Well if y’all who have posted above know the seriousness of dumping and disposing of obsolete products or products that are near to the end of their life cycle you can see this is a serious matter. With vehicles just ride pass Strachans on Soldier Road or Roberts on Joe Farrington Road to see the number of vehicles that have to be crushed and exported every week or month. So of someone I’d payiua thousand or more to bring a vehicle here that has less than two years useful life, then it has to be crushed and shipped out then where is the benefit? A few years ago it was a common practice for large American Corporations to donate their used (and near obsolete) computers to schools and civic organizations in the Caribbean. Come to find out the real reason behind this was it was easier to donate and export these computers than it was to dump them. And with Japanese vehicles selling for as low as $25.00 (yes twenty five dollars) a standard has to be set. Especially since parts are no longer available for vehicles after a certain year. The Bahamas cannot afford to be a dumping ground. And eventually standards have to be set for all majors appliances as well.

So how much does it cost to send a Chinese back home to China. And what is the process? Let’s suppose there’s a racket going on where Chinese are smuggled into the country. They work for 3-4 years and now the employer wants to get rid of them. He owes them several thousand dollars. So immigration comes into the picture, determines the person is illegal and deports them at the expense of the Bahamian tax payers. In the main time the person who smuggled them here got four years labor from them just paying their room and board. Now government has to foot the expense of repatriating them. Then the cycle starts all over again going on year after year.

‘In the first sort of couple months we deported 2,800 immigrants and $2,500 of them were to Haiti ‘. That alone must have cost a million dollars. And with the Bahamas economy expected to rebound, the numbers will definitely increase. Especially since Donald Trump has warned them not to come to the US. So what can be done to make the Bahamas less attractive or less accessible to illegals. If 2,500 can reach here in a matter of months, how many are actually leaving the coast of Haiti and how many are being lost at Sea? What agreement or efforts are being made with Haiti to discourage Haitians leaving. Doesn’t the US still have several billion in aid that was supposed to go to Haiti and wasn’t Hundreds of millions already stolen o squandered in Haiti. Should the Bahamas start using its diplomatic ties to ensure Haiti gets these funds and assistance in growing its economy or is Haiti still blacklisted from the treaty it made with France over 100 years ago?

Schools in North Florida are closed today because of sleet and ice. And over 125 million Americans are in temperatures below freezing. This is turning to be one of the most bitter coldest winters on record. And once Florida becomes booked out with ‘winter birds’ the next destination of choice is the Bahamas. A good 3 month winter season will translate into a good summer for local businesses. And since bitter cold winters usually mean less active hurricane seasons The Bahamas can experience one of its best years economically in a long time. But when was the last time you saw a commercial promoting the Bahamas? Or even Bah Mar or Atlantis?

Even casinos are having to adjust their marketing strategies and entertainment to appeal to this new generation. Young people don’t want to sit around playing black jack or dropping coins in one arm bandits all night. So casinos are not only creating mobile apps for gaming, but they are also providing high level entertainment and dining facilities in their properties. The truth is many young persons can only be out 3-4 hours partying at night compared to their parents or grand parents who spent 6 - 8 hours. So basically they want to do more in less time.

So while there’s concern about Junkanoo attendance, movie going is at a 25 year low. (That $40 million monstrosity on top of Gladstone Hill could have been a boutique hotel or a mix mixed shopping mall.). But a professor at a college almoy20 years ago was explaining why the student attendance in his class was so low. ‘ Young people are in the state of ‘not being ‘. So when they are at home or in their dorm room they are preparing to go to class. But when they get to class they realize they don’t want to be there so they Pluto go somewhere else. With the aid of the smart phones. , persons are more aided in their journey of ‘not being .’ As soon as they get a text or information that some other event is going on they leave with the attitude ‘ Chile I could watch Junkanoo on my phone while I at the party.’ And sometimes it may just be a simple matter of finding out that the rest of the posse ( friends) are home sleeping.

Congratulations Saxons!!! Well deserved victory. That being said the time has come to revisit Junkanoo if only to make it less costly to produce and put on and more practical and 2018 oriented parade. The young millineals with their smart phones and quick agendas do not want to spend eight hours at a Junkanoo parade. And the merchants on Bay Street hates the bleachers going up and the parades being extended. And so Junkanoo, rather than evolving is being pushed into a tighter and tighter performance schedule with more and more restrictions. And with even more and more pressure being put on performers to get to Bay Street on time, get in line and hope everything else falls into place from there. But is this right? Should Junkanoo be rushed, cornered and hog tied in this fashion? Especially after Junkanooers spend almost an entire year and thousands of dollars (much of it their own) for barely an hour under the lights. And the spectators want nothing less than perfection. Attention to detail and costumes that jump out st the audience. Bet you couldn’t get even the most shrewd business person to market Junkanoo this n its present form and turn a profit. So there are two options: Try to keep Junkanoo as the art and historical event that it is and continue the painstaking and expensive art of designing, building and pasting costumes. But then give Junkanoo the time and space it needs to be performed properly. Then create an after market for costumes that can be sold or at least displayed for a period of time so the public can appreciate the artwork. Or fast forward Junkanoo into the 4 G-Lte age. Allow more mass production and less costly techniques in the making of costumes. Set the time frame for the parade. Let it happen and just walk away when it’s done.

It’s not a matter of staying too long, it was more a question of how many times you put the country through the wringer with incompetence and your inability to control and/or address corruption and dishonesty within your party and your cabinet. But the new political culture is to get in, get the job done and get the hell out. How many living presidents does the US have, Obama being the youngest among then. Can you imagine the restraint he must use when Donald Trump attacks him personally or his policies. So yes Christie, like Hubert Ingraham, will have the opportunity to sit in the rocking chair and relive the time he spent in office. And as a private citizen he will be able to feel the effects of some of the policies he left in place, the corruption he let go unchecked and the stealing too. Just as long as he doesn’t get the idea to go dye his hair and try seek another term in politics.

At full occupancy Bah Mar has the potential to earn $1.2 million per night in room revenue alone. Atlantis has stopped making its income statements public since the company went back private, but its earnings potential is much greater than Bah Mar’s. And while Puerto Rico and many islands in the Caribbean are still struggling to recover from hurricane damage, key West and most of the islands in that chain have fully recovered and are overbooked with tourists. They recovered even fast than a full fledged state like Texas.

Obama brought unemployment down from 15% to 4.3%. He bailed out the banks and auto companies and put a stop check on the declining housing market, in addition to ensuring every American had access to Health Care. Trump is taking all the credit for the strengthening economy and the record setting stock market. He brought em employment down from 4.3% to 4.1%. He spent most of his first year trying to dismantle Obamacare and has signed a tax bill that will put billions in the hands of already cash flush companies and individuals while eliminating some tax breaks for low and middle income individuals. There is no guarantee Trumps tax cuts will trickle down or cause companies to bring their operations back to America. So where will The billions come from that Trump is proposing to rebuild America’s infrastructure? Where will the workers come from since 4% unemployment is considered full employment in an economy? Can Trump make America great again when some states are seeking to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour compared to China and Japan where workers still earn pennies an hour and child labor is prominent? And what about the new threats from the president of North Korea. He claims his country now has missles to reach every part of the USA and the detonator for these weapons is always on his desk.