Transform – Page 36 – Go Lean…Caribbean

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A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Casino Currency – US Dollars?

Posted on July 11, 2016 in Economics, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

If you go to a casino and win in their games of chance, what do you win?

If you go to a casino and lose in their games of chance, what do you lose?

In both cases the answer is money.

This is still true even though the gamer may cash-in the common currency of a country at the start of the session for tokens, chips or e-Cards. The tokens or chips become a nominal or fiat currency themselves; their value is set by the issuer to be any denomination they want – they may choose to make $100 chips Blue, $1000 chips Green and $10,000 chips Red or any combination. The only thing that matters is the cash-out process: when the gamers wants to receive real world currency value for any chips in hand.

Yes, this is the business model of casinos, but it is based on the principles of economics. The quest to reform and transform Caribbean economy could be based on this model; this is the case with the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book details the mission to elevate the Caribbean societal engines starting with economics, or more simply: money. This brings so many questions to the fore:

What is money and how do we define it? Why must we define it? Aren’t we all familiar with the dynamics of the money or currency in our wallets and purses? How does the common currency fit into this discussion?

First the definition is important so as to dispel the concern about currency as opposed to money; money is not just currency and currency is not just money. Currency relates to a national designation (US dollar, British pounds, Chinese Yuan) or a regional designation like the Euro or the Eastern Caribbean/EC dollar. Money, on the other hand is a matter of four (4) functions ^[22]:

A Medium – When money is used to intermediate the exchange of goods and services, it is performing a function as a medium of exchange. Money’s most important usage is as a method for comparing the values of dissimilar objects.

A Measure – A unit of account is a standard numerical monetary unit of measurement of the market value of goods, services, and other transactions. Also known as a “measure” or “standard” of relative worth and deferred payment, a unit of account is a necessary prerequisite for the formulation of commercial agreements that involve debt. Money acts as a standard measure and common denomination of trade. It is thus a basis for quoting and bargaining of prices.

A Standard – A “standard of deferred payment” is an accepted way to settle a debt – a unit in which debts are denominated, and the status of money as legal tender, that may function for the discharge of debts. When debts are denominated in money, the real value of debts may change due to inflation and deflation.

A Store – Money acts as a store of value; it must be able to be reliably saved, stored, and retrieved – and be predictably usable as a medium of exchange when it is retrieved. The value of the money must also remain stable over time. Some have argued that inflation, by reducing the value of money, diminishes the ability of money to function as a store of value.
Source: Retrieved July 10 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money#Functions

Casino currencies (tokens, chips and e-Cards) perform all these 4 functions; and more – see the Appendix VIDEO below. The common currency for casino operations can be any currency the operators designate; so why do Caribbean operators always designate US dollars?

This question exposes an Economic Fallacy in the Caribbean region, that significant financial transactions must be in US dollars ($), even in Caribbean casinos. While this must be addressed and remediated, obviously the issues at hand are bigger than just Casino gaming. No, the issues in this commentary address technocratic management for currencies in general.

This commentary is the 6 of 6 from the Go Lean movement on the subject of Economic Fallacies. As related in the previous submissions in this series, the situation in the Caribbean region is likened to the imagery of an animal foraging for food, but then gets distracted and “chases a squirrel up a tree”. The squirrel in the tree will never be a meal; it is just a waste of time and energy for the animal. This analogy conveys the waste of time associated with a frivolous and fallacious pursuit. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

All of these commentaries are economic in nature. They refer to rules for managing the valuable resources of time, talents and treasuries. There are rules for winning and common mistakes that results in losing. Normally these fallacies are easily discernible after the fact, more so than before hand. So history and good-bad lessons on currency management can be extremely helpful to our Caribbean quest. This is a mission of the Go Lean book, to fortify a strong monetary foundation to ensure forward progress in currency matters in the region.

This book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap to introduce and implement the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the Caribbean Central Bank or CCB (a cooperative of central banks), to serve as a regional/super-national entity to shepherd the economic, security and governing engines of the 30 Caribbean member-states. Being technocratic includes studying and applying best-practices, while avoiding fallacies in government oversight. This mission was pronounced in the Go Lean book with this quotation (Page 45):

Fortify the stability of our mediums of exchange, by facilitating our monetary needs through a Currency Union, the Caribbean Dollar (C$), and establishing a Caribbean Central Bank.

There are economic challenges facing the Caribbean, including within the banking community. There is the need for some comprehensive solutions for all of the 30 member-states in the Caribbean. Many of the countries are independent states (16); the remainder are overseas territories of major powers: 6 British, 3 Dutch/Netherlands, 3 French and the 2 American: US Virgin Islands (USVI) and Puerto Rico (PR).

According to the Go Lean book (Page 150), many non-American Caribbean territories – British overseas Territory of the Turks & Caicos Islands, plus the Dutch territories of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, Saba – use the US dollar as their primary currency.

The historicity of central banking in Puerto Rico helps us to understand how the concepts of fiat currencies can be structured to elevate the regional economy. See the encyclopedic reference here regarding this subject:

Title: Puerto Rico and Central Banking
Central Banking was established in Puerto Rico during its Spanish colonial days. The island began producing banknotes in 1766, becoming the first colony in the Spanish Empire to print 8-real banknotes with the Spanish government’s approval. After the dissolution of Spain’s New World Empire with the independence of the mainland countries (Mexico, Central and South America, etc), the colonial government in Puerto Rico ordered the issue of provincial banknotes, creating the Puerto Rican peso. However, printing of these banknotes ceased after 1815. During the following decades, foreign coins became the widespread currency. In the 1860s and 1870s, banknotes re-emerged. On February 1, 1890, the Spanish Bank of Puerto Rico (Banco Español de Puerto Rico) was inaugurated and began issuing banknotes, followed 5 year later with peso coins.

On August 13, 1898, the Spanish–American War ended with Spain ceding Puerto Rico to the United States. The Banco Español de Puerto Rico was renamed Bank of Porto Rico and issued bills equivalent to the United States dollar, creating the Puerto Rican dollar. In 1902, the First National Bank of Porto Rico issued banknotes in a parallel manner. Two more series were issued until 1913. After Puerto Rico’s economy and monetary system was fully integrated into the United States’ economic and monetary system, the Puerto Rican dollars were redeemed for those issued by the United States Treasury.

Today, Central Banking in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is expressed through 2 governmental entities, one local and one at the US Federal level. The local entity is the Government Development Bank (GDB) of Puerto Rico. The GDB, established in 1942, is the government bond issuer, intragovernmental bank, fiscal agent, and financial advisor of the government of Puerto Rico.^[1][2] The bank, along with its subsidiaries and affiliates, serves as the principal entity through which Puerto Rico channels its issuance of bonds. As an overview from Wikipedia.com, the different executive agencies of the government of Puerto Rico and its government-owned corporations either issue bonds with the bank as a proxy, or owe debt to the bank itself (as the bank is a government-owned corporation as well).

On the US federal basis, Puerto Rico is part of the Second District, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (popularly known as the New York Fed), in its representation before the US Federal Reserve System.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States. It is located at 33 Liberty Street, New York, NY. It is responsible for the Second District of the Federal Reserve System, which encompasses New York State, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey, Fairfield County in Connecticut, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Working within the Federal Reserve System, the New York Federal Reserve Bank implements monetary policy, supervises and regulates financial institutions^[1] and helps maintain the nation’s payment systems.^[2] See Appendix below for more details on the “New York Fed”.
Source: Retrieved July 10, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currencies_of_Puerto_Rico

Puerto Rico is indicative of the dysfunction in the Caribbean region – this Commonwealth is in crisis – despite almost 4 million people on the island, monetary decisions are made in New York City. The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) has consistently maintained that Caribbean problems need Caribbean solutions. The monetary policies for Puerto Rico are being made by the same stakeholders making monetary decisions for the United States. The New York Fed handles 65% of the total Federal Reserve Fedwire transactions; neither PR nor USVI register high on their priorities.

As previously related, the US Territories may have a voice in Washington, but they have no vote. Considering the downward spiral of PR’s economy in recent years, they should not look to others for their long-term solutions. It is a fallacy to think that Caribbean people will be prioritized by foreign masters, thousands of miles away.

Caribbean people – all 30 member-states – need to come to our own aid. The Go Lean book quotes the lyrics from this song:

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me
—- Song: Lean On Me; Songwriters: Bill Withers

With the Go Lean roadmap, change will come to the island of Puerto Rico and all the Caribbean. The changes will include a single currency for a Caribbean Single Market, the Caribbean Dollar (C$). There are economic benefits galore. One such benefit is the money multiplier; the Go Lean book (Page 22) defines it as:

In monetary macroeconomics and banking, the money multiplier measures how much the money supply increases in response to a change in the monetary base…. there is a multiplier associated with the currency in the money supply. Therefore it goes without saying that if the Caribbean member-states trade in US dollars, then the multiplier effect is extended to the United States of America. By contrast, if the Caribbean member-states trade in Euros, then the multiplier effect goes to the stakeholders of the European Central Bank – no Caribbean state. Therefore the communities of the Caribbean must embrace, as an ethos, its own currency, the Caribbean Dollar (managed by a technocratic Caribbean Central Bank), thereby bringing local benefits from local multipliers.

Desisting from economic fallacies, there is a dose of reality in the Go Lean roadmap: the US will not allow its territories to wean off the US dollar as the currency base. But there is no controversy if the Caribbean dollar is an electronic currency for PR and USVI.

This is the plan!

The CCB, a cooperative of the existing central banks, will consolidate all reserves for the member central banks. The reserves will be a basket of currencies from the world’s most impactful currencies. Yes, that includes the US, but other currencies too. The roadmap calls for the following basket currencies to constitute Caribbean reserves:

US dollar
British pounds
Euros
Japanese Yen or Chinese Yuans

There is the opportunity for the C$ deployed by the CCB to be an all electronic card/payment system; see photo here. Just like in the foregoing casino scenario, there is only the need to deliver the reserve currency, at cash-out time when an individual or company has to remit the funds in any basket currency outside the Caribbean region.

An all-electronic card would mean local transactions conducted electronically. With the onset of credit cards, debit cards and payment cards in the region as the preferred payment method, this scheme becomes more viable. Electronic settlements also allow for the easy calculation and collection of State Sale Taxes and VAT. Other benefits include:

Free Foreign Exchange to convert back to basket currencies – then cardholders will be more inclined to leave stored value balance on the card.
Free Foreign North-South Remittances: Free for these basket currencies transactions, so as to accumulate balances in the CCB “our” account.

Since casino operations can transact in any fiat currency, the Go Lean roadmap calls for modeling casinos and launching the C$ as a fiat, accounting-value-only currency at first and then eventually to graduate to banknotes and coins. This is the exact model of the Euro currency during its launch. The EU/Euro case study provide lessons – foreign currency, inflation, sovereign defaults – that must be applied in the technocratic administration of the CU/CCB/C$. Since the Go Lean roadmap calls for the CCB to be a cooperative entity of the existing central banks in the region, this will foster interdependence among the Caribbean neighboring member-states. This need for regional stewardship of Caribbean currencies was pronounced early in the book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13) with these statements:

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 member-states.

The planners of this new Caribbean monetary regime has documented hard-learned lessons on the issue of currency in the Caribbean region and elsewhere; (many CU member-states endured painful currency fluctuations over the past decades – on more than one occasion). So we accept that any attempt to reboot the Caribbean economic landscape must first start with a strenuous oversight of the proposed regional C$ currency.

The Go Lean book, and previous blog/commentaries, stressed the key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to establish a strong Caribbean financial eco-systems and a strong currency. These points are detailed in the book; see this sample from the book as follows:

Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Money Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future – Count on the Greedy to be Greedy	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Fortify the Stability of the Securities Markets	Page 45
Strategy – Provide Proper Oversight and Support for the Depository Institutions	Page 46
Strategy – e-Payments and Card-based Transactions	Page 49
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Minimizing Bubbles	Page 69
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Depository Insurance & Regulatory Agency	Page 73
Anecdote – Turning Around CARICOM – Effects of 2008 Financial Crisis	Page 92
Implementation – Assemble Caribbean Central Bank as a Cooperative	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt – Optimizing Wall Street Role	Page 114
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market / Currency Union	Page 127
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 – Managing Economic Crises	Page 136
Planning – Lessons Learned from New York City – Metro Card Payment Regime	Page 137
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress	Page 147
Anecdote – Caribbean Currencies	Page 149
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Control Inflation	Page 153
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Foreign Exchange (fx)	Page 154
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Appendix – New York City Economy Details	Page 277
Appendix – Tool-kits for Capital Controls	Page 315
Appendix – Lessons Learned from Floating the Trinidad & Tobago Dollar	Page 316
Appendix – Controlling Inflation – Technical Details	Page 318
Appendix – e-Government and e-Payments Example: EBT	Page 353

The points of effective, technocratic currency/monetary stewardship, were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7140	Azerbaijan sets its currency on free float
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7034	The Future of Money
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6800	Venezuela sues black market currency website in US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5668	Move over Mastercard/Visa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4166	A Lesson in History – Panamanian Balboa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3858	European Central Banks unveils 1 trillion stimulus program
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3814	Lessons from the Swiss unpegging the franc
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2074	MetroCard – Model for the Caribbean Dollar
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=833	One currency, divergent economies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=518	Analyzing the Data – What Banks learn about financial risks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=360	How to Create Money from Thin Air

The quest of the Go Lean roadmap is to elevate Caribbean society and economic engines from the dysfunctional past. Reliance on the US dollar is a fallacy if we want to grow our economy; transacting in their currency will only expand their economy. We want to be a protégé of the technocratic New York Fed (see the Appendix) – for efficient monetary management – not a parasite! We want to master the process of currency management … and maximize our money supply and available credit. This is heavy-lifting, but “Yes, we can!” We can conceive, believe and achieve workable solutions.

This is the end of the series on Economic Fallacies; this case study of casino currencies is only the latest submission. There have been so many lessons to glean wisdom from in the previous submissions: independence hype, austerity, student loans, minimum wage, centers of economic activities. Let’s pay more than the usual attention to debunking these fallacies in this study of “Advanced Economics”.

All the stakeholders in the Caribbean – people, governments and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the CU, CCB and the C$. The roadmap serves as turn-by-turn directions to move the region to its new destination: a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———–

Appendix – Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Since the founding of the Federal Reserve banking system [in 1913], the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Manhattan’s Financial District has been the place where monetary policy in the United States is implemented, although policy is decided in Washington, D.C. by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The New York Fed is the largest in terms of assets of the twelve regional banks. Operating in the financial capital of the U.S., the New York Fed is responsible for conducting open market operations, the buying and selling of outstanding U.S. Treasury securities.

The Trading Desk is the office at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that manages the FOMC Directive to sell or buy bonds.^[6] Note that the responsibility for issuing new U.S. Treasury securities lies with the Bureau of the Public Debt. In 2003, Fedwire, the Federal Reserve’s system for transferring balances between it and other banks, transferred $1.8 trillion a day in funds, of which about $1.1 trillion originated in the Second District. It transferred an additional $1.3 trillion a day in securities, of which $1.2 trillion originated in the Second District. The New York Fed is also responsible for carrying out exchange rate policy by buying and selling dollars at the discretion of the United States Treasury Department. The New York Federal Reserve is the only regional bank with a permanent vote on the Federal Open Market Committee and its president is traditionally selected as the Committee’s vice chairman.

Source: Retrieved July 10, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank_of_New_York.

———–

Appendix VIDEO – The Grid from Ladbrokes – https://youtu.be/tCQ0fWV4gpg

Published on Apr 14, 2015

Australian Online Gaming Payment Card

Category – Entertainment

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A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Self-regulation of the Centers of Economic Activity

Posted on July 10, 2016 in Economics, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

A lot of communities have one spot – a center of economic activity – that must be protected, promoted and regulated. Though they could, these centers do not normally refer to “downtown”. They refer to alternate destinations, like an industrial site (factory, quarry, mine, harbor, etc.), designated district, education campus, medical establishment (hospital or clinic), corporate park and most common in countries with tourism-based economies, a hotel resort property.

That one geographic spot would be the economic engine for the community.

This is an ancient model, dating to times of city walls to protect the inherent commerce. In the modern world, this reality can apply in either urban or rural settings; some small towns are designated “Company Towns” – see the model of Hershey, Pennsylvania in the VIDEO in Appendix A – where the entire community revolves around the one center of economic activity. (For Hershey, first the Chocolate Factory and then the Amusement Park). These centers of economic activities must be protected; but rather than the walls of ancient cities, today the protections are regulations.

A series of fallacies have emerged in regards to protecting economic engines.

We have all heard these one-liners:

1. “I’m from the Federal Government and I’m here to help” – Ronald Reagan tongue-in-cheek Campaign Attack against excessive government regulation; 1980.

2. “Cut taxes on the rich and they will always do the right thing” – Mantra for Trickle Down Economics.

Both of these ‘ultra free market’ principles have been adequately debunked by the actuality of market performance. They are among the economic fallacies that we must now acknowledge … along with this most notable mantra:

3. Industry stakeholders will always observe best-practices and desist from bad practices because damage to their industry will only damage their own bottom-line.

But we all know the truth, the historicity of the events leading up to the 2008 Housing Bubble and Great Recession; these same stakeholders could not resist the temptation for easy profits from the securitization trend.

No doubt, self-regulation is one of the biggest fallacies.

We are able to accurately conclude that self-regulation does not work in banking … because of the way the governments underwrite risk in the banking system. Leading up to 2008, when the Wall Street banks took risks, they gained (profit) from the upside but the taxpayers were the ones left with the costs of bail-outs when things went wrong – Too Big to Fail.

The purpose of the book Go Lean … Caribbean is the elevation of the economic engines in the region. The book serves as a 5 year roadmap to foster new developments and empowerments in the region. To be successful in the execution, there must be some degree of oversight and shepherding. The book refers to an agile regulatory framework structured with technocratic efficiency and effectiveness; and then dubs the strenuous effort as heavy-lifting.

This commentary is the 5 of 6 from the Go Lean movement on the subject of Economic Fallacies. As related in the first submission on this series, the situation in the Caribbean region is likened to the imagery of an animal foraging for food, but then gets distracted and “chases a squirrel up a tree”. The squirrel in the tree will never be a meal; it is just a waste of time and energy for the animal. This analogy conveys the waste of time associated with a frivolous and fallacious pursuit. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

Independence – Hype of Hope
Austerity – Book Review: Mark Blyth’s “History of a Dangerous Idea”
Education & Student Loans – Not a good Return on Investment
Phillips Curve – Fallacy of Minimum Wage
Self-regulation of the Centers of Economic Activity
Casino Currency – US Dollars?

All of these commentaries are economic in nature.

They refer to rules for managing the valuable resources of time, talents and treasuries. There are rules for winning and rules for losing. Normally these fallacies are discernible after the fact, not before hand. So examining the experience of other communities can be extremely helpful to our Caribbean quest. This is a mission of the Go Lean book, to teach lessons from how other communities have handled economic crises and apply the best-practices in the Caribbean.

This book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap to introduce and implement the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and Caribbean Central Bank or CCB (a cooperative of central banks), to serve as a regional super-national entity to shepherd the economic, security and governing engines of the 30 member Caribbean states. Being technocratic includes studying and applying best-practices, while avoiding fallacies in governing oversight. There is a lot to learn from the study of self-regulation in the banking industry, especially before, during and after the catastrophic events of 2008 . Now is a good time for this review of crisis as the economy has recovered in some places, though it still lingers in the Caribbean.

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from making mistakes. There was a lot of mistakes leading up to 2008 – especially in the banking and financial sectors – so there is a lot of wisdom to glean. Among the flawed practices, was the fallacy that the banking industry would self-regulate.

It seems so laughable now. This is why it is important to apply lessons learned from this experience. So in the Go Lean roadmap, self-regulation is replaced with CU/CCB oversight of banking and these controlled centers of economic activity.

In additional to regional banking, the roadmap calls for the installation of centers of economic activity or Self-Governing Entities (SGE) as job-creating engines in many communities; these sites are ideal for technology laboratories, medical campuses, corporate parks, industrial sites, educational facilities and other forms of establishments situated inside bordered facilitates. These types of installations will thrive under the strategies and tactics of the Go Lean roadmap. They allow for an efficient process to launch and manage projects and physical installations in the region, but the SGE concept does require governmental concurrence and maybe even public approvals – referendums – at the launch of these initiatives.

There is a lot of jurisprudence for the management of these centers of economic activity. For example, in the US, company-towns, though private, are still required to fulfill constitutional obligations. The legal concept is termed “state actors”. See the encyclopedic reference on state actors here:

Reference Title: State Actor

In United States law, a state actor is a person [or company] who is acting on behalf of a governmental body, and is therefore subject to regulation under the United States Bill of Rights, including the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the federal and state governments from violating certain rights and freedoms.

Although at first blush the term would seem to include only persons who are directly employed by the state, the United States Supreme Court has interpreted these amendments and laws passed pursuant to them to cover many persons who have only an indirect relationship with the government. Controversies have arisen, for example, over whether private companies that run towns (the “company-town”) and prisons (traditionally a state function) can be held liable as state actors when they violate fundamental civil rights. This question remains unresolved, but the Supreme Court has held private citizens to be liable as state actors when they conspire with government officials to deprive people of their rights.

Conversely, in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith, the Supreme Court has found that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is not a state actor for the purposes of 28 U.S.C. 1983 because it was national, rather than acting on behalf of one state actor. For the purposes of a Bivens action, however, it might still be a state actor.[1]

The 1989 case of DeShaney v. Winnebago County was decided on the basis of the state action doctrine. Social workers separated a young son Joshua from his abusive father Randy, but concluded there was not enough evidence for a permanent separation, and later reunited son with father; later, the father beat his son into a persistent vegetative state. The Supreme Court ruled that despite involvement by state social workers, the state of Wisconsin was not a state actor and was therefore not responsible. Accordingly, theFourteenth Amendment protections did not apply, according to constitutional scholar John E. Finn.^[1]

Unlike state actors, private actors are generally not required to afford individuals the constitutional rights mentioned above. In nearly all U.S. states, private shopping center owners can eject protesters from their land for trespassing, and private associations can eject members or deny admission to applicants, with no warning and for no reason. But in a handful of states, notably California, state constitutional protections and certain common law rights have been extended to limit private actors. California allows the peaceful exercise of free speech in private shopping centers (see Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980)) and requires certain types of private actors to afford current or potential members a rudimentary version of procedural due process called fair procedure.

There are a number of situations where the United States Supreme Court has recognized the conduct of individuals or private organizations to be “state action,” and therefore subject to provisions of the Constitution such as Equal Protection, Due Process, or the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has held the following:

1. Merely opening up a business to the public is not state action, but the performance of a “public function” (a function that has been traditionally and exclusively performed by the state) is state action (Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946));

2. If an individual or organization merely enters into a contract or asserts a contractual right outside of court it is not state action, but if an individual or organization sues to judicially enforce a contractual right it is state action (Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948));

3. If the government merely acquiesces in the performance of an act by a private individual or organization it is not state action, but if the government coerces, influences, or encourages the performance of the act, it is state action (Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830 (1982));

4. If the government merely enters into a contract with an individual or organization for the goods or services, the actions of the private party are not state action, but if the government and the private party enter into a “joint enterprise” or a “symbiotic relationship” with each other it is state action (Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715 (1961));

5. If government agencies are simply members of a private organization, the actions of the organization are not state action, but if the government is “pervasively entwined” with the leadership of the private organization, the acts of the organization are state action (Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, 535 U.S. 971 (2002)).
Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07-10-2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_actor

Self-Governing Entities are part-and parcel of the prime directives of the Go Lean roadmap, defined by these 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines – including SGE’s – in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion in GDP and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus – with regulations and oversight – to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines and centers of economic activity; this reflects the separation-of-powers between CU agencies and member-state governments.

The issue of banking/financial regulation is important for this roadmap. Overseeing the financial elements SGE’s or “centers of economic activity” is also apropos for this Go Lean roadmap.

There is the need to protect SGE’s.

There is the need for (member-state) hands-off oversight for SGE.

How to reconcile these polar opposite positions? See the model here of the European Central Bank response to the dilemma of self-regulation in the Appendix below.

The Go Lean roadmap embraces the practice of technocratic oversight for the region’s economic engines, especially within the borders of SGE’s. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the need for regional integration (Page 11 & 14) to foster the foundation to forge a better future. The declarative statements are as follows:

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.

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.

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

The new banking regime has also been detailed in the Go Lean book. The same Declaration of Interdependence, pronounced the need for the consolidated oversight with these statements (Page 13):

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

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

Change has now come to the Caribbean. The driver of this change is technology and globalization. As a region, the Caribbean cannot only consume the tradable products of the world’s markets; we must innovate and develop some products too. The structure of SGE’s are perfectly designed for this endeavor, where innovators and developers can maintain their “own world” so as to foster the best practices for Research & Development (R&D) with no intrusion from municipal or member-state authorities.

These SGE’s will be centers of economic activities for the region. This subject of the promotion of SGE’s has been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822	The Model for SGE’s for Medical R&D
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5921	Socio-Economic Change: Impact Analysis of SGE’s
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4037	How to Train Your ‘Dragon’ – Case Study for Foreign Investments
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3473	SGE Model: Haiti’s Caracol Industrial Park
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3276	A Role Model – Ideal for SGE’s – Shaking Up the World of Cancer
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750	Disney World – Role Model for Self Governing Entities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	SGE Lessons how to mitigate any plutocratic abuses
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – Ship-breaking under SGE Structure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Fairgrounds as SGE and Landlords for Sports Leagues
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=286	SGE Model: Puerto Rico’s Comprehensive CancerCenter

The Go Lean book envisions the CU/CCB – a confederation of the 30 governments and central banks of the Caribbean member-states – as a charter to do the heavy-lifting of empowering and elevating the Caribbean economy – as the regulator – administrator – overseer of many centers of economic activity within the SGE design.
The book details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to streamline bank regulations and to forge Self-Governing Entities in the Caribbean:

Economic Principles – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Economic Principles – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 48
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries	Page 68
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CCB: Bank Regulatory & Supervision	Page 73
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Self-Governing Entities – Example of a Space Agency	Page 80
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration – SGE for Sports	Page 83
Implementation – Annexation of French Guiana – Embed the Space Agency as an SGE	Page 98
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver – Embrace of Project Management Arts & Sciences	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – # 6: Self-Governing Entities	Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Government	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact “Wall Street” – And the Regional Capital Markets	Page 200

The Go Lean book and accompanying blogs declare that the Caribbean needs to learn lessons from other communities, especially when it comes to common sense regulations. See the Bank Supervision model portrayed in Appendix B – VIDEO.

In retrospect of 2008, the conclusion is that the fallacious self-regulation practice during the build-up of the housing crisis was not common sense. But self-regulation can work in a controlled environment. Now we see that for banking, the controlled environment is assured by keeping the focus on making sure banks bear the costs of the risks they underwrite. This corresponds with the quest of many intra-industry Self-Regulation Organizations.

These Self-regulation Organizations (SROs) can be highly effective enforcers and complement the role of governments, especially in environments where traditional regulators are underfunded; (this is the case with the current Caribbean member-state governments). However, the experts argue, this is only true if the following conditions are met:

The SROs are well-funded;
They are technologically advanced;
There is government oversight of the SRO and the end company;
They are held accountable;
They act within their authority; and
They are structured to avoid conflicts of interest.

As a result of globalization, the tools being used today to coordinate global financial markets regulation are very different than what most professionals learned about in school. In addition, there are ad hoc, informal agreements, rulemaking and codes of ethics that are more commonly being relied upon as opposed to arduously negotiated international treaties. This is why the oversight of the region’s banks is designated for the CCB and the regulation of SGE’s are designed for the lean technocratic CU Trade Federation. These moves will assuredly bring the benefits of SGE’s (jobs) to the Caribbean.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, institutions and governments to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. We need to dissuade the economic fallacies, and engage the best-practices throughout the region. These executions will make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

—————-

Appendix A – VIDEO – Company Town: Hershey, Pa. – https://youtu.be/K-YRevHegL8

Uploaded on Aug 31, 2007 – Company towns have often been depicted as locations of worker exploitation. The 1950s song, Sixteen Tons, popularized by Tennessee Ernie Ford (and easily found on the web) reinforces that idea. Hershey, Pennsylvania had a different reputation, however. But it did not escape the labor unrest that swept the U.S. in the 1930s.

—————-

Appendix B – VIDEO – The Fed Explains Bank Supervision and Regulation – https://youtu.be/psahnlcr-C0

Published on Jan 8, 2015 – Healthy banks and healthy economies go hand in hand. The latest in the Atlanta Fed’s animated video series explains how the Federal Reserve ensures banks are doing business safely and providing fair and equitable services to their communities.

—————-

Appendix C – Monitoring, regulation and self-regulation in the European banking sector

Speech by Sabine Lautenschläger, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the Single Supervisory Mechanism, at the evening reception at the Deutsche Aktieninstitut in Frankfurt am Main, 21 April 2015; retrieved July 10, 2016 from: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2015/html/sp150421.en.html

Do we need to do more to make sure that we never have to experience another financial market and banking crisis like that in 2008-09, or have we done too much and thus prevented the European banking industry from being able to offer financial services to the real economy?

After a long phase of deregulation, a comprehensive re-regulation has been in vogue since 2009. At the global, European and national level, we have tackled almost everything that can limit, reduce or prevent risks to and risks caused by banks. The general public, politicians, academics, supervisors and even bankers – simply everyone – called for comprehensive and tough rules for banks and for their close supervision. But the mood seems to have changed over the past year. In Germany and Europe, more and more people are complaining of overregulation. In the rest of Europe, a connection is being made between the words “credit crunch” and “regulation”.

Many people yearn for a pause in regulation, would perhaps rather leave the market to regulate itself – rely on self-regulation.

…

Conclusions

I don’t think that you were much surprised by my saying that I don’t think much of lax regulation. Given the obvious tendency towards exaggeration and erroneous developments in financial markets, and the potential damage for the economy and society, good regulations are an indispensable prerequisite for ensuring that the financial sector is able to function properly in the long term. …

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A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Phillips Curve: Fallacy of Minimum Wage

Posted on July 10, 2016 in Economics, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Ring the bell: School’s in!

There are lessons that the Caribbean need to learn about minimum wages:

In the long run, it makes no difference in buying power.

If wages are increased – as in an universal minimum wage increase – then inflationary forces would kick in and consumer prices will also adjust upwards. So as a government policy, raising the minimum wage is an economic fallacy.

This relates to the topic in the field of Economics related to the Phillips Curve. This empirical model establishes that there is a ‘short run’ trade-off between unemployment and inflation but this is not been observed in the long run. The textbook definition of the Phillips Curve is as follows:

Reference Title: Phillips Curve

Source: Retrieved July 9, 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_curve

The Phillips curve is a single-equation empirical model, named after A. W. Phillips, describing a historical inverse relationship between rates of unemployment and corresponding rates of inflation that result within an economy. Stated simply, decreased unemployment, (i.e., increased levels of employment) in an economy will correlate with higher rates of inflation.

While there is a short run trade-off between unemployment and inflation, it has not been observed in the long run.^[1] In 1968, Milton Friedman asserted that the Phillips curve was only applicable in the short-run and that in the long-run, inflationary policies will not decrease unemployment.^[2][3] Friedman then correctly predicted that, in the 1973–75 recession, both inflation and unemployment would increase.^[3] The long-run Phillips Curve is now seen as a vertical line at the natural rate of unemployment, where the rate of inflation has no effect on unemployment.^[4] Accordingly, the Phillips curve is now seen as too simplistic, with the unemployment rate supplanted by more accurate predictors of inflation based on velocity of money supply measures such as the MZM (“money zero maturity”) velocity,^[5] which is affected by unemployment in the short but not the long term.^[6]

Key: NAIRU = Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment

This subject matter synchronizes with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which calls for the elevation of Caribbean economics. The book asserts that the Caribbean has to pursue a quest for job creation, but to set the sights on a higher target, high-paying jobs, because minimum wage jobs are no elevation at all; it is only a fallacy. As conveyed in a previous blog-commentary, the Go Lean book examined the anatomy of minimum wages (Page 152) and its effect on a community’s eco-system. It defined minimum wage as:

… the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers …

The minimum wage is generally acknowledged to increase the standard of living of workers, reduces poverty, reduces inequality, boosts morale and forces businesses to be more efficient. Critics of the minimum wage, predominantly followers of neo-classical economic theory, contend that a minimum wage increases unemployment, particularly among workers with very low productivity due to inexperience or handicap, thereby harming less skilled workers and possibly excluding some groups from the labor market …

This fallacy of minimum wage is commentary 4 of 6 in this series on Economic Fallacies from the movement behind the Go Lean book. As related in the first submission on this series, the situation in the Caribbean region is likened to the imagery of an animal foraging for food, but then gets distracted and “chases a squirrel up a tree”. The squirrel in the tree will never be a meal; it is just a waste of time and energy for the animal. This analogy conveys the waste of time associated with a frivolous and fallacious pursuit. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

Independence – Hype of Hope
Austerity – Book Review: Mark Blyth’s “History of a Dangerous Idea”
Education & Student Loans – Not a good Return on Investment
Phillips Curve – Fallacy of Minimum Wage
Self-regulation of the Centers of Economic Activity
Casino Currency – US Dollars?

All of the commentaries in this series are economic in nature. They refer to rules for managing the valuable resources of time, talents and treasuries. The creation of jobs require a measure of all three of these resources. A mission of the Go Lean roadmap is to create jobs in the region. The roadmap – for a total of 370 pages – presents a comprehensive plan to create 2.2 million new jobs, with a heavy focus on high paying jobs, exhausting the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics / Medical (STEM) fields.

This subject is no childs-play; this is heavy-lifting. There are supplemental teaching points that align with this subject.This is gleaned from a Khan Academy’s online/e-Learning teaching course:

What is the relationship between the aggregate demand curve and the Phillips curve?

At first, unemployment will go down, shifting aggregate demand (AD) from AD1 to AD2, which increases Y (output) by Y2 – Y1. This increase in demand means more workers are needed, and then AD will be shifted from AD2 to AD3. However, this time, much less is produced than in the previous shift, but the price level has risen from P2 to P3, which is a much higher increase in price than in the previous shift. The increase in price is called inflation. – Khan Academy Lesson

Question: As much as the increase in demand would affect inflation wouldn’t another and maybe more obvious explanation be that as wages raise the costs of producing increase (since labor most often is a very important production factor) and thus forcing companies to increase prices as to offset the increase in wages?

Answer: Increase in price won’t always lead to increase in profit, because it entails decrease in demand in a highly competitive market. It will do so when there is so much money in the economy that demand becomes insensitive to price, or when profit is marginal. The former factor takes place first, the later – second.

VIDEO – Phillips curve – Inflation – measuring the cost of living – Macroeconomics – Khan Academy – https://youtu.be/v7ZWTZ9NgU4

Uploaded on Feb 15, 2012 – The observation that inflation and unemployment tend to be inversely correlated.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean calls for the elevation of Caribbean economics using sound economic principles and best-practices, not the pursuits of economic fallacies. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) with the charter to facilitate jobs in the region. The book posits that STEM industries and careers can be a great equalizer for the Caribbean to better compete with the rest of the world. These jobs are not location dependent. There is only the need for the “community will”. This job-creation mantra is among these 3 prime directives of the CU/Go Lean roadmap:

Optimization of economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to a GDP of $800 Billion.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Early in the Go Lean book, the responsibility to create jobs was identified as an important function for the CU with these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 14):

xxvi.     Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

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

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

Job creation has been a frequent topic for blog/commentaries. Consider this sample list:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8262	Where the Jobs Are – One Company’s Model: Uber
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8045	Where the Jobs Are – How Small Businesses Can Help
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6089	Where the Jobs Are – Futility of Minimum Wage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5034	Where the Jobs Are – Patents: The Start of Innovative Jobs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4240	Where the Jobs Are – The Effects of Immigration Policy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2857	Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneur-ism in Junk
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750	Where the Jobs Are – Role Model for Jobs by Self-Governing Entities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Where the Jobs Are – Attitudes & Images of the Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario: Ship-breaking
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	Where the Jobs Are – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly

The book Go Lean…Caribbean details the creation of 2.2 million new jobs for the Caribbean region, many embracing STEM skill-sets. How? By adoption of certain community ethos – that “community will” – plus the executions of key strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies. The following is a sample from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Strategy – Mission – Education Without Further Brain Drain	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Commerce Department – Patents & Copyrights	Page 78
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact ICT and Social Media	Page 111
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Labor Markets and Unions	Page 164
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Battle Poverty – Third World Realities	Page 222
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class	Page 223
Appendix – Growing 2.2 Million Jobs in 5 Years	Page 257
Appendix – Job Multipliers	Page 259

The CU will foster job-creating developments for above minimum-wage jobs, by incentivizing many “innovation sector” jobs: high-tech start-ups, incubating viable companies, and implementing Self-Governing Entities. The primary ingredient for CU success will be Caribbean people, so we must foster and incite participation of many young people into innovation sectors or STEM fields. This quest is the opposite of the minimum wage fallacious pursuit observed in many Caribbean countries who prioritize tourism and tourism-related service jobs.

Of the 2.2 million new jobs in the Go Lean roadmap, there is no expectation that all jobs will be in the innovation sector and above the minimum wage. No, service industries will always persists, and these frequently feature a minimum wage scale. But these jobs will not be the focus nor the target of the Go Lean heavy-lifting. They will simply be the derivatives of the innovation sector jobs. This derivative enjoys a job multiplier effect; for every direct job, additional ones are fostered “down stream”. The Go Lean book details this dynamic; consider this sample from Page 259:

With only a fraction of the jobs, the innovation sector generates a disproportionate number of additional local jobs and therefore profoundly shapes the local economy. A healthy traded sector benefits the local economy directly, as it generates well-paid jobs, and indirectly as it creates additional jobs in the non-traded sector. What is truly remarkable is that this indirect effect to the local economy is much larger than the direct effect. My research, based on an analysis of 11 million American workers in 320 metropolitan areas, shows that for each new high-tech job in a metropolitan area, five additional local jobs are created outside of high tech in the long run. – Enrico Moretti’s.

The roadmap anticipates only a 3.75 job multiplier factor in the estimation of the 2.2 million new jobs.

Everyone is hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, so that we can create the high-paying, community-impacting jobs, and not consume ourselves with a focus on minimum-wage jobs. How to accomplish this heavy-lifting tasks? This roadmap provides the turn-by-turn directions. This is an action plan to not just improve the Caribbean workplace, but the entire homeland. To make this, our homeland, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Student Loans As Investments

Posted on July 9, 2016 in Economics, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“Give me my money!”

This is not so unfamiliar a phrase in pop culture. It refers to the everyday scenario of repaying a debt. People want to be re-paid what is owed them. Many times, the motivation for street crimes is the defaulting of a debt – legitimate or illicit. Even more so, countries have gone to war over debt defaults; consider the experience of the Mexican – French Drama, better known as “Cinco De Mayo”. (The book Go Lean … Caribbean also relates the bad experiences of the Egyptian Default in the 1870’s – Page 143).

There are standards of quality that we all accept when it comes to debt collection; it is like a yardstick of success. That figure is 10 percent. Any lending institution with a default rate higher than 10% is automatically considered a failure. Many times, the institution – like banks – would come under external supervision for sporting such a default rate.

For the American student loans eco-system, the default rate has remained consistently below 10 percent, (now after the implementation of collections best practices in the 1990’s), even during dire economic conditions. Though there have been complaints of upward creeping, that argument is all relative; see chart here:

According to the following news article, the Caribbean experience is “bad” for gleaning returns from their student loans, even as a straight banking product: principal & interest dynamics. How bad? 10 percent? That would be a dream; the experience in one country, the Bahamas is 75 percent for student loans. See the news article to this effect here:

Title: Bahamas government warns student loan defaulters of legal action

Posted: March 1, 2016; retrieved July 8, 2016 from http://www.caribbean360.com/news/bahamas-government-warns-student-loan-defaulters-of-legal-action

NASSAU, The Bahamas – Minister of Education, Science and Technology Jerome Fitzgerald has put recipients of the Education Loan Programme (ELP) on notice that if they fail to repay their loans they will face court action.

Despite the many “success” stories coming out of the ELP, he maintained that there were also a number of failings which have “derailed” the programme.

Since passage of the Act in 2002, a total of 4,733 people have benefited from the programme. But the initiative was suspended in August 2009 because of a 75 per cent delinquency rate in loan repayments.

“This was and is clearly unsustainable. The people of the Bahamas financed this programme to assist with the education of persons pursuing tertiary education. The loan portfolio is intended to be a revolving fund; and as the borrower pays, the monies are repaid to assist other qualified students,” Fitzgerald said at a press conference yesterday.

“I must emphasize that many loan recipients have satisfied and are satisfying their commitments. There are many more, however, for a plurality of reasons, who have not. We are aware that many persons who received loans have returned home and are not working. We are also equally aware that there is a possibility that a number of persons who received funds between 2000 and 2002 may not have ever attended school. However, we are cognizant of our fiduciary responsibility to the country and that we had to formulate a plan that would sensibly facilitate our pursuit to collect delinquent funds, one way or the other.”

Fitzgerald explained that, with a view of jumpstarting the programme, the ELA was mandated to review the suspended it with the intention of making recommendations to restarting to give an opportunity to qualified persons interested in pursuing tertiary education.

He said that after three years of reviewing and reconciling records, the Education Loan Authority now has a formula to address and correct the deficiencies of the ELP.

“I can assure that the Directors and Management of the Education Loan Authority (ELA) were instructed to work fastidiously, to come up with a solution to . . . not only restore the programme, but to restore the programme with the necessary control provisions to ensure its ongoing sustainability and viability,” the minister said.

Fitzgerald re-emphasized government’s position that “one of the prerequisites for successfully delivering our commitment to the creation of an effective transition path from high school into higher education had to be the restoration of the Scholarship Loan Programme.”

On October 21, 2015 the Education Loan (Amendment) Act 2015 came into force. In addition to collecting funds, the new Act addresses delinquencies, rewards borrowers who are paying and/or genuinely want to honour their obligations, and empowers the ELA to collect funds.

In summary, the Bahamas Education Loan Authority (ELA) is owed over $155 million in outstanding loan payments for its student loan scheme, with a default rate of 75 percent.

This Caribbean community should now be saying: “Give me my money!”

However, this commentary extends the criticism further: The money being demanded is the principal and maybe even some interest amounts due. But student loans are supposed to be investments in the young people of the community. This commentary trumpets the reality of Caribbean student loans as a fallacy: Where is the return on these investments?

This commentary asserts that those who advocate to remediate Caribbean economics needs to avoid a series of Economic Fallacies. This is commentary 3 of 6 from the movement behind the Go Lean book on the subject of Economic Fallacies. As related in the first submission on this series, the situation in the Caribbean region is likened to the imagery of an animal foraging for food, but then gets distracted and “chases a squirrel up a tree”. The squirrel in the tree will never be a meal; it is just a waste of time and energy for the animal. This analogy conveys the waste of time associated with a frivolous and fallacious pursuit. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

Independence – Hype of Hope
Austerity – Book Review: Mark Blyth’s “History of a Dangerous Idea”
Education & Student Loans – Not a good Return on Investment
Phillips Curve – Fallacy of Minimum Wage
Self-regulation of the Centers of Economic Activity
Casino Currency – US Dollars?

All of the commentaries in this series are economic in nature. They refer to rules for managing the valuable resources of time, talents and treasuries. Student loan investments are extending all three of these resources. Despite the direct reference to this one Caribbean member-states – the Bahamas – the experience is similar through out the entire region: Student loans have been a bad investment; lose-lose for the community. A mission of the roadmap gleaned from the Go Lean book, is to remediate the economic chaos in the region.

Back to the Bahamas, in addition to a terrible loan default rate where they report only 16 percent of borrowers are up to date on their loan payments; the problem is exacerbated by an atrocious brain drain rate. Some studies present that 70 percent of college educated ones in the Caribbean in general have fled the region for residency abroad. (The Bahamas rate was 61 percent in that report). Surely investments in student loans as a nation-building policy is an economic fallacy … for the Bahamas in particular and the Caribbean region in general.

The problem is not just a Caribbean one. Other communities also experience dysfunction in their student loan eco-system. For example, in the US, the average student loan debt for recent college graduates is close to $30,000; any loans guaranteed by the US Federal government is non-dischargeable, so even after death or bankruptcy, the indebtedness remains. This type of debt impedes the individual from making methodical progress, and the experience on community economics have been imperiled. In a previous blog-commentary, it was reported how the student loan crisis has impacted the home-buying practice.

So the best practice for students, who have partaken in a loan program, is to strategize a repayment; see related article in the Appendix. There are economic consequences for the individual and the community.

Education is good!

Student loans are bad!

The entire college education eco-system has had mixed results for the Caribbean.

Part of the Caribbean’s dismal record with college education is tied to the reality of college graduates abandoning the homeland, or never returning after their matriculation. This consideration aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, a roadmap to elevate the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean. The Caribbean wants to model many of the good examples of the United States, and learn from the many bad cautionary tales. Education is a good model; (every additional year of schooling – in the aggregate – raises a community’s economic output by 3% to 6%). On the other hand, the eco-system for student loans is one bad American model we do not want to emulate. The Go Lean book detailed the new debt crisis America is contending with because of the excessive debt loads, young ones are being burden with (Page 114). Here is an excerpt:

The Bottom line on a New Student Loan Scandal
Matt Taibbi, the Rolling Stone magazine contributing editor, had previously exposed the 2008 Wall Street Crisis in his critically acclaimed book Too Big To Fail. Now he exposes as scandalous how American colleges exploit young students with outrageous tuition increases (3 X the inflation rate), since all are approved for federal student loans. Where there is demand, a supply system steps in to deliver … and profit. But this industry creates its own demand with slick marketing campaigns. See Appendix IH of Go Lean … Caribbean – Page 286.

Already too, the Caribbean has its own bad experiences within its own student loan eco-system. The Caribbean experience has been more negative than positive. Too many of our students have left … to study abroad; then refused to return home, taking with them the return on community investments and repayment of their student loans. We must do better! A Go Lean/CU mission is to dissuade our citizens from emigrating to foreign shores.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU has a complete education agenda, applying lessons learned from the consideration of other communities, like the US. This roadmap presents the following 3 prime directives:

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

Again, education is good. So the Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform the Caribbean tertiary education systems, economy, governance and Caribbean society as a whole. There is a plan for a regional student loan pool, where we mitigate the dangers that are so evident in the American eco-system.

As for the primary threat of constant societal abandonment – of crisis proportions – the Go Lean roadmap has missions to remediate this crisis. So as a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the dread of threats and Caribbean brain drain (Page 12):

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.

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 a tertiary education plan, without addressing the preponderance of brain drain is another economic fallacy. We, as a community, would be spending good money, but getting bad returns.

Make no mistake, the Go Lean movement (book and accompanying blog-commentaries) posits that education is a vital consideration for Caribbean economic empowerment. Imagine better regional institutions with conditional loans with cross-border enforcement and collections. The vision of the CU is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to do this type of heavy-lifting to champion better educational policies for our region.

The book details the policies; the community 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 – Economic Systems Influence Choice	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship – Training & Mentoring	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research and Development – STEM Education	Page 30
Strategy – Competition Analysis – Study: At home –vs- Abroad	Page 50
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Education Department	Page 85
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Labor Department – On-the-Job-Training Regulator	Page 89
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Planning – Lessons Learned from Egypt	Page 151
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 – How to Reboot	Page 160
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 169
Appendix – Education and Economic Growth	Page 258
Appendix – New American Student Loan Debt Crisis – Now Over $ 1 Trillion in Debt	Page 286

The American Tertiary Education Student Loan eco-system is a broken model. This constitutes a fallacy for the Caribbean to emulate it. This point, and other fallacies related to education, have been repeatedly addressed and further elaborated upon by this Go Lean movement, as in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7806	Skipping School to become Tech Giants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6269	Education & Economics: Welcome Mr. President
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5482	For-Profit Education: Plenty of Profit; Little Education
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4487	FAMU – Finally, A Model for Facilitating Economic Opportunity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1470	College of the Bahamas Deficient Master Plan for 2025
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1256	Is a Traditional 4-year Degree a Terrible Investment?

Let’s do better here in the Caribbean. Better than our American model – see the VIDEO in the Appendix – and better than our own status quo. Let’s own up to the hurtful fact that tertiary education – and the student loans to finance them – has been an economic fallacy! We have been chasing “the squirrel up the tree and then waiting with futility for it to come down”. The Caribbean expression is so apropos here:

Fattening frog for snake.

There is a better way!

The people, educational and governing institutions in the region are urged to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Education reform – weeding out the fallacies – can succeed in elevating Caribbean society; we can make the homeland better places to live, work, learn and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

================

Appendix VIDEO – 5 Reasons Student Loans are Bulls**t | Decoded | MTV News – https://youtu.be/q0j0xnwEQug

Published on Oct 28, 2015 – Student Loans! Whether you hate them or hate them, you’re probably going to have to deal with them in one way or another. Why? Because over 40 Million young(ish) Americans owe over 1.2 Trillion dollars in student loan debt and millions of others have this spectre of debt loom over crucial life decisions. And while there are no easy answers about what to do about it, there are a lot of good questions like: Why has tuition across the United States skyrocketed over the past 30 years? What are your student loans really paying for? Is there anything you can do? And perhaps most importantly, is this all just a bunch of Bullshit?

Franchesca Ramsey: https://twitter.com/chescaleigh
Brought to you with love by: http://mtvother.com
Produced by: http://www.kornhaberbrown.com

With Special Guest:
Ben O’Keefe (@benjaminokeefe)

Watch Ben’s Show: The O’Keefe Brief
http://front.moveon.org/tag/the-okeef…

To learn more, visit: http://studentdebtcrisis.org/

—————————–

Appendix – Tips for repaying student loans

By: Andrew Housser
Source: Retrieved July 8, 2016 from: http://www.newson6.com/story/25551775/tips-for-repaying-student-loans

The average student loan debt for recent college graduates is close to $30,000. During the first five years after college, four out of 10 borrowers become delinquent in repaying their student loans. This can lead to extra fees and interest costs, as well as a major hit to one’s credit rating. If you are a college graduate who is struggling to keep up with payments, these tips can help.

Understand the terms of your loan(s). Chances are, you have more than one loan with different lenders. As a result, your options for loan repayment will vary. The U.S. Department of Education’s National Student Loan Data Systemprovides loan amounts, lender information and repayment status for all government-funded federal student loans. Private student loans are financed through a bank, credit union or other nongovernmental lender. Private lenders set their own interest rates, loan limits and other conditions. You will need to contact your private lender directly to obtain full details on the terms of your loan.

Consider consolidation. It is challenging to keep track of multiple loan payments. Consolidating your student loans will create a more convenient single monthly payment. Consolidation does increase the term of the loan and the amount of interest paid over the life of the loan. However, by extending the repayment term, it can reduce your monthly payments by almost half.
Figure out your repayment plan. Some loans have a grace period of six to nine months before the first payment is due. Depending on the loan type, interest may or may not accrue during this period. Having a little bit of breathing room after graduation can be helpful as you find and start a job. However, it also makes it easy to forget that a payment is due. Up to a third of borrowers miss their first student loan payment. Your credit rating can take a hit with just one missed payment. Automatic payments set up through your bank checking account can ensure you meet your financial obligation each month. Some lenders offer discounts for these automatic debits, too.

Do not default. Should you find yourself unable to make loan payments due to a job loss or other circumstances, it is always better to work with your lender to find a repayment solution than to default. Penalties for defaulting on student loans can be severe. They can include garnished wages and Social Security benefits, and government retention of tax refunds. In addition, you may incur late fees and collection charges. Instead of defaulting, consider these other options:

Deferment. If you qualify, you can temporarily halt payments on the loan principal by applying for a loan deferment with your lender. During this time, the federal government will pay the interest on subsidized federal student loans, but not unsubsidized loans.

Forbearance. A forbearance allows you to temporarily modify your loan terms by stopping or reducing monthly payments, or extending the repayment time period. Depending on your situation, you may or may not have to pay interest on the loan during a period of forbearance.

Forgiveness. Loan forgiveness programs eliminate loan balances (and payments) for people who meet certain criteria. These include working in eligible public service positions, such as in law enforcement or public health; military service; volunteer work; and teaching or practicing medicine in a low-income, rural area.

Cancellation. In extreme cases, such as disability, you may be able to get your loans discharged.

If you are still in school, make sure you complete an exit counseling session with a financial aid officer at your school before your graduate. This representative will review the terms and conditions of your loans, including repayment options and your rights and responsibilities. This is the time to ask questions and map out a plan for repayment. Then you can focus on the really important tasks like landing that dream job and starting your bright future.

About the Author
Andrew Housser is a co-founder and CEO of Bills.com, a free one-stop online portal where consumers can educate themselves about personal finance issues and compare financial products and services. He also is co-CEO of Freedom Financial Network, LLC providing comprehensive consumer credit advocacy and debt relief services. Housser holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University and Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College.

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A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Austerity: Dangerous Idea?

Posted on July 7, 2016 in Economics, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The economic status in the Caribbean – all 30 member-states despite the colonial legacy – can be summed up with one word:

Crisis!

Alas, the book Go Lean…Caribbean declares that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

This commentary relates the below Book Review of the publication by Economist and Political Scientist Mark Blyth entitled: Austerity – The History of a Dangerous Idea. This commentary asserts that those who advocate to remediate Caribbean economics needs to avoid a series of Economic Fallacies.

This is commentary 2 of 6 from the Go Lean movement on the subject of Economic Fallacies. As related in the previous submissions on this series, the situation in the Caribbean region is likened to the imagery of an animal foraging for food, but then gets distracted and “chases a squirrel up a tree”. The squirrel in the tree will never be a meal; it is just a waste of time and energy for the animal. This analogy conveys the waste of time associated with a frivolous and fallacious pursuit. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

Independence – Hype of Hope
Austerity – Book Review: Mark Blyth’s “History of a Dangerous Idea”
Education & Student Loans – Not a good Return on Investment
Phillips Curve – Fallacy of Minimum Wage
Self-regulation of the Centers of Economic Activity
Casino Currency – US Dollars?

All of these commentaries are economic in nature. They refer to rules for managing the valuable resources of time, talents and treasuries. There are rules for winning and rules for losing. Normally these are discovered after the fact, not before hand. So examining the experience of other communities, the winners and losers, can be extremely helpful to our Caribbean cause. This is a mission of the Go Lean roadmap, to learn lessons from how other communities have handled economic crises.

One common remediation for economic crisis has been Austerity. What is Austerity? And is this a good thing or bad thing? First, the dictionary definition is: “reduced availability of luxuries and consumer goods, as brought about by government policy”. Second, consider Mark Blyth’s own definition, here:

The Book Review and VIDEO on Mark Blyth’s Austerity book is as follows:

Book Review: Austerity – The History of a Dangerous Idea
By: Mark Blyth

Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013
Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts–austerity–to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer.

That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn’t work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we austerity for what it is, and what it costs us.

About the Author

Mark Blyth is associate professor of political science at the JohnsHopkinsUniversity and the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century.

===================

Editorial Reviews

“Austerity is an economic policy strategy, but is also an ideology and an approach to economic management freighted with politics. In this book Mark Blyth uncovers these successive strata. In doing so he wields his spade in a way that shows no patience for fools and foolishness.”
— Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science University of California, Berkeley

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“Of all the zombie ideas that have been reanimated in the wake of the global financial crisis, austerity is the most dangerous. Mark Blyth shows how austerity created the disasters of the 1930s, and contributed to the descent of the world into global war. He shows how European austerity policies have prevented any recovery from the crisis of 2009, while rescuing and protecting the banks and financial institutions that created the crisis. An essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the current depression.”
— John Quiggin, author of author of Zombie Economics

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“Most fascinating is the author’s discussion of the historical underpinnings of austerity, first formulated by Enlightenment thinkers Locke, Hume and Adam Smith, around the (good) idea of parsimony and the (bad) idea of debt. Ultimately, writes Blyth, austerity is a ‘zombie economic idea because it has been disproven time and again, but it just keeps coming.’ A clear explanation of a complicated, and severely flawed, idea.” — KIRKUS REVIEW

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‘One of the especially good things in Mark Blyth’s Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea is the way he traces the rise and fall of the idea of “expansionary austerity,” the proposition that cutting spending would actually lead to higher output. EL As Blyth documents, this idea spread like wildfire.’ — Paul Krugman, The New York Review of Books

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“Among all the calamities spawned by the global financial crisis, none was as easily avoidable as the idea that austerity policies were the only way out. In this feisty book, noted political scientist Mark Blyth covers new territory by recounting the intellectual history of this failed idea and how it came to exert a hold on the imagination of economists and politicians. It is an indication of the sorry state of macroeconomics that it takes a political scientist to expose so thoroughly one of the economics profession’s most dangerous delusions.”
— Dani Rodrik, Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy, The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Product Details

ISBN-13: 978 019938 9445

Print Length: 304 pages

Publisher: OxfordUniversity Press

Publication Date: March 27, 2013

Source: Financial Times – Book Review – Retrieved July 6, 2016 from: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BJK4Y7U/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

VIDEO: Mark Blyth: Is Austerity a Dangerous Idea? – https://youtu.be/2v8m-J8sgik

Published on Mar 27, 2013 – Governments the world over are looking at austerity measures to help battle the financial crisis. Author and Ivy League professor Mark Blyth tells Steve Paikin why he thinks this is a bad idea.

The Go Lean book details the economic crisis stemming from the 2008 Great Recession. But the book prepares societal engines of the Caribbean so as to not waste this crisis; it calls for the establishment of a regional administration to monitor, mitigate and manage the economic dynamics of the region. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The prime directives of this federal entity are described as:

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

So the Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to serve as the regional administration to optimize banking and sovereign debt in the region. Part of the CU roadmap is the accompanying Caribbean Central Bank. (CCB). The premise of the book is simple: that the problems of the region are too big for any one member-state to resolve alone. This point was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence in the Go Lean book (Pages 12 – 13) with these 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/CU/CCB roadmap is designed to deliver many empowerment activities to elevate Caribbean society. These activities will carefully balance the obligations of the past (debt) and the needs of the Caribbean future: we need growth and jobs … now. Debt is really just other people’s money; which always come with strings attached, as in repayment in a foreign currency … with interest.

What exactly is the Go Lean plan to counter the economic fallacy of austerity?

Economic growth …

… as in creating jobs through industrial and entrepreneurial endeavors – for a grand total of 2.2 million new jobs.

How is this different from previous administrations?

Technocratic administration for an economy of $800 Billion GDP; just consider these two strategies: Exclusive Economic Zones and Self Governing Entities.

Exclusive Economic Zones will facilitate both economic empowerment (like Fisheries management) and security assurances for the territories between the islands and the outer reaches of the Caribbean Sea. – Go Lean book (Page 104).
SGE’s are necessary features of the CU roadmap, allowing for industrial parks, technology labs, medical campuses, agricultural ventures, airport cities and even the Capital District. All aspects of their administration are managed by the CU, including monetary issues managed by the Caribbean Central Bank. – Go Lean book (Page 105).

The cautionary tales of austerity-like measures have been repeatedly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8132	Venezuela Example: Watching a ‘Train Wreck in Slow Motion’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963	Austerity for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7601	Beware of Vulture Capitalists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7268	Austerity Downsides: Detroit Public Schools Failing Grades
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7235	Austerity Downsides: The Cautionary Tale of Flint, Michigan
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6563	Lessons from Iceland – Model of Recovery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6531	Economic Crisis: Learning from the Exigency of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5818	Greece: From Bad to Worse
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3743	Trinidad Austerity Budget Cuts as oil prices tumble
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623	Reform at the brink of disaster, only at the precipice

The CU is designed to do the heavy-lifting of organizing Caribbean society to benefit from the lessons from austerity measures and the underlying sovereign and municipal personal debt crises of other communities. Since the purpose of austerity is to impact economic turn-around, it is important to fully dissect the anatomy of austerity programs. This was the goal and successful execution of the book in the foregoing Book Review; austerity is an economic fallacy. This goal is also a mission of the Go Lean book as it details the community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the economic turn-around of Caribbean communities:

Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	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 – Governing Principles – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future – Count on the Greedy to be Greedy	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Fortify the Stability of the Securities Markets	Page 45
Strategy – Provide Proper Oversight and Support for the Depository Institutions	Page 46
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Minimizing Bubbles	Page 69
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Depository Insurance & Regulatory Agency	Page 73
Implementation – Assemble Caribbean Central Bank as a Cooperative	Page 96
Implementation – Start-up Benefits from Exclusive Economic Zones	Page 104
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt – Not Relying on Other People’s Money	Page 114
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid – Technical Assistance	Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market / Currency Union	Page 127
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Planning – Lessons Learned from New York City – Wall Street	Page 137
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit – A Cautionary Tale	Page 140
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress – Allow strategy of Plan, Do & Review	Page 147
Anecdote – Caribbean Currencies	Page 149
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Control Inflation	Page 153
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Foreign Exchange (fx) – Strong regional currency	Page 154
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Appendix – Airport Cities – Models for Self Governing Entities	Page 287
Appendix – Tool-kits for Capital Controls	Page 315

The Go Lean roadmap posits that change is coming to the Caribbean; we do not want to be over-dependent on other people’s money – that means answering to other people’s demands. As the title of Mark Blyth’s book concludes: its a dangerous idea. This has been the campaign of the Go Lean movement, to pursue economic growth, not debt. The movement (book and blog-commentaries) have even trumpeted a solution for the current public debt – no austerity, rather robust capital markets using a single Caribbean currency. Change is afoot!

The summary of the book in the foregoing Book Review is that austerity as a turn-around strategy is a dangerous idea, an economic fallacy. It is not a best-practice. The best way to correct economic stagnation and recession is simply growth! Period!

Aggressive debt repayment should only be pursued during periods of growth.

With the Go Lean roadmap, change has come to our region. But there is the need for a permanent union to provide efficient stewardship for Caribbean economy, security and governing engines. There must be the constant balancing act between past debt obligations and future growth. The Go Lean…Caribbean book posits that this challenge is a direct result of agents of change facing the modern world, as in globalization. This challenge is too big for just any one member-state to tackle alone, so there must be a regional solution. This is the quest of the multi-state technocratic administration of the CU.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to embrace the economic turn-around and avoid austerity. Only then, can we make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Independence: Hype or Hope

Posted on July 6, 2016 in Economics, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Now after the Fourth of July – American Independence Holiday – we focus on the many Caribbean member-states that are celebrating their independence in the next weeks and months. See list of Independence Dates in the Appendix below.

For a long time, independence was ‘all the rage’; but was it hope or just hype? With a world-wide emphasis on globalization, this commentary posits that the ‘rage’ needs to be interdependence. That African proverb rings so loudly:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

So, it is the assessment of this commentary that Independence is so overrated; rather than independence, the call is for interdependence. A model of this desired interdependence is the inter-state cooperation in the European Union (EU). But even that modeled structure is now in jeopardy …

… as a referendum in Britain (actually all of the United Kingdom) on exiting the EU passed the ballot test. A proponent for this Brexit or Leave campaign, UK Independence Party Leader Nigel Farage, declared that the balloting day – June 23 – would be Britain’s Independence Day. The assumption here is that the UK had lost its autonomy for too many governing matters and has therefore become occupied by the EU.

The detailed results of the balloting is explained in this article here:

Quick facts about the Brexit

• On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom voted to exit the European Union by a 52 percent to 48 percent margin. There is no legal precedent for an EU member state to exit the Union, and a prolonged period of political and economic uncertainty is expected.

• Following the vote in the U.K., Prime Minister David Cameron announced he would resign, setting off a power struggle for his successor.

• Cameron said there would be no immediate change in the free movement of people, goods and services, both in and out of the U.K.

• The Bank of England stated it will enable British lenders to provide credit to businesses and households throughout the period of uncertainty. The BoE said it is also prepared to provide an additional £250 billion in liquidity to banks, in sterling and foreign currency, if required.

• Companies must continue to abide by regulations based on EU legislation until the exit is complete, which is expected to take up to two years.

What are some of the political implications?
Bernie McKay, Chief Public Policy Officer of publically-traded Silicon Valley-based company Intuit, Inc. said: “There are uncertain downstream implications about Britain’s future political leadership, which will take months to settle. But the governmental implications extend much further, including uncertainty about the future unity of the United Kingdom itself – watch for the revival of calls for Scottish independence, and for a referendum about the future of Northern Ireland. There is also the risk of exit ‘contagion’ in the EU – watch for movements in other member countries for EU exits.”

“There will be lots of speculation and rumors about Brexit implications for businesses, but it is again premature to reliably predict the real world outcomes, which will emerge gradually over the next several years as the dust settles. We will continue to engage and closely follow developments and implications.”

Source: Posted June 29, 2016; retrieved July 1, 2016 from: https://insight.intuit.com/IntuitNews/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=874bdd47%2D5d8f%2D4fcd%2Dbd9c%2De4d70b533740&ID=4213&Web=d3d40795%2D7bb5%2D4e3d%2Db930%2Db6e2cf3191eb

There is a lot of uncertainty from this Brexit action – the subject of independence is turning out to be more hype than hope; see the VIDEO in the Appendix below.

This subject is presented in conjunction with the book Go Lean … Caribbean and its accompanying movement. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government – modeled after the EU – to administer and optimize the economic, security, and governing engines of the 30 member Caribbean states. The book and previous blogs are reflections of a regional interdependence movement. This is more hope, than hype!

A philosophical attack on the EU is therefore an attack on the Caribbean’s future. We must be aware … and on guard.

In truth, the EU has prospered; it has been a win-win for all of its members. It has endured hardships (consider for example, the sovereign debt crisis in Greece) that under previous European regime’s would have resulted in wars; on two occasions, World Wars. Now so much of the rest of the world – especially Africa and the MiddleEast – wants what the EU has. This is why one of the greatest challenges for the EU as a whole and for each individual member-state is immigration or refugee migration. A basic requirement of the economic integration of the EU is the free movement of labor. So anytime, a refugee finds his/her way inside EU borders, they can travel to any member-state. The only way to prevent this free movement is to exit the EU. This is the British decision!

The UK does not want economic stagnation; they way progress. But they have wrongly accepted the fallacy of economic independence.

Things in Britain will get worse before it gets worse.

True, the EU is not perfect. They have some defects to fix. But the winning formula for fixing the governance is not shouting instructions from outside the trading group, but rather reforming and transforming it from the inside. But with Britain’s exit, they will have not further influence on the group, or the EU’s policies and procedures.

Make no mistake, EU member-states are Britain’s largest trading partners. Like any kind of collaborative relationship, there must be some “give-and-take”. The masses who voted to “Leave“, seem to want to take and not contribute as freely to the giving part. See the related chart in the photo here.

Considering the EU as a model for the CU, a big lesson for us from this drama is that without a “give-and-take” ethos, no economic integration would succeed. This has always been a problem for the UK since the start of the European “Integration Project”. Time and again, they opted-out out of so many regional regulations/proceedings. For example, the EU needed a constitution, but some countries, the UK most prominently, balked at the idea, so the rest of the trading pact opted for modified treaties as opposed to an enforceable constitution. Britain wanted their “cake and to eat it too”. So hopefully now, with a true Brexit, the constitution effort can re-emerge.

Then there is the issue of unity; the Brexit vote shows that some elements in the United Kingdom are not so “united”. Just two years ago, a referendum in Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom – and join the EU as a full member including the Eurozone Monetary Union – was narrowly defeated. No doubt, this Brexit vote will renew the call for Scottish Independence, and maybe even spur a similar campaign for Northern Ireland.

But the complaints of the British masses who voted to “leave” must be acknowledged. They are angry, dissatisfied and protesting the status quo. The Go Lean roadmap posits that globalization is less than perfect; it creates a lot of winners, at the expense of a lot of losers. Those who cling to their nationalistic orthodoxy tend to be among the losing classes. Change is afoot; there is the need to move from the status quo and position a community at the corner of preparation and opportunity.

The recent 2008 global financial crisis taught the important lesson that without preparation and planning the people suffer. The events of that year proved to be a crisis, one that still lingers even to this day. But the Go Lean book trumpets that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. In the Caribbean, we want our homeland to be a better place to live, work and play, so we must avail ourselves to the crisis in the UK, EU and the rest of the world and apply the lessons learned here at home.

For 16 of the 30 Caribbean member-states – see chart in the Appendix of 5 actual British Overseas Territories – the United Kingdom is their colonial legacy. The sins of the parents – much of the UK’s “Leave” supporters were motivated by hate – should not fall to the children. While ‘Mother England’ balks at the EU confederacy, we in the Caribbean should embrace the confederacy of the CU, even though it is a model of the EU. Only then can real solutions be forged for the Caribbean region, like creating 2.2 million jobs across the integrated market of 42 million people and growing the regional economy to $800 Billion of GDP.

There are a lot of lessons in this Brexit drama for the Caribbean. Many of these lessons were codified in the pages of the Go Lean book; though the book was written in 2013, it anticipated opposition to any confederation effort. The book presents “sharing” or give-and-take as a community ethos – the fundamental spirit of a culture that drives the practices of society – that needs to be adopted. The book also details other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge collaborations in Caribbean communities:

Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Confederate 30 Caribbean Member-States into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Customers – Member-state Governments	Page 47
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Member-state Governments -vs- CU Federal Agencies	Page 71
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Integrate Regional Organs	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Elections – For Federal Offices and a Constitution	Page 116
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence	Page 120
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Model the EU	Page 130
Planning – Lessons Learned from the West Indies Federation – Previous Integration Effort	Page 135
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to ImpactBritishTerritories	Page 245

The underlying spirit behind this Brexit protest is a quest to “appoint new guards” to make the homeland a better place to live, work and play. The Caribbean’s quest for societal elevation is similar; but instead of a call for independence, it is a quest for interdependence; so pronounced in this Declaration of Interdependence at the outset of the Go Lean book (Page 12):

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.

The need for “new guards” have been frequently detailed in previous Go Lean blog-commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8306	New Guards – Women Get Ready for New Lean-In Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896	New Guards for Disaster Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7789	New Guards for Global Trade
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7749	New Guards for Regional Elections
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7601	New Guards for Caribbean Sovereign Debt
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	New Guards for Disease Control
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341	New Guards for Tourism Stewardship
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103	New Guards Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5183	A Lesson in History – Cinco De Mayo and Mexico’s Security Lapses
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531	A Lesson in European Dysfunction: 100 Years Ago – World War I
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1193	EU willing to fund study on cost of not having CARICOM
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=833	European Model: One currency, divergent economies

The events in the UK and EU are important for us to consider … and learn. Truth be told, the Caribbean is in competition with this European world, and losing. We lose a lot of our citizens to these very same countries.

The quest to change the Caribbean will require convincing people to not act to their own detriment, as it appears the UK has done with this Brexit vote. Independence is not the answer; interdependence should be embraced more. This message must be trumpeted throughout Caribbean society – loud and clear. This is a mission of the Go Lean roadmap. This is a heavy-lifting task, but worth all the effort.

This is commentary 1 of 6 from the Go Lean movement on the subject of Economic Fallacies. This series presents the imagery of an animal – a dog perhaps – foraging for food, but then gets distracted and “chases a squirrel up a tree”. The squirrel in the tree will never be a meal; it is just a waste of time and energy for the animal. This analogy conveys the waste of time associated with frivolous and fallacious pursuits. The other commentaries are detailed as follows:

All of these commentaries are economic in nature. They refer to rules for managing the valuable resources of time, talents and treasuries. There are best-practices for winning and cautionary tales from losing. Normally these are discovered after the fact, not before hand. So examining the experiences of other communities, the winners and losers, can be extremely helpful to our Caribbean cause. This too, is a mission of the Go Lean roadmap.

Everyone in the Caribbean – citizens, institutions and member-state governments – are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. The end-result, once successful, is a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———–

Appendix – Caribbean Independence Dates

Member-State	Independence Day
Anguilla	British Overseas Territory = BOT
Antigua and Barbuda	November 1, 1981
Aruba	Netherlands Constituent
Bahamas	July 10, 1973
Barbados	November 30, 1966
Belize	September 21, 1981
Bermuda	BOT
British Virgin Islands	BOT
Cayman Islands	BOT
Cuba	May 20, 1902; Revolution July 26, 1953
Dominica	November 3, 1978
Dominican Republic	July 12, 192
Grenada	February 7, 1974
Guadeloupe	French Department
Guyana	May 26, 1966
Haiti	January 1, 1804
Jamaica	August 6, 1962
Martinique	French Department
Montserrat	BOT
Netherlands Antilles	Netherlands Constituent
Bonaire	Netherlands Constituent
Curaçao	Netherlands Constituent
Saba	Netherlands Constituent
Sint Eustatius	Netherlands Constituent
Sint Maarten	Netherlands Constituent
Puerto Rico	July 4^th, 1776
Saint Barthélemy	French Department
Saint Kitts and Nevis	September 19, 1983
Saint Lucia	February 22, 1979
Saint Martin	French Department
Saint Vincent & the Grenadines	October 27, 1979
Suriname	November 25, 1975
Trinidad and Tobago	August 31, 1962
Turks and Caicos Islands	BOT
US Virgin Islands	July 4^th, 1776

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Caribbean#Independence

——————-

Appendix VIDEO – Brexit Update: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO) – https://youtu.be/aGL5sDg7b8Y

Published on Jun 27, 2016 –
The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, and it looks like it may not be an especially smooth transition.
EXCUSE THE PROFANITY!

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‘Olli’ – The Self-Driving Public Transit Vehicle

Posted on June 22, 2016 in Implementation, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Freedom can be dangerous.

Having the freedom of speech, one can say inappropriate, even hateful things.
Having the freedom of choice, one can choose wrong.
Having a car that can drive anywhere, one can cause an accident or even a fatality.

A bit extreme? Yes, but also true.

The ideal would be to have freedom but also constraints to force us to use our freedom only for good.

While this is intelligent, we must all accept, that this is not human; this is describing an algorithm; something mechanical and artificial. Yes, we are hereby writing a bid request for Artificial Intelligence.

This is the theme of the introduction for an autonomous/self-driving vehicle Olli; see VIDEO and Press Release here:

VIDEO – Olli: Local Motors’ First Self-Driving Vehicle – https://youtu.be/Ymz4SYVr_EE

Published on Jun 15, 2016 – Olli is a self-driving vehicle from Local Motors that holds up to 12 people and uses the latest technology to offer riders a pleasant experience. Olli was designed by Local Motors’ community member, Edgar Sarmiento, and is proudly built by Local Motors. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you. #MeetOlli

——————-

Title: Local Motors debuts “Olli”, the first self-driving vehicle to tap the power of IBM Watson
By: Adam Kress

Local Motors transforms the passenger experience with IBM Watson Internet of Things technology; On roads now in Washington, DC and soon in Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas

National Harbor, Md., June 16, 2016 – Local Motors, the leading vehicle technology integrator and creator of the world’s first 3D-printed cars, today introduced the first self-driving vehicle to integrate the advanced cognitive computing capabilities of IBM Watson.

The vehicle, dubbed ‘Olli,’ was unveiled during the Grand Opening of a new Local Motors facility in National Harbor, MD this morning, and transported Local Motors CEO and co-founder John B. Rogers, Jr. along with vehicle designer Edgar Sarmiento from the Local Motors co-creation community into the new facility. The electric vehicle, which can carry up to 12 people, is equipped with some of the world’s most advanced vehicle technology, including IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) for Automotive, to improve the passenger experience and allow natural interaction with the vehicle.

Starting today, Olli will be used on public roads locally in DC, and late in 2016 in Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas.

“Olli offers a smart, safe and sustainable transportation solution that is long overdue,” Rogers said. “Olli with Watson acts as our entry into the world of self-driving vehicles, something we’ve been quietly working on with our co-creative community for the past year. We are now ready to accelerate the adoption of this technology and apply it to nearly every vehicle in our current portfolio and those in the very near future. I’m thrilled to see what our open community will do with the latest in advanced vehicle technology.”

Olli is the first vehicle to utilize the cloud-based cognitive computing capability of IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) to analyze and learn from high volumes of transportation data, produced by more than 30 sensors embedded throughout the vehicle. Using the Local Motors open vehicle development process, sensors will be added and adjusted continuously as passenger needs and local preferences are identified. Furthermore, the platform leverages four Watson developer APIs — Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, Entity Extraction and Text to Speech — to enable seamless interactions between the vehicle and passengers.

Passengers will be able to interact conversationally with Olli while traveling from point A to point B, discussing topics about how the vehicle works, where they are going, and why Olli is making specific driving decisions. Watson empowers Olli to understand and respond to passengers’ questions as they enter the vehicle, including about destinations (“Olli, can you take me downtown?”) or specific vehicle functions (“how does this feature work?” or even “are we there yet?”). Passengers can also ask for recommendations on local destinations such as popular restaurants or historical sites based on analysis of personal preferences. These interactions with Olli are designed to create more pleasant, comfortable, intuitive and interactive experiences for riders as they journey in autonomous vehicles.

“Cognitive computing provides incredible opportunities to create unparalleled, customized experiences for customers, taking advantage of the massive amounts of streaming data from all devices connected to the Internet of Things, including an automobile’s myriad sensors and systems,” said Harriet Green, General Manager, IBM Watson Internet of Things, Commerce & Education. “IBM is excited to work with Local Motors to infuse IBM Watson IoT cognitive computing capabilities into Olli, exploring the art of what’s possible in a world of self-driving vehicles and providing a unique, personalized experience for every passenger while helping to revolutionize the future of transportation for years to come.”

Though officially introduced today, there is already immediate interest in putting Olli to use on public roads. Miami-DadeCounty is exploring a pilot program in which several autonomous vehicles would be used to transport people around Miami.

“Improving the sustainability of local transportation networks as part of a wider goal to create more vibrant, livable, sustainable cities within Miami-Dade County, and improve the quality of life for residents is our top priority,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez. “We must do more to improve transit and mobility in our community and the deployment of autonomous vehicles is a big step in the right direction.”

As part of Olli’s debut, Local Motors officially opened its new NationalHarbor facility in Maryland today to serve as a public place where co-creation can flourish and vehicle technologies can rapidly advance. The company’s 3D-printed cars are on display, along with a large-scale 3D printer and an interactive co-creative experience that showcases what the future of the nation’s capital might look like. STEM-centered programming is also being developed for the facility so that the public can learn more about 3D printing, sustainability, autonomous technology and get involved with Local Motors engineers and the company’s co-creation community.

“NationalHarbor has a history of attracting unique and experiential shopping, dining and entertainment destinations, so we are an ideal launch pad for Local Motors,” said Jon Peterson, Principal of Peterson Companies, the developer of NationalHarbor. “We are excited to welcome Local Motors and play a part in the revolution of the transportation industry.”

The very first Olli will remain in NationalHarbor this summer, and the public will be able to interact with it during select times over the next several months. The development of the cognitive rider experience in Olli is a collaboration between Local Motors and IBM Watson IoT’s AutoLAB, an industry-specific incubation engine for co-creation of cognitive mobility applications. Production of additional Ollies is taking place at Local Motors headquarters near Phoenix.

To learn more about Olli and the new NationalHarbor facility, click here.

About Local Motors

Local Motors is a technology company that designs, builds and sells vehicles. The Local Motors platform combines global co-creation with local micro-manufacturing to bring hardware innovations, like the world’s first 3D-printed cars, to market at unprecedented speeds. To learn more, visit, www.localmotors.com.

About IBM

For more information about IBM Watson IoT, please visit www.ibm.com/iot or follow @IBMIoT on Twitter.

These self-driving vehicles are now here in Washington, DC – and coming to test cities, like Miami by year-end 2016. They are “ready for their close-up”.

Close-up? A movie reference? This is life imitating art; remember the scenes with the Johnny Cab in the 1990 movie Total Recall – see Appendix.

That was science fiction; this is real. Real life and real problems. It will take a technocratic administration to shepherd this advance through society. As for the Caribbean’s deployment, the plan is promoted by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This book Go Lean…Caribbean identifies that the region needs its own innovations, to spun economic activity, i.e. jobs. This book purports that a new industrial revolution is emerging and the Caribbean people and society must engage. This is pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13 & 14), with these statements:

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.

This Go Lean/CU roadmap will marshal the region to avail the opportunities associated with technology and automobiles, as there is an advocacy to foster a local automotive industry. In fact the CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

A previous blog identified the imminence of self-driving cars as a mandate to optimize highway safety in the US. The goal then was to provide automation to do more of the driving and neutralize dangerous “humans”: drunk drivers, texting-&-driving, drowsy driving and distracted driving. Too many lives have been lost!

This innovation in the foregoing article features an additional benefit: public transport of tourists and stakeholders on college campuses and other Self-Governing Entities.

Since tourism is the largest economic driver in the Caribbean, we need to pay more than the usual attention to these developments: direct and indirect jobs are at stake. This is why the Go Lean book presents Research-and-Development (R&D) as a community ethos – the fundamental spirit of a culture that drives the practices of society – that needs to be adopted. There is the need for similar solutions in the Caribbean. The book also details other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge research-and-development in Caribbean communities:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact R&D	Page 30
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 48
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 68
Separation of Powers – Public Works & Infrastructure	Page 82
Separation of Powers – Department of Transportation	Page 84
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas	Page 127
Planning – Lessons from Detroit	Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation	Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Develop the Auto Industry	Page 206

Issues related to autonomous (self-drive) vehicles have been detailed in these Go Lean commentaries, listed here:

Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims

Pleas to Detroit on Technology in Cars

Here come the Drones … and the Concerns

The need for Google’s highway safety innovations

Autonomous Ghost Ships

This subject of autonomous vehicles will impact jobs and also security measures. Notice the references to live monitoring operators in the foregoing article. Autonomous vehicles can easily become a serious local government concern. So a Caribbean deployment of “Olli” will require the type of technocratic coordination that the CU is designed for.

The foregoing article and VIDEO describe Olli’s deployment in the US. The Caribbean must be ready, willing and able to embrace these types of innovations. This will mean one-step-forward-two-steps-backwards. Imagine the impact on taxi cabs! Already this population will have to contend with ride-sharing services like Uber.

The world is continuing to change; and ‘change’ is bringing great new opportunities … if we are prepared.

Managing change for the region is something the CU will spearhead.

What was science fiction is now reality. The future is now! Autonomous vehicles, elevating the experience and safety of public transit is for the Greater Good. It’s win-win for the people and the community. We must engage, empower and equip the people of the Caribbean if we want to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——————–

Appendix VIDEO – Total Recall’s Johnny Cab – https://youtu.be/IjRXyWFLkEY

Uploaded on Oct 29, 2006 – Johnny cab clips from the movie Total Recall (1990).

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ENCORE: LeBron – ‘Cleveland, this is for you’

Posted on June 20, 2016 in Economics, Industries, Social

This blog from July 15, 2014 – Lebronomy – Economic Impact of the Return of the NBA Great – is hereby re-distributed in honor of … the Championship; Cleveland Cavaliers won over Golden State Warriors 93 to 89 in the decisive Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. See here:

It took 52 years and enough heartbreak to fill an encyclopedia, and Finals MVP LeBron James has given his hometown a championship with the most improbable comeback in NBA Finals history. – ESPN’s SportsCenter – June 19, 2016

Go Lean Commentary

The commentaries of the Go Lean…Caribbean blogs have often addressed sports issues. But mostly from the point-of-view as the business of sports, and its impact on the communities’ economic engines.

This commentary continues that pattern, plus it couples one more assignment: Mea Culpa.

We were wrong! The publishers of the Go Lean book (dated November 2013) included an anecdote on the Miami Heat (Page 42), stressing the “Not one, not two, not three, not four…” quotation from superstar free agent LeBron James when he joined the team in 2010. The Mea Culpa, (Latin verbiage for “My Bad”), obviously applies in that, there would only be 2 championships. Everything else of that anecdote applies, but a technocratic approach, different than previous Caribbean administrations, requires that we learn lessons from successes and failures. Already this commentary has congratulated the 2014 winner of the NBA Finals, San Antonio Spurs, who went on to beat the Miami Heat; as follows:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1508

St Croix’s Tim Duncan to Return to Spurs For Another Season

What are the lessons that we learn from our failure to prognosticate the winning basketball team? Number one: Don’t bet!

The Bible words are correct: “Time and unforeseen occurrences befall us all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). That’s what we got wrong, but what we got right is so much more impactful, the economic impact of sports on the local community:

By: ABC News

Title: Lebronomy: Economic Impact of the Return of NBA Great LeBron James

A ticket to the Cleveland Cavalier’s season opener used to go for $40, now goes for as much as $600.

Yahoo Video Sharing Site (Retrieved 07/14/2014) –
http://news.yahoo.com/video/lebronomy-economic-impact-return-nba-030818278.html

This discussion of sports and the basketball team in Cleveland is not just academic. Community pride, jobs, and the growth of the regional economy is involved; the foregoing VIDEO summarized that LeBron James’ absence was worth $50 million a season for this metropolitan area. This point aligns with the objections of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This effort harnessed the individual abilities so as to elevate the athletes (micro) and also economic impact for their related communities (macros). Modern sports cannot be analyzed without considering the impact on “dollars and cents” for the community. In his essay to the people of Cleveland, announcing his return, after taking his talents to South Beach, this was the exact point LeBron James made:

“My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now.”

“Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked,” James told SI (Sports Illustrated). “It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up. I sometimes feel like I’m their son. Their passion can be overwhelming. But it drives me.

“I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can.”
(http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20140711/SPORTS20/140719891/-1/sports12)

These words in this eloquently written essay could have been concurred by so many of the Caribbean Diaspora that had taken their talents to “South Beach, South Toronto or South London”. The economic impact of their absence has been duly noted in research and analysis and the conclusion is bad:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433

Caribbean loses over 70% of tertiary educated citizens to the brain drain

The Go Lean roadmap attempts to impact change in the region, by elevating Caribbean society. The CU, using all the economic benefit that can be derived from sports in the region, will pursue a charter that is bigger than basketball, football, baseball or any other sport. Rather 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.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book identified this vision early in the book (Page 13 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

xix.   Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores…

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.

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 – modeling the Olympics.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean to foster the elevation and industrialization of sports in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities (Fairgrounds)	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Expositions	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

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 is a big deal for regional sports. This book provides the turn-by-turn directions for how to get from Point A, where we can only hope and dream about foreign sports stars, to Point B, where we can finally celebrate our own sports stars.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Zuckerberg’s Philanthropy Project Makes First Major Investment

Posted on June 17, 2016 in Economics, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

We hereby submit to be Number 2!

Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg – see VIDEO below – has identified and invested in his FIRST philanthropic project … in the region of Africa … with a heavy focus on Information & Communications Technology (ICT). That is Number 1; “we”, the Caribbean region would like to request to be Number 2, or 3 or 4 … anywhere. We do not care about which nominal order we receive the investment, only that he invests, along with other philanthropists of his ilk, in our Caribbean youth to help us forge technology careers in our region. See the news article here:

Title: Zuckerberg’s philanthropy project makes first major investment

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropy venture has made its first major investment, leading a funding round in a startup that trains and recruits software developers in Africa.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative LLC, created by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, led a $24 million Series B funding in Andela, the startup said on Thursday.

Alphabet Inc’s GV, previously known as Google Ventures, was also part of the funding round.

Andela selects the top 1 percent of tech talent from Africa, trains them and places them in engineering organizations.

The startup, which has nearly 200 engineers currently employed by its Nigeria and Kenya offices, will use the funds to expand to a third African country by the end of 2016.

“We live in a world where talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. Andela’s mission is to close that gap,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.

When the philanthropy initiative was launched in late 2015, Zuckerberg said he would put in 99 percent of his Facebook shares.

The initiative is structured as a limited liability company. This means, unlike a traditional charitable or philanthropic foundation, the venture can make political donations, lobby lawmakers, invest in businesses and recoup any profits from those investments.

Zuckerberg has also signed the Giving Pledge, which invites the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to commit to giving more than half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes over their lifetime or in their will.

(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Source: Reuters News Source – Posted June 16, 2016; retrieved June 17, 2016 from: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/zuckerbergs-philanthropy-project-makes-first-major-investment-123251464–sector.html

———–

VIDEO – Mark Zuckerberg Biography Computer Programmer, Philanthropist (1984–) – http://www.biography.com/people/mark-zuckerberg-507402/videos/mark-zuckerberg-mini-biography-36891527

Mark Zuckerberg is co-founder and CEO of the social-networking website Facebook, as well as one of the world’s youngest billionaires.

The Caribbean has a lot of expectations for technology in the region, so as to aid and assist with our goal to elevate our regional society. This campaign is detailed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate Caribbean society. This movement calls for investments of time, talent and treasury to effect change in this region. The book posits that all Caribbean stakeholders (governments, residents, institutions, students, Diaspora) would be willing to devote a measure of these three ingredients if they had them, but these resources are deficient here. So these stakeholders need to lean-in to the plans of others, like philanthropist Mark Zuckerberg.

The Go Lean book strategizes a roadmap for economic/security/governing empowerment; but it also clearly relates that many social aspects of Caribbean life will be un-addressed. This is a void that NGO’s (Non-Government Organizations) can fill. Many times, these organizations offer free money, that requires no repayment!

The Go Lean roadmap invites NGO’s to impact the Caribbean according to their charters. Though forging change in the region is the responsibility of the region, we must be open to ask for help, to accept the help, and respond to the help being offered. (And then to give an account of the helping resources extended).

This is why we hereby submit to be Number 2 for Mr. Zuckerberg!

The Go Lean/CU movement champions the cause of building and optimizing the Caribbean eco-system. According to the foregoing article, it is important to identify, qualify and foster those with genius potential in Internet & Communications Technology fields and to do so as soon as possible. There is the expectation that fostering such skills and industries can contribute to the fulfillment of the Go Lean prime directives, defined as follows:

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.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Caribbean does not only want to be on the consuming end of technological developments, we want to create, produce and contribute to the world of technological innovations. So the CU/Go Lean roadmap explicitly asserts that the love and curiosity for technology must be ingrained in our youth as early as possible. So the plan is to foster genius qualifiers in our Caribbean youth for careers and occupations – at home – that involve Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

These points – of ICT and STEM – were pronounced at the outset of the Go Lean book with this opening Foreword (Page 3) and the subsequent Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 & 14) with these statements:

Foreword: Our youth, the next generation, may not be inspired to participate in the future workings of their country; they may measure success only by their exodus from their Caribbean homeland.

xiii. 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.

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

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

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

This is a mission of the CU, to create an eco-system for technology education, appreciation and manifestation of industrial initiatives. The goal is to create 64,000 new direct and indirect technology/software jobs in the Caribbean Single Market. So it will be a good start – even if we are Number 2 – to use the grants and support (time, talent and treasuries) of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – and other philanthropists and NGO’s – to foster this campaign.

Under the Go Lean roadmap, the structure is put in place to include contributions of time-talent-treasuries of NGOs/foundations. One feature of the Go Lean roadmap involves Self-Governing Entities (SGE’s); these may be structured as NGO’s at times. This structure will provide the needed regulatory oversight and accountability. The following list details other community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s public/private cooperation and endeavors:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens – So solicit NGO’s Aid	Page 23
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Customers – Non-Government Organizations are Stakeholders	Page 48
Strategy – Competition – Attention to Caribbean as Opposed to Other 3^rd World	Page 56
Separation of Powers – State Department – Regulator and Liaison for NGO’s	Page 80
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries – Portals for Technology Education	Page 187
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Appendix – Billionaires on the list of The Giving Pledge	Page 292

The details of such philanthropic projects have been detailed in previous Go Lean blog-commentaries; see sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7989	Transformations: Getting over’ with ‘free money
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963	Being a ‘Good Neighbor’ – Like Puerto Rico needs right now
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896	The Logistics of Disaster Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822	Doing more against Cancer – Facebook co-founder Sean Parker
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6422	Microsoft Pledges $75 million in Philanthropy for Kids in ICT
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5462	NGO Accountability – The Case of The Red Cross’ $500 Million Haiti Fund
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3432	International Aid “drying up” for Caribbean countries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126	Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1193	EU willing to fund study on cost of not having CARICOM
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1112	Zuckerberg’s $100 Million Investment in Newark’s Schools Declared a Waste
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=816	The Future of CariCom – Too dependent on Foreign Aid
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=476	CARICOM Urged on ICT
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=451	CARICOM deliver address on reparations – Looking for Free Money
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308	CARCIP Urges Greater Innovation

There is the old adage: “Charity begins at home”.

This is true, and preferable, if the resources are available “at home” in the first place. For the Caribbean, our “cupboards are bare”.

The Go Lean book describes how to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines. The book clearly depicts that Not-For-Profit charities, foundations and NGO’s are stakeholders for the effort to make the Caribbean better. We need their access to alternate capital. Many members of the “One Percent” – see list of billionaires on Page 292 – want to help “change the world”; they want to give of their time, talent and treasuries. (But in turn, want accountability). The CU will help facilitate their vision. This is win-win!

Welcome to the Caribbean Mr. Zuckerberg. And bring your friends along.

We must accept all genuine help to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption

Posted on June 15, 2016 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

This subject of “Respect for Minorities” is dominant in the news right now. This commentary is 3 of 3 in this series on lamentations for defective social values. The complete series is as follows:

Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate – ‘It Gets Worse Before It Gets Worse’
Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption – A Lesson in History

There are these familiar proverbs:

1. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. – The Bible; Ecclesiastes 1: 9

2. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

There is a lot of history in the United States regarding “Respect for Minorities”; and the lessons from that history apply for the Caribbean. In this case, there is the history of the 2nd Reconstruction and 2nd Redemption that applies directly to Caribbean people living in the US. Life in the US for our Diaspora has been a familiar theme for the publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean; this theme has been exhausted in the book (Page 118 – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean) and in countless blog/commentaries (see list below), within the quest to dissuade Caribbean people from emigrating to the US and to encourage many of the existing Diaspora to return to their homelands, to repatriate.

Why is this so important? The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) have been consistent: it is easier for the people of the Caribbean – a majority Black and Brown demographic – to prosper where planted in their homelands than to endure as alien residents in foreign countries. This commentary asserts the key ingredient for reforming and transforming societies with diverse demographics: “Respect for Minorities”. This commentary seeks to learn this lesson based on life (and history) in the US; though the principles here can easily apply to Canada and the many western European countries that receive our citizens. Consider this analogy:

Do you want to go a party – that you hear is a lot of fun – uninvited? What if you hear the host really wants you at the party, and then when you get there you discovered that they want you to serve and work and cater to the other preferred guests; you are just there as support staff?
Want to go home yet?

This is the experience for so many Caribbean Diaspora when they ‘come to America’. Just take a quick tour at so many tourist/travel facilities at America’s principal cities. So many of the “serving” staff are of Caribbean heritage. One would talk to taxi drivers, hotel maids, waiters and retail store clerks and you discover that these ones descend from the Caribbean.

You think: They came here for “this”? They are minorities among a majority that has little respect for them.

There is this above scenario, and then … there is “prosper where you’re planted”:

Just like a tree planted by the rivers of water
That bring forth fruit in due season
Source: The Bible – Psalms Chapter 1 verse 3 – King James Bible

This was the strong point made by one of the key figures in African-American history, Booker T Washington. He asserted that the African-American community must work to prosper in its own hometown, that they must seek reconciliation with their White neighbors and find a way to co-exist. This was a good plan for Black America, the minorities; but White America, the majority population didn’t always cooperate. The effort to reconcile was attempted before, immediately following the Civil War, during the period of Reconstruction; 1865 – 1877. This period of time actually featured some real progress in liberating and promoting the previous enslaved minority population – an enfranchisement of all freedmen. But then, at the end of the formal Reconstruction period, there was redemption…

… redemption: a return to American original values, that is “White supremacy” and the repression of the African-American race.

During this Redemption period: Jim Crow laws – segregation in public places – were implemented, as the follow details depict:

The end of Reconstruction … was followed by a period that White Southerners labeled Redemption, during which White-dominated state legislatures enacted Jim Crow laws and, beginning in 1890, disenfranchised most Blacks and many poor Whites through a combination of constitutional amendments and electoral laws. The White Democrat Southerners’ memory of Reconstruction played a major role in imposing the system of white supremacy and second-class citizenship for Blacks. – Sourced from Wikipedia.

That was then, 130 years ago; how about now? The notion of an Encore/”Second Take” seems unthinkable; and yet this is the historicity of events and experiences after this 2nd Reconstruction – the Civil Rights movement of the 20th Century: think Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Affirmative Action, Minority Set-Asides, etc.. See the encyclopedic reference here:

Reference Title: Second Reconstruction
Second Reconstruction is a term that refers to the American Civil Rights Movement. In many respects, the mass movement against segregation and discrimination that erupted following World War II, shared many similarities with the period of Reconstruction which followed the American Civil War. The period of Second Reconstruction featured active participation on the part of African-Americans to regain their rights that they had lost during the period of Redemption and Jim Crow segregation in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

During Second Reconstruction, African-Americans once again began holding various political offices, and reasserting and reclaiming their civil and political rights as American citizens. Unlike Reconstruction, however, most African-Americans abandoned the Republican Party for the Democratic Party. A noteworthy feature of Second Reconstruction was the political realignment that occurred in 1965, which transformed the nature and composition of both the Republican and Democratic Party’s, eroding the Democratic Solid South.

In the same way, however, that Reconstruction was followed by Redemption, some have also claimed that period following Second Reconstruction could be termed a Second Redemption characterized by more conservatism on the part of the federal government, and several Supreme Court decisions that weakened the scope of civil rights reforms, especially in the Northern States

The years between 1954-1972 have often been called the Second Reconstruction, since it has noteworthy similarities with the First Black Reconstruction (1865-1877), which began with the abolition of slavery by the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment. Both periods saw African Americans making tremendous gains in the fields of politics and civil rights. Three major Supreme Court decisions (the Brown decision on school desegregation (1954), desegregation of public transportation (1956); bussing to achieve school desegregation (April 1971), two legislative enactments (the Civil Rights Act, 1964, and the Voting Rights Act, 1965) and the March on Washington, D.C. (April 28, 1963), many demonstrations and riots, resulted in major alterations in race relations. There was “change within change,” and America would never be the same.

While the Second Reconstruction destroyed the legal foundations of the segregationist system, it also highlighted the further and more difficult challenge of translating legal victories into real change. Moreover, the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., removed a key symbol and source of unity in the nonviolent freedom struggle. According to one activist, King was “the one man of our race that this country’s older generations, the militants, and the revolutionaries and the masses of black people would still listen to.” As the limitations of the Civil Rights movement became more apparent, growing numbers of young African Americans advocated Black Power as an alternative to nonviolent direct-action strategies. Partly because revolutionary black organizations like the Black Panther party (formed in 1966) emphasized the mass mobilization of poor and working-class blacks, armed struggle, and opposition to the Vietnam War, they came under the combined assault of federal, state, and local authorities. Under the weight of official and unofficial white resistance, the Black Power movement fragmented and gradually dissipated by the early 1970s.

Late Twentieth Century Developments. As the civil rights and Black Power movements weakened, white resistance to the gains of the Second Reconstruction intensified. Opposition to affirmative-action policies in employment and education were closely related to the deindustrialization of the nation’s economy. The loss of jobs to mechanization and low-wage overseas factories affected all industrial workers, black and white, but the persistence of overt and covert discriminatory employment practices rooted in white kin and friendship networks made black workers and their communities especially vulnerable to economic down swings. African-American unemployment rates persisted at well over the white rate, especially among young black males. At the same time, the beneficiaries of existing affirmative-action programs–the middle class and better-educated members of the black working class–experienced a degree of upward mobility and moved into outlying urban and suburban neighborhoods. They left working-class and poor blacks, disproportionately single women with children, concentrated in the central cities, where violence, drug addiction, and class-stratified social spaces intensified, causing acute tensions in day-to-day intraracial as well as interracial relations.

Perhaps even more than in the industrial era, the post- industrial age challenged African Americans to develop new strategies for coping with social change and the persistence of inequality. Some of their emerging responses built upon earlier struggles. Institution-building, marches, participation in electoral politics, and migration in search of better opportunities all continued to express black activism and resistance to social injustice. Yet, much had changed in the nation and in African American life, and such time-tested strategies took on different meanings in the 1980s and 1990s. Rising numbers of southern- born blacks returned to the South during the 1970s. After declining for more than a century, the proportion of blacks living in the South increased by 1980. Other African Americans rallied behind the Rainbow Coalition and supported the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s bid for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. Still others endorsed Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March (MMM) in 1994. Calling the march a “day of atonement” for black men, leaders of the MMM encouraged black men to earn and reclaim a position of authority in their families and communities. Four years later, many black women responded to the MMM’s gender bias with their own Million Woman March, which emphasized the centrality of women in the ongoing black freedom struggle. Through these various actions and many more, African Americans continued to resist shifting forms of inequality and gave direction to their own lives as a new century began.

These same years saw the emergence of a new generation of African-American academics, musicians, performers, sports figures, and writers. Such diverse men and women as the scholars and public intellectuals Henry Louis Gates, Cornel West, and Stephen L. Carter; basketball superstar Michael Jordan and track-and-field athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee; film actors Eddie Murphy and Denzel Washington; jazz musicians Joshua Redman, Herbie Hancock, and Wynton and Bradford Marsalis; television celebrity Oprah Winfrey; and an array of novelists and writers including Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison enriched American life and gave voice to the black experience.

By the 1990s, the nation’s more than 30 million African Americans, representing about 12 percent of the total population, had transformed themselves from a predominantly rural people into an overwhelmingly urban people; from a southern regional group to a national population living in every part of the nation; and, perhaps most importantly, from a group confined to southern agriculture, domestic service, and general labor to a work force with representation in every sector of the nation’s economy.
Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved May 26, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Reconstruction

——————

VIDEO 1 – Henry Louis Gates assesses the black community today – https://youtu.be/g8XcWodA47g

Uploaded on Oct 28, 2011 – www.twaintrip.com

——————

VIDEO 2 – Powell Comments On Gates Arrest, Admits Being Profiled “Many Times” – https://youtu.be/sVelDpz5ZT0

Uploaded on Jul 28, 2009 – Gen. Colin Powell talks about the Henry Louis Gates arrest with Larry King. He said the story “went viral” when President Obama commented on the story. Also, Powell thinks that America “isn’t quite post-racial” at this time. “These problems still exist in post-racial America.” However, he suggested that Gates should not have argued with the policeman arresting him. “You don’t argue with a police officer,” he says.

Powell also called the arresting cop, Sergeant James Crowley, “an outstanding police officer.”

Also, at 5:10, Powell admits he’s been profiled “many times” [even] as the National Security Advisor.

This conclusion of a 2nd Redemption is not so far-fetched!

Just consider the current campaign of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump: “Make America Great Again“. It bears to mind the question: “just when was America great before”? Answer: After the first Redemption.

It should be hard to justify migrating to this American climate/eco-system, rather than the quest to prosper where planted in the homeland. The societal defects in the Caribbean – that “pushes” many to flee – must be that acute!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean declares that the “Caribbean is in crisis”; but asserts that this crisis is a terrible thing to waste. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); an initiative to bring change, empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play. This Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

The book describes the CU as a technocratic administration with 144 different missions to elevate the Caribbean homeland. This underlying goal is stated early in the book with this pronouncement in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):

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…

Change has come to the Caribbean. The Go Lean book declares that for permanent change to take place, there must first be an adoption of new community ethos of the Greater Good; this term community ethos refers to the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. This Greater Good ethos, with genuine concern and respect for minority groups, is what was missing in previous American generations … and current Caribbean population. This point of “Respect for Minorities” is therefore our biggest lesson from this consideration in history – the foregoing encyclopedic reference.

The Go Lean roadmap was constructed with this and other community ethos in mind, plus the execution of strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to forge the identified permanent change in the region. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification – Historic Motivation of Black America	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Anecdote – LCD versus an Entrepreneurial Ethos	Page 39
Strategy – Vision – Confederation of the 30 Caribbean Member-States into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art, People and Culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers: Federal Administration versus Member-States Governance	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean	Page 118
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance in the Caribbean Region	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – Anti-Bullying Mitigations	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

Previous Go Lean blog/commentaries stressed issues relating to respect for minority rights and full societal inclusion. The following sample applies:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221	Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils the real America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7204	‘The Covenant with Black America’ – Ten Years Later
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6722	A Lesson in History – After the Civil War: Birthright Mandates
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6434	‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5784	Buggery in Jamaica – ‘Say It Ain’t So’!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5733	Better than America? Yes, We Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527	American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5333	Racial Legacies: Cause and Effect
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4935	A Lesson in History – the ‘Grand Old Party’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2222	Sports Role Model – Playing For Pride … And More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1918	Philadelphia Freedom – Some Restrictions Apply
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896	The Crisis in Black Homeownership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Lack of Respect in European Sports – A Lesson; A Role Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	America’s War on the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546	Book Review: ‘The Divide in American Injustice’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341	Hypocritical US slams Caribbean human rights practices

The purpose of the Go Lean movement (book and blogs) is not to fix America; it is to fix the Caribbean. We want to learn important lessons from this advanced democracy who have endured a bitter history but has now emerged as the richest, strongest and most-prosperous nation in world history. The US is now a “frienemy” of the Caribbean. As we lose so many of our Caribbean citizens to life in the Diaspora in the US.

Some reports are that the Diaspora and their heirs amount to over 20 million American residents. America’s population and economy grows while our region is in crisis.

Our people leave our homelands due to “push and pull” reasons; “push” as in societal defects that cause many to seek refuge abroad, and “pull” in the presumption that American life is now optimized for the Black-and-Brown people. But a consideration of this commentary helps us to understand the “DNA” of American society, that while “Respect for Minorities” is improved, it is far from optimized.

The recommendation from this commentary and the Go Lean book in general is:

“stay home” in the Caribbean and work toward improving the Caribbean homeland.
And for those who have left, please consider repatriating home and bring us your “time, talent and treasuries”; help us reform and transform our society.

The US should not be considered the panacea of Caribbean hopes and dreams”. With the adoption of the appropriate community ethos, strategies, tactics and implementations of the Go Lean roadmap, we can make all Caribbean member-states better places to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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