Averting Bankruptcy

The Issue: Bad tidings of patients being refused in Hawaii and Guam hospitals, other debts.

Our View: Tales that our financial posture is headed for more red rather than black ink.

We seem to have conveniently neglected the true messages in bad tidings about our inability to meet payments of government debts.

This is further aggravated by our fiesta mentality that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s all wishful thinking!

The CNMI must realistically review its books, specifically, revenue generation and come to grips with the fact that collection of tax contributions have plummeted beyond our wildest imaginings.

It means then that at some point in the near term, the public sector must seriously begin cutting back expenses in operations. It may even mean imposing the painful reduction in force. In other words, the austerity measure instituted some two years ago would have to be strengthened even further to avoid issuing government paychecks that won’t be honored by banking institutions here.

It’s far more serious than meets the eye and it is for this reason that we strongly encourage strengthening the ongoing austerity measure.

Meanwhile, the private sector is far from the goal of turning the corner. External influences alone are sufficient to deal this sector a second wave of economic crisis that may force more businesses to close their doors.

The loss of investor confidence, the slide of the Japanese economy into a recession, coupled with a drop in the US economy make for a perfect recipe of disaster or financial meltdown. Our problems would be far worse than our simple island nimble minds could perceive. It is for this reason that all sectors must converge to trump out what lies ahead and what measures could be taken to stave a total meltdown.

We hope that our elected and appointed officials give themselves the opportunity to realistically assess and map out what could very well turn into hopelessness right here in paradise. Si Yuus Maase`!