Vexed Bermoothes

Dr. Brown’s Council of Economic Advisors met last weekend. Like many intiatives in Bermuda, it is a PR exercise that sounds like something good, but doesn’t really have substance. At best, it’s a brainstorming session amongst cronies.

Without doubt, our presidential-minded leader is copying the US Council of Economic Advisors. However the CEA has a very defined mission: to recommend national economic policy to promote employment, production, and purchasing power under free competitive enterprise.

The bipartisan membership of the CEA is agreed by the President and the Senate and is supported of a rotating team of academic economists. This is detailed stuff: not as much fun as lunch with the founder of Black Entertainment Television, but infinitely more valuable.

• The CEA is an in-house research organization that can assemble, analyze, and present information relevant to an economic decision. It is detailed numbercrunching.
• The CEA regularly publishes its detailed economic analyses, and all its records are public information.

Now, that’s something that Bermuda actually needs! Far too often, Government launches into legislative or regulatory reform based on “anecdotal evidence” and without any factual analysis of needs, costs, or impact.

“Anecdotal evidence” is not the basis for lawmaking or economic management! That’s how we end up with miscarriages like the amendments to the Immigration Act and the Workforce Equity Act, which aim at a good cause but are misdirected by missing data and political dogma.