First of all, it is spelled Basel not Basle.

Secondly, it is highly unusual for a shareholder like the Government, to pay the dividend. Highly unusual. Liked Clockwork Orange unusual. This is proof that the bad loans are politically driven and the government is/was using the Bank to reward cronies. And you wonder why we are a corrupt banana republic?

The Treasury should not be used to pay shareholder dividends of the BoB. It's criminal.

It's not even worth my while to look up what the capitalisation of BoB is, but here are the Basel III requirements:

Here is what Basel III says are the minimum requirements:

Minimum Common Equity Capital Ratio: 4.5%

Capital Conservation Buffer: 2.5%

Minimum common equity plus capital conservation buffer: 7.0%

Phase-in of deductions from CET1: 100%

Minimum Tier 1 Capital: 6.0%

Minimum Total Capital: 8.0%

Minimum Total Capital: 10.5%

Liquidity coverage ratio – minimum requirement: 100%

I am willing to bet that BoB meets none of these. If I were I minority shareholder (I am not that stupid), I would immediately demand the release of the above figures compared to the Basel III mandates.

If they are not met, I would demand the immediate windup and liquidation of the bank.

I love the pictures of the zombies drinking Kool Aid. Look at all of the sartorial finery paid for by the citizens of the Bahamas -- against their will.

I don't know what makes you so stupid, Ivoine, but it really works! As George Smith says, there ain't enough room at the trough for johnny-come-lately turncoats.

Blah blah blah. The noted investor and writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb is campaigning to remove Economics as a discipline worthy of the Nobel Prize. Economics itself is a dodgy piece of voodoo pseudo-science that is 100% accurate in hindsight and useless at making forward-looking predictions. The reason is, as Taleb believes, that economic activity is more chaotic and has more inputs than economists can fathom, and therefore cannot accurately predict anything. As a major example, the Black-Scholes formula won its creators the Nobel Prize in Economics and was major tool in the fake security valuation in the 2007-8 economic collapse. Economics prediction compared to real life, is like comparing the voodoo chiropractic method to real medicine. It is unproven dogma rather than observable fact. Everyone knows that there are lies, damn lies and then we have statistics.

I for one, do not believe that KPMG can produce an independent report when hired by a government intent on creating something. The very premise of their producing a report is to buttress an already stated position. This is part of the conflict of interest in these consultants who claim to be independent, but in fact are brought in as gunslingers for those who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn door with a bazooka.

I do not, for one minute, doubt that there is a causal link between economic well-being and health. But that is not the issue. The issue is whether the NHI plan as proposed, is economically sound, well thought out and viable from a fiduciary prudence point of view. And it is not, despite any amount of lipstick that KPMG wants to put on this pig.

Oh please. What happened to religious tourism, medical tourism and eco-tourism initiatives? This is another bird-brained scheme.

The bank should be shuttered, liquidated, and the officers, past and present, jailed.

More slippage in the Ease of Doing Business. The government is now on an all out tax-grab.

In every other civilised jurisdiction, the bank would have been shuttered and wound down by now, as per the law. This is why the Corruption Index in the Bahamas is so high and foreigners see the Bahamas as a corrupt, non-level playing field. The Bank along with BISX is so Mickey Mouse, that it is beyond funny. It is criminal.

I did not say that his apology was good enough. I merely outlined that he had retracted, AND the original statement was unbelievable and laughable.

George Smith doesn't like those people because these political parasites and opportunists are crowding out the PLP political parasites and opportunists. With so many singing for their supper, there een enough to go around. That's the real issue.