@This is Ours, you have always struck me to be a reasonable person so I will put this simple scenario to you. Suppose when you arrived to work this morning, your boss came to your desk and shouted, "the company can no longer afford your salary so effective immediately I am cutting your salary and vacation benefits by 50% and if we ask me about it I will fire you". How would you react to that?

The murder of Kurt appeared to be a personal and savage act and therefore, society would certainly be better off if the perpetrators were removed from amongst us. For this reason I am praying that the police would have done solid groundwork and dotted every i and crossed every t before bringing them to court. Also, without pre-judging the evidence, I am also praying that we have more of a motive than the armed robbery of a Hummer, because given the nature of this murder, the prosecutor would need all of our prayers and more trying to prove in court that four persons would committ this murder to try to steal a Hummer in Nassau, Bahamas with an accessory after the fact.

If doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, then expecting people whom we reward for misbehaving to change that behavior is more than a little naive. This can be applied to Miller and Green. Today we praise Miller for the manner in which he confronts the unions, but behold, tomorrow it may be you, your spouse, your daughter or son that he confronts in a similar manner. The fact is the union's position, though distasteful, is not an illegal one and is widespread throughout the civil service. They did not grant these benefits to themselves. We should be mindful of the words of John Donne, who wrote "No man is an island, entire of itself.....therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee". Projecting our anger only at the unions, would seem to me, to be a little short sighted. If we are really serious, we should be demanding an accounting of all persons and consultants who are currently receiving full salaries and benefits from government who are also receiving full pensions. This dollar amount would make the amounts in question here look like chump change.

I see your point! I would agree that there are many different types of crimes and many different reasons people commit crimes. I would also agree that we do have a rule of law issue in this country where certain law breakers seem to be above the law, given preferential treatment and/or a free pass and where certain victims receive more attention and resources than others. Also our legal and judicial system and out law enforcement institutional capacity must step up if we are to turn the corner against crime.

@John, at the risk of asking, if the persons in fox hill are not "real criminal Bahamians" then just who are they? Or are you saying that they are not "real criminals" because they should not be held responsible for their actions or behavior. That is, the persons who are "dancing to the tune of the paid piper", as you state, are responsible and should be blamed for their behavior.

@Rory, this is a good one and an imaginative approach. I particularly like section 4 of the new penal code because this enabling environmental and cultural attitude and condition is a primary correlative factor with respect to our worsening crime situation.

It seem as if we all continue to miss the point here. As distasteful as the actions of the union have been, the actions of our politicians and political institutions have been even more distasteful. Not only did they enabled and bred the setting and environment that allowed these unions to become so emboldened, they also literally signed these contracts giving the union these benefits. When the PLP was in opposition I remember going to the Bahamas Customs building and watching PLP MPs in the yard advising Custom Officers to strike and work to rule to make the then government look bad while it took me and other Bahamians over a week to be able to pay Customs and have our imported goods released. I have no doubt the FNM behaved the same way. This benefits issue is but a symptom of our larger socio-political issue where our political leaders view themselves as our privileged and entitled Patriarchs who conduct our affairs in a black-box fully non-transparent manner and act in a totally self-serving manner, behaving as if we, the Bahamian people, do not have a right to question them. We may change these BEC benefits but, trust me, tomorrow they would be right back at it working in their black-box giving someone or some other group benefits that serve their personal or political interest and not the interest of the Bahamian people.

Without commenting on the merits, I think both of you are saying the same thing in that it would take a "crisis", as banker notes, or "something cataclysmic", as johnq notes, to bring about a devaluation. And in either case social unrest would by then be a raging fire out of control.

You are 100% spot on in your explanation! The government and its reps must stop the scare bogeyman tactics and begin to have a transparent intelligent conversation with the Bahamian people.

"Bahamians do not understand VAT" so says the deer in the headlight, as if anyone in our government understood the full ramifications of VAT when they were being lectured by the IMF. Halkitis and our government has once again misread the tea leaves. The issue is not that Bahamians do not understand VAT and this is evident by the critical and brilliant questions the Bahamian public has raised concerning VAT, most of which the government has yet to deliver a coherent, rational or intelligent response to. It is interesting to note that for the majority of VAT implementations that have failed the primary causes have been poor preparation, lack of consultation, poor education and hurried implementation. Classically, the politicians appear to now be deflecting blaming to the public for their lack of understanding, preparation and consultation.
The real issue is that no one in government has even tried to intelligently explain to the Bahamian people the following: Why do we need to embark on an austerity program, during these hard times, to increase tax revenue and reduce expenditure; Why VAT, amongst all of the other options, is the optimal fiscal policy tool for our economy to accomplish this; Why the VAT rate must initially be so high at 15%; Why not an introductory lower rate; How will VAT impact other taxes already on the books and What are the short, medium and long term ramifications, positive and negative, for our economy in general and in particular for the businesses impacted and consumers.
The reality is that our issues, similar to the issues of most countries in this region go way beyond ballooning debt and deficits. We are faced with two other equalling vexing issues of low to no economic growth and high structural unemployment where there are just not enough jobs in our economy for those who want to work. This is exacerbated by our business model that depends on exogenous drivers of economic growth including FDI and tourism. Introducing VAT will also likely be unhelpful to the latter two vexing issues.