Tag: Sales

Caribbean Role Model – Oscar De La Renta – RIP

Posted on October 22, 2014 in Industries, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The world mourns the passing of Oscar De La Renta (1932 – 2014; age 82), the Dominican American fashion designer that became internationally known in the 1960s as one of the couturiers who dressed First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. He was an award-winning designer who worked for Paris fashion houses Lanvin and Balmain; but is better known for his eponymous fashion house as he continued to dress leading figures, from film stars and world leaders to royalty [19], right up to weeks before his death – he dressed Amal Alamuddin for her September 27th wedding to George Clooney.

De La Renta was born in the Dominican Republic’s capital city of Santo Domingo; he remained committed and impassioned to assist his homeland, despite his permanence in the New York metropolitan area. He was a stalwart of the NYC fashion scene.

The world’s media duly recognized his passing yesterday (Monday October 20) and the contribution of his life. The following productions feature a news story and a newscast of his passing and obituary of his legacy:

1. Title: Oscar De la Renta, legendary designer, dead at 82
CU Blog - Caribbean Role Model - Oscar De La Renta - RIP - Photo 1NEW YORK (AP) — At his Fashion Week runway show in September, Oscar De La Renta sat in his usual spot: in a chair right inside the wings, where he could carefully inspect each model just as she was about to emerge in one of his sumptuous, impeccably constructed designs.

At the end of the show, the legendary designer himself emerged, supported by two of his models. He didn’t walk on his own, and didn’t go far, but he was beaming from ear to ear. He gave each model a peck on the cheek, and then returned to the wings, where models and staff could be heard cheering him enthusiastically.

De La Renta, who dressed first ladies, socialites and Hollywood stars for more than four decades, died Monday evening at his Connecticut home at age 82, only six weeks after that runway show. But not before another high-profile honor was bestowed on him: The most famous bride in the world, Amal Alamuddin, wore a custom, off-the-shoulder De La Renta gown to wed George Clooney in Venice. Photos of the smiling designer perched on a table at the dress fitting appeared in Vogue.

De La Renta died surrounded by family, friends and “more than a few dogs,” according to a handwritten statement signed by his stepdaughter Eliza Reed Bolen and her husband, Alex Bolen. The statement did not specify a cause of death, but De La Renta had spoken in the past of having cancer.

“He died exactly as he lived: with tremendous grace, great dignity and very much on his own terms,” the statement said. “While our hearts are broken by the idea of life without Oscar, he is still very much with us. … All that we have done, and all that we will do, is informed by his values and his spirit.”

The late ’60s and early ’70s were a defining moment in U.S. fashion as New York-based designers carved out a look of their own that was finally taken seriously by Europeans. De La Renta and his peers, including the late Bill Blass, Halston and Geoffrey Beene, defined American style then and now.

De La Renta’s specialty was eveningwear, though he also was known for chic daytime suits favored by the women who would gather at the Four Seasons or Le Cirque at lunchtime. His signature looks were voluminous skirts, exquisite embroideries and rich colors.

Earlier this month, first lady Michelle Obama notably wore a De La Renta dress for the first time. De La Renta had criticized her several years earlier for not wearing an American label to a state dinner in 2011.

Among Obama’s predecessors favoring De La Renta were Laura Bush, who wore an icy blue gown by De La Renta to the 2005 inaugural ball, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who wore a gold De La Renta in 1997.

“We will miss Oscar’s generous and warm personality, his charm, and his wonderful talents.” Bush said in a statement. ” We will always remember him as the man who made women look and feel beautiful.”

A statement from former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky, said: “Oscar’s remarkable eye was matched only by his generous heart. His legacy of philanthropy extended from children in his home country who now have access to education and health care, to some of New   York’s finest artists whose creativity has been sustained through his support.”

De La Renta made just as big a name for himself on the Hollywood red carpet — with actresses of all ages. Penelope Cruz and Sandra Bullock were among the celebrities to don his feminine and opulent gowns. His clothes even were woven into episodes of “Sex and the City,” with its style icon, Carrie Bradshaw, comparing his designs to poetry.

One actress who wore a De La Renta gown to this year’s Oscars was Jennifer Garner.

“Mr. De La Renta loved women,” she said on Monday evening, wiping away tears. “And you saw it in every design that he did. He honored women’s features, he honored our bodies. He wasn’t afraid to pull back and let the woman be the star of the look.”

De La Renta was also deeply admired by his fellow designers. “He set the bar,” designer Dennis Basso said on Instagram Monday night. “But most of all he was a refined elegant gentleman.”

The designer’s path to New York’s Seventh Avenue took an unlikely route: He left his native Dominican Republic at 18 to study painting in Spain, but soon became sidetracked by fashion. The wife of the U.S. ambassador saw some of his sketches and asked him to make a dress for her daughter — a dress that landed on the cover of Life magazine.

That led to an apprenticeship with Cristobal Balenciaga, and then De La Renta moved to France to work for Lanvin. By 1963, he was working for Elizabeth Arden couture in New York, and in 1965 he launched his own label.

He told The Associated Press in 2004 that his Hispanic roots had worked their way into his designs.

“I like light, color, luminosity. I like things full of color and vibrant,” he said.

While De La Renta made Manhattan his primary home, he often visited the Dominican Republic and kept a home there. Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour was a frequent visitor.

CU Blog - Caribbean Role Model - Oscar De La Renta - RIP - Photo 2“His designs reflected his extraordinary personality: optimistic, fun, sunny, romantic,” Wintour wrote in a remembrance on Tuesday. “He always said accept your friends for who they are, not for who you want them to be. Oscar was everything you could want a friend to be. ”

He also had a country home in Kent, Connecticut, where he died Monday. Gardening and dancing were among his favorite diversions from work. “I’m a very restless person. I’m always doing something. The creative process never stops,” he said.

As a designer, De La Renta catered to his socialite friends and neighbors — he and his wife, Annette, were fixtures on the black-tie charity circuit — but he did make occasional efforts to reach the masses, including launching a mid-priced line in 2004 and developing a dozen or so perfumes.

He was an avid patron of the arts, serving as a board member of The Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall, among others, and he devoted considerable time to children’s charities, including New Yorkers for Children. He also helped fund schools and day-care centers in La Romana and Punta Cana in his native country.

The Dominican Republic honored de la Renta with the Order of Merit of Juan Pablo Duarte and the order of Cristobol Colon. In the United States, he received the Coty American Fashion Critics Award twice, was named womens-wear designer of the year by the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2000 and also received a lifetime achievement award from the CFDA — an organization for which he served as president in the 1980s.

Besides his own label, De La Renta spearheaded the Pierre Balmain collection from 1993-2002, marking the first time an American designed for a French couture house, and he was awarded the French Legion of Honor with the rank of commander. He also received the Gold Medal Award from the King and Queen of Spain.

De La Renta gave up the title of chief executive of his company in 2004, handing over business duties to the Bolens, but he remained active and continued to show his collections during New York Fashion Week.

De La Renta also is survived by his son, Moises, a designer at the company.

De La Renta’s first wife, French Vogue editor Francoise de Langlade, died in 1983.

Associated Press Entertainment Writer Ryan Pearson in Los Angeles also contributed to this report.
AP News Source (Retrieved October 21, 2014) –
http://news.yahoo.com/oscar-la-renta-legendary-designer-dead-82-063208260.html

——-

2. Video: NBC News Video – http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/56275679/#56275679:

Oscar De La Renta impacted the fashion world with his contributions. He was awarded numerous honors and awards from around the world. This man of Caribbean heritage impacted the whole world.

In 1977, De La Renta launched his fragrance, OSCAR,[20] followed by an accessories line in 2001[21] and a home-wares line in 2002.[22] The new business venture included 100 home furnishings for Century Furniture featuring dining tables, upholstered chairs, and couches. In 2004, he added a less expensive line of clothing called O Oscar. De la Renta said he wanted to attract new customers whom he could not reach before.[23]

In 2006, De La Renta designed Tortuga Bay, a boutique hotel at Punta Cana Resort and Club. Tortuga Bay is a Leading Small Hotel of the World.[24] and a member of Virtuoso.[25]

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean recognize the life contributions of Oscar De La Renta as an artist, entrepreneur, industrialist and advocate for many causes that align with our quest for empowerment and elevation of Caribbean life and culture. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU seeks to also empower the people of the Caribbean to lead more impactful lives in which they are better able to meet their needs and plan for a productive future. The Go Lean roadmap seeks to put Caribbean people in a place of better command-and-control of their circumstances, to develop the community ethos of assisting each other to advance in our own lives, in our individual communities and in the Caribbean as a whole.

Like Oscar De La Renta, the prime directive of the Go Lean book is also to elevate society, but instead of impacting America, the roadmap focus is the Caribbean first. In fact, the declarative statements are 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.

Oscar De La Renta is hereby recognized as a role model that the rest of the Caribbean can emulate. He has provided a successful track record of forging change, overcoming incredible odds, managing crises to successful conclusions and paying forward to benefit the next generation. The Go Lean book posits that while economics, security and governance are all important for the sustenance of Caribbean life, pursuits like fashion, poetry, art, and beauty are the reasons we want to live. Oscar De La Renta stood as a vanguard for many of these pursuits.

The book posits that one person, despite his/her field of endeavor, can make a difference in the Caribbean, and its impact on the world; that there are many opportunities where one champion, one advocate, can elevate society. In this light, the book features 144 different advocacies, so there is inspiration for the “next” Oscar De La Renta to emerge, establish and excel right here at home in the Caribbean.

The roadmap specifically encourages the region, to lean-in and foster this “next” generation of Oscar De La Renta’s with these specific community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Minority Equalization Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness – Cultural Promotion Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Anatomy of Advocacies Page 122
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade Page 128
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Caribbean Image Page 129
Planning – Lessons from New York City – Fashion Industry Impact Page 137
Advocacy – Ways to Better Provide Clothing Page 163
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood – Image Management Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Beauty Pageants – Fashion & Economic Output Page 204
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts Page 230
Appendix – New York City Economy – Fashion Economic Impact/Jobs Page 277

Fashion and clothing are priorities in the Go Lean roadmap. While food, clothing, shelter and energy are vital essentials of life, finding efficient solutions for home-spun delivery of these needs is a basis for generating wealth. The change stemming from this roadmap constitute a commitment and facilitation to provide many of our basic needs ourselves. This vision creates a lot of opportunities for contributions from a lot of different people. This quest is pronounced early in the Declaration of Interdependence at the outset of the book, pronouncing this need for regional solutions (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.

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.

With the participation of many advocates on many different paths for progress, the Caribbean can truly become a better place to live, work and play.

Rest in Peace Oscar De La Renta. Thank you for making “us” look good.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————

Referenced Sources:

19. Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia on Oscar De La Renta. Retrieved October 21, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_de_la_Renta
20. “Óscar de la Renta 1977”. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
21. “Óscar de la Renta 2001”. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
22. “Óscar de la Renta 2002”. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
23. Biography.com Feature. Retrieved 26 Sep 2013.  from http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-de-la-renta-9270239
24. “Luxury Hotels of the World at The Leading Hotels of the World”. Lhw.com. 29 December 2010. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
25. “Specialists in the Art of Travel, Luxury Travel Advisors”. Virtuoso (Luxury Travel Advisory). Retrieved 13 August 2012.

Share this post:
, , , ,

Guyana and Suriname Wrestle With High Rates of Suicides

Posted on October 16, 2014 in Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

This Caribbean member-state, Guyana, is Number One …

Not Number One on the list of most productive countries, but Number One on this infamous list: as the country with the highest rate of suicides in the world, according to the latest WHO report. (Suriname is also in the Top 10, at Number 6).

This is a tragedy!

The book Go Lean… Caribbean claims that this region is the best address in the world…physically. And yet this below article asserts that per capita, more people voluntarily “check-out permanently” here than anywhere else in the world. In a previous blog, this commentary presented that this same country Guyana is also Number One in the region with a 89% brain drain among college graduates.

This is not a coincidence, this is a crisis!

Title: Sleepy Guyana Wrestles With High Rate of Suicides
CU Blog - Guyana Wrestles With High Rate of Suicides - Photo 1
Lesbeholden, Guyana – The young man responds all too easily when asked whether he knows anyone who has committed suicide in his village, a sleepy cluster of homes and rum shops surrounded by vast brown fields of rice awaiting harvest.

Less than a year ago, Omadat Ramlackhan recalls, his younger brother swallowed pesticide after a drunken argument with their father and died five days later. “I don’t know what got into him,” the 23-year-old said. “It just happened like that.”

It wasn’t the family’s first brush with suicide. His stepmother, Sharmilla Pooran, volunteers that her brother hanged himself and the man’s son tried to do the same but survived, with rope marks on his neck to remember it. She once contemplated killing herself.

The fact that self-inflected harm is such a presence in the lives of this family is not surprising given that they live in an area that Guyana’s Ministry of Health has designated the “suicide belt,” in a country that the World Health Organization says in a new report has the highest rate of suicide in the world.

Guyana, a largely rural country at the northeastern edge of South America, has a suicide rate four times the global average, ahead of North Korea, South Korea, and Sri Lanka. Neighboring Suriname was the only other country from the Americas in the top 10.

There seem to be a number of reasons that Guyana tops the list, including deep rural poverty, alcohol abuse and easy access to deadly pesticides. It apparently has nothing to do with the mass cult suicide and murder of more than 900 people in 1978 at Jonestown, the event that made the country notorious.

“It’s not that we are a population that has this native propensity for suicide or something like that,” said Supriya Singh-Bodden, founder of the non-governmental Guyana Foundation. “We have been trying to live off the stigma of Jonestown, which had nothing to do with Guyana as such. It was a cult that came into our country and left a very dark mark.”

Just before the WHO published its report last month, the foundation cited rampant alcoholism as a major factor in its own study of the suicide phenomenon, which has been a subject of concern in Guyana for years. In 2010, the government announced it was training priests, teachers and police officers to help identify people at risk of killing themselves in Berbice, the remote farming region along the southeast border with Suriname where 17-year-old Ramdat Ramlackhan committed suicide after quarreling with his father, Vijai.

More recently, the government has sought to restrict access to deadly pesticides, though that is difficult in a country dependent on agriculture. In May, authorities announced a suicide-prevention hotline would be established and Health Minister Bheri Ramsarran said he would deploy additional nurses and social-service workers in response to the WHO report.

Some countries have had success with national strategies in bringing down the number of people who take their own lives, according to the WHO. The number of suicides rose rapidly in Japan in the late 1990s, but started to decrease in 2009 amid government prevention efforts and as discussion of the subject became less taboo.

It has declined in China and India as a result of urbanization and efforts to control the most common means of suicide, said Dr. Alan Berman, a senior adviser to the American Association of Suicidology and a contributor to the WHO report.

“A certain proportion of suicides are rather impulsive and if you can restrict access to the means of suicide, whether it’s by pesticides, or by firearms or by bridge, you can thwart the behavior and give people an opportunity to change their minds,” Berman said.

The WHO estimates there are more than 800,000 suicides around the world per year. Statistics on the subject are unreliable because in some places the practice is stigmatized, or illegal.

The agency found Guyana, which has a population of about 800,000, had an age-adjusted rate of just over 44 per 100,000 people based on 2012 data. For males alone, it was nearly 71 per 100,000. In raw numbers, there are about 200 per year and 500 attempts, according to local health authorities. The U.S. overall rate was 12 per 100,000.

Most occur in Berbice, a flat, sun-baked expanse of farmlands along the river that forms the border with Suriname, where similar social and economic conditions prevail and which was 6th on the WHO list, just ahead of Mozambique.

“Suicides tend to be higher in rural areas than urban areas,” Berman said. “If I’m living in rural Montana, or if I’m living in rural India or in rural Suriname the question then is if I need help for whatever is going on with me how am I going to get it?”

It is a touchy subject in Guyana. The country is divided politically and ethnically between the descendants of people brought from Africa as slaves and the descendants of people brought from India, both Hindus and Muslims, as indentured workers to replace them.

Berbice has many people of Hindus of Indian descent and, as a result, suicide is often portrayed in Guyana as a largely Hindu phenomenon. But Singh-Bodden of the Guyana Foundation said that may be because self-inflicted death among the Hindus of Berbice is more likely to be reported as such. Their study, for example, found little reporting of suicide among native Amerindians who live in the country’s rugged interior.

“I don’t buy into the argument necessarily that it’s an ethnic thing, that Indo Guyanese are more susceptible to suicide,” she said. “There has been a lot of suicide among mixed people as well. I honestly believe it’s the hopelessness.”

Pooran, describing her family’s experiences, said her brother apparently killed himself after struggling with health problems for years and difficult home life. She said she thought about taking her own life while cleaning her house after a day’s work at a local sawmill.

“One day, I picked up the poison and thought about drinking it but I called God’s name and then realized my husband would just get another woman and soon forget me,” she said. “Don’t think I would do that today.”
———
By Bert Wilkinson in Guyana and Ben Fox reported from Miami.
Associated Press News Wire Service (Retrieved 10-15-2014) – http://abcnews.go.com/international/wirestory/sleepy-guyana-wrestles-high-rate-suicides-26174156

There is something providential about this crisis as the Go Lean… Caribbean book also asserts that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. The book declares (Page 36) that a man/woman needs three things to be happy:

Deficiency Mitigation
1. Something to do Jobs
2. Someone to love Repatriation of Diaspora
3. Something to hope for Future-focus

The book serves as a roadmap to mitigate these 3 deficiencies within Caribbean life, rural communities and also in The Guianas (Guyana & Suriname).

The subject of suicide is not a light matter and should not be ignored. It addresses one of the most serious aspects of the science of Mental Health. The Go Lean book is not a reference source for science, but it does glean from “social science” concepts in communicating the plan to elevate Caribbean society. The book thusly serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The complete prime directives are described as:

  • Optimize the economic engines of the Caribbean to elevate the regional economy and create 2.2 million new job.
  • Establish a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap immediately calls for the establishment of a regional sentinel, a federal Health Department, to monitor, manage and mitigate public health issues in the region. This focus includes mental health in its focus, just as seriously as any other health concern like cancer, trauma, bacterial/viral epidemiology. This direct correlation of physical/mental health issue with the Caribbean (and American) economy has been previously detailed in Go Lean blog/commentaries, as sampled here:

Public Health Economics – The Cost of Cancer Drugs
Antibiotics Misuse Associated With Obesity Risk
Regional Health Sentinel – Stopping Ebola
Recessions and Public Health in the Caribbean Region
Health Concern – Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones
New Hope in the Fight Against Alzheimer’s Disease
For Diabetes Mitigation, Google and Novartis to develop “smart” contact  lens
Health-care fraud in America; criminals take $272 billion a year
Painful and rapid spread of new Chikungunya virus in the Caribbean
Cuban Cancer Medication registered in 28 countries

Being first on a list is not uncommon for the Caribbean – Cuba’s famous tobacco-cigar is already declared “Among the Best in the World”. This is the kind of notoriety we want with our global image; not suicides. No one wants to live in a society where these mental health crises remain unmitigated. But the foregoing article relates that suicide rates in Guyana (and Suriname) needs to be arrested.

A lot is at stake.

The Go Lean roadmap immediately calls for the coordination of the region’s healthcare needs. This point is declared early in the Go Lean book, commencing with this opening pronouncement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12), as follows:

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

The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap constitutes a change for the region, a plan to consolidate 30 member-states into a Trade Federation with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit one and all member-states. This includes the monitoring/tracking/studying the physical and mental health trends. This empowerment would allow for better coordination with member-states, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The book details Happiness as a community ethos that first must be adopted; this refers to the appropriate attitude/spirit to forge change in the region. Go Lean details this and other ethos; plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the region’s public [mental] health:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economics Influence Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Around Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Reform our Health Care Response Page 47
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Separation of Powers – Department of Health Page 86
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices Page 134
Planning – Lessons from Indian Reservations – Suicides Page 148
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living Page 235
Advocacy – Ways to Impact/Re-boot The Guianas Page 241

Guyana is a “failing” state, economy-wise. The CU mitigation to re-boot the economy there (& the region) is Step One for minimizing the risk of suicide. The foregoing news article links economic downturns and rural poverty to suicide risks. All in all, there is the need for better stewardship for Caribbean society, the economy, security and governing engines.

Who will provide this better stewardship? Who will take the lead? The book Go Lean…Caribbean provide 370 pages of turn-by-turn directions for how the CU is to provide this role for the region. The people are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Share this post:
, , , , , , ,
[Top]

More Business Travelers Flock to Airbnb

Posted on October 12, 2014 in Ethos, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

The internet has changed everything.

…especially in the hospitality industry. (Remember Travel Agents?!)

The book and accompanying blog/commentaries for Go Lean…Caribbean posit that the Sharing Economy can emerge more fully in the Caribbean. The Internet & Communications Technology (ICT) provides the tools and techniques. Visitors/tourists will be able to easily search and book houses, condominiums and apartments by connecting directly to the homeowner. This will be a win-win for the homeowner and their guests.

CU Blog - More Business Travelers Flock to Airbnb - Photo

This change is ecstasy for some, but agony for others.

Navigating the world of change is a mission of the Go Lean book. The book posits that the Bed & Breakfast (B&B) industry has evolved with the emerging internet culture and now allow families to share their high-end homes with strangers (and business travelers), in lieu of resort properties (Page 35). This development, like many agents-of-change, brings winners and losers. Hotel room nights and collection of municipal hotel taxes can all be imperiled if this ICT-Sharing development proceeds unchecked. This is why Go Lean promotes “sharing” as a community ethos, so as to mitigate the perils of this industry. We need online sharing tools to target the Caribbean, especially during the peaks of event tourism (festivals, carnivals, fairs). But we need our hotel taxes too.

The challenge with the Sharing Economy, for room rentals and many other areas of life, is one-step forward-two steps-backwards.

See the foregoing news article and the following VIDEO, that depicts the emergence of the company Airbnb:

Video Source: NBC News TODAY Show (Retrieved October 8, 2014) –

Corporate travelers are getting creative, using the Internet and home rental sites like Airbnb to find alternative housing rather than checking into hotels. NBC’s Joe Fryer reports. http://on.today.com/2x9Sicg

————–

Title: Democratizing the Sharing Economy – The Center for Popular Economics
By: Anders Fremstad

The internet has sharply reduced the cost of peer-to-peer transactions.  In the 1990s and 2000s, Craigslist and eBay made it much easier to buy and sell secondhand goods, and these sites now facilitate over a million transactions a day.  More recently, online platforms associated with the “sharing economy” are helping friends, neighbors, and even strangers borrow, lend, and rent goods.  Travellers can reserve a spare room through Airbnb or find a free place to crash on Couchsurfing.  People can find a ride on Uber or rent a neighbor’s car on RelayRides.  Neighbors can increasingly borrow tools, gear, and appliances free-of-charge on NeighborGoods, Sharetribe, and similar sites.

Most observers celebrate how the sharing economy lowers the cost of accessing goods, but there is a growing debate over how these online platforms should be regulated.  Unfortunately, this debate ignores how many of the fundamental problems with the sharing economy arise from its corporate nature.  The solution may not be to simply regulate the corporate sharing economy but to also democratize the sharing economy by empowering the people who use these platforms to determine how they work.
…
Source: http://www.populareconomics.org/democratizing-the-sharing-economy/  Posted 06-24-2014; retrieved 10-10-2014

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The roadmap posits that many issues and challenges for a Sharing Economy can only be managed with feasible economies-of-scale. The CU market size of 30 member-states and 42 million people will allow for the leverage to consolidate, collaborate and confederate the organizational dynamics to tackle these issues.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean anticipates the compelling issues associated with room sharing in the emerging new economy.

The book asserts that before the strategies, tactics and implementations of the roadmap can be deployed, the affected communities must first embrace a progressive community ethos. The book defines this “community ethos” as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. The Go Lean book stresses that the current community ethos must change and the best way to motivate people to adapt their values and priorities is in response to a crisis. The roadmap recognizes this fact with the pronouncement that the Caribbean is in crisis, and that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. The region is devastated from external factors: global economic recession, globalization and rapid technology changes.

Cause and effect!

The Go Lean roadmap promotes development activity for the new ICT global economy, first in the anticipation and then in response of the demands of the Sharing Economy. Even if there is no international trade realization, these developments are needed for the integrated domestic “Single Market”. The roadmap incubates these industrial initiatives to promote the practice:

  • Caribbean Cloud – The Go Lean roadmap calls for the establishment of the Caribbean Cloud, an online community and social media initiative dubbed as myCaribbean.gov. This effort will be exerted by the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU) so as to impact allCaribbean stakeholders: residents, businesses, Diaspora, trading partners, visitors – a universe of 150 million people. TheCaribbean region accommodates 80 million visitors every year. The strategy of maintaining contact with previous visitors steadily increases the universe … and potential customer-base.
  • Mobile Applications – The Go Lean roadmap defines the mastery of time-&-space as strategic for succeeding in mobile apps development and deployment for the region (Page 35). Products like AirBnB and competitors, master mobile apps so that dynamic decisions and impulse buying can be exploited on behalf of touristic properties. Imagine a customer seeing an advertising billboard for a Caribbean resort in a North American city, in the middle of a snow storm, at the moment the desire to partake of Caribbean hospitality may be a great inclination.

The book asserts that to adapt to the new Sharing Economy, there must be a new internal optimization of the region’s strengths. This is defined in the following statement of the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14):

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.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – Old Adage regarding marriage and weddings.

The quest to elevate Caribbean society includes embracing the “New Economy” and also optimizing ongoing economic engines; in this case tourism. This can be likened to a marriage. The CU will employ technologically innovative products and services to marry the “New Economy” with the “Old Economy”. This impact is pronounced in the CU‘s 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 subject in this blog/commentary, of focusing on the intersection of the “Old Economy” with the “New Economy”, the 100-year old tourism product with the brand new internet, is a big challenge, requiring brand new leadership. This Agent-of-Change is impacting all aspects of commerce in the modern world, including the tourism product.

This subject of “New Economy’s” shared hospitality services has been previously covered in these Go Lean blogs, highlighted here in the following samples:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1364 Car-Sharing Uber Demonstrations Snarl Traffic from London to Berlin
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=486 Incubator firm (Temasek) backs Southeast Asia cab booking app GrabTaxi

In line with the foregoing article and VIDEO, the Go Lean book details the applicable community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies as a roadmap to foster this change/empowerment in the region for the Sharing Economy and to impact the tourism product:

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
Strategy – Confederate 30 Caribbean Member-States Page 45
Strategy – Customers – Citizens, Diaspora and Visitors Page 47
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Caribbean Cloud Page 74
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Caribbean Postal Union   (CPU) Page 78
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Establish CPU Page 96
Implementation – 10 Trends in Implementing Data Centers Page 106
Implementation – Improve Mail Services – Electronic Supplements Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media Page 111
Advocacy – Ways to Benefit from Globalization – Level Playing Field with ICT Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Revenue Sources for Regional Administrations Page 172
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Market Southern California Page 194
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Call Centers Page 212
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora Page 217
Appendix – Urban Bicycle Sharing Model Page 352

The roadmap posits that the CU will foster and incubate the Shared Economy and the Mobile Apps industry, thereby forging entrepreneurial incentives and jobs. Under the right climate, innovations can thrive. We need that climate here in the Caribbean; we must remain competitive, as a people and as a tourism market. As related in the foregoing article and VIDEO, the general market is embracing the Shared Economy.

The world has changed!

This change can be good. We can make the Caribbean, a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

The Cost of Cancer Drugs

Posted on October 7, 2014 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary:

1. Even a broken clock is right … twice a day.
2. Greed is good … for incentivizing innovation.

According to the transcript in the below VIDEO, “Cancer is so pervasive that it touches virtually every family in this country. More than one out of three Americans will be diagnosed with some form of it in their lifetime. And as anyone who’s been through it knows, the shock and anxiety of the diagnosis is followed by a second jolt: the high price of cancer drugs.”

“If 1-in-3 Americans are at risk for cancer, Caribbean citizens cannot be far behind”. So declares the book Go Lean…Caribbean (Page 157). This is not speculative, this is real … life and death. The principal author for the Go Lean book dedicated the book to his sister who had recently died after losing her battle with cancer. 42 years earlier, their mother died of the same cause.

The opening quotations relate the underlying theme of this commentary, that the cost of cancer drugs is a distortion of the “free market”; reflective of American “crony” capitalism. Also, that despite an obvious broken eco-system, failed-state status in Cuba, this Caribbean country “does cancer drugs right”. This point is related in the following article:

Title #1: Medimpex to sell Cuban ‘scorpion’ cancer drug here [in Jamaica]
By: HG Helps, Editor-at-Large
helpsh@jamaicaobserver.com

CU Blog - The Cost of Cancer Drugs - Photo 1HUNGARIAN drug distribution company Medimpex has been granted exclusive rights to import and sell to retailers the Cuban cancer-fighting drug Vidatox.

The drug, produced by protein peptides from the venom of the blue or Rhopalrus Junceus scorpion — endemic to Cuba — will be available in Jamaican pharmacies before the end of October, an official of Medimpex told the Jamaica Observer.

“On September 18, we signed a contract with Cuban company Labiofam, which distributes Vidatox and we are awaiting the first shipment in another four weeks,” Medimpex’s Managing Director Laszlo Bakon said.

“We see a huge potential for the drug in Jamaica, because cancer is one of the leading causes of death in Jamaica and other countries of the world.

“The demand is definitely there. We have held meetings with oncologists in Jamaica and the feedback from them and the rest of the market is good. It is a unique cancer treatment,” Bakon said.

Jamaica’s Ministry of Health approved the introduction of Vidatox to the shelves of local pharmacies, following its registration on June 18, when a team of technocrats from the socialist country visited.

Early indications are that the cost of the oral drug could be in the region of US$150 for a 30ml bottle, which normally represents two months’ usage.

Vidatox is already being used in Asia, Europe, North, South and Central America.

The drug has been used to treat cancer-related ailments among the Cuban population for over 200 years. This followed 15 years of clinical research spearheaded by Cuban biologist Misael Bordier and tests involving more than 10,000 people — 3,500 of them foreigners — which yielded positive results in improving quality of life, retarding tumour growth and boosting the immune system in cancer patients.

The drug is said to be safe, with no side effects, and is principally used along with conventional medicines.

“The Cubans have done their job and from now on it will be our job to put it on the market. There is a lot of scepticism from the western world about the drug, but the truth always triumphs. When they see what happens to patients, then they will believe. We have clinical proof that Vidatox works,” said Bakon, who is also Hungary’s honorary consul in Jamaica.

Cuba’s Ambassador to Jamaica, Yuri Gala Lopez, hailed the new business alliances.

“I hope that doctors in Jamaica will take advantage of this partnership, as steps like this will strengthen the already close relationship between Jamaica and Cuba,” Gala Lopez said.

Bakon said that there would be sharp monitoring of the use of the drug and meetings have been held with the National Health Fund and the Jamaica Cancer Society, but no direct communication has been established with the management of public hospitals yet.
Jamaica Observer Daily Newspaper = Posted 09-24-2012; Retrieved 10-07-2014
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Medimpex-to-sell-Cuban–scorpion–cancer-drug-here_12606863

—————————-

VIDEO Title: The Cost of Cancer Drugs in the US
CBS News Magazine 60 Minutes – Posted 10-05-2014. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer). http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-cancer-drugs/

Why is the cost of cancer drugs so high in the US?

One theory was posited in a recent Go Lean blog, that related that Big Pharma, the Pharmaceutical industry, dictates standards of care in the field of medicine, more so than may be a best-practice. The blog painted a picture of a familiar scene where pharmaceutical salesmen slip in the backdoor to visit doctors to showcase latest product lines; the foregoing VIDEO relates that there are commission kick-backs in these arrangements. The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean must take its own lead in the battle of health, wellness and cancer. The US eco-system is mostly motivated by profit.

Cuba is right, on this matter. As they demonstrate, we can do better in the Caribbean homeland, and still glean economic benefits.

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

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

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

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

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

Previous blog/commentaries addressed issues of capitalistic conflicts in American medical practices, compared to other countries, and the Caribbean. The following sample applies:

Antibiotics Misuse Linked to Obesity in the US
CHOP Research: Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones
Big Pharma & Criminalization of American Business
New Research and New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease
Health-care fraud in America; criminals take $272 billion a year
New Cuban Cancer medication registered in 28 countries

The foregoing news article and VIDEO provides an inside glimpse in the retailing of cancer groups bred from a research discipline. Obviously, the innovators and developers of drugs have the right to glean the economic returns of their research. The two foregoing articles (#1-Print and #2-VIDEO) show two paths, one altruistic and one bent on greed. In the Caribbean, Cuba currently performs a lot of R&D into cancer, diabetes and other ailments. The Go Lean roadmap posits that more innovations will emerge in the region as a direct result of the CU prioritization on science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM) activities on Caribbean R&D campuses and educational institutions.

The Caribbean Union Trade Federation has the prime directive of optimizing the economic, security and governing engines of the region. The foregoing article and VIDEO depicts that research is very important to identify and qualify best-practices in health management for the public. This is the manifestation and benefit of Research & Development (R&D). The roadmap describes this focus as a community ethos and promote R&D as valuable for the region. The following list details additional ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s health deliveries and R&D investments:

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

The Go Lean roadmap does not purport to be an authority on medical or cancer research best-practices. The CU economic-security-governance empowerment plan should not direct the course of direction for cancer research and/or treatment. But something is wrong here. The pharmaceutical companies cannot claim any adherence to any “better nature” in their practices. Their motive is strictly profit …

CU Blog - The Cost of Cancer Drugs - Photo 2The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, released a song with the title: “They don’t [really] care about us”; he very well could have been talking about Big Pharma; (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNJL6nfu__Q). The foregoing CBS 60 Minutes VIDEO relates one drug, Gleevec, as a  top selling option for industry giant Novartis, “bringing in more than $4 billion a year in sales. $35 billion since the drug came to market. There are now several other drugs like it. So, you’d think with the competition, the price of Gleevec would have come down. Yet, the price of the drug tripled from $28,000 a year in 2001 to $92,000 a year in 2012”.

This is not economics, which extols principles like the “law of diminishing returns”, or “competition breathes lower prices and higher quality”. No, the cancer drug industry is just a “pure evil” version of American Crony Capitalism.

This is not the role model upon which we want to build Caribbean society.

We can do better in the Caribbean – thanks to Cuba, we have done better. We can use this ethos to impact the Greater Good; this means life-or-death. This is the heavy-lifting of the CU. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Share this post:
, , , , ,
[Top]

A Lesson in History – Community Ethos of WW II

Posted on October 1, 2014 in Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean want to forge change in the Caribbean. Is it possible to change the attitudes of an entire community, country or region? Has that ever been done before for an entire community? When?

Yes, and yes. 1942…

The book relates a great case study, that of the history of the United States during World War II, where the entire country postponed immediate gratification, endured hard sacrifices, and became convinced that their future (after the war) would be better than their past (before the war).

The foregoing article is a scholarly work on that subject, the events of 1942, and the subsequent years of World War II.

Title: The Auto Industry Goes to War

CU Blog - A Lesson in History - Community Ethos of WW II - Photo 1

Did the U.S. manufacture of automobiles come to a halt during World War II?

Yes, it halted completely. No cars, commercial trucks, or auto parts were made from February 1942 to October 1945.

On January 1, 1942, all sales of cars, as well as the delivery of cars to customers who had previously contracted for them, were frozen by the government’s Office of Production Management. As a temporary measure, local rationing boards could issue permits allowing persons who had contracted for cars before January 1st to secure delivery.

President Roosevelt established the War Production Board on January 16, 1942. It superseded the Office of Production Management. The WPB regulated the industrial production and allocation of war materiel and fuel. That included coordinating heavy manufacturing, and the rationing of vital materials, such as metals, rubber, and oil. It also established wage and price controls.

All manufacturers ended their production of automobiles on February 22, 1942. The January 1942 production quota had been a little over 100,000 automobiles and light trucks. The units manufactured at the beginning of February would bring up the total number of vehicles in a newly established car stockpile to 520,000. These would be available during the duration of the war for rationed sales by auto dealers to purchasers deemed “essential drivers.”

Representatives from the auto industry formed the Automotive Council for War Production in April 1942, to facilitate the sharing of resources, expertise, and manpower in defense production contracting.

The auto industry retooled to manufacture tanks, trucks, jeeps, airplanes, bombs, torpedoes, steel helmets, and ammunition under massive contracts issued by the government. Beginning immediately after the production of automobiles ceased, entire factories were upended almost overnight. Huge manufacturing machines were jack hammered out of their foundations and new ones brought in to replace them. Conveyors were stripped away and rebuilt, electrical wires were bundled together and stored in the vast factory ceilings, half-finished parts were sent to steel mills to be re-melted, and even many of the dies that had been used in the fabrication of auto parts were sent to salvage.

The government’s Office of Price Administration imposed rationing of gasoline and tires and set a national speed limit of 35 mph.

By April 1944, only 30,000 new cars out of the initial stockpile were left. Almost all were 1942 models and customers required a permit to make the purchase. The Office of Price Administration set the price. The government contemplated rationing used car sales as well, but that was finally deemed unnecessary. The government estimated that about a million cars had been taken off the road by their owners, to reserve for their own use after the war.

In the autumn of 1944, looking then toward the end of the war, Ford, Chrysler, Nash, and Fisher Body of General Motors received authorization from the War Production Board to do preliminary work on experimental models of civilian passenger cars, on condition that it not interfere with war work and that employees so used be limited to planning engineers and technicians. Limits were also set on the amount of labor and materials the companies could divert to this.

During the war, the automobile and oil companies continued to advertise heavily to insure that the public did not forget their brand names. Companies also were proud to proclaim their patriotic role in war production, and their advertisements displayed the trucks, aircraft, and munitions that they were making to do their part in combat.

In addition, auto advertisements encouraged the public to patronize local auto dealers’ service departments so that car repairs could help extend the lives of the cars their customers had bought before the war. In the last couple of years of the war, the auto companies also used their advertisements to heighten public anticipation of the end of the war and the resumption of car and truck manufacturing, with advertising copy such as Ford’s “There’s a Ford in Your Future.”

About the Author

CU Blog - A Lesson in History - Community Ethos of WW II - Photo 2
Historian John Buescher is an author and professor who formerly headed Tibetan language broadcasts at Voice of America. His Ph.D. is from the University of Virginia and he has published extensively on the history of Tibetan and Indian Buddhism and on the history of 19th-century American spiritualism.

Bibliography
a. John Alfred Heitmann, The Automobile and American Life. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. pp. 119-130.
b. James J. Flink, The Automobile Age. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988. pp. 275-76.
c. Automobile Manufacturers Association, Freedom’s Arsenal: The Story of the Automotive Council for War Production. Detroit: Automobile Manufacturers Association, 1950.
Teaching History.org – National History Education Clearinghouse (Retrieved 09/29/2014) –
http://www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24088

This relates a commitment so vital to a community that everyone was willing to sacrifice and lean-in for the desired outcome. This requires effective messaging.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the 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 also has initiatives to foster a domestic (region-wide) automotive industry. So there are a lot of benefits to glean by studying the American track record, even the periods of halted production. The Go Lean book posits that permanent change for Caribbean society will only take root as a result of adjustments to the community attitudes, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. This is identified in the book as “community ethos”.

The purpose of the book/roadmap though is not just the ethos changes, but rather the elevation/empowerment of Caribbean society. In total, the Caribbean empowerment 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 and industrial policies to support these engines.

The roadmap details the following community ethos, plus the execution of these strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to forge the identified permanent change in the region:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Foster New Industries Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Page 127
Planning – Ways   to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Reasons   Why the CU Will Succeed Page 132
Planning – Lessons   Learned from 2008 Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the   Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways   to Improve Communications Page 186
Advocacy – Ways   to Develop Auto Industry Page 206
Advocacy – Ways   to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218

Previously Go Lean blog/commentaries have considered historic references and stressed fostering the proper and appropriate community ethos for the Caribbean to prosper. The following sample applies:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297 A Lesson in History – Booker T   versus Du Bois – to Change a Bad Community Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2201 Changing Bad Community Ethos – Students   Developing Nail Polish to Detect Date Rape Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1918 Philadelphia Freedom – Some Restrictions Apply – One   Community’s Constant Quest to Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531 A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago   Today – World War I – Cause and Effect in Community Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841 Having   Less Babies is Bad for the Economy?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623 Only   at the Precipice, Do Communities Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=353 Book Review: ‘Wrong – Nine   Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn…’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=228 Egalitarianism versus Anarchism – Community   Ethos Debate

All in all, there is a certain community ethos associated with populations that have endured crises. It is a focus on the future, a deferred gratification as investment for future returns. These attributes have been promoted by the Go Lean book as necessary traits to forge change in the Caribbean region. We need our own Caribbean flavor of this community ethos, in our manifestation of industrial policy.

The world was at the precipice, near implosion, in 1942 (World War II) … (and again in 2008 during the Great Recession). In order to endure the crises, many people had to endure sacrifice; but the entire community had to adopt the community ethos of deferred gratification. The industrial policy adjusted accordingly, with little objection from the public in general. A lot of good came from these sacrifices.

There are lessons for the Caribbean today to consider from the development of industrial policy in US history during World War II:

• Priorities can change in times of crisis. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

• Having a domestic manufacturing industry gives control of domestic production capability.

• Efficiency and effectiveness in one industry can be transferred to other industries; it is disciplined competence that is the real asset.

• Lowest cost is not the only criteria for providing out-sourced contracts.

• Limited raw materials are valuable, even as recycled materials.

• Effective Command-and-Control accentuates front-line effectiveness – Lean operational principles.

• Interdependence with partners can avoid crisis in the first place, and mitigate the damage from realized threats.

Now the Caribbean is in crisis, still reeling from 2008; we must endure, we must sacrifice and we must defer gratification. Now is the time to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean change, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. We cannot afford to standby and watch our world implode. This was the case in 1942 and again in 2008. We must have a hand in our own destiny; an integrated (Single) market of 42 million people is large enough to be consequential in world negotiations.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders (residents, Diaspora, governmental leaders, visitors, investors, etc.) to lean-in to this roadmap for change. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

 

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

‘Consumer Reports’ Survey Finds the American Consumer is Back

Posted on September 28, 2014 in Economics, Ethos

Go Lean Commentary

There are more lessons to learn from the Great Recession of 2007-2008. The lingering effects continue, right up to this day. According to the foregoing news article, only now, 7 years later, are Americans willing to start spending again… on big purchases. Too bad! Many aspects of the US economy depend on regular spending*.

According to the foregoing article, there is value to processing, defining and analyzing economic data associated with the Great Recession; this is the merit of Big Data Analysis. This point aligns with the book Go Lean… Caribbean in that a plan is envisioned to capture raw data, measuring many aspects of Caribbean society, including economic, trade, consumption, macro performance, and societal values. Much can be gleaned from this art and science, mastery of which allows for better stewardship of the Caribbean elevation effort. The news story follows:

SOURCE: Consumer Reports
Seven years after the Great Recession, consumers are finally opening their wallets, making long-delayed purchases and undertaking postponed life decisions

YONKERS, N.Y., Sept. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Great Recession of 2007[/2008] caused the once-prolific American shopper to go into a prolonged scrimp mode.  Now, some seven years later – and more than 5 years after the recession officially ended — the tide has turned, according to a groundbreaking Consumer Reports study. A nationally representative survey of 1,006 adult Americans conducted by the ConsumerReportsNationalResearchCenter revealed that people are now in the market for major purchases like homes, cars, and appliances – and that they plan to spend even more money in the coming year.

The full report, “How America Shops Now,” is the cover story for the November 2014 issue of Consumer Reports magazine and is available on newsstands now and at ConsumerReports.org.

So traumatizing was the Great Recession that many Americans put off purchases and personal decisions such as marriage and divorce. Seven out of 10 people told Consumer Reports that they finally feel fiscally stable enough to make up for lost time. Other findings from the survey that point to shoppers’ improved outlook:

  • 64 percent said that they’d dropped big bucks on a major purchase in the past year
  • 46 percent said they bought a new or used vehicle in the past year or intend to buy one in the coming year
  • 12 percent said they’d bought a residence in the past year or intend to do so in the coming year
  • 34 percent said they recently completed or are ready to do a major home-remodeling project
  • 31 percent are holding fewer garage sales
  • 30 percent are taking fewer odd jobs
  • 26 percent of young Americans (aged 18-34) said they were ready to buy a new home; 32 percent believe they can buy a car

“Shoppers may be back, but they’re far from the profligate spenders they used to be. The harsh lessons of the prolonged downturn have had a major impact, perhaps a permanent one,” said Tod Marks, Senior Projects Editor for Consumer Reports.  “Our survey shows that Americans are spending their money very pragmatically, and even though the employment picture has improved, many are working scared – scared about their future job stability and earnings outlook.”

The report also features testimonials from real consumers about their new spending habits. Additional data from CR’s nationally representative survey includes what Americans are most reluctant to cut back on – regardless of the economy, and the pricier items many people feel are still out of reach.  The full report is available in the November issue of Consumer Reports magazine, and online at ConsumerReports.org.

CU Blog - Consumer Reports Survey Finds the American Consumer is Back - PhotoConsumer Reports is the world’s largest independent product-testing organization. Using its more than 50 labs, auto test center, and survey research center, the nonprofit rates thousands of products and services annually. Founded in 1936, Consumer Reports has over 8 million subscribers to its magazine, website and other publications. Its advocacy division, Consumers Union, works for health reform, food and product safety, financial reform, and other consumer issues in Washington, D.C., the states, and in the marketplace.

September 2014
The material above is intended for legitimate news entities only; it may not be used for advertising or promotional purposes. Consumer Reports® is an expert, independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers and to empower consumers to protect themselves.  We accept no advertising and pay for all the products we test. We are not beholden to any commercial interest. Our income is derived from the sale of Consumer Reports®, ConsumerReports.org® and our other publications and information products, services, fees, and noncommercial contributions and grants. Our Ratings and reports are intended solely for the use of our readers. Neither the Ratings nor the reports may be used in advertising or for any other commercial purpose without our permission.
CBS News Reporting on Consumer Reports – Thursday, September 25, 2014 – http://www.cbs19.tv/story/26623848/consumer-reports-survey-finds-the-american-consumer-is-back-and-ready-to-spend

VIDEO – CBS This Morning: Back to buying: Americans’ spending habits change after recession

(VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).

This book Go Lean… Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), the regime to empower Caribbean society. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP and create 2.2 million jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines against “bad actors”.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

These prime directives recognize that the changes the region needs, new economic engines, will start first with the adoption of new community ethos and controls. Early in the book, the need for this shift is pronounced, (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 of the member-states.

The Go Lean book, and previous blog/commentaries stress that Big Data Analysis will be key, among the societal controls, in the roadmap for Caribbean elevation. The book references to this analysis are as follows:

Community Ethos – Impact Research and Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations Page 32
Strategy – CU Stakeholders – NGO’s need for Big   Data Page 56
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Impact Elections Page 116
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 Page 136
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress Page 147
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Black Markets Page 165
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Gun Control Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Contact Centers Page 212
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations Page 219
Appendix – Application of a Chapter, the Book Art   of War Page 325
Appendix – Electronic Benefits Transfer / e-Payments Page 353

The points of Big Data Analysis for Command-and-Control were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2105 Recessions and Public Health – Lessons from the 2008 Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126 Analyzing the Data – Where Are the Jobs Now: Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003 Analyzing the Data – Where Are the Jobs Now – One Scenario: Ship-breaking
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1763 Analyzing the Data – The World as 100 People – Showing the Gaps
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1715 Analyzing the Data – Lebronomy: Economic Impact of the Return of the NBA Great to his Home  City
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433 Analyzing the Data – Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1296 Analyzing the Data – Remittances to Caribbean Increased By 3 Percent in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841 Analyzing the Data – Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=782 Open/Review the Time Capsule: The Great Recession of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709 Analyzing the Data – Student debt holds back home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=518 Analyzing the Data – What Banks learn about financial risks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=493 Analyzing the Data – Nigeria’s economy grew by 89% overnight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=356 Book Review: ‘How Numbers Rule the World: The Use & Abuse of Statistics in Politics’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242 Analyzing the Data – The Erosion of the Middle Class
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235 Analyzing the Data – Tourism’s changing profile

The 2007/2008 Great Recession brought major upheaval to American society. Unfortunately, due to economic inter-connections, this upheaval extended to the Caribbean as well, our economy is structured as individual parasites on the US economy. According to the foregoing news article, the US is now finally returning to their spending habits of old, and yet the Caribbean continues to linger in economic upheaval. There is a need for a change in the Caribbean, from these individual parasite economies to a regional-unified interdependent protégé economy.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap is designed to drive change among the economic, security and governing engines of the region. The change requires new community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates; this effort requires Command-and-Control because despite the best efforts and best-practices, success will not come on the first attempt, or second, or third. In fact it will take a continuous effort, again and again, combined with the measurement of the progress, course adjustment and more continuous effort to finally bring the desired result: a better homeland to live, work and play. This result is worth all this effort, all this heavy-lifting.

The foregoing article which discusses the role of of the Consumers Report organizational structure, depicts how technocratic stewardship can greatly impact a community. This is a fitting role model for the CU/Go Lean roadmap in a new Caribbean.

Big Data Analysis is not just for academic consumption, rather it must be for the stewardship, Command-and-Control, of regional economic, security and governing engines. The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to fulfill the vision of making the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

* The Go Lean book details the economic impact of the housing (Pages 161, 207) and automotive (Page 206) industries; these are traditionally “big purchase” items.

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

Forging Change: The Fun Theory

Posted on September 9, 2014 in Ethos, Implementation, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean wants to forge change in the Caribbean. How do we go about doing that?

The book identifies a number of best practices.

Here, now is another…

Consider this theory:

Video: The Fun Theory – Piano Staircase

The Fun Theory – an initiative of Volkswagen (VW). This is one of a series of experiments for a new brand campaign of VW. Have a look – the piano stairs are really funny. Fun can obviously change behavior for the better.
YouTube Video Sharing Site (Retrieved 09/08/2014) –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SByymar3bds

The forgoing VIDEO depicts the challenge to people in a city to take the stairs more as opposed to riding the escalator. While this appears to be a small thing, the issue is bigger than initial appearances. Walking up a flight of stairs could be “just what the doctor ordered” for many people. It’s a great wellness initiative.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the 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 also has initiatives to improve wellness in the region, and more. In fact, the Caribbean empowerment 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 hallmark of a technocracy, a commitment to efficiency and effectiveness; and a commitment to fun. Among the 144 different missions for the CU are many fun related activities, such as music, arts, sports, libraries, Hollywood (media related), heritage and overall happiness.

As depicted in the foregoing VIDEO, “fun” can be used to forge change. The Go Lean book declares that before any real change takes root in the Caribbean that there must be an adoption of new community ethos, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. We must therefore use effective and efficient drivers to forge this change.

The roadmap was constructed with the following community ethos in mind, plus the execution of these 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 Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives Page 25
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
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States 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
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 136
Planning – Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed Page 137
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries Page 187
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Beauty Pageants Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music Page 231

Previously Go Lean blog/commentaries have stressed having fun and impacting the community through the “games people play”. The following sample applies:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2222 Sports Role Model – Playing For Pride … And More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2171 Sports Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1943 The Future of Golf; Vital for Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1909 Music Role Model Berry Gordy – No Town Like Motown
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596 Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=522 Financial Crisis Jokes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318 Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean

CU Blog - Forging Change - The Fun Theory - Photo 1The quest to change the Caribbean is more complex than just doing some fun activities. This is serious, maybe even life-and-death. But who wants to live in a world that is all life-and-death all the time. No, let’s have some fun too.

People come to the Caribbean to have fun – we welcome them all. Let the good times roll!

We must use “fun” to reach our audience – our communities – then grab their attention to send a message of the need for change and to lean-in to this roadmap to elevate Caribbean society. The change being advocated includes having fun; it includes making the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

We encourage all of the Caribbean to lean-in to this roadmap.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

Hotels are making billions from added fees

Posted on August 28, 2014 in Industries, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

CU Blog - Hotels are making billions from added fees - Photo 1

The attack on the middle class continues…

The foregoing news article/VIDEO relates to the middle class in the US. Normally this would not be an issue for the Caribbean to consider except this story is relating the pressures on the customer base that the region relies on for its primary economic driver: tourism.

Plus most Caribbean resorts also apply a “resort fee”.

By: NBC News – The Today Show
How hotels are making billions from added fees – http://www.today.com/video/today/55935286#55935286
Hotels are taking a page from the airline industry, and it’s costing consumers a lot more. The fees added up to $2.5 billion just last year. NBC’s Kerry Sanders reports.

This subject is pivotal in the roadmap for elevation of the Caribbean economy, which maintains that tourism will continue to be the primary economic driver in the region for the foreseeable future. The book Go Lean…Caribbean calls for the elevation of Caribbean society, to re-focus, re-boot, and optimize all the engines of commerce so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. The Caribbean has become a playground for the US. So we cannot, indeed we must not ignore the middle class.

What is important in this discussion is the functionality of economic planning. Already the attacks on the middle class has shrunk their disposable income, retirement savings and buying power. We need to continue to monitor the progress of this economic group. This effort (the foregoing VIDEO and the Appendix) is an iteration in this monitoring charter.

The Great Recession came and went. The US lost $11 Trillion in the crisis, then gained $13.5 Trillion in the recovery (Go Lean book Page 69). Unfortunately the ones that lost are not the ones that gained. The world has changed; the middle class has shrunk, the poor has expanded, and the One Percent has expanded in affluence and influence.

So the markets that Caribbean tourism planners cater to have now changed. The Great Recession should have been a lesson enough for the Caribbean to develop a more resilient economy, to be nimble in strategies, tactics and implementation. Unfortunately, the experience (and the following list) shows that the planners are repeating the same mistakes and following the same bad American model. The following are resort fees of what are considered the best properties in the Caribbean, according to the US-based cable TV Travel Channel (http://www.travelchannel.com/interests/beaches/articles/top-10-caribbean-resorts):

Preface: Top 10 Caribbean Resorts

Welcome to paradise. We’re counting down Caribbean resorts with crystal-clear waters, powder-soft sands, sumptuous settings and world-class accommodations. These aren’t your average cookie-cutter beachfront hotels either. These Caribbean hot spots rank among the most luxurious and lavish in the world:

Resort Property

Resort Fee

1

 Hyatt Regency, Aruba Resort & Casino

– $0.00 –

2

 CaneelBay, St. John, US Virgin Island

10% Service Fee

3

 Parrot Cay By Como, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands

– $0.00 –

4

 Little Dix Bay, Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands

$32.00

5

 Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort and Spa, Providenciales

All   Inclusive

6

 Ritz-Carlton St. Thomas, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

$62.00

7

 Four Seasons Resort, Pinney’s Beach, Charlestown, Nevis

$33.85 + $20.00

8

 Atlantis, ParadiseIsland, Nassau, Bahamas

$20.70 – $65.95

9

 Sandy Lane, St. James, Barbados

– $0.00 –

10

 Hotel Maroma, Cancun, Mexico St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort, Puerto Rico

$60.00

According to the foregoing VIDEO and article in the Appendix, there are major issues in the acceptance of hotel resort fees. In the US, complaints have been made to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the US watchdog for deceptive business practices. Despite some queries, there has been no definitive regulatory action.

CU Blog - Hotels are making billions from added fees - Photo 2We must do better in the Caribbean. The fear is that these practices may lead more to embrace “cruises” as their mode for enjoying Caribbean shores. This may be how the US middle class “plays” in the Caribbean.

What is wrong with cruises? Nothing … per se. We welcome all visitors that come to the region. As it is, the Go Lean book describes 80 million visitors annually. If there is a preference though, we would choose air-hotel packages as opposed to cruise options. The Go Lean book details that cruise passengers average $237/day in spending while on a cruise ship. Unfortunately, the majority (80%) of that money is spent with the foreign-based cruise line, not in the destination; the port cities get trinkets ($20 – $30 per day) in port-side souvenirs and tours.

Resort hotels in the Caribbean generate a lot of economic activities down the line: airports, taxis, restaurants, casinos, shopping, etc. The strategy employed by cruise lines is to embed most of all these activities on the ship. This difference is not ignored in the Go Lean consideration of Caribbean commerce (Page 61).

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

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

Early in the book, the responsibility of monitoring and managing economic trends were identified as a crucial role of the CU; these statements were pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13) as follows:

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 Caribbean tourism resort properties depend on their resort amenities. This commentary previously related details of the changing macro-economic factors (like demographics) that are currently affecting the region’s resorts, including amenities like golf and casinos:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1984 Casinos Changing/Failing Business Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1943 The Future of Golf; Vital for   Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=782 Open/Review the Time Capsule: The Great Recession of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273 10 Things We Want from the US and 10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – # 2: Tourists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242 The Erosion of the Middle Class
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235 Tourism’s changing profile

Accordingly the tourist industry needs to be cognizant of the changing landscape in world economics; they need to minimize the downward pressure on their product. There needs to be a promoter for Caribbean commerce and a Sentinel for Caribbean image.

Who is up for this challenge? Not the FTC; despite having two Caribbean territories within its scope (Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands), this agency has “fallen asleep at the switch” in its duty to regulate the markets and mandate a level-playing-field. For the Caribbean (region as a whole) we must perform this function on our own.

This roadmap posits that the Caribbean must not allow the US to lead for our own nation-building. We must step up and step forward for ourselves. We have the means and the methods to better ensure a quality experience to our hotel/resort visitors. The roadmap calls for oversight by an Interstate Commerce Administration within the Commerce Department of the CU. But there is no need for Caribbean hoteliers to fear! This agency will be more of a partner/promoter than that of a regulator. The plan is simple: require non-optional resort fee pricing to be fully disclosed as part of the base hotel rate. Then ensure a level-playing-field for all market participants.

This strategy, tactic and implementation features the heavy-lifting of Caribbean economic reform/reboot. Caribbean tourism is in need of this reform/reboot to attract and return visitors to our shores to enjoy our hospitality. But the interest of our visitors must also be protected, they are also stakeholders in the Caribbean reboot effort. The Go Lean… Caribbean book details the community ethos to adopt to proactively mitigate the dire effects of the changed demographic landscape, plus the executions of these additional strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Best Address on the Planet Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Trade and Globalization Page 70
Separation of Powers – Sports and Culture Administration Page 81
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization Page 119
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Anecdote – Butch   Stewart – Sandals Resorts Growth in   Tourism – Responding to  Guests Needs Page 189
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Cruise Tourism Page 193
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the One Percent Page 224

The book Go Lean…Caribbean purports that the Caribbean is the greatest address in the world and sets on a roadmap to extend the invitation of Caribbean hospitality to not just Americans, but also the rest of the world. In order to appeal to the global market, this roadmap, posits that regional tourism stakeholders must traverse the changing landscape, in which some of the agents-of-change are technology and globalization.

The plan also calls for establishing Trade Mission Offices in divergent cities like Spain and Tokyo for outreach to Mid & Far Eastern markets.

The issues in the foregoing news stories emerged mostly because of the different experiences in booking hotel rooms online and then engaging the resort properties at check-in/check-out.  The roadmap advocates the art and science of using Internet & Communications Technologies and Social Media for bookings, and also for the advertising and selling of Caribbean culture and amenities. The plan is also to monitor and track comments/complaints from online postings – many have complained about being “nickeled-and-dimed” in hotels due to various resort/amenity fees.

With this roadmap, the people (and governing institutions) of the Caribbean step up and declare that we have learned from the lessons of the past; we have streamlined our products/services and we are ready to be the best address for the world to visit, even for those among the middle classes. The Caribbean therefore prepares for a better future, one in which the world recognizes that we are the best place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

—————————————————————————

APPENDIX

Title: News Article: Resort Fees Explained: How to Spot (and Avoid) Them on Your Next Trip
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shermans-travel/resort-fees_b_4098716.html

Ah, those pesky resort fees. We’ve all encountered them in our travels, lurking on our hotel bills.

They’ve been around since the 1990s when they were generally utilized to pay for the upkeep of high-end facilities at upscale resorts; the beach clubs and tennis courts, for example. However, in the last five years or so, more and more hotels have been tacking on these annoying — and often spendy — extra charges for considerably lower-end facilities. For example, almost every explanation of these fees we’ve encountered includes such uninspiring “perks” as a newspaper and local phone calls.

According to research by Bjorn Hanson, divisional dean of the PrestonRobertTischCenter for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management at New YorkUniversity, the U.S. hotel industry collected approximately $1.55 billion in fees and surcharges in 2009. Not all of which were resort fees, but you can see how fees and extras add up. Here’s a breakdown of these fees, how they work, when they’re charged, and how you can avoid them.

What is a Resort Fee?

A resort fee is a (usually unadvertised) mandatory fee tacked onto a nightly room rate. Fees can be as low as $3.50 per night at the Clarion Inn & Suites at International Drive, Orlando (they call this one a “safe fee”), to as much as $60 per night for the St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort, Puerto Rico.

A resort fee is almost always a fixed rate that is paid per room, per night, however some of the perks that come with the fee are only good for one person; like the one mai tai per day, per room offered by the Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa ($25 a day), or at Bally’s Las Vegas, where rooms sleep up to four people, but the $18 resort fee only allows two people access to the fitness center.

The things included in your fees run the gamut from the sublime ($25 resort fee applied towards some services at The Spa at the Trump Hotel, Las Vegas) to the ridiculous. Notary service at the Mirage Las Vegas ($25), anyone? But generally, the fee includes amenities such as WiFi, shuttle service, a newspaper, and the in-room phone.

Who Charges a Resort Fee?

You’ll find resort fees are most prevalent in a few specific destinations: Las Vegas, the Caribbean, Florida, and Hawaii. In Las Vegas, you’ll be hard pressed to find a hotel that does not charge a resort fee. The few that haven’t charged a fee in the past – such as Ceasar’s, which even launched a Facebook page at one point that asked visitors to “join the fight against Las Vegas resort fees” — are steadily jumping onto the resort fee bandwagon. From the point of view of the hotel, this is understandable. Why miss out on the extra cash that everyone else is already getting?

A few ski resorts also add resort fees, One   Ski Hill Place in Breckenridge, Colorado, for example, charges $30 a night, and the Viceroy Snowmass, also in Colorado, charges $16 a night.

How Do You Know if Your Hotel Charges a Resort Fee?

Read the fine print before you book. Resort fees tend to be hidden from advertised rates – the rationale presumably being that the site can lure guests in with low room rates before hitting them with an extra fee later. Say you’re searching for a hotel in Las Vegas on a third-party web site. You might see a good deal pop up like this one we found: The Palms Casino Resort for $67 on October 22. However, it’s not until you get to the booking page that you see the resort fee listed ($20 per night); bundled together with the taxes.

Several hotels hide the resort fee from their advertised room rates until you are ready to book; and even then they often do not include the fee in the reservation total, instead running a strip of (literally) fine print saying something like “rate and total room rates do not include the daily resort fee of $22 or applicable taxes.” (That’s taken from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas). You usually end up handing over the money at check-in or check-out.

While there’s often an element of surprise with resort fees, hotels have at least become more upfront about them since the FTC sent a letter to 22 hotel operators last year warning that their online rates may have been deceptive and in violation of FTC regulations. If you are still unsure, don’t hesitate to call the hotel before booking to ask exactly how much you will be paying, and for what.

Do You Have to Pay It?

The short answer is yes. There are a few resources available if you’re looking for more detail about resort fees. VegasChatter, for example, keeps an up-to-date list of Las Vegas hotels not charging resort fees (it contains only 11 hotels). There’s also no harm in trying to get the fees waived, especially if you advise management that you have no intention of using the facilities, or if you don’t want a newspaper or WiFi. This is more likely to be successful if you have status with the hotel’s loyalty program, which brings us to our final point…

Do You Earn Points on Resort Fees?

No. The extra money you are paying per night does not go toward your loyalty program status – even more reason to read the fine print, and keep yourself informed.

By Karen Dion.

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

Casinos Changing/Failing Business Model

Posted on August 14, 2014 in Industries, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

Change has come to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Change has come to the world of casino gambling. For the US, there used to be a casino monopoly west of the Mississippi in Las Vegas, and another monopoly east of the Mississippi in Atlantic City.

No More!

Casinos have since popped up in many states (Pennsylvania, Florida, Connecticut, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, etc) all over the country, plus on many federally-legislated Indian Reservations. Additionally, there is the eco-system of casino riverboats and cruise ships leaving major US ports.

Now, the casino hot spots of Las Vegas and Atlantic City have to compete for their customers, and many times, they lose, as depicted in the foregoing news article, which reports that 2 casinos are closing in Atlantic City next month September.

“Who moved my cheese?”

Title: The Atlantic City’s Revel Casino to Close in September
Atlantic City, NJ – Aug 12, 2014, 3:42 PM ET
By: Wayne Parry, Associated Press

CU Blog - Atlantic City's Revel Casino to Close in September - Photo 1When it opened just over two years ago, many people hoped Revel would save Atlantic   City’s struggling casino industry, which has been bleeding money and jobs for years.

But now the $2.4 billion resort that was widely seen as the last, best chance for Atlantic City’s gambling market is shutting down, unable to find a buyer for even pennies on the dollar.

In addition to putting 3,100 people out of jobs and hurting state and local budgets, Revel’s demise shows just how cutthroat the East Coast casino market has become, and how difficult it is for even the newest and nicest gambling halls to survive in an oversaturated market.

Revel Entertainment said the casino and its 1,399 hotel rooms will close on Sept. 10, never having turned a profit.

“We regret the impact this decision has on our Revel employees who have worked so hard to maximize the potential of the property,” Revel said in a statement Tuesday. “We thank them for their professionalism and dedication; however we are faced with several unavoidable circumstances.

“Despite the effort to improve the financial performance of Revel, it has not proven to be enough to put the property on a stable financial footing,” the company wrote.

Revel’s most recent Chapter 11 filing listed assets of $486.9 million and liabilities of $476.1 million.

The company said its situation was compounded by a “considerable non-controllable expense structure” that financially burdened the property. It said it had no choice but “an orderly wind-down of the business at this time.”

Revel said it still hopes to find a buyer through the bankruptcy process. But it acknowledged that if that happened, it would be after the facility had already shut down.

Matthew Levinson, chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, called the closing “enormously disappointing,” but held out hope for a future sale.

“I sincerely hope that possibility materializes, especially for the employees who face the loss of their jobs,” he said.

Israel Posner, who runs a tourism and gambling study institute at RichardStocktonCollege, said he expects Revel to sell as a non-casino building.

“I still believe Revel will sell, for pennies on the dollar, to someone who will figure out that it is the most modern, beautiful structure that’s going to be built for generations to come,” he said.

The casino was due to be sold at a bankruptcy court auction last week, but that was postponed to allow casino officials to study bids that were received. After Revel’s board met on Monday, the decision was made to shutter the glittering glass-covered casino at the north end of the Boardwalk.

Revel opened in April 2012 as the first new casino in Atlantic City since the Borgata opened nine years earlier, and carried great hopes for many that it would be the catalyst to jolt what had been the nation’s second-largest gambling market back to life. Atlantic City has since slipped to third place behind Nevada and Pennsylvania, whose casinos touched off the New Jersey resort town’s revenue and employment plunge in 2007.

Since 2006, when the first Pennsylvania casino opened, Atlantic City’s casino revenue has fallen from $5.2 billion to $2.86 billion last year.

So far this year, the Atlantic Club closed in January, bought at a bankruptcy auction by the parent companies of Tropicana and Caesars and shuttered in the name of reducing competition. Caesars Entertainment will close the Showboat on Aug. 31, also to reduce the competition in Atlantic City, where it currently owns 4 of the 11 casinos. And TrumpPlaza is due to close Sept. 16.

CU Blog - Atlantic City's Revel Casino to Close in September - Photo 2Revel has ranked near the bottom of Atlantic City’s casinos in terms of the amount of money won from gamblers since the day it opened.

Its original owners envisioned it as a luxury resort that just happened to have a casino, and eschewed many staples of casino culture, including a buffet and bus trips for day-trippers. But that strategy — as well as the only overall smoking ban in Atlantic City — turned off customers, and Revel filed for bankruptcy in 2013, a little over a year after opening.

That led to new ownership and a “Gamblers Wanted” promotional campaign to emphasize the company’s new emphasis on its casino.

But despite some improvement, Revel’s finances never recovered enough, and it filed for bankruptcy a second time in June.
Associated Press News Source (Retrieved August 12, 2014) – http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/atlantic-citys-revel-casino-close-september-24943242

 

CU Blog - Atlantic City's Revel Casino to Close in September - Photo 3

This article aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which calls for the elevation of Caribbean economics. The same challenges being experienced in Atlantic City are also affecting Caribbean casino resorts, especially since 2008. For example, the practice of Caribbean casino “junkets” is dead or dying [a].

The book posits that there is a need to re-focus, re-boot, and optimize the engines of commerce so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. The tourism product, the mainstay of Caribbean economy, was accustomed to depending on certain amenities that have now come under attack by social change. Whereas golf was a popular day pastime for resort guests, and casino gambling was popular at night, both activities are experiencing decline and implosion in their individual industries. (See this previous blog commentary regarding the Future of Golf). The supply and demand of gambling/gaming options have equally encountered rapid evolutionary change, from lottery tickets, BINGO parlors, online poker,  area pari-mutuels (horse/dog racing, Jai-Alai) and Off-Track Betting.

If only there was an alternate roadmap to elevate Caribbean society without depending on the “games people play” to remain constant. Wait, there is! The book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) with the charter to effectuate change in the region with these 3 prime directives:

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

Early in the book, the responsibility to monitor, manage, and mitigate the risks and threats of job killing developments, (such as the reporting in the foregoing news article), were identified as an important function for the CU with this pronouncement 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… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism… – impacting the region with more jobs.

Many Caribbean tourism resort properties depend on casino gaming. The issue of declining growth or failing business models is an important discussion in the execution of this roadmap. This commentary previously related details of the changing macro-economic factors affecting the region’s economic engines. The following are samples of earlier Go Lean blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1943 The Future of Golf; Vital for Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841 Declining Economic Trends – Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=782 Open/Review the Time Capsule: The Great Recession of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709 Econometric Analysis – Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=356 Book Review: ‘How Numbers Rule the World’ – How Demographic Studies Dictate Policies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242 The Erosion of the Middle Class
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235 Tourism’s changing profile

According to the foregoing article, the closing of this one property, the Revel, will directly impact 3,100 jobs. This article failed to mention however the effect on the local market with in-direct jobs. The Go Lean book details the principle of job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line for each direct job on a company’s payroll. (The automotive manufacturing industry was a choice selection with a job-multiplier rate of 11.0 – Page 260)

The Caribbean must contend with many of these same issues as the city leaders of Atlantic City must now deal with. The State of New Jersey is one of the most prosperous in the US, so there’s the chance that many displaced workers can be absorbed into the regional economy. The Caribbean does not have this option – our situation is more dire, especially on self-contained islands. Our society is in desperate need of reform/reboot to insulate many of the macro-economic downward trends that are pending. On the one hand, we must double down on the tourism product. On the other hand, we must diversify our economy and avail other high job-multiplier industries, like automotive manufacturing. The Go Lean… Caribbean book details the community ethos to adopt to diversify our economy and proactively mitigate the dire effects of the changed demographic landscape, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – 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 (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 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
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Integrate Region in a Single Market Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy Page 67
Tactical – Separation of Powers Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Develop the Auto Industry Page 206
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class Page 223
Appendix – Job Multipliers Page 259

The CU will foster industrial developments to aid tourism, incorporate best practices and quality assurances to deliver the best hospitality in the world. But there is room for service improvement and enhancement of the regional tourism product.

This roadmap is not advocating the abandonment of casino gambling, though the practice is considered a vice. Rather, the community ethos being promoted is one of open competition and fostering world class deliveries in information technologies. The book posits that the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) is a great equalizer between large countries and smaller states. To reinforce this point, remember that Japan is far from being the largest population base in the world (only 126 million), yet they are the #3 economy worldwide. Size does not matter…as much, intelligent strategy and efficient delivery matters more.

This Japanese model is fully defined in the Go Lean roadmap, detailing their growth strategies (Page 69) and starting with this Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 14) statement, identified here:

xxxiii.  Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of [certain] communities… On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/communities like … Japan.

The Caribbean can be a better place to live, work and play, perhaps even the best address on the planet.

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

————————————————————————————–

Appendix a:

Smart Gaming Magazine Article: INSIDE LOOK AT CASINO JUNKETS
By Henry Tamburin

Casino Junkets began in the mid-50’s as a way to entice players to Las Vegas to gamble. Junket programs in those days were pretty straightforward. Casino operators would hire junket reps to fill a plane with qualified gamblers. These players would get free airfare, free hotel accommodations, free meals, free shows (and just about anything else they wanted) in exchange for their commitment to gamble a specific number of hours per day at an explicit average bet size. The casinos of course were gambling that the players would lose more than their out of pocket expenses for bringing, housing and feeding them.

That was the past. To get a fresh look at how junkets operate in 2005 and what benefits they provide players, I interviewed junket rep Sandy Crammer, owner of S&S Casino Tours, and Jeffrey Hoss, Director of National Casino Marketing, for Harrah’s. What I learned about junkets might surprise you (it did me).

So let’s begin by defining what exactly does a Junket rep do?

Jeffrey Hoss: First off, in the Harrah’s organization we refer to our third party reps as Independent Agents rather than Junket Reps. Independent Agents send us customers (i.e. players) and in return they get a commission based on a player’s theoretical. We have about 185 Independent Agents representing 47 states and 5 international countries that have a specific territory that they can market and promote our properties to their customers. In total our Independent Agents have scheduled about 300,000 customer trips annually to Harrah’s properties.

Let me ask Sandy how she got started in this business.

Sandy Crammer: Before I started my own company, I ran a junket office as in-house employee for many years and I decided it was something I liked and wanted to try on my own. So my husband, Scott, and I started our own business and thankfully, Harrah’s decided to take a shot with us four years ago to represent them. We have three employees in our company and currently we are one of the top 5 Independent Agent producers for Harrah’s.
(Source: http://www.smartgaming.com/Articles/gambling_tips_inside_look_casino_junket.html)

 

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

The Future of Golf; Vital for Tourism

Posted on August 12, 2014 in Ethos, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

The book Go Lean…Caribbean calls for the elevation of Caribbean society, to re-focus, re-boot, and optimize all the engines of commerce so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.  “The games people play” therefore have relevance for our consideration. Golf is one of those games. But golf is more than just a game, it is an eco-system; but this eco-system is in peril.

“The financial bubble burst and the Tiger bubble burst as well”.
“Even as the economy recovered, golf is still in a nose dive”.
“Your house is on fire”.

These (above) are among the key phrases from the narration of the following HBO Real Sports documentary story:

Host Bryant Gumbel speaks with industry leaders, including Jack Nicklaus, the most accomplished golfer of all time, and executive Mark King about the state of the sport and what innovations should be embraced.

Full Length VIDEO:

YouTube Online Video Site (Published July 23, 2014; Retrieved August 9, 2014) –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFEYC4Z44v0

This subject is pivotal in the roadmap for elevation of the Caribbean economy, which maintains that tourism will continue to be the primary economic driver in the region for the foreseeable future. The game of “golf” plays a significant role in the business model of tourist resorts. The publisher of the book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that understanding the macro-economic patterns of the game/sport of golf is critical in the roadmap to grow the region’s GDP and creating jobs (2.2 million new jobs projected).

Also important in this discussion is the functionality of economic planning.

According to the foregoing VIDEO, there are major issues in the eco-system of golf. There are 4 major events during the year: The Masters, US Open, British Open and the PGA Championship. The viewership numbers for all 4 events have been declining in the last 7 years, since 2007, the eve of the Great Recession. Stakeholders in this industry cannot ignore this downward trend. For many, this discussion is not just about their past-time, but rather their livelihoods.

For the Caribbean perspective, the subject of golf encapsulates the activities of live, work and play. (Some of the most prime residential properties are on or overlooking golf courses).

Change is constant. Change can be lateral, forward and backwards too. Empires rise and fall, past-time activities change; new sports come into fashion, while others fade into obsolescence. (In the US, boxing is on the decline while Mixed Martial Arts are on the rise).

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

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

Early in the book, the benefit of the “business of sports for community empowerment” is pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13 & 14), with these opening statements:

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 like tourism… – impacting the region with more jobs.

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.

CU Blog - The Future of Golf; Vital for Tourism - Photo 1The Caribbean tourism resort properties depend on golf amenities. Many times too, golf courses are built as municipal establishments, so as to benefit citizens through the Parks & Recreation infrastructure. The issues of sufficient returns on the public investments in golf is an important discussion in the execution of this roadmap.

This commentary previously related details of the changing macro-economic factors (like demographics) that affect the region’s economic engines. The following are samples of earlier Go Lean blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1715 Lebronomy – Economic Impact of One Superstar on a Sport/Team’s Viability
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148 Sports Business and Sports Bubbles – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841 Declining Economic Trends – Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=782 Open/Review the Time Capsule: The Great Recession of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709 Econometric Analysis – Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498 Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’ – Identifying and Fostering Sports Genius Abilities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=356 Book Review: ‘How Numbers Rule the World’ – How Demographic Studies Dictate Policies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318 Empowering Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273 10 Things We Want from the US and 10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – # 2: Tourists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=254 Air Transport Industry Changes – Air Antilles Launches St. Maarten Service
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242 The Erosion of the Middle Class
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235 Tourism’s changing profile

According to the foregoing VIDEO, the opulence of golf has not fared well in today’s real economy. The game costs too much, and takes too much time. There is a real chance that this sport will die off with older generations, unless reform can be incorporated to attract and retain younger generations to the sport. Many revisions have been tried – as depicted in the video – there is no tolerating the status quo.

The Caribbean must do the same. Our societies are also in need of reform/reboot to attract and retain the youth to consider their future in their Caribbean homelands. The homelands have been losing at this … badly. There are validated reports of over 70% of the college educated population fleeing the region (https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433); this constitutes an undeniable brain drain. The Go Lean… Caribbean book details the community ethos to adopt to proactively mitigate the dire effects of the changed landscape, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – 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 (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Integrate Region in a Single Market Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Trade and Globalization Page 70
Separation of Powers – Sports and Culture Administration Page 81
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the One Percent Page 224
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports Page 229

The CU will foster industrial developments to aid and abet tourism. This is not planning for 1995, but rather 2015. The assumptions of the past, simply no longer apply today. It is what it is!

CU Blog - The Future of Golf; Vital for Tourism - Photo 2“Earlier this year, at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Mark King, the CEO of the company TaylorMade Golf announced the launch of Hack Golf, a TaylorMade-sponsored initiative that is, at heart, a worldwide call for fresh ideas. Over the next five years, operating in alliance with the Professional Golf Association (PGA) of America, King plans to pump $5 million of his company’s money into what amounts to a global brainstorm session. This constitutes a concerted effort to seek solutions to a demographic problem.” – (http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/hack-golf-aims-grow-game-taylormade-sponsored-brainstorm-session)

Golf may have a future.

The 2014 PGA Championship was won by Rory McIlroy, a 25 year old golf “phenom”. After Tiger Woods, this sports needs all the young stars they can get a hold off. If only they can attract young viewers.

For the Caribbean, this issue is bigger than just the game of golf; this is life – Caribbean life. We must have a better future, inclusive of all of our young people. How? With the concerted effort as detailed in the 5 year Go Lean roadmap, this region can and will be a better place to live, work and play.

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

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]