He is undoubtedly right on tax increases - notwithstanding that it is diametrically opposite to what the economy needs, and will have horribly bad unintended consequences, predictable by all but the most ignorant. The failure to even reference spending as a factor is telling.

That aside, however, this gentlemen sacrificed whatever creditability he ever had when he enthusiastically inserted himself as a civil servant into the original partisan debate, and swore up and down the country that it was needed to address our debt ... in fact all it addressed was the politicians' insatiable need for money for their own enrichment and maintenance in power. VAT just empowered them to borrow and spend ever more.

The ignorance and historical revisionism exhibited above is breathtaking in its breadth but I guess not surprising, given our dependence for information on the American mainstream media, which ten years ago gave up all remaining pretense of dealing objectively in actual "news".
The Venezuelan economy has been slowly but surely tanked and utterly destroyed over the past 30 years wholly and solely by the socialist and latterly communist policies of the Chavez and Maduro regimes. They took a fairly wealthy nation wrich in resources - albeit with the characteristic inequality of distribution common to latin america - and imposed programmes and central planning and control the end result of which was predictable and predicted by anyone who has watched politico-economic history for the past century. Until quite recently the U.S. had imposed zero economic sanctions on the Venezuelan economy, instead using little more than individual sanctions and travel restrictions only on the handful of people at the top of that nation's government - a government which had over the past decade or more put itself voluntarily under the virtual control of the communist regime in Cuba. The Venezuelan government, not the U.S. government, is responsible for the melt-down of that econo0my, the breakdown in the distribution of goods and services, and the horrendous inflation that has destroyed its currency.

The presumption is breath-taking: politicians believe they can suspend the laws of economics. Dr. Sands speaks of the health care industry trading lower fees and charges for higher volume. That's exactly the supposed deal made for Obamacare in the U.S. and what actually happened? Costs, charges premiums all skyrocketed. Why? An increase in demand for goods and services without a commensurate increase in the supply of those goods and services inevitably drives the price higher, not lower.

I like Mr Cooper. He strikes me as an intelligent and accomplished entrepreneur, but he has betrayed his potential by associating himself with the irredeemably corrupt PLP. That party has repeatedly been dismissed from government and left the nation in truly dire straits. Whoever follows them into government invariably faces an economic basket case, and 2016 was no exception. That said, I have little use for DPM Turnquest either. The Obama administration to the north 10 years ago took a seriously troubled economy and pursued policies that, intentionally or not, had the effect of retarding the recovery of that economy, making it in fact the slowest and worst recovery from recession ever seen. Mr Turnquest and the FNM Cabinet gave done no less with the recent increase in VAT. I have no illusions about the depth of our debt problems and the urgency if the need to address them, but a VAT increase at this time was emphatically stupid, and predictably destructive. Anyone in business in this country will tell you that, despite the gains in tourism the VAT increase was a shot not into the foot but into the heart of economic activity I'm the Bahamas. May was for many busin Essex, perhaps most if them, the first God month this year, the first dignity of economic advances in the US reaching us. Then they announced the VAT increase. June predictably saw hight sales volumes as consumers got ahead of the July 1 effective date. July was ruinous. August was no better. The decision you increase VAT literally choked our economy and I for one see little prospect of any improvement anytime soon. Consumers are afraid to spend. Investors are afraid to invest. Turnquest is a well-educated but arrogant and utterly misguided Finance Minister. I can say it, but Mr Cooper, as a representative of the party that put us into this mess, should hold his tongue unless he has a reasonable suggestion to make!