Now that the UBP has made their Reply to the Budget, the Premier has kicked off the budget debate as only he can. By that I mean rather than engaging in debate, he immediately started diverting the discussion with “plantation rhetoric” and the usual red herrings about “not governing from a kneeling position”. I think [...]
Entries from February 27th, 2009
Budget Reply
February 27th, 2009 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics
The UBP have made their reply to the 2009-10 Budget in the House of Assembly. Albeit a tad academic, the reply shows a degree of analysis and realism that was missing from the Government budget. It reinforces the reputation of the UBP as effective managers versus the emotionalism of the PLP. You should read it [...]
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Straw Men and Red Herrings
February 26th, 2009 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics
As in many countries, the political dialogue in Bermuda is dominated by spin and misleading “straw men” arguments as opposed to open discourse on policy and fact. The American political advisor Karl Rove (not my favorite person) opines on that subject in today’s Wall Street Journal: “Continually characterizing those who disagree with you in a [...]
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Public Tenders
February 25th, 2009 · Comments Off · Accountability, Transparency
Some positive news from the Budget. Works & Engineering will launch in the next year a procurement website to provide “equal bidding opportunities for all contractors seeking Government work”. That’s a positive development and long overdue. Some thoughts: Why just W&E? This should be used for ALL government procurements. The procurement of the procurement website [...]
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Bermuda Depths
February 24th, 2009 · Comments Off · Media
Oh, the good ole days, when Bermuda’s biggest problems were gigantic maneating turtles. Check out The Bermuda Depths on YouTube. The Progressive Minds blog makes the biiiig stretch that The Bermuda Depths = 1970s movie = 1977 riots = nostalgia for white oligarchy. You make that implausible jump … but accept the plotline of giant [...]
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Taxes Damn Taxes
February 24th, 2009 · Comments Off · Business
The number of President Obama’s proposed appointees who have fallen by the wayside due to tax problems demonstrates that the US tax system is too byzantine. Any tax structure that sustains an entire industry just to help people fill out the basic forms is too complicated. So you’ve gotta hand it to the 44 republican [...]
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Unsustainable
February 23rd, 2009 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics
The Royal Gazette reports that the metastasizing Civil Service accounted for more than half of the new jobs in the Bermuda economy last year. That’s simply unsustainable. Government needs to work to build new tax paying jobs in the economy not be the fastest growing employer in the community. Someone has to pay the taxes [...]
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Noise
February 23rd, 2009 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics
You can see why the PLP plans for a newspaper are on the shelf for now. They just cannot resist the urge to spin. Partisanship blinds them to any analysis. The latest trumpet is that: Bermuda College economist and occasional PLP critic Craig Simmons lavished praise on the PLP’s budget. Simmons says that Cox delivered [...]
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The Spin Cycle
February 23rd, 2009 · Comments Off · Accountability, Bermuda Politics
The PLP is spinning like a top to pretend everyone loves the 2009 budget: Government leaders today welcomed the resounding support of the 2009/2010 Budget from Bermuda’s key business organizations including the Association of Bermuda International Companies, the Bermuda Employers Council, the Bermuda International Business Association and the Chamber of Commerce. This statement is simply [...]
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FOI in Action
February 23rd, 2009 · Comments Off · Transparency
While Bermuda continues to pay lip service to public access to information, the Cayman Islands forge ahead. Their Freedom of Information (FOI) Unit has just released a report on the first month of implementation. The report summarises the total number of FOI requests received by public authorities and gives examples of the types of requests [...]