thats not unexpected<img src="http://s02.flagcounter.com/mini/rzN/bg_…" width="1"/>

.........."looking at where we can cut the fat" ............... I wonder if an accountant can say that with a straight face ................ Sumner & Bowe are like "Turner & Hooch" ........... they know what the PLP politicians are doing to our country in this term and have never called them out ...... are they getting their "fat" as well?????????

Only fools could run a country with a spend spend spend attitude and not put somthing away for natural disasters. Wait for the lies,excuses and fairy tails that we will now hear.

Actually the reverse of what D'Agular is saying is also likely. The horrific hurricane damage can be the stimulus needed to get the economy moving. Estimates are that insurance companies will have to come up with $400 million in claims money. Uninsured home India business owners may have to come up with another $500-$600 million and government may have to spend another $200 million on hurricane relief. Then there are the donations coming into the country. This is $1 billion that would not have been spent. Not only will jobs be created and unemployment reduced, but this billion dollar injection will drive economic activity. As economic activity increases there will be some economic growth. Then assume that whilst the repair and recovery work is going on work is also going on at Bah Mar and it does open next year. This can bring the unemployment numbers down by more than 50%. But what government must now do is give initiatives to get other projects going and keep the unemployment numbers decreasing. It must create some projects that will not only help unemployment, but generate revenue. This will be s matter of the country pulling itself up by its own bootstraps. Leaning more towards self sufficiency. The multiplier effect of $1 billion being injected in the economy over a short term would definitely created a much needed economic jolt.

What John outlines may be somewhat true in a diversified economy. However the economy of the Bahamas is quite monolithic. The billion dollars required to fix Matthew's damages will benefit the Florida building supply companies, the electrical equipment manufacturers, the petro-chemical roofing/paint manufacturers etc. None of these are Bahamian companies, unless Potcake Miller still has his paint company going.

The bottom line is that you are taking a billion out of the economy that could have gone to other things like debt repayment, etc. There is no economic offset or multiplier unless the economic stimulus creates permanent jobs in all of the areas touched by the rebuilding.

There are primary, secondary & tertiary industry offsets. The primary industries are those who cut the wood, drill for oil, and supply the resources. The secondary industries are those who add value to the resources by manufacturing. The tertiary industries either use the output of the primary & secondary industries. In the case of Matthew, it would be the carpenters & roofers etc. Their portion of the economic pie is small, compared to the cut taken by the primary & secondary economic segments.

So sadly, the economic effect of Matthew is unfortunately a drain on the Bahamian economy rather than a stimulus.

In a diversified economy, the economic stimulus is muted because the money that goes into repairs is taken away from being lent out to create new economic streams in business. However if the recovery money is used to re-build more efficient infrastructure, then there is a positive economic offset. It is a dicey gamble at best to count on catastrophe damage as an economic stimulus.

some merit to John's comment, but i think most who suffered losses were likely uninsured, since too many weren't even paying their mortgages so judge home insurance hurricane coverage, as costly as it is. further, government borrowing (since we always had governments that did not see the wisdom of having a disaster fund) will rise in a big way. while that money will find its way to merchants, the question still remains how will that borrowing be repaid. perhaps VAT may have to be 15% after all or we can have a hurricane tax with a sunset provision (maybe 3 years) to cover this one situation.

Obviously you did not read well. I did say that while the hurricane recovery activity is going on the government must seek to create new projects or new activities to keep the economy going. Secondly, whenever money exchanges hands some wealth is created, call it primary, secondary or whatever. When persons involved in the hurricane recovery get money in their hands and they spend it in the food store or pay their light bill or buy gas for their car this generates more money. Notice I also indicated that if work continues on Bah Mar and that project gets up and running whiles recovery work is going on or shortly thereafter after. Our economy has always been fragile and difficult to grow simply because too much of a dollar spent locally ends up leaving the economy and going abroad. That is why government must promote and stimulate inter-island commerce, where local products are traded between the islands and given preference to imports. Government can also cut the enormous oil import bill by leaning more towards solar energy and stop being sucked in by the big oil companies and their local representatives to stay dependent on fossil fuels. And of course corruption and government wastage must be reduced and controlled. Too much of the tax dollar is not getting value for money. Then include the giving away of our natural resources into the mix, be it prime beaches and land to hotel properties or arragonite to foreign cronies. Rather than being saddled with a multi-billion national debt and unbearable tax burden and the threats of credit downgrades, every single Bahamian should be a millionaire. You do the math!

Sigh. Obviously you did not read economics well. Quoting from The National Bureau of Economic Research -- The Causal Effect of Environmental Catastrophe on Long-Run Economic Growth: Evidence From 6,700 Cyclones -- ( http://www.nber.org/papers/w20352 ) the graph of the results are shown in the pic -- evidenced based data shows that economic recovery after a cyclone ( aka hurricane -- never happens -- even after 20 years). The effect on the economy, and hence income per capita after one standard deviation storm is -3.4% after 20 years and for a 99 percentile storm, the effect on income per capita after 20 years is -14.9%.

This study was conducted at Columbia university, and the authors have concluded that empirical evidence suggests that recovery almost never happens - they have shown that to be the case after the analysis of 6,700 storms from 1952 - 2008.

Data puts the lie to your musings based on ignorance of subject matter and fact.

http://tribune242.com/users/photos/2016…

Data can be misused or misunderstood. If we go strictly on the premise of "the results of the study " then should it also follow that because of the non full recovery from these disasters and since the Bahamas is prone to get hit from storms at least every five years, then both our standard of living and quality of living should have deteriorated so much since 1926 after being hit by so many storms and hurricanes, that we should be living at a lower standard and a lower quality of life than our forefathers did in 1936? Since this is not the case and since we have lived in a continual progressive society there ends the credibility of your economic bullshit!

The economic (as you put it) bullshit, is not mine dear sir. It is from minds much greater than mine.

Let me again point out your faulty syllogism:

You are thinking in pure linear terms. Let me put some dimensions to your thinking and elucidate the true meaning of it when stripped of the simplistic linear thinking.

Your simplic assertions assume that because of the negative percentages in the data, that the overall economic growth from each storm would decrease the overall economy by that much. What in fact we are talking about here is EFFECT.

So let us assume that the economic drivers show a growth trajectory of x percent. Along comes a storm. The EFFECT of the storm is that the economic growth is retarded by -14.9% for a 99 percentile storm and -3.6% for one standard deviation storm. Then the effect of the storm is a -3.6% decrease on the temporal outcome (the x percent) of the growth trajectory and not the final number of economic growth.

See, it's not a straight line that you assume it to be. It is a complex layer of abstraction. Your linear thinking is like an assumption that by looking down the throat of a person, you can see out of their ass.

Obviously you left out the magic words "all other things being equal (or remaining the same)" but do they ever.

In fact you can go even further back to the times of Columbus and see hurricane and were a natural part of civil society. When Colombus lost two ships in a storm, he rebuilt and came back to "the new world ". Hence were are where we are today (socially and economically).

Natural disasters have historically altered the fortunes of countries ........ just look at what the impact of the Irish potato famine, Midwest Dust Bowl, sub-Saharan Africa desertification and now, climate change is doing to SIDS ......... we are one of the most vulnerable of all of he SIDS right now and we must take proactive measures to adapt ............. building in swamps, exploiting coastal beaches and cutting down ridges and hills are very foolhardy ............ Environmental zoning and proper land use planning and disaster mitigation has to be a priority for any responsible Bahamian government

So then what you should say is @the billion dollars injection into the Bahamian economy will not have the same effect it would have had, had there not been a natural disaster a/k/a hurricane Marhew, but there will be some economic benefits and stimulation, if only in the short and medium term." But instead you try to discredit my posting by calling me economically ignorant. Now you try to muddy the matter even more with your statistics and linear theory which basically are saying the same thing: for there to be some percentage reduction in the economic impact of hurricane recovery spending there has to first be some economic benefits. Tangible ones.

John .............The government gets a lot of UR2.0 and hurricane donations, most goes unannounced or underreported to the public and who benefits from it??????? ........then we see all kinds of ad hoc responses that do not seem to solve the long term situations ............that is the big problem

John, I wish it were not so , but the Billion dollars will not stay in the country, that is the problem.
In addition NEMA is like a 2 inch water pipe hooked up to an 8 inch water pipe, it will restrict the flow to a trickle.

Do you know war was used as an economic tool and probably still is? When things got bad they would start a war, kill off a bunch of people and destroy a lot of stuff, then spend the next few years making babies and rebuilding.

Well my last comment on this: ride past any of De'Aguilars Superwash: those machines haven't stopped operating since before the storm. People have no electricity so his service is in great demand. Super Value's president claims his sales were up 80% just prior to and after the hurricane. Gas stations were selling out of fuel faster that they could replenish supplies. Same with ice and water. Now the shift will be to roofing supplies and building materials. Some business will make more in a month (or week) than they made in almost a year. This is spending that was not planned for. It is money people had to borrow, drain of their savings account or forgo the payment of other bills. So you will have some people who have become very wealthy because of the storm and others who have lost everything. Even the shirt of their backs. Economics says that some of that money now has to flow back in the opposite direction. That is the only way the economy can sustain itself. Then the new injections of capital in the economy have to benefit the 'have nots' more the ' haves' else it is useless. So if officials go about hoarding and stealing hurricane donations and supplies, they will make recovery even more difficult.

That's services ......... not natural resource creation or manufacturing ....... nothing new been created ........ Superwash is ONE person getting richer

And taking money from other economic endeavors.

What is happening here, is not economic activity, but rather robbing Peter to pay Paul. In this closed economy the restoration money is being diverted from other things. Can you imagine how the huge capital pools of the insurance companies will be depleted?

Which brings us to another question -- if the insurance companies invested their reserves in government bonds, and the bonds are illiquid at this point in time with the government issuing bonds and special purpose vehicles left, right and center, what is going to happen to their capital base, their reserves, and their ability to pay out? Will the taxpayers yet again foot the bill?

**......................... Kenya To 'Purge' Land Ministry Of Corrupt Cartels ...........................**

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/5ff28e2b-a…

Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International **Déjà vu Bahamas!**

Then they will implement NHI to push us over the cliff faster

How can Perry fix his mouth to extend NHI beyond primary care ???? based on what has happened in the past month, NHI is dead.