Sadly, I don't think that the rampant inflation is going to slow down any time soon. Who would have thought that printing loads of money off would result in skyrocketing inflation? Ah well, a load of Americans and Bahamians wanted to ride with Biden, so they are just getting what they voted (or wanted to vote) for.

As Mr. Roberts pointed out, it is all out of our control. A good time as any to get into backyard farming as any, if you can.

> businesses don't pay VAT

Explain to me how all our goods arrive in the Bahamas please. They certainly don't appear out of thin air. Also, please take light bills of $100 (VAT free, but do it anyways), $1000, and $10000 and add 12% on top of them. Do it, and let me know how it scales across.

As far as I am aware, there is no such procedure in the US for when the President leaves the country. That being said, the VP usually is sworn as acting President when the President undergoes surgery, as recently happened with Biden and Harris.

Just coming back to your comment, because I think that the car example can be used to show the point that I was trying to make.

Firstly, most car parts are extraordinarily expensive/take a long time to ship because they are Japanese or Korean in origin. Who knew that shipping half way around the world costs a fortune and takes a long time? This leads to the question of why do Bahamians purchase Japanese and Korean junk vehicles that fold if you lean on them too hard, especially when we live right next door to the US, where you can go to the junkyard or part store and get it same day? Because of the asinine costs involved with getting an American vehicle here.

Go buy a car in the US for 20k, pay shipping fees + VAT, pay 65% duty rate + customs fees + VAT, and then if you are unfortunate enough to live on the Family Islands, shipping + VAT again. You do the math, you have bought yourself another car. Hence why Bahamians buy junk that would never legally be on the roads in the US or Canada.

The Bahamian government still is funded in large part from tariffs. Tariffs are not meant to be funding a government, they are supposed to be used to protect your domestic industries (protectionism), of which we do not have much. You tell me why the COL is so high in this country when we literally import every blessed thing in, and then mark it up + collect VAT the minute it gets to the port.

Bahamians think in terms of paying 12% at the cashier and that is it. The economy is lot bigger than that when you don't produce a single thing in your borders. Most people think in terms of micro and not macro, which is very important as we are completely dependent on other nations for literally every aspect of our economy.

I don't know a single person that has ever gotten VAT credits. The government only takes but does not give.

1.) I was primarily speaking from my position as a consumer. Believe it or not, we buy food, pay for services, and otherwise live in this country as well.

2.) Please let me know where this wormhole is to teleport goods from one side of the world to another. The Bahamas is 100% import based economy that is one of the few to feature double taxation. You are paying VAT (plus duty, which was supposed to disappear) every step of the way to bring something in, not just in getting it off the shelves.

Canada is big on immigration for three reasons :

1.) Megacorps get cheap labour that they can use to depress wages

2.) Real estate values continue to skyrocket, good for homeowners

3.) Liberals get more votes

It may sound crazy, but I don't believe that this number is far off the mark. You don't just nearly double your tax rate and expect consumer spending not to be impacted by it. Think about it carefully, to run a basic store in this country, you will have to pay VAT on shipping, duties on the imported goods + VAT, VAT on delivery to your store if you don't have your own transportation, and then you have to mark up your product in addition to compensating for increased VAT on electricity, water, services (call a plumber, electrician, HVAC, attorneys) and so on., Long story short, VAT gets shoved on every thing imaginable, and is ultimately passed on to the consumer. As the euphemism goes, feces flows downhill.

Remember those dreams about WTO accession and dropping duties in exchange for VAT? Remember Minnis saying that duty rates were going to be lowered following it being raised to 12% (despite promises otherwise), and then having the rates for washing machines lowered (wonder who owns laundromats here) while most other items remained the same? This guy remembers very clearly.

I wish to God that we could get a group of politicians that could understand that you can't get blood out of a stone. Robbing Peter to pay Paul doesn't work, and most Bahamians soon won't have anything left to rob at this rate. There is no way to tax ourselves out of this mess, we have no choice but to stop pissing away money or become Jamaica 2.0.

It honestly makes no real functional difference whatsoever. The "President" is simply another ceremonial figure head that performs the same duties as a Governor General. It is a massive waste of time and money. Canada and Australia regularly have these discussions (switching from a constitutional monarch to a republic), and the same consensus is arrived to every time : that it is a bunch of money spent, and time wasted, for no tangible difference what so ever.

Mia Mottley only used it as a tool to take heat off of her when she legalized same sex "unions" on the same day. Blind the plebs with a shallow sense of nationalism so that they completely forget about the unpopular initiative. Bahamian politicians do the same thing here on a lesser scale, talk about marital rape or oil drilling (when there is no oil even in our territorial waters) when they have something they want to push past the plebs without them noticing. Joe Public falls for it every time.

> there was no challenge to his leadership before the vote

Why? Because the FNM never had a single convention during his term in office, even though they are supposed to be held yearly. The FNM had two choices : ditch Minnis and become somewhat viable, or just let him run and take a lap around the field for the next five years. We now know which option they chose.

Minnis reminds me somewhat of Theresa May in the UK. Leaders that drastically overplayed their hand, made boneheaded decisions, and had no idea when it was time to throw in the towel.