@Banker, your posts are often informative and accurate, however, in this post, I believe, you may have inadvertently distorted the money supply comparison between the Bahamas and the USA. The Central Bank reports the M3 money supply, which is the broadest measure while the USA number used was the M1 which is the most narrow measure used. Comparing those two there would be a great disparity. Having said that your other observations do have some validity. The major problem with the Bahamian economy is that it's openness has essentially created two separate economies, one foreign oriented that is chiefly funded with foreign capital and depends on foreign demand and the other domestic oriented where locals should be the major players. The problem is that economic activity is primarily driven and dominated by two principally foreign owned sectors, tourism and financial services, and that there are little to no inter-industry linkages to the domestic economy. Therefore even when the foreign sectors are doing well it does not provide more economic benefits for the domestic sector. When you add our local poor savings rate, our propensity to shop abroad, the absence of a capital market, the lack of government incentives for local ownership and the propensity of our politicians to use government finances as their election slush funds you have the mess we are in today with our debt.

Kerzner has invested billions of dollars in this country while Nygard, it is alleged, has literally reclaimed millions of dollars of our land. As a country that relies on FDI as an essential platform of our economic growth, for the PM to compare Nygard to Kerzner is very instructive of the mindset of our politicians. In addition to not providing a business friendly environment, our politicians can't seem to differentiate between a foreign investor that provides intrinsic benefits to the Bahamas and those who bring us negative press and with little to no benefits. They only seem to be concerned with "what's in it for me, baby". Until we start electing a different type of politician we will continue to experience much of the same.

What a dangerous and disingenuous message coming from non other than the Minister of Labour himself. It is high hypocrisy because on the one hand the Minister of Labour is calling upon the BTC union to essentially become more militant because it suits his party current needs when at the same time his party is trying to break the back of the BEC union after encouraging the same BEC union to be more militant in the past when it suited their political needs. Why is it that we continue to do the same thing but expect different results.

Comparing Fred Mitchell to Hubert Ingraham is laughable. There is nothing genuine about Fred Mitchell. As Loftus Roker stated recently, this same Fred Mitchell was one of the most vocal persons protesting and demonstrating against the same immigration policies he is now claiming to champion. I am no HAI apologist, but to deny his positive contributions to our society would be wrong and extremely ungrateful. Maybe, Mr. Mitchell and yourself should critique and provide evidence to refute the substance of the article and not engage in useless personal attacks.

If we are to be guided by history, its a very good possibility that the next COB president has already been identified and promised the job and we the general public have just not been informed as yet. Don't get me wrong, we are likely to see three or four names circulated for our gullible consumption, but that will be all smoke and mirrors because the fix will already be in. Anyway, the only reason a suitable qualified Bahamian would be interested in this post is to give back to our society but they would likely be totally frustrated by the political interference and uncertainty when the government changes. Why give up tenure and possibly take a pay cut to come home only to have some ego-maniac politician without a college education micro manage you.

No wonder we are in the state that we are in. We have Cabinet Ministers talking nonsense about GDP without, apparently having an understanding of what GDP represents. Mr. Mitchell GDP is not a measure of net worth or wealth, therefore, your example above makes absolutely no sense. On top of that, Mr. Mitchell appears to be trying his best to make the business environment in the Bahamas even more unfriendly with his confrontational approach to immigration issues, yet he is claiming we need new sources of funding and investments from the same business community he is demonizing. Go figure!

I always felt that concise problem identification represented about 90% of efficient problem resolution. We often say that we need politicians to be honest and here we have a young politician giving what appears to be an honest, descriptive impromptu response at the end of a speech and we are castigating him for it. No wonder politicians prefer to be evasive and tell us what we want to hear. We Bahamians are so imbued with unearned pride that every time someone identifies a potential shortfall we may possess we perceive it as an attack on the very core of our identity. I have news for you my brothers and sisters, just look around you at our society, all is not well, we are not perfect and no amount of burying our heads in the sand will hide that. If we cannot agree on a simple proposition, such as a sub-set of our society is unemployable, we will never be able to arrive at a solution because as noted above, concise problem identification often contains elements of the solution. I applaud the Minister for being honest and saying something that most politicians would dare not say but that is just the beginning. Until we can precisely identify the issues I have no idea what the solutions are, however, I do recognize that it will be imperative that all sectors of society are infused with an equal sense of awareness of our issues such that we can initiate an honest and heartfelt national non-political dialogue that attempts to balance personal responsibility and accountability with societal and governmental obligation and support. Contrary to many of the comments above, the government’s capacity to directly create jobs is limited; however, the government has an obligation to create an environment that encourages job creation, which successive governments have often failed to do. Governments can supply the bricks and mortar to build schools and furnish them with desks and chairs, however, governments cannot build character, common sense, values, ambition, attitude, morals, conscience or a work ethic in our children….. we must do that.

Unfortunately this is bigger than PLP or FNM. Serious allegations were made against Cargill and an audit was performed to review these allegations which will cost the Bahamian people over a million dollars. Minister Gibson claims that the audit report substantiates the validity of the allegations against Cargill, yet Cargill was terminated by the NIB Board for breach of confidentiality, a charge that was not even investigated in the audit as far as I am aware. There is a major unsettling disconnection here and this actual opens up a whole new Pandora’s Box. Serious questions should now be raised about potential conflicts of interests, the terms of reference, the appointment and execution of this audit and its impact on why the NIB Board decided to disregard its findings. In addition to the questions above, Mr. Gibson should also be made to publicly explain the criteria that he used to select and appoint Grant Thornton and why after spending over a million dollars on this audit, the NIB Board totally disregarded and ignored its findings and conclusions. Further, the PM must now show the same vigor in investigating the charges against Mr. Gibson and Mr. Moss, otherwise he will be planting the seeds again that will eventually lead to the downfall of his party… again. This is a classic case of fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. This audit appears to be just another case of blatant political patronage. Enough is enough, just as we should hold Cargill accountable where misfeasance can be independently validated, we must also hold the PM, Gibson and Moss accountable for wasting our money to enrich their family, friends and supporters.

@TalRussell, your posts are quite funny, but are you suggesting that a government mandated national health insurance plan is the solution?

Do you really believe that? I guess the Minister of Tourism forgot to send in his policy plan.