Who does this yapping marsh mallow headed D'Aguilar think he's fooling? History has shown us time and time again that cruise ship visitors only financially benefit our corrupt politicians in a big way and leave mere crumbs on the table for the vast majority of Bahamians.

As for the stock market, the smarter investor knows: The deader the cat, the higher its first bounce before taking that next great fall to a new lower level. LMAO

Minnis took it upon himself to buy the Grand Lucayan, renovate it and then operate it at a loss while looking for a buyer to enable the government to recover the $150 million plus of taxpayers' dollars that it has invested in this hotel property to date. This was done by Minnis after the previous owner, Hutchison Whampoa (HW), had determined the Grand Lucayan was no longer economically viable as a result of the declining Grand Bahama economy as exacerbated by the frequency of hurricanes even before Hurricane Dorian.

HW had earlier decided it was in their best interest to simply pocket the insurance proceeds it had received for damages caused to the property by an earlier hurricane rather than renovate and re-open the hotel. Minnis on the other hand foolishly decided to throw caution to the wind and buy the Grand Lucayan for $65 million. HW could not believe their good fortune, i.e. the dimwitted Doc's willingness to pay $65 million for an abandoned hotel property they had determined would never be economically viable.

Not only did our dimwitted Doc buy the Grand Lucayan, but he then proceeded to pay $3 million plus of staff costs that should have been paid by HW before government purchased the hotel. After buying the hotel property, Minnis had government invest a small fortune in having his cronies in the construction business renovate it while keeping its doors open and bearing significant operating losses.

At the end of day, Minnis had caused over $150 million of the people's tax dollars to be invested in the Grand Lucayan property. Then along came Hurricane Dorian which served to prove that HW's earlier decision to abandon the property was indeed a sensible one. It didn't take Royal Caribbean and its business partner long to realise that the Grand Lucayan was essentially worthless but had become a huge political liability for Minnis as a result of him foolishly encouraging the government to invest over $150 million in the property with absolutely nothing to show for it. Royal Caribbean quickly swooped in knowing that it could leverage Minnis's dire situation for its own great benefit. In fact Royal Caribbean has sinced played our dumber than dumb PM to acquire the Grand Lucayan for virtually nothing with all sorts of outrageously generous concessions to boot, including choice parcels of beach front Crown Land at the western end of Paradise Island.

The very sweet deal received by HW from government for the Grand Lucayan, plus the related outrageously sweet deals and concessions since promised to Royal Caribbean by government, all speak to just how financially foolish and reckless Minnis can be in his effort to buy votes and preserve his politocal powerer no matter what the cost to the vast majority of Bahamians and to the financial condition of our country. The only open question is do we really know about all of the quo for the quid that must have been showered on Minnis by HW and Royal Caribbean for their great windfalls.

Repost from 4 days ago:

Royal Caribbean has had the tiny balls of Minnis in a tight vice for quite some time now. They deliberately held off closing on the Grand Lucayan 'giveaway' deal in order to leverage additional overly generous concessions, including the Crown Land at the western end of Paradise Island. And the more Minnis squirms, the more Royal Caribbean tightens the vice. None of these 'back-room' deals Minnis is cutting with Disney, Carnival and Royal Caribbean will do anything for the Bahamian economy and the vast majority of Bahamians. Bahamians are being deprived of precious pristine waterfront land assets which these cruise ship companies will pollute with impunity for decades to come as they pocket and repatriate their profits annually with little or no contribution to our economy. Only Minnis and his most favoured cronies are laughing all the way to the bank as a result of their back-room deals with these most unscrupulous foreign investors. Yep, the very arrogant, nasty, corrupt and greedy Minnis is working overtime with the foreign cruise ship companies (Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Disney) to defraud Bahamians of their natural heritage.

You've either been smoking too much potent weed or deliberately attempting to spread misinformation and confusion. Death rate from flu is 0.1% compared nearly 4% for COVID-19 virus, i.e. nearly 40 times higher! And if you're unlucky to be over age 60 and already not in good health, the death toll from COVID-19 is even higher, perhaps as much as 15 to 20% for that group. Don't take my word for it - there are plently of reputable web sites out there with all of the known info to date posted about COVID-19.

What gives Minnis the right to spend our tax dollars on his efforts to get re-elected?!!

Grant you though, a report outlining Minnis's accomplishments will be much shorter and less expensive to produce than one outlining his many failures. The latter report would have more pages than the Bible!

Why doesn't this marsh mallow haired twit have the Ministry of Tourism seek legal recourse against the bank if he's absolutely certain the cheque was forged? Is it because similar cheques issued by his ministry and cleared by the bank do not bear original signatures but rather facsimile or electronically reproduced signatures even in the case of cheques issued for very large amounts?

If the cheque in question had been physically signed but the Ministry of Tourism had failed to provide the bank with a listing and samples of the signatures of its authorised signatories, then that's an entirely different matter - one of gross incomptence that we have come to expect of our government.

And just think how many more large fraudulent cheques have cleared the bank that our marsh mallow headed minister of tourism has not been able to identify because basic bank reconciliations have not been properly or timely done within his ministry. D'Aguilar will never give us full details of what 'his' internal or the police investigations reveal, nor will he call on the Office of the Auditor-General to perform a special audit. Instead D'Aguilar is gonna do what all cabinet ministers in the corrupt Minnis-led FNM government do with their dirty little secrets that they don't want aired in public - sweep it all under the rug and hope the public forgets about it. So much for Minnis's promise to be the most transparent government the Bahamian people have ever had!

Under that original proposed tax structure, web shops were to pay on each portion of their revenue:

Up to $20 million in revenue, a rate of 20 per cent.

Between $20 million and $40 million, a rate of 25 per cent.

Between $40 million and $60 million, a rate of 30 per cent.

Between $60 million and $80 million, a rate of 35 per cent.

Between $80 million and $100 million, a rate of 40 per cent.

Over $100 million, a rate of 50 per cent.

But Minnis and the FNM party quickly decided their own political and other financial needs were much more important than the country's dire financial needs so they kowtowed to the numbers bosses, in particular Sebas Bastian and Craig Flowers, and slashed the original tax rates to the pathetically low rates of 15% of revenues up to $24 million and 17.5% above that amount. The corruption of Minnis and the FNM party have no bounds today.

What Carl Bethel has done here is beyond the pale and shows beyond a shadow of doubt that he is unfit to be AG. Bethel's outrageous professional misconduct in publicly attacking Mr. Smith has seriously jeopardized Mr. Smith's ability to assert his legal rights and seek redress through our court system for any harm and losses wrongfully caused to him and his planned business venture by the government, more specifically the Office of the PM.

Bethel should be immediately called on to resign from his AG post by every Bahamian QC and the entire membership of the Bahamas Bar Association.

*Repost from 4 days ago:*

Royal Caribbean has had the tiny balls of Minnis in a tight vice for quite some time now. They deliberately held off closing on the Grand Lucayan 'giveaway' deal in order to leverage additional overly generous concessions, including the Crown Land at the western end of Paradise Island. And the more Minnis squirms, the more Royal Caribbean tightens the vice. None of these 'back-room' deals Minnis is cutting with Disney, Carnival and Royal Caribbean will do anything for the Bahamian economy and the vast majority of Bahamians. Bahamians are being deprived of precious pristine waterfront land assets which these cruise ship companies will pollute with impunity for decades to come as they pocket and repatriate their profits annually with little or no contribution to our economy. Only Minnis and his most favoured cronies are laughing all the way to the bank as a result of their back-room deals with these most unscrupulous foreign investors. Yep, the very arrogant, nasty, corrupt and greedy Minnis is working overtime with the foreign cruise ship companies (Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Disney) to defraud Bahamians of their natural heritage.