If our government was the least bit serious about preserving our nation's marine environment, it would have look ago declared the entire cruise ship industry persona non grata in our territorial waters.

Davis might be right about the need for added security given that there may be organized crime syndicates (ruthless mobsters in New York City and Miami) looking to get back or get revenge for the millions of dollars worth of jewelry they had consigned to Bahamas Treasures, much of which is rumoured to have vanished.

What we really need to do as a small nation is tell the OECD and others like them to f**k off and cease meddling with our sovereign right to determine the system of taxation that works best for The Bahamas and the Bahamian people.

The super wealthy globalist oligarchs and state actors behind the obnoxious international organizations, like the OECD, which are loaded with mentally warped, pompous and unproductive career bureaucrats, are wrongfully trying to impose a one-kind-fits-all system of taxation on the smaller nations of the world that they feel at liberty to bully and threaten to achieve their hideous agenda.

And they do this to us by wrongfully threatening to cut-off our small nation from the global financial system if we do not succumb to their ridiculously unreasonable demand that our nation's tax policies treat foreigners (and foreign owned enterprises) and Bahamians (and Bahamian owned enterprises) alike.

Their one-kind-fits all system of taxation for the world is a fundamentally flawed concept because it wrongfully ignores indigenous cultural differences and foolishly assumes all nations are equally endowed when it comes to their natural resources and the ability of their governments to generate needed tax revenues.

The likes of the OECD are preventing our government from imposing a rational and sensible hefty tax surcharge of upto 100% or more on transactions involving the sale of our nation's most scarce resource to foreigners and foreign enterprises, i.e. real property. They are also preventing us from being able to impose higher real property tax rates on property owned by foreigners and foreign enterprises.

Our government should also be able to place restrictions and limits on both the location and acreage of real property that any foreigner, foreign family and/or related group of foreign enterprises may buy/own in our country. Such sensible public policies would go a long ways towards ensuring Bahamians are able to buy and own affordable land in their own country.

And if necessary, similar restrictions and limits could be placed on any Bahamian, Bahamian family and/or related group of Bahamian enterprises that already own or seek to acquire an inordinate amount of acreage in an effort to assure an affordable supply of real property exists to meet the housing needs of the Bahamian people.

We have a growing population of Bahamians but less and less affordable land available for them, especially as sea levels rise. This warrants the introduction of rational and sensible real property ownership policies before its too late and notwithstanding all of the resistance to doing so from fat cat realtors.

A potentially even bigger problem is Sleazy James Smith possibly being persuaded by corrupt Davis and Cooper to put pressure on John Rolle to support an amendment to The Central Bank Act that would allow The Central Bank to invest in unlimited amounts of government issued debt. That would certainly guarantee a significant devaluation of the Bahamian dollar against the U.S. dollar, almost overnight.

> “It’s not only an income asset or a cash generating asset,” Mr Bowe said of the commercial bank. “We have a dividend policy of paying out 70 percent of profits if there is no need for capital for expansion, and we don’t need any because the loan portfolio growth has just stalled because of the economic environment we’re operating in.

>“We’re running to stand still, but we’re keeping the portfolio’s size and not seen the portfolio contract like others in the market have. We’ve done a good job of retaining existing customers and replacing those who have departed.”

Ominous sounding but truthful words. With the Canadian commercial banks still trying to shrink their balance sheets, and with Commonwealth Bank possibly being stuck in Loan-Loss-Ville for years to come, Bowe's most difficult task in the near term will be turning away new deposit customers seeking a new home for their funds at a time when there are limited lending and investment opportunities.

Bowe is an astute banker and no doubt appreciates that taking on new deposit liabilities to maintain a generously high dividend pay-out ratio in these difficult economic times is simply not a sustainable option for obvious reasons.

Pintard is quoted in another Tribune article as having said: *“We are committed to building a country that’s not steeped in political tribalism but believes that when Bahamians collaborate, we can produce Bahamian exceptionalism and excellence."*

But Pintard's ***real*** message is that he's only too happy to be able to assist in building a society steeped in *political nepotism* to produce a tight-knit elitist Bahamian ruling class grounded in exceptionalism and excellence."

And as the vast majority of much less fortunate Bahamians know only too well, there are now so many among the elitist political ruling class sucking heavily on the public purse for token salaries and other benefits that there's very little left in the kitty these days to fund all of the things our society so desperately needs, like upgraded and new public schools, a much better public health system, etc., etc.

A much smaller Senate or no Senate at all, combined with a 50% reduction in the number of our MPs and a 50% reduction in our cabinet ministers, would go a long ways to cutting away the layers of unnecessary, most wasteful and very costly fat we have in our government today. But instead, the corrupt Davis led government is about to, if it has not done so already, approve a significant increase in salaries and other benefits for all parliamentarians.

And guess who will be getting much higher tax bills for the generosity these parliamentarians bestow on themselves? That's right...none other than the already over-burdened and downtrodden taxpayers like you and me!

Anyone and everyone who knows anything at all about accounting systems, knows there is only one real reason why this corrupt Davis led administration is not forging ahead with great despatch to transition to an accrual accounting system. And that's because an accrual accounting system will not allow Sleazy James Smith, Dumbo Michael Halkitis and Tax-Hit-Man Simon Wilson to get away with all of the hanky-panky accounting they do to cook and doctor the government's financial reporting to the public.

At least there's one sensible maskless one among the bunch. LOL

> Pintard said: “We are committed to building a country that’s not steeped in political tribalism but believes that when Bahamians collaborate, we can produce Bahamian exceptionalism and excellence."

The Tribune's reporter conveniently omitted mentioning that Michela Barnett-Ellis's father is Sir Michael Barnett. Doing so would have conflicted with Pintard's ***real*** message that we are building a society steeped in political *nepotism* to produce a tight *elitist Bahamian ruling class* of exceptionalism and excellence."

And as the vast majority of much less fortunate Bahamians know only too well, there are now so many among the elitist political ruling class sucking heavily on the public purse for token salaries and generous benefits that there's little left to fund all of the things our society so desperately needs, like upgraded and new public schools, a much better public health system, etc., etc.