I do not totally agree with you about the numbers buying and the eating out and the I Phone under the Christmas Tree. Many Bahamians have become frugal , especially under the curfews and lockdowns under the previous Minnis administration, You can see this how on the weekends and on holidays tge streets are mostly empty. People go to church on Their Sabbath then go back home. Those who go out for brunch or dinner has included it in their budget and feel that despite things being tough and times being hard, they can’t give up on lifel completely and are entitled to have a good time once in a while . The biggest problem for people who will receive minimum wage increases is inflation and the rising cost of fuel, food and electricity . And then there’s the looming recession, which may cause people to become unemployed . Of course this inflation followed possibly by a recession willl be global and governments , including The Bahamas government will be limited in what it can do. If the cost of living increases are greater than the wage increases, then people will not be any better off. And if the wage increases are so much that they drive up the cost of living even more, then the workers will be even worse off, if a company has 1,000 workers that will have their pay increased in January, that is an additional $50,000 ( yes Fifty Thousand Dollars) expense? Added to the company’s payroll expense every week! So where will this money come from? Few businesses operating in The Bahamas can increase their sales by $50,000.00 a week, And it doesn’t stop there: the workers at a higher pay scale may say? ‘if you increase their pay ( minimum wage), you must also increase mines,

According to the PM the expansion to include 30 additional items to the breadbasket is only temporary. Six months he says. Then it will be reviewed by government in consultation with affected businesses

Ask the ATF ( Alcohol, firearms and Tobacco) agency what happened to the hundreds of high powered assault rifles they were supposed to be tracking under ‘operation fast and furious?’ Many of those weapons ended up on the streets of Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and yes, even The Bahamad. Remember that? When high powered assault weapons were found on the streets for the first time in this country. So don’t put high hopes in these US agencies. Corruption abounds, And their missions are covert and multi/directional

Well one day and hopefully before Bahamians are wiped out, someone will put the pieces of this puzzle together and stop the carnage: young black men are dying to violence mostly made by whom and coming from where? Not just in The Bahamas, but throughout the Caribbean Young women , some in their teens are dying from cancer and diabetes and hypertension other diseases. The cost of living for the average Bahamian is unbearable and unachievable and guess who is buying up all the land, beachfront especially? As the value of the Bahamas increases, the value of Black Bahamians decreases and the desire to dispense of them increases. Look at what happened to the original Australian people. Look what happened to fishing and farming villages in Nigeria and other parts of Africa where oil and other high value minerals were found. Hundreds of people were silently poisoned to death. Bahamians are under seige. Even the diet of most Bahamians is killing them. # fast food mostly loaded with salt and pork and sugars, coming from whence? The horses have left the gat and they are running. The pale horse is in the race.

A few decades ago, aka back in the 70’s, America started its Fake War on Drugs and , as a joint partner, The Bahamas followed the US advice and started locking up, young school aged boys for small amounts of marijuana. The dangers of weed was so overblown by the Us agents that families were afraid to allow their own flesh and blood back into their homes after they had drug charges put on them. But the worst of it was some of these young boys were remanded to Fox Hill Prison and o others sentenced, where they were exposed to the real crime element. Hardened criminals that had broken every law on the books. Shortly thereafter there started to be a series of break-ins and yes, even robberies, where if the police were fortunate enough to catch anyone, it turned out to be underage teens, school boys. And it was a while before police caught on that the real criminals were using these young boys to do crime. The boys could only be charged as minors and in many instances only served a few weeks or months at Simpson Penn, before they were dumped back out on to the streets to have another go at becoming a hardcore criminal. As as these young men became more bold and brazen in their crimes, police and courts decided that the punishment must also become more severe. There is evidence that at least one young man was raped in prison at tge age of 14. And contracted AIDS. He was not even sentenced but put there by police to teach him a lesson. Unfortunately that lesson became deadly for him as the treatment for AIDS was not as advanced then as it is now. Another young man was sent to prison, also to be taught a lesson. He, too was raped in jail and after being released, he turned to violent crime that included rape. He was recently killed by police. So what is the point. The point is it appears that the more people that are sent to jail, the worse the crime problem is getting. This is especially true for murderers. Rather than being an institution for punishment and rehabilitation, the prison appears to be a breeding ground for criminals. For certain allowing persons charged with murder back out on the streets is not a wise idea. Either they will be killed or they will kill again. Young people do no longer fear going to jail and tge stigma of being a jailbird has transformed to ‘someone who done been to Fox Hill and so don’t mess with him.’ So solution to crime is to make Fox Hill more unbearable. And this may have to include physical punishment for some. And no exit for others.

They will have to relocate her. As long as Belinda Wilson in the camp, there will be no peace in the tent. That’s how she maintains her popularity. So now the principal now must go, go, gone

Wasn’t this the same ‘poor ole Shane who was very Ill and possibly losing his battle with prostrate cancer’. Shingles money never done!

Now that cooler weather is coming, turn off those a/c s or put them on minimum settings. Next summer will be hot again and electricity will cost more. Save now for then.

These Union leaders have to be some of the dumbest, brain-dead idiots on the planet and planets not yet discovered. How are you even connecting and/or associating minimum wage with a livable wage? They are two very different creatures and serve two different functions. Minimum wage if the least a worker entering the job market can earn, legally. A ‘livable wage’ is tge amount it takes a person, now t necessarily a worker, to sustain him/herself in a given economy, And believe it or not, many people who are self employed or depend on income generating property do nor earn a livable income. So how do you even fathom a person just starting out in the workforce with no experience and probably minimum education and skills jump to that level. People like John Pinder, will sell their souls, many times over to appease his followers. The raw hard facts are, if businesses were ‘forced’ to pay their minimum earners a livable age, they would have to raise their prices so much that the minimum wage workers will be worse off than they would be receiving the proposed minimum wage. It would be a rally where whenever the wage is increased, there would be a corresponding increase in costs.

Europe is bracing for what is expected to be one of the deepest recessions since 2008. If fact tge UK in its recent budget announced a series of tax cuts, rebates and exemptions that led to stern warnings from the IMF. Other European nations will have to make similar decisions as NATO countries have to help pay for the Ukraine war as they also face what can be a crippling energy across the entire continent. So not only is the EU desperate for cash, but they are taking preemptive strikes against countries, like The Bahamad, to help prevent future wealth from leaving the region. But you will never see regions, like the Cayman Islands ) that had 70 percent of British wealth stashed) Switzerland, New York or Delaware receive the pressure that is being placed on The Bahamas, much less being blacklisted. It is not that the EU does not allow or tolerate offshore banking to facilitate tax evasion. Like the PM says, but only certain countries are allowed to the table to play this game. The USA was involved in drug smuggling when most of the residents of The Bahamas were still in slavery. Yet that country listed and Black listed the Bahamas and other Caribbean countries as major drug producing or trafficking nations. And despite drugs being smuggled through the Bahamas and the Caribbean being minimized, millions and millions of tons of cocaine and other illegal drugs are still being smuggled into the U.S. Snd the threat of deadly fentanyl in the US is so serious, officials are now seeking to outfit all colleges and high schools with the antidote to fentanyl overdose. But has any of the two major countries producing and smuggling fentanyl been even blacklisted? Like was done to The Bahamas and other Caribbean countries? And NO , not confusing blacklisting by the EU with the US blacklisting for illegal drugs. They are all interrelated.