have ‘bank accounts’ and do business in a right and proper way. By letting them work legally, they can contribute by paying work permits, national insurance and other taxes – that which not now happens – just like everyone else, and the country’s economy will be positively impacted. It will grow to the benefit of the government and the country.

So based on my proposition concept, the creation of Container Home Parks is beyond JUST HOUSING these persons, it is far more. And that why it is more important to resolve this vexing problem in eliminating these Shantytowns and thereby improving these persons lifestyle, at the same time growing the economy via their too; also making their tax contributions.

The TRUTH is, any such ‘massive deportation’ loss will most certainly hurt the country’s economy. More importantly, these people are already a burden on our Medical and Education Systems. So why not regularize them and properly integrate them into the civil society and make them ‘Tax Payers’ too?

Footnote: In qualifying the above, I am not including those ‘illegal persons’ that just came in the last 5 years or so – they should be sent back home. But rather those persons that have been living in The Bahamas for decades, and persons that were born here and only know The Bahamas.

Source: Posted July 8, 2018; retrieved July 13, 2018 from: https://www.facebook.com/monte.a.pratt/posts/10156636669644059

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Appendix VIDEO – BBC News at 10 – 17.11.16 Prefab houses could solve housing crisis – https://youtu.be/ixMEUWQNFTU

Kieran Simmonds

Published on Nov 17, 2016

Category: People & Blogs
License: Standard YouTube License

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