‘Revisit land alienation laws’

Posted on May 11 2006

I just visited Rota. It cost a lot of money to get there from the U.S. mainland, as you know, but I came anyway, and I loved Rota. However, I keep reading/seeing about hard economic times there.

I can see one major problem you have: foreigners cannot buy/own land on Rota. I can understand protecting the island for the locals but apparently this is not working. I would definitely have bought or built a home there on Rota but I had to keep remembering that I will not own the land, so I did not buy.

You see, if someone builds a home, jobs are created. Wages increase because of scarce labor and the homebuilder buys materials from the local hardware stores and other businesses. This domino effect pours over into family life. There, the breadwinner is earning more money, feels better about himself/herself, tends to be less depressed, less alcohol abuse, less gambling, less hopelessness, etc.—and less anger within the family. It only makes sense to allow foreign ownership of property there.

Stanley Humphries
via e-mail

Scapegoat bill?

KUDOS TO TAGA INC.

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