Tag: SGE

Mineral Extraction 101 – Industrial Reboot – Modern Factories – Small Footprints

Posted on January 24, 2021 in Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Where were you in 1979?

Do you remember the Mainframe Computers of the day? It took up a whole floor in an office building. A Large Footprint.

The same computing power today is found in your smart-phone in your pocket: CPU Speed, memory capacity, storage size, and inter-connectivity capabilities.

The more things change, the smaller the footprint gets. This is true of computers … and factories.

So in case you were not paying attention to the Industrial Landscape for the Mineral industry (including petroleum), what has happened over the years and decades is that the refining – manufacturing footprint has shrunk in size tremendously.

NEW Mini Refinery

So if a community wants to venture into the forays of Mineral Extraction, they no longer need to send the Raw Materials off to some foreign destination for processing. Nope; the processing to produce Finished Goods can be done …

    Right Here.

Yes, we can work with the cheap Raw Material and turn it into valuable Finished Goods. Now, the related high-end skilled jobs – think factory jobs – stay here. The resultant profit stays here too!

This is submission 3-of-6 for the January 2021 Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. Every month, as we engage in this effort to reform and transform the Caribbean economic engines, we message to Caribbean stakeholders about issues germane to our regional life and culture. We want to make the homeland a better place to live, work and play, so there must be some focus on the Industrial Workplace.

This commentary asserts that our Natural Resources should be used to enrich our people, not someone else. See the full series here as follows:

  1. Mineral Extraction 101 – Raw Materials ==> Finished Goods
  2. Mineral Extraction 101 – Lesson from History: Jamaica’s Bauxite
  3. Mineral Extraction 101 – Industrial Reboot – Modern factories – Small footprints
  4. Mineral Extraction 101 – Commerce of the Seas – Encore
  5. Mineral Extraction 101 – Restoration after Extraction – Cool Sites
  6. Mineral Extraction 101 – Sovereign Wealth Fund – Not the Panacea

Mineral Extraction, mining and drilling is very much destructive to the environment; there will be a consequential impact. So we urge you, as related in the previous entry of this series (2-of-6):

Just Say No … to Mining … or if we do it, do it right.

So listen up people, if you want real economic benefits from Mineral Extracted here, then you need to Add Value to the extracted mineral here.

Dirt is Cheap.

Finished Goods, on the other hand, have a measure of profit embedded in the pricing.

Just how do we add the value?

Where there is a Will, there is a Way. Thanks to modern technology, that Will and the Way is conceivable, believable and achievable. Just consider these two examples:

Oil – Refined oil (Diesel and Gasoline) has been the standard in modernity for over 100 years. There are BIG refineries littered around the world and even here in our Caribbean region. Alas, the technology now allows for Mini Refineries; see here:

Title: Mini Refineries for Emerging Economies and Remote Locations
Modular mini refineries are best utilized in emerging economies and in remote locations where gasoline, diesel and fuel oil are needed.  The local crude oil is normally your lowest cost feed stock because the transportation costs are minimized.

Mini refineries with heavy crudes and low API gravity produce more fuel oil and less naphtha and diesel.  Light crudes with high API gravity produce less fuel oil and more naphtha and diesel.

Additionally, sulfur content determines refinery cost being as low sulfur crudes may not require hydrotreaters.

Crude oil is classified as light, medium, or heavy grade according to its measured API gravity.

  • Light crude oil has an API gravity higher than 31.1° (i.e., less than 870 kg/m3)
  • Medium crude oil has an API gravity between 22.3° and 31.1° (i.e., 870 to 920 kg/m3)
  • Heavy crude oil has an API gravity below 22.3° (i.e., 920 to 1000 kg/m3)
  • Extra heavy crude oil has an API gravity below 10.0° (i.e., greater than 1000 kg/m3)

Grades of crude oil are shown above in graphical form.

When someone calls asking how much a 10,000 barrel per day mini refinery would cost, my response is that it depends on:

  • API gravity
  • Sulfur content
  • Products desired
  • Sulfur specifications on finished products
  • Ability to switch between different crudes

There are no two mini refineries that are alike. The ability to switch between light and heavy crudes means that one crude may require a larger naphtha hydrotreater, a larger naphtha reformer and a larger diesel hydrotreater whereas the other may not. We typically analyze many crude scenarios for your mini refinery to determine the best configuration and process unit sizes during the feasibility study which is performed at the beginning of any new project.

Let’s look at three variations of mini-refineries:

  • A simple topping refinery
  • A hydro skimming refinery with naphtha and diesel hydrotreaters
  • A hydro skimming refinery with naphtha and diesel hydrotreaters and naphtha reformer

For the simple topping refinery, we have a gas fired heater to heat the crude before the atmospheric distillation unit, as shown below in PFD 101 [in the following link].

In PFD 102, we have all of the above from PFD 101 plus a naphtha hydrotreater, diesel hydrotreater and hydrogen plant.

In PFD 103, we have all of the above from PFD 102 minus the hydrogen plant plus a naphtha reformer. The hydrogen plant is not needed due to the naphtha reformer providing hydrogen for the naphtha and diesel hydrotreaters.

R.C. Costello & Assoc., Inc. offers turnkey design solutions for mini refineries, with procurement & installation worldwide. We provide first class Mini Refinery solutions with quality components and instrumentation & controls, safe designs and high on stream factors.

Let COSTELLO work with you to design and build the refinery that meets your quality requirements on schedule and within your budget.

Source: Posted November 10, 2017; retrieved January 24, 2021 from: https://rccostello.com/wordpress/mini-refineries/understanding-modular-mini-refineries/

Cement – The dirt – think limestone – that we can excavate in our islands and coastal states can be processed into cement, and sold as building materials here and abroad. Previous versions of Cement Factories were BIG monstrosities; today, they have small footprint, but even better quality and efficiency; see this sample here:

Title: 100-1000 tpd Mini Cement Plant For Sale
Introduction:
Mini Cement Plant is a leading world level industrial mill. Cement Production Line is designed by our engineers and technical workers, basing on many years’ industrial mill research, and adopting world leading powder processing technology. Cement Production Line adopts numbers of national patent of mill, such as trapezium working surface, flexible connection, roll linked pressure boost, etc. cement production line has completely overcome traditional mill’s defect in application, capacity, fineness, energy consumption, service life, etc. And a mini cement plant is the ideal substitute of traditional mill, such as Raymond mill, high pressure suspension mill, ball mill, etc. Nowadays, grinding mills are widely used in the Metallurgy industry, electric power industrial, chemical, building, steel industry, coal industry, etc. And cement production line has achieved large economic benefits and social benefits. 

NEW Mini Cement Plant 

The Mini Cement Plant is widely used in many industrial, such as building, chemical, chemical fertilizer, metallurgy, mining, nonmetal, abrasive, bearing materials, ceramic, steel, thermal power, bricks & tiles, coal industry, etc.. The Mini Cement Plant can grind these materials which are 9 or less on the Mohs scale, and moisture is below 6%, and are non-explosive and non-flamable mining materials. The final size can be adjusted from 30 to 400 meshes easily. There are thousands materials that our machine can grind. The typical materials are cement (raw meal and cement clinker), quartz, feldspar, calcite, gypsum, limestone, dolomite, graphite, fluorite, aedelforsite, phosphate ore, fused calciummagnesium phosphate, carbamide, electrolytic manganese metal, ferromanganese, coal, gangue, slag, zirconium, steatite, granite, orthoclase, marble, barytes, ceramic.

[See Photo here:] 

Min. Order / Reference FOB Price
1 Piece US $5,999/ Piece
Port: Shanghai, China 
Production Capacity: 80sets/Month
Payment Terms: L/C, T/T
Application: Construction, Mineral Operation
Certification: CE, ISO
Customized: Customized
Automatic Grade: Automatic
Spare Parts Supply: for Whole Year
Test & Installation: Engineer Assigned

Source: Retrieved January 24, 2021 from: https://zenithdream.en.made-in-china.com/product/eNlmEcTKvQht/China-Factory-Supply-100-1000tpd-Mini-Cement-Plant-for-Sale.html#slideVideo 

Consider too, this related VIDEO for the Cement Milling equipment, infrastructure and process:

VIDEO – About Shanghai Zenith Company – https://youtu.be/Mwx6HWWBdkU

Zenith Crusher
Posted January 5, 2015 – Shanghai Zenith Mining and Construction Machinery Co., Ltd. is a hi-tech, engineering group. We are specialized in the research, development, and production of industrial crushing, powder grinding, mineral processing equipments and other related devices.

Ready. Set. Go …

The Future is Now!

This is the Way; all we have needed was the Will.

The Go Lean movement have contemplated these types of initiatives; we have presented strategies, tactics and implementations to employ here in the Caribbean region. Consider this sample of previous blog-commentaries that we have presented related to Industrial Developments and Manifestations envisioned for the Caribbean homeland:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15331 Industrial Reboot – Auto-making 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15267 Industrial Reboot – Prefab Housing 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14245 Leading with Money Matters – Competing for New Industries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13155 Industrial Reboot – Pipelines 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12146 Commerce of the Seas – Shipbuilding Model of Ingalls
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3473 Haiti to Receive Grants to Expand Caracol Industrial Park
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750 Disney World – Role Model for Self-Governing Entities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2857 Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurism in Junk

Accordingly, the Go Lean/CU roadmap facilitates an eco-system for Self-Governing Entities (SGE), an ideal concept for factories, plants and other industrial expressions like mines, quarries, shipyards and even prisons. The exclusive federal regulation and promotion activities of SGE’s lie within the sole jurisdiction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Imagine bordered campuses – with a combination of fencing, walls and/or moats/canals – that designates the exclusivity of the commercial, security and administration to a superlative governance above the member-states.

See this excerpt from Page 80 of the Go Lean book:

The agencies of the [CU‘s] State Department will promote and administer all Self-Governing Entities throughout the region. This refers to foreign military bases, scientific labs and industrial/commercial campuses. SGE campuses are presented as economic engines for the region. They will have to contract with their neighboring communities for utilities and services. Many times, these campuses may only be work-sites, and all human needs are dependent on the neighboring communities.

These facilities will not be subject to the laws of the local states of their address, rather CU, international, foreign sovereignty, or maritime laws will apply. This structure will not usher in some anarchist movement with “wild, wild west” guidelines. Rather, at the time of incorporation, by-laws (or constitutions) must be presented to the CU State Department for acceptance. In addition, the “due process” to apply changes to by-laws must also be submitted. This ensures that the SGE administration is in an orderly manner and does not undermine the original charter. For ongoing governance, the SGE must submit reporting (including board meeting minutes) to the State Department, quarterly.

The SGE will have controlled access for their boundaries (walls, fences, canals/waterways, etc) and their focus will be limited to the scope of their charter. A medical campus, for example, can conduct experimental therapies only on their designated grounds. Yet SGE’s must engage the neighboring localities for transport, and infrastructural needs. In the event of emergencies, (though the SGE will define proactively the responsible parties that can call “911”), the CU institutions will have the right to intrude on the secured grounds to protect life, limb and/or property.

There is a Good Neighbor mandate for SGE’s to co-exist with their neighbors. So the administration of SGE’s will require careful collaboration with other CU departments, municipal authorities, national governments and foreign entities. The State Department therefore serves as 1st point of contact, a liaison office.

This technocratic vision of a superlative industrial landscape – SGE’s – was an early motivation for the Go Lean roadmap.

This is transforming! This is the vision of an industrial reboot! This is where and how more factory jobs can be created. Also, the Go Lean movement (book and blogs) details the principles of SGE’s and job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line (or off-campus) for each direct job on the SGE’s payroll. Certain industries are perfectly suited for this SGE structure; this is true of Mineral Extraction.

Yes, the Go Lean/CU roadmap calls for the region to carefully and cautiously foster Mineral Extractions as an industrial alternative to tourism. We have the natural resources on land; (there is the concept of the Exclusive Economic Zone for development in the seas).

This is the technocratic Way Forward and how we can employ Best Practices for the industrial developments for any and every member-state.

This is how, why and where we can make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Share this post:
, , ,

Brain Drain – ‘Live and Let Live’: Introducing Localism

Posted on February 29, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

  • So Brain Drains … are bad!
  • Brain Gains … are good.
  • Nerds, Geeks and Freaks often emerge as high achievers and can propel society forward … or exact revenge.
  • We can foster high achievement in our children by modeling best-practices in parenting, like Tiger Moms.

That is the summary … of this February 2020 Teaching Series on Brain Drains by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. This entry, 5-of-5, urges Caribbean people to “live and let live”, positing that we need to retain and attract good people, not judge and condemn them. This concludes the considerations of this Brain Drain series; see the full catalog here:

    1. Brain Drain – Where the Brains Are
    2. Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can!
    3. Brain Drain – Geeks and Freaks: Ultimate Revenge
    4. Brain Drain – ‘Tiger Moms’ – Is that so bad?
    5. Brain Drain – Live and Let Live – Introducing ‘Localism’

“Do what you’ve always done; get what you’ve always got”.

Is this still a ‘bridge too far’ for the Caribbean?
You are not in this photo! You do not have to be, just ‘live and let live‘.

It is now time to do somethings different, so that we can get different results.

As related in a previous entry in this series, there are 2 dynamics associated with why people abandon their homeland: Push and Pull.

 “Push” – people leave, to seek refuge elsewhere. Social defects result in narrow-mindedness of attitudes and values towards anyone that looks, talks, thinks or loves differently that those in the community. This includes those identified as LGBT, Disabled, Domestic-abused, Medically-challenged.

“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life elsewhere; many times people are leaving based on a mirage of “greener pastures”, though the “better prospect” may be elusive … especially for the first generation.

So if you don’t want the Brain Drain, there is something you can do to abate the Push factors:

Live and let live …

Would you want to be responsible for pushing people out? Would you want to be guilty of bullying someone to the extent that they just want to take their leave of your presence and proximity?

Would you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem? (This is not just theoretical; think of the recent Transgender Murder in Puerto Rico; yes, “this is on us”, we are the community that failed “Alexa Negrón Luciano”. See Appendix VIDEO.)

The way to forge change in our society is to promote a spirit of liberalism:

Political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law.

What is shocking: We do this already – think of the reality at our “All-Inclusive” Hotel Resorts:

Do you really care what religion a resort guest practices on Sunday while on vacation? How about what he/she eats (vegetarian or carnivorous)? Would it matter who he/she shares the room with?

So we are already doing what is needed to reform and transform our societies; we are simply only liberal when the activities are wrapped around an economic engine, like a hotel resort.

This is the manifestation of localism – do what you want, just “over there” away from me. In the previous entry of this series on Brain Gains, localism was presented as follows:

One strategy that is emerging from the mitigation of Brain Drains , and for enabling Brain Gain, is that of localism.

Localism describes a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and local identity. – Source: Wikipedia

All-Inclusive Hotel Resorts – with their fenced-in/walled-off boundaries – are iterations of localism and/or Self-Governing Entities. See this manifestation in this news article here, showing how some Caribbean destinations roll out the welcome-mat for same-sex couples, while others have a reputation for homophobia:

Title: Gay and Lesbian Friendly Destinations in the Caribbean
By: Robert Curley

With its fun-in-the-sun destinations, carefree attitude, and myriad couples-oriented resorts, the Caribbean seems an ideal vacation spot for gay and lesbian couples. But not all Caribbean islands are created equal: some (notably the French, Dutch, and U.S. islands) roll out the welcome mat for same-sex couples, while others, like Jamaica, Barbados, and the Cayman Islands, have a reputation for homophobia. With the help of the travel experts at LGBT News, here are our picks for the top Caribbean destinations for gay travelers:

1 of 10 – Saba
The tiny island of Saba is known mostly for its diving, hiking, and other outdoor activities, but is quickly gaining a reputation as a bastion of tolerance in the Caribbean, too. Saba was the first place in the Caribbean where same-sex couples could legally wed, has a significant gay and lesbian population of its own, and several dive operators on the island run special outings for gay and lesbian travelers.

————-

2 of 10 – St. Barts
With its laissez-faire French culture and a myriad of private villas to choose from, St. Barts is has been called the most gay-friendly island in the Caribbean. This is the place to get lost in the Caribbean for a few days, far from the cruise-ship crowds. By any measure, with its mix of celebrities, yachties, high-end shopping, and vibrant nightlife, St. Barts is fabulous.

————-

3 of 10 – St. Martin/St. Maarten
Both Dutch St. Maarten and French St. Martin have long had a gay-friendly reputation, with many private villas for rent and beaches and bars where gay and straight couples peacefully coexist. St. Maarten’s reputation was sullied somewhat by a 2004 incident where a gay couple was assaulted near a popular beach bar, but island tourism officials were quick to apologize, and the island remains near the top of the list for many gay Caribbean travelers. Clothing-optional beaches and resorts on the French side of the island earn bonus points. Same-sex marriage is legal here.

————-

4 of 10 – Puerto Rico
Gay travelers in Puerto Rico will find the Caribbean’s only real gay nightlife scene: San Juan highlights include the Atlantic Beach Hotel and Bar (set on a gay beach and with a weekly drag show) and clubs like Eros. On both the mainland and the island of Vieques you can find gay-friendly resorts, and gay travelers in Puerto Rico have the benefit of protection by U.S. antidiscrimination laws, including the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.

————-

5 of 10 – U.S. Virgin Islands
The U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Croix, in particular, has become a mecca for gay travelers, many of whom wind up at the welcoming Sand Castle on the Beach Resort in Frederiksted. Gay travelers can expect a friendly and tolerant attitude throughout the U.S.V.I., and if public displays of affection are not exactly embraced, the reaction is not likely to be more than a second glance. As with Puerto Rico, U.S. law makes same-sex marriages legal here.

————-

6 of 10 – Curacao
While some Caribbean island privately welcome gay travelers, Curacao has been the most public in its embrace: “With exceptional gay friendly hotels and attractions, [Curacao] encourages gay and lesbian travelers to visit the island and experience its ‘live and let live’ atmosphere for themselves,” says the Curacao Tourist Board, which has a marketing campaign aimed at gays and lesbians and includes information on gay-friendly hotels and clubs on its website. Same-sex couples can get married here, too!

————-

7 of 10 – Aruba
Like its Dutch Caribbean neighbors, Curacao and Saba, the oh-so-popular tourist destination of Aruba is one of the gay-friendliest places to travel in the islands. The Bucuti and Tara Beach Resorts are among several hotels and resorts that bill themselves as welcoming to LGBT visitors; the gay-ownedLittle David Guesthouse is another option. District 7 in Oranjestad is the island’s premier gay bar. All in all, this is a destination that celebrates its diversity openly and fully.

————-

8 of 10 – The Mexican Caribbean
The Mexican state of Quintana Roo, which includes Cancun, Cozumel, Tulum, and the Mexican Caribbean coastline (a.k.a. the Riviera Maya) recognizes same-sex marriages performed in Mexico City, and Cancun has been building a reputation as a gay-friendly destination. The city has gay nightclubs downtown and an unofficial gay beach in the Hotel Zone (Playa Delfines), and hosts the annual Cancún International Gay Festival in May and the Cancún Riviera Maya Gay Fall Festival.

————-

9 of 10 – Cuba
Cuba’s gay community has increasingly stepped out of the closet and into the limelight as the island nation has increased its interaction with the world, Fidel Castro’s daughter, Mariela, heads the Cuban National Center for Sex Education and has advocated for LGBT rights. Vedado is Havana’s de facto gay neighborhood, Mi Cayito the unofficial gay beach, and many of the island’s casas particulares (B&Bs) are gay-friendly. Discrimination still lingers, but Cuba has come a long way since the days where gays were imprisoned and officially persecuted.

————-

10 of 10 – Unfriendly Islands
Ten formerly British West Indies nations still have “buggery” laws on the books and have displayed various levels of intolerance (ranging from mild disdain to outright hostility and criminal prosecution) toward gay and lesbian residents and travelers.

These include Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Source: Posted June 4, 2019; retrieved February 29, 2020 from: https://www.tripsavvy.com/gay-and-lesbian-friendly-caribbean-destinations-1488131

Notice the trending …

… the Dutch, French and American Caribbean territories are progressive, liberal and inclusive in their official and unofficial accommodations for the LGBT community – they have learned to “live and let live”. (Do you see how that works? No surprise these countries – France, Netherlands, USA – are very prosperous economically and their colonies represent their colonial masters adherence to Human Rights principles).

While All-Inclusive Resorts are mainstays in today’s Caribbean, the Go Lean book presents a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of formal Self-Governing Entities (SGE) under the administration of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The roadmap calls for legal and regulatory compliance by the local government to mandate a laissez-faire allowance of SGE’s. Consider this excerpt from the book (Page 80) for a full definition of the concept.

Tactical – Separation of Powers – State Department – E2: Self Governing Entities (SGE)
The agencies of the [CU’s] State Department will promote and administer all Self-Governing Entities throughout the region. This refers to foreign military bases, scientific labs and industrial/commercial campuses. SGE campuses are presented as economic engines for the region. They will have to contract with their neighboring communities for utilities and services. Many times, these campuses may only be work-sites, and all human needs are dependent on the neighboring communities.

These facilities will not be subject to the laws of the local states of their address, rather CU, international, foreign sovereignty, or maritime laws will apply. This structure will not usher in some anarchist movement with “wild, wild west” guidelines. Rather, at the time of incorporation, by-laws (or constitutions) must be presented to the [CU’s} State Department for acceptance. In addition, the “due process” to apply changes to by-laws must also be submitted. This ensures that the SGE administration is in an orderly manner and does not undermine the original charter. For ongoing governance, the SGE must submit reporting (including board meeting minutes) to the State Department, quarterly.

The SGE will have controlled access for their boundaries (walls, fences, canals/waterways, etc) and their focus will be limited to the scope of their charter. A medical campus, for example, can conduct experimental therapies only on their designated grounds. Yet SGE’s must engage the neighboring localities for transport, and infrastructural needs. In the event of emergencies, (though the SGE will define proactively the responsible parties that can call 911), the CU institutions will have the right to intrude on the secured grounds to protect life, limb and/or property.

There is a Good Neighbor mandate for SGE’s to co-exist with their neighbors. So the administration of SGE’s will require careful collaboration with other CU departments, municipal authorities, national governments and foreign entities. The State Department therefore serves as 1st point of contact, a liaison office.

All the while, we have been proselytizing about SGE’s; now we see that this strategy can even be successful for mitigating the Brain Drain in the Caribbean. SGE’s can help to furnish the “Live and Let Live” mentality. The movement behind the Go Lean book have always championed this cause – this is a paramount strategy for reforming and transforming Caribbean society. See how SGE’s have been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries – consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17686 SGE’s allow Enterprise Zones & Industrial Parks despite Communism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15907 Industrial Reboot: Creating Naval Piers as SGE’s – Many benefits flow
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13677 Learning Lessons from the Economics of ‘South Beach’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13138 Prisons Industry – Can bring economic gains despite negatives
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12146 SGE’s for Shipbuilding – Facilitating ‘Commerce of the Seas’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822 Cancer: Doing More with SGE Research Parks and Treatment Centers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4037 “Training Our Dragons” – SGE’s mitigate the risks of Foreign Investors.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750 Disney World – Role Model for Self-Governing Entities

Forging change in society is an Art and a Science.

All in all, it is not easy. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap describes the effort to forge change in the Caribbean as heavy-lifting. Alas, the roadmap has also identified “Soft Power” as an opening for the change to take root. A previous blog-commentary relating Soft Power of Amazon recruiting viable cities for their HQ2 identified:

Wow, what an expensive price to pay. People in cities like Atlanta actually have to clean-up their societal engines; they have to try and get along or Amazon will not consider them. Plus, Amazon is only considering 1 city, so if a community double-downs on the effort to forge a pluralistic democracy – fair treatment to all despite diverse backgrounds and lifestyles – and they are not selected by Amazon, then they would have loved their neighbors … for nothing.

How sad! This satirical comment is the height of sarcasm, but true!

So “can’t we all just get along” is no longer a question, it is now a ‘formula for success’. This is what we must do if we want our communities to survive and thrive, rather than suffer from one “societal abandonment” episode after another – Brain Drains. Even if you – the Public – cannot stomach the idea of people being different, just let them be in their own little corner or campus, in some SGE.

If this is still too much to ask, for any stakeholders in society, then the goal must be to disqualify that person, group, organization or institution. They must be named, blamed and shamed! We must abandon the bad orthodoxies of the past if we want to have a future; “Ghost Towns” do happen and we’d be on the way to such a disposition.

There is no guarantee for the survival of Caribbean communities. If we want to have a future, any future, we must reboot and turn-around. Yes, we can … it is only at the precipice that people change. See this poetic reference here from a previous blog-commentary:

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

We are there now!

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap to reboot the societal engines of the region. Everyone is involved. We must all live and let live. This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

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

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

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

———————
Appendix VIDEO – For transgender women, going to the bathroom can turn traumatic or even deadly – https://youtu.be/PFaf2A7wUCo

Bianca Graulau
Posted Feb 27, 2020 – When she used the men’s bathroom, she was sexually harassed. When she used the women’s bathroom, she was humiliated by a female customer, and then fired. Kristy Ramirez’s story is all too relevant after a transgender woman was killed in Puerto Rico hours after being seen in the women’s bathroom.

Bianca’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/biancagraulau/

Video credit: https://www.facebook.com/nandy.torres…

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

‘Free Market’ Versus … Communism – Lessons from History

Posted on June 19, 2019 in Economics, Ethos, Government

Go Lean Commentary

The member-states of the Caribbean are “in a pickle”.

We are “bleeding”; we are losing our populations more and more. Our people are emigrating away in search of greater prosperity. Many times, our people leave for lands that promote Free Market economic principles, as opposed to what we are currently promoting here in our region.

Every society needs to continuously grow; so population “bleeding” is a bad thing. We need to better compete. What systems are we promoting … officially or unofficially? Let’s discuss …

First, let’s talk about Free Market as an economic principle. This is the system in which the prices for goods and services are only determined by the open market and by consumers and not forcibly determined by local governments – centrally controlled – see the encyclopedic references in the Appendices below.

After some debate – 100 years – the judgment is that Free Market economies are more prosperous than centrally controlled economies, think Communist states. Even Russia, the former Head of the communist-bloc Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has transformed and is now a Free Market country. See the list here of “Countries by their GDP Rankings”:

In fact, few communist (pure socialist) states remain; think Laos, Vietnam, China and Cuba.

(China is a special consideration for this commentary – see below).

Cuba is not a Free Market economy, right now. But it might be soon. Cuba sera Libre!

Think back to 1959 in Cuba; truth be told, the United States of America really did not and does not care that much whether a society embraces central-controlled versus Free Market, Communism versus Capitalism. Just as long as governments do not take (nationalize) the assets that belong to Americans. (The US does huge business – Trade – with China, Vietnam and Laos; but Cuba alone remains in a trade embargo).

Truly, the problem in Cuba was the subsequent seizing of assets rather than the political – leftist – ideology. The seizing of  American businesses was in effect a de facto Act of War. (The US never engaged official warfare on Cuba because of the geo-political wrangling with the Soviet Union; the island remained a protectorate of that nuclear-armed Super Power; think Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962).

So as we contemplate the economic stewardship that exists in our Caribbean region now, this history should be front-and-center in our minds. (Cuba was not the first nor the last country to embrace leftist ideologies in the Caribbean; think Guyana, Antigua and Grenada. All these countries flirted with far extremes away from Free Market economies. Yet the US still  maintained a status quo in terms of diplomatic relations with them. (Leftist Grenada was invaded by the US in 1982 at the behest of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to rectify a military coup and for violating human and civil rights).

There is so much that the Caribbean can benefit from with a discussion on this history of Free Markets in this region; this is not just a dry lecture in economics, rather this is an energetic debate on the form of economic governance that the new Caribbean should be pursuing. In a recent blog-commentary regarding the American Big Box retailer Wal-Mart, the question was asked of a reader:

“Should the Caribbean economic stewards welcome Wal-Mart in the region?”.

The reader’s default answer was:

“No, they would imperil Main Street retailers”.

Such an innocent declaration is actually anti-Free Market. This scenario demonstrates why there is the need for this discussion – to better understand the economics and the history – in the following series of commentaries on the distinct differences of Free Market Versus … – see the related Music VIDEO in the Appendix below. This submission is entry 1-of-6 in a full series cataloged as follows:

  1. Free Market Versus: Communism – Can they both co-exist?
  2. Free Market Versus: China – Two systems at play in ‘Words and Actions’
  3. Free Market Versus: Socialism – Prevalent in the Caribbean
  4. Free Market Versus: Cooperatives
  5. Free Market Versus: Labor Unions – Junior Communists?
  6. Free Market Versus: Common Pool Resources – Simpler Cooperation

In this series, reference is made to the need for a comprehensive roadmap for elevating the societal engines of the Caribbean member-states. The book Go Lean…Caribbean – a roadmap for the implementation for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – introduced a new roadmap by which Free Market exercises can exist and thrive right next door to alternative economic systems (i.e. central-controlled).

There is a lot for us to unwrap here.

This Go Lean strategy to consider is that of Self-Governing Entities (SGE). The book (Page 7) defines SGE’s as follows:

Bordered areas managed only under CU jurisdiction. These include Enterprise Zones, Industrial Parks, Technology Campuses, Medical Labs and others.

To better understand the co-existence of Self-Governing Entities, think of the military base that has been installed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 1898; referred to as GITMO. Even though it is located physically in the Caribbean nation, it is 100% sovereign territory of the United States, legally established by a treaty – the 1903 Cuban–American Treaty of Relations. The Go Lean book (Page 177), in discussing the Justice requirements for a new Caribbean regime, details this background of this GITMO venue as follows:

The Bottom Line on Guantánamo Bay
Guantánamo Bay is a natural harbor, with superior attributes, south of the city of Guantánamo, in Eastern Cuba.

The harbor has been controlled by the United States as the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base since 1902, following the Platt Amendment decree. It is the site of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Control over the naval base was granted to the US in partial compensation for the sacrifices made by US military in obtaining Cuba’s independence from Spain, something which the Cuban people had been unable to do for themselves. The detention camp is a detainment and interrogation (with torture tactics) complex established in January 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees that have been connected with opponents in the Global War on Terror. The military prison relevance is in itself controversial, as the February 1903 lease states that the US is allowed “generally to do any and all things necessary to fit the premises for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose”. In 2007, Camp Justice was the informal name granted to the complex where Guantánamo captives would face charges before the Guantanamo military commissions.

So while one justice standard exists along-side another justice standard (US Military versus Cuba), can we truly expect a parallel structure with economics?

Absolutely! This is the very strategy of SGE’s for economic empowerment in the region.

Also, we have “it” now … already in place. (The “it” refers to alternating yet parallel economic systems).

Consider cruise ship commerce …

… while food and beverage is free for cruise ship passengers, hard alcohol is a premium charge. While cruise ships are in port in the different Caribbean member-states, they are not required to abide by local alcohol sales policies and regulations: drinking age, excessive drinking guidelines, no sales tax or VAT compliance. The cruise ships, operating under Maritime Laws can operate on the ship autonomously of local governments. The cruise ship, under this scenario, is a Self-Governing Entity.

Cruise ships do service the port cities in Cuba.

So yes, SGE’s can promote Free Market schemes, right along side communist regimes.

Are we encouraging communism? Are we tolerating societal defects and dysfunctions?

No … and No!

We simply realize that changing governing policies is not so easy and straight forward. Cuba has continued voluntarily with their communist priorities despite failures for 60 years. (It will take a Marshall Plan-type effort to reform their societal engines). The Go Lean book states (Page 4) that …

… the CU is a loose confederation, identified as a Trade Federation. There is no expectation of sovereignty with this entity, so a commitment to the goals and aspirations of this Federation must be voluntary.

Plus, if we are insinuating that communism is bad, truth be told, capitalism has a lot of defects too. For example, the crony-capitalism and institutional racism in American and Western European societies have been duly documented and lamented; (remember the derisive term: Plutocracy and references to “Foreign Investors as Dragons“).

There is no one perfect society.

The “co-exist strategy of SGE’s” may be ideal.

This theme – carefully balancing capitalism – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16000 Getting ‘Out of the Way’ of Local Economic Empowerment
Good Governance must reflect shepherding and oversight with an eye towards local needs, not just some distant economic controller. Growing the economy must include local economic empowerment as well, a reflection on the supply and demand of the marketplace.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338 Welcoming the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
A mono-industrial economy creates a reality for industrial-corporate titans can have abusive effect on the societal engines in a community.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11057 Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Book Review: Sold-Out!
Wealthy business interests try to control everything and make all the important decisions, so that they can get ‘more for themselves and less for everybody else’.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7372 Media Fantasies versus Weather Realities
There is some “bad intent” in the American media eco-system. Many believe that media hype over weather forecasts spurs retail spending (surplus food, gasoline, generators, and firewood) to benefit companies that contract media purchases (advertising) with the media outlets.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6819 The … Downside of ‘Western’ Diets
American food standards (Standard American Diet = SAD) is notorious for many physical-medical and mental repercussions. Many times the motivation is crony-capitalistic. We want to do better in our homeland.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5993 Carnival Cruise Lines to ban carry-on bottled beverages
Cruise lines rarely conform to labor, anti-trust and competition laws. Mandating bottled beverages to be exclusively delivered by the merchant ship is just one more example of their crony-capitalism.

Free Market capitalism versus …

(See Music VIDEO in the Appendix below).

The Caribbean region is urged to simply do better, to not just lean left (towards communism) or right (towards pure capitalism), but rather to pursue what is best for the Greater Good. This is defined as:

“It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong”. – Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832)

All in all, our economic, security and political structures are defective and deficient, we must reboot and reform our society. There are role models to the left – think China – and to the right – think Iceland – where communities have succeeded in elevating their societal engines. Despite initial appearances, the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”, on these foreign shores; they should not be considered the panacea of our ills; nor should emigrating there be considered the destination of our hopes and dreams.

We must work on our Caribbean Dreams right here at home. We must study and observe these ‘other communities’. We can then deploy the best-practices we glean. Much is at stake; we must dissuade our young people from abandoning our beautiful homeland, as they are our most precious resource.

This is the quest of the Go Lean roadmap. We want to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.

We hereby urge the people and governing institutions in the region to lean-in for the empowerments described here in the book Go Lean … Caribbean.  🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————

Appendix – Reference: Free Market
In economics, a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and by consumers. In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government or other authority and from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities.[1] Proponents of the concept of free market contrast it with a regulated market in which a government intervenes in supply and demand through various methods such as tariffs used to restrict trade and to protect the local economy. In an idealized free-market economy, prices for goods and services are set freely by the forces of supply and demand and are allowed to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy. [Consider images here of Equilibrium curves for coffee and for gasoline].

Scholars contrast the concept of a free market with the concept of a coordinated market in fields of study such as political economy, new institutional economics, economic sociology and political science. All of these fields emphasize the importance in currently existing market systems of rule-making institutions external to the simple forces of supply and demand which create space for those forces to operate to control productive output and distribution. Although free markets are commonly associated with capitalism within a market economy in contemporary usage and popular culture, free markets have also been advocated by anarchists, socialists and some proponents of cooperatives and advocates of profit sharing.[2] Criticism of the theoretical concept may regard systems with significant market power, inequality of bargaining power, or information asymmetry as less than free, with regulation being necessary to control those imbalances in order to allow markets to function more efficiently as well as produce more desirable social outcomes.

Contents

Source: Retrieved June 11, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

—————

Appendix VIDEO – CAPITALISM VS. SOCIALISM SONG | Economics & Politics Music Video – https://youtu.be/23p1AYq8jBA

Premiered Mar 4, 2019 – Excerpts of Lyrics:

“Systems with different ideas, opposite of each other
Both argue they manage production and resources better
But most modern countries use both systems blended together
Mixed economies, mixed economies …”

Lyrics and performance by Jam Campus
Instrumental composition by: https://www.fiverr.com/napbak

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

Industrial Reboot – Prefab Housing 101

Posted on July 14, 2018 in Economics, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Is housing just a commodity, available to the highest bidder, or a basic right that everyone is entitled to?

The answer to this question should be obvious: no matter the income level, there is the need for housing – basic needs are cataloged as food, clothing and shelter – so there must be housing solutions for all in society, the rich, middle class and the poor.

Here’s the disclosure: All housing types can benefit from pre-fabricated housing methods – see Photos below.

Prefabricated buildings consist of several factory-built components or units that are assembled on-site to complete the unit. The economic beauty of this method is the requirement for labor in the fabrication site and the assembly site. Fostering that labor means jobs and allows for an Industrial Reboot based on familiar techniques. Already, a popular prefabrication technique is utilized widely in the construction industry with Roof Trusses.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean – available to download for free – focuses on fostering Industrial Reboots for the Caribbean region. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). It identifies the strategic and tactical genius of Roof Trusses (Page 207):

The Bottom Line on Roof Trusses
In architecture a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. Simple trusses are composed entirely of triangles because of the stability of this shape and the methods of analysis used to calculate the forces within them. The planar truss, pitched truss, or common truss is used primarily for roofs.Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site. Roof trusses are most commonly prefabricated. A prefabricated roof truss system is an engineered shop fabricated wood frame system that is installed on the building at the job site. It is installed on the typical timber or concrete belt beam and typically spans from one load bearing wall to another load bearing wall. Prefabricated roofs are used on almost any type of roof and are preferred when resistance to high wind speed is required because it can be quickly engineered, or when rapid site installation is required.This is the winning formula for acceptance of prefab homes. Despite objections to prefabrication strategies/concepts, no one objects to prefabricated roof trusses; the market acceptance for homes should “build-up” from this “juncture”.

The Go Lean book opened with a focus on basic needs. At the very beginning – Page 3 – the role for the CU was defined:

The CU should better provide for the region’s basic needs (food, clothing, energy and shelter), and then be in position to help supply the rest of the world. Previous Caribbean societies lived off the land and the sea; but today, the region depends extensively on imports …

For industries that depend on providing basic needs, there is an opportunity to reboot the industrial landscape and business model. There is the opportunity to launch a Prefab Housing industry.

Jobs are at stake.

According to the book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 257) , there could be this many jobs:

Direct jobs in the design, fabrication and logistics for new pre-fab homes: 8,000

The Go Lean book prepares the business model of Prefab Housing for consumption in the Caribbean. Yes, business model refers to jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, trade transactions, etc. In addition to these industry jobs; there is also the reality of indirect jobs – unrelated service and attendant functions – at a 3.75 multiplier rate would add another 30,000 jobs.

This constitutes an Industrial Reboot.

There is the need to supplement the housing deliveries in the Caribbean region; so factory-built homes should have a place. But, we are not talking manufactured homes, as in mobile homes or trailers. No, we are talking previously-made and fabulous, or pre-fab. Thus these homes can supply the demand for rich and middle class residents. See the samples from Appendix K; of the Go Lean book on Page 289. In addition, there are vast options for prefab homes from recycled shipping containers. These are ideal for affordable housing solutions, or even replacements for  “Shanty Towns”; see Appendix Commentary.

Providing quality housing for “pennies on the dollar” is an ideal objective for the Go Lean movement, or those pursuing the Greater Good. This Industrial Reboot pursues the Greater Good mandate; it is wise to try to please residents, advocates, entrepreneurs, bankers and governmental officials. This is in addition to the roadmap’s prime directive, defined as follows:

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

This Industrial Reboot is badly needed in the Caribbean region as our current economic landscape – based on Tourism – is in shambles!

Tourism is under assault in every Caribbean member-state due to the fact that many visitors shift from stay-overs to cruise arrivals. This means less economic impact to the local markets. So as a region, we must reboot our industrial landscape so as to create more jobs … from alternate sources. What options do we have?

This commentary has previously identified a number of different industries that can be rebooted under this Go Lean roadmap. See this list of previous submissions under the title Industrial Reboots:

  1. Industrial Reboots – Ferries 101 – Published June 27, 2017
  2. Industrial Reboots – Prisons 101 – Published October 4, 2017
  3. Industrial Reboots – Pipeline 101 – Published October 6, 2017
  4. Industrial Reboots – Frozen Foods 101 – Published October 6, 2017
  5. Industrial Reboots – Call Centers 101 – Published July 2, 2018
  6. Industrial Reboots – Prefab Housing 101 – Published Today – July 14, 2018

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean economic engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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.

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

Accordingly, the CU will facilitate the eco-system for Self-Governing Entities (SGE), an ideal concept for Prefab Housing with its exclusive federal regulation/promotion activities. Imagine bordered campuses – with backup power generations, extra wide roads, railroad lines and shipping docks. The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) details the principles of SGE’s and job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line (or off-campus) for each direct job on the SGE’s payroll.

This is the vision of an industrial reboot! This transformation is where and how the jobs are to be created.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One advocacy in rebooting the industrial landscape is to foster a Prefab Housing industry; consider the  specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 207 entitled:

10 Ways to Develop a Prefab Housing Industry

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market
This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby expanding to an economy of 30 countries, 42 million people and GDP of over $800 Billion (circa 2010). One mission of the CU is to enable the region to facilitate its own shelter (plus food & clothing). A successful campaign to repatriate the Diaspora, and attract Retirement/Medical Tourists creates a new demand level for housing. The supply of housing will be met with different solutions, including Prefabricated options. In terms of demand, Pre-Fab homes are becoming popular in the EU and North America as they are cheaper compared to many existing homes on the market. The 2007-2009 Global Financial crisis, however, deflated the cost of regular houses in North America and Europe, so the “cheaper” benefits was not so valued during/after this crisis period. But the CU is a different market than the North America or Europe, resembling the Third World more so than the developed world, so a lot of the current housing is sub-standard and need to be replaced anyway.
2 Fashionable Design
3 Energy Optimizations

To minimize the cost of energy, the CU will encourage design inclusions of solar panels, solar-water-heater, Energy-Star appliance in the Pre-fab-ulous homes. The CU region is also ideal for home “wind” turbines. The design of well air circulated ceilings, so that ceiling fans and the trade-winds alone, can satisfy artificial cooling needs (most of the times).
4 Raw Materials
5 Assembly Plants
6 Supply Chain Solutions (Contractors)
7 Transport/Logistics
8 Showrooms and Marketing
9 Mortgages – Retail and Secondary Markets

Traditionally, manufactured homes do not qualify for mortgages; they are treated as auto loans, not home mortgages. The CU will provide a secondary industry as an inducement for the retail mortgage firms to supply the direct demand.
10 Homeowners Casualty Insurance

Pre-Fab-ulous houses will be built with the structural integrity to withstand typical tropical storms/hurricanes. The CU will facilitate the Property Casualty insurance industry by offering Reinsurance sidecar options on the capital markets.

The subject of housing needs and deliveries is not new for this Go Lean roadmap; there have been a number of previous blog-commentaries by the Go Lean movement that referenced economic opportunities embedded in the housing industry. See a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14250 Leading with Money Matters – As Goes Housing, Goes the Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11737 Robots Building Houses – More than Fiction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11638 Righting a Wrong: The 2008 Housing Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10373 Science of Sustenance – CLT Housing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7659 Pre-Fab Housing and Elder-Care Conjunction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896 The Crisis in Black Homeownership

Prefab housing is a subset of the general housing industry; but there is a different kind of art and science for this economic endeavor! See the best practice and prospects for prefab manufacturing described in the Appendix VIDEO below.

The Caribbean has a lot of dysfunction when it comes to housing; this is indicative of our near-Failed-State status. We need all the help we can get! We have a constant risk of natural disasters (think: hurricanes and earthquakes) that consistently impact the homes in the region. There is always a need to build and rebuild. This creates the demand for Prefab Housing.

Even successful communities need creative housing solutions. Consider the sad experience of the working class in Silicon Valley, in Northern California (San Francisco Bay Area). People there cannot afford local homes on minimum wage jobs, even two or three jobs. So imagine some of the Prefab homes, discussed here-in, being offered in the Silicon Valley area. While this seems viable, the scope of the Go Lean movement is limited to the Caribbean, not San Francisco. This is just a lesson-learned for us. See more on the Silicon Valley problem in this Youtube VIDEO here: https://youtu.be/6dLo8ES4Bac.

The demand is there. We now need to be a part of the supply solution.

In summary, our Caribbean region need a better job-creation ability than is reflected in the regional status quo. If we are successful in creating more jobs, then boom, just like that, our homeland is a better place to live, work and play. With this success, we should be able to retain more of our Caribbean citizens, as one of the reasons why so many Caribbean citizens have emigrated away from the homeland is the job-creation dysfunction. Prefab Housing can also be a part of the housing solution for inviting the Diaspora to repatriate to the Caribbean homeland.

So rebooting the industrial landscape is necessary and wise; we can contribute to a reality where we can prosper where planted in the Caribbean homeland.

Yes, we can … do this: reboot our industrial landscape, and create new jobs – and provide better housing solutions, for our people, the rich, the poor and all classes in between.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap for economic empowerment. 🙂

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

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

—————-

APPENDIX Commentary – Bahamas Blogger Monte A. Pratt

AN ALTERNATE SOLUTION TO SHANTYTOWN HOUSING DILEMMA – Part 1

The Government has issued a July 31st deadline for all Shantytown persons to vacate their illegally built homes. However, there seems to be no planned relocation program to assist these persons. They are pretty much on their own.

These Shantytowns are a disaster just waiting to happen… they have been very lucky so far that many persons have not been killed in any of these Shantytown fires. Not to mention the health hazard these places are to the many surrounding residences.

Considering all of the above ‘negative’ factors, as a solution to this unwanted ‘vexing problem’, Government should seriously consider allowing the development ‘Container Home Parks’ to relocate and properly re-house these persons.

Container Homes (pictured below) are built from discarded (old) shipping containers is fast becoming a housing solution around the world… even in America. Not only as a clear solution to this problem, they can be a ‘quick solution that is ‘cost-effective’. These houses will be highly fire rated and they can withstand hurricanes.

In fact, once they are properly cleared, the government can give the same Shantytown ‘landowners’ to properly plan, install proper utility infrastructure and erect such ‘low cost’ container homes on these same site locations. Renting the same.

In fact, once they are properly cleared, the government can give the same Shantytown ‘landowners’ (and others) permission to properly plan, install proper utility infrastructure and erect such ‘low cost’ container homes on these same site locations. Renting the same.

This offered solution is by far better than the current situation. This move by Government is the first attempt by any administration to deal with this ‘decades’ old plaguing Shantytown problem throughout the country. (Click on photo to enlarge).

Source: Posted July 7, 2018; retrieved July 13, 2018 from: https://www.facebook.com/monte.a.pratt/posts/10156627694904059:27 )

—————

AN ALTERNATE SOLUTION TO SHANTYTOWN HOUSING DILEMMA – Part 2

It is interesting to see the many ‘negative responses’ from so many Bahamians to my Part-1 proposition for the building of Container Home Parks to replace Haitian Shantytowns. We, Bahamians are too ’emotional’ and that is why we are so easily ‘politically manipulated’. We are not analytic in our thoughts.

That being said, we should also look at the BIG PICTURE of the immigration dilemma that we are now confronted with. That is the ECONOMIC IMPACT of this ‘vexing’ immigration situation. The old saying: ‘When life gives a ‘lemon’ make lemonade. Can we turn this problem ‘lemon’ into ‘lemonade’?

The fact is, many of these (illegal or not) persons are essential to the development of our economy. Don’t be fooled, the fact is, our already fragile construction and agricultural industries will collapse without these KEY WORKERS … that’s because they are more reliable and are also willing to work hard.

Many of these persons are taking the jobs that Bahamians are NOT prepared to do – working in the ‘hot sun’ – especially in construction, agriculture and the landscaping business. Some are making more money than many Bahamians.

By taking on these jobs, they too are making money and many can afford to pay the rents charged. Many live in Shantytowns for economic reasons. That is to SAVE their money to send it home. Estimates are, Haitians send annually some $15 million dollars back home to Haiti from The Bahamas.

Haitian Shantytowns are a ‘fixture housing lifestyle’ that they are accustom to! Shantytowns will not change unless these persons, the residents are forced to change this LIFESTYLE… and/or they are educated about the dangers (fire and health hazard conditions – see pictures below) that they are now living in these clustered and poorly built ‘housing shacks’.

These folks ain’t going nowhere, the Government December 31st deadline has come and gone, and no one has left the country… Since government[s] seem not to have the inability to get them to leave the country, then we should regularize them and properly integrate them into civil society. As there are properly integrated into civic society – make them adhere to the ‘LAW’ of the land.

As most of these folks are already working, once regularized, they can now have ‘bank accounts’ and do business in a right and proper way. By letting them work legally, they can contribute by paying work permits, national insurance and other taxes – that which not now happens – just like everyone else, and the country’s economy will be positively impacted. It will grow to the benefit of the government and the country.

So based on my proposition concept, the creation of Container Home Parks is beyond JUST HOUSING these persons, it is far more. And that why it is more important to resolve this vexing problem in eliminating these Shantytowns and thereby improving these persons lifestyle, at the same time growing the economy via their too; also making their tax contributions.

The TRUTH is, any such ‘massive deportation’ loss will most certainly hurt the country’s economy. More importantly, these people are already a burden on our Medical and Education Systems. So why not regularize them and properly integrate them into the civil society and make them ‘Tax Payers’ too?

Footnote: In qualifying the above, I am not including those ‘illegal persons’ that just came in the last 5 years or so – they should be sent back home. But rather those persons that have been living in The Bahamas for decades, and persons that were born here and only know The Bahamas.

Source: Posted July 8, 2018; retrieved July 13, 2018 from: https://www.facebook.com/monte.a.pratt/posts/10156636669644059

—————-

Appendix VIDEO –  BBC News at 10 – 17.11.16 Prefab houses could solve housing crisis – https://youtu.be/ixMEUWQNFTU

Kieran Simmonds

Published on Nov 17, 2016

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

Leading with Money Matters – Competing for New Industries

Posted on February 16, 2018 in Economics, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Iron sharpens iron – The Bible; Proverbs 27:17; see more at Appendix B below.

Are we ready for the competition … among ourselves?

It’s coming. It always does.

When one subject is trying to be the best-in-the-world in a particular field of endeavor, there is always the need to compete with other contenders for the best-in-the-world status.

In the Caribbean, we know this scenario well, We have seen it time and again with our track-and-field athletes. Think Usain Bolt.

As related in a previous blog-commentary by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, companies and Direct Foreign Investors many times seek out new cities to build factories, plants and corporate offices. Many times the “seek out” effort involves considering one city-state-country in competition with another.

Get ready Caribbean, this competition will impact you … more and more. And this “iron sharpening iron” competition will only increase the opportunity for success by urging us to pursue quality, excellence and competence for the needs of companies and Direct Foreign Investors.

This is the quest of the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. The book calls for the elevation of Caribbean economics, security and governance. Placing greater emphasis on economics and industrial empowerment beyond the default tourism resorts, the book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

Despite the fact the individual cities may have to compete against each other, this Go Lean/CU roadmap stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines will first require regional leverage and synergy. Individually, no Caribbean community may have the assets to attract relocating factories, plants and corporate offices. So we have to reboot our industrial landscape first.

This is the reboot …

Accordingly, the Go Lean/CU roadmap facilitates an eco-system for Self-Governing Entities (SGE), an ideal concept for factories, plants, corporate offices and other industrial expressions like shipyards,  aerospace bases and even prisons. The exclusive federal regulation and promotion activities of SGE’s lie within the CU jurisdiction solely. Imagine bordered campuses – with a combination of fencing, walls and/or moats/canals – that designates the exclusivity of the commercial, security and administration to a superlative governance above the member-states.

This is transforming! This is the vision of an industrial reboot! This is where and how the jobs are to be created.

The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) details the principles of SGE’s and job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line (or off-campus) for each direct job on the SGE’s payroll. In previous blog-commentaries, it was related how certain industries are perfectly suited for the Caribbean, as long as the structure was an independent SGE. These commentaries asserted that many new direct and indirect jobs will be facilitated. See further elaboration in this sample of previous blog-commentaries here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13138 Industrial Reboot – Prisons 101
The business model for a Prison Industrial Complex allows for host-landlord facilities to get paid from the responsible jurisdictions for housing their inmates. This model will create jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, trade transactions and more.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13420 A Lesson in History – Whaling Expeditions
The business prospects for ship-breaking are ideal for the SGE concept. Many jobs will result.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12581 State of the Union – Annexation: French Guiana
The European Space Agency in French Guiana is prominently featured in the Go Lean book – Page 105 – as a model for Self-Governing Entities (SGE). The hope – as expressed in the book – is that this territory, and all the French Antilles,  would someday join the regional neighborhood of the CU Trade Federation.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12146 Commerce of the Seas – Shipbuilding Model of Ingalls
Industrial plants for Shipbuilding is perfectly suited for the Caribbean; the SGE structure will allow for better economic (capital), security and governing engines.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822 Cancer Research: Doing More
The Go Lean roadmap calls for more medical R&D initiatives but on Caribbean shores. The roadmap strategizes the adoption of SGE’s to employ medical research and treatment campuses.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3473 Haiti to Receive Grants to Expand Caracol Industrial Park
There is this industrial park in Haiti that a an premature model of the SGE concept. The existing park is plagued with turmoil, but it is a good start. SGE’s would be ideal.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750 Disney World – Role Model for Self-Governing Entities
This indisputably successful SGE was originally considered for a Caribbean city, but we lost out to Orlando, Florida. Now they enjoy the 57 million guests per year. 🙁
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214 The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums – No White Elephants
The SGE concept can also be successful with sports endeavors. Considering the good and bad lessons learned from Olympics, the economic benefits can be huge.

This vision of a superlative industrial landscape – SGE’s – was an early motivation for the Go Lean roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

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.

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

Under this SGE scheme, there will still be the need for inter-city competition, in terms of which locality to place the SGE. Here is where “iron could sharpen iron”. Local communities can get better and better in support of industrial entities – the job-creating engines – by challenging the support dynamics among each other. Notice the similar experience in the USA Today news article in Appendix A below. Notice how 15 different American states have been “jumping through the hoops” to  compete for the 4,000 direct jobs of an auto assembly plant to be located in a city within their jurisdiction.

The end-result of inter-city/inter-state competition will be more excellence … and more jobs. This is how Money Matters can lead to societal reforms.

This commentary is 2nd of a 5-part series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of Money Matters for leading the Caribbean down a different path from their status quo. The full commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Leading with Money Matters: Follow the Jobs
  2. Leading with Money Matters: Competing for New Industries
  3. Leading with Money Matters: Almighty Dollar
  4. Leading with Money Matters: As Goes Housing, Goes the Market
  5. Leading with Money Matters: Lottery Hopes and Dreams

All of these commentaries relate to “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can persuade the region stakeholders to follow the economic empowerment plan. Seeing the “jumping through the hoops” that communities are willing to do – to attract job creators – it is logical to conclude that the economic principle is correct, that people will “respond to economic incentives”. This principle is the premise for the Go Lean quest to reform and transform the economic engines of the Caribbean member-states. We have to “dangle money” in order to get people to conform.

In summary, forging change in the Caribbean will require the region to finally get the art and science of job-creation right. If new factories, plants and corporate offices can serve as a job-creation bonanza then we need to attract them ourselves; we need our “iron to sharpen iron” so that we can excel at recruiting and attracting new industrial entities, local home-grown ones or Direct Foreign Investors.

This heavy-lifting plan is conceivable, believable and achievable. Yes, we can lead with Money Matters and make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap. 🙂

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

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

———–

Appendix A – Title: With code name, how Toyota-Mazda set off secret race for 4,000-job plant

One of the biggest potential job-creating bonanzas in the country, a giant new auto plant proposed by Toyota and Mazda, began in secret with a mysterious code name.

Now it has become a full-blown race among states to try to reel in the $1.6-billion project that will create 4,000 good-paying direct jobs and thousands of other indirect jobs.

The two Japanese automakers recently issued a blind request for proposals to states in the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and South, according to two people familiar with the plans who were not authorized to speak publicly because the process was confidential.

Told only that an unidentified employer was weighing its options for a massive project under the code name Project Mitt, state economic development officials delivered preliminary proposals, including potential tax incentives, job training programs and infrastructure investments.

When the Japanese automakers publicly revealed their joint venture two weeks ago, they made it clear they had not yet picked a site. State economic development offices are now in high gear.

No fewer than a dozen states are believed to have a shot at landing the automotive factory, which automotive industry researchers say could create several times as many jobs at nearby employers.

Job-creating projects of this magnitude are rare — it would be only the fourth U.S. assembly plant in a decade when it opens in 2021 — so Toyota and Mazda are expecting contenders to roll out the red carpet for their 50-50 joint venture.

Also making the project a plum, Toyota, in particular, takes “a very long-term view” that should keep its giant plant in place for half a century or more, said Ron Harbour, an expert on auto manufacturing sites who works for consultancy Oliver Wyman.

“You have to be able to say you’ve got the workforce, you’ve got the land, you’ve got the transportation systems and rail spurs, community college and education and a place where people want to live,” said Kristin Dziczek, director of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research. “Once you’ve got all that, tax incentives come into play.”

But unlike the recent contest to land smartphone components manufacturer Foxconn’s first U.S. plant — which Wisconsin won after delivering a massive incentives package — tax breaks might not be enough to seal the deal.

Access to a dependable labor force, a vibrant community and enough contiguous land close to power and transportation infrastructure could make the difference, said Bradley Migdal, senior managing director and business incentives expert at Cushman & Wakefield.

Toyota, which hired commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle to help manage the process, declined to discuss states under consideration.

“We are just beginning the discovery process ,” Toyota said in a statement. “As we solidify our plans, we will share more information about the selection process.”

Mazda spokesman Jeremy Barnes, in an email, said, “I do know that no decisions have been made at this time, and that all options remain on the table.”

Here’s a look at some of the key states in the mix:

—

Alabama

Why it could win: Low-cost labor, bustling auto sector.

Why it could lose: Might not have enough workers.

Alabama’s vibrant auto manufacturing sector could help or hurt.

Three auto assembly plants made more than 1 million vehicles in 2016 in Alabama. The industry employed nearly 40,000 people in a right-to-work state desperate for good-paying jobs.

State development officials declined to directly discuss any efforts to land a proposed Toyota-Mazda assembly plant.

But Gov. Kay Ivey said new incentives laws have made Alabama more attractive to expanding companies. The changes she signed into law in May raised the annual state incentives cap to $300 million.

Ivey said Alabama’s reputation as “a proven manufacturing state” also helps.

Alabama has Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota plants. North Alabama is the “more likely area” for the project if Alabama lands it, Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said.

—Brad Harper, Montgomery Advertiser

—

Arkansas

Why it could win: Was a finalist for the last new Toyota plant.

Why it could lose: Too far away from suppliers.

Arkansas was a finalist for the Toyota factory that opened in Blue Springs, Miss., in 2011.

Arkansas Economic Development Commission spokesman Jeff Moore said the state “certainly has interest” again.

Arkansas has broad latitude in issuing bonds to raise funds for infrastructure, land acquisition and job training.

The Economic Development Commission also administers sales tax exemptions, income tax credits and a payroll rebate program.

“We certainly have a very good toolbox of incentives to assist,” Moore said.

—Kevin Hardy, Des Moines Register

—

Georgia

Why it could win: Worker training programs, enticing location.

Why it could lose: Lack of ties to Toyota operations.

Georgia is host to one of the newest U.S. assembly plants: the Kia factory in West Point, which opened in 2009, which has some 3,000 workers today.

One of the state’s key selling points is its geography. Interstate 75 runs right through it.

Among Georgia’s most compelling arguments is that its worker training programs are among “the best in the country,” said Bradley Migdal, the Cushman & Wakefield site expert.

Georgia Department of Economic Development communications director Stefanie Paupeck Harper declined to say whether the state has discussed a deal with Toyota and Mazda. But she said the state’s “hundreds” of suppliers could help.

“Automotive companies will not find another state that has a better combination of logistics, workforce, quality of life and proven record of success than Georgia,” Harper said.

—Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY

—

Indiana

Why it could win: Already has a Toyota plant and is close to other operations, including Toyota’s Kentucky plant and Michigan engineering campus.

Why it could lose: The job market is so strong that the automakers might have a hard time finding enough employees.

Toyota has a 19-year-old factory in southern Indiana that builds the Sequoia sport-utility vehicle and Sienna minivan and is undergoing a $600 million expansion.

Overall, the auto industry employs more than 100,000 people in Indiana. Honda, Subaru and Chrysler each have initiated expansions there since 2010.

While the strong presence of auto factories and suppliers could make Indiana a viable contender for the Toyota-Mazda plant, existing facilities also might be one reason why the state gets passed over, said Mohan Tatikonda, an operations management professor for the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

With Indiana’s unemployment rate at a near-record-low 3%, Toyota and Mazda could have concerns about finding employees.

“If we have multiple companies seeking generally the same labor skill, then laborers or their representatives can seek out a higher price,” Tatikonda said. “So, if that’s the case, a company may seek to go to a place where there’s less competition for a ready labor force.”

A spokeswoman for the Indiana Economic Development Corp. declined comment.

—James Briggs, Indianapolis Star

—

Iowa

Why it could win: Dependable manufacturing workforce; no competition with other assembly plants.

Why it could lose: Too far away from suppliers.

Toyota has already asked Iowa for information on specific sites that could house a new assembly plant with room for suppliers to grow, said Debi Durham, director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said the state is “extremely competitive” in its hunt for the Toyota-Mazda plant but wouldn’t comment on potential incentives.

“We are going to do everything we can ― up to a limit. You have to know where you draw a line,” Reynolds said. “But we’re competitive. This would be great for the state of Iowa.”

The Hawkeye state can tout a “second-to-none” work force, low energy costs and regular rankings that place the cost of doing business in Iowa among the lowest in the nation, she said.

The state routinely doles out forgivable loans, tax credits and tax refunds for companies that pledge to create or maintain jobs.

While Iowa isn’t known for automotive manufacturing, state officials have made a concerted effort to reach out to carmakers over the last year in an effort to recruit a new assembly plant.

—Kevin Hardy, Des Moines Register

—

Kentucky

Why it could win: Toyota already has a massive factory in Georgetown, Ky.; close to numerous suppliers; likely to offer major incentives.

Why it could lose: If Toyota decides it’s already exhausted the local workforce for talent.Toyota’s 8 million-square-foot, 8,200-job Georgetown, Ky., facility makes more than 500,000 Camry, Lexus and Avalon vehicles per year. Toyota is investing $1.3 billion into plant upgrades.

The state also boasts two Ford factories in Louisville and General Motors’ Chevrolet Corvette plant in Bowling Green.

The factory draws from 350 suppliers and commodities vendors, 100 of them in Kentucky.

Gov. Matt Bevin told auto executives that a shovel-ready 1,550-acre site in central Kentucky, south of Elizabethtown near Interstate 65, is an ideal location for the investment.

Bevin pushed successfully for a right-to-work law and other business-friendly measures this year, and pledged to compete aggressively against rival states. “I say giddy up,” he said.

—Grace Schneider, Louisville Courier-Journal

—

Michigan

Why it could win: Traditional home to the nation’s auto industry — and Toyota engineering has its engineering facility in the Wolverine State.

Why it could lose: If the automakers fear potential unionization.

While Michigan is home to the Detroit Three auto companies — not to mention engineering centers for virtually every major automaker and numerous suppliers — the state’s union history has long scared off foreign automakers from considering a manufacturing presence there. In fact, no foreign automaker operates an assembly plant in Michigan.

But “it’s not as much of a deterrent” anymore, said Glenn Stevens, vice president of the Detroit Regional Chamber. “Michigan previously was not a right-to-work state, as it is now. And even though the UAW has incredibly strong relationships with some companies in Michigan, there are also companies here that are not unionized.”

Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation in 2012 that gives every worker the right to choose for themselves whether to join a union, arguing it would position it to better compete with states in the South that are more hostile to labor unions.

Gov. Rick Snyder signed a package of bills in July that would provide significant tax incentives for manufacturers, aiming to lure Foxconn.

“Michigan is absolutely the best location in the U.S. for this joint plant to be established, due to our leadership in automotive research & development, especially on mobility issues. We also have a strong pipeline of engineers and professional trades talent,” Snyder said in a statement.

Stevens also argued that Michigan has the manufacturing workforce necessary to support such a project and points out that Toyota employs 1,600 at engineering centers in the Ann Arbor area.

—Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press

—

Mississippi

Why it could win: Landed the last new Toyota plant.

Why it could lose: If Toyota believes the local workforce can’t sustain another factory.

The Toyota plant in Blue Springs, Miss. opened in 2011 and employs about 2,000 people. The state also has Nissan’s 5,000-person assembly plant in Canton.

Even with two major plants, the state can easily accommodate another and gin up training dollars to assure Toyota of a competent workforce, said Scott Waller, interim chief executive of the Mississippi Economic Council.

“Today the incentives are workforce based,” Waller said. “It’s all workforce driven. There’s absolutely no question Mississippi can be successful.”

–Ted Evanoff, Memphis Commercial-Appeal

—

North Carolina

Why it could win: No automotive assembly plants to compete with for talent.

Why it could lose: If the state is viewed as not having enough of a manufacturing workforce.

North Carolina doesn’t have any automotive assembly plants, which could prove enticing to Toyota because of the chance to bolster its political clout from the swing-state’s congressional delegation.

But the Tar Heel State has 26,000 workers at companies that supply the auto industry.

North Carolina’s tech-savvy Research Triangle could prove enticing, said John Boyd, head of Boyd Co. Inc., a location consultant.

–Ted Evanoff, Memphis Commercial-Appeal

—

Ohio

Why it could win: Strong manufacturing workforce; centrally located; many local suppliers.

Why it could lose: Not a right-to-work state.

JobsOhio said the state boasts several sites of more than 1,000 acres that are ready for a manufacturing plant to break ground quickly.

Toyota already has factories in neighboring Indiana and Kentucky and an engineering headquarters in Michigan. Locating its next plant in a Midwest state such as Ohio would keep it close to parts suppliers, saving time and money. Ohio is within a day’s drive of 75% of the country’s auto assembly plants and their accompanying parts networks, JobsOhio said.

Officially, Ohio isn’t saying whether it’s trying to land the Toyota-Mazda plant.

“We do not share whether or not we are in project discussions with companies,” said Matt Englehart, a spokesman for JobsOhio, the state’s privatized economic development arm.

But Gov. John Kasich and JobsOhio. the state’s privatized economic development arm, have shown a willingness to dole out incentives to keep auto-related jobs. Those moves included offering tax breaks to keep a Cleveland-area Ford truck plant open.

—Chrissie Thompson, Cincinnati Enquirer

—

South Carolina

Why it could win: Growing automotive sector.

Why it could lose: If the automakers decide the job market is too crowded.

Finding the workers for such a plant could be a tall order, in part because of the state’s flourishing manufacturing sector. But state leaders said they have a proven track record for rising to the challenge by investing in training programs.

“We are a state that houses BMW, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Boeing,” South Carolina Department of Commerce spokeswoman Adrienne Fairwell said. “We have a workforce that is ready and available and we can create the workforce where necessary because we have the tools, tactics and strategies to do it.”

State economic development experts touted the region’s highly skilled workers, transportation hubs and cluster of auto suppliers. The upstate region, located in the northwestern portion of the state, is a manufacturing powerhouse, said Mark Farris, president of the Greenville Area Development Corporation.

But Ken Crews, training manager at German auto-parts supplier Stueken North America, said he has struggled to find new workers with the right combination of skills and work ethic for his plant.

Jermaine Whirl, vice president for economic development and corporate training at Greenville Tech, finding requires may require casting a wider net geographically and getting able-bodied workers back into the labor force.

—Anna B. Mitchell, The Greenville News

—

Tennessee

Why it could win: Significant, growing automotive sector; perfect location for logistical purposes; strong business climate.

Why it could lose: If the automakers decide there aren’t enough workers.

Tennessee has been waiting for this moment. A decade ago, the state purchased land with the specific purpose of landing a Toyota plant that never came.

“There will be a lot (of) people fighting hard for that plant, and we intend to be at the lead,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam told the Associated Press.

Hoping to lure the Toyota plant that eventually went to Blue Springs, Miss., Tennessee acquired property dubbed the Memphis Regional Megasite. The site, which remains unused, is 4,100 acres situated 32 miles east of Memphis on vacant farm land along Interstate 40.

Site selection consultants said it’s one of Tennessee’s leading candidates for industrial investment.

Tennessee already has spent more than $140 million on the Memphis Megasite, building roads and water and sewer lines.

–Ted Evanoff, Memphis Commercial-Appeal

Source: Posted Aug. 17, 2017; retrieved February 16, 2018 from: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/08/17/toyota-mazda-auto-plant/573213001/

———-

VIDEO – Toyota, Mazda building $1.6B plant in USA – https://www.usatoday.com/videos/money/cars/2017/08/04/toyota-mazda-building-1.6b-plant-usa/104285082/

Posted Aug. 17, 2017 – President Trump applauded Toyota and Mazda’s plan to set up the joint venture in the USA and create up to 4,000 jobs. Wochit

———–

Appendix B: Tomorrow’s World Commentary: Iron Sharpens Iron

The Bible offers good advice on what to look for—and what to avoid—when choosing friends. One well-known principle of positive friendship is given in the Old Testament book of Proverbs: “As iron sharpens iron, so a person sharpens his friend” (Proverbs 27:17, New English Translation). What does this scripture mean, and how can this idea direct your friendships?

According to The Bible Knowledge Commentary, “When iron is rubbed against another piece of iron it shapes and sharpens it. Similarly people can help each other improve by their discussions, criticisms, suggestions, and ideas.” The image of a chef using a rod of steel to sharpen a knife is a good example of using strong metals to improve the instrument.

…

Listen to the AUDIO file or read the remainder of this Bible Study subject here:

Source: https://www.tomorrowsworld.org/magazines/2016/march-april/iron-sharpens-iron posted March-April 2016 retrieved February 16, 2018.

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

Economics of ‘South Beach’

Posted on December 6, 2017 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Industries, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The US has an economy; the 30 Caribbean member-states have economies. The US does it better!

For example, the entire Caribbean region enjoys 80 million visitors a year; (though this figure includes 12 million cruise passengers visiting multiple Caribbean destinations on one cruise); just the US city of Orlando has one destination – Walt Disney World – that enjoys 57 million visitors-a-year alone. Further down the list of high traffic resort cities is the destination of Miami Beach, Florida; each year Miami Beach hotels host over 35% of the ten (10) million tourists who visit Greater Miami.

Yes, the US cities do tourism better than our Caribbean counterparts; and their economies are more diversified.

If only we, in the Caribbean, could be more like … the American city of Miami (Beach).

It is a fitting comparison:

  • Global City in the tropical zone – a snowbird haven-refuge from cold northern cities.
  • Home away from home for many Caribbean people.
  • Primary economic engine of tourism (leisure and medical), travel (air and cruises), financial services and trade. See Miami’s largest employers in the Appendix below.

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean seeks to reboot the economic engines of the Caribbean member-states – so we can perform better. The book studies models and lessons from other communities (cities and countries): i.e. New York City (Page 137), Detroit (Page 140) and Omaha (Page 138). In fact, this movement had previously detailed how the Greater Miami metropolitan area has become so successful a community mainly because of the failures of Caribbean communities. Rather than the entire metropolitan area of Greater Miami, we are hereby exploring just the economic landscape of Miami Beach, and more exactly the neighborhood of South Beach. This commentary, however, relates that there are lessons from ‘South Beach’ and all of Greater Miami that we can apply in the Caribbean.

Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County…. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915.[7] The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which separates “the Beach” from the City of Miami. The neighborhood of South Beach, comprising the southernmost 2.5 square miles of Miami Beach, along with downtown Miami and the Port of Miami, collectively form the commercial center of South Florida[8] [(Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan statistical area)]. As of the [latest] 2010 census, Miami Beach had a total population of 87,779.[9] It has been one of America’s pre-eminent beach resorts since the early 20th century. – Wikipedia.

 

South Beach is a classic beach resort town – see the Wikipedia definition here – except that there are two de facto seasons: good (Summer and Early Autumn) and great (Late Autumn, Winter and Spring):

A resort town, often called a resort city or resort destination, is an urban area where tourism or vacationing is the primary component of the local culture and economy. A typical resort town has one or more actual resorts in the surrounding area. Sometimes the term resort town is used simply for a locale popular among tourists. The term can also refer to either an incorporated or unincorporated contiguous area where the ratio of transient rooms, measured in bed units, is greater than 60% of the permanent population.[1]

Generally, tourism is the main export in a resort town economy, with most residents of the area working in the tourism or resort industry. Shops and luxury boutiques selling locally themed souvenirs, motels, and unique restaurants often proliferate the downtown areas of a resort town.

Resort Town Economy
If the resorts or tourist attractions are seasonal in nature, resort towns typically experience an on-season where the town is bustling with tourists and workers, and an off-season where the town is populated only by a small amount of local year-round residents.

In addition, resort towns are often popular with wealthy retirees and people wishing to purchase vacation homes, which typically drives up property values and the cost of living in the region. Sometimes, resort towns can become boomtowns due to the quick development of retirement and vacation-based residences.[3]

However, most of the employment available in resort towns is typically low paying and it can be difficult for workers to afford to live the area in which they are employed.[4] Many resort towns have spawned nearby bedroom communities where the majority of the resort workforce lives.

Resorts towns sometimes struggle with problems regarding sustainable growth, due to the seasonal nature of the economy, the dependence on a single industry, and the difficulties in retaining a stable workforce.[5] …

Economic impact of tourism
Local residents are generally receptive of the economic impacts of tourism. Resort towns tend to enjoy lower unemployment rates, improved infrastructure, more advanced telecommunication and transportation capabilities, and higher standards of living and greater income in relation to those who live outside this area.[6] Increased economic activity in resort towns can also have positive effects on the country’s overall economic growth and development. In addition, business generated by resort towns have been credited with supporting the local economy through times of national market failure and depression, as in the case of San Marcos, California during the cotton market bust in the early 1920s and Great Depression of 1929.[2]

Click Photo to Expand – Lots of communities charge supplemental taxes for community revenues

Tourism, more exactly Resort Tourism, is the Number One economic driver in the Caribbean. Yet, our region has so many societal defects. We must do a better job at our primary job. What can we learn from Greater Miami, Miami Beach and South Beach?

This small peninsula of South Beach is Hot, Hot, Hot … as a party and tourist destination, thereby creating a scarcity of real estate. The dining, night-clubbing, shopping and entertainment options in this District are in high demand, all year long. Not all patrons to this District stay at area hotels, as many are locals in addition to the constant flow of visitors. Most night clubs, and even some restaurant-bars, apply a Cover Charge, typically $20 per person. These patrons should also expect to pay $40 just for valet parking, and similarly above-average prices for self-parking. Hotel rates are consistently above average, even during the off-season (consider $300 per night). During the peak-season, rates are traditionally in excess of $500. Hotel guests with rental cars face the same $40 per night parking charges.

The party continues every night until 5am; (one of the latest alcohol-serving policies in the nation).  Just like any other community, Miami Beach has to contend with Agents of Change. There is a conservative movement to dampen the hot nightlife in South Beach. These proponents raised the issue as a public referendum on November 7, 2017 with a measure, to limit liquor sales to 2am. This direct democratic action failed at a 64% to 35% ratio. The economic forces of South Beach won again!

These economic realities transcend many dimensions of Miami Beach life; consider governance. The City collects an add-on to the state’s usual Sales Tax revenues. What add-ons?

Transient Lodging Rental Taxes for Short Term Rentals Summary Chart
3% Convention Development Tax 2% Tourist Development Tax 1% Sports Franchise Tax
Food & Beverage Tax Summary Chart
2% Tourist Development Surtax 1% Homeless and Spouse Abuse Tax

Source: Retrieved December 5, 2017 from: http://www.miamidade.gov/taxcollector/tourist-taxes.asp

See this sample/example here of a typical night out at a local South Beach restaurant recently:

This movement, behind the Go Lean book, seeks to reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society by being technocratic in applying best practices from the field of Economics. South Beach and Miami Beach offers a lot of lessons: good, bad and ugly.

One bad lesson is the practice of guaranteed gratuity. In a previous blog-commentary, this policy was ridiculed as unbecoming as a community ethos; it fosters a spirit of entitlement. In fact, the practice is well-chronicled in the field of Economics as “rent-seeking”; consider this sample:

This is distinguished in economic theory as separate from profit-seeking, in which entities seek to extract value by engaging in mutually beneficial transactions.[6] While profit-seeking fosters the creation of wealth, rent-seeking is the use of social institutions such as the power of government to redistribute wealth among different groups without creating any new wealth.[7]

Note: For the restaurant receipt in the above-photo, the credit card bill, still contained a line item for additional tip, even though 20-percent was already added as a gratuity-service charge.

There it is: rent-seeking.

(Rent-seeking practices are quite common in the Caribbean; even codified as law in some places).

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is designed to be a technocratic intergovernmental entity that shepherds economic growth for the Caribbean region. The goal is to reboot and optimize the region’s economic, security and governing engines. The Go Lean/CU roadmap employs wise strategies, like the “Separation-of-Powers between CU federal agencies and Caribbean member-state governments”; so the limitations of national laws in a member-state would not override the CU. The CU‘s technocratic practices would directly apply to the installation of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) and Self-Governing Entities (SGE); these operate in controlled bordered territories like campuses, industrial parks, research labs, industrial plants and Entertainment Zones.

Notice the presence here of one such zone, already existing in Jamaica.

Title: Jamaica’s first entertainment zone named

Jamaica’s Entertainment Minister Olivia “Babsy” Grange, has named Fort Rocky in Port Royal as Jamaica’s first entertainment zone.

The minister made the announcement at the recent launch of Carnival in Jamaica 2018.

Drives cultural and economic value
Minister Grange said the new entertainment zone has been endorsed by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), along with the Town and Country Planning Authority.

“We are working with (NEPA) and the Ministry’s agencies, including the National Heritage Trust, to ensure that our cultural sites are preserved and utilized in a manner that drives cultural and economic value to us as a nation,” she noted.

Historical value
Entertainment zones like Fort Rocky are areas in which any legal entertainment and sports activity can be staged any time of day or night unhindered, as long as the organizers are mindful of the historical value of such sites.

While fueling the entertainment industry, these entertainment zones are expected to neutralize the problem of noise nuisance.

The Entertainment and Culture Minister has also called on private business operators to take advantage of the opportunity to use these zones. She provided information that two other entertainment zones will be declared outside of the Corporate Area in the near future.

Source: Retrieved December 6, 2017 from: https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/news/caribbean-news/jamaica-entertainment-zone/

The Go Lean/CU roadmap will optimize this strategy for deployment of Self-Governing Entities throughout the region.

Imagine restaurant-bars-nightclubs open until 5am.

This is the Economics of ‘South Beach’ … and a good learned-lesson.

Miami’s South Beach is a hot night-spot right now. What emboldens its success is the embrace of Caribbean culture. Think:

The concept of Miami Sound … is Caribbean musical fusion.

The name Miami Sound Machine also refers to the Grammy Award winning musical group led by Cuban-Americans Gloria and Emelio Estefan. They are also proprietors of one of the biggest night clubs on South Beach: Mango’s. See the VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Mangos Tropical Cafe in South Beach, Miami [4K] – https://youtu.be/D1TcBkaRyL4

Published on Nov 30, 2016 – A glimpse inside Mango’s Tropical Café in South Beach, Miami. Watch in 4K resolution.

Miami is Hot, Hot, Hot ordinarily.

Then in the winter peak-season, it is Hotter still …

… and then for Art Basel – the annual Arts in Miami pageant peaking this year December 6 to 11 – it is the Hottest destination in the country. See more here:

Title: It’s not only rich people who should care about Art Basel. Here’s why.

When flocks of serious — and seriously loaded — art gatherers descend on South Florida for the annual Art Basel in Miami Beach pageant, they’re coming to snag some of the best contemporary work money can buy from the 268 galleries from across the globe conveniently gathered at the city’s convention center.

But that’s not the sole reason they make their way to Miami Beach and Miami.

Many also come to see art they cannot buy — the increasingly rich side feast served up by the cities’ expanding range of museums and private art collections that are open to all.

Yes, there’s the warm weather, the nice hotels and restaurants (staffed by local workers) — not to mention the two dozen satellite fairs and myriad events that make up the annual December frenzy known as Miami Art Week. …

See the full story here:  http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article187161868.html

Source: Miami Herald posted December 2, 2017; retrieved December 6, 2017.

Caribbean people have done it in Miami; we can also do it in the Caribbean. This is the vision of a new Caribbean; a better place to live, work and play right here at home, without having to flee the region.

In total, the Go Lean/CU roadmap will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety assurances and protect the region’s economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book presents a 370-page roadmap on how to optimize the economic engines … and how to avoid bad practices, like rent-seeking. The book stresses key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of Caribbean society. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states/ 4 languages into a Single Market Page 45
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – Award exploratory rights in exclusive territories Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Benefits from the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Page 104
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities (SGE) Page 105
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #3: Proactive Anti-crime Measures Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade Page 128
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Protect Property Rights Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street Page 201

To accomplish this goal of elevating Caribbean society, we must learn lessons from far-away places and nearby lands (like Miami), foster good economic habits … and abandon bad ones. This is how to grow the economy: create jobs; create businesses; retain people; foster new opportunities, learn from past mistakes and accomplishments.

All Caribbean stakeholders – residents, Diaspora and visitors – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for change … and empowerment. This plan, though a Big Idea, is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

—————–

Appendix – Miami Top Employers

According to Miami’s Beacon Council – the local Economic Development agency – the top private employers in 2014 in Miami-Dade were:[64]

# Employer # of employees
1 University of Miami and Health System 12,818
2 Baptist Health South Florida 11,353
3 American Airlines 11,031
4 Carnival Cruise Lines 3,500
5 Miami Children’s Hospital 3,500
6 Mount Sinai Medical Center 3,321
7 Florida Power and Light Co. 3,011
8 Royal Caribbean International 2,989
9 Wells Fargo 2,050
10 Bank of America 2,000

According to Miami’s Beacon Council, the top Government employers in 2014 in Miami-Dade were:[64]

# Employer # of employees
1 Miami-Dade County Public Schools 33,477
2 Miami-Dade County 25,502
3 Federal Government 19,200
4 Florida State Government 17,100
5 Jackson Health System 9,800

Source: Retrieved December 5, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami-Dade_County,_Florida#Economy

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

Jerk Festival Time – GraceKennedy’s Outreach to the Diaspora – ENCORE

Posted on November 7, 2017 in Economics, Industries, Locations, Social

The word “Jerk” has a number of definitions; its is a noun, a verb, an adjective and an adverb. But it is more commonly accepted as …

… Jamaican.

So there is no doubt that a reference to a “Jerk” Festival is a Jamaican cultural festival. This is definitely the case this weekend – November 12, 2017 – as this event takes place in the heart of the Jamaican Diaspora in Broward County, Florida.

This event is sponsored by the Jamaican transnational company GraceKennedy. This is a BIG Deal for this BIG Jamaican enterprise. See the profile of GraceKennedy in the ENCORE below (from September 7, 2016) … and the VIDEO of the 2017 Jerk Festival here:

VIDEO – NBC6: Taste the Caribbean at the Jamaican Jerk Festival – https://www.nbcmiami.com/on-air/as-seen-on/Taste-the-Caribbean-at-the-Jamaican-Jerk-Festival_Miami-455626233.html

——–

Go Lean Commentary – GraceKennedy: Profile of a Caribbean Transnational Corporation

CU Blog - GraceKennedy - Caribbean Transnational Corporation - Photo 1A

The accusation is that the Caribbean – as a region, a people, and a culture – features a parasite status rather than the preferred protégé status. This would mean we only glean the economic activity left over from the other “host” countries; we would also consume the offerings and trends of these more advanced economy countries, rather than dictate our own trends.

This accusation … is mostly true!

But alas, there is a spark of hope in our Caribbean region. There are a number of corporate entities that do dictate trends in the region and throughout the world. The book Go Lean…Caribbean addressed this trend and identified one such company, Jamaica-based ATL Group, the owners of Sandals/Beaches Resorts, an Office Equipment business, Honda automobile dealerships and the media company behind The Jamaica Observer newspaper. But now, we consider another one, this time we focus on the transnational corporation, GraceKennedy Group of Companies who operate in the food and financial sectors.

But first, we must consider the definition of transnationalism:

Transnationalism as an economic process involves the global reorganization of the production process, in which various stages of the production of any product can occur in various countries, typically with the aim of minimizing costs. Economic transnationalism, commonly known as Globalization, was spurred in the latter half of the 20th century by the development of the internet and wireless communication, as well as the reduction in global transportation costs caused by containerization. Multinational corporations could be seen as a form of transnationalism, in that they seek to minimize costs, and hence maximize profits, by organizing their operations in the most efficient means possible irrespective of political boundaries.

A multinational corporation is an organization that owns or controls production of goods or services in one or more countries other than their home country.[2]

What Drives Transnationalism?
Some argue that the main driver of transnationalism has been the development of technologies that have made transportation and communication more accessible and affordable, thus dramatically changing the relationship between people and places. It is now possible for immigrants to maintain closer and more frequent contact with their home societies than ever before. However, the integration of international migrations to the demographic future of many developed countries is another important driver for transnationalism. Beyond simply filling a demand for low-wage workers, migration also fills the demographic gaps created by declining natural populations in most industrialized countries. Today, migration accounts for 3/5 of population growth on western countries as a whole. And this trend shows no sign of slowing down. Moreover, global political transformations and new international legal regimes have weakened the state as the only legitimate source of rights. Decolonization, coupled with the fall of communism and the ascendance of human rights, have forced states to take account of persons qua persons, rather than persons qua citizens.

Immigrant Transnational Activities – When immigrants engage in transnational activities, they create “social fields” that link their original country with their new country or countries of residence. These social fields are the product of a series of interconnected and overlapping economic, political, and socio-cultural activities. As for economic transnational activities, these include business investments in home countries and monetary remittances from source countries. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) estimates that in 2006 immigrants living in developed countries sent home the equivalent of $300 billion in remittances, an amount more than double the level of international aid. This intense influx of resources may mean that for some nations development prospects become inextricably linked- if not dependent upon – the economic activities of their respective Diasporas.
Source: Retrieved September 5, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnationalism

CU Blog - GraceKennedy - Caribbean Transnational Corporation - Photo 1

The GraceKennedy Group of Companies, started in 1922, is based in Kingston, Jamaica, but they are one of the Caribbean “largest and most dynamic corporate entities” in the region. Though they are based in Jamaica, they generate a lot of their global revenue – from food services and financial services – from the rest of the globe. They depend on globalization – economic transnationalism – in order to be an ongoing concern. Their marketing slogan is “Jamaican born; global bound”. They own 60 subsidiaries – see partial list in the Appendix below – and affiliated companies across the Caribbean, Africa, UK, North and Central America; they are a model of a transnational corporation. See VIDEO here:

VIDEO – GraceKennedy at 90 – https://youtu.be/okDBEAdC6LY

Published on Feb 10, 2012 – Jamaican conglomerate Grace Kennedy is celebrating 90 years of existence. The Gleaner recently toured its Harbour Street corporate office and learnt what drives the company’s success.

The history of this company traces a parallel arch of change in the Caribbean region for the 20th Century:

Regional Change Dynamics Year Company Dynamic Changes
European Colonialism 1922 Company formed to facilitate importation / local distribution
Decolonization 1952 Nation-building rather than mother-country dependence
Emigration from Homeland / Diaspora 1959 Export Caribbean home products to the world
Embrace of regionalism 1962 Incorporating in other Caribbean member-states
Shift to Service Economy 1990 Financial Services focus on Remittance

GraceKennedy has expanded and diversified over the years,[2] changing from a privately owned enterprise to a public company listed on the stock exchanges of Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.

CU Blog - GraceKennedy - Caribbean Transnational Corporation - Photo 2

CU Blog - GraceKennedy - Caribbean Transnational Corporation - Photo 4

CU Blog - GraceKennedy - Caribbean Transnational Corporation - Photo 5

The company does not only appeal to the Jamaican community (domestic or Diaspora) or not only to the Anglo-speaking Caribbean; they also strategize for the Hispanic communities. In that vein, as reported in the foregoing VIDEO, in 2014 CU Blog - GraceKennedy - Caribbean Transnational Corporation - Photo 6GraceKennedy acquired La Fe Foods Inc., a top Hispanic consumer foods company – especially dominant in the frozen food category – in the US.

This transnational corporation aligns with the vision for societal elevation in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. These two visions actually parallel:

  • GraceKennedy – To be a Global Consumer Group delivering long term consumer and shareholder value, through brand building and innovative solutions in food and financial services, provided by highly skilled and motivated people.
  • Go Lean – To integrate and unify the Caribbean region into a Single Market Economy, enabling the homeland to be the best address on the planet, inviting our young people to participate in the effort to make our home the best place to live, work and play in the future. – Page 45.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This is a call for confederating, collaborating and convening the 30 member-states of the region – despite the language or colonial legacy – into a Single Market; and for one federal governmental entity to optimize the economic, security and governing endeavors. This would also mean optimization of the food supply and financial services landscape. The Go Lean/CU roadmap creates the atmosphere for many more transnational corporations – homegrown and foreign – to emerge and thrive. This is part-and-parcel of the prime directives (3) of the CU/Go Lean roadmap:

  • Optimization of the economic engines – facilitating the growth in corporate citizens – in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these economic engines, reflecting a separation-of-powers between CU agencies and member-state governments.

The CU seeks to facilitate better mastery of the advanced fields of economics by incentivizing, incubating and fostering entrepreneurial efforts, small-to-medium-businesses (SMB) and large multi-national corporations. This is how to create new jobs; jobs are not created by governments, but yet, the governmental administrations can implement the right climate to spur industrial and corporate growth. The job-creation solutions for the Caribbean, are not so much dependent on a specific government, but rather good corporate guidance.

A goal of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is to attract more transnational corporations, to establish a footprint in the Caribbean. How? Why? Why will they come to the Caribbean under the Go Lean/CU regime when they will not come now under the status quo? One answer is the structure of Self-Governing Entities (SGE), and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). SGE refers to dedicated, bordered grounds that are ideal for corporate campuses, research laboratories, industrial bases (like shipyards, factory plants). The SGE structure will require a hybrid governance involving the CU federal agencies and local administrators influence– at the start-up.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that SGE’s and the EEZ can be strategic, tactical and operationally efficient for elevating Caribbean society – creating jobs. These points are pronounced early in the book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 thru 14), with these statements:

v. Whereas the natural formation of our landmass and coastlines entail a large portion of waterscapes, the reality of management of our interior calls for extended oversight of the waterways between the islands. The internationally accepted 12-mile limits for national borders must be extended by International Tribunals to encompass the areas in between islands. The individual states must maintain their 12-mile borders while the sovereignty of this expanded area, the Exclusive Economic Zone, must be vested in the accedence of this Federation.

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.

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

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.

Though there is a need for more jobs, there is a legitimate fear to inviting more corporations. There are real-life experiences and stories of abuse in mono-industrial communities – Company Towns. Abuse by the “super-rich” is implied in the old adage: “golden rule is he who has the gold makes the rule”. But the Go Lean roadmap is designed to mitigate abuses of plutocracies. This is the advantage of the SGE structure; it allows for better promotion, oversight, and governance for transnational corporate expressions. These SGE’s would be regulated solely by the technocratic CU; there would be features like advanced monitoring (intelligence gathering) and embedded protections for whistleblowers.

CU Blog - GraceKennedy - Caribbean Transnational Corporation - Photo 3The Go Lean roadmap identifies 40,000 new direct jobs tied to SGE’s; plus more tied to industrial activities directly related to the business activities that aligns with GraceKennedy business model, such as 30,000 new direct jobs in the food supply industries and 2,000 direct jobs in the frozen foods industry. These job-creation empowerments will impact every aspect of Caribbean life throughout the Caribbean.

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster industrial developments and SGE’s. The following list applies:

Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 32
Strategy – Vision – Confederate to form a Single Market Page 45
Strategy – Mission –  Build and foster local economic engines Page 45
Strategy – Mission –  Exploit the benefits and opportunities of globalization Page 46
Strategy – Mission –  Keep the next generation at home Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Commerce Department – Interstate Commerce Administration Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Agriculture Page 88
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government Page 93
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Benefits from the EEZ Page 104
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Advocacy – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market Leverage Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Food Consumption – Export: Help Find Foreign Markets Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives – Common for Agricultural Structures Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources – Optimization of Pastoral Lands Page 183
Anecdote # 18 – Caribbean Industrialist: Sandals’ Butch Stewart Page 189
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Expansion of local Securities markets Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Develop a Frozen Foods Industry Page 208
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries – Canaries & Refrigerated Warehouse Cooperatives Page 210
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living – SGE Strategic Locations Page 235
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Jamaica Page 239

This commentary asserts that industrial development is hard-work. It is difficult now to get Direct Foreign Investors to consider individual Caribbean member-states, but with this new approach of a regional Single Market, a leveraged Caribbean – 42 million people – can be more attractive, appealing and inviting. Despite the appeal, executing this Go Lean/CU roadmap will still be hard; the book describes the effort as heavy-lifting.

Many of these heavy-lifting issues have been previously identified and detailed in prior Go Lean blog-commentaries. See this sample list:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8379 The Need for Technocratic Regulation of the SGE’s
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5921 Socio-Economic Change: Impact Analysis of SGE’s
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4037 How to Train Your ‘Dragon’ – Direct Foreign Investors
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3473 Haiti’s Example of Success with an SGE: CaracolIndustrial Park
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750 Disney World – Role Model for Self-Governing Entities

This Go Lean movement, fostering a new Caribbean business climate, hereby applauds the corporate stakeholders at the GraceKennedy Group of Companies. We invite them to partner with us to make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. But there is the need for a cautionary warning to them: the change that is coming has “plus & minus” ramifications for their business model.

There are aspects of the Go Lean roadmap that will not be good for some of GraceKennedy’s business model, remittances in particular. (While a GraceKennedy subsidiary is the regional partner representing Western Union in the Caribbean, the Go Lean book – Page 270 – introduces new electronic payment schemes that will lessen the need to pay for money transfers). It is clearly apparent in the Go Lean book, that change is not always good; sometimes it brings unintentional consequences. So if we know change is happening, it is best to get ahead of it. This point was stated poignantly at Page 252:

Opportunities abound; even if there is only little commerce to exploit now, there is opportunity enough in the preparation for the coming change. So act now! Get moving to that place, the “corner” of preparation and opportunity.

With the execution of this Go Lean roadmap, the Caribbean region sends a message to the business world: Change is afoot. There will be new partnerships and collaborations for corporate stakeholders. A message is sent to the Caribbean people as well: there are solutions to these complex problems befalling our society. Whereas the Caribbean may have been a parasite before, now we can function in the role of a protégé.

Like all parasites, their healthy disposition depends on a healthy disposition of the hosts. The Caribbean has been in crisis; therefore the parasitic people have fled – the Caribbean’s “brain drain” and Diaspora has grown as a result – not good. The successful execution of this roadmap will affect this disposition as well. We will and must do better! Optimizing the economic, security and governing engines in the region will lower the abandonment rate. This will also constitute change – good change – for the region.

The Caribbean homeland will then be a better place to compete globally and present more favorable options for our youth to stay home in the region.

Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders – corporate citizens included – to lean-in for the optimizations and empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This roadmap is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

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

—————–

Appendix – List of Subsidiaries: GraceKennedy Group of Companies

  • Banking and Financial services
    • First Global Bank Limited
    • First Global Financial Services Limited
    • FG Funds Management (Cayman) Limited
    • First Global Trinidad & Tobago Limited (formerly One1 Financial Limited)
    • Signia Financial Group Incorporated
  • Remittances
    • GraceKennedy Remittance Services Limited
    • GraceKennedy Remittance Services (United States) Incorporated
    • GraceKennedy Remittance Services (Trinidad & Tobago) Limited
    • GraceKennedy Remittance Services (Guyana) Limited
  • Insurance Life and General
    • Allied Insurance Brokers Limited
    • EC Global Insurance Company Limited
    • First Global Insurance Brokers Limited
    • Jamaica International Insurance Company Limited
    • Trident Insurance Company Limited
  • Manufacturing, retail and distribution
    • Dairy Industries (Jamaica) Limited
    • Grace Foods and Services Company
    • GraceKennedy (Belize) Limited
    • Grace Food Processors Limited
    • Grace Food Processors (Canning) Limited
    • GraceKennedy (United States) Incorporated
    • Grace Foods International Limited
    • National Processors Division
    • World Brands Services Limited
    • Hi-Lo Food Stores (Jamaica) Limited
    • GK Foods (United Kingdom) Limited
    • GraceKennedy (Ontario) Incorporated
    • Hardware & Lumber Limited

 

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

Industrial Reboot – Prisons 101

Posted on October 4, 2017 in Economics, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Want to create jobs? “Go to jail; go directly to jail”.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 23) makes this realistic disclosure:

“Bad Actors” will [always] emerge … to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent.

The book continues this theme and relates that there can be economic benefits if communities foster the industries around prisons – consider the SuperMax in the Appendix below – and incarcerating “bad actors”, especially “bad actors” that are the responsibility of other jurisdictions. This is a business model, a Prison Industrial Complex, in which the landlord-host gets paid from the responsible jurisdictions. Business model refers to jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, trade transactions, etc.

CU Blog - Industrial Reboot - Prisons 101 - Photo 1The Go Lean book details that the Caribbean can create …

12,000 direct jobs for prison guards, administrators, supply logistics, and private protection

While these are direct jobs, there is also the reality of indirect jobs – unrelated service and attendant functions – that at a 3.75 multiplier rate would add another 45,000 jobs.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); this is a confederation of all 30 member-states to execute a reboot of the Caribbean eco-system. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

There is the need for this reboot right now! In the last weeks – September 2017 – the Caribbean region has been beset by 2 major hurricanes, Irma and Maria. The devastation in some member-states has been so complete – i.e. remember Barbuda – that they have had to send their prisoners to foreign facilities, (still within the Caribbean). Consider the news article here, relating this actuality:

Title: St Lucia willing to accept up to 40 foreign prisoners: National Security Minister

CU Blog - Industrial Reboot - Prisons 101 - Photo 2The National Security Minister, Senator Hermangild Francis has sought to downplay reports that the prisoners brought to St Lucia from the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean islands are high risk.

“People are saying high risk. I have not seen anything indicating that they are high risk. All I’ve been told is that they’re prisoners that needs shelter. So we have accepted to house as many as we could,” Francis asserted.

Seven prisoners from the British Virgin Islands arrived in St Lucia Tuesday along with three others from the Turks and Caicos Islands, bringing to 17 the total number of criminals currently being jailed on the island from the BritishOverseasTerritories, the National Security Minister confirmed.

The first group of seven prisoners arrived at the HewanorraInternationalAirport onboard a British military aircraft on Monday.

It’s unclear what crimes the prisoners were convicted of in their countries or how long will they be kept in St Lucia.

Francis could not confirm whether that would be the final batch.

He said St Lucia is willing to accommodate up to 40 prisoners given that the current low occupancy level at Bordelais Correctional Facility.

The National Security Minister said Tuesday’s transfer of prisoners was carried out “better” than the day before.

The men are being housed in a segregated unit of the Bordelais Correctional Facility, away from local prisoners, Francis said.

The Minister said he plans to visit the prison on Friday.

Source: Posted September 27, 2017; retrieved October 3, 2017 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2017/09/27/st-lucia-willing-accept-40-foreign-prisoners-national-security-minister

Related Story: “Most dangerous” BVI prisoners transferred to St Lucia; reports – Posted September 29, 2017; retrieved October 3, 2017 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2017/09/29/dangerous-bvi-prisoners-transferred-st-lucia-reports

CU Blog - Industrial Reboot - Prisons 101 - Photo 3

Hurricanes are “bad actors” too.

Having a Caribbean Prison Industrial Complex fully functional at this time would have impacted the region’s societal engines: economic, security apparatus and governing administrations. We need this Go Lean/CU roadmap NOW!

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. The Federation must allow for facilitations of detention for convicted felons of federal crimes, and should over-build prisons to house trustees from other jurisdictions.

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

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

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

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

Accordingly, the CU will facilitate the eco-system for Self-Governing Entities (SGE), an ideal concept for prisons, with its exclusive federal regulation/promotion activities. Imagine a bordered campus – with a combination of fencing, walls and/or moats/canals – that designates the exclusivity of the commercial, security and administration to superlative governance above the member-states. With an approved “Action Plan”, the comings-and-goings would not be up to debate of local authorities.

The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) details the principles of SGE’s and job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line (or off-campus) for each direct job on the SGE’s payroll. In a previous blog-commentary, it was related how one industry – shipbuilding – was perfectly suited for the Caribbean, as long as the structure was an independent “Shipyard”/SGE. That commentary asserted how 60,000 new jobs can easily be facilitated.

This is transforming! This is the vision of an industrial reboot! This is where and how the jobs are to be created.

But do the exploitations of the Prison Industrial Complex put security at risk for Caribbean communities?

No. Not if the deployments are done right!
(See the reality of “Life in a SuperMax” Prison facility in the Appendix VIDEO below).

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One advocacy in rebooting the industrial landscape is to foster a Prison Industrial Complex; consider the  specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 211 entitled:

10 Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex

1

 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market
This will allow for the unification of the region into one market of 42 million people across 30 member-states with a GDP of $800 Billion (2010 figures). In addition, the treaty calls for a collective security pact allowing the implementation of a prison system to detain convicts of CU federal offenses (i.e. economic and military crimes). The CU will over-build these facilities for more than just federal prisoners, but also to house inmates for other jurisdictions. Directly, there is a huge economic impact, starting with jobs (law enforcement and support personnel), and the construction industry to build the prisons. Indirectly, the spin-off in the local communities has a multiplier effect. This industry will generate direct income for the CU.

2

 Invite and Repatriate Prisoners
The CU will petition host countries to return incarcerated members of the Caribbean Diaspora – for a fee – since they are guilty of crimes committed in those host countries. But the cost of incarceration can be lower in the CU region compared to North American and European venues, because of the ideal weather. The next leap is to offer to house other prisoners in an outsourcing arrangement for the foreign host countries – this is classic Prison Industrial Complex.

3

 Impact Rural Communities

4

 In-source for Local Governments
The member-states can embrace the CU’s Prison Industrial Complex to satisfy their own needs, both penal and labor. With economies-of-scale, they can out-source their own trustees to the CU to minimize their direct costs. In addition, the CU will manage the process of providing prison labor for public endeavors, i.e. license plates and document scanning.

5

 Supply Prison Labor Needs

6

 Build Employable Skill-Sets

7

 Reduce Recidivism

8

 Gathering Intelligence on Probation Trustees and Parolees

9

 Prepare for Escalations and Emergencies
The security needs of the region are paramount, even in the case of emergencies. The CU region must allow for the systemic risks of natural disasters (hurricanes and earthquakes) in the vicinity of maximum security prisons. The risk mitigation plan must allow for tactical response/SWAT units, riot squads, and military readiness to suppress uprisings.

10

 Learn from Peonage Past and Ensure Corporate Governance

There have been a number of blog-commentaries by the Go Lean movement that highlighted economic opportunities embedded in regional homeland security initiatives. See a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13126 “Must Love Dogs”  – Providing K9 Solutions for Better Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12400 Accede the Caribbean Arrest Treaty
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9072 Model: Shots-Fired Monitoring – Securing the Homeland on the Ground
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2782 Model: ‘Red Light Traffic Cameras’ for Public Safety & Profits
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1832 Model: Opportunities as US Deports More Drug-arrested Inmates
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1674 Model: $3.7 Billion for US Detention Centers

In summary, we need jobs; our Caribbean job creation dysfunction is acute. While not glamorous, Prison Industrial Complex jobs are stable, reliable and providential. They would help us to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.

But this is only 57,000 (12,000 + 45,000) jobs. The Go Lean/CU vision is for 2.2 million new jobs. Where and how can this new technocracy expect to create those jobs, while the existing regimes of the Caribbean region cannot accomplish this now?

Industrial Reboot!

But the Go Lean book describes the process as “difficult”, no ABC-123. Rather it is heavy-lifting! Yet there are some basics that must be embraced; these basics can be catalogued as an “Industrial Reboot 101”. This commentary is 2 of 4 in an occasional series considering Industrial Reboots. The full series is as follows:

  1. Industrial Reboot – Ferries 101
  2. Industrial Reboot – Prisons 101
  3. Industrial Reboot – Pipeline 101
  4. Industrial Reboot – Frozen Foods 101

Yes, we can … reboot our industrial landscape. It is possible to create the new jobs – and other economic opportunities – that the Caribbean region needs. We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments and citizens – to lean-in to this roadmap for economic empowerment. We can make all of the Caribbean homeland better places to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

————

Appendix Title: SuperMax Prison

Supermax (short for: super-maximum security) is a primarily U.S. English term used to describe “control-unit” prisons, or units within prisons, which represent the most secure levels of custody in the prison systems of certain countries. The objective is to provide long-term, segregated housing for inmates classified as the highest security risks in the prison system—the “worst of the worst” criminals—and those who pose a threat to both national and global security.[1]

CU Blog - Industrial Reboot - Prisons 101 - Photo 4a

CU Blog - Industrial Reboot - Prisons 101 - Photo 4b

History
CU Blog - Industrial Reboot - Prisons 101 - Photo 5The United States Penitentiary Alcatraz Island, opened in 1934, has been considered a prototype and early standard for a supermax prison.[5]

An early form of supermax-style prison unit appeared in Australia in 1975, when “Katingal” was built inside the Long Bay Correctional Centre in Sydney. Dubbed the “electronic zoo” by inmates, Katingal was a super-maximum security prison block with 40 prison cells having electronically operated doors, surveillance cameras, and no windows. It was closed down two years later over human rights concerns.[6] Since then, some maximum-security prisons have gone to full lockdown as well, while others have been built and dedicated to the supermax standard.

Supermax prisons began to proliferate within the United States after 1984. Prior to 1984 only one prison in the U.S. met “supermax” standards: the Federal Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. By 1999, the United States contained at least 57 supermax facilities, spread across 30–34 states.[3] The push for this type of prison came after two correctional officers at Marion, Merle Clutts and Robert Hoffman, were stabbed to death in two separate incidents by …. This prompted Norman Carlson, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to call for a new type of prison to isolate uncontrollable inmates. In Carlson’s view, such a prison was the only way to deal with inmates who “show absolutely no concern for human life”.[7]

Source: Retrieved from Wikipedia October 4, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermax_prison

See related Appendix VIDEO of Life in a SuperMax Prison below.

————

Appendix VIDEO – Life in a SuperMax Prison – CNN Video – http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/05/13/inside-supermax-prison-orig.cnn/video/playlists/inside-prison-cells/

Published May 143, 2015 – Life in a SuperMax Prison

If [Boston Marathon Bomber] Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is sent to the United States Penitentiary Administrative-Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, he’ll be cut off from the world. See what life is like for inmates inside a Supermax prison. Source: CNN

 

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

State of the Union – Annexation: French Guiana

Posted on July 26, 2017 in Government, Implementation, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

CU Blog - State of the Union - Annexation - French Guiana - Photo 0

There is the Big Dog – the Alpha – and then there are the other dogs. While this is just nature, it also applies to the societal developments. In the Caribbean region, for example, there is the Big Dog of the United States of America dominating the region? Who is next? The British and …

The French.

This does not refer to just these French Caribbean islands, but rather the whole Republic of France, in which these Caribbean member-states are considered Overseas Departments (administrative sub-sets of the national government); see census numbers here:

Member –State Land Area (Mile2) Population GDP Millions GDP Per Capita
Guadeloupe 1,628 405,000 $6,169 $21,780
Martinique 1,128 402,000 $9,610 $24.118
Saint Barthélemy 21 8,938 $255 $37,000
Saint Martin 53 35,925 $599 $20,600
French Guiana 32,253 250,109 $4,900 $20,000
Republic of France 248,573 66,991,000 $2,833,000 $43,652

There is one French territory in this region that is NOT included in the roadmap for Caribbean confederation, as described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This refers to French Guiana, the territory on the mainland of South America, adjacent to Suriname; see photo above.

While the US is Number 1 in the world for Single Market economies, the French is shortly behind; (UK #9; France #10; The Netherlands #28). In the Caribbean, the French structure calls for the administrative designation of an overseas departments that have identical powers to those of the regions of metropolitan France. (This is different than overseas collectivities which is the particular status of Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin). As integral parts of the French Republic, an overseas department is represented in the National Assembly, Senate and Economic and Social Council, elect a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), and use the Euro as their currency.

So nowadays, Guiana is fully integrated in the French central state; they are even a part of the European Union, and its official currency is the Euro. The region is the most prosperous territory in all of South America with the highest GDP per capita.[2] A large part of Guiana’s economy derives from the presence of the Guiana Space Centre, now the European Space Agency‘s primary launch site near the equator. As elsewhere in France, the official language is French, but each ethnic community has its own language, of which Guianan Creole is the most widely spoken.

French Guiana and the European Space Agency were prominently featured in the Go Lean book – Page 105; see Appendix below – as a model for Self-Governing Entities (SGE). The hope – as expressed in the book – was that this territory would someday join the regional neighborhood.

French Guiana is complete administratively, but still features a lot of societal defects – not colonial de jure; but colonial de facto. It is the opinion of this Go Lean commentary, that this homeland needs … its neighbors: regional integration, which is the best strategy for anti-colonialism. See this VIDEO and news article here, highlighting the blatant discord there in that territory:

VIDEO – French Guiana Marches Against Colonialism – https://videosenglish.telesurtv.net/player/653436/french-guiana-marches-against-colonialism/?aspectratio=auto

General Strike and National Protest on March 28, 2017

———-

Opinion Article – How Racism Hampers Health Care in French Guiana
By: Estelle Carde

Limited access to health care is exacerbated by everyday discrimination based on ethnicity and national origin.
Oft-overlooked French Guiana, one of France’s five overseas departments, has suddenly captured international media attention. And the news from this small South American territory is not good.

Crime, overcrowding in schools and hospitals, unemployment, the cost of living and slums have reached alarming levels.

Citizen discontent led to a massive demonstration this March, the most intense such strike since 2009. Demonstrators are asking for a $US2.7 billion emergency aid package from the French government to assist in the territory’s social and economical crisis.

CU Blog - State of the Union - Annexation - French Guiana - Photo 2

Health care is a particular concern in the former penal colony of 276,000 people. Hospitals are under-staffed and technical facilities are lacking. In some areas, the nearest hospital is a two-day canoe trip away.

CU Blog - State of the Union - Annexation - French Guiana - Photo 1

The recent deaths of five premature babies from infection at Cayenne hospital, in the capital, have heightened concerns.

But there’s one critical health care-related issue that almost no one is talking about: racism. In a diverse territory comprised of people of European, African, Asian and Indigenous descent and a growing immigrant population, limited access to health care is exacerbated by everyday discrimination based on ethnicity and national origin.

Too many foreigners?
Foreign-born residents of French Guiana are among those impacted by discrimination in the health-care system.

Though socioeconomically the territory lags severely behind the rest of France, French Guiana constitutes a regional haven of wealth whose attractiveness has grown since the 1960s. Today, more than one in three inhabitants is born abroad. People from Suriname, Brazil and Haiti represent the largest immigrant groups.

This “tidal wave” of immigration is often cited as the main cause of French Guiana’s current socioeconomic crisis, even in some French political circles. The discriminatory behaviours that sometimes result from such widespread immigrant-blaming may be only thinly veiled.

State health office assistants might apply stricter conditions than legally necessary to those seeking medical benefits. Some, for instance might ask the foreign-born applicants to give proof of longer residency than required by law, thinking that it will discourage them from settling in the territory.

The same arguments are, in fact, used to justify similar discriminatory practices against immigrants in mainland France, too. But in Guiana they are more openly displayed.

Ethnic categorizations
Immigrants are not the only group that experiences discrimination in accessing health care in French Guiana. Members of minority populations, whether they are French or not, can also be affected.

This is partly because in French Guiana, people commonly use ethnicity to identify themselves and others. Creole, Maroon, Amerindian, Hmong, Chinese or French Métropolitains (mainlanders) are frequently invoked categories.

Under French law, the government cannot collect data or use it based on ethnicity. But in Guiana such usage goes back to the territory’s early times as a slave colony.

And, of course, each grouping comes with its stock of stereotypes: “Maroons are child-like”, for instance, or “Hmongs are disciplined” and “Amerindians drink their dole money”.

But these assumptions are not set in stone. Because they serve to justify power relations between groups, they tend to change with the ethnic identity of the speaker. This social dynamic plays out in French Guiana’s health-care system.

In Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, French Guiana’s second largest city, Maroons – the descendants of escaped former slaves – are the majority population and therefore the largest group of health-care users. Health-care professionals, on the other hand, are primarily Creoles or French mainlanders.

CU Blog - State of the Union - Annexation - French Guiana - Photo 3

These professionals often point to the Maroon people’s history to explain certain patient behaviours. In the 18th and 19th centuries, slaves who escaped from plantations would hide in the forest, creating communities that remained more or less isolated from coastal Guianese society for almost 200 years.

In 1969, the large territory they still occupy – mainly tropical forests in the country’s interior – was finally integrated into the Department of Guiana. At that point, they began to gain access to French citizenship and public services such as education and health.

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals readily highlight these facts to explain Maroons’ difficulties in accessing treatment, inferring that they are not yet used to doing things “the Western way.”

‘Them’ and ‘us’
Such references to historical facts are charged with connotations. Some Creole professionals suggest that Maroon people are undeserving of care because they only had to “leave their forest” to access to such services. Contrasting that status with their own position as “Guianese taxpayers” who fund these services, some may use this as justification to refuse Maroon people help in accessing treatment.

This attitude can be better understood considering the Creole people’s own history in French Guiana. Their process of accessing civil rights was slow and gradual. Social empowerment came only at the tail end of a gradual Westernisation process that began with slavery in the 17th century.

After emancipation and the granting of French citizenship in 1848, this population slowly rose to local economic and political power, spurred along by Guiana’s transformation into a French department (1946) and a national policy of decentralisation (1982).

Now hard-won Creole dominance is threatened by Maroon people, who recently obtained the same civil rights as them, and whose numbers have surpassed their own numbers in the Western part of Guiana.

Health professionals from the French mainland, for their part, tend to emphasise the “cultural differences” of these “new citizens”. They cite, for example, the “traditional” way in which Maroons transmit information (watching without asking questions) and their way of “living in the moment” to explain their apparent inability to request health coverage prior to needing treatment.

This tendency to highlight cultural differences can also end up amounting to discrimination because it overshadows systemic failures that do impact access to health care, such as the lack of health coverage offices in the country’s rural inland regions. This tendency is more present among professionals who have been in Guiana for just a few months and who readily admit to being allured by the very different culture of this “exotic” overseas corner of France.

Discriminatory behaviours among health professionals therefore exacerbate the failures of the ailing health-care system now under protest by Guianese demonstrators. Foreigners and Maroon people are the first victims of administrative failures due to their vulnerable socioeconomic status. They are also worst hit by geographical obstacles because they represent a majority of inhabitants in the territory’s remote rural areas.

But this accumulation of racist, economic and geographical inequalities is no accident. It is the result of centuries of history of Guianese society.

Source: TeleSur Media Network – Published April 13, 2017; retrieved July 26, 2017 from: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/How-Racism-Hampers-Health-Care-in-French-Guiana-20170413-0007.html

——-

Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for Fast for Word.

Estelle Carde is a professor of Sociology of Health at Université de Montréal.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

RELATED:
Guiana Workers ‘Toughen Up’ Mobilizations Against French State 

This theme – “All is not well in the Caribbean” – aligns with the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, where the assertion is that the problems facing the Caribbean region are too big for any one member-state alone. There needs to be a regional solution. The book posits that shifting the help-seeking responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the CU.

This commentary is a follow-up to the 5-part series on the subject of the State of the Caribbean Union. Our Caribbean region is unique in that there are 4 different languages and 5 colonial legacies, spread across 30 member-states and 42 million people. The goal is to execute the 5-year plan of the roadmap and then add a 31st member: French Guiana. Based on the dispositions in the foregoing VIDEO and news-opinion article, French Guiana can use the Go Lean empowerments NOW! That land is suffering from many of the same dysfunctions that plague the rest of the Caribbean and the neighboring states of Suriname and Guyana. There might be the need to act NOW to seek refuge and relief.

The other 5 entries in the series are as follows:

Just the phraseology “Caribbean Union” assumes a collective collaboration of all the territories that identify with Caribbean culture; there is the need for better local stewardship. This Go Lean effort is a confederation of sovereign and non-sovereign territories, as is the case for French Guiana. There is no need for independence, as the authority of these territories can still be deputized into the CU as an umbrella intergovernmental organization. In total, the Go Lean/CU roadmap will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a “Separation-of-Powers between CU federal agencies and Caribbean member-state governments”; so the limitations of national laws in a member-state does not have to override the CU. A CU constitution would apply to the installation – and continuation – of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) and Self-Governing Entities (SGE) that operate in controlled bordered territories like campuses, industrial parks, research labs and industrial plants.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap always anticipated the French Caribbean territories. This theme was detailed in previous Go Lean blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12466 Managing Volcanoes in the French Caribbean – Martinique and Guadeloupe
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10554 Welcoming the French in Formal Integration Efforts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10043 Caribbean Integration Plan for Greater Prosperity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7834 French Caribbean ready for the Martinique Surf Pro
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=382 Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Maarten Join the Association of Caribbean States

Now the status of the French Caribbean is indistinguishable from colonial status. All authority still rest in Paris. But there is an opportunity for more (and better) autonomous governance in the region. As depicted in these previous commentaries, this opportunity is extended for the French Caribbean to align with the rest of the Caribbean region to adopt strategies, tactics and implementations to assuage the societal dysfunctions … together.

This quest of optimizing the entire Caribbean economic-security-governance eco-system is more than just a dream; this was the motivation for the origins of the Go Lean movement. This vision is defined early in the book (Pages 12 & 13) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Go Lean book posits that the inefficient Caribbean communities – French Guiana included – can be reformed and transformed if they adopt the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies as depicted in the Go Lean roadmap. The book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. For one, the strategy calls for the implementation of Self-Governing Entities like the European Space Agencies and many more industrial sites – i.e. 10 Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities on Page 105 of the book.

The effort of the Go Lean roadmap is not “stuck” on Caribbean geography; rather we are committed to Caribbean culture. As such we confederate with territories not only in the Caribbean Sea but also those in the Atlantic Ocean (Bahamas, Bermuda and the Turks & Caicos Islands), on the Central American mainland (Belize) and the South American mainland (Guyana, Suriname and now French Guiana). All of this constitutes the Caribbean homeland.

Together, Caribbean stakeholders can succeed in efforts to improve; to end the parasite status with European capitals (and Washington) and instead exert our autonomy as mature democracies. We can be protégés instead of parasites.

Yes, we can … reform and transform our homeland to make it a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

———–

Appendix – The Bottom Line on the French Guiana Space Center

The European Space Agency (ESA) is an intergovernmental organization of 20 member states, dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a staff of more than 2,000 with an annual budget of about US$5.51 billion (2013). ESA’s space flight program includes human spaceflight, mainly with the International Space Station program, the launch and operations of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon, Earth observation, science, telecommunication as well as maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Center (CSG) at Kourou, French Guiana, and designing launch vehicles. The main European launch vehicle, Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs and further developing this launch vehicle.

The CSG has been operational since 1968; it is particularly suitable as a location for a spaceport as it fulfills the two major geographical requirements:

• it is quite close to the equator, so that the spinning earth can impart some extra velocity to the rockets for free when launched eastward, and

• it has uninhabited territory (in this case, open sea) to the east, so that lower stages of rockets and debris from launch failures cannot fall on human habitations.

CSG is the spaceport used by the ESA to send supplies to the International Space Station using the Automated Transfer Vehicle. Commercial launches are bought also by non-European companies. ESA pays two thirds of the spaceport’s annual budget and has also financed the upgrades made during the development of the Ariane launchers.

Source: Go Lean … Caribbean book (Page 105).

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

Economy Doctor: ‘The Patient is Terminal’

Posted on June 29, 2017 in Economics, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

If you need a new roof on your house – a traumatic event when it starts to rain – do you go to your doctor to do the work?

He might know something about roofing and he might be able to help; surely he can lift shingles up to the roof; spread hot tar; hammer in nails and tacks. As a homeowner, you may get some relief from the elements because of your new doctor-installed roof, but frankly, it is not best-practice. The service provided may not be the most efficient nor most effective.

A professional roofer may have better tools and techniques.

How about an economy?

Is there a professional for economic “roof jobs”? Yes, indeed! They are called Economists! Many times, they too are doctors; they may have a PhD in Economics.

A Doctor (Economist) in the Caribbean is looking at the regional economics as if a medical trauma and declaring:

The patient is “terminal” … dying, unless remediated in some way.

Welcome to the Caribbean 2017. This is the assessment: the Caribbean economy is moribund, due to defects in the region’s governing engines, with its mono-industrial service economy! See the full story of the Doctor’s assessment-diagnosis in the news article here:

Title: Saint Lucian Economist warns: “We are in trouble!”
CU Blog - Economy Doctor - 'The Patient is Terminal' - Photo 1Saint Lucian Economist, Doctor Adrian Augier, has sounded a grim warning that this country is in trouble economically.

Delivering a lecture on Tuesday to the 39th annual general meeting of the Elks Credit Union, Augier compared the national economy to an old farm that is under-fertilised, over exploited, ruined by bad farming and yielding smaller harvests every year.

He was speaking on the theme: “Time to Call a Spade – Why the Caribbean is digging its own economic grave.”

“ I want to frighten you; I want to shock you; I want  to jolt you to the realization that we are in trouble – that you are in trouble along with your job, your family your savings your home and your sanity,”  the Saint Lucian Economist told his audience at the National Cultural Centre.

He said he wanted to cause  the kind of discomfort that prevents his listeners from sleeping at night and rise up,  not only to demand that better be done to prevent development disaster, but to be part of a revolution in thought and action which causes this country to dramatically change its course.

“When I say the country I am not speaking about Mr. Chastanet or Doctor Antony,  I am speaking of us – every one of us here who believes that the sun will rise tomorrow as it did today,” Augier said.

He disclosed that growth rates have been declining for the past three decades, with just a bit of growth in the past year or so.

“The world has changed and so must we,” Augier observed.

According to him, the return to normalcy will not be easy.

He said that many banks in the region have lent out money that was not theirs to people who cannot now pay.

Augier said they cannot pay not because they do not want to, but because jobs have disappeared, markets have shrunk and real property values have fallen.

He explained that in certain areas, crime and instability have diminished the value of properties.

Augier said the economic situation is not only true of Saint Lucia, but across the Caribbean as well.

“We have to look at these issues and not pretend that they are going to go away or suddenly improve because they are not,” the Economist said.

He noted that the social and economic structure of these Islands have changed.

“It is not only true of Saint Lucia but it is a problem across the Caribbean,” he told the Elks AGM.

Augier asserted that there are some things that can happen in the market such as a change of legislation so that banks and credit unions can dispose of assets.

By way of explanation, he spoke of a house with a mortgage that is not being serviced.

“You need to turn it over quickly, reduce the price, put it on the market and get it sold.  That’s not nice when you have to put families out of their homes, but it’s your savings in the credit union underwriting the mortgage and if you don’t return the asset to the market you are going to hold an asset that is deteriorating,” Augier explained.

“We have to take some of the hard knocks and do what we have to do,” he declared, adding that banks have been unable to dump their bad loans which have stayed and corroded the balance sheets.

He explained that people save money in banks and credit unions in the hope of getting their investment back with some interest.

Augier, who is a Director of the First National Bank, said he is worried that the ability to bail out is dwindling.

“We wait and we hope and what is actually happening is that foreign interests are coming into the country and buying up things that we should be able to buy, investing in areas that we should be able to invest in,” he said.

According to him, it is a source of worry that Saint Lucia has a government apparatus designed to ‘help people to buy us out.’

“Foreign investment does not come here because they love us, foreign investment comes here because they see an opportunity which we cannot access or we have not begun to access or we are not positioned to access,” Augier observed.

He said the investors are looking for a return.

“If they are coming here to develop some brand new thing that we are not able to do for ourselves and they want to come in and help us do it or start it up with a possibility of Saint Lucians participating in that venture at some point in time, then that’s another matter,” Augier told his audience.

But  the Saint Lucian Economist said when industries  that are ‘exploitative’ are coming in to use unsustainable cheap labour and exploiting high unemployment by providing menial jobs, it is not good for this country.

Augier said there was need to contemplate what kind of investment is being encouraged here.
Source: Posted March 30, 2017; retrieved June 28, 2017 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2017/03/30/saint-lucian-economist-warns-trouble#comment-114747

The foregoing news article quotes an Economist – Dr. Adrian Augier – in St. Lucia; speaking of the sad state of affairs for that country and all of the Caribbean. This is not a unique assessment-diagnosis; other countries and states are also suffering economic trauma, dire consequences from dysfunctional economic and governing stewardship. Nor is this assessment only to be found in the Third World (developing countries). No, even the First World or advanced economies have this disposition. Take for example the US State of Kansas. We have a fitting example of economic trauma and dysfunction, brewing there …

Kansas, Sam Brownback, and the Trickle-Down Implosion

The Kansas governor’s attempt to create Supply-side nirvana in Middle America not only failed to grow the economy — it created a crippling crisis of government that led to a statewide rejection of his politics.

See the excerpt of the news article in the Appendix below or the full article here: http://prospect.org/article/kansas-sam-brownback-and-trickle-down-implosion-0. The summary of the article in the Appendix, is that the State of Kansas experimented with a Supply-side Economic Model and the end-result is traumatic. See these headlines here:

“Brownback’s Kansas has produced one of the worst-performing state economies in the country”.

“The severely imbalanced budget led Moody’s to downgrade Kansas’s bond rating; three months later, Standard & Poor’s followed suit.”

“The failure to restore pre-recession funding has disproportionately impacted urban school districts like Kansas City’s and Wichita’s.”

“Throughout all this, Brownback’s trickle-down obsessions have continued to play out.”

“Many moderate Republicans were fed up with Brownback’s intransigence and eager to get something done.”

Consider also the rendition of this Kansas trauma-drama in this AUDIO-PODCAST from NPR’s All Things Considered show:

AUDIO-Podcast – Kansas Lawmakers Reverse Governor’s Massive Tax Cuts – http://www.npr.org/2017/06/07/531945495/kansas-lawmakers-reverse-governors-massive-tax-cuts

Posted June 7, 2017 As Heard on All Things Considered – Kansas lawmakers charted a major change of course Tuesday night when it comes to tax policy. Both the House and Senate voted to override a veto from Gov. Sam Brownback and roll back many of the 2012 tax cuts that were a model for conservatives across the country.

So Economy Doctors have assessed-diagnosed these 2 dysfunctional communities – lessons abound.  The Caribbean economy (‘patient’) is terminal … and the ‘patient’ that is the State of Kansas is terminal.

This Governor Sam Brownback is now a tarnished brand in American politics. At one time he was a “Star on the Rise” of the national stage, even running for President in 2008. But his now-failed experiment in Tickle-down economics has shifted his reputation from fiscal conservatism to fiscal irresponsibility. This trauma and drama in Kansas should be a cautionary tale for other government leaders in the US and in the Caribbean – economic engines must be optimized; continuation of failed economic policies should not be tolerated. When a patient is in trauma – dying – drastic measures must be taken or the patient dies. This is true for medical trauma and economic trauma. This is the lesson from Kansas and the caution from the Economist – Dr. Adrian Augier – in St. Lucia.

“The world has changed and so must we,” Augier observed.

There is the need for change! Drastic measures must be pursued to reform and transform Caribbean society. But these changes must be planned, implemented (based on best-practices), reviewed and measured against success metrics. This is the methodology of Plan, Do and Review urged in the book Go Lean…Caribbean (Page 147). The book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean economy – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

The mono-industrial service economy in the Caribbean and the failed Supply-side experiment in Kansas  are 2 bad examples. But our scope for reforming communities is the Caribbean only!

The book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

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

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

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

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. Our reform approach is not some Supply-side / Trickle-down experiment, whereby we exploit the working-classes to benefit the rich.

We can do better! We can deploy industrial solutions with no plutocratic abuses.

In response, the Go Lean roadmap presents a strategy of Self-Governing Entities (SGE’s). This scheme was fully detailed in the Go Lean book; see  some headlines from this sample advocacy on Page 105:

10 Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market
The CU treaty unifies the Caribbean region into one single market of 42 million people across 30 member-states, there-by empowering the economic engines in and on behalf of the region. Many times, these engines will be independent, self-governing entities (SGE) that are only physically located in a member state, but not administered by the states. SGE’s are necessary features of the CU roadmap, allowing for industrial parks, technology labs, medical campuses, agricultural ventures, airport cities (see Appendix IJ) and even the Capital District. All aspects of their administration are managed by the CU, including monetary issues managed by the Caribbean Central Bank-CCB.
2 CU Constitution; SGE’s Bylaws
3 Negotiate With Local Municipalities for Resources
The need for local resources is what makes SGE’s such an economic engine. They may have to acquire their basic needs (food, clothing, shelter, energy) from trade with their neighbors. The spirit of negotiations should reflect a partnering relationship as opposed to adversarial, but SGE’s have rights to supply every need internally or from abroad. With free market conditions the norm, price and quality is the determination; the neighbors must compete.
4 Ease-ways
When the SGE physical plant is land-locked, there is a need for an ease-way to convey utilities and supplies in and out. When member-states accede to the CU treaty, they in effect declare that they are ready, willing and able to accommodate the needs of SGE’s. The rights-duty duality is at play, but financial-jobs benefits will be worth the effort. Ease-ways must be inclusive to the municipal negotiations, and may include above-ground and subterranean (pipeline) options.
5 Technology & Infrastructure
The nature of a SGE means monopolies outside the perimeter do not apply inside the perimeter. It is the choice of the SGE whether or not to avail some monopolistic utility or “go solo”. This applies to energy, telecoms, water-sewage, and logistical technologies (transportation, pipeline, pneumatic tubes, etc) as long as the good neighbor status remains.
6 Housing Options
7 Security and JusticeThe CU accedence grants authority for homeland security in the SGE’s to CU institutions. There are Rangers that have direct patrol duties; CariPol that has the investigation responsibility and District Attorneys for federal prosecutions.
8 EmergenciesThough the SGE tenant has near-sovereign rights, there are special provisions for CU intrusions, limited to declared  emergencies. This declaration can come from responsible parties internal to the SGE (as simple as dialing 911, or exigent circumstances) or external declarations from federal court orders or CU constitutional officers.
9 Jurisdictional Liaisons with CU State Department
10 Measuring Results

The business models of SGE’s have been further elaborated upon in previous blog-commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12148 Perfect SGE Application: Ship-breaking Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12146 Perfect SGE Application: Shipbuilding Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8379 Stewardship for Centers of Economic Activity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5921 Socio-Economic Change: Impact Analysis of SGE’s
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750 Disney World – Role Model for Self-Governing Entities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338 Using SGE’s to Welcome the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003 Ship-breaking under SGE Structure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214 Fairgrounds as SGE and Landlords for Sports Leagues

SGE’s can bring new economic opportunities, and these opportunities must abound in the Caribbean … if we want to avert our terminal condition. The existing economic engines are not sustainable; the mono-industrial strategy – based on a service industry (i.e. tourism) – has led to a dying economy. Everyone is hereby urged to lean-in to this regional change.

The Go Lean roadmap advocates for a pluralistic democracy where all Caribbean stakeholders get a chance for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is an American ideal, but we can learn lessons from their failure – as in Kansas – to execute on these principles. In a previous blog-commentary, the role model of Hammurabi was disclosed as a missing functionality in the New World. This is where the “weak is protected from abuse from the strong in society” – this is truly missing in Kansas.

The purpose of this roadmap is not to fix the defects in Kansas nor the America political system, but rather to reform and transform the Caribbean, without engaging any unjust schemes, like the Supply-side economics depicted in this commentary.

Yes, we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. Let’s do this! 🙂

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

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

————

Appendix – Article Except: Kansas , Sam Brownback, and the Trickle-Down Implosion

Sub-title: The Kansas governor’s attempt to create supply-side nirvana in Middle America not only failed to grow the economy — it created a crippling crisis of government that led to a statewide rejection of his politics.
By: Justin Miller

CU Blog - Economy Doctor - 'The Patient is Terminal' - Photo 2Near midnight on Tuesday, June 6, a number of Republicans in the Kansas legislature did something that few other elected Republicans had done in years: They acted responsibly. Joining with Democrats, they voted to roll back the huge tax cuts that Republican Governor Sam Brownback had inflicted on the state, which had devastated schools and other essential services while also depressing the state’s economy. But after five years of this exercise in trickle-down, the damage had been done.

THE ROBERT B. DOCKING State Office Building looms large amid the sparse downtown Topeka landscape. …

The decaying, hollowed-out building stands as a grim testament to the blunt-force trauma that Brownback’s 2012 tax cuts visited on his state, and to the ensuing budgetary crises that led lawmakers to cut government services to the bone.

For years, Brownback has called for Docking to be demolished rather than renovated. It’s an apt metaphor for his approach to government.

The state’s health-care system teeters on the verge of catastrophe, as Brownback’s privatization of state Medicaid services and further refusal to expand Medicaid has squeezed low-income Kansans and health-care providers alike. Dozens of struggling hospitals across the state are on the verge of closing. “We have to make decisions every day, on which bills to pay. I mean that literally,” one small-town hospital CEO says. Brownback’s decision to cut taxes rather than restore K–12 public education funding has strained both urban and rural school districts, compelling two districts to end the school year early. Meanwhile, he’s ushered in drastic cuts to social services and placed strict work requirements and other limits on welfare programs.

By last year, even Republicans in this heavily Republican state (which Donald Trump carried last November by 21.5 percentage points) had had it with their governor’s insistence on turning the SunflowerState into a Petri dish for radical conservative economics. A number of Republican candidates ousted Brownback supporters in legislative primaries, and this year they teamed up with the minority Democrats in the legislature (whose numbers increased after last year’s elections) to begin rolling back the Brownback catastrophe. Overturning the governor’s vetoes, which required a two-thirds majority in each house, legislators this June voted to repeal the tax cuts enacted by Brownback and a Tea Party–dominated legislature in 2012.

But the devastation has been profound.

IN 2010, SAM BROWNBACK rode the Tea Party wave into the Kansas governorship, pledging to turn the state into a bulwark against President Barack Obama’s big-government liberalism. By 2012, through aggressive backroom politicking, he pressured hesitant moderate Republicans in the legislature to join conservatives in passing a radical tax plan that eliminated the state’s top income tax bracket, drastically slashed rates, and instituted an outright income tax exemption for limited liability companies—a huge tax break for a tiny segment of the population. Conversely, in a nod to “fiscal responsibility,” the plan did away with a number of tax credits that benefited low- and middle-income Kansans. Moderate Republicans in the Senate had thought they’d be able to engineer a less-extreme version of the cuts while in a conference committee with the House. They didn’t, and days later, Brownback signed into law perhaps the most radical version of trickle-down economics any state had ever embraced.

…

Brownback’s promise that the cuts—particularly the LLC exemption—would be “a shot of adrenaline” for the Kansas economy will be written on his political headstone.

The LLC exemption, the crown jewel of the governor’s tax policy, has allowed some 330,000 independent business owners—almost double the original estimates—to avoid state tax on most, if not all, their income, costing the state roughly $500 million in revenue in 2015 alone. A recent report from a team of researchers who scoured Kansans’ income tax returns concludes that the exemption has fueled more tax evasion than job creation.

Though Brownback argued that exempting owner-operated businesses from taxes would increase investment and jobs in the state, the report found no such results. “We can’t, to the best of our ability, find support for real responses in terms of economic activity because of the tax cuts,” report co-author and University of South Carolina economics professor Jason DeBacker says. Instead, the policy drove more people to simply reclassify their income as a pass-through to avoid taxation.

The small-business owners who were the intended beneficiaries suddenly had no tax liabilities each year. But with average savings of about $1,000 a month, according to one estimate, it was hardly enough to hire more workers or expand operations. One lawyer in suburban JohnsonCounty told a Kansas City Star columnist in 2014 that he was saving as much as $10,000 a year—as were the 15 other partners in his practice—while the paralegals and other staffers with no ownership stake were still stuck paying income tax. He told the columnist that he planned to use his tax savings for a family vacation to Cancún. “I’m making out like a bandit, and it’s completely unfair,” he said.

Perhaps the most enlightening example of how the exemption worked came when a public radio station discovered in May 2016 that Bill Self, the head coach of the storied University of Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball team, was not paying taxes on about 90 percent of his annual $3 million compensation.

…

WHAT BROWNBACK’S TAX CUTS have accomplished is to have created a crisis of catastrophic proportions for state residents. The tax cuts blew an immediate hole in the $6 billion state budget, as revenue levels fell an astounding $713 million from fiscal years 2013 to 2014. Those revenue shortfalls have not abated in the years since. To help plug the hole, Brownback has run through all the state’s reserve funds and has increased borrowing, adding $1.3 billion to the state’s debt. “We are essentially the poorest state by now, with no rainy day fund—nothing in the bank,” says Duane Goossen, the former Kansas budget director for both Democratic and Republican governors.

The severely imbalanced budget led Moody’s to downgrade Kansas’s bond rating; three months later, Standard & Poor’s followed suit. The hit to the credit rating, though, was an inadequate measure of the damage to Kansans’ lives.

…

BY PRIORITIZING HIS trickle-down tax cuts over all else, Brownback has also allowed a long-standing public school funding shortage to metastasize into a full-blown constitutional crisis.

…

The failure to restore pre-recession funding has disproportionately impacted urban school districts like Kansas City’s and Wichita’s. The state funding formula includes an “equalization” provision that helps even out funding between wealthy school districts that can rely more on a large base of property tax revenue and poorer districts that can’t. When the school cuts took effect, however, the poorer districts couldn’t take up the slack with higher property taxes.

…

Throughout all this, Brownback’s trickle-down obsessions have continued to play out. He has called for regressive increases to the sales tax and higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. At the same time, he continued his war on progressivity, asking the legislature to institute a flat tax—a proposal that garnered just three votes in a clearly fed-up state Senate earlier this year.

That vote reflected a sea change in Kansas politics. Last August, Kansan Republican primary voters across the state supported a group of moderate challengers to more than a dozen ultra-conservative incumbents in legislative elections. Last November, even as Trump took the state with 57 percent of the vote, Democrats managed a pick-up of 12 seats in the state’s House and one in the Senate. Heading into the January session, there was a new legislature with a class of freshmen determined to undo Brownback’s damage.

The budgetary implications of that damage were very clear. When the new legislators took their seats at the start of this year, they confronted a proposed budget with close to a $1 billion shortfall over the next two years. Soon after the session began, the state Supreme Court announced its ruling that mandated adequate school funding, which required the appropriation of an additional $750 million over the next several years.

The legislatures of the preceding six years had been complicit in creating these shortfalls, but those legislatures were gone. “The [new] legislature looks a lot like it did before 2010,” when there was a stronger bloc of moderates, says Burdett Loomis, a political science professor at the University of Kansas. “People understand that in order to get things done, you have to run through this moderate [Republican]-Democratic coalition.”

…

Passing a budget that accomplished these goals was anything but easy, since overcoming a Brownback veto requires two-thirds support in each house, and the House speaker and Senate president were both staunchly opposed to tax hikes. The moderates’ and Democrats’ task was eased, however, by a collapse in Brownback’s popular support. In 2016, a Morning Consult poll found him to be the least-popular governor in the country, with only 26 percent of the surveyed Kansans approving of his job performance. This year, the only governor less popular with his constituents was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, bogged down in Bridgegate and the anti-Trump backlash.

…

Legislators still needed to pass a budget, and they needed to pass a school-financing bill that would meet the state Supreme Court’s call for adequate funding. To fund both the budget shortfall and the public school system, they were faced with the necessity of passing a tax reform plan even more far-reaching than the one Brownback had already vetoed. Many wanted to undo Brownback’s rate cuts by reinstituting a third bracket, raising rates closer to pre-2012 levels, and most of all, eliminating the LLC loophole. The challenge they faced was how to align enough Democrats and Republicans to vote for a package that was substantial enough to satisfy the former and frugal enough not to dissuade the latter.

…

Still, the political gymnastics required to cobble a veto-proof majority were daunting. …

…

As the session spilled into June, the legislature was approaching the record for longest legislative session in the state’s history. In the very early hours of June 5, the legislature passed a tax plan that rolled back Brownback’s tax policy and would raise about $1.2 billion over the next two years by doing away with the LLC exemption, ending the March to Zero, and reinstituting a third tax bracket with higher rates across the board. One factor that brought Ward and the Democrats on board was that the bill reinstated a number of tax credits benefiting poor and middle-income Kansans (including a child tax credit), which Brownback had scrapped. The legislature also passed a school-financing plan that would direct nearly $300 million more to schools over the next two years while tethering future aid to the rate of inflation.

In a matter of hours, Brownback announced that he would veto the tax rollback.

Later that night, the Senate approved a veto override by a one-vote margin. …

The lessons of Sam Brownback’s disastrous experiment have become all the more important nationally as President Trump, whose economic doctrine is cut from the same cloth napkin on which Arthur Laffer first sketched his supply-side curve more than 40 years ago, tries to advance a similarly radical series of tax cuts in Washington. (Indeed, Brownback flew Laffer out to Kansas in 2012, where he was paid $75,000 to advise the legislature on the wisdom of slashing taxes, promising astounding dividends of economic growth in exchange.) Trump’s proposed budget echoes the Kansas experiment, slashing income tax rates for the wealthiest few and calling for a drastic rate cut for pass-through entities—a move that would inflict Brownback’s LLC debacle on the nation.

Brownback’s should be a cautionary tale, of course, for the Republicans in Congress and the White House. Should they slash the provision of affordable health coverage to cut taxes for the rich, should they decimate government services while eliminating taxes on the wealthiest Americans, all their invocations of trickle-down economics—that the rich will invest their tax savings in job-creating enterprises, a theory disproved again, again, and again—ultimately won’t win them popular support. The fate of Sam Brownback—scorned by his state, overridden by his legislature, rejected by his party—should make that crystal clear.

CU Blog - Economy Doctor - 'The Patient is Terminal' - Photo 3

Tax Cuts for the rich. Deregulation for the powerful. Wage suppression for everyone else. These are the tenets of trickle-down economics, the conservatives’ age-old strategy for advantaging the interests of the rich and powerful over those of the middle class and poor. The articles in Trickle-Downers are devoted, first, to exposing and refuting these lies, but equally, to reminding Americans that these claims aren’t made because they are true. Rather, they are made because they are the most effective way elites have found to bully, confuse and intimidate middle- and working-class voters. Trickle-down claims are not real economics. They are negotiating strategies. Here at the Prospect, we hope to help you win that negotiation.

Source: Posted in “The American Prospect” on June 28, 2017; retrieved June 28, 2017 from: http://prospect.org/article/kansas-sam-brownback-and-trickle-down-implosion-0

 

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]