“Absolutely criminal…” – US Senator reviewing the FDA handling of America’s Opioid crisis.
Saying “the grass is not greener on the other side” is just too simplistic a criticism of the American eco-system for pharmaceutical use … and abuse. Pain is real and need to be mitigated, but the American experience is one of dysfunction.
Yet, this is to be expected, when one places the ‘fox to guard the henhouse’.
This is not just our opinion alone. This aligns with the criticism of the FDA’s Former Head; they are supposed to be the Watch-Dog. (While the Watch-Dog for them is supposed to be the US Congress, providing checks-and-balances over the Executive Branch, FDA included). See this related story-criticism here:
CBS Evening News Posted May 9, 2016 – Each day in America, 78 people die from overdosing on painkillers. Doctor David Kessler, former head of the FDA from 1990 to 1997, called the rise of America’s Opioid crisis “one of the great mistakes of modern medicine.” Jim Axelrod has more.
Yet, still we continue to say, despite the simplicity of the criticism: the grass is not greener on the American side. Mature communities address the problems that they face; they monitor, manage and mitigate them. To allow a problem to persist, to take lives and then do nothing or little about it makes stakeholders blood-guilty. This is a direct indictment from the Judeo-Christian moral code, the Bible; see the justice standard here:
29 But if a bull was in the habit of goring and its owner had been warned but he would not keep it under guard and it killed a man or a woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner is also to be put to death. 30 If a ransom* is imposed on him, he must give as the redemption price for his life* all that may be imposed on him. – Exodus 21: 29, 30
Analysis
[In Bible times], certain deliberate acts that indirectly caused or could have resulted in the death of another person were considered tantamount to deliberate murder. For example, the owner of a goring bull who disregarded previous warnings to keep the animal under guard could be put to death if his bull killed someone. In some cases, however, a ransom could be accepted in place of the life of the owner. Undoubtedly the judges would take circumstances into consideration in such a case. (Ex 21:29, 30) Also, an individual scheming to have another person killed by presenting false testimony was himself to be put to death.—Deuteronomy 19:18-21.
But this standard is not the reality of America, where the original 2 societal defects America was built on still persists:
Shockingly, this indictment of the FDA – who is supposed to protect American people – raises a Caribbean debate:
Is it better to emigrate to America or any other foreign destination for economic success, or prosper where planted in the Caribbean homeland?
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean campaigns to inform the people of the Caribbean that life is not idyllic in America, that death is more readily because of a greater disregard of life, especially of those of minority (non-white) ethnicities.
Some might argue that “this” charge is not fair, nor accurate!
And yet … as reported in a previous blog-commentary (and highlighted in the foregoing VIDEO), millions suffer from Opioid addictions – 33,000 die every year. This is not new, as the evidence suggest this is decades old, and yet the FDA “slept”; truly, the ‘fox guarding the henhouse’.
🙁
The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap to introduce the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s societal engines – economics, homeland security and governance – of the 30 Caribbean member-states. In fact, the prime directives of the roadmap includes the following 3 statements:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic.
Improve Caribbean governance for all people, even minority groups, to support these engines.
The quest of the Go Lean book and movement is to minimize the lure for America to Caribbean citizens. We need our people to Stay Home, and so we want to make the Caribbean region better places to live, work and play. People only leave because they believe that life abroad will be better. So facts to the contrary should go far in quelling such misconceptions.
In this movement for a new Caribbean, we do not want to be like America, we want to be Better! While this is heavy-lifting, it is not impossible, just start without the two known societal defects: Institutional Racism, and Crony-Capitalism.
No one is being fooled, the Opioid crisis in the US has persisted because Big Pharma is profiting. This is what a previous Go Lean commentary lamented, “stupidity persists in society when ‘someone’ is getting rich and want to preserve their profits, even at the expense of human life. This is so familiar, as in the same playbook of Big Tobacco for the entire 20th Century; see/listen to the Podcast in the Appendix below.
When it comes to chronic pain relief, the CDC is asking doctors and patients to think about alternatives to opioids.
We do not want our people to die ignominiously in America due to some opioid overdose. And so, we do not want our citizens to have to leave … in the first place. But the truth is a two-sided coin…
… on the flipside, life in America is more prosperous than in any Caribbean member-state.
As related previously, the Go Lean book, in its 370 pages, introduces the Caribbean Union Trade Federation as an inter-governmental agency for the 30 member-states, to provide a better – technocratic – stewardship for Caribbean life, to make it more prosperous … at home. The book identifies that we have a crisis – our failing societal engines – but asserts that this crisis would be a terrible thing to waste. We can use the urgency – we do not want to be bloodguilty – to introduce and implement effective community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society.
The Go Lean book contends that as a people, we must be prepared for accidents and illnesses – pain is normal. It asserts that bad actors – and bad incidences – will emerge just as a result of economic successes in the region. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:
xi. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
As related above, for us to become a mature society, we must address the risks and problems that we face; we must monitor, manage and mitigate them. The Go Lean book describes the need for the Caribbean to appoint “new guards” to protect the people, not exploit them, this should be a lesson learned from the US. The purpose of the CU security pact will be to ensure public safety as a comprehensive endeavor, encapsulating the needs of all Caribbean stakeholders: residents and visitors alike.
Consider this sample of previous blog-commentaries that have expanded on this theme:
Monitoring the Risks of Economics on Public Health
We want to “live long and prosper”. We want to prosper right here in the Caribbean. How sad it would be for a family to move to the US (and other countries) and fall victim to a voluntary opioid addiction … and overdose … and death.
So we urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in for the empowerments of this Go Lean roadmap. It is conceivable, believable and achievable to plant here and prosper here in our Caribbean region.
Yes, we can make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂
Posted June 30, 2017 – A wave of litigation by state attorneys general against the biggest opioid manufacturers and distributors feels reminiscent of lawsuits brought by states in the 1990s against the tobacco industry.
There is the need for relief, recovery and rebuilding!
This title, “After Irma, America Should Scrap the Jones Act” – in the news article in the below Appendix referring to the temporary waiver of the law – is also a familiar advocacy from this commentary, from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. A previous blog-commentary declared:
Stupidity of the Jones Act
The Jones Act mandates that for a ship to go from one US port to another US port it must be American-made and American flagged. Also, for foreign ships to trade in US Territories, they must first journey to a foreign port before they could journey to another American port to transport goods. This seems “stupid”; but the adherence to this law keeps American maritime commerce options afloat; this means someone is getting paid; … a distortion in the reality of Puerto Rico-[Virgin Islands]-to-US Mainland trade.
The Go Lean movement asserts that the US Territories in the Caribbean deserve better; they deserve the full exercise of the free market, not just now for the hurricane relief-recovery-rebuilding but all the time. This is why we call the ‘Jones Act’ stupid and strongly urge for its repeal. These US Territories – make that colonies – are pressed between a rock and a hard place, their best hope for survival and prosperity is to grow-up from their American neo-colonial status.
What? How? When? Where? All these questions and more are answered in the Go Lean book. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The Go Lean book posits that devastating hurricanes – like Irma – will now be the norm. This problem is too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone to contend with. The book therefore stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):
i. Whereas the earth’s climate has undeniably changed resulting in more severe tropical weather storms, it is necessary to prepare to insure the safety and security of life, property and systems of commerce in our geographical region. As nature recognizes no borders in the target of its destruction, we also must set aside border considerations in the preparation and response to these weather challenges.
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
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.
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of the American Caribbean Territories and all of Caribbean society. Puerto Rico and the USVI had problems before Irma; their daily life is filled with troubles and strife. While they need the ‘Jones Act’ to be waived for this hurricane relief-recovery-rebuilding effort, even more they need the ‘Jones Act’ repealed for everyday life.
This is not just our opinion alone, as attested by the Editorial – in the Appendix below – from Bloomberg News. This media organization is not just criticizing from afar; they truly care about the Greater Good of the US Territories; see Appendix VIDEO below.
This commentary commences a 4-part series on the Aftermath of Hurricane Irma. This storm was devastating to the Atlantic tropical region, the Caribbean and US State of Florida. There are a lot of mitigation and remediation efforts that can be done to lessen the impact of storms. There are lessons that we must consider; there are changes we must make; there are problems we must solve. The full list of the 4 entries in this series are detailed as follows:
Aftermath of Hurricane Irma – America Should Scrap the ‘Jones Act’
Yes, we can do better in the future, even after devastating hurricanes; we can make all of the Caribbean homeland better places to live, work and play. 🙂
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.
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Appendix – Title: After Irma, America Should Scrap the Jones Act Sub-Title: The century-old law restricting trade between U.S. ports is a costly failure.
Another big hurricane, another temporary waiver of the Jones Act — the 1920 law mandating that goods and passengers shipped between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flagged ships, constructed primarily in the U.S., owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by them or by U.S. legal permanent residents.
Circumstances did indeed demand a new stay on this dumb law — but it would be better to get rid of it altogether, as Senator John McCain and others have argued.
The Jones Act was meant to ensure that the U.S. has a reliable merchant marine during times of national emergency. It has devolved into a classic protectionist racket that benefits a handful of shipbuilders and a dwindling number of U.S. mariners. It causes higher shipping costs that percolate throughout the economy, especially penalizing the people of Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
Despite the law, the U.S. merchant fleet has continued to shrink. Today there are only about 100 large ships that meet its requirements — and many of them are past their best. In part because of the high cost of using Jones Act vessels, coastal shipping has steadily declined, even though it would otherwise be more efficient in many cases than trucks and railroads. The act distorts trade flows, giving imports carried by foreign ships an edge over goods shipped from within the U.S. Proposed extensions of the law could threaten the development of offshore energy resources as well as exports of U.S. oil and natural gas.
Defenders of the law say its effects are uncertain because there’s too little data. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests a way to put that right: Give a five-year Jones Act waiver to Puerto Rico. That would provide data for a more rigorous analysis while giving the island’s battered economy a lift. Short of outright repeal, Congress could also revisit the law’s ancient, burdensome rules on crew sizes and much else. If the law remains, its focus should be on restoring the vibrancy of coastal maritime commerce, not on counting ships and sailors.
Economics aside, one might ask, isn’t the Jones Act vital for national security? Hardly. Much of the U.S. Ready Reserve Fleet is foreign-built. Very few Jones Act ships are the roll-on, roll-off kind that the military wants. To be sure, the U.S. has sound strategic reasons for maintaining some shipbuilding capability — but smarter support narrowly directed to that purpose would be cheaper and fairer than a trade law that does so much pointless collateral harm.
The latest waiver is slated to expire this week. Modernizing the law would be a step forward. But the best thing to do with the Jones Act is scrap it.
To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg View’s editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net .
Posted September 15, 2017 – Chuck Todd traveled to the U.S. Virgin Islands to interview Fmr. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NBA All-Star Tim Duncan, who are both helping with the recovery effort after Hurricane Irma.
One year later, have we grown up anymore in that time?
Unfortunately, no!
There is still the need to Grow Up and manage our own affairs. This was detailed in a comprehensive commentary exactly one year ago today. Let’s Encore it here-now:
“Don’t be a stock on the shelf” – Bob Marley: Pimpers Paradise – Album: Uprising – 1980.
What does the lyrics of this song mean? (See VIDEO here). The analysis is that it is poetic and prophetic. The song has a personal indictment and a community indictment. The lyrics directly address a young girl who stumbles into a party lifestyle; being victimized by abusers or “pimps”. The warning is that she would be considered nothing more than a commodity – to be counted on for illicit profits – rather than a real human with hopes and dreams. As for the community indictment, this submission on SongMeanings.com conveys an insightful point:
General Comment I’ve always had the impression that this song is about Jamaica, Bob’s mother-country, and its contradictions, described through the technique of personification. If this were the case, most of the girl’s attributes and actions would refer to the whole community of Jamaicans and not to a single person, as it first appears. What makes this song so beautiful is the sadness, tenderness and pride of Marley’s lyrics and voice, as he describes his people’s use and abuse of drugs, its innate tendency to smile, have fun and carry on in spite of the poverty, violence and harshness which characterizes life in that country, and above all its vulnerability to the lies, deception and empty promises of politicians and elites in general, a vulnerability which forces most people into a lifelong submission and which gives this song its title. By:dettawalker on April 19, 2015
There is a vulnerability to lies, deception and empty promises in the Caribbean. Other people have raised money under the guise of helping our region, but then only kept the monies for themselves … mostly. There is the need for philanthropy, charitable donations and community development, but we need to take the lead for this ourselves, rather than the potential of being victimized by others.
Perhaps this is a by-product of the attitude of depending on “other peoples money”; this is so familiar in the Caribbean. For the past 50 years of Caribbean integration movements (West Indies Federation, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and Caribbean Community or CariCom), the focus had been on soliciting aid – begging – from the richer North American and European nations.
Today, our message to Caribbean stakeholders is: Grow Up Already!
Truly, at what point is it expected that we would mature and take care of our own responsibilities?
Answer: Now! Half-pass now!
This point was eloquently conveyed in a previous blog-commentary, where it related how Caribbean member-states use “development funds” (International Aid) for budgetary support for the governments to fulfill their responsibilities in the Social Contract. As a reminder, this implied Social Contract refers to the arrangement where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. This contract authorizes the State to raise revenues from taxes and fees, but “one cannot get blood from a stone”. The 30 Caribbean member-states are mostly all Third World countries; they hover near the poverty line.
Yet still, the book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts it is high-time for this region to grow up and adapt best-practices to elevate our society. We can improve all societal engines: economics, security and governance. This theme is weaved throughout the Go Lean book which serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This Go Lean/CU roadmap has the vision of elevating Caribbean society by optimizing these engines. Observe the prime directives as published in the book:
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 engines and mitigate internal and external “bad actors”.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the CU federal government and the member-states.
The Bible states …
… “anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!” – Matthew 11:15; New Living Translation.
This does not mean that gleaning the wisdom of the fallacy of other people taking the lead for our development will eliminate our poverty. No; we are still a region of Third Word countries; that same Bible translation continues that “you will always have the poor among you” – Matthew 26:11. We simply need to take the lead ourselves of soliciting aid, collecting the aid and managing the distribution of that aid and the resultant accountability. This is no “rocket science”; in fact, it is no science at all. It is mostly an art, and there are competent role models who perform these functions well; we only need to adapt their best-practices.
Consider this company Brewco Marketing; they consider themselves “the marketing vehicle for America’s most trusted brands”. This is a fitting analysis as this company currently conducts marketing campaigns to raise money to benefit impoverished people in several Caribbean countries, the Dominican Republic for example.
Brewco Marketing Group – see AppendixVIDEO below – is a leading experiential marketing company specializing in strategy, design, in-house fabrication, activation and program management. They provide these marketing services for other companies: for-profit corporations and not-for-profit charities. One such client is Compassion International, a Christian child sponsorship organization dedicated to the long-term development of children living in poverty around the world. They are headquartered in the US city of Colorado Springs, Colorado; but they function in 26 countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Haiti, Kenya, India and the Dominican Republic. According to the Wikipedia page on this charity, (retrieved September 12, 2016), this organization provides aid to more than 1,700,000 children.
Bravo Compassion International! See an example here of the type of faith-based advocacy Compassion International is conducting in our Caribbean region; in this case, the Dominican Republic: http://changetour.compassion.com/experience-dominican-republic/
But, consider that Compassion International outsources to a for-profit marketing firm – Brewco – to solicit funding. What is Brewco’s motivation? Simple: Profit.
While not impugning any bad motives to Brewco or Compassion International, this commentary asserts for self-sufficiency, that “charity begins at home”. This is a basic prerequisite for a mature society.
This consideration aligns with the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The declaration is that the Caribbean must be front-and-center in providing for our own solutions. The alternative of someone else taking the lead for our solution, despite how altruistic the motives, seems to be lacking…every time! Consider this encyclopedia detail on criticism of “Child Sponsorship” charities:
Critics have argued that child sponsorship could alienate the relatively privileged sponsored children from their peers and may perpetuate harmful stereotypes about third-world citizens being helpless. They also claim that child sponsorship causes cultural confusion and unrealistic aspirations on the part of the recipient, and that child sponsorship is expensive to administer.[8][9] This latter problem has led some charities to offer information about a “typical” child to sponsors rather than one specifically supported by the sponsor. In some cases charities have been caught sending forged updates from deceased children.[10]
The Effective Altruism community – social movement that applies evidence and reason to determining the most effective ways to improve the world – generally opposes child sponsorship as a type of donor illusion. Givewell – American non-profit charity evaluator – describes sponsorship thusly:[11]
Illusion: through an organization such as “Save the Children“, your money supports a specific child.
Reality: as “Save the Children” now discloses: “Your sponsorship contributions are not given directly to a child. Instead, your contributions are pooled with those of other sponsors to provide community-based programming for all eligible children in the area.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sponsorship retrieved September 12, 2016
This – reality of Big Charity – is just another example of Crony-Capitalism. See the running inventory list of all the Crony-Capitalism models that proliferate in the US, here at https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5529.
Considering this reality, we exclaim to the Caribbean: Grow up already!
The Go Lean book declares (Page 115) that:
“Haiti [in particular and the Caribbean in general] – should not be a perennial beggar; the Caribbean should not be perennial beggars, but we do need capital/money, especially to get started”.
The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) posits that the Caribbean must not be vulnerable to these American Crony-Capitalistic forces.
We do not need some external entity fleecing the public in our name – under the guise of charities but retain vast majorities of the funding as administrative costs – executive salary and bonuses – rather than the intended benefactors.
The Caribbean must do better!
The book Go Lean…Caribbean pursues the quest to elevate the Caribbean region through economic, security and governing empowerments. This includes oversight and guidance for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) in the region. The Go Lean/CU roadmap provides for better stewardship for the Caribbean homeland; and it describes NGO’s as additional Caribbean stakeholders. Governance to this vital area is part of the maturity our region must show; it is not about independence, but rather it conveys the community ethos of interdependence. This point was pronounced early in the Go Lean book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 & 14) with these acknowledgements and statements:
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.
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. Under this roadmap, NGO’s would be promoted, audited and overseen by CU administrators. The CU would be legally authorized as “deputies” of the member-state governments.
The Go Lean book stresses key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to turn-around the eco-systems of Caribbean governance. These points are detailed in the book as follows:
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 – Intelligence Gathering
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Crap” Happens
Page 23
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 – Treasury Department – Shared Property Recording Systems
Page 74
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – State Department – Liaison/Oversight for NGO’s
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 – Cuba & Haiti Marshall Plans
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 – Optimizing Property Registration Process
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 – Enhanced local response and recovery
Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Develop a Pre-Fab Housing Industry – One solution ideal for Slums
Page 207
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Dominican Republic
Page 237
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti
Page 238
These subjects – Charity Management, Philanthropy and International Aid – have been a source of consistent concern for the Go Lean movement. Consider the details from these previous blog-commentaries:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Philanthropy Efforts
So the Caribbean experience with Charity Management in the past and at present is not ideal. How do we apply this insight to impact our future executions?
The primary strategy for improving Charity Management is to keep the administration local; this includes the fund development and the decision-making.
Looking at the great models and samples from Compassion International and Brewco Marketing, can we deploy mobile trailers and immersive exhibits? Can we deploy smart phone apps or tablets with walk-along narration to convey the desperate need for international aid in the Caribbean? Can we foster an eco-system with monthly billing, credit card transactions, or text-message billing?
Yes, we can …
… and this is the “grown up” thing to do, after being burned so often by outsiders.
When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. – 1 Corinthians 13:11 – New Living Translation
The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines. We have a lot to do, the Go Lean book describes it as heavy-lifting. We see the American Crony-Capitalism in action. We do not want to follow their lead. We want to learn from their good and bad examples and models. (It is out-of-scope for the Go Lean movement to fix America). We simply want to fix our Caribbean society to be more self-reliant, both proactively and reactively.
Our quest is simple, a regional effort to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
The company’s offerings: from long-term experiential brand strategy to overall program execution and management. Engaging audiences where they work, live and play.
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Appendix VIDEO – Interactive Tour Immerses Visitors Into Daily Life in a Foreign Country – http://vimeo.com/73958461
Retrieved September 12, 2016 – A self-guided tour will immerse visitors in the lives of the children. Through the use of an iPod, a headset and over 1,700 square feet of interactive space, visitors will see the children’s homes, walk through schools and markets, and hear life-changing stories of hope—all from the perspective of a child whose life began in poverty. This free event is appropriate for all ages and is an excellent opportunity for anyone who has never had the chance to travel outside the U.S. to get a small glimpse of what life can be like in developing countries. See more at http://changetour.compassion.com/
That there – what you just did: reminiscing about your own back-to-school experiences – that is the problem. You see, we cannot project “our” back-to-school visuals on today’s students.
The world has changed;
Schools have to change;
Students have to change; and yes …
We – parents – must change too.
We have said it repeatedly in these commentaries: the Caribbean is “partying like it’s 1999” when in truth the world’s academic competition is clocking in at 2017.
Don’t believe it?
Look at all those high school students that graduated from their Caribbean high schools in 2017, 2016, 2015, etc.. Where are they now? For far too many Caribbean communities, a majority of those graduates have abandoned their Caribbean homes. Why? Our inability to compete.
So it should not be “Back to school” or “back to the status quo”, rather it should be …
“Back to the Future”.
The Caribbean must now transform to become a community that they have never been before; a community only envisioned for the future.
The future is now! Even textbooks are so “Old School”, while e-Textbooks are so new …
This is the debate right now: Should schools continue to distribute textbooks or deploy tablets or PC’s (personal computers) for students’ course work?
This is a debate … everywhere – even here in the Caribbean – see this news article here from the local St Lucia Times Daily Newspaper:
News Article: Textbooks or Tablets in School?
(By Marie Miguel) There is a huge debate going on in schools all across the country. It is not about violence, bullying, drugs, or similar issues. The debate is whether schools should continue using text books or switch to using computer tablets. There are many good arguments on both sides, but the fact is, schools are doing it anyway, regardless of what the parents want. Of course, you have the choice whether to sign the paper saying it is alright for your child to use a tablet and be on the internet. However, if you do not sign that paper, your child will not get the same education as the rest of the class. The world has gone digital and there isn’t a whole lot you can do about it.
The Pros and Cons of Tablets in School Here are some of the pros and cons of tablets in the classroom:
A tablet can hold hundreds of books on one device as well as homework, files, and communication with the teachers. This means no more heavy backpacks or lost books.
Tablets have interactive features that textbooks do not have such as a search function, highlighters, and a built-in dictionary and thesaurus.
Learning technology skills are important for their future.
Tablets can be automatically updated.
Students and schools save money on paper, pencils, and other items that tablets do not need.
Files on the tablet can be transferred to other electronic devices and portable data recorders. That means no more lost homework.
Students enjoy learning on tablets more than with textbooks so they learn more.
Cons
There are medical consequences with using tablets such as neck pain, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, dry eyes, blurred vision, headaches, and eye strain.
Tablets have a lot of distractions such as games, email, apps, and other websites the children can get onto instead of doing their work or listening to the teacher.
The brain is able to comprehend more when reading printed text rather than digital text. In fact, on average, people read digital text up to 30% slower than printed text.
Many students do not have (or cannot afford) sufficient internet service to use their tablets at home. That means homework is not going to get done.
Repairing a tablet costs a great deal more than fixing a book.
Textbooks do not get malware, spyware, freeze, crash, and cannot get hacked.
Tablets need to be charged and cannot last a whole school day.
Students are able to cheat or use shortcuts to do their schoolwork.
Some textbooks are still not available in digital format.
Time for a Solution Many parents just do not want their children to use the internet. Some have never had the opportunity to experience the technological advances that are available to their children or they just do not understand. These feelings of inadequacy can make parents angry and ill-equipped to make a good decision for their children. Other parents are computer savvy but do not think their child is ready for the internet. It is important for these parents to have someone to talk to that understands these issues and can help them realize the benefits of letting their children learn computer skills. There are licensed professionals that parents and their children can talk to or chat with online or over the phone. Together they may be able to come to some kind of compromise that works out well for everyone.
In a previousGo Lean commentary, it was detailed how a related issue, textbooks pricing, reflects American Capitalism – not free market economics – whereby the College Textbook industry is known for their abuses and classic Crony-Capitalism, (where public policy is set to benefit private parties). That commentary explained that since many college expenses are subsidized by governments (federal and state) by means of grants or low-interest, deferred student loans, the marketplace knows that governmental entities will pay…unconditionally, so textbook prices go up … and up.
So how do we move the community forward into the future while also being “on guard” for Crony-Capitalistic abuses?
As related in that commentary from August 25, 2014, 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 capitalistic interest tends to hijack policies intended for the Greater Good. The recommended strategy is to leverage the needs of all 30 countries (42 million people & 4 languages) with Group Purchasing and fully embrace e-Learning (e-Books and tablets).
This book, Go Lean… Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), which represents change for the region. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 future-focused prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines – and the educational apparatus – in order to grow the regional economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance – including primary, secondary and tertiary school administrations plus Group Purchasing Organizations – to support these engines.
The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to leverageGroup Purchasing and to elevate the Caribbean’s tertiary education systems as a whole. This roadmap is presented as a planning tool, pronouncing the collaborative benefits of a unified educational agenda with these early statements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence(Page 12 & 14):
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.
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.
xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores …
xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.
xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.
The Go Lean book posits that even though education is a vital ingredient for Caribbean economic empowerment, there has been a lot of flawed decision-making in the past, both individually and community-wise. The vision in the Go Lean/CU roadmap is that of a confederation of the 30 Caribbean member-states doing the heavy-lifting of optimizing economic and education policies. The Go Lean book details those future-focused policies; and other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the tertiary education in the region:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification
Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives
Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier
Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations – Group Purchase Organizations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius
Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property
Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Close the Digital Divide
Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing – Purchasing Cooperatives
Page 35
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 – Education Department
Page 85
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Labor Department – On Job Training
Page 89
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization
Page 119
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education
Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Student Loans
Page 160
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance
Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives
Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries
Page 187
Appendix – Education and Economic Growth
Page 258
Appendix – Measuring Education
Page 266
Appendix – New Student Loan Scandal – Bad American Example
Page 286
Appendix – India’s $35 Tablet– Good Model-Example
Page 296
This is the assertion of the Go Lean book (Page 31): if there is a choice or debate between Textbooks versus Tablets, choose Tablets. This quest should be pursued aggressively by Caribbean stakeholders, welcoming any help from global foundations:
The Bottom Line on One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) OLPC is a project supported by the Miami-based “One Laptop per Child Association” (OLPCA) and the Cambridge, MA-based OLPC Foundation (OLPCF), two U.S. non-profit organizations set up to oversee the creation of affordable educational devices for use in the developing world. The project was originally founded by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte and funded by member organizations like AMD, Chi Mei, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, Nortel, RedHat, & Quanta. In the first years of the project, the Association managed development and logistics, and the Foundation managed fundraising such as the Give One Get One campaign. In 2010 the Association set up a new office in Miami under Rodrigo Halaby, and currently oversees deployment and support for their XO-1.5 laptop and its successors, and country partnerships. The foundation, led by now Chairman Nicholas Negroponte, currently oversees development of future software and hardware, including the ARM based OLPC XO-1.75 laptop ($180) and the OLPC XO-3 tablet ($100).
Information on the official site of OLPC indicates that as of 2011 there were about over 2.4 million XO laptops delivered.
The Go Lean roadmap calls for bridging the Digital Divide and aligning with many not-for-profit foundations, of domestic and foreign sources. For example, the One Laptop Per Child movement – identified above – offers $200 laptops (or cheaper) for Third World countries. In addition, there are now $35 tablets emerging from India (Page 296 – Appendix OC). The plan is for the CU to steer foundations and philanthropic causes to impact this mission, to equip/train low-income Caribbean residents for computerized terminals and access.
Tablets and e-Books should be all the rage. See here for the 8 Best Tablets for Students for 2017:
Published on May 17, 2017
CLICK FOR WIKI ►► https://wiki.ezvid.com/best-tablets-f…
Please Note: Our choices for this wiki may have changed since we published this review video. Our most recent set of reviews in this category, including our selection for the year’s best tablet for students, is exclusively available on Ezvid Wiki.
Tablets for students included in this wiki include the dell venue 8 7000, amazon fire hd 8, lenovo tab 10, lg electronics g pad ii, microsoft surface pro 4, apple ipad pro, samsung galaxy tab s3, and asus zenpad z580c.
Most Recent Picks: https://wiki.ezvid.com/best-tablets-f…
The foregoing news article and VIDEO relate to topics that should be of serious concern for Caribbean planners. We want to foster an education agenda that propels the Caribbean’s best interest. We do not want to be parasites of the American hegemony; we want to be better. While the US is the world’s largest Single Market economy, we only want to model some of their examples.
Most importantly, we want our students to study at home, primarily, or at worst, remain in the region. This minimizes the risks of matriculating abroad and never returning – a frequent Caribbean dilemma.
All of these educational issues have been addressed in previous Go Lean blog-commentaries; consider this sample here:
CXC and UK textbook publisher hosting CCSLC workshops in Barbados
The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that many problems of the region – education, a most prominent issue – are too big for any one member-state to solve alone, that there is the need for the leverage of a wider Caribbean confederacy. 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, more than just future scheming; no, this must be a plan for today.
We first employ e-Learning … and all of its related arts and sciences. And do it now!
We need to better compete with the world; education and e-learning could be the great equalizer. The book projects a Cyber Caribbean (Page 127):
Forge electronic commerce industries so that the internet communications technology (ICT) can be a great equalizer in economic battles of global trade. This includes e-Government (outsourcing and in-sourcing for member-states systems) and e-Delivery, Postal Electronic Last Leg mail, e-Learning and wireline/wireless/satellite initiatives.
Strategically, the Go Lean roadmap posits that to succeed in the global marketplace, the Caribbean region must not only consume but rather also create, produce, and distribute intellectual property. So subjects like tablets and e-books are germane for our considerations. Tactics like Group Purchasing (GPO) makes it efficient and effective to minimize the associated costs of educating the general population, and specific learning needs.
These are hallmarks of the CU technocracy: policies that reflect a future-focus.
Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and school administrations, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. 🙂
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.
In the Caribbean, we are surrounded by water (straits, banks, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, etc); if you stare upon the waters in the middle of a sunny day, you start to see a mirage – a distortion in reality. In the Caribbean, we are also surrounded by a lot of stupidity. Make no mistake, this is not a mirage; it is mercantilism*.
In a previous blog, this commentary asserted that the historicity of a lot of stupidity in society is due to Crony-Capitalism:
Someone is getting paid!
This applies in so many areas of American life that Caribbean people can learn lessons from this history and distortion in reality. This commentary is 1 of 4 in a series considering the Lessons in Economic History related to “Commerce of the Seas”, the Crony-Capitalism in laws and practices around the maritime eco-system in the United States … and other countries. The full series is as follows:
The reference to “Commerce” refers to the economic interests of the 30 member-states in the Caribbean region. There are so many Lessons in Economic History for us to glean:
Around the world, countries that had access to the “Sea” have a distinct advantage economically versus countries that were land-locked; i.e. England versus Austria.
Mercantilism dictated that empires force rules and laws to preserve commerce for their home countries. This was also the case for the United States. One prominent law that was instituted was the Jones Act; see more in Appendix B below.
The Jones Act mandates that for a ship to go from one US port to another US port it must be American-made and American flagged. Also, for foreign ships to trade in US Territories, they must first journey to a foreign port before they could journey to another American port to transport goods. This seems “stupid”; but the adherence to this law keeps American maritime commerce options afloat; this means someone is getting paid; see VIDEO in Appendix A below, highlighting a distortion in the reality of Puerto Rico-to US Mainland trade.
How about the Caribbean, do we have or need maritime “protectionism” in the laws of the member-states of our region? The answer is affirmative for the dysfunctional US Territories; there is a need for economic regionalism, not protectionism.
In March 2013, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study of the effect of the Jones Act on Puerto Rico that noted “freight rates are set based on a host of supply and demand factors in the market, some of which are affected directly or indirectly by Jones Act requirements.” The report further concludes … [that] freight rates between the United States and Puerto Rico are affected by the Jones Act.” The report also addresses what would happen “under a full exemption from the Act, the rules and requirements that would apply to all carriers would need to be determined.” The report continues that “while proponents of this change expect increased competition and greater availability of vessels to suit shippers’ needs” …
The American territories in the Caribbean are in the middle of the Caribbean geography, rimming the Caribbean Sea. The “Laws of the Sea” need to reflect this reality and not just political alignments. This is the purpose of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, to help reform and transform the societal engines for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region. The book specifically addresses customization to the “Laws of the Sea” to benefit the Caribbean region. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This would be the governmental entity for a regional Single Market that covers the land territories of the 30 member-states, and their aligning seas; (including the 1,063,000 square miles of the Caribbean Sea in an Exclusive Economic Zone). The Go Lean/CU roadmap features this prime directive, as defined by these 3 statements:
Optimization of the economic engines to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines in local governments and in the Exclusive Economic Zone, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The Go Lean roadmap allows for the regional stewardship and administration of the commerce on the Caribbean Seas in collaboration, conjunction and cooperation with US legal jurisdiction and foreign entities. The legal premise for this strategy is an Interstate Compact & Treaty – see details in the Go Lean book (Page 278) or the photo-excerpt in Appendix IA below – legislated by the US Congress, independent Caribbean governments (17) and the colonial masters for the existing overseas territories:
France (Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Martin, St. Barthélemy)
The Netherlands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten)
United Kingdom (Anguilla, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks & Caicos and the British Virgin Islands)
Such a wide-ranging, fully-encompassing Compact-Treaty was an original intent of the Go Lean book – economic regionalism. The publication (published in November 2013) commenced with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the need for regional coordination and integration so as to reform and transform Caribbean society. See a sample of relevant stanzas here (Page 11 – 13):
v. Whereas the natural formation of our landmass and coastlines entail a large portion of waterscapes, the reality of management of our interior calls for extended oversight of the waterways between the islands. The internationally accepted 12-mile limits for national borders must be extended by International Tribunals to encompass the areas in between islands. The individual states must maintain their 12-mile borders while the sovereignty of this expanded area, the Exclusive Economic Zone, must be vested in the accedence of this Federation.
vi. Whereas the finite nature of the landmass of our lands limits the populations and markets of commerce, by extending the bonds of brotherhood to our geographic neighbors allows for extended opportunities and better execution of the kinetics of our economies through trade. This regional focus must foster and promote diverse economic stimuli.
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.
xxiii. Whereas many countries in our region are dependent Overseas Territory of imperial powers, the systems of governance can be instituted on a regional and local basis, rather than requiring oversight or accountability from distant masters far removed from their subjects of administration. The Federation must facilitate success in autonomous rule by sharing tools, systems and teamwork within the geographical region.
The foregoing Jones Act is an American legislation that probably needs to be repealed or revised to reflect the actuality of a globalized economy; (there are some good provisions related to injury of seamen). Consider this recent experience recorded by a commentator on a news site, below an article regarding the efforts to repeal the Jones Act:
The Act does not Protect the Ports and Waterways, that task is left to the US Navy and US Coast Guard. We have Significant Ports on the US Mainland. None of them have had any security issues with Foreign Flagged Vessels. Trade is restrictive to and from places like Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam Etc.
Therefore business that could be entertained and cultivated providing a boost in their respective economies, those areas economically are suppressed. The United States has a significant Naval and Coast Guard presence in each of these areas. An example of how this stifles the economy would be to take a guitar manufacturer located on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Big Island has an abundance of Koa wood, a highly sought after wood for the manufacture of wooden guitars. However if they wanted to ship their guitars to a distributor in Australia, they have to first ship it to the USA mainland. They then Offload it and re-ship it to Australia, The interesting part of this story is that many times the costs for shipping it to Australia are less than it was to ship it to the US Mainland on the initial leg. So as you can see this stifles any possible USA productivity. And maybe that is why no one in Hawaii is Mfg guitars, or hardly anything else for that matter.
Reforming America is out-of-scope for the Go Lean movement, notwithstanding Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Our quest is to reform and transform the Caribbean … only. The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos for economic regionalism, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the maritime commerce to benefit Caribbean society.
The issue of rebooting maritime commerce has been a frequent subject for previous blog-commentaries; consider this list of sample entries:
Ghost ships – Autonomous cargo vessels without a crew
All Caribbean members are islands or coastal territories. There is a need to reform maritime commerce for the Caribbean region; we can get more economic activity from this sector; the Go Lean book projects 15,000 new direct jobs in the shipbuilding industry, 4000 in fisheries and 800 jobs by reforming payment systems for cruise passengers. The possibility of new jobs are positive economic fruitage from considering a reboot of maritime eco-system; it would be stupid not to try.
Previous generations in the Caribbean lived off the sea; we can again; it would be stupid not to try. This plan is conceivable, believable and achievable. We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – seafarers and land-lovers – to lean-in to this roadmap for economic empowerment. We can make the Caribbean homeland and seas better places to live, work and play. 🙂
Appendix B: Merchant Marine Act of 1920 aka Jones Act
The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (P.L. 66-261), also known as the Jones Act, is a United States federal statute that provides for the promotion and maintenance of the American merchant marine.[1] Among other purposes, the law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. Section 27 of the Jones Act deals with cabotage and requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.[2] The act was introduced by Senator Wesley Jones.
Laws similar to the Jones Act date to the early days of the nation. In the First Congress, on September 1, 1789, Congress enacted Chapter XI, “An Act for Registering and Clearing Vessels, Regulating the Coasting Trade, and for other purposes”, which limited domestic trades to American ships meeting certain requirements.[3]
The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 has been revised a number of times; the most recent revision in 2006 included recodification in the U.S. Code.[2] In early 2015 Senator John McCain filed for an amendment that would essentially annul the Act.[4] [The amendment failed].
The Jones Act is not to be confused with the Death on the High Seas Act, another United States maritime law that does not apply to coastal and in-land navigable waters.
Objectives and purpose
The intention of Congress to ensure a vibrant United States maritime industry is stated in the preamble to the Merchant Marine Act of 1920.[5]
Cabotage
Cabotage is the transport of goods or passengers between two points in the same country, alongside coastal waters, by a vessel or an aircraft registered in another country. Originally a shipping term, cabotage now also covers aviation, railways, and road transport. Cabotage is “trade or navigation in coastal waters, or the exclusive right of a country to operate the air traffic within its territory”.[6] In the context of “cabotage rights”, cabotage refers to the right of a company from one country to trade in another country. In aviation terms, for example, it is the right to operate within the domestic borders of another country. Most countries enact cabotage laws for reasons of economic protectionism or national security.[citation needed]
The cabotage provisions relating to the Jones Act restrict the carriage of goods or passengers between United States ports to U.S.-built and flagged vessels. It has been codified as portions of 46 U.S.C.[7] Generally, the Jones Act prohibits any foreign-built, foreign-owned or foreign-flagged vessel from engaging in coastwise trade within the United States. A number of other statutes affect coastwise trade and should be consulted along with the Jones Act. These include the Passenger Vessel Services Act, 46 USC section 289 which restricts coastwise transportation of passengers and 46 USC section 12108 restricts the use of foreign vessel to commercially catch or transport fish in U.S. waters.[8] These provisions also require at least three-fourths of the crewmembers to be U.S. citizens. Moreover, the steel of foreign repair work on the hull and superstructure of a U.S.-flagged vessel is limited to ten percent by weight.
…
Effects
The Jones Act prevents foreign-flagged ships from carrying cargo between the US mainland and noncontiguous parts of the US, such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, and Guam.[11] Foreign ships inbound with goods cannot stop any of these four locations, offload goods, load mainland-bound goods, and continue to US mainland ports. Instead, they must proceed directly to US mainland ports, where distributors break bulk and then send goods to US places off the mainland by US-flagged ships.[11] Jones Act restrictions can be circumvented by making a stop in a foreign country between two US ports, e.g., Anchorage–Vancouver–Seattle.
In March 2013, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study of the effect of the Jones Act on Puerto Rico that noted “[f]reight rates are set based on a host of supply and demand factors in the market, some of which are affected directly or indirectly by Jones Act requirements.” The report further concludes, however, that “because so many other factors besides the Jones Act affect rates, it is difficult to isolate the exact extent to which freight rates between the United States and Puerto Rico are affected by the Jones Act.” The report also addresses what would happen “under a full exemption from the Act, the rules and requirements that would apply to all carriers would need to be determined.” The report continues that “[w]hile proponents of this change expect increased competition and greater availability of vessels to suit shippers’ needs, it is also possible that the reliability and other beneficial aspects of the current service could be affected.” The report concludes that “GAO’s report confirmed that previous estimates of the so-called ‘cost’ of the Jones Act are not verifiable and cannot be proven.”[13]
In the Washington Times, Rep. Duncan Hunter spoke to the need for the Jones Act and why it is not to blame for the island’s debt crisis. “With or without such an effort, it’s imperative not to conflate the unrelated issues of Puerto Rico’s debt and the Jones Act, and to fully grasp the importance of ensuring the safe transport of goods between American ports. There must also be acknowledgment of the dire consequences of exposing ports and waterways to foreign seafarers.”[14]
[See VIDEO in Appendix A above].
US shipbuilding
Because the Jones Act requires all transport between US ports be carried on US-built ships, the Jones Act supports the domestic US shipbuilding industry.[15][16]Critics of the act describe it as protectionist, harming the overall economy for the sake of benefiting narrow interests.[17][18] Other criticism argues that the Jones Act is an ineffective way to achieve this goal, claiming it drives up shipping costs, increases energy costs, stifles competition, and hampers innovation in the U.S. shipping industry[19] – however, multiple GAO reports have disputed these claims.[20]
Since Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are US Territories, their implementation of the provisions of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation must legally be construed as an Interstate Compact.
An Interstate Compact is an agreement between two or more states of the US. Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution provides that “no state shall enter into an agreement or compact with another state” without the consent of Congress. Frequently, these agreements create a new governmental agency which is responsible for administering or improving some shared resource such as a seaport or public transportation infrastructure. In some cases, a compact serves simply as a coordination mechanism between independent authorities in the member states.
Click on photo to enlarge
————-
Footnote Reference – * Mercantilism
A system of political and economic policy, evolving with the modern national state and seeking to secure a nation’s political and economic supremacy in its rivalry with other states. According to this system, money was regarded as a store of wealth, and the goal of a state was the accumulation of precious metals, by exporting the largest possible quantity of its products and importing as little as possible, thus establishing a favorable balance of trade. Source: Retrieved June 8, 2017 from: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/mercantile-system
The world is acknowledging the passing of Manuel Noriega (1934-2017), the General and former Military Dictator of Panama (1983–1989), the Central American country with a Caribbean coastline. His life experience is one of highs and lows, ascending to great heights and depressing depths. There is so much for the planners of the new Caribbean to learn considering the historicity of Noriega.
This previous blog-commentary, and the life of Noriega, portrays the duplicity and complexity of operating in the shadows of/for the United States of America. The theme is consistent:
American interest is not always Caribbean interest.
“From the 1950s until shortly before the [1989] U.S. invasion, Noriega worked closely with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Noriega was one of the CIA’s most valued intelligence sources, as well as one of the primary conduits for illicit weapons, military equipment and cash destined for U.S.-backed counter-insurgency forces throughout Central and South America. Noriega was also a major cocaine trafficker, something which his U.S. intelligence handlers were aware of for years, but allowed because of his usefulness for their covert military operations in Latin America.”[4][5][6][7]
See the full blog-commentary regarding the Panamanian currency – Balboa – here:
The people, institutions and governance of the US are now more tolerant of minorities and their communities. As such, there are no more American complexities in overthrowing Latin American & Caribbean governments.
This hypothesis is validated with the lesson in history from 1941 in the Republic of Panama. This Central American country is a young nation; they were formed in 1903 after seceding from the Republic of Colombia, with US backing. The new country immediately signed a treaty with the US to allow the construction of the Panama Canal, by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and a perpetual lease* for its operations. The country’s separation from Colombia also included changing from the Colombian Peso currency. So in 1904 the Panamanian Balboa currency was launched, but as coins only; the country used the US Dollar as banknotes.
A basic tenant of macro-economics is that countries should issue their own currency and banknotes so as to better influence the economic engines in their communities. By manipulating the banknote quantity and the “Discount Rate” in a Fractional Central Banking System, monetary supply can be regulated, interest rates controlled; credit markets tamed; and yes, money can be created from “thin air”. Panama had none of this control, due to its lack of banknotes.
In 1941, the then-President Dr. Arnulfo Arias pushed the government to create the Central Bank and to issue paper currency.[2] The bank was authorized, constitutionally, to issue up to 6 million Balboas worth of paper notes, but only 2.7 million Balboas were issued on 2 October 1941. Seven days later, Arias was deposed in a military coup – supported by the United States – and replaced by Dr. Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango as President. The new government immediately closed the bank, withdrew the issued notes, and burned all unissued money stock. In the 74 years since then, the country has never re-attempted to issue its own paper money currency; they continue to use US Dollars, even today.
A bit extreme?
This lesson in history is presented in a consideration of the book Go Lean…Caribbean; it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and Caribbean Central Bank (CCB) to provide better stewardship in ensuring that the currency and economic failures of the past, in the Caribbean and other regions, do not re-occur here in the homeland. The book posits that we must NOT fashion ourselves as an American parasite economy, but rather pursue a status as a protégé.
The full details of the Panamanian Balboa history is provided here:
The Balboa (sign: B/.; ISO 4217: PAB) is, along with the United States dollar, one of the official currencies of Panama. It is named in honor of the Spanish explorer / conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa. The Balboa is subdivided into 100 centésimos.
The history of the Panamanian Balboa
The Balboa replaced the Colombian Peso in 1904 following the country’s independence. The Balboa has been tied to the United States dollar (which is legal tender in Panama) at an exchange rate of 1:1 since its introduction and has always circulated alongside dollars.
Coins
In 1904, silver coins in denominations of 2½, 5, 10, 25, and 50 centésimos were introduced. These coins were weight-related to the 25 gram 50 centésimos, making the 2½ centésimos coin 1¼ grams. Its small size led to it being known as the “Panama pill” or the “Panama pearl”. In 1907, copper-nickel ½ and 2½ centésimos coins were introduced, followed by copper-nickel 5 centésimos in 1929. In 1930, coins for 1⁄10, ¼, and ½ Balboa were introduced, followed by 1 balboa in 1931, which were identical in size and composition to the corresponding U.S. coins. In 1935, bronze 1 centésimo coins were introduced, with 1¼ centésimo pieces minted in 1940.
In 1966, Panama followed the U.S. in changing the composition of their silver coins, with copper-nickel clad 1⁄10 and ¼ Balboa, and .400 fineness ½ Balboa. 1 balboa coins, at .900 fineness silver, were issued that year for the first time since 1947. In 1973, copper-nickel clad ½ Balboa coins were introduced. 1973 also saw the revival of the 2½ centésimos coin, which had a size similar to that of the U.S. half dime, but these were discontinued two years later due to lack of popular demand. In 1983, 1 centésimo coins followed their U.S. counterpart by switching from copper to copper plated zinc. Further issues of the 1 Balboa coins have been made since 1982 in copper-nickel without reducing the size.
Modern 1 and 5 centésimos and 1⁄10, ¼, and ½ balboa coins are the same weight, dimensions, and composition as the U.S. cent, nickel, dime, quarter, and half-dollar, respectively. In 2011, new 1 and 2 balboa bi-metal coins were issued.[1]
In addition to the circulating issues, commemorative coins with denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, and 500 Balboas have been issued.
Banknotes
In 1941, President Dr. Arnulfo Arias pushed the government to enact Article 156 to the constitution, authorizing official and private banks to issue paper money. As a result, on 30 September 1941, El Banco Central de Emission de la Republica de Panama was established.[2]
The bank was authorized to issue up to 6,000,000 Balboas worth of paper notes, but only 2,700,000 balboas were issued on 2 October 1941. A week later, Dr. Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango replaced Arias as president in a coup supported by the United States. The new government immediately closed the bank, withdrew the issued notes, and burned all unissued stocks of same. Very few of these so-called “Arias Seven Day” notes escaped incineration.
Panama is out-of-scope of this Go Lean empowerment roadmap. They are not a member-state that caucuses with the Caribbean Community (CariCom), and they do not even have an “Observer” representation/status within the trade bloc. But since a part of their territory-coastline is on the Caribbean Sea, their dealings should generate review and monitoring from Caribbean planners. There are many issues for the Caribbean to consider – from an academic point-of-view – about this history of Panama: an obvious failed-state as recent as the 1980’s.
Is the American manipulations in Panama’s past reflective of the same America today? The assumption is No! The US no longer draws such “hard lines” in their interactions with peoples of different ethnicity. The country has endured deep soul-searching and reconciliation of its racial past, (Civil Rights Movement, Affirmative Action, etc.), and now even the President of the United States is a Black Man. On the surface today, America is a color-blind society.
The roadmap calls for a cooperative entity of the existing regional Central Banks to foster interdependence for the regional Greater Good. We must issue Caribbean banknotes, branded Caribbean Dollars (C$). The totality of the regional market, 42 million people in 30 member-states, is large enough to allow for streamlining of the marketplace, creating the right climate for viable currency/financial/securities markets. While there might be some reticence for liberal currency operations, considering that so many Caribbean member-states had to learn hard lessons on currency over the decades – painful devaluations – the CU is to be structured as a technocracy, with the right mix of skilled talent, gifted genius and independent oversight to allow regional C$ currency markets to soar.
The strategy is not a pro-American stance, no pegging to the US Dollar, therefore no losses will be experienced when the US dollar drops value compared to other international currencies, a far too frequent an occurrence in the last 50 years. The US Dollar planners (Federal Reserve) do not have the Caribbean best-interest in mind for their technocratic decisions regarding their currency management; they have American self-interest in mind. Therefore the Caribbean region must overcome any “fear of math” because the C$ may become stronger, (see VIDEO below), in comparison to the US$. This is why e-Commerce and e-Payments schemes are strongly urged within the CU/Go Lean roadmap.
In general, the CU will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate internal and external threats.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
Early in the Go Lean book, this need for careful technocratic stewardship of the regional Caribbean economy was pronounced (Declaration of Interdependence –Page 12 – 13) with these acknowledgements and statements:
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
xxv. Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.
The Go Lean book, and previous blog/commentaries, stressed the key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to regulate and manage the regional financial eco-system for the Caribbean currency. These points are detailed in the book as follows:
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Money Multiplier
Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Fortify the Stability of the Banking Institutions
Page 45
Strategy – Provide Proper Oversight and Support for the Depository Institutions
Page 46
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Minimizing Bubbles
Page 69
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Caribbean Central Bank
Appendix – Jamaica’s International Perception – “High inflation and currency dysfunction”
Page 297
The points of effective, technocratic banking/economic stewardship of regional currencies, were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:
10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – #3: Quantitative Easing
Similar to Panama, there are a number of Caribbean member-states that use the US dollar as their sole paper currency:
British Virgin Island
Turks & Caicos Islands
Dutch Caribbean Territories: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
US Territories of Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands
The Go Lean book reports that previous Caribbean administrations have failed miserably in managing regional currencies. Consider Jamaica for example, despite being pegged 1-to-1 with the US dollar in 1960’s, the J$ was trading at 87-to-1 with the US$ at press time for the book (November 2013). Other countries (like Trinidad, Dominican Republic, and the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union states) experienced similar turmoil, though at lesser rates of devaluation. The book opens with the declaration that the Caribbean is in crisis because of episodes like these currency failings. In every case, the direct after-effect was increased societal abandonment, and now the reported brain-drain rate is estimated at 70%, with some countries even reporting up to 81%. This disposition is symptomatic of a Failed-State status.
Currency management includes details of more than just the paper-money people carry in their wallets. The book describes the 4 basic functions of money:
a medium of exchange
a unit of account
a store of value
a standard of deferred payment
These dynamics have an effect on inflation/deflation and trade facilitation with other countries. So Central Banks must strenuously manage currency issues to ensure economic progress and avoid financial dysfunction. This point is conveyed in the following VIDEO, as regards the Central Bank management of the Chinese Yuan.
Uploaded on Oct 25, 2010 – How the Chinese Central Bank could peg the Yuan to the dollar by printing Yuan and buying dollars (building up a dollar reserve). This lesson in macro-economics can be applied to any Central Bank, any other currency.
There are so many currency issues that have to be coordinated that the Go Lean book describes the effort as heavy-lifting. The roadmap (Page 5) declares that change has come to the Caribbean, and that new technocrats are ready to assume oversight of regional currency issues:
Please swallow your pride If I have things you need to borrow For no one can fill those of your needs That you won’t let show You just call on me brother, when you need a hand
(Chorus) We all need somebody to lean on I just might have a problem that you’d understand We all need somebody to lean on
(Lyrics of song: Lean On Me, by Singer/Songwriter: Bill Withers)
This is not the same world as 1941 Panama, but still there are many lessons to learn and apply in the Caribbean. The goal is simple, to move the region to a new destination: a better homeland to live, work and play. Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, banking establishments and the governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean.
Miami, Florida – If you’re a fan of American football (NFL or the National Football League) then you know how impactful it is to go undefeated from the beginning to the end of the season, playoffs included. Only one team has done it … ever: the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The 50 players on that team became heroes to every football-loving kid anywhere near the broadcast waves of Miami.
There was a time when these guys were my heroes.
But “time and unforeseen occurrences befall us all” – The Bible (Ecclesiastes 9:11).
There is a connection between Miami and the Caribbean; the city has become much more than a shopping destination; it has redefined itself as the financial, political and sports capital of the Caribbean and Latin America.
So this news is shocking to receive, as the Miami Herald newspaper reports that many of the players on the 1972 Dolphins team now suffer from CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy).
Say it ain’t so …
It seemed like this CTE disease was so far-off; an affliction on people “over there” … somewhere. But to hit the 1972 Dolphins players means that this disease has come home…to our local heroes.
🙁
See the story here in this recent Miami Herald article:
Title: Football’s toll: At least eight members of 1972 Dolphins affected by cognitive impairment
They called him Captain Crunch, and the name was fitting. Mike Kolen packed a punch.
Now, 45 years after the Dolphins’ No-Name Defense ran through the 1972 season undefeated, Kolen and his perfect teammates are tied together again. But instead of celebration, there’s heartache.
South Florida’s most legendary team has become a cautionary tale, a poignant symbol of the concussion saga that threatens the future of America’s favorite sport.
“Within the last month or so, I’ve been diagnosed with the initial stages of Alzheimer’s,” Kolen, a starting linebacker on Miami’s two Super Bowl-winning teams, told the Miami Herald.
And was football the cause?
“I think that’s about the only way I’d have cognitive issues,” replied Kolen, 69, who has no family history of dementia.
Kolen’s story is not unique for Miami’s most historic team.
Earlier this week, Sports Illustrated detailed how Kolen’s better-known 1972 teammates Nick Buoniconti and Jim Kiick have both deteriorated mentally in the past few years.
After quarterback Earl Morrall’s death in 2014, an autopsy revealed he had Stage 4 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease more commonly known as CTE that researchers have linked to football.
Bill Stanfill, the Dolphins’ first sack king, suffered from dementia and Parkinson’s disease when he died last fall at age 69.
Three others from that famed roster — cornerback Lloyd Mumphord, defensive back Tim Foley and running back Hubert Ginn — have quietly dealt with cognitive impairment in recent years, teammates tell the Herald.
That makes at least eight members of a roster of roughly 50 men who have experienced loss of acuity. And that figure includes only those who keep in regular contact with the organization; several do not.
Roughly a quarter of the ’72 team has passed away, including five from cancer. Manny Fernandez, a defensive lineman who was the star of Super Bowl VII, has had eight surgeries on his back alone. Center Jim Langer, 68, said his “legs are bad and my knees are shot” after six operations.
…
Even the NFL acknowledges – see VIDEO below – that there is a link between football-related head trauma and neurological diseases like CTE after denying any such connection for years. …
Continue reading the full article here; (it is lengthy):
Relating Miami to the Caribbean makes this story relatable to the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. One purpose of this movement is to engage business models so that Caribbean communities can better take advantage of the economic benefits of sports. There are few expressions of professional sports in the Caribbean now – there is no eco-system for collegiate athletics at all. Due to the territorial status and the border proximity, there are 3 member-states with organized American Football league play in the Caribbean: Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and the Bahamas.
With the advantages of professional sports (money from ticket sales & broadcast rights, pride, athletic fitness, etc.), come disadvantages as well. CTE, as one, is only now begrudgingly been accepted as a direct consequence of the often times brutal game of American Football.
This was the warning from this previous blog-commentary that marked the release of the movie “Concussion”, chronicling the David-versus-Goliath-like advocacy of the Pathology Doctor who “blew the whistle” on the systemic “willful” ignorance and Crony-Capitalistic abuse in the NFL. This excerpt highlights some main points from that blog:
Yes, movies help us to glean a better view of ourselves … and our failings; and many times, show us a way-forward.
These descriptors actually describe the latest production from Hollywood icon Will Smith (the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). This movie, the film “Concussion”, in the following news article, relates the real life drama of one man, Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born medical doctor – a pathologist – who prepared autopsies of former players that suffered from football-related concussions. He did not buckle under the acute pressure to maintain the status quo, and now, he is celebrated for forging change in his adopted homeland. This one man made a difference. (The NFL is now credited for a Concussion awareness and prevention protocol so advanced that other levels of the sport – college, high schools and Youth – are being urged to emulate).
Beyond the excerpt, see the entire blog-commentary from August 31, 2015 on the movie ‘Concussion‘ and the dreaded CTE disease being encored here:
“Are you ready for some football?” – Promotional song by Hank Williams, Jr. for Monday Night Football on ABC & ESPN networks for 22 years (1989 – 2011). See Appendix below.
This iconic song (see Appendix) and catch-phrase is reflective of exactly how popular the National Football League (NFL) is in the US:
“They own an entire day of the week”.
So says the new movie ‘Concussions’, starring Will Smith, referring to the media domination of NFL Football on Sundays during the Autumn season. The movie’s script is along a line that resonates well in Hollywood’s Academy Award balloting: “David versus Goliath”; “a small man speaking truth to power”.
In the case of the NFL, it is not just about power, it is about money, prestige and protecting the status quo; the NFL is responsible for the livelihood of so many people. The book Go Lean … Caribbean recognized the importance of the NFL in the American lexicon of “live, work and play”; it featured a case study (Page 32) of the NFL and it’s collective bargaining successes (and failures) in 2011. An excerpt from the book is quoted as follows:
Football is big business in the US, $9 billion in revenue, and more than a business; emotions – civic pride, rivalries, and fanaticism – run high on both sides.
Previous Go Lean commentaries presents the socio-economic realities of much of the American football eco-system. Consider a sample here:
While football plays a big role in American life, so do movies. Their role is more unique; they are able to change society. In a previous blog / commentary regarding Caribbean Diaspora member and Hollywood great, Sidney Poitier, it was declared that …
“Movies are an amazing business model. People give money to spend a couple of hours watching someone else’s creation and then leave the theater with nothing to show for the investment; except perhaps a different perspective”.
Yes, movies help us to glean a better view of ourselves … and our failings; and many times, show us a way-forward.
These descriptors actually describe the latest production from Hollywood icon Will Smith (the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). This movie, the film “Concussion”, in the following news article, relates the real life drama of one man, Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born medical doctor – a pathologist – who prepared autopsies of former players that suffered from football-related concussions. He did not buckle under the acute pressure to maintain the status quo, and now, he is celebrated for forging change in his adopted homeland. This one man made a difference. (The NFL is now credited for a Concussion awareness and prevention protocol so advanced that other levels of the sport – college, high schools and Youth – are being urged to emulate).
See news article here on the release of the movie:
Title: ‘Concussion’: 5 Take-a-ways From Will Smith’s New Film
Will Smith, 46, is definitely going to get a ton of Oscar buzz portraying Dr. Bennet Omalu in the new film “Concussion.” NFL columnist Peter King of Sports Illustrated got an exclusive first peek at the trailer and it has been widely shared on social media since. And it’s very chilling.
Here are five take-aways and background you need to know before checking out the clip:
1 – It’s Based on a True Story
Omalu is the forensic pathologist and neuropathologist who discovered chronic traumatic encephalopathy in football players who got hit in the head over and over again, according to the Washington Post.
In the clip, he says repetitive “head trauma chokes the brain.”
Omalu was one of the founding members of the Brain Injury Research Institute in 2002. He conducted the autopsy of Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, played by David Morse in the film, which led to this discovery.
2 – Smith’s Version of Omalu’s Accent Is Spot On
Omalu is from Nigeria and Smith has been known to transform completely for a role. He was nominated for an Oscar for 2011’s “Ali,” playing the legendary Muhammad Ali.
For comparison, here’s Omalu’s PBS interview from 2013.
3 – Smith Is a Reluctant Hero
“If you don’t speak for them, who will,” Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Prema Mutiso in the film, tells Smith’s character.
He admits he idolized America growing up and “was the wrong person to have discovered this.”
“Concussion” brought in some heavyweights for this movie. Baldwin plays Dr. Julian Bailes, who advises Omalu, and Wilson, who will reportedly play NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, according to IMDB. There’s no official word on this. He’s seen at a podium in the trailer, but doesn’t speak.
5 – “Tell the Truth”
Smith captures Omalu’s passion to have the truth told about this injury and disease.
“I was afraid of letting Mike [Webster] down. I was afraid. I don’t know. I was afraid I was going to fail,” Omalu told PBS a couple years back.
Will Smith stars in the incredible true David vs. Goliath story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the brilliant forensic neuropathologist who made the first discovery of CTE, a football-related brain trauma, in a pro player.
The subject of concussions is serious – life and death. Just a few weeks ago (August 8), an NFL Hall-of-Fame inductee was honored for his play on the field during his 20-year professional career, but his family, his daughter in particular, is the one that made his acceptance / induction speech. He had died, in 2012; he committed suicide after apparently suffering from a brain disorder – chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a type of chronic brain damage that has also been found in other deceased former NFL players[4] – sustained from his years of brutal head contacts in organized football in high school, college and in his NFL career. This player was Junior Seau.
Why would there be a need for “David versus Goliath”; “a small man speaking truth to power”? Is not the actuality of an acclaimed football player committing suicide in this manner – he shot himself in the chest so as to preserve his brain for research – telling enough to drive home the message for reform?
No. Hardly. As previously discussed, there is too much money at stake.
These stakes bring out the Crony-capitalism in American society.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean (and subsequent blog/commentaries) relates many examples of cronyism in the American eco-system. There is a lot of money at stake. Those who want to preserve the status quo or not invest in the required mitigations to remediate concussions will fight back against any Advocate promoting the Greater Good. The profit motive is powerful. There are doubters and those who want to spurn doubt. “Concussions in Football”is not the first issue these “actors” have promoted doubt on. The efforts to downplay concussion alarmists are from a familiar playbook, used previously by Climate Change deniers, Big Tobacco, Toxic Waste, Acid Rain, and other dangerous chemicals.
This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Sports are integral to the Go Lean/CU roadmap. While sports can be good and promote positives in society, even economically, the safety issues must be addressed upfront. This is a matter of community security. Thusly, the prime directives of the CU 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, including sports-related industries with a projection of 21,000 direct jobs at Fairgrounds and sports enterprises.
Establish a security apparatus to protect the people and economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these economic and security engines.
The CU/Go Lean sports mission is to harness the individual abilities of athletes to not just elevate their performance, but also to harness the economic impact for their communities. So modern sports endeavors cannot be analyzed without considering the impact on “dollars and cents” for stakeholders. This is a fact and should never be ignored. There is therefore the need to carefully assess and be on guard for crony-capitalistic influences entering the decision-making of sports stakeholders. The Go Lean book posits that with the emergence of new economic engines, “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent”. These points were pronounced early in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 &14):
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 of criminology and penology 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.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interests 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.
xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism …
The Go Lean book envisions the CU – a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean chartered to do the heavy-lifting of empowering and elevating the Caribbean economy – as the landlord of many sports facilities (within the Self-Governing Entities design), and the regulator for inter-state sport federations. The book details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize sports enterprises in the Caribbean:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification
Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways
Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices / Incentives
Page 21
Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Economic Principles – Job Multiplier
Page 22
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Whistleblower Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Light-Up the Dark Places
Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Crap” Happens
Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness – Mitigate Suicide Threats
Page 36
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
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds
Page 55
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change
Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization
Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union
Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration
Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration
Page 83
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department – Disease Management
Page 86
Implementation – Assemble Regional Organs into a Single Market Economy
Page 96
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities – Sports Stadia
Page 105
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up – Unified Command & Control
Page 103
Implementation – Industrial Policy for CU Self Governing Entities
Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver – Project Management/Accountabilities
Page 109
Anatomy of Advocacies – Examples of Individuals Who Made Impact
Page 122
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 Promote Fairgrounds
Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management – Trauma Arts & Sciences
Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports
Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues
Page 234
The Go Lean book and accompanying blogs declare that the Caribbean needs to learn lessons from other communities, especially when big money is involved in pursuits like sports. These activities should be beneficial to health, not detrimental. So the admonition is to be “on guard” against the “cronies”; they will always try to sacrifice public policy – the Greater Good – for private gain: profit.
The design of Self-Governing Entities allow for greater protections from Crony-Capitalistic abuses. While this roadmap is committed to availing the economic opportunities of sports and accompanying infrastructure, as demonstrated in the foregoing movie trailer, sport teams and owners can be plutocratic “animals” in their greed. We must learn to mitigate plutocratic abuses. While an optimized eco-system is good, there is always the need for an Advocate, one person to step up, blow the whistle and transform society. The Go Lean roadmap encourages these role models.
Bravo Dr. Bennet Omalu. Thank you for this example … and for being a role model for all of the Caribbean.
RIP Junior Seau.
Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This roadmap will result in more positive socio-economic changes throughout the region; it will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
“A fool and his money are soon parted” – Ancient British proverb that gleans inspiration from The Bible book of Proverbs 26:1-11, with the meaning of: 1. It is easy to get money from foolish people. 2. It is difficult or unlikely that foolish people maintain their hold on acquired wealth.
What’s ironic is there are similar colloquial expressions that are even more shocking for the prevalence of financial abuse of the unwise. Consider:
So who is more abominable? The fool who loses out on his new found fortune or the shrewd person that schemes to take advantage of that fool? (It should be noted in this case that the fortune is only rights and credits; every American citizen qualify for a need-based Student Loan from the federal government – that loan is non-dischargeable).
“The ‘fools’ I think of are all rather harmless creatures, basically well-intentioned and innocent. All of them evoke a certain sense of pity, mixed with amusement.”
So imagine that one who exploits the “fool”! Imagine, if instead of an individual, it is a “system”, a government program, that does the exploiting. This is the actuality of Student Loan financing for Private, For-Profit Schools and Colleges in the US.
This is truly abominable; and yet this is the United States of America.
The ‘Evil Empire‘ – For-Profit Educational firms and institutions – is finally facing resistance from governmental authorities. Companies in this industry have come under fire for their bad practices and abuse of their customers: young students.
… and now, today, ITT Educational Services, one of the largest operators of for-profit technical schools, ended operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes. Source: For-Profit Education – ‘Another one bites the dust’; posted September 6, 2016; retrieved April 26, 2017.
This commentary asserts that there is a need for the Caribbean communities to reform and transform our education deliveries, yet still, we do NOT want to model the American system. This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which seeks to reboot the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region, to ensure better stewardship of the Social Contract for all citizens in our homelands, strong and weak. The Go Lean book petitions the Caribbean region to do better! It describes the necessary empowerments to optimize the economic, security and governing engines of Caribbean society to ensure a better adherence to the principle of the Greater Good.
In a previous 5-part series of blog-commentaries on the “Strong versus the Weak”, the pattern from the Code of Hammurabi was detailed and presented as an Old World model that is being ignored in the US. The one place we would expect to find mitigations for foolishness – to turn the foolish one wise – would be the education arena. Yet this is where we are finding a consistent pattern of the “Strong abusing the Weak”.
This commentary is an addition submission to that already completed series; we are adding this 6th entry. The full series is now as follows:
Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Book Review: Lower Ed!
The need for this 6h entry was spurred by the release of this new book on February 28, 2017 entitled: Lower Ed – The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom (Ph.D. Sociology who teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University). It is ‘spot-on’ for the judgment of the pattern of abuse of the ‘Weak’ in American society who are innocently looking for “pull themselves up by the boot strap”. See the review-synopsis of this book here following by an PODCAST-interview with the Author:
Book Review: Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy “With great compassion and analytical rigor, Cottom questions the fundamental narrative of American education policy, that a postsecondary degree always guarantees a better life.” – The New York Times Book Review
More than two million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges, from the small family-run operations to the behemoths brandished on billboards, subway ads, and late-night commercials. These schools have been around just as long as their bucolic not-for-profit counterparts, yet shockingly little is known about why they have expanded so rapidly in recent years —during the so-called Wall Street era of for-profit colleges.
In Lower Ed Tressie McMillan Cottom — a bold and rising public scholar, herself once a recruiter at two for-profit colleges—expertly parses the fraught dynamics of this big-money industry to show precisely how it is part and parcel of the growing inequality plaguing the country today. McMillan Cottom discloses the shrewd recruitment and marketing strategies that these schools deploy and explains how, despite the well-documented predatory practices of some and the campus closings of others, ending for-profit colleges won’t end the vulnerabilities that made them the fastest growing sector of higher education at the turn of the twenty-first century. And she doesn’t stop there.
With sharp insight and deliberate acumen, McMillan Cottom delivers a comprehensive view of post-secondary for-profit education by illuminating the experiences of the everyday people behind the shareholder earnings, congressional battles, and student debt disasters. The relatable human stories in Lower Ed—from mothers struggling to pay for beauty school to working class guys seeking “good jobs” to accomplished professionals pursuing doctoral degrees—illustrate that the growth of for-profit colleges is inextricably linked to larger questions of race, gender, work, and the promise of opportunity in America.
Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with students, employees, executives, and activists, Lower Ed tells the story of the benefits, pitfalls, and real costs of a for-profit education. It is a story about broken social contracts; about education transforming from a public interest to a private gain; and about all Americans and the challenges we face in our divided, unequal society.
AUDIO Podcast – Terry Gross with Tressie McMillan Cottom – Heard on Fresh Air
March 27, 2017 – For-profit colleges have faced federal and state investigations in recent years for their aggressive recruiting tactics — accusations that come as no surprise to author Tressie McMillan Cottom.
Cottom worked as an enrollment officer at two different for-profit colleges, but quit because she felt uncomfortable selling students an education they couldn’t afford. Her new book, Lower Ed, argues that for-profit colleges exploit racial, gender and economic inequality.
Cottom tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that for-profit institutions tend to focus their recruiting on students who qualify for the maximum amount of student aid. “That happens to be the poorest among us,” she says. “And because of how our society is set up, the poorest among us tend to be women and people of color.”
Notice this small sample of the book’s revelations and disclosures, symptomatic of Crony-Capitalism:
A peer-reviewed analysis, with over 100 interviews – with students, employees, executives, and activists – the story is consistently reflective of a sad, abusive American eco-system.
Big-money industry using shrewd recruitment and marketing strategies to tempt the most vulnerable in society.
Despite well-documented predatory practices and some well-publicized campus closings, ending for-profit colleges won’t end the vulnerabilities that made them the fastest growing sector of higher education.
The weakest in American society – single mothers, systematically poor, underserved and under-privilege – are the ones targeted, exploited and abused – again and again.
The growth of for-profit colleges is inextricably linked to larger questions of race, gender, work, and the promise of opportunity in America.
This commentary and the previous 5 commentaries in this series all relate to nation-building, stressing the community ethos necessary to forge a society where all the people are protected all the time. Who really is the fool in these scenarios? The person being abused by the American eco-system or the ones abandoning home to join that society. The premise in the Go Lean book and subsequent blog-commentaries is that the people of the Caribbean can more easily “proper where planted” in their homeland than to emigrate to the American foreign shores for relief. It is foolish to think that America cares about “us”, when they undoubtedly do not care about the “weak” in their own society.
We need more education in our region; because we need economic growth. Economists have established the relationship between economic growth and education:
“For individuals this means that for every additional year of schooling they increase their earnings by about 10%. This is a very impressive rate of return.” (Go Lean book Page 258).
A lot of Caribbean students do matriculate in American colleges and universities. But this commentary is hereby declaring that we must assuredly look beyond the American model to fulfill our educational needs. According to the foregoing book and AUDIO Podcast, only a fool would invest in American For-Profit private educational institutions.
The word “invest” seems so misplaced. No wonder we have such a poor “Return on our Investment” from our Caribbean students studying abroad. (So many times, they do not even return “home”.)
This is already a familiar thesis for the Go Lean movement – a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – as the Go Lean book advocates establishing local educational options mostly in response to the failings of the “study abroad model”. We have problems with the American quality education in the For-Profit institutions and we have problems with the threat of further brain-drain. See more details from the book here:
10 Ways to Improve Education – Page 159.
# 2 – Promote Industries for e-Learning For 50 years the Caribbean has tolerated studying abroad; unfortunately many students never returned home. The CU’s focus will now be on facilitating learning without leaving. There have emerged many successful models for remote learning using electronic delivery or ICT. The CU will foster online/home school programs, for secondary education, to be licensed at the CU level so as to sanction, certify, and oversee the practice, especially for rural areas/islands. At the tertiary level, the CU will sponsor College Fairs for domestic and foreign colleges that deliver online education options.
We need more e-Learning options in our Caribbean homeland, for all education levels: K-12 and college. There are many successful models and best practices to adopt. We are in position to pick, choose and refuse products and services from all our foreign trading partners, including from the US. (We must assuredly avoid their societal defects).
One successful model is “iReady” – see more in the Appendix below.
The US, despite its advanced democracy status, has definite societal defects in the education arena. Overcoming the defects – particularly Crony-Capitalism or exploiting public resources for private gains – make depending on American solutions, foolish.
The Go Lean roadmap seeks to transform the Caribbean education deliveries There are so many successful role models to emulate. Yet still, this will be hard. So many in our society hold the default view:
Therefore these one may rather spend their education monies abroad in the US than to engage in a local empowerment plan. That is so foolish!
So yes, the transformation will be hard, heavy-lifting, but not foolish! It will engage all 3 societal engines: economic, security and governance. In fact, the prime directives of the Go Lean/CU roadmap includes the following 3 statements:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus – including emergency management – to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic.
Improve Caribbean governance for all people – with empowerments like education – to support these engines.
This comprehensive view – economics, security and governance – is the charge of the Go Lean roadmap, opening with these pro-education pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13):
xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores …
xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group… This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.
So any tertiary education plan for the Caribbean must address the preponderance to exacerbate the brain drain. Going to an American For-Profit institution would just be foolish. We, as a community, would be spending good money, but getting bad returns. What’s worst, imaging getting student loans to finance that education? How likely would there be a “Return on Investment”?
Overall, the Go Lean book stresses the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform tertiary education delivery in the Caribbean; see this expressed in this one advocacy here:
10 Ways to Impact Student Loans – Page 160
1
Embrace the advent of the CU Single Market to leverage across the 42 million people in the 30 member-states.
2
Buy Existing Loans
3
Loan Forgiveness
4
Deferments / Postponements
5
Non-Dischargeable with Bankruptcy
6
Forgivable with Death and Organ Transplantation Dynamics
7
Diaspora Eligibility for CU Institutions
8
Grace Periods
9
Public – Private servicers
10
Lessons from Occupy Wall Street (OWS) The OWS protest movement highlighted some legitimate issues with the student loan industry. The US Federal government provides guarantees on student loans (direct and indirect), and the loans are non-dischargeable in any Bankruptcy process, so private loan issuers were assured a profit. The issuers would therefore drive the industry to lend more and more to less capable students at high interest rates. As a result of the protest, the Obama Administration eliminated the indirect channel for student loan, taking the profit motive out of the process; (See more in Appendix IH of the Go Lean book on Page 286). The CU [model] will only direct lend.
The points of effective, technocratic stewardship of tertiary education and student loans were further elaborated upon in previous blog/commentaries. Consider this sample:
There is an absolute abomination of the “strong abusing the weak” in the American eco-system. We must avoid this American pattern; it may even be necessary to avoid America when it comes to our tertiary education needs.
“We can do bad all by ourselves”.
We have so many options elsewhere. The Go Lean plan is to create the better options here in the Caribbean; if not in your homeland, then perhaps in the next one, to the left or to the right.
It is not hard to do better than the American For-Profit model. Since many times in the past American abuse has proliferated, for those weaker physically, mentally and economically. The movement behind the Go Lean/CU roadmap wants us, in the Caribbean, to do better. Yes, let’s be wise!
Education can be so beneficial to our communities. But let’s not be the fool! Let’s keep “it” here at home and let’s “weed out” any bad practices of Crony-Capitalism in our tertiary education delivery system. Let’s pursue the Greater Good (greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong).
Now is the time to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to reboot, reform and transform Caribbean education. If we do this, we will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, learn and play. 🙂
Published December 15, 2016 – iReady Teacher providing instructions for logging on.
See Video recording of a sample lesson here: https://youtu.be/_xoxdLaudDY
“There is a special ‘place in hell’ …”
“… for someone that would steal your wallet after you collapse/faint due to a health crisis; (think heart-attack, epileptic seizure, etc.)”.
Imagine this scenario at the country level; how inconceivable for an advanced society. And yet, this is the actual situation in the United States. This is according to the new book – An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back – by Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a former E.R. doctor and current journalist for medical issues.
This commentary asserts that there is a need for the Caribbean communities to reform and transform our healthcare deliveries, yet still, we do NOT want to model the American system. This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which seeks to reboot the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region, to ensure better stewardship of the Social Contract for all citizens in our homelands, strong and weak. The Go Lean book petitions the Caribbean region to do better! It describes the necessary empowerments to optimize the economic, security and governing engines of Caribbean society to ensure a better adherence to the principle of the Greater Good.
In a 4-part series of blog-commentaries on the “Strong versus the Weak”, the pattern from the Code of Hammurabi was detailed and presented as an Old World model that was ignored in the formation of the New World. The Americans got it bad! If that ancient King Hammurabi was around in present day, he would have a harsh judgment for the American healthcare system. It is figuratively like “stealing the wallet when a person collapses”, as many of the financial abuses in American hospitals occur when the patient is unconscious or only concerned about seeking relief from pain and/or discomforts.
This commentary is an spin-off from that series; though it was originally presented as a 4-parter, we are hereby adding this 5th entry. The full series is now as follows:
Managing the Strong versus the Weak – An American Sickness
The need for this 5th entry arose with the release of this new book today – April 11, 2017. It is ‘spot-on’ for the criticism of the pattern of abuse of the ‘Weak’ in American society. See the review-synopsis of Dr. Rosenthal’s book here:
Book Review: An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back By: Elisabeth Rosenthal (Author)
At a moment of drastic political upheaval, a shocking investigation into the dangerous, expensive, and dysfunctional American healthcare system, as well as solutions to its myriad of problems
In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast?
Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw.
The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn’t just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.
AUDIO Podcast – Terry Gross interviews Elisabeth Rosenthal – Heard on Fresh Air
April 10, 2017 – Health care is a trillion-dollar industry in America, but are we getting what we pay for? Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a medical journalist who formerly worked as a medical doctor, warns that the existing system too often focuses on financial incentives over health or science.
“We’ve trusted a lot of our health care to for-profit businesses and it’s their job, frankly, to make profit,” Rosenthal says. “You can’t expect them to act like Mother Teresas.”
Rosenthal’s new book, An American Sickness, examines the deeply rooted problems of the existing health-care system and also offers suggestions for a way forward. She notes that under the current system, it’s far more lucrative to provide a lifetime of treatments than a cure.
“One expert in the book joked to me … that if we relied on the current medical market to deal with polio, we would never have a polio vaccine,” Rosenthal says. “Instead we would have iron lungs in seven colors with iPhone apps.”
Notice this small sample of the book’s revelations and disclosures, symptomatic of Crony-Capitalism:
Healthcare economics do not align with normal economic laws: “Usual & Customary” versus supply-and-demand
Hospital systems behave like predatory lenders
Consumers cannot decide, as prices may be unknown at the time of delivery
Lifetime of treatment preferable for service-providers rather than a cure.
Doctors owning Surgical Centers, therefore dictating procedures that they can accommodate at their facilities
Unknown and unauthorized “Drive-by Doctors” adding to hospital bills.
This commentary and the previous 4 commentaries in this series all relate to nation-building, stressing the community ethos necessary to forge a society where all the people are protected all the time. While we are analyzing the American system, we clearly recognize that the Caribbean eco-system is equally – or perhaps even more – in a crisis and in need of reform. The premise in the Go Lean book and subsequent blog-commentaries is that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. We can use the acknowledgement of our crisis to optimize our healthcare deliveries once and for all. We must assuredly look beyond the American model. According to the foregoing book and AUDIO Podcast, many more successful models exist.
Dr. Rosenthal’s book asserts that there may be better models in Europe than there is in the US. This is already a familiar thesis for the Go Lean movement – a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – as the Go Lean book advocates studying all dimensions of the EU:
10 Ways to Model the EU – Page 130. The CU will emulate the European Union by unifying and integrating the Caribbean region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member-states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion (per 2010). The EU is 28 member-states, 507.89 million people and $16.6 Trillion GDP (per 2012). Though the CU is only a fraction the size of the EU, there is the similarity of divergent peoples (24 languages) putting aside their differences in a quest to confederate. The EU region has quite an ignoble history of contending with differences, spurning 2 World Wars in the last century. Yet they came together to unite and integrate to make Europe a better place to live, work and play. Just like the EU, the CU will not possess sovereignty; this feature remains with each member-state.
Still, there was a previous attempt to reform the American healthcare delivery eco-system. There is wisdom to glean from that development. The Go Lean book provides this excerpt (Page 156):
The Bottom Line on Obama Care The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called Obama Care is a US federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. It represents the most significant government expansion and regulatory overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The PPACA is aimed at increasing the rate of health insurance coverage for Americans and reducing the overall costs of health care. It provides a number of mechanisms—including mandates, subsidies, and tax credits — to employers and individuals to increase the coverage rate.Additional reforms aim to improve healthcare outcomes and streamline the delivery of health care. The PPACA requires insurance companies to cover all applicants and offer the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or sex. The Congressional Budget Office projected that the PPACA will lower both future deficits and Medicare spending. On June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the Obama Care.
The US, despite its advanced democracy status, has definite societal defects in the healthcare arena. Overcoming the defects – particularly Crony-Capitalism or exploiting public resources for private gains – make solving healthcare challenging.
It is truly heavy-lifting!
This was recently discovered by the new US president, Donald Trump.
After campaigning for the 2016 election on the promise of “repealing and replacing Obama Care”, the administration’s first healthcare legislation attempt flopped. The president’s exclamation:
The truth of the matter Mr. President, everybody – engaged in the process of transforming society – knew!
Transforming the Caribbean healthcare will also be equally complicated. It will engage all 3 societal engines: economic, security and governance. In fact, the prime directives of the Go Lean/CU roadmap includes the following 3 statements:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus – including emergency management – to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance for all people – with empowerments for healthcare – to support these engines.
This comprehensive view – economics, security and governance – is the charge of the Go Lean roadmap, opening with these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11):
viii. Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.
ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, mental health, obesity and smoking cessation programs. The Federation must proactively anticipate the demand and supply of organ transplantation as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ trade.
Overall, the Go Lean book stresses the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform healthcare delivery in the Caribbean; see this expressed in this one advocacy here:
10 Ways to Improve Healthcare – Page 156
1
Embrace the advent of the CU Single Market to leverage across the 42 million people in the 30 member-states.
2
Organ Procurement Authority
3
Deploy Disease Management Models
4
Universal Health Insurance Care Much like with auto insurance, there is a need to mandate health insurance coverage for most Caribbeans. The coverage does not have to be $0 deductible and 100% coverage, rather it could be less attractive – low-end terms – like $6000 deductible and 60% coverage. The US model, Obama Care has plans branded Bronze (low end), Silver, Gold and Platinum. The goal for the CU is simply to ensure that catastrophic illnesses or injuries do not imperil the financial viability of individual, families or communities. The coverage risk is minimized with insurance carriers having a larger premium base (42 million) to calculate their actuarial formulas. To maximize savings, individual states may choose to combine their health insurance marketplaces with other states or go at it alone.
5
Wellness, Nutrition, Fitness and Smoking Cessations Programs
6
Medical Tourism
7
Repatriate MediCare Beneficiaries
8
Caribbeans with Disabilities
9
Medical Education Outreach
10
Public Health Extension Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the federal level. Also, the acquisition of public-bound pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) can be negotiated at the regional level, using the Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO) envisioned in this roadmap. This will lead to a better supply and pricing dynamics.
The points of effective, technocratic stewardship of healthcare were further elaborated upon in previous blog/commentaries. Consider this sample:
Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL – Health-care Concerns
The opening imagery:
“There is a special ‘place in hell’ …”
… is just an metaphorical reference. There is no assumption of a literal burning abyss of torment. But this does convey the abomination of the “strong abusing the weak”. So many times in the past this abuse has proliferated, for those weaker physically, mentally, economically and sadly, medically.
The movement behind the Go Lean/CU roadmap wants us, in the Caribbean, to do better. Yes, healthcare is not easy, but it is possible to reform and transform. There are so many good examples and models to learn from:
The underlying book reviewed here – An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back – considers Switzerland.
We want to “weed out” any bad practices of Crony-Capitalism in our health delivery system. Instead, we want to pursue the Greater Good (greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong). Most importantly, we want to proclaim the truth of American life. So many of our Caribbean citizens “beat down their doors to get out” and emigrate to the US. We want to “dull the lights on any American Welcome signs” – considering the reality of American Crony-Capitalism, the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”.
Now is the time to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to reboot, reform and transform Caribbean healthcare. If we do this, we will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂
Sign the petition to lean-in for the roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.
“The real owners of this country, the big wealthy business interest that controls everything and makes all the important decisions….
They spent billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. And what is it that they want: ‘more for themselves and less for everybody else’.” —
— George D. P. Carlin[1] (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him second (behind Richard Pryor) on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.[4] – Source: Wikipedia.
For millions of people affected with declining job options and under-employment, these words by George Carlin are spot on. The people stand back and see a trend with more and more (hundreds of thousands) of highly sought STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) jobs being created but not going to Americans, rather going to foreigners – on American soil – at below market prices. This is the drama of H-1B Visas discussed in the VIDEO in the Appendix below.
Something is wrong with this picture!
The United States has known societal defects. The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean have delved into the most prominent ones; they were identified as:
Institutional Racism – White Privilege and preferences over Black-and-Brown people.
Crony-Capiatalism– Exploitation of public goods and resources for private gain and profit.
This discussion – and the accompanying VIDEO in the Appendix below – allows us to better appreciate the community ethos – the fundamental spirit of a culture – that breathes these societal defects. There is a similarity with these two defects:
“The strong inflicts harm on the weak”
This commentary posits that this problem in America was imbrued as part of a New World experiment that deviated from the Old World values.
In the previous blog-commentary on the Model of Hammurabi it was detailed how that ancient King established laws to ensure that the “strong in society did not abuse the weak”. That blog concluded that New World societies need to do better in applying the sage advice from a 3,800-year-old regent. This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which seeks to reform and transform the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region, to ensure better stewardship of the Social Contract – implied arrangement where all citizens (strong and weak) surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights.
The Go Lean book describes empowerments to target the economic, security and governing engines of society to ensure an adherence to the principle of the Greater Good; (greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong). This commentary is 4 of 4 in a series on “Managing the Strong versus the Weak”. The other commentaries in this series all considered the security and governmental deficiencies of American society – the model-advanced democracy that “pulls” so many of our Caribbean Diaspora. This commentary here focuses on economic abuses. The full details in this series are as follows:
Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Bullying in Schools: “Teach them well and let them lead the way”
Managing the Strong versus the Weak – Book Review: Sold-Out!
All of these commentaries relate to nation-building, stressing the community ethos necessary to forge a society where all the people are protected all the time. Looking at the American model, we clearly discern that “all that glitters is not Gold”. There are obvious abuses and deficiencies that should deter Caribbean citizens from setting their hopes-and-dreams on America as a land of refuge.
There is a similar theme in the book – Sold-Out! – by syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin. She scorches the American Crony-Capitalism associated with labor-certified immigration. She asserts that laws of supply-and-demand in the STEM fields are being distorted so that corporations can profit at the expense of American and foreign workers.
So sad! See the review of her book here:
Book Review for Book:Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America’s Best & Brightest Workers
Book Authors: Michelle Malkin, John Miano
The #1 New York Times bestselling author and firebrand syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin sets her sights on the corrupt businessmen, politicians, and lobbyists flooding our borders and selling out America’s best and brightest workers.
In Sold Out, Michelle Malkin and John Miano reveal the worst perpetrators screwing America’s high-skilled workers, how and why they’re doing it—and what we must do to stop them. In this book, they will name names and expose the lies of those who pretend to champion the middle class, while aiding and abetting massive layoffs of highly skilled American workers in favor of cheap foreign labor. Malkin and Miano will explode some of the most commonly told myths spread in the media like these:
Lie #1: America is suffering from an apocalyptic “shortage” of science, technology, engineering, and math workers.
Lie #2: US companies cannot function without an unlimited injection of the most “highly skilled” and “highly educated” foreign workers, who offer intellectual capital and entrepreneurial energy that American workers can’t match.
Lie #3: America’s best and brightest talents are protected because employers are required to demonstrate that they’ve made every effort to hire American citizens before resorting to foreign labor.
For too long, open-borders tech billionaires and their political enablers have escaped tough public scrutiny of their means and motives. Sold Out is an indictment of not only political corruption in Washington, but also the journalistic malpractice that enables it. It’s time to trade the whitewash for solvent. American workers deserve better and the public deserves the unvarnished truth. Source: Good Reads – Online Bookstore-Portal; retrieved April 3, 2017 from: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25246754-sold-out
We can and must do better than this in the Caribbean. While the problem in the foregoing is an American drama, our region can learn so many lessons from the developments and executions of this blatant example of the “strong abusing the weak”. Keep this summary in mind, from Sold-Out (“Introduction” – Page viii):
With very few exceptions, the purported shortages of American workers don’t exist.
There is nothing special about the hundreds of thousands of H-1B visa holders flooding the workforce.
Most H-1B workers are sponsored by companies that specialize in offshore outsourcing of U.S. jobs.
Abuse of guest workers by both offshoring companies and their U.S. tech giant partners is rampant.
Enforcement is a joke.
The promises of U.S. worker protections were big fat whoppers.
This exposure of the exploitation in the American immigration eco-system reveals what is embedded in this country’s DNA – a propensity for the “strong to abuse the weak”; in this case it’s an economic abuse – manipulating market forces to keep salaries low. And yet, the Caribbean suffers from an atrocious emigration rate of our citizens fleeing to the American homeland. Verily, even this defective American labor market is better than the Caribbean status quo.
The reasons why people leave the Caribbean in the first place have been identified as “push and pull”:
“Push” refers to the reasons people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “These ones suffer from the abuse of the “strong over the weak”. Many from the Caribbean had to flee as refugees related to qualifiers like Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged and LGBT.
“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating to communities where they perceive that there are more protections for the “weak against the abusive strong “.
The movement behind the Go Lean book has consistently urged Caribbean authority figures to work to dull the bright lights on American “Welcome Signs”. Our people need to know that the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”. The Go Lean book and blogs asserts that it is easier to reform and transform Caribbean society than abandoning our home and trying to fix the American eco-system. There is no much resistance due to the acute greed and adherence to a profit-seeking culture. Consider these sample blog-commentaries previous published:
The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate Caribbean societal engines. We want to be a better society than we have been in the past, and even better than our American counterparts.
We want to pursue the Greater Good. This means promoting values that do NOT benefit the strong by abusing the weak. While this definitely applies to a security and governance mandate, it includes economic policies as well.
We can learn from the American experience. If we can assuage the “strong-weak” power abuses in our society, this will mitigate the “push and pull” factors for why people abandon our territories.
Yes, America is flawed!
… but we have to do better at home before we can condemn another country. Though we must deter our young people from “jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire”.
So let’s just be better and do better here … in reforming and transforming our societal engines. Let’s lean-in to the Go Lean roadmap and work to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play for all citizens, “strong or weak”. 🙂
Published March 19, 2017 – The H-1B visa [program] creator says the program has been “hijacked” to take American jobs. But a 1993 60 Minutes piece shows the visas had problems from the start
Shockingly, this indictment of the FDA – who is supposed to protect American people – raises a Caribbean debate:
