Month: April 2017

ENCORE: Creating a Legacy in Pro-Surfing

Posted on April 13, 2017 in Economics, Industries, Locations, Social

CU Blog - Surfing Legacy - Photo 1Time marches on, while the legacy of pro-surfing in the French Caribbean continues to grow.

Welcome to Martinique, and some of the best surfing on the planet.

This original Go Lean blog-commentary from April 14, 2015 is re-distributed on this occasion of the Third Annual Martinique Surf Pro, which just transpired April 1 through April 8, 2017. And the winner is:

Title: Ricardo Christie conquered the 2017 Martinique Surf Pro, at Basse-Pointe, in Martinique.

Christie proved he’s ready to return to the Dream Tour by putting out a competent performance at the righthand pointbreak. And he needed six rides to clinch the tasty trophy.

“When the waves are like that you can forget everything and just go out there and surf. I feel like I’ve improved a lot,” explained Ricardo Christie, who failed to requalify at the end of his rookie season on the Championship Tour.

“I’ve just been working really hard, and I learned a lot when I was on tour. It doesn’t feel like it’s over; it’s just the beginning of the year, so I just have to keep doing my thing.”

With this victory in Martinique, Ricardo Christie jumped 91 places to number 10 on the QS rankings.

Source: Posted April 10, 2017; retrieved April 12, 2017 from: http://www.surfertoday.com/surfing/13558-ricardo-christie-wins-the-2017-martinique-surf-pro

Consider the VIDEO highlights from this year’s event.

This event – part sports; part culture; is all tourism. It is building momentum! We need more events like this. See the Encore below describing how the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean will strategize for sports tourism; this means more and more events … in different sports.

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Go Lean Commentary – Title: Is Martinique the Next Caribbean Surfing Capital?


Sports could be big business; culture is big business. Every now-and-then there is the opportunity to merge sports and culture into a single economic activity. One such expression is the sports/culture of surfing. This focus is a priority for the movement to elevate the Caribbean society, stemming from the book Go Lean…Caribbean.

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). While the CU is not intended as a sports promotion entity, it does promote the important role of sports in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

Though surfing activities originated with Polynesian culture (see Appendix below), the sport has assimilated well in other societies – the Caribbean included.

In terms of cultural expressions of surfing in the United States, the most iconic portrayal is the Rock-n-Roll group the Beach Boys; see VIDEO in the Appendix below of a milestone performance in Tokyo, Japan.

Yes surfing is global in its participation and appreciation.

Now a Caribbean community, the French-domain of Martinique is exploring the surfing sub-culture for sport, tourism and sports-tourism.

Cowabonga* Dude!

By: The Caribbean Journal staff

Long an under-the-radar surfing spot, the French Caribbean island will get its place in the spotlight when the surfing world gathers on the island later this month for the first-ever Martinique Surf Pro.

From April 21-26, the Caribbean’s only World Surf League Qualification Series event this year will take place along the shores of Basse-Pointe in Martinique.

The event, which is being organized by Martinique Surfing in partnership with the World Surf League, will bring together 100 world-class surfers from the United States, Japan, Europe, Brazil and the Caribbean.

“Martinique has been among the best-kept secrets in Caribbean surfing for some time now,” said Muriel Wiltord, director of the Americas for the Martinique Promotion Bureau. “Such a high-profile event as this cements the island’s position as a prime surfing destination. As one the top watersports competitions being held in the Caribbean in 2015, Martinique Surf Pro also shines a spotlight on the wide range of additional watersports options that Martinique has to offer.”

Martinique’s surfing season typically lasts between November and May along its northern and northeastern Atlantic coasts.

Source retrieved April 13, 2015: http://www.caribjournal.com/2015/04/13/is-martinique-the-next-caribbean-surfing-capital/

CU Blog - Is Martinique the next big Caribbean surfing capital - Photo 2

CU Blog - Is Martinique the next big Caribbean surfing capital - Photo 3

CU Blog - Is Martinique the next big Caribbean surfing capital - Photo 1

Not every coastline is ideal for surfing; thusly many Caribbean residents do not surf; it is not an indigenous activity to this region. But the past-time – and culture for that matter – is adaptable. Why is this? While the Caribbean has been blessed with many natural gifts, the physical conditions for surfing are not everywhere; (based on factual information retrieved from Wikipedia).

There must be a consistent swell. A swell is generated when wind blows consistently over a large area of open water, called the wind’s fetch. The size of a swell is determined by the strength of the wind and the length of its fetch and duration. Because of this, surf tends to be larger and more prevalent on coastlines exposed to large expanses of ocean traversed by intense low pressure systems.

Local wind conditions affect wave quality, since the surface of a wave can become choppy in blustery conditions. Ideal conditions include a light to moderate “offshore” wind, because it blows into the front of the wave, making it a “barrel” or “tube” wave. Waves are Left handed and Right Handed depending upon the breaking formation of the wave.

Waves are generally recognized by the surfaces over which they break.[7] For example, there are Beach breaks, Reef breaks and Point breaks.

The most important influence on wave shape is the topography of the seabed directly behind and immediately beneath the breaking wave. The contours of the reef or bar front becomes stretched by diffraction. Each break is different, since each location’s underwater topography is unique. At beach breaks, sandbanks change shape from week to week. Surf forecasting is aided by advances in information technology. Mathematical modeling graphically depicts the size and direction of swells around the globe.

So mastering the sport of surfing is now an art and a science.

Despite the fun and joy of surfing, there are a lot of dangers with this activity:

This activity is not for the faint of heart.

Not every market, especially in the Caribbean, can support the demands of surfing as a sport and as a cultural event. As depicted in the foregoing article, Martinique uniquely qualifies. This year’s professional tournament is the inaugural event. This Caribbean island makes a very short-list of all locations where this activity is practical. The following is a sample of the competitive/major surfing locations (Surf Cities) around the globe:

1. In Australia

2. In Asia

3. In the South Pacific

4. In South Africa

5. In North America

6. In Central America

7. In South America

8. In the USA

9. In Europe

The Martinique effort and initiative to satiate the thirst … and fascination of surfing aligns with the objects of the CU/Go Lean roadmap; especially the mission “to forge industries and economic drivers around the individual and group activities of sports and culture” (Page 81).

The Go Lean vision is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean forming the CU as a proxy organization to do the heavy-lighting of building, funding, maintaining and promoting sports venues. The strategy is for the CU to be the landlord, and super-regional regulatory agency, for sports leagues, federations and associations (amateur, collegiate, and professional). The embrace and promotion of the sport and culture of surfing can contribute to the Greater Good for the Caribbean. This aligns with the prime directives of the CU/Go Lean roadmap; summarized in the book with these 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 the participants in activities like surfing.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This roadmap commences with the recognition that genius qualifiers can be found in many fields of endeavor, including sports. The roadmap pronounces the need for the region to confederate in order to invest in elevation of the Caribbean eco-systems in which such athletic geniuses can soar. These pronouncements are made in the opening Declaration of Interdependence, (Pages 13 & 14) as follows:

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.

xxii. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The Go Lean book and accompanying blogs declare that the Caribbean needs to learn lessons from Surf City communities and other sporting venues/administrations. So thusly this subject of the “business of sports” is a familiar topic for Go Lean blogs. This cause was detailed in these previous blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6464 NEW: WWE Network – Model for Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4019 Melding of Sports & Technology; the Business of the Super Bowl
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3414 Levi’s® Stadium: A Team Effort
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3244 Sports Role Model – espnW
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2222 Sports Role Model – Playing For Pride … And More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2171 Sports Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2152 Sports Role Model – US versus the World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1715 Lebronomy – Economic Impact of the Return of the NBA Great
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1446 Caribbean Players in the 2014 World Cup
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341 College World Series Time – Lessons from Omaha
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214 Landlord of Temporary Stadiums
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148 Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020 Sports Revolutionary: Advocate Jeffrey Webb
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498 Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318 Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60 Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

This Go Lean roadmap is committed to availing the economic opportunities of all the Caribbean sports eco-system to respond to the world’s thirst for surfing. The book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to deliver the regional solutions to better harness economic benefits from sports and sports-tourism activities:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
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 Local Government – Parks & Recreation Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds as Sporting Venues Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues Page 234

What could be the end result for the Go Lean roadmap’s venture into the sport of surfing and the business of sports? Economic growth and “jobs”. The Go Lean roadmap anticipates 21,000 direct jobs at sports enterprises throughout the region.

But surfing is also a leisure amenity, a “play” activity within the Go Lean roadmap. Many participate in this activity with no competitive motives. So the promotion of surfing in the Caribbean region can appeal to many enthusiasts far-and-wide to come visit and enjoy our Caribbean hospitality. This subject therefore relates back to the primary regional economic activity of tourism. This fits into the appeal of the Caribbean sun, sand and surf.

Overall, with these executions, the Caribbean region can be a better place to live, work and play. There is a lot of economic activity in the “play” aspects of society. Everyone, surfers, athletes and spectators alike, are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap.

Cowabonga Dudes!

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

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

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Appendix – *Cowabunga: (slang) an expression of surprise or amazement, often followed by “dude”. Popular among California surfers.

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Appendix – Encyclopedia of Surfing:

For centuries, surfing was a central part of ancient Polynesian culture. This activity was first observed by Europeans at Tahiti in 1767 by Samuel Wallis and the crew members of the Dolphin; they were the first Europeans to visit the island in June of that year.

Surfing is a surface water sport in which the wave rider, referred to as a surfer, rides on the forward or deep face of a moving wave, which is usually carrying the surfer toward the shore. Waves suitable for surfing are primarily found in the ocean, but can also be found in lakes or in rivers in the form of a standing wave or tidal bore. However, surfers can also utilize artificial waves such as those from boat wakes and the waves created in artificial wave pools.

The term surfing refers to the act of riding a wave, regardless of whether the wave is ridden with a board or without a board, and regardless of the stance used. The native peoples of the Pacific, for instance, surfed waves on alaia, paipo, and other such craft, and did so on their belly and knees. The modern-day definition of surfing, however, most often refers to a surfer riding a wave standing up on a surfboard; this is also referred to as stand-up surfing.

George Freeth (8 November 1883 – 7 April 1919) is often credited as being the “Father of Modern Surfing”.

In 1907, the eclectic interests of the land baron Henry Huntington (of whom the City of Huntington Beach is named after) brought the ancient art of surfing to the California coast. While on vacation, Huntington had seen Hawaiian boys surfing the island waves. Looking for a way to entice visitors to the area of Redondo Beach, where he had heavily invested in real estate, he hired the young Hawaiian George Freeth to come to California and ride surfboards to the delight of visitors; Mr. Freeth exhibited his surfing skills twice a day in front of the Hotel Redondo.

In 1975, professional contests started.[6]

Today, the Surfing Hall of Fame is located in the city of Huntington Beach, California. The city brands itself as Surf City USA.

(Source retrieved April 14 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfing)

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Appendix – VIDEO – The Beach Boys: Surfin’ Safari~Surf City~Surfin’ U.S.A – https://youtu.be/qpSwdQMn8xs

Uploaded on Jul 29, 2011 – Live at Budokan in Japan November 2, 1991

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Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – An American Sickness

Posted on April 11, 2017 in Economics, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

“There is a special ‘place in hell’ …”
“… for someone that would steal your wallet after you collapse/faint due to a health crisis; (think heart-attack, epileptic seizure, etc.)”.

Sickness 1Imagine this scenario at the country level; how inconceivable for an advanced society. And yet, this is the actual situation in the United States. This is according to the new book – An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back – by Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a former E.R. doctor and current journalist for medical issues.

This commentary asserts that there is a need for the Caribbean communities to reform and transform our healthcare deliveries, yet still, we do NOT want to model the American system. This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which seeks to reboot the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region, to ensure better stewardship of the Social Contract for all citizens in our homelands, strong and weak. The Go Lean book petitions the Caribbean region to do better! It describes the necessary empowerments to optimize the economic, security and governing engines of Caribbean society to ensure a better adherence to the principle of the Greater Good.

In a 4-part series of blog-commentaries on the “Strong versus the Weak”, the pattern from the Code of Hammurabi was detailed and presented as an Old World model that was ignored in the formation of the New World. The Americans got it bad! If that ancient King Hammurabi was around in present day, he would have a harsh judgment for the American healthcare system. It is figuratively like “stealing the wallet when a person collapses”, as many of the financial abuses in American hospitals occur when the patient is unconscious or only concerned about seeking relief from pain and/or discomforts.

This commentary is an spin-off from that series; though it was originally presented as a 4-parter, we are hereby adding this 5th entry. The full series is now as follows:

  1. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Model of Hammurabi
  2. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Mental Disabilities
  3. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Bullying in Schools
  4. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Book Review: Sold-Out!
  5. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – An American Sickness

The need for this 5th entry arose with the release of this new book today – April 11, 2017. It is ‘spot-on’ for the criticism of the pattern of abuse of the ‘Weak’ in American society. See the review-synopsis of Dr. Rosenthal’s book here:

Book Review: An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back
By: Elisabeth Rosenthal (Author)

At a moment of drastic political upheaval, a shocking investigation into the dangerous, expensive, and dysfunctional American healthcare system, as well as solutions to its myriad of problems

Sickness 2

In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast?

Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw.

The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn’t just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.

Source: Posted and Retrieved 04-11-2017 from: https://www.amazon.com/American-Sickness-Healthcare-Became-Business/dp/1594206759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491928851&sr=8-1&keywords=Book+American+Sickness

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AUDIO Podcast – Terry Gross interviews Elisabeth Rosenthal – Heard on Fresh Air

Mental Photo 4April 10, 2017 – Health care is a trillion-dollar industry in America, but are we getting what we pay for? Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a medical journalist who formerly worked as a medical doctor, warns that the existing system too often focuses on financial incentives over health or science.

“We’ve trusted a lot of our health care to for-profit businesses and it’s their job, frankly, to make profit,” Rosenthal says. “You can’t expect them to act like Mother Teresas.”

Rosenthal’s new book, An American Sickness, examines the deeply rooted problems of the existing health-care system and also offers suggestions for a way forward. She notes that under the current system, it’s far more lucrative to provide a lifetime of treatments than a cure.

“One expert in the book joked to me … that if we relied on the current medical market to deal with polio, we would never have a polio vaccine,” Rosenthal says. “Instead we would have iron lungs in seven colors with iPhone apps.”

Notice this small sample of the book’s revelations and disclosures, symptomatic of Crony-Capitalism:

  • Healthcare economics do not align with normal economic laws: “Usual & Customary” versus supply-and-demand
  • Hospital systems behave like predatory lenders
  • Consumers cannot decide, as prices may be unknown at the time of delivery
  • Lifetime of treatment preferable for service-providers rather than a cure.
  • Doctors owning Surgical Centers, therefore dictating procedures that they can accommodate at their facilities
  • Unknown and unauthorized “Drive-by Doctors” adding to hospital bills.

This commentary and the previous 4 commentaries in this series all relate to nation-building, stressing the community ethos necessary to forge a society where all the people are protected all the time. While we are analyzing the American system, we clearly recognize that the Caribbean eco-system is equally – or perhaps even more – in a crisis and in need of reform. The premise in the Go Lean book and subsequent blog-commentaries is that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. We can use the acknowledgement of our crisis to optimize our healthcare deliveries once and for all. We must assuredly look beyond the American model. According to the foregoing book and AUDIO Podcast, many more successful models exist.

Dr. Rosenthal’s book asserts that there may be better models in Europe than there is in the US. This is already a familiar thesis for the Go Lean movement – a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – as the Go Lean book advocates studying all dimensions of the EU:

10 Ways to Model the EU – Page 130.
The CU will emulate the European Union by unifying and integrating the Caribbean region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member-states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion (per 2010). The EU is 28 member-states, 507.89 million people and $16.6 Trillion GDP (per 2012). Though the CU is only a fraction the size of the EU, there is the similarity of divergent peoples (24 languages) putting aside their differences in a quest to confederate. The EU region has quite an ignoble history of contending with differences, spurning 2 World Wars in the last century. Yet they came together to unite and integrate to make Europe a better place to live, work and play. Just like the EU, the CU will not possess sovereignty; this feature remains with each member-state.

Still, there was a previous attempt to reform the American healthcare delivery eco-system. There is wisdom to glean from that development. The Go Lean book provides this excerpt (Page 156):

The Bottom Line on Obama Care
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called Obama Care is a US federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. It represents the most significant government expansion and regulatory overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The PPACA is aimed at increasing the rate of health insurance coverage for Americans and reducing the overall costs of health care. It provides a number of mechanisms—including mandates, subsidies, and tax credits — to employers and individuals to increase the coverage rate.Additional reforms aim to improve healthcare outcomes and streamline the delivery of health care. The PPACA requires insurance companies to cover all applicants and offer the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or sex. The Congressional Budget Office projected that the PPACA will lower both future deficits and Medicare spending. On June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the Obama Care.

The US, despite its advanced democracy status, has definite societal defects in the healthcare arena. Overcoming the defects – particularly Crony-Capitalism or exploiting public resources for private gains – make solving healthcare challenging.

It is truly heavy-lifting!

This was recently discovered by the new US president, Donald Trump.

After campaigning for the 2016 election on the promise of “repealing and replacing Obama Care”, the administration’s first healthcare legislation attempt flopped. The president’s exclamation:

President Trump: ‘Nobody Knew Health Care Could Be So Complicated’

The truth of the matter Mr. President, everybody – engaged in the process of transforming society – knew!

Transforming the Caribbean healthcare will also be equally complicated. It will engage all 3 societal engines: economic, security and governance. In fact, the prime directives of the Go Lean/CU roadmap includes 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 – including emergency management – to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance for all people – with empowerments for healthcare – to support these engines.

This comprehensive view – economics, security and governance – is the charge of the Go Lean roadmap, opening with these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11):

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.

Overall, the Go Lean book stresses the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform healthcare delivery in the Caribbean; see this expressed in this one advocacy here:

10 Ways to Improve Healthcare – Page 156

1 Embrace the advent of the CU Single Market to leverage across the 42 million people in the 30 member-states.
2 Organ Procurement Authority
3 Deploy Disease Management Models
4 Universal Health Insurance Care
Much like with auto insurance, there is a need to mandate health insurance coverage for most Caribbeans. The coverage does not have to be $0 deductible and 100% coverage, rather it could be less attractive – low-end terms – like $6000 deductible and 60% coverage. The US model, Obama Care has plans branded Bronze (low end), Silver, Gold and Platinum. The goal for the CU is simply to ensure that catastrophic illnesses or injuries do not imperil the financial viability of individual, families or communities. The coverage risk is minimized with insurance carriers having a larger premium base (42 million) to calculate their actuarial formulas. To maximize savings, individual states may choose to combine their health insurance marketplaces with other states or go at it alone.
5 Wellness, Nutrition, Fitness and Smoking Cessations Programs
6 Medical Tourism
7 Repatriate MediCare Beneficiaries
8 Caribbeans with Disabilities
9 Medical Education Outreach
10 Public Health Extension
Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the federal level. Also, the acquisition of public-bound pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) can be negotiated at the regional level, using the Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO) envisioned in this roadmap. This will lead to a better supply and pricing dynamics.

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

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822 Cancer: Doing More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7586 Blink Health: The Cure for High Drug Prices
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7430 Brazilian Shrunken Head Babies: Zika or Tdap?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6580 Capitalism of Drug Patents
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3276 Role Model Shaking Up the World of Cancer
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2522 The Cost of Cancer Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2105 Recessions and Public Health
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1751 New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003 Painful and rapid spread of new virus in Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=554 Cuban cancer medication registered in 28 countries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=286 PR’s Comprehensive Cancer Center Project Breaks Ground
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=278 Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL – Health-care Concerns

The opening imagery:

“There is a special ‘place in hell’ …”

… is just an metaphorical reference. There is no assumption of a literal burning abyss of torment. But this does convey the abomination of the “strong abusing the weak”. So many times in the past this abuse has proliferated, for those weaker physically, mentally, economically and sadly, medically.

The movement behind the Go Lean/CU roadmap wants us, in the Caribbean, to do better. Yes, healthcare is not easy, but it is possible to reform and transform. There are so many good examples and models to learn from:

The underlying book reviewed here – An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back – considers Switzerland.

We want to “weed out” any bad practices of Crony-Capitalism in our health delivery system. Instead, we want to pursue the Greater Good (greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong). Most importantly, we want to proclaim the truth of American life. So many of our Caribbean citizens “beat down their doors to get out” and emigrate to the US. We want to “dull the lights on any American Welcome signs” – considering the reality of American Crony-Capitalism, the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”.

Now is the time to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to reboot, reform and transform Caribbean healthcare. If we do this, we will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

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

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

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‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ …

Posted on April 10, 2017 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

CU Blog - 'To Live and Die in L.A.' - Photo 1b

“… live so fast and die so young…”
“… it’s like a jungle, sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under…” – Rap Song: The Message – Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

Considering the edict of “life imitating art and art imitating life”, this has always been a subject of sharp debate and contrast. Is it better to live “fast & furious”, even though there might be a shorter mortality, or is it better to go slow and last longer, as far away from risky propositions as possible?

Shockingly, this is also a Caribbean debate: is it better to emigrate to L.A., New York, Miami, Toronto, London, Paris or any other foreign destination for faster success, or prosper where planted in the Caribbean homeland?

From an American perspective, this debate is best personified with a comparison of California versus the rest of the US. Los Angeles (L.A.) is the principal metropolis of the State of California and all of the West Coast for that matter.

But this debate is bigger than just a consideration of L.A. or California – see Appendix below – it spans the test of time. Even ancient philosopher Aesop presented this dilemma in the fable of “The Tortoise and The Hare”, in which the nimble jack-rabbit lost out to the slow-and-methodical tortoise in a race – this fable is universally accepted as a metaphor for the race of life.

Poets, songwriters, historians, and philosophers have all chimed in on this profound debate. Some claim that it is better to “live large”, make the “world your oyster”, even if that means having a short lifespan than to live a quiet ignoble life where the joys of life are rationed out for longevity instead.

Whenever a celebrity dies young, this debate rages anew. Consider some of the philosophical headlines:

The book Go Lean … Caribbean discusses this contrast; it draws reference to the American Dream versus the California Dream. Consider this excerpt from Page 223:

The Bottom Line on the American Dream
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, a set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work. This idea of the American Dream is rooted in the US Declaration of Independence which proclaims that “all men are created equal… endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The meaning of the “American Dream” has changed over history, and includes components as home-ownership and upward mobility. A lot of people followed the American Dream to achieve a greater chance of becoming rich. For example, the discovery of gold in California in 1849 brought in 100,000 men looking for their fortune overnight—and a few did find it. Thus was born the California Dream of instant success. Historian H. W. Brands noted that in the years after the Gold Rush, the California Dream spread across the nation:

  • “The old American Dream … was the dream of the Puritans, of Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard” … of men and women content to accumulate their modest fortunes a little at a time, year by year by year. The new dream was the dream of instant wealth, won in a twinkling by audacity and good luck. [This] golden dream . . . became a prominent part of the American psyche”. Today, some posit that the ease of achieving this Dream changes with technological advances, available infrastructure, regulations, state of the economy, and the evolving cultural values of the US demographics.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap to introduce the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s societal engines – economics, homeland security and governance – of the 30 Caribbean member-states. In fact, the prime directives of the roadmap includes 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 ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance for all people, even visiting tourists, to support these engines.

CU Blog - 'To Live and Die in L.A.' - Photo 2The quest is to minimize the paradox of future-planning/decision-making for Caribbean citizens. We want to make the Caribbean region better places to live, work and play; this way our citizens would not have to leave … to ‘live and die in L.A., or NYC, or Miami, or any other American, Canadian or European city. The truth of the matter is people die more readily in America due to gun-violence, and automobile accidents than they die in the Caribbean.

No doubt!

  • Visualizing gun deaths: Comparing the U.S. to rest of the world
    Whenever a mass shooting occurs, a debate about gun violence ensues. An often-cited counter to the point about the United States’ high rates of gun homicides is that people in other countries kill one another at the same rate using different types of weapons. It’s not true.
    Compared to other countries with similar levels of development or socioeconomic status, the United States has exceptional homicide rates, and it’s driven by gun violence.
    CU Blog - 'To Live and Die in L.A.' - Photo 3
    Another issue that gets less attention is how many people die from firearms accidentally. Again, the U.S. has much higher rates of unintentional death from firearms compared to other countries.
    CU Blog - 'To Live and Die in L.A.' - Photo 4
  • U.S. has highest car crash death rate, despite progress, CDC says
    More people die in car crashes each year in the United States than in other high-income countries, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report …
    In 2013, more than 32,000 people died on U.S. roads, roughly 90 fatalities a day, according to the CDC.
    The U.S. has seen a 31% reduction in its motor vehicle death rate per capita over the past 13 years. But compared with 19 other wealthy countries, which have declined an average of 56% during the same period, the U.S. has the slowest decrease.

A previous Go Lean blog-commentary highlighted other statistics of premature deaths (and disability) in the US due to societal defects:

But the truth is a two-sided coin …

… on the flipside, life in America is more prosperous than in any Caribbean member-state.

The Go Lean book introduces the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) as an inter-governmental agency for the 30 member-states, to provide a better – technocratic – stewardship for Caribbean life, to make it more prosperous … at home. The book identifies that we have a crisis – our failing societal engines – but asserts that this crisis would be a terrible thing to waste. We can use the urgency to introduce and implement effective community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform the engines of Caribbean society.

We do not want our people to ‘live and die in L.A. …’. We want them to prosper right here in the Caribbean. How sad when our families do move to the US (and other countries) and fall victim to fatalities. Consider these headlines:

There are good and bad people everywhere. Bad things happen to good people … everywhere. The Bible declares that “time and unforeseen occurrences befall us all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). Yet still, post-mortem analyses (crash investigations and autopsies) are always necessary to ascertain the root-causes and the lessons-learned:

What could have been done to prevent the loss of life?

This commentary is not asserting that Caribbean people will not be hurt if they remain in the Caribbean. There are car accidents, murders, robberies, rapes and other assaults in the 30 member-states as well.

But follow the numbers!

We are not #1 for either gun violence or auto deaths, like our American counterparts. This is just a matter odds, probabilities and trends; the preponderance for fatalities cannot be ignored.

The Go Lean book contends that as a people, we must be prepared for accidents, emergencies and security risks (Page 196). It asserts that bad actors will emerge just as a result of economic successes in the region. 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.

There is this expression of wisdom, commonly referred to as the Serenity Prayer; it is a prayer written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr[1][2] (1892–1971). The best-known form is:

  • God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
  • Courage to change the things I can,
  • And wisdom to know the difference.

The Go Lean book describes the need for the Caribbean to appoint “new guards” to apply this wisdom – to change the things we can change. The purpose of this security pact is to ensure public safety as a comprehensive endeavor, encapsulating the needs of all Caribbean stakeholders: residents and visitors alike.

We cannot impact Los Angeles, the US or any other foreign city, more than messaging to our Diaspora there. But we can forge change in our Caribbean homeland.

Applying the edict of “life imitating art and art imitating life”, let’s ‘live and die’ here in the Caribbean. Let’s apply the wisdom from the fictional character Spock (the Vulcan Commander on the TV Show/films Star Trek):

May we live long and prosper.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean – the people and leaders – to lean-in for the empowerments described here in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. It is conceivable, believable and achievable to prosper where planted here in the region; to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

————-
Appendix Review – Book/Movie: To Live and Die in L.A.

Sub-title: A 1984 novel by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich is the basis for the 1985 movie of the same name.

CU Blog - 'To Live and Die in L.A.' - Photo 1

A harrowing tale of the dark underside of America’s West Coast metropolis. Two U.S. Treasury agents, partners and antagonists, are drawn into a matrix of violence and corruption, southern California-style, that becomes a journey through a sunlit hell – at the end of which they become experts on the thin line between what it takes to live – and die – in L.A. – Source: Retrieved 04-10-2017 from: https://www.amazon.com/Live-Die-L-A-Gerald-Petievich/dp/1466219645

The action thriller film was directed by William Friedkin and based on the novel by Petievich, and co-written by the both men. The film features William Petersen, Willem Dafoe and John Pankow among others. The film tells the story of the lengths to which two Secret Service agents go to arrest a counterfeiter. – Source: Retrieved 04-10-2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Live_and_Die_in_L.A._(film)

See Trailer in the Appendix VIDEO below.

Storyline
Working largely in cases of counterfeiting, L.A. based Secret Service agent Richie Chance exhibits reckless behavior which according to his longtime and now former partner Jimmy Hart will probably land him in the morgue before he’s ready to retire. That need for the thrill manifests itself in his personal life by his love of base jumping. Professionally, it is demonstrated by the fact that he is sextorting a parolee named Ruth Lanier, who feeds him information in return for him not sending her back to prison for some trumped up parole violation. With his new partner John Vukovich, Chance is more determined than ever, based on recent circumstances, to nab known longtime counterfeiter Ric Masters, who is more than willing to use violence against and kill anyone who crosses him. Masters is well aware that the Secret Service is after him. Masters’ operation is somewhat outwardly in disarray, with Chance being able to nab his mule, Carl Cody, in the course of moving some of the fake money , and one of his associates, a lawyer named Max Waxman, probably stealing money from him. Partly with information from Ruth, Chance is trying to find and exploit the weaknesses in Masters’ operation. To accomplish his goal, Chance takes more and more unethical and illegal measures, which may be problematic for Vukovich, who comes from a family of police officers who are sworn to uphold the law. Written by Huggo

————-
VIDEO – To Live and Die in L.A. – http://www.imdb.com/videoplayer/vi1755645209

A fearless Secret Service agent will stop at nothing to bring down the counterfeiter who killed his partner.

Stars: William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow

 

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‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ – Leaders Undermine Tourism

Posted on April 8, 2017 in Ethos, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary 

Loose Lips - Photo 2Loose lips sink ships …

… this is an American-English idiom meaning “beware of unguarded talk”. The phrase originated on propaganda posters during World War II.[4]  There are similar expressions in other cultures:

The British equivalent used “Careless Talk Costs Lives“, and variations on the phrase “Keep mum“,[5] while in neutral Sweden the State Information Board promoted the wordplay “en svensk tiger” (the Swedish word “tiger” means both “tiger” and “keeping silent”), and Germany used “Schäm Dich, Schwätzer!” (English: “Shame on you, blabbermouth!”).[6]
Source: Retrieved 04-07-2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_lips_sink_ships

Despite the land or the language, the thought is the same: Inappropriate talk can undermine societal engines.

Today, there is no war in the Caribbean, but we do have battles. We have trade wars and economic struggles to try and maintain our way of life and to improve it. For so many of our countries, tourism is the primary economic driver – our regional ship – we have to be on guard and aware of any kind of disparaging talk that can undermine the appeal of our destinations.

The United States is suffering the dire consequence of “loose lips sinking ships” right now. The new President – Donald Trump – has made disparaging remarks about certain foreign groups, and then introduced policies that reinforce his disdain for these foreigners.

As a result, more and more foreigners are refusing to come to the US for leisure travel. See the full article here:

Loose Lips - Photo 1

Title: NYC Expects fewer tourists, blames Trump

NYC & Company, New York’s tourism marketing organization, revised its 2017 travel forecast, stating that it expects 300,000 fewer international visitors than last year “in light of the recent travel ban and related rhetoric.”

“These updated figures take into account changing attitudes about travel and access to the U.S. since the previous forecast was announced in October 2016, prior to the new administration,” NYC & Company said in a statement issued on Tuesday. “This is the first drop in visitation since the start of the recession in 2008.”

The city anticipates that domestic visitation will remain strong, projected to increase to 49.3 million visitors this year, which would actually result in an overall visitor increase, from 60.7 million to 61.7 million.

“But, it’s important to note that it takes the spending power of four domestic visitors to equal what a single international visitor spends,” NYC & Company stated.

With the updated forecast, NYC & Company announced a new international communications and marketing campaign titled “New York City — Welcoming the World.” Beginning in March, the campaign will feature outdoor media valued at nearly $3 million targeting international source markets the United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany, and Spain, with more markets pending. International partners, including tour operators and airlines, are expected to help further the effort through their own channels and assets.

“The goal of the campaign is to reassure international travelers who may feel deterred about traveling to the U.S. and ensure them that New York City’s experiences and values remain the same and all are welcome,” the destination marketing organization stated.

The revised 2017 travel forecast was produced by the organization’s longtime data provider, Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics Company.

USA
Interest in travel to the US has “fallen off a cliff” since Donald Trump’s election, according to travel companies who have reported a significant drop in flight searches and bookings since his inauguration and controversial travel ban.

Data released this week by travel search engine Kayak reported a 58% decline in searches for flights to Tampa and Orlando from the UK, and a 52% decline in searches for Miami. Searches for San Diego were also down 43%, Las Vegas by 36% and Los Angeles 32%.

Though flight prices are holding firm (they usually take weeks rather than days to adjust to consumer trends), Kayak has identified a knock-on effect on average hotel prices. It found prices in Las Vegas are down by 39% and New York City by 32%.
Source: Travel Trade Outbound Scandinavia; posted 03/05/2017; retrieved 04/07/2017 from: http://www.ttoscandinavia.com/expects-fewer-tourists-blames-trump/

————

See the related VIDEO in the Appendix below.

Nobody wants to spend their money in a place where they are not welcomed.

This lesson must be learned in the Caribbean. We have the same threats afoot. Unlike the US, who has the leverage and surety of “richest Single Market economy in the world” to absorb the fall, the Caribbean member-states are mostly Third World and failing. This movement has previous detailed how societal deficiency has resulted in a Brain Drain among the educated classes in the Caribbean homeland – all due to “push and pull” reasons. Yet, some leaders – Christian pastors in this case – have proclaimed, in a signed petition to this new American President, a heightened level of disdain for certain American tourists. They are protesting the US Human Rights agenda to seek relief for Caribbean populations with affinity for persons ascribing to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-Gender (LGBT) lifestyles.

Rather than love and leisure … in the Caribbean, these community leaders are projecting “a climate of hate”.

So sad!

See the details on the signed petition in the Appendix below; advocating against liberal LGBT policies.

In general, neutralizing the anti-LGBT attitudes has been an ongoing theme for the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book presents the Caribbean region a roadmap to elevate all societal engines, including economics, homeland security and governance. In fact, the prime directives of the roadmap includes 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 ensure public safety for all and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance for all people, even minority groups, to support these economic and security engines.

The Go Lean book introduces the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) as an intergovernmental agency for 30 regional member-states, to provide a better – technocratic – stewardship for the regional economy.

But we need all community stakeholders to “not sink ships” with their unbridled hatred and disdain for people who may look, act and speak differently than them.

This is the hallmark of hospitality! See the full definition of “hospitality” here:

Etymology
Derives from the Latin hospes,[5] meaning “host”, “guest”, or “stranger”. Hospes is formed from hostis, which means “stranger” or “enemy” (the latter being where terms like “hostile” derive). By metonymy the Latin word ‘Hospital’ means a guest-chamber, guest’s lodging, an inn.[6] Hospes is thus the root for the English words “host” (where the p was dropped for convenience of pronunciation), hospitality, hospice, hostel and hotel.

Historical practice
In ancient cultures hospitality involved welcoming the stranger and offering him food, shelter, and safety.[7]
Source: Retrieved April 7, 2017 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospitality.

The Art and Science of Tourism – especially for American visitors – is very important to Caribbean communities. The related industrial activities bind all societal engines together. The Go Lean book explains (Page 190) that many enhancements are to be implemented under this roadmap:

10 Ways to Improve Tourism – Page 190

1 Lean-in for the CU to leverage a regional footprint for tourism promotion and infrastructure. The full scale of 30 member-states and 42 million people allows for expanded trade treaties with other countries and regional blocs to target markets and languages.
2 Special Festival Events
3 Fairgrounds/Amusement Parks Empowerment Zones
4 Dynamic Sea-lifts / Air lifts
5 Excess Inventory Auction
6 Medical Tourism
7 Eco-Tourism Promotions Board
8 Sports Tourism
9 Cruise Line Passenger Smart Card Currency
10 Tourist Hate Crime Sentence ExtenderAny crime against a tourist gets a “hate” crime designation that results in extended sentences. These types of crimes (petty misdemeanors to felonies like kidnapping) come under the category of economic crimes that are marshaled by the CU. (The 2005 Aruba case of Natalee Holloway shows the need for heightened attention. The investigation escalated to the Dutch National Police and the US FBI, but only after devastating effects on tourism bookings, for subsequent years).

Overall, the Go Lean book stresses the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society.

There are a lot of new jobs that are at stake with the successful implementation of this Go Lean/CU roadmap. How many are projected?

In general the roadmap projects 2.2 million new jobs across the 30 Caribbean member states. But for the Tourism-related industries, the plan calls for:

Tourism – New markets, opening new opportunities and new traffic; sharing  –  30,000

Cruise Tourism – Jobs from increased functionality of e-Payments of cruise passengers  –  800

Events Tourism – Festivals and other event staff at CU Fairgrounds – 9,000

Fairgrounds – Direct & in-direct maintenance/support jobs at CU Fairgrounds – 10,000

World Heritage Sites/Eco-Tourism – Direct and indirect jobs for managing, promoting UNESCO sites   – 1,000

In total, the projection is for 50,800 new tourism-related jobs. This constitutes the “ship” that community leaders can “sink” with their “loose lips”.

The Go Lean book asserts that to thrive in the new global marketplace there must be an agile technocratic administration for the region’s tourism eco-systems; it will affect all aspects of Caribbean life. This comprehensive view – economics, security and governance – is the charge of the Go Lean roadmap, opening with these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11 – 13):

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

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.

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

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11208 Bahamas flawed model for Event Tourism – Junkanoo Carnival
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11033 Dominican Republic’s flawed model for Medical Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10585 Two Pies: Economic Plan for a New Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7977 Transformations: Perfecting Our Core Competence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7834 Martinique: Model for Sports Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7628 ‘Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327 Zika – A 4-Letter Word for Caribbean Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7082 The Art and Science of ‘Play’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7034 The Future of Money for Tourism Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6385 Wi-Fi Hot Spots Run By Hackers Are Targeting Tourists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341 Tourism Commerce Administration and Coordination
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5307 Crime Warnings for a Tourists to a Caribbean Member-State
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5210 Cruise Ship Commerce – Getting Ready for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4145 Model of Monument and Eco-Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4058 Bad Image in New York Times Hurts Caribbean Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3225 Caribbean less competitive due to increasing aviation taxes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1984 Casinos Changing/Failing Business Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235 Tourism’s changing profile

In a previous blog-commentary, the dynamic of Christian leadership in the Caribbean was fully explored:

Religious orthodoxy is responsible for a lot of harm in the world, and in the Caribbean. The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) have identified the foregoing defects, many bad values, attitudes and community ethos. The Caribbean region needs to desist and make amends of these practices. We need to pursue an alternative ethos, the Greater Good. The book defines this (Page 37) as follows:

    “It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong”. –  Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

The Go Lean book (Page 20) and movement advocates the community ethos of the Greater Good for all of the Caribbean. The movement wants to help reform and transform the Caribbean. We see the defects; we recognize that status quo, including the root causes and orthodoxy of many of our influences; we perceive the harmful effects. Still, we don’t want to ban religion; we simply want a clear ‘Separation of Church and State’, because … we must not favor any one religion.

A “Separation of Church and State” is the standard in the advanced democracies; this is now embedded in the implied Social Contract. The Go Lean book defines (Page 170) the Social Contract as follows:

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

The movement behind the Go Lean book hereby makes this urging to the Caribbean Pastors who signed the below petition to President Trump:

We urge you to follow the mandates of your founder and leader, Jesus Christ, when he urged the Apostle Simon-Peter:

  • Jesus asked a second time, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” “Yes, Lord,” he answered, “You know I love You.” Jesus told him, “Shepherd My sheep”. – June 21:16 Berean Study Bible 

You are hereby admonished to support your flock that is in your care … and leave Foreign Policy alone. Your “going beyond the things that are written” actually hurts your flock by undermining their economic interests. Please, please “stay in your lane”.

Learn lessons from the  bad example of Donald Trump and American tourism … in the foregoing.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean – the people and leaders – to lean-in for the empowerments described here-in and in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is about jobs and community welfare today and more so tomorrow; we need better engines to make our region more prosperous. We can elevate our communities and our tourism!

It is conceivable, believable and achievable to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

———–

Appendix – Petition Letter to President Trump

Loose Lips - Photo 3

Click on the Photo to Enlarge

The full letter and petition signatures can be viewed here:

https://world.wng.org/sites/default/files/assets/Caribbean%20church%20leaders%20letter%20to%20President%20Trump.pdf

———–

Appendix VIDEO – Tourists Avoiding USA Because Of Donald Trump, Costing Us Billions – https://youtu.be/kHD73jSM5Rs

Published on Apr 3, 2017 – Experts had predicted that Trump’s Muslim Ban would cost the United States tons of money in declining tourism, but what they didn’t count on were the number of people who refuse to travel to the U.S. just because Trump is the new president.  As it turns out, nobody wants to visit a country that is ruled by a hatemonger, and analysts are now referring to the decline in travel to the U.S. as the “Trump Slump.” Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Link – https://www.salon.com/2017/03/31/trum…

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ENCORE: PM Christie and Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival

Posted on April 7, 2017 in Economics, Government, Social

Update – Go Lean Commentary

Talk is cheap! Results, on the other hand, are hard-fought and expensive.

This is the post-analysis of the plans for Junkanoo Carnival in the Bahamas, after 3-years of planning and execution. The results have indeed been hard-fought, expensive and … “not so successful”.

Told you so…

This was the declaration from this previous blog-commentary from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The assessment was that the Carnival product appeared to be lucrative, but there was so much heavy-lifting involved with an implementation, that unless there was a whole soul commitment by the full community, it would be very hard to find success.

Now there are new developments…

Article Title: ‘Blindsided’ By Carnival Delay
By: Ava Turnquest, Tribune Chief Reporter

CU Blog - UPDATE - PM Christie and Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival - Photo 1LESS than a week after officials announced the event’s line-up, Prime Minister Perry Christie confirmed yesterday that the 2017 Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival has been postponed until after the general election.

The news has “blindsided” key stakeholders and vendors, who decried the confusion, likely damage to brand and reputation and potential financial losses resulting from the date change.

The Tribune understands the event has been pushed back from May 4-6 to May 18-20 in Nassau. The new date was also circulated in a flyer by Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival’s Instagram account last night.

It is unclear whether the Grand Bahama-leg of the festival, slated for April 28 and 29, has also been pushed back.

Mr Christie was asked about the postponement on the sidelines of a ceremony to rename thoroughfares at the University of the Bahamas, after a report published in The Nassau Guardian indicated that the government had decided to delay the event.

Mr Christie said: “I’m advised that the Carnival Commission has met and agreed that because of the impending possibilities, to suspend or extend the date of (Junkanoo) Carnival. I don’t know the dates they had chosen but it is my understanding that that has been done.”

Up to press time, the Bahamas National Festival Commission (BNFC) had not released a new date for the event, or an official statement on the postponement.

When The Tribune contacted BNFC Chairman Paul Major, he said: “What we know is that we’re not going to conflict with the final say of Cabinet – once an official election date is set, then our dates are subject to change.”

Last Thursday, the BNFC announced Trinidadian singing stars Machel Montano and Bunji Garlin as event headliners. It was also confirmed that the event will be streamlined compared to past years because of financial constraints.

The government will reduce its subsidy to the festival by as much as 50 per cent over last year, when taxpayers contributed about $8 million, officials said. The 2016 event brought in $578,342 in revenue, costing more than $9.8m overall.

In 2015, the government spent $11.3m on the inaugural festival, going over its initial budget of $9m, with the rest covered by sponsors. The first Junkanoo Carnival cost $12.9m overall.

Mr Major and BNFC CEO Roscoe Dames declined further questions, and advised that the commission would release further information today.

The Office of the Prime Minister, in a press statement on Sunday, announced that Parliament will be dissolved on April 11.

According to the Parliamentary Elections Act, an election must be held 21 to 30 days after election writs are issued, meaning the next vote will likely be held in early May.

The last election was held on May 7, 2012.

In 2015, the inaugural festival took place on May 7-9 in New Providence, and the 2016 Junkanoo Carnival kicked off on April 15-16 in Grand Bahama and on May 5-7 in New Providence.

In February, Free National Movement (FNM) Deputy Leader K Peter Turnquest called for the government to postpone or delay the festival until after the general election, warning that the event could only be perceived as “vote buying” if staged during the election cycle.

The Tribune reached out to Bahamas Carnival Band Owners Association (BCBOA) President Dario Tirelli for comment on the matter; however, Mr Tirelli declined comment until an official government statement was released.

Mr Tirelli told The Tribune that the news had “blindsided” his association.

Stephan Rolle, owner of Bluemonkey Bahamas, told reporters that any date change would negatively impact his business, the Bahamas Carnival Cruise, which has booked more than 100 carnival-goers on an all-inclusive weekend cruise from Miami to Nassau.

He challenged Mr Christie to give the festival the same level of respect as the annual Junkanoo parades.

Source: The Tribune Daily Newspaper (Posted 04/04/2017; retrieved 04/05/2017) – http://www.tribune242.com/news/2017/apr/04/blindsided-carnival-delay/

The Prime Minister bet his administration on the prospect of Carnival and now, its election time. He declared that the Parliament will dissolve on April 11, 2017. Under the Westminster structure of Parliamentary government, elections of a new Parliament must take place within a month after that date. So now the expectation is that elections will be conducted “smack in the middle” of the 2017 Carnival activities.

The solution? The PM postpones Carnival!

From a strictly Carnival perspective, this is a Big Mistake! See here the reaction of the festival stakeholders:

VIDEO – Unhappy over Carnival situation – http://youtu.be/f5zoG6yiS9E

Uploaded on Apr 4, 2017 – One of many online videos featuring complaints about the postponement of Carnival.

In this previous Go Lean blog-commentary – being ENCORED below – the prospect of Junkanoo Carnival was analyzed … before-hand, then subsequent blogs also examined the results after the 1st-year and 2nd-year events, as follows:

The appeal was made in all of these commentaries for the strategies, tactics and implementations of the Go Lean roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This involved the heavy-lifting to marshal the entire community to ensure for Event Tourism, and profit from it. See the original blog-commentary here below.

Also, see a related story from April 4, 2017 detailing the challenges of a new schedule-date: Festival To Be May 18-20 As PM Confirms Move (The Tribune Daily Newspaper; retrieved 04/05/2017)

————–

Blog Title: PM Christie responds to critics of Bahamian ‘Carnival’

Carnival 1Head –> Heart –> Hands.

This is the physiological process to forge change, described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 20). As experienced on a daily basis by people attempting to “quit smoking”, change is near impossible without engaging those three body parts. The book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) describes the linked application of those three symbolic body parts, as follows:

  • Head – Plans, Models and Strategies
  • Heart – Community Ethos
  • Hands – Actions, Implementations, Advocacies

According to the below news article, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas wants to forge change in his homeland. He wants to incorporate a new festival, based on the model of Carnival and Madri Gras, so as to glean some of the massive economic harvests around those events in the Caribbean and other Western Hemisphere destinations.

Since initiating this plan in Spring 2013, cyber-space and public commentary have been awash with feedback: some in favor; most opposed.

Albeit he is inspired by good motives, the publishers declare that something is missing in the Prime Minister’s plans: Best practices.

Excerpts from original source article: PM Christie responds to critics of Bahamian ‘Carnival’
Date: April 25, 2014
By: Erica Wells, Managing Editor

Prime Minister Perry Christie has assured critics of the Government’s plan to create a Bahamian Carnival or Mardi Gras that the festival will be “essentially” Bahamian and that a special committee will be appointed to prepare the country and the world for the initiative.
…
The government, Christie says, sees the festival as both a major economic intervention and a cultural expansion.

“It will be essentially Bahamian but also include thousands of visitors who will be attracted by what will be an absolutely fabulous affair,” said Christie.

Anthropologist and author Dr. Nicolette Bethel, who is also a former director of culture, has been one of the biggest critics of the proposed festival.
…
Prime Minister Christie said for the groups to be licensed, they would have to form themselves into a company and operate as a business.

“This is a massive undertaking which will receive very careful consideration of the government,” he said.

“This is very necessary as the corporate groups will be advertising abroad and inviting persons to purchase costumes online as well as from store fronts in a cultural village or elsewhere.”
…
The prime minister said carnival is part of a worldwide masquerade industry.

He said the industry has been successful in attracting costume makers, wire benders, painters, designers and performers at some of the largest festivals in the world.

“It has an export dimension. We know of major festivals in Trinidad, Brazil, Toronto, Barbados, New York, Miami and London. Carnival in the diaspora generates hundreds of millions of dollars and creates many jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

“It is big business and it requires business planning, management, marketing of products and organizational structure,” said Christie.

Prime Minister Christie said costumes from carnival inspired designers show up in New York, Toronto, Notting Hill, London, Miami and many other centers in the U.S.
…

Source: The Nassau Guardian Online. Posted 06/22/2013; retrieved 04/24/2014 from: http://www.thenassauguardian.com/index.phpoption=com_content&view=article&id=40021&Itemid=59

The Go Lean roadmap is different! It employs best practices for assessing, strategizing and implementing change. The book commences with the practice to assess current landscapes; this is what strategists call “Understand the market / Plan the business”. Page 44 presents these questions:

• Who are our customers and what exactly do they want?

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

The book then proceeds to answer these and other strategy queries, accordingly.

carnival 2Events/festivals are paramount in the Go Lean roadmap: the optimization of existing events and the introduction of new events. This advocacy is detailed on Page 191 as being supplemental to the goal of enhancing tourism (Page 190).

What are the prospects for this new Bahamas Carnival/Lenten festival?

On the surface, it seems far-fetched, as the Bahamas does not have a Lenten ethos. All the competitive destinations (Rio De Janeiro, New Orleans and Trinidad) have elevated lent habits (Ash Wednesday to Good Friday), so that Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday actually has significance in preparation of this hallowed Lenten season. Without this ethos, it is hard, though not impossible, to forge a new tradition, festival or business model. But the mediocre financial investment, announced in the foregoing article – $1 million as opposed to $3 million, makes the success of initiating and promoting a new event an insurmountable obstacle.

The publishers of the Go Lean roadmap wish the Prime Minister good fortune with his plans, but this execution does not appear to be lean, within “best practices”. More is needed; much more! There should be more focus on “Head, Heart & Hands” principles. As a contrast, notice the detailed strategies, tactics, actions and advocacies for new events in the Go Lean roadmap:

Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Non Government Org’s. Page 25
Impact the Future Page 26
Foster Genius – Performance Excellence Page 27
Ways to Improve Sharing Page 35
Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Customers – Business Community Page 47
Strategy – Customers – Visitors / Tourists Page 47
Strategy – Competitors – Event Patrons Page 55
Separation of Powers – Emergency Mgmt. Page 76
Separation of Powers – Tourism Promotion Page 78
Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Page 81
Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Admin. Page 83
Separation of Powers – Turnpike Operations Page 84
Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering Page 182
Ways to Improve [Service] Animal Husbandry Page 185
Ways to Enhance Tourism Page 190
Ways to Impact Events Page 191
Ways to Promote Fairgrounds Page 192
Ways to Improve Emergency Management Page 196
Ways to Impact Hollywood [& Media Industry] Page 203
Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218
Ways to Improve the Arts Page 230
Ways to Promote Music Page 231

In summary, festivals/events are important, so they require lean administration and executions. They empower economics and fortify cultural pride. In all, they make the Bahamas, by extension the entire Caribbean, a better place to live, work, and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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JPMorganChase spent $10 billion on ‘Fintech’ for 1 year

Posted on April 6, 2017 in Economics, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

Looking for a job? Where are the jobs to be created for the 21 Century?

JPMorgan - Photo 2Try banking! Financial/Banking technology to be exact. This sub-industry sector is referred to as ‘Fintech’; see the definition in the Appendix below.

So rather than the individual, if a community wants to foster job creation, ‘Fintech’ offers attractive options.

What’s more, according to this news article, one New York-based bank, JPMorganChase, spent almost $10 Billion on Fintech … last year alone. The CEO, Jaime Dimon, announced that there will be even more investment in this vital area. See the full story here:

Title: Jamie Dimon – JPMorgan spent nearly $10 billion on tech last year
By: Ari Levy

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said the bank spent $9.5 billion on technology in 2016 and has plans this year to introduce products for digital banking, online investment advice and electronic trading.

JPMorgan - Photo 1In his annual letter to shareholders on Tuesday, Dimon said the bank is also “collaborating with some excellent fintech companies to dramatically improve our digital and other customer offerings.”

Among the leading bank executives, Dimon has established himself as the biggest presence in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, making regular trips West to meet with tech executives and venture capitalists. He made headlines in his shareholder letter two years ago, warning investors that “Silicon Valley is coming.”

Rather than view potential banking disruption as a threat to JPMorgan, Dimon has embraced new technologies. About $3 billion, or almost one-third, of last year’s investment went to “new initiatives,” including $600 million on fintech solutions and projects.

Dimon highlighted partnerships with emerging tech companies like Zelle for consumer payments, Roostify for online mortgages, TrueCar for auto finance and On Deck Capital, which provides loans to small businesses.

The JPMorgan CEO also took a swipe at the U.S. immigration system and how it hurts this country’s ability to compete globally. Dimon said that about 40 percent of people receiving advanced degrees in science, technology engineering and math at American universities are from other countries. Yet they have no legal way to stay when they’re finished with school.

“We are forcing great talent overseas by not allowing these young people to build their dreams here,” Dimon wrote.

Source: CNBC – Business & Finance TV Channel; posted 04/04/2017; retrieved 04/05/2017) from: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/04/jamie-dimon-letter-jpmorgan-spent-9-5b-on-tech-last-year.html

So where are the jobs to be found? According to the foregoing, this industry – Fintech – is one of the options.

In general, this has been a frequent question for the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book presents the Caribbean region a roadmap to elevate its societal engines, starting first with economics (jobs, industrial development and entrepreneurial opportunities). In fact, the prime directives of the roadmap includes 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.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book introduces the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) as a federal government for 30 regional member-states, plus the Caribbean Central Bank (CCB) as a cooperative for the existing Central Banks. Together, these new entities will provide stewardship for the region’s banks.

Banking is very familiar to the Caribbean. This industry has proven to be the secondary industrial driver for many Caribbean communities, trailing only tourism. The Go Lean book explains (Page 58):

Core Competence – What are we best at doing?
There are features of Caribbean life that work very well now. We are currently the “best address” in the world. If one has the resources, there is no better place to call home – imagine a lottery winner relocating to a Caribbean paradise. Further, if someone has the resources for only a short time-frame, there is no better place to vacation. And thus, as a regional community, the Caribbean is best at servicing:

  • Tourism
  • Cruise Operations
  • Offshore Banking – The Caribbean colonial heritage created the ideal climate for offshore banking. Many of the European expatriates administering the colonies didn’t want to burden themselves with aggressive tax policies or strenuous financial compliance, and so inadvertently created a climate for tax sheltering and avoidance. Though the industry is professionally managed today, with best-of-class oversight and compliance requirements, the reputations and image is still deep-rooted based on this history. Consider Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Nassau’s proliferation with hundreds of offshore banks. When a celebrity in North America or Europe is labeled with “deposits in the Caymans or Bermuda”, there is an immediate public’s reaction. This was the case for US Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential election.
  • Specialty Agriculture.

Overall, the Go Lean book stresses the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society.

How many jobs are to be impacted?

In general the roadmap projects 2.2 million new jobs across the 30 Caribbean member states. But for the Financial/Banking industry, the plan calls for:

Banking – New jobs from Banking reform, and adoption of e-payments, & card products  –  6,000

The Caribbean technology industry projects even more new jobs to be created in the region; the count was published at:

Technology – Direct:    Products and services for IT architecture, application and administration  –  20,000

Technology – Indirect: Service jobs for technology support and logistics  –  44,000

In total, the projection is for 70,000 new jobs.

Considering the experience of JPMorganChase Bank in the foregoing article – spending $10 Billion – and the projections in the Go Lean roadmap, it must be concluded that Fintech is one area “where the jobs are”.

The Go Lean book asserts that to thrive in the new global marketplace there must be an agile technocratic administration for the region’s banking; it will affect all aspects of Caribbean life. This comprehensive view – economics, security and governance – is the charge of the Go Lean roadmap, opening with these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 and 14):

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

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.

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

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10585 Two Pies: Economic Plan for a New Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10513 Transforming ‘Money’ Countrywide – Model of India
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7140 Central Bank of Azerbaijan sets its currency on free float
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7034 The Future of Money
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6800 Venezuela sues black market currency website in US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6635 New Security Chip in Credit Cards Unveiled
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5668 Move over Mastercard/Visa – Time for Local Banking Cards
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4425 Cash, Credit or iPhone …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3889 Royal Bank of Canada’s EZPay – Ready for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881 The Need for Regional Cooperation for Cyber-Security & e-Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3858 Model of Central Banking Technocracy: ECB 1 trillion Euro stimulus
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3582 For Canadian Banks: Caribbean is a ‘Bad Bet’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1350 PayPal’s Fintech model: Expand payment services to 10 markets
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=906 Bitcoin virtual currency needs regulatory framework to change image
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=528 Facebook plans to provide Fintech – Mobile payment services
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=467 Barbados Central Bank records $3.7m loss in 2013

In a previous blog-commentary, the question was asked:

Who will win the [Fintech] “space race” between all the big Information Technology companies (like Facebook, Google, Apple, Paypal, etc.)? It is not known yet! But for the Caribbean, we must not be spectators only in this “space race”. Not this time!

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VIDEO – What is a ‘Robo-Advisor’ – http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/roboadvisor-roboadviser.asp

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Now is the time for all stakeholders of Caribbean banking to lean-in for the empowerments described here-in and in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is where the jobs are, today and tomorrow. We can elevate our communities and our banking eco-systems. We can be a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

———

Appendix – What is ‘Fintech’

CU Blog - Transforming Money Countrywide - Photo 2Fintech is a portmanteau – a word derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms as smog from smoke and fog) – of financial technology that describes an emerging financial services sector in the 21st century. Originally, the term applied to technology applied to the back-end of established consumer and trade financial institutions. Since the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the term has expanded to include any technological innovation in the financial sector, including innovations in financial literacy and education, retail banking, investment and even crypto-currencies like bitcoin.

BREAKING DOWN ‘Fintech’
The term financial technology can apply to any innovation in how people transact business, from the invention of money to double-entry bookkeeping. Since the internet revolution and the mobile internet revolution, however, financial technology has grown explosively, and fintech, which originally referred to computer technology applied to the back office of banks or trading firms, now describes a broad variety of technological interventions into personal and commercial finance.

Fintech’s Expanding Horizons
Already technological innovation has up-ended 20th century ways of trading and banking. The mobile-only stock trading app Robinhood charges no fees for trades, and peer-to-peer lending sites like Prosper and Lending Club promise to reduce rates by opening up competition for loans to broad market forces. Technologies being designed that should reach fruition by 2020 include mobile banking, mobile trading on commodities exchanges, digital wallets (like Apple (AAPL) and Google’s (GOOG) developing mobile wallet systems), financial advisory and robo-advisor sites like LearnVest and Betterment, and all-in-one money management tools like Mint and Level.

New Tech in Fintech
In the olden days, individuals and institutions used the invisible hand of the market – represented by the signaling function of price – to make financial decisions. New technologies, like machine learning, predictive behavioral analytics and data-driven marketing, will take the guess work and hocus pocus out of financial decisions. “Learning” apps will not only learn the habits of users, often hidden to themselves, but will engage users in learning games to make their automatic, unconscious spending and saving decisions better. On the back end, improved data analytics will help institutional clients further refine their investment decisions and open new opportunities for financial innovation.

Fintech Users
Who uses fintech? There are four broad categories: 1) B2B for banks and 2) their business clients; and 3) B2C for small businesses and 4) consumers. Trends toward mobile banking, increased information, data and more accurate analytics and decentralization of access will create opportunities for all four groups to interact in heretofore unprecedented ways.

Source: Retrieved 04-05-2017 from: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fintech.asp

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VIDEO – What is ‘FinTech’ – http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fintech.asp

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Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Book Review: Sold-Out!

Posted on April 5, 2017 in Ethos, Government

Go Lean Commentary

George Carlin speaks from the grave about an American societal defect:

“The real owners of this country, the big wealthy business interest that controls everything and makes all the important decisions….
They spent billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. And what is it that they want: ‘more for themselves and less for everybody else’.” —

— George D. P. Carlin[1] (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him second (behind Richard Pryor) on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.[4] – Source: Wikipedia.

Sold-Out - Photo 3

For millions of people affected with declining job options and under-employment, these words by George Carlin are spot on. The people stand back and see a trend with more and more (hundreds of thousands) of highly sought STEM (Science,  Technology, Engineering & Math) jobs being created but not going to Americans, rather going to foreigners – on American soil – at below market prices. This is the drama of H-1B Visas discussed in the VIDEO in the Appendix below.

CU Blog - Immigration Realities in the US - Photo 5

Something is wrong with this picture!

The United States has known societal defects. The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean have delved into the most prominent ones; they were identified as:

This discussion – and the accompanying VIDEO in the Appendix below – allows us to better appreciate the community ethos – the fundamental spirit of a culture – that breathes these societal defects. There is a similarity with these two defects:

“The strong inflicts harm on the weak”

This commentary posits that this problem in America was imbrued as part of a New World experiment that deviated from the Old World values.

In the previous blog-commentary on the Model of Hammurabi it was detailed how that ancient King established laws to ensure that the “strong in society did not abuse the weak”. That blog concluded that New World societies need to do better in applying the sage advice from a 3,800-year-old regent. This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which seeks to reform and transform the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region, to ensure better stewardship of the Social Contract – implied arrangement where all citizens (strong and weak) surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights.

The Go Lean book describes empowerments to target the economic, security and governing engines of society to ensure an adherence to the principle of the Greater Good; (greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong). This commentary is 4 of 4 in a series on “Managing the Strong versus the Weak”. The other commentaries in this series all considered the security and governmental deficiencies of American society – the model-advanced democracy that “pulls” so many of our Caribbean Diaspora. This commentary here focuses on economic abuses. The full details in this series are as follows:

  1. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Model of Hammurabi
  2. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Mental Disabilities
  3. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Bullying in Schools: “Teach them well and let them lead the way”
  4. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Book Review: Sold-Out!

All of these commentaries relate to nation-building, stressing the community ethos necessary to forge a society where all the people are protected all the time. Looking at the American model, we clearly discern that “all that glitters is not Gold”. There are obvious abuses and deficiencies that should deter Caribbean citizens from setting their hopes-and-dreams on America as a land of refuge.

There is a similar theme in the book – Sold-Out! – by syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin. She scorches the American Crony-Capitalism associated with labor-certified immigration. She asserts that laws of supply-and-demand in the STEM fields are being distorted so that corporations can profit at the expense of American and foreign workers.

So sad! See the review of her book here:

 Sold-Out - Photo 1

Book Review for Book: Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America’s Best & Brightest Workers
Book Authors: Michelle Malkin, John Miano

The #1 New York Times bestselling author and firebrand syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin sets her sights on the corrupt businessmen, politicians, and lobbyists flooding our borders and selling out America’s best and brightest workers.

In Sold Out, Michelle Malkin and John Miano reveal the worst perpetrators screwing America’s high-skilled workers, how and why they’re doing it—and what we must do to stop them. In this book, they will name names and expose the lies of those who pretend to champion the middle class, while aiding and abetting massive layoffs of highly skilled American workers in favor of cheap foreign labor. Malkin and Miano will explode some of the most commonly told myths spread in the media like these:

Lie #1: America is suffering from an apocalyptic “shortage” of science, technology, engineering, and math workers.

Lie #2: US companies cannot function without an unlimited injection of the most “highly skilled” and “highly educated” foreign workers, who offer intellectual capital and entrepreneurial energy that American workers can’t match.

Lie #3: America’s best and brightest talents are protected because employers are required to demonstrate that they’ve made every effort to hire American citizens before resorting to foreign labor.

For too long, open-borders tech billionaires and their political enablers have escaped tough public scrutiny of their means and motives. Sold Out is an indictment of not only political corruption in Washington, but also the journalistic malpractice that enables it. It’s time to trade the whitewash for solvent. American workers deserve better and the public deserves the unvarnished truth.
Source: Good Reads – Online Bookstore-Portal; retrieved April 3, 2017 from: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25246754-sold-out

Sold-Out - Photo 2

We can and must do better than this in the Caribbean. While the problem in the foregoing is an American drama, our region can learn so many lessons from the developments and executions of this blatant example of the “strong abusing the weak”. Keep this summary in mind, from Sold-Out  (“Introduction” – Page viii):

  • With very few exceptions, the purported shortages of American workers don’t exist.
  • There is nothing special about the hundreds of thousands of H-1B visa holders flooding the workforce.
  • Most H-1B workers are sponsored by companies that specialize in offshore outsourcing of U.S. jobs.
  • Abuse of guest workers by both offshoring companies and their U.S. tech giant partners is rampant.
  • Enforcement is a joke.
  • The promises of U.S. worker protections were big fat whoppers.

This exposure of the exploitation in the American immigration eco-system reveals what is embedded in this country’s DNA – a propensity for the “strong to abuse the weak”; in this case it’s an economic abuse – manipulating market forces to keep salaries low. And yet, the Caribbean suffers from an atrocious emigration rate of our citizens fleeing to the American homeland. Verily, even this defective American labor market is better than the Caribbean status quo.

The reasons why people leave the Caribbean in the first place have been identified as “push and pull”:

“Push” refers to the reasons people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “These ones suffer from the abuse of the “strong over the weak”. Many from the Caribbean had to flee as refugees related to qualifiers like Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged and LGBT.

“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating to communities where they perceive that there are more protections for the “weak against the abusive strong “.

The movement behind the Go Lean book has consistently urged Caribbean authority figures to work to dull the bright lights on American “Welcome Signs”. Our people need to know that the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”. The Go Lean book and blogs asserts that it is easier to reform and transform Caribbean society than abandoning our home and trying to fix the American eco-system. There is no much resistance due to the acute greed and adherence to a profit-seeking culture. Consider these sample blog-commentaries previous published:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10052 Fake News? Welcome to America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9038 Fallacy of American Charity Altruism for Caribbean Causes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8966 American For-Profit Education – Plenty of Profit; Little Education
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7430 Big Pharma and Zika – Too Much Profit Motivation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6819 The Academic Downside of ‘Western’ Diets
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6580 Capitalism of Drug Patents
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5733 Better than America? Yes, We Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5529 American Defects: Inventory of Crony-Capitalism

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate Caribbean societal engines. We want to be a better society than we have been in the past, and even better than our American counterparts.

We want to pursue the Greater Good. This means promoting values that do NOT benefit the strong by abusing the weak. While this definitely applies to a security and governance mandate, it includes economic policies as well.

We can learn from the American experience. If we can assuage the “strong-weak” power abuses in our society, this will mitigate the “push and pull” factors for why people abandon our territories.

Yes, America is flawed!

… but we have to do better at home before we can condemn another country. Though we must deter our young people from “jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire”.

So let’s just be better and do better here … in reforming and transforming our societal engines. Let’s lean-in to the Go Lean roadmap and work to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play for all citizens, “strong or weak”. 🙂

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

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

————

Appendix VIDEO – How H-1B visas have been abused since the beginning – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/h-1b-creator-1998-loophole-in-law-is-a-travesty

Published March 19, 2017 – The H-1B visa [program] creator says the program has been “hijacked” to take American jobs. But a 1993 60 Minutes piece shows the visas had problems from the start

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Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Bullying in Schools

Posted on April 4, 2017 in Ethos, Government

Go Lean Commentary

“I believe that children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way …” – Song Lyrics – The Greatest Love  Of All

The need to secure the community against threats and ‘bad actors’ must start with young people, school age children: High School, Middle School and Elementary.

Why so early? Because the tendency for strong individuals in a group to abuse the weak individuals starts early. Its an animalistic instinct to emerge as an Alpha Male or Alpha Female.

Bullying - Photo 5But we are not animals, despite any natural instincts. Societies come together to form a civilization with civil treatment of neighbors and fellow citizens. In the previous blog-commentary on the Model of Hammurabi it was detailed how that ancient King established laws to ensure that the “strong in society would not abuse the weak”. That blog concluded that the governmental authorities (the State) should provide the stewardship as specified in a Social Contract – where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights – with all citizens in society, the strong ones and the weak ones. This commentary is the 3rd of 4 in a series on “Managing the Strong versus the Weak”. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

  1. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Model of Hammurabi
  2. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Mental Disabilities
  3. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Bullying in Schools: “Teach them well and let them lead the way”
  4. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Book Review: Sold-Out!

All of these commentaries relate to nation-building, stressing the community ethos necessary to forge a society where all the people are protected all the time. Since “children are the future”, it is important to mitigate and remediate bad behavior of the strong children that may trample on the “weak” children – bullying; if we teach them well when they are young and impressionable, that will allow them to lead the way for future societal cohesion. (See the personification of these words – song lyrics – in the Music VIDEO in the Appendix below).

The United States, as a model of an advanced democracy in our region, provides us lessons in how effective programs can be that are designed to mitigate bullying. We get to see the progress and regression. See this report-news article here:

Title: School Bullying, Cyberbullying Continue to Drop

Bullying - Photo 1

Sub-Title: School bullying is at its lowest rate since 2005, but girls are still bullied at higher rates.
By: Allie Bidwell

The percentage of students who reported being bullied or cyberbullied reached a record low in 2013, but female students are still victimized at higher rates, according to new data from the Department of Education.

The department on Friday released the results of the latest School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which showed that in 2013, the percentage of students ages 12-18 who reported being bullied dropped to 21.5 percent. That’s down from 27.8 percent in 2011, and a high of 31.7 percent in 2007. The percentage of students who reported being cyberbullied also fell to 6.9 percent in 2013, down from 9 percent in 2011.

The department’s National Center on Education Statistics began surveying students on bullying in 2005.

“As schools become safer, students are better able to thrive academically and socially,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. “Even though we’ve come a long way over the past few years in educating the public about the health and educational impacts that bullying can have on students, we still have more work to do to ensure the safety of our nation’s children.”

Despite the overall drop in bullying and cyberbullying, reporting rates remain low – just more than one-third of students who were victims of traditional bullying and fewer than one-quarter of cyberbullying victims reported the incident to an adult, the data show.

Female students also still consistently experience higher-than-average rates of victimization – 23.7 percent of female students said they had been bullied in 2013, and 8.6 percent said they had been cyberbullied. By comparison, 19.5 percent and 5.2 percent of male students in 2013 said they had been bullied and cyberbullied, respectively.

While there aren’t noticeable gender gaps in the location of bullying, female students were significantly more likely than male students to be made fun of, called names or insulted (14.7 percent compared with 12.6 percent), to be the subject of rumors (17 percent compared with 9.6 percent) and to be excluded from activities on purpose (5.5 percent compared with 3.5 percent). Male students who were bullied were more likely than female students to be pushed, shoved, tripped or spit on (7.4 percent compared with 4.6 percent).

Overall, bullied students were most likely to be made fun of, called names or insulted (13.6 percent) or to be the subject of rumors (13.2 percent). The most common forms of cyberbullying were unwanted contact via text messaging and posting hurtful information on the Internet.

Among students who were cyberbullied, female students were more likely to have hurtful information about them posted on the Internet (4.5 percent compared with 1.2 percent), to receive unwanted contact via instant messaging (3.4 percent compared with 1 percent) and unwanted contact via text messaging (4.9 percent compared with 1.6 percent).

Traditional bullying and cyberbullying also impact the behaviors of the affected students.
Among students who were victims of traditional bullying, more than 1 in 10 said they feared being attacked or harmed at school. That fear was slightly more frequent among victims of cyberbullying: about 1 in 8 students who had been cyberbullied said they feared attack or harm at school.

Generally, being the victim of cyberbullying appeared to affect students’ behavior more than traditional bullying – students who were cyberbullied were more likely to skip school, to avoid school activities, to avoid specific places at school and to carry a weapon to school.

Allie Bidwell is an education reporter for U.S. News & World Report.

[MORE: Social Combat: Bullying Risk Increases With Popularity]

[ALSO: Cyberbullied Teens Can Connect Online, In Person to Get Help]

Bullying - Photo 2

Bullying - Photo 3

Source: US News & World Report – Posted May 15, 2015; retrieved 04/01/2017 from: https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/05/15/school-bullying-cyber-bullying-continue-to-drop

The book Go Lean…Caribbean describes empowerments to target the economic, security and governing engines of society to ensure an adherence to the principle of the Greater Good. The book defines this principle as follows (Page 37):

“The greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong”. –  Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); it posits (Page 23) that whatever the circumstances, “bad actors” will always emerge to exploit opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent….

The CU‘s security apparatus must defend against regional threats, including domestic terrorism. This includes gangs and their junior counterparts, bullies. The community must accept that young ones will go astray, so Juvenile Justice programs should be centered on the goal to rehabilitate them into good citizens, before it’s too late. Community messaging (life-coaching and school-mentoring programs) must be part of the campaign for anti-bullying and mitigations.

The Go Lean book continues (Page 181) on the subject of “Junior Terrorism” with the quotation here:

The CU wants to “leave no child behind”. So bullying will be managed under a domestic terrorism and Juvenile Justice jurisdiction. The CU will conduct media campaigns for anti-bullying, life-coaching, and school-mentoring programs. The problem with teen distress is that violence can ensue from bullying perpetrators or in response to bullying.

Bullying - Photo 4We were all children at one point, and may have experienced the dynamics of bullying, either as a victor or a victim, but trust the facts here, the subject of bullying today is different; there is the New Media element; there is cyber-bullying.

Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic forms of contact. Cyberbullying has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers.[1] Awareness in the United States has risen in the 2010s, due in part to high-profile cases.[2][3] Bullying or harassment can be identified by repeated behavior and an intent to harm.[4] Harmful bullying behavior can include posting rumors about a person, threats, sexual remarks, disclose victims’ personal information, or pejorative labels (i.e., hate speech).[5]

Several US states and other countries have laws specific to regulating cyberbullying.[6] These laws are designed to specifically target teen cyberbullying, while others use laws extending from the scope of physical harassment.[7] In cases of adult cyberharassment, these reports are usually filed beginning with local police.[8] Research has demonstrated a number of serious consequences of cyberbullying victimization.[9] Victims may have lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of emotional responses, retaliating, being scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed.[10] Individuals have reported that cyberbullying can be more harmful than traditional bullying.[11]

Internet trolling is a common form of bullying over the Internet in an online community (such as social media) in order to elicit a reaction, disruption, or for their own personal amusement.[12][13] Cyberstalking is another form of bullying or harassment that uses electronic communications to stalk a victim may pose a credible threat to the safety of the victim.[14]
Source: Retrieved April 2, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberbullying

The Go Lean book describes the eco-system of Internet & Communications Technology (ICT) and strategizes to use ICT as a great equalizer in the world markets. Big countries and small countries can equally and evenly compete. So ICT can be beneficial, if …

… the downsides – like cyber-bullying – can be assuaged or mitigated.

The point of fostering and policing ICT has been previously elaborated on in prior blog-commentaries; see sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8823 Lessons from China – WeChat: Model for Caribbean Social Media
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5435 China Internet Policing – Model for Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4793 Truth in Commerce – Learning from Yelp
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881 Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation

According to the foregoing article, bullying is on the decline. This is a direct product of the effective messaging and school-based coaching. We need to model this in the Caribbean.

Girl Mocking Clever Kid In Glasses Teenage Bully Demonstrating Mischievous Uncontrollable Delinquent Behavior Cartoon Illustration

But also according to the foregoing article, the subject matters in the bullying eco-system that need the most attention are the girl-bullies, as opposed to boy-bullies. The messaging for girls – think: Mean Girls – must be customized as opposed to the messaging for boys. The art and science of this advocacy is just plain technocratic! This is a mission of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The Go Lean book actually conveys that there are many empowerments for Caribbean stewards to implement to help the youth (boys and girls) of the region. This sends the right message that we will not allow the weak in society to be trampled on by the strong. Consider this advocacy here:

10 Ways to Impact Youth – Page 227

1 Lean-in for the CU to address regional problems! Of 42 million population, more than half below age 30; need jobs and security empowerments.
2 Infant Mortality
3 Health Care Neutralization – Trauma Centers, as injuries are the leading causes of death
4 Work Ethic – Youth assimilate well to ICT, so the CU will foster schemes to create and produce ICT, not just consume.
5 Juvenile Crime and the DARE Model
Addressing the mission to remediate youth crime, the CU will implement specific programs to engage and mitigate youth crime, this is similar to DARE (Drug-Alcohol-Resistance-Endeavors) in the US for drug and gang anti-crime. Also, the Juvenile Justice solution will have vertical institutions for judiciary, corrections & probation, applying best practices of criminology/penology for youthful offenders.
6 Education Dynamics
The CU will identify students early who display high aptitude in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; then develop them thru academies and e-learning. The CU will offer forgive-able loans for college. With the CU mission to stop the brain drain, every inducement will be extended to encourage graduates to stay in the region.
7 Sports Prospects
The CU will encourage professional sports pursuits for many disciplines, incentivizing Sport Academies to foster the talent with proper risk mitigations.
8 Artist Development & Colonies
9 Music and Art (Performance & Visual) Appreciation
10 Repatriation – Family Reunification

The book Go Lean, serving as a roadmap, describes formal institutions to improve security like a regional Police and Military forces (including “Intelligence Gathering and Analysis”). There is the need to be on guard so that …

“… the strong should not harm the weak.”

This is the Code of Hammurabi, and despite having originated thousands of years ago, there is urgency to apply the principle today to counteract “bad actors”. The Go Lean book makes this revelation (Page 23):

… with the emergence of new economic engines, “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent.

This roadmap for Caribbean integration declares that peace, security and public safety is tantamount to economic prosperity. This is why an advocacy for the Greater Good must be championed as a community ethos. A prime precept is that it is “better to know than to not know” – this implies that privacy is secondary to security. A secondary precept is that bad things will happen to good people and so the community needs to be prepared to contend with the risks that can imperil the homeland.

The Go Lean roadmap details strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact this region in the cause against bullying. Consider this sample:

Community Ethos – Security Principles – Fully comprehensive empowerments Page 22
Ways to Impact the Future – Count on the Greedy to be Greedy; [expect bullies to emerge] Page 27
Ways to Foster Genius – Anti-Bullying Campaign – “Revenge of the Nerds” Page 28
Security Initiatives at Start-up Page 103
Ways to Improve Education Page 159
Ways to Mitigate Black Markets – Prosecute economic crimes: Extortion and Intimidation Page 165
Ways to Impact Justice – Juvenile Justice will have vertical institutions Page 177
Ways to Reduce Crime – Youth Crime Awareness and Prevention Page 178
Ways to Improve for Gun Control – Public Relations / Anti-Bullying Campaign Page 179
Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 180
Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – Bullying Page 181
Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis – Internet/Cyber Crimes Monitoring Page 182
Ways to Impact the Prison-Industrial Complex – Monitoring of Parolees Page 211

The CU‘s efforts relate to our Prime Directives; as exemplified by these 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create 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.

The purpose of these prime directives is to elevate all of Caribbean society, all 30 member-states. This is a Big Deal – too big for any one member-state alone. We must confederate, collaborate and convene together. We can succeed with an interdependence within the region. See these statements from the formal Declaration of Interdependence, at the start of the book (Page 12):

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 … forms of terrorism [like bullying], 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 points of security mitigation have been previously elaborated on in these prior blog-commentaries; see sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10959 See Something, Say Something … Do Something
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10566 Funding the Caribbean Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10222 Waging a Successful War on Terrorism – (Junior Partner of ‘Bullying’)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9072 Securing the Homeland – On the Ground
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7485 A Lesson in the History of Interpersonal Violence – Street Crimes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7179 SME Declaration: ‘Change Leaders in Crime Fight’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392 Jamaica received World Bank funds to help in crime fight

We must learn from the American lessons on mitigating bullying. Our society, every society has “weak (physical and mental) members” that must be protected from the “strong” members, even in the schools. We can assuage any abuse; we can teach the children … well … and let them lead the way.

We would hate to think that bullying may “push” citizens away from their Caribbean homelands. So we must reform and transform our societal engines. If we do this, we will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, learn and play for all citizens “strong or weak”. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

—————-

Appendix VIDEO – Whitney Houston – Greatest Love Of All – https://youtu.be/IYzlVDlE72w

Uploaded on Sep 27, 2010 – Whitney Houston’s official music video for ‘Greatest Love Of All’. Click to listen to Whitney Houston on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/WhitneyHSpotify?IQ…

Click to buy the track or album via iTunes: http://smarturl.it/WhitneyGreatestHit…
Google Play: http://smarturl.it/GLOGPlay?IQid=Whit…
Amazon: http://smarturl.it/WGHAmazon?IQid=Whi…

Follow Whitney Houston
Website: http://www.whitneyhouston.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhitneyHouston

Subscribe to Whitney Houston on YouTube: http://smarturl.it/WhitneyHoustonSub?…

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Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Mental Disabilities

Posted on April 3, 2017 in Ethos, Government

Go Lean Commentary

“Are you an idiot?”

“No, I’m a moron”

Imagine this exchange. Funny isn’t it! But truth be told the etymology of the words “idiot” and “moron” is that they represent scales in the range of intellectual disability.

There is a 3rd classification: “Imbecile”, to represent the mid-range. In total, the following is the full range, from higher (better) to lower (intellectually disabled):

3.  Moron – is a term once used in Psychology to denote mild intellectual disability.[1] This term was coined in 1910 by psychologist Henry H. Goddard[3] from the Ancient Greek word  moros, which meant “dull”[4] and used to describe a person with a mental age in adulthood of between 8 and 12 on the Binet scale.[5]

2.  Imbecile – is a term for people with moderate to severe intellectual disability.[1][2] The term arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded. It included people with an IQ of 26–50, between “idiot” (IQ of 0–25) and “moron” (IQ of 51–70).[3]

1.  Idiot – is a term for a person perceived to be lacking intelligence. In Psychology, it is a historical term for a person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning.

All of these terms were closely tied with the American Eugenics Movement[2] (where they attempted to sterilize and colonize the mentally disabled in society so as to control the risks of procreating further). Once the terms became popularized, they fell out of use by the Psychological community, and were used more commonly as insults rather than as psychological classifications.

Note: We have “Idiots”, “Imbeciles” and “Morons” in every community in the Caribbean. People with congenital mental weaknesses are everywhere!

This backdrop allows us to better appreciate a societal defect that exists in much of the New World. From the beginning of time, there have always been people who suffered from congenital mental weakness or intellectual disability. These persons need protection in society, not abuse and insults. Accordingly, from the Enlightenment Age (between 1650 and 1700), the concept of a Social Contract emerged; this is the implied arrangement where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. By extension the assumption is that as all societies have both “strong” and “weak” constituents, so there must always be some societal protections for the weak – physically weak and mentally weak.

In addition to congenital mental weakness, we find that that are other categories of people that at one time or another fall under the category of the mentally “weak”. There are those with:

  • Transactional Mental Weakness – PTSD, Family/Marriage/Divorce counseling, Bereavement, Addiction and Alcoholism. (“Transactional” is not a clinical term, but rather an adjective). People can and do recover-rehabiltate from these disorders.
  • Adult Onset Illnesses – Schizophrenia and Bi-Polar Disorders that emerge in the late 20’s / early 30’s
  • Degenerative Illnesses – Alzheimer’s, Dementia and other age-induced neural disorders

In the previous blog-commentary on the Model of Hammurabi it was detailed how that ancient King established laws to ensure that the “strong in society did not abuse the weak”. That blog concluded that New World societies need to do better in applying the sage advice from a 3,800-year-old regent. This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which seeks to reform and transform the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region, to ensure better stewardship of the Social Contract for all citizens in our homeland, strong and weak.

The Go Lean book describes empowerments to target the economic, security and governing engines of Caribbean society to ensure an adherence to the principle of the Greater Good. This commentary is the 2nd of 4 in a series on “Managing the Strong versus the Weak”. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

  1. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Model of Hammurabi
  2. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Mental Disabilities
  3. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Bullying in Schools: “Teach them well and let them lead the way”
  4. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Book Review: Sold-Out!

All of these commentaries relate to nation-building, stressing the community ethos necessary to forge a society where all the people are protected all the time. This has not always been the case in the Caribbean nor has it been in the US – the “city on the hill” – the model of advanced democracy in our region. We must do better!

There is a lesson in American history in which they abused the rights (life, liberty and pursuit of happiness) of 70,000 people. We can observe-and-report on this bad experience and commit to effect change here in our Caribbean homeland. See-listen to the AUDIO Podcast here, relating this sad history based on the following book:

Mental Photo 2

Book Cover

AUDIO Podcast – The Supreme Court Ruling That Led To 70,000 Forced Sterilizations – Heard on Fresh Air

Mental Photo 4In the early 20th century, American eugenicists used forced sterilization to “breed out” traits considered undesirable. Adam Cohen tells the story in Imbeciles. Originally broadcast March 7, 2016.

This foregoing AUDIO report reviews the new paperback book Imbeciles by writer-lawyer Adam Cohen. Here is a representative sound-bite:

One of the worst Supreme Court decisions in US history … was the 1927 decision upholding a state’s right to forcibly sterilize a person considered unfit to procreate – unfit because they were deemed to be mentally deficient. That decision is part of a larger chapter of American history in which the eugenics movement was behind preventing so-called mentally deficient people from procreating through not allowing them to marry, sterilizing them and segregating them in special colonies.

The Nazis borrowed some ideas from American eugenicists. The eugenics movement also influenced the 1924 Immigration Act, which was designed in part to keep out Italians and Eastern European Jews. Adam Cohen’s book titled “Imbeciles” is about the eugenics movement in the early 20th century and the Supreme Court case legalizing sterilization.

This true history of the United States exposes what is embedded in this country’s DNA – a propensity for the “strong to abuse the weak”. And yet, the Caribbean suffers from an atrocious emigration rate of our citizens fleeing our homeland to go to the US. Surely, this history is unknown among these expatriates.  Surely, a rich education to the next generation of Caribbean citizens would deter some of them from setting their sights on US shores as the panacea for all Caribbean ills.

The reasons why people leave in the first place have been identified as “push and pull”:

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

“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more safer life abroad; many times our people are emigrating to communities where they perceive that there are protections for the “weak against the abusive strong”.

It has been a consistent theme from the promoters of the Go Lean book, that we can dull the bright lights on any flashing American “Welcome Signs” so as to dissuade the “Pull” factor. Indeed, the consistent messaging of these Go Lean blogs has been that it takes less effort to reform and transform our Caribbean society than abandoning our home and trying to succeed in a Diasporic life.

Surely, the truth of American history will hurt … any false impressions that Caribbean people may have about American life and culture. Consider this sample of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10933 White is Right – Not!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10895 Trump’s Vision of the Caribbean: Yawn
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10654 Stay Home! Immigration Realities in the US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10629 Stay Home! Remembering the Societal Defects of McCarthyism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10532 Learning from American Stereotypes – Good and Bad
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10336 A Lesson in History: Haiti’s Reasonable Doubt of America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10052 Fake News? Welcome to America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9974 Lessons Learned from Pearl Harbor
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9626 ‘Time to Go’ – America Marginalizes the Black-n-Brown Vote
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9214 ‘Time to Go’ – Spot-on for Protest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8431 A Caribbean State Issued US Travel Advisory Citing Police Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221 Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils a ‘Climate of Hate’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5733 Better than America? Yes, We Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5529 American Defects: Inventory of Crony-Capitalism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527 American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?

Still some may conclude that the American ethos of yesteryear no longer applies today. Yet, the foregoing AUDIO Podcast relates that the landmark 1927 Supreme Court decision is still the law of the land in the US, and that there have been many times – including a recent 2001 Sterilization case – where provisions of this law is still being applied.

Mental Photo 3

America is very much troubled with their management of [transactional and degenerative] mental weakness:

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to “weed out” our own bad practices of the “strong abusing the weak” in our society. We want to pursue the Greater Good (greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong). And this includes help for people who are mentally weak.  The Go Lean/CU roadmap includes many strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact Caribbean society and our treatment of the weak, including the mentally weak due to congenital, transactional, adult-onset and degenerative causes.

“Persons with Disabilities” are still people. They can still contribute to society. Even in the US, people with disorders like Bi-Polar and Schizophrenia have been extremely impactful in their communities – consider the example of Nobel Prize Winner Dr. John Nash.

These previous Go Lean blog-commentaries have detailed mental health challenges in communities:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7659 Pre-Fab Housing and Elder-Care Conjunction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5901 The Demographic Theory of Elderly Suicide
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5720 Role Model advocates for ‘Reasonable Accommodations’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2633 Book Review: ‘The Protest Psychosis’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2602 Guyana and Suriname Wrestle With High Rates of Suicides
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2105 Recessions and Public Physical and Mental Health
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1751 New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease

We must learn from this lesson … that the “weak (physical and mental) must be protected from the strong” that may have malice towards them. If we can assuage such abuses, we would mitigate the “push and pull” factors that have previously befallen our territories. Let’s do better in reforming and transforming our societal engines in the Caribbean homeland in regards to mental healthcare. If we do this, we will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play for all citizens, “strong or weak”. 🙂

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

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

 

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Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Model of Hammurabi

Posted on April 2, 2017 in Ethos, Government

Go Lean Commentary

Time for a lesson from history; a very old history; going back-back-back to the year 1754 BC.

Hammurabi - Photo 1This is when the Code of Hammurabi was enacted within the Babylonian Empire, a Super Power in the ancient world; see Appendix reference and VIDEO below. Despite the passage of 3,800 years, there is a lesson to glean from this ancient legal precept for us today. Despite the irrelevance of so many of the 282 statutes, there in the preface of the codified Law is this statement:

“So that the strong should not harm the weak”

Despite how much advances we have made in the millennia since King Hammurabi of Babylon reigned, this concept seems to be void in so many societies; this concept …

  • … is not in the Caribbean.
  • … is not in the United States.
  • … is not in the New World.

There is an obvious “ignorance or negligence of this concept” in the New World. Consider the experience in the United States, where the American DNA seems to be based on a consistent pattern of the “strong abusing the weak” and the long civil rights struggle to overcome the abuse. This is American History and the American Experience. Consider these examples of the “weak” that were harmed:

  • Native American / Indigenous people – The Ameri-Indians were mostly eradicated. Those who survived where corralled onto limited territorial grounds called “reservations”.
  • Slavery of Africans – After the indigenous people of the New World could not be sustained in servitude, their replacements – native African tribes people proved more enduring.
  • Civil Rights Movement – After international forces and pressure ended the “Slave Trade“, then abolition of slavery, the emancipated people were suppressed, repressed and oppressed as 2nd class citizens for 100 years in the country they helped build.
  • Indentured Servants (East Indians & Irish) – As replacement labor sources, these desperate groups were hoarded to the New World where their labors and cultures were exploited as an under-class.
  • Labor Movement – After a “long train of abuses” in factories and industrial plants, the common worker was subjected to forceful resistance to unionization and collective bargaining.
  • McCarthyism – Congressional “Witch-hunts” and industry blacklisting anyone with a dissenting thought in the capitalism -vs- communism debate.
  • Farm Migrant Labor – Immigrants were subjected to a form of “slavery under a different name” to harvest crops on Big Agra farms.

The American creed of “In God We Trust” seems to indicate that the country would be based on religious principles. But the actuality of the abuses of the “strong against the weak” belie any religious predisposition. The US and all New World territories claim to be a nation based on Judeo-Christian principles; but the Bible’s Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) states:

Job 29:12 – “because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist them.”

… and the Bible’s New Testament (Christian Greek Scriptures) states:

James 1:27 – “[the form of] religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

So the abuse of the “strong against the weak” is clearly an unabashed societal defect in the New World. History teaches that with the emergence of any new economic engines, “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities – the weak – with good, bad and evil intent.

The New World needs to apply this lesson-learned from the “Old World of 1754 BC” to protect the “poor, sick and huddled masses yearning to be free”.

This lesson from history aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which seeks to reform and transform the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region; the book describes empowerments to target the economic, security and governing engines of society to ensure an adherence to the principle of the Greater Good. While we can observe-and-report on the other countries, we can only effect change here in our Caribbean homeland. This commentary is the first, 1 of 4 on a series on “Managing the Strong versus the Weak”. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

  1. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Model of Hammurabi
  2. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Mental Disabilities
  3. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Bullying in Schools: “Teach them well and let them lead the way”
  4. Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Book Review: Sold-Out!

All of these commentaries relate to nation-building, stressing the community ethos necessary to forge a society where all the people are protected all the time. This has not always been the case in the Caribbean nor in the US. We must do better. The Code of Hammurabi gives us a great model:

  • The code has been seen as an early example of a fundamental law, regulating a government — i.e., a primitive constitution.[14][15]
  • The copying [of the code] in subsequent generations indicates that it was used as a model of legal and judicial reasoning.[17]
  • The Code focuses on justice, following the three classes of Babylonian society: 1. property owners, 2. freed men, and 3. Slaves.[18]. This is a good model for considering today’s contrast for the Rich, Middle Class and the Poor.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide better stewardship for the region’s economic, security and governing eco-systems. The book actually conveys that there are many opportunities for the Caribbean to implement some “reasonable accommodations” so that the weak in society are not trampled on by the strong. Consider these two missions: Organ Transplantation & Disabilities:

10 Ways to Improve Organ Transplantation – Page 214

0 The Bottom Line on Organ Trade – Organ trade is the trade involving inner organs (heart, liver, kidneys, cornea, etc.) of a human for transplantation. In the 1970s pharmaceuticals that prevent organ rejection were introduced. This along with a lack of medical regulation helped foster the organ market. The problem of organ trafficking is widespread, although data on the exact scale of the organ market is difficult to obtain. (Most organ trade involves kidney or liver transplants). There is a worldwide shortage of organs available for transplantation, yet trade in human organs is illegal in all countries, except Iran.…WHO states that, “Payment for…organs is likely to take unfair advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable groups, undermining altruistic donation and leads to profiteering and human trafficking.”
1 Leverage the full population – 42 million people – of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.
2 Diaspora Matching
3 Medical Tourism
4 Self-Governing Entities
5 Xeno-transplantation and Artificial Organs
6 Trauma Centers
7 Tissue Bank
8 Intelligence Analysis / Post Op – Data Analysis
9 Health Insurance Cooperation
10 Public Health Mandates – Pre (Vaccinations/Immunizations) and Post-op (mental & physical) challenges

10 Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities – Page 228

0 The Bottom Line on the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) – This Act is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, 2009. The ADA is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal. Disability is defined by the ADA as “…a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.” The determination of whether any particular condition is considered a disability is made on a case by case basis. Certain specific conditions are excluded as disabilities, such as current substance abuse and visual impairment that is correctable by prescription lenses.[ADA is based on the premise of] reasonable accommodation – an adjustment made in a system to “accommodate” or make fair the same system for an individual based on a proven need. Accommodations can be religious, academic, or employment related. This provision is also prominent in international law as the United Nations has codified the principle in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. [There are many international signatories to these principles and resolutions].
1 Leverage the full population – 42 million people – of the region for a Caribbean Persons With Disabilities Act.
2 Cruise Ships and Disability Tourism
3 Public Transportation and Public Accommodations – Assurance on CU facilities
4 Government Buildings and Proceedings
5 Mental Disabilities and Gun Control
6 Tele-type Call Center Access
7 Autism Awareness – Opt-Out Accommodations
8 Braille Websites
9 Closed Captioning … for Television
10 Public Awareness Campaign – Improve Image

The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) have identified the foregoing defect of the “strong abusing the weak”. The consequences and repercussions of this defect are:

Death or Diaspora

The Caribbean region needs to “weed out” this bad practice in our community ethos and instead, pursue the Greater Good. The book defines this attribute as follows (Page 37):

“The greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong”. –  Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

Our Caribbean Diaspora grows with every passing day – Ghost Towns are viable possibilities in some countries. People who love their homeland abandon it for foreign shores. As a result, we have a sad state of affairs. The reasons why people leave in the first place have been identified as “push and pull”:

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

“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more safer life abroad; many times our people are emigrating to communities where there are protections for the “weak against the abusive strong”.

If only we can mitigate these “push and pull” factors, then we can dissuade our societal abandonment and have a chance of elevating (reforming and transforming) our societal engines in the homeland. But there is a need for due caution to all those in the Caribbean desiring to emigrate to the US, we urge you to take heed: the “grass is not greener” on that other side. The American propensity is for the “strong to abuse the weak”; maybe even more so than in your home country.

The Go Lean book and movement wants to help reform and transform the Caribbean. We see the defects throughout the New World, we perceive the harmful effects, but only the Caribbean is within scope for our remediation efforts. While we want to dissuade our people from fleeing, it is our quest to apply best-practices to improve our homeland, to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

——————

Appendix – Code of Hammurabi

Hammurabi - Photo 2The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1754 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a seven and a half foot stone stele and various clay tablets. The code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (lex talionis)[1] as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man.[2] Nearly one-half of the code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity, and sexual behavior. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an official; this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently.[3] A few provisions address issues related to military service.

The code was discovered by modern archaeologists in 1901, and its editio princeps translation published in 1902 by Jean-Vincent Scheil. This nearly complete example of the code is carved into a basalt stele in the shape of a huge index finger,[4] 2.25 m (7.4 ft) tall. The code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script carved into the stele. It is currently on display in the Louvre [Museum in Paris], with exact replicas in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, the Clendening History of Medicine Library & Museum at the University of Kansas Medical Center, the library of the Theological University of the Reformed Churches (Dutch: Theologische Universiteit Kampen voor de Gereformeerde Kerken) in the Netherlands, the Pergamon Museum of Berlin, and the National Museum of Iran in Tehran.

Hammurabi ruled for nearly 42 years, from about 1792 to 1749 BC according to the Middle chronology. In the preface to the law, he states, “Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind.”[5] On the stone slab are 44 columns and 28 paragraphs that contained 282 laws. Some of these laws follow along the rules of ‘an eye for an eye’.[6]

Source: Retrieved March 29, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

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VIDEO – Hammurabi’s Code Explained: World History Review – https://youtu.be/BsPbqmYwxso

Published on Jan 7, 2015 – A 5 minute fun overview of Hammurabi’s Code, one of the earliest and most influential legal documents to be pounded out by Mesopotamia. Check out the real doc here http://www.commonlaw.com/Hammurabi.html

  • Category: Education

  • License: Standard YouTube License

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