February 2015 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Month: February 2015

Dreading the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’

Posted on February 26, 2015 in Government, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

The United States of America is proud of its security commitment to their Caribbean neighbors, but the amount they devote is such a piddling – they prioritize 0.1968% of the total security budget towards the region – that the Caribbean should not be lulled into complacency. We need our own security solutions!

The US is the only remaining super power; it devotes massive amounts of finances to defense and homeland security. The ratio of Defense budget versus the total budget of $3.8 trillion (2014), far exceeds all other countries. The US also asserts that it will provide frontline protection for its neighboring countries, in this case the Caribbean Basin. Just how do we quantify that commitment? Budget percentage.

According to the subsequent news article, the US is proud of the security commitment to their Caribbean neighbors. But their efforts are a far cry from what is truly needed in the Caribbean! Yet, even these measly efforts have lulled the region into complacency. This commentary asserts that this is bad!

See an excerpt of the source article here:

By: Alexander Britell

It’s been six years since United States President Barack Obama made his first visit to the Caribbean, on the occasion of the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, [Trinidad]. And it’s been four years since he visited Puerto Rico, his last visit to the region.

While Obama hasn’t made many visits to the nearby region, his administration has not been inactive, however, promoting plans like the wide-ranging Caribbean Basin Security Initiative and, more recently, his potentially transformative rapprochement with Cuba.

Now, with two years left in his term, it seems the Obama Administration is looking to ramp up its engagement with the region.

…

The story is found in its entirety at: Caribbean Journal Regional News Site; posted January 26, 2015; retrieved 02/25/2015 from: http://www.caribjournal.com/2015/01/26/barack-obama-new-caribbean-push/#

The US has committed $263 million in funding since 2010; see Appendix below; that’s 5 years combined. For easy arithmetic, divide that figure by 5 to yield $52.6 million a year in commitment. This is $52.6 million of someone else’s money being dedicated to us in the Caribbean. Showing the proper appreciation: “Thank you very much Washington”.

But this is just a “drop in the bucket” compared to the general American defense/security spending:

The 2014 Budget provides $526.6 billion for the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) base funding in 2014, representing a decrease of $3.9 billion, or 0.7 percent, below the 2012 enacted level. – http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/defense.pdf
According to the White House, the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Budget Request for $59.9 billion for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reflects the continued commitment to the security of the homeland and the American public. (Source: http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/MGMT/FY%202014%20BIB%20-%20FINAL%20-508%20Formatted%20%284%29.pdf).

That makes a total of $586.5 billion for 1 year. Truly, “blood is thicker than water”; the US spends massively for its own and a piddling on its neighbors. Percentage-wise, the Caribbean Basin commitment is 0.0448% of the US Defense / Homeland Security budget (2014).

0.0448% – “Our thimble runneth over”!

The overriding theme of this commentary is the commitment of American society in providing for their own security; and how the Caribbean can emulate the US example; we want to be a protégé of American society, not a parasite.

This American experience is relevant for the Caribbean to consider; not only for the fact that two Caribbean member-states are American territories: Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. There are military bases in Puerto Rico, so obviously there is some Defense spending there. That figure amounts to $285 million in Defense contracts and $584 million in procurements and salaries (2004). There are no permanent military bases in the US Virgin Islands, but yet there are some spending for Defense contracts ($4.6 million), procurements and salaries ($17.5 million).

Assuming the same level for spending for 2014, the new calculation of Caribbean percentage of American Defense spending now totals: $1,154.1 million or 0.1968%

0.1968% – The cause-and-effect is still the same; a piddling!

The region is in crisis; at the precipice of Failed-State status. No doubt, there is an overriding need for the Caribbean to create its own regional security solution. This is the assertion of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that the region must prepare its own security apparatus for its own security needs. For this reason, we should be dreading the formal Caribbean Basin Security Initiative as currently formulated. Obviously the heartfelt commitment, the devotion to the Caribbean homeland is not there for Washington, the White House or the Pentagon; see VIDEOs below. We must appoint our own “guardians” with our self-interest in mind; starting a new community ethos of National Sacrifice.

The news reports abound in the Caribbean: Gang and organized crime-related activities, including drug trafficking accompanied by epidemic levels of gun violence, threatens the democratic fabric of the Caribbean sub-region. Between 2005 and 2008, the Caribbean Community (CariCom) registered 9,733 homicides, the highest rates -per capita – in the world.

So the request is that all Caribbean member-states confederate – unite and empower – a security force to execute a limited scope on their sovereign territories. Yes, there is a need for a regional Caribbean security solution; which will include the US Territories as well; (Puerto Rico reports runaway crime statistics as well).

Homeland Security for the Caribbean has a different meaning than for our American counterparts. Though we must be on guard against military intrusions like terrorism and piracy, we mostly have to contend with crime – remediation, mitigation and threats that may imperil the region’s economic engines. The CU security goal is for public safety! This goal is detailed in the Go Lean book as it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). So while the CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic empowerment, the security dynamics will be inextricably linked to this same endeavor. Therefore the Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

The book contends that “bad actors” will emerge as a result of economic successes. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

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

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, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure public safety is not so new an endeavor. There is currently a security pact; shared by 5 Eastern Caribbean member-states dubbed the Regional Security System. The Go Lean roadmap however calls for a permanent professional force with naval and ground (Marine) forces, plus an Intelligence agency. This security apparatus would be sanctioned by all 30 CU member-states, not just the current 5 and including the US Territories. The CU Trade Federation will lead, fund and facilitate the security force, encapsulating all the existing (full-time or part-time) armed forces in the region. This CU Homeland Security Force would get its legal authorization from a Status of Forces Agreement signed as a complement to the CU treaty. The Go Lean roadmap also calls for a greater commitment to Justice institutions: law enforcement and regional policing. In fact, the book’s 370-page turn-by-turn instructions present a plan with a lot of time, talent and treasuries focused on the comprehensive security vision.

This commentary posits that the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, from the foregoing article, should be coupled with these CU security initiatives; see VIDEOs below. This required security apparatus is “Step One, Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap, covering the approach for adequate funding, accountability and control.

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide increased public safety & security in the Caribbean region:

Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Witness Security & Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Caribbean an integrated and unified region	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Enact a Defense Pact against systemic threats	Page 45
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Foreign Policy Initiatives	Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Planning – Ways to Model the EU	Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from the West Indies Federation	Page 135
Planning – Lessons from the American West	Page 142
Planning – Lessons from Egypt	Page 143
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Gun Control	Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering/Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex	Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244

Other subjects related to Homeland Security and crime remediation empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentary, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308	911 – Emergency Response: System for First Responders in Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881	Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3662	Migrant flow / Border Incursions / Threats spike for Caribbean into US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3432	OECS diplomat has dire warning for Caribbean “Begging”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2782	Red Light Traffic Cameras, other CCTV Deployments Can Impact Crime
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2684	Role Model for Justice, Anti-Crime & Security: The Pinkertons
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2259	The Criminalization of American Business – White Collar Interdictions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1965	America’s Navy – 100 Percent – Model for Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1674	Obama’s $3.7 Billion Immigration Crisis Funds – A Homeland Security Fix
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement = Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531	A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago – World War I
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1487	Here come the Drones … and the Concerns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	White Collar-Health-care fraud in US; criminals take $272 billion a year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1076	Trinidad Muslims travel to Venezuela for jihadist training
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=960	NSA records all phone calls in Bahamas, according to Snowden
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=809	Muslim officials condemn abductions of Nigerian girls
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	America’s War on the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=535	Remembering and learning from Boston
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US – #4: Pax Americana

The planners of the new Caribbean, those in this Go Lean movement, are not ungrateful for the contributions of the US. We appreciate their support and invite even more assistance, cooperation and facilitation. After all, a leading factor in the regional threats the Caribbean contends with is derived from the US demand for illicit drugs. Many times, our small island states are just in the way of narco-terrorists trans-shipment plans. Plus a number of American states have now adopted new community ethos when it comes to drugs, legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana; sometimes declaring a “faux-medical” subterfuge. If the State says “OK”, it is very hard for parents, teachers and religious leaders to counter the arguments. So American vices are breaking Caribbean societal structures.

It is what it is!

An underlying goal of the Go Lean movement is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. (It is out-of-scope of Go Lean … Caribbean to fix America). While this roadmap includes a heavy focus on economics, the other areas of Caribbean society must get equal attention, like security and governance. A 0.1968% commitment is not the community ethos we advocate; in fact, at those piddling numbers, it is no commitment at all, it only constitutes a slight involvement – just sticking a “toe in the waters” when a wholesale bath is needed. In an illustrative depiction, it is just “milk or eggs to a recipe that requires bacon”. So we cannot expect Caribbean leadership to come from American sources.

Accepting the premise of “bad actors” inevitability means preparing counter-measures in earnest. There is nothing earnest about a 0.1968% commitment. Rather, a technocratic security apparatus for public safety is necessary to elevate the Caribbean homeland. This prime directive is front-and-center with the Go Lean effort. Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, institutions and governance, to lean-in to this roadmap.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——

APPENDIX A – VIDEOs: The Caribbean Basin Security Initiative Commission; 3rd meeting in St. Kitts; Oct 3, 2012.

1. Caribbean Basin Security Initiative – Francis Forbes – http://youtu.be/wUyOpOVT1ss

Francis Forbes, Executive Director – CariCom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS)

2. VIDEO: Caribbean Basin Security Initiative – Liliana Ayalde – http://youtu.be/_uf5gEHkKac

At the time of this posting, Ms. Ayalde was the Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for the United States State Department with responsibility for the Offices of Caribbean Affairs, Central American Affairs and Cuban Affairs. Today, she serves as the United States Ambassador to Brazil.

APPENDIX B – Official Communique: Caribbean Basin Security Initiative
(Source retrieved 02/26/2015 from: http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rt/cbsi/)

The Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) is one pillar of a U.S. security strategy focused on citizen safety throughout the hemisphere. CBSI brings all members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Dominican Republic together to jointly collaborate on regional security with the United States as a partner. The United States is making a significant contribution to CBSI, committing $263 million in funding since 2010.

The United States and Caribbean countries have identified three core objectives to deal with the threats facing the Caribbean:

Substantially Reduce Illicit Trafficking: through programs ranging from counter-narcotics to reducing the flow of illegal arms/light weapons.
Increase Public Safety and Security: through programs ranging from reducing crime and violence to improving border security.
Promote Social Justice: through programs designed to promote justice sector reform, combat government corruption, and assist vulnerable populations at risk of recruitment into criminal organizations.

These objectives are not just about drug interdiction. CBSI is a whole of government approach to citizen safety. Citizen Safety Focuses on:

Partnerships: A defining purpose of U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere is to build effective partnerships to advance our common strategic interests—partnerships that can better develop, mobilize and apply the capacity of the region toward accomplishing shared objectives.
The Personal Element: Our commitment to broad partnerships that advance citizen safety signals that the U.S. understands that while security is a key priority throughout the region, people often understand security in a personal way on their street corners, on a bus to and from work, or in their markets.
Crime Linkages: Forging effective partnerships requires an understanding of and an ability to address fundamental links between local, transnational and “white collar” crime (e.g., corruption), and the nexus between these threats and the big social and economic challenges the region faces. We seek to improve public safety, improving security for each and every citizen through these partnerships.

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Model, Power, Security

Study: Homes Marketed via the MLS Sell for More

Posted on February 25, 2015 in Economics, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Change has come to the world of real estate. According to many sources, the real estate brokerage industry will be one of the next industries to become obsolete due to the ubiquity of the internet. If you doubt this statement, just think of travel agents, record stores, book retailers, video rental, etc. Enough said…

This subject is pivotal in the roadmap for elevation of the Caribbean economy, which maintains that internet/electronic commerce business models are critical in creating jobs and growing the region’s GDP. The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean project that 2.2 million new jobs hang in the balance.

This commentary is also about managing change!

At the heart of a real estate transaction is a buyer and a seller, looking for each other. This is a perfect application for social media networks; think online dating. But instead of social media, the industry has MLS or Multiple Listing Services (see Appendix* below). Now come the internet and all the application developers. Here’s the problem, for the MLS world: the buyer or seller is not the end consumer, but rather the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent. The commission money involved, normally 6% of selling price, is split between the two agents. This applies on small transactions (think: $50,000) and large $million transactions. Yet now, the internet allows buyers and sellers to get together without the brokerage agents; one major player in this online race is Zillow (see Appendix^# below); an online real estate database that was founded in 2005 by former Microsoft executives.

Change is afoot…
If the internet option continues to gain more and more market share, this will neutralize the role of agents, and their industry-exclusive MLS options. Zillow reported more than 24 million unique visitors in September 2011, representing year-over-year growth of 103 percent.^[23][24] (Zillow has data on 110 million homes across the United States, not just those homes currently for sale).

VIDEO – Zillow: “Lake House” Commercial – http://youtu.be/WZk__l8yCHo

Published on February 20, 2015 – “Lake House” is Zillow’s fifth TV spot, the latest in the company’s highly successful first-ever national advertising campaign, “Find Your Way Home.” The spot was produced by Deutsch LA and features the single “Atlas Hands” by Benjamin Francis Leftwich. See all of Zillow’s TV spots at http://www.zillow.com/tv/.

Most MLS systems restrict membership and access to real estate brokers (and their agents) who are appropriately licensed by the state/province, and are members of industry association (e.g., NAR or CREA). But access is becoming more open as Internet sites offer the public the ability to view portions of MLS listings. (There still remains some limitation to access to information within MLS’s; generally, only agents who are compensated proportional to the value of the sale have uninhibited access to the MLS database). Many public Web forums have a limited ability in terms of reviewing comparable properties, past sales prices or monthly supply statistics.

A person selling his/her own property – acting as a For Sale By Owner (or FSBO) seller – cannot generally put a listing for the home directly into an MLS. (An example of an exception to this general practice is the national MLS for Spain, AMLASpain, where FSBO listings are allowed.^[3] Similarly, a licensed broker who chooses to neither join the trade association nor operate a business within the association’s rules, cannot join most MLS’s.) However, there are brokers and many online services which offer FSBO sellers the option of listing their property in their local MLS database by paying a flat fee or another non-traditional compensation method.^[4]

In Canada, CREA has come under scrutiny and investigation by the Competition Bureau and litigation by former CREA member and real estate brokerage Realtysellers (Ontario) Ltd., for the organization’s control over the Canadian MLS system.^[5] In 2001, Realtysellers (Ontario) Ltd., a discount real-estate firm was launched that reduced the role of agents and the commissions they collect from home buyers and sellers. The brokerage later shut down and launched a $100 million lawsuit against CREA and TREB, alleging that they breached an earlier out-of-court settlement that the parties entered into in 2003.

The Empire Strikes Back…
In January (2015), Zillow and ListHub, a subsidiary of Move, Inc. the operator of Realtor.com, ended their agreement for Zillow to receive listings through ListHub. This will take effect on April 6, 2015. Earlier this month (February 16), Zillow closed on its acquisition of Trulia, forming the new Zillow Group. As a result, ListHub announced that it ended its relationship with Trulia; giving a 5 day transition period before it stops sending listings to Trulia.

The actions and conflicts between the online real estate portals and MLS’s are continuing to escalate. One of the major industry players TREND, the exclusive MLS for the Greater Philadelphia-area (Pennsylvania) sent out a communications to their broker clients on February 20, openingly acknowledging the jockeying taking place; with their commitment to stay engaged:

TREND has been in discussions to determine how we can best help our members protect their interests and easily distribute their listings to portals they choose. We plan to continue these discussions.

The issues presented in this commentary is the cornerstone of several ongoing arguments about the current health of the real-estate market, which are centered on free and open information being necessary for both the buying and selling parties to ensure fair prices are negotiated during closing, ultimately allowing a stable and less volatile market.

No doubt, there is some collusion between MLS’s and the brokerage industry to maintain the status quo. But the industry claims to still bring added-value. According to this article, the MLS systems hold sway over the industry, impacting its customers (real estate brokers and agents) with optimized sales and profits; they claim that the homes they market sell for more money. See story here:

Title: Study Finds Homes Marketed via the Cooperative Brokerage Community on the MLS Sell for More
Posted: December 5, 2014, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; retrieved February 24, 2015 from: http://www.trendmls.com/Guest/News/ShowDoc.aspx?id=7425#.VoybLp0o673

Earlier this year, TREND, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, studied the percent of sales marketed on the MLS. The study found that in the last 3 years more than 80% of sales were marketed on the MLS, and that properties marketed on the MLS had a higher median sold price compared to properties that were marketed off the MLS.

To perform this study, TREND examined 13 years of MLS and Public Records data, comparing each Public Records sale record to MLS sale records to determine which sales were marketed on the MLS.

“Our goal with this study was to see how many sales that would typically involve a real estate professional were listed on the MLS. Knowing there are various ways and reasons real estate is transacted in the market, we wanted to focus the study on the ‘bread and butter’ market segment of the brokerage community. To do this we honed in on residential, single-family resale properties over 50 thousand dollars,” Vice President of Product Management, Ken Schneider said.

Due to the quantity of data accessible, as an MLS and Public Records provider, TREND was able to determine that the percent of sales marketed on the MLS across the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area has grown over the last 13 years. It also remains strong, with an average of 82% of sales in 2013 marketed on the MLS, and many communities posting even higher numbers.

The study also uncovered a quantifiable benefit to marketing a property on the MLS: higher sold prices. For example, in 2013, properties marketed on the MLS had a 21% higher median sold price compared to properties marketed off the MLS.

“These numbers showed that over the years and through various market conditions, it is in a consumer’s best interest to work with a real estate professional that will expose their property to the cooperative brokerage community,” Vice President of Product Management, Ken Schneider said.

Ultimately, the study showed when properties are advertised in a competitive marketplace to the cooperative brokerage community on the MLS, they command the highest prices.

“The results of this study are a testament to the historical and ongoing integrity, commitment, cooperation and collaboration of the brokers and brokerages in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, which ultimately benefits their clients”, Vice President of Product Management, Ken Schneider said.

For more information on this study, view the complete report. View the Full Report.

About TREND
The TREND community encompasses approximately 27,000 real estate brokers and agents in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. As partners in the business of real estate information and technology, TREND members guide the evolution of our MLS and Public Records systems, and contribute to the MLS database of approximately 2.9 million listings. TREND also provides member access to public records for over 5.1 million properties, appointment management tools, valuable industry and market information, and personalized customer service. Together, the TREND community facilitates the sale of more than 70,000 properties a year at a value of over 18 billion dollars. For more information, visit www.trendmls.com.

The issues of MLS versus online portals affect the Caribbean as well. The book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and marshal against economic crimes.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The roadmap envisions a robust social media network, www.myCaribbean.gov, and e-Government insourcing of property registrations in the region. Early in the book, the benefits of technology empowerment is pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), with these opening statements:

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

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

xxviii. Whereas intellectual property can easily traverse national borders, the rights and privileges of intellectual property must be respected at home and abroad. The Federation must install protections to ensure that no abuse of these rights go with impunity, and to ensure that foreign authorities enforce the rights of the intellectual property registered in our region.

The Caribbean has the eco-system of Multiple Listing Services, and real estate brokers and agents. But where there are buyers and sellers, the marketplace will always find a way to complete transactions. In the US, change has come, the stakeholders will simply adapt. With Zillow’s 24 million unique website visitors, individual brokerage firms will have to negotiate direct feeds to Zillow – a trend already started – and agents will simply upload their listings directly. The status quo now is for selling-agents to promote properties on up to 160 different websites. The photo here and foregoing VIDEO of Zillow Advertising – designed to generate even more consumer traffic to designated web site – demonstrate the changing landscape for the real estate brokerage industry.

There is much for the Caribbean to glean from observing the developments of this American industry. The Go Lean book already details best-practices for the full embrace of Internet Communications Technologies (ICT). Imagine the www.myCaribbean.gov site with 150 million unique profiles (residents, visitors, Diaspora, businesses, trading partners, etc.). Then add new profiles, a single property site with property address as the URL, for every house that is “For Sale”.

Electronic introduction: buyers meet sellers; sellers meet buyers. That opening “prophecy” manifested: real estate brokerage – a next industry to become obsolete due to the ubiquity of the internet.

The book details the community ethos to adapt to the changed ICT landscape, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge best practices:

Community Ethos – Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Strategy – Integrate Region in a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Minimizing Bubble – Countering 2008 Housing Crisis	Page 69
Tactical – Growing to $800 Billion Economy – New High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Separation of Powers – Patent, Standards, and Copyrights Office	Page 78
Separation of Powers – Communications and Media Authority	Page 79
Separation of Powers –Housing and Urban Authority	Page 83
Implementation – Integrate – Deploy www.myCaribbean.gov Portal	Page 97
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #8: Caribbean Cloud	Page 127
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 – Housing-born Crisis; Lax Oversight	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing – e-Government for Registrations	Page 161
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Develop a Pre-Fab Housing Industry & eco-System	Page 207
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234

This subject of managing the changing ICT landscape has been detailed in previous Go Lean blogs/commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3974	Google and Mobile Phones – Here comes Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3915	‘Change the way you see the world; you change the world you see’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3490	How One Internet Entrepreneur Can Rally a Whole Community
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2953	Funding Caribbean Entrepreneurs – The ‘Crowdfunding’ Way
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1634	ICT Book Review: ‘Chasing Youth Culture and Getting It Right’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416	Amazon’s new FIRE Smartphone – Transforming e-Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=528	Social Media Model – Facebook planning to provide mobile payments
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308	CARCIP Urges Greater ICT Innovation

The CU implementation is necessary to regulate and oversee many of the developments that are occurring because of our changing world. The world will continue to change whether we want it to or not. The smart move is to exploit the changes. The Go Lean book concludes in exhortation to the region:

Get moving … now is the time. Opportunities abound; even if there is only little commerce to exploit now, there is opportunity enough in the preparation for the coming change. So act now! Get moving to that place, the “corner” of preparation and opportunity.

Now is the time to lean-in for the changes and empowerments in the Go Lean roadmap. Now is the time to make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂
———–

APPENDIX * – MLS or Multiple Listing Service/System

A MLS is a suite of services that enables real estate brokers to establish contractual offers of compensation (among brokers), facilitates cooperation with other broker participants, accumulates and disseminates information to enable appraisals, and is a facility for the orderly correlation and dissemination of listing information to better serve broker’s clients, customers and the public. A multiple listing service’s database and software is used by real estate brokers in real estate, representing sellers under a listing contract to widely share information about properties with other brokers who may represent potential buyers or wish to cooperate with a seller’s broker in finding a buyer for the property or asset. The listing data stored in a multiple listing service’s database is the proprietary information of the broker who has obtained a listing agreement with a property’s seller. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service)

———–

APPENDIX ^#: Additional “home” work – July 28, 2014 News Report: Zillow Buying Trulia

Video Direct Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/video/zillow-buying-trulia-35-billion-24748326

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911 – Emergency Response: System in Crisis

Posted on February 23, 2015 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Emergency management, as defined in the book Go Lean…Caribbean, is an art and a science.

The Go Lean book embarks on the strategy to consolidate the Emergency Management (preparation and response) for the entire Caribbean region. Therefore the issue of Emergency Telephone Numbers is of serious concern; sometimes it’s a life-or-death matter.

Despite all the attendant issues – technology, standards, geography, legacy, and language – this is first-and-foremost an issue of life-and-death. Failure in this area is not an option. Consider here this example of short-comings in the US system:

VIDEO Title: Some 911 systems can’t find you in an emergency due to dated technology – http://www.today.com/video/today/57011057#57011057

Published on Feb 23, 2015 – Some 911 systems can’t find you in an emergency

Many 911 centers around the country still rely on dated cell tower technology instead of something as widely used as Google Maps, which means dispatchers may not be able to locate you in an emergency – and the consequences can be tragic. TODAY’s national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen reports; (see transcript in the Appendix below).

There is no one world standard for Emergency Telephone Numbers. But the number is always intuitive; normally just a 3-digit code and applicable on a land-line or a mobile phone – this is an issue of technology. Normally neighboring countries share the same number, even if a dual overlap applies; so as to assuage any confusion for people when they absolutely have an emergency.

In the Caribbean region, like most places, everyone expects to pick up a phone and dial a 3-digit code – like 911 – and within short order be able to talk with an Emergency Management First-Responder for Police, Ambulance and Fire incidences.

Unfortunately for the Caribbean, we have 5 different legacies that rule the standards of day-to-day life: American, British, Dutch, French and the Spanish Caribbean. But geographically, since the region is physically located among all these cultures; all territories must comply with a consistent structure; that consistency is identified as the North American Numbering Plan.

So 911 rules…

But for countries with active European oversight, they normally go further and allow their European Emergency Phone Number configurations to also apply while in the Caribbean member-states. So the 3-digit code in the European Union – 112 – will also work in the Dutch and French member-states.

This issue reflects the regional oversight the book Go Lean…Caribbean envisions for the Caribbean region. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU roadmap is designed to elevate Caribbean society by these prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines; growing the regional economy.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

All 3 of these features of the Go Lean roadmap relate to this topic of Emergency Telephone Numbers. There is the need for effectiveness and efficiency so as to protect the life and property of all Caribbean stakeholders: residents and visitors alike. The book posits that some issues are too big for any one member-state to manage alone – especially with such close proximities – there are times when there must be cross-border, multilateral coordination. This vision is defined early in the book (Pages 12 – 14) with these statements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

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.

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.

xviii. Whereas all citizens in the Federation member-states may not have the same physical abilities, reasonable accommodations must be made so that individuals with physical and mental disabilities can still access public and governmental services so as to foster a satisfactory pursuit of life’s liberties and opportunities for happiness.

xxiii. Whereas many countries in our region are dependent Overseas Territory of imperial powers, the systems of governance can be instituted on a regional and local basis, rather than requiring oversight or accountability from distant masters far removed from their subjects of administration. The Federation must facilitate success in autonomous rule by sharing tools, systems and teamwork within the geographical region.

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

Though the issue of “911” is primarily associated with the North American Numbering Plan; this discussion of emergency contacts is not just the focus for North America.

The following information is retrieved from Wikipedia regarding the universality of Emergency Telephone Numbers; (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_telephone_number):

In many countries the public telephone network has a single emergency telephone number (sometimes known as the universal emergency telephone number or the emergency services number) that allows a caller to contact local emergency services for assistance. The emergency number differs from country to country; it is typically a three-digit number so that it can be easily remembered and dialed quickly. Some countries have a different emergency number for each of the different emergency services; these often differ only by the last digit. In the European Union, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and others “112” was introduced as a common emergency call number during the 1990s, and as the GSM standard it is now a well known mobile telephone emergency number around the globe^[1] alongside the North American “911“.

Mobile Telephones
Mobile phones can be used in countries with different emergency numbers. This means that a traveller visiting a foreign country does not have to know the local emergency numbers. The mobile phone and the SIM card have a preprogrammed list of emergency numbers. When the user tries to set up a call using an emergency number known by a GSM or 3G phone, the special emergency call setup takes place. The actual number is not even transmitted into the network, but the network redirects the emergency call to the local emergency desk. Most GSM mobile phones can dial emergency numbers even when the phone keyboard is locked, the phone is without a SIM card, emergency number is entered instead of the PIN or there isn’t a network signal (busy network).

Most GSM mobile phones have 112, 999 and 911 as pre-programmed emergency numbers that are always available.^[15] The SIM card issued by the operator can contain additional country-specific emergency numbers that can be used even when roaming abroad. The GSM network can also update the list of well-known emergency numbers when the phone registers to it.

Some notable exceptions in the Caribbean neighborhood include:

Country

Police

Ambulance

Fire

Mexico
066

065

068

Bahamas
919 or 911

Haiti
114

118

115

Jamaica
119

110

Trinidad and Tobago
999

990

Guyana
911

913

912

Suriname
112

Considering the experiences from the foregoing VIDEO, the US needs better coordination with their Communications Regulator and Emergency Management Agencies. While it is out-of-scope for the Go Lean roadmap to change America, we can do better in the Caribbean. The CU is formed from a pledge for efficient, agile regional coordination. The Go Lean book describes this oversight as “lean”. The concept of “lean” is very prominent in the Go Lean book (and movement), even adopting the title, Go Lean, for this quest for excellence in Caribbean economic empowerment, security coordination and governing efforts. The label “lean” is therefore indicative of this quest; the word is used in the book as a noun, a verb and an adjective. This point is pronounced early in the book (Page 4) with these statements:

The CU will lean on, lean in, lean over backwards, and then lean towards…
The CU will embrace lean, agile, efficient organization structures – more virtual, less physical, more systems, less payroll.

This commitment to “lean” lends confidence to the coordination of the CU federal authorities. The Go Lean book hypothesizes that the Caribbean region can succeed in transforming our society in short order; the roadmap is a 5 year plan. Previous blogs/commentaries also exclaimed societal benefits from pursuits in regional coordination; consider this sample of previous blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881	Regional Coordination: Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3834	State of the Caribbean Union’s Regional Society
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3760	Regional Proxy for Citizenship Programs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3713	NEXUS – Model of Regional Border Control
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3594	Lessons for Regional Coordination for Queen Conch
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3582	Better Coordination for Regional Banks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3432	Mitigating Regional Preponderance to Beg for Development Aid
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3354	Regional Call to End the US Embargo on Cuba
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3090	Model of Regionalism: Europe – All Grown Up
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2887	Caribbean Region Must Work Together to Address Rum Subsidies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2614	The ‘Great ShakeOut’ Earthquake Drill for the Region’s Seismic Areas
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2435	Role Model for Caribbean Economy: Korea
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2359	Regional calls for innovative ideas to finance Small Island Development
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2171	SEC Network – Role Model for Regional Sports Broadcast Networks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1965	America’s Navy – 100 Percent – Model for Caribbean Regional Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement for a Regional Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=833	One currency, divergent economies – Model for the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=479	PetroCaribe press ahead with plan to eradicate hunger & poverty in the region
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports Eco-System for the Caribbean Region
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308	CARCIP – Regional Effort Can Foster Technology Innovations

The Go Lean book posits that communication technologies must be regulated at the regional level for the Greater Good of the Caribbean. There are too many instances with overlapping spectrum from one member-state to another. Citizens should not need to worry about border considerations during emergency incidences. There should be a smartphone mobile app for the Caribbean region from Step One/Day One of the CU implementation. In the present tense, this regional coordination is managed by bilateral treaties. A unitary confederation treaty – for all 30 member-states – would be better.

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster better regional coordination within the Caribbean neighborhood. This list provides a sample, as follows:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Privacy versus Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principle – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Provide Emergency Management Arts and Sciences for Disasters	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Embrace the Advances of Technology	Page 46
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security – Emergency Management	Page 76
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Communications and Media Authority	Page 79
Implementation – Assemble Regional Organs Under Umbrella Confederation	Page 96
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up – Intelligence Collaboration	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid – Natural Disaster Relief	Page 115
Planning – Big Ideas – Homeland Security Pact	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management – Trauma Medicine	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street – Mobile Apps: Time and Place	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Proximity to First Responders	Page 234
Appendix – Interstate Compacts – Model: Great Lakes Compact	Page 278
Appendix – Emergency Management – Service Continuity Management	Page 338
Appendix – Emergency Management – Trauma Medicine Principles	Page 339

The foregoing VIDEO and news article identifies the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as the regulator for US land-line and mobile telephone systems. Who assumes this role for the Caribbean? While the same FCC has jurisdiction over 2 Caribbean member-states (Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands), there is the need for a deputized agency for the other 28 Caribbean member-states. The Go Lean roadmap calls for an Interstate Compact among the US Territories that is also ratified as an international treaty for all the other member-states. This constitutes the Caribbean Union treaty. Also, as many Interstate Compacts create independent agencies to administer the tenants of the multi-party agreements – think the New York/New Jersey Port Authority – the CU treaty will be administered by the region-wide, deputized technocracy, that is the Trade Federation, specifically the Commerce Department’s Communications and Media Authority.

The CU – with an agency within the Homeland Security Department – also doubles as the regional Emergency Management Agency.

This allows for better coordination of Emergency Telephone Numbers – 911, 919, 112, etc. – for the region. The Communications regulator and Emergency Management under the same “umbrella”: a better pairing!

The region needs this delivery; it makes the Caribbean a better place for emergencies. Now is the time to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap; now is the time to deliver the Caribbean as a better place to live, work and play… for today and for the future. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———–

Appendix: 911 System Crisis – VIDEO Transcript
Jeff Rossen and Charlie McLravy TODAY – February 23, 2015

It was shortly after 4 a.m. on the foggy morning of December 29 when Shanell Anderson took a wrong turn in the dark in a suburban Atlanta neighborhood.

The 31-year-old supervisor for a newspaper delivery service was substituting for an employee who had called in sick when she accidentally drove her SUV into a large pond. Her Nissan Xterra began filling with water, its doors held shut by hundreds of pounds of water pressure.

Anderson had nothing to break the windows with, but she did have a cellphone. She dialed 911.

“911, what is the address of your emergency?” the dispatcher answered. “Where’s your emergency?”

“I’m in a car in a lake,” Anderson replied.

“Where?” said the dispatcher. “Where are you?”

“The Fairway!” Anderson answered.

“Give me the address again, make sure I have it right.”

“The Fairway and Batesville.”

“Batesville and what?” the dispatcher asked.

“The Fairway is a street, ma’am.”

“The Fairway?” the dispatcher repeated. “I don’t have that.”

“Ma’am, I’m losing air very quickly,” Anderson said.

“Give me the address one more time, it’s not working,” the dispatcher asked.

“The Fairway!” Anderson yelled, and spelled the name. “F-A-I-R-W-A-Y!”

The 911 recording captured the dispatcher saying “I lost her” before the line went dead.

It took first responders nearly 20 minutes to get to the location and almost another nine minutes to find Anderson’s car 8 feet underwater. By the time they dove into the lake, broke into the completely submerged SUV and removed her from it, she was unresponsive.

Paramedics were able to restart Anderson’s heart. She was taken to the hospital, where she clung to life in a coma for a week and a half before her organs failed and she died.

The reason it took responders so long to find Anderson is because she was sinking into a pond in the next county. Her desperate call to 911 was picked up by a cell tower in Fulton County, but the pond she was trapped in was actually in Cherokee County. The 911 dispatcher who took her call couldn’t find Anderson’s location because the map on her system only showed Fulton County, where she worked — not nearby Cherokee County, where Anderson was.

The 911 center Anderson’s call was routed to is one of many around the country that still rely on dated cell tower technology instead of something as widely used as Google Maps. Wireless 911 calls get routed to the wrong call centers so often that many dispatchers have dedicated buttons to transfer callers to neighboring departments.

Brendan Keefe, chief investigative reporter for NBC Atlanta affiliate WXIA, was the first to report on the problem with the 911 system there. His report prompted NBC News and Gannett-owned news outlets across the country to launch their own investigations into the issue.

“It has one fatal flaw; it stops at the city line,” Keefe said of Atlanta’s 911 system. “If you hit a cell tower outside their jurisdiction, they don’t know where you are.”

“If the phone had automatically routed to the correct jurisdiction, this very well may have had a different outcome,” Carl Hall, chief of technology at the Public Safety Department in Alpharetta, Georgia (in Fulton County), told Keefe in an recent interview. Hall oversees one of the most advanced 911 centers in the nation, accredited in the top 2 percent and equipped with the latest gear.

“The address of that tower determines which 911 center that call goes to,” Hall told Keefe. “It’s not based on the location of the telephone; it’s the physical address of the tower, not the physical address of the phone.”

Adding to the delay, Fulton County’s 911 follows the industry standard of using proprietary maps instead of technology like Google Maps, which most of us have installed on our cellphones.

“That’s the whole point of 911— finding you quickly,” said Anderson’s mother, Jacquene Curlee. “But when it matters, when someone’s life is in danger, they can’t find you. That is absolutely absurd.”

To demonstrate the problem, TODAY national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen visited a 911 center in Fairfax, Virginia, with Steve Souder, director of the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications. Rossen dialed 911 from inside the center and asked the responding dispatcher to identify his location.

Consulting a computer, the dispatcher replied: “Showing 4610 West Ox Road.”

“Absolutely not,” Souder said. “That’s about a quarter of a mile from where we are.”

“And we’re inside a 911 center,” Rossen said. “And they still can’t find us.”

Responsibility for fixing the problem falls to the Federal Communications Commission. “We need to concentrate on the technologies that make cellphone information and location available to 911 centers instantly,” said Jamie Barnett, a former FCC official who now represents a coalition of emergency responders and 911 dispatchers who are pushing the commission and Congress to improve 911 systems. “The technology exists that can provide it within seconds.”

“It is unacceptable that I can make a wireless call and people can’t find me,” FCC chairman Tom Wheeler acknowledged to Rossen. “Local government controls what happens with 911; the wireless carriers have the technology, and we have the oversight, with jurisdiction over the carriers, but not over local government.

“And so our job is: How do we keep pushing?” Wheeler continued. “And what we’ve recently done is to come up with a new set of rules that have pushed further.”

The new rules “demand 40 percent accuracy within the next two years,” Rossen pointed out. “How bad is it right now, if in two years the goal is 40 percent accuracy? Which I think we can agree is not a great number.”

“We have to push to make sure that both the wireless carriers and the local 911 folks are prepared to be able to exceed that and to give the kind of expectation that you and I have a right to have when we call 911,” Wheeler replied.

Wheeler also revealed that the FCC is developing a 911 app — like Uber for 911. He said that there is no timetable yet for when the app will be ready.

But that is not good enough or fast enough for Shanell Anderson’s mother.

“Her death was so senseless,” Jacquene Curlee said. “Our 911 system doesn’t work.”

Source: NBC News – The Today Show – Retrieved February 23, 2015 from:
http://www.today.com/news/some-911-systems-cant-find-you-emergency-2D80503362

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Ambassadors to Caribbean discuss PetroCaribe-Energy, Security

Posted on February 22, 2015 in Economics, Government

Go Lean Commentary

The problem with different independent nations coming together to build consensus is that each party may have its own self-interest. Independence and consensus-building are inherently opposed to each other.

The subsequent news article highlights this point, as it relates how 5 US ambassadors to Caribbean member-states had convened stakeholders to promote an agenda of American leadership in energy security.

Something about this initiative seems conflicting!

A lack of American leadership in the past has resulted in solutions originating elsewhere, from one neighbor in particular: Venezuela. That country’s PetroCaribe initiative had been valued by many Caribbean member-states as it was a vital lifeline throughout the global financial crisis, which had combined with cripplingly high oil and gas prices in 2008. But Venezuela-PetroCaribe is in enmity with US policy.

This brings to the fore a previous lesson in American foreign-policy history, from 25 years ago: Nelson Mandela’s unconditional support of enemies of the US that were unconditional supporters of the anti-Apartheid movement. Mr. Mandela’s direct comment was as follows:

“One mistake that some political analysts make is to think that their enemies should be our enemies. That [is something] we cannot and should never do. We have our own struggle that we are conducting. We are grateful to the world for supporting our struggle…but independence means we get to choose our friends and choose our enemies” – Nelson Mandela; June 21, 1990. (See Appendix A below).

The foregoing article speaks of the US Caribbean foreign policy initiative in campaigning against PetroCaribe et al:

Title: Ambassadors to Caribbean countries discuss energy, security
By: Jennifer Kay
MIAMI (AP) — Five U.S. ambassadors to the Caribbean on Thursday reinforced the U.S. government’s commitment to helping the cash-strapped region to reduce its dependence on Venezuelan oil while addressing multiple security issues.

The panel at Florida International University followed last month’s Caribbean Energy Security Summit in Washington, where Vice President Joe Biden said the U.S. was poised to help Caribbean countries that could address corruption and make needed regulatory changes.

The U.S. ambassadors to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Suriname and Barbados and the eastern Caribbean participated in the panel hosted by FIU’s Latin American and CaribbeanCenter.

The U.S. wants to encourage more American investment in Caribbean energy projects, such as a new wind farm in Jamaica, “but we need to have and provide a safe and secure environment,” said Luis Moreno, the ambassador to Jamaica.

With falling oil prices shaking Venezuela’s economy, the Caribbean is interested in finding alternatives to Petrocaribe, a decade-old trade program created by the late President Hugo Chavez that requires member countries to pay only a small portion of the up-front costs for oil, allowing them to finance the rest under long-term debt agreements.

The ambassadors derided the program, though they acknowledged it wasn’t likely to end soon even as they push Caribbean countries to consider shifting to natural gas or other energy alternatives.

“We want to encourage individuality. We want to get these countries to sit up for themselves,” said Moreno, who called Petrocaribe “a blunt political instrument.”

Aside from Venezuela’s influence, the Caribbean faces a number of challenges that concern the U.S, such as border security, rising Chinese influence in the region, human rights, weak infrastructure, a lack of regional coordination and vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters.

There’s also been a rise in drug, arms and human trafficking in some eastern Caribbean islands as authorities put pressure on traffickers in South America, and some countries have begun essentially offering citizenship and easing travel for people who buy land or make other investments in the islands, said Larry Palmer, ambassador to Barbados and the eastern Caribbean.

Another problem is political instability in Haiti, in spite of strides the country has made in recovering from a 2010 earthquake. Long-delayed elections are scheduled later this year, but “it’s always rocky in Haiti,” said Pamela White, ambassador to Haiti.

“Let’s just pray we can get through those two days (of scheduled voting) this year so the Haitian people have the right, the democratic right, to vote in people they think will represent them,” she said.
Source: Associated Press News Wire Service (Retrieved 02/18/2015) – http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/12/ambassadors-to-caribbean-countries-discuss-energy-/

VIDEO – St Lucia Clip from Caribbean Energy Security Summit – http://youtu.be/0Ho_PmQThTQ

Published on Jan 29, 2015 – Dr. James Fletcher – Minister of Public Service & Energy – who attended the US Summit on Energy Security says the meeting was a precursor to the energy and climate partnership of the America’s meeting which will take place in March 2015.

What is PetroCaribe and how does it relate to the Caribbean economic empowerment effort? (See Appendix B below). Previously, this commentary detailed a discussion on PetroCaribe-ALBA-SUCRE, identifying these economic integration initiatives started by the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (1954-2013). His advocacy of socialism often brought him at odds with the US. But still, there were benefits and benevolence in his actions.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean pursues an apolitical agenda; the only motive is the elevation of Caribbean society by optimizing the economic, security and governance engines. This serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Further, the book, and accompanying blog commentaries, posit that American leadership may not always have the Caribbean best interest in mind, even for US Territories. Societies do better in their American interactions when they relate as protégés, not parasites. This is a reality that we must accept. The Go Lean roadmap features 144 missions to accomplish this feat of elevating Caribbean society to protégé status.

The Go Lean roadmap does align with many of the objectives of these US ambassadors; it is important for the Caribbean to pursue energy independence. As such there is a focus on alternative energy options that can be easily deployed in the region: solar, wind turbines, tidal and yes, the natural gas option as the US advocates. The cause to combat climate change and mitigate natural disasters is welcomed from the US, as our Caribbean islands are on the front lines of this battle. But the Go Lean roadmap is not 100% concurring with the US policy; we also align with some objectives of PetroCaribe, especially negotiating group discounts and delivery terms for the Caribbean member-states. Early in the book, these pressing needs were pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), with these statements:

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

vi.      Whereas the finite nature of the landmass of our lands limits the populations and markets of commerce, by extending the bonds of brotherhood to our geographic neighbors allows for extended opportunities and better execution of the kinetics of our economies through trade. This regional focus must foster and promote diverse economic stimuli.

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

The Go Lean roadmap details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the progress in the wide fields of energy alternatives and group purchasing. The following list applies:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations – Group Purchase Organizations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Regional Taxi Commissions	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Harness alternative power: Sun, Wind, and Natural Gas	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 82
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Energy Commission	Page 82
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government – Energy Permits	Page 93
Anecdote – Caribbean Energy Grid Implementation	Page 100
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Develop Pipeline Industry – Underwater Power Lines	Page 107
Implementation – Ways to Improve Energy Usage	Page 113
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence	Page 120
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Monopolies	Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244

The planners of a new elevated Caribbean hereby thank the US foreign policy-makers for their dedication towards the Caribbean. This is friendly! But as matured independent nations, we accept the responsibility to “choose our own friends and our own enemies”.

We accept that in this case, the US may have altruistic motives, especially with declining oil prices possibly affecting Venezuela. But for far too often, American leadership has been motivated by crony-capitalistic intentions. The points of mitigating the risks of American Big Business were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4076	US Big Media Fantasies versus Weather Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3397	A Christmas Present for the Banks from the Omnibus Bill
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3326	Detroit’s M-1 Rail – Finally avoiding Plutocratic Auto Industry influence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2887	Caribbean must work together to address rum subsidies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2522	The Cost of Cancer Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2465	Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2435	Korea’s Protégé Model – A Dream for Latin America / Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	Lesson Learned – How Best to Welcome the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2259	The Criminalization of American Business – Big Banks Let Loose
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2251	US Black-and-Brown populations are still institutionally disadvantaged
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2183	A Textbook Case of Industry Price-gouging
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	Health-care fraud in America; Criminals take $272 billion a year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	America’s War on the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Post 2008 Great Recession – Student debt holds back home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242	Post 2008 Great Recession – The Erosion of the Middle Class
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – #1: American Self-Interest

The Go Lean roadmap calls for integration of the regional member-states, a strategy of confederation with a tactic of separating powers between CU federal agencies and member-states’ governments. The roadmap calls for the regional integration of energy generation and energy distribution services – a regional grid. The separation-of-powers tactic also calls for assumption of Emergency Management agencies for the member-states. This allows for the regional mitigation and remediation of the affects of climate change. The roadmap posits that to succeed as a society, the Caribbean region must integrate and consolidate into a Single Market of 42 million people, so as to be able to compete with the rest of the world, and to facilitate better negotiations.

It is time to choose our own friends … and enemies.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, business, institutions and governments, to lean-in for the optimizations and opportunities described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. 🙂

————

Appendix A: Nelson Mandela’s Friends

The relationship between the United States and the anti-apartheid movement Mandela led was duplicitous. Some of his most fervent international supporters were leaders of countries sharply at odds with America.

The US Government criticized Nelson Mandela for going to Libya to visit Muammar Gaddafi, and in a speech that he gave Nelson Mandela said that “they could go and jump into a pool”. He said that he was not going to turn his back on the people that was there for him in his darkest hour.

Nelson Mandela was 100% man; he didn’t allow other people to tell him what to do, and he didn’t allow people to pick his friends [or his enemies]. [Many times,] America’s enemies were Mandela’s friends.
(Source: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Express_Yourself/topic/5312294/1/).

These “friends” referred to:

Fidel Castro of Cuba
Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam
Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran

—–

Additional research: Mandela Town Hall Meeting, New York City, June 21, 1990:
http://youtu.be/q6eE9BIUfBg – 1990 video of Town Hall meeting with Nelson Mandela of South Africa anchored by Ted Koppel on ABC Nightline in New York.

————

Appendix B: PetroCaribe / ALBA / SUCRE

PetroCaribe is an oil alliance with Venezuela which allows the purchase of oil on conditions of preferential payment. The alliance was launched on 29 June 2005 in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. In 2013 PetroCaribe agreed to links with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and to go beyond oil and promote economic cooperation. It is now considered an “economic zone”.

There are a total of 17 members, plus Venezuela; 12 of the members are from the 15 member CariCom (excluding, Barbados, Montserrat and Trinidad and Tobago). At the first summit, 14 countries joined the alliance. These were: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haití, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Venezuela.

ALBA – The Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas is an intergovernmental organization associated with socialist and social democratic governments wishing to consolidate regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid. ALBA nations may conduct trade using a virtual regional currency known as the SUCRE.

SUCRE – A regional currency to be used in commercial exchanges between members of the regional ALBA trade bloc. It is intended to replace the US dollar as a medium of exchange in order to decrease US control of Latin American economies. The acronym is in Spanish, as: Sistema Único de Compensación Regional. In English, this means: Unified System for Regional Compensation. The plan is for the SUCRE to become a hard currency.

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Businesses Try to Stave-off Brain Drain as Boomers Retire

Posted on February 20, 2015 in Economics, Social

Go Lean Commentary

A consistent theme in the book Go Lean…Caribbean is that communities need their economic engines optimized, otherwise their citizens would simply leave. The book, and subsequent blog/commentaries, posit that the reality of the recent global financial crisis has resulted in an even higher abandonment rate among Caribbean communities. Another dynamic have now become prominent: families are having less babies.

This means, from a strictly supply-and-demand basis, older workers will be pressured to retire later and stay on with their employers longer.

This point was highlighted in the Go Lean book with the acknowledgement that the Aging Diaspora is a new Agent-of-Change for the Caribbean to contend with (Page 57). The book specifically identified that the demographics of the Caribbean was altered in the decades following World War II. Many members of the Caribbean Diaspora availed themselves of opportunities in Europe and North America during the rebuilding efforts for those nations. So those that emigrated in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s now comprise an aging Diaspora – with the strong desire to return to their native homelands for their “golden years”. They should be welcomed back and incentivized to repatriate, and Caribbean communities should prepare – and profit – from this eventuality. The Go Lean book describes the effort as a figurative “Welcome Mat” that must be administered, with details like: health care, security, disability support, elder-care, entitlements, etc.

There are economic concerns … and benefits from this execution.

But now, according to this story and AUDIO podcast, there may be more pressure for these ones to remain in the work place longer:

Podcast from National Public Radio (NPR) – January 15, 2015
By: Yuki Noguchi

AUDIO Podcast: – http://www.npr.org/2015/01/15/377201540/businesses-try-to-stave-off-brain-drain-as-boomers-retire

(See transcript in Appendix below)

These same issues, though presented from the perspective of the US, have the same application in the Caribbean. Our population is trending older as more and more young people abandon Caribbean communities for Diaspora life in foreign lands. We must also stave-off brain drain in the Caribbean region.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU is proffered to provide economic, security and economic security solutions for the 30 member-states and their 42 million people. It is our quest to be prepared for this changing landscape. This mandate is pronounced early on in the book’s Declaration of Interdependence with the following statements (Page 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.

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.

xxv.    Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

Modern societies are based on the assumption that there will always be more young people in a community than the older population; this is a basic principle in “actuarial science”. There are many social safety nets that depend on this actuarial fact: the Caribbean needs population growth not population contraction. Already the repercussions of so many people abandoning their communities have created devastating consequences. For example, retirement plans-funds are strained in many Caribbean countries. Yes, the Caribbean, as a region, is at the precipice of failed-state status.

The Go Lean book posits that this is a “crisis, but that this crisis is a terrible thing to waste”; (Page 8). As such the roadmap structures the CU to impact the region with the execution of the prime directives defined as these 3 goals:

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

According to the foregoing article, America needs to keep their older workers working longer; they cannot afford the brain drain. But this fact is conflicting for Caribbean pursuits. We need our aging Diaspora to come back home, sooner, rather than later…and to bring their wealth, benefits and entitlements with them; Go Lean describes it as their “time, talent and treasuries”. This creates a seller’s market for the foreign workers with demand in the US and also in the homeland. It is hoped that “love for the Caribbean homeland” would be the primary motivator.

It is hoped!

Though the needs of the Caribbean youth are identified as priority for the Go Lean movement (book and blogs), the needs of the elderly population are not ignored. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap details missions like retirement planning, increased retirement age, pension re-financing, heightened public safety and optimized healthcare. The following details from the book Go Lean … Caribbean are the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates prescribed to manifest the commitment to the Caribbean elderly populations:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Repatriating Caribbean Diaspora	Page 47
Strategy – Non-Government Organizations – Senior Aid Groups	Page 48
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Implementation – Assemble all Member-States	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt – Re-work Pensions	Page 114
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Planning – 10 Big Ideas … in the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations – Central Bank	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Advocacy – Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Retirement	Page 221
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class	Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care	Page 225

The Baby Boom generation has come full circle now as senior citizens. This large population group (born between years 1946 and 1964) is bringing a boon to the industries that cater to their care and preferences. There is an estimated 78.3 million Americans who were born during this demographic period, encompassing a quarter of the US population.

The Caribbean cannot be far behind. Unfortunately though, many of these Caribbean boomers live in foreign countries like the US, Canada, UK, France, the Netherlands and other European countries. This is a “Big Idea” to incentivize these ones to make a return to their Caribbean ancestral homelands. The Go Lean book describes this big effort as heavy-lifting, a task too big for any one member-state alone. But rather, there is the need for the technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. The purpose of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is to deliver, to do the heavy-lifting to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes/empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

APPENDIX – Podcast Transcript: Businesses Try to Stave Off Brain Drain as Boomers Retire

In the U.S., roughly 10,000 people reach retirement age every day. And though not everyone who turns 62 or 65 retires right away, enough do that some companies are trying to head off the problem.

Dave Tobelmann, who for 33 years developed new products for General Mills, retired five years ago at age 57 — around the same time as a number of other colleagues. “Yeah, I went to a lot of retirement parties,” Tobelmann says.

Losing veteran workers is a challenge, even for big companies like General Mills.

“Let’s say you have 30 people retire in a year and the average years of experience is 30 years. So you just had 1,000 years walk away. That’s hard to lose,” Tobelmann says.

The need is not across the board; not all retirees are in demand. But the older-worker brain drain is a big concern for industries like mining and health care. They are trying to retain older employees because demand is increasing and fewer younger workers are rising through the ranks.

In a survey out this week, the Society for Human Resource Management reports that a third of employers expect staffing problems in coming years.

“When you have large numbers that are leaving and a pipeline that is not entirely as wide as the exit pipeline, you will have temporary gaps,” says Mark Schmit, executive director of the association’s foundation.

Take, for example, the insurance business.

“The average age is in the late 50s in this industry,” says Sharon Emek, who sold an insurance business five years ago after three of the four partners reached retirement age. She then started Work at Home Vintage Employees, a company that contracts insurance-industry retirees.

“It’s a big crisis within the industry where they’re trying to recruit young talent and keep young talent, and the industry is constantly writing about the problem,” Emek says.

Employers are trying to hang onto older talent by offering flexible work hours, more attractive health care benefits or having retirees return to mentor younger workers. And more people are, in fact, working later — either because they want to, or they have to. According to AARP, nearly 19 percent of workers over age 65 work (about 1 in 5), compared with about 11 percent (1 in 10) three decades ago.

Soon after retiring, Tobelmann returned to General Mills. He works through YourEncore, a staffing firm specializing in retiree placement. Procter & Gamble, Boeing and other companies started YourEncore to prepare for baby boomers retiring. Tobelmann says the benefits for the company are obvious.

“I already know how to speak the language, I know how the company operates, I know how the businesses operate, I know how they make money, I know how projects proceed, I know all the processes,” he says.

At Michelin North America, more than 40 percent of the workforce is approaching retirement age. Retirees have, on average, 2 1/2 decades of experience. Dave Stafford, who heads human resources for the company, says last year, it had to plan around losing most of a lab team made up entirely of older workers.

“If we’re doing our job well, we’ll know that there’s risk; we’ll start to staff to compensate for the fact that that risk may come to fruition,” he says.

Michelin encourages retirees to stick around part-time, especially those in technical maintenance, where talent is chronically scarce. But it’s not always easy to accommodate.

“Sometimes they have a very limited number of hours that they want to work, and to try to work around their schedule sometimes can be a bit of a challenge,” says Dale Sweere of Stanley Consultants, an engineering consulting firm based in Muscatine, Iowa.

But Sweere says the company has always offered phased retirement because experienced workers have relationships with clients that are valuable to hang onto. “It’s kind of a running joke around here that we have their retirement party on a Friday and they show up for work again on Monday,” Sweere says.

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The State of Aruba’s Economy

Posted on February 19, 2015 in Economics, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The Caribbean is comprised of 4 different language groups. We hear mostly of the English, French and Spanish speaking islands, but the Dutch speaking islands are far from inconsequential. They are integral to the Caribbean landscape and integral to the plan for regional confederation, consolidation and elevation.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean addresses the needs of all the Caribbean, including the Dutch territories. In the book, the islands are referred to as the formal name of the Netherlands Antilles (Page 16). This consists of two island groups; the ABC Islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, located just off the Venezuelan coast. Plus also the SSS islands of Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius, located in the Leeward Islands southeast of the Virgin Islands near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles. The Dutch colonized these islands in the 17th century, (at one point, Anguilla, Tobago, the British Virgin Islands, and St. Croix of the US Virgin Islands had also been Dutch), and united them in the new constituent state of the Netherlands Antilles in December 1954.

The largest of the Dutch Caribbean is Aruba.

Aruba called for secession from the Netherlands Antilles from as early as the 1930s, becoming a separate state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1986. After many other organizational developments, by 2010, Aruba is dispositioned as one of the four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands (European homeland), Curaçao and Sint Maarten.

What is the status of Aruba today?

How has it fared as an autonomous state?

The Go Lean book posits that Aruba is in crisis; (along with the rest of the Caribbean). This is also the assessment by the International Monetary Fund, as related in this news article:

By: By the Caribbean Journal staff
Aruba’s economy is “recovering gradually” from a “severe double-dip recession,” according to the International Monetary Fund, which recently concluded its 2015 Article IV Mission to the Dutch Caribbean island.

The recession was [exacerbated] by a pair of factors: the global financial crisis and the shutdown of the oil refinery in Aruba.

“These shocks have substantially increased public debt—over 80 percent of GDP in 2014—and eroded fiscal space,” the IMF said in a statement. “To address these fiscal challenges, the authorities have undertaken major entitlement reforms and are aiming to reach a small fiscal surplus in 2018.”

Without similar measures, however, the IMF warned that the pace of fiscal consolidation in the island could slow and public debt would continue to rise in the medium term.

Growth in Aruba is projected to rise by about 2.5 percent in 2015, which would put the island in favorable territory with the rest of the region, though.

The closure of the refinery, however, puts even more pressure on the island’s tourism sector, the IMF said.

That could compound the island’s risk, though, given its large dependence on tourists from the US and from Venezuela, with the latter’s economic crisis adding to the risk.

But the IMF said that Aruba had maintained its competitiveness in tourism, with its share of the Caribbean’s tourism market share continuing to grow.

“In addition, the authorities’ marketing efforts, access to new US hubs, and additional airlift capacity from South America have improved resilience,” the IMF said. “Increasing labor market flexibility and reducing the costs of doing business would not only further improve Aruba’s competitiveness, but would also help its adjustment to external shocks and facilitate diversification.”
Caribbean Journal Regional News Site – Posted February 16, 2015 –
http://www.caribjournal.com/2015/02/16/the-state-of-arubas-economy/

The Caribbean country of Aruba needs to focus on growing its economy and creating jobs. The Go Lean book asserts that this effort is too big a task for just one Caribbean member-state alone, that Aruba needs to convene, confederate and collaborate with the other regional member-states. As such, the Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

The Go Lean book (Page 3) makes this simple assertion regarding the state of Aruba and all the Caribbean economy: the region is in crisis. There is something wrong in these island and coastal states, that despite the greatest address in the world, instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out. Aruba fails to keep its young people at home. In fact, the anecdotal experience (one story after another) is that young people abandon this island as soon as they finish high school; many never to return again, except for occasional visits. (Aruban natives – plus all Netherland Antilles states – have Dutch citizenship, sharing the same Dutch passport as the Kingdom of the Netherlands).

A mission of the Go Lean roadmap is to minimize the “push-and-pull” factors that contribute to this alarmingly high rate of societal abandonment – one report reflects a 70% brain drain rate for the overall Caribbean. The book stresses (early at Page 13 & 14) the need to be on-guard for these “push-and-pull” factors in these pronouncements in the 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.

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

xxv.      Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

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

This commentary previously related details of the “push-and-pull” factors for Caribbean emigration to North America and Europe, and the region’s own job-creation efforts. Here is a sample of earlier blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3834	State of the Caribbean Union
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3780	National Sacrifice: The Missing Ingredient – Caribbean people not willing to die or live in sacrifice to their homeland
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3446	Forecast for higher unemployment in Caribbean in 2015
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3050	Obama’s immigration tweaks leave Big Tech wanting more
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	American “Pull” Factors – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1683	British public sector workers strike over ‘poverty pay’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1296	Remittances to Caribbean Increased By 3 Percent in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1256	Traditional 4-year College Degree are Terrible Investments for the Caribbean Region
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841	Having Less Babies (Population) is Bad for the Economy

The Go Lean book and these accompanying blogs posit that the economic failures in the Caribbean in general and Aruba in particular is the direct result of the lack of diversity in industrial development. The region depends too heavily on tourism. Aruba though, made some diversification attempts with oil refinery installations; according to Wikipedia:

With its location near Venezuela, the island became an attractive spot for oil refineries. The Lago Oil and Transport Company, owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon), opened in 1929 near the transshipping port of San Nicolaas. Following in their footsteps, the Eagle Oil Refinery opened soon after. Over the next few decades, the oil industry took over as Aruba’s primary economic force.

During World War II, considerable expansion was done to the Lago Refinery, becoming one of the largest refineries in the world – only bested by Royal Dutch Shell Isla refinery on nearby Curaçao – and a major producer of petroleum products for the Allied war efforts.

The Eagle Oil Refinery shut down and was dismantled in the late 1950s. But the Lago refinery kept going until 1985, when the demand for oil fell and Exxon closed it. In 1991, the Coastal Corporation bought it, scaled down operations, and reopened it. Coastal Corporation later sold the refinery to Valero Energy Corporation in 2004. Its reopening didn’t raise Aruba’s oil industry to its previous heights although it did revive that sector and continued to be a key contributor to the country’s economy until 2009 when it was closed.

Aruba is now applying a strategy to “double-down” on tourism; see Appendix-VIDEO below. The Go Lean roadmap asserts that this strategy is flawed; that while prudence dictates that the Caribbean nations expand and optimize their tourism products, the Caribbean must also look for other opportunities for economic expansion. The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state like Aruba. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. The roadmap will facilitate economic growth and job creation.

This is the charge of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap, to do the heavy-lifting, to implement the organization dynamics to impact Caribbean society here and now with economic growth and jobs. The following are the community ethos, strategies, tactics and operational advocacies to effectuate this goal:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influences Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choice Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Make the Caribbean the Best Address on Planet	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate Diaspora	Page 46
Strategy – Mission – Dissuade Human Flight/“Brain Drain”	Page 46
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Union versus Member-States	Page 71
Implementation – Assemble CariCom, Dutch, French, Cuba and US Territories	Page 95
Implementation – Enact Territorial Compacts for PR & the Virgin Islands	Page 96
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence	Page 120
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Market Southern California – New Markets	Page 194
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Extractions	Page 195
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Impact DutchTerritories	Page 246

This Go Lean book accepts that the current State of Aruba’s Economy does not have to be a permanent disposition. The roadmap presents a plan for greater energy independence, energy security and energy generation in the region – there will be the need to capitalize on Aruba’s core-competence with oil refineries. So under the Go Lean roadmap, Aruba’s economy will do better; the same as all of the Caribbean will do better. This roadmap is a 5-year plan to effect change, to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.

As for the Dutch Caribbean territories, even though they are no longer considered colonies, but rather constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, they are effectively just welfare states dependent on Amsterdam; and a feeder for low-cost labor in Holland. They are inconsequential within the Dutch sphere of influence. There are parasites not protégés!

We must do better!

Now is the time for Aruba, the Dutch Caribbean and all of the Caribbean, the people and institutions, to lean-in to this Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

Appendix – VIDEO: Aruba – One Happy Island – http://youtu.be/p7NdI0jmvXA

Published on Mar 28, 2012 – Our white-sand beaches, cooling trade winds and warm, friendly people are just a few reasons why so many people return to Aruba year after year. Discover everything that makes this One Happy Island…

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Immigration Policy Exacerbates Worker Productivity Crisis

Posted on February 18, 2015 in Economics, Government, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The book Go Lean … Caribbean seeks to elevate society in the Caribbean homeland. The book is a 370-page roadmap with turn-by-turn directions on how to transform – remediate and mitigate – the engines of regional commerce, security and governance. While this type of advocacy is the normal sphere of Chambers of Commerce in their pledge to support the business communities, the Go Lean effort is different; it is not motivated by normal profit incentives, but rather the Greater Good for the Caribbean people.

(This commentary is not affiliated with any Chamber of Commerce)

Here’s a question for the Caribbean in general, and considering the subsequent news article, the Bahamas in particular:

What do you want from the world?

Do you want to have an advanced-modern society with all the latest “bells-and-whistles” of science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM)? Or do you want a closed society, designated for reaping by your native people only?

“Oh island in the sun, willed to me by my father’s hand” – Classic Caribbean/Calypso folk song.

There is truly a choice to make. There are closed societies in the world, think North Korea. Even here in the Caribbean, there is Cuba, which was cut-off from US trade for 55 years. The end result, their society “stood still in time” in terms of technological developments; (1950-era American automobiles proliferate in Cuba even today).

The disposition of these aforementioned societies may not be too appealing for the rest of the Caribbean. So the answer being given is one of global citizenship. The Caribbean member-states have expressed, explicitly and implicitly, that they want to be an advanced-modern society. This means one thing:

Give-and-take with the rest of the world.

So there must be some give-and-take with immigration policy. We must “give” some allowances to immigrants to take the returns of their talents.

Look at the Caribbean’s biggest neighbor (to the north), the United States of America. Immigration is what made the US a great nation; let’s consider just one example. Much of America’s leadership in the Space Race during the Cold War years of 1950 to 1991 was due to the contributions of one empowering immigrant: Rocket Scientist Wernher von Braun; see summary VIDEO here and more details in the Appendix below.

Wernher Von Braun Vision: ” MAN IN SPACE ” Walt Disney TV production, March 9, 1955 – http://youtu.be/2fautyLuuvo

Uploaded on Sep 12, 2011 – Von Braun explain a future of space orbital mission with Space Shuttle rockets. A positive propagating for human voyage into space.

This discussion aligns with the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); the purpose of which is to elevate Caribbean society, for all 30 member-states. The book stresses the need for empowering immigration (Page 174), recognizing that some of the skill-sets necessary to elevate our society may not currently exist in the homeland, so we may actually need to import the talent.

This is also the strong point being enunciated by the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation in the following news article:

By: Neil Hartnell, Business Editor, The Tribune Daily Newspaper – retrieved February 10, 2015 from:
http://www.tribune242.com/news/2015/feb/10/immigration-policy-exacerbates-worker-productivity/

The Immigration Department’s “closed door” work permit policies are exacerbating the Bahamas’ productivity crisis, a top private sector executive yesterday warning they were making it impossible for companies to hire the “unemployable”.

Robert Myers, the immediate past Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) chairman, told Tribune Business that restrictive Immigration policies were preventing businesses from recruiting middle management and skilled line staff essential to their smooth operation.

Apart from hindering the ability of local companies to expand, Mr Myers said they were also prevented from improving staff productivity and efficiency, as they could not “hire the educated to train the uneducated”.

Jerome Fitzgerald, minister of education, admitted last week that 40 per cent of the workforce lacked “a basic education”, with at least 35-38 per cent having failed to graduate from high school.

Mr Myers, though, pegged the number of high school leavers who were functionally illiterate and numerate [only] at 55 percent – a statistic that continues to limit business and GDP growth, and hinder government tax revenues.

“There’s a problem because the Immigration policies are only enabling these problems,” he told Tribune Business. “We have the wrong Immigration policies.

“There’s a desperate need to hire the educated to educate the uneducated and undereducated. We need to relax the Immigration policies, and do it with educated, not uneducated, people.

“The only way you can go out and hire this massive chunk in the economy is to bring in educated people capable of training those uneducated.”

Mr Myers said the Bahamas should tailor its work permit policies to reward, and incentivise, those companies who brought in expatriates to help train Bahamian staff.

“People like myself who could grow their businesses can’t, because it is cost prohibitive to bring in quality managers and line staff,” he told Tribune Business.

“It’s a layering effect. In order for me to grow and get uneducated people working, you need to bring in educated people.

“But you’ve made it so cost prohibitive to bring in line staff and middle managers, you’ve made it so expensive, that if I try to do that I become uncompetitive. So I can’t bring them in, and can’t hire uneducated people.”

Mr Myers said the Christie administration needed to “understand the connectivity of all this”, describing it as “reasonably complex but not rocket science”.

Arguing that the issue went to the heart of the Bahamas’ social fabric, he added: “If you have the wrong Immigration policies, you can’t improve education, the transfer of knowledge, employment and GDP growth. Crime goes up, and the uneducated are left to their own devices.”

Numerous Bahamian businesses have in the past complained to Tribune Business about what they have labelled “a dearth” of middle management talent in this nation, leaving them unable to fill positions essential to their smooth functioning with the right people.

However, in a bid to create employment for Bahamians, in a society struggling with a high 15.7 per cent jobless rate, the Immigration Department has tightened its work permit policies despite fears in some quarters it is trying to force ‘square pegs into round holes’ – forcing companies to take on unsuitable persons.

And several in the private sector have also suggested that it sometimes requires the hiring of one expatriate worker to create jobs for 10 or more Bahamians.

Mr Myers yesterday told Tribune Business that it was “so frustrating” that persons like himself and Mr Fitzgerald understood the problems, yet the Immigration Department was operating policies that were “completely contradictory” to the necessary solutions.

“When you have these problems lined up, teed up in education, crime and growth, stop making it more expensive for the educated to come in and teach the uneducated,” he added.

“Why does the Government not step in, and make it more competitive for businesses, increase the ease of doing business, increase GDP growth.

“I understand you’re trying to shut down Immigration to create employment, but these people are unemployable unless you open Immigration.”

Suggesting that Mr Fitzgerald’s comments, and Immigration policies, showed the Government’s ‘left hand and right hand’ did not know what each was doing, Mr Myers said the Bahamas’ “lack of governance is causing us to sink further”.

In a position paper he shared with Tribune Business yesterday, Mr Myers admitted that some businesses had resorted to hiring illegal Haitians in a bid to find productive workers for low income jobs.

“The Haitian workforce has also had a negative affect on businesses, as the Haitian workers are not always English literate, thus creating the same training and mobility problems for growth and development of businesses,” the ex-BCCEC chairman wrote.

“The Department of Immigration’s policies have caused further burden to businesses as they attempt to create more employment for Bahamians. While this may seem like a positive policy, it in fact negatively impacts Bahamian businesses for all the above said reasons and decreases productivity, making the Bahamas a more expensive and a less competitive nation.

“National security is at risk as we see direct correlations between the failing educational system and increases in violent crimes and drugs. The uneducated will fall victim to illegal activity if they have no hope or ability to become productive members of our society. People with no hope turn to drugs, in many cases for temporary relief. Our choices become one of two: Provide better education or build more courts, police stations and jails.”

So let’s repeat that question to the Caribbean: what kind of society do you want?

Do you want cutting-edge technology?

If so, then you must be prepared to welcome empowering immigrants!

There is no better alternative approach/strategy!

There are however many tactics that can align with this empowering immigration approach/strategy. The Go Lean book promotes a tactic of Separation-of-Powers between CU federal agencies and Caribbean member-state governments; offering the installation of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) and Self-Governing Entities (SGE) to operate in controlled bordered territories like campuses, industrial parks, research laboratories, industrial plants and even aero-space launch facilities – much like advocate Wernher Von Braun campaigned and successfully implementated in the US in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Look today at all the economic spin-off benefits that the US has enjoyed because of the contributions of this one empowering immigrant: satellite communications, GPS, aero-space industrial developments, space exploration, etc.

(There is a Caribbean expression of aero-space initiatives in the European Space Agency in the Caribbean-leaning territory of French Guiana; this Agency would be a SGE under the CU/Go Lean scheme).

Under the EEZ/SGE scheme, the CU maintains exclusive jurisdiction and regulatory oversight for the employment of immigrants. This separation-of-powers will mitigate all the threats of negative immigration policies, as related in the foregoing article. This is technocratic: Just get it done! Just do it!

The CU – applying best-practices for agile deliveries – would facilitate the required elevation of society with these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines, specifically in EEZ’s and SGE’s.
Improvement of Caribbean governance, with the appropriate separation-of-powers, to support these engines.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that EEZ’s and SGE’s can be strategic, tactical and operationally efficient for elevating Caribbean society. These points are pronounced early in the book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 and 14), with these statements:

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.

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 like tourism … impacting the region with more jobs.

The subjects of EEZ’s, SGE’s and empowering immigration jobs has been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3760	Concerns about ‘Citizenship By Investment Programs’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3694	Jamaica-Canada employment programme pumps millions into local economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3662	Migrant flow into US from Caribbean spikes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3050	Obama’s immigration tweaks in the US leave Big Tech wanting more
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750	Disney World – Role Model for Self Governing Entities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	Using SGE’s to Welcome the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – Ship-breaking under SGE Structure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Fairgrounds as SGE and Landlords for Sports Leagues
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=286	Puerto Rico’s Comprehensive Cancer Center Project Breaks Ground – Model of Medical SGE

The Go Lean book itself details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge benefits from empowering immigrants, Self-Governing Entities, and Exclusive Economic Zones in the Caribbean region:

Economic Principles – People Choose because Resources are Limited	Page 21
Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Economic Principles – 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 (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-states in a Union	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and Foster Local Economic Engines	Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries	Page 68
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of State – Self-Governing Entities	Page 80
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Interior Department – Exclusive Economic Zone	Page 82
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – SGE Licenses	Page 101
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 103
Implementation – Anecdote – French Guiana Space Agency – Example of a SGE	Page 103
Implementation – Benefits from the Exclusive Economic Zone	Page 104
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Self-Governing Entities	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce	Page 129
Planning – Lessons from New York City	Page 137
Planning – Lessons from Omaha	Page 138
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Empowering Immigration	Page 174
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources – EEZ and SGE’s	Page 183
Anecdote – Caribbean Industrialist & Entrepreneur Role Model	Page 189
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Develop Ship-Building as SGE’s	Page 209
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex as SGE’s	Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the One Percent – Job Creators Inducements	Page 224
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Self-Governing Entities	Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living – Self-Governing Entities	Page 235
Advocacy – Ways to Promote World-Heritage-Sites as SGE’s	Page 248
Appendix – Job Multipliers Realities	Page 259
Appendix – Airport Cities – Models for Self Governing Entities	Page 287

There is a role for the contributions of many impactful and empowering immigrants in this vision for the elevation of the Caribbean homeland. Since the skills needed for today’s global economy are not plentiful in the Caribbean today, we must invite others to join us. These ones will only come initially for profit, not love of community, not the Greater Good. This Greater Good preferred community ethos only comes after some sacrifice; after these ones assimilate their Caribbean homelands and want to protect it as their home … and for their offspring and next generations.

This is why empowering immigrants should give more than they take; they should not be looking for jobs, rather they should create jobs. In the case of the foregoing news article, the Chamber of Commerce estimates 1 empowering immigrant creates 10 jobs. This job multiplier reality should not be ignored. Especially in this era of empowering STEM careers. We need to build and retain that talent in the Caribbean homeland now.

The Caribbean, including the Bahamas, need to send this message:

Scientists – Welcome!
Technologists – Welcome!
Engineers – Welcome!
Medical Practitioners – Welcome!
Job Creators – Welcome!
Foreign Direct Investors – Welcome!

The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap invites the contributions of empowering immigrants, especially under the guise of SGE’s. With the right applications from people, tools and techniques many SGE initiatives can have a positive impact in changing society, with minimal risks and threats of negative consequences – the roadmap mitigates the threats of corporate abuse of plutocracies. There are many examples and models to apply from other societies (i.e. Werner von Braun in the US Space program despite his Nazi past – see Appendix below).

Change has come to the Caribbean. Everyone is hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. If Caribbean people want change, progress, empowerment, growth, jobs (STEM and otherwise), justice and security, then the move to welcome empowering immigrants must be normalized. These ones must be welcomed. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————

Appendix: America’s most empowering immigrant: Wernher von Braun

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

In his twenties and early thirties, Braun was already the central figure in the Nazis’ rocket development program, responsible for the design and realization of the V-2 rocket during World War II. After the war, he and selected members of his rocket team were taken to the United States as part of the secret Operation Paperclip. Braun worked on the United States Army’s intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) program before his group was assimilated by NASA. Under NASA, he served as director of the newly formed Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the super-booster that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.^[1] According to one NASA source, he is “without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history”.^[2] In 1975 he received the National Medal of Science.

See full biography VIDEO here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ch0OgkkJKI

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Bahamas, Foreign Policy, Jobs

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Getting Rich Slowly … in the Caribbean

Posted on February 12, 2015 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The old practice was for couples to have a lot of children so that there would be assurances for their old age; the many children would be able to leverage caregiving roles among themselves. With a high infant-mortality rate, there was the need to hedge the risk with a few more children – an “heir and a spare” many times over.

(This writer is the youngest of 6 children).

Then “the road turned”… change came.

After World War II, modern medicine improved (i.e. childhood vaccines), more family planning options were introduced, governments adopted social safety-net strategies (Social Security, National Insurance and other pensions) and a consumer culture took hold. It was no longer necessary, in the First World (North American and Western Europe), to have so many children. Couples in these countries, during the decades of the 1970’s to 1990’s, averaged only 2.1 children; today that figure is down to 1.8.

(This writer has 3 children).

This standard is now universal, even in the Third World Caribbean.

Here is where the “rubber meets the road”; without those old-world family planning strategies, care for aging parents now becomes an issue, a cause and an advocacy.

Not everyone is prepared for change.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean addresses this issue head-on. It first declares that the Caribbean is in crisis, that most Caribbean citizens, residents in the homeland or the Diaspora, are not prepared for retirement and their “golden years”. Then with the propensity for societal abandonment, so many Caribbean citizens live abroad, away from their aging parents, so there is no practicality normally associated with a close proximity; (children cannot just simply cohabitate with their parents). To make matters worse, many Caribbean member-state governments have failing economic structures, so fulfilling their Social Contract responsibilities have been strained; consider currency devaluations, unchecked inflation, dependency on foreign imports and higher taxation with import Customs duties.

Alas, the book also declares that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU is proffered to provide economic, security and economic security solutions for the 30 member Caribbean states and their 42 million people. It is our quest to be prepared for the changed landscape. This mandate is detailed early on in the book’s Declaration of Interdependence with the following statements (Page 11 – 13):

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

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

While the Caribbean may be in crisis today, conditions would get even worse tomorrow (near future) if left unchecked; if there is no remediation and mitigation for retirement. The Go Lean roadmap posits that retirement is a community issue, and that the mandate for the CU is to manage economic security issues – strong messages and incentives – to encompass retirement planning as well.

It should be duly noted that this issue is not one that the US shows leadership with. Far too many American citizens have not fully developed solutions for their retirement, despite the myriad of financial products available in that advanced economy. This is not a community choice issue; this is a community ethos issue. The Go Lean book (Page 21) defines community ethos as the “fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society”. The ethos associated with retirement planning is that of “deferred gratification”, setting aside immediate benefits for more long-term benefits.

“A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous”. – The Bible; Proverbs 13:22 – New International Version

While Americans need to adopt this ethos – Social Security benefits alone are grossly insufficient to satisfy retirees’ needs – Caribbean citizens need to “double-down” on this spirit all the more so. In either case, there must be supplemental retirement income. With a patient, future-focused attitude, the stage is set for individuals to glean the benefits of the time value of money. This concept is fundamental in finance – it allows for greater future rewards of monies invested today. The very approach for retirement is to glean returns tomorrow (after a person retires) on the investments made today (while the person is still working).

Compliance in this regards, does not require intellectual genius, just financial discipline. Consider here, the example of a simple man, a “blue-collar” worker in the US State of Vermont. He is a role model for us all for “how to get rich slowly”:

Title: Janitor bequeaths millions to library, hospital
(Retrieved from CNBC.com – Consumer News & Business Channel site – http://www.cnbc.com/id/102404530)

Reuters; Friday, 6 Feb 2015 – Perhaps the only clue that Ronald Read, a Vermont gas station attendant and janitor who died last year at age 92, had been quietly amassing an $8 million fortune was his habit of reading the Wall Street Journal, his friends and family say.

It was not until last week that the residents of Brattleboro would discover Read’s little secret. That’s when the local library and hospital received the bulk of his estate, built up over the years with savvy stock picks. “Investing and cutting wood, he was good at both of them,” his lawyer Laurie Rowell said on Wednesday, noting that he read the Journal every day.

Most of those who knew Read, described as a frugal and extremely private person, were aware that he could handle an axe. But next to no one knew how well he was handling his financial portfolio.

Read, the first person in his family to graduate from high school, dressed in worn flannel shirts and spent his free time scavenging for fallen branches for his home wood stove. He drove a second-hand Toyota Yaris.

“You’d never know the man was a millionaire,” Rowell said. “The last time he came here, he parked far away in a spot where there were no meters so he could save the coins.”

Read graduated from Brattleboro High School in 1940 and during World War II served in North Africa, Italy and the Pacific theater. Returning home, he worked at Haviland’s service station and then as a janitor at a JCPenney store, marrying a woman with two children.

Before his death on June 2, 2014, Read’s only indulgence was eating breakfast at the local coffee shop, where he once tried to pay his bill only to find that someone had already covered it under the assumption he did not have the means, Rowell said.

Last week, Brooks Memorial Library and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital each received their largest bequests ever. Read left $1.2 million to the library, founded in 1886, and $4.8 million to the hospital, founded in 1904.

“It was a thunderbolt from the sky,” said the library’s executive director, Jerry Carbone. While a surprise, he said the gift made sense once he learned more about the quiet, shy library patron appropriately named Read.

“Being a self-made man with his investments, he recognized the transformative nature of a library, what it can do for people,” Carbone said.

Read’s stepchildren survive him but were not immediately available for comment.

VIDEO 1: – Investing like Vermont’s secret millionaire stock-picker – http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000353159

VIDEO 2: – Janitor’s $8 million fortune – http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000353167

In a previous blog/commentary, it was reported that the US does not make a good role model for its administration of the elderly. The American standard is to delegate elderly family care to professionals, rather than to family, and that this is not an example we want in our region; the referenced quotation was entitled 10 Things We Do Not Want from the US:

# 7: Family Abandonment – Senior Living Facilities are a big industry in the US. This is due to the family habit of abandoning elderly parents to the care of professional strangers. The Caribbean way traditionally is to house their Senior Citizens with families, whether the economics apply or not.

On the other hand, we do admire the US capital markets, as the Go Lean book reports that Wall Street is the most liquid in the world (Page 200). So among the 10 Things We Want from the US, American capital is prominent:

# 3: Capital – There are many Financial Centers around the world (London, Zurich, Hong Kong, etc.) but none with the liquidity like Wall Street. They have the capital the Caribbean needs for Direct Foreign Investments. After the 2008 Financial Crisis, the US Federal Reserve Banks have maintained a policy of flooding the money supply to keep the cost of capital (borrowing) low.

The roadmap uses the model of Wall Street to structure more robust investment vehicles in the regional Caribbean securities markets – the book identifies 9 exchanges. Imagine this one great US product that a Caribbean Diaspora member, a CPA, Clifton Rodriquez, strongly campaigns for: Dividend Re-Investment Plans or DRIPs. His blog entry is attached in the Appendix with his strong urging.

The Go Lean book describes this heavy-lifting to empower Caribbean society to prepare for change and challenges that confront modern financial management, for the macro (national economy) and the micro (individuals and families). There is no “get rich quick” scheme in the roadmap, but rather a comprehensive plan for all Caribbean stakeholders to “get rich slowly” and ensure economic success at home, “prospering where they are planted”. The book describes the turn-by-turn directions for all the community stakeholders to follow to reach the 3 goals defined as the CU/Go Lean prime directives:

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

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the emergence of the Caribbean Dollar (C$) managed by a regional technocratic Caribbean Central Bank. This structure allows for more liquidity in the existing stock exchanges in the regions. Products like DRIPs can be successfully promoted and regulated under the Go Lean’s vision for a more robust regional capital/securities market using Caribbean Dollars (C$).

The CU also embarks on a mission to encourage repatriation of the Diaspora back to the Caribbean homeland and assuage societal abandonment. The book asserts that, senior citizens should avoid the cold climates of North American and EU, especially in the winter months:

“Come in from the cold” – Song title of Caribbean Music Icon Bob Marley from 1980 Album Uprising.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap portrays the need for public messaging to encourage savings/investments, describing deferred gratification as a community ethos that is required to forge permanent change in the Caribbean homeland. In addition, these additional ethos, strategies, tactics and advocacies are trumpeted in the book to optimize financial/retirement planning:

Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Ways to Control Inflation	Page 153
Lessons from New York City – Wall Street Power	Page 137
Ways to Improve Communications – Messaging	Page 186
Reforms for Banking Regulations – Central Banking	Page 199
Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Ways to Impact Retirement	Page 231
Ways to Improve Elder-Care	Page 225

There are many Go Lean blog commentaries that previously stressed the dynamics of technocratic management of regional finances, at the micro level and at the macro level for the Greater Good of Caribbean communities. See sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2930	‘Too Big To Fail’ – Caribbean Version
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2830	Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=949	Inflation Matters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=665	Great Investment Vehicle – Real Estate Investment Trusts explained
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=510	Canadian Retirees – Florida’s Snowbirds Chilly Welcome
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=467	Barbados Central Bank records $3.7m loss in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=372	Dominica Government raises EC$20 million on regional capital market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=364	Time Value of Money – The basis for retirement planning
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=360	How to Create Money from Thin Air
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US: #3 – American Investment Options

The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that many problems of the region are too big for any one member-state to solve alone, that there is the need for the technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. The purpose of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work, learn and play. This effort is more than academic; this involves many practical mitigations and heavy-lifting. While this charter is not easy, it is worth all effort.

The roadmap posits that to succeed as a society, the Caribbean region must arrange for economic, security and governance solutions. Any failure in this regard results in immediate abandonment – people leave – this undermines any empowerment efforts. We need to keep our people at home: the older retirees and the younger workers; they are all important for pension plans and actuarial tables.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes/empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. We must all be able to prosper where we are planted at home.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

APPENDIX – Successful Retirement Investment in the Caribbean – DRIPs

Title: Drip-a Proven Approach to Wealth Building
(Retrieved from: http://cliftonhrodriquez.hubpages.com/hub/DRIP-A-PROVEN-APPROACH-TO-WEALTH-BUILDING)
By: Clifton H. Rodriquez

What Are DRIPS?
Direct stock and dividend reinvestment plans, or to use the acronym, DRIP’s have been around for some eighty (80) years. As the name suggests, they permit investors to directly invest in any a significant number of public companies without going through a stock broker. Investors are able to buy stocks directly from the companies, or via a transfer agent. In general, the purchase would entail a modest down payment coupled with automatic monthly payments. The term “IRM 72’s” is also used to describe DRIPs. The two names are one in the same and should not be viewed as different investment vehicles.

WEALTH BUILDING OVER TIME
As aforementioned, DRIP’s maybe referred to as IRM 72’s as well. They are an efficient and effective mechanism for building substantial financial nest-eggs over time. They are efficient investment vehicles because they allow investors to pay a small investment fee, usually for administrative purposes, while investing substantially more of their money in a particular stock. In some cases, a number of companies will cover some of the administrative fees, especially ones involving reinvestment of dividends, associated with DRIP investing. It is a fact that even discount brokers cannot match the low costs associated with DRIP investing. Furthermore, greater efficiency is realized with DRIPs due to “dollar cost average” associated with purchasing risk assets (stocks) over time. In a nutshell, investors are able to acquire more of a particular stock when the market price declines, but less when the price increases. However, over the extended period of time, the actual costs averages out.

It is an effective mechanism because unlike investing lump sums of money and taking greater risk, DRIPs allow for gradual investing over time and investors tend not to feel the pain of the volatility that often arises from time to time in the market. Thus, DRIP investors are less likely to panic and pull money out of their DRIP portfolios whenever bad news hits the market and causes chaos and panic (i.e., the root cause of volatility in the stock market). DRIP investors tend to appreciate market dips because they view them as opportunities to pick up their stocks at bargained prices. Picking up the stocks at these bargained prices tend to add to DRIP investors capital appreciation whenever other investors return to the stock market and chase stocks to higher prices. This is merely one way in which DRIP investors make money on their investments, and the other way is in effect “icing on the cake”.

DRIP investors experience icing on their investment cakes from the high dividend yields that they get from their investments. It is not inconceivable for DRIP stocks to give dividend yields as high sixteen (16%) percent. The yield is determined by taking the annual dividend and dividing it by current market price. Of course the higher the annual dividend, and the lower the current stock price, the greater the dividend yield. The opposite also is true. Most DRIP stock pay quarterly dividends, but several also pay monthly dividends which provide a higher effective yield to investors. Even if a DRIP stock does not increase in market price, if it has a high single or double digit yield that maybe enough for investors to maintain their positions in the stocks. Thus, it is a rarity to see many of these stocks decline in value. Investors tend to chase them for their dividend yields.

Investors chase these stocks for their dividend yields because these yields tend to fuel geometric growth in DRIP accounts, especially when an investor re-invests their dividends (i.e., use their dividends to buy additional shares of stocks). The re-investment of the dividends coupled with automatic monthly investment tend to bring about a profound compounding effect in the DRIP accounts. This effect can only be described as geometric in nature, and the value of the account tend to quickly double in most cases over a short period of time. Thus, the dividend yield of any DRIP stock is very important. The higher the yield the less time it takes for the DRIP account to grow geometrically.

DRIPs are the only investment vehicle that can create a greater wealth effect. No other investment (i.e., real estate or anything else) is more effective at creating wealth than investing in stocks. However, only forty nine (49%) of Americans are actively trading stocks (December 2014 Issue of “DRIP Investor”). Thus, 51% of Americans have their money tied up in other investment vehicles like real estate, or in most cases, institutions (i.e., banks or insurance companies). Thus, the wealth gap will continue to widen as long as a minority of Americans is invested in the stock market. Why? Again, the US Stock Market creates more millionaires and billionaires than any other investment institution. The stock market, in effect, provides an effective way in which US and other investors can not only stay abreast of inflation, but soundly beat inflation.

Unfortunately, the majority of Americans will not beat inflation. They will continue to receive negative real returns on their investments because many of them simply do not understand “time value of money”. They are convinced that banks and insurance companies are the safest places for their money, despite the fact that banks in general pay as little as a 1/2 of one percent return on passbook savings, while insurance companies will pay about two point five (2.5) percent on their best financial vehicles (annuities). Treasury bonds yields are somewhere in between what a bank will pay on its passbook savings and certificate of deposit (COD) account. The dividend yield pickings are slight to none whenever investors look at alternative investments to the stock market. According to time value of money (future value of a lump sum and future value of an annuity), money will not grow well whenever simple interest is paid. Thus, banks and insurance companies are simply middlemen which must be cut out of the equation if an investor wants to realize geometric growth (compounding effect).

In most cases, the banks and insurance companies simply take the very dollars that investors entrust to them, and lend them out to other customers (in form of secured loans) at much higher rates. The banks in particular cannot directly invest depositors dollars into the US Stock Market, and they do have to maintain certain reserve balances in accordance with the Feds’ guidelines and regulations. Nevertheless, these banks and insurance companies, collectively known as institutional investors, do move the Markets with the huge amount of dollars that they invest in stocks. They realize tremendous returns, but continue to pay nominal returns on their passbook savings and CODs. They get away with it because 51% of American investors fear investing their money in the stock market. They believe that their money is “safe” in a bank because the banks will claim that they are “FDIC” insured up to $250,000.00 per bank account. This insurance actually comes from the American Taxpayer who ultimately foots the bill for any failed commercial depository, or savings and loans. This was the case in 1989-1991 when the U.S. taxpayers bailed out the savings and loans industry. What the banks do not tell their customers is that they are actually getting negative real returns on their passbook savings and COD accounts. Why is that? If inflation is running at 2.5% in the U.S.,and the banks are merely paying a half (1/2) of one (1) percent, then it stands to reasons that most investors are losing purchasing power by keeping their money in a passbook savings or COD account.

A bank customer will not experience any degree of wealth by simply putting money in a passbook savings or COD account. As a matter of fact, given time value of money concepts, it would be better for a bank customer to keep their money under their mattress, given the negative returns that they experience by putting it in a passbook saving or COD account. The only real way to build any meaningful wealth over time is by investing directly into stocks. Stocks are risk assets, but given the fact that the US Stock Market is down roughly 20% to 25% of the time and up 75% to 80% of the time, it is a “no-brainer” for investors to stay in the stock market, especially if their investment time horizon is long-term (1-30 years). It is a fact that substantial wealth in the stock market can be built over time with consistent investing and reinvesting of dividends and capital gains. Unfortunately for the 51% of Americans who look to bank and insurance companies, the stock market is the only profitable game in town.

Anyone, even workers on minimum wages, can invest in the stock market via DRIP investing. This author started a DRIP portfolio back on November 1, 2012 with four stocks, AGNC, COP, COST, and TM (see below for details). The initial investment over the one year period amounted to $6,500.00. As of October 31, 2013, the DRIP Portfolio grew by five (5) additional stocks and had an accumulated market value of $13,078. The estimated return during the first year of investment was roughly 52.6%, most of the return came from the performance of Toyota Motor Corporation (TM), ConocoPhillips Corporation (COP) and JP Morgan Chase Bank (JPM) Over the next one year period that it grew to 15 stocks (AFLAC is not clearly shown in the depiction). Additional capital investment totaled $15,000, but most of the growth resulted from re-investment of dividends and capital gains. As of the close of the stock market on December 19th, 2014 the value of the author’s DRIP Portfolio is $50,700 plus. By this time next year (i.e., December 20, 2015), the projected value of the Portfolio will be around $80,000 to $85,000, given that the same investment strategy will be maintained, and additional capital investment of $15,000 to 20,000 will be made in American Capital Agency Corporation (AGNC), which has an effective dividend yield of 11.5%, a net book value of $25.25.

Investing in the U.S. Stock Market, or any of the capital markets entails considerable risk. Any potential investor exposing their capital to these markets need to do their homework prior to buying risk assets. This homework may entail in depth consultation with financial and investment advisers prior to any funds being committed to risk assets. An investor should never under any circumstances expose capital to the markets if they cannot afford to lose said capital. A potential investor should never rely solely upon anything that is written in this article, or any other article as the only source of prudent investment advice and basis for any decision making. Again, a proper research and consultation coupled with professional investment advice from reliable source should govern any investment decisions, regardless of the amount of capital involved, or the investment strategy employed.

My DRIP Portfolio

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Caribbean Ghost Towns: It Could Happen…Again

Posted on February 11, 2015 in Economics, Government, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The Caribbean is in crisis today; but even more so, if left unchecked, the crisis gets worst tomorrow (near future). We are at the point, and have been here for some time, where we are completely dysfunctional as a society; we are at the precipice. How else would one explain why citizens from the most beautiful addresses on the planet are “breaking down the doors” to get out, either through legal means or illegal ones?

“Things will always work themselves out” – Popular fallacy.

There is no guarantee of our survival. Communities and societies do fail; success is not assured; the work must be done, we must “sow if we want to reap”.

The reality of ghost towns, in the Caribbean and around the world, is a reminder to failing communities of where the road ends. Consider the definition of ghost towns here:

A ghost town is an abandoned village, town or city, usually one which contains substantial visible remains. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters. The term can sometimes refer to cities, towns, and neighborhoods which are still populated, but significantly less so than in years past; for example those affected by high levels of unemployment and dereliction.^[1]

Some ghost towns, especially those that preserve period-specific architecture, have become tourist attractions. Some examples are Bannack, Montana; Calico, California; Centralia, Pennsylvania; and Oatman, Arizona in the United States; Barkerville, British Columbia in Canada; Craco in Italy; ElizabethBay and Kolmanskop in Namibia; and Pripyat in Ukraine. Visiting, writing about, and photographing ghost towns is a minor industry. A recent modern-day example is Ōkuma, Fukushima, which was abandoned due to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. (Also see Battleship or Hashima Island in the Appendix-VIDEO below).

There is a ghost town that is an incumbent de jure capital: Plymouth in the Caribbean island of Montserrat*. This city was abandoned in 1997 due to volcanic eruptions and is now part of an Exclusion Zone.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_town retrieved February 11, 2015)

The book Go Lean … Caribbean stresses reboots, reorganizations and general turn-around of failing economic engines in favor of winning formulas. The book quotes a noted American Economist Paul Romer with this famous quotation:

“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste”.

The encyclopedic reference of ghost towns continues:

Ghost towns may result when the single activity or resource that created a boomtown (e.g., nearby mine, mill or resort) is depleted or the resource economy undergoes a “bust” (e.g., catastrophic resource price collapse). Boomtowns can often decrease in size as fast as they initially grew. Sometimes, all or nearly the entire population can desert the town, resulting in a ghost town.

The dismantling of a boomtown can often occur on a planned basis. Mining companies nowadays will create a temporary community to service a mine site, building all the accommodation shops and services, and then remove it as the resource is worked out. A gold rush would often bring intensive but short-lived economic activity to a remote village, only to leave a ghost town once the resource was depleted.

In some cases, multiple factors may remove the economic basis for a community; some former mining towns on U.S. Route 66 suffered both mine closures when the resources were depleted and loss of highway traffic as US 66 was diverted away from places like Oatman, Arizona onto a more direct path.

The Middle East has many ghost towns that were created when the shifting of politics or the fall of empires caused capital cities to be socially or economically non-viable, such as Ctesiphon, (a once great city of ancient Mesopotamia; today’s modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, and the northeastern section of Syria).

The Go Lean book posits that many Caribbean communities suffer from a mono-industrial complex (Page 3), therefore the risk is high for the same ghost town eventuality like so many other towns have experienced. Yes, ghost towns could happen in the Caribbean … again.

In fact, the 2nd city in the Bahamas, Freeport, on the island of Grand Bahama is experiencing a sharp decline in it’s economic output – where tourism is the primary industry – calculated at 66 percent decline from 2004 to 2013 for air arrivals. They are now near a failed-city status.

Freeport’s tourism, which used to top over a million visitors a year – with air arrivals and cruise passengers – has considerably diminished since 2004, when two major hurricanes, Hurricane Frances and Hurricane Jeanne, hit the island; then the following year (2005), Hurricane Wilma reiterated more destruction to Freeport’s economic engines – many hotels shuttered their doors for good. Since then, several cruise ships also stopped their weekly visits to the island. Much of the remaining tourist industry is centered on the seaside suburb of Lucaya; in fact the city is often promoted as Freeport/Lucaya. Most remaining hotels on the island are located along the southern shore in Lucaya. The primary shopping venues for tourists used to be the popular International Bazaar near downtown Freeport, but now the focus has shifted to the Port Lucaya Marketplace, an outdoor mall-like complex near the beach-side hotel-resorts.

What of the current disposition of the International Bazaar in the downtown area? Unfortunately, the adjoining hotel-casino-resort, Royal Oasis, closed after the above hurricanes and never re-opened. A local Bahamas photography magazine thusly dubbed the International Bazaar as a “ghost town”. (Retrieved February 11, 2015; article entitled: “The International Bazaar – The Lost Shopping Mecca”):

What happened to this marvelous structure? I do not know. What is its fate? I still do not know. What I do know: it is a sad day when one of the Bahamas’ greatest attractions has been reduced to a ghost town. What I can tell you is that it seems as if the excitement has moved from the Bazaar to Port Lucaya. It is now the New Shopping Mecca of Grand Bahama.

Photo Caption: Freeport’s International Bazaar in it’s “Hey Day”

Photo Caption: Freeport’s International Bazaar Ghost Town Today

See TripAdvisor.com comments of disappointed visitors:

In fact, many more comments abound on the internet with “ghost town” comparisons for Freeport.

Freeport must now reboot, or face the eventuality: Ghost Town!

This sad reality of Montserrat and Freeport is an omen for the rest of the Caribbean.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is structured to turn-around failing Caribbean communities; it is proffered to provide economic, security and governance solutions for all 30 member Caribbean states, including Montserrat and Freeport. This mandate is detailed early on in the book’s Declaration of Interdependence, as follows (Page 12 & 13):

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 Go Lean book posits that failing Caribbean communities can be rescued, that if “we do what we have always done, we get what we have always got”. Therefore Caribbean communities must adopt different community ethos, plus the executions of key strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to bring about change, empowerment and turn-around . The following is a sample:

Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Around – Recycling and Demolition Industries	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Foster Local Economic Engines to Diversify the Economy	Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Meteorological and Geological Service	Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Self-Governing Entities	Page 80
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Re-boot Freeport	Page 112
Planning – Big Ideas – Virtual “Turnpike” Operations to Ensure Continued Relevance	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons from East Germany	Page 139
Planning – Lessons from Detroit – Model of City needing Turn-around	Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Better Improve for Natural Disasters – Volcanoes and Hurricanes	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management – Casualty Insurance to Rebuild	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Appendix – Job Multipliers	Page 259

Natural disasters are an inevitability in the Caribbean: earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. We must insure and assure the business continuity of our communities’ economic engines. To recover, rebuild and reboot communities like Montserrat and Freeport after disasters, the burden or heavy-lifting should be spread across the full region, as leverage for all 30 member-states.

In order to avoid the pitfalls and eventuality of “ghost towns”, communities must diversify their economy. The Go Lean book also describes this heavy-lifting effort to facilitate this goal. The book describes the turn-by-turn directions for all the community stakeholders to follow to reach this goal, categorizing the effort as these 3 prime directives:

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

In summary, ghost towns abound throughout the world, (see Appendix-VIDEO below), and can happen again here in the Caribbean region. A mono-industrial economy is bad; disaster remediation and mitigations are good; diversity is good!

The CU will take the lead … for optimizing economic, security and governing engines. (Starting with a diversification from tourism). Everyone is hereby urged to lean-in to this CU/Go Lean roadmap to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

Appendix – *Plymouth, Montserrat

Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory located in the Caribbean. The island is located in the Leeward Islands chain of islands.^[2] Montserrat is nicknamed The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean both for its resemblance to coastal Ireland and for the Irish ancestry of some of its inhabitants.^[3]

Plymouth was the capital of the island of Montserrat. For centuries it had been the only port of entry to the island. On 18 July 1995, the previously dormant Soufrière Hills volcano, in the southern part of the island, became active. Eruptions destroyed this Georgian era capital city and two-thirds of the island’s population was forced to flee.^[6] The town was overwhelmed and was abandoned. The volcanic activity continues, even today, mostly affecting the vicinity of Plymouth, including its docking facilities, and the eastern side of the island around the former W.H. Bramble Airport, the remnants of which were buried by flows from volcanic activity on 11 February 2010.

An Exclusion Zone that extends from the south coast of the island north to parts of the BelhamValley was imposed because of the size of the existing volcanic dome and the resulting potential for pyroclastic activity. Visitors are generally not permitted entry into the exclusion zone, but an impressive view of the destruction of Plymouth can be seen from the top of Garibaldi Hill in IslesBay. Relatively quiet since early 2010, the volcano continues to be closely monitored by the Montserrat Volcano Observatory.

A new town and port is being developed at Little Bay, which is on the northwest coast of the island. While this construction proceeds, the centre of government and businesses rests new Village of Brades in the northen extremes of the island.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montserrat retrieved February 11, 2015)

———

VIDEO: Battleship Island: Japan’s Ultimate Ghost Town – http://youtu.be/wHbQMhmsGPc

Uploaded on Dec 30, 2011 – This island – also known as Hashima Island is among the Japanese chain – sits 9 miles off the coast of Nagasaki. It was the administrative and residential base for undersea coal mines. As a ghost town it serves as a filming location for many projects, including serving as the inspiration for the external filming sets for the film Skyfall – James Bond 007. For more stunning images of this Holy Grail of all industrial ruins, see: https://www.flickr.com/photos/picturenarrative/sets/72157628124548378/with/6388285131/

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A Lesson in History – Panamanian Balboa

Posted on February 10, 2015 in Economics, Government

Go Lean Commentary

America has surely changed over the past century!

The people, institutions and governance of the US are now more tolerant of minorities and their communities. As such, there are no more American complexities in overthrowing Latin American & Caribbean governments.

Wink-wink …

This hypothesis is validated with the lesson in history from 1941 in the Republic of Panama. This Central American country is a young nation; they were formed in 1903 after seceding from the Republic of Colombia, with US backing. The new country immediately signed a treaty with the US to allow the construction of the Panama Canal, by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and a perpetual lease* for its operations. The country’s separation from Colombia also included changing from the Colombian Peso currency. So in 1904 the Panamanian Balboa currency was launched, but as coins only; the country used the US Dollar as banknotes.

A basic tenant of macro-economics is that countries should issue their own currency and banknotes so as to better influence the economic engines in their communities. By manipulating the banknote quantity and the “Discount Rate” in a Fractional Central Banking System, monetary supply can be regulated, interest rates controlled; credit markets tamed; and yes, money can be created from “thin air”. Panama had none of this control, due to its lack of banknotes.

In 1941, the then-President Dr. Arnulfo Arias pushed the government to create the Central Bank and to issue paper currency.^[2] The bank was authorized, constitutionally, to issue up to 6 million Balboas worth of paper notes, but only 2.7 million Balboas were issued on 2 October 1941. Seven days later, Arias was deposed in a military coup – supported by the United States – and replaced by Dr. Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango as President. The new government immediately closed the bank, withdrew the issued notes, and burned all unissued money stock. In the 74 years since then, the country has never re-attempted to issue its own paper money currency; they continue to use US Dollars, even today.

A bit extreme?

This lesson in history is presented in a consideration of the book Go Lean…Caribbean; it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and Caribbean Central Bank (CCB) to provide better stewardship in ensuring that the currency and economic failures of the past, in the Caribbean and other regions, do not re-occur here in the homeland. The book posits that we must NOT fashion ourselves as an American parasite economy, but rather pursue a status as a protégé.

The full details of the Panamanian Balboa history is provided here:

Title: Panamanian Balboa
(Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia (Retrieved 02/09/2015) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamanian_balboa)

The Balboa (sign: B/.; ISO 4217: PAB) is, along with the United States dollar, one of the official currencies of Panama. It is named in honor of the Spanish explorer / conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa. The Balboa is subdivided into 100 centésimos.

The history of the Panamanian Balboa

The Balboa replaced the Colombian Peso in 1904 following the country’s independence. The Balboa has been tied to the United States dollar (which is legal tender in Panama) at an exchange rate of 1:1 since its introduction and has always circulated alongside dollars.

Coins

In 1904, silver coins in denominations of 2½, 5, 10, 25, and 50 centésimos were introduced. These coins were weight-related to the 25 gram 50 centésimos, making the 2½ centésimos coin 1¼ grams. Its small size led to it being known as the “Panama pill” or the “Panama pearl”. In 1907, copper-nickel ½ and 2½ centésimos coins were introduced, followed by copper-nickel 5 centésimos in 1929. In 1930, coins for ¹⁄₁₀, ¼, and ½ Balboa were introduced, followed by 1 balboa in 1931, which were identical in size and composition to the corresponding U.S. coins. In 1935, bronze 1 centésimo coins were introduced, with 1¼ centésimo pieces minted in 1940.

In 1966, Panama followed the U.S. in changing the composition of their silver coins, with copper-nickel clad ¹⁄₁₀ and ¼ Balboa, and .400 fineness ½ Balboa. 1 balboa coins, at .900 fineness silver, were issued that year for the first time since 1947. In 1973, copper-nickel clad ½ Balboa coins were introduced. 1973 also saw the revival of the 2½ centésimos coin, which had a size similar to that of the U.S. half dime, but these were discontinued two years later due to lack of popular demand. In 1983, 1 centésimo coins followed their U.S. counterpart by switching from copper to copper plated zinc. Further issues of the 1 Balboa coins have been made since 1982 in copper-nickel without reducing the size.

Modern 1 and 5 centésimos and ¹⁄₁₀, ¼, and ½ balboa coins are the same weight, dimensions, and composition as the U.S. cent, nickel, dime, quarter, and half-dollar, respectively. In 2011, new 1 and 2 balboa bi-metal coins were issued.^[1]

In addition to the circulating issues, commemorative coins with denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, and 500 Balboas have been issued.

Banknotes

In 1941, President Dr. Arnulfo Arias pushed the government to enact Article 156 to the constitution, authorizing official and private banks to issue paper money. As a result, on 30 September 1941, El Banco Central de Emission de la Republica de Panama was established.^[2]

The bank was authorized to issue up to 6,000,000 Balboas worth of paper notes, but only 2,700,000 balboas were issued on 2 October 1941. A week later, Dr. Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango replaced Arias as president in a coup supported by the United States. The new government immediately closed the bank, withdrew the issued notes, and burned all unissued stocks of same. Very few of these so-called “Arias Seven Day” notes escaped incineration.

Reference Notes:
1. http://worldcoinnews.blogspot.com/search/label/panama
2. Linzmayer, Owen (2012). “Panama”. The Banknote Book. San Francisco, CA: www.BanknoteNews.com.

Panama is out-of-scope of this Go Lean empowerment roadmap. They are not a member-state that caucuses with the Caribbean Community (CariCom), and they do not even have an “Observer” representation/status within the trade bloc. But since a part of their territory-coastline is on the Caribbean Sea, their dealings should generate review and monitoring from Caribbean planners. There are many issues for the Caribbean to consider – from an academic point-of-view – about this history of Panama: an obvious failed-state as recent as the 1980’s.

Is the American manipulations in Panama’s past reflective of the same America today? The assumption is No! The US no longer draws such “hard lines” in their interactions with peoples of different ethnicity. The country has endured deep soul-searching and reconciliation of its racial past, (Civil Rights Movement, Affirmative Action, etc.), and now even the President of the United States is a Black Man. On the surface today, America is a color-blind society.

On the surface!

Behind the scenes, under the covers, there is another reality. The current American experience is that Black-and-Brown is still institutionally disadvantaged and Wall Street, and by extension “Big American Business”, wields uncanny power over the socio-economic-political affairs of the country. For this and other reasons, the Go Lean movement advocates for Caribbean people and institutions to take their own lead for their own determination. We want to be a protégé of the US, not a parasite.

The roadmap calls for a cooperative entity of the existing regional Central Banks to foster interdependence for the regional Greater Good. We must issue Caribbean banknotes, branded Caribbean Dollars (C$). The totality of the regional market, 42 million people in 30 member-states, is large enough to allow for streamlining of the marketplace, creating the right climate for viable currency/financial/securities markets. While there might be some reticence for liberal currency operations, considering that so many Caribbean member-states had to learn hard lessons on currency over the decades – painful devaluations – the CU is to be structured as a technocracy, with the right mix of skilled talent, gifted genius and independent oversight to allow regional C$ currency markets to soar.

The strategy is not a pro-American stance, no pegging to the US Dollar, therefore no losses will be experienced when the US dollar drops value compared to other international currencies, a far too frequent an occurrence in the last 50 years. The US Dollar planners (Federal Reserve) do not have the Caribbean best-interest in mind for their technocratic decisions regarding their currency management; they have American self-interest in mind. Therefore the Caribbean region must overcome any “fear of math” because the C$ may become stronger, (see VIDEO below), in comparison to the US$. This is why e-Commerce and e-Payments schemes are strongly urged within the CU/Go Lean roadmap.

In general, the CU will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

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

Early in the Go Lean book, this need for careful technocratic stewardship of the regional Caribbean economy was pronounced (Declaration of Interdependence – Page 12 – 13) 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.

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

xxv.   Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

The Go Lean book, and previous blog/commentaries, stressed the key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to regulate and manage the regional financial eco-system for the Caribbean currency. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

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 – Economic Principles – Money Multiplier	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Fortify the Stability of the Banking Institutions	Page 45
Strategy – Provide Proper Oversight and Support for the Depository Institutions	Page 46
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Minimizing Bubbles	Page 69
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Caribbean Central Bank	Page 73
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Depository Institutions Regulatory Agency	Page 73
Anecdote – Turning Around CARICOM – Effects of 2008 Financial Crisis	Page 92
Implementation – Assemble Caribbean Central Bank as a Cooperative	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Planning –10 Big Ideas – Single Market / Currency Union	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress	Page 147
Anecdote – Caribbean Currencies	Page 149
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Control Inflation	Page 153
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Appendix – Controlling Inflation – Technical Details	Page 318
Appendix – Jamaica’s International Perception – “High inflation and currency dysfunction”	Page 297

The points of effective, technocratic banking/economic stewardship of regional currencies, were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3889	RBC EZPay – Ready for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3858	ECB unveils 1 trillion Euro stimulus program
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3814	Lessons from the Swiss unpegging the franc
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3743	Trinidad cuts 2015 budget as oil prices tumble
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3582	For Canadian Banks: Caribbean is a ‘Bad Bet’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3090	Lessons Learned – Europe Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2009
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2930	‘Too Big To Fail’ – Caribbean Version
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=949	Inflation Matters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=833	One currency, divergent economies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=518	Analyzing the Data – What Banks learn about financial risks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=378	US Federal Reserve Releases Transcripts from 2008 Meetings/Stimulus
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – #3: Quantitative Easing

Similar to Panama, there are a number of Caribbean member-states that use the US dollar as their sole paper currency:

British Virgin Island
Turks & Caicos Islands
Dutch Caribbean Territories: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
US Territories of Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands

The Go Lean book reports that previous Caribbean administrations have failed miserably in managing regional currencies. Consider Jamaica for example, despite being pegged 1-to-1 with the US dollar in 1960’s, the J$ was trading at 87-to-1 with the US$ at press time for the book (November 2013). Other countries (like Trinidad, Dominican Republic, and the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union states) experienced similar turmoil, though at lesser rates of devaluation. The book opens with the declaration that the Caribbean is in crisis because of episodes like these currency failings. In every case, the direct after-effect was increased societal abandonment, and now the reported brain-drain rate is estimated at 70%, with some countries even reporting up to 81%. This disposition is symptomatic of a Failed-State status.

Currency management includes details of more than just the paper-money people carry in their wallets. The book describes the 4 basic functions of money:

a medium of exchange
a unit of account
a store of value
a standard of deferred payment

These dynamics have an effect on inflation/deflation and trade facilitation with other countries. So Central Banks must strenuously manage currency issues to ensure economic progress and avoid financial dysfunction. This point is conveyed in the following VIDEO, as regards the Central Bank management of the Chinese Yuan.

VIDEO: Pegging the Yuan – http://youtu.be/S-9iY1OgbDE

Uploaded on Oct 25, 2010 – How the Chinese Central Bank could peg the Yuan to the dollar by printing Yuan and buying dollars (building up a dollar reserve). This lesson in macro-economics can be applied to any Central Bank, any other currency.

There are so many currency issues that have to be coordinated that the Go Lean book describes the effort as heavy-lifting. The roadmap (Page 5) declares that change has come to the Caribbean, and that new technocrats are ready to assume oversight of regional currency issues:

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

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

(Lyrics of song: Lean On Me, by Singer/Songwriter: Bill Withers)

This is not the same world as 1941 Panama, but still there are many lessons to learn and apply in the Caribbean. The goal is simple, to move the region to a new destination: a better homeland to live, work and play. Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, banking establishments and the governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean.

🙂

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

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* Appendix Footnote: Subsequent treaties added an expiration date for 1999; the Canal is now fully Panamanian.

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Country	Police	Ambulance		Fire
Mexico	066	065		068
Bahamas	919 or 911
Haiti	114	118		115
Jamaica	119	110
Trinidad and Tobago	999	990
Guyana	911	913	912
Suriname	112