It is indefensible to pay a "culture" consultant over a million dollars when some folks still use outdoor privies in Nassau. It is indefensible to pay that when NIB pension are underfunded by over a billion dollars. It is indefensible for Obie to pay that public money out to a person that he "admires".

I would back a call for pastors to turn themselves into the police for fraudulently stealing people's money every time they take up a collection. It is time to end this chicanery. After all Jesus fed 5000 people, turned water into wine, preached outdoors for free and raised the dead. He didn't charge a cent or ever take up a collection.

Co-sign. I would be content to see a body of work. What have we gotten for the money? In a normal business transaction, you pay people for what they produce. He hasn't produced anything. It doesn't matter if he were the queen of England, if he didn't use his talents to create something, then send him packing.

I know a playwright, who herself has starred on Broadway in Elton John's musical. She is a Shakespearean actor as well, performed in England and the US and produced major off-Broadway productions. She struggles to make $100,000 a year, and if I mention her name, you could Google it and she has better bona fides than the person in question here.

OK, I buy that about the sources of the capital, but you premise that in a closed economy, it comes from savings. I rather suspect that you don't mean that literally, because savings in terms of bank deposits in (supposedly) interest-bearing accounts are at their lowest level in years.

Ergo, one would presume that it comes from using operating capital (ie grocery money, extra cash left over after the bills, etc) rather than actual bank deposits.

Could not one argue then that the source of the capital might be toxic in that it would be spent on other consumer items? However, in typing this, I realised that the argument might be moot, because we import everything anyway.

I understand the use of the capital and the contribution of the construction of buildings, jobs, etc, but from the side of economics that deals with human behaviour, would not those individuals be better off spending the money they gamble, on their own lives in the form of consumer products? Or does the collective accumulation of capital from small amounts does not matter until it is aggregated to be a tipping point for economic impact?

My issue with gambling is that it is abhorrent to me that the politicos let private individuals prey on the people, rather than having a national lottery and let the government assume their natural role of preying economically on their citizens. The money would be a lot more useful to the treasury and the country, if it didn't go into Craig Flowers pocket.

Co-sign.

Obie was the Tourism minister then. There will be consequences. More PLP criminality and perfidy.

I agree. It is a way to get his original money that he spent, back from the public. It is a smart business move, and more legit than how he got his money in first place.

There is economic activity and there is economic activity. In Economics 101, I learned about primary, secondary and tertiary economic activity. In the example given in the textbook, a woodcutter engages in primary activity. He cuts down the trees. He is the resource exploiter. So are mining companies, oil companies etc. The woodcutter sells the tree to the lumber mill. The lumber mill makes lumber and sells it to the carpenter. The carpenter makes furniture. The lumber mill and the carpenter are secondary industries. They utilise the outputs of primary industries. The furniture is sold by the wholesaler to the salesman who hires the adman to create ads and then sells it to the consumer that the ad attracts. The wholesaler, ad agencies and salespeople are the tertiary economic industries. They use the outputs of the secondary industry to derive economic benefit. The chain of economic activity is diverse, logical and backed by things of intrinsic value.

Is it possible that the webshops create economic activity that is toxic? I don't have the background to know the answer, but intuitively, I would think so. Most people spend money on nothing -- a hope that they will cash in. I have to do some research on the economic benefits or lack-of in gambling, but I would appreciate your views on how you see web shops as entrepreneurial and contributing in a good way to economic viability of this nation.

mudda does make a point of saying that the web shops do suck out capital from legitimate economic activity, and accepting the webshops as legitimate businesses endangers our banking infrastructure. The webshops respond to this by saying let us do the banking, and as mudda points out, that is the road to a failed state. The webshops will isolate us by not having correspondent banking privileges that one needs to operate in the global village.

We elected him to kick azz. He is a business man. The business of the government should be business, not charity. It's about time some azz was kicked and I wish that Minnis would do more of it.