This has very little to do with our educational system and everything to do with our state of governance and the competence of our government, past and present in this country. You have criticized the educational system, the web shops and our society in general but silent on Dr. Sands not following protocol and awarding a new contract to a person who donated to his election campaign, who had been implicated in fraud and bribery with respect to a previous contract with the same PHA. In fact the new contract was about 5 or 6 times the value of the fraudulent contract. No wonder the PHA cannot pay the doctors, all the money is going to politically connected donors. Is this not he same corruption in action that the PM went on foreign soil to tell the world about. Where is the local outrage? Our outrage is either at 10,000 feet above the ground or on those people that we do not like for whatever reason. These comments by Ms. Weech above says more about her, Dr. Sands and this government, than it says about our educational system. Totally unacceptable!

Typical Bahamian, just call names when facts are inconvenient and you are too lazy to do the research yourself. Try and escape your intellectual trance and do your own research before making silly statements. That number is an uncontested fact.

Unfortunately the issues facing our economy are not quite that simply. Without getting into the morality of gambling and from a purely economic point of view when a person wagers one dollar in a gambling game, on average more than eighty cents of each dollar is returned back into the economy as customer winnings that can be used by the customers as they see fit. That means that 80% of each dollar is returned back into the economy. The remaining 20%, the difference between customer wagers and customer winnings is used to cover Gaming taxes and fees, operating costs like salaries, NIB, charitable donations, employee insurance, rent, BPL, BTC, water sewerage and other overhead and vendor costs. The balance is then profits to the shareholders. Are not all of these economic transactions inputs and reinvestments back into our economy? Conversely, when a merchant like those above who are receiving the duty tax breaks noted above spends a dollar to purchase apparel and shoes from the USA what happens to that dollar? What percentage and how much of that dollar is re-invested back into our local economy by the USA business owner who sells the apparel or shoes to the local merchant? We may agree or disagree with gambling but let's at least be intellectually honest with our arguments. You sound just like Peter Turnquest and Marlon Johnson, just making stuff up to disguise their incompetence and support their narrative.

This description only applies to businesses that are non-VAT registrants. VAT registrants can claim a VAT credit for zero-rated imports or inputs even though no VAT is collected on sales. The net effect is to reduce the price on these zero rated items not to hurt importers.

Are you referring to the gaming operators or the Bahamian commercial bank that the Minister of Housing just confessed is actively enticing, seducing and preying upon poor Bahamians to take out salary deducted loans they cannot afford so that they can spend the proceeds of these loans with their merchant class friends?

Let's at least be factually accurate. The fact is that the opinion poll was not and was never intended to be a binding referendum.

Are you not guilty of this same broad brush accusation, innuendo, generalizations and insults?

Is that really what he is saying?

Our young people are some of the brightest and smartest in the world but it is our own elected leaders who take every opportunity, for petty political and personal gain, to spew negativity about their own country that makes it difficult for young people to be optimistic and think I can and I will.

What these political leaders do not appear to understand is that negativity is like a super contagious virus that specifically attacks the optimism, hopes and aspirations of our youth. This in my view is directly related to our brain drain because our talented youth have lost hope and optimism in our future, partly because their politicians, even on foreign soil, take ever opportunity to speak negatively about our beautiful, even if imperfect, country.

Even worse is when these politicians go on foreign soil to say speak about corruption costing our country hundreds of millions of dollars a year and then come home, see this very same corruption in practice and then glibly walk right by it and pretend to not see it. That behavior is in my view an extension of the same self-interest centric corruption because if we are not going to do anything about it why go on foreign soil just to expose our dirty laundry.

I do not agree with you often but do agree that the Bahamas will never achieve sustainable endogenous economic growth until we address systemic institutional corruption, our petty small minded self-dealing politicians, re-develop hope, aspiration and optimism for our future, raise our behavior and educational standards and expectations and most importantly have the 1% that control 95% of the wealth in this country re-invest more or get their a--es out of the way and let persons who want to invest do so.

I attended Carnival last night and was frankly amazed that the private sector could organize and execute such a series of events on short notice without a dollar from government that in my view exceeded the entertainment and economic value and contributions of all previous Carnivals. When I arrived I personally witnessed about 100 tourist being unloaded from taxis to attend the concert. It is exactly these types of uniquely local experiences that we need to capture a competitive advantage in tourism, yet I understand that there were certain government ministers that did everything in their power to attempt to stop this year's Carnival for their self-interested and personal reasons. It is disgraceful, corrupt and so short-sighted.