Crypto is here to stay whether people like that or not. You have to view it as an investment and be willing to ride the waves. Buy low, sell high. It is the stock market with a much quicker turnover cycle. You can even mine a coin like Ethereum from your GPU profitably. No reason not to take part.

In response to some of your criticisms of crypto :

1.) They can be coverted to cash with proper ATMs

2.) Fiat currency is backed with nothing. Bitcoin, for example, is backed with limited supply that becomes progressively harder to obtain (mine). You could mine Bitcoin from your GPU in the old days, you now need a dedicated miner to do so profitably.

3.) Same criticism applies to credit cards and online bank accounts

4.) Cash is just as hard to trace, and can be laundered just as easy. How many Bahamian businessmen today have their hands dirty from drug money in the 80s, or gambling money today?

There is nothing to indicate that this variant is anything to be concerned with in terms of severity. At some point everyone just needs to accept that they are probably going to get COVID, shots or not. Deal with it, and move on with life.

Funny how I see exposure notifications for Air Canada flights all the time when checking the Canadian news. It is quite hilarious considering that you need your shots in order to fly in Canada.

Honestly, the best solution is to just tear the Grand Lucayan down at this point. Nobody is going to buy the hotel in it's current state. One of the earliest signs that we were in trouble with Minnis was when he removed any negotiating leverage he had by getting stuck with the hot potato hotel. It really highlighted the poor negotiating skills of the previous government, which was confirmed with the terms of the PI lease.

Study what Pablo Escobar did in Colombia. He took many of the poorest out of the slums and gave them homes for free. In exchange, he had their loyalty and got many soldiers for his cartel. He was so popular that he actually ended up in government. We are seeing a similar process happen here.

This is old news. This deal was allegedly going to happen from when the FNM was in government. Treasure Cay is a community without vision and this man would have to be a fool, or have some ulterior motive, to buy it. You cannot have a community catering to both second homeowners AND partying tourists. They are two completely different demographics that you are trying to appeal to. Not to to mention that aside from periods during the Kappeler years, Treasure Cay was nothing but a loss making endeavor under Meister's ownership. Without a beachfront casino and hotel, you would be wasting money investing into the community. The second homeowners and locals are not going to be much in favour of that though.

I expect this deal to go the same way of the Canadians, Chinese, and everyone else that has looked at Treasure Cay in the past. The real MVP of Treasure Cay is Craig Roberts. Without him doing his best to get Bahama Beach Club back on its feet, Treasure Cay would be a completely lost cause.

What you mentioned about the sinovac shots seems to be pretty common. Apparently a lot of Latin/South American countries have received them, and it was causing difficulties for students who had arranged to study in the US as they were not recognized there. I have heard similar stories with the Russian made one in Europe as well.

The thing is that we all know there isn't going to be a threshold. Any government that implement income tax will use the "rich people need to pay their fair share" argument solely to convince simple minded Bahamians that it is a good idea. The frog will boil, and it will eventually come to every single Bahamian (if not right away), while the government continues to piss it down the drain with nothing to show for it. This is literally how it played out in America, these exact same arguments were thrown about in 1913 just like they are being thrown about today. History has a funny way of repeating.

Also, the Bahamas cannot be, and was not designed to be, an America or Canada. We don't have the natural resources or industry for that. Neither were we designed to be a shithole third world nation like Jamaica or Barbados. Go to Kingston and let me know how safe you feel when not behind a walled compound (sadly, this applies to a good portion of Nassau as well). The Founding Fathers of the Bahamian economy designed us to be what the Cayman Islands is today. We were designed to be a two pillar economy with no-low taxation, with not nearly the amount of civil servants and government expenditures that we are seeing today. We are in debt up to our nostrils because we have deviated from that plan, and the old PLP strategy of using government employment to suppress unemployment is coming back to bite everyone in the behind.

There is no bloody taxing our way out of this mess. You can add corporate tax, income tax, inheritance tax, TV tax like the UK in all, and we will still be in blasted debt because of the financially illiterate and irresponsible governments that have plagued our nation since 1967. Feeding the monster is not going to get us out of this mess. Perry them were shocked at the amount of money they first got from VAT + tariffs, and what do we have to show for it today? Not a blessed thing. All of that was blown on grift or government salaries. At least Papa redid the roads, despite Bahamians complaining 24/7 about it. Taming the beast is our only option.