New Onion

Seems someone new is throwing his/her hat in the ring… welcome Slimey In Bermuda.

…is a failure to communicate.

#1 Problem with the UBP

Thanks for Johnnystar for mentioning that I’ve posted again… for the record, I have no involvement with any party but recently have been making overtures toward the Gombey Liberation Party.

*tap tap tap*

Is this thing on?

Dennis Pitcher of 21square.com gets it:

I see these closures as a reflection of a greater sense of disillusionment which has grown in the community towards politics, not simply the UBP. Far too many people are perpetually stuck in this rut of us vs. them which shows no sign of abating. There is this refusal by many to accept that people could genuninely care about our future and instead most any criticism or deviation from the incumbent party line must be the result of a personal vendetta against the party, not a desire for positive change for all Bermudians. Thus, is it any surprise people wake up and question what the value of being involved in politics at all?

The present financial crisis is a good example. Those in the know have been blowing a horn of warning for quite some time now that we could be headed for dire straights. Yet these calls have continually fallen under the guise of scaremongering and a personal vendetta against the PLP rather than a genuine concern for the future of our island. Thus, one begins to wonder if there is even a point in trying to sound the horn if it falls on deaf ears. Instead, the question does rise as to when does one give up on trying to save those who do not want to be saved and focus on saving one’s self?

From the position of this writer alone, Bermuda is in a very scary position right now that should warrant concern. Concerns which have been raised numerous times for quite some time but have fallen on deaf ears.

Noteablely we should be weary of and should have been weary of:
- the credit crisis
- the potential for legislative changes to US tax law
- the abrupt ending of the construction boom due to the combination of a flood of new office space combined with businesses who are on-shoring back office operations
- the drying up of credit for hotel/construction projects
- the overzealous budget which gives us little to no breathing room
- the horrible savings/lending ratio that banks have been allowed to have which could have caused a housing bubble that may soon pop

These are all things I’ve been thinking of writing about, yet while I used to rush to hammer out long pieces in hopes of convincing people that we should be weary, these days I simply don’t have the motivation. My own blog may not yet have been announced as dead, but for all intensive purposes it remains domant in comparison to what it once was.

Politics.bm appears to have gone the way of LimeyinBermuda.com and I’m pretty much done too. Vexedbermoothes.com is doing a better job than I could anyway.

Getting to say “I told you so.” is not satisfying. Oh well, I did my best.

Thanks for reading.

Good luck and good night.

A new blog by Doug Decouto.

Welcome to the club.

I wrote this in the middle of June and never finished it… but with tourism arrivals down substantially and real estate showing weakness, it’s relevant but half baked.

For the first time I am seriously considering viewing Bermuda as a short.

Since even before 1998 people have been thinking that Bermuda is going to hell in a handbasket and those people have thus far been wrong.

Ewart and the boys are betting the farm on tourism. This is a mistake because our biggest source of tourists – America – is rapidly finding out that living a life of inflating standards of living through using debt creation to create disposable income is a temporary strategy at best.

The prices of those fractional units at most of the new hotel developments (that are in effect selling Bermuda permanently to foreigners) rely on people being willing to borrow money to afford to buy them. In many cases this sort of “real estate” investment has by accident been a low-cost way for people to make a speculative play on real estate continuing to go up in price (which really means that some other sucker comes along willing to borrow more to buy it). The last sucker has already bought at the inflated price.

If the transmission mechanisms that flow low interest rates out to consumer borrowing begin to function properly (the very low fed rates at present generally cause mortgage rates (over 6%) much lower than we see in the market today), then we can expect interest rates to begin to rise and if inflation continues to be an issue then you can bet interest rates will rise dramatically, causing a rise in the US dollar which will eliminate one of Bermuda’s tailwinds making us a less expensive place to do business than Europe/UK. If we do not offer a compellingly better business environment, then this loss of cost competitiveness could hurt Bermuda business substantially.

It is never a good idea to bet against Bermuda – for all our failings we have some of the best and the brightest in the world working to make this place great. They just do it behind the scenes and despite the politicians basking in the limelight.

I don’t agree 100% with all the details, but nonetheless I wish I could write this well.

Link to a comment on the Catch a Fire blog.

The UBP need to grow a pair, take the PLP to task, overcome the big lie that they have allowed the PLP to tell about them for the past few years, and show that they have cleaned house, and are a viable alternative. “Winning the election on the doorstep.” and ignoring race have pretty much failed.

“It is true — the Union has taken a 20 percent stake of Island Cement,” said Mr. Piper. “And that (Island Cement formally submitting a proposal to Government to lease and operate the Dockyard Cement Facility) is true as well.”

Looks to me like the BIU is being bought and paid for under Dr. Brown’s “Friends and Family” program. Funny to see the Union – which judging by the usurious interest rates (article in the RG the other day, which I can’t find) appears to have abdicated any responsibility for the quality of life of its membership – becoming an avowed crony capitalist.

Say it ain’t so.