Well a big Merry Christmas from the PLP Bahamians! Hope you enjoy everything this government did for us as citizens!

I can't believe this sh&t

The offshore financial services industry is now at risk. Who in their right minds would deposit their funds in a country that has a junk rating? You see, now that the government has squeezed the Bahamian consumer dry with VAT, who will they soak next? Foreign bank accounts, trust funds, mutual funds, second homes, income taxes, taxes on corporate dividends? What will they do next to raise money?

The real property tax bills have gone up so much they haven't even mailed them to the people. What are they going to do next? Start confiscating family homes for real property tax?

What the hell are you saying, that they can go into peoples personal bank accounts? Christ O Mighty lets not even go there, are you suggesting everyone should withdraw their savings as fast as they can, F the PLP!

My friends, you all really need to unite and march as one, forget about who's going to be there, you really need to march and have your voices heard. I still can't believe this has happened so soon, I though it would take at least one more year; F-ing unbelievable! Mass Exodus is right, that's what your going to see soon.

Bahamar should have been opened 2 years ago save for our bumbling government. Let me see birdiestrachan explain this one. We are so F@#ked by the magnitude of the incompetence of this government.

Thanks to the PLP, the next administration is going to have a Herculean task of turning the country around. Bahamians had better be prepared for several years of pain to bring the Bahamas economy out of ICU. The next government is going to have no choice but to greatly reduce public spending and increase VAT. On top of that, NIB contributions are going to have to rise to plug some of the state pension under funding. What a mess! The PLP should NEVER be allowed to govern this country again.

NEVER AGAIN!

Believe it my friend, I even wrote your worthless dumbass leader a letter warning him this would happen one and a half years ago and the a$$hole returned my letter without even opening it....So I laugh in your stupid big ass face Christie.....LOL!!!!! Your as stupid as you F-ing look, a F-ing jackass in a $2,500 John Gotti business suit!

Where did the Money go??? we have to shake down some people.

No. Just look around. Check out those expensive decorations downtown and on Arawak Cay.

Bahamas 2.0
This is what that looks like.

They should have used the $340,000 that they paid to Neville Whizdumb for the granny-panties Christmas decorations to pay off some of the debt.

The ramifications are huge. If we get another hurricane Matthew, we will not be able to pay for the reconstruction. This will affect the amount of capital reserves that the country is required to hold to maintain the value of its foreign debt. This will push us closer to bond covenant default. We will have to pay more to import goods for infrastructure. This will curtail Foreign Direct Investment -- our country's creditworthiness is junk.

The PLP have spent money like drunken sailors. They have enriched themselves and destroyed the country. Baha Mar cannot save the country. The only thing that can save it, is a total diversification and re-deployment of the economy.

Looks like one them hundreds tourists that tooks pictures $334,000 ungodly ugly Christmas tree wraps, sent picture to Standard & Poor's?
Comrades! Don't you think Standard & Poor's, noticed how easy it is in Bahamaland to design ugly and then get state funds to pay you $334,000?
Whether Neville and the PLP cabinet want be only ones willing stake their artistic reputations to characterize this ungodly ugly tree wraps as the arts is they business, but it has little to do with the question of whether state funds should fund this ugly crap, cause after 43 years in the decorating business someone thinks he deserves to make a living from it now that he is no longer in the PLP's Cabinet?
Now to the claim that, “As a condition of the contract, decorations used are now the property of the Ministry of Tourism.” For fuc@ sake taxpayers would hope they didn't rent this crap for $334,000, although does anyone really want pay state funds warehouse this crap to reappear next Christmas?
More likes build big bond fire at the dump to permanently incinerate this tree wrap 'art,' likes they does with a body.
Yeah, hundreds tourists took pictures but they will need more than a thousand words to articulately describe to their friends what in hell it is they tooks once they return back home.

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Well done. The next step will be the devaluation of the dollar. Come on Perry and Michael finish the job. Merry Christmas from Perry and his Golden Knights

Scary stuff. Every year the PLP has bad news for us at Christmas. VAT launch Christmas 2014. VAT depression, hurt and dismay Christmas 2015, now S&P downgrade Christmas 2016 but our govt officials don't give a rat's a$$ as long as they get theirs...

Brainless, thieving bastards.

> Loretta Butler-Turner, the Opposition’s leader in the House of Assembly, responded: “Oh my God, this is not a good Christmas. We’ve obviously gone over that precipice that I’ve been talking about for some time.”

Brilliant response...

Absolutely top notch

One insult after another.
This country has the ability to be the best little nation on the planet, but obviously not with any of the thieving bozos that have been given the privilege to f*^k it up over the last few years.
Need a brand new government with brand new MP's and we need it NOW.

Also Keep an eye on Shane Gibson with all this wag the dog he's going under the radar without any accountability regarding the disbursement of hurricane funds.

Get all the the lying cheating thieves out!

You put a gardiner at the controls if a jet, it ga crash. What you expect? Majority rule = majority fool.

Comrade BahamasPundit, what a racist statement.
Let me take wild guess that you never read the Royal Commission of Inquiry report about how easily for but a few hundred dollars month in consultancy fees being delivered in envelops containing cash to look the other way to allow gambling, how it became so easy for the Man out Freeport to have corrupted the white and lick-da-brush Bay Street Boys - lawyers, businessman's doctors and many more who were done considered wealthy. Some them still alive today and considered the pillars of elites society.
Casinos back in the day. Numbers came later. Same damn thing, right?

He's right. Swindling out Bay-Street-Boys the Bay Street Boys. Our first Prime Minister put white collar criminality on a new level -- drug running. It isn't a racist statement. Post-independence politicians can't keep their peckers in their pants and their hands out of the money jar. That's the God's truth. It seems that the slave mentality still prevails and prevents enlightenment, altruism and patriotism. You are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

> You put a gardiner at the controls if a jet, it ga crash

A gardiner?

How about "anyone but a trained pilot"......The point is valid.

we've been heading in this direction for sometime. looking at the PLP performance that had plenty to do with where we are, and looking at the quality of recent Senate appointments, i don't think there is any reason for hope. we used to laugh at our Caribbean neighbours and how much better we were economically, well look at us now...

Stop over stating the impact or import of Senate appointments. Our senate is a meaningless and way too expense rubber stamp. For what they do we could go to Wong's and have them manufacture a rubber stamp for "Senate Approved" for less than twenty dollars.

Went downhill from that day!! The Bahamas can be the best little country but we have idiots running the country into the ground. Of course they will say the S&P are wrong but people are awakening to the bs propaganda spewed by these idiots today. I hope and pray we can get over this in 2017.

Every member of this crooked, corrupt, government needs to be investigated and all of our tax dollars returned then put in jail. SIMPLE

Who will do this work BMW? Certainly NOT Hubert Minnis and the same ole gang. Who will do this work for the sake of the Bahamas and not themselves?

I guess this is why the Chinese are the only ones who want want to invest their junk value chingrets (yuan) in our junk status country.....

They just want to p*ss off the Americans, being 90 miles of Miami.

My F'n god! What a holly mess this crap a$$ government has gotten us in to. Listen PLP's - would you hire these useless sub-humans to manage the finances of your personal business or even your personal savings account?
.
For every dollar in revenue these a$$holes get, they mussy spending ten. And this has been going on for years. They keep saying they need to raise more money. WTF! They need access to LESS money. In fact... they shouldn't have access to ANY F'N MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
If I didn't have a family to support I would slap the teeth out of Perry's huge mouth!

Tal my friend. Call me a racist too if you want but what majority ( BLACK BROWN YELLOW skinned ) ruled country is a success or even a break even.
You can go up and down non Arab Africa and not one of these countries is worth a tinkers dam. Which independent Caribbean country is not broke and going over the edge. This is a problem that only black people can fix. Nothing to do with Whitey.
South Africa with all its GOLD is on the bread line and not far behind Zimbabwe where they can't even use their own bloody money anymore. There is nothing RACIST about FACTS !!

Tal is one of those who profited off PLP cronyism. Calls it just business.

What we need is a Commission of Inquiry to find out how these assholes spent the BILLION dollars of VAT money. This shit is right out of hand. Brave has an interest in a road paving company that just happens to be the company that gets the sub-contracting for MOW. And Christies Autistic son is a pools and waterways contractor. And his other son Stefan was the agent for Mosko in selling the British Colonial Hotel to the Chinks.
The AG's husband has a bunch of retail shops at Baha Mar, and probably many more at The Pointe. This S & P downgrade is the thin edge of the wedge. Next we will run low on hard currency ( USD ) and Christie / Halkitas will have to beg the IMF to lend us some money to tide us over till BAHA MAR opens. But the IMF will say "fine" but you must devalue your Bahamian Dollar because you have to cut your costs that depend on Foreign Currency receipts. After they screwed Izmirlian what investor will ever come here again. Not frigging one.

Do we really need to pay for a useless commission or demand a transparent government, with open books and a freedom of information act? Maybe we need a senior civil servant with the balls to release the information to the public.

I think there are some new topics for the January 9th We March.

'We March' needs to be organized in front of Perry's house - not Parliament! Doesn't Brave live in Westridge? A march from Perry's house to Brave's would be more effective I think. Wherever Perry goes that day we need protestors to follow his useless fuck'n ass!!!

Comrade MonkeeDoo, I would never label someone as a racists, only commenting its overtone sounded be directed at black politicians.

Next stop....DEVALUATION!

You got that right. As an economist, you should know that when you downgrade, and the reserves consists of hard currency fiat debt, the reserve level must increase to compensate. If they can't find more hard currency for the reserves (they had to borrow a couple of hundred million a few months ago), then the Bahamian dollar will have to be devalued. It will be interesting to see the juggling to hold that off.

And shortly after that a Venezuelan style standard of living....and there's absolutely nothing that corrupt incompetent politicians like Christie, Minnis, LBT and McCartney can do about it, other than speed the process along for Bahamians to suffer even more than they did as slaves many moons ago. Black majority rule (the black triangle on our flag) certainly says much to the rest of the world about our inability to find honest, competent and truly intelligent souls among our darker selves to govern us. A failed black country is an easier and much less costlier takeover target for a communist regime like Red China. Minnis $28 million, Christie & family $50 million, LBT $30 million, etc. etc.... all told probably less than a $100 million price tag to buy the entire Bahamas!

Actually, if there is a devaluation, the only ones smart enough to hide their money in hard currency in Panama are the numbers guy and Swindlings. The rest of them can be bought for less once currency devaluation comes in.

Certain of our political elite are the ultimate beneficial owners of unusually large deposit balances in hard currency denominated bank accounts at financial institutions domiciled in Red China (including Hong Kong), not to mention their beneficial ownership of residential condominiums in Hong Kong worth a small fortune that were conveyed to them on a gratis basis. They are therefore not the least bit concerned about the impending un-pegging and devaluation of the Bahamian dollar to perhaps as low as BSD 1.00 = USD 0.67

From my comment about the Bahamas Bureau of Standards and Quality:

"The BBSQ is a solution looking for a problem; that simple. Of course there is no problem so they need to manufacture one. I heard an interview with them the other day where they clarified that 50% of the pumps tested were either over or under a set +- level. They could all have been dispensing more!!!! The person being interviewed was talking about expanding this organization to over 100 inspectors......plus support staff. This is where the VAT money is going, among other things, and why the Bahamas is being downgraded. I am sure it is all well intentioned but clearly unaffordable. Is anyone really worried that Coca-Cola or Sands is cheating them? Worried enough to pay VAT for it? Wake up Bahamas!!!"

Things like this agency are not free. This is the government selling you more government.

Part of the problem in the Bahamas C2B is a profound lack of quality control and value for money. If this was a competent organization, run without corruption- the country could use it- But UNFORTUNATELY it will be a place for political cronyism filled with Bahamians benefiting from the same corruption they decry- as long as someone except them is benefiting. Hypocrisy knows no bounds in this country and it will come back and bite us on our greedy, soulless necks.

Agreed Greentea. However, this bureau does not regulate quality, only measures and standards.
Value for money will not arrive here until tariffs are lowered and the distribution system is fundamentally altered. Until then, everything will cost twice what it does in the USA. Value is fundamentally a measure of quantity vs price and therefore out of the control of this office.

Not to mention being in depth to the Chinese . Now this! That's why its so important to try and develop an independent country. The question now is. Who can we depend on now? Lord help us!

We need someone to somehow sometime cobble together a semi capable alternative government. If Minnis could get his dick out of his arse and assemble some new but known prospective candidates it might be a start. But the whole opposition is looking shabbier and shabbier.

Monkeedoo this isnt the time for "ifs". Minnis is not the one to lead us out of this mess. I dont care what the FNM and PLP try to tell you and me. He has not demonstrated in a single way that he possesses the vision, knowledge, economic where with all - anything to lead the country in this time of crisis. And we are in FULL CRISIS mode. We need someone with this kind of ability and I hate to say it- some charisma- someone to keep spirits up while we going through the valley. I don't care how much the FNM try to make him out to be the man to elect against Christie, he will take us into the very depths of hell. We are feeling the flames now- You all elect him- be prepared for the FIRE. How do you like your azz- medium rare? or well done?

Comrades! The Arawak people were the peaceful natives Christopher Columbus encountered when he came ashore on our islands back in 1492, and wasn't he considered a European white man's?
The first of white man's the natives encountered and now we've turned the encountering over to our elected officials for them drop some crumbs from fancy eating tables.
Tell me, have you encountered any Arawak people lately on any our 700 islands?

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I agree with Sickened on Christies house - or wherever the hell he will be. We need to fill his frigging yard with people.

Well the moron Hubert Minnis says today they will fix this by giving his family and others tax-free concessions in Over-The-Hill communities. Wonderful. Problem solved.

What a travesty he is. The fact that people support this idiot tells you they just don't understand where we are and what this will take. Old Bahamian style politics and do nothing, know nothing politicians isn't going to cut it. I am all for Over da Hill but Over da hill ain't got nothing to do with Standard and Poors. Minnis clearly doesn't understand the level of the field he is being asked to play on and if he doesn't get it now on THIS day of all days- he will never get it. FNMs wake up from your sleep. The man has GOT to go.

You are all preaching to incompetent, irresponsible morons who have money in offshore accounts and couldn't stop spending to save their life. These idiots are playing with the big boys who don't listen to the political bullshit that the uneducated Bahamian still believes. I always said downgrading was inevitable, that it was always planned to raise VAT and devaluation is just around the corner. And they will still vote for these fools for a free tee shirt, a piece of chicken and free beer. Just wait till devaluation, prices will increase, therefore VAT will increase and that trip to Miami will be a distant memory.

"they will just vote for fools for a free tee shirt"

Of fucking course they will! This is the Bahamas for christ sake not a first world country with a remotely educated population. Majority of Bahamians don't comprehend marital rape, gender equality, financial literacy, family planning or even basic fucking economics that you can read from a quick google search. But we can share a post from Bahamas News Ma bey, send BS chain mails on Whatsapp and get an entry level hotel job and work it for 19 years to buy fucking Honda on rims with 2 baby mothers.

While I may be here fretting trying to work an escape plan, there are scores of us buying numbers and sitting on the block with a Guinness clueless of our current predicament. We have systemically failed at every step of the way to keep an intelligent, informed and rational elective who would prevent this foolishness. But now we must pay, and pay we shall

The PLP propaganda machine will get the unwashed masses to believe that these greedy racist, jealous, white foreign people want to ruin the most progressive black country in the Western World ........ I can hear Brave, Fweddy, Fitzie, Shame, AMG and Gray braying this nonsense in Parliament ............. and they will probably sell this kool-aid

How many new PLP cronies became millionaires since 2012?????? ....... 5, 50, 100, 300, 1000, 5000???? ............. the $2 billion debt increase and the $1 billion of VAT has to be explained by Halkitis before the election

The Government finances are a reflection of the citizenry personal finances. If the average Bahamian held financial management in high regards so would the government. If S&P had a rating for individual financing 90% of the populace would be labelled as junk.

**.. PLP & FNM Destroyed Bahamas & You People Arguing About Voting For Them Again?..**

They are ALL the same. None of these pirates should be remotely considered for re-election!

"Stable"government my ass. The only thing stable about them is failure, corruption and asinine political stupidity.

So who do you suggest we vote for then?

**ANYBODY but them would be a step in the right direction!**

Just how stupid do you need to be??

Instead of all this grousing about the PLP start thinking how you can be the solution. Start looking for ways of getting these and the other party crooked cronies out and start finding people in the community who can make a difference in your beautiful island. It has been going downhill for years now. Find new blood who can run your country in a more productive and straight forward way. There are people who can do a much better job. Get out there and get these people elected instead of the sleezy-assed politicians you have now.

The problem is people to tend to vote for people that subscribe to their values or at least look and talk similar to them. Unfortunately we saw in the last general election that that the uneducated Bahamian voted PLP because they know exactly what these types want to hear. My point is it is all about appealing to the uneducated Bahamian as the make up the majority. Very scary...

Where's Birdie?

this too deep for her, she only talks in ad hominem

2 billion added to the debt and 800 million in VAT blown through and WTF did we get ,some over priced buildings in the bush in Andros .Say what you want about Papa but we got stuff ,roads ,airport redone, boats for RBDF, ports ,harbor dredge etc etc

because historically the FNM are fiscal conservatives. the PLP have been the exact opposite

If this government had any honour and decency about them then the entire cabinet would resign and ask the electorate for forgiveness. But we are dealing with the PLP who have no shame.

Think S and P did not see that nearly half a billion dollars walked out the front door of BOB to front companies w/ no assets and no chance of recovery , of course they did.. .You cant steal straight from the treasury easily ,the opposition can see , that's why you make things like the Development bank ,Hotel corporation or BOB So you can loot millions and tens of millions at a time instead of just thousands .

Meanwhile the likes of Sir Snake, Minnis, LBT, McCartney, Christie, the Wicked Witch Maynard-Gibson, Bag Man Baltron Bethel and so on are laughing at the entire lot of us for wasting our time commenting on The Tribune's articles posted to this website. Most of our country's D - educated voters never read or hear anything we have to say because they either can't read or have no internet access. WE ARE THE FOOLS!

After reading all the comments, I am somewhat surprised that the following were not taken into consideration: 1) That the PLP dumbed down the educational system of this country many years ago (does anyone recall The University of Wulff Road!?). 2) The most important priority of any organization is their own survival... and this includes political parties and perhaps even churches. So when these politicians get all their wants and needs met, etc, they might be inclined to give us a few crumbs from the table. This is why I fully believe the ONLY way we as Bahamians will EVER get politicians to do what is right for this country and its people is to constantly demonstrate against their foolishness. This is why I strongly believe in the "We March" organised by Mr Renard Henfield. And I strongly believe it was the most important thing that has happened in this country in the last 40 or 50 years!!!

I see your finally waking up to these MF-ing crooks, on Jan.9th march like fire ants on a mission. Bring everyone you know to the March, make it a party, you supply the booze, and your friends will supply themselves. Keep it peaceful, this is a must, because the PLP will want you to riot so they can use their Chinese made riot gear against you as they degrade you in the media for your actions. Think of Martin Luther King and what he accomplished with his marches, he gave up his life for the goodwill of his people. I predict God will hear your cries at that march, where there is unity in numbers in the name of goodness, he says he will be there; I believe him.