He did say

"*Bahamas’ economic output will still be 2 percent below pre-COVID levels even if growth forecasts through to end-2023 become reality, a local investment analyst warned yesterday.*

*David Slatter, RF Bank & Trust’s vice-president of investments, told a webinar organised by the company that this country will only “get back to where we were before the pandemic” by 2024 even though the gap between present and 2019 tourism numbers continues to narrow with every quarter.*"

I think his point was we need something else, we'll only get to pre-COVID in 2021 and even the goal of "getting back to pre-COVID*" isnt enough. Pre-COVID was dismal

"*without having to introduce new and/or increased taxes,*"

but customs duty has gone up, real property tax has gone up. who knows what else will be a surprise

Yup the last administration kept talking about how well we were doing and that we're almost at 90% of 2019. And Ive heard some "experts" repeat that as great news. i really wish the reporters would be more analytical, cuz they reported that info here as excellent news. It was good that we were generating some economic activity again but in 2019 we were at 0% growth looking dismal and having just been downgraded

Someone told me recently that they dont believe in Christianity because of all the harm religion has caused. I responded to them that good things have been misused for decades to cause harm. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the marijuana plant,it was a perfect design. I could imagine living in an age with no pain medication and getting a broken leg... some marijuana leaf would do great! The harm is in the misuse, not the leaf. Time will tell,one side will be right and one will be wrong for the Bahamas' sake I hope youre the one who's right.

Marijuana is a chemical... it interacts with your body and every "body has a different chemical makeup. There are many studies that refer to the negative impact of legal chemicals. They just released one on the dangerous effects of wine consumption and the mistaken belief that drinking wine is "good" for you. We saw this movie already.

Just looked up rates in the US, its between 1 and 2% across states. And it looks like it is paid as long as you own property. The question may be whether theyve assessed the value of the home correctly and whether having assessed the value is the homeowner in a position to pay. Especially if they're suddenly tripling taxes. We need to produce innovations to grow the economy because its clear govt has no ideas to makeup the gaps other than by taking it from citizens in taxes. Without innovation and growth there's gonna come a day when the taxes will be so heavy we'll basically be indentured slaves of the govt

This is just one of type of issues that we could have been presenting in Dubai. *the challenge of health care in a small island archipelago*. We have so many developmental problems that would do well with some strategic sustaibable innovative solutions, but no, we were proud to show we can sing and dance and overjoyed to sign a tourism paper. People can only help with what you need if you tell them what you need. You can only tell them what you need if you have a plan

Great to see. I wish a lifetime together of happiness and health for them

It was amazing to see all the positive spin from tourism officials, high to low, over the past few weeks. All with the messaging that *we dont see this having any effect on our tourism product*. Why? Why do that? Wouldnt it be better to do carry out some risk assessments to get an idea of how it might affect us and then produce mitigation strategies? Why does everything have to have walking past the graveyard sticking head in the sand political campaign PR spin?

No true. Everyone is wired differently. Noone can say if COVID related stressors were a factor in this case without information, but that there is something going on with COVID and domestic violence generally on a global scale is undeniable