Cayman Islands has legislation that mandates permanent residency approval in no more than ten business days. We could never compete with that.

Our civil service doesn't have the work ethic to turn out anything in ten days.

Sigh ... , in spite being the minister of "Financial Services" at one point, our friend Ryan still doesn't "get it". The concept of banking secrecy and a tax haven in the traditional sense is dying. It is a concept that was destroyed by terrorism, narco dollars and economic zones such as the European Union which put a focus on tax evasion and tax avoidance.

There can be a rescue plan, but it requires thinking outside the box that friend Ryan seems incapable of. There is only one way to save "Financial Services" and that is to become REAL providers of financial services.

Put simply, the rescue plan would be to go legit and fill the voids in merchant banking, securities settlements, commecial banking, reinsurance, and a whole slew of other innovative commercial activities like a derivatives exchange, funds services or cryptocurrency clearing houses.

First and foremost, we would have to dollarize the economy. Then the government would have to invest several hundred million dollars for an infrastructure upgrade, including a financial services economic zone (convert Baha Mar for instance), legislative changes that instill trust and eliminate corruption, create regulatory agencies that do not employ Curly, Larry, Moe or anyone affiliated with the PLP, and open up and incentivize immigration of any and/or all knowledge workers and professionals such as what has happened in Cayman Enterprise City, and then clean out the rats nest that is the legal profession, and create independent ombudsman with real teeth to deal with the government and the civil service.

It is a Herculean task and I can categorically state that it will not be done, because the Prime Minister has no vision, and his sycophants are too busy lining their pockets or using their position to exercise their sexual peccadilloes.

There are only three or four pathways back to prosperity in the Bahamas, and they are all hidden from anyone who has the power to implement them.

The webshops are living on borrowed time. All of the small banks are quickly losing correspondent banking privileges, and the Bank of The Bahamas is high on the list of being de-risked due to accepting web shop money. When that happens, it will be nothing more than a crippled entity dealing only in Bahamian dollars with no external US dollar money transfers, credit card payments or any other currency transactions requiring hard currencies such as the American dollar, the British pound, the Canadian dollar and the Euro.

Why do you think our friend Ryan bolted from Deltec? He can see the writing on the wall.

What good will a dumptruck full of Bahamian dollars be to the webshop owners who cannot even buy US dollars for new machines when their only bank loses its ability to transact American dollars?

With KYC/AML being required for sources of money, those individuals will have their ability to transact in American dollars severely curtailed at the major banks as well. This is going to be interesting.

The next step, will not only be the banks, but the money transfer houses. Fidelity already had its 26 money transfer locations shuttered when Western Union de-risked them and ended the correspondent relationship. There will be more to come.

The real embarrassing optics will be when the ex-Governor of the Central Bank, chairman of a brewery AND the chairman of a webshop, will be considered an AML risk because of the position that he holds at a webshop. Hilarious.

Save the sloop. Bahamians may need it and use it to get to a better life in Florida.

And what if it can't be fixed? What if the forces required to change are bigger than the resources necessary to muster the remedial resources.

One man or woman cannot make a difference any more. He has a whole army against him/her. If one such patriot arises, the PLP bulldog rapist chairman will spew putrid venom to destroy that person, because the kleptocrats want the status quo. It is no accident that education is sorely lacking.

There is no magic bullet. It took two or three generations to get to the state of disrepair, and we all know that building takes a lot more effort and a lot longer than say, striking a spark to ignite an inferno that destroys everything.

I am a humanist. Everyone deserves a shot at making a significant life for themselves. And those that take that ability and hope away, are culpable of crimes against humanity. And that my dear, describes your beloved PLP to a tee. The sins on their souls against the Bahamian people are immense.

There is no hope. There are no solutions given the current state of affairs. We will just sit and watch entropy take its course. This will not end by itself.

Bahamians of all ilk have voted and voted resoundingly that gender equality means nothing to them. They do not place any intrinsic value in the higher aspects of enlightenment. The government is doing nothing to create steady pay cheques or halt the escalating crime. They are taxing those businesses who are not their friends, while giving patronage to those who are. They are corrupt kleptocrats. There are unsolvable systemic problems.

The country offers it citizenry nothing but hardship, blood-soaked streets and tears, and a very low standard of living, except for an elect few who aid the kleptocrats in their sins against the country and against its citizenry.

Since life on earth is granted once, it is incumbent upon men and women to seek their place in the sun, where they are respected, treasured for the contributions and rewarded for their efforts. If the homeland will not do it, then there are places that will do so for the geographically mobile The sad, unfortunate aspect is that 90% of my fellow Bahamians are caught in the meat grinder, this vale of tears on a limestone rock.

It is force majeure. You can't fight them. You can't join them. If you can, you vote with your feet.

You have no idea of how many business owners of all sizes, in the past two years, have sought my advice on how to transfer assets (legally and illegally) to other jurisdictions. The exodus of capital has started. Won't be long when the exodus of people will accelerate with a fury. 68% of those educated abroad do not return -- with good reason.

There is an endemic problem. The illiterate school leavers - thousands of them, have no jobs other than hustling and grifting on the street. They have been poorly socialised in largely absent-father homes by indulgent mothers who had to work to raise them. The police force is not big enough suppress the hundreds upon hundreds of young me who roam the streets every day, looking for a way to score a few dollars. Ten armed robberies in a couple of days. There is not enough money, time or resources to fix the problem now.

In my opinion, we have passed the point of no return. Societal collapse has the following characteristics:

Destratification - the middle class and the various nuances disappear. We have just the unemployed, those just hanging on, and the rich.

Despecialization: The move to knowledge industries has not happened. The present society is supported by the work of the lower classes. During societal collapse, specialised jobs are removed and people tend to become more generalized in their work and daily habits, with less money.

Breakdown: In many instances of collapse, there is a slackening of social rules and etiquette. Communities become more parochial, religious-driven or isolated from a broader, enlightened outlook and economic spectrum.

Destructuralization: Institutions, processes break down. People are forced to adopt more self-sufficient lifestyles, including crime, begging and reliance on whoever and whatever they can.

The coupled breakdown of economic, cultural and social institutions that we are seeing now, is a classic picture of a society on the brink of collapse.

The only way to stop this, is to get the people working again. And it isn't happening.

A crime plan is useless unless there is an economy where young men can make more money and have more respect with a legitimate job instead of owning a gun. When you hear stock boys in supermarkets debating the merits of various handguns, you know that you have passed the point of no return.

Sad. It is escalating from thugs shooting thugs, to thugs shooting innocents.