In the main time while waiting on marijuana legislation, Bahamians should be aware of the severe drought that has hit the crop belt in the US. Millions of crops were lost due to lack of rain and cattle had to be disposed off. Expect higher prices on many food items including meat and produce in the near future. That is also good news for lobster fishermen. Crawfish has increased from $18 a pound to $36. But gas in California is above $6 a gallon.

Despite the increases in Covid-19 cases, the recovery rate remains above 93 percent. Seriously I’ll persons range around .5 percent (ICU) and deaths remain around 2 percent. BUT one would think by now, rather than trying to airlift critically ill patients to New Providence, government would have a medical team in place to travel to islands like Andros and Cat Island and set up emergency ICU units. At least to offer comfort care to some patients who have pre existing conditions. In the main-time cases around the world continues to decline and theUS is recording a 92 percent decline in new Covid-19 cases and deaths. But the big party celebration holiday weekend will determine if the decline in numbers will hold. Fortunately, despite vaccinations, persons are being urged to continue to wear masks and follow safety protocols. Persons who travel by air are required to wear masks.

Moultrie wants more power and authority as Speaker, but he still wants his rights as a politician. A matter of trying to have your cake and eat it too. Or is he really trying to force the PM’s hand to parogue parliament and call an election? This would be a definite disadvantage to the FNM at this time as critical pieces of legislation still have to be debated and the popularity level of the FNM is rather low. Not necessarily because of anything in particular the FNM government did but a large part of the population is suffering from Corona fatigue.

No Bahamian should be required to pay property tax on their owner occupied home. They pay 10% VAT when they purchase the property and 35% duty plus 12% vat on all the materials used to construct the home. Is that enough tax or VAT?

In the US this weekend there was a great shortage of workers. Persons who were needed to man parks and theme parks and other holiday related events as Americans celebrate one of their most unrestricted and free-to-travel and vacation holidays in over a year. Many employers found themselves having to pay above the $15.00 minimum wage, just to lure workers out of their homes and wean them off the gov $600 a week stimulus checks. Why work or even go looking fir a job when you can stay at home and earn the same pay? For doing nothing. And so the government has promised to end these stimulus checks and get Americans back to work. And two new budget airlines launched in the US recently and joined hotels, resorts, car companies restaurants etc., in touting this weekend as one where businesses could not be better. And they look at is it as great things to come. President Joe Biden plans some six trillion over the next few years, and despite his proposed increase in taxes on America’s richest citizens this will not be sufficient to cover America’s debt. While there will be a decrease in deficit spending, America’s debt to GDP ratio is expected to be 117%. But why worry. America will most likely print more and more money to cover more and more debt. An option that is not readily available to The Bahamas. And one thing this Bahamian government must be certain not to do is increase taxes such that it creates a stagnant economy and government realizes less revenue than it would have done before it increased the taxes. One thing government should not ignore is the 6 Trillion Dollar US additional spend. How can this country tap into that? Not only will Americans have more disposable income, but many seem more anxious and willing to travel and to spend, spend spend and help shake off the Corona pandemic and it’s grimy hold on the world’s economy. So the job is not only to get more to come here, but also to spend more money. Can this country increase the tourist tax revenue by $1 Billion annually ?

Not necessarily so: remember the rounding up will only happen on your final bill. So you will wither lose one or two cents when this happens or gain two or three cents.

A cute term they like to use is ‘refinancing.’ This under normal circumstances refers to when an individual or a company or country ‘cleans’ up its loan portfolio by either paying off older loans or several small loans and combining them into one or paying off loans at a high interest rate and replacing them with loans that bear lower interest. Today governments are borrowing money to pay off loans they cannot service and they are usually doing this at a higher interest rate. So they must then go back to the taxpayer to raise these additional funds to service these debts. So this results in an increase in the cost of living for the taxpayers. Many may own businesses, so they in turn increase the cost of their goods and services. This may, in turn, cause a reduction in consumer confidence which will eventually lead to reduction in consumption. This is known as ‘stagflation.’ Consumption is decreasing but prices are still increasing because of increases in taxes, so because of reduced consumption, government may still not be able to realize its revenue forecasts despite increased taxes. So what does the government do. Can it cut spending? That depends on how leveraged it is. Can it increase taxes again? Well to do so will only start the cycle repeating itself again, But this time the results will be more crucial and devastating . Firstly, there will be those individuals and businesses who can’t afford additional tax increases or any increases, for that matter and so they will just disappear off the grid. Businesses will close and individuals will either drop out of society or move to a less taxed jurisdictions. In any event government will realize less tax revenue. Then there will be individuals and businesses who will refuse to allow government to place any additional tax burden on them. Again these people will close down their businesses, move to a less taxed jurisdiction or just simply refuse to pay taxes. So now government has placed itself in a situation where it’s creditors and knocking down its doors and it cannot collect one additional dollar in taxes from its citizens. In fact it is collecting less tax dollars now than before the crisis started. So not only can it not service it’s debt but it can no longer provide many of its essential services does the economy collapse?

YES!

Dingy forget, ‘it’s silly season y’all’. Idiotic posts abound.

Is your anger induced opinions noteworthy?