New Year’s blessing: the freedom to choose

Though Mother Nature spared us typhoons this year, Old Man Economics decided to zap us. Indeed, we swapped a meteorological supertyphoon for a fiscal stupor-typhoon.

Stupor or not, next year will be the year of (drum roll please…) the Test. The people of the Commonwealth have an opportunity to write their own answers. A lot of folks don’t have that chance. The citizens of Indonesia, or China, or Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, or — well, you get the point — are at the mercy of their powerful overlords. The CNMI, by contrast, offers the freedoms of U.S. style democracy. The fate of the Commonwealth is in the hands of the Commonwealth. Fair enough, eh?

So as you prepare to steer your islands into the future, keep in mind some facts:

Fact #1:Asia’s economic woes don’t have to spell disaster for the local economy. Believe it or not, intelligent economic policies can put the Commonwealth back on its feet.

Fact #2:We had the garment industry as a financial parachute in 1998. It quietly rescued us from the crash-and-burn tourism situation that remains in free fall. Without garments, this place would have been wiped off of the economic list of reasonably well-developed regions.

Fact #3:The CNMI will emerge from next year a far different economy than it is now. The days of limbo-land are over, and we’ll have to turn one way or the other. The Commonwealth can become a serious free-market based economy, or it can join most of the other Pacific islands as a wallowing welfare state. We can be taken seriously by investors as a clean place to do business, or we can look…shady. We can cultivate a sense of independence in our children, or a sense of dependence. It’s nobody’s choice but ours. Water seeks its own level. Free societies do, too.

We’ve sure got the raw tools for success. All the trappings of tropical paradise dovetailed with clean and modern infrastructure. One of the world’s best examples of a successful blend of cultures. The protection of the U.S. fleet’s muscle and the blessings of peace. Modern healthcare, no outbreaks of spooky tropical diseases, and even the only air ambulance system in all of Micronesia. An economy based on the stability of the U.S. dollar. A modern banking system. Good roads, but not too much traffic. An installed base of good hotels. A modern international airport, staffed with local air traffic controllers who are as good as the world’s best.
City fun and dazzle, and natural, unspoiled beauty. A two-legged economy based on services (tourism) and manufacturing (garments). And, most importantly, a large degree of self- determination.

I can’t think of a better place to live. If I could, I’d move there. Okay, so the Old Year wasn’t so great. But it wrote the questions we’ll get to answer in the New Year, which gives us an opportunity to pass or fail. After all, the global economy is efficient, but it’s not forgiving. It richly rewards competitive success, but quickly punishes failure. It judges both the quick and the dead.

Look around our Pacific neighborhood, and you’ll see that the economic gulf between the haves and the have-nots is wider than the ocean itself. In the coming months the CNMI will choose which camp it wants to join. And that, folks, is called freedom. It is the chief blessing — and the chief responsibility — offered by the New Year.