Summer of Recovery. Not!

When you hear a holiday tune at the start of summer you quiz if the Summer of Recovery is here at long last. It isn’t, not even with a $800-plus billion stimulus package from the Obama administration. Joblessness rules the day in most small towns across the country. And the tsunami of joblessness is headed our way, too!

A sad experience having to discuss with family, relatives and friends plans to relocate to the U.S. mainland before year’s end. Most have wrestled long and hard with the impending malaise of joblessness as revenue decreases by leaps and bounds. They know joblessness is coming and most don’t want to be around to watch it engulf their livelihood right in their presence. I feel for these folks who yearn to be home in paradise they feel they rightly deserve. But most have found home their hellish hole.

These folks have taken a step further: figured out their retirement contribution in preparation to withdraw and pay Queen Mariana one last farewell. Deep down in their hearts they know that home is no longer the place to raise their children where opportunities for healthy growth have fizzled out almost completely. Need this be the case? Whatever happened to all the promises of brighter tomorrows? Where did leadership lose their sense of navigating the treacherous challenges of the times? Have they given up real leadership work? Their obvious disconnect with reality is definitely stunning!

With fuel at the pumps at $4-plus per gallon, spiraling utilities bill and the 15-plus percent increase in basic goods, families have to forcibly figure out how to navigate the setback forced by work hour cuts amidst devastating increases. Specifically, they look at their salaries, versus spiraling increases in family obligations. It’s not that it is next to impossible. It’s simply impossible! Has “better times” been muted permanently? Or do we “let it be” or “let it beg”?

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When consumer spending drops

When most consumers withhold spending, there are less goods and services for vendors to move or provide in hopes of making some profit. The domino effect of this phenomenon is endless. But it begins with fear on the part of consumers to overrunning their less than sturdy family budget. Thus, the decision to withhold until there’s a little clearance of sort to venture spending. The net effect is far less revenue collection, therefore a plummet in total NMI resources. What does this mean for the near and long term?

Somewhere in government is a plan for a reduction-in-force at the start of the impending fiscal year. This is because of the contraction of resources projected to fall way below this fiscal year’s. How many people would lose their jobs when this dire financial strait hits home? Obviously, these jobs are outside PSS, DPS and DPH. If the budget continues declining, then further reduction would have to come from the three essential departments too. But then the impending jobs famine presents real opportunities to make decisive and sensible cuts where it counts the most.

We can begin with the dismantling of the Legislature. Reduce it to a unicameral system with eight members, one each for Tinian and Rota, the rest from Saipan. This would force a highly competitive cream of the crop with real credentials over those who have chanced ruining the future of posterity with their shallow and tired refrain. It is for this reason that you have such shortsighted profoundly embarrassing policies like panties and bicycles.

Policymaking is a serious business! Unfortunately, most of these guys have no inkling of the serious nature of their fiduciary duties and responsibilities. Sad, huh? Let’s not play into their hands. Let’s steer clear of messing up our own future. Let’s get folks with real credentials given the challenges ahead requiring the contribution of bright young scholars well versed in their specialty.

Lucky we stay paradise

Buddy Magoo was at it with friends around the picnic table at Kilili Beach. They were planning the future of the NMI for the next 50 years over beer singing the Marianas anthem, you know, the German beer drinking tune. It was an interesting discussion so I tuned in to listen to fresh ideas.

“Nobody saw this coming except bureaucrats across the Pacific Divide and Capital Hill,” said Magoo. “The combined local and federal negligence landed these islands in such dizzying economic mess it’s even hard discerning that paradise is in a real bind.”

“But things would ease when the Covenant Party joins their Republican counterpart so we begin preludes to working together with national Republicans who now control the U.S. House of Representatives,” related my kanaka friend.

“Sure! It sounds cool in the newspapers, but when both parties have locked horns on cutting deficit spending, it really doesn’t matter the realignment given that the national GOP has a stronger plan to pare down the national debt,” said another.

“Obamanomics has failed what with high unemployment and a national debt that threatens the economic freedom of the country,” said my kanaka friend. “We’d be joining the choir singing Beyond the Reef as Obama struggles to justify a second term.”

“There’s similarity in the experiences of both the federal and local governments—bankruptcy or insolvency—where banks will eventually refuse to cash government checks…remember when it used to be the strongest paper?”

Said Magoo, “Screw this discussion…even economics and financial experts have resigned their posts with the Obama administration and are headed back to Ivy League schools to preach ‘how to fail the federal government.’ Isn’t this embarrassing?” Eh, lucky we stay paradise, yeah?