Two new low budget airlines were launched in the US recently and reports are business could not be better this Memorial Day weekend as millions of Americans plan to travel. Hotels are full, rental cars are impossible to find and all major resorts and attractions are booked and booming. Wouldn’t it be great if this country, that is set to borrow another $1 Billion can see its economy coming to life in that fashion. But, of course most Americans are stuck at home as cruise ships remain in port. Millions of passengers who would normally set sail this week remain in the US, which is good for their local economy but bad for countries like The Bahamas. And with the size of debt this country is saddled with, the government must look anxiously beyond its borders to bring in new money in great amounts to help service this debt. Most Bahamian and local businesses are taxed out. Andy’s, if the country is going to open to a booming tourist economy, amongst other revenue streams, then yes, the excessive borrowing is not too, too worrisome. But if the market is flat, then cause to wonder. And if there’s any good thing about all this borrowing: It wasn’t due to corruption and scandal and LACK of accountability like under the previous administration. In fact most of the borrowing was because of unexpected events like hurricanes and pandemic. But still time to apply the brakes (with both feet) on borrowing.

US Corona cases are down ninety two percent since Trump left office in January! The cases in this country are up over 100 percent! Who dropped the ball, when and where? Joe Biden realizes the importance of wearing masks and following other safety measures, despite the vaccines. BUT the true test will come this weekend when some 40 Million Americans are expected to travel more than 40 miles to celebrate Memorial Day weekend. Will the numbers hold firm?

So do you have to take the vaccine to benefit from government’s economic initiatives? Asking for a friend. The US now requires everyone traveling by air either to or within the US to wear masks. Whether vaccinated or not. Finally common sense is kicking in.

"A house divided against itself, cannot stand." And many, many years ago, at least four decades,this country instigated by its ‘big brother ‘ neighbor to the North, decided to go to war with its young men. To mark they as worthless, violent lazy criminals who was out to make is fast buck at the expense of anyone who will become a victim. America called it a ‘war on drugs’ where it sought to take thousands of young Black men out of their homes and out of society and place them in jails, like caged animals . Some for many many years for what would normally be petty crimes that would carry Livy or no jail term. And this country did the same thing. Sending young men to jail for small amounts of marijuana, sometimes barely a joint. And in jail they learnt the jail culture, the rules of survival and the reality of gang warfare. A culture that originated in America’s prison system and made its way into the inner cities and was promoted by rap music . A gang culture who’s premix was ‘get them before they get you. Kill or be killed . And the gangster culture turned brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, friend against friends. And it taught too that if your girl friend or baby mama was disloyal, then you had to deal with her too. Put her down or even put her away. And throughout the decades, gangster rap taught that you wasn’t a real gangster if you never been to jail. It you wasn’t gangster if you didn’t sleep with your boy’s girl. It taught you how to stick a gun down ‘his throat until he wets on him self, like a lil.,’. And then it taught how to kill. That’s how to earn your stripes…The more victims in one drive by the more respect you get on da streets. And as the older OG’(original gangsters) died out or went to jail gangs recruited new ‘doljas’. And the recruiting age become younger and younger. School boys in the 8, 9 10, yes even 7 grade. Young, green and impressionable young men ( many who were still boys) who were anxious to make a name for themselves. Willing and ready to go do Satan’s dirty work in gang warfare. To hate, injure stab and even kill someone because hid hand sign is different from yours. So now how does a cou go about unraveling this tangled and deadly web? Over a thousand people dead in a decade. Mostly young men or boys now. How do you bring sanity back?

BPL is even having a problem keeping its staff y New Providence Covid free. Especially at Blue Hills offices. Maybe it’s the a/c in the building that is central and shared. A bank in the Cable Beach area had a similar problem and they had to reconfigure the a/c system. But surely wiuy be interesting to know how may on BPL staff in Cat Island are vaccinated and how many were in that group on that island who got false negative tests earlier.

Bahamians should remain in survival mode! Whether against the corona virus of for their personal or business finances.. Even if you take the vaccine, do not abandon those measures that are proven to work. Including wearing of masks, sanitizer, social distancing. Let the vaccine be secondary until it is proven to work. As for the perks and incentives being offered by Minnis. Remember this is silly season (election). Minnis may not be around in a year or so to ensure the incentives and offerings he is making. Should you reject or ignore them! NO, definitely NOT! Proceed with caution and with a back up plan. Business especially. Structure your business such that if these incentives and tax breaks are no longer available, it would have minimal impact on your business. So it may mean scaling back your original plans. Yes, the same incentives offered to foreigners now being offered to Bahamians is a good thing. Even better would be to equally distribute the tax burden.

Let’s see if government is really sincere and increase the penalties on persons who smuggle or sell alcoholic beverages and cigarettes without licenses and without paying proper duties.

This train has already left the station and the average Bahamian has been not only left standing in the station with an empty bag, but if he even attempts to hop on the marijuana train, he can find himself slapped with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and /or spending the rest of his life in jail. And you thought this heartless government would have learned from the highly discriminatory Casio license and regulations and the hurdles the Web Shop owners had to go through to get a license and now to stay in business without Brit taxed into oblivion. Not fully in support of legalization of recreational marijuana but reality is that is already in common use. One would have thought government would have eased the restrictions to reduce the crime associated with it. But seems like the government went into the opposite direction and not only will many more Bahamians find themselves going to jail for marijuana possession, but some will be going for 30, 40 even 50 years and will never ever see the light of day ago. Obviously whoever advised government on this portion of the bill directed this specifically at Bahamians. And this seems to be a more intense extension of America’s FAKE war on drugs )marijuana). Which is actually a war on Black people, males especially in America’s own country , in this country and throughout the Caribbean.

A better strategy or policy would have been to remove the duty off clothing and shoes across the board to bring down the local costs of these goods and allow all local retailers to compete with online shopping which is drawing millions out the country every year.

Seems moor like spend, spend spend and give away more government revenue rather than go into temporary reserve mode and not sink government into debt. Of course these conscessions to small and medium businesses in the middle of a pandemic is like encouraging a weak swimmer to jump of the deep end of the pier. This will do nothing to grow the economy so this businesses will now have to fight tooth and nail with established businesses to gain market share. So no new growth will be created in the economy. These type onf incentives will be better when the market will less fickle and shows greater signs of rebound, this is like when the touristy industry is at least 50 %. The employment that will be created will not be sustainable. And if government is seeking to dig itself deeper in debt with continuation of food assistance and other support programs this will sink government deeper into debt. Of course government does not want to go into election with such high unemployment numbers and with the revenue of major corporations, like bpl, btc, Aliv, WSC and many in the hotel industry so depressed and ways off base. So this can only be a pre election budget and the real whips and economic chains will come out in the next budget. And if the present government loses the election, no incoming government will be able to falsely prop up such an ailing economy without taking drastic measures. Some that don’t need to be extremely painful but will require government cutbacks until the economy starts to rebound. When the vat concessions given to businesses to hire additional staff or to keep on unnecessary workers is consumed, these businesses will have to let these workers go again. So this vat money that would have been in government’s coffers to assist these people will not be there and even some of the businesses will be gone. Unless there are serious efforts to draw new revenue into the Bahamian economy, government is only spurring wars and cannibalism between companies that exist and new companies coming into the market. This is not sustainable and can cause less companies to terms in active or operating and greater unemployment. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.