I think that we are beyond the point of no return already...

Best to assume that tourism is out of commission until summer 2021, and even then it will only be a fraction of the usual volume. In the meantime, expenditures will only increase along with the nation's debt-to-GDP ratio. No more road to kick the can of national debt down now, time to face up to the fact that we are in a hole far to deep to get out of anytime soon.

Number one priority has to be preserving the peg. If we lose that, we truly have no hope at all.

Thank you. I honestly hate to be so pessimistic, believe it or not lol.

Honesty is a quality that I highly value in both others and myself, and there is not much hope going forward to be honest. I think the biggest dark horse factor that we have to consider going forward is the eventual opening of Cuba to US nationals.

A Democratic presidential candidate will eventually win an election (whether it be 2020/24/28 etc), and this will more than likely be a major foreign policy development that occurs during that time. We honestly cannot compete with Cuba, even by pre-Dorian/COVID-19 tourism standards. At the end of the day, most tourists want to have the most fun for as cheap as possible (value for their money), and we simply do not have a product that is worth the money what we charge for visitors to come here. We desperately need to look ahead, but recent governments have just been too reactionary instead of being visionary.

Wow, that is sad if true. KYC requirements have gone completely overboard here in the past several years. Even if they did an EBT card style system, it would be much better off than huddling people together inches apart from each other.

My main issue is why bother locking down and destroying the economy if we are still going to create conditions conducive to spreading the virus? It makes absolutely no sense.

This is the honest to God truth that many people have a problem with. People like to blame government for this, that, and the other, but personal responsibility goes a long way in life as well.

The government's response to this has been lackluster (to say the least), but that does not excuse many Bahamians from often creating their own problems in life.

Do these people not have bank accounts? I really do not even care about how the assistance is given, but more so that thousands are crammed up like sardines when trying to control a pandemic. At this point, I question whether this could occur out of ignorance or malicious intent.

Common sense should be able to dictate that social distancing is a must in times like these, yet no one seems to understand such a basic concept. Locking down is a futile waste of time when we are encouraging this kind of behaviour; much akin to putting out a fire while pouring gasoline on it.

This is honestly my sticking point with a lot of people, there is not much else that we can do as a nation. Most of the natural resources that we have are already being utilized.

Salt is not going to pay our bills, neither aragonite, neither farming, neither crawfishing. History has always shown that the Bahamas is doomed to rough economic times unless the US has some strange "prohibition" going on (until the invention of tourism/offshore banking as the foundation of the Bahamian economy at least.) Tourism will eventually revive itself by 2023-2025, however, by that point the debt-to-GDP will be far over 100% (possibly 150-200%, the dollar will possibly be devalued in a worst case scenario, Cuba has the potential of opening up in the event of a Democratic victory November, and the Bahamas will have a certain stigma for international investors due to the lockdowns (how strong is anyone's guess). We needed answers way before all of this happened, but unfortunately, we had none, and have none yet.

I used to have strong partisan leanings, but the current iteration of Bahamian politicians is a direct result of brain drain affecting Bahamian society. Bright and visionary leaders will never return to the Bahamas when there is a much better life to be had abroad. Don't get me wrong, there is no place like the Bahamas, but it is simply not worth dealing with the garbage power and water services, inefficient civil servants, corrupt bureaucrats and politicians, rampant crime, etc of this country when other nations have basic utilities figured out (even the ancient Romans had aqueducts). The PLP/FNM in their current forms do not have much to offer, and Bran was only good for spoiling Ingraham's reelection in 2012. None of the other fringe parties offer hope either. I hate to be so pessimistic, but I consider myself a realist.

For anyone interested, this is a great article. It is amazing how much Bahamian history they never teach in schools, most merely present a watered down "feel good" version of it to help students pass a BGCSE.

https://bahamianology.com/stafford-sand…

I could honestly care less about where Sir Stafford may have pulled his inspiration from, we would have been looking for wilks on the shore right now if the tourism/offshore banking industries didn't take off (may need to do that soon anyways lol). The funny part is all of the same natural advantages that we had back then apply now. We desperately need to revamp our tourism product, if Cuba-US relations thaw again (eventually they will when the D's get back in), we will be left out to dry. Shame we destroyed the offshore banking sector as well, it was always meant to be a two pillar economy for times like these.

Please do not misconstrue what I am saying, I know that there are many bright Bahamians out there. That being said, however, the vast majority do not have the mathematical skills to sell fruit pops much less understand complex algorithms. That is just the honest to God truth.

I know that there is a small programming niche in the country, but it will never grow to anything significant as long as there is no encouragement for the sector. As I stated earlier, you can have all the skilled mathematicians and programmers you could ever want in your country, but no one is going to invest in a locale that cannot even provide consistent electricity or water (and on top of that, astronomically bills you for the time that they have not provided service). Regardless, foreign developers will be needed to start up the industry, and the Bahamas will be a very hard sell given the garbage-tier infrastructure, low wages, and impending heavy taxation that will come by next May.

It is better to cut your losses and go sometimes in life, that is just the truth. Looking through the annals of history, these problems have always been here. The horrid power and water grids are not new problems, neither is government corruption, lack of vision, needing to diversify from tourism, etc. Besides that, most Bahamians have been known to have an "island mentality" for centuries. My point is, these problems are nothing new and will probably never be fixed in the future.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, I simply have no expectations anymore. I used to have a strong sense of national pride for the country myself, but I cannot deny that there are too many problems that have existed for far too long. We honestly have nothing to be proud of, and complacency has let these problems fester in our nation like a tumour. Sometimes an honest to God "come to Jesus" moment is needed in life, and the Bahamas has not had one until now. We will see what happens next, but history does not really shed a positive outlook on what will to come.

I have some swamp land that I would like to sell to anyone who believes that any Bahamian government service will ever "step up their game" lol.

If any modern day Bahamian politician possessed a half of the foresight and vision that Sir Stafford Sands had, this country would be miles ahead. It is very telling that Sir Stafford decided to leave and never return after the PLP victory in 1967.

Anyone deluding themselves into thinking that another industry capable of replacing tourism is somehow going to magically appear in the Bahamas is completely ignorant of Bahamian history. The Bahamas has always been a boom or bust locale, this has held true through blockade running, the Prohibition-era, the drug craze of the 80's, etc. The Bahamas has never been an independent nation, and will never be one either. There are no natural resources that we export to other nations in amounts significant enough to power our economy, and the environment is currently not conducive to any modern industries being established. For all the hot garbage that I hear about creating a "Bahamian Silicon Valley", no tech company wants to set up shop in an area that cannot even provide consistent power and telecommunications infrastructure to be used. Even then, you know that Bahamians will readily employ the "muh foreigner" argument when work permits are given to bring in foreign developers due to the fact that most Bahamians cannot even understand a mathematical concept as simple as compound interest, much less linear programming concepts.

Far too many Bahamians have lived in lala land for too long, thinking that the cash cow of tourism would always sponsor the governments greed and corruption to give a little something something to their friends and family. Well the cash cow of tourism is over for the foreseeable future (3-5 years in my opinion), many are scared to invest money in the country due to the threat of dollar devaluation and further lockdowns, and the offshore banking industry has been completely destroyed. The Bahamas is up stink creek without a paddle for now, and the chickens have come home to roost regarding government spending, corruption, and fiscal waste over the previous decades. Bahamians have no one else to blame but the governments that they have elected over the years for the current predicament.

Selling the country out to the numbers mafia is not the solution either.... It pains me to see how many Bahamians think that more corruption is the answer to our economic problems....