Refuse to Lose – Introducing Formal Reconciliations

Posted on October 15, 2019 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

So far this series on Refuse to Lose have established – (according to the previous blog-commentary):

“The practice of U.S. cities eschewing Columbus Day – because of the bad history associated with the Spanish Explorer’s atrocities – to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day began in 1992 …”

See what we did there?

We warmed you up to the idea that “All Lives Matter, Yes, but oppressed groups need to be recognized and commiserated for the hurt that they have endured”.

And you bought it – “hook, line and sinker”.

We just accomplished an informal reconciliation. Now, it is time to pursue a formal reconciliation. (We have Indigenous People and oppressed people in the Caribbean too).

This is a mission of the roadmap embedded in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book introduces the strategy of impaneling Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) to address age-old (and modern) grievances.

This is part of the new attitude – community ethos – about winning-and-losing . The historicity of the Caribbean is that some demographics won – European Imperialists and loyalists – while others lost.

The human psyche is consistent; when we have been victimized, we want everyone to remember. But, when we have been the perpetrator – the bully – then we want everyone to forget. This applies to individuals and nations alike. – previous Go Lean commentary. 

To make progress in society, there must be a new attitude now. one is for the Greater Good; we want most people to win and few to lose. We want a …

Refusal to lose

That previous blog-commentary defined this community ethos as a commitment by a group or society to the values of quality, success and winning.

This commentary is a continuation of this series on the Refuse to Lose ethos; this is Part 3-of-6. The full series is cataloged as follows:

  1. Refuse to Lose: Lesson from Sports
  2. Refuse to Lose: Remediating ‘Columbus Day’
  3. Refuse to Lose: Introducing Formal Reconciliations
  4. Refuse to Lose: Despite American Expansionism
  5. Refuse to Lose: Canada’s Model of Ascent
  6. Refuse to Lose: Direct Foreign Investors Wind-Downs

This is not the first time this commentary have addressed ‘reconciliations’. These points have been detailed in many previous  Go Lean commentaries; see here:

European Reckoning – Christianity’s Indictment
The Church failed in its job to be the moral compass for the many European empires that have wielded absolute power on the planet. The bad result has been Slave Trade & Slavery, Colonialism and World Wars. These atrocities yielded millions and maybe even billions of victims. ‘White’ is NOT right. There is the need to reconcile that.
A Lesson in History: Jonestown, Guyana
40 years ago – 1978 – a religious atrocity transpired on Caribbean soil; this was the mass-murder/suicides in Jonestown, Guyana of almost 1000 people. Where were the societal stakeholders in this crisis, those charged with the duty to serve and protect. What have we learned? What reforms, if any, have we enacted?
Colonialism’s Bloody History Revisited
There has been a bloody history, tied to European and American colonialism. We must learn from this history; there must be a strenuous effort to dissuade societal defects and orthodoxy. Truth of the matter, colonialism is not dead with 18 Overseas Territories in Caribbean.
‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ – Leaders Undermine Tourism
Political and religious leaders in Caribbean communities are projecting “a Climate of Hate” towards certain minority groups. This is so bad that it undermines the tourism products and community economics. Reconciling the pasts allows for better economics in the future.
Waging a Successful War on Orthodoxy
It takes a real battle to undo the standards and orthodoxy – many of them religious and colonial – introduced and implemented in society. Some good have come from these practices … and some bad. There needs to be a formal reconciliation of the Good, Bad and the Ugly.
Rwanda’s Catholic bishops apologize for genocide
The Church was not a force for moral good in modern society … in Africa or the Caribbean. The Bishops in Rwanda owned up and apologized for their complicity in their 1990’s genocide. This is an attempt to reconcile the failings of the past.
Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Past
Christendom has a sullied past! For example, the historicity of the Spanish Inquisition is inexcusable. Yet there was a town in Spain that continued with the name “Castrillo Matajudios” — which means “Camp Kill Jews”, which they did. How was this community repent, forgive and reconcile from such a bad legacy? For one, change the name. The town has reverted back to its original name “Castrillo Mota de Judios” (“Jews’ Hill Camp”). This proves that reconciliation is more than just mental acknowledgement; many times heavy-lifting ust also be expended.
In Search Of The Red Cross’ $500 Million In Haiti Relief
The Red Cross is a Disaster Management organization; they abused their power by collecting $500 Million for Haiti’s Earthquake Relief/Recovery and misappropriating the funds. Where did the money go? Can we finally get an answer?

The Caribbean member-states need societal progress; so we must adopt new attitudes that shows that we recognize that old attitudes were bad. This is how we pursue the Greater Good. We want a Refusal to Lose, a Win-Win; we want most people to win and few to lose.

Whew! This is heavy, just thinking about it. How do we get started?

This Go Lean roadmap describes the Way Forward, the heavy-lifting for elevating Caribbean society in the future and to reconcile their past failings. Among the 370-pages of the Go Lean book are the turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt the new community ethos of reconciliation. Consider the headlines, summaries and excerpts here on how the region can better Manage Reconciliations in the Caribbean eco-system, in the domestic homeland and in the Diaspora (Page 34):

10 Ways to Manage Reconciliations

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU)
This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, expanding to an economy of 30 member-states of 42 million people. This accedence creates a “new” land of opportunity, so after so many decades of abandonment, the CU will “flash the signs” of “Welcome Home” to its far-flung Diaspora. But “old parties” returning can also open “old wounds” therefore it is a mission of the CU to facilitate reconciliations, much like the model in South Africa, so as to assuage these Failed-State indicators/threats: a). “Revenge seeking” groups and b). Group Grievances
2 TRC – Cuba
Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, had an armed revolution, conducted by leader Fidel Castro, that started in July 1953 and finally ended with the ouster of dictator Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959. Castro revolutionary government later reformed along communist lines, leading to a vast exodus in the subsequent years since. The Cuban Diaspora is estimated to amount to over 1.5 million people and $1.5 Billion in annual remittances to the island.

A goal of the CU is to invite many of the Cuban Diaspora and exiles back to the island. (Many of whom settled nearby in Miami and want to return). After the Castro Brothers, there will be the expectation of reparation and reconciliation. So the CU will convene a Truth & Reconciliation Commission to bring resolution to many issues from the revolution, socialist nationalization, previous coup attempts and the Batista dictatorship. There may be the expectation of reparations.
3 TRC Haiti and Neighbors
Haiti has the unique history of declaring independence since the 1790’s and ever since has had to contend with foreign invaders, internal dissension, domestic terrorism and conflict with its neighbor, the Dominican Republic ([see Page 306 for] Appendix TD). The memory and victimization of these contentions are long and has the potential for spontaneous conflict. Haiti has the highest indicators (#7 [see Page 271 for Appendix F]) on the Failed-State Index of any state in the entire region. In addition to the CU providing special status and protections for repatriates, the CU must convene a TRC to bring resolution to the grievances of the past.
4 International Tribunals – War Crimes – Human Rights Watchers
5 Caribbean Court of Justice
6 Government Debt Buybacks
The CU seeks to buyback (pay-off) many of the international debts incurred by the member states. This process, part of a financial reconciliation, will require a detailed forensic audit of the disbursements and accountabilities of monies.
7 International Grants / Loan Forgiveness
8 CU Foreign Policy/Trade Missions
9 International Court Judgments
Some foreign courts have ruled on cases involving Caribbean states, assessing judgments accordingly, (ie Cuba – $6 Billion in US courts). The CU will pursue negotiations for compromised settlements to clear the docket of these cases.
10 Repatriation After Abandonment

These aspirations are not just “pie in the sky”. This was done, successfully in South Africa. We have that model by which to follow. See the Appendix VIDEO below.

So it is conceivable, believable and achievable to think that we can reconcile our bad Caribbean historicity. Yes, while we cannot change the past, we can apply lessons-learned and change the future. We can move forward, upward, onward together …

… and we have some heavy-lifting to do; consider these examples (click on the links for the Way Forward for these issues):

So ‘Yes We Can’ …

Refusing to Lose is a necessary ethos for the Caribbean Way Forward to start winning, after so many centuries of losing. Let’s put the past behind and move forward.

Let’s all lean-in and foster reconciliations, so that we can all Refuse to Lose; this is the right community ethos to elevate our society to be a better homeland 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 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.

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states (for example: Haiti and Cuba) will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

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 VIDEO – Truth Justice Memory: South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Process [Introduction] – https://youtu.be/W3taLI3moaM

Justice Reconciliation
Posted Apr 4, 2014 – The TRC provided an opportunity for ordinary South Africans to take the centre stage, to share their stories of suffering and sacrifice. How can we, years later, use this legacy in the building of a generation of reconciling South Africans? This “first-of-its-kind” course aims to expose learners to the TRC event in a sensitive but forthright manner. Twelve DVD clips, each about 20 minutes in length, cover a series of important aspects of the TRC’s work. The accompanying teacher’s guide contains twelve corresponding chapters, complete with content summary, key questions, tasks for learners and teachers as well as additional sources.

 

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Refuse to Lose – Remediating ‘Columbus Day’

Posted on October 14, 2019 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Today is the Monday closest to October 12 – Day of Discovery by Christopher Columbus – so it is a day set aside as a Holiday in many places. But alas, there have been many communities that have remediated their historical appreciation for Christopher Columbus.

His impact was not all good!

This is part of the new attitude – community ethos – about losing. The actuality of Columbus is that while some people won – European Imperialists – many others lost. Those that lost, are stakeholders too in today’s Caribbean. The new attitude about winning-losing is actually a …

Refusal to lose

This community ethos is defined as a commitment by a group or society to the values of quality, success and winning. This corresponds to this formal definition of “community ethos” in the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 20):

… the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.

Celebrating Columbus Day is choosing the victories of some people over the losses of others. This is not winning; not win-win. Adapting the ethos to Refuse to Lose is supposed to be different, better; we want the Greater Good to win, not just a fraction of the population.

See, here, the encyclopedic reference on Columbus Day and the efforts to remediate its celebrations:

Reference: Columbus Day
Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus‘s arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492. Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who set sail across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a faster route to the Far East only to land at the New World. His first voyage to the New World on the Spanish ships Santa María, Niña, and La Pinta took approximately three months. Columbus and his crew’s arrival to the New World initiated the Columbian Exchange which introduced the transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, and technology (but also invasive species, including communicable diseases) between the new world and the old.

The landing is celebrated as “Columbus Day” in the United States but the name varies on the international spectrum. In some Latin American countries, October 12 is known as “Día de la Raza” or (Day of the Race). This is the case for Mexico, which inspired Jose Vasconcelos’s book celebrating the Day of the Iberoamerican Race. Some countries such as Spain refer the holiday as “Día de la Hispanidad” and “Fiesta Nacional de España” where it is also the religious festivity of la Virgen del Pilar. Peru celebrates since 2009 the “Day of the original peoples and intercultural dialogue”. Belize and Uruguay celebrate it as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas). Since Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner officially adopted “Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural” (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) November 3, 2010. “Giornata Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo or Festa Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo” is the formal name of Italy‘s celebration as well as in Little Italys around the world.[1][2]
…

Non-observance
The celebration of Columbus Day in the United States began to decline at the end of the 20th century, although many Italian-Americans, and others, continue to champion it.[31][32] The states of Florida,[33] Hawaii,[34][35] Alaska,[36][37] Vermont,[38] South Dakota,[39] New Mexico,[40] Maine,[41], Wisconsin, [42] and parts of California including, for example, Los Angeles County[43] do not recognize it and have each replaced it with celebrations of Indigenous People’s Day (in Hawaii, “Discoverers’ Day”, in South Dakota, “Native American Day”[32]). A lack of recognition or a reduced level of observance for Columbus Day is not always due to concerns about honoring Native Americans. For example, a community of predominantly Scandinavian descent may observe Leif Erikson Day instead.[44] In the state of Oregon, Columbus Day is not an official holiday.[45] Columbus Day is not an official holiday in the state of Washington [46]

Iowa and Nevada do not celebrate Columbus Day as an official holiday, but the states’ respective governors are “authorized and requested” by statute to proclaim the day each year.[47] Several states have removed the day as a paid holiday for state government workers, while still maintaining it—either as a day of recognition, or as a legal holiday for other purposes, including California and Texas.[48][49][50][51][52]

The practice of U.S. cities eschewing Columbus Day to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day began in 1992 with Berkeley, California. The list of cities which have followed suit as of 2018 includes Austin, Boise, Cincinnati, Denver, Los Angeles, Mankato, Minnesota, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Seattle, St. Paul, Minnesota, Phoenix, Tacoma, and “dozens of others.”[31][53][54][55][49][56][57][58][59][60][61] Columbus, Ohio has chosen to honor veterans instead of Christopher Columbus, and removed Columbus Day as a city holiday. Various tribal governments in Oklahoma designate the day as Native American Day, or name it after their own tribe.[62]
…
Source: Retrieved October 12, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day

This commentary is a continuation of this series on the Refuse to Lose ethos; this is Part 2-of-6. The full series is cataloged as follows:

  1. Refuse to Lose: Lesson from Sports
  2. Refuse to Lose: Remediating ‘Columbus Day’
  3. Refuse to Lose: Introducing Formal Reconciliations
  4. Refuse to Lose: Despite American Expansionism
  5. Refuse to Lose: Canada’s Model of Ascent
  6. Refuse to Lose: Direct Foreign Investors Wind-Downs

This is not the first time this commentary have addressed ‘Columbus Day’. As related in a previous Go Lean commentary, the orthodoxy of the ‘Columbus Day’ celebration is now frown on in many communities. See this quotation:

The human psyche is consistent; when we have been victimized, we want everyone to remember. But, when we have been the perpetrator – the bully – then we want everyone to forget. This applies to individuals and nations alike.

This experience relates to the history of the New World. Upon the discovery of the Americas by the European powers – Christopher Columbus et al – the focus had always been on pursuing economic interests, many times at the expense of innocent victims. (This is why the celebration of Columbus Day is now out of favor). First, there was the pursuit of gold, other precious metals (silver, copper, etc.) and precious stones (emeralds, turquoise, etc.).  Later came the exploitation of profitable agricultural opportunities (cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, etc.), though these business models required extensive labor. So the experience in the New World (the Caribbean and North, South & Central America) saw the exploitation of the native indigenous people, and then as many of them died off, their replacements came from the African Slave Trade.

See this comedic VIDEO here that portrays this history and the trending to remediate the holiday – “How is it still a thing?”:

VIDEO – Columbus Day – How Is This Still A Thing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) – https://youtu.be/eKEwL-10s7E

LastWeekTonight
Posted October 13, 2014 – Christopher Columbus did a lot of stuff that was way more terrible than “sailing the ocean blue,” but we don’t learn about that.

Columbus Day: How is it still a thing?

Connect with Last Week Tonight online…
Subscribe to the Last Week Tonight YouTube channel for more almost news as it almost happens: http://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

Find Last Week Tonight on Facebook like your mom would: http://Facebook.com/LastWeekTonight

Follow us on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news: http://Twitter.com/LastWeekTonight

Visit our official site for all that other stuff at once: http://www.hbo.com/lastweektonight

This foregoing VIDEO uses humor and punditry to convey a valid point:

Christopher Columbus should not be viewed as a hero of all the people. His legacy has blood stains on the annals of history.

The United States of America had been a majority White (European) country for its entire history. The minority populations finally won its battle for Civil Rights and equal treatment, appealing to the “Better Nature” of its founding principle:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – Declaration of Independence for the United States of America, July 4, 1776.

The end product of the Civil Rights movement is the equal protection under the law for all ethnic groups – majority or minority. After nearly 400 years of European-dominated power-brokers in the US, finally in 2008, the first person of minority heritage was elected to the American presidency – Barack Obama.

Remediating ‘Columbus Day’ is an accomplishment and achievement for the Civil Rights struggle of minority ethnic groups in America. Now the Refuse to Lose mantra must include everyone and not exclude anyone.

The subject of the American Civil Rights movement and momentum – leveling out the inequities – over the history of the New World have been addressed in many previous commentaries; consider this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18321 Unequal Justice of American Sheriffs and How to Remediate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18100 Nature or Nurture – Cop-on-Black Shootings in America’s DNA
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17820 ‘Pride’ Movement – “Can we all just get along”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16944 Women Empowerment – Accepting Black Women ‘As Is’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16534 European Reckoning – Leveling Christianity’s Bad Influence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15123 Blacks get longer sentences from ‘Republican’ Judges
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14633 Nature or Nurture: Women Have Nurtured Change to Level Society
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14541 One Woman – Viola Desmond – Making a Difference for Canada
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063 Achieving Gender & Other Equity without the ‘Battle’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12722 How the West Was Won? Thru Pluralism and Ethnic Normalization
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11870 The Journey From ‘Indian Termination Policy’ to Modern Pluralism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9974 Lessons Learned from Pearl Harbor and Civil Rights Remediated
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8038 Transformations: Civil Disobedience … Very Effective
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020 The Advocacy to Rid Sports of Blatant Racism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546 ‘The Divide’ Book Review describing the unequal justice practice
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=209 The Case of Muhammad Ali – Equal Protection Under the Law

The Refuse to Lose mantra now includes everyone in America and should not exclude anyone. This is why ‘Columbus Day’ is “no longer a thing”.

(Most communities do not want to lose the paid-holiday on the books, so they have substituted ‘Columbus Day’ for some other worthy cause).

This is a good model …

May we apply this lesson throughout the Caribbean – this means you Puerto Rico; (they have 2 holidays: October 12 & November 19).

Using Puerto Rico as a microcosm of the rest of the New World, the demographic on that island is a vast majority of Black-and-Brown people. The Taino people and culture that Columbus discovered and encountered on the island is now gone and extinct. Columbus should not be viewed as a hero due to the course of events he set in motion.

The European people – remnant on the island – would elevate Columbus as a winner, while the indigenous people would have to be deemed the losers. This is not Win-Win!

We now need to Refuse to Lose – for every demographic in our society – not just one group at the expense of another.

This is the lesson learned from ‘Columbus Day’.

Let’s all lean-in and foster this Refuse to Lose attitude; this is the right community ethos to elevate our society to be a better homeland 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 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 – 14):

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 [negative] communities … . On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from [positive] developments/communities… .

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

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Refuse to Lose – A Lesson from Sports

Posted on October 13, 2019 in Ethos, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

‘Winning and Losing’ is a reality in life …

… especially true for us in the Caribbean, where losing is a constant feature in our lives; consider:

It does not have to be this way; there is an attitude – about losing – that seems to be missing here in the Caribbean:

Refuse to lose

This is more that just “3 words strung together”; this is a commitment to quality, success and winning. This is referred to as “community ethos” in the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean; see the definition here from Page 20:

The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.

How do we go about fostering this ethos to “refuse to lose”?

One approach is through sports. The field of sports can help to foster the good community ethos to “refuse to lose“. Refuse to Lose is also the title of a book by one of the winningest coaches in College Basketball, John Calipari. See here:

Book Review: Refuse to Lose – Hardcover by John Calipari  (Author) – September 17, 1996

“Realistic people place roadblocks in front of themselves,” says John Calipari, “I’m unrealistic in a positive way.” And he gets results. As one of the hottest coaches in college basketball, John Calipari transformed the once-dispirited UMass Minutemen into a #1-ranked force to be reckoned with–taking them to the Final Four for the first time in history. Calipari did more than develop a phenomenal team. He built an outstanding program for success.

What is Calipari’s winning philosophy?

Develop a “Refuse to Lose” attitude.
Though you play to win whatever the score, how you play the game counts. True, you will lose some games, but the way you deal with those losses is part of the attitude of refusing to lose. Calipari’s rules: Stay within the rules. Don’t blame others, take responsibility yourself. Review the tape and learn from it. These are the life skills he taught his players–and they resulted in both professional and personal victory. If you love your kids, Calipari believes, they’ll go through walls for you. Now you can apply these winning strategies to your own life–with your family, your co-workers, and yourself–to any endeavor in which there’s a goal to achieve.

The formula works. A man driven by competition and the desire to excel, John Calipari plays to win, rather than playing not to lose. In Refuse to Lose, he insists you step out of your comfort zone. When you’re comfortable, you’re not doing your best. But when you raise the bar above your comfort level, you can accomplish things you never thought possible. He will show you how mistakes can be powerful learning tools and how adversity can become opportunity.

In the bestselling tradition Rick Pitino’s Full Court Pressure and Pat Riley’s The Winner Within, John Calipari tells an amazing story of triumph and grit that is both universal and unique. Powerful, optimistic, and spirited, Refuse to Lose offers a dynamic philosophy that is contagious. Catch it and win!

Source: Retrieved October 12, 2019 from: https://www.amazon.com/Refuse-Lose-John-Calipari/dp/0345408012

——————

Reference: Coach John Calipari
John Vincent Calipari (born February 10, 1959) is an American basketball coach. Since 2009, he has been the head coach of the University of Kentucky men’s team, with whom he won the NCAA Championship in 2012. He has been named Naismith College Coach of the Year three times (in 1996, 2008 and 2015), and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.

He was previously the head coach at the University of Massachusetts from 1988 to 1996, the NBA‘s New Jersey Nets from 1996 to 1999 and the University of Memphis from 2000 to 2009, and was the head coach of the Dominican Republic national team in 2011 and 2012.

Calipari has coached Kentucky to four Final Fours, in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015. He also led UMass and Memphis to the Final Four in 1996 and 2008 respectively …  As a college coach, Calipari has twenty-four 20-win seasons, nine 30-win seasons, and three 35-win seasons.

Source: Wikipedia Online encyclopedia; retrieved October 13, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calipari

We need more of this Refuse to Lose ethos in the Caribbean. We are already committed to sports as our Caribbean communities, participate and excel in many sporting endeavors. Plus, most of the Caribbean member-states boast Judeo-Christian principles; alas there is an apropos Bible scripture that adds insight to this discussion (Go Lean book Page 229):

For bodily exercise is profitable for a little … – 1 Timothy 4: 8 (American Standard Version)

We have published a number of previous commentaries reviewing the actuality and historicity of Sports in our region; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15664 Naomi Osaka’s recipe for success: Caribbean Meld
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14527 Learning from March Madness (2018)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10351 Lessons from a Winning Team – ‘Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8272 The effect of ‘Winning in Sports’ on a Losing Homeland
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4019 Learning from the Super Bowl … and its Commercials
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341 Learning from Omaha and the College World Series Time
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498 Learning from the ‘Sports Gene’ – Book Review:
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318 The urgent need for a Collegiate Sports Eco-system in the Caribbean

Refusing to Lose is a similar good ethos to the heroic “whatever it takes” attitude. This was detailed in a previous blog-commentary from April 24, 2019:

Way Forward – Whatever it Takes
So for the Caribbean, we need to adopt the required community ethos, drop the bad ethos, execute the strategies, tactics and implementations … to elevate our society. We need to do the heavy-lifting,  ‘whatever it takes’; we must succeed.

Lives, livelihoods, identities and cultures are at stake.

Refusing to Lose is the opposite of the bad ethos that had been the observed practice for the National Airlines in the Bahamas and other Caribbean member-states. This was detailed in a previous blog-commentary from December 29, 2014:

No Fear of Failure – Case Study: Bahamasair
The story being related in the following [embedded] article is a far cry from a pursuit of quality, in fact the overriding theme is “no fear of failure” on the part of the airline’s stakeholders; “if we succeed or fail, it doesn’t really matter”.
…
This negative community ethos is even enshrined in the regulatory filing for the airline as an international carrier. Appendix B [Industry Quality Standards: Warsaw Convention] highlights the accepted quality standard in aviation known as the Warsaw Convention. Appendix C [Warsaw Convention Exemptions for International Carriers in the US] on the other hand, demonstrates how Bahamasair, and other Caribbean carriers, have petitioned for waivers so as not to abide by these high standards.

This writer got a glimpse of the good “Refuse to Lose” community ethos, just recently, at the 2019 Homecoming Football Game for Florida A & M University (FAMU). Homecoming games, per its namesake, is where the alumni flock back to the Tallahassee campus to celebrate the FAMU experience, culture and societal contributions – addressed in a previous Go Lean commentary. (See the Appendix VIDEO below of a glimpse of the Homecoming Parade).

With the increased attendance and priority, there is no toleration for a lost in the featured football game. The players, coaches and staff … must refuse to lose every year. For 2019, the FAMU Rattlers won; see the news story here:

Title: Rattlers clip the Eagles 28-21 on Homecoming day
By: Rory Sharrock, Tallahassee Democrat

Xavier Smith is the hometown hero for the second consecutive contest at Bragg Memorial Stadium.

The wide receiver followed up his game-winning catch versus Southern on Sept. 21 with a scoring run with 32 seconds remaining to give FAMU a 28-21 triumph over North Carolina Central Saturday on homecoming day.

With the victory, the Rattlers improve to 4-1 and 2-0 in the MEAC. The Eagles fall to 2-4 and 1-1 in league play.

The team’s march to victory began on its 35-yard line with 4:16 on the clock. They picked through the Eagles’ defense with outlet passes and sideline routes.

FAMU quarterback Ryan Stanley tossed three touchdowns to three different receivers.

David Manigo, Marcus Williams and Smith were the recipients of Stanley’s scoring throws.
…
See the full article here: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/sports/college/famu/2019/10/05/quarterly-updates-famu-takes-7-0-lead-over-n-c-central/3879051002/ Posted October 6, 2019; retrieved October 13, 2019.

FAMU Homecoming 2019 was a manifestation of the ethos of Refuse to Lose.

This is why the fostering of sports is so vital for elevating Caribbean society. This is part-and-parcel of the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies introduced by the book Go Lean … Caribbean. In fact, “fostering sports” is just 1 of 144 different advocacies presented in the book as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

Why is this roadmap so important? It might be the best hope for our Caribbean homeland’s constant ‘losing’.

This roadmap describes the Way Forward, the heavy-lifting for elevating Caribbean society – to turn from losing to winning. Among the 370-pages of the Go Lean book are the turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt many new community ethos. Consider the headlines, summaries and excerpts here on how the region can better foster the Sports eco-system in the Caribbean (Page 229):

10 Ways to Improve Sports

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market
Embrace the advent of the Caribbean Single Market & Economy initiative of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. This will allow for the unification of the region of 30 member-states into a single market of 42 million people and a GDP exceeding $800 Billion (per 2010). This market size and multi-lingual realities allows for broadcasting rights with SAP-style language options for English, Spanish, French and Dutch. This makes the region attractive for media contracts for broadcast rights, spectrum auctions and sports marketing. The Olympics have demonstrated that sports can be profitable “big business”, and a great source of jobs and economic activity. The CU will copy the Olympic model, and harness the potential in many other sporting endeavors, so as to make the region a better place to live, work and play.
2 CU Games

Promote the CU Games, every 2 years, as the ascension of the CARIFTA Games for Amateur and now Professional Athletes. The CU Games Administration will also partner with all National Olympic Committees. This administration applies to feeder games, trials and qualification events. The ultimate goal is to field a world-class competitive Olympic Team representing the entire Caribbean. While the CARIFTA Games are for track-and-field events only, the CU Games will resemble a mini-Olympics with multi-sports (boxing, football/soccer, tennis, volleyball, sailing, baseball/softball, etc.).
3 Fairgrounds as Sport Venues
4 Regulate Amateur, Professional & Academically-Aligned Leagues
5 Establish Sports Academies
6 “Super” Amateur Sport Association

Promote All-Star tournaments (pre-season and post-season) for Amateur (School and Junior) Athletics Associations winners. This includes team sports (soccer, basketball), school sports (track/field) and individual sports (tennis, golf, etc.).
7 Regulator/Registrar of Scholar-Athletes – Assuage Abandonment
8 Sports Tourism
The CU will promote tournaments and clinics to encourage advancement in certain sports. These tournaments are aimed at the foreign markets (US, Canada, Europe, Central and South America) so as to generate sports-tourism traffic.
9 Professional Agents and Player Management Oversight (a la Bar/Lawyer Associations)
10 Impanel the CU Anti-Doping Agency

So ‘Yes We Can’ …

… Refusing to Lose is a necessary ethos for the Caribbean Way Forward to start winning. We have experienced far too much losing. We can foster the attitudes and opportunities for winning at sports, in life and in society, as individuals and communities..

Let’s all engage, get off the bench and get into the game. We need to win! But first, we need to Refuse to Lose.

This commentary is the start of this series on the Refuse to Lose ethos; this is Part 1-of-6. The full series is cataloged as follows:

  1. Refuse to Lose: Lesson from Sports
  2. Refuse to Lose: Remediating ‘Columbus Day’
  3. Refuse to Lose: Introducing Formal Reconciliations
  4. Refuse to Lose: Despite American Expansionism
  5. Refuse to Lose: Canada’s Model of Ascent
  6. Refuse to Lose: Direct Foreign Investors Wind-Downs

We urged everyone in the Caribbean – leaders and residents, athletic participants and spectators alike – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap; to win … at all costs, to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.

This is not a game for us; this is life.  🙂

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 – 14):

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.

xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism ….

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

————–

Appendix VIDEO – Marching 100 perform in Homecoming Parade – https://www.tallahassee.com/videos/news/2019/10/05/watch-marching-100-perform-homecoming-parade/3879408002/

Posted October 5, 2019 – The Marching 100 perform in the 2019 FAMU homecoming parade. By photographer Alicia Devine, Tallahassee Democrat.

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Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

Posted on September 30, 2019 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Education is all the rage for elevating individuals in society … to be more prosperous, to earn more and have a better life. This is why we send children to school starting at Age 5; and encourage them to work hard and do their homework …

… and why we invest in Student Loans so that they can get a college education.

But there is Unequal Justice in this eco-system.

Quick: Do you see the injustice in this situation?

You get a $30,000 Student Loan to go to college … for 2 years … for an Associates Degree. Afterwards, you have no job, a worthless degree and $30,000 in debt. – See the narrative in the Appendix VIDEO.

That is an economic injustice – welcome to the dispositions of Millennials in America in 2019; (actually the last 20 years). But America is not the only community experiencing dysfunction and economic injustice due to Student Loans. We have a lot of dysfunctions in the Caribbean too. See the details here, as this issue of Student Loans in the economic fabric of society have been deliberated in previous blog-commentaries; see here:

Title #1: Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers – April 30, 2014

“Of the many factors holding back young home buyers … none looms larger than the recent explosion of college debt”.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the economic optimization in the region. If the target of the book is the Caribbean, why does this article about American student loans weigh so heavy in a consideration of Caribbean economics?

There are lessons to be learned here! Not just for student loans, but also regarding education policy. This issue is pivotal to the economics of the Caribbean region.

…

Classic economic policy promotes that education has a direct effect on a community’s economy and the standard-of-living, quantified as each increased-grade-level, raises GDP by 3 percent (Appendix C2 – Page 258). But, the Go Lean roadmap posits that this rule is not true for the Caribbean, because of the debilitating emigration rate, the brain drain in which our educated population flees for foreign shores, or worse, students that do not return after matriculating – despite using funding from their Caribbean homeland. These are all investments with no return. In short, the economy of the Caribbean can be impacted by the activity of this recent-student population, when they repatriate; but when they emigrate, they hurt the economy.

… education funding policies adversely affect major areas of the economy, in this case home-buying. The cause-and-effect paradigm is direct, within 5 to 10 years after graduation; a former student should be planning to buy a house. Apparently the [American] macro economy is dependent on this relationship. According to the foregoing [an embedded] article, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) identified student debt as a key factor in soft demand for home-buying this spring (2014).

————

Title #2: A Lesson in Economic Fallacies – Student Loans As Investments – July 9, 2016

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

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

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

This commentary asserts that those who advocate to remediate Caribbean economics needs to avoid a series of Economic Fallacies.

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean have addressed Income Inequality and the contribution of Student Loans to this plight. It is our position here that the eco-system of Student Loans can be a “weather vane” of justice in society; one that reflects the direction of society and can possibly effect the direction.

Weather vane
A weather vane, wind vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the “direction of the wind“. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word “vane” comes from the Old English word “fana” meaning “flag”.

Although partly functional, weather vanes are generally decorative, often featuring the traditional cockerel design with letters indicating the points of the compass.

Student Loans can indicate the “direction of the winds” of society.

  • Loans are debt, paying for past activities for a government service that used to only be a marginal expense (and free in some countries). See this point from that previous Go Lean commentary:
    It’s not the cost of the loan ([interest)] that’s the problem; it’s the principal – the appallingly high tuition costs that have been soaring at two to three times the rate of inflation, an irrational upward trajectory eerily reminiscent of skyrocketing housing prices in the years before 2008. – Ripping Off Young America: The College – Loan Scandal By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stones Magazine; August 15, 2013. (Appendix IH of Go Lean book – Page 286).
  • Student Loans are investments, preparing for the future. Those who pursue higher education always enjoy a higher pay-rate than without. The prospects of this Return on Investment motivates people and incentivizes them to follow prescribed courses of action;  social justice and development advocacies can be urged. The member-states of the Caribbean region are urged to follow the model of the US Federal Perkins Loans – defined here:
    .
    The Bottom Line on Perkins Loans
    A Federal Perkins Loan is a need-based student loan offered by the US Department of Education to assist American college students in funding their post-secondary education. Perkins Loans carry a fixed interest rate of 5% for the duration of the ten year repayment period. The Perkins Loan Program has a nine-month grace period, so that borrowers begin repayment in the tenth month upon graduating, falling below half-time status, or withdrawing from their college or university. Because the Perkins Loan is subsidized by the government, interest does not begin to accrue until the borrower begins to repay the loan.
    As of the 2009-2010 academic year, the loan limits for undergraduates are $5,500 per year with a lifetime maximum loan of $27,500. For graduate students, the limit is $8,000 per year with a lifetime limit of $60,000 (including undergraduate loans).
    Perkins Loans are eligible for Federal Loan Cancellation for teachers in designated low-income schools, as well as for teachers in designated teacher shortage areas such as math, science, and bilingual education. This cancellation also applies to Peace Corps Volunteers. Cancellation typically occurs on a graduating scale: 15% for year 1, 15% for year 2, 20% for year 3, 20% for year 4, 30% for year 5. These percentages are based on the original debt amount. Thus after 3 years of service, one would have 50% of their original debt cancelled.

Student Loans can also dictate justice, by the priority that society places on them and the incentives and mandates provisioned for participating students (deferments, cancellations and postponements). This is how Student Loans can dictate the “direction of the winds” of society.

This blog-commentary submission, entry 4-of-4, completes this series on Unequal Justice. The first 2 submissions traced bad history of tyrants here in our New World and how that tyranny imperiled whole populations. These last 2 submissions address matters of economics. The full series on Unequal Justice is cataloged here as follows:

  1. Unequal Justice: Soft Tyrannicide to Eliminate Bottlenecks
  2. Unequal Justice: Economic Crimes Against Tourists and Bullying
  3. Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins
  4. Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

In this series, reference is made to the fact that Bad Actors can always disrupt the peace and prosperity in society; sometimes the Bad Actor is a person, a group or an institution. So there is always the need to be On Guard to ensure justice is optimized in the region; for all people: young and old. Yes, the need for justice in the Caribbean societal engines transcends borders, politics, class and race. We need to make sure the “game is not rigged”, and we can abate and mitigate unequal economic structures.

The best counter-strategy for Income Inequality is a thriving Middle Class. The best way to get to the Middle Class is through educational empowerments; (see Appendix below). The subject of educational empowerments has been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17992 What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16882 Exploring Medical School Opportunities … as Economic Engines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13472 Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9751 Where the Jobs Are – Teaching for Animation and Game Design
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8669 Detroit makes Community College free … as part of their Turn-around
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6269 Education & Economics: Welcome Mr. President
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5482 Bad Model: For-Profit Education: Plenty of Profit; Little Education

We must be On Guard and ever vigilant in our battle against inequality and unequal justice.

There will always be villainy – Bad Actors…

… sometimes the villainy is just one character, a tyrant or a bully, sometimes its an organized criminal organization and sometimes still, its a broken eco-system. We must be prepared to abate, mitigate and remediate all tyranny.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in for the empowerments described here-in and in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Our quest is the full elevation of the economic, security and governing engines of our society. We can do better. It is conceivable, believable and achievable to elevate all 30 Caribbean communities – individually and collectively. We can succeed in making our homelands better places 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 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 VIDEO – How college loans exploit students for profit | Sajay Samuel –  https://youtu.be/YXWKuK-Qsu4

TED
“Once upon a time in America,” says professor Sajay Samuel, “going to college did not mean graduating with debt.” Today, higher education has become a consumer product — costs have skyrocketed, saddling students with a combined debt of over $1 trillion, while universities and loan companies make massive profits. Samuel proposes a radical solution: link tuition costs to a degree’s expected earnings, so that students can make informed decisions about their future, restore their love of learning and contribute to the world in a meaningful way.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Follow TED news on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tednews

Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksD…

—————

Appendix – Education and Economic Growth

The relationship between economic growth and education has been one of the central threads of economic analysis. Both Adam Smith in the 18th century and Alfred Marshall in the 19th century, two important figures for the economics profession, addressed the question of how individual investments in “education” influence the wealth of nations. Throughout the 20th century, as Krueger and Lindahl (2001) point out in their survey of these issues, modern professional economists have been attempting to develop empirical estimates of the relationship between education and economic growth. Some of the most famous names in late 20th century economics made their reputations studying the question of individual returns to investment in education. Jacob Mincer (1974), Gary Becker (1964) and a long list of researchers inspired by their work have produced hundreds of books and papers.

Much of this literature is highly technical in the sense that it uses formal econometric models to test hypotheses using empirical data. The bottom line of this impressive work is that the economic evidence supports the view that both public and private returns to investment in education are positive—at both the individual and economy-wide levels. The vast technical literature on this subject can be subdivided into two general areas:

  1. The micro-economic literature looks at the relationship between different ways of measuring a person’s educational achievement and what they earn. Most studies show consistent results for what can be called the private or personal payoff from education. For individuals this means that for every additional year of schooling they increase their earnings by about 10%. This is a very impressive rate of return.
  2. The macro-economic literature examines the relationship between different measures of the aggregate level of educational attainment for a country as a whole and, in most cases, the standard measure of economic growth in terms of GDP. Once again, most studies find evidence of higher GDP growth in countries where the population has, on average, completed more years of schooling or attains higher scores on tests of cognitive achievement. However, as will be explained in somewhat greater detail below, given the diversity of national experiences, particularly over time, it is hard to settle on one figure for the rate of return at a social level.

(Based on established and historic Economic Theories – By Riel Miller, www.rielmiller.com; commissioned by Cisco Systems, Inc.)

Source: Go Lean…Caribbean Appendix C2 – Page 258

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Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins

Posted on September 29, 2019 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Unequal = Inequality; Inequality = Unequal …

All the talk of economic inequality – the rich getting richer; the poor getting poorer; the middle-class shrinking – is really a discussion on justice & injustice.

After thousands of years of human history, we have come to an indisputable conclusion:

Inequality is never tolerated for long. Eventually the “Have-Nots” demand what the “Have’s” have!

People do protest; revolutions do happen. People do get fed-up and demand change. Here in the Caribbean region, we have the well documented case of our American neighbors and their Revolutionary War Against the British (1776). These demands were embedded in their Declaration of Independence over Just Causes:

… when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

The Catholic Church warned about the long toleration of inequality as well. It described Envy – a feeling of discontent or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck – as one of the 7 Deadly (Cardinal) Sins and prepared its followers that these practices will only lead to discord, disagreement and death. Here is one religious reference:

The Bible’s answer
The Bible does not specifically describe a set of “seven deadly sins.” However, it does teach that practicing serious sins will prevent a person from gaining salvation. For example, the Bible refers to such serious sins as sexual immorality, idolatry, spiritism, fits of anger, and drunkenness as “the works of the flesh.” It then states: “Those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.”​—Galatians 5:​19-​21. *

Where did the list of seven deadly sins come from?
The “seven deadly sins” were originally based on a list of eight principal vices. The list was developed in the fourth century C.E. by the mystic Evagrius Ponticus, whose work inspired the writings of monk and ascetic John Cassian. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I changed Cassian’s list of eight vices into the list of seven deadly, or cardinal, sins of Roman Catholic theology: envy, pride, greed, lust, gluttony, anger, and sloth.

Source: Retrieved September 29, 2019 from: https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/seven-deadly-sins/

See-listen to the thesis – that Envy is unavoidable as an enemy of inequality – in the embedded AUDIO-Podcast and VIDEO here:

AUDIO-PODCast – The Seven Deadly Sins: Envy – https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1420205

Heard on Talk of the Nation
Posted September 4, 2003 – Joseph Epstein *Author, Envy, the first in a series of The Seven Deadly Sins (Oxford University Press) *Author, Snobbery: The American Version
———-
VIDEO – Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming | Nick Hanauer – https://youtu.be/q2gO4DKVpa8

TED
Nick Hanauer is a rich guy, an unrepentant capitalist — and he has something to say to his fellow plutocrats: Wake up! Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France. Hear his argument about why a dramatic increase in minimum wage could grow the middle class, deliver economic prosperity … and prevent a revolution.

Watch more TED Talks on inequality: http://www.ted.com/topics/inequality

TED Talks is a daily podcast of talks and performances from TED events, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Follow TED Talks on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tedtalks Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

So the Cardinal Sin of Envy forces the hand of the stakeholders in society to conform with programs that abate and mitigate income inequality.

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean have addressed Income Inequality on many occasions; the book introduced the roadmap for the implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU strives to reboot the economic engines in the region so as to create more opportunities (job-and-entrepreneurial) for everybody in the Caribbean region – men, woman, Black-Brown-and-White in all 30 member-states. This quest is designed to grow the Middle Class.

The Go Lean roadmap recognizes that a prerequisite for advancing society is a change in the Caribbean community ethos – “underlying sentiment that informed the beliefs, customs, or practices” – from Bad to Good. All of the 7 Deadly Sins actually reflect a “Bad Ethos”. Getting the Caribbean region to adopt Good Community Ethos is actually the practice that will promote justice and equality. Consider here, some of the Good Community Ethos that are promoted in the Go Lean book:

  • Deferred Gratification
  • Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
  • Minority Equalization
  • Return on Investment
  • Divergent Genius Designation
  • Research & Development
  • Negotiation … as Partners
  • Reconciliation
  • Sharing
  • Greater Good

This is entry 3-of-4 in this series on Unequal Justice. The previous submissions traced bad history of tyrants here in our New World and how that tyranny imperiled whole populations of people. The previous 2 submissions address matters of Public Safety, while this one focuses on economics. The full series on Unequal Justice is cataloged here as follows:

  1. Unequal Justice: Soft Tyrannicide to Eliminate Bottlenecks
  2. Unequal Justice: Economic Crimes Against Tourists and Bullying
  3. Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins
  4. Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

In this series, reference is made to the fact that the “arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice“.  There have been times in the past where income inequality have been acute in society; almost always, the end result is revolution and/or violent upheavals – think France in the 1700’s. Inequality indices are among the metrics and drivers for Failed-States.

  • DP – Mounting Demographic Pressures
  • REF – Massive Movement of Refugees or IDPs
  • GG – Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Paranoia
  • HF – Chronic and Sustained Human Flight and Brain Drain
  • UED – Uneven Economic Development Along Group Lines

So there is always the need to ensure justice institutions are optimized in society and that the “game is not rigged” so that income opportunities do not only go to a top-select few. The opposite of unequal economic structure would be a thriving Middle Class. So the need for justice in the Caribbean transcends borders, politics, class and race.

The subject of Income Inequality has been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13826 Taking from the Poor to Give to the Rich
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11057 Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Book Review: Sold-Out!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6399 Book Review on ‘Mitigating Income Inequality’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6089 Where the Jobs Are – Futility of Minimum Wage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5597 Economic Principle: Market Forces -vs- Collective Bargaining
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338 Welcoming the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242 The Erosion of the Middle Class

Overall, now is the time for all stakeholders – citizens, governments, businesses, employers and employees, etc. – in the Caribbean to lean-in for the empowerments described here-in and in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Income Inequality is the Number One challenge for many societies; especially in the Western World. We must be technocratic in our mitigations and work to help those in our communities explore greater opportunities to make our homelands better places 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 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.

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Unequal Justice: Bullying Magnified to Disrupt Commerce

Posted on September 28, 2019 in Economics, Government, Industries, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

“You had better get control of that boy or we will for you” – typical admonition of a Peace Officer to the parents of a young bully!

There is a certain reality that we all have had to contend with:

Bullies are inevitable!

We have all been to Grade/Elementary/Primary School; we have all played on the playground. We can simply look at our own lives, cite examples of bullying and glean this Truth and Consequence:

  • Slippery slope …
  • Snowballing …
  • From an acorn comes a Mighty Oak …

Analogies abound … as to why it is important to “nip bullying in the bud”. If we do nothing – or not enough – then conditions of Unequal Justice go from “bad to worse”. The bad actor can emerge from terrorizing a family, to a neighborhood, to a community, to a nation, to a region, to a hemisphere, to the whole world. Think: Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Soviet Russia, British Empire, Napoleonic France, Spanish Inquisition, and more …

Unchecked, bad actors in the community become tyrants – they can even affect the local economic engine. This is where the opening statement of a typical Police Officer to a “parent of a bully” become relevant. Either that parent mitigates that situation, or the legitimate authorities will have to get engaged. It is easier to remediate a local bully; beyond that, the bad actions can escalate to gang activity, organized crime and/or domestic terrorism. An escalated villainy would require an escalated response. There is a plan for regional mitigations of gangs, organized crime and/or terroristic activities..

This is the focus of this commentary. This is entry 2-of-4 in this series on Unequal Justice. The previous submission traced that bad history of the County Sheriff in the American South and how that person’s tyranny imperiled the entire Black American population. That previous blog-commentary related how the Sheriff served as a bottleneck in the execution of justice , and the only way to eliminate that tyranny was with legal “soft” tyrannicide.  The full series on Unequal Justice is cataloged here as follows:

  1. Unequal Justice: Soft Tyrannicide to Eliminate Bottlenecks
  2. Unequal Justice: Economic Crimes Against Tourists and Bullying
  3. Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins
  4. Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

In this series, reference is made to the fact that Tourism, as the Number 1 economic driver in the region, is vulnerable to Bad Actors disrupting peaceful hospitality trade – we must protect our societal engines from tyrants, bullies and terrorists. So there is always the need to ensure justice institutions are optimized in the region; visitors will refuse to come and enjoy our hospitality if there are active threats or perceived instabilities. (At the same time, residents flee to foreign shores in search of refuge). So the need for justice in the Caribbean tourism deliveries transcends borders, politics, class and race.

Consider this actuated consequence in the Dominican Republic, due to some recent incidents regarding public safety for  tourists; (there are some suspicions that Bad Actors persist):

VIDEO – Is travelling to the Dominican Republic dangerous – https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/tourist-deaths-dominican-republic-safe

——–

Title: Tourism to the Dominican Republic Has Dropped 74 Percent, According to New Study

By: Stacey Leasca

In the past year, 10 American citizens have died in the Dominican Republic, some as tourists others as long-term visitors. While the deaths have been attributed to natural causes, would-be visitors are reconsidering their plans to visit the island.

Is traveling to the Dominican dangerous for Americans? Here’s what travelers need to know.

Many travelers are re-booking their flights to new destinations

According to a report by ForwardKeys, which analyses more than 17 million flight bookings a day, bookings for July and August from the United States to the Dominican Republic have fallen by 74.3 percent compared to the same period in 2018.

“My deepest sympathies go out to the families of the American tourists who have passed away. Their recent and tragic deaths appear to have had a dramatic impact on travel to the Dominican Republic,” Olivier Ponti, vice president of insights at ForwardKeys, said. “Our analysis of leisure travel shows a striking correlation.”

…

See the full article here: Travel and Leisure Magazine – posted June 27, 2019; retrieved September 28, 2019 from: https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/tourist-deaths-dominican-republic-safe

Allowing bullies or tyrants (real or perceived) in the community to disrupt economic engines – crimes against tourists, etc. – is just plain wrong and a failure of the unwritten Social Contract. This refers to the arrangement where citizens (and visitors) surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. So unchecked bullying, street gangs and organized crime require an escalated response, [“soft”] tyrannicide.

Tyrannicide is even presented in the Holy Bible with the drama of the woman “Jael” in the Book of Judges Chapter 4 & 5 where she killed the villainous Sisera in order to save the people in her village. That account relates:

The Canaanites were defeated [by Judge Barak] and [the Army Commander] Sisera fled the scene.[1]

Sisera arrived on foot at the tent of Heber on the plain of Zaanaim. Heber and his household were at peace with Jabin, the king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor.[4] Jael, however, sympathized with the Israelites because of the twenty-year period of harsh oppression inflicted on them by Jabin, his commander Sisera, and his nine hundred iron chariots. Jael (whose tent would have been separate from Heber’s) [5] welcomed Sisera into her tent and covered him with a blanket. As he was thirsty, she gave him a jug of milk. Exhausted, Sisera lay down and soon fell asleep. While he was sleeping, Jael took a mallet and drove a tent peg into his temple, killing him instantly.[1]

This is an example of “hard” tyrannicide.

Tyrannicide – hard and soft – is a reality in the modern world. Just today September 28, 2019,  the former President of Zimbabwe was laid to rest, only in a private ceremony; no State Funeral. He was finally deposed 2 years ago by a military coup that ended his tyrannical rule of 37 years.

Also in the Bahamas in 2017, the parliamentary government in power was overwhelmingly defeated due to the people’s desire to just get rid of what they perceived as an ineffectual and “bottlenecking” Prime Minister. See this quotation from a previous blog-commentary from May 11, 2017:

Title: UPDATE: Understand the Market, Plan the …
“The Prime Minister bet his administration on the prospect of Carnival and now, its election time.”

It’s official, that bet has failed! The Prime Minister (PM) of the Bahamas and leader of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) – Perry G. Christie – has been defeated. …

This commentary has observed-and-reported on the Bahamas for the last 5 years and the “bet” that the PM made was related to more than just Carnival; he also bet on:

  • Music Festival-Event – The Fyre Festival event was a fiasco; it went up in flames on April 28, 2017 after getting government permissions and support beforehand. The mass population of Bahamian stakeholders – other than the government – knew nothing of this event until it was an international embarrassment – a “Black-eye”.
  • Value-Added Tax – New 7.5% Sales & Use tax implementation increased the tax burden on the poor more than the rich.
  • Baha Mar Resort & Casino – $2 Billion Resort & Casino stalled due to government meddling in the Developer-Banker conflict.
  • Grand Bahama (Freeport) – 2nd City economic progress stalled; decisions on extending Investment Tax Credits were inexplicably stalled and extended for 6-month intervals, until it was finally granted for a reasonable period.

So when the outgoing PM dissolved Parliament on April 11, 2017 and called elections for May 10, it was the only chance for the people to vocalize their displeasure. They shouted an almost unanimous veto of Christie’s policies and administration, giving the Opposition Party (Free National Movement) 35 of the 39 seats in the House of Assembly.

The near “unanimous veto” in the Bahamas in May 2017 was an example of a “soft” tyrannicide. (Many of the candidates for Parliament were political novices with no track record, experience or reputation; they were believed to be embraced by the voting public just because they represented a dissenting Party).

The need for economic justice can never be undermined, undervalued or questioned. This was related in many previous Go Lean commentaries; consider this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17267 Way Forward – For Justice: Special Prosecutors
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16668 Justice and Economics – Both needed to forge change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408 Bad Ethos on Home Violence – Spilled into Tourist Resorts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14424 Repairing the Breach: Crime – Need, Greed, Justice & Honor
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14211 Urging to “Enjoy Carnival”, but Be Safe!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11054 Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Bullying in Schools
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5307 8th Violent Crime Warning to Bahamas Tourists – Bad Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392 The World Bank gives Jamaica Economic Help to Mitigate Crime

For the foregoing, the situation in the Dominican Republic is a Cautionary Tale. There must be an adequate response and escalation when there is a threat to the public safety of tourists and trading partners. The subjects must be able to “Dial 911“.

The community institutions themselves must also be able to “Dial 911” and call for additional help:

  • We must protect the economic engines.
  • We must optimize our regional justice institutions.

Both of these missions are in parallel. This is the quest of the Go Lean movement.

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments, citizens, visitors and  trading partners alike – to lean-in to this comprehensive Go Lean roadmap to elevate Caribbean society. We must 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 11 – 13):

iv. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass is in a tropical region, the flora and fauna allows for an inherent beauty that is enviable to peoples near and far. The structures must be strenuously guarded to protect and promote sustainable systems of commerce paramount to this reality.

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. 

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Unequal Justice: Sheriffs and the need for ‘soft’ Tyrannicide

Posted on September 27, 2019 in Ethos, Government, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

The need for justice can never be undermined, undervalued or questioned.

People will abandon everything else – culture, family, home and comforts – in pursuit of justice, for themselves or their children.

This is a familiar cause in the Black community – African descended people – in the New World. The 2013 book Go Lean… Caribbean spoke of the mental disposition of the previous generations that transcended from slavery to full civil rights. The book quotes (Page 21) this as the “community ethos” or “underlying sentiment that informed the beliefs, customs, or practices”:

The African Diaspora experience in the New World [was] one of “future” gratification, as the generations that sought freedom from slavery knew that their children, not them, would be the beneficiaries of that liberty. This ethos continued with subsequent generations expecting that their “children” would be more successful in the future than the parents may have been.

The “success” that these ones sought were for justice first and prosperity later. Consider the example of the Great Northward Migration in the United States. This refers to:

… the movement of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1916 and 1970.[1] In every U.S. Census prior to 1910, more than 90% of the African-American population lived in the American South.[2] In 1900, only one-fifth of African Americans living in the South were living in urban areas.[3] By the end of the Great Migration, just over 50% of the African-American population remained in the South, while a little less than 50% lived in the North and West,[4] and the African-American population had become highly urbanized. By 1960, of those African Americans still living in the South, half now lived in urban areas,[3] and by 1970, more than 80% of African Americans nationwide lived in cities.[5]

The reality of southern rural life for African Americans was that justice was impeded by one institution, often one character: the County Sheriff. (See the academic journal in Appendix A below).

The Sheriff is a legal official with designated responsibility for a local jurisdiction in countries with historical ties to England. In the United States, the scope of the elected Sheriff is most often identified as the chief civil-law enforcement officer and administrator of County jails. [There were 3,081 Sheriff’s offices as of 2015.[4]]

The County Sheriff was often a Bottleneck for justice for the local Black community. This was well illustrated in the classic reggae song about Sheriff “John Brown” by Bob Marley  – see here; (and the lyrics in Appendix C below):

VIDEO – Bob Marley “I Shot The Sheriff” Live at the Rainbow – https://youtu.be/Xa0HOpQRpLM



OFF Productions
More videos on http://www.off.tv Like us on Facebook http://po.st/KKmN8j Follow us on Twitter http://po.st/AuU757

  • Category: Music
  • Song: I Shot The Sheriff (Rainbow, 1978)
  • Artist: Bob Marley
  • Licensed to YouTube by: Aviator Management GmbH (on behalf of Bob Marley)

(People sought refuge and succeeded in their quest for relief and justice by fleeing the jurisdiction of the Sheriff, that State and the whole oppressive racist region of the American South).

Bottlenecks
There is the concept of the Bottlenecks in production design …

… a bottleneck is one process in a chain of processes, such that its limited capacity reduces the capacity of the whole chain. The result of having a bottleneck are stalls in production, supply overstock, pressure from customers and low employee morale.[1] – Source: Wikipedia.

How do we eliminate bottlenecks? By eliminating non-value activities …

In removing all non-value activities, you reduce the amount of redundant tasks performed by the bottlenecked machine [process or person] and hence maximize efficiency.

So it is a quick and easy conclusion that in order to be efficient and effective, bottlenecks must be removed/streamlined from any process. This case-in-point about bottlenecks is a submission from the movement behind the Go Lean…Caribbean book. This book was not designed to address bottlenecks, but rather the Caribbean societal engines: economics, security and governance. It is no doubt that this subject of bottlenecks aligns to each one of these engines. This is because they relate to:

Justice!

There could be a bottleneck in the execution of justice – one person can hold it up, prevent it and subvert it. When this is the case, there is the need to eliminate the obstacle. This is called “tyrannicide“. In fact, the subject of tyrannicide opens this series on “Unequal Justice” from the movement behind the Go Lean book for September 2019. While the Latin root word “cide” refers to killing or slaughter – think: suicide and homocide – we are NOT advocating any kind of assassination of political leaders. No, we are not encouraging any form of violence; rather the advocacy here is for a “soft” tyrannicide – legally removing all persons that may be a stumbling block or bottleneck in the execution of justice in the societal engines – these persons, despite their claims of being “heroes”, are really “villains”.  The full series is cataloged as follows:

  1. Unequal Justice: Soft Tyrannicide to Eliminate Bottlenecks
  2. Unequal Justice: Economic Crimes Against Tourists and Bullying
  3. Unequal Justice: Envy and the Seven Deadly Sins
  4. Unequal Justice: Student Loans Could Dictate Justice

In this series, reference is made to the need for a comprehensive roadmap for elevating the societal engines of the 30 Caribbean member-states. We need to always ensure justice institutions are optimized in the region, otherwise people flee in search of refuge. The need for justice transcends borders, politics, class and race. People feel justified to pursue justice – as a religious devotion – if not for themselves, then for their children.

The need for justice can never be undermined, undervalued or questioned. This was related in many previous Go Lean commentaries; consider this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18100 Cop-on-Black Shootings in America’s DNA
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17667 Is the US a ‘Just’ Society? Hardly!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14413 Repairing the Breach: ‘Hurt People Hurt People’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13476 Future Focused – Policing the Police
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10222 Waging a Successful War on ‘Terrorism’ and Bullying
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5238 Prisoners for Profit – Abuses in the Prison Industrial Complex
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5304 Mitigating the Eventual ‘Abuse of Power’

For the foregoing, the American South, tyrannicide was achieved by removing the racist Sheriffs from office. This was accomplished by defeating them at the ballot box – see the example in Appendix B. The people that fled – in the Great Migration – did not defeat the Sheriffs,  the bottlenecks for justice. No, it was those that stayed; thusly, the reformation took very long.

This is also the advocacy of the Go Lean movement.

Many Caribbean people have fled their homeland and this region. They cannot bring the required  change if they are absent! It is our assertion that it is easier to reform and transform the Caribbean rather than trying to fix the societal life for Caribbean people abroad in a foreign land.

This theme – urging Caribbean people to Stay Home and Return Home – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11314 The Need to Stay Home: Forging a Home Addiction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10654 Stay Home! Immigration Realities in the US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15123 ‘Time to Go’ – Blacks get longer sentences from ‘Republican’ Judges
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9216 Time to Go: No Respect for our Hair

Life in the Diaspora is not easy; and not always just. The Black-and-Brown of the Caribbean continue to encounter repression, oppression and suppression in the foreign communities of  North America and Europe. If justice is the goal – it should be – then it is easier to forge justice and mitigate institutional abuse here in the Caribbean homeland. It still takes heavy-lifting, but there is a better chance for success here.

We must learn the lessons of the history of the American South – it was those that remained that reformed and transformed their communities. Not those that left. (North Carolina now has 20 Black Sheriffs out of their 100 counties).

i.e. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was a Baptist Minister in Atlanta, Georgia, after starting his Civil Rights career in Montgomery, Alabama. His enunciated dream was for freedom to reign:

… from the Stone Mountains of Georgia,

… from Lookout Mountain in Tennessee,

… from every hill and molehill in Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

Let freedom … and justice reign in the Caribbean; in every member-state and for all the people. This is our Dream!

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments, residents and Diaspora – to lean-in to this comprehensive Go Lean roadmap to elevate Caribbean society. This is how we can 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 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 A – JOURNAL ARTICLE: Race and the County Sheriff in the American South 

…
Because of their wide powers and multiple roles, sheriffs played a particularly notable role in the region’s racial history. Nearly all white and male, and overwhelmingly Democrat, southern sheriffs were linchpins in the maintenance of white supremacy and its class-base and race-based privileges. Exercising broad discretionary powers in the enforcement of the law, county sheriffs helped reproduce the complex set of social taboos and practices that made up Jim Crow society. Sheriffs were not only empowered to arrest and jail, but to fail to arrest and jail. By acceding to the wishes of white elites, sheriffs administered the racial paternalism that helped keep southern blacks beholden to their white patrons, securing their cheap labor for agrarian or industrial capitalists and suppressing their ability to resist the reproduction of white hegemony.

Sheriffs, through their authority over the local jails, were generally responsible for the custody of those arrested, and played a prominent role in the lynching incidents that were so important to subduing the black unrest.

…

See the full journal article … at this source:

Moore, T. (1997). Race and the County Sheriff in the American South. International Social Science Review, 72(1/2), 50-61. Retrieved September 27, 2019 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41882228

————

Appendix B – First African American female sheriff is woman enough to fill big boots

For now, history will not be made in Washington with America’s first female president. But, here in Texas, we have quietly made history this month swearing in the state’s first African American female sheriff.

Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens took her oath in front of a packed audience in Beaumont, where she promised to get back to the basics of law enforcement with greater transparency and community engagement. Stephens spoke of being humbled by all the support, describing her November win as a team effort. “Our community made history,” she said.

…

Stephens is now one of only two black women in America to hold the job of sheriff. Yet, she does not concern herself much with the record books or her admission into a very impressive brotherhood of peace officers. (That includes Walter Moses Burton, who, in 1869, was elected the first black sheriff in Texas by the voters of Fort Bend County.)

…

See the full article here: Dallas Morning News – Posted January 13, 2017; retrieved September 27, 2019 from: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/01/13/first-african-american-female-sheriff-is-woman-enough-to-fill-big-boots/

————

Appendix C – I Shot the Sheriff – Lyrics by Bob Marley

Chorus:
(I shot the sheriff
But I didn’t shoot no deputy, oh no! Oh!
I shot the sheriff
But I didn’t shoot no deputy, ooh, ooh, oo-ooh.)

Yeah! All around in my home town,
They’re tryin’ to track me down;
They say they want to bring me in guilty
For the killing of a deputy,
For the life of a deputy.
But I say:

Oh, now, now. Oh!
(I shot the sheriff.) – the sheriff.
(But I swear it was in self-defence.)
Oh, no! (Ooh, ooh, oo-oh) Yeah!
I say: I shot the sheriff – Oh, Lord! –
(And they say it is a capital offence.)
Yeah! (Ooh, ooh, oo-oh) Yeah!

Sheriff John Brown always hated me,
For what, I don’t know:
Every time I plant a seed,
He said kill it before it grow –
He said kill them before they grow.
And so:

Read it in the news:
(I shot the sheriff.) Oh, Lord!
(But I swear it was in self-defence.)
Where was the deputy? (Oo-oo-oh)
I say: I shot the sheriff,
But I swear it was in selfdefence. (Oo-oh) Yeah!

Freedom came my way one day
And I started out of town, yeah!
All of a sudden I saw sheriff John Brown
Aiming to shoot me down,
So I shot – I shot – I shot him down and I say:
If I am guilty I will pay.

(I shot the sheriff,)
But I say (But I didn’t shoot no deputy),
I didn’t shoot no deputy (oh, no-oh), oh no!
(I shot the sheriff.) I did!
But I didn’t shoot no deputy. Oh! (Oo-oo-ooh)

Reflexes had got the better of me
And what is to be must be:
Every day the bucket a-go a well,
One day the bottom a-go drop out,
One day the bottom a-go drop out.
I say:

I – I – I – I shot the sheriff.
Lord, I didn’t shot the deputy. Yeah!
I – I (shot the sheriff) –
But I didn’t shoot no deputy, yeah! No, yeah!

Source: Retrieved September 27, 2019 from: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobmarley/ishotthesheriff.html 

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After Dorian, Rebuilding Partners: China Versus America

Posted on September 25, 2019 in Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There are a number of phases of post-Hurricane activities:

  • Rescue
  • Relief
  • Restoration
  • Recovery
  • Rebuilding

After Hurricane Dorian, the rescue operations in the Northern Bahamas is now done – 54 people have officially been counted as dead due to this storm – though it is widely accepted that the death toll will increase … once all the family notifications are complete.

Relief supplies are being funneled to the victims and displaced people have been relocated to temporary housing options. Power is being restored in some areas. The recovery is on the way; it is time now to think about rebuilding … and who will profit from it.

So for the Bahamas, its time to take stock of who are your friends and who are only “strangers”.

In your hour of need, the big Super Power, the United States of America, extended some help but drew a line, thereby making this statement:

You’re just a neighbor; you are not family.
[This translates to: “You’re Not Welcome”.]

See this exemplified in this news article here:

Title: US Official Says No Protected Status For People Fleeing The Bahamas
A senior official in the administration of President Donald Trump has been quoted by CBS News as saying that the US will not be granting protected status to people fleeing hurricane destruction in Bahamas.

It’s something the Trump administration had said was a possibility, as the White House seeks to restrict the flow of immigrants into the country.

Some persons are permitted to live and work in the United States under a program known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

It is estimated that some 300,000 have qualified after fleeing their countries because of war, hurricanes, earthquakes or other conditions that make life dangerous in their native countries.

According to NBC News the status would have allowed Bahamians to work and live in the U.S. until it is deemed safe to return home.

Bahamians will be permitted to enter the United States temporarily if they have the correct travel documents, but will not be granted work permits, it was reported.
…
See the full story here: Posted September 13, 2019; retrieved September 24, 2019 from: https://stluciatimes.com/us-official-says-no-protected-status-for-people-fleeing-the-bahamas/

Rebuilding will mean new budgets, supplies, equipment, construction labor and architectural-design services. So now is the time to start profit-taking from the rebuild activities. Who do we share that profit with: America or China; or maybe some other entity. Well, these same Americans, who quickly declared “Not Welcome” are quick to “call dibs” on a “piece of the profit pie”. See a related news story here:

Title: Rubio: U.S. must rebuild Bahamas
The United States cannot allow China to exploit the recovery and rebuilding of The Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian for its own nefarious purposes and gain “a foothold just 50 miles from the coast of Florida”, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said on Saturday.

“By targeting the Bahamian government in this period of crisis, Beijing would be making the same opportunistic play to access critical foreign infrastructure,” Rubio wrote in an op-ed in the Miami Herald.

“But in this case, the national security threat is especially perilous, as it would give China a foothold just 50 miles from the coast of Florida.

“We cannot allow this to happen. It is on us to take the lead in helping the Bahamian people with their near-term, life-or-death struggle as only the U.S. and our military can, but also to be reliable partners over the long term.” …

See the full article here: The Nassau Guardian – Posted September 16, 2019; retrieved September 24, 2019 from: https://thenassauguardian.com/2019/09/16/rubio-u-s-must-rebuild-bahamas/

Concerns about China? There is reason for America to be competitive with China, as the Chinese are here in the Caribbean too; with their own agenda for national development. See this article petitioning for their help in rebuilding parts of the Bahamas:

Title: Speaker: China Should Consider Developing Southeast Bahamas
By: Khrisna Russell, Deputy Chief Reporter

HOUSE Speaker Halson Moultrie yesterday recommended to a People’s Republic of China delegation that its country consider developing the southeast region of the Bahamas to shift the population concentration from the northwest Bahamas.

It was also his suggestion that China help this country with relocating the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services from New Providence to Little Inagua.

Speaker Moultrie made the recommendations during a courtesy call with Dr Cai Dafend, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China.

Dr Dafend and a 14-member delegation held brief discussions in the Senate with the Speaker, his deputy Donald Saunders and Chief Clerk David Forbes Friday.

At the time, the Chinese official announced his government would give an additional $500,000US to the Bahamas for Hurricane Dorian relief efforts.

…

See the full article here: Bahamas Daily Newspaper The Tribune – Posted September 20, 2019; retrieved September 24, 2019 from: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2019/sep/20/speaker-china-should-consider-developing-southeast/

China versus America …

… can we be any more “lucky” to have admiring suitors – from competing Super Powers – willing to lend us a development hand.

We give China a “scholarship” that they may be viewed as a Super Power. While their Single Market GDP is smaller than the USA, only by a little, their transformation in the last 40 years cannot be ignored; nor their 1.3 billion population. – see this VIDEO here from a previous blog-commentary:

VIDEO – How China became the world’s second largest economy – https://youtu.be/_sV5P_F3frY

CNN Business
Published on Oct 6, 2015 – More than 500 million people have been lifted out of poverty since China’s economic reforms began in 1978.

What is America’s motive? ? According to a previous blog-commentary, the United States of America has always assumed that the Caribbean is in their sphere of influence … exclusively; (even going to war to ensure it; think Cuba, Grenada & Panama). This was the summary of that blog’s assertions:

  • … We can always count on America to pursue what’s in America’s best interest, and this may not always align with Caribbean objectives. So we must take our own lead for our own self-interest.
  • American priorities change with presidential administrations

What is China’s motive? According to this previous blog-commentary, China is simply executing America’s Expansionism Playbook:

… the same playbook of the United States of America in building the world’s largest Single Market economy. (Remember, with the Army Corp of Engineers, the US built the Panama Canal, but with more strings attached). China is simply following the same American script – minus the cronyism and militarism – of promoting trade of their products, services and capital.

Capital? Yes, many of the projects highlighted in the foregoing news articles are being financed by China’s state-owned banks and lending institutions. They are “putting their money, where their mouth is”. These are economic battles only!

So beyond America and China, where else can we turn?

It would be a nice thought if the Bahamas could turn to their neighbors, to come to their aid. This is the quest of the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean: to consolidate, integrate and streamline Caribbean member-states so as to be prepared for and to respond after disasters in the region. The book declares that all of the Caribbean is in crisis, but that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. It is only at the precipice do people change! We should now re-think any previous objection to regionalism.

Yes indeed, the Caribbean member-states should take the lead for our best self-determination. We should do the heavy-lifting ourselves!

While this quest is easier said than done, it is conceivable, believable and achievable to pursue this aspiration.

The Go Lean book asserts that a unified, integrated Single Market of all 30 Caribbean member-states would represent a $800 Billion economy. The solutions will be there for a leveraged entity – introduced as the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – to be “On Guard” for all regional challenges, including the new reality of Climate Change in the Caribbean. The book presents many strategies, tactics and implementations to address the development and funding (capital) needs in the region, before, during and after hurricanes.

This theme – standing up together to tackle the challenges of tropical life – aligns with previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17559 Dealing with Hurricane Seasons – Year after Year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17282 Way Forward – For True Independence: Territory Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17135 Way Forward – Caribbean States Learn their status with America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996 Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15886 Industrial Reboot for Caribbean Casualty Insurance & Reinsurance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15310 Industrial Reboot for Medical Emergencies – Trauma 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12466 Being On Guard for Unstable ‘Volcano States’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9038 Post-Disaster Charity Management – Caribbean People Must Grow Up Already!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963 ‘Like a Good Neighbor’ – Being there for each Caribbean Community
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7449 ‘Crap Happens’ – Hurricanes, Earthquakes, etc. – So What Now?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103 Sum of All Fears – ‘On Guard’ Against Deadly Threats

The Bahamas and other Caribbean member-states have consistently been parasites of the American hegemony…

… do we now want to be parasites of China.

The answer is an emphatic No! Rather than parasites, we want to be protégés.

This is the quest and the position of the Go Lean roadmap, that …

Yes, We Can …

… we can work together to reboot our Caribbean homeland; we can rescue, relieve, restore, recover and rebuild … with own resources and on own our terms. We can do the heavy-lifting ourselves to 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 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 11 – 13):

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

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

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

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.

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After Dorian, Housing Needs: Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda – Encore

Posted on September 24, 2019 in Economics, Government, Industries

“We cannot wait for it to rain to buy an umbrella.” – Old Adage 

There is the need for housing … in rain and shine. This is why we put sound roofs on our homes. We fortify them to withstand unsavory conditions.

In everyone’s life, a little rain must fall.

So everyone needs to anticipate the delivery of basic needs despite the presence of inclement weather. This is doubly true for the Caribbean … during hurricane season.

Category 5 Hurricane Dorian just devastated the Northern Bahama Islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama; some 70,000 people have directly been impacted; many of them are now homeless. What are they to do … now?

What are we to do? (The Bahamas is a “common”-wealth, so everyone is responsible for everyone – this is Democratic Socialism personified). It seems like the Bahamas is only now scrambling with this question, looking for answers. They are currently considering the housing solutions of:

Tents 

Say, it ain’t so!

This solution is far from being welcomed. The people are responding. The best imagery of this experience is being conveyed to the watching world with a religious analogy. While the impact of Hurricane Dorian is being described as “Hell on Earth“, the prospect of the survivors now living in tents is being described as “Purgatory“; see the news story here:

Title: Purgatory in paradise: Bahamas tent cities to house Dorian survivors
By: Zachary Fagenson 
NASSAU, Bahamas (Reuters) – For some Bahamians who escaped death but lost their homes in Hurricane Dorian’s hellish rampage over the islands of Freeport and Great Abaco, life in the tent shelters erected this week seems like purgatory.

“We feel like we’re caged right now,” said Dana Lafrance, a 35-year-old mother of five, who is one of hundreds of people living in a massive tent set up to extend the capacity of a gymnasium housing storm evacuees in central Nassau, the capital of the former British colony.

As evacuees from the devastated islands continue to flow in, the Bahamas Gaming Operators Association said on Tuesday it had built more than 15,000 square feet (1,394 square meters) of air-conditioned, tent housing for more than 800 people. Some 295 people were staying in those tents on Wednesday, Bahamian officials said.

More will come, with officials planning to erect two “tent city” relief centers capable of housing around 4,000 people around hard-hit Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island, John Michael-Clark, co-chairman of the Bahamas’ disaster relief and reconstruction committee, told reporters this week.
…
See the full article here: Reuters News Source – Posted September 11, 2019; retrieved September 23, 2019 from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-dorian-tent-cities/purgatory-in-paradise-bahamas-tent-cities-to-house-dorian-survivors-idUSKCN1VW2BY

So looking at the issue of emergency housing for hurricane refugees in the Bahamas, clearly there is a “Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda” exercise now as to what to do. We needed to have a plan … in advance. We didn’t need “to wait until it rains to acquire an umbrella”.

This we did!

This was the quest of the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book presented the challenges and solutions – such as Prefab Housing (Page 207) – for the new reality of Climate Change in the Caribbean. The movement presented many strategies, tactics and implementations to address housing needs in the region, before, during and after hurricanes. See here, this previous Go Lean blog-commentary from July 14, 2018 that addressed the landscape of pre-fabricated housing.. It is only apropos to Encore that previous blog-commentary here-now:

———————-

Go Lean Commentary – Industrial Reboot – Prefab Housing 101 

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 )

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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

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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

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After Dorian, ‘Fool Me Twice’ on Flooding

Posted on September 18, 2019 in Government, Implementation, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

A Caribbean island – the Northern Bahamas island of Grand Bahama – just got hit with a once in a lifetime Category 5 Hurricane Dorian. Once in a lifetime for a dog (average life span 12 – 15 years), but not for a human (average lifespan 70 – 80 years). No, this island was equally devastated by the following storms:

  • Hurricane Frances (August 2004) – Several feet of water flooded the international airport at Freeport.[28] In the Bahamas, insurers and reinsurers estimated industry insured losses at about $300 million (2004 dollars).[29]
  • Hurricane Jeanne (September 2004) – Because Hurricane Frances struck only about two weeks prior, numerous houses were still patched with plastic sheeting on their roofs, while other residents were still living with neighbors or relatives. Officials urged residents in low-lying homes to evacuate. Shelters were set up at the churches and schools on Abaco Islands, Eleuthera and Grand Bahama.
  • Hurricane Wilma (2005) – The hurricane produced hurricane-force winds[38] and a powerful storm surge, flooding southwestern coastal areas of Grand Bahama and destroying hundreds of buildings. In western settlements on the island of Grand Bahama, graves were washed up with skeletal remains lying in the streets. Damage totaled about $100 million almost entirely on the western half of the island. The central portion of Grand Bahama, including in and around Freeport, reported minor to moderate damage, while the eastern end received little to no damage.[39]

Get it?! Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!

Who’s fooling who?

The culprit here is Mother Nature, yes, but there are other stakeholders to blame; think:

  • Public Works / Infrastructure – Surely with such a preponderance to flood, storm water management and solutions must be put in place. Think: levies, dykes, sea walls, and parks as storm retention ponds; see VIDEO below.
  • Insurance Companies – Reports are that insurance carriers are reticent to cover flood casualty; see Appendix below.

So ‘Shame on Freeport’ for not remediating the threats of storm surge, in the 15 years since Hurricane Frances. This is NOT the product of learning from the “Cautionary Tales” of the many low-lying urban areas around the world; think New Orleans, Louisiana, USA or the European country of Holland (or The Netherlands).

Flood control is not a luxury for those communities, nor should it be for Grand Bahama Island; it must be embedded in the Way Forward for Freeport. According to a previous blog-commentary, “there is a thesis that flooding could be prevented”. The Dutch experience and their historicity in flood control provides lessons-learned for us; (see the Appendix VIDEO on the lessons from The Netherlands).

More than just low-lying communities are affected; every coastal community needs to be On Guard. See the mitigation plans here being pursued in some communities, with the adoption of spill-ways and retention ponds to handle storm surges:

VIDEO – Storm-resistant parks are helping cities defend themselves against flooding – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/storm-resistant-parks-that-are-helping-cities-defend-themselves-from-flooding-2019-09-17/

Posted September 17, 2019 – Flooding from storm surges and heavy rainfall can be one of the most devastating effects of storms — and scientists say Climate Change is making those storms worse. Often, engineers build barriers like sea walls and levees to protect coastal cities. But now, there’s a new, prettier approach: public parks that are also storm-resistant.

One of those parks, Hunter’s Point South Park, sits on the edge of New York’s East River. The park boasts rows of seasonal plants, winding paths, and breathtaking views. But that’s not all: the flower beds disguise a ditch and filtration system that captures water and slowly releases it back into the river; synthetic turf absorbs water, too.

“In a big, heavy storm, we almost have a half a million gallons of water being held here, detained, until the tide or the storm leaves, and then it goes right back to the river,” said Tom Balsley, who designed the park with Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss.
…
See the full transcript of this episode in this Series, in the link here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/storm-resistant-parks-that-are-helping-cities-defend-themselves-from-flooding-2019-09-17/

About This Series
In our “Eye on Earth” series, we’re looking ahead to a landmark United Nations Climate Action Summit next week. CBS News is the only broadcast network participating in the “Covering Climate Now” Project, in partnership with 250 other news outlets. We’re highlighting the health of our planet with our own original reporting.

Climate Change is now our reality. One storm after another will always be a threat for Caribbean communities – Rinse and Repeat is more than just a “Shampoo Instruction” here, its our daily weather report. We would be fools not to be prepared. So being On Guard was the motivation for the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. It identified these 4 Agents of Change affecting the Caribbean region …

  • Climate Change
  • Technology
  • Globalization
  • Aging Diaspora

… and prioritized Climate Change as the paramount threat.

This theme – Better Water Management and Flood Mitigation in the wake of Climate Change – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18228 After Dorian, The Science of Power Restoration
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13155 Industrial Reboot – Pipelines and other Public Works
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12856 Hurricane Flooding – ‘Who Knew?’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12724 Lessons from Colorado: Water Management Arts & Sciences
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7235 Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale in Water Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817 Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought

The Go Lean book addressed the heavy-lighting that Caribbean communities need to do to strengthen their infrastructure for the realities of this new threatening world, where coastal flooding is a constant. There is the need to reboot our Public Works!

The book posits that a Caribbean region Public Works reboot may be too big for any one member-state alone; there is the need to consolidate and confederate a Single Market entity to successfully reform and transform our societal engines. That Single Market entity is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This is the actual title of one advocacy in the Go Lean book. Consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines here from Page 175, entitled:

10 Ways to Impact Public Works

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market entity: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU)
The CU is chartered to unify the Caribbean region into one single market of 42 million people across 30 member-states, thereby re-engineering the economic engines in and on behalf of the region, including a currency & monetary union. This new eco-system allows for the design, funding and construction of Public  Works and Infrastructural projects. …There are a number of inter-state projects that must be coordinated on the federal level. There will also be projects that are “Too Big for One State” that will be facilitated by the CU. …
2 Union Atlantic Turnpike
3 Pipelines and PCP (Pneumatic Capsule Pipeline)
4 Regional Power Grid
5 Self-Governing Entities (SGE)

The CU will promote and administer SGE’s throughout the region; these include industrial parks, hospitals, prisons, scientific labs, foreign military bases. SGE’s are only subject to CU laws, so they are self-regulated in terms of zoning and monopolies. Thus the SGE’s will yield many Public Works initiatives, spin-off jobs and economic activities.
6 Enterprise Zones
7 Empowerment Zones
8 Monopolies

The UN grants the CU the monopoly rights for an Exclusive Economic Zone, so the focus must be on quality delivery. The CU plan is to liberalize management of monopolies, with tools like ratings/rankings against best practices. Plus technological accommodations for ICT allows for cross-competition from different modes (satellite, cable, phone).
9 Cooperatives
10 Capital Markets

A Single Market and currency union will allow for the emergence of viable capital markets for stocks and bonds (public and private), thereby creating the economic engine to fuel growth and development. This forges financial products for “pre” disaster project funding (drainage, levies, dykes, sea walls) and post disaster recovery (reinsurance sidecars)

In summary, we do not want to be fools by NOT preparing for the next flood. It is coming! This should be a real concern for all Caribbean communities; this especially should be a priority for Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas:

You have been hit with a 20 foot storm surge … twice! Now – no excuses – you must build levies, dykes, sea walls and storm-resistant parks as depicted in the foregoing VIDEO.

Insurance companies will be disinclined to write flood-casualty policies without such a mitigation – they are not fools. Their business model is all about identifying risks, mitigating and managing risk:

  • Hurricane Dorian is “definitely the biggest event” that we have encountered – See story in the Appendix below.
  • “Bahamian property and casualty insurers, which have relatively thin capital bases of their own compared to their developed country counterparts, buy huge quantities of reinsurance annually to help spread/minimize the risks they underwrite”. – Source.
  • “… we need to be aware of things like flooding, prepare accordingly and pay attention to it.” – Source.
  • ‘Reinsurance‘ is a vital industrial strategy for the Caribbean Way Forward; see previous blog-commentary here.

So to Freeport, and the rest of the Caribbean, if you do NOT want to become a Ghost Town, you must engage these mitigations. This is how we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play, by working together to reboot our infrastructure to ensure that after the inevitable storms, we can still rebuild, restore and recover. 🙂

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):

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

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

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

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.

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Appendix – Title: $500m Dorian Payout ‘Biggest I Have Seen’
By NEIL HARTNELL, Tribune Business Editor
Insurers yesterday estimated that Hurricane Dorian claims payouts could “easily exceed” $500m, with one top executive revealing: “It’s definitely the biggest event I’ve ever seen.”

Tim Ingraham, Summit Insurance Company’s president, told Tribune Business that the industry wanted the damage assessment and claims process “to be moving a lot quicker” but had been frustrated by the difficulties associated with accessing the parts of Abaco hardest hit by the category five storm.

His counterpart at RoyalStar Assurance, Anton Saunders, added that the entire Bahamian property and casualty industry was “trying every possible solution” to get loss adjusters into Marsh Harbour and the surrounding Abaco cays so that the process of damages and claims assessment could begin in earnest more than a week after the battering from Dorian.

Pledging that claims will be “fairly paid” based on each individual insurance contract, Mr Saunders reassured Bahamian homeowners and businesses that RoyalStar and the other local underwriters would “stand by them through thick and thin”.

He also urged clients “not to be alarmed” by the release from AM Best, the international insurance credit rating agency, that placed four property and casualty insurers – Bahamas First, RoyalStar, Security and General Insurance and Summit – “under review” as a result of the likely nine-figure claims payouts that will result from the devastation inflicted by Dorian.
…
“There’s going to be a significant number of people uninsured or underinsured. In the past a large number of persons have been underinsured, but we can’t speak to this loss precisely because it’s very difficult to get into … ”
…
Mr Ingraham and Mr Saunders differed on whether Dorian’s payout will impact Bahamian property and casualty premium rates moving forward, with the former arguing it was likely to contribute to an increase and the latter deferring an answer until RoyalStar spoke to its reinsurers.

See the full story here, posted September 10, 2019 and retrieved September 18, 2019 from: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2019/sep/10/500m-dorian-payout-biggest-i-have-seen/

Related Story: Insurer’s Flood Claims Equal 30% Of Profits

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Appendix VIDEO  – Sea change: How the Dutch confront the rise of the oceans – https://youtu.be/3J5ZoPFhSGM

Posted August 27, 2017 – Windmills are more than just a traditional part of the Dutch landscape; they have played a key role in the war the Dutch have been waging against the ocean for the past thousand years. Our Cover Story is reported by Martha Teichner. (This story was previously broadcast on May 21, 2017.)

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