Category: Government

Industrial Reboot – Cruise Tourism 2.0 – ENCORE

Posted on July 30, 2018 in Economics, Government, Industries, Social, Strategy


“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”

Tourism in the Caribbean has been impacted by the disrupting eco-system of Cruise ships. More and more visitors shift from stay-overs – flying in on a jet and taking it slow at a resort hotel – to consuming the Caribbean ports-of-call on cruise ships. This is not all good; there are some dire consequences. The economic engines are all in shambles because of this shift. The result is less economic impact to the local markets.

When a cruise ship arrives in port, over 4,000 passengers disembark – they are the 800-pound Gorilla – their presence is felt; the ship cannot be ignored and cannot be dismissed …

… we cannot beat this industrial giant, so we have to join them [… then beat them].

This “joining-beating” refers to an Industrial Reboot. Yes, as a region, we must first stop the bleeding, then reboot our industrial landscape so as to explore the opportunities associated with Cruise Tourism.

What? How? Why?

Rebooting the industrial landscape means understanding the macro-economic factors affecting a community and then applying changes to assuage negative developments and to exploit the positives. This 800-pound Gorilla is hard to “beat” alone, each Caribbean country will have to collectively-bargain with the Cruise industry – along with the other Caribbean countries – to have any hope of negotiating for changes to this industrial landscape.

This thought is what was related in a previous blog-commentary, from May 6, 2015, by the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean:

The book … opens with the thesis (Page 3) that the problems of the Caribbean are too big for any one member-state to tackle alone. 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 book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that we cannot just maintain the status quo – 1.0 – with Cruise Tourism. The port-city merchants are not happy; the rest of the tourism landscape is not happy; the passengers are not happy; and the cruise line employees are not happy. The book relates:

The Bottom Line for the Caribbean Cruise Industry
The Caribbean is the number one (1) destination for the cruise line industry, with some 10 million passengers a year and an annual growth of 7.4% since 1980. But each cruise line serves multiple ports and so can play one market against the other. They are the “800 pound gorilla that can sleep wherever it chooses”. The cruise line industry “squeezes every bit of copper out of a penny”, challenging their stakeholders to optimize their business model more and more every year – they maximize revenues from the marketplace and minimize their spending. And yet, without the Caribbean as a whole, their product is far less appealing. – Page 193

The only people that are happy with cruise operations are the shareholders of the cruise lines. (It is doubtful that many of these one would be Caribbean stakeholders). The Cruise Tourism 1.0 business model needs to transform to 2.0.

This Go Lean book presents a roadmap to elevate the economic engines in Caribbean society; it details new strategies, tactics and implementations to reboot the Cruise Tourism eco-system. One tactic is to deploy a scheme for Passenger Payment Cards (smartcards or smart-phone applications) that function on the ships and at the port cities. This scheme will also employ NFC technology (Near Field Communications) – so as to glean the additional security benefits of shielding private financial data of the guest and passengers.

Another tactic is to double-down on Culture! We would want to overwhelm cruise passengers with our unique culture. Under 1.0, these passengers only consume a port-city for portions of 1 day. So we need to fill the port-side harbors, courtyards and verandas with so much locally-produced cultural expressions; think: art, parades, dance, song, storytelling, souvenirs …

    … modeling Walt Disney World’s 4 Parks and their afternoon character parades …

… we must overload our guests-passengers so that they feel underserved by the cruise experience, and would prefer a fuller experience. Cruises should be likened to Movie Trailers: “Previews of Coming Attractions”.

This new technological, cultural and economic scheme will usher in change for Cruise Commerce. The Go Lean book projects that 800 new direct jobs can be created just with the proposed Cruise Passenger Payment Card. (Even more indirect jobs – 3.75-to-1 multiplier rate – can be created). This is how the industrial landscape of the Caribbean region can be rebooted, by starting with this mandatory smartcard/chip-card for every cruise passenger.

For this month of July 2018, the phraseology “reboot” has been a consistent theme. This commentary has previously identified a number of different industries that can be rebooted under this Go Lean roadmap. See the list of previous submissions on Industrial Reboots here:

  1. Industrial Reboots – Ferries 101 – Published June 27, 2017
  2. Industrial Reboots – Prisons 101 – Published October 4, 2017
  3. Industrial Reboots – Pipeline 101 – Published October 5, 2017
  4. Industrial Reboots – Frozen Foods 101 – Published October 6, 2017
  5. Industrial Reboots – Call Centers 101 – Published July 2, 2018
  6. Industrial Reboots – Prefab Housing 101 – Published July 14, 2018
  7. Industrial Reboots – Trauma 101 – Published July 18, 2018
  8. Industrial Reboots – Auto-making 101 – Published July 19, 2018
  9. Industrial Reboots – Shipbuilding 101 – Published July 20, 2018
  10. Industrial Reboots – Fisheries 101 – Published July 23, 2018
  11. Industrial Reboots – Lottery 101 – Published July 24, 2018
  12. Industrial Reboots – Culture 101 – Published July 25, 2018
  13. Industrial Reboots – Tourism 2.0 – Published July 27, 2018
  14. Industrial Reboots – Cruise Tourism 2.0 – Published Today – July 30, 2018

This 14th (and final) submission to the commentary considers the basics of economic stewardship (financial payments, collective bargaining and labor relations) for the Cruise Tourism industry and how it can harness many jobs if we reboot our industrial landscape to optimize the industry. There is no need for a new commentary; this subject had already been elaborated upon previously. See here the highlights of these two Encores of Go Lean commentaries:

  1. “RBC EZPay – Ready for Change” from  January 23, 2015
  2. “Cruise Ship Commerce – Getting Ready for Change” from May 6, 2015

See the Encores here:

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1. Go Lean Commentary – RBC EZPay – Ready for Change

It’s time to introduce the Caribbean Dollar (C$) as a regional currency. Though there will be coins and notes, the primary focus will be on electronic transactions. This is the future!

Electronic Payments schemes (card-based & internet) are very important in the strategy to elevate the Caribbean economy, bring change and empower people, process and profits.

According to the subsequent news article, the regional banks – in this case the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) – are ready for this change.
…

This Go Lean/CU/CCB roadmap looks to employ electronic payments schemes to impact the growth of the regional economy. There are two CU schemes that relate to this foregoing news story, as they require the demonstrated POS terminals:

  • Cruise Passenger Smartcards – The Go Lean roadmap posits that 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 that function on the ships and at the port cities.
  • e-Commerce Facilitation – The Go Lean roadmap defines that the Caribbean Dollar (C$) will be mostly cashless, an accounting currency. So the Caribbean Central Bank (CCB) will settle all C$ electronic transactions (MasterCard-Visa style or ACH style) and charge interchange/clearance fees. This scheme allows for the emergence of full-throttle e-Commerce activities.

The focus of these schemes is not technology, its economics.  These electronic payments provide the impetus for M1, the economic measurement of currency/money in circulation (M0) plus overnight bank deposits. As M1 values increase, there is a dynamic to create money “from thin-air”, called the money multiplier. The more money in the system, the more liquidity for investment and industrial expansion opportunities.
…
See the full blog-commentary here.

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2. Go Lean Commentary – Cruise Ship Commerce – Getting Ready for Change

…

This is the focus of this commentary and advocacy. There are strict divisions of labor on cruise ships – wait staff and cabin stewards are reserved for citizens from Third World countries like the Caribbean and Asia – with terrible pay scales – while the officers/leadership roles are reserved for Europeans-only – Scandinavians proliferate. We appreciate the fact they set aside jobs for people of the Caribbean, but it is unacceptable that job advancements are unattainable. The resultant discrimination is real. Cruise ships, and other maritime vessels in general, are the last bastion of segregation. Descriptors like “modern-day-slavery”, “sweatships” and “extreme poverty” are far too common. Case in point, many ship-domestic staff are “tip earners”, paid only about US$50 a month and expected to survive on the generosity of the passengers’ gratuity.
…
This is a human resource matter and thusly will be within the sphere of influence for the new HR executive at [Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines or] RCL. While many ships are only governed by maritime laws, injustice is injustice. Good shepherding of Caribbean economic eco-system requires some focus to these bad practices.
…
The confederacy goal entails accepting that there is interdependence among the Caribbean member-states. Implementation-wise, this shifts the responsibility for cruise line negotiations to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy that can result in greater production and greater accountability.

An advocacy, in this case collective bargaining, on behalf of the oppressed workers in Caribbean waters is a just and honorable cause. The quest of this Go Lean movement is to make the Caribbean region better to live, work and play. Labor practices on cruise ships are therefore within scope of the CU.

This is the change … that now confronts the new RCL HR executive. But the CU quest to elevate Caribbean society should not run afoul of this or any cruise line’s modus operandii. The CU sets out to be their trading partner, not adversarial opponent. This should be win-win.
…
See the full blog-commentary here.

————-

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.

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Industrial Reboot – Culture 101

Posted on July 25, 2018 in Economics, Government, Industries, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Every Caribbean member-state has a Cabinet-level official that spearheads the tourism effort:

  • Minister of Tourism
  • Secretary of Tourism
  • Executive Director, Tourism Agency/Company

There is no doubt that Tourism Stewards are Revenue Officers, as tourism is the primary economic activity in the Caribbean region. This is also true for other countries in other regions. Paris, France is a case in point, as that city enjoys 25 million tourists annually.

Why do people visit Paris?

Not for sun, sand or surf. No, the answer is culture. Parisian culture is responsible for Parisian economic engines.

“Economy and culture: it’s the same fight!” – Jack Lang, 2-time Minister of Culture (1988 – 1992; 1981 – 1986), Republic of France; (under President François Mitterrand)

In some Caribbean countries, “Tourism and Culture” are administered by the same agency, i.e. Ministry of Tourism Sports and Culture in St. Vincent and the Grenadines; (see photo here). Now the BIG country of China is embarking on the same model, as reported in this recent news article:

Title: China Creates Ministry of Culture and Tourism
The Chinese government has officially inaugurated the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which will help to boost the work culture in China and also helps to increase the work efficiency.

Former Chinese minister of culture Luo Shugang was elected as the new Minister of Culture and Tourism, and Li Jinzao was appointed Vice Minister.

It is as part of a widespread institutional reshuffle, China forms this new department to boost the cultural part in the country.

Huang Kunming, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, attended the inauguration ceremony.

While addressing a symposium Sunday, Huang Kunming said that the establishment of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism would strengthen the Communist Party of China’s overall leadership over the work of culture and tourism. This is a new move by the Government of China to promote the country’s culture in international hemisphere.

Huang Kunming called on the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to hold the new era, assume new missions, and have more confidence in the Chinese culture. Huang also asked the ministry to realize the policies and decisions made by the CPC Central Committee.
Source: Posted April 10, 2018; retrieved July 24, 2018 from: https://www.caribbeannewsdigital.com/en/noticia/china-creates-ministry-culture-and-tourism

There are benefits to be derived for the Caribbean member-states to prioritize their culture as a revenue product. This would mean providing a structure for the world to enjoy our culture, through the visitations and explorations of tourism and/or through media productions. So the goal here is to better explore the industrialization of culture.

This is the urging of the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean; the book asserts (Page 218) that Caribbean culture must be preserved and protected. While we want to be a member of global society, we strongly want to maintain what makes our cultural influences special and unique. The book supports the notion that the Caribbean is the greatest address on the planet, not just because of the terrain, fauna and flora; but also for the culture, festivals, food, music, dance, rum, cigars and our unique history. We have a fusion of African, Amer-Indian, European and Asian influences that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet; see Appendix VIDEO.

Plus, we have 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in our neighborhood. 🙂

Despite these synergies, our societal engines (economics, security and governance) are dysfunctional. The Go Lean book posits that the unique cultural dynamism of the region has not being fully explored; especially not regionally. Instead of competing in tourism and culture, this book urges that all regional member-states coordinate, collaborate, cooperate and confederate. Our whole, will be more than the sum of our parts. This is the dynamic of regional leverage.

We must reboot the industrial landscape, around our cultural dynamism, in order to create new economic opportunities, like jobs. We need such a new economic landscape because the current one is in shambles! This is due to the primary driver in the region – Tourism – being under assault. For example, more and more visitors shift from stay-overs to cruise arrivals. In addition to these visitors not having much time to embrace the local culture, the communities also suffer an economic blow to the local markets, as less spending is noticed.

So as a region, we must reboot our industrial landscape around our culture so as to add more cultural explorations, which will also mean more participation from all relevant stakeholders. The Go Lean book explains that doubling-down on the different areas of culture – events, music, arts, historic heritage sites – can result in more jobs. See here:

Direct jobs for Festivals and other event staff at Fairgrounds: 9,000  

Direct jobs for managing music industry and media consumption: 2,900  

Direct jobs (production, cast & crew) for film, TV and internet streaming: 2,000

Direct jobs for managing artist/exhibition & media consumption: 700  

Direct jobs for managing, promoting UNESCO World Heritage Sites: 1,000

The Go Lean book prepares the business model for these expressions of culture in the Caribbean region. Yes, business model refers to jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, trade transactions, etc. In addition to these 15,600 industry jobs; there is also the reality of indirect jobs – unrelated service and attendant functions – at a 3.75 multiplier rate would add another 58,750 jobs.

This constitutes an industrial reboot! The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); this is a confederation of all 30 member-states to execute a reboot of the Caribbean economic eco-system. 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.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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 13 – 14):

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

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

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

This is the vision of an industrial reboot! This transformation is where and how new jobs can be created in the Caribbean. Accordingly, the CU will also facilitate an eco-system for Self-Governing Entities (SGE), an ideal concept for artist colonies, educational institutions and entertainment zones with the exclusive federal regulation/promotion activities. Imagine bordered campuses or urban districts – with theaters, film sound-stages, artists studios and exhibition halls.

The focus for the Go Lean roadmap is to recognize the economic benefits of fostering the arts. See here, how this subject is further elaborated on in the Go Lean book (Page 218) with the French example (debate) of Cultural Mandates -vs- Free Market Adherences:

The Bottom Line on French Cultural Mandates

The French cultural endeavors are effectively managed by the government’s Ministry of Culture; which is in charge of national museums & monuments; managing the national archives and regional culture centers, and promoting & protecting the arts (visual, plastic, theatrical, musical, dance, architectural, literary, televisual & cinematographic) in France and abroad. The Ministry is also charged with maintaining the French identity. The cabinet post was created by President Charles de Gaulle in 1959 with the goal of realizing the right to culture, incorporated in the French constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). De Gaulle’s aim was to democratize access to culture and elevate the “grandeur” of post-war France.

Under President François Mitterrand the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, showed himself to be far more open to popular cultural production, including jazz, rock and roll, rap music, graffiti art, cartoons, comic books, fashion and food. His famous phrase “economy and culture: it’s the same fight” is representative of his commitment to cultural democracy and to active national sponsorship and participation in cultural production. Under Minister Jacques Toubon (1993 – ‘95), a number of laws were enacted for the preservation of the French language, both in advertisements and on the radio (80% of songs in French), ostensibly in reaction to the presence of English. – Wikipedia

… versus …

Allowing the Free Market
As digital multimedia evolves and emerges as both a business and creative opportunity, France’s culture of subsidy guarantees that it will always be more important for the artistes to be French first and creative second. As industrial policies go, that is hardly a recipe for success. For example, France has actually had a deputy cultural minister in charge of funding development of French rock ‘n’ roll. But American Top 40 radio stations never had to worry about a French Invasion.Also, the French had poured billions of francs into Groupe Bull – the state-supported computer company – in a desperate bid to keep France in the forefront of digital hardware and software systems. While Bull did OK in France; in the rest of the world – in the global marketplace – it failed miserably.

Why do the French think the results will be any better with their cultural policy? The answer is simple: arrogance and a total misunderstanding of market forces. What really galls the French elite, of course, is that while the bourgeoisie and proletariat always choose with their ballots to preserve French culture, they always overwhelmingly vote for American pop culture with their francs. American television shows consistently kick the stuffing out of French shows in terms of popularity. Steven Spielberg does better box office than Jean-Jacques Beneix. – Wired Magazine May, 1994

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. The arts hold the same promise. Plus with the beauty of the arts, it is time, talent and treasuries well-spent just in the execution of this business model.

Any time spent singing and dancing … is not a waste!

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 work to preserve the cultural heritage of the regional member-states; consider the  specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 206 entitled:

10 Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market
This regional re-boot 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 assume the primary coordination for the region’s economy and image, because “economy and culture is the same fight”. Despite the legacies of 4 European cultures and the ubiquity of the American neighborhood, a CU mission is to preserve Caribbean heritage and culture.
2 Media Priorities (See Appendix W on Page 311: “Mediating as French Culture and Economics Collide“)

Like the French, this region may have to impose a system of quotas and subsidies for domestic production – in order to preserve “diversity” and an important Caribbean industry. As France is insisting on excluding such subsidies from a proposed EU-USA free-trade agreement, the CU may need to follow suit with such a policy to ensure local programs.
3 Mitigate Human Flight

As the “Dodo” bird became extinct, cultural extinction occurs too. Many aboriginal cultures have vanished from the New World, like the Aztec and Caribe tribes; (though some Taino influence remains). Human flight has the negative impact of assimilating a people in their new homelands. A CU mission is to mitigate this threat, and spur repatriation.
4 Legacies – Less Caribbean
5 Festivals
6 Music
7 Art – Public Places
8 Properties – Historical Preservation
9 Turn-around Strategies
10 Natural Resources (Fish, Animal Species)

Cultural preservation is not a new subject for this Go Lean roadmap; there have been a number of previous blog-commentaries by the Go Lean movement that referenced the economic opportunities embedded in the exposé of Caribbean culture. These submissions have highlighted what an industrial expression of culture can achieve:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14211 Enjoy Carnival and Be Safe!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12304 Caribbean Festival of the Arts – Past, Present and Future
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9860 Forging Change Thru Arts & Artists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9712 Forging Change Thru Panem et Circenses (Food & Festivals)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7685 Joy. Pain. Sunshine. Rain. – A Message of Happiness
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3641 ‘We Built This City …’ on Art, Music and Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866 Bob Marley: A Caribbean Cultural Legend Lives On!

In summary, our Caribbean region needs a better job-creation capability to make our homeland better. In fact, one of the reasons why so many Caribbean citizens have emigrated away from the homeland is the job-creation dysfunction. Creating a new economic landscape will require rebooting the industrial landscape.

Yes, we can … do this! We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap for economic empowerment. We urge everyone to explore and exploit our great Caribbean culture; this could help to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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.

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Appendix VIDEO – Here’s how the Caribbean became the most Racially Diverse Region in the World – https://youtu.be/fAZBLzWCUbU

Masaman

Published on May 1, 2017 – This is how the Caribbean became the most racially diverse region on the planet, after having it’s ancestry and genetics permanently altered through European colonialism and migration.

In this video, I’m going to give the rundown for several Caribbean countries such as Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, along with many others. We will look at the demographic history, and just what spawned the drastic fluctuations in the racial makeup of the region.

We’re also going to touch on many of the surrounding areas such as Central America, the Gullah coast, as well as the Guianas of South America.

Please let me know your thoughts on my analysis, especially if you live in, or have ancestry from the region. Videos over the latter regions will be released soon. Thanks for watching!

 

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Industrial Reboot – Fisheries 101

Posted on July 23, 2018 in Economics, Government, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Go Fish!

It seems like a simple directive: Fishing. It’s one of the world’s oldest professions, sports and hobbies. As long as a person is close to a body of water – with fish – they can improvise, hustle and acquire food to feed their families. But sadly, in the Caribbean, we do not consume enough fish – see Appendix B below – and have under-utilized our Fisheries industry.

In many jurisdictions, there is a legal distinction between commercial fishing and amateur/sport fishing. The focus of this commentary is on commercial fishing. For the full history of the Caribbean, there has always been a commercial fishing industry … and yet, there are a lot of inadequacies in this industrial eco-system. Consider:

  • There are no canneries in the Caribbean, beyond the “closed” one in Mayaquez, Puerto Rico.
  • Fish stocks are threatened regionally – see more here: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Caribbean-fishing-industry-at-risk_69808
  • The National food of Jamaica – Ackee & Codfish – while delicious and indicative of the native culture, actually features North Atlantic Cod … from Norway; not a locally harvested fish.

This is part of the assessment of the Caribbean failing economic engines. The book Go Lean…Caribbean – a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – relates:

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. Thus generating all new revenues; with no need to re-distribute any existing “purse” among the member-states.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the business model of commercial fishing can harness a lot of jobs. This book asserts, at Page 257, that this roadmap to elevate the economic engines in Caribbean society can succeed and projects that 4,000 new direct jobs – direct jobs on fishing vessels, aquaculture sites, canneries and distribution – can be created with strategic endeavors for the Fisheries. (Even more indirect jobs – 15,000 based on a 3.75-to-1 multiplier rate – can be created).  This is how the industrial landscape of the Caribbean region can be rebooted, by doubling-down on the effort to enhance this fisheries industry. So this strategy from this Go Lean book can result in 19,000 jobs in total.

Fishing is an old industry and yet there is still an opportunity to reboot this part of our industrial landscape. Rather than looking forward, the Go Lean roadmap looks side-ways to the best tactics and best practices of this global industry. Consider these suggestions:

  • 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), canneries, refrigerated warehouses and transportation solutions.
  • Canneries – The CU will sponsor co-ops to manage canneries for different foods, including seafood i.e. mackerel.
  • Aqua-culture – the controlled harvesting of fish, crustaceans, mollusks and aquatic plants using farm-like conditions and practices. (Think incubating fertile eggs in a laboratory).
  • Mari-culture – practiced in marine environments and underwater habitats where aquatic plants are embedded to protect fish beds and reefs.

Despite these popular practices, there is something new in  this strategy for the Caribbean: Size!

The requisite investment of the resources for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone. So rather, the Go Lean strategy is to shift the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy; this will result in greater production and greater accountability.

We need the greater production of a new economic landscape in our region. The current one is in shambles! This is due to the primary driver in the region – Tourism – being under assault; more and more visitors shift from stay-overs to cruise arrivals. So this means less economic impact to the local markets. So as a region, we must reboot our industrial landscape and add more job-creating options.

The Go Lean book prepares the business model around delivering better on basic needs – food, clothing and shelter. We need the fisheries to supplement the food provisions. In fact, seafood may even be a better source of protein than the land-based options of beef, pork and poultry – think of the additives, antibiotics and steroids. Fish is sounding better and better!

This constitutes an industrial reboot for the Greater Good. We must mine these treasures from the sea. See this thought elaborated upon in this recent news article in Appendix A below. Also, we ask this question of Caribbean stakeholders: “Why not eat more fish?” in Appendix B.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – presents the confederation roadmap of all 30 member-states to execute a reboot of the Caribbean economic eco-system. 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 on the Caribbean homelands and Seas.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies. There will be a Federal Fisheries Department for regional oversight of the EEZ.

As related previously, rebooting the homeland of the Caribbean region will mean rebooting the economic engine of the Caribbean Sea. This commentary has previously identified a number of different industries that can be rebooted under this Go Lean roadmap. See the list of previous submissions on Industrial Reboots here:

  1. Industrial Reboots – Ferries 101 – Published June 27, 2017
  2. Industrial Reboots – Prisons 101 – Published October 4, 2017
  3. Industrial Reboots – Pipeline 101 – To be published October 6, 2017
  4. Industrial Reboots – Frozen Foods 101 – To be published October 6, 2017
  5. Industrial Reboots – Call Centers 101 – Published July 2, 2018
  6. Industrial Reboots – Prefab Housing 101 – Published July 14, 2018
  7. Industrial Reboots – Trauma 101 – Published July 18, 2018
  8. Industrial Reboots – Auto-making 101 – Published – July 19, 2018
  9. Industrial Reboots – Shipbuilding 101 – Published – July 20, 2018
  10. Industrial Reboots – Fisheries 101 – Published Today – July 23, 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):

v. Whereas the natural formation of our landmass and coastlines entail a large portion of waterscapes, the reality of management of our interior calls for extended oversight of the waterways between the islands. The internationally accepted 12-mile limits for national borders must be extended by International Tribunals to encompass the areas in between islands. The individual states must maintain their 12-mile borders while the sovereignty of this expanded area, the Exclusive Economic Zone, must be vested in the accedence of this Federation.

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, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

Accordingly, the CU will facilitate the eco-system for Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) and Self-Governing Entities (SGE). These SGE’s are ideal for the Fisheries industry – with its exclusive federal regulation/promotion activities. Imagine bordered campuses – with docks, canneries, refrigerated warehouses, cooperative refrigeration utilities and backup power generations.

There are ideal role models that the Caribbean Sea can emulate. First understand the UN’s Law of the Sea in the Appendix VIDEO below. Then consider the example of Alaska. See the details here from the Go Lean book at Page 210:

The Bottom Line on Alaska Exclusive Economic Zone
Alaska is one of the most bountiful fishing regions in the world, producing a wide variety of seafood. The fisheries of Alaska are recognized as some of the best-managed fisheries in the world, providing thousands of jobs and a vital, long term economic engine for Alaska communities and the state. Over 4.1 billion pounds of fish and shellfish worth over $1.8 billion were harvested in Alaska waters in 2010, keeping Alaska in first place [globally] for value of landings.-AKRDC.org
.
As with other countries, the 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off the coast of the United States gives its fishing industry special rights. It covers 4.38 million square miles.The US Government established the North Pacific Fishery Management Council with jurisdiction over the 900,000-squaremiles of the EEZ for the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. This region provides rich marine resources: Pacific salmon, shellfish (shrimp, crab), ground-fish, flatfish, Pacific halibut, herring, and more. The salmon species in Alaska generally produce good harvests, though some stocks are declining. The Aleutian Islands are a series of over 300 rocky islands, stretching over 1,000 miles from southwest Alaska to Russia. They are home to the largest fishing port in the U.S., Dutch Harbor. In 2005, about 30,000 square miles of sea-floor around the Aleutian Islands were permanently closed and certain destructive fishing practices banned.

To fully explore Fisheries, there must be art and science! See the high level view of UNCLOS in the Appendix VIDEO below.

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. In addition to  Federal Fisheries Department, there is an advocacy for rebooting the industrial landscape to better foster the Fisheries industry; consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 210 entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Fisheries

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market
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

The CU seeks a designation of an Exclusive Economic Zone for the Caribbean Seas, must like the US enjoys with the waters surrounding Alaska-Aleutian Islands. This new zone should also feature the international waters between the islands. The CU will oversee this zone to coordinate economic activity, protect the natural environment against hazards and ensure the security measures for the assurance of the homelands. These requests are in line with the UN charter. [See more on the UNCLOS in the Appendix VIDEO below].
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 must be controlled, with limited harvesting seasons, otherwise there will be none for future generations.-
4 Cooperatives
5 Aqua-culture and Mari-culture
6 Fishing Tourism and Yachting Enthusiasts
7 Marine Financing
8 Coast Guard hand-off to CU Naval Authority

The US Coast Guard does assume a lot of patrol duties in the Caribbean, even though only small portions of the region (Puerto Rico) are in their jurisdiction. The CU will not discourage any over-coverage the USCG provides, but the prime responsibility for policing, search-and-rescue, and interdiction for the region rest with the CU and the Naval Authority.
9 ICE Cooperation
10 Maritime Emergency Management

The CU will deploy the necessary resources for maritime emergencies in the region. While the US Coast Guard provides some emergency response today; the direct responsibility would belong to the CU Naval Authority. As such, the CU sponsored Trauma Centers will allow for airlifting hurt-or-sick fishermen on fishing vessels and CU agencies will marshal the effort to prepare and prevent emergencies with disaster recovery and business continuity plans for industry players.

The subject of Caribbean fisheries 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 this industry. See a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12144 Commerce of the Seas – Book Review: ‘Sea Power’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9070 Securing the Homeland – From the Seas
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8819 Lessons from China – South China Seas: Exclusive Economic Zones
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3594 Lessons Learned from Queen Conch
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2119 Cooling Effect – Oceans and the Climate

In summary, our Caribbean homeland needs jobs; the home “waters” need jobs too. A better job-creation ability would help us to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. In fact, one of the reasons why so many Caribbean citizens have emigrated away from the homeland is the job-creation dysfunction. Creating a new economic landscape will require rebooting our industrial landscape.

Yes, we can … reboot our industrial landscape, and create the necessary new jobs – and other economic opportunities.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap for economic empowerment. A new disposition among the Fisheries do amplify the fact that this Go Lean roadmap is necessary – we must reboot. 🙂

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 A – The Caribbean: What to Eat

A few decades ago, the Caribbean people thought their food not good enough for the annual hoards of vacationing tourists. They considered their local dishes too native and uninteresting, and chose to offer visitors French food instead. Fortunately, after constant demand, Caribbean hoteliers and restauranteurs now offer a variety of traditional foods throughout the islands.

From the lush tropical vegetation of the Caribbean comes an astonishing array of fruit. There are coconuts, pineapples, passion fruits, papayas, mangoes, apples, oranges, bananas, melons, figs, pomegranate, and limes. Others include the breadfruit, ugli, naseberry, tamarind, sapodilla, soursop, plantains, cherimoya, monstera, loquat, carambola, guava, and mamey sapote. Some exotic fruits are not exported because they are too delicate, which is why many Caribbean fruits are unfamiliar to those who do not travel to the Islands.

Some fruits are enjoyed right off the trees as part of a meal or snack, but many are used for a variety of both sweet and savory dishes. Mangos and papayas are used in drinks, desserts like sherbets and mousse, and in fiery chutneys. Coconuts are used for coconut bread, coconut ice cream, flan, and that world-famous Pina Colada. Coconut milk is also used for meat sauces, and even cooked with beans. Plantains, which are similar to bananas, are eaten grilled, fried, prepared as crispy chips, or baked in meat pies.

Vegetables, likewise, are prolific on the islands. Yams, pumpkin, yuca, calabaza, callaloo, chayote, sweet potatoes, okra, tomatoes, zuchinni, cucumbers, and bell peppers are all used to their full advantage. A variety of legumes are also popular, especially black beans used in popular Cuban black bean soup. Other common beans are pigeon peas, black-eyed peas, and red beans. Most bean dishes are served with rice and cornbread, similar to Creole menus of the Southern U.S.

Poultry dishes are widespread throughout the Caribbean, mostly because chicken is the most economical meat. It is often marinated with ginger, lime, and chiles before grilling. Beef and pork dishes are common in Caribbean cuisine, but more so on the Spanish Islands. Goat, and less popular lamb, are used on some islands. Curried Goat is a holiday specialty of Jamaica.

Treasures from the sea are another reason to experience Caribbean cuisine. These are the fresh fish, shellfish, and other tropical delicacies caught daily in the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea. Hundreds of varieties of fish are available, including sea bass, swordfish, pompano, mullet, kingfish, yellowtail, tuna, wahoo, snapper, grouper, mackerel, and dolphin fish. They are grilled, baked, or served in chowders and stews.

Salt codfish is a Caribbean specialty. Its most common presentations are in salads and stews, or with scrambled eggs. Shellfish like the spiny lobster and shrimp are ubiquitous, and both given the special Caribbean touch with specialties like Lobster Creole and Coconut Shrimp. Other Carribean specialties include conch, sea urchin, and turtle.

Probably because of the preponderance of sugar cane in the islands, desserts are an important part of a Caribbean meal. They come in every form, from cakes, dumplings, bread and rice puddings, to flan, souffle and mousse. There are also frozen ices and sherbets. Many desserts utilize local fresh and dried fruits, sometimes sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and avocado; rum is sometimes an ingredient.

By no means are all Caribbean dishes fiery hot and spicy, but chiles are the most widespread form of Caribbean seasoning. It is not unusual when dining in the islands, that a bottle of local hot sauce be available to patrons.

To truly experience Caribbean cuisine, it is wise to seek out the regional specialties, especially if you are staying at a fine resort hotel. Remember that just because there is a hibiscus flower on the plate, doesn’t mean the dish is authentic!

Source: Food-Wine Magazine January 2007 – retrieved July 22, 2018 from: https://www.foodwine.com/destinations/caribbean/cariwhat.html

—————

Appendix B – Why don’t they eat more fish in the Caribbean?

By  Tyler Cowen

David Lomita, a loyal MR [(Marginal Revolution)] reader, asks me:

I have often wondered why, given that they are a bunch of small islands, that so many of the more famous dishes of Caribbean countries are meat and not fish.  The woman of this house is Jamaican and she is much more proud of jerk than of escabeche fish.  Puerto Rico has its lechon, Cuban food has ropa de viejo and so on.

I don’t have any data here … but independently I have wondered about a similar question.  I see a few possible factors:

  1. Often fish are available, and excellent, immediately right near the ocean.  Transport and adequate refrigeration are not to be taken for granted.  In any case, those dishes won’t always become iconic national recipes.  Note also that a lot of the fish consumed will be boiled, spiced, and salted, presumably for health and storage reasons.
  2. Food is an energy source, and meat is often superior to fish in this regard, especially for diets which may otherwise lack calories.  For the same reason such meals also can be more carbohydrate-heavy than the typical daily diet.
  3. Cows, chickens, and pigs are media for savings.  Fish are not.  Why not invest in some insurance while you are planning your food supply?  Keep in mind that local banking systems often do not serve the poor very well.  Furthermore it may be easier to own a chicken than to catch a fish.  Fishing is low-productivity in many parts of the Caribbean, due to poor knowledge and implementation of aquaculture.
  4. Which countries are we talking about?  In the wealthier Trinidad and Jamaica, retail fish shops are common (that link is useful more generally)  In Barbados, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands, culinary infrastructure is quite good and there is plenty of wealth.  In Haiti and Cuba, the two most populous nations in the Caribbean, economic conditions are dire.
  5. Never overlook the heavy hand of government, plus a lack of resource management expertise: “Most of the governments of the islands aim at self-sufficiency in fish production. Some, such as Antigua, try to prohibit exports; others, such as Jamaicaand Trinidad, limit imports. All of them are giving more attention to post-harvest practices both at sea and on shore, processing and storage, and to improved marketing and distribution. Many are now more interested in assessment of their resources, and collecting statistics to determine the best management practices to sustain the stocks.”

By the way, here is a very good recent piece on the rising cost of food imports in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica.

Source: Marginal Revolution Online Magazine – Posted August 5, 2013. See the full article and readers comments here; retrieved July 23, 2018 from: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/08/why-dont-they-eat-more-fish-in-the-caribbean.html

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Appendix VIDEO – Law of the Sea – https://youtu.be/j_R3zQvwAuw

Published on Mar 21, 2016

Recorded with http://screencast-o-matic.com

  • Category: Education
  • License: Standard YouTube License

 

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Industrial Reboot – Trauma 101

Posted on July 18, 2018 in Government, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Define basic needs …

… no doubt this includes food, clothing and shelter. These are the age-old means of sustenance that every generation of mankind have had to contend with.

But in modern times, that list is expanded; add: energy, transportation, telecommunications and …

… medical.

Can these be considered luxuries as opposed to basic needs?

An argument can be made of this point; many times even medical necessities are de-prioritized – think immunizations – until absolute emergencies. This latter scenario – medical emergencies – is the subject of Trauma medicine, an absolute necessity, vital service, and essential offering. Trauma becomes a basic need and not an optional luxury. So there will always be a demand for Trauma medicine; how will it be supplied?

This commentary – from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean (available to download for free) – continues the discussion on the economic principles of supply and demand; it focuses on fostering Industrial Reboots for the Caribbean homeland since the region is in dire straits economically. This Industrial Reboot is badly needed as our current economic landscape – based on Tourism – is in shambles! Our Supply-Demand dynamics are not optimized.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). It explains that Tourism is a service product that depends heavily on Supply-Demand dynamics. In Economics, higher demand and consistent supply results in higher prices; so in a normalized scenario, revenues should grow and grow. The Caribbean tourism is under assault in every member-state due to the fact that many visitors to the region have shifted from stay-overs to cruise arrivals. The Caribbean demand continues, but the supply is different. Cruises mean less economic impact to the local markets than stay-overs. So as a region, we must reboot our industrial landscape so as to create more jobs … from alternate sources. What options do we have?

The Go Lean book urges the region to reform and transform the economic engines around the delivery of basic needs, so we need to better prepare for medical-trauma emergencies. (There is the industrial sub-group of medical tourism). Medical-trauma needs are currently being supplied by other service providers … in foreign destinations. See the news article here portraying how the Joe DiMaggio Children Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale promotes its Neo-Natal and Pediatric treatments:

Title: World renowned Doctors convene in Saint Lucia
Press Release:–  Dr. Kak-Chen Chan, Pediatric Cardiologist and specialist in Adult Congenital Heart Disease and Dr. Steven Bibevski, Cardiothoracic surgeon who specializes in Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery, as well as heart transplantation and artificial heart support, will participate as speakers at the 33th Caribbean Cardiac Society in St. Lucia, from July 18th to July 21st, that will take place in the Royalton- Saint Lucia Resort and Spa.

The doctors will share with their colleagues the knowledge, cutting edge procedures, and experiences performed at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, part of Memorial Healthcare System.

Since 1988, the Caribbean Cardiac Society has been a non-profit organization proud to be one of the most important gatherings of cardiac specialists from around the world, who are committed to providing services to cardiac patients in the Caribbean region, by sharing their experiences and exchange knowledge. This year’s theme is “Meeting the Challenges of Cardiac Care in an Ever-Changing Caribbean.”

One of the most common Congenital Heart Defects is Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) defined when the two major blood vessels leading from the heart remain open after birth. PDA accounts for 5%-10% of all Congenital Heart Defects. To share more insight Dr. Kak-Chen Chan will present his lecture on Extreme Prematurity, chronic lung disease, persistent ductus arteriosus and pulmonary hypertension: The potentially deadly Quartet tamed.

Extreme premature infants are often affected by chronic lung disease, patent ductus arteriosus and pulmonary hypertension.  As medical science improves, more of these babies are surviving past their early infancy.  However, these disease process continues to be important causes of morbidity and mortality.

Dr. Steven Bibevski will be presenting a talk, showing data of survival rate on 10 years of surgical experience with patients from the Caribbean at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.

“I am very excited and honored to speak at this year’s CCS meeting. As physicians, our focus is on the health, well-being, and healing in of all patients. We are very fortunate to have an experienced team of doctors who work together to provide innovative treatments while delivering compassionate care to our patients,” stated Dr. Bibevski.
Source: St. Lucia News Daily Newspaper; posted & retrieved July 17, 2017 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2018/07/17/world-renowned-doctors-for-congress-in-saint-lucia/

There is the opportunity for a business model in the field of medical Trauma. Others are making money, why not Caribbean stakeholders. (Still, our motive must not just be profit, it must be the Greater Good). This is how and where jobs are to be forged for a new Caribbean economy.

There are other business models too, that the new Caribbean economy can deploy to grow the regional economy; we can, and must, reboot our industrial landscape. 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:

  1. Industrial Reboots – Ferries 101 – Published June 27, 2017
  2. Industrial Reboots – Prisons 101 – Published October 4, 2017
  3. Industrial Reboots – Pipeline 101 – Published October 6, 2017
  4. Industrial Reboots – Frozen Foods 101 – Published October 6, 2017
  5. Industrial Reboots – Call Centers 101 – Published July 2, 2018
  6. Industrial Reboots – Prefab Housing 101 – Published July 14, 2018
  7. Industrial Reboots – Trauma 101 – Published Today – July 18, 2018

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean economic engines and medical deliveries must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, mental health, obesity and smoking cessation programs. The Federation must proactively anticipate the demand and supply of organ transplantation as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ trade.

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, a regional medical trauma eco-system can help to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. Many jobs could derive from these medical deliveries.

In addition, the CU will facilitate the eco-system for Self-Governing Entities (SGE), an ideal concept for Trauma Centers with its exclusive federal regulation/promotion activities. Imagine bordered campuses – with backup power generations, autonomy for professional standards, and autonomous air/sea transportation modes. 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.

According to the Go Lean book (Page 257) , there could be many jobs in the related fields of Trauma & Emergency Management – separate and apart from general health-care deliveries. The book quotes these figures:

Jobs from Trauma Centers, Emergency Managers, Volunteer Fire/Rescue: 4,000

The Go Lean book prepares the business model of Trauma Centers for consumption among Caribbean people. The book describes a scheme with 6 different Level I Trauma Centers – see Appendix below – throughout the region. This scheme will save lives, and also launch the new business model. 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 15000 jobs.

This truly constitutes an Industrial Reboot. The Go Lean book details this business model, as such – see this quotation here from Page 196:

The Bottom Line on Trauma Medicine
A trauma center is a hospital facility equipped to provide comprehensive emergency medicine to victims suffering traumatic injuries. Trauma centers grew into existence out of the realization that traumatic injury is a disease process unto itself requiring specialized and experienced multidisciplinary treatment and specialized resources. According to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), injuries are the leading cause of death for children and adults ages 1–44. The leading causes of trauma are motor vehicle accidents, falls, and assaults.

Trauma centers vary in their specific capabilities and are identified by “Level” designation: Level-1 being the highest, to Level-3 being the lowest (though some states have five designated levels, in which case Level-5 is the lowest). Higher levels of trauma centers will have trauma surgeons available; those trained in such specialties as Neurosurgery and Orthopedic surgery as well as highly sophisticated medical diagnostic equipment. Lower levels of trauma centers may only be able to provide initial care and stabilization of a traumatic injury and arrange for transfer of the victim to a higher level center.

The operation of a trauma center is extremely expensive. Some areas – especially rural regions – are under-served by trauma centers because of this expense. A variety of different methods have been developed for dealing with this. For example, many trauma centers have helipads for receiving patients that have been airlifted. The trauma level certification can directly affect the patient’s outcome and determine if the patient needs to be sent to a higher level center.

The strong point from this quotation is that “the operation of a trauma center is extremely expensive“; this allows for jobs.

According to the Go Lean book, societal engines refer to economics, security and governance. The industrial strategy of Trauma Centers relate to economics and security provisions. 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 homeland; and the economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One advocacy in rebooting the industrial landscape is to foster better Emergency Management, of which Trauma Centers are a subset. Consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 196 entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Emergency Management

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 a GDP of over $800 Billion (according to 2010 metrics). This treaty calls for a collective security agreement for the Caribbean member-states so as to prepare-respond to natural disasters, emergency incidents and assuage against systemic threats against the homeland. The CU employs the professional arts and sciences of Emergency Management to spread the costs, risks and premium base across the entire region and refers to more  than  just medical scenarios, but rather any field of discipline that can impact the continuity of a community or an individual. The CU also has the direct responsibility for emergencies in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Self Governing Entities.
2 Trauma Centers

The CU envisions 6 strategically placed Level-1 trauma centers, and a series or lower level centers, placed throughout the region to service the entire population. The goal will be to ensure that every citizen is within a 1 hour transport from the closest trauma center. The trauma center may be physically located within a hospital campus, or stand-alone, but will be governed (and funded) by the CU and not the member-state’s public health system. (See Appendix ZM on Page 336).
3 Airlift / Sealift – Getting there by Helicopters, Airplanes and Boats

In addition to Air Ambulances (helicopters & airplanes), the CU will deploy Water Ambulances to quickly convey the injured to trauma centers among the islands. The vessels will all be equipped with certified and trauma-trained EMTs.
4 Mobile Surgical Centers and Tele-Medicine
5 Epidemiology – Viral & Bacterial Rapid Response
6 Mobile Command Centers
7 Intelligence Gathering & Analysis
8 Casualty Insurance Plans – Reinsurance “Sidecars”
9 Volunteer Fire – Rescue Brigades
10 ITIL – Information Technology Infrastructure Library

This formal discipline of ITIL is the art and science that describes processes, procedures, tasks and checklists used by organizations for managing risks associated with information technology deployments. This includes “focus areas” for Change Control, … Disaster Recovery, Problem and Access Management. (See Appendix ZN on Page 338).

This Go Lean book projects the roll-out of the 6 Trauma Centers as Day One / Step One of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. Over the 5-year implementation more and more of the features of the roadmap will be deployed and their effect on the region will be magnified and undeniable – think R&D. These will help to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play.

This Go Lean roadmap seeks to foster best-practices in the administration of a Trauma Centers and Emergency Management. There is a lot of coordinate; there have been many issues detailed in previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15012 Puerto Rico’s Trauma-Emergency Failings – A Lesson Learned
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8815 Lessons from China – Managing Trauma & Organs Transplantation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7449 ‘Crap Happens’ – So What Now?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103 Sum of All Fears – ‘On Guard’ Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002 Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308 911 – Emergency Response: Systems in Crisis

According to the foregoing news article, the Caribbean Cardiac Society (CCS) is meeting today through Saturday (July 18 – 21). They do meet annually. This year’s conference or congress – 33rd annual – is meeting in St. Lucia; last year (2017) was Trinidad, 2016 was Barbados, 2015 was Jamaica, 2014 was in the Bahamas and the 2013 conference was held in Curacao. So this organization already has a footprint in all the key destinations of the Caribbean. The CU formally launching 6 Trauma Centers can easily utilize the CCS’s infrastructure.

The subject of Trauma Centers is not a luxury; assuaging trauma is a basic need for the region. We are spending the money now – many times raising money through Bake Sales, Car Washes and Raffles – and enriching foreign entities. Making provisions to provide our own basic needs is just … mature. This is to be expected of emerging societies. This is the type of development that sends the message to Caribbean citizens, at home and in the Diaspora, that “one” can now prosper where planted in the Caribbean.

This plan – the roadmap to deploy a regional network of Trauma Centers – is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can deploy our own brand of Pediatric Hospitals in the Caribbean, much like the Joe DiMaggio one in the VIDEO here:

VIDEO – A Look At What We Like About Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital – https://youtu.be/9r3pYZZ3UTE

Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital
Published on Jul 14, 2015
Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital is one of the region’s leading pediatric hospitals, offering a comprehensive scope of healthcare services and programs in a child-friendly atmosphere. A full-service hospital, we treat minor illnesses, trauma-related accidents and some of the most complex medical conditions.

Established in 1992, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital combines advanced technology and the expertise of the largest, most diverse group of board-certified pediatric specialists in the region. With its summer 2011 expansion, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital now has 204 beds and is South Florida’s newest freestanding children’s hospital.

In its first year of operation, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital’s medical staff included 90 physicians and patient admissions numbered 2,000. Through the years, the hospital has enhanced and expanded its services and programs to help meet the growing and diverse needs of the community.

The hospital is staffed 24 hours a day by world-class pediatricians, pediatric specialists, specialty-trained nurses and ancillary support staff. Today, more than 650 physicians are on the medical staff, and during the 2014 fiscal year our team recorded:

  • 8,707 admissions and observations
  • 6,039 pediatric surgeries
  • 53,450 outpatient visits
  • 110,322 visits at three Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Emergency Department locations

Uniquely inspired by and designed for kids and families, the freestanding building offers many amenities. The vibrant colors, whimsical décor and larger-than-life murals welcome children to an upbeat environment where the “Power of Play” is a healing force. Each floor reflects an individual theme of sports, arts, games or dreams. All patient rooms are private and are wired for movies, video games, the Internet and educational programs, and room-service meals are available any time of the day.

This four-story, 180,000-square-foot, environmentally friendly facility features six pediatric operating rooms, dedicated medical/surgical units, family resource centers, ambulatory services, imaging services that feature a CT scanner disguised as a pirate ship, and an entire floor dedicated to inpatient and outpatient pediatric oncology treatment.

A glass pedestrian skywalk connects to the Wasie Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Pediatric Intensive/Cardiac Care Unit, and Level 1 Trauma Center and Children’s Emergency Department.

Conveniently located on the campus, Conine Clubhouse provides a special home away from home for families of hospitalized children. Accommodations are based on availability.

The team at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital embraces a patient- and family-centered approach to care, working with families in the effort to best meet the needs of the child.

We should not just be “running to Florida” for any/every medical emergency; how long should the expectation be for our young nations to grow-up. The Go Lean roadmap declares that it is high time and past time for the region, to stand-up and step-up to satisfy the needs of our people. While this delivery may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone, surely together-united-integrated we can leverage the kinetics of a 42 million Single Market economy.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap for economic empowerment and medical delivery. We can make the Caribbean homeland better places to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

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.

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Appendix ZM – Trauma Center Definitions

A trauma center is a hospital that is designated by a state or local authority or is verified by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) [a]. The details of these trauma levels are as follows:

Level I

A Level I Trauma Center provides the highest level of surgical care to trauma patients. Being treated at a Level I Trauma Center increases a seriously injured patient’s chances of survival by an estimated 20 to 25 percent. This has a full range of specialists and equipment available 24 hours a day and admits a minimum required annual volume of severely injured patients. A Level I trauma center is required to have a certain number of surgeons, emergency physicians and anesthesiologists on duty 24 hours a day at the hospital, an education program, and preventive and outreach programs. Key elements include 24-hour in-house coverage by general surgeons and prompt availability of care in varying specialties—such as orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, plastic surgery (plastic surgeons often take calls for hand injuries),anesthesiology, emergency medicine, radiology, internal medicine, oral and maxillofacial surgery (trained to treat injuries of the facial skin, muscles, bones), and critical care—which are needed to adequately respond and care for various forms of trauma that a patient may suffer. Additionally, a Level I center has a program of research, is a leader in trauma education and injury prevention, and is a referral resource for communities in nearby regions.

Level II

A Level II trauma center works in collaboration with a Level I center. It provides comprehensive trauma care and supplements the clinical expertise of a Level I institution. It provides 24-hour availability of all essential specialties, personnel, and equipment. Minimum volume requirements may depend on local conditions. These institutions are not required to have an ongoing program of research or a surgical residency program.

Level III

A Level III trauma center does not have the full availability of specialists, but does have resources for emergency resuscitation, surgery, and intensive care of most trauma patients. A Level III center has transfer agreements with Level I or Level II trauma centers that provide back-up resources for the care of exceptionally severe injuries, Example: Rural or Community hospitals.

Level IV

A Level IV trauma center exists in some states where the resources do not exist for a Level III trauma center. It provides initial evaluation, stabilization, diagnostic capabilities, and transfer to a higher level of care. It may also provide surgery and critical-care services, as defined in the scope of services for trauma care. A trauma-trained nurse is immediately available, and physicians are available upon the patient’s arrival to the Emergency Department. Transfer agreements exist with other trauma centers of higher levels, for use when conditions warrant a transfer.

Level V

A Level V trauma center provides initial evaluation, stabilization, diagnostic capabilities, and transfer to a higher level of care. This type of center may provide surgical and critical-care services, as defined in the service’s scope of trauma-care services. A trauma-trained nurse is immediately available, and physicians are available upon patient arrival in the Emergency Department. If not open 24 hours daily, the facility must have an after-hours trauma response protocol.

Pediatric Trauma Centers

A facility can be designated an adult Trauma Center, a pediatric Trauma Center, or an adult & pediatric Trauma Center. If a hospital provides trauma care to both adult and pediatric patients, the Level designation may not be the same for each group. For example, a Level 1 adult Trauma Center may also be a Level 2 pediatric Trauma Center. This is because pediatric trauma surgery is a specialty unto itself. Adult trauma surgeons are not generally specialized in providing surgical trauma care to children, and vice versa, and the difference in practice is significant.

Cited Reference:

a. American College of Surgeons. “ACS Verification Site Visit Outcomes”. Retrieved April 2013 from: http://www.facs.org/trauma/verificationhosp.html

 

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100 Years of Mandela – ENCORE

Posted on July 18, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Strategy

Wow, time flies!

It is 100 years now that Nelson Mandela had come into this world, and though his life has ended, his impact continues to reverberate … up to today.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalized racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.
Source: Retrieved July 17, 2018 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

There are so many lessons that the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela offers to the modern Caribbean. One such lesson was provided in a previous blog-commentary from April 30, 2015. See an Encore of that submission here/now:

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Go Lean Commentary – A Lesson in History – Royal Charter: Zimbabwe -vs- South Africa

Zimbabwe - Photo 2If presented the choice, which would you rather be granted: riches or power?

Many would conclude riches, because of societal expressions like the “Golden Rule: He who has the Gold… rules”. Yet the truth is riches can be created and destroyed quickly. This was the experience just recently during the 2008 Great Recession, where people in the US – the richest country on the planet – lost $11 Trillion in net worth in short order.

On the other hand, there is power. History shows that with power, the rights to riches can be granted, exploited and passed on, from century to century, generation to generation. Consider for example the African continent (in particular the southern region) and the Royal Charters that granted abundant wealth to a privileged few:

The English had been the first to adopt the approach of bundling their resources into a monopoly enterprise, with the English East India Company in 1600. This threatened their Dutch competitors with ruin,[15] so in 1602 the Dutch monarchy followed suit and sponsored the creation of a single Dutch East Indies Company and granted it monopoly over the Asian trade. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company#Formation_.281602.29)

CU Blog - A Lesson in History - Royal Charter - Zimbabwe -vs- South Africa - Photo 1The British monarchy has issued over 980 Royal Charters.[1] (A formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate). A specific charter was issued for the South African region.

The British South Africa Company (BSAC) was established following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes‘ Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd which had originally competed to exploit the expected mineral wealth of Mashonaland but united because of common economic interests and to secure British government backing. The company received a Royal Charter in 1889 modeled on that of the English East India Company. Its first directors included the Duke of Abercorn, Rhodes himself and the South African financier Alfred Beit. Rhodes hoped BSAC would promote colonisation and economic exploitation across much of south-central Africa, as part of the “Scramble for Africa“. However, his main focus was south of the Zambezi, in Mashonaland and the coastal areas to its east, from which he believed the Portuguese could be removed by payment or force, and in the Transvaal, which he hoped would return to British control.[1] (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_South_Africa_Company)

This historic information is being considered in conjunction with the book Go Lean…Caribbean; a publication designed to elevate the region’s economic (create 2.2 million new jobs), security and governing engines. Why would this “Lesson in History” matter in assessing today’s Caribbean status and fate?

It is of utmost importance. This discussion reveals how to reconcile the injustices of the past, and still build a better future. We have good models to consider, in this case the countries of Zimbabwe and South Africa.

In a previous blog/commentary, the issue of the origin of colonial entitlements was detailed at full length. A direct quote relates:

The most iconic of all the Papal Bulls [-“letters patent” or charters issued by a Pope, the Head of the Roman Catholic Church -] was the Inter caetera, a Papal Bull by Pope Alexander VI on 4 May 1493, which set a demarcation between the New Lands to Portugal and Spain; this granted to Spain all lands to the “west and south” … of the islands of the Azores … and all new lands to the East of this pole remained assigned to Portugal.

Just before this world-changing decree, there was an earlier Papal Bull that sealed the fate and would prejudice the African Diaspora for 500 years. The African Slave Trade and institution of “Slavery” was legally predicated on a Papal Bull from Pope Innocent VIII (Giovanni Battista Cybo) in 1491; just months before Christopher Columbus’s historic first voyage…

From the origins of slavery, [colonialism] traversed the historic curves of social revolution and evolution. In the 1500, the Protestant movement took hold. As other European powers deviated from Catholicism, Papal Bulls carried no significance to them and compliance was ignored. England and Holland established their own Protestant Churches with their own monarch as head of Church and State; Papal decrees were replaced with Royal Decrees and Charters. The intent and end-result was still the same: territories and lands awarded (colonized) with the stroke of a pen by one European power after another. The Royal Decrees and Charters were then reinforced with a strong military presence and many battles…

[The resultant] “oligarchy” … power effectively rested with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious or military affiliation.

In this discussion of oligarchy, focus is given to powerful families. There are encyclopedic references that relate that oligarchy structures are often controlled by a few prominent families, who typically pass their influence/wealth from one generation to the next, even though inheritance alone is not a necessary condition for oligarchies to prevail…

This is the challenge that belies Caribbean society. Most of the property and indigenous wealth of the Caribbean region is concentrated amongst the rich, powerful and yet small elite; an oligarchy. Many times these families received their property, corporate rights and/or monopolies by Royal Charter from the European monarchs of ancient times. These charters thus lingered in legacy from one generation to another … until …

The form of rulership that dominated these times in history is that of Oligarchy; empowered by Royal Charters/Decrees. Today, oligarchy – rule by the rich[4] – is synonymous with another term commonly used, plutocracy.

Zimbabwe Photo 3The subject of oligarchs is very familiar on the African continent. This has been a real issue there. In many countries after colonialism, like Zimbabwe (1980), the cure for the oligarch disease was nationalization – forfeiting and seizing commercial farms and mines. This turned out disastrously for this country; the cure was worse than the disease. But, next door in South Africa (14 years later), the strategy, tactics and implementation was different. This country did not ascend to majority-rule until 1994; the first majority-ruled President there, Nelson Mandela saw the futility of the nationalization strategy amongst the precedent independent African nations, so he pursued an alternate approach to assuage White Flight and keep the capital and skilled labor in the country. But the continuation of the oligarchs ill-gained, and public-perceived-stolen assets forged problems in the reality of economic/wealth inequality. Majority-rule therefore brought no revolutionary change for the average man.

All in all, change is not easy. It is heavy-lifting. This is abundantly clear in the examination of the independent majority-ruled Zimbabwe and majority-ruled South Africa. See Chart in the Appendix of the comparisons.

The details of the Republic of Zimbabwe (1980) evolution are as follows:

The British South Africa Company was a Royal Charter, to administer “North-Western Rhodesia” and “North-Eastern Rhodesia” for White settlement; it was not under those names, but the names of the geographic parts—”Mashonaland”, “Matabeleland”, “Barotseland”, and so on. The collective territories were initially referred to as “Zambesia” – the name origins of both Zambia and Zimbabwe – but became Rhodesia as an international brand. While the White minority community resisted the transition to black majority-rule, the change inevitably came, empowering revolutionary leader Robert Mugabe. The new regime – due to spite, revenge and broken promises – began confiscating White-owned farmlands. This is widely blamed for leading to the deterioration of the Zimbabwean economy (societal abandonment of human and financial capital); this has plagued the country even until this day.[113]

The details of the Republic of South Africa (1994) evolution are as follows:

The Cape Colony was a British colony in present-day South Africa and Namibia, named for the Cape of Good Hope. The British colony was preceded by an earlier Dutch colony of the same name, established in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company – granted by Royal Charter from the Dutch Monarchy. The Dutch lost the colony to Britain following the 1795 Battle of Muizenberg, but had it returned following the 1802 Peace Treaty of Amiens. It was re-occupied by the British following the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806, and British possession affirmed with the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. The Cape Colony then remained in the British Empire, becoming self-governing in 1872, and uniting with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa in 1910. Despite practicing racial segregation for most of its history, eventually integration and black majority-rule evolved in the Republic of South Africa. Despite their resistance to these changes, accommodations and reconciliations on the part of Nelson Mandela allowed for the continuation of the established societal engines; the minority White communities and business interests remained.

Zimbabwe - Photo 4Considering these case studies, the Failed-State status of Zimbabwe versus the economic successes of South Africa, we see a lesson in this history, an obvious appreciation for best-practices … for us to apply in the Caribbean. We can optimize these best-practices by applying regional strategies, tactics and implementations to benefit everyone – the Greater Good – and try not to disenfranchise any one group.

The masses of people in the democratic Caribbean now have the right to rule, not just some special group set aside by Royal Decree or granted power by a Royal Charter. Since there is the scientific fact that no one can go back in time and change history; we can only move forward, hopefully with wisdom from the lessons learned in history. The Go Lean book presents a roadmap on how to benefit from these lessons – good, bad and ugly – and how to empower communities anew; to use political power to impact the Greater Good. We therefore see a role for the Rich (One Percent – Page 224), the Poor (Page 222) and the Middle Classes (Page 223).

The consideration of the Go Lean book, as related to this subject is one of governance, the need for technocratic stewardship of the regional Caribbean society. This point was also pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) with these acknowledgements and statements:

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

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states (for example: Haiti and Cuba) will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide better stewardship for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region, despite their European heritage. The book (and subsequent blog/commentaries) posits that we must not fashion ourselves as parasites of our previous European colonizers, but rather pursue a status as protégés.

Our past history feature much oppression and repression; European colonialism had been a villainous “dragon”. But we can train our dragons! We can make the most of previous bad history. This point was presented as a strategy for Direct Foreign Investments, asserting that we want to invite and attract investments. We can use their resources to elevate our own communities, while still providing a return/profit for the investors.

This is Pragmatism 101!

We, in the Caribbean, were not the only ones abused. Other indigenous people (Africans, Asians, Amerindians, etc.) also suffered, sometimes even more so. The goal should be to thrive despite the disabling legacy; (and if not for everyone, then make the most of the situation for the most number of people).

This is the community ethos of the Greater Good!

Globalization is now an ‘Agent of Change’ that we must contend with. We must “play nice in the sandbox” with people of other countries, especially those with capital resources. So if a minority group represents a faction that previously exploited our land and forefathers, we cannot expect to extract vengeance against them – Zimbabwe proved the futility of such a quest for justice and inequity. As related in the Go Lean book (Page 151), the best-practice for any governing entity to grow the economy is to protect all property rights; (real, personal or intellectual). This is the “new” New World; and the new formula for success.

Another formula, an economic principle, is that “voluntary trade creates wealth” (Page 21). This fact has often been overlooked in policy decisions for Africa. The following VIDEO portrays this dilemma, decrying the current migrant/refugee crisis in Europe, when the best-practice the continent can provide the African people is a more liberal trade policy, allowing markets for African agricultural produce. (Without this type of proactive strategies, the continent is being oppressed … all over again … by today’s Europe; this is a lesson learned from the Native American Reservations in the US).

VIDEO: UKIP Leader Nigel Farage Addressing European Parliament on African Culpability & Hyprocrisy – https://youtu.be/NTwOap7ohc4

Posted by Wednesday, April 29, 2015 – UKIP Leader Nigel Farage: speaks to the European Parliament on the EU suggestion that the continent should have a common asylum and migration policy. He felt it was important to represent the view that this is not just another attack on British sovereignty but also inherently dangerous.

In general, the Go Lean roadmap stresses key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of Caribbean society. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence   Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in   the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations – South African Model Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states/ 4 languages into a Single Market Page 45
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #4: Confederation Without Sovereignty Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade Page 128
Planning – Ways to Model the new European Union – Unified Economy Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 Page 136
Planning – Lessons Learned from Indian Reservations – Audacity versus Absence of Hope Page 141
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Protect Property Rights Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218

In considering this history and re-addressing the opening question: given the choice between riches and power, we choose power!

With the proper stewardship, we can “create real money from thin air”; establish trade networks to grow the economy, educate our people to be global leaders, foster development of products and services that the world demands. The “world would beat a path to our doors”.

Adherence to these best-practices – gleaned from this lesson in history – would help us make our Caribbean community a better homeland to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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Appendix – Comparative Analysis of Zimbabwe versus South Africa

Zimbabwe

South Africa
Economy – overview Zimbabwe’s economy is growing despite continuing political   uncertainty. Following a decade of contraction from 1998 to 2008, Zimbabwe’s   economy recorded real growth of roughly 10% per year in 2010-11, before   slowing in 2012-13 due poor harvests and low diamond revenues. The government   of Zimbabwe faces a number of difficult economic problems, including   infrastructure and regulatory deficiencies, ongoing indigenization pressure,   policy uncertainty, a large external debt burden, and insufficient formal   employment. Until early 2009, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe routinely printed money   to fund the budget deficit, causing hyperinflation. Dollarization in early   2009 – which allowed currencies such as the Botswana   pula, the South Africa   rand, and the US dollar to be used locally – ended hyperinflation and reduced   inflation below 10% per year, but exposed structural weaknesses that continue   to inhibit broad-based growth. South Africa is a middle-income, emerging market with an   abundant supply of natural resources; well-developed financial, legal,   communications, energy, and transport sectors and a stock exchange that is   the 16th largest in the world. Even though the country’s modern   infrastructure supports a relatively efficient distribution of goods to major   urban centers throughout the region, unstable electricity supplies retard   growth. The global financial crisis reduced commodity prices and world   demand. GDP fell nearly 2% in 2009 but has recovered since then, albeit   slowly with 2014 growth projected at about 2%. Unemployment, poverty, and   inequality – among the highest in the world – remain a challenge. Official   unemployment is at nearly 25% of the work force, and runs significantly   higher among black youth. Eskom, the state-run power company, has built two   new power stations and installed new power demand management programs to   improve power grid reliability. Construction delays at two additional plants,   however, mean South Africa   is operating on a razor thin margin; economists judge that growth cannot   exceed 3% until those plants come on line. South Africa’s economic policy   has focused on controlling inflation, however, the country has had   significant budget deficits that restrict its ability to deal with pressing   economic problems. The current government faces growing pressure from special   interest groups to use state-owned enterprises to deliver basic services to   low-income areas and to increase job growth.
Population 12,973,808 54,002,000
GDP (purchasing power parity) $7.496 billion (2013 est.) $595.7 billion (2013 est.)
$7.265 billion (2012 est.) $584 billion (2012 est.)
$6.957 billion (2011 est.) $569.5 billion (2011 est.)
note: data are in 2013 US dollars note: data are in 2013 US dollars
GDP – real growth rate 3.2% (2013 est.) 2% (2013 est.)
4.4% (2012 est.) 2.5% (2012 est.)
10.6% (2011 est.) 3.5% (2011 est.)
GDP – per capita (PPP) $600 (2013 est.) $11,500 (2013 est.)
$600 (2012 est.) $11,400 (2012 est.)
$500 (2011 est.) $11,300 (2011 est.)
note: data are in 2013 US dollars note: data are in 2013 US dollars
GDP – composition by sector agriculture: 20.1% agriculture: 2.6%
industry: 25.4% industry: 29%
services: 54.5% (2013 est.) services: 68.4% (2013 est.)
Population below poverty line 68% (2004) 31.3% (2009 est.)
Household income or consumption by   percentage share lowest 10%: 2% lowest 10%: 1.2%
highest 10%: 40.4% (1995) highest 10%: 51.7% (2009 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices) 8.5% (2013 est.) 5.8% (2013 est.)
8.2% (2012 est.) 5.7% (2012 est.)
Labor force 3.939 million (2013 est.) 18.54 million (2013 est.)
Labor force – by occupation agriculture: 66% agriculture: 9%
industry: 10% industry: 26%
services: 24% (1996) services: 65% (2007 est.)
Unemployment rate 95% (2009 est.) 24.9% (2013 est.)
80% (2005 est.) 25.1% (2012 est.)
note: figures include unemployment and underemployment;   true unemployment is unknown and, under current economic conditions,   unknowable
Distribution of family income – Gini   index 50.1 (2006) 63.1 (2005)
50.1 (1995) 59.3 (1994)
Budget revenues: $NA revenues: $88.53 billion
expenditures: $NA (2013 est.) expenditures: $105.5 billion (2013 est.)
Industries mining (coal, gold, platinum, copper,   nickel, tin, diamonds, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores), steel;   wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, clothing and footwear, foodstuffs,   beverages mining (world’s largest producer of   platinum, gold, chromium), automobile assembly, metalworking, machinery,   textiles, iron and steel, chemicals, fertilizer, foodstuffs, commercial ship   repair
Industrial production growth rate 3.7% (2013 est.) 0.9% (2013 est.)
Agriculture – products corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, coffee,   sugarcane, peanuts; sheep, goats, pigs corn, wheat, sugarcane, fruits,   vegetables; beef, poultry, mutton, wool, dairy products
Exports $3.144 billion (2013 est.) $91.05 billion (2013 est.)
$3.314 billion (2012 est.) $93.48 billion (2012 est.)
Exports – commodities platinum, cotton, tobacco, gold,   ferroalloys, textiles/clothing gold, diamonds, platinum, other metals   and minerals, machinery and equipment
Exports – partners China 21.1%, South Africa 15.1%,   Democratic Republic of the Congo 12.1%, Botswana 10.8%, Italy 4.6% (2012) China 11.8%, US 8.3%, Japan   6%, Germany 5.7%, India 4.2%   (2012)
Imports $4.571 billion (2013 est.) $99.55 billion (2013 est.)
$4.569 billion (2012 est.) $102.6 billion (2012 est.)
Imports – commodities machinery and transport equipment,   other manufactures, chemicals, fuels, food products machinery and equipment, chemicals,   petroleum products, scientific instruments, foodstuffs
Imports – partners South    Africa 51.9%, China 10%   (2012) China 14.4%, Germany   10.1%, Saudi Arabia 7.7%, US 7.4%, Japan   4.6%, India   4.5% (2012)
Debt – external $8.445 billion (31 December 2013 est.) $139 billion (31 December 2013 est.)
$8.765 billion (31 December 2012 est.) $130.4 billion (31 December 2012 est.)
Exchange rates Zimbabwean dollars (ZWD) per US dollar   – rand (ZAR) per US dollar –
234.25 (2010) 9.576 (2013 est.)
234.25 (2009) 8.2031 (2012 est.)
9,686.8 (2007) 7.3212 (2010 est.)
note: the dollar was adopted as a legal currency in 2009;   since then the Zimbabwean dollar has experienced hyperinflation and is   essentially worthless 8.42 (2009)
  7.9576 (2008)
Fiscal year calendar year 1 April – 31 March
Public debt 202.4% of GDP (2013 est.) 45.4% of GDP (2013 est.)
244.2% of GDP (2012 est.) 42.3% of GDP (2012 est.)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold $437 million (31 December 2013 est.) $48.46 billion (31 December 2013 est.)
$575.6 million (31 December 2012 est.) $50.7 billion (31 December 2012 est.)
Current Account Balance -$576 million (2013 est.) -$23.78 billion (2013 est.)
-$416.5 million (2012 est.) -$24.07 billion (2012 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate) $10.48 billion (2013 est.) $353.9 billion (2013 est.)
Stock of direct foreign investment –   at home $NA $143.3 billion (31 December 2013 est.)

 

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Righting a Wrong: Re-thinking CSME

Posted on July 10, 2018 in Government, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

It could have been so good for the country, but the leaders had no vision and so the people suffered! 

The summary of the Caribbean Single Market & Economy (CSME) effort is that an integrated regional economy always grows! But the Bahamas suffered the malediction warned in the Bible scripture in Proverbs 29:18 (King James Version):

Where there is no vision, the people perish…

There is the need to look back at the Bahamas – and other Caribbean countries that waived off the initiative – and do a …

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda”.

What could have been accomplished had the progressive Single Market initiative gone forward, as it succeeded elsewhere?

How do we now Right that Wrong?

This is the continuation of a commentary series from May 2017 that considered how to “Right a Wrong”. Surely, missing out on the opportunity to transform Bahamian society is a “Wrong”. The ship (regional integration) sailed … without us! Other communities – think the European Union or EU – that integrated, grew, progressed and optimized – migrants are dying to get there – while the Bahamas regressed! So there are lessons that we need to glean from the effort to “Right our Wrongs”. Others can benefited, so can we! The full 2017 series were as follows:

As related in the first submission in the series, these “Wrongs” relate to bad actions and inaction by different actors. The Bahamas Intelligentsia was vocal in their opposition to CSME in 1993 – see a prominent White Paper at the time in the Appendix below. But since then, the societal indices in the Bahamas has only pointed to failure, regression and abandonment. The summary is that this country adopted a bad economic policy – by waiving off CSME – to preserve low-skilled jobs. “Righting that Wrong” would detour from this lack of economic planning and allow the country to finally reboot, reform and transform.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean addressed CSME from the beginning; starting with the opening assessment of the State of Caribbean integration. The book detailed CSME on Page 15 as follows:

What is the CSME?
The initials refer to the Caribbean Single Market & Economy, the attempted integrated development strategy envisioned at the 10th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community which took place in July 1989 in Grand Anse, Grenada. The Grand Anse Declaration had three key features:

  1. Deepening economic integration by advancing beyond a common market towards a Single Market and Economy.
  2. Widening the membership and thereby expanding the economic mass of the Caribbean Community (e.g. Suriname and Haiti were admitted as full members in 1995 and 2002 respectively).
  3. Progressive insertion of the region into the global trading and economic system by strengthening trading links with non-traditional partners.

What was the hope for CSME?
Whereas CariCom started as a Common Market and Customs Union, to facilitate more intra-region trade, the CSME was intended to effect more integration of the economies of the member states. But this turned out to be mere talk, fanciful murmurings of politicians during their bi-annual Heads of Government meetings. No deployment plans ever emerged, even though up to 15 member-states signed on to the accord; (and 10 more as “Observers” only).

If this effort was started again, what would be done differently?
Make it real! There should have been funding first, then also a proposed constitution, an interstate compact for the US Territories participation, delivery schedules, implementation plans, and even project teams. Many “low hanging fruits” should have been “picked” and their successful deployment lauded throughout the region. Then there are the big projects, the heavy-lifting for the region: job creation, improved governance, security, emergency management, currency & monetary ascension, and support/promotion for many NGO’s in the region.

This Go Lean book was published in November 2013, projecting verbiage like “the Caribbean is in Crisis; alas a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” (Page 8). According to many observations in the Go Lean blogs-commentaries – see below – the Bahamas crisis is dire, in need of immediate remediation, yet the leaders are continuing to waive-off; see a news article here:

Title: Bahamas maintains stance against CSME
By: Royston James

The Bahamas will maintain its stance against joining the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), despite increased pressure from certain regional heads to expand the initiative.

The CSME seeks to create a single, enlarged economic space by removing certain restrictions, the result of which would allow the free movement of goods and services, people and capital and technology.

“In spite of what you may read in the newspaper, we have discussed CSME, [but] The Bahamas is not and will not be a part of CSME,” Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis said upon returning from Jamaica on Saturday.

“The Bahamas will not allow the free movement of people within our boundaries. So we are not a part of CSME. That must be clear, so that you do not feel that [because of] what has transpired there that Caribbean nationals would be able to move into The Bahamas quite regularly.

“We have our rules, our laws, and they will continue to apply.”

Full implementation of the CSME was high on the agenda of the CARICOM meeting held last Thursday. At least three CARICOM heads called for a review of the program by its member states and for regional leaders to find the political will to see the program expanded and made more efficient.

Addressing CARICOM, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley opined that “psychological impediments and the closed mindsets in some quarters of officialdom” can be attributed to the slow progress of the CSME.

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne and CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque also pushed for more to be achieved. CARICOM Chairman and Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said at a press conference following the CARICOM meeting that a special meeting on CSME will be held in Trinidad and Tobago in November.

Under the first Christie administration, the CSME issue featured prominently in local debates with strong opposition to The Bahamas joining the initiative being expressed in many quarters. Debate died down only after the government at the time publicly announced that The Bahamas would not join any bloc that would lead to the free movement of people in the country.

Source: Posted July 9, 2018 retrieved July 10, 2018 from: https://thenassauguardian.com/2018/07/09/bahamas-maintains-stance-against-csme/

The recommendation of the movement behind the Go Lean book is to confederate now!

This is the purpose of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, to help reform and transform the societal engines of the Bahamas and all 30 member-states of the Caribbean region. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The Go Lean/CU roadmap applies best-practices for community empowerment and features these 3 prime directives, proclaimed as follows:

Had the CU Single Market been in force, the arguments among the people would have been “which of the 2.2 million new jobs would land in the Bahamas”. Rather, according to the foregoing news article, the topics du jour is how to keep poorer people away from the measly resources in the Bahamas. This is happening while more and more Bahamian professionals are fleeing the islands for foreign shores and organizing their affairs in the Diaspora. See related photo here:

According to the Bahamas Prime Minister, the overriding issue with CSME is the Free Movement of People. The country would rather maintain its independence than to succumb to a new “free movement” regime whereby people can freely move from one Caribbean member-state to another for any activity: live, work or play. This is the defect of CSME!

Lesson learned!

The Go Lean roadmap is designed to elevate the Caribbean region, to be better destinations to live, work and play. The movement therefore fosters strategies, tactics and implementation to better foment the regional workplace. The roadmap asserts that Caribbean communities need the Free Movement of People under controlled employment rules-conditions. This is why the CU Trade Federation is a graduation from the CSME – something better. We accomplish Free Trade and Free Movement of People for Domestic (Intra-region) Tourism, but controlled Freedom of Movement for jobs … based on Labor Certification. Here is how the Go Lean book describes the Certification process:

CU Labor Relations Board
This agency coordinates the activities of labor certifications, labor unions and other organizational dimensions in the region. This effort will be collaborated and in cooperation with member-state Labor Relations agencies. The CU‘s focus will be towards interstate activities and enterprises, as opposed to intra-state.

Labor Certification is an important role for this agency as it requires monitoring the labor needs of the region to ascertain where skills are needed and where and who can supply the skills. The certification role involves rating the level of expertise needed for job and rating workers skill sets. (Consider a 10-point grading system for positions and personnel, where “apprentice” level ranges from 1 – 3, “journeyman” level ranges from 4 – 6, and “master” ranges from 7 – 10). This certification role is vital to the strategy of preserving Caribbean human capital in the region, even if this involves some movement among the member-states.  [When a high skilled job becomes available, it has to be rated so that if no local talents are available, workers with qualifying ratings in other CU member-states can apply and be engaged].

When a labor union from one country wants to represent workers in another country, this union will have to be registered and administered by this agency for the CU.

Outside of the labor unions, this agency also marshals the causes of labor abuses, job discrimination and equal opportunities for minority groups, women and persons with disabilities; [in conjunction with related agencies in the member-states].

This agency also maintains a Project Management Office to deliver on regional labor-specific projects. This includes training programs, continuing education and e-Learning schemes among the non-matriculating population. This agency will therefore be the regional authority for “on-the-job” training schemes.

This approach is more technocratic than the status quo, and allows the Caribbean region to embrace the benefits of a Single Market without endangering low-skilled jobs. Sad, the Bahamas is suffering from decline trying to preserve low-skilled jobs!

This issue was also the underlying complaint for Great Britain / United Kingdom desiring to exit the EU; this refers to Brexit. See the aligning issue in the Appendix VIDEO below. Again, lesson learned!

The points of effective, technocratic stewardship for a regional labor market have been elaborated upon in previous blog-commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14954 Overseas Workers – Not the Panacea
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14242 Leading with Money Matters – Follow the Jobs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14191 Scheduling in the ‘Gig Economy’ – The New Job Source
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8377 Fallacy of Minimum Wage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5759 Pressed by Debt Crisis, Doctors Leave Greece in Droves
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5597 Wage-Seeking Principles – Market Forces -vs- Collective Bargaining
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698 Professional STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly

What should be the advocacy priority of a technocratic regional government? Low-skilled workers? Professional classes? High Net-Worth individuals? The answer: All of the above!

Overall, the Go Lean book stresses the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reform and transform the economic, security and governing engines of Caribbean society. This effort will be technocratic! It will preserve low-skill jobs, foster professional careers and invite High Net-Worth individuals to bring their Time, Talent and Treasures to our region. This vision was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12-14) with these statements:

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

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

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

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

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

Yes, the purpose of this commentary is to project the better plan for reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines. Yes, we need jobs, but doubling-down on bad economic policy to preserve low-skilled job is bad for society … and the low-skilled worker. Automation and globalization would diminish those jobs further anyway as time and technology progresses; consider the eventual example of robots performing construction in this previous blog-commentary from the Go Lean movement.

Now is the time for all stakeholders – leaders, citizens, low-skilled workers and professionals – in the Caribbean to lean-in for the empowerments described here-in and in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. We must do better that in the past; we must Right the Wrong of past generations “missing the boat” and benefits of regional integration. This is how we can make the Bahamas and all of the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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 – No Caricom Without Referendum

By Sir Randol Fawkes – June 1993

I often wondered what The Caribbean Community’s Common Market (CARICOM) was up to. But now that I know, I wish to sound a warning to all true Bahamians to hold fast to the “Christian values and the Rules of Law” as enshrined in the Preamble to our Independence Constitution of July 10th, 1973, because some power-hungry politicians to the South are planning to invade our homeland and to steal our birthright away.

Simple enough? Dictatorship is always simple, monosyllabic and quick. Under a democracy we have a right to be properly briefed on CARICOM before being required to vote, “Yes” or “No” on whether the Bahamas should become a full Member State of the Caribbean Community’s CARICOM. The Rt. Hon. James F. Mitchell further expostulated, “One flag means we speak on the podium of the United Nations with one clear voice. One voice means one passport, one citizenship and all that flows from a single citizenship. Secondly, one Ministry of Finance is essential to provide the economic development which our people crave. This union will need to show results, and this authority which negotiates and secures financing must be responsible for the repayment of that finance.”

Make no mistake about it, these Caribbeans who will descend on Bahamian soil in July offering CARICOM as a panacea for all ills, intend to destroy our national flag: the Black, the Gold and the Aquamarine; silence our National Anthem, Lift Up Your Heads to the Rising Sun Bahama land, abolish Bahamian citizenship and our passports; eliminate Bahamian autonomy and thereafter superimpose upon us a leviathan dictatorship with a network of cells throughout the Caribbean – all done without first a people’s forum in which all voices – pro and con could be heard and ultimately expressed in a Constitutional Referendum.

…

Source: Retrieved July 10, 2018 from: http://www.sirrandolfawkes.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/No_Caricom_Without_Referendum1.216134242.pdf

————–

Appendix VIDEO – Brexit: UK-EU freedom of movement ‘to end in March 2019’- BBC News – https://youtu.be/qzlUNIJ0f_0

BBC News

BBC News
Published on Jul 27, 2017 – New immigration system will be in place by March 2019 when the free movement of people between the EU and the UK ends, a minister has said.
Immigration Minister Brandon Lewis was speaking as the government commissioned a “detailed assessment” of the costs and benefits of EU migrants.
That report is expected in September 2018, six months before Brexit.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd earlier reassured firms there would be no “cliff edge” on immigration. Writing in the Financial Times she said the UK would continue to attract “the brightest and the best” migrants from around the world – with the newspaper suggesting a work permit system for Europeans was being considered.
The CBI said businesses “urgently” needed to know what EU migration would look like, both in any “transitional” period after March 2019 and beyond. Ministers have also promised an “extensive” consultation to listen to the views of businesses, unions and universities.

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Should We Celebrate the ‘4th of July’? – ENCORE

Posted on July 4, 2018 in Government, Social

This is a good question.

Think about America’s closest Ally, England, Great Britain or the United Kingdom; (same country, 3 names): Do they celebrate this American Holiday in London?

Should they?

Of course not!

This good question was asked a year ago on July 4th, 2017 in a previous blog-commentary. It is so important that Caribbean people should ask it every year. The Encore of that previous submission follows:

==================================================================

Go Lean Commentary – A Lesson in History – ‘4th of July’ and Slavery

CU Blog - A Lesson in History - Slavery and the 4th of July - Photo 1Today is a special day in the United States, it is the 241st anniversary of their Declaration of Independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776. This day will be celebrated all over the country with parades, picnics, music and fireworks.

The celebrations of this day is a BIG deal!

What is buried in this annual celebration is the stark and sharp contrast on the different sides in the conflict of July 4, 1776. There were the British loyalists on one hand and those seeking freedom from the British, the patriots, on the other hand; see the opposing sides here:

Title #1: What two sides emerged in response to the Declaration of Independence? What did each side favor?

Answer:
The Patriots and Loyalists; Patriots favored independence and Loyalists favored staying as a British colony.

Explanation:
Tensions were simmering prior to the start of the Revolution, and the Declaration of Independence, signed in 1776 formally broadcasted to all that the United States was a new and independent nation. This led to two factions being formed: Patriots and Loyalists.

Patriots believed that the United States should be an independent nation separate from Britain. They felt that they were being treated unfairly as a colony and that their basic rights were being trampled upon. It was their view that the time for compromises was over and that the colonies needed to leave the British Empire.

Loyalists thought that the colonies were better off staying with England. Some did this out of loyalty for the king, but others feared instability and anarchy in the event of a change in government. In addition, many feared that the economic fallout with the mother country would destabilize the American economy.

All in all, these were the two groups that were formed, and as you know, the Patriots emerged as successful and formed a new nation.

Source: Retrieved July 4, 2017 from: https://socratic.org/questions/what-two-sides-emerged-in-response-to-the-declaration-of-independence-what-did-e

The patriots get to celebrate the 4th of July every year. But as there were 2 sides of this conflict, we sometimes forget the loyalists side of the conflict. They did not simply go away; they remained vocal and loyal to the Britain’s Crown.

The category of loyalists have a big bearing on the history of the Caribbean. Of the 30 member-states that caucus as the Caribbean, 18 of them have British heritage. Many of these were impacted by the American Declaration of Independence; many loyalists fled America and relocated to these British West Indies. Consider these notes:

When their cause was defeated, about 15% of the Loyalists (65,000–70,000 people) fled to other parts of the British Empire, to Britain itself, or to British North America (now Canada). …

CU Blog - A Lesson in History - Slavery and the 4th of July - Photo 3a

CU Blog - A Lesson in History - Slavery and the 4th of July - Photo 2a

CU Blog - A Lesson in History - Slavery and the 4th of July - Photo 2b

The wealthiest and most prominent Loyalist exiles went to Great Britain to rebuild their careers; many received pensions. Many Southern Loyalists, taking along their slaves, went to the West Indies and the Bahamas, particularly to the Abaco Islands. – Source: Wikipedia

CU Blog - A Lesson in History - Slavery and the 4th of July - Photo 3b

Great Britain also responded … formally. See details of the response here:

Title #2: The British Reply

When Great Britain first received the Declaration of Independence, the country was silent. To them, this was another annoyance from the colonies. The colonists had sent previous letters to King George III that had been ignored, but this was the first time that they had declared themselves free from Great Britain. You know how you feel when a little child continues to ask you for the same thing over and over again, and eventually, you stop listening? This was how King George III viewed the colonies. They were a nuisance, but relatively harmless. Or so he thought.

The government hired John Lind, an English politician and pamphleteer, to write a rebuttal to the declaration. He wrote Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress, a reply that tried to pick apart the Declaration of Independence. Lind focused on the issue of slavery, saying that the colonists were actually angry that King George III had offered freedom to the slaves. Lind even mocked the writers for stating, ‘All men are created equal…’, yet they allowed slavery. Of course, all of this was just a distraction. The colonists really paid no attention to the pamphlet.

Following this, King George III officially declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. By August of 1776, the King ordered troops to the colonies.

Once the Revolutionary War began, the citizens of Great Britain became more concerned about the colonies and their fight for independence. In October, King George III addressed Parliament, hoping to ease some of the concerns. He opened the address wishing that he could inform them that the troubles were at an end and that the people had ‘recovered from their delusion’ and ‘returned to their duty.’ However, the colonists continued to fight and even ‘openly renounced all allegiance to the Crown.’ King George III accused the colonists of treason, but reassured the Parliament that England was still united.

The King ended his address singing his own praises saying, ‘No people ever enjoyed more Happiness, or lived under a milder Government, then those now revolted Provinces.’ Everything that the colonies have—their land, sea, wealth, and strength—was because of him. His desire was to return the colonies as a part of the British Empire and end the war.

As we know, King George III’s desire to end the war and keep the colonies did not go as planned. The Revolutionary War, the war for American Independence, continued until 1783, ending with more than 50,000 deaths, and the colonies freed as a new country, the United States of America.

…

Source: Retrieved July 4, 2017 from: http://study.com/academy/lesson/british-reply-to-the-declaration-summary-analysis.html

As related, slavery was not the cause of the US War of Independence … entirely. But the notion that “all men are created equal” was a laughable American hypocrisy. The continuation of slavery in the wake of a trend of liberalism in England became a boiling point of contention. In fact as reported here, many African Americans – 12,000 or so – fled to the side of the British for the promise of freedom:

Title #3: Slavery and Black Loyalists

As a result of the looming crisis in 1775 the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation that promised freedom to servants and slaves who were able to bear arms and join his Loyalist Ethiopian Regiment. Many of the slaves in the South joined the Loyalists with intentions of gaining freedom and escaping the South. About 800 did so; some helped rout the Virginia militia at the Battle of Kemp’s Landing and fought in the Battle of Great Bridge on the Elizabeth River, wearing the motto “Liberty to Slaves”, but this time they were defeated. The remains of their regiment were then involved in the evacuation of Norfolk [(Virginia)], after which they served in the Chesapeake area. Eventually the camp that they had set up there suffered an outbreak of smallpox and other diseases. This took a heavy toll, putting many of them out of action for some time. There was a slave by the name of Boston King who joined the Loyalists and wound up catching smallpox. Boston King and other soldiers who were sick were relocated to a different part of the camp so that they did not contaminate the healthy soldiers. The survivors joined other British units and continued to serve throughout the war. Black colonials were often the first to come forward to volunteer and a total of 12,000 African Americans served with the British from 1775 to 1783. This factor had the effect of forcing the rebels to also offer freedom to those who would serve in the Continental Army; however, such promises were often reneged upon by both sides.[31]

African Americans who gained their freedom by fighting for the British became known as Black Loyalists. The British honored the pledge of freedom in New York City through the efforts of General Guy Carleton who recorded the names of African Americans who had supported the British in a document called the Book of Negroes which granted freedom to slaves who had escaped and assisted the British. About 4,000 Black Loyalists went to the British colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where the British promised them land. They founded communities across the two provinces, many of which still exist today. Over 2,500 settled in Birchtown, Nova Scotia, instantly making it the largest free black community in North America. However, the inferior grants of land they were given and the prejudices of white Loyalists in nearby Shelburne who regularly harassed the settlement in events such as the Shelburne Riots in 1784, made life very difficult for the community.[32] In 1791 Britain’s Sierra Leone Company offered to transport dissatisfied black Loyalists to the British colony of Sierra Leone in Africa, with the promise of better land and more equality. About 1,200 left Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone, where they named the capital Freetown.[32] After 1787 they became Sierra Leone’s ruling elite. About 400 to 1,000 free blacks who joined the British side in the Revolution went to London and joined the free black community of about 10,000 there.

Source: Retrieved July 4, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_(American_Revolution)#Slavery_and_Black_Loyalists

Wow, what a notion! An argument can be made that for the Black population – the majority ethnicity for 29 of the 30 Caribbean member-states – their celebration of the 4th of July should have been … for the other side!

Intriguing!

This is the lesson in history for the Caribbean; American historic accomplishments are NOT historic accomplishments for the majority of Caribbean people. Poor race relations tarnished so much of American history, that the country continues with this societal defect … even to this day.

This lesson from America’s initiation is presented by the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – which 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 book features a declaration of its own, a Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 – 13):

Preamble: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to unite with others so as to connect them together to collaborate, confederate and champion the challenges that face them, we the people of Caribbean democracies find it necessary to accede and form a confederated Union, the Caribbean Union Trade Federation, with our geographic neighbors of common interest.

While the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle us to form a society and a brotherhood to foster manifestations of our hopes and aspirations and to forge solutions to the challenges that imperil us, decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we declare the causes which imperil us and incite us to unite to assuage our common threats.

And while our rights to exercise good governance and promote a more perfect society are the natural assumptions among the powers of the earth, no one other than ourselves can be held accountable for our failure to succeed if we do not try to promote the opportunities that a democratic society fosters.

As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny. …

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

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.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on this roadmap, 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. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

“Lessons in History” are a familiar theme for these Go Lean blog-commentaries; consider this sample of previous submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12274 A Lesson in History – Spanish Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11870 A Lesson in History – Indian Termination Policy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10933 A Lesson in History – White is Right – Not!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10733 150 Years of Historically Black Colleges & Universities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9151 The New Smithsonian African – American Museum
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8767 A Lesson in History – Haiti 1804
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7769 History’s Effect of the Current Caribbean Disposition
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7738 A Lesson in History – Legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5695 A Lesson in History – Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Past
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4971 A Lesson in History – Royal Charters: Truth & Consequence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=451 CariCom position on Slavery/Colonization Reparations

There are so many lessons that we, in the Caribbean, can learn from this history of the initiation of the United States; the role of slavery was integral to the whole fabric of American society. Repercussions and consequences of this societal defect reverberated from those events in July 1776 right down to our day. In many ways, these repercussions and consequences are responsible for our region’s poor performance in our economic, security and governing engines. Our society was created as parasites of the American- European (British) eco-system, rather than protégés  of these advanced economies.

It is time for this disposition to end! It is not 1776 anymore; we must make the societal progress that 241 years of lessons should have taught us. America has reformed and transformed … some, but still needs more progress. But our goal is not to reform and transform America; our target is the Caribbean … only. We hereby urge everyone in the region – people, institutions and governments – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap.

We can do this, we can declare our interdependence and make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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.

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‘Time to Go’ – States must have ‘population increases’

Posted on June 28, 2018 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“We need more people” – News Article conclusion below.

Economics is a complex social science. But it all boils now to advanced variations of this simple law:

Supply and demand

Whether it’s a product, service or population, there must be a good measure of supply and demand for eco-systems to work. When either side of the equation becomes dysfunctional, the supply or the demand, the stewards of the eco-system (company leaders or community leaders) must effect change in either the supply-side or demand-side, or both.

This is the actuality of the US State of Vermont today. They need more people! They need more supply and more demand. ‘Things’ are bad now, but will get even worse going forward if there are no mitigations to the current trends.

  • Vermont’s aging population … the median age nationally has increased by almost five years to 37.8 while Vermont’s has increased by 10 years
  • rapidly shrinking tax base
  • 16,000 fewer workers [now] than [they had] in 2009
  • “Must think outside the box …”

So that State is willing to pay $10,000 to people to move into the State.

Wait, what?

See the full news article and related VIDEO here:

Title: Vermont will pay you $10,000 to move there and work from home
By: Abigail Hess

Considering leaving the big city behind in favor of somewhere scenic? Now could be the right time.

On Wednesday, Quartz reports, Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed a bill into law that will pay people $10,000 if they move to Vermont and work remotely for an employer out of state. The Remote Worker Grant Program will take effect on January 1, 2019, and will help cover moving, living and working expenses. Grants can be used for relocation, computer software and hardware, broadband internet and access to a co-working space.

Currently, Vermont has budgeted funds to support 100 grants for the first three years and 20 additional workers each year from then on. Grant recipients will receive $10,000 over two years that will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

This policy is intended to address Vermont’s aging population. While the state may be rich in beautiful landscapes and maple syrup, it has a rapidly shrinking tax base.

“Vermont continues to age, and age faster than the nation as a whole,” writes Art Woolf for the Burlington Free Press. “Over the past quarter of a century, the median age nationally has increased by almost five years to 37.8 while Vermont’s has increased by 10 years.”

This trend has made Vermont one of the oldest states in the nation.

In addition to the remote worker grant program, the bill also launches the state’s Stay-to-Stay initiative. The program, aimed at convincing the state’s 13 million annual tourists to permanently relocate to Vermont, will be organized by the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing and will connect visitors with local employers, entrepreneurs, community leaders and potential neighbors.

“We have about 16,000 fewer workers than we did in 2009. That’s why expanding our workforce is one of the top priorities of my administration,” Scott said in a statement. “We must think outside the box to help more Vermonters enter the labor force and attract more working families and young professionals to Vermont. That’s exactly what the Department of Tourism and Marketing did with this program for out-of-state visitors who may be interested in living full-time in Vermont, and I’m excited to see it move forward.”

The initiative will take place over four weekends and will be piloted in three communities. One of those selected communities is Brattleboro, Vermont. “The one thing we need more of in Vermont is people,” says Adam Grinold, executive director of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation. “We need more visitors, we need more employees, we need more business owners. We need more people.”

Source: CNBC Consumer & Business News – posted May 31, 2018; retrieved June 27, 2018 from: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/vermont-will-pay-you-10000-to-move-there-and-work-from-home.html

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VIDEO – Move to Vermont, make $10,000 –  https://youtu.be/Q5Pum5HfNkQ


Published on Jun 1, 2018 – Fox Business News’ Tracee Carrasco on a new bill signed in Vermont allowing the state to offer $10,000 to those who move there and work remotely for out-of-state employers.

  • Category: News and Politics
  • License: Standard YouTube License

Vermont has a problem and they are willing to throw money at it for resolution. This just might work! Another observed-and-confirmed principle in Economics is that:

People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways

Think about the viability for Vermont. There are candidate individuals (and families) out there. These ones do work from home and can reside/live anywhere. Why not do it – reside – in Vermont and work from Vermont? Especially if “someone” will pay for it. These candidates have to live somewhere:

… an entity will pay you $10,000 to do something – Reside –  that you would otherwise have to do for free, or pay for!

This challenge for Vermont parallels with challenges for the Caribbean homeland. This commentary continues the series on Time to Go back to the Caribbean homeland as residents. In this instance, we are considering the reality for life in communities that constantly lose their population. Things will go from bad to worse. Considering the assessment of our Caribbean member-states:

Oops, too late! We are already Failing!
(See Appendix F below for references to Failed-State Indices for Caribbean member-states)

We have lost, and will continue to lose, so many of our professional population – one report measured the abandonment rate at 70 percent. Something must be done! Solutions must be sought!

This is commentary Number 11 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean which started in September 2016 with the first 6 issues. Now, this commentary, examines the actuality of an American State trying to recruit “good” people away from their current abodes. This is something we must be conscious of. Our advocacy is simple:

  • Our Caribbean Diaspora need to plan to repatriate to the region – we need them back!
  • While our young people, in the homeland, many times set their sights on foreign (American) shores – we need to dissuade this.

So, is this a competition? Are we trying to recruit people to come to the Caribbean instead of going to Vermont?

Ready or not, we have a battle on our hands.

The Go Lean book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The book specifically states (Page 49):

Who are our competitors and how do we stack up against them?

Considering the customers of the CU (citizens, governments, business community, Diaspora, visitors, bank depositors, investors, monitors, NGOs), who else will be competing for their attention? From the Trade Federation perspective, this “attention” includes their time, talents, and their treasuries. Even as basic as the citizens of the region, though we’d like to think that we have a captive audience, the truth of the matter is that other role-players are campaigning to the same marketplace and audience. Consider the aspect of media: Caribbean citizens can listen to radio, watch television and read newspapers/magazines from anywhere around the world. Also, consider the City of Miami – Florida; they brand themselves as the “gateway to the Americas”. So they would rather provide most of the services – for profit – that the CU intends to provide for its citizens.

The world is flat … and as such, all societies are now competitors for the resources of Caribbean society. …

(The US State of Kansas is also incentivizing people to move there. See here: https://youtu.be/d7Gj1wDfKFM)

Vermont is cold … in the winter months! The same as Canada, the UK and Europe; they are all cold-weather locations during the winter season, yet the Caribbean has lost large numbers to those countries – our Diaspora. Weather is therefore nullified as a competitive disadvantage; it’s all about economics … and security … and governance. See more here:

The Go Lean roadmap posits that the Caribbean region is in crisis now, and so many are quick to flee for refuge in foreign countries. But the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”. Those destinations need our “new blood” the same as we need our people to remain. But in those countries, racial disparities continue to present challenges for new immigrants, especially those of Black-and-Brown characteristics. It is therefore easier and better for all stakeholders, that our people remain in the homeland; plus for those that have departed, that they would repatriate to the homeland.

But words alone will not suffice, we must also compete.

No, we do not need to give $10,000 to each individual. But we do need to invest … in our people and our infrastructure! We must give the effort to reform and transform our societies. We do have defects; we do have inadequacies; we are flirting with a Failed-State status. So we have heavy-lifting to do! The Go Lean/CU roadmap is designed for that heavy-lifting … to optimize Caribbean society through economic, security and governing empowerments. The Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for optimizing our societal engines:

This is the conclusion (for now) on this series of commentaries on this theme Time to Go! There are 11 in total, starting in September 2016; those 6 submissions were as follows:

  1. Time to Go: Spot-on for Protest
  2. Time to Go: No Respect for our Hair
  3. Time to Go: Logic of Senior Immigration
  4. Time to Go: Marginalizing Our Vote
  5. Time to Go: American Vices; Don’t Follow
  6. Time to Go: Public Schools for Black-and-Brown

Now, we consider these 5 new entries along that same theme:

  1. Time to Go: Windrush – 70th Anniversary
  2. Time to Go: Mandatory Guns – Say it Ain’t So
  3. Time to Go: Racist History of Loitering
  4. Time to Go: Blacks Get Longer Sentences From ‘Republican’ Judges
  5. Time to Go: States must have Population Increases

All of these commentaries relate to Caribbean people and their disposition in foreign lands and why they need to Go Back Home. Communities need their populations to grow! Our Caribbean member-states need our populations to grow. So many macro-economic programs – pensions, unemployment insurance, etc. – need gradual increases to remain solvent!

This subject is a familiar theme for this Go Lean commentary. This movement has consistently related the economic realities from societal abandonment. Less is not more! Consider these prior submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14954 Overseas Workers Programs are not the Panacea; they create crises
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14746 Calls for Repatriation Strategy to reverse Abandonment
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391 After Hurricane Maria : Destruction and Defection for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12996 After Irma, Failed-State Indicators: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9203 Where the Jobs Are – Employers in the United States – They want our cheap labor
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8155 Referendum Outcome: Impact on the ‘Brain Drain’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5759 Bad Role Model: Pressed by Debt Crisis, Doctors Leave Greece in Droves
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4278 Businesses Try to Stave-off Brain Drain as “Baby Boomers” Retire
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4185 Caribbean Ghost Towns: It Could Happen…Again
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547 Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841 Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy

To Caribbean people: do not move to Vermont. While they are good people there – they are a great role model to emulate in terms of Green Energy initiative – it is not home. The Black-and-Brown of the Caribbean may forever be a minority there as their demographics feature 90.5% Non-Hispanic White with only 1.2% Black, 2.3% Hispanic and 2.7% Asian. This is still America; a society not built for the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown. It is a dangerous proposition to be Black in America.

But to better compete, we must still “take care of our business” at home. The Go Lean book identifies the reasons why people abandon their homeland as “push and pull”. While the “push” refers to the societal defects that people take refuge from, the “pull” is mostly due to messaging. Our people perceive that the US is better for them, and that landing in the US will assuage all societal short-comings.

This is far from the truth. And it’s cold … in the winter!

You see! Good messaging will help mitigate our societal abandonment rate.

The Go Lean book asserts that it is easier for the Black-and-Brown populations in the Caribbean to prosper where planted in the Caribbean, rather than in Vermont or any American State, or Canada or Europe.

We need our Caribbean people to remain in the homeland, and they need to Stay Home! This is the quest of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The book presents 370 pages of instructions for how to reform and transform our Caribbean member-states. It stresses the key community ethos that needs to be adopted, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to optimize the societal engines in a community.

No doubt, it is Time to Go! We urge all Caribbean stakeholder, in the homeland and in the Diaspora to lean-in to this Go Lean/CU roadmap. This is our quest to reform and transform our society and make it better to live, work and play. 🙂

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 F – CU Indicators & Definitions

The Bottom Line on the Failed States Index  – Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 134)
The Failed States Index (Appendix F) is an annual ranking of 177 nations based on their levels of stability and capacity. The Index is compiled by the Fund for Peace Institute, an independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) non-profit research and educational organization, based in Washington DC, that works to prevent violent conflict and promote sustainable security. As a leader in the conflict assessment and early warning field, the Fund for Peace focuses on the problems of weak and failing states. The strength of the Failed States Index is its ability to distill millions of pieces of information into a form that is relevant as well as easily digestible and informative, as an indicator code.

Each Indicator is rated on a 1 to 10 scale with 1 (low) being the most stable and 10 (high) being the most at-risk of collapse and violence. Think of it as trying to bring down a fever, with high being dangerous, low being acceptable. An obvious example, consider Somalia, the state’s complete inability to provide public services for its citizens would warrant a score of 10 for the Public Service indicator. Conversely, Sweden’s extensive provision of health, education & other public services would produce a 1 or 2 for that indicator. – Fund For Peace®

Source: Appendix F of Go Lean … Caribbean (Pages 271 – 272)

For the Caribbean Failed-State rankings, some states are too small for consideration (i.e. Antigua, St. Kitts, etc.) and the Overseas Territories (Aruba, St. Martin, etc.) are not considered due to the fact that their legacy countries are ranked. The rankings for 2012 are as following:

Failing Indicator:

REF – Massive Movement of Refugees or IDPs
Forced uprooting of large communities as a result of random or targeted violence and/or repression, causing food shortages, disease, lack of clean water, land competition, and turmoil that can spiral into larger humanitarian and security problems, both within and between countries. This indicator refers to refugees leaving or entering a country.
This indicator include pressures and measures related to: Displacement, Refugee Camps, IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Camps, Disease Related to Displacement, Refugees per capita, and IDPs per capita.

HF – Chronic and Sustained Human Flight and Brain Drain
When there is little opportunity, people migrate, leaving a vacuum of human capital. Those with resources often leave before, or just as, conflict erupts. This “brain drain” of professionals, intellectuals and political dissidents fearing persecution or repression is an indicating of the failing status of a state. Other features are voluntary emigration of “the middle class”, particularly economically productive segments of the population, such as entrepreneurs, businesspeople, artisans and traders, due to economic deterioration. The end result is the growth of exile communities and Diasporas.
This indicator include pressures and measures related to: Migration per capita, Human Capital, and Emigration of Educated Population

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‘Time to Go’ – Blacks get longer sentences from ‘Republican’ Judges

Posted on June 27, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

“Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are” – Old Adage

This Old Adage was drummed in me as a youth; I may have wanted to question its validity, but time has proven its accuracy. As humans, we are affected by the people we associate with; their values, principles, character, aspirations – or lack thereof – will have an effect on us. This statement even harmonizes with the Bible scripture at 1 Corinthians 15:33, which states:

“Bad companions ruin good character.” – Today’s English Version

This commentary highlights a disturbing trend in American jurisprudence; it turns out that among judges that associates with the conservative political parties or the liberal political parties, one group consistently sentences Black defendants to longer prison sentences. This is indicative of more than just the tolerance of criminality; this shows some hidden bias, that severely endangers the Black populations in America. These judges, despite claims of non-partisanship, are affected by their party.

Say it ain’t so!

The party with the harsher sentences is the Republican Party or GOP (for Grand Old Party).

Sometimes, we need to step back and look at the whole picture before we can notice trends and leanings. This is the common sense in the old expression: “One cannot see the forest for the trees”. This was the purpose of a study on judicial bias; it looked at a range of 500,000 cases to summarize its findings. Intelligence and wisdom can be gleaned from this data.

The numbers – and conclusions – must not be ignored. See the full story here:

Title: Black Defendants Get Longer Sentences From Republican-Appointed Judges, Study Finds
By: Adam Liptak

WASHINGTON — Judges appointed by Republican presidents gave longer sentences to black defendants and shorter ones to women than judges appointed by Democrats, according to a new study that analyzed data on more than half a million defendants.

“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”

The study was conducted by two professors at Harvard Law School, Alma Cohen and Crystal S. Yang. They examined the sentencing practices of about 1,400 federal trial judges over more than 15 years, relying on information from the Federal Judicial Center, the United States Sentencing Commission and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Douglas A. Berman, an authority on sentencing law at Ohio State University, said the study contained “amazing new empirical research.”

“It’s an extraordinarily important contribution to our statistical understanding of sentencing decision making in federal courts over the last two decades,” he said.

It has long been known that there is an overall racial sentencing gap, with judges of all political affiliations meting out longer sentences to black offenders. The new study confirmed this, finding that black defendants are sentenced to 4.8 months more than similar offenders of other races.

It was also well known, and perhaps not terribly surprising, that Republican appointees are tougher on crime over all, imposing sentences an average of 2.4 months longer than Democratic appointees.

But the study’s findings on how judges’ partisan affiliations affected the racial and gender gaps were new and startling.

“The racial gap by political affiliation is three months, approximately 65 percent of the baseline racial sentence gap,” the authors wrote. “We also find that Republican-appointed judges give female defendants two months less in prison than similar male defendants compared to Democratic-appointed judges, 17 percent of the baseline gender sentence gap.”

The two kinds of gaps appear to have slightly different explanations. “We find evidence that gender disparities by political affiliation are largely driven by violent offenses and drug offenses,” the study said. “We also find that racial disparities by political affiliation are largely driven by drug offenses.”

The authors of the study sounded a note of caution. “The precise reasons why these disparities by political affiliation exist remain unknown and we caution that our results cannot speak to whether the sentences imposed by Republican- or Democratic-appointed judges are warranted or ‘right,’” the authors wrote. “Our results, however, do suggest that Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges treat defendants differently on the basis of their race and gender given that we observe robust disparities despite the random assignment of cases to judges within the same court.”

The study is studded with fascinating tidbits. Black judges treat male and female offenders more equally than white judges do. Black judges appointed by Republicans treat black offenders more leniently than do other Republican appointees.

More experienced judges are less apt to treat black and female defendants differently. Judges in states with higher levels of racism, as measured by popular support for laws against interracial marriage, are more likely to treat black defendants more harshly than white ones.

The Trump administration has been quite successful in stocking the federal bench with its appointees, and by some estimates the share of Republican appointees on the federal district courts could rise to 50 percent in 2020, from 34 percent in early 2017.

The study said these trends were likely to widen the sentencing gaps.

“Our estimates suggest that a 10 percentage point increase in the share of Republican-appointed judges in each court would increase the racial sentencing gap by approximately 5 percent and the gender sentencing gap by roughly 2 percent,” the authors wrote. “During an average four-year term, a Republican president has the potential to alter the partisan composition of the district courts by over 15 percentage points, potentially increasing the racial and gender sentencing gap by 7.5 and 3 percent, respectively.”

There are a couple of reasons to question that prediction. The Trump administration has been more energetic in appointing appeals court judges than trial judges. And in recent years many conservatives have started to shift positions on sentencing policy. The very scope of the study, which considered sentences imposed from 1999 to 2015, could mask trends in the later years.

Supreme Court justices like to say that partisan affiliation plays no role in judicial decision making.

“There’s no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump’s Supreme Court appointee, said at his confirmation hearing last year. “We just have judges in this country.”

Political scientists have disagreed, finding that Republican appointees are markedly more likely to vote in a conservative direction than Democratic ones. Senate Republicans, by refusing to hold hearings for Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, seemed to agree.

So has Mr. Trump. “We need more Republicans in 2018 and must ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court!” he tweeted in March.

But judicial ideology is one thing. The race and gender gaps identified by the new study present a different and difficult set of questions.

Professor Berman said the study should prompt both research and reflection. “It only begins a conversation,” he said, “about what sets of factors really influence judges at sentencing in modern times.”

Follow Adam Liptak on Twitter: @adamliptak.

Source: New York Times – published May 28, 2018; retrieved June 26, 2018 from: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/us/politics/black-defendants-women-prison-terms-study.html

This article alludes to a stereotype; one where women are sentenced lighter, but Blacks harsher. This stereotype transcends the entire history of the United States … right up to this day. The more things change, the more they remain the same!

This commentary continues the series on Time to Go, considering the reality for life of the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown population in the US. This entry is Number 10 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean which started in September 2016 with the first 6 issues. Now, this revisit, this commentary, examines a disturbing trend with the sentences of federal court judges; these ones are appointed by the President of the United States. Needless to say, Presidents appoint judges that reflect and respect their values – it’s a natural expectation that they would have the same (virtual) association. So “we” can tell a lot about federal judges, just by knowing which President appointed them.

These were the 2016 submissions in this series:

  1. Time to Go: Spot-on for Protest
  2. Time to Go: No Respect for our Hair
  3. Time to Go: Logic of Senior Immigration
  4. Time to Go: Marginalizing Our Vote
  5. Time to Go: American Vices; Don’t Follow
  6. Time to Go: Public Schools for Black-and-Brown

Now, we consider these 5 new entries along that same theme:

  1. Time to Go: Windrush – 70th Anniversary
  2. Time to Go: Mandatory Guns – Say it Ain’t So
  3. Time to Go: Racist History of Loitering
  4. Time to Go: Blacks Get Longer Sentences From ‘Republican’ Judges
  5. Time to Go: States must have Population Increases

All of these commentaries relate to Caribbean people and their disposition in foreign lands – in this case in the US – and why they need to Go Back Home. Surely, it is obvious and evident that institutional racism is “Alive & Well” in the US. We can and must do better at home. The Go Lean book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to assuage the societal defects in this region. It is “out of scope” for our movement to fix America; our efforts to reform and transform is limited to the Caribbean.

‘Republican’ Judges???

This is as opposed to Democratic Judges! Yes, this is a reference to specific political parties in the US. Yet, we are not making these assessments with any political leaning. Rather, this movement behind the Go Lean book and blogs, the SFE Foundation, is an apolitical organization with no favoritism for one political party over the other. In fact, the first 6 commentaries in this Time to Go series were published during the presidential administration of Barack Obama, a Democrat.

The subject of Optimized Criminal Justice is a failing for all previous presidential administrations – though Blacks lean more to the Democrats – see/listen to the AUDIO-Podcast in the Appendix below. This is a familiar theme for this Go Lean commentary. This movement have consistently related the lack of respect for those in America fitting the Black-and-Brown description; consider these prior submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14627 Cop-on-Black Shootings – In America’s DNA
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14413 Repairing the Breach: Hurt People Hurt People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8202 Lessons Learned from American Dysfunctional Minority Relations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8200 Climate of Hate for American Minorities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221 Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils the real America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527 American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4863 Video of Police Shooting: Worth a Million Words
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4447 Probe of Ferguson, Missouri shows cops & court bias
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546 Book Review – ‘The Divide’ – Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341 Hypocritical US slams Caribbean human rights practices

It is a dangerous proposition to be Black in America. This is why this movement consistently urges the Black-and-Brown of the Caribbean to Stay Home! In fact, The Bahamas urged its majority Black population (and the young men) to exercise extreme caution when traveling to the US and dealing with police authorities. There is no doubt that the America of Old – would have been no place for Caribbean people to seek refuge. But now we are asserting that the disposition is still the same:

  • Our Black-and-Brown Diaspora should plan to repatriate back to the Caribbean
  • While our young people, in the homeland, should plan to prosper where planted rather than setting their sights on American shores.

Despite the fact that this society – modern America – is still no place for Black-and-Brown Caribbean people to seek refuge, all 30 member-states of the region continue to suffer from an abominable brain drain rate – one report proclaims 70 percent – in which so many Caribbean citizens have emigrated to the US (and other places). We must resist this bad trend! How?!

  • Good messaging
  • Heavy-lifting to reform and transform the societal engines

The Go Lean book identifies the reasons why people abandon their homeland as “push and pull”. While the “push” refers to the societal defects that people take refuge from, the “pull” is mostly due to messaging. Our people perceive that the US is better for them, and that landing in the US is the panacea – cure-all – for all societal short-comings. Good messaging will mitigate that trend. Yet, still, we must do the hard work for fixing our society.

The Go Lean book asserts that it is easier for the Black-and-Brown populations in the Caribbean to prosper where planted in the Caribbean, rather than in the United States. Plus, we need these people’s help to reform and transform our society. We need some to lead, and some just to follow. We need some to produce, and some just to consume. We need growth! So abandonment is counter-productive.

This is the quest of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The book presents 370 pages of instructions for how to reform and transform our Caribbean member-states. It stresses the key community ethos that needs to be adopted, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to optimize the societal engines in a community. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for optimizing our societal engines:

As related in this blog series, it is Time to Go! We have a better chance of optimizing our society in the Caribbean for our Black-and-Brown majority populations than the US will do for our people; we can actually be better than America. Just look, their distinguished judges are still adjudicating like its 1868, and not 2018. America has gone “2 steps forward and 1 step backwards”.

Now is the Time to Go and now is the time to lean-in to this Go Lean/CU roadmap. This quest is conceivable, believable and achievable. Yes, we can … reform and transform our society. We can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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.

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AUDIO Podcast – Why Did Black Voters Flee The Republican Party In The 1960s? – https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996/why-did-black-voters-flee-the-republican-party-in-the-1960s


Posted July 14, 2014 – If you’d walked into a gathering of older black folks 100 years ago, you’d have found that most of them would have been Republican.

Wait… what?

Yep. Republican. Party of Lincoln. Party of the Emancipation. Party that pushed not only black votes but black politicians during that post-bellum period known as Reconstruction.

Today, it’s almost the exact opposite. That migration of black voters away from the GOP reached its last phase 50 years ago this week.

…

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‘Time to Go’ – Windrush: 70th Anniversary Today – ENCORE

Posted on June 22, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Social

On 22 June 1948, the ship HMT Empire Windrush brought a group of 802 migrants to the port of Tilbury, near London, England. – Wikipedia

Thus started the drain! 

The Brain Drain that is. What started as a “drip has now turned into a drizzle”.  After 70 years exactly, the jury is now in. The verdict is emphatic:

Time to Go!

“Frankly, the Caribbean Diaspora … can now do better at home … in the Caribbean.” – This was the assertion from this previous blog-commentary from July 10, 2014. Today, on the 70th anniversary of the Windrush landing with its African Caribbean arrivals; it is time now to Encore that submission – see below.

African Caribbean people may not be so welcomed in the British Isles right now, anyway. See the latest on the Windrush Controversy in the Appendix VIDEO below.

This Encore continues a series from 2016, with these entries:

  1. Time to Go: Spot-on for Protest
  2. Time to Go: No Respect for our Hair
  3. Time to Go: Logic of Senior Immigration
  4. Time to Go: Marginalizing Our Vote
  5. Time to Go: American Vices; Don’t Follow
  6. Time to Go: Public Schools for Black-and-Brown

Now, we consider 5 new entries along that same theme; they are identified as follows:

  1. Time to Go: Windrush – 70th Anniversary
  2. Time to Go: Mandatory Guns – Say it Ain’t So
  3. Time to Go: Racist History of Loitering
  4. Time to Go: Blacks Get Longer Sentences From ‘Republican’ Judges
  5. Time to Go: States must have Population Increases

All of these commentaries relate to the Caribbean Diaspora’s disposition in foreign lands, asserting that it is Time to Go … home! See that Encore now:

———————

Go Lean Commentary – British public sector workers strike over ‘poverty pay’

The grass is not greener on the other side.

Go from being a big fish in small pond, to small fish in big pond.

These expressions are relevant in considering the fate of so many Caribbean Diaspora that had fled their Caribbean homelands over the past decades to take residence in Great Britain. Many of them sought refuge as career civil servants; (one reason [a] was the acute racism and intolerance encountered in private enterprises). These ones are faced with the harsh reality that pay scales in the public sector have not kept pace with inflation; they are now at poverty level. See the news article here:

By: Tess Little (Editing by Stephen Addison)

British strike 1LONDON (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of public sector workers including teachers, council workers and firefighters staged a 24-hour pay strike on Thursday in a stoppage that has prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to pledge a crackdown on union powers.

Protesters marched through the streets of many of Britain’s main cities in one of the biggest co-ordinated labour stoppages for three years.

Denouncing what they called “poverty pay,” they demanded an end to restrictions on wage rises that have been imposed by the government over the past four years in an effort to help reduce Britain’s huge budget deficit.

In London, demonstrators marched towards Trafalgar Square at midday, chanting “Low pay, no way, no slave labour” to the beat of a drum. A giant pair of inflatable scissors, carried by members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), read “Education cuts never heal.”

Firefighter Simon Amos, 47, marched wearing his uniform behind a flashing fire engine parading members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). “The government [is] making us pay more for our pension for it to be worth the same, and making us work longer,” he said.

British strike 2The biggest public sector union involved, Unison, said early reports showed the strike had led to 3,225 school closures with more than 1,000 others partially closed.

Refuse collectors, school support staff, cleaners, street sweepers, care workers, nursery assistants and social workers were joining the strike, it added.

Hot spots, it said, included the North East, Wales and East Midlands where most council offices had closed, while more than 60 picket lines have closed most services in Newcastle.

“It is a massive decision by local government and school support workers to sacrifice a day’s pay by going on strike, but today they are saying enough is enough,” said Unison General Secretary, Dave Prentis in a statement.

Britain’s coalition government has enforced a policy of pay restraint for public sector workers since coming to power in 2010, imposing a pay freeze until 2012 and then a one percent pay rise cap, resulting in a fall in income in real terms [compared to inflation].

The Cabinet Office played down the impact of the strike, saying that most schools in England and Wales were open and that fire services were operating throughout the country.

British strike 3On Wednesday, Cameron told parliament he planned to limit unions’ powers to call strikes.

“How can it possibly be right for our children’s education to be disrupted by trade unions acting in this way” he said.

Tough new laws would be proposed in the Conservative manifesto for next year’s general election, he added.

These would include the introduction of a minimum threshold in the number of union members who need to take part in a strike ballot for it to be legal.

The manifesto could also back the introduction of a time limit on how long a vote in favour of industrial action would remain valid.

The NUT mandate for Thursday’s strike, for example, came from a 2012 strike ballot based on a turnout of just 27 percent, Cameron said.

The issue of minimum voting thresholds last arose three months ago when a strike by London Underground train drivers caused huge disruption in the capital, prompting Mayor Boris Johnson to demand that at least half of a union’s members should vote in favour for a strike to go ahead.
Source: Reuters News Service; retrieved 07/10/2014 from: http://news.yahoo.com/public-sector-workers-strike-over-poverty-pay-105040672.html

Frankly, the Caribbean Diaspora employed in the British public sector can now do better at home … in the Caribbean.

This is the assertion of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. That once the proposed empowerments are put in place, the Caribbean Diaspora should consider repatriating to their ancestral homelands.

Unfortunately for the Caribbean, this societal abandonment has continued, since the early days of the “Windrush Generation”[a] right up to now. In a recent blog post, this commentary related analysis by the Inter-American Development Bank that the Caribbean endures a brain drain of 70% among the college educated population; (https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433).

Change has now come to the Caribbean.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap will spearhead the elevation of Caribbean society. The prime directives of the CU are presented as the following 3 statements:

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

The book posits that the improved conditions projected over the 5 years of the roadmap will neutralize the impetus for Caribbean citizens to flee, identified as “push and pull” factors. This point is stressed early in the book (Page 13) in the following pronouncements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

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

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

This foregoing article highlights other issues that have been prominently addressed in the Go Lean book, namely that of the Civil Service and Labor Relations. There is the need for a professional staff in the Federal Civil Service. They require marketable benefits and compensation. There is also a role for Labor Unions to play in the elevation of Caribbean society. The Go Lean roadmap envisions an inclusionary attitude towards unions. The Go Lean community ethos is that of being partners with unions, not competitors. The book features specific tools and techniques that can enhance management-labor relationships.

These issues constitute heavy-lifting for the regional administration of the Caribbean:

  • fostering best practices for federal civil service and labor unions,
  • minimizing the brain drain, and
  • facilitating repatriation to the homeland.

These issues cannot be glossed over or handled lightly; this is why the Go Lean book contains 370 pages of finite details for managing change in the region. The book contains the following sample of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the Caribbean homeland:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations Page 32
Strategy – Competition – Remain home   –vs- Emigrate Page 49
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Versus Member-States Governments Page 71
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Establish Civil Service Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Trade Mission Objectives Page 116
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate Page 118
Anecdote – Experiences of a Repatriated Resident Page 126
Planning  – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Labor Unions Page 164
Advocacy – Ways to Manage Federal Civil Service Page 173
Anecdote – Experiences of Diaspora Member Living Abroad Page 216
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora Page 217

The Go Lean roadmap has simple motives: fix the problems in the homeland to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, learn and play. There should be no need to go abroad and try to foster an existence in a foreign land. So for those of Caribbean heritage working in the British Civil Service, we hear your pleas. Our response: Come home; come in from the cold.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people residing in the homeland and those of the Diaspora, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This Big Idea for the region is a dramatic change; one that is overdue. The policies & practices of the past have failed Caribbean society. Too many people left, yet have little to show for it.

Caribbean music icon Bob Marley advocated this same charter for the Caribbean Diaspora. He sang to “come in from the cold” in the opening song of his last album Uprisings in 1980. How “spot-on’ were his words in the following music/video:

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

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Appendix – Cited Reference
a: “There was plenty of work in post-war Britain and industries such as British Rail, the National Health Service and public transport recruited almost exclusively from Jamaica and Barbados”. Retrieved July 10, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_African-Caribbean_people#The_.22Windrush_generation.22

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Appendix VIDEO – How will the UK solve the Windrush controversy? | Inside Story – https://youtu.be/GYUag4XYhFo

Al Jazeera English

Published on Apr 17, 2018 – They are called the “Windrush generation”. That is a refefence to the ship, the Empire Windrush, that carried the first wave of immigrants from the West Indies to Britain in 1948. Many arrvied as children on their parents’ passports – and have lived in the UK for over 70 years, paying taxes and insurance, but never formally becoming British Citizens. Now, as the government tightens its immigration rules, those without the proper documents are being denied services and could even face deportation. Some are calling it ‘cruel and inhumane’ treatment. The government has apologised and it’s promsing an investigation. But will that be enough?
Presenter: Peter Dobbie Guests Sally Daghlian – CEO of Praxis, an organisation that provides assistance to people affected by the Windrush controversy. Clive Foster – member of the Nottingham Citizens Group.

Category: Shows

License: Standard YouTube License

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