Month: April 2020

Keep the Change: Mono-Industrial Economy Exhaustion

Posted on April 26, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

We have all seen-heard the common expressions of exhaustion:

I am sick and tired of being ‘sick and tired’.

Grow up Already, and take care of your own business.

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change; I am changing the things I cannot accept.

From the very beginning we, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, set-out to correct this blatant flaw in our societal design – Page 3, Paragraph 2:

Many people love their homelands and yet still begrudgingly leave; this is due mainly to the lack of economic opportunities. The Caribbean has tried, strenuously, over the decades, to diversify their economy away from the mono-industrial trappings of tourism, and yet tourism is still the primary driver of the economy. Prudence dictates that the Caribbean nations expand and optimize their tourism products, but also look for other opportunities for economic expansion. The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

Enough already! We are exhausted from all this deficiency.

Thanks to the Coronavirus – COVID-19 crisis, the world is re-thinking mono-industrial trappings. It is not good to “put all the eggs in one basket”. See this dramatization in the Appendix VIDEO below.

If you are dependent on tourism, be On Guard, with no COVID-19 vaccine or treatment, travel restrictions and social distancing will be the new normal for a long time still – maybe 18 months. This means 2022 before a return to 2019 levels of economic output.

Those dependent on tourism are hereby being forced to accept changes and make adjustments.

They are being forced to make a change, not just temporarily to get past this crisis, but rather permanent change to fix the “cracks in the foundation”. They want to Keep the Change and complete the diversification pledge.

This is also the narrative for another industry and another country, that of Saudi Arabia. Right now; their society is mono-industrial – oil – but they want to be less vulnerable to the volatility of oil prices and oil revenues. So they want to contemplate other ways to diversify their economy. They want to Keep the Change; see the Appendix below. Their ‘Will to Change’ is strong as they have been Oil Rich for a long time.

Movie Quotes: Trading Places (1983)
“The best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people” – Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy)

The price of oil dropped to $11.26 a barrel (55 ga1lons) earlier this month; this was the absolute lowest in recent history. Oil revenues cratered for all such Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

How about us in the Caribbean?

While we do have some OPEC members in our region – 2 of 30 – the vast majority of the Caribbean depend on a different mono-industrial engine: tourism. Likewise, most of our countries too, have failed to deliver any diversification to the industrial offering.

The problem is the mono-industrial engine.

The solution is diversification.

How do we go about manifesting this change, Keeping this Change?

(Saudi Arabia is out of scope for the movement behind the Go Lean book).

The Go Lean book presented strategies, tactics and implementations to pursue this goal. The diversification mission was stated as follows (Page 45):

Build and foster local economic engines. This will diversify the economy, while still enhancing the tourism product, and create a perpetual eco-system for job creation. Whereas certain provisions are impractical for a small-population-market, once that market is super-sized, there must be local solutions. This is best illustrated with the regions undeniable need for food, clothing and shelter. A market-size of 42 million must foster industries on Main Street to produce and supply these basic needs. By fulfilling this mission, a strategic and defensive stance, other aspects of the economy gets the peripheral benefit: jobs, lower costs of living, control of inflation – fostering middle class prospects.

Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean present a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this April 2020, our focus was on the impact of the Coronavirus on the economic engines in the region. There is now the need to re-focus on the changes this crisis has ushered in and to Keep the Changes that are good and may have always been needed, like industrial diversification. This is entry 5 of 5 for this series, it completes the series and encores the certainty and urgency to flex our economic muscles to “put our eggs in more than one basket”.

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

  1. Keep the Change – Lower Carbon Consumption abating Climate Change
  2. Keep the Change – Working From Home & the Call Center Model
  3. Keep the Change – Schools – Primary to Tertiary – making e-Learning work
  4. Keep the Change – Basic Needs: Cannot just consume; we must produce as well
  5. Keep the Change – Mono-Industrial Economy: ‘All eggs in 1 basket’

Don’t get it twisted, this Coronavirus-COVID-19 threat means death and devastation for many people and it has devastated the economic engines of most countries. There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; we are not immune here in the Caribbean. We must abide by best-practices or suffer the consequences. Crises bring challenges, challenges bring changes. Some good, some bad and some ugly.

Yes, we can … Keep the Changes for the good benefits. We have always needed to pursue a diversification of our industrial footprint, to accomplish this finally would be good. This diversification goal was previously identified, qualified and proposed with different Industrial Reboot solutions, spread across 2 years. See this chronological list of previous submissions:

  1. Industrial Reboots – Ferries 101 – Published June 27, 2017
  2. Industrial Reboots – Prisons 101 – Published October 4, 2017
  3. Industrial Reboots – Pipeline 101 – Published October 5, 2017
  4. Industrial Reboots – Frozen Foods 101 – Published October 6, 2017
  5. Industrial Reboots – Commercial Gigs 101 – Published February 8, 2018
  6. Industrial Reboots – Call Centers 101 – Published July 2, 2018
  7. Industrial Reboots – Prefab Housing 101 – Published July 14, 2018
  8. Industrial Reboots – Trauma 101 – Published July 18, 2018
  9. Industrial Reboots – Auto-making 101 – Published July 19, 2018
  10. Industrial Reboots – Shipbuilding 101 – Published July 20, 2018
  11. Industrial Reboots – Fisheries 101 – Published July 23, 2018
  12. Industrial Reboots – Lottery 101 – Published July 24, 2018
  13. Industrial Reboots – Culture 101 – Published July 25, 2018
  14. Industrial Reboots – Tourism 2.0 – Published July 27, 2018
  15. Industrial Reboots – Cruise Tourism 2.0 – Published July 27, 2018
  16. Industrial Reboots – Reinsurance Sidecars 101 – Published October 2, 2018
  17. Industrial Reboots – Navy Piers 101 – Published October 9, 2018
  18. Industrial Reboots – Payment Cards 101 – Published October 11, 2018
  19. Industrial Reboots – Medical Schools 101 – Published March 1, 2019
  20. Industrial Reboots – Amusements Parks 101 – Published May 8, 2019

In summary, our Caribbean region needs a diversified industrial landscape to improve our economics, security and governance. This is why we must Keep the Change. emanating from this Coronavirus-COVID-19 crisis.

If the only positive thing that comes from this crisis is a diversified economy, then that would be a good benefit from a bad sacrifice, a good return on a huge investment.

The sacrifices would not have been in vain.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to work to reform and transform our homeland. We urge you to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to reboot the industrial landscape. This is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):

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

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

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

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

——————-

Appendix VIDEO – Idioms – Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – https://youtu.be/EFkSIuNTdXc

Posted December 2, 2016

Sprachenzentrum Hochschule Nordhausen

——————-

Appendix – A new direction for the Saudi Arabian economy
Sub-title: As Saudi Arabia moves to diversify its economy away from oil, its private sector is beginning to truly thrive

Saudi Arabia finds itself at a significant economic crossroads. Home to the second-largest oil reserves in the world, the kingdom’s economy has been largely defined by the crude industry since drillers first struck oil in Dammam in March 1938. The discovery marked a watershed moment in the nation’s history, sparking an economic boom and propelling Saudi Arabia towards becoming one of the world’s wealthiest countries. Today, the nation is recognised as a global economic powerhouse, sitting among the G20 countries and boasting one of the highest GDPs in the Middle East.

While oil has brought Saudi Arabia great wealth and prosperity, we know one thing for certain – it won’t last forever. Crude is a finite resource and, although there is much debate surrounding the extent of the nation’s vast oil reserves, some estimates predict that supplies will last just 70 more years. This looming time limit – coupled with a global push to create a greener future – has seen Saudi Arabia begin to craft its vision for a post-oil era.

In 2016, Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the ambitious Vision 2030, a far-reaching reform plan that aims to diversify the economy away from oil, bolstering the private sector and improving employment opportunities for young people. The plan seeks to create a thriving economy where non-oil sectors such as tourism, manufacturing and renewable energy can drive growth, and entrepreneurial activities are encouraged. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a main focus for Vision 2030, with the project seeking to increase the contribution of SMEs to the Saudi Arabian GDP from 20 to 35 percent over the next decade. As the government forges ahead with its diversification drive, Saudi businesses must develop in line with these exciting transformations. A new economic ecosystem is emerging in Saudi Arabia and opportunities are plentiful for those businesses that contribute to its creation.

Burgeoning businesses
With Saudi Arabia ramping up its economic transformation plan, the nation’s private sector is truly coming into its own, and non-oil industries are beginning to drive growth. One such industry is the Saudi insurance market, which has shown great promise in recent years, emerging as one of the largest insurance sectors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Since first opening its doors to customers in 1986, the Company for Cooperative Insurance (Tawuniya) has grown into one of the nation’s foremost insurance providers, offering more than 60 insurance products – including medical, motor, fire, property, engineering, casualty, marine, energy and aviation insurance – in order to protect Saudi citizens from all manner of risk.

See the full article here: https://www.worldfinance.com/featured/a-new-direction-for-the-saudi-arabian-economy published October 3, 2019 retrieved April 26, 2020.

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Keep the Change: Being ‘Basic’ about Basic Needs

Posted on April 25, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Industries, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

The strong urging to the Caribbean today is to:

Be more Basic.

What exactly does this mean?

Sometimes the reference is good, sometimes bad, and sometimes ugly.

What does Basic Mean? – www.dictionary.com
In slang, basic characterizes someone or something as unoriginal, unexceptional, and mainstream. A basic girl—or basic bitch as she is often insulted—is said to like pumpkin spice lattes, UGG boots, and taking lots of selfies, for instance.

WHERE DOES BASIC COME FROM?

According to Green’s Dictionary of Slang, basic emerges as slang for someone or something as being “unexciting, unexceptional, or uneventful” in the 1970s. This is an outgrowth of the negative sense of basic as “plain and simple”.

The slang especially stuck to women. In their 1984 song “Meeting in the Ladies Room,” the R&B girl group Klymaxx call a woman basic for making moves on another’s boyfriend. [(See Appendix A below)].

The 2000s saw the rise of the term basic bitch, or a woman who is uninteresting and mainstream in her tastes, interests, style, or personality. Comedian Lil Duval had a 2009 video about the Basic Bitch. [(See Appendix B below)]. The 2011 song “Gucci Gucci” by Kreayshawn features the hook: “And we stunting like / Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada / Basic bitches wear that shit so I don’t even bother.”

Basic has since become associated with unlikeable, predictable, and ordinary things, especially associated with young white women.

WHO USES BASIC?

While basic can describe anyone or anything considered disagreeably mainstream, it especially insults, as noted, young white women. As basic and basic bitch spread in popular culture, some women aren’t oblivious to their supposed basic-ness but ironically embrace it. But men, be very careful about calling a woman basic, let alone basic bitch. We don’t recommend it.

NOTE:
This is not meant to be a formal definition of basic like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of basic that will help our users expand their word mastery.

The take-away from this foregoing “ugly” definition is that “basic is ‘plain and simple’”.

The plain and simple requirement is that the 30 member-states of the political Caribbean need to do a better job of fulfilling its basic needs: food, clothing, shelter and energy. Globalization has failed us – we must do the Basic ourselves. We do not necessarily need – though we might want – all the fancy solutions.

  • Hungry? Go Fish … or go outside and pluck from a family garden or a family farm. How about plucking eggs or tree-ripen selections from fruit trees (think tomatoes) or a fattened bull for slaughter?
  • Naked? Pull out the sewing machine and make a garment; sweatshops in low-wage countries are the breeding grounds for this virus. How about Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) garments; i.e. mask, gowns, tunics, jackets?
  • Homeless? Gather the building materials and construct a house. Zoning and HOA rules must be agile and flexible. How about allowing family gardens and/or community gardens in urban areas? Barn-houses in rural areas?
  • Stranded? Use the wind to move a turbine and/or move a vehicle (boat) from Point A to Point B. How about generating electricity from alternative sources (wind, sun, thermal and tidal), then powering electric cars?

Thanks to the Coronavirus – COVID-19 crisis, the world is re-thinking the fulfillment of these basic needs. Believe it or not, in every jurisdiction Food Service workers are now regarded as Essential Workers. This is a fundamental change – a shift in values – for jobs that had previously been valued as inconsequential or unworthy for most, except the lowest in society; think  the new immigrants (Migrant Workers) toiling in the fields and the packing houses.

Are these ones now “essential” or sacrificial?

Or are they now … simply Basic?

It’s time to acknowledge the change … and Keep the Change to our value systems. It is time to acknowledge that fulfilling our basic needs is a basic requirement for survival as a people and a collective society.

So often, the basic needs for Caribbean survival were just delegated to others, only fulfilled through imports. But now that it is April 2020 and the world is locked-down, sheltering-in-place, the majority of people have had to avoid gathering for all but essential interactions in order to “flatten the curve”. Those who gather and distribute our food are now more valued and more expensive.

Have you noticed the increase in prices for our necessities? We can no longer be “cute”, only desiring the fancy brands. No, we now have to be basic. We need to Keep this Change.

The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean had originally asserted that doubling-down on Basic Needs was the key to reforming and transforming the societal engines in our Caribbean homeland. The book stated that the best way to reboot the economy and recover from the Global Crisis – that time it was the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 – was to double-down on the Basics. There is an actual advocacy of this purpose in the Go Lean book; see here some of the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from Page 152, entitled:

10 Ways to Create Jobs … in the Caribbean Region

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market Confederation Treaty: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU)
The CU will allow for the unification of the region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member- states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion. The CU’s mission is to create high-paying jobs for the region, beyond the minimum wage (defined below). Many high-wage industries would be promoted, incentivized and regulated at the federal level, even new industries created. Jobs come from trade; the CU goal is to improve trade. The CU will thus institute Enterprise Zones and Empowerment Zones – SGE’s – with tax benefits: rebates, abatements – as job creation pockets. The CU will capture data, micro and macro economic metrics, to measure the success/failure of these initiatives.
2 Feed Ourselves
The industries of agri-business allow structured commercial systems to grow, harvest and trade in food supplies. Many of the Caribbean member states (Lesser Antilles) acquire all their food in trade, the agricultural footprint is very small, though some countries (Greater Antilles, Belize, Guyana & Suriname) have a low opportunity cost for producing food. But with the Trade Federation in force, intra-region trade will be the first priority. When the demand is qualified, quantified and assured, the supply and quality there in, will catch up.
3 Clothe Ourselves
With textiles manufacturing; fashion merchandising and logistical industries, jobs can be created in the supply of apparel, shoes and accessories. Today, 90 – 99% of the supply is foreign trade. But once the CU regional demand is qualified, quantified and assured, the local supply will catch up further. 4
4 House Ourselves
In the US, it’s a truism of the National Association of Realtors® that “housing creates jobs” [239]. With the repatriation of the Caribbean Diaspora, local building supplies and new “housing starts” will emerge in the Caribbean. Plus, the CU will facilitate mortgage secondary market and pre-fabulous construction thereby fostering new housing sub-industries.
5 Update Our Own Infrastructure and the Industries They Spun
6 Help Regional Businesses Find Foreign Markets
7 Steer More People to S.T.E.M. Education and Careers
8 Welcome Home Emigrants [ or Repatriates]
9 Welcome “Empowering” Immigrants
10 Draw More Tourists

Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean present a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this April 2020, our focus is on the impact of the Coronavirus on the Globe, region, each member-state (national), community and each family. There is the need to re-focus on the changes this crisis has ushered in and to Keep the Changes that were always needed for implementation. This is entry 4 of 5 for this series, which details that there is the need to double-down on Basic Needs (food, clothing, shelter and energy.

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

  1. Keep the Change – Lower Carbon Consumption abating Climate Change
  2. Keep the Change – Working From Home & the Call Center Model
  3. Keep the Change – Schools – Primary to Tertiary – making e-Learning work
  4. Keep the Change – Basic Needs: Cannot just consume; we must produce as well
  5. Keep the Change – Mono-Industrial Economy: ‘All eggs in 1 basket’

Don’t get it twisted, this Coronavirus-COVID-19 threat means death and devastation for many people and it has devastated the economic engines of most countries – our Caribbean homelands included. There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; changes are afoot. Some good, some bad and some ugly.

Yes, we can … Keep the Change for the good benefits. We have always needed to do a better job for Food Security. In fact this was the subject of a whole series in December 2019 where we identified these issues, challenges and solutions:

  1. Food Security – Bread Baskets on Land and Sea
  2. Food Security – Temperate Foods in the Tropics
  3. Food Security – Opportunity: 1 County in Iowa raises all the Beef for a Caribbean Cruise Line
  4. Food Security – FTAA: A Lesson in History for servicing Local Foods
  5. Food Security – Big Chicken – Low-hanging fruit for all Poultry needs

The points of reforming and transforming the Caribbean eco-systems for other basic needs – think clothing, housing and energy – were also elaborated upon in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19327 ‘Missing Solar’ – Inadequacies Exposed to the World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18287 The Housing Industry can save us – in Good Times and Bad
 https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17280 Way Forward – For Energy: ‘Trade’ Winds
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13985 EU Assists Barbados in Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14250 Leading with Money Matters – As Goes Housing, Goes the Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11737 Robots Building Houses – More than Fiction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10373 Science of Sustenance: CLT Housing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10371 Science of Sustenance: e-Clothing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/? p=10367 Science of Sustenance: Energy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155 Tesla unveils super-battery to enable Alternative Energy for homes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726 Caribbean People have thrived in Fashion industry – Oscar De La Renta
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=665 Real Estate Investment Trusts – Solution for financing Housing industry

Call us Basic … I dare you.

Rather than an insult, we need to be proud to be more technocratic in the fulfillment of our basic needs. “Plain and simple”, we need to:

  • Feed Ourselves
  • Clothe Ourselves
  • House Ourselves

We should be insulted that we are NOT Basic.

This is why we must Keep the Change.

Coronavirus COVID-19 is not a good happenstance – people are dying.

However, if we can use this crisis to forge change in our society, force changes to our “community ethos” (the Will to Change) and to the societal engines for economics, security and governance, then those sacrifices would not have been in vain.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to work to reform and transform our homeland. How? The strategies, tactics and implementations are all identified, qualified and proposed in the pages of the Go Lean book. It’s a full roadmap for change. A complete roadmap to make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book

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

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

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

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

Who We Are

The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 14):

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

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

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

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

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

——————

Appendix A VIDEO – Klymaxx – Meeting In The Ladies Room (Official Video)  – https://youtu.be/_odTlZaoLCA

Klymaxx

Posted Dec 25, 2009 – Best of Klymaxx: https://goo.gl/QEYkmT

Subscribe here: https://goo.gl/2vDd9j

Music video by Klymaxx performing Meeting In The Ladies Room. (C) 1985 Geffen Records

#Klymaxx #MeetingInTheLadiesRoom #Vevo

Music in this video

Learn more

Listen ad-free with YouTube Premium

  • Song: Meeting In The Ladies Room (Radio Edit)
  • Artist: Klymaxx 
  • Licensed to YouTube by: UMG (on behalf of Geffen*); ARESA, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA – UBEM, BMG Rights Management (US), LLC, Sony ATV Publishing, CMRRA, Abramus Digital, EMI Music Publishing, LatinAutor – PeerMusic, LatinAutor, Audiam (Publishing), LatinAutor – SonyATV, BMI – Broadcast Music Inc., SOLAR Music Rights Management, and 4 Music Rights Societies

——————

Appendix B VIDEO – @LilDuval BASIC BITCH! – https://youtu.be/PUXt7N_TmdI

[This content of this VIDEO is profane, misogynistic and racist; highly inappropriate, but still considered art.]

Posted Aug 3, 2009

LILDUVAL TV SPOKENREASONS BASIC BITCH CALLING A WOMAN A BITCH YOUR A BITCH NO OFFENSE DRAMA FOR YO MAMA FUNNY COMEDY TWITTER LIL DUVAL NECOLE BITCHIE SKYPE BRAVE JB DA POET FUNNIEST BOY ALIVE FUNNIEST MAN ALIVE FUNNIEST YOUTUBER ALIVE STAND UP COMEDY DEF POETRY JAM BEST POET ALIVE TWITTER ME I LOVE TWITTER

Music in this video

Learn more

Listen ad-free with YouTube Premium

 

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Keep the Change: Making e-Learning Work

Posted on April 24, 2020 in Economics, Strategy

 Go Lean Commentary

Here’s how to make money in the Stock Market:

Buy low and sell high.

Here’s a stock tip:

Any company that develops-deploys computer software for e-Learning:

These companies are all the rage now, as they provide software-systems to facilitate online education for Tertiary (college) students down to Primary students. Welcome to the …

… no wait, we have been here all the while … waiting for “you” to arrive. See the priority-focus from Page 127 of the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean:

10 Big Ideas … in the Caribbean Region  # 9: e-Learning – Versus – Studying Abroad
The Caribbean has tried the Study Abroad model, the result: a “brain drain” where our best students leave and may never return for residence, employment or investments, (only family visits). The new approach is to keep the talent here in the Caribbean, educate them here and notice the positive efforts on societal institutions.

In the Caribbean, this was always our BHAG – Big Hairy Audacious Goal – that we would terminate the strategy of sending our children off to college to only then watch them “never come back”.  🙁

Imagine depositing money in the bank, for a rainy day fund; when it rains we go to take the money and the expected interest.

But, there is no bank …

… the investment did pay-off; interest revenue did accrue, but not for us.

This is the sad reality … for the Caribbean … and many other Failing-States around the world.

Thanks to the Coronavirus – COVID-19 crisis, the world is coming to the e-Learning party. It is April 2020 and the world is locked-down, sheltering-in-place. The majority of people in society have avoided gathering and all but essential contact for people – other than their immediate household – in order to “flatten the curve”. Schools are not essential: not primary, not secondary and not tertiary schools.

Students out side a closed college

Education is essential; school (building, library, administration, etc.) is not.

We can only say that now … that e-Learning options (above) are real and viable.

COVID-19 is here today in April 2020; how about for Fall 2020?

We do not know … what we do not know? See the Appendix below.

But we can “hedge our bets”, mitigate the risks, by doubling-down on e-Learning. This changed environment has been forced on us – uninvited – by the invisible enemy of the Coronavirus; but we can Keep the Change and invite these new tools and techniques. This is not just our opinion alone. See this portrayal in the news articles and VIDEO’s here:

Title: Students are weary of online classes, but colleges can’t say whether they’ll open in Fall 2020
By: Chris Quintana, USA Today

College students threatened to revolt if universities put another semester of classes online to avoid spreading the coronavirus – but that’s increasingly what campus leaders are considering doing.

For Ryan Sessoms, a marketing student at the University of North Florida, the transition to online classes has been rocky. The thought of paying the same amount of tuition for another semester of lackluster classes is a nonstarter. It’s harder to find the motivation to complete his assignments, he said, when not surrounded by his peers.

“Fall is my last semester as well,” said Sessoms, 24. “All my hard work I have put in, I’d prefer to walk across the stage and wrap up some last-minute connections on campus as well.

“If it’s going to be online at the same tuition price, then I’ll just wait for the spring semester.”

Grayce Marquis, 20, a student at the University of Pittsburgh, told USA TODAY she was joking when she tweeted about skipping the fall semester after the college’s chancellor raised the possibility of putting fall classes online. Still, she said, another semester of online learning would be heartbreaking for her.

The college experience, she said, had been fantastic, thanks to her friends, professors, sports and extracurricular activities on campus. Going online stripped that away, she said, and her days are now defined by her individual effort.

“Perhaps I am still learning and fulfilling my areas of study,” she said. “But every part of what I love about college has been taken away.”

She said the university could make life easier on students by discounting tuition or increasing scholarships.

The problem: Many colleges are in financial crisis. They need students, with their tuition and housing payments, as much as students need them.

The reality is no one knows what the fall semester will look like, said Terry Hartle, a senior vice president for the American Council on Education, a national trade group of universities.

“The coronavirus will determine when colleges and universities can reopen,” he said. “All colleges and universities want to open normally, but no college knows if it can.”

That’s bad news for universities. As the economic impact of the coronavirus continues mostly unabated, many have canceled their summer classes and other activities, such as alumni gatherings or camps that generate revenue.

They’re scrambling to make up for lost money. The University of Cincinnati ended its men’s soccer program, and St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, announced last week it was cutting men’s and women’s golf and tennis, along with men’s soccer.

Friday, the University of Arizona announced it would furlough employees and may lay some off. The chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges System recommended the closure of three campuses.

The financial trouble started when colleges started issuing refunds for housing costs after sending students home and buying licenses and equipment to put courses online.  Some students demand refunds for tuition.

If social distancing requires colleges to keep students at home for another semester, the fallout could remake America’s higher education system, upending everything from students’ degree attainment to the economies of college towns.

What does fall hold? No one can know
News of universities suggesting another online semester spread rapidly and, at times, incorrectly. Boston University was one of the first institutions to announce that in the “unlikely event” its students couldn’t return to campus, in-person instruction would resume in 2021. Many interpreted that as a declaration that the fall semester would not happen. (The university added a note to clarify its statement.)

Universities around the country are having the same conversation, including Harvard, the University of Arizona, the University of South Carolina, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California-San Diego, to name a few. The truth is few colleges have definitive plans.

In a survey of college officials, a little more than half of 210 respondents said their colleges are talking about the possibility of putting the fall semester entirely online, according to the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.  A slimmer 5% of colleges have committed to online classes for the fall semester.

The fall semester may seem far out, but for higher education, it’s basically here, said Wendy Kilgore, director of research at the association. In many cases, the fall class schedule has been built, and universities are opening class registration.

“They have to have the plans in place for course delivery,” she said. “That’s why these deliberations are happening right now.”

Even if colleges don’t go completely online, they could choose a solution that embraces more online learning. In the survey, two-thirds of colleges considered offering more online courses compared with the previous fall semester, and 57% talked about reducing the number of in-person courses for the same time frame.

A handful of colleges considered delaying the start of the fall semester or shortening it.

Utah State University’s president told students and employees classes might be smaller, and she expects “people will come back on campus but not in large, free-moving ways that we used to have,” according to The Herald Journal. 

Changes are already in place at Beloit College in Wisconsin. The semester will start later than normal, and students will not take a traditional four-course semester, said Eric Boynton, provost and dean of the college.

Instead, the semester will be split in half: Students will take two more intensive courses in the first seven weeks and two more after that.

The goal, Boynton said, is to minimize disruption should the college need to pivot to online learning again suddenly. The threat of the virus might make in-person classes impossible for the first set of courses that start in September, but by late October, the start of the second session, the safety concerns might have abated. If the college has to pivot to online learning, only two of a student’s classes would be affected at any given time, rather than four.

“What we wanted was some kind of decisive step,” Boynton said. “What we wanted was some kind of ability to call something certain in the midst of this uncertainty.”

The altered semester is just one part of Beloit’s plan. The college is locking the price of tuition for current students, lowering the cost of tuition for students from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin and starting a two-year-long mentoring program for new students.

Not all colleges will be able to follow Beloit’s model. It’s a smaller institution that can move more quickly than larger institutions.

Even with hybrid solutions, some colleges may have to fight to survive, said Hartle, the vice president with the American Council for Education.

The most at-risk: those that were struggling financially before the disruptions of the coronavirus. Some private liberal arts colleges and regional universities that had declining enrollment and budget shortfalls may experience especially steep challenges. In some parts of the country, the population of traditional college-age students is declining.

Higher education has received some help from the federal government. As part of the CARES Act stimulus, colleges received $14 billion. Roughly $6.3 billion must go to students, but Hartle said he hopes Congress will consider providing more aid to higher education. After all, he said, the field employs 4 million people.

Another wild card: During a recession, colleges often see an increase in enrollment. In the fall of 2009, college enrollment climbed by 1 million students, Hartle said. It’s unclear if that would be the case if colleges can’t operate as they normally have. Will families be nervous about students attending universities far from home? Or will some students take a gap year while waiting for the threat of the virus to wither?

“There’s simply no precedent for this,” Hartle said.

Some students try to find a bright side to online classes. Hannah Druss, 19, at Binghamton University said she is eating healthier and sleeping more.

It’s nice, she said, being able to complete her coursework while staying indoors. Reaching professors can be challenging, as is coordinating group work, given that everyone is juggling different life circumstances.

What gives her the most anxiety is the lack of clarity for what the fall semester will bring. Online or in person, she just wants answers.

“I would rather be told sooner rather than later,” she said. “I would prefer it to be in person, but only if it’s safe to do so, which is highly unlikely.”

Contributing: Ethan Bakuli of The Burlington Free Press in Vermont, Steve Berkowitz of USA TODAY, Rachel Leingang of The Arizona Republic, Dave Clark of The Cincinnati Enquirer and Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman. 

Education coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation does not provide editorial input.

Related:

Source: Posted April 19, 2020; retrieved April 24, 2020 from: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/04/19/coronavirus-college-universities-canceling-fall-semester/5157756002/

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VIDEO 1 – College students face challenges with online classes  – https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2020/03/30/college-students-face-challenges-online-learning/2937218001/

College teachers and students discuss some of the challenges they face as their classes move online for the foreseeable future. – Jasper Colt, USA Today.

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VIDEO 2 – Coronavirus puts small colleges in a tough spot – https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2020/03/19/coronavirus-puts-small-colleges-tough-spot/2878000001/


College presidents discuss the financial challenges they will face during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jasper Colt, USA Today.

In case you missed it in the foregoing article, this is not a discussion about Public Health or Public Safety. No, this is a discussion about economics and Caribbean students are a commodity. Consider these highlights:

The thought of paying the same amount of tuition for another semester of lackluster classes is a nonstarter.

… the university could make life easier on students by discounting tuition or increasing scholarships. The problem: Many colleges are in financial crisis. They need students, with their tuition and housing payments, as much as students need them.

… That’s bad news for universities. As the economic impact of the coronavirus continues mostly unabated, many have canceled their summer classes and other activities, such as alumni gatherings or camps that generate revenue.

… the University of Arizona announced it would furlough employees and may lay some off. The chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges System recommended the closure of three campuses. The financial trouble started when colleges started issuing refunds for housing costs after sending students home and buying licenses and equipment to put courses online.  Some students demand refunds for tuition.

Reggae Music Icon Bob Marley died in 1981 with no fore-knowledge of the Coronavirus-COVID-19, but the lyrics to his song ”Pimpers Paradise” speaks truth for Caribbean tertiary students, past and present:

You’re just a stock on the shelf.

The Go Lean book had originally asserted that e-Learning may be the answer for all the ills in the Caribbean education landscape. The book further states (Page 127) that “electronic commerce industries – Internet Communications Technology (ICT) – can be a great equalizer in economic battles of global trade [179]”. This is how and why we Keep the Change!

This is the continuation of the theme for this April 2020 Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. Every month, we present a collection of blog-commentaries on a consistent subject germane to Caribbean life; this month we considered the actuality of this Coronavirus crisis. There have been changes in society, in our environment, in the workplace and in the educational institution; some changes that are good, some bad and some really ugly. This is entry 3-of-5 for this Keep the Change series. The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

  1. Keep the Change – Lower Carbon Consumption abating Climate Change
  2. Keep the Change – Working From Home & the Call Center Model
  3. Keep the Change – Schools – Primary to Tertiary – making e-Learning work
  4. Keep the Change – Basic Needs: Cannot just consume; we must produce as well
  5. Keep the Change – Mono-Industrial Economy: ‘All eggs in 1 basket’

Don’t get it twisted, this Coronavirus-COVID-19 threat means death and devastation for many: seniors, active-adults, and the young; even the economic engines have faltered. There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts, we cannot just ‘bury our heads in the sands”, change has come; we must change in response. Many of the changes that we have always wanted to make to reform and transform the Caribbean can now be engaged.

Yes, we can … Keep the Change and limit our college matriculation to local or remote options.

This is not a new discussion for the Go Lean movement. We had long contemplated the challenges-opportunities of tertiary education for Caribbean stakeholders. In fact, the movement identified these related issues:

  • Exploring Medical School Opportunities … as Economic Engines
    The reality is that Medical Schools average over $300,000 in tuition for a 4-year education; ($60,000/yr). Imagine 3,000 students. That’s a lot of economic opportunity; that’s $180 million annually added to a community’s GDP just based on tuition. Imagine too, room-and-board, extra-curricular activities and spending by visitors to the campus and students.
    Economics = supply and demand dynamics; fulfilling the outstanding demand for some financial remuneration.
    …
    Since 29 of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean boast a majority Black population, it should be a natural assimilation to invite Black American students to Caribbean campuses.
    By the way, this is being done already! There are medical colleges and universities operating in Caribbean communities right now that do a good job of providing the needed educational training and experience (internships). … Some schools have an impressive track record of success with testing and examinations on medical boards. Many alumni get residency in the US as International Medical Graduates.
  • Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style
    College is good!
    College is bad!
    This has been the conclusion of the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean from the beginning of our campaign to elevate Caribbean society. According to the book (Page 258), this bitter-sweet assessment is due to the fact that tertiary education in the Caribbean is:
    Good for the individual (micro) – every additional year of schooling they increase their earnings by about 10%.
    Good for the community (macro) – evidence of higher GDP growth in countries where the population has completed more years of schooling.
    Bad for Brain Drain – if a person emigrates, all the micro and macro benefits transfer to the new country.
    …
    Can tertiary education be delivered better for the Caribbean without the travel/relocation?
    Absolutely! We can study in the region, lowering the risks of abandoning the homeland.
    …
    A focus on the future for college education must also consider “cyber reality” and/or the Internet. This consideration is embedded in the Go Lean roadmap. In fact, the book presents the good stewardship so that Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT) can be a great equalizing element for leveling the playing field in competition with the rest of the world.
    Can tertiary education be delivered over the internet?
    Absolutely! We can study here, without leaving; the future is now!
    There are many offerings and options.
  • Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Lower Ed.
    Who is more abominable? The fool who loses out on his new found fortune or the shrewd person that schemes to take advantage of that fool? (It should be noted in this case that the fortune is only rights and credits; every American citizen qualify for a need-based Student Loan from the federal government – that loan is non-dischargeable).
    …
    So imagine that one who exploits the “fool”! Imagine, if instead of an individual, it is a “system”, a government program, that does the exploiting. This is the actuality of Student Loan financing for Private, For-Profit Schools and Colleges in the US.
    This is truly abominable; and yet this is the United States of America.
    …
    Who really is the fool in these scenarios? The person being abused by the American eco-system or the ones abandoning home to join that society. The premise in the Go Lean book and subsequent blog-commentaries is that the people of the Caribbean can more easily “proper where planted” in their homeland than to emigrate to the American foreign shores for relief. It is foolish to think that America cares about “us”, when they undoubtedly do not care about the “weak” in their own society.
    We need more education in our region; because we need economic growth. Economists have established the relationship between economic growth and education:

      “For individuals this means that for every additional year of schooling they increase their earnings by about 10%.

    A lot of Caribbean students do matriculate in American colleges and universities. But this commentary is hereby declaring that we must assuredly look beyond the American model to fulfill our educational needs. According to the book [Lower Ed – The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Dr. Tressie McMillan-Cottom and the related AUDIO Podcast], only a fool would invest in American For-Profit private educational institutions.

The points of reforming and transforming the Caribbean eco-systems for tertiary education have been further elaborated upon in many other previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15543 Caribbean Unity? Ross University Saga
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13272 Model of a University Facilitating Economic Opportunity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13466 Future for Educating Our Youth: “Cyber reality” and the Internet
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9724 Bahamas Welcomes the New University
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8966 For-Profit Education – Plenty of Profit; Little Education
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8373 A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Student Loans As Investments
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433 Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1256 Is a Traditional 4-year Degree a Terrible Investment? Yes for Caribbean.

Going to college … in the US this Fall/Autumn?

What will that experience be like?

( See Appendix below for an announcement on the plans for one sample college, the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. Frankly, this could be the expectation for any university in North America and/or Europe).

Will the on-campus experience be worth the expense and the hassle this year? Will you get the comradery, atmosphere or direct side-by-side instruction-coaching-teambuilding while the restrictions of Social Distancing remain in place. Perhaps it will be better to just continue the e-Learning exercises for now … or the foresee-able future.

Keep the Change; save the aggravation; save the excessive costs.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

Let’s not lose out on this opportunity to reform and transform tertiary educational practices in the Caribbean. Let’s encourage all stakeholders to pursue these strategies, tactics and implementation.

Education and Economics go hand-in-hand. This is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work, learn and play. We urge all Caribbean people – students and their sponsoring parents –  to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap.  🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):

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

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

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

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

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

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Appendix – University Of Oklahoma To Reopen All Campuses This Fall

The interim president of the University of Oklahoma said students will return to campus by the fall semester of 2020.

Interim President Joseph Harroz Jr. said students can return to “in-person educational operations on all three campuses by this fall.” He also said that will include “traditional instruction and residential life.”

The following [excerpt] is [from] the full statement from OU:
…

After careful deliberation, our intention is to return to in-person educational operations on all three campuses by this fall, offering traditional instruction and residential life. We are doing everything we can to make that realistic and safe. We are acutely aware of the certain challenges COVID-19 will present as we pursue this goal and are planning to address the issues proactively and creatively. We are prepared to adapt instructional and housing models as appropriate to protect our community and still offer the life-changing in-person OU experience. Flexibility will be a guiding principle as we navigate the coming months, and we will ensure that our students, faculty, and staff are presented with appropriate options to return to our campuses, keeping their safety top of mind.
…

Source: Posted-retrieved April 24, 2020 from: https://www.news9.com/story/5ea39432d795682ab682e66a/university-of-oklahoma-to-reopen-all-campuses-this-fall

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Keep the Change: Working From Home

Posted on April 23, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

In case you missed it:

After advocating for the Caribbean Diaspora to repatriate back to their ancestral homelands, this writer returned back to the Bahamas in August 2019.

Psst…here’s the not-so-secret revelation:

“I kept my US-based job and simply Work from Home (WFH)”.

Welcome to the modern world …

… while WFH was a minority model operating in a majority world, something is happening in 2020: Coronavirus – COVID-19.

Now many-most White Collar workers have been working from home. It’s been part of the shelter-in-place/lockdown protocols. The majority of people in society have avoided gathering and all but essential contact for people – other than their immediate household – in order to “flatten the curve”.

It has worked!

Though infection rates has progressively risen, it has been far less dire than what was possible or feared. Consider the Bahamas for example, they only have 70 ventilators in the whole country to service 350,000 people; but their infection rates hasn’t exceeded more than 50 by April 2020. The same patterns have materialized in many countries that complied – early – with these protocols. (Italy on the other hand, overwhelmed their hospitals, ICU’s and ventilators at the peak of their crisis).

Public Health Lessons learned!

Change was mandated: many Blue Collar staffers were laid-off or furloughed from their jobs – other than the “essential” workers – during the shelter-in-place periods; unemployment rates soared. But for the White Collar staff, they were able to shift to the Work From Home model…and productivity and incomes were sustained.

Let’s summarize: schools were shuttered; day care facilities closed; e-Learning schemes deployed, and in-the-office jobs suspended, so home became the workplace, class room and college campus and yet many companies found that their White Collar staff still delivered. Think Accounting, Payroll-Human Resources, Information Technology, Collections, and Telephone-based Customer Service continued unabated; even governments and back-office banking (Commercial, Trust, Investment) continued unimpeded. See this portrayal in the follow news article – VIDEO:

Title: As coronavirus forces millions to work remotely, the US economy may have reached a ‘tipping point’ in favor of working from home
By: Lindsey Jacobson

KEY POINTS

  • Companies are enabling remote work to keep business running while helping employees follow social distancing guidelines.
  • A typical company saves about $11,000 per half-time telecommuter per year, according to Global Workplace Analytics.
  • As companies adapt to their remote work structures, the coronavirus pandemic is having a lasting impact on how work is conducted.

With the U.S. government declaring a state of emergency due to the coronavirus, companies are enabling work-from-home structures to keep business running and help employees follow social distancing guidelines. However, working remotely has been on the rise for a while.

“The coronavirus is going to be a tipping point. We plodded along at about 10% growth a year for the last 10 years, but I foresee that this is going to really accelerate the trend,” Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics, told CNBC.

Gallup’s State of the American Workplace 2017 study found that 43% of employees work remotely with some frequency. Research indicates that in a five-day workweek, working remotely for two to three days is the most productive. That gives the employee two to three days of meetings, collaboration and interaction, with the opportunity to just focus on the work for the other half of the week.

Remote work seems like a logical precaution for many companies that employ people in the digital economy. However, not all Americans have access to the internet at home, and many work in industries that require in-person work.

According to the Pew Research Center, roughly three-quarters of American adults have broadband internet service at home. However, the study found that racial minorities, older adults, rural residents and people with lower levels of education and income are less likely to have broadband service at home. In addition, 1 in 5 American adults access the internet only through their smartphone and do not have traditional broadband access.

Full-time employees are four times more likely to have remote work options than part-time employees. A typical remote worker is college-educated, at least 45 years old and earns an annual salary of $58,000 while working for a company with more than 100 employees, according to Global Workplace Analytics.

New York, California and other states have enacted strict policies for people to remain at home during the coronavirus pandemic, which could change the future of work.

“I don’t think we’ll go back to the same way we used to operate,” Jennifer Christie, chief HR officer at Twitter, told CNBC. “I really don’t.”

Source: Posted March 23, 2020; retrieved April 23, 2020 from: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/23/what-coronavirus-means-for-the-future-of-work-from-home.html

————

VIDEO – With Coronavirus forcing millions to work from home, how productive can the US be while working remotely?  –  https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/23/what-coronavirus-means-for-the-future-of-work-from-home.html

Now for the corporate realizations and lessons-learned: perhaps businesses can accomplish Work from Home just as successfully as Work from the Office.

Keep the Change …

This is the theme of the April 2020 Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. This publication serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Every month, we presents a collection of blog-commentaries on a consistent subject germane to Caribbean life; this month we cannot ignore the actuality of this Coronavirus crisis. There have been changes to the workplace; some of which might be good; some benevolent consequences are emerging from this. This WFH discussion is entry 2-of-5 for this Keep the Change series. There are other benefits that are also submitted for consideration; the full month’s series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Keep the Change – Lower Carbon Consumption abating Climate Change
  2. Keep the Change – Working From Home & the Call Center Model
  3. Keep the Change – Schools – Primary to Tertiary – making e-Learning work
  4. Keep the Change – Basic Needs: Cannot just consume; we must produce as well
  5. Keep the Change – Mono-Industrial Economy: ‘All eggs in 1 basket’

Yes indeed, there are no Ands, Ifs or Buts …

… regarding COVID-19 – people are dying; patients are suffering; economies are faltering. Many jobs are essential and must persist in the workplace – public safety, food supply chain, etc. – but many jobs too can survive the WFH shift.

This is the business model for the Go Lean roadmap; while the rest of the world wrestle with the choices of which jobs to bring back to the workplace versus which jobs to allow to WFH, the Caribbean Union Trade Federation wants to present the proposals to bring those WFH jobs here. So maybe now, our Caribbean citizens can find new economic opportunities abroad without actually going abroad or abandoning the homeland.

Yes, we can … Keep the Change.

This is not a new discussion for the Go Lean movement. We had long contemplated jobs in the Caribbean homeland that could in-source for clients who are physically in other jurisdictions. In fact, the movement identified these prominent industries:

  • Call Centers – Title Industrial Reboot – Call Centers 101
    Industries that depended on phone calls … now have to reboot their industrial landscape and business model. This is bad! This is good! As it opens the opportunity for jobs in the Call Center industry.
    With modern Internet Communications Technology (ICT) – think Voice-over-IP – a phone call can originate or terminate around the globe, but feel/sound like it is next door. The premise of this business model for the Caribbean is simple: Why not make those calls / answer the phone here in the Caribbean?
    Jobs are at stake.
    … there could be this many jobs:
    Direct and indirect jobs at physical and virtual call centers: 12,000
  • Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
    Contact Centers today do more than just phone calls, but rather business process outsourcing (BPO), including email, IM, web chat, social media and work flow processing on behalf of 3rd party clients.
    …
    Direct and indirect jobs at physical and virtual call centers: 12,000.
    …
    In addition to these industry jobs; there is also the reality of indirect jobs – unrelated service and attendant functions – at a 3.75 multiplier rate would add another 45,000 jobs.
  • Offshore Banking
    This refers to banks located outside the country of residence of the depositor, typically in a low tax jurisdiction (or tax haven) that provides financial and legal advantages – a mainstay in Antigua, Bahamas, Bermuda and Caymans. These advantages typically include: greater privacy, little or no taxation, easy access to deposits, and protection against local, political, or financial instability. … Legally, offshore activities do not prevent assets from being subject to personal income taxes on interest income, often times it is the privacy feature that skirts tax computation and collection.
  • Graphic Design and Animation
    A round of new jobs are to be found in the executions for this digital world; this is becoming a new playground. This is a glimpse of industrial growth for the 21st Century; this is the sphere of Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT). …
    The Go Lean [book] … makes the claim that innovation and economic growth can result from a progressive community ethos. The book defines this “community ethos” as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. The book thereafter recommends the ethos of Fostering Genius (Page 27), so as to not only consume this industry’s product offering, but facilitating development and production. The skills to participate in the art and science of this development may not apply to just everyone; it may be limited to a “gifted few”, a “talented tenth”.
    This is why all the other attendant functions must also be facilitated to engage this activity, such as Helping Entrepreneurship (Page 28), Promoting Intellectual Property (Page 29), Impacting Research and Development or R&D (Page 30) and Bridging the Digital Divide (Page 31).
  • e—Government
    e-Government 1.0 refers to just the facilitation of government services via some electronic mode, the first attempt to embrace an online presence and processing; 2.0 refers to the quest for greater citizen participation in the governing/policy-making process, “putting government in the hands of citizens”.[54] This 3.0 brand however, refers to the penultimate e-Delivery, processing and optimization of ICT (Internet & Communications Technologies) among all the different roles and responsibilities. …
    … we must explore the viability and feasibility of e-Government schemes in the new Caribbean, as rebooting the governing engines is part-and-parcel of the Go Lean roadmap.
    Go Lean Book (Page 51):
     The CU’s delivery of ICT [(Internet & Communications Technologies)] systems, e-Government, contact center and in-source services (i.e. property tax systems [and www.myCaribbean.gov]) can put the burden on systems continuity at the federal level and not the member-states. (This is the model of Canada with the federal delivery of provincial systems and services – some Provincial / Territorial presence / governance is completely “virtual”).

The points of reforming and transforming the Caribbean eco-systems so that WFH could thrive have been further elaborated upon in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18749 Learning from Another ‘Great Place to Work’: Mercedes-Benz
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14954 Overseas Workers – Not the Panacea
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11184 JPMorganChase spent $10 billion in 1 year on ‘Fintech’ & Call Centers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9839 Alibaba Cloud stretches global reach with four new facilities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126 Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698 STEM Jobs – ideal for WFH – Are Filling Slowly

So this writer “talked the talk and walked the walk”.

Don’t just do what I say; do what I do.

We have stood on the rooftops and on the steeples and told the Caribbean world that these islands and coastal states are the greatest address on the planet and all efforts should be made to Stay Home or Return Home.

We came home, by executing the strategies of Working From Home. While this was always our plan, we knew that it would be a “Hard Sell” to the Caribbean mentality; this was not the “community ethos”; see the prescription from Page 212 of the Go Lean book:

10 Ways to Promote Contact Centers  # 8: Promote Work-at-Home Options
The CU needs to conduct a public relations campaign to promote the benefits of tele-commuting and minimize any negative stigma associated with head of households working from home. This reflects the realities of media portrayals affecting the choice of careers in prior decades. For example, the 1984 movie Revenge of the Nerds is credited for dissuading young girls from pursuing careers in Science, Technologies, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). [18].

Now the whole world is considering – in response to the COVID-19 crisis – the merits and benefits of WFH. To this change, we say:

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste! Let’s Keep the Change …

… and encourage more people to pursue these strategies, tactics and implementation.

Economics in the homeland are inadequate? We hear you; we see you; we’ll bring more jobs back here!

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

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 14):

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

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

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

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

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

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Keep the Change: Hope for the Environment

Posted on April 22, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Change is unavoidable; the world will change, whether we want to or not.

Some changes will be good; some bad. Some change will be a reaction in response to other actions or events. When good reactionary change emerge to protect from an existential threat, then that is a good change.

We need to Keep that Change.

There is an existential threat today; there is a crisis: Coronavirus – COVID-19; we have reacted accordingly. Our reactions have been positive and beneficial for our environment. Though we needed to make these changes proactively; we should just be happy that the changes have happened anyway.

This highlights a problem we have had all the while with mankind; the problem is … man.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. – The Bible; Genesis 1:26 King James Version (KJV)

Unfortunately, we have not done a good job in exercising this dominion over the earth.

Until 2 months ago, the great existential threat to human existence was Climate Change. Now the greatest threat is Coronavirus – COVID-19.

Hooray for the planet, as COVID-19 is only a threat to mammals (mankind, mostly) and not the fauna nor flora nor any “creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”. While mankind has been dealing with this pandemic, we have done very little damage to the environment – Yippee!!

In fact, we have gotten a chance to see how to abate the existential threat of Climate Change. It is simple:

Less fossil fuel consumption.

While this had previously been theorized, today it is proven valid!

Hooray for science.

See this article-VIDEO here depicting the positive cleaning effect that has manifested as a result of the 2-month reduction in fossil fuel consumption:

Title: Wildlife in streets, less pollution in big cities: Earth looks different on Earth Day 2020
By: Jay Cannon
As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, this year’s event is unlike any other we’ve experienced.

While much of the globe hunkers down at home or in quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic, society looks quite different than it did on April 22, 1970 – or even April 22 of last year, for that matter.

Amid closed restaurants, quiet office buildings and canceled sporting events, the new normal has had its fair share of environmental effects, with some areas in the U.S. reporting significant improvements in air quality.

Animals have taken advantage of the absence of humans in some areas, too. Several lions were caught sunbathing on the road of a closed national park in South Africa. Meanwhile, penguins and dogs roamed through a nearly empty aquarium, leading to some incredible cross-animal interactions.

Here’s a look at some of the unique effects that coronavirus has had on our environment.


Source: Retrieved April 22, 2020 from: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/04/22/earth-day-2020-pollution-down-empty-highways-animals-major-cities/3002480001/

—————

VIDEO – Coronavirus: Wild animals wander through empty, lockdown towns – https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/have-you-seen/2020/04/01/coronavirus-wild-animals-wander-through-empty-lockdown-towns/5102987002/

Posted April 22, 2020 – Wild Animals around the world have been spotted checking out urban spaces as humans lock down to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

What does the Caribbean need to do to Keep the Change:

Promote a greener economy, with jobs in renewable energy.

That’s it; let’s get started, as we reflect on this monumental Earth Day 2020 – the 50th iteration of this recognized and celebrated day.

See how this directive was urged by António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. See the story here:

Title: UN Secretary-General urges Climate Action in Coronavirus Recovery
APRIL 22, 2020 – On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, had a message for the world: We face not one, but two global threats.

“We must act decisively to protect our planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate disruption,” said Guterres …

… in a Video message.

The message, however, wasn’t that of hopelessness — the world has a chance to come together and fight both crises.

“We need to turn the recovery into a real opportunity to do things right for the future,” he said.

Restrictions aimed at reducing the spread of the novel coronavirus have drastically changed our lives and economies, creating a unique opportunity for us to invest in more sustainable societies.

The secretary-general offered some “climate-related actions to shape the recovery and work ahead.”

Guterres suggested directing coronavirus relief money into a greener economy, with jobs in renewable energy. Since taxpayer money helps businesses stay afloat in the economic downturn, the money should go toward more resilient and eco-conscious businesses.

“Public funds should be used to invest in the future, not the past,” said Guterres.

In the U.S., experts predict that the recent stimulus bills will only be temporary fixes, and we’ll need more policy changes by September to help us climb out of this recession. But as Guterres explains, since we’re already in the recession, we must take this opportunity to make our economy and energy systems more sustainable, reduce emissions and slow global warming.

Climate change will have economic consequences. We can expect billions of dollars in natural disaster damages, healthcare for pollution-related illnesses and unstable access to affordable food. But a lot of that cost can be prevented.

If we shift to renewable energy now, we can mitigate climate change and protect jobs in the energy industry when the oil runs out. Renewable energy is even cheaper once the infrastructure is in place.

To kick off a greener economy, Guterres recommends ending fossil fuel subsidies and taxing polluters to hold them accountable for their damage. He also recommends that climate risks be incorporated into economic systems like the stock market.

Above all else, the U.N. asks us to put aside our national affiliations and come together as people of Earth.

“Greenhouse gases, just like viruses, do not respect national boundaries,” said Guterres. “On this Earth Day, please join me in demanding a healthy and resilient future for people and planet alike.”

As the U.N. encourages us to invest in a healthy, resilient and sustainable economy, we can individually speed up the process by voting for leaders who prioritize the planet. Learn more at Earth Day Network’s Vote Earth campaign.

Source: https://www.earthday.org/un-secretary-general-urges-climate-action-in-coronavirus-recovery/ 

The foregoing refers to the reality and actuality of this Coronavirus crisis. Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean presents a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this April 2020, our focus is on the actuality of the Coronavirus crisis and how some changes have been forced on our society. But being forced to change is not always bad; some good can come from it. This is entry 1-of-5 for this series, which details the kind of changes that we want to keep, not just for the global society but specifically here in the homeland.

Yes, we can … Keep the Change.

All the entries in this month’s series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Keep the Change – Lower Carbon Consumption abating Climate Change
  2. Keep the Change – Working From Home & the Call Center Model
  3. Keep the Change – Schools – Primary to Tertiary – making e-Learning work
  4. Keep the Change – Basic Needs: Cannot just consume; we must produce as well
  5. Keep the Change – Mono-Industrial Economy: ‘All eggs in 1 basket’

There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts …

… we need to do a better job of protecting our environment and optimizing our Carbon Footprint with Greenhouse gases. We needed to do this anyway but involuntarily we have been forced to comply these past months.

Once this crisis has past, is it possible to still consume less carbon? Indeed …

… this was the mandate of 2015 Paris Accord, – to lower global carbon output so as to abate Climate Change. There is now new hope. (Previously, in the 1990’s, the world came together, instituted and effectively complied with an accord to abate “Acid Rain”).

Our plan – strategies, tactics and implementations – must be ready for the Caribbean region … for Green Energy!

The points of reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines for Green Energy have been further elaborated upon in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19351 ‘Missing Solar’ – Moral Authority to “Name, blame & shame” big polluters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18228 The Science of Power Restoration after catastrophic natural disasters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17280 Way Forward – For Energy: ‘Trade’ Winds
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16361 5 Years Later – Climate Change: Coming so fast, so furious
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14832 Counter-culture: Manifesting Change – Environmentalism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14174 Canada: “Follow Me” for Model on ‘Climate Change’ Action
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13985 EU Assists Barbados in Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12724 Lessons from Colorado: Water Management Arts & Sciences
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10367 Science of Sustenance – Green Batteries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9455 Fix ‘Climate Change’ – Yes, We Can
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7056 Electric Cars: ‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155 Tesla unveils super-battery to power homes with Green Energy options
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4897 US Backs LNG Distribution Base in Jamaica for cleaner energy options
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4587 Burlington, Vermont: Model city to be powered 100% by renewables
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915 Go Green … Caribbean

Change … proactive or reactive – we will take it.

No one wanted the COVID-19 crisis – people have died and economies are wreaked – but if we are forced to change our carbon-consumption bad habits because of these external factors then we must “take the win”; our environment is a beneficiary.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

This is serendipity – a good consequence from a bad incident. See these textbook definitions here:

Noun – Dictionary.com

  1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.
  2. good fortune; luck

Noun – Merriam-Webster

  1. the faculty or phenomenonof finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for

This is also true for the advocacy of this Go Lean movement; we have always asserted that only at the precipice will people change; this pandemic is definitely a precipice – so let’s cement these changes. Let’s get the returns on our investments; and recovery from our sacrifices. This is how we can make progress and make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 14):

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

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

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

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

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

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Blog # 1000 – MasterClass: Economics and Society

Posted on April 21, 2020 in Economics, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Here’s an urgent inquiry to the 30 member-states that comprise the political Caribbean:

What do you need right now?

With the “pangs of distress” of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic devastating the world today, it may be obvious what the communities’ needs are:

  • Universal Testing
  • Treatment Protocols for anyone affected
  • A Flu-Shot / Vaccine
  • Rebooting of the Economy

This is right for the Caribbean member-states … and the whole world actually. This last item – Rebooting of the Economy – was an acute need even before this pandemic. This was truly what was needed; and what is needed now even more urgently.

The publishers behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean – with no foresight of 2020’s Coronavirus threat – detailed the sad state of affairs for the Caribbean economy and societal life in general. The book stated in its opening words (Page 3):

There is something wrong in the Caribbean. It is the greatest address in the world for its 4 language groups, but instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out. …

Many people love their homelands and yet still begrudgingly leave; this is due mainly to the lack of economic opportunities. The Caribbean has tried, strenuously, over the decades, to diversify their economy …

So how now …? How do we reboot the Caribbean economy now, even though we needed to do it all the while in the past? The answer is found in a previous blog-commentary that was published early in the history of this movement (April 21, 2014), at the start of the practice of publishing these commentaries:

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

April 21, 2014 – exactly 6 years to the day – was only the 2nd month of this publishing practice; that was the 51st blog in our history. Today, we are publishing this one, the 1000th. This 1000th submission is truly a monumental milestone; and ideal for these monumental times.

The reality of the Coronavirus-COVID-19 here in April 2020 means that we are truly “at the brink of destruction”; this is the State of our Caribbean Union; we must now “find the will to change”, to reform and transform our society.

How do we go about this change? What is the answer?

Now, is the time for a class, a MasterClass … a MasterClass on Economics in Society.

Huh?! What?! Why?!

This MasterClass was taught by this Nobel Laureate Economist Paul Krugman – see his profile in Appendix A below – and see the Topic Highlights of the MasterClass here:

See this introduction to this MasterClass in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Paul Krugman Teaches Economics and Society | Official Trailer | MasterClass – https://youtu.be/JRhvnlQHKc0

MasterClass
Paul Krugman’s work is defined by his belief in the power of economic thought to open minds and change history.

Learn more about Paul Krugman Teaches Economics and Society: https://www.masterclass.com/pk

In his economics class, Paul says that “economics covers 70% of life.” Not the passions and deep meanings, but everything that keeps clothes on our backs, food on our plates, and the trains running on time. The economic lens can help tell us how income inequality happens, it can predict how tariffs on Chinese steel will play out, and it can steer us toward more effective policies to get us out of a recession.

Over the course of his 40+ year career, Paul Krugman has become one of the most influential economists of our time. He is a New York Times columnist, lecturer, best-selling author, and won a Nobel for his theories on international trade and economies of scale. Through it all, he’s made it his mission to translate complex and abstract economic concepts into plain English.

Paul Krugman’s MasterClass on economics and society will teach you the core economic concepts that drive our world, how those concepts impact current issues, and how to develop strategies to become a better informed and empowered citizen. His online economics course includes case studies of his works, his process for writing a column, his resources for reliable news and data, and more. Through 22 video lessons and a customized workbook tailored to each chapter Paul teaches you:

  • The principles of economic thought
  • How to think beyond bias, slogans, and partisanship
  • The basics of international trade • Debunking myths about taxes
  • What’s wrong with the health care market and how to fix it
  • How the Fed works and its role in recessions and crises
  • What happened in the ‘08 crash
  • The impact of China’s rise on the US job market
  • How to be an informed and skeptical reader of economics
  • His process for writing a column

More from MasterClass:

About MasterClass:
MasterClass makes it possible for anyone to learn from the best. Get inspired with classes from 75+ world-renowned instructors on cooking, photography, writing, performance, and much more. Watch video lessons anytime, anywhere on mobile, desktop, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV.

Category: Education

Seriously, we urge all Caribbean stakeholders to consume this MasterClass. See the thorough review of the MasterClass in Appendix B below. (Connect to the actual link for the paid class here: https://www.masterclass.com/pk)

One definition of insanity is to do the same things again and again expecting a different result.

The movement behind the Go Lean book has consistently messaged against the Zombie Economic Ideas operating in the Caribbean region. It is inconceivable how one Caribbean member-state after another repeat the same economic mistakes – suicide actually. Let’s revisit some examples here-now, and see how this theme had been highlighted in these previous Go Lean blog-commentaries; see this sample list here:

A MasterClass on Zombie Economic Ideas …

Yeah! Bring it on.

This is the latest milestone, a nice round figure of 1000. But this is also a nice juncture to look back at the previous milestones. See these previous Go Lean blog-commentary milestones here (in reverse chronological order):

Date Description
June 7, 2019 Blog # 900 – 2020: Where Vision is Perfected
September 14, 2018 Blog # 800 – An Inconvenient Truth – Caribbean Version
May 17, 2017 Blog # 700 – We Need to Talk!
March 4, 2017 Blog # 600 – State of Caribbean Union: Hope and Change
November 2, 2016 Blog # 500 – Vision and Values for a ‘New’ Caribbean
February 20, 2016 Blog # 400 – A Vision of Freeport (Bahamas 2nd City) as a Self-Governing Entity
May 18, 2015 Blog # 300 – Legacies: Cause and Effect
November 28, 2014 Blog # 200 – Ignorance is no excuse – Milestone in Enlightenment
August 26, 2014 Blog # 150 – Why So Long? Can’t We Just…
June 15, 2014 Blog # 100 – College World Series Time

The movement behind the Go Lean book has consistently monitored and messaged about the need to reform and transform the Caribbean societal engines. This need is heightened all the more so during this current fight against the Coronavirus threat.

The ordinary times are no more; these are extraordinary times.

We have no excuse now not to change, adapt, transform, improve, optimize, thrive … finally. Let’s get started. Let’s lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to make our regional homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

———————

Appendix A – Nobel Laureate Economist Paul Krugman

Paul Robin Krugman (born February 28, 1953)[3] is an American economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for The New York Times.[4] In 2008, Krugman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography.[5] The Prize Committee cited Krugman’s work explaining the patterns of international trade and the geographic distribution of economic activity, by examining the effects of economies of scale and of consumer preferences for diverse goods and services.[6]

Krugman was previously a professor of economics at MIT, and later at Princeton University. He retired from Princeton in June 2015, and holds the title of professor emeritus there. He also holds the title of Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics.[7] Krugman was President of the Eastern Economic Association in 2010,[8] and is among the most influential economists in the world.[9] He is known in academia for his work on international economics (including trade theory and international finance),[10][11] economic geography, liquidity traps, and currency crises.

Krugman is the author or editor of 27 books, including scholarly works, textbooks, and books for a more general audience, and has published over 200 scholarly articles in professional journals and edited volumes.[12] He has also written several hundred columns on economic and political issues for The New York Times, Fortune and Slate. A 2011 survey of economics professors named him their favorite living economist under the age of 60.[13] As a commentator, Krugman has written on a wide range of economic issues including income distribution, taxation, macroeconomics, and international economics. Krugman considers himself a modern liberal, referring to his books, his blog on The New York Times, and his 2007 book The Conscience of a Liberal.[14] His popular commentary has attracted widespread attention and comments, both positive and negative.[15] According to the Open Syllabus Project, Krugman is the second most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses.[16]
…
Source: Retrieved April 19, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman

———————

Appendix B VIDEO – Paul Krugman Masterclass Review – Is It Worth the money? – https://youtu.be/efel_G9C_XI

LouisPee
Posted Dec 19, 2018 – Grab Paul Krugman’s economics Masterclass here: http://bit.ly/2Qt4tyf

Today we complete a review of Paul Krugman’s Masterclass course on economics and society. We discuss each component of the Masterclass from the workbook to the lesson plan and go into the curriculum as though you purchased it. We then consider if it’s worth it for you based on your interest and existing knowledge in economics and society.

If you’re a fan of Paul Krugman’s writings from the New York Times, or blog. You may want to support him by getting his [official] Masterclass here: http://bit.ly/2Qt4tyf

I personally purchased the all-access Masterclass which gives me access to all the present and future classes. http://bit.ly/MasterclassAll

#PaulKrugman #Masterclass #Review #Economics #Society #NYTimes #Krugman #Economy #Crash #PropertyMarket

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European Role Model: Not when ‘Push’ comes to ‘Shove’

Posted on April 18, 2020 in Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There are ordinary times … and there are extraordinary times.

When ’push comes to shove’, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. (The world enduring the pangs of distress of this Coronavirus crisis is definitely an extraordinary time).

The ordinary times of the Caribbean was forged by the long history of European colonialism; (the indigenous population is now mostly all extinct). The populations of the Caribbean member-states only emerged as a product of the imperial expansion and colonization from the Old World of Europe. The reference to Old World is in contrast to the New World of the Americas (North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean islands in between). The Old World of Europe, went through a lot of reformations, revisions and revolutions (even world wars); then a new disposition of cooperation, collaboration and confederation commenced. A better Europe emerged.

This reality had allowed Europe to emerge as a role model for the Caribbean …

… the Old Country has a new lesson for the New World: economic, security and governing integration of the European Union (EU). This structure is such an advancement in democracy that it is now presented as a model for the Caribbean region to explore.

This is the quest of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, to get the Caribbean region to model their society to incorporate the best practices of the EU. The book urges the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The book therefore serves as a roadmap for this goal, with turn-by-turn directions to integrate the 30 member-states of the region, forge an $800 Billion economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
…
The continent of Europe has now “grown up”, organizationally. In fact, because of the success of this integration, the EU was awarded the coveted Nobel Peace Prize for 2012. This fact was detailed in the Go Lean book (Page 130).
…
The biggest lesson for the Caribbean to glean from a consideration of the EU is the need for compromise in consensus-building. – Blog-commentary: Introduction to Europe – All Grown Up posted November 27, 2014.

The EU, on paper, is the epitome of 28 parties – European member-states – “playing well in the sandbox”, or nations behaving mannerly. They boasted Free Movement of people and universal protections of civil rights in every jurisdiction. But, now something has broken that European tranquility …

Now that the COVID-19 crisis is imperiling the world in general and Europe in particular, that once proud EU interdependence is now reverting to the dreaded state-only independent thinking and nationalism. Ouch! Be afraid; be very afraid!

Did the Coronavirus break Europe’s good manners … or was that appearance of societal maturity just a false façade covering over the true European character?

Remember this is the continent that forge the 1884 Berlin Conference and subsequently spawned World War I, World War II, the Nazi Holocaust, Balkan Ethnic Cleansing, and many more atrocities right up to the present day … almost – see the dissenting commentary below where it is asserted that European “beauty is really only skin deep, but their ugly goes to the bone”.

See the bad happenstance occurring in today’s Europe due to this COVID-19 threat as portrayed in this news article here:

Title: Coronavirus: The European Union Unravels
By: Soeren Kern

  • Faced with an existential threat, EU member states, far from joining together to confront the pandemic as a unified bloc, instinctively are returning to pursuing the national interest. After years of criticizing U.S. President Donald J. Trump for pushing an “America First” policy, European leaders are reverting to the very nationalism they have publicly claimed to despise.
  • Ever since the threat posed by coronavirus came into focus, Europeans have displayed precious little of the high-minded multilateral solidarity that for decades has been sold to the rest of the world as a bedrock of European unity. The EU’s unique brand of soft power, said to be a model for a post-national world order, has been shown to be an empty fiction.
  • In recent weeks, EU member states have closed their borders, banned exports of critical supplies and withheld humanitarian aid. The European Central Bank, the guarantor of the European single currency, has treated with unparalleled disdain the eurozone’s third-largest economy, Italy, in its singular hour of need. The member states worst affected by the pandemic — Italy and Spain — have been left by the other member states to fend for themselves.
  • The European Union, seven decades in the making, is now unravelling in real time — in weeks.

NICKELSDORF, AUSTRIA – MARCH 18: Trucks are parked on the motorway leading to the Austrian-Hungarian border crossing near Nickelsdorf on March 18, 2020 in Nickelsdorf, Austria. After negotiations between Austrian and Hungarian authorities, Hungary opened the border for Rumanian, Serbian and Bulgarian citizens. Prior to the measures the queues on Austrian side were up to 60kms long. (Photo by Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images)

As the coronavirus pandemic rages through Europe — where more than 250,000 people have now been diagnosed with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 15,000 have died — the foundational pillars of the European Union are crumbling one by one.

Faced with an existential threat, EU member states, far from joining together to confront the pandemic as a unified bloc, instinctively are returning to pursuing the national interest. After years of criticizing U.S. President Donald J. Trump for pushing an “America First” policy, European leaders are reverting to the very nationalism they have publicly claimed to despise.

Ever since the threat posed by coronavirus came into focus, Europeans have displayed precious little of the high-minded multilateral solidarity that for decades has been sold to the rest of the world as a bedrock of European unity. The EU’s unique brand of soft power, said to be a model for a post-national world order, has been shown to be an empty fiction.

In recent weeks, EU member states have closed their borders, banned exports of critical supplies and withheld humanitarian aid. The European Central Bank, the guarantor of the European single currency, has treated with unparalleled disdain the eurozone’s third-largest economy, Italy, in its singular hour of need. The member states worst affected by the pandemic — Italy and Spain — have been left by the other member states to fend for themselves.

The seeds of the European Union were planted in the ashes of the Second World War. In May 1949, Robert Schuman, one of the EU’s founding fathers, boldly announced the creation of new world system:

“We are carrying out a great experiment, the fulfillment of the same recurrent dream that for ten centuries has revisited the peoples of Europe: creating between them an organization putting an end to war and guaranteeing an eternal peace.”

The European Union, seven decades in the making, is now unravelling in real time — in weeks. After the dust of the coronavirus pandemic settles, the EU’s institutions will almost certainly continue to operate as before. Too much political and economic capital has been invested in the European project for European elites to do otherwise. However, the EU’s attraction as a post-national model for its own citizens, much less for the rest of the world, will have passed.

Recent examples of the unilateral pursuit of the national interest by European leaders, many of whom publicly espouse globalism but in times of desperation embrace nationalism, include:

  • France. On March 3, France confiscated all protective masks made in the country. “We will distribute them to healthcare professionals and to French people affected by the coronavirus,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter. On March 6, the French government forced Valmy SAS, a face mask manufacturer near Lyon, to cancel an order for millions of masks placed by the UK’s National Health Service.
  • Germany, March 4. Germany banned the export of medical protective equipment such as safety glasses, respiratory masks, protective coats, protective suits and gloves. On March 7, the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported that German customs authorities were preventing a Swiss truck carrying 240,000 protective masks from returning to Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU. The Swiss government summoned the German ambassador to protest against the export ban. “In these contacts, the German authorities were urged immediately to release the blocked products,” a Swiss government spokesperson was quoted as saying. After facing a backlash from other EU member states, Germany on March 19 reversed course and lifted the export ban.
  • Austria, March 10. Austria became the first EU country to close its borders to another EU country. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced controls along the border with Italy and a ban on the entry of most travelers from there. “The utmost priority,” Kurz said, “is to prevent the spread and thus importing the illness into our society. There is therefore a ban on entry for people from Italy into Austria, with the exception of people who have a doctor’s note certifying that they are healthy.” The government also announced a ban on all air or rail travel to Italy. Austria’s decision threatened to undo the so-called Schengen Area, which entered into effect in 1995 and abolishes the need for passports and other types of control at the mutual borders of 26 European countries.
  • Slovenia, March 11. The government closed some border crossings with Italy and at those remaining open, had started making health checks to combat the spread of the virus.
  • Czech Republic, March 12. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš closed the country’s borders with Germany and Austria and also banned the entry of foreigners coming from other risky countries. On March 22, the government said that the border restrictions may last for up to two years.
  • Switzerland, March 13. The Swiss government imposed border controls with other European countries. Switzerland, although not a member of the European Union, is part of the Schengen zone.
  • Italy, March 13. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde dismissed calls by Italy for financial assistance to help it cope with the pandemic. After her comments rattled financial markets, Lagarde said that the ECB was “fully committed to avoid any fragmentation in a difficult moment for the euro area.” Italian President Sergio Mattarella replied that Italy had a right to expect solidarity rather than obstacles from beyond its borders.
  • Denmark, March 14. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen imposed border controls on all traffic by land, sea and air until at least April 13.
  • Poland, March 15. The government closed the country’s borders to everyone except Polish citizens or people with a Polish residence permit.
  • Germany, March 16. Germany, the largest and most powerful country in the European Union, introduced controls on its borders with Austria, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The move came after Germany registered 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 in just one day.
  • Hungary, March 16. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán halted all passenger traffic into Hungary would be halted and only Hungarian citizens allowed to enter the country.
  • Spain, March 16. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska decreed the establishment of controls at all land borders.
  • Serbia, March 16. President Aleksandar Vučić declared a state of emergency due to coronavirus. He condemned the EU for restricting exports of medical equipment and appealed for help from his “friend and brother,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “European solidarity does not exist,” Vučić said. “That was a fairy tale on paper. I have sent a special letter to the only ones who can help, and that is China.” Serbia applied to become a member of the EU in 2009. Accession talks began in January 2014.
  • Czech Republic, March 17. Czech authorities seized 110,000 face masks that China had sent to Italy. On March 23, the Czech Republic delivered the confiscated material to Italy. “There are 110,000 masks on board the bus as a gift to Italy, which is supposed to replace the material that was probably a Chinese gift for Italian compatriots,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Stichova.
  • Germany, March 18. Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a rare televised speech, urged all Germans to obey rules aimed at reducing direct social contact and avoiding as many new infections as possible. “It is serious,” she said. “Take it seriously. Since German reunification, actually, since World War Two, there has never been a challenge for our country in which acting in solidarity was so very crucial.” Merkel’s address to the nation was the first time in nearly 15 years in office that she had spoken to the country other than in her annual New Year’s address. She did not mention the European Union or other EU member states.
  • Belgium, March 22. The coronavirus has fueled tensions between Belgium, which is on lockdown, and the Netherlands, which is not. “In the Netherlands, shops are still open and meetings of 100 people are still allowed — these are breeding grounds for the virus,” said Marino Keulen, mayor of the Belgian border town Lanaken. Belgian authorities have set up barricades along the border and are ordering cars with Dutch license plates to turn around and return home. Keulen called the border checks a “signal to The Hague” to “quickly scale-up” its response and align with neighboring countries. “The Dutch government is incompetent and ridiculous in its response to the coronavirus crisis,” said Leopold Lippens, the mayor of Belgian seacoast town Knokke-Heist. “The Netherlands is doing nothing, so we have to protect ourselves.”
  • Spain, March 25. After failing to obtain assistance from the European Union, the Spanish government asked NATO for help in acquiring 1.5 million face masks and 450,000 respirators. NATO lacks this material and is limited to passing the Spanish request on to the remaining 29 allies, many of which are also members of the EU.
  • Poland, March 25. Polish authorities prevented hundreds of thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer from being exported to Norway, which is not a member of the EU. The Norwegian company Norenco manufactures and packages hand sanitizer for the Scandinavian market at a factory it owns in Poland. Norenco’s chief executive, Arne Haukland, said that after he applied for an export license, five men arrived at the factory, and demanded to be shown its stock of hand sanitizer. He said the company then received a letter ordering it to sell any hand sanitizer it had produced to the local city authorities in Lubin at a fixed price, under emergency coronavirus laws passed in Poland at the start of March. The seizure will exacerbate the supply problem faced by Norwegian hospitals.
  • France, March 25. President Emmanuel Macron, in an address to the nation at a military hospital in the eastern city of Mulhouse, which has been especially hard hit by the coronavirus, called for national, as opposed to European, unity: “When we engage in war, we engage fully, we mobilize united. I see in our country factors of division, doubts, all those who want to fracture the country when it is necessary to have only one obsession: to be united to fight against the virus. I call for this unity and this commitment.”

Meanwhile, in Italy, a nationwide survey published on March 18 found that 88% of Italians believe that the EU is not helping their country. Only 4% thought the opposite while 8% did not have an opinion. More than two-thirds (67%) of Italians said that they believe that being part of the European Union is a disadvantage for their country.

In an article titled, “Coronavirus Threatens European Unity,” Bill Wirtz, a political commentator based in Luxembourg, observed:

“As the coronavirus unfolds, Schengen countries are shutting their own borders. Whether or not they do so because they believe that a coordinated European response would be inefficient, or whether they believe that their own voters wouldn’t buy it — at this stage it’s irrelevant. The mere fact that borders have resurfaced in Europe is a failure for the integrity of the Schengen open borders agreement….

“A coordinated EU response to this crisis does not exist, and as the recommendations fall on deaf ears, Brussels is dealing with a crisis of confidence. There is no union-wide crisis response, coordinated testing or research. Worse than that, the EU institutions are bystanders to a war between countries, which are trying to limit exports of medical supplies in order to keep them for themselves. In times of crisis, the true influence and capacity of the EU has shown, and it is very little.

“As it stands, countries are dealing with a crisis of missing hospital beds, medical equipment, and overall resources. If the virus ever happens to lay lower than it does now, and the conclusion is drawn that the European Union was a powerless bystander in the eye of the storm (which it is), then the Schengen Agreement and open borders in Europe could be dealing with a difficult recovery.”

Darren McCaffrey, the political editor of the France-based news channel Euronews, wrote:

“In the past couple of weeks, solidarity has collapsed in the bloc. Countries have started imposing border controls on neighboring EU countries, and even Germany has taken steps to manage the flow of people entering and leaving its territory.

“On Tuesday, a 35-kilometer-long queue formed at the Polish-German border, where hundreds of Europeans — Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians — were stuck in trucks, cars and buses.

“As the EU must take measures to prevent the spread of the disease, many are worrying about the essence of the European Union and its four freedoms [the free movement of goods, services, capital and people].

“What is the EU if its own citizens can’t move freely? What is the single market if goods can’t cross Europe’s borders without hindrance?”

In an article titled, “Nations First: The EU Struggles for Relevance in the Fight against Coronavirus,” the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel noted:

“As the pandemic takes hold in Europe, the decades-old union is showing its weaknesses. While the EU managed to survive Brexit and the euro crisis, the corona crisis may yet prove to be an insurmountable challenge.

“Instead of trying to come up with joint solutions, the Continent is becoming balkanized and is reverting to national solutions. Instead of helping each other out, EU countries are hoarding face masks like panicked Europeans are hoarding toilet paper. The early decisions made by some EU member states to refrain from exporting medical equipment to Italy — the EU country that has thus far been hit hardest by the pandemic — has even overshadowed the lack of European solidarity displayed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the refugee crisis.

“Europeans are even divided on the question as to how to combat the virus. Whereas Germany is eager to prevent as many people as possible from encountering the virus and becoming infected, the Netherlands wants to see as many healthy people as possible fight off COVID-19, thus becoming immune. The signal is clear: When things get serious, every member state still looks out for itself first — even 60 years after the founding of the community.”
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
Source: Posted March 27, 2020; retrieved March 31, 2020 from: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15803/coronavirus-european-union-unravels

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No homeland is perfect.

The European continent has made great progress; but is still plagued with many societal defects. Yet still, the Caribbean member-states, though modeled and structured from their European legacy, have even more defects. These tropical territories lose many of its young people to abandonment and defection to the homelands of their European masters. In truth, in the Dutch Antillean islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Martin) and in the French Antillean islands (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin) all share the same experience of raising children, just to watch them leave after high school graduation; (same for the UK and American territories). See how this was reported in a previous Go Lean commentary:

All of the Caribbean, despite the languages, have had societal failures. Large swaths of the population has fled to foreign shores for refuge. In the French (and Dutch) Caribbean, it is not uncommon for high school graduates to leave soon after graduation. No society can thrive with this disposition. Communities need its people, young and old. But the people need opportunities for prosperity. – Blog-commentary: Welcoming the French posted February 20, 2017.

What is the experience for those emigrants, mostly Black-and-Brown, when they arrive to live, work and play in their new European lands of refuge? This question was answered in another previous Go Lean commentary:

Latent Racism – For societies to promote the exploitation of slaves, there must have been an underlying creed of racism, or racial supremacy. This emerges from time to time, as reflected recently with the Middle East Refugee crisis.  People with this mindset may not have a problem with coming to a Black majority Caribbean destination for leisure travel; it may be fun for them to be pampered by “servants”, but not so much for those facilitating the service. – Blog-commentary: 10 Things We Want from Europe and 10 Things We Do Not Want posted from October 19, 2019.

So is it advisable for Caribbean people to live, work and play in Europe? Nah! While no homeland is perfect – there is the need for societies everywhere to reform and transform – but it is easier for the Black-and-Brown of the Caribbean to succeed right here in the Caribbean, rather than in some foreign location; (with appropriate mitigations that is).

See how this assertion is made by this one political commentator – Mike Larry, a Social Justice Advocate and Pro-African Pundit – in the Caribbean member-state of the Bahamas:

 I look at MSM (Mainstream Media) as a propaganda tool where those that control it announce their next move or provide enough disinformation to set those not in their clique running in the wrong direction. On the first reading Europe has long practiced socialism and nationalism especially with respect to any natural resource they find at home and abroad; Norway and its sovereign wealth fund being a perfect example.

The U.S. is another example where she practices socialism and nationalism in the most egregious ways as she stomps about the earth imposing her brutish brand of imperialism on other sovereign states so that her citizens can maintain a certain standard of living at the expense of others. Isn’t that what the Berlin Conference of 1884 was really about with consensus among those of Eurocentric descent to collaborate rather than fight over non-Eurocentric nations and resources.

(In case you missed it, this has always been about resources to the detriment of resource-rich Afrocentric lands in particular).

On a deeper reading of the article, I see this as disinformation that Europe has put out into the mainstream to neutralize any effort or bright ideas that Africa and the African Diaspora might have regarding a United Africa and by extension CSME or any other non-Eurocentric trading bloc. Yet while this might cause non-Eurocentric states to abandon unity, this doesn’t mean that Europe has abandoned her common objective, as laid out in the Berlin Conference, such policies that remain alive and well. Even though Africans in the continent and the Diaspora are only now waking up to history of this barbaric treaty to which Africans were not seated at the table in Berlin. Again this has always been about resources and who gets to share in them in pursuance of their Eurocentric social and national agendas.

In summary, the push to open borders to neoliberal agendas was designed to destabilize sovereign states economically, gain control of their resources and economic arteries, in pursuit of a global system of socialism and nationalism with multiple layers of underclasses and white supremacy representing the capstone of the pyramid. I also believe the US and Europe will use the “engineered coronavirus” scare to gain better control over immigration issues, which too is based in racism and discrimination; this is what we do here in the Bahamas, not understanding that even in a so-called Black-led nation, such as ours, our immigration laws and policies criminalize primarily people of African descent.

When the smoke clears, we will appreciate that Europe, and its allies, have abided by the obligations of that horrible Berlin Treaty from over a century ago. [The goals and practices remain]. It doesn’t need a European Union for there to be business-as-usual in the exploitation of African people. That colonial spirit is embedded in their DNA [still], as evidenced by their avoidance of any Reparation Discourse, aside from empty apologies.

I don’t buy their story, as presented, as they will always be united against us in furthering their nationalistic and socialistic agendas which they have taught us to condemn in Africa and the Diaspora.
Posted: March 31, 2020.

The European Union had emerged as a role model for the Caribbean, but as portrayed in the foregoing news reports, they reverted to independent-minded “me first” nationalism, instead of the best-practice of interdependence, now that ‘push has come to shove’. We want to do better than this in the Caribbean; we do not want to structure our regional society just for the sunshine; no we want to prepare for the rain as well. We want the same rights, responsibilities and deliveries during “push” as during “shove”.

“Can’t we all just get along”?!

This is not just our question-opinion alone.

“When we grow up, we want to be like the European Union” – the Go Lean book proclaimed back in 2013; see this excerpt:

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. – 10 Ways to Model the EU (Page 130).

Yes, we want our Caribbean Community (CariCom) to become the Caribbean Union (CU). Except that the EU has NOT provided us with a good role model as of late. Rather than collaborating and confederating for solutions for this COVID-19 threat, they have reverted to their bad roots of nationalism and self-interest.

Europe is not all good.
Europe is not all bad.

Their duplicity gives lessons for us here in the Caribbean to look, listen and learn. But we must not stop there; we must also lend-a-hand and lead. Any society can come back from the brink; then reform and transform; then actuate a great community to live, work, heal and play. We have seen this done, even in Europe – therefore, we are convinced it can happen here. This theme has been highlighted in many previous Go Lean blog/commentaries; see this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19217 Reducing Brain Drain: Introducing Localism to ‘Live and Let Live’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17915 What Went Wrong in the Caribbean? ‘We’ never had our own war!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17284 Way Forward – ‘Whatever it takes’: Life Imitating Art
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16153 100 Years of Armistice Day – Lessons Learned from World War I
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15796 Lessons Learned from 2008 Financial Crisis: Righting The Wrong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15521 Caribbean Unity from one European Legacy to Another? What a Joke!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943 Lessons from Zika’s Drug Breakthrough – Solutions at the precipice
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8132 Venezuela: Watching a ‘Train Wreck in Slow Motion’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6563 Lessons from Iceland’s Model of Recovery: Burn it down; Build it up
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5964 ‘Feed the right wolf’ in a crisis – Lessons from Movie ‘Tomorrowland’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3780 National Sacrifice – The Missing Ingredient for Caribbean Recovery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623 Harsh Reality: ‘Only at the precipice, do they change’

The movement behind the Go Lean book has consistently monitored and messaged about this fight against the Coronavirus threat; we have even presented a musical accompaniment with the 1970 song “Lean On Me” by Singer-Songwriter Bill Withers. There is a lyrical line in the song that is spot-on for today:

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

For the 30 member-states of the political Caribbean, take these words to heart: “I’m right up the road” This is literally true, as some Caribbean member-states share the same island (think: St. Martin, Haiti, Dominican Republic), and other member-states are only 7 to 60 miles apart; (think USVI and BVI).

As related previously, today’s reality is the manifestation of this song (lyrics); it is time for the Caribbean neighborhood to “lean on” each other, rather than look to foreign masters thousands of miles away – who are otherwise occupied and disinterested.

Due to this Coronavirus reality, the ordinary times are no more; they may never return; this is the new normal, or a new abnormal. By all of us working together – a first time manifestation – we can have a fighting chance to make our regional homeland a better place to live, work, heal and play in good times and bad.  🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xxii. Whereas the heritage of our lands share the distinction of cultural tutelage from European and American imperialists that forged their tongues upon our consciousness, it is imperative to form a society that is neutral and tolerant of the mother tongue influences of our people to foster efficient and effective communications among our citizens.

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

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

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

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BHAG – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics

Posted on April 17, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Industries, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The whole world must act now to remediate this crisis – flatten the curve – of this Coronavirus danger. There are no “ands, ifs or buts”. This is a systemic threat!

If one Caribbean member-state does not comply with the best practices for mitigating this disease, they will have to answer to …

Wait, there is no one to answer to!

This is the problem; there is no accountability entity for the Caribbean to turn to in times of distress.

If only there was …

… this is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal for the Caribbean. We need someone – a Big Brother – to run to for help with our security threats. This was the clarion call for the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. It opened with this acknowledgement and declaration (Page 3):

There is something wrong in the Caribbean. It is the greatest address on the planet, but instead of the world “beating a path” to our doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out. Our societal defects are so acute that our culture is in peril for future prospects.
…
The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state [alone]. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).
…
The economy of the Caribbean is inextricably linked to the security of the region. Therefore the CU treaty includes a security pact to implement the mechanisms to ensure greater homeland security. These efforts will monitor and mitigate against economic crimes, systemic threats and also facilitate natural disaster planning and response agencies.

But can’t we just …

… run to the big Super Power in our region, the United States of America, for answers, solutions and refuge.

The simple answer is No!

The US has gone on record to declare and demonstrate that they are not to be considered the Big Brother for anyone else, other than their people; (many conclude that they even fail in their domestic deliveries). “Blood is thicker than water” and the Caribbean member-states must accept that frankly, we are “not blood” – even true for US Territories like Puerto Rico. Consider the support for this assertion in these examples of news articles here:

VIDEO – Trump address allegations about US blocking multiple Caribbean states from receiving shipments of vital medical supplies – https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article241951191.html

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Title # 1: Caribbean nations can’t get U.S. masks, ventilators for COVID-19 under Trump policy
By: Jacqueline Charles and Alex Harris
Caribbean nations struggling to save lives and prevent the deadly spread of the coronavirus in their vulnerable territories should not look to the United States as they seek to acquire scarce but much-needed protective gear to fight the global pandemic

A spokesperson from U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed to the Miami Herald that the agency is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to prevent distributors from diverting personal protective equipment, or PPE, such as face masks and gloves, overseas. Ventilators also are on the prohibited list.

“To accomplish this, CBP will detain shipments of the PPE specified in the President’s Memorandum while FEMA determines whether to return the PPE for use within the United States; to purchase the PPE on behalf of the United States; or, allow it to be exported,” the statement read.

In the past week, three Caribbean nations —the Bahamas, Cayman Islands and Barbados —have all had container loads of personal protective equipment purchased from U.S. vendors blocked from entering their territories by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“We are talking about personal protective equipment; we’re talking about durable medical devices and gloves, gowns, ventilators as well,” Bahamas Health Minister Dr. Duane Sands told the Miami Herald.

On Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection informed a shipping company that its Nassau-bound shipment of medical supplies could not be offloaded in the Bahamas and the containers had to be returned to Miami “for inspection.” But even before that, Sands said the Bahamian government had already been fielding multiple “complaints from freight forwarders and shipping companies that they were having challenges clearing certain items.”

“Over time, that grew to a crescendo with certain persons having the same experience,” he said.

The blockade experienced by Caribbean nations followed President Donald Trump’s April 3 signing of the little-known Defense Production Act. While the order gave the federal government more control over the procurement of coronavirus-related supplies, it also allowed the administration to ban certain exports. Trump invoked the act following a Twitter attack against U.S. manufacturer 3M over the export of its highly sought N95 respiratory face masks.

In a release, the Minnesota-based company said the Trump administration wanted it to cease exports of the masks to Latin America and Caribbean nations. Pushing back on the request, 3M said such a move carried “humanitarian consequences.”

Soon after the president’s order, Caribbean governments and shippers started hearing from Customs and Border Protection, learning that shipments of vital supplies had been blocked.

In the case of Barbados, it was a shipment of 20 ventilators purchased by a philanthropist that were barred, Health Minister Lt. Col Jeffrey Bostic told his nation in a live broadcast on April 5. After accusing the U.S. of seizing the shipment, Bostic walked back the allegation and told a local newspaper the hold up had “to do with export restrictions being placed on certain items.”

For the Cayman Islands, it was eight ventilators and 50,000 masks that were produced and purchased in the U.S. and removed from a Grand Cayman-bound ship in Miami — also on Tuesday. In a Friday afternoon tweet, the British overseas territory’s premier, Alden McLaughlin, said the U.S. had released the shipment with help from the U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica Donald Tapia.

Like Cayman, the Bahamas was also forced to turn to diplomatic channels for help. Following the intervention of the U.S. Embassy in Nassau, Sands said, it appeared they “were fairly close to a resolution.” But on Friday, the shipments were still being held by Customs and Border Protection, said a source familiar with the situation.

Betty K Agencies, a shipping company, was informed about the Trump policy after its ship had left Miami with three containers of medical supplies on Tuesday, hours ahead of its Wednesday arrival in Nassau.

The CBP note sent to Betty K Agencies regarding its Bahamas medical shipment was obtained by the Herald. It reads, “Due to a April 3rd, 2020 Presidential Memorandum regarding the allocation of certain scarce or threatened health and medical resources for domestic use, the items below cannot be exported until further notice.” The list went on to mention various types of single-use, disposable surgical masks, including N95 respirators and medical gloves.

Earlier in the week, the State Department suggested to the Miami Herald that media reports about seized medical exports might not be accurate. Late Friday, the White House issued a different statement after the ministers went public.

“The United States, like many other nations, is currently experiencing a high demand for ventilators, masks, gloves, and respirators that is straining available supplies and production capacity,” a senior administration official told the Herald. “President Trump has made clear that this Administration will prioritize the well-being of American citizens as we continue to take bold, decisive action to help slow the spread of the virus and save lives.”

The official went on to say that the administration “is working to limit the impacts of PPE domestic allocation on other nations. The United States will continue to send equipment and supplies not needed domestically to other countries, and we will do more as we are able.”

During Friday’s Coronavirus Task Force press briefing at the White House, President Trump acknowledged the high demand for the United States’ ventilators and testing kits, which Caribbean health officials have said are also banned from export.

“We’re the envy of the world in terms of ventilators. Germany would like some, France would like some; we’re going to help countries out. Spain needs them desperately. Italy needs them desperately,” he said.

But when asked by a McClatchy reporter about the Caribbean and the accusation that the U.S. was blocking personal protective equipment in certain cases, Trump implied that the shipments were being caught up in drug trafficking and seizures.

“Well, what we’re doing, we have a tremendous force out there, a Naval force, and we’re blocking the shipment of drugs,” he said. “So maybe what they’re doing is stopping ships that they want to look at. We’re not blocking. What we’re doing is we’re making sure; we don’t want drugs in our country, and especially with the over 160 miles of wall, it’s getting very hard to get through the border. They used to drive right through the border like they owned it, and in a certain way, they did.”

The president also invoked the U.S.’s effort to stop human trafficking.

“What we’re doing is we’re being very tough and we’re being tough because of drugs and also human trafficking,” he added. “We have a big Naval force that’s stopping, so maybe when you mentioned that, maybe their ships are getting caught. But we are stopping a lot of ships and we’re finding a lot of drugs.”

The LA Times reported earlier this week that seven states have seen the federal government seize shipments of necessary medical supplies, including thermometers and masks, without saying where or how they planned to reallocate them.

Caribbean health ministers, who have been warned by the Pan American Health Organization to expect a spike in COVID-19 infections in the coming weeks, have tried to assure their citizens that they are not relying solely on vendors in the United States to help their response to the respiratory disease.

They have also placed orders with suppliers in China and South Korea, they have said. McLaughlin, the Cayman premier, recently announced that the territory recently sold thousands of extra coronavirus test kits it had purchased, at cost, to Bermuda and Barbados.

It has been slightly more than 100 days since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus to be a global pandemic, and just over a month since the first cases were registered on March 1 in the Caribbean, beginning with the Dominican Republic and the French overseas territories of St. Martin and St. Barthélemy. The first confirmations of COVID-19 in the English-speaking Caribbean came on March 10 when Jamaica recorded its first case, followed by St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Guyana the next day.

Since then, the number of cases has grown to more than 4,000 across 33 Caribbean countries and territories, with over 185 deaths, according to the latest available statistics compiled by the Caribbean Public Health Agency.

The Bahamas currently has 41 confirmed cases and eight deaths. Sands said the island nation, which is still recovering from last year’s deadly Hurricane Dorian, is “in the middle of our surge.” As a result, he’s trying to build the country’s capacity to handle COVID-19 infections by ensuring that healthcare workers, police and defense force officers are armed with masks, gowns, booties and hazmat suits for the pandemic.

“While we do not have a problem at this point, we do not want to get into a problem,” Sands said. “We have modeled what our burn rate is likely to be so we are just trying to build out our anticipated need to make sure that we stay ahead of the demand. So these shipments, while important, would have been for future needs.”

Sands acknowledges that the United States, which on Saturday surpassed more than half a million coronavirus cases and 20,000 deaths, is in a very difficult position as it becomes the world’s worst coronavirus hot spot and hospitals experience shortages.

“It’s very challenging when you don’t have enough supplies to meet the needs of your own institutions. I am in no way condoning or endorsing anything. I am simply saying as we watch the challenge it is also very, very difficult,” he said. “For all intensive purposes, borders are now shut, and without wanting to be flippant or dismissive, it’s every man for himself and God for us all.”

McClatchy Washington Bureau reporter Michael Wilner contributed to this report.

Source: Posted April 13, 2020; retrieved April 17, 2020 from: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article241922071.html

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Title #2 : U.S. blocks export of ‘tens of thousands’ of COVID-19 medical supplies
By:  Ava Turnquest
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Health minister Dr Duane Sands confirmed the country has been significantly hit by U.S. restrictions banning the export of COVID-19 protective gear, noting the procurement of “many, many thousands” of critical supplies has been blocked.

However, Sands told Eyewitness News the government did not put all of its “eggs in one basket” as the country has sourced supplies from various countries.
…
He added: “This was a big deal, this wasn’t no little problem, this is a big deal.”

See the full article here: https://ewnews.com/u-s-blocks-export-of-tens-of-thousands-of-covid-19-medical-supplies posted April 9, 2020; retrieved April 17, 2020.

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Title #3: U.S. will send supplies that are ‘not needed domestically’, embassy says
By: Jasper Ward
While defending the United States’ decision to block the export of critical medical supplies, a U.S. embassy official said today that America will continue to send equipment and supplies that are “not needed” domestically to countries like The Bahamas amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and the necessary response measures are challenging governments globally,” the official told The Nassau Guardian.

“The United States is taking action to maintain the commitment of the president to the American people. The United States is continuing to send equipment and supplies not needed domestically to many other countries, including The Bahamas, and we will continue to do more as we are able.”
…
See the full article here: https://thenassauguardian.com/2020/04/09/u-s-will-send-supplies-that-are-not-needed-domestically-embassy-says/ posted April 9, 2020; retrieved April 17, 2020

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We just completed a 6-part series on Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG) where we considered these goals, these entries:

  1. BHAG – The Audacity of Hope – Yes, we can!
  2. BHAG – Regional Currency – In God We Trust
  3. BHAG – Infrastructure Spending … finally funding Toll Roads
  4. BHAG – One Voice – Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Stance
  5. BHAG – Outreach to the World – Why Not a Profit Center
  6. BHAG – Netflix, Hulu, CBS, Peacock è Caribbean Media

Now for this continuation, a 7th entry, we consider the goal of a “region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy for greater production and greater accountability” – our own Caribbean Big Brother.

We obviously cannot rely on the US to be our Big Brother for pandemics – we must do it ourselves. This has been the theme of a number of previous Go Lean commentaries that elaborated on the goal of elevating the Caribbean societal engines for better Homeland Security; consider this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19409 Coronavirus: ‘Clear and Present’ Threat to Economic Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19025 Cursed in Paradise – Disasters upon Disasters
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996 Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13999 First Steps for Caribbean Security – Deputize ‘Me’, says the CU
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12996 After Disasters, Failed State Indicators: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10566 Funding the Caribbean Security Pact – Yes, we can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9038 Caribbean Charity Management: Grow Up Already & Be Responsible
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896 The Logistics of Disaster Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002 Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’

Yes, a new guard, the CU Homeland Security apparatus has always been the quest of the movement behind the Go Lean book (Page 10), and these previous blog-commentaries. The book presented a Declaration of Interdependence, with these words:

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

This movement studied previous pandemics and presented the lessons learned to the Caribbean region in a post on March 24, 2015:

A Lesson in History – SARS in Hong Kong
How can a community – the Caribbean region in this case – manage such an epidemiological crisis?

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

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

During the “heyday” of the SARS crisis, travel and transport to Hong Kong virtually came to a grinding halt! Hong Kong had previously enjoyed up to 14 million visitors annually; they were a gateway to the world. The SARS epidemic became a pandemic because of this status. Within weeks of the outbreak, SARS had spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003.[3]

Can we afford this disposition in any Caribbean community?
…
Consider how this history may impact the Caribbean region. SARS in Hong Kong was 12 17 years ago. But last year [2014] the world was rocked with an Ebola crisis originating from West Africa. An additional example local to the Caribbean is the Chikungunya virus that emerged in Spring 2014. The presentation of these facts evinces that we cannot allow mis-management of any public health crisis; this disposition would not extend the welcoming hospitality that the tourism product depends on. Our domestic engines cannot sustain an outbreak of a virus like SARS (nor Ebola nor Chikungunya). Less than an outbreak, our tourism economic engines, on the other hand, cannot even withstand a rumor. We must act fast, with inter-state efficiency, against any virus.

This is the goal as detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean as it serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The vision of the CU is to ensure that the Caribbean is a protégé of communities like the US and EU states, not a parasite.
…
The Go Lean book reports that previous Caribbean administrations have failed miserably in managing regional crises. There is no structure for cooperation, collaboration and coordination across borders. This is the charge of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. To effectuate change in the region by convening all 30 Caribbean member-states, despite their historical legacies or governmental hierarchy.

The CU is not designed to just be in some advisory role when it comes to pandemic crises, but rather to possess the authority to act as a Security Apparatus for the region’s Greater Good.
…
Legally, each Caribbean member-state would ratify a Status of Forces Agreement that would authorize this role for the CU agencies (Emergency Management and Disease Control & Management) to serve as a proxy and deputy of the Public Health administrations for each member-state. This would thusly empower these CU agencies to quarantine and detain citizens with probable cause of an infectious disease. The transparency, accountability and chain-of-command would be intact with the appropriate checks-and-balances of the CU’s legislative and judicial oversight. This is a lesson learned from Hong Kong 2003 with China’s belligerence.

SARS was eradicated by January 2004 and no cases have been reported since. [4] We must have this “happy-ending”, but from the beginning. This is the lesson we can learn and apply in the Caribbean. …

This vision is the BHAG for today’s Caribbean. Yes, we can …

… execute the strategies, tactics and implementations to fulfill this vision.

COVID-19 was not the worst pandemic and may not be the last. So we must put the proper mitigation in place.

This vision, this BHAG, is conceivable, believable and achievable. We urged all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book

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

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

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

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

Who We Are

The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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 … as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ [medical equipment and provisional] trade.

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. …. 

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

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

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

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