OUR ECONOMIC MODEL CONTRAVENES THE BIBLICAL PRINCIPLE: OUR ENTIRE HOUSE IS IN THE SAND: Biblical Economics 102: (KJV) ...And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. Readers will note, that in this passage, untold foolishness was being chastised, and it was being said that those engaged in such things could be compared to the ultimate foolishness: to have built ones house upon the sand. In the last few days there has been a phoney panic concerning a Warning for a Tsunami, potentially caused by a massive earth-slide in the Canary Islands. (I suppose since the Canary Islands gave birth to the Americas, it is karma they they should catalyse its ending). As usual in Caribbean, reactions to this sort of phenomena he been hysterical - as in funny - and hysteria - as in irrational. Truth is, this information has been around - in one or another form - for at least 50 years, with a documentary on the argument existing for the last 8 years. Recently, the Eighth Session of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami and Other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (ICG/CARIBE EWS- VIII) a decision was taken to hold a third tsunami exercise, CARIBE WAVE 2014, on March 26, 2014. It is the announcement of this that has had too many people bewitched for the last few days. Yet, the feckless fervour belies a deeper truth: in the Caribbean, we have built our economic lives on the sand, and we have never classified this as a risk to be managed or one away from which it should have been our objective to diversify. Tourism represents -officially - about 60% of GDP on average since its introduction to the Bahamas economic model. (A sign of laziness and a lack of innovation). Yet, almost everything else depends on tourism, and so rightly - if indirectly - it represents nearly 90% of GDP. Same is true for Turks and Caicos Islands, and with the exception of Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and to some extent Guyana and Suriname, every other Caribbean nation lives unthinkingly by the allure of the sands. Whilst I can exclude also Bermuda, Cayman and BVI - and only just I cannot exclude Dominican Republic in spite of its goods and services (call centres) exports. If the Beach-economy were a strategic options, by which we determined that we must pursuer this approach (you know, casting down our buckets where we are...and so forth), I could countenance a set of phases wherein we pursued the Beach-economy until we constructed a more sustainable economic model, more generative of broad prosperity. However, this has not been the case. And that offends Biblical Economics 103: (KJV) Ecclesiastes 3: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. The Caribbean does not figure prominently in the alternative energy debate (for reasons far more extensive that one can explain here), and worse, we seem to live blithely as if the beachfront gravely train will run - not for a season, but - forever. We still live with the idea - boy ya never sell land - yet, land is the asset most likely to lose value in the new world order in which we have no hand in creating and in which we are merely consumers. PS: In case you wondered what is Biblical Economics 101, it is: Genesis 3:19 (KJV) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Do you see the karma inherent in the scripture?
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:58:46 +0000
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