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by Rick Lowe
Like the introducer in the video below, Jeffrey Tucker is one of my favourite authors, and he recently spoke at the Free State Projects, New Hampshire Liberty Forum 2012, and he is excellent.
Please follow more from Jeffrey Tucker here… and sign up for Laissez Faire Today newsletter and I also recommend you join the Laissez Faire Club. It's amazing value.
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by Rick Lowe
Back in July Mr. V. Alfred Gray (PLP) Minister of Agriculture threatened to ban chicken imports if enough local chicken was not purchased by the wholesalers.
Fast forward to August 28 and Mr Gray is reported to have said: “I have reorganised some words. I am not sure that we will totally prohibit the import of anything totally because to do that might put some strain on the consumer. But what I have been able to gather and achieve with the producers and the purchasers is that they will be prepared to purchase 30 per cent of what their needs are locally and import the other 70 per cent. That is acceptable to both sides, and so far so good.”
You might ask why only two cheers? Well that's because he's left a policy in place that says: "the Bahamian buyer must show that he purchases 30 per cent of the chicken he needs, (or) 30 per cent of the eggs he needs, in order to get a permit to bring in 70 per cent."
Surely this is wrong? What gives the Minister the right or power to decide which business people he will lend support to while denying similar support to others?
So he gets two cheers for realising banning all imports impacts more people than if no ban is implemented but he's yet to realise forcing a business to buy certain items might also be unconstitutional by serving the interest of a few at the expense of many.
Remove all barriers to trade and you'll get three cheers from this blogger Mr. Gray.
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Well worth watching. Professor Murphy is on a roll.
Summary: Klein says let's create a housing bubble to get us out of the problems caused by a housing bubble.
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by Rick Lowe
Mr. Adrian Gibson (a sometime blogger here) had a thoughtful piece in The Tribune on Saturday past (August 25, 2012) on how disadvantaged children can't keep up at school.
Obviously if a child has not eaten this will no doubt impact his or her ability to concentrate and somehow a solution needs to be found.
Mr. Gibson points to "recent statistics" that suggest that "nearly 10 per cent of our population live below the poverty line…" so the majority of the public school population should not fall in this category but is it easily resolved?
Maybe schools/teachers/parents can organise fund raising drives to get people to sponsor individual kids for the cost of properly feeding the poverty stricken ones while they're in school?
What other ideas are there?
Mr. Gibson also refers to abusive home life etc. etc. which is a much different issue. If there are so many kids that are abused it creates a huge issue for the schools, our country is past the point of no return.
One final observation. Mr. Gibson, while lauding teachers, (he used to be one and is now studying to be a lawyer), and many teachers deserve praise, he points to the critics and tells us, "many of whom don't have the slightest idea about the intricacies of teaching". He is right, but many critics like myself grow more and more concerned each day as the educational system fails more and more of our children.
So instead of the players being so defensive about the critics, many of whom have taken the time to study the issue and seek results driven ideas, public school teachers, administrators, Department of Education staff , Ministry of Education staff and politicians need to put their collective egos aside and admit we have a problem, and find solutions. If they don't, I submit it will only get worse.
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by Rick Lowe
Mr. Franklyn Wilson, PLP negotiator for the proposed government nationalisation of BTC, a company only privatised in early 2011, conceded to Tribune Business last week, that "Foreign developers and lenders are increasingly including ‘political risk’ in their assessments of whether to invest in the Bahamas…"
One of the owners of Arawak Homes and Sunshine Insurance, Mr. Wilson confirms he's even heard how this nationalisation of the phone company will damage the country's reputation from "a major international banker".
Of course as is typical in matters like this they allege similar transgressions by other political groups/leaders to justify it as Mr. Wilson has done with the former government renogotiating land deals with developers.
Supporters of this dangerous move to nationalise BTC are presenting Belize as a positive inspiration for reclaiming BTC as they re-nationalised their phone company. According to The Belize Times, their country is "becoming an investor's destination of last resort" and its economy is in tatters.
I would not think Mr. Wilson and PLP want to replicate what is happening in Belize?
Mr. Wilson went on to advise the press that that they're "negotiating committee" will proceed in a manner so as not to damage the "Government's investment reputation" even suggesting that the Prime Minister's personality is seen as "calm" and someone who "will not be reckless" as if that makes forcing a company out acceptable operating procedure for the government.
As I was reminded yesterday, Mr. Christie did say his government "would pursue all legal possibilities" of re-nationalising BTC, so this could be why Mr. Wilson seems to be hedging his bets at success.
Even demanding BTC come to a meeting to discuss this is a dangerous precedent and should be embarrassing to all reasonable Bahamians. In fact, I wonder what Mr. Wilson's position would be if the former or current government had tried to nationalise his businesses?
In the final, hedging their bets is the right thing for the PLP to do in this case. We should lick whatever perceived wounds there are with the BTC privatisation, and move on with opening the cellular business up to competition when BTC's monopoly runs out.
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By S3S
A new academic year is about to start but we find ourselves doing at least one thing in an old way. In a previous Blog, I excoriated the level and involvement of unionised activity and collective bargaining in our society and painted it as a 'giant evil'. I hold to that view incontrovertibly, particularly when it comes to the classroom.
We have a distinguished labour history which the new Government seems keen to perpetuate. In his Labour Day 2012 Address, Minister or Labour & National Insurance, Shane Gibson, spelled out four initiatives to ensure its continuity: Creating a Labour College; Implementing a Productivity Council; Ratifying the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 87; and Re-naming Labour Day to ‘Sir Randol Fawkes Labour Day’.
It is good to honour our history but where it comes to work and the work environment in a modern, globalised world, we must realise that unions are a relic of the past that are better consigned to history. Typically, unions cause more problems than they solve and in The Bahamas, few years pass when we are spared from suffering the fallout of union-management disputes. When this potential for instability extends to the classroom, where the education of future generations is at stake, we have a serious problem.
The seriousness of the problem was underlined recently when the Head of the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) appeared to headline the official orientation of new teachers for the coming academic year (an event at which the Minister of Education, Jerome Fitzgerald, seemed to be sidelined as a support act):
200 New Teachers Hired - 85% Deployed To Family Islands
http://jonesbahamas.com/200-new-teachers-hired-85-deployed-to-family-islands/
We need to be strong and unwavering about our resistance to union interference - because that's what it is, plain and simple, interference! In my earlier Blog, I was expressly clear about the deleterious effects of workplace disputes, which interfere with productivity, healthy workplace relationships and eventually, the ongoing strength and performance of our economy.
Whilst I may be open to persuasion to certain very limited instances of collective bargaining in a particular workplace, I can envision no scenario in a school or classroom setting in which the presence of a union is either desirable or necessary. Subsequently, the presence of a union executive at the start of an academic year and at a time when education is such an emotive issue, should set alarm bells ringing.
What message is the presence of a union executive at orientation sending to the newly qualified teachers (NQTs)?
Indeed, what message is her presence sending to external stakeholders in the education system and to society in general?
Why do we need repeatedly to celebrate union executives as if they are valuable contributors to society?
They are not celebrities, the value of their contributions are specious at best and we would all be better off if we had less celebration of industrial unionism in our country. We must all be very wary of its presence in our classrooms because this is where our national economic competitiveness starts.
© S3S
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by Rick Lowe
ZZ Top has recently released a new EP and are on a short tour, which reminded me of thier great slow blues/boogie, Jesus Just Left Chicago.
I hope you enjoy it below, and will visit their web site here..., but most importantly, buy some of their material please. They're a great band. It's hard to believe they formed in 1969. Wow!
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by Rick Lowe
The Nassau Institute has been suggesting the Ministry and Department of education at least try School Choice (and Charter Schools among other ideas) for at least a decade now. Of course the "stakeholders" (teachers, administrators and politicians) keep denying any possibility of success for these ideas. Meanwhile the national average continues to decline.
This recent post prompted me to look back at some of the older articles realting to education at the Nassau Institute site ( find more here… http://www.nassauinstitute.org/articles/?cat=4 ) and I was pleased to be reminded of one from June 2008 entitlted School Chopice for Bahamian Students - an example from the Commonwealth.
It is well worth your time to read, and here's an excerpt:
These initiatives have been taken in a country that is mired in government red tape and regulation. But, because they have decided that Globalisation is the most sensible route to empowering the population of India, they have begun taking bold steps to improve their educational system.
Meanwhile, The Bahamas seems content to allow the majority of its children to leave school with the most rudimentary literacy skills, and only tweak the educational system at the edges, in the hope for reform and improved results.
Das believes that, if the CCS and some of the state governments in India continue to build on their successes to date "...India would become a rising star not only in the arena of economic reforms and growth within a democracy but also of the global school choice movement".
Let's hope that The Bahamas government considers school choice and vouchers as one of the options to finally improve education in The Bahamas. It is their moral responsibility if they choose to continue to control the educational system in the country.
It's a real shame that our public educational community will not get behind some of these ideas that will hopefully help our younger people attain a better future.
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