No such thing as a God aweful situation, no such thing.Thete is nothing That God does, that is aweful.

Well there’s the virus, childhood cancer, mental illness, death...

Don't blame God for what man does.

Things happen when we turn are backs on God. But somethings God allows to show us just how powerless we truly are.

I forgot man created cancer & children born with deformities.

Gaddafi said it best: They create the virus and then create the drug to have you buy it to be dependent on them. Don't place on God what man has done.

Funnily enougjh when there is a good crop, or someone is cured by medical intervention credit goes to God, but when everything goes wrong even the death of an innocent newborn child, suddenly its not God but mans doing.
Can' t have it both ways.

A wealth tax of 30% on Bahamians like Sir Snake who having been robbing public treasury of its rightful due for decades might just be the medicine needed to help us get through this God awful bad patch.

Well mudda, great idea on the wealth tax, believe me its coming faster than you think. You can't threaten to lock down a country through April 30, tens of thousands of ppl have lost their jobs, government is supposed to be "working from home" but no one is answering their phones and the e mail server is overloaded and all e mails are being rejected. Something some where and sometime will have to give.

I made the following comments on the Lyford Cay job losses:

As tens of thousands of workers in the private sector are losing their jobs it is ironic that not a single government employee has either taken a pay cut, lost their job or are working at reduced hours.

I say its ironic because the government derives it revenue to meet its payroll by taxing Bahamian citizens and tourist. In any other business there would be some belt tightening as revenues decline.

We just don't the Minster of Health, Finance and the PM telling us how awful it is and how we must stay in our homes. We need hope, we need to see you sharing in our pain. How about taking a 30% pay cut at the top (Minister level) going down to 10% at the Manager level. Leave the salaries of those at the bottom alone.

....I must be dreaming.

Yes, you did make those spurious comments. And in response, I tried to explain - testily, I admit - why your comments have no economic reasoning, much less humane sensitivity. In fairness, you responded with a bunch of babble that was beside the point and, as you perhaps did not even understand, only proved my point. Axing workers, forcing pay cuts, et. al, will have no material financial impact in the short run. This is economics 101 observer (google : David Riccardo theory if you disbelieve me). If this awful situation persists in the long run, then we can revisit you arcane and insensitive remarks.

Good idea, but unfortunately there are probably insufficient wealthy Bahamians for this to make a difference. If you add corporate tax (medium to large businesses), second home property tax (Bahamians & overseas residents) to the mix, then maybe it would help

If we want to encourage more people to build second homes, build more hotels like BahaMar, open new banks this is an exceedingly poor idea.

Now had folks listened we could have earned and saved more from our tourism industry had we banned cruise ships.

Past is the past for now tho on this, for right now and the next few months we need to make our food with local growing and own energy with solar power till tourism returns.

I consider myself a realist and I can't see Baha Mar and Atlantis operating anywhere near full occupancy for the rest of the year. First they have to announce a re-opening date and then they have to persuade American tourists to take a vacation when many will be reeling from the economic hit they will have taken in 2020.

Most Americans have seen their life savings literally evaporate in their 401k retirement plans as the U.S. stock markets plunged south...perhaps staying south for many years to come. The Bahamas cannot bank on these poor souls even thinking about taking a vacation for many years to come. And that assumes the next Red China pathogen does not come along soon.

Well that's what happens when you back your currency with US Dollars instead of something like Gold or Silver. Now the US will print all they want and pass the inflation on to everyone using US dollars and you can't do anything for your own people.

...ditto that my friend....

It's very easy for Sir Wilson to discourage Government from helping people. He is Rich. Maybe he should help Bahamians by helping those displaced by Dorian.

One of the few times I have ever agreed with Sir Franky---There is no other alternative!

Central Bank needs to hear from all the people that its mission to maintain the peg must be supported no matter what. If the peg fails we will become Venezuela or Argentina and it will all fall apart!

Hie is right we can not just print more money.

Every dollar must be carefully watched at this point.

BPL must be sold into private hands immediately tho to stop more drainage in terms of the public purse having to prop it up tho.

And we need a massive country wide agricultural program to grow what tourist dollars can not do (pay for import food). Seriously, every community, every parish needs to start a community gardens now given the lead times from planting to harvest. And we need much more solar. We are so behind on both fronts I hope people and government will rise to the challenge and not go the easy route of print more money, deplenish the hard currency and then have total collapse like Zimbabwe. It is that serious folks. This country needs to get it together now!

Atlantis and Bahama Mar will not reopen in mid May! And if they did no one would be there in any event! We need to be prepared for 12-18 months of tourism shut down and start acting accordingly.

How about this stupid idea of employing Cuban teachers who beside the financial cost often cannot speak reasonable english let alone have the interests of the kids at heart. Why is this continuing when Cuban teachers sole aim is to repatriate as much in the way of USD back to Cuba. Time to employ Bahamians especially in the vocational subjects perhaps using BTVI final year students. Every dollar saved is important.

you are absolutely right about the agricultural program....

Dont forget the fact that if you want LESS of something just tax it. If you want less smoking, tax cigarettes. If you want less tourism, just tax it. If you want less second home ownership, just tax it. If you want less foreigners, just tax them...etc

This is the time for the government to invest in the family Islands and everywhere in The Bahamas with agriculture and fisheries because tourism is actually hospitalized with terrible symptoms & prognosis,unable to sustain good status quo at least for a year or two in favor of the common citizen & residents.
We need to allow privilege to "America First" to come here and bridge all family Islands and adds values to this rural areas that are currently full of bush and if necessary to dolarized this local economy with the USDq ($$$). Give them this preveledge first,if they refused this marvelous offert given to them by The Government Of The Bahamas then turns out "The Same Offert",to The Chinese Government also as a pressure not to reject such offert.
This current acute crisis is about good leadership in order to save The Bahamas and this small population who will turns out To be one of the best trully richest human being on Planet Earth with all of these private - generational properties then with the interconnection through bridges adding far more values to every land in the family Islands who could be leased by the Bahamian families who own them to private investors like any other business . For example Baha-mar ,Atlantis & Grand Baham a Hotel etc.,etc

The fact of the matter is.In the long run government bail outs will further hurt the economy and the people more so than help. All government spending will eventually need to be replenished by some form of taxation. Let the private institutions deal with giving out small business loans.These institutions use their own personal money to fund these loans and they have a more stringent measures in place to ensure that the monies are going to the people who will actually pay it back and invest it into their business and stimulate the economy. And the end of the day this process would work out better and leave more money in the taxpayers pockets and less of a strain on our Bahamian dollar.

If the kind Knight would bless the Bahamas with 1% of his net earnings from having complete control of the nations fuel supply since time immorial, our woes would be over. Perhaps is time to "give back"?

I must agree with Sir Franklyn Wilson on this one...we have no other choice!

Like most of the posters, i agree that many of the businesses closing now will never see the light of day again. Likewise, we will be lucky if Atlantis and Bahamar reengage 50% of their staff for the remainder of this year. Hope we are all wrong. Big, big concern has to be future value of the B$. If that falls, highly likely, then we all become paupers overnight and quality of life as we know it never to be the same again. But, i hope we are all wrong.

The B$ must not be allowed to fall.

This is the dawn of a new world (economic) order ……… China the Dragon will emerge to challenge the EU and the USA …..... Who is winning right now????????