Great and forward looking decision by the FNM to evacuate the southern islands. It will save lives and allow first responders to focus on easier to reach and more populated areas of the Bahama islands.

Not to be negative but the islands of Acklins, Crooked Island and Inagua are very poor and mostly living of government subsidies. During recovery, the limited resources of the Bahamas government can be deployed in larger populated areas where the impact per person will be much higher.

Just think of the savings if these islands are not repopulated. No more government schools, no government clinics, no NI offices, no administrator offices, no BEC, no Water and Sewerage, no more subsidized mail boat service, no more airports, no more Bahamasair flights etc. etc.

The savings to the government will be enormous.

Tal, are MOT employees going to strike before or after Cat 6 Hurricane Irma with winds at 180 mph impacts to some extent every island in the Bahamas and all of the tourist have been evacuated?

While disaster strikes the FNM seems to be more interested it talking nonsense to the Tribune. Trust me, after Irma the NCL Tour Operators will be only too happy to have some business if their boats haven't been damaged by the hurricane.

We need to be more grateful as a people and not so angry all the time. God is not pleased.

They should hold their heads in shame. After allowing the twin plagues of VAT and numbers to be legalized on the poor.

When all hope is lost, the poor will grasp at anything. Thanks to the government.

This is what happens when you sell your soul to foreigners (Baha Mar, the Cruise operators, Bahamas Power, Atlantis, tourism marketing contracts, gated communities). Then add to this Bahamian family monopolies like oil and gas imports, big box retail, container ports, foreign banks/exchange controls, numbers houses, Ministry of Education pushing out D students to most Bahamians, governments strangle hold on Water and Sewerage, NI and Post Office, MPs pretending to be legislators but are essentially executives in government corporations or agencies (legislation is non existent) and a backwards democracy with one vote every 5 years along with zero local government.

These are all monopolies at worst, cartels at best.

Neither the FNM or the PLP will be able to grow GDP or solve the debt issue. The foundation is wrong. Devaluation has already been done, have you looked at the interest rates on savings accounts recently? There is nothing that will change the paradigm. Every man for himself Bahama Land, God for us all.

Also, Exchange Controls. Get rid of them. Banks take 0.5% of every US dollar converted to Bahamian dollars.

can also be done online

Becks. Either we as a Country upgrade our financial services to accommodate electronic banking (something I doubt we will do) or we suffer with continue to suffer from high levels of violent crime related to businesses and consumers dealing in cash.

Unfortunately this is not a high priority of the government or the financial regulators. They are more interested in bailing out BoB, putting PLPs in jail for 1 day, and essentially accomplishing nothing of lasting substance in the first 100 days.

You would think in this day and age businesses would stop accepting cash and if they did they would deposit each night.

Parents should deposit school fees directly into the bank and bring the despot slip to school.

Electronic banking should be the highest priority of the FNM government and the financial regulators.

Instead they are playing musical chairs between the MOF and Central Bank. And the Securities regulator is busy yapping about Ponzi schemes they are powerless to shut down.

The police are as likely to crack down on the ponzi scheme as they did the numbers houses before they became a legal rip off scheme for the masses.

My understanding is that the ponzi scheme has a business license. Under our "rule of law" there doesn't seem like there is anything wrong with promising someone to triple their investment in one week. No one is protecting the uninitiated. In the Bahamas its "all for me baby" and God help us all.

The variance in performance of retail banks in the country warrants further study. Why is it that Commonwealth Bank achieves record profits and BoB achieves record losses? Why is FINCO's results so choppy and Fidelity's so consistently improving.

Is it that their management skills are just that much better?