Disaster – Page 10 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Tag: Disaster

‘Like a Good Neighbor’ – Being there for Puerto Rico

Posted on May 9, 2016 in Economics, Government, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

‘Just like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is there’ – Advertising tagline

What a nice thought: having a neighbor that is there for you in your times of need. State Farm is an insurance company that underwrites the risks of casualties (mishaps, disasters, man-made and acts of God). The people of the Caribbean needs Good Neighbors. We have many incidences and disasters to contend with, some times natural, some times man-made… some times, even economic.

The need for a Good Neighbor got special recognition in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. It opens with a quotation of the song lyrics “Lean On Me” by recording artist Bill Withers, with these words:

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

The US Territory of Puerto Rico needs a Good Neighbor right now. They do not need State Farm; they need the US Government – see Appendix – to change the laws to allow them to re-structure their heavy debt “load”. In effect, this community is in crisis, facing disaster and needs a helping hand. See the story in these VIDEOs here:

VIDEO 1: Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda on his mission to help Puerto Rico – http://www.today.com/video/-hamilton-star-lin-manuel-miranda-on-his-mission-to-help-puerto-rico-680630339894

NBC News – The Today Show – Posted May 6, 2016; retrieved May 8, 2016

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VIDEO 2: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Puerto Rico (HBO) – https://youtu.be/Tt-mpuR_QHQ

Published on Apr 24, 2016 – Puerto Rico is suffering a massive debt crisis. Lin-Manuel Miranda joins John Oliver to call for relief.
Pardon the Adult Language …

This is serious…

The book Go Lean … Caribbean identified the grave disposition of Puerto Rico, calling them the “Greece of the Caribbean” (Page 18), a tongue-in-check swipe to this advertising tagline used for many islands in the region: “the Gem of the Caribbean“. The book’s motive is to elevate the entire Caribbean, by focusing on the societal engines of economics, security and governance. All of these facets are in peril in Puerto Rico today, even though the current disaster is an economic one. It would be a nice thought if Puerto Rico’s neighbors could come to it’s aid. This is the quest of the Go Lean movement: to consolidate, integrate and streamline Caribbean member-states so as to be prepared for disasters in the region, including the economic ones. The book declares that Puerto Rico – and all of the Caribbean – is in crisis, but that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”.

Puerto Rico’s crisis is $70 Billion in municipal debt! Holy Crap, the vultures are now circling!

This episode is an example of the incidents prepared for in the Go Lean book, especially within the subtitle, “Crap Happens”. The book was referring to situations where a ‘Clear and Present Danger’ can imperil everyday life for the everyday man. This is the case in the US Territory of Puerto Rico. Despite the economic nature of the $70 Billion debt-load, this crisis is affecting security and government deliveries. According to the foregoing VIDEOs, the communities on the island of Puerto Rico cannot deliver on their Social Contract obligations because they have inadequate resources and their legal first priority must be debt-servicing. The end result: people’s needs – in the Social Contract – are not met and so they … flee – see photo above.

Puerto Rico needs an intervention; a bail-out of some sort. They are specifically asking for provisions of the US Bankruptcy laws (Chapter 9) to apply to the Territory. (Normally Chapter 9 only refers to American municipal governments and not State governments nor Territories). There are proponents of this quest – like Lin-Manuel Miranda in the foregoing – and opponents, like the active creditors. The movement behind the Go Lean movement wants a resolution, but focuses more on the underlying societal foundation; like the flaws that have made this community a parasite of the US mainland, rather than a protégé.

This assertion in the Go Lean book is that bad things (and bad actors) will always emerge to disrupt the peace and harmony in communities. All Caribbean member-states, like US Territories Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, need to be on guard and prepared for this possibility. The book (Page 23) prepares for many modes of “bad things/actors”. It defines them as industrial mishaps, natural disasters, “acts of God”, and yes, economic distress. The book relates that these happenings are historical facts – considering the 2008 Global Recession and the constant threats of hurricanes – that are bound to be repeated, again and again. The book’s goal is to prepare the region for the eventuality of bad things happening to the good people, so as to minimize the constant human flight and brain drain.

The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean region is the “greatest address on the planet”, that people should be “beating down the doors” to get in, rather than the status quo of people “beating down the doors” to get out.

We must plan for all disasters, natural and man-made. “When we fail to plan, we plan to fail”. We need Good Neighbors, literally and figuratively. The book contends that the 30 member-states in the Caribbean region should prepare themselves as neighbors to aid themselves, primarily. This point is pronounced early in the book with these Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):

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.

ii.    Whereas the natural formation of the landmass for our lands constitutes some extreme seismic activity, it is our responsibility and ours alone to provide, protect and promote our society to coexist, prepare and recover from the realities of nature’s occurrences.

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

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

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

xxiii. Whereas many countries in our region are dependent OverseasTerritory 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.

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

So the Go Lean book relates that the Caribbean must appoint “new guards” to ensure public safety and to include many strategies, tactics and implementations considered “best-practices” for economic stewardship and Emergency Management (Preparation and Response). We must be on a constant vigil against all “bad actors”, man-made or natural. This indicates being pro-active in monitoring, mitigating and managing risks. Then when “crap” does happen, as it always will, the region’s “new guards” must be prepared for any “Clear and Present” danger.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU would structure the appropriate governmental and non-governmental agencies in the region into one initiative, providing a Unified Command and Control for Emergency operations to share, leverage and collaborate their practice across the whole region. The roadmap has a focus of optimizing Caribbean society through economics, homeland security and governance; as stated within the prime directives (3):

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

The Caribbean is the “greatest address on the planet”, but there are risks associated with living deep in this tropical zone. With the reality of natural disasters (perhaps even more due to Climate Change), we must not be caught unprepared if we do not want our citizens to continue to flee their homeland; we want them to prosper here, where they may be planted. So as a community, we must provide assurances that we can count on our Good Neighbors to provide aid for any of the region’s stakeholders.

The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide the proactive and reactive protections in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating to form a Single Market Economy	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – How to Grow the Economy – Economic Bubbles Recovery	Page 69
Tactical – How to Grow the Economy – Recover from Disasters	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Securities Exchange Regulatory Agency	Page 74
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security Department	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management Agency	Page 76
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Meteorological and Geological Service	Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Exclusive Federal Bankruptcy Courts	Page 90
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Homeland Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #3: Consolidated Homeland Security Pact	Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Puerto Rico’s near Status	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Disaster Recoveries	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Optimize Security Markets	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories – Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands	Page 244

Other subjects related to Good Neighbor responses to crises (Economic Disruptions, Emergency Management, and Homeland Security) in the region and the required governmental responses have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	Zika – An Epidemiology Crisis – Facing the Caribbean region
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7235	Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6893	A Meteorologist’s View On Climate Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6563	Lessons from Iceland – Model of Recovery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6531	Economic Crisis: Learning from the Exigency of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6189	A Lesson in History – Hurricane ‘Katrina’ is helping today’s crises
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103	Sum of All Fears – ‘On Guard’ Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4741	Vanuatu and Tuvalu Cyclone – Inadequate response to human suffering
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2614	The ‘Great ShakeOut’ Earthquake Drill / Planning / Preparations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817	Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought

The island territory of Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean as a whole, has found itself on the losing side of the changes impacting the global economy; the Go Lean book identified one of the Agents of Change as globalization. According to the foregoing VIDEOs, they have been contending with a recession for nearly a decade. This has meant life-and-death for the community; death in terms of people abandoning the island. This commentary has frequently addressed these challenges – and solutions – for Puerto Rico; see sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6693	Ten Puerto Rico Police Accused of Criminal Network
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6531	Economic Disaster: Learning from the Exigency of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6260	Puerto Rico Bondholders Coalition Launches Ad Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4551	US Territories – Between a ‘rock and a hard place’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1325	Puerto Rico Governor Signs Bill on SME’s
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Puerto Rico open to radical economic fixes

These previous commentaries reflect the enduring crisis for the Caribbean; every member-state (island & mainland states) experience societal abandonment. The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that this “Agent of Change” is too big for just any one member-state, like Puerto Rico, to tackle alone, that there must be a regional solution; and presents this roadmap as the salve.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap; this plan is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can make Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean as a whole, a better place to live, work and play.:-)

Download Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – America’s Good Neighbor policy

The Good Neighbor policy was the foreign policy of the administration of United States President Franklin Roosevelt towards Latin America. Although the policy was implemented by the Roosevelt administration, 19th-century politician Henry Clay paved the way for it and coined the term “Good Neighbor”.

The policy’s main principle was that of non-intervention and non-interference in the domestic affairs of Latin America. It also reinforced the idea that the United States would be a “good neighbor” and engage in reciprocal exchanges with Latin American countries.^[1] Overall, the Roosevelt administration expected that this new policy would create new economic opportunities in the form of reciprocal trade agreements and reassert the influence of the United States in Latin America; however, many Latin American governments were not convinced.^[2]

Carmen Miranda became the muse of the Good Neighbor policy.

Impact
The Good Neighbor Policy terminated the U.S. Marines occupation of Nicaragua in 1933 and occupation of Haiti in 1934, led to the annulment of the Platt Amendment by the Treaty of Relations with Cuba in 1934, and the negotiation of compensation for Mexico’s nationalization of foreign-owned oil assets in 1938.

…

Legacy
The era of the Good Neighbor Policy ended with the ramp-up of the Cold War in 1945, as the United States felt there was a greater need to protect the western hemisphere from Soviet influence. These changes conflicted with the Good Neighbor Policy’s fundamental principle of non-intervention and led to a new wave of US involvement in Latin American affairs.^[2] Until the end of the Cold War the United States directly or indirectly attacked all suspected socialist or nationalist movements in the hope of ending the spread of Soviet influence. U.S. interventions in this era included the CIA overthrow of Guatemala’s President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, the unsuccessful CIA-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba in 1961, CIA subversion of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1970–73, and CIA subversion of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government from about 1981 to 1990.^[2]

After World War II, the US began to shift its focus to aid and rebuilding efforts in Europe and Japan. These U.S. efforts largely neglected the Latin American countries, though U.S. investors and business men did have some stake in the nations to the South.

See the entire encyclopedic reference here (retrieved May 9, 2016): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Neighbor_policy.

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Diaspora, Disaster, PR, Transform

The Logistics of Disaster Relief

Posted on April 26, 2016 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

It is during the worst of times that we see the best in people.

This statement needs to be coupled with the age old proverb: “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions“…

… especially when it comes to disaster relief.

In previous blog-commentaries promoting the book Go Lean…Caribbean, it was established that “bad things happen to good people”; (i.e. ‘Crap Happens’ – So What Now?, Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’). Yes, disasters are a reality for modern life. The Go Lean book posits that with the emergence of Climate Change that natural disasters are more common place.

In addition there are earthquakes …

… these natural phenomena may not be associated with Climate Change, but alas, they too are more common and more destructive nowadays. (People with a Christian religious leanings assert that “an increase of earthquakes is a tell-tale sign that we are living in what the Bible calls the “Last Days” – Matthew 24: 7).

The motives of the Go Lean book, and accompanying blogs is not to proselytize, but rather to prepare the Caribbean region for “bad actors”, natural or man-made. The book was written in response to the aftermath and deficient regional response following the great earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010. Many Non-Government Organizations (NGO) embarked on campaigns to shoulder a response, a relief and rebuilding of Haiti. Many people hold the view that those efforts did a lot of harm, along with some good.

In a previous blog-commentary, it was reported how the fundraising campaign by one group, the American Red Cross, raised almost US$500 million and yet only a “piddling” was spent on the victims and communities themselves.

Now we learn too that many good-intentioned people donated tons of relief supplies that many times turned out to be “more harm than help”. See the story here in this news VIDEO; (and/or the Narration Transcript/photos in the Appendix below):

VIDEO – When disaster relief brings anything but relief – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/disaster-relief-donations-that-dont-bring-relief

Posted April 24, 2016 – Many of the well-meaning articles Americans donate in times of disaster turn out to be of no use to those in need. Sometimes, they even get in the way. That’s a message relief organizations very much want “us” to heed. This story is reported by Scott Simon, [on loan from] NPR. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).

This commentary asserts that more is needed in the Caribbean to facilitate good disaster relief, in particular a technocratic administration. This consideration is the focus of the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies of the Go Lean…Caribbean book. The declaration is that the Caribbean itself must be agile, lean, and optimized in providing its own solutions for disaster recovery. The alternative, from past experiences like in this foregoing VIDEO, is that others taking the lead for our solution seem to fall short in some way … almost every time!

The Caribbean must now stand up and be counted!

The Go Lean book declares (Page 115) that the “Caribbean should not be perennial beggars, [even though] we do need capital/money to get started”, we need technocratic executions even more.

What is a technocracy?

This is the quest of the Go Lean movement. The movement calls for a treaty to form a technocratic confederation of all the 30 member-states in the Caribbean region. This will form a Single Market of 42 million. The consolidation and integration allows for economies-of-scale and leverage that would not be possible otherwise. “Many hands make a big job … small”. But it is not just size that will define the Caribbean technocracy but quality, efficiency and optimization as well.

According to the Go Lean book (Page 64), the …

“… term technocracy was originally used to designate the application of the scientific method to solving social and economic problems, in counter distinction to the traditional political or philosophic approaches. The CU must start as a technocratic confederation – a Trade Federation – rather than evolving to this eventuality due to some failed-state status or insolvency.”

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide better stewardship for the Caribbean homeland. The foregoing VIDEO describes the efforts of non-governmental organizations (NGO) in shepherding disaster reliefs. These NGO’s are stakeholders in this Caribbean elevation roadmap. Even though many of the 30 member-states are independent nations, the premise of the Go Lean book is that there must be a resolve for interdependence among the governmental and non-governmental entities. This all relates to governance, the need for this new technocratic stewardship of regional Caribbean society. The need for this resolve was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 & 14) with these acknowledgements and statements:

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

ii.    Whereas the natural formation of the landmass for our lands constitutes some extreme seismic activity, it is our responsibility and ours alone to provide, protect and promote our society to coexist, prepare and recover from the realities of nature’s occurrences.

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

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

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

xxxiii.   Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of [other] communities.

This is the quest of CU/Go Lean roadmap: to provide new guards for a more competent Caribbean administration … by governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations. (NGO would also be promoted, audited and overseen by CU administrators). The Caribbean must do better!

Our quest must start “in the calm”, before any storm (or earthquake). We must elevate the societal engines the Caribbean region through economic, security and governance empowerments. In general, the CU will employ better strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

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

Former US President George W. Bush shares this advocacy!

He narrated this VIDEO here describing the efficiencies of the American logistics company, UPS, in delivering disaster relief:

VIDEO – Report Logistics and Haiti: Points of Light and President Bush – https://youtu.be/8-gmh1QyWTU

Uploaded on Mar 30, 2011 – [In 2009], Transportation Manager Chip Chappelle volunteered to help The UPS Foundation coordinate an ocean shipment of emergency tents from Indiana to Honduras. Since then, he has managed the logistics of humanitarian aid from every corner of the world to help the victims of floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes and cyclones.

The Go Lean book stresses our own community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary for the Caribbean to deliver, to provide the proactive and reactive public safety/security provisions in the region. See sample list here:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing – Emergency Response	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states/ 4 languages into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Prepare for the eventuality of natural disasters	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II European Marshall Plan/Recovery Model	Page 68
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance	Page 71
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Homeland Security – Emergency Management	Page 76
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – State Department – Liaison/Oversight for NGO’s	Page 80
Implementation – Assemble All Regionally-focus Organizations of All Caribbean Communities	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Homeland Security Pact	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Governance and the Social Contract	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing – Hurricane Risk Reinsurance Fund	Page 161
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Develop a Pre-Fab Housing Industry – One solution ideal for Haiti	Page 207
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti	Page 238

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines to be better prepared for the eventual natural disasters. The good intentions of Americans, as depicted in the foregoing VIDEO, is encouraging … but good intentions alone is not enough. We need good management! We need a technocracy! While it is out-of-scope for this roadmap to impact America, we can – and must – exercise good management in our Caribbean region. So what do we want from Americans in our time of need? See VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Donate Responsibly – https://youtu.be/14h9_9sopRA

Published on Nov 2, 2012 – A series of PSAs released by the Ad Council explain why cash is the best way to help. The campaign was launched on November 5, 2012 by the Ad Council and supported by the coalition — which includes CIDI, the U.S. Agency for International Development, InterAction, the UPS Foundation and National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster.

The Go Lean book calls on the Caribbean region to be more technocratic: collectively self-reliant, both proactively and reactively. Because of Climate Change or the Last Days, natural disasters (i.e. hurricanes and earthquakes) will occur again and again. Considering that our American neighbors may Pave our Road to Hell with Good Intentions, we need to prepare the right strategies, tactics and implementations ourselves, to make our region a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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Appendix Transcript – When disaster relief brings anything but relief

When Nature grows savage and angry, Americans get generous and kind. That’s admirable. It might also be a problem.

“Generally after a disaster, people with loving intentions donate things that cannot be used in a disaster response, and in fact may actually be harmful,” said Juanita Rilling, director of the Center for International Disaster Information in Washington, D.C. “And they have no idea that they’re doing it.”

Rilling has spent more than a decade trying to tell well-meaning people to think before they give.

In 1998 Hurricane Mitch struck Honduras. More than 11,000 people died. More than a million and a half were left homeless.

And Rilling got a wake-up call: “Got a call from one of our logistics experts who said that a plane full of supplies could not land, because there was clothing on the runway. It’s in boxes and bales. It takes up yards of space. It can’t be moved.’ ‘Whose clothing is it?’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t know whose it is, but there’s a high-heeled shoe, just one, and a bale of winter coats.’ And I thought, winter coats? It’s summer in Honduras.”

Humanitarian workers call the crush of useless, often incomprehensible contributions “the second disaster.”

In 2004, following the Indian Ocean tsunami, a beach in Indonesia was piled with used clothing.

There was no time for disaster workers to sort and clean old clothes. So the contributions just sat and rotted.

“This very quickly went toxic and had to be destroyed,” said Rilling. “And local officials poured gasoline on it and set it on fire. And then it was out to sea.”

“So, rather than clothing somebody, it went up in flames?” asked Simon.

“Correct. The thinking is that these people have lost everything, so they must NEED everything. So people SEND everything. You know, any donation is crazy if it’s not needed. People have donated prom gowns and wigs and tiger costumes and pumpkins, and frostbite cream to Rwanda, and used teabags, ’cause you can always get another cup of tea.”

You may not think that sending bottles of water to devastated people seems crazy. But Rilling points out, “This water, it’s about 100,000 liters, will provide drinking water for 40,000 people for one day. This amount of water to send from the United States, say, to West Africa — and people did this — costs about $300,000. But relief organizations with portable water purification units can produce the same amount, a 100,000 liters of water, for about $300.”

And then there were warm-hearted American women who wanted to send their breast milk to nursing mothers in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

“It sounds wonderful, but in the midst of a crisis it’s actually one of the most challenging things,” said Rebecca Gustafson, a humanitarian aid expert who has worked on the ground after many disasters.

“Breast milk doesn’t stay fresh for very long. And the challenge is, what happens if you do give it to an infant who then gets sick?”

December 2012, Newtown, Connecticut: A gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Almost instantaneously, stuff start arriving.

Chris Kelsey, who worked for Newtown at the time, said they had to get a warehouse to hold all the teddy bears.

Simon asked, “Was there a need for teddy bears?”

“I think it was a nice gesture,” Kelsey replied. “There was a need to do something for the kids. There was a need to make people feel better. I think the wave of stuff we got was a little overwhelming in the end.”

And how many teddy bear came to Newtown? “I think it was about 67,000,” Kelsey said. “Wasn’t limited to teddy bears. There was also thousands of boxes of school supplies, and thousands of boxes of toys, bicycles, sleds, clothes.”

Newtown had been struck by mass murder, not a tsunami. As Kelsey said, “I think a lot of the stuff that came into the warehouse was more for the people that sent it, than it was for the people in Newtown. At least, that’s the way it felt at the end.”

Every child in Newtown got a few bears. The rest had to be sent away, along with the bikes and blankets.

There are times when giving things works. More than 650,000 homes were destroyed or damaged in Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Thousands of people lost everything.

Tammy Shapiro is one of the organizers of Occupy Sandy, which grew out of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

“We were able to respond in a way that the big, bureaucratic agencies can’t,” Shapiro said.

When the hurricane struck, they had a network of activists, connected and waiting.

“Very quickly, we just stopped taking clothes,” Shapiro said. Instead, they created a “relief supply wedding registry.”

“We put the items that we needed donated on that registry,” said Shapiro. “And then people who wanted to donate could buy the items that were needed. I mean, a lot of what we had on the wedding registry was diapers. They needed flashlights.”

Simon asked, “How transportable is your experience here, following Hurricane Sandy?”

“For me, the network is key. Who has the knowledge? Where are spaces that goods can live if there’s a disaster? Who’s really well-connected on their blocks?”

Juanita Rilling’s album of disaster images shows shot after shot of good intentions just spoiling in warehouses, or rotting on the landscape.

“It is heartbreaking,” Rilling said. “It’s heartbreaking for the donor, it’s heartbreaking for the relief organizations, and it’s heartbreaking for survivors. This is why cash donations are so much more effective. They buy exactly what people need, when they need it.

“And cash donations enable relief organizations to purchase supplies locally, which ensures that they’re fresh and familiar to survivors, purchased in just the right quantities, and delivered quickly. And those local purchases support the local merchants, which strengthens the local economy for the long run.”

Disaster response worker Rebecca Gustafson says that most people want to donate something that is theirs: “Money sometimes doesn’t feel personal enough for people. They don’t feel enough of their heart and soul is in that donation, that check that they would send.

“The reality is, it’s one of the most compassionate things that people can do.”

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Disaster, Haiti, History, Model, Security

[Top]

‘Crap Happens’ – So What Now?

Posted on February 15, 2016 in Economics, Government, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The peril of a hurricane is a constant threat for Caribbean life, for all 30 member-states. It is assured that some Caribbean location will be impacted every year. While there is no guarantee for a strike “here or there”, there is a guarantee that there will be a strike somewhere.

“Bad things happen to good people”.

¹¹ I have seen something further under the sun, that the swift do not always win the race, nor do the mighty win the battle, nor do the wise always have the food, nor do the intelligent always have the riches, nor do those with knowledge always have success, because time and unexpected events overtake them all. ¹² For man does not know his time. Just as fish are caught in an evil net and birds are caught in a trap, so the sons of men are ensnared in a time of disaster, when it suddenly overtakes them. – Ecclesiastes 9:11,12 NWT

There is concern for the whole region, and for individual communities. Let’s consider one example…

The people of Freeport, Grand Bahama, in the Bahamas are good people! The impact of Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 was a bad thing; (especially after 2 earlier storms in 2004). This is a classic example of “bad things happening to good people”. See the article reference here:

Title: Effects of Hurricane Wilma in The Bahamas

The effects of Hurricane Wilma in The Bahamas were generally unexpected and primarily concentrated on the western portion of Grand Bahama. Hurricane Wilma developed on October 15, 2005 in the Caribbean Sea, and after initially organizing slowly it explosively deepened to reach peak winds of 185 mph (295 km/h) and a record-low pressure of 882 mbar (hPa). It weakened and struck eastern Mexico as a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and accelerated northeastward to make landfall on southwestern Florida on October 24. After crossing the state, Wilma briefly re-strengthened in the open Atlantic Ocean, moving north of The Bahamas before weakening and later becoming an extra-tropical cyclone.^[1]

On October 24, Hurricane Wilma made its closest approach to The Bahamas, passing about 150 km (90 mi) north-northwest of Freeport.^[1] While passing the archipelago, Wilma produced hurricane force winds and powerful storm surge, flooding southwestern coastal areas of Grand Bahama and destroying hundreds of buildings. Damage totaled about $100 million (2005 USD), almost entirely on the western half of the island. Central Grand Bahama, including the Freeport area, reported minor to moderate damage, while the eastern end received little to no damage. One child died on the island from the flooding.
…

Impact
On Grand Bahama Island, Wilma produced sustained winds of 155 km/h (95 mph) and a gust of 178 km/h (111 mph).^[4] The hurricane also produced a storm surge of over 3.7 m (12 ft),^[1] reportedly as high as 6.1 m (20 ft) along the southwestern portion of the island.^[3] The surge, which moved about 305 m (1,000 ft) inland, caused large-scale flooding that washed away or destroyed about 800 homes.^[5][6] Damage was estimated at $100 million (2005 USD) on the western portion of the island. Excluding the southwestern region of Grand Bahama, the majority of the island reported minor wind damage, and the eastern end of the island reported little, or no, damage.^[5] Over 7,000 people on the island were directly affected by the hurricane, many of whom had not fully recovered from hurricanes Frances and Jeanne during the previous year.^[3]

Significant damage was reported in coastal areas of Grand Bahama Island, with widespread destruction of roofs and vehicles, along with downed poles and trees.^[1] Power and telephone services were disrupted throughout the island.^[3] A total of 400 structures sustained damage, of which about 200 commercial buildings were severely damaged and recommended by engineers not to be repaired.^[5] Among the destroyed buildings were a police station on the western end and several buildings in Freeport.^[7] More than 500 automobiles were flooded,^[5] including five police cars.^[7] The storm surge also raised 54 corpses in five graveyards on the island.^[5] Several resorts were closed for an extended period of time,^[5] all on the western portion of the island. One hotel, the Xanadu Beach and Marine Resort, reported about $3.5 million in damage (2005 USD), including numerous destroyed windows designed to withstand hurricane force winds.^[8] Further to the east, numerous houses and commercial buildings lost their roofs in the city of Freeport. One serious traffic accident occurred when the winds overturned a bus, inflicting injuries on the driver. Several other traffic accidents were reported in the area, although none were severe. During the passage of the hurricane, five cases of looting were reported, of which one person was caught in the process.^[7] Storm surge from the hurricane killed one child,^[3] the only casualty directly related to Wilma in the archipelago.^[1]

Aftermath
By about two days after the passage of Hurricane Wilma, 800 residents on Grand Bahama remained in shelters,^[3] including 65 families who lost their homes and stayed in a hotel set up as a government shelter in Freeport.^[5] On Bimini, most residents who evacuated to shelters returned to their homes within two days of the hurricane.^[3] The Bahamian Red Cross quickly assessed the damage on Grand Bahama and Bimini, and successfully requested to be included under the federation’s hurricane appeal for Central America. Local Red Cross chapters mobilized all available resources to assist the residents most affected. The Bahamian Red Cross began a three-month program to distribute food and other items to 1,000 of the 3,500 affected families, primarily on Grand Bahama; the remaining 2,500 families received assistance from the government and other organizations. Volunteers delivered building materials and provided water vouchers to those affected. In Nassau, the Red Cross disaster contingency stock sent a boat with food items, blankets, health kits, tarpaulins and water.^[11] About a week after the hurricane, the United States Agency for International Development began providing $50,000 (2005 USD) to the Bahamian National Emergency Management Agency for the purchase and distribution of emergency supplies. The agency also provided $9,000 (2005 USD) for locally contracted helicopter assessments in the affected areas.^[10] Red Cross agencies throughout the Caribbean Sea provided hygienic kits, plastic sheeting, blankets, and jerry cans.^[11]

Electricians had power restored to the Freeport area by the day after the storm,^[2] and had power restored to most of the western portion of the island within three weeks after the hurricane.^[5] Work crews quickly removed road debris and tree limbs, and by the day after the passage of Wilma most roads were cleared. The passage of the hurricane left 1,000–4,000 people and hundreds of animals homeless. In response, the Grand Bahama Humane Society distributed about 340 kg (750 lb) of dog food and treated or euthanized injured animals, depending on their condition.^[6] The earlier effects of Wilma on Mexico left many tourist areas in that country closed, leading to a 10% increase in tourism in the Bahamas in December 2005.^[12] By about three weeks after the hurricane, the airport on Grand Bahama Island was reopened, and all but one resort were also reopened;^[13] the remaining resort was reopened about two months after the hurricane.^[14]Source: Wikipedia Online Reference Source – Retrieved February 13, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Wilma_in The Bahamas

The City of Freeport got special recognition in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. It was cited for this recognition as a token of what was wrong in the Caribbean, plus how to reform and transform the communities. So what lessons can we all learn from Hurricane Wilma’s rampage in Freeport in 2005?

This incident is an example that “Crap Happens”. This represented a ‘Clear and Present Danger’ to everyday life for the everyday man in the City of Freeport and surrounding areas. The lesson is not just for potential “911 dangers” in a community but rather for regional catastrophes, throughout the Caribbean. This includes natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, forest fires, etc.), industrial incidents (chemical & oil spills), bacterial & viral pandemics and terrorism-related events.

This discussion is presented in conjunction with the Go Lean book. It asserts that bad things (and bad actors) will always emerge to disrupt the peace and harmony in communities. All Caribbean member-states need to be on guard and prepared for this possibility.

The Go Lean book (Page 23) prepares for many modes of “bad things/actors”. It defines them as industrial mishaps, natural disasters and other “acts of God”. The book relates that these happenings are historical facts that are bound to be repeated, again and again.

So now that we accept the premise that “Crap Happens”, can we better prepare for the eventuality of bad things happening to good people?

“When we fail to plan, we plan to fail”.

This point is pronounced early in the book with the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

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.

ii. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass for our lands constitutes some extreme seismic activity, it is our responsibility and ours alone to provide, protect and promote our society to coexist, prepare and recover from the realities of nature’s occurrences.

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

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

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

So the Go Lean book relates that the Caribbean must appoint “new guards”, or a security apparatus, to ensure public safety and to include many strategies, tactics and implementations considered “best-practices” for Emergency Management (Preparation and Response). We must be on a constant vigil against these “bad actors”, man-made or natural. This indicates being pro-active in monitoring, mitigating and managing risks. Then when “crap” does happen, as it always will, the region’s “new guards” must be prepared for any “Clear and Present” danger.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU would roll the charters of all Emergency Management agencies in the region into one initiative, not replacing the individual Emergency Management operations, but rather providing a Unified Command and Control for Emergency operations to share, leverage and collaborate their practice across the whole region. (A previous blog-commentary detailed the historicity – and failures of the current Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency or CDEMA).

The Go Lean/CU roadmap has a focus of optimizing Caribbean society through economic empowerment, and homeland security. Emergency preparedness and response is paramount for this quest. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap has the following 3 prime directives:

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

The CU Homeland Security forces have to always be “on guard”, on alert for real or perceived threats. The legal concept is one of being deputized by the sovereign authority for a role/responsibility in the member-state. So when “crap” happens, these CU forces are expected to aid, assist, and support local resources in these member-states. The request is that all Caribbean member-states empower this Homeland Security force to execute this limited scope on their sovereign territories. The legal basis for this empowerment is a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), embedded in the CU treaty from Step One/Day One. This would authorize the CU for its role and responsibility for all the “crap” that could happen in jeopardizing the peace and prosperity of the Caribbean people. The CU Trade Federation would lead, fund and facilitate this Emergency Management functionality under the discretion of a regionally elected Commander-in-Chief for the CU.

The foregoing article relates $100 million of economic impact of Hurricane Wilma on Freepot. Freeport could not afford that! Even now – 10 years later – the community is still reeling from that economic chaos. In some circles, Freeport is considered a “ghost town” – see photo here of the once bustling International Bazaar. So preparing effectively for disasters must include economic and financial solutions as well. The Go Lean roadmap details financial solutions, in preparing for the financial responsibility of the region’s disaster needs. Consider this quotation (Page 196) from the book:

There is also a financial battlefield for Emergency Management. Reinsurance “sidecars” allow investment bonds to be issued in the financial marketplaces to raise casualty insurance capital. The differences between premiums (plus reserves) and claims equal the profit to be shared with investors. The end result should be an insurance fund of last resort.

This reinsurance “sidecar” strategy is a win-win for communities, insurance companies and investors. (Imagine bonuses and dividend checks distributed every year on December 2, as the hurricane season ends on December 1). This type of solution aligns with the popular movement in many US States (and other democracies) that motorists provide financial solutions in face of the risks (to themselves and others) of operating motor vehicles. These provisions are defined as the ‘Financial Responsibility Law’. The technical definition of this provision is as follows:

A law which requires an individual to prove that he or she is able to pay for damages resulting from an accident. A financial responsibility law does not specifically require the individual to have insurance coverage; instead, the law requires the individual to be able to demonstrate the financial capacity to pay, even if the individual is not at fault. This type of law is commonly associated with automobiles.

… many states consider an individual with an insurance policy to be compliant with a financial responsibility law, since most insurance policies have a minimum coverage that meets the State’s standard.

Source: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/financial-responsibility-law.asp#ixzz40CobgMfg retrieved February 14, 2016.

Consider the VIDEO here of an American insurance company’s commercial advertising:

VIDEO: Liberty Mutual Insurance TV Commercial – Fully Replace Lost Property – https://youtu.be/P7tkWIsr5zQ

TV Commercial – At Liberty Mutual Insurance, we pay to fully replace damaged property so you don’t have to touch your savings. Learn more here: https://www.libertymutual.com/

The Caribbean is arguably the “greatest address on the planet”, but there is risk associated with living deep in a tropical zone. With the reality of Climate Change, we must not be caught unprepared. We do not want our citizens fleeing their homeland … anymore; we want them to prosper where they are planted. So as a community, we must provide assurances. While this is a heavy-lifting task, this is the purpose of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. So the message is clear:

“We will have the finances to restore the economic engines after any natural disaster”.

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

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating a non-sovereign permanent union	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – How to Grow the Economy – Recover from Disasters	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security Department	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management Agency	Page 76
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Meteorological and Geological Service	Page 79
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Homeland Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Re-boot Freeport	Page 112
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #3: Consolidated Homeland Security Pact	Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Escalation Role	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Quick Disaster Recovery	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Adopt Advanced Reinsurance Products	Page 200

Other subjects related to Emergency Management, Homeland Security and governing empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	Zika – An Epidemiology Crisis – A 4-Letter Word
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7235	Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6893	A Meteorologist’s View On Climate Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6563	Lessons from Iceland – Model of Recovery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6189	A Lesson in History – Hurricane ‘Katrina’ is helping today’s crises
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103	Sum of All Fears – ‘On Guard’ Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4741	Vanuatu and Tuvalu Cyclone – Inadequate response to human suffering
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4185	Caribbean Ghost Towns: It Could Happen…Again
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2614	The ‘Great ShakeOut’ Earthquake Drill / Planning / Preparations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Stopping a Clear and Present Danger: Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817	Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=87	Fact, not fiction: 6.5M Earthquake Shakes Eastern Caribbean

The Caribbean is on the frontlines of this Climate Change-induced storm battle! We are not the only ones; there are winners (consider northern cities with milder than normal winters) and losers. The Caribbean has found itself on the losing side; consider the experience of Freeport in the foregoing article. This could mean life-and-death for the people and the economic engines of Caribbean communities.

This reflects the change that the Caribbean region now has to endure. The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that this “Agent of Change” is too big for just any one member-state to tackle alone, that there must be a regional solution; and presents this roadmap.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap; this plan is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Disaster, Freeport, History, Security

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Brazilian Shrunken Head Babies: Zika or Tdap?

Posted on February 9, 2016 in Economics, Government, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary:

“Call a spade a spade…”

… all of a sudden in 2014, Brazil signs a contract with Big Pharma to inoculate pregnant women with a TDAP booster and boom: a Microcephaly pandemic emerges.

Now “they” are banning pregnant women and all hoping to someday get pregnant from traveling to Latin America and the Caribbean…

… and this prohibition is in the middle of the Peak Winter tourist season.

Imagine the economic consequences. Imagine the public health and security consequences. Imagine the governmental complications.

This commentary urges the Caribbean to “call a spade a spade”, rather than blaming “it” all on mosquitoes. See the actual editorial article here:

Editorial Title: Brazilian Shrunken Head Babies: Zika or Tdap?

In late 2014, the Ministry of Health of Brazil announced the introduction of the Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis) vaccine for all pregnant women in that country as part of its routine vaccination program. The move was aimed at trying to contain the resurgence of pertussis in Brazil.

In December 2015, the Brazilian government declared an emergency after 2,400 Brazilian babies were found to be born with shrunken heads (microcephaly) and damaged brains since October.

Brazilian public health officials don’t know what is causing the increase in microcephaly cases in babies born in Brazil, but they are theorizing that it may be caused by a virus known as “Zika,” which is spread by mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti)—in the same way as is the West Nile virus.

The theory is largely based on the fact that they found the Zika virus in a baby with microcephaly following an autopsy of the dead child. The virus was also found in the amniotic fluid of two mothers whose babies had the condition.

Note that Zika is not a new virus; it has been around for decades. No explanation has been given as to why suddenly it could be causing all these cases of microcephaly. No one is seriously asking the question, “What has changed?”

There is no theorizing about the possibility that the cases of microcephaly could be linked to the mandating of the Tdap vaccine for all pregnant women in Brazil about 10 months earlier. The government has “assumed” the cause is a virus.

FACT—Drug companies did not test the safety and effectiveness of giving Tdap vaccine to pregnant women before the vaccines were licensed in the U.S. and there is almost no data on inflammatory or other biological responses to this vaccine that could affect pregnancy and birth outcomes.

FACT—According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adequate testing has not been done in humans to demonstrate safety for pregnant women and it is not known whether the vaccines can cause fetal harm or affect reproduction capacity. The manufacturers of the Tdap vaccine state that human toxicity and fertility studies are inadequate and warn that Tdap should “be given to a pregnant woman only if clearly needed.”

FACT—There are ingredients pertussis containing Tdap vaccine that have not been fully evaluated for potential genotoxic or other adverse effects on the human fetus developing in the womb that may negatively affect health after birth, including aluminum adjuvants, mercury containing (Thimerosal) preservatives and many more bioactive and potentially toxic ingredients.

FACT—There are serious problems with outdated testing procedures for determining the potency and toxicity of pertussis vaccines and some scientists are calling for limits to be established for specific toxin content of pertussis-containing vaccines.

FACT—There are no published biological mechanism studies that assess pre-vaccination health status and measure changes in brain and immune function and chromosomal integrity after vaccination of pregnant women or their babies developing in the womb.

FACT—Since licensure of Tdap vaccine in the U.S., there have been no well designed prospective case controlled studies comparing the health outcomes of large groups of women who get pertussis containing Tdap vaccine during pregnancy either separately or simultaneously compared to those who do not get the vaccines, and no similar health outcome comparisons of their newborns at birth or in the first year of life have been conducted. Safety and effectiveness evaluations that have been conducted are either small, retrospective, compare vaccinated women to vaccinated women or have been performed by drug company or government health officials using unpublished data.

FACT—FACT—The FDA has licensed Tdap vaccines to be given once as a single dose pertussis booster shot to individuals over 10 or 11 years old. The CDC’s recommendation that doctors give every pregnant woman a Tdap vaccination during every pregnancy—regardless of whether a woman has already received one dose of Tdap—is an off-label use of the vaccine.

FACT—Injuries and deaths from pertussis-containing vaccines are the most compensated claims in the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and influenza vaccine injuries and deaths are the second most compensated claim.

FACT—A 2013 published study evaluating reports of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) following vaccination in the U. S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) and in a European vaccine reaction reporting system found that pertussis containing DTaP was among the vaccines most frequently associated with brain inflammation in children between birth and age five.

Tdap is manufactured by two pharmaceutical companies: Sanofi Pasteur of France and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) of the United Kingdom.

The Sanofi Pasteur product contains aluminum phosphate, residual formaldehyde, residual glutaraldehyde, and 2-phenoxyethanola, along with the following growth mediums and process ingredients: Stainer-Scholte medium, casamino acids, dimethyl-beta-cyclodextrin, glutaraldehyde, formaldehyde, aluminum phosphate, modified Mueller-Miller casamino acid medium without beef heart infusion, ammonium sulfate, 2-phenoxyethanol, water for injection.

The GSK product contains aluminum hydroxide, sodium chloride, residual formaldehyde, polysorbate 80 (Tween 80), along with the following growth mediums and process ingredients: modified Latham medium derived from bovine casein, Fenton medium containing bovine extract, formaldehyde, Stainer-Scholte liquid medium, glutaraldehyde, aluminum hydroxide.

Unsurprisingly, the Brazilian government announced on January 15, 2016 it will direct funds to a biomedical research center (Sao Paulo-based Butantan Institute) to help develop a vaccine against Zika. Development of the vaccine is expected to take 3-5 years. Again, no consideration to the irony that you may be developing a vaccine to address a problem that may have been CAUSED by a vaccine, and that that new vaccine may COMPOUND the problem No consideration to the possibility that the answer to the problem may not be to do MORE, but rather to do LESS (simply STOP giving Tdcap to pregnant women).

The number of cases of microcephaly in Brazil has grown to 3,530 babies, as of mid-January 2016. Fewer than 150 such cases were seen in all of 2014.

Most of the microcephaly cases have been concentrated in Brazil’s poor northeast, though cases in Rio de Janeiro and other big cities have also been on the rise, prompting people to stock up on mosquito repellent. Health officials are warning Brazilians—especially pregnant women—to stay inside when possible and wear plenty of bug spray if they have to go out.

Wanna look up the ingredients in mosquito spray? Oh, and what deadly insecticide do you reckon they’ll mass fumigate with? DDT perhaps?

(Note. Contains information pieced together—often copy and pasted—from newspaper articles and information from the NationalVaccineInformationCenter.)
Source: Anonymous Blog Entry – WordPress.com – Posted 02-04-2016; retrieved 02-08-2016 from: https://brazilianshrunkenheadbabies.wordpress.com/about/

Other Zika-related thinking to consider:

This commentary parallels with the book Go Lean … Caribbean in its quest to elevate societal life in the Caribbean. The book identifies that “bad actors” will always emerge to exploit the economic engines in the community. For the Zika virus, the “bad actor” was assumed to be mosquitoes; now it appears something more insidious is at work: This constitutes an accusation against Big Pharma. But that’s OK, this is not our first accusation and probably will not be the last. See here for previous blog/commentaries indicting Big Pharma’s cronyism:

Book Review – ‘Thimerosal: Let The Science Speak’

Judge to decide on Vaccination Amidst Autism Fears

Big Pharma & Criminalization of American Business

Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones

New Research and New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease

Health-care fraud in America; Criminals take $272 billion

These Go Lean commentaries are accusing Big Pharma of being willing to …

…Sacrifice children on the altar of corporate profits.

Yes, that is the accusation. In the case of Brazil’s Zika virus pandemic, the “bad actor” appears to be the Pharmaceutical companies and their consorts in the government’s public health agencies.

This all sounds familiar, as in the controversy with child immunizations and the public fear of a connection with Autism. Once these types of accusations are publicized, Big Pharma responds … by attacking and discrediting the accusers. So just wait: soon come the denials, defense and discrediting attacks for this allegation … any moment now.

This strategy is also consistent in the “play book” of climate change deniers and other Crony-Capitalistic enterprises (i.e. Big Tobacco).

This point is where this commentary relates to the overall plan to elevate Caribbean society: the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This book declares (Page 157) that Big Pharma may be more of an obstacle than a aid for effecting community health. They care more about profits than they do the well-being of the public, or the Greater Good. The Caribbean must therefore assume the leadership for its own destiny, and not be dependent on other parties. We must be protégés and not parasites.

Big Pharma is not the only stakeholders involved in this drama, as the directing organization is the World Health Organization. The WHO has altruistic motives in protecting the public health of the entire world, but at times their motives and executions can be flawed, biased and influenced by capitalistic forces. How much of these dynamics are at play now? Just consider the BIG economic issues attendant to this Zika viral outbreak:

Peak Winter Tourism Season in the Caribbean
Spring Break 2016 – Mexican and Caribbean locales are “hotspots”.
2016 Olympics in Brazil
Future Public Health mandate to “force” TDAP immunization on pregnant women.

This champion for the Zika virus, the WHO, is not the WTO nor the World Bank; though they are all multilateral/UN agencies but with different specialties, scopes and charters. Here is the WHO’s declaration:

The World Health Organization has declared the Zika virus an international public health emergency, prompted by growing concern that it could cause birth defects. As many as four million people could be infected by the end of the year. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have urged pregnant women against travel to about two dozen countries, mostly in the Caribbean and Latin America, where the outbreak is growing. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/health/what-is-zika-virus.html retrieved 02-08-2016).

See VIDEO here!

VIDEO – Understanding Zika – http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/health/what-is-zika-virus.html?_r=0

There it is … this declaration appears to be legitimately concerned about public health. But alas, the Zika virus has been around since 1947 and never related to microcephaly. Now all of sudden, there is this correlation. Something seems awry; mosquitoes have not evolved that much, that fast. This foregoing editorial article, therefore may not be so far-fetched.

The Caribbean needs to take its own lead for its own causes. The Go Lean book strategizes a roadmap for economic empowerment in the region, clearly relating that healthcare, and pharmaceutical acquisitions are important in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. At the outset of the Go Lean book, in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), these points are pronounced:

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

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

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the implementation and introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU‘s prime directives are identified with the following 3 statements:

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

The CU Trade Federation has the prime directive of optimizing the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean region. The foregoing editorial depicts that abuses have entered the quest for best practices in health management for the Brazilian public; and maybe other countries. We must learn from this cautionary tale and do better in the Caribbean.

The foregoing editorial presents perplexing questions about the legitimacy of the cause of the current crisis: Is the mosquito really to blame?

The Go Lean roadmap posits that more innovations need to emerge in the region, so as to take our own lead for our own needs. The CU needs a prioritization on science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM) activities so as to enable such leadership.

This is the manifestation and benefits of Research & Development (R&D) ethos in the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The roadmap describes the elevation on society from such a priority. The following list details additional ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s health deliveries and R&D investments:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D)	Page 30
Community Ethos – 10 Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Integrate and unify region in a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department	Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Drug Administration	Page 87
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities – R&D Campuses	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities	Page 228
Appendix – Emergency Management – Medical Trauma Centers	Page 336

The promoters of the Go Lean roadmap does not purport to be an authority on medical or Public Health best practices. But we are logical, like everyone else in society and we can see rubbish when presented:

You can fool all of the people some of the time.
… some of the people all of the time.
But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

The Go Lean economic-security-governance empowerment roadmap advocates for medical professionals making medical decisions, not accountants and business marketers. This imagery is the manifestation of Crony-Capitalism. There are so many examples in the US, and other countries. Consider the case of how one pharmaceutical company has been assailed over the cancer drug, Gleevec. This case study clearly depicts how the industry prioritizes profit over people.

Crony-Capitalism on the one hand, the Greater Good. on the other hand. These choices dictate public policies for economic, security and governing engines. Good, bad and ugly examples abound. The Caribbean is urged to choose its course wisely.

This is the calling for the CU Trade Federation, to set our community ethos to impact the Greater Good. Only then will we make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Crony-Capitalism, Disaster, Health, Tourism, Trade

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ENCORE: Media Fantasies versus Weather Realities

Posted on February 2, 2016 in Government, Tactical

Howell, Michigan^@ – Tuesday, February 2, 2016: Woody The Woodchuck dominates these parts while Punxsutawney Phil reigns supreme in Pennsylvania to the south. Different locales, different animals; same result: Media Fantasy! For 2016, Woody predicts a longer winter while Phil predicts a shortened winter.

LOL … These prognosticating rodents only boast a 39% success rate.

This ENCORE is re-distributed on the occasion of Groundhog Day 2016. Despite all the news of relevance and significance regarding the societal engines of economics, security and governance, the media outlets continue to prioritize their Breaking News declaring “Early Spring” and “Later Spring”. But we’ll see …

Go Lean Commentary

Dateline Monday, February 2, 2015: It’s Groundhog Day again…and again…and again…*

The media swarms around this hibernating animal for prognosticating signs of what to expect for the rest of the winter weather season. This is a fantasy; an American media fantasy. On the other hand, there are many effective meteorological models that do an effective job of forecasting the weather, but many people think these are ignored in place of media hype; case in point: a Groundhog.

VIDEO – Punxsutawney Phil See His Shadow and Predicts 6 More Weeks of Winter – http://wapo.st/1BU7s23

A Groundhog?

Groundhogs, whistlepigs, woodchucks, all names for the same animal. Depending on where you live, you might have heard all three of these names; however, woodchuck is the scientifically accepted common name for the species, Marmota monax. As the first word suggests, the woodchuck is a marmot, a genus comprised of 15 species of medium-sized, ground-dwelling squirrels. Although woodchucks are generally solitary and live in lowland areas, most marmot species live in social groups in mountainous parts of Europe, Asia, and North America. (Source: http://blog.oup.com/2015/02/groundhog-day-urban-wildlife-institute/#sthash.c41AKDvb.dpuf)

The concept of weather forecasting requires hardware and software, not rodent animals. The Europeans have provided a good example for the Caribbean to model. Their hardware: satellites, are collaborative efforts to deploy, maintain and support, referred to as the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites or EUMETSAT; see Appendix below.

The software for weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. These forecasts are made by collecting quantitative data about the current state of the atmosphere at a given place and using scientific understanding of atmospheric processes to project how the atmosphere will change. The chaotic nature of the atmosphere, the massive computational power required to solve the equations that describe the atmosphere, error involved in measuring the initial conditions, and an incomplete understanding of atmospheric processes mean that forecasts become less accurate as the time range of the forecast increases. The use of ensembles and model consensus help narrow the error and pick the most likely outcome.

A major part of modern weather forecasting is the severe weather alerts and advisories which a governmental weather service may issue when severe or hazardous weather is expected. This is done to protect life and property.^[75] Some of the most commonly known severe weather advisories are the severe thunderstorm, tornado warnings, as well as the severe tornado watches. Other forms of these advisories include those for winter weather, high wind, flood, tropical hurricanes, and fog.^[76] Severe weather advisories and alerts are broadcasted through the media, including radio, using emergency systems as the Emergency Alert System which break into regular TV and radio programming.^[77]

Among the notable models for Caribbean consideration are:

American Model: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
European Model: European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMRWF).

The scope of the American Model is weather affecting the American mainland and aligned territories. The European Model, on the other hand, has a similar scope for Europe, but starts their focus earlier with weather patterns in the Americas and Caribbean. (The “Jet Stream” brings weather from West to East across the US and then continues across the Atlantic on to the European continent).

The American and European models assume different strategies. The American model runs a short, mid and long range forecast. The European model considers mid-range only, running out only 10 to 15 days into the future.

This consideration aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean; this book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This empowerment effort represents a change for the region, calling on all 30 member-states in the region to confederate and provide their own solutions in the areas of economics, security and governance. Weather, as depicted in the foregoing VIDEOS, relates to all three areas. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines against “bad actors” and natural disasters.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, with a separation-of-powers between federal and state agencies.

The purpose of this commentary is to draw reference to the European Model, ECMWF, at a time when the American eco-system appears to be dysfunctional and filled with bad intent.

ECMRWF is renowned worldwide as providing the most accurate medium-range global weather forecasts to 15 days and seasonal forecasts to 12 months.^[2] Its products are provided to the European National Weather Services, as a complement to the national short-range and climatological activities. The National Meteorological Services of member-states use ECMWF’s products for their own national duties, in particular to give early warning of potentially damaging severe weather.

While many things the US do are good, there is also “bad intent” in the American eco-system, often associated with crony-capitalism. Many believe that media hype over weather forecasts spurs retail spending (surplus food, gasoline, generators, and firewood) to benefit the same companies that contract media purchases (advertising) with the media outlets. Consider the “blown out of proportion” sense in the following article:

About Juno: The how and why of a blown forecast http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-juno-snow-dud-lehigh-valley-20150127-story.html

January 27, 2015 – Those Lehigh Valley commuters dusting the powder off their windshields Tuesday morning undoubtedly cast their thoughts back a day and concluded something had gone amiss in all the weather laboratories.

Wasn’t it supposed to snow 14 inches? Or was it six? Or two to four? They said something about a European model…

Well, off to work.

The storm that might have been is now the storm that wasn’t and no one will mention it again, at least until the next big miss by the weather services.

“Mother nature humbled us,” the Eastern PA Weather Authority wrote in a mea culpa Facebook post after its final call of 9 to 14 inches fell roughly 9 to 14 inches short.

What happened? As always, forecasters looked at a variety of models — the European model, famed for its precise forecasting of Superstorm Sandy, and many domestic models — and made predictions based on the data.

Mitchell Gaines, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, N.J., said there are about 10 commonly used models that make use of weather observations gathered around the world from satellites, balloons, ground stations and ships.
…
“We blew the call, and everyone blew it,” the Eastern PA Weather Authority post said. “(A)mending or lowering your original call is not nailing it either. No one got this right, plain and simple.”

Not quite no one. Adam Joseph, a meteorologist at the ABC station in Philadelphia, had predicted an underwhelming storm for the Philadelphia^# region from early on, saying on Sunday it had “high bust potential.”
…
New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio spent a couple of days making pronouncements so foreboding that he was parodied as an end-times prophet by [humor magazine] The Onion.

But instead of three feet of snow and blizzard winds, the city got about 8 inches of snow in Central Park. “Snore-easter,” the Daily News called it.

“This is an imprecise science,” New York^# Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a news briefing early Tuesday when asked about the forecast. He noted that last November, a storm that officials had not expected to be severe dropped seven feet of snow on Buffalo, in the western part of the state.

In New Jersey^#, Governor Chris Christie said it was better to err on the side of caution: “I was being told as late as 9 o’clock (Monday) night that we were looking at 20-inch accumulations in parts of New Jersey,” he said. “We were acting based on what we were being told.”
…
There was, too, something of a New York-centric slant in the media coverage. The storm was declared a “dud” because it largely spared Manhattan. But it slammed New England as advertised, with wind gusts approaching hurricane strength and smothering snow.

VIDEO – MONSTER BLIZZARD OF 2015 | New York Snow Storm Juno Forecast was an EPIC FAIL – https://youtu.be/Je6zr_K966A

Published on Jan 28, 2015 – Jan. 27, 2015 will go down in the annals of history as the day New Jersey came to a standstill for a blizzard in another state. Blizzard warnings have been lifted in the Garden State, projected snow totals more than cut in half and forecasters have apologized for what they’re describing as “big forecast miss.” …

Conspiracy, anyone?

The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the Caribbean region must not allow the US to take the lead for our own nation-building, that American Crony-Capitalistic interest tends to hijack policies intended for the Greater Good. This assessment is logical considering that despite the reality of the 2008 Great Recession and the Wall Street complexity, no one has gone to jail! This despite the blatant “lying, cheating and stealing”, the millions of victims and $11 Trillion in economic setbacks.

Be kind, rewind …

In the fall of 2012, Super Storm Sandy devastated the Northeast American coast despite warnings and accurate forecasts from the European Model.

US vs. European hurricane model: Which is better?
By: Tamara Lush; posted May 29, 2013; retrieved February 3, 2015 from:
http://news.yahoo.com/us-vs-european-hurricane-model-better-164750199.html

When forecasters from the National Weather Service track a hurricane, they use models from several different supercomputers located around the world to create their predictions.

Some of those models are more accurate than others. During Hurricane Sandy last October, for instance, the model from the EuropeanCenter for Medium-range Weather Forecasting in the United Kingdom predicted eight days before landfall that the large storm would hit the East Coast, while the American supercomputer model showed Sandy drifting out to sea.

The American model eventually predicted Sandy’s landfall four days before the storm hit — plenty of time for preparation — but revealed a potential weakness in the American computer compared to the European system. It left some meteorologists fuming.

“Let me be blunt: the state of operational U.S. numerical weather prediction is an embarrassment to the nation and it does not have to be this way,” wrote Cliff Maas, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.
…
Experts also say the quality of a nation’s computer capability [for modeling] is emblematic of its underlying commitment to research, science and innovation.

Many felt that “the powers that be” did not want to overly alarm American citizens and affect the turnout for the Presidential Elections days later.

The foregoing articles/VIDEOs look at the repetition of Weather Forecast Dysfunction in 2012 with Super Storm Sandy and again, just last week with Winter Storm Juno. Compare this to the over-blown media hype of a Groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania…for weather prognostication.

Something is wrong with this portrayal. This is American crony-capitalism all over again. Like the Groundhog Day movie, the same patterns are repeating again, and again …

The Caribbean must do better!

This issue on weather is not the first instance of a “Big Bad American Bully” in the business world. This is just another reflection of American Crony Capitalism – where public policy is set to benefit private parties. Consider this chart from a previous blog:

Big Oil	While lobbying for continuous tax subsidies, the industry have colluded to artificially keep prices high and garner rocket profits ($38+ Billion every quarter).
Big Box	Retail chains impoverish small merchants on Main Street with Antitrust-like tactics, thusly impacting community jobs.
Big Pharma	Chemo-therapy cost $20,000+/month; and the War against Cancer is imperiled due to industry profit insistence.
Big Tobacco	Cigarettes are not natural tobacco but rather latent with chemicals to spruce addiction.
Big Agra	Agribusiness concerns bully family farmers and crowd out the market; plus fight common sense food labeling efforts.
Big Data	Brokers for internet and demographic data clearly have no regards to privacy confines
Big Media	Hollywood insists on big tax breaks/ subsidies for on-location shooting; cable companies conspire to keep rates high; textbook publishers practice price gouging.
Big Banks	Wall Street’s damage to housing and student loans are incontrovertible.
	NEW ENTRY
Big Weather	Overblown hype of “Weather Forecasts” to dictate commercial transactions.

The Go Lean book, and accompanying blog commentaries, go even deeper and hypothesize that beyond weather alerts, the American economic models are dysfunctional for the Caribbean perspective. The American wheels of commerce portray the Caribbean in a “parasite” role; imperiling regional industrialization even further. The US foreign policy for the Caribbean is to incentivize consumption of American products and media, and to ensure that no other European powers exert undue influence in the region – Monroe Doctrine and Pax Americana (Page 180).

The disposition of a “parasite” is not the only choice, for despite American pressure, countries like Japan and South Korea, despite being small population-size, have trade surpluses with the US. They are protégés, not parasites, and thusly provide a model for the Caribbean to emulate.

This broken system in America does not have to be modeled in the Caribbean. Change has now come. The driver of this change is technology and globalization. The Go Lean book posits that the governmental administrations must be open to full disclosure and accountability. The ubiquity of the internet has allowed whistleblowers to expose “shady” practices to the general public; think WikiLeaks.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to forge this change in the region for a reboot of these Caribbean societal systems, including justice institutions. This roadmap is thusly viewed as more than just a planning tool, pronouncing this point early in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13) with these statements:

xvi. Whereas security [(Emergency/Disaster Management)] 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.

The Go Lean book purports that the Caribbean can – and must – do better than our American counterparts. The vision of the CU is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to do the heavy-lifting of optimizing economic-security-governing engines. The book thusly details the policies and other community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to protect Caribbean society with prudent weather forecasting:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 76
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Meteorological and Geological Services	Page 79
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Big Ideas – Integrating to a Single Market	Page 127
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196

The foregoing article/VIDEO relates to topics that are of serious concern for Caribbean planners. While the US is the world’s largest Single Market economy, we want to only model some of the American example. We would rather foster a business climate to benefit the Greater Good, not just some special interest group.

The world is not fooled! “Tamarind, Sour Sap and Green Dilly, you musse think we silly” – Bahamian Folk Song

There are many Go Lean blog commentaries that have echoed this point, addressing the subject of the Caribbean avoiding American consequences. See sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3397	A Christmas Present for the Banks from the Omnibus Bill
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3326	Detroit’s M-1 Rail – Finally avoiding Plutocratic Auto Industry Solutions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2887	Caribbean must work together to address rum subsidies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2522	The Cost of Cancer Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2465	Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2435	Korea’s Model – A dream for Latin America and the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	How Caribbean can Mitigate the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2259	The Criminalization of American Business
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2183	A Textbook Case of Industry Price-gouging
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1309	5 Steps to a Bubble
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1256	Traditional 4-year Colleges – Terrible Investment for Region and Jobs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	Health-care fraud in America; Criminals take $272 billion a year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=798	Lessons Learned from the American Airlines merger
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	America’s War on the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=782	Open the Time Capsule: The Great Recession of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=658	Indian Reservation Advocates Push for Junk-Food Tax
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623	Book Review: “The Divide – American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=353	Book Review: ‘Wrong – Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn…’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – #1: American Self-Interest Policies

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

Climate change is a reality … for the Caribbean; (despite many in denial, especially in the US).

In the Caribbean we need accurate weather forecasting and alerts. We need the public to respect these alerts and not question some commercial-profit ulterior motive. We need the European Model more so than the American one.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for some integration of the regional member-states, a strategy of confederation with a tactic of separating powers between CU federal agencies and member-states’ governments. The roadmap calls for the regional integration of all meteorological and geological professional services. The separation-of-powers tactic also calls for assumption of Emergency Management Agencies for the member-states. There is the need for weather and disaster preparation/response under the same umbrella, with a direct line of reporting. The roadmap posits that to succeed as a society, the Caribbean region must not only consume, (in this case weather forecasts), but also create, produce, and distribute intellectual products and services (property) to the rest of the world. We need our own Caribbean weather/forecast models, algorithms, calculations and formulas!

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

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

—————-

Appendix – EUMETSAT: European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites

EUMETSAT is an intergovernmental organization created through an international convention agreed by a current total of 30 European Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. These States fund the EUMETSAT programs and are the principal users of the systems. The convention establishing EUMETSAT was opened for signature in 1983 and entered into force in 19 June 1986.

EUMETSAT’s primary objective is to establish, maintain and exploit European systems of operational meteorological satellites. EUMETSAT is responsible for the launch and operation of the satellites and for delivering satellite data to end-users as well as contributing to the operational monitoring of climate and the detection of global climate changes.

The activities of EUMETSAT contribute to a global meteorological satellite observing system coordinated with other space-faring nations.

Satellite observations are an essential input to numerical weather prediction systems and also assist the human forecaster in the diagnosis of potentially hazardous weather developments. Of growing importance is the capacity of weather satellites to gather long-term measurements from space in support of climate change studies.

EUMETSAT is not part of the European Union, but became a signatory to the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters in 2012, thus providing for the global charitable use of its space assets.^[1]Source Reference: 1. http://www.disasterscharter.org/c/document_library/get_file?p_l_id=23109&folderId=172718&name=DLFE-4704.pdf

—————-

Appendix – ^# Winter Storm Juno Overblown Preparations: http://youtu.be/ivK6jtWfX-U

Blizzard 2015 !!! Winter Storm Juno Forecast “Northeast Snowstorm Ramping Up ” !!! Amazing Video

Published on Jan 27, 2015 – More than 35 million people along the Philadelphia-to-Boston corridor rushed to get home and settle in Monday as a fearsome storm swirled in with the potential for hurricane-force winds and 1 to 3 feet of snow that could paralyze the Northeast for days.

—————-

Appendix – * Movie Reference: 1993 Movie Groundhog Day

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/?ref_=nv_sr_2

A weatherman finds himself living the same day over and over again.

Trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1957600025?ref_=tt_ov_vi

—————-

Appendix – @ Howell, Michigan

Howell is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 9,489. The city is 55 miles northwest of Detroit, at Exit 137 on Interstate 96.

Howell is home to many festivals celebrated through the year. Most notable for Februry, the Winter – Spring Forecast from “Woody The Woodchuck”.

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Crony-Capitalism, Detroit, Disaster, Model, Power, Security

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Zika – A 4-Letter Word

Posted on January 28, 2016 in Economics, Government, Social, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

If it isn’t one thing – pandemic wise – it’s another. Since the recent days of promoting the book Go Lean … Caribbean, and the accompanying blog-commentaries, there has been the issue of the Chikungunya virus and the Ebola virus. Now comes the Zika virus.

This virus is proving to be a “4-Letter” word. See VIDEO here:

VIDEO – U.S. doctors prepare as Zika virus spreads – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/u-s-doctors-prepare-as-zika-virus-spreads/

January 27, 2016, 6:47pm – The Zika virus is continuing to spread and U.S. doctors are bracing for its arrival. Airlines are giving refunds to passengers who booked flights to infected countries where travel warning have now been issued. CBS Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook breaks down the dangers — and precautions that can be taken. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).

The below article in the New York Times is demonstrating that the Zika virus is becoming a threat for all of the Americas. But some people are in a worst disposition than others:

Welcome to the Caribbean!

The Go Lean movement seeks to reform and transform the Caribbean societal engines:

Economics
Security
Governance

All of these engines come under attack with this virus:

Economics – Visitors who may be pregnant or considering pregnancy are advised to stay away from the affected states: including 11 Caribbean member-states. For tourism, our primary economic driver, expect a “hit”, as honeymooners and newly-weds will be dissuaded to vacation in our region.
Security – Viruses and other epidemiological episodes are among the “bad actors” that can endanger a community. Any proactive or re-active security apparatus is required to be “on guard” against these threats.
Governance – The governance in the affected countries are now urging citizens to delay pregnancies. This disruption in the natural cycle of human procreation is a violation of the assumed Social Contract between governments (the State) and the citizens. The citizens are expecting the State to protect them … and stay out of their bedrooms (family-planning decisions).

This Zika issue is a major issue that has now come under the attention of major “alphabet” stakeholders, like the WHO (World Health Organization) and the CDC (America’s Center for Disease Control). See the heightened threat as conveyed by the New York Times in this news article here and in the Appendix-VIDEO below:

Title: Zika Virus ‘Spreading Explosively’ in Americas, W.H.O. Says
By: Sabrina Tavernise, NY Times

Officials from the World Health Organization said on Thursday that the Zika virus was “spreading explosively” in the Americas and announced that they would convene an emergency meeting on Monday to decide whether to declare a public health emergency.

“The level of alarm is extremely high,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O., in a speech in Geneva.

As many as three to four million people in the Americas could be exposed to the virus in the next 12 months, said Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri, a unit chief for the Pan American Health Organization.

“As I told you, we have big gaps in terms of confirmation of the real situation,” he said. “These are estimates. These are mathematical estimations.”

Of particular concern, Dr. Chan said, are the cases of microcephaly, a rare condition in which infants are born with abnormally small heads that has been rising dramatically in Brazil as Zika spreads. Experts say it is too early to tell whether Zika is the cause of the condition, but there are some indications that the two are linked.

The health authorities in Brazil said on Wednesday that reported cases of microcephaly had climbed to 4,180 since October, a 7 percent increase from the previous tally last week. Before the epidemic, Brazil recorded only about 150 cases of microcephaly a year.

That has caused widespread alarm because researchers say the virus arrived in Brazil only recently, with the huge jump in microcephaly cases reported by doctors, hospitals and other medical officials following closely in its wake.

But proving that Zika is the cause has been elusive.

“It’s really important to understand the difference between associations and causations,” said Dr. Bruce Aylward, a W.H.O. assistant director general, noting that there are still many questions about whether the Zika virus and microcephaly are linked.

The Brazilian health ministry said Wednesday that it had examined more than 700 reported cases of microcephaly and found Zika in only six of the infants — though what that means exactly is unclear . Infectious disease specialists caution that Brazil’s testing methods are outdated and may miss many Zika cases. They also say that in some cases, the mother may have had Zika, causing microcephaly in her baby, even if the virus is never detected in the infant.

The virus has spread to more than 20 countries and territories in the region. Dr. Chan said she was “deeply concerned about this rapidly evolving situation.” She also raised an alarm about the potential for further international spread of the virus, given how ubiquitous the mosquitoes that carry it are and how few people have developed immunity to it. The virus, which first surfaced in Uganda in the 1940s, had rarely been seen in the Americas.

“The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty,” she said. “Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly.”

Dr. Chan struck a tone of deep concern, but Dr. Aylward appeared to play down some of the most dire predictions about the disease.

“‘Concerned’ is certainly the right language to be used,” he said. “ ‘Alarmed’ would definitely not be the right language.”

Asked whether the W.H.O. would advise people not to travel to Brazil for the Olympics, he replied, “I would think that would be very, very unlikely when you look at areas affected and the scope of this.”

Some experts had criticized Dr. Chan for not immediately convening a committee to advise on whether to declare Zika a public health emergency. On Wednesday in the journal JAMA, two experts called for an immediate meeting, saying the hesitation on the part of the W.H.O. echoed the agency’s slow reaction at the outset of the Ebola epidemic in 2014.

“The very process of convening the committee would catalyze international attention, funding and research,” they wrote.

On Thursday morning, one of the authors, Dr. Daniel Lucey, an expert on global viral outbreaks at Georgetown University School of Medicine, said of the announcement, “I’m very, very happy.”

Dr. Chan said she would be asking the committee for advice on the “the appropriate level of international concern” and for what measures the W.H.O. should advise affected countries to take. She said she would also ask the committee to identify research priorities

One worry, Dr. Chan noted, is that there is no vaccine against the virus or a rapid diagnostic test to determine whether someone has been infected. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview this week that scientists at the National Institutes of Health were working on both.

“We are already on our way on the first steps to developing a vaccine,” he said. “And we have started to work on a diagnostic to tell if someone’s been infected.”

Other related articles:

Short Answers to Hard Questions About Zika Virus

Reports of Zika-linked Birth Defect Rise in Brazil

Zika Testing Is Urged for Some Newborns

What countries should pregnant women avoid?

About two dozen destinations mostly in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.

The Pan American Health Organization believes that the virus will spread locally in every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. Here is the C.D.C.’s current list of countries and territories in which Zika virus is circulating. (Caribbean countries in RED italics)

The Caribbean
United States Virgin Islands
Barbados
Dominican Republic
Guadeloupe
Haiti
Martinique
Saint Martin

South America
Bolivia
Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador
French Guiana
Guyana
Paraguay
Suriname
Venezuela

Find the latest Travel Advisory updates here.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/health/what-is-zika-virus.html

Is there a responsible party who would champion this issue for the Caribbean region?

No.

But there is the need to fill this void in the region; there is the need for Caribbean leadership to address the needs of the whole Caribbean economic, security and governing eco-system. While there is no current solution, other than the WHO’s address and that of individual member-states, there is now a plan – better still, a roadmap to address the deficiencies.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as that roadmap; it posits that the Caribbean region must promote its own interest and protect its own citizens. We should not look to the WHO to micro-manage our day-to-day details; they have no concern for our touristic industry implications. It is not within their charter. Further, we should not count on the US to pursue the Greater Good for our Caribbean local, as their (CDC) travel advisory already endangers our economies, with no consultation with our tourism planners. (This is also not in the CDC’s charter). Assuredly, we must have our own preparation and response vehicle.

This is the charter of the Go Lean…Caribbean book.

The book urges the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), as a regional sentinel in the Caribbean, for the Caribbean. The complete prime directives of the CU is as follows:

Optimize the economic engines of the Caribbean to elevate the regional economy.
Establish a security apparatus for public safety assurances and to protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

With issues like this, ugly elements of society always emerge: nationalistic self-interest, finger-pointing and bad politics. Talking-heads start to talk.

But this is a time for action, not talk. The biggest and best remediation is also a simple one: kill the affected mosquitoes.

This Go Lean/CU roadmap declares that “Crap happens” (Page 23). This immediately calls for the establishment of a Homeland Security Department, with an agency to practice the arts and sciences of Emergency Management. The emergencies include more than natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding, forest fires, and droughts), they include the man-made variety (industrial accidents, oil spills, factory accidents, chemical spills, explosions, terroristic attacks, prison riots) and epidemic threats. Of course, this type of emergency, the Zika virus, described in the foregoing VIDEO/article, requires professional expertise, a medical discipline. Stopping Zika therefore would require a hybrid response of the Emergency Management agency and the CU’s Department of Health Disease Control & Management agency. This agency of Medical experts would help contend with systemic threats of epidemic illness and infectious diseases.

These stakeholders would be expected to kill mosquitoes. (A coordinated Rapid Response Team, seeking out mosquitoes breading grounds – still waters – and deploying appropriate pesticides).

The Go Lean roadmap immediately calls for the coordination of security monitoring and mitigation in the Caribbean; this point is declared early in the Go Lean book with a pronouncement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12), as follows:

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. …[to ensure] the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the integration of the viral sentinel responsibility of the 30 Caribbean member-states, despite the 4 different languages and 5 colonial legacies (American, British, Dutch, French, Spanish) – notice the foregoing list of countries – into the CU Trade Federation with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit one and all member-states. This includes the monitoring and epidemiology defense of common and emerging viruses. This empowered CU agency will liaison with foreign entities with the same scope, like the WHO, and the CDC.

Most importantly, the CU would coordinate the Caribbean brand and image promotion. The rest of the world need to know that we can kill mosquitoes, and cajoled our communities into action to mitigate all known threats; (i.e there is no travel advisory for Florida).

Since the CU roadmap leads with economic reforms, the primary economic driver of the region (tourism) would be a constant concern. The realization, or even the unsubstantiated rumor, of viral outbreaks can imperil the tourism product. We must therefore take proactive steps to protect our economic engines. So there are heavy responsibilities for the stewardship of the Caribbean economy, security and governing engines. The goal is to impact the Greater Good of the entire Caribbean region. The CU invites this role and promote it as a community ethos.

There should be no need for a travel advisory, or to ban pregnant women, or honeymooners or general vacationers.

We’ve got this!

The Go Lean book details the community ethos, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the region’s public health security in protection of the economy:

Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Non-Sovereign “Unified” Proxy Entity	Page 45
Strategy – Customers – Residents & Visitors	Page 47
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 76
Separation of Powers – Disease Control & Management	Page 86
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 133
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196

Previous Go Lean blog-commentaries have detailed the reality of viral management around the world, at different times in different locales. There is much for us to learn in the Caribbean. (As reported in the foregoing VIDEO, there are many similarities of Dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile to this new Zika virus). See sample list here of previous blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720	A Lesson in History – SARS in Hong Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4111	Detroit-area Judge to Decide if Kids Need Vaccines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Stopping Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003	Painful and rapid spread of new virus – Chikungunya – in Caribbean

There have also been previous Go Lean blog-commentaries that have addressed the economic and governance deficiencies in the Caribbean region, as related to this Zika issue. See here for a sample list of these types of blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6531	A Lesson in History – Book Review on ‘Exigent Circumstances’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341	Tourism Stewardship — What’s Next?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5287	Book Review on Vaccines – ‘Thimerosal: Let The Science Speak’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2105	Recessions and Public Health

An underlying goal of the Go Lean movement is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. While this roadmap includes a heavy focus on economics, the other areas for societal harmony – security and governance – must get due attention. Accepting the premise of “bad actors” inevitability means preparing counter-measures in earnest. We need a technocratic security apparatus for public safety and epidemiological crises. This is necessary to elevate our Caribbean homeland.

The entire region is hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap – the countries included on the above Travel Advisory list and the rest of the Caribbean – to fulfill the vision of securing our homeland. We can, and must do better.

We are bigger than mosquitoes, literally and figuratively. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean Now!

———-

Appendix – What is the Zika virus?

A tropical infection new to the Western Hemisphere.

The Zika virus is a mosquito-transmitted infection related to Dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile virus. Although it was discovered in the Zika forest in Uganda in 1947 and is common in Africa and Asia, it did not begin spreading widely in the Western Hemisphere until last May, when an outbreak occurred in Brazil.

Until now, almost no one on this side of the world had been infected. Few of us have immune defenses against the virus, so it is spreading rapidly. Millions of people in tropical regions of the Americas may have had it.

———–

Appendix VIDEO – W.H.O. Speaks Out and Calls for A Conference – http://graphics8.nytimes.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000004173752

Published January 28, 2016 – Officials from the World Health Organization warned that the Zika virus was spreading “explosively” and called for an emergency meeting to address it. – REUTERS.

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Detroit giving schools their ‘Worst Shot’

Posted on January 22, 2016 in Economics, Strategy, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

Want to give it ‘your best shot’ …

… then we strongly caution – anyone and everyone – against the practice of taking on debt. Many bad things happen when people depend on debt. A “slippery slope” can ensue … from dependence, to reliance, to requirement, to vital, … to debt slavery. The further one stays away from debt, the better.

Even the Bible admonishes:

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another…”. Romans 13:8 New International Version

The Fist – Detroit’s Tribute to Boxing Legend Joe Louis

The problem with debt is that it trades the future for the past! It gives the ‘worst shot’, not the ‘best shot’. To continue the boxing analogy, debt burdens the boxer down with additional pounds and pressure; bad formula for success.

This is truly the experience in Detroit today. The City’s well-documented Failed-City status (and Bankruptcy) not only impacts its past, but apparently also it’s future – as in the education of its children. The schools in Detroit are below standard, below quality and below acceptability. This applies to their physical structure, budgets, teacher appreciation, student experience and student preparation.

Why?

Detroit, both the “City” and “School District” had been too indebted, so that the first priority of all revenues/funding has to go to debt servicing. This means other vital functioanlities (physical structure, teachers and students) must be de-prioritized or many times outright ignored.

The relevant stakeholders for Detroit Public Schools are truly giving the ‘worst shot’, not the ‘best shot’.

(For Detroit, the municipal City and the School District are separate legal entities. While the City of Detroit filed for Bankruptcy protection and re-organization in 2013, the School District has not).

This dire disposition is not exclusive to Detroit. Unfortunately, this applies to many other communities around the world (think Greece); and even in the Caribbean.

See the news article here conveying the harsh realities that many in the Detroit Public Schools are now faced with:

Title: Detroit school system wants judge to end teacher sickouts

An attorney for the Detroit Public Schools has asked a judge to issue a restraining order and preliminary injunction to force teachers to stop sickouts and return to work, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

The motion names the Detroit Federation of Teachers, interim teachers union president Ivy Bailey and 23 Detroit Public Schools teachers.

“DPS has requested the court’s intervention in addressing the ongoing teacher sickouts that are plaguing the district,” Michelle Zdrodowski, the spokeswoman for the Detroit Public Schools said in a statement.

The teachers union responded to the filing, noting “Detroit deserves better.”

“It is regrettable that the Detroit Public Schools seeks to punish those who speak out about the deplorable conditions in our schools,” Bailey said. “It would be so much more productive to actually do something to fix Detroit schools rather than file restraining orders against those who expose the miserable conditions.”

Nearly all Detroit’s public schools were closed Wednesday as many protesting teachers called in sick, turning what was supposed to be a day to celebrate into one shining a harsh spotlight on one of Michigan’s struggling cities.

President Barack Obama was in Detroit for the North American International Auto Show. He praised the American automotive industry’s resurgence, which many people view as a major victory for Detroit.

But those inside the city tell a sharply different story, one illustrated in leaflets showing pictures of dead rats found at public schools, mildew taking over ceilings and walls and damage to school buildings.

Detroit teachers have pressed their case against what they call deplorable conditions and inadequate funding. They’ve also decried decisions made by the school system’s emergency manager, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder — criticism that echoes complaints in Flint, a Michigan city mired in a water crisis after state officials largely took over because of budget troubles, just as they did in Detroit.

Detroit teachers have backed up their words with mass sickouts, starting January 11, when 62 schools closed as a result.

Bailey estimated the doors of “over 30 schools” ultimately would be affected.

Zdrodowski said there would be no class Wednesday in 88 schools, about 90% of those in the system.

But as of Wednesday night, the Detroit Public Schools’ Facebook page indicated all schools will be open Thursday. The announcement included a request for students and parents to check the page again for updates.

The speaker of the House in Michigan called for absentee teachers to be dismissed.

“These teachers deserve to be fired for turning their backs on the children in their care,” said Kevin Cotter, a Republican from Mount Pleasant. “Their actions also go against any possible resolution on potential (Detroit Public Schools) reforms, because any long-term agreement on Detroit schools has to put the kids first.”

Cotter said more than 700,000 instructional hours have been lost.

Budgets leave children by wayside in 2 Michigan cities

Obama meets with Detroit’s mayor

The timing — on the day of Obama’s visit to the Detroit auto show, with the national media attention that it brought — was no coincidence.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers indicated as much on its website, saying now is the time to “fight for Detroit kids (who) are struggling in schools with hazardous environmental and safety issues (and) educators have made significant sacrifices for the good of students.”

“As the city celebrates this ‘ultra-luxury’ automobile event,” the teachers union said, “Detroit’s public schools are in a state of crisis.”

Protesters planned to hand out fliers to car show attendees and urge them to sign a petition — which had over 11,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning — entitled “Our Kids Deserve Better.”

“Enough is enough!” the petition states. “… We demand real answers and fully funded schools.”

Obama had lunch with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. Before the meeting the White House said they would likely discuss the mass school closures as well as larger funding problems plaguing the city.

Duggan has “met with several teachers and understands what they’re going through,” his spokesman John Roach told CNN. But he doesn’t think that calling in sick is the right approach.

“(The mayor feels) the best thing for them to do is go back to school and teach,” Roach said.

Governor: ‘Time to act is now’

This isn’t just Detroit’s problem. It’s one for all of Michigan, which took control over much of the city’s government due to its well-documented financial woes.

One man who has been a frequent target of critics is Darnell Earley, appointed by Snyder a year ago to oversee Detroit Public Schools.

Michigan Senate Democrats took a swipe at him in a tweet: “Crumbling #DPS schools are a direct result of damage that can be done by unelected emergency managers.”

Bailey, the teachers union chief, piled on, saying, “If the goal was to destroy DPS, emergency management has done an excellent job.”

Before going to Detroit, Earley served as the emergency manager in Flint. He was in that position in April 2014 when Flint’s water supply switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River, a decision reversed more than a year later after reports of corroded pipes and elevated blood lead levels.

How tap water became toxic in Flint

Earley has said he was not responsible for the decision, only for implementing it after it was approved. Whoever was to blame, Flint still faces a serious health crisis and the costly, complicated task of cleaning up its water and possibly replacing damaged water pipes across the city.

Another person Detroit and Flint have in common is Snyder, the governor who sent Earley to both cities and who is officially in charge.

In his State of the State address Tuesday night, the governor called for money spent on debt service, close to $1,200 per student, to be shifted into classroom funding to give teachers what they need to do their jobs.

“(The) time to act is now,” he told lawmakers. “The Detroit schools are in need of a transformational change.

“The state needs to ensure that a complete failure to educate schoolchildren never again happens to this extent in one of Michigan’s districts.”

Governor’s outlook for school reforms

‘Teachers are fed up and have had enough’

A proposal introduced last week in the state Legislature would appear to find a way of doing that while handling the school system’s massive $515 million debt.

It would create a second school district within the city that assumes control over all of its schools and students, while leaving the current Detroit Public Schools system with only the district’s debt, said Republican state Sen. Goeff Hansen, author of the proposal.

“It’s a high priority. It’s an emergency situation,” Hansen said.

About $7,400 of school funding is allocated per student each year. But close to $1,200 of that goes to pay down debt and other costs, Hansen said.

Under the proposal, tax revenue would continue to pay off the debt isolated in the DPS system, but the state would gain room to inject additional funding into the new school system.

It has left many teachers worried that Detroit Public Schools will go out of existence, said Bailey, the teachers union leader. Under the current system, funding could run out by April.

Teachers feel pushed over the edge to protest against a litany of resulting troubles. There have been recent concessions. The school district agreed to demands on staff meetings, sick leave accrual and a labor-management committee on curriculum, the teachers union said.

And last week, Duggan ordered inspections of all the city’s public schools.

Duggan hopes to have the first 20 school buildings fully inspected by month’s end and all of them wrapped up in about three months, according to Roach, his spokesman.

Yet Bailey says a lot more still needs to be done.

“It’s because of the lack of respect that has been displayed toward teachers in this district, the hazardous working conditions, oversize classes, lost preparation periods, decrease in pay, increase in health care cost, uncertainty of their future,” she said.

“I could go on and on. Teachers are fed up and have had enough.”

Detroit teachers demand fix to ‘hazardous’ school

CNN’s Jean Casaraz, John Newsome, Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, Phil Gast, Steve Almasy, Mallory Simon and Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.
Source: CNN – (Cable News Network); posted January 20, 2016 retrieved January 21, 2016 from: http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/20/us/detroit-public-schools-michigan-governor/index.html

———

Complimentary Story/VIDEO – Detroit’s Teachers Are Tired Of Their Schools – https://youtu.be/H-h0Db3P4ic

Published on Jan 20, 2016 – Teachers in Detroit have been protesting about their working conditions by taking to the internet. After a mass “sick out,” they’re now going on social media to share the daily difficulties they and their students face in schools.

The petition for Judicial action was denied.

Good! Do not just “swipe these issues under the rug”. Deal with them!

A “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Detroit needs to use this crisis to re-boot its school eco-system.

First, the School District – see Appendix – needs to petition for its own Chapter 9 Bankruptcy. There is the need to write-off much of that previous debt; “pay pennies on the dollar”. That debt – from the past – is shortchanging the future for Detroit’s children. And since the City is smaller today, population-wise compared to decades ago, many more schools can be closed – sold to creditors – and consolidated to a smaller number (from the 97 today).

Jesus answered … you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only few things are needed… prepare the good part, and it will not be taken away. – Bible Luke 10:41-42 World English Bible paraphrase.

This strong prescription for Detroit Public Schools is a lesson learned from another crisis, the Great Recession of 2008. The events of September 15, 2008 parallel Detroit Public Schools today; this is when the American Investment Bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. This action brought the US (and the world’s economy) to the brink of disaster. The ultimate solution for Lehman in 2008 was dissolution and a wind-down of those assets and excessive debt.

Death can sometimes bring peace!

The economy eventually re-bounded. The old debts are only in the past, no future considerations.

This 2008 consideration is part-and-parcel of the book Go Lean…Caribbean which serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide new oversight for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing engines. The book was conceived as a result of this 2008 crisis, by stakeholders intimate with the anatomy of the 2008 crisis – worked for Lehman Brothers – and composed a prescription for Caribbean turn-around.

The pretext of the Go Lean roadmap is simple, and applies equally to the Caribbean, and any other community:

Only at the precipice do they change!

The lessons learned, and codified, in the pages of the Go Lean book can now be enhanced with the examination of the realities of Detroit’s Public Schools. This examination considers the reality of the economic, security and governing aspects of this distressed community.

The publishers of the Go Lean book are here in Detroit to “observe and report” the turn-around and rebirth of the once-great-but-now-distressed City of Detroit and its metropolitan areas, including the even more dysfunctional community of Flint. There are so many lessons to learn from Michigan: good, bad and ugly.

Lessons learned from Michigan communities have been frequently conveyed in previous blogs/commentaries. Consider this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7235	Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6609	Before and After Photos Showing Detroit’s Riverfront Transformation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6269	Education & Economics: Welcome to Detroit, Mr. President
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6022	Caribbean Diaspora in Detroit … Celebrating Heritage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5597	The Dire Straits of the Unions and Collective Bargaining
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5055	A Lesson from an Empowering Family in Detroit
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4913	Ann Arbor: Model for ‘Start-up’ Cities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4476	De-icing Detroit’s Winter Roads: Impetuous & Short Term
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3713	NEXUS: Facilitating Detroit-Windsor Cross-Border Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3326	M-1 Rail: Alternative Motion in the Motor City
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3311	Detroit to exit historic bankruptcy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3164	Michigan Unemployment – Then and Now
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	A Lesson in History: Community Ethos of WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1656	Blue is the New Green – Managing Detroit’s Water Resources
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=970	JP Morgan Chase $100 million Detroit investment not just for Press

The CU is designed to do the heavy-lifting of organizing Caribbean society to benefit from the lessons from Detroit and other Michigan communities. The Go Lean book details the community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the rebirths, reboots and turn-around of Caribbean communities:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact a Turn-Around	Page 33
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Integrate a Single Market for more Financial Leverage	Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Modeling Post WW II Recovery: Germany – Marshall Plan	Page 68
Tactical – Modeling Post WW II Recovery: Japan – with no Marshall Plan	Page 69
Separation of Powers – Public Works & Infrastructure	Page 82
Separation of Powers – Housing and Urban Authority	Page 83
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Re-boot Freeport – A Sample Caribbean city needing turn-around	Page 112
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 132
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit	Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba	Page 236
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti	Page 238
Appendix – American Student Debt Crisis “Ripping Off Young America”	Page 286

The Go Lean roadmap posits that change is coming to Detroit, (many Go Lean blog-commentaries have even reported on the change that is now afoot) and also that changes need to come to the Caribbean. Though Detroit is out-of-scope for the Go Lean movement, we can observe-and-report; we can apply the lessons – the good, bad and ugly – for optimization in our Caribbean homeland under the scheme of a Single Market. With the integration of 42 million people in the 30 member-states we will be able to do so much more – effect more turn-around – than anyone member-state can accomplish alone.

The Go Lean book declares: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – quoting noted Economist Paul Romer. The opportunity exists now to forge change in the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean, as this cautionary guidance is gleaned from the Detroit crisis.

The roadmap calls for a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean into a Single Market of 42 million people; thereby allow an adequate size to absorb economic shocks and downward trends. The Go Lean roadmap provides the details for the creation of 2.2 million new jobs and GDP growth to accumulate to $800 Billion. This vision is at the root of the Go Lean roadmap, embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13):

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

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

xxxiii.   Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … Detroit …

Detroit Public Schools should recover…eventually! Their status will go from “bad-to-clean-to-better” but then they would have a reboot, much like many communities around the country and around the world – consider Iceland. This is an established best-practice; paralleling a forest fire in many ways; except these are human lives being impacted, not trees.

The Caribbean also has Failed-State issues to contend with. There are real-and-perceived Failed-States now (Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Puerto Rico) and many more that are almost there, so we have to master the art-and-science of turn-around strategies for our region.

The Go Lean roadmap declares that the responsibility for fixing the Caribbean though must fall first-and-foremost on the Caribbean, its people and institutions.

The Caribbean must also reboot and “bounce back”; to “step back from the precipice”. The effort is not easy; the Go Lean book describes it as heavy-lifting. We need to burn-off old debris and build new eco-systems. The returns – new Caribbean structures – will be worth the investments and sacrifices. This is true for Detroit … and the Caribbean.

This is the goal of the Go Lean roadmap: set aside the past, catalog the lessons, then forge the future. This is the only way to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

Appendix – Detroit School District

Detroit Public Schools (DPS) is a school district that covers all of the city of Detroit, Michigan, United States and high school students in the insular city of Highland Park. The district has its headquarters in the Fisher Building of the New Center area of Detroit.^[6][7]

Students	47,959 (2014–15)
Teachers	3,235 (2012-13)
Staff	15,535 (2007)^[3]

Besides DPS, the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) operates 15 of the district’s schools totalling 6,556 students as of the 2014-15 school year.

Emergency Financial Manager

The district is currently under a state of a financial emergency and is currently run by an emergency manager instead of the school board and superintendent.

Currently all matters are under the control of Emergency Manager Darnell Earley was appointed as the new emergency manager for the school district by Snyder, appointed by Governor Rick Snyder in January 2013.^[4]

From 2009–2011, DPS finances were managed by Robert Bobb who was appointed by former Governor Jennifer Granholm^[33] and from 2011 to January 2015, Roy Roberts who was appointed by Governor Snyder.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Public_Schools retrieved January 22, 2016.

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Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale

Posted on January 19, 2016 in Government, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

In a previous commentary ranking American State governing engines, the overall scores were listed from Good-to-Bad-to-Worse-to-Detroit (Michigan). The State of Michigan, in which Detroit is its principal city and economic center, was ranked “dead last” among the 50 states. This was not an assessment of city governments but rather of state governments. But is it fair to label the entire State of Michigan based on the dysfunction of just the one city of Detroit?

Enter Exhibit 2: Flint, Michigan.

Encyclopedic Reference: Flint, Michigan
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan

Flint is the seventh largest city in Michigan, while its Genesee County comprises the entirety of Flint’s metropolitan area and constitutes the fourth largest metropolitan area in Michigan with a population of 425,790 in 2010.^[11]. Located along the Flint River, 66 miles (106 km) northwest of Detroit.

The community was founded as a village by fur traders in the early 1800’s and became a major lumbering area on the historic Saginaw Trail during the 19th century; it incorporated as a city in 1855. It later became a leading manufacturer of carriages and other vehicles earning it the nickname “Vehicle City”.

In 1908, William Crapo Durant formed General Motors in Flint. After World War II, Flint became an automobile manufacturing powerhouse for GM’s Buick and Chevrolet divisions, both of which were founded in Flint. However, by the late 1980s the city sank into a deep economic depression after GM closed and demolished several factories in the area, the effects of which remain today.

In the mid-2000s, it became known for its high crime rates.^[12] Since this time, Flint has been ranked among the “Most Dangerous Cities in the United States”, with a per capita violent crime rate seven times higher than the national average.^[13] The city was under a state of financial emergency from 2011 to 2015, the second in a decade.^[14][15] It is currently in a public health state of emergency due to lead poisoning (and possibly Legionella) in the local water supply. ^[16]

On November 3, 2015, Flint residents elected Dr. Karen Weaver as their first female mayor.^[17]

[This move is on the heels of the exit of the last State-appointed Emergency Manager].

Flint serves as a “cautionary tale” for other communities near “Failed City/Failed State” status. From this perspective, this community may be a valuable asset to the rest of the world and especially to the Caribbean.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean are here in Detroit to “observe and report” the turn-around and rebirth of the once-great-but-now-distressed City of Detroit and its metropolitan areas, including Flint. (Previous commentaries featured the positive role model of the City of Ann Arbor).

What happened here?

According to the Timeline in the Appendix, Flint, MI suffered this fate as a chain reaction to its Failed-State status. Outside stakeholders – Emergency Managers – came into the equation to execute a recovery plan with focus only on the Bottom-Line. The consideration for people – the Greater Good – came second, if at all. They switched water sources, unwisely!

The assertion of the Go Lean book is that the Caribbean region can benefit from lessons learned from Good, Bad and Ugly governance. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The Go Lean book and related commentaries call on citizens of the Caribbean member-states to lean-in to the empowerments described in the roadmap for elevation. This will require a constant vigil to ensure the Greater Good as opposed to personal gains.

The City of Flint is desperately in need of governing “best practice”. The Financial Emergency Status that just ended, 2011 to April 2015, was the 2^nd one in a decade; (the first was from 2002 to 2005). Every time the city is penalized with the advent of a state-appointed Emergency Manager (EM), they lose out on a local stakeholder pursuing the city’s best-interest, rather the EM’s serve as a Receiver (without the formal Bankruptcy proceedings, which is a Federal not State action).

This is highlighted by the current Health Emergency due to the City’s switch of their water source to the Flint River – a contaminated source – and now endangering the health and wellness of many of its citizens; with the most damaging effects being on young children. That decision was made by the Emergency Manager to save money, as opposed to the community’s best interest. There is no checks-and-balances on the EM, other than the appointing Governor (and courts), as the EM has both Executive (Mayor) and legislative authority (City Council).

Absolute power …

… see example here:

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed Michael Brown as the city’s Emergency Manager on November 29, effective December 1.^[37] On December 2, Brown dismissed a number of top administrators including City Administrator Gregory Eason, Human Resources Director Donna Poplar, Citizen Services Director Rhoda Woods, Green City Coordinator Steve Montle and independent officials including Ombudswoman Brenda Purifoy and Civil Service Commission Director Ed Parker. Pay and benefits from Flint’s elected officials were automatically removed.^[38] On December 8, the office of Obudsman and the Civil Service Commission were eliminated by Brown.^[36] Brown resigned in September 2013 and was replaced by Darnell Earley, who served in that post until January 2015 – Retrieved January 18, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan#First_financial_emergency:_2002.E2.80.932004

Now, the report is that this one EM role-player has effectively sacrificed the children of Flint on the altar of financial expedience. This is a bad example of absolute power exhibited abusively. See details here:

In April 2014, Flint switched its water supply from Lake Huron (via Detroit) to the Flint River. ^[51] After two independent studies, lead poisoning caused by the water was found in the area’s population. ^[52][53] This has lead to a federal lawsuit, the resignation of several officials, and a public health state of emergency for all of Genesee County. ^[54][55][56]

See VIDEO here of the story in the national media and the Timeline in the Appendix below.

VIDEO – Citizens’ Anger Continues Over Toxic Water in Flint, Michigan – http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/citizens-anger-continues-toxic-water-flint-michigan-36348795 –

Surprise, surprise! Most city officials involved in this debacle had been dismissed or resigned. And there is national outcry for Governor Rick Snyder to resign. (At one point his stock in national politics was so highly rated that he was considered viable for the Vice-Presidency for the eventual 2016 Republican nominee for President).

This tragic story – cautionary tale of Flint – is an analysis of failure in the societal engines of economics, security and governance. These 3 facets are presented in the book Go Lean … Caribbean as the three-fold cord for societal harmony; for any society anywhere. The Caribbean wants societal harmony; we must therefore work to optimize all these three engines. As exhibited by Flint, this is easier said than done. This heavy-lifting is described in the book as both an art and a science.

The focus in this commentary is a continuation in the study of the societal engine of governance; previously, there was a series on economics and one on security. This commentary though, focuses on the bad eventually of Social Contract failures. The Social Contract refers to the unspoken expectations between citizens and the State. In many cases, State laws limit ownership of all mineral rights to the State; so citizens will be dependent on State systems to supply water. In the case of Flint, the City’s Water and Sewage Department has a monopoly; this supply is the only option for residents!

The Go Lean book describes “bad actors” wreaking havoc on the peace and security of the community. The book relates though that “bad actors” are not always human; they include bad events like natural disasters and industrial spills. Plus, actual “bad actors” may have started out with altruistic motives, good intentions. This is why the book and accompanying blogs design the organization structures for the new Caribbean with checks-and-balances, mandating a collaborative process, because sometimes even a well-intentioned individual may not have all the insight, hindsight and foresight necessary to pursue the Greater Good. This the defect of the Michigan Emergency Manager structure; it assigns too much power to just one person, bypassing the benefits of a collaborative process. This is one reason why this review is important: power corrupts…everyone … everywhere.

The Go Lean book asserts that Caribbean people deserve the best-of-the-best for governmental processes, and that Caribbean society – the 30 member-states – can be elevated with the prudent application of these best-practices for economics, security and governance. The roadmap features 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 – with oversight over economic crimes – to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including ranking and ratings of Social Contract effectiveness.

The City of Flint, Michigan is a cautionary tale for the Caribbean. We can glean lessons from their dysfunction and apply mitigations in our Caribbean effort, the CU/Go Lean roadmap. This point was strongly urged in the Go Lean book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 & 12) with these pronouncements:

Preamble: And while our rights to exercise good governance and promote a more perfect society are the natural assumptions among the powers of the earth, no one other than ourselves can be held accountable for our failure to succeed if we do not try to promote the opportunities that a democratic society fosters … and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.

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

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … Detroit …

The Go Lean book details all the community ethos to ensure the right attitudes and practices among the government stakeholders and leaders of the community. Plus the book identifies the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to promote collaboration in the governing process:

Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Witness Security & Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principle – Light Up the Dark Places – Openness	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principle – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principle – Cooperatives Among Member-States	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – Interpersonal; Leadership	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department – Jurisdiction for Public Integrity cases.	Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Federal Courts – Truth and Reconciliation Commissions	Page 90
Implementation – Assemble “Organs” – including Regional Courts and Justice Institutions	Page 96
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Accountability of Governing Officials	Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the US Constitution – Checks and Balances	Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Appendix – Lessons Learned in Open/Collaborative Government – Floating the Trinidad Dollar	Page 316

Other subjects related to collaboration, whistle-blowing and public integrity have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentary, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6965	Secrecy, corruption and conflicts of interest pervade state governments
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6937	Women in Politics – Yes, They Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5506	Whistleblower Edward Snowden – One Person Making a Difference
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5304	Mitigating the Eventual ‘Abuse of Power’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2994	Justice Strategy: Special Prosecutors … et al
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2818	Dominican Republic, Perception of Corruption
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	Welcoming the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’

The goal of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. Many of the Caribbean member-state governments feature the Westminster-style Parliamentary system with a Prime Minister. These structures lend to the tendency of autocratic leadership, as a Prime Minister leads his party, the Legislature, Executive branch and appoint the judges of the Judiciary. As demonstrated in Flint Michigan, this is not the best practice in leadership, as there are many subject matters that may be outside the core competence of an autocratic leader.

We must do better, than Flint! (Flint must do better; too many lives are involved).

We know that “bad actors and bad incidences” will always occur, even in government institutions, so we must be “on guard” against abusive influences and encroachments to Failed-State status. The Go Lean roadmap calls for engagement and participation from everyone, the people (citizens), institutions and government officials alike. We encouraged all with benevolent motives to lean-in to this roadmap, to get involved to effect a turnaround for the Caribbean Failed-States.

Our Caribbean stakeholders deserve the best … from their leaders. 🙂

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

———

Appendix – Timeline of the Water Crisis in Flint, Michigan
By: Associated Press – Jan 16, 2016, 3:18 PM ET

A look at some of the key events in the development of the Flint water crisis:

———

APRIL 2014: In an effort to save money, Flint begins drawing its water from the Flint River instead of relying on water from Detroit. The move is considered temporary while the city waits to connect to a new regional water system. Residents immediately complain about the smell, taste and appearance of the water. They also raise health concerns, reporting rashes, hair loss and other problems.

SUMMER 2014: Three boil-water advisories are issued in 22 days after positive tests for coliform bacteria.

OCTOBER 2014: A General Motors engine plant stops using Flint water, saying it rusts parts.

JANUARY 2015: Flint seeks an evaluation of its efforts to improve the water amid concerns that it contains potentially harmful levels of a disinfection byproduct. Detroit offers to reconnect Flint to its water system. Flint insists its water is safe.

JAN. 28: Flint residents snap up 200 cases of bottled water in 30 minutes in a giveaway program. More giveaways will follow in ensuing months.

FEB. 3: State officials pledge $2 million for Flint’s troubled water system.

FEBRUARY: A 40-member advisory committee is formed to address concerns over Flint’s water. Mayor Dayne Walling says the committee will ensure the community is involved in the issue.

MARCH 19: Flint promises to spend $2.24 million on immediate improvements to its water supply.

MARCH 27: Flint officials say the quality of its water has improved and that testing finds the water meets all state and federal standards for safety.

SEPT. 24: A group of doctors led by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of HurleyMedicalCenter urges Flint to stop using the Flint River for water after finding high levels of lead in the blood of children. State regulators insist the water is safe.

SEPT. 29: Gov. Rick Snyder pledges to take action in response to the lead levels. It’s the first acknowledgment by the state that lead is a problem.

OCT. 2: Snyder announces that the state will spend $1 million to buy water filters and test water in Flint public schools.

OCT. 8: Snyder calls for Flint to go back to using water from Detroit’s system again.

OCT. 15: The Michigan Legislature and Snyder approve nearly $9.4 million in aid to Flint, including $6 million to help switch its drinking water back to Detroit. The legislation also includes money for water filters, inspections and lab testing.

NOV. 3: Voters elect newcomer Karen Weaver over incumbent Mayor Dayne Walling amid fallout over the drinking water.

DEC. 29: Snyder accepts the resignation of Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant and apologizes for what occurred in Flint.

JAN. 5: Snyder declares a state of emergency in Flint, the same day federal officials confirm that they are investigating.

JAN. 12: Snyder activates the Michigan National Guard to help distribute bottled water and filters in Flint and asks the federal government for help.

JAN. 13: Michigan health officials report an increase in Legionnaires’ disease cases during periods over the past two years in the county that includes Flint.

JAN. 14: Snyder asks the Obama administration for major disaster declaration and more federal aid.

JAN. 16: President Barack Obama signs emergency declaration and orders federal aid for Flint, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate relief efforts.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/timeline-water-crisis-flint-michigan-36331514; retrieved Jan 18, 2016

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Crime Specialist Urging: ‘Change Leaders in Crime Fight’

Posted on January 6, 2016 in Economics, Government, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

While we all want to live in a society free of crime, we all recognize that this goal is easier said than done!

Since remediating and mitigating crime is both an “Art” and a “Science”, we have to rely on professionals and Subject Matter Experts (SME) – Police – to do this job. And when these SME’s succeed in their “art and science”, we hardly notice; but when they fail we cannot ignore the failures, as we are all impacted.

Right now, there is no way to ignore what is going on in the Caribbean member-state of the Bahamas; they have an alarming crime problem, one that has the attention of local, regional and international stakeholders. According to the below news article, these numbers highlight the problem:

In 2010, there were 94 murders recorded in the country, a record at the time. The next year there were 127 murders and in 2012 there were 111. There were 120 murders in 2013, 123 in 2014 and a record 149 last year [2015].

For a country of 320,000 people, these numbers are alarmingly high. (This blogger is Bahamas-bred).

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that to elevate Caribbean society there must be a focus on elevating the region’s economic, security and governing engines. While the book primarily targets economic empowerments (jobs, investments, education, entrepreneurship, etc.), it posits that security concerns must be front-and-center along with these economic efforts.

The book directly relates (Page 23) that with the emergence of new economic drivers that “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. This is a historical fact, and is bound to be repeated again and again. The following news article and related VIDEO convey this point:

Title: ‘Change leaders in crime fight’
Source: BahamasLocal.com – Local Online News Portal; retrieved January 6, 2016 from:
http://www.bahamaslocal.com/newsitem/142707/Change_leaders_in_crime_fight.html

January 04, 2016 – Former Deputy Commissioner of Police Quinn McCartney is renewing his call for a change in leadership in the crime fight following the setting of a new murder record in The Bahamas in 2015, and several serious crimes already recorded for 2016, including two murders and multiple shootings. While McCartney did not identify anyone in his post, his comments are widely viewed as a critique of Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade.

“I promised not to say too much this year, but looks like 2016 is starting off much like 2015 ended, and therefore I feel compelled to say something brief right now,” McCartney wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday night.

“Obviously what we are doing right now is not working. There is, in my humble opinion, a need for drastic changes to be made. Perhaps we should take our cues from sports teams. I am not a sports fanatic, but I do know that when a team continues to lose, sooner or later there is a leadership change [and] the manager/coach is fired.

“Most of the team members stay but new leadership is brought in to hopefully chart a new course for what should be a talented team. With six successive years of unprecedented records, are we at the point where we need to honestly look at a change of the leadership for the team?”

McCartney’s call for new leadership comes exactly six years after Greenslade assumed command of the Royal Bahamas Police Force and one year after he, McCartney, retired as deputy.

In 2010, there were 94 murders recorded in the country, a record at the time. The next year there were 127 murders and in 2012 there were 111. There were 120 murders in 2013, 123 in 2014 and a record 149 last year.

McCartney’s post attracted widespread attention and in response to a comment under his post, McCartney promised to expand on his thoughts later in the week.

“We can only be manipulated to the extent that we allow persons to manipulate us,” he wrote. “The political directorate can only get us to do what they want if we allow them to. We need to de-politicize our institutions or at least the perception that they are politicized. Unfortunately we have allowed them in when it has been expedient for our professional success or advancement. We are to blame.”

Fresh off a record-setting year, a man was shot and killed outside a bar at the intersection of Kemp Road and Wulff Road early Saturday morning, police said. Hours later, Michael Deangelo Bethel, a well-known businessman, was shot and killed after he was ambushed at the traffic light near Montagu Beach early Sunday morning. His wife and two others were injured in the shooting, police said.

This is not first time McCartney has been critical of the leadership in the crime fight. Last November, he said if those charged with addressing the problem are failing to do their jobs, they should be removed.

McCartney left the force after more than 30 years of service. His relationship with the commissioner was reportedly strained in the time leading to his exit. McCartney holds a first degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in forensics from the University of Scotland. He has had extensive professional training since then.

As deputy commissioner, he was responsible for complaints and discipline, fire services and the force’s inspection and review branch, which was reportedly dismantled in 2012.

———-

VIDEO – MAN STABBED AND KILLED IN YELLOW ELDER – https://youtu.be/pRYNzSaGzSw

Published on Dec 29, 2015 – NB12 DECEMBER 29TH, NEWSCAST.
Pardon the opening Advertisement/Commercial.

The foregoing news resources relate the dire status quo in the Bahamas. A similar review in other Caribbean member-states shows similar challenges. So crime is a regional problem. The Go Lean book therefore presents a regional solution. The book features details of mitigations designed from world-class best-practices to remediate crime in the Caribbean region. All of which the current regimes of the 30 separate member-states would be unable to pursue on their own. As the commentator relates in the foregoing article, there is a need for a new regime, as the current structures are failing. The Go Lean book therefore relates “the new Sheriff in Town” – a regional one – with these strategies:

Caribbean Police (CariPol)
Regional Security Intelligence Bureau
Enhanced Witness Protection Solutions
Regionally-regulated Private/Commercial First Responders
Youth Crime Awareness and Prevention
Prison Industrial Complex

This last entry – Prison Industrial Complex – is the focus of this commentary. There is much to learn from the “art and science” of penology and criminology in implementing change in the new Caribbean.

The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean is in dire straits – society-wise and crime-wise – due fundamentally to one factor: societal abandonment. Evidence is provided when the best-of-the-best flees a community, the consequence is more-and-more turmoil among the remnant.

Consider this: What happens in prisons where/when felons and “bad actors” are all warehoused together?

The fields of penology and criminology are all consistent in their conclusions: Criminals, felons and “bad actors” all learn to become better criminals, felons and “bad actors” in prison. This is why recidivism – the propensity to return to the bad practice – is so high.

Per Psychiatry: Recidivism = the chronic tendency toward repetition of criminal or antisocial behavior patterns.

This commentary – in support of the book Go Lean…Caribbean – has previously established that the societal abandonment rate among the educated classes of the Caribbean average 70%, with some communities experiencing even higher rates; (Jamaica at 85% and Guyana at 89%). This consideration details the “push and pull” reasons why Caribbean citizens flee.

The Go Lean book and this entire movement hereby asserts that the problem of crime in the Bahamas – as related in the foregoing news article, though not exclusive there – is a vicious cycle of cause-and effect that is common and tragic throughout the entire Caribbean region. Imagine this cycle:

The Caribbean Remnant – lower skilled and more prone to violence – learn more effective lawlessness
Innocent people leave the Caribbean region for refuge abroad
The Caribbean Remnant – lower skilled and more prone to violence – learn more effective lawlessness
Innocent people leave the Caribbean region for refuge abroad
… pattern continues …

This presumed pattern is based on the premise that foreign governments disallow immigrants with criminal records. So these ones – bad actors – are comprised in the remnant population left behind in the Caribbean. This means that every iteration of the above pattern changes the statistics of felons/non-felons in society; more and more felons, percentage-wise.

So then, what hope is there for the future?

“Do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got” – Old Adage.

The declaration of the policing SME in the foregoing article is to “change the leadership in the crime fight”. (Though the quoted article appears to be more political in its indictment).

This is the quest of the Go Lean movement, to change the leadership, stewardship and oversight of the Caribbean eco-system. (This commentary makes no judgments on the actual Commissioner of Police of the Royal Bahamas Police Force; this public servant seems to be an honorable man with only good intentions for his homeland). The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s economic, security and governing engines beyond their status quo. The 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 provide public safety and protect the resultant economic engines from economic crimes and cross-border threats.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The goal of this roadmap is to confederate all of the Caribbean – all 30 member-states – under a unified entity to provide these societal solutions for the region. But ‘Security’ for the Caribbean has a different meaning than for many of the countries the Caribbean Diaspora flee to, like North America and Europe. The CU security goal is for public safety! The goal of the CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic empowerment, and also the security dynamics of the region, since these are inextricably linked to this same endeavor.

The end result of the successful execution of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is improvement of Caribbean society, minimizing the “push-pull” factors that led to more emigration, and incentivizing the return of many Diaspora that have left over the years and decades.

The cause-and-effect of failing economics lead to increasing criminality. The cause-and-effect of improved economics lead to lesser criminal activities. The motivation of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is the basic economic principle, described in the Go Lean book (Page 21), that “Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives”. So the advanced field of economics hereby posits that Economic Systems, more so than political systems influence people’s choices and incentives. So the Go Lean/CU seeks to optimize the region’s economic systems to better deliver on the prime directives of the Go Lean roadmap.

This roadmap fully envisions the integration of shepherding – leadership – for the Caribbean region’s economic and security initiatives under the same governance: The Caribbean Union Trade Federation. This point is pronounced early in the Go Lean book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

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

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

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

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

The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security apparatus to ensure justice and public safety will include many strategies, tactics and implementations deemed “best-practice” over the years, including an advanced Intelligence Gathering & Analysis effort to mitigate and remediate crime in the region, and also to optimize the “art and science” of crime, including prison reform; (see Page 211 of the Go Lean book). This represents “top-down” and “bottom up” optimization of the security process to better protect the homeland. This comprehensive Homeland Security focus is “Step One, Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap, covering the approach for adequate funding, accountability and control. The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide increased public safety & security in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Vision – Forge a Single Market economy	Page 45
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CariPol: Marshals & Investigations	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid – Security Assistance	Page 115
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Mitigate Organized Crime	Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the American West – Law & Order Lessons	Page 142
Planning – Lessons from Egypt – Lackluster Law & Order affects Economy	Page 143
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Gun Control	Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering and Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex	Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220

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

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6693	Ten Puerto Rico Police Accused of Criminal Network
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6385	Wi-Fi Hot Spots Run By Hackers Are Targeting Tourists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5307	8th Violent Crime Warning to Bahamas Tourists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5435	China Internet Policing – Model for Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5304	Mitigating the Eventual ‘Abuse of Power’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5238	#ManifestJustice – Lessons for the Prison Eco-System
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4863	A Picture is worth a thousand words; a video … a million to expose corruption
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the ‘CaribbeanBasin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308	911 – Emergency Response: System in Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881	Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2994	Justice Strategy: Special Prosecutors and Commissions of Inquiry
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2684	Role Model for Justice, Anti-Crime & Security: The Pinkertons
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement = Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	White Collar fraud in America; criminals take $272 billion a year in healthcare
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=960	NSA records all phone calls in Bahamas, according to Snowden
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=535	Remembering and learning from the Boston Marathon Terrorist Attacks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – #6: Criminal Organizations

The vision of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. This means measurable reduction (mitigation and remediation) of crime in the region.

The premise is that “bad actors” will always emerge, from internal and external origins. We must be prepared and on-guard to defend our homeland against all threats, foreign and domestic, including crime. Plus, we must accomplish this goal with maximum transparency, accountability, and commitment to due-process and the rule-of-law.

An additional mission is to lower the “push” factors (from “push-and-pull” reference) so that our citizens are not led to flee their homeland for foreign (North American and European) shores. Among the many reasons people emigrate, is victimization or fear of crime. There is “good, bad and ugly” in every society. We must not allow all our “good” citizens to leave and the only remaining – the remnant – would be the “bad and the ugly”.

So all stakeholders in the Caribbean – people and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the elevation of the Caribbean’s societal engine: economy, security and governance. The roadmap calls for the heavy-lifting so as to impact the Greater Good. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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A Meteorologist’s View On Climate Change

Posted on November 10, 2015 in Ethos, Government, Implementation, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

The Americans “got it bad!” They appear to be willing to ignore facts and deny science to continue their environmental unsound way of life, their eco-system. While Americans may have the right to their own opinions, they do not have the right to their own facts.

This is the summary from the below AUDIO PODCAST, that even the weather scientists, the meteorologists, are pressured to ignore the science or not sound the warning. This is their rationale for their non-stance:

The political climate is too heated.
Corporate ownership of TV stations don’t want to deal with Climate Change.

This is a bad model … for the rest of the world. According to the PODCAST, other countries – i.e. France – are not yielding to this American pressure; they recognize the need to sound a more accurate alarm. Listen to the PODCAST here/now (or read the transcript in the Appendix below):

AUDIO: Why Are Meteorologists Reluctant To Talk About Climate Change? http://cpa.ds.npr.org/wunc/audio/2015/10/NDD1029.mp3

Dave DeWitt reports on what North Carolina TV meteorologists think of climate change, and how one of them became a “convert.”
North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC 91.5 – Posted Sunday October 29, 2015; retrieved November 5, 2015
http://wunc.org/post/meteorolgists-view-climate-change#stream/0

This silencing of the truth is troubling … for the Caribbean and the rest of the world. People turn to weather forecasters to forecast the weather. They need to be respected for announcing the truth: short-term, mid-term and long-term.

Theirs is a weighty responsibility!

This is remindful of the charge to the Watchman in the Holy Scriptures, in the Bible Book of Ezekiel (Chapter 33 verses 2 – 7); see here:

² “Son of man, speak to the sons of your people, and say to them, “‘Suppose that I bring a sword upon a land, and all the people of that land take a man and make him their watchman, ³ and he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the horn and warns the people. ⁴If someone hears the sound of the horn but does not heed the warning and a sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head. ⁵He heard the sound of the horn, but he did not heed the warning. His blood will be upon himself. If he had heeded the warning, his life would have been saved.
⁶ “‘But if the watchman sees the sword coming and he does not blow the horn and the people receive no warning and a sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that person will die for his own error, but I will ask his blood back from the watchman.’
⁷“As for you, son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman …
(New World Translation)

Yes, there are climate change deniers. It is a pity that these ones may hold positions of power and authority so as to subdue the proclamation of appropriate warnings.

This Climate Change is an important issue! It is conveyed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean as if a crisis. But the book goes on to declare that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”, calling for the establishment of a regional administration to monitor, mitigate and manage the threats of Climate Change. The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean region is at the frontline of the battleground of Climate Change, that we do not have the luxury of denying the facts. (As this commentary is written, there is a tropical storm – Kate – threatening danger for the Bahamas). We need to commission a “watchman” to give fair warning of the imminent danger. The same as conveyed in the foregoing scriptural reference: blood is at stake for this issue of Climate Change: there is the need to save life-and-limb due to increased occurrences of devastating hurricanes, flooding, forest fires, droughts, rising sea levels, and even alterations in fish stock.

What could be the motivation for the denial of the warnings of the actuality of climate change? Only one factor: Profit.

This issue has previously been detailed in the following blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4673	Merchants of Doubt … to Preserve Profits
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2465	Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’

This commentary therefore asserts that the Caribbean needs to not follow the American leadership in this regards; that we must forge our own future, seeing how pervasive the Crony-Capitalism elements are in the American eco-system. This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The prime directives of this agency are described as:

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

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to serve as the regional administration to optimize economy, homeland security and governance engines for the Caribbean, especially in flight of Climate Change battleground frontline status. This is the first pronouncement (Page 11) of the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

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.

The Go Lean roadmap fully details the reality of Climate Change in the region. There are many aspect of Caribbean life that will be affected; that have already been affected. These issues have also been repeatedly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6016	‘Hotter than July’ – Reality in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2276	Climate Change May Affect Food Supply Within a Decade
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2119	Cooling Effect – Oceans and the Climate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1883	Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817	Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1516	Floods in Minnesota, Drought in California – Why Not Share?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=926	Conservative heavyweights have solar industry in their sights
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915	Go ‘Green’ … Caribbean

This Go Lean book declares that we must adopt the community ethos (the appropriate attitude/spirit), to forge change in our region; then details the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to better impact the region’s resources and eco-systems, in considering the preparations and responses for Climate Change. The following is a sample list:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices / Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-States into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Vision – Foster Local Economic Engines for Basic Needs	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Prepare for Natural Disasters	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 76
Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration	Page 79
Separation of Powers – Meteorological & Geological Service	Page 79
Implementation – Assemble Regional Organs into a Single Market Economy	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up – Unified Command & Control	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries	Page 210
Appendix – History of Puerto Rican Migration to US & Effects of Hurricanes	Page 303
Appendix – US Virgin Islands Economic Timeline with Hurricane Impacts	Page 305

The foregoing AUDIO PODCAST sounds the alarm of the threats of Climate Change on the planet and declares that the Caribbean may not want to depend on American Media reporting of the Climate Change threats. But, we have encountered this issue before in our interaction with the American eco-system – we have previously discussed how the European Weather Forecasting Models may be better suited for the Caribbean Greater Good, because of the lesser Crony-Capitalistic influences, and lesser corporate ownership of media companies.

The Caribbean is on the frontlines of this battle! This is not just a preference for us, this may be life-and-death. We have no option to exit from any of these discussions; whether we want to or not.

Change must come to our region as more devastating effects of Climate Change are imminent. The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that this “Agent of Change” is too big for just any one member-state to tackle alone, that there must be a regional solution. This multi-state technocratic administration of the CU is presented as that solution.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, and heed the warnings from this Caribbean “Watchman”. Too much is at stake – the blood of the people. Despite the threats of Climate Change, we can still make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———–

APPENDIX – Transcript: A Meteorolgist’s View On Climate Change

By: Dave DeWitt
Broadcast meteorologists on local television have one job. It’s simple to express but difficult to do well. Predict the future, a few days at a time.

To be an effective forecaster, a broadcast meteorologist has to be a scientist. And because it’s TV, she or he also has to be likable and trustworthy.

Greg Fishel of WRAL is all of those things. He also used to be a global warming denier. Now, he admits he was wrong.

“I don’t see being wrong as being a scarlet letter,” Fishel says. “I think all of us have experiences in our life where we are wrong and we realize it was a good thing and we learn something from it.”

Fishel changed his mind about climate change after putting aside his politics and examining the science. Now, he’s an equally passionate convert, and recently expressed it again on Facebook.

Fishel is in a unique position among his colleagues in the weather forecasting business. He was one of the first broadcast meteorologists to push for certification in his profession. He’s also wildly popular and has worked for arguably the most successful family-owned local TV station in the country since 1981.

And that matters in the so-called climate change “debate.”

“Any time you have someone of high stature, high standing in the market, with a lot of credibility, it does speak volumes and it shows how important that the topic is,” says Sean Sublette, a former TV meteorologist in Roanoke who currently works forClimate Central in Princeton, New Jersey.

Not all broadcast meteorologists are in the same position—or think the same way.

WUNC Radio surveyed TV meteorologists in North Carolina. About three-quarters of those who responded agree or strongly agree that the planet is warming due to human activity. But fewer than half agreed it was part of their job to inform viewers about climate change.

Several expressed that the political debate was too heated or that corporate ownership of stations didn’t want to deal with the controversy.

Sublette says those results are not surprising.

“I know some that are very interested in the science, and I know some that are just not,” says Sublette. “They are just not as interested in talking about it, for whatever reason they may have.”

One of Climate Central’s missions is to provide research and graphics that local TV meteorologists can use in broadcasts.

Even with the help, it can be very difficult to get climate information into a forecast. Lee Ringer at Time Warner Cable News does “Weather On The Ones,” so, six weathercasts an hour.

“And even though it seems like a lot of time, it’s limited what we can talk about,” Ringer says. “So our traditional weathercasts are really just going to be limited to the forecast for today and up through the next week.”

Ringer does do climate change stories online. And he says he has another important, if unseen role.

“I’m the scientist here at the station, along with our other team of meteorologists,” he says. “So we’re the folks a lot of our news reporters come to when there’s some type of science story, whether it’s directly related to the weather, whether it’s related to the environment, or related to meteorology.”

At WRAL, Fishel has taken that role as station scientist to a higher level. Earlier this year, he traveled to Alaska and Colorado to produce special climate change reportsand has brought leading scientists to town for discussions.

The other night, he says he got a call from a longtime friend and die-hard conservative. That friend said he is re-thinking his position on climate change because of Fishel’s reporting and social media outreach.

“If I had done this six months after I moved here and I was 22 years old and wet behind the ears, then people would have said ‘get that liberal out of here’,” says Fishel, laughing. “So it gets back to the whole thing, if there was ever a time when I could engage in this discussion, I feel like this is it.”

Fishel says he’ll keep engaging in that discussion—on-air and online—in the hope he can lead the conversation for viewers and fellow weather professionals.

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Crony-Capitalism, Disaster, New Media, Power, Security

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