... if she is not in jail.

Whenever I see the name Valentine Grimes, I immediately know that the other side is in the right.

Crisco Butt and his entire cabinet should be jailed for life.

Here is a case for someone to be deported from The Bahamas.

The problem with FINCO is their management. They know that RBC, the parent would drop them in a heartbeat if they could find the right buyer. Canadian banks, because of their size, can afford to be patient, and the divestiture of their Caribbean assets has been on the table for a long time. It is just not worth it anymore to them, and they are moving into more profitable business lines - like 72 -84 months on a new car loan in the US and Canada.

So the management of FINCO is under stress to produce results. They were seeking growth by putting more and more into the loans business. They kept making more and more marginal loans and that is how they got into trouble. I am told that some lending officers had a quota to "put money on the street".

And the financial industry is procyclical. That means that failures in some areas cause failures in the lending institutions. Marginal or sub-prime loans are a huge bellwether of the economy. It is an indication that the economy is not doing well. In boom times, when people get into credit trouble, the can usually refinance (at a higher rate of course). When they no longer can refinance, that is when the loan portfolio stops performing, which is the case for FINCO -- too many marginal loans seeking higher profits.

I fear that the economy of the Bahamas is due for a further decline. The current FNM government should be putting economic diversification policies in place now, and I see no sign of that. I hope that I am wrong about my prognostications. When I see boom times in other cities (Berlin, Vancouver, Dublin, Hyderabad, Seattle, etc), my heart sinks because we don't have to be in a backwater if we just had some vision at the top. Not seeing any right now. Maybe Bahamians are too parochial to have the mental and cognitive resources and vision to get us out of the deep hole that we are in. Nobody seems to have the problem-solving skills to disrupt the downward slide.

Wow, another identity for mudda -- you must have a whole pile of email addresses. The "reality" is that "poodle" gave you away.

According to the guy who sits next to me (an ex-member of the Israeli army intelligence before he quit and started derivatives trading) it is of Bulgarian manufacture and wholesaled through Pakistan and sold around the world to anyone who wants to buy one. Usual price is about $1500 plus any add-ons.

How can you have an open-ended fund on an exchange that is often illiquid? This really doesn't make sense, and it is scary for the investor.

I have just recently left the island. That simple act has shown me the toxicity -- mental, physical and environmental, of New Providence. It is so very pleasant to live and work in an environment that produces a few orders of magnitude of less stress. Things work off island. Life is rich in human experience, from genuine interaction of neighbours, young and old, to happy people at their workplaces.

The barista where I get my coffee knows that I am Bahamian, so she is trying to create a palm tree with cappuccino art in my morning coffee. My boss drove me around to look at used cars so that I do not have to rely on public transit when I work late. But I actually enjoy the city at night. I am safe as I wait for the bus, or the tram. I can choose one of many ethnic restaurants for an inexpensive dinner. At 9:00 PM, I remark to the waitress that no one is in the restaurant, and she tells me that I am too early for the crowds.

Dr. Mike, I detect that you live on the edge of sadness. I know the big reason why. I can't imagine losing flesh and blood to violence. Even your work, albeit rewarding, cannot be very uplifting, dealing with the vagaries of mental illness - especially those in criminal institutions that are not that enlightened or have the infrastructure to deal with sick people on a humanistic level.

I would seriously suggest an extended off island vacation. On the way to my new job, I took a couple of weeks off to decompress. A ex-client who became a friend, gave me the use of a gite on his property in the south of France -- Provence. It was a charming old stone, farm outbuilding converted to a small apartment. I woke up to sunlight streaming through the open window along with the scent of lavender on the summer breeze. It was the first sleep in a long time that was peaceful and free of stress dreams. A cat was sitting in the window, catching the rays. The air was as a fresh as the ozone freshness of my bed sheets. I knew that I would catch a breakfast of coffee, croissants and jam.

It felt like it was a million miles from Nassau, and the feeling of wholeness, goodness, restfulness and peace was palpable. You need a vacation, sir.

I am huge fan of kdnuggets! Know them well and like Gregory Piatetsky.
I am on his mailing list. Especially now since we process big data to trade derivatives (the fundamental and Black Swan guys use a lot of it). Glad to see that other Bahamians are plugged into this discipline! Never saw any BI engagement before in the Bahamian milieu.

The big thing about Bahamians doing it, is that it would require a capital asset investment to create the infrastructure. There isn't enough business (aside from the MOT) to create that infrastructure.

Having wasted 6 months of my life trying to get this medical instruments project going from the Bahamas, I can assure you that a multi-million dollar media buy is not a mom-and-pop venture. Even the Councillors (I have appeared on TV, going to their tiny studio in the basement with cardboard backdrops and mixers that I've seen in tiny rural cablecast systems in the USA), with their large-ish staff couldn't scale to do the regional media buys.

I don't disagree with you about Bahamians doing the job. However the Bahamian firm would need several international projects to garner the cultural expertise to market worldwide. We are not there yet.